originally posted by Shafty:
It's relatively easy for most anyone who has lead a stable life in a stable environment to be able to feel compassion and empathy for the suffering of others, up to the point of being compelled to do something to help out. However, as soon as the environment changes to a more chaotic and unpredictable setting where survival is hard pressed, that same stable person will kill his neighbor without much remorse to further his own goals or simply to ensure his own survival for a while longer. I think everyone, even the most devout religious pacifists, are capable of atrocious acts of violence if they are driven to the edge by circumstance or another person or group of persons.
Inequity breeds unrest, which breeds war. The unequal allocation of the world's resources, both in a global scale (as in nation to nation) and in a smaller one such as in cities and neighborhoods, causes feelings of hatred and jealousy, which leads to strife, and eventually violence ensues in one form or another. It's as simple as that, IMO.
I like your point of view Shafty, but if we really want to exit from this primitive violent sea, then we need to teach respect for non-violence right from school. It is frm school among the more stupid that the idea they can get what they want by force and domination is born.
If your neighbor were to hit you, you would rightly take him to court. So why is this ok for an adult and not a child? On the contrary, the child bully should be punished even more so he understands once and for all there is no way he can get what he wants with force. If not, he will slowly gravitate towards delinquency and finally, crime. All the violence that is poisining the neighborhoods around the big cities saps its nourisHydromaxent from the over-tolerant school system that lets bullys get away with it.
Any threat of violence should be punished as severley as the act itself, because to threaten means that the person has already aknowledged that they will resort to violence as a way of getting what they desire.
Originally posted by sikdogg:
Non-violence sounds great but that will only work in an enlightened utopian society were everyone is on the same page. That is never the case... the fact is that violent people only understand violence and the meek WILL be slaughtered. Given the choice... i choose to slaughter.
Yes, the whole planet is caught in this terrible logic. "Might is right", or "only the strong survive" is showing a complete lack of intelligence. It opens up the foundations of violence, creating a terribly confused world and messup-up thought process which is preparing the next generation to be even more terrible. That next generation promises to be horrifyingly unbalanced because for them who have grown used to seeing it everyday, violence will seem ordinary.
I think the saddest thing in our world is that people believe they are in the right with this violent ideology. The Germans who went on to become Nazis and massacred all those Jews, homosexuals, and gypsies were not fundamentally bad people. It is just that they entered into a horrific logic, into a reasoning that seemed so right, that they bought into that system without questioning it; they were convinced that they were doing the "right" thing and serving the cause.
"Collateral damage" is such a cop-out; there is no justifyng killing any innocent civilian.
We should all follow Jesus' example of peace. He spoke only of love. He came to tell us "love thy neighbor as you love yourselves" in replacement of the barbaric message of "eye for eye, tooth for tooth." This means that if someone hits you, then you should hit them back, but its exactly the oppositte of everything Jesus stood for. And Jesus, a Jew among Jews, told them, "if someone hits you on the right cheek, show them your left cheek". Love your enemies more than your friends, because they need more love than your friends. You already love your friends! If someone hates you, I know its hard, but answer them with love not violence. Answer saying, "if you want to hit me then go ahead! You will then have to live with it, your own conscience!" It was truly a revolutionary ideology, and we all know what fate awaited Jesus.
The Dalai Lama is doing the same thing today for Tibet. He could encourage his people to revolt, to use bombs against the Chinease, but instead he said, No! No violence, with time, awareness will come bringing understanding between humans."
We must not forget the great achievements of all the people who worked so hard for pece and non-violence. I realize this world is full of hate and despair, but we have to change that.
