War And Christianity.

Kurt75 said:
No. If your cause is just, you have a responsibility to act regardless of the probability of success.
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So, if you arm me with a .177 caliber air rifle, I should go over to the middle east trouble spots and round up all the bad guys?
No way! I'd get my head blown off in short order.....I'd probably rather take my chances before a courts marshal than go on a suicide mission.:)
 
farouk said:
Joe and his wife Tiffani are American, and both are born again. Let's just pretend that Canada is (fictionally) an aggressor, throwing Canada's supposed Imperial weight around, and invades the North East Angle, Minnesota. The US, with Joe and maybe his wife, too, in the forces, understandably fights the hypothetical Canadian aggressors. Both Joe and Tiffani have Christian fish tattoos on their wrists.

In the Canadian military, there is a guy called Joe, and he is a born again Christian, too, and his wife Nikki as well. Both Joe and Nikki have similar tattoos to Joe and Tiffani. (You get the picture.)

And so hypothetically you get brother fighting brother.

It's understandable for nations to defend themselves from aggression.

But I can also understand that brother fighting brother is also wrong.

I can't see how these two aspects can be reconciled. It's a conundrum and I don't have all the answers.
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I doubt there is much profit to be gained by walking behind 'enemy lines' to check for a fish tattoo before shooting some one. Besides You don't shoot at people, you shoot at an enemy uniform (am I right here?) Same as you don't salute the man, you salute the uniform.
 
calvin said:
I doubt there is much profit to be gained by walking behind 'enemy lines' to check for a fish tattoo before shooting some one. Besides You don't shoot at people, you shoot at an enemy uniform (am I right here?) Same as you don't salute the man, you salute the uniform.
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calvin: The tattoo thing is immaterial; what bothers me is the idea of brother shooting brother.

But I can understand at a certain level that the military does have to respond in certain situations.
 
calvin said:
So, if you arm me with a .177 caliber air rifle, I should go over to the middle east trouble spots and round up all the bad guys?
No way! I'd get my head blown off in short order.....I'd probably rather take my chances before a courts marshal than go on a suicide mission.:)
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If you were walking home at night in the dark, and you saw a young lady getting raped by a gang of men who were clearly stronger than you, and you were the only one positioned to do something about it (i.e. the "I would run and call the cops" course of action would not be sufficient to stop the injustice), would you jump into the fray in order to create a slight chance for her to escape at potential risk of your own safety or death, or would you pretend like you didn't see the crime and stay out of it in order to save yourself at the expense of the young lady's safety and potentially her life?

The question is rhetorical. You don't need to answer it. Personally, I would jump in the fray. I might get killed doing it, but injustice of this nature is not happening in my vicinity.

If the cause for war is just, it's just like the scenario above, only on a larger scale.
 
Kurt75 said:
If you were walking home at night in the dark, and you saw a young lady getting raped by a gang of men who were clearly stronger than you, and you were the only one positioned to do something about it (i.e. the "I would run and call the cops" course of action would not be sufficient to stop the injustice), would you jump into the fray in order to create a slight chance for her to escape at potential risk of your own safety or death, or would you pretend like you didn't see the crime and stay out of it in order to save yourself at the expense of the young lady's safety and potentially her life?

The question is rhetorical. You don't need to answer it. Personally, I would jump in the fray. I might get killed doing it, but injustice of this nature is not happening in my vicinity.

If the cause for war is just, it's just like the scenario above, only on a larger scale.
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So your foreign policy would be, if you see something you really strongly disagree with in a foreign country, 'Just bomb them!'

would it?
 
Kurt75 said:
If you were walking home at night in the dark, and you saw a young lady getting raped by a gang of men who were clearly stronger than you, and you were the only one positioned to do something about it (i.e. the "I would run and call the cops" course of action would not be sufficient to stop the injustice), would you jump into the fray in order to create a slight chance for her to escape at potential risk of your own safety or death, or would you pretend like you didn't see the crime and stay out of it in order to save yourself at the expense of the young lady's safety and potentially her life?

The question is rhetorical. You don't need to answer it. Personally, I would jump in the fray. I might get killed doing it, but injustice of this nature is not happening in my vicinity.

If the cause for war is just, it's just like the scenario above, only on a larger scale.
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I would probably come to the girl's aid. There is a risk of personal injury, however most gang rapists are out and out cowards so they would probably take off like frightened rabbits into the night.
On the other hand, terrorists, though cowardly by nature are well trained and brainwashed into believing they are in the right....that is a different kettle of fish.
 
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farouk said:
It was my response to your comment:
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Let me be clear:

I said: "If the cause for war is just..."
I didn't say: "If I saw something that I really disagreed with in a foreign country..."

The original question was, "Is war ever justified?" My answer is, "Yes, if the cause is just." If the cause for war is NOT just, then obviously it's not justified.
 
Kurt75 said:
Let me be clear:

I said: "If the cause for war is just..."
I didn't say: "If I saw something that I really disagreed with in a foreign country..."

