The Ethics of War
-One could ask, as we did, is war truly ethical? Today that debate rages with military prisons, torture, and so forth. Before we car discuss this, however, we should define ethically. Noah Webster's "American Dictionary of the English Language." defines ethically as "According to the doctrines of morality". From this we can conclude that ethics are determined by the Bible. So how dose the Bible look at war? As was pointed out in class, God commanded the Israelites to go to war and even to destroy entire nations; but, as was also mentioned, that was before Christ came to earth and now we no longer get special revelation. What we can learn from this is that war isn't inherently sinful since God commanded it.
-I would put it to you that war is a necessary evil, much like divorce. God didn't mean for a man to ever be separated from his wife; but because of sin it was necessary to add a provision for it. War likewise was not a part of God's perfect creation, but now He uses it to destroy his enemies.
-If the above theory is correct, God was using the Pilgrims to judge the Indians, and therefore, they were not outside of Gods law.
PS. I don't think Benjamin Franklin is ugly.
posted by Lemony Snicket @ 7:33 AM
14 Comments:
At 10:25 AM,
Gabriella Reed said…
he is so!!!....and no recalls!
At 10:32 AM,
Gabriella Reed said…
...and no reinventing ways to sidetrack the idea that he's ugly....because he is...
At 8:22 AM,
Lemony Snicket said…
That's very interesting Heather, mabey you'd like to comment on the body of my post rather then the post script.
PS. It doesn't really matter if you think Franklin is ugly or not, I was just expressing my opinion.
At 12:25 PM,
Lemony Snicket said…
Meg,
Do we have to write an essay on Franklin, or just an explanation of our answers to the questions on the paper we got?
Dan
At 2:22 PM,
Gabriella Reed said…
okay okay....I believe that the Bible is God's completed revelation to us. So therefore, we know what pleases God and what doesn't frome the Bible....so the real question is, "does the Bible prove in some way that war is allowed?"...I'm using allowed because i'm not too big on big words, thats just too big for me. ANYWAY, i believe(from what i've learned of the scriptures) that it depends on the reason for the war; like our being in afghanistan(did i spell that right?). i don't believe that our being in afghanistan is wrong because it was a frontal attack on the US and out of hatred of us. so therefore we have to defend ourselves or lay down and play dead(which i garrantee isn't a good idea). so in the case of the indians, i think that if the colonists were being attacked for an unjust reason than they have the right to fight back. please correct me on this if i am wrong for my knowledge of war is very slim and i have never really wanted to think about war, since, though i think all this, i don't like it.
P.S.he's so ugly...
At 8:21 AM,
Lemony Snicket said…
Heather,
Yes, you did spell Afghanistan correctly. But you did NOT spell guarantee correctly, nor did you use capitals. I do agree that it was justifiable for us to attack Afghanistan in order to counter the terrorists, instead of playing nice like the Democratic Party spokesmen want us to do. Not that all Dems are evil, of course--just that some of them are way out of it. We need to get a better political party in this nation.
Dan
P.S. It doesn't really matter whether Ben was ugly or not.
At 8:31 AM,
Lemony Snicket said…
-The big question is, was it right for the Pilgrims to kill an entire village? Frankly, that's as bad as the Indians. Fighting fire with fire dosn't seem like a good idea to me.
-As I said in my post, God was using the Pilgrims as judgement on the Indians, but that doesn't mean that they were right in everything they did.
-Afganistan is an altogether different matter. Should we be acting as a global police man? How long should we stay? But as Kipling said "That is another story".
Sam
PS. There are enough ugly people in the world without you trying to add one more.
At 9:14 PM,
Gabriella Reed said…
Daniel-
i don't use spelling and grammar things in these sort of things...kk maybe i do. but its late and i need to just hurry up...so i don't care.
yeah we need better political parties in our world, but hold on to your chairs becuase our world won't get much better.
Sam-
i don't remember why the colonists attacked the Indians, so you'll have to remind me. but thats what i'm saying! if they did it because they were being slaughtered by the indians, then they had a right to take action against the indians. i forgot the fact that they killed an entire village, and yes that was wrong. they could've(and should've) taken different actions that were less....agressive. i don't know what word i'm looking for so please excuse me.
afghanistan is NOT a different matter! its the same thing except different turn-outs. the colonists were attacked(just like the US), they attacked back(reality check:for your info we're in Iraq and Afghanistan right now in war...ATTACKING BACK), and the result was that the indains were basicly...wiped out?i don't know!!!
this is so frustrating when i can't think of the stupid word!
whats a global police man? don't use big terms its really hard to translate them! i don't know how long we should stay. i don't think we should stay longer than necessary. we should destroy binladin(did i spell that right?) and anyone else involved in the terrerist attack and get out of terretory that isn't ours.
these are just my personal oppinions. like i said last time, let me know my faults.
P.S.i'm not adding an ugly person, he was already here when i called him that.
At 7:15 AM,
Lemony Snicket said…
-Okey, so you're admitting that the colonists weren't squeaky clean in all of this. What I'm saying is that they weren't right to respond in kind to the slauter of their people by saultering the enemy. Just because the tarrorists flew planes into our buildings doesn't mean we're going to fly some into theirs.
-As for Afghanistan and Iraq, I don't think we have enough evidence to make an informed opinion about wether we should be there or not. I've seen conclusive evidence that there are NO WMD's in Iraq, and I've seen conclusive evidence that there ARE WMD's iin Iraq. Either way, I refuse to give an opinion.
PS. By global policeman I mean that the US is going arround trying to right all the wrongs in the world, spred democracy, take from the rich and give to the poor, and so on. This is, of course, bunk.
PPS. You are the first person I've heard say that Franklin is ugly, in my opinion, yours is bunk.
At 11:08 AM,
Gabriella Reed said…
thats what i'm saying!!!!arg...this is tough trying to explain an oppinion over a blog. explain first what the colonists did because i FORGOT.
P.S.whats bunk?
At 4:24 PM,
Andrew said…
hmm, ok
Colonists...heck yes they had the right to strike back...but did they do it in a manner pleasing to the Lord? not sure...war is ugly...any questions?
Iraq
ok, I see where heather is going with this...buuut Iraq is quite a bit different. The colonists were protecting themselves from hostile Indian attacks, the US took out a bunch of hostile terrorists in Iraq and is now trying to create a whole new government and a nation and an iraqian army and everything. So there's a big differnce between the method. But the cause still the same.
US policing other countries...
ok, i don't even know why this was brought up...but it's true
P.S. come on guys, if Heather wants to think franklin is ugly...fine...besides I don't think he's that amazingly handsome either...
At 5:17 PM,
Gabriella Reed said…
thanks andrew,kk...now i'm seeing what you all were talking about. although i had no idea they were trying to make a whole new government!...is that what that whole thing was about the voting? yeah yeah your thinking that all this time i had no idea what i was talking about. but i did...i just didn't know the whole thing. thanks andrew for clearing things up and thanks sam and daniel for giving me a good discussion and a good lesson. next time i'll hold my tongue when i don't know the whole story. sorry thats you guys had to deal with me=)
P.S.kk,i'll admitt that he.....had nice eyes...but thats about it. thanks andrew=)
At 4:48 PM,
Gabriella Reed said…
when is someone going to do another post?....i would, but i don't know how.
At 5:17 PM,
Andrew said…
there u guys are...i posted...now u can continue the discussion as u wish...
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