OK Guys

[DreamTone7]

HK - "like Chris says, lets keep it civil. Let's see who can post stuff without resorting to You're wrong I'm right or you're an xxxxx etc etc. Lets remove the left and right and partisanship or whatever."



Agreed...and happily so.



HK - "How difficult is it to make a decision in the name of humanity - can we realise at the end of the day people are suffering, families somewhere are losing, whether it's because of jobs going to India and China, or someone dying in iraq, or some dying in the WTC or Afghanistan? They're all human, and until we tell our leaders that enough is enough, one life matters as much as anothers, no matter where they are, what are we?"



This one is a bit more difficult. Life is not fair. The Bible says it rains on the just and the unjust. This not only means that it rains on all people...but also that there will always be rain. It is so, so difficult to simply look at a small area of the world and not look at all the events occuring all over the world because of how world events affect the small area under consideration. We as a civilization are getting to the point where everything is affecting everything else...and this makes things VERY complex and complicated. Suffering is a part of life...it cannot be avoided no matter how hard we try or what we do. We can only seek to minimize it...and how this is best done is where the disagreements pop up, I think. So to answer the question, I would say it is very difficult on a global scale...and yet so simple for each of us as individuals in our own small worlds. I think you all understand what I mean.

[HKRockChick]

but your same pain is shared by someone elses family miles away. If people could TRY, just TRY to understand that, this world would be a much better place.



If you cut them, do they not bleed? It is often innocent civilians that pay for the sins of their leaders. We who remain untouched can only do one thing - be unrelenting in exposing greed and wickedness, nonviolently, so that nobody will dare try any of it again.



And its ok to debate this, even if you disagree

[questionnaire]

... with that entirely. As a non-Christian, I would argue that the bible is full of fatalism such as that that DT has just quoted, and that fatalism was used to keep people down over the centuries by convincing them that there's not much they can do.



However, the bible is also full of exhortations to radical action such as the throwing of the moneylenders out of the temple, so it depends on interpretation, which in turn depends on hermeneutic power.



In fact, if you look at Europe, despite centuries of brutality and war leading up to 1945, post-war democratic states with efficient health, welfare and education/employment systems have alleviated most suffering. The same can be done in other parts of the world, but these systems are expensive and interfere with the market and its profit-making capabilities, so corporations do their best to block them, e.g. Nicaragua. Some communist societies had excellent systems to alleviate suffering, but of course the price was a decline in individual rights.

[DreamTone7]

I don't disagree...at least not with the intentions.



It is something that is hard to describe, but I will try. Evil cannot be seen when looking directly at it...neither can good. It is only seen out of the corner of the eye...in a manner of speaking.



I think all people have the potential for good and evil in them...it is their choices that determine, eventually (and not because of the external results of the choices, but because of the internal result), which side of the fence they fall on. But we are not to pass judgement on people...that is for God. All we can do is do our best to look at the results of actions to determine the actions good or evil...which are not always as clear as they seem to be. For every action we see there are ten that we don't, and for every result of an action we see there are ten that we don't. This means we don't see 99% of what is really going on. (This is a metaphor...but I hope it makes the point.) Ever heard of the game "Chinese Whispers"? A story told by one person to another is passed through several people and the end story told aloud. It is never the same as the original which is the source of the amusement in the game. We get a person's view in the media that is changed from the original...sometimes intentionally for various reasons. Add this to the fact that we don't see most of what is going on and it becomes very difficult to know what is REALLY going on anywhere!



So, it is good to fight the "good fight"...but sometimes hard to be sure it is actually the "good fight" that you are fighting. That's why I like to proceed slowly and sometimes wait before coming up with a final opinion on something...even though I may at the time have my suspicions.



Anyone else's thoughts?

[HKRockChick]

like Chris says, lets keep it civil. Let's see who can post stuff without resorting to You're wrong I'm right or you're an xxxxx etc etc. Lets remove the left and right and partisanship or whatever. Are we capable of looking beyond it all to essential truths - what is fair and what is not, pretending we are not on any side? How difficult is it to make a decision in the name of humanity - can we realise at the end of the day people are suffering, families somewhere are losing, whether it's because of jobs going to India and China, or someone dying in iraq, or some dying in the WTC or Afghanistan? They're all human, and until we tell our leaders that enough is enough, one life matters as much as anothers, no matter where they are, what are we?

[HKRockChick]

I don't really use the bible, only the one commandment, love one another and sometimes I do a hopeless job of that too. It has too much of conflicting stuff and people use it to further their own ends.



I prefer to do some active digging of my own...