Religion and war, revisited

[deusexpirata]

In response to my previous post, having read Sloth's, I have come to two conclusions. 1) War is wrong. 2) Sometimes war can be neccessary.

I think that war is and has always been wrong, and Sloth agrees with me. But sometimes it can be neccessary. Though I think that there could be better alternatives. For example, assassination. [Sloth: We

Comments

[anonymous]

Allow me to expand upon my very vague cop out to argument.

Perhaps rather than concerning ourselves with siding with who is RIGHT, we should side with the force which most wishes to resolve the confrontation. If people WANTED to resolve shit, it would get resolved. There would be more of "Hey, this is some really trivial shit." rather than "Little pig, little pig, let me come in..." type rhetoric. This happens on both sides. Countries get suspicious, the others hide stuff, and war breaks out. Now, the question of "is war wrong?" In general, this deserves a "fucking duh" because in case you missed the boat to reality land, no one wants people to die. Now, as to whether or not particular instances of war are justified is a different question. We'd have to evaluate the value placed on the human lives at stake on either side and look at a number of ethical issues which I just realized I'm too lazy to write out.

I find that I have yet to see a truly justified war. Please note that peacekeeping operations are not wars. An intervention is oftentimes justified. Hitler killing Jews. Unjustified. The rest of the world flushing him down the shitter. Justified. Were there other ways to deal with this? Possibly. However, looking at what might have been is trivial in the face of what did, in fact, happen. What happened was there was a conflict and it was solved. People died and no amount of banter will bring them back. In this sense, after the fact, sending others to die MIGHT be justified. Death over anything other than the importance of human life and the sanctity of peace is just ridiculous. Like land. Oh for the love of all that is right and good, land battles are killing your family for the steak on their plates.

Sloth hath smiled

[deusexpirata]

This seems closer to my view of war than Hunter's. My father has been in the military as a pilot for over 24 years now, so I've had plenty of time to contemplate the subject of "the morality of war". I finally decided however that contemplating the morality of something so circumstantial and (speaking in terms of moral exceptions) twisted is a big fat waste of time unless there really is a clear line between what a country does or does not deserve. And yes, saying that a country deserves anything is pretty short sighted. I don't intend to clump the innocent with the militant. You're right though, this topic by itself pretty much deserves one big "fucking duh".

Thanks for posting something intelligent. I *really* appreciate it.
You get a golden cookie.
::walks off::

Human Conflict reduced to words

[buckydakat]

Finally a decent post by someone who used anonymous. All i have to say is that its in human nature to fight. The human psyche thrives on conflict whether it be the car starting, violent sports(gotta love em), or war. There will always be war,justified or not, and there isnt any happy resolutions that remain permenant. Thats why communism doesnt work. Not everyone wants to be middle class and i guarantee you the terrorists dont want peace. With peace they lose all power and they will not allow that to happen willingly. Fight it all you want man will still fight back. I personally dont think there is a right or wrong position. Just uninformed ones. Personally i just wish that our leaders when in conflict would get locked in a room with various implements of destruction and duke it out for 24 hours. Open the door and whoever is standing wins the war. Wouldnt that be great. The ones with conflict get to settle their arguments for themselves instead of getting innocents to fight for them. Ahhhh arent humans grand?

Out like arson, BuckyDaKat

Re: Human Conflict reduced to words

[anonymous]

"Finally a decent post by someone who used anonymous."

You realize that I've posted anonymously here several times? So really what you mean is a nonconfrontational post. Or unassholeish one. Or one with which you can sort of agree. "Decent" is such a broad word.

No, I'm the same person who has, in fact, read philosophy and gets to be amused when you guys tack up lists of philosophy authors that you read in the intro courses. Yup. Same guy here.

Philosophy

[deusexpirata]

I haven't taken a philosophy course, intro or otherwise. I guess that doesn't qualify me to talk about it. Still, I guess this doesn't apply to me. Yeah, I knew you'd posted before.. we can see the IP. The others can't.

Re: Philosophy

[anonymous]

I figured as much. It was just amusing me that I was different people. And it doesn't apply to you. I never said you couldn't talk philosophy, but if he hasn't taken philosophy, then he needs to stop shoving a few authors down my throat like those authors qualify his opinion as the end-all-be-all. (Like reading Nietzsche makes his opinion of religion the only correct one--as though he's the only one who's read Nietzsche) It just shows how everyone thinks they're at the head of every storm. Anyhow, most of this is political discussion more than technical philosophy, but oh well. -shrug-

-Raistlin