Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!bcm!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: gt1104c@prism.gatech.edu (SILVERT,STANLEY DAVID JR) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Christianity and war Message-ID: Date: 1 Mar 91 07:42:48 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology Lines: 43 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article EFL0@ns.cc.lehigh.edu (Ed Lamb) writes: >Re: War > > If we look into the old testament, we see that God sometimes called >his people to go to war. Sometimes it was a way of bringing judgement >about, others to claim land. Since this is the case, I feel it is safe >to say that war, although it is never desired, is sometimes necessary. >God chose Israel to represent him on the earth in the old testament, >and sometimes allowed other peoples to know his wrath through him. I look at these passages in the OT as the result of cultural bias on the part of the editors. After all, if you are recording the history of your people and you find that your people have been responsible for the slaughter of men, women, children and animals you need a way to vindicate your people. An easy way is to say that it was God's will that you kill in this instance. However, I believe that no God who LOVES EVERYONE would tell one group of people to kill another. Maybe it made sense that God would hire executioners back when people tended to think of God as just the great judge and jury in the sky, but in light of the teachings of Jesus this simple-minded view is very questionable. > Also, another argument that I have heard against war is the >commandment "Thou shalt not kill." The original text had the meaning >of "thou shalt not murder," I don't know why the change was made. Even >secular people realize that during a war, if you kill someone, you are >not held responsible for their death. So I don't think it is accurate >to claim non-involvement in a war on that basis alone. > We have had this debate about the meaning of this commandment before. I feel that we also need to take a close look at Matthew 5:21-26 where Jesus talks about this issue of killing and verses 43-48 where he talks about love for your enemies. Jesus did not even want us to be angry much less kill. Also, it seems to me that if we truly love our enemies the last thing we want to do is blow their heads off. -- Stan Silvert Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332 uucp: ...!{allegra,amd,hplabs,seismo,ut-ngp}!gatech!prism!gt1104c ARPA: gt1104c@prism.gatech.edu