The original question was, "Is war ever justified?" My answer is, "Yes, if the cause is just." If the cause for war is NOT just, then obviously it's not justified.
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What if the other party thinks what they are doing are “just”?
Who will determine if a war is “just”?
 
What is Just?
Would taking out a regime that uses nerve gas on little children be Just?
Would warring against another nation just because you do not like their foreign policy be Just?
 
Kurt75 said:
Let me be clear:

I said: "If the cause for war is just..."
I didn't say: "If I saw something that I really disagreed with in a foreign country..."

The original question was, "Is war ever justified?" My answer is, "Yes, if the cause is just." If the cause for war is NOT just, then obviously it's not justified.
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Well, okay.

The question is, How does one get to the conclusion that the proposed war is just or not?

Nancy Soderberg wrote an in some ways brilliant book called Superpower Myth: the Use and Misuse of American Might.

From her vantage point of former Ambassador-rank representative to the UN and Presidential advisor, Ms Soderberg basically argues, contrary to neoconservative doctrine, that it is simply not even in American interests to harbor the illusion that foreign problems can be solved unilaterally without international consensus and coalition-building.
 
aha said:
What if the other party thinks what they are doing are “just”?
Who will determine if a war is “just”?
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Good enough question. If the UN was to function as it was intended instead of being a 'paper tiger', maybe it could give a consensus on what is just and what is not.
 
aha said:
What if the other party thinks what they are doing are “just”?
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One of the best things about being a believer is that we know that objective moral values exist. The atheist cannot say this. We know that objective moral values exist because there is a solid foundation and authority upon which they rest, i.e. the character of God. Objective moral values are those values that exist whether anyone believes in them or not. So let's say for a moment that there were only two people living on the Earth. If both of those people believed that it was okay to murder each other so they could take each other's stuff, they would still be wrong doing so despite the fact that everyone on the planet believed they were right.
The bottom line is that God is the measure of all things. He is the measure of what is just and what is not. Justice is objective because God has established it that way. It doesn't matter what we believe, it matters what God has established.
The challenge for leaders who are taking their nations to war is to ensure their sense of what is just is on par with what God has established.
 
farouk said:
calvin: The tattoo thing is immaterial; what bothers me is the idea of brother shooting brother.

But I can understand at a certain level that the military does have to respond in certain situations.
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I remember hearing an interview between two guys I really like from the Mises Institute named Tom Woods and Jeffrey Tucker. Woods wrote a book called "We Who Dared to Say No to War." He talked about how he was once a pro-interventionist and supported the Gulf War. But afterwards when Iraqi troops were retreating but the US Army burned many of them alive along with the casualty count of civilians, he became sick to his stomach. Afterwards, there was a Bob Hope special and yellow ribbons being passed out, and in his words, he said, "I don't know if I can do this anymore. Many of the soldiers were young people with families--we've made widows and orphans, and some of them were just kids themselves...When the word 'war' is uttered, all logical morality seems to vanish and we feel we can treat others as utter waste."
 
LysanderShapiro said:
Here are some quick questions. I may be biting off my than I can chew because I suspect I'll get some really strenuously wordy answers, but I'm willing to take that risk.

Here are the questions--hopefully they are clear:

  1. Is war every justified? If so, when?
  2. If the enemy uses torture techniques, is it just for us to do the same?
  3. When is it OK for us to be the aggressor?
  4. does Probability of success matter in war?
  5. Can conquest be justified in war?
  6. If there's a great risk of war being perpetual, shall it be pursued?
Happy discussing, friends!
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I think if we discussed this over 100 pages we would find that all Christians actually see eye to eye on war. Scripture is clear about how God protected the Jews and laid His life down for us. He would have done neither if there was no on-going war or need for it. God warned with plagues at varying levels of severity and then destroyed. Scripture is for reasoning together (council of elders), then warnings and then action. No Christian man seeing a woman being beaten would sit and do nothing.

The issue centres around what Calvin said earlier. There is no Christian country. We can never trust our governments true motives. The UN / security council is a brilliant idea and I really wish it was working. But reality is that UN = USA and security council has unstable members. It is a joke that France could stall the US from protecting their financial interests in Kuwait for example.

1. Yes, self defence.
2. No. But as was said by Kurt, their is a necessary kind of ''torture'' for extracting much needed information. What the CIA does cannot be compared to what Sadam did.
3. Pre-emptive aggression is necessary in most wars. Take Iran as an example. The window to end a war quickly and decisively is only open for a short while.
4. Yes. Silly to help the weak if the costs kill your own country and leave you vulnerable.
5. Not in these days. Borders can be decided by other means. But I do agree with Kurt's example of the Jews in the Golan heights.
6. It depends, communism is a clear Yes, unlike an Islamic nation. If we look at the gulf war I wish the US got better ''Islamic approval'' for the land invasion of Iraq. But in reality how could they do that? The Islamic nations are divided amongst themselves. They have been waiting for an excuse to attack Israel's allies.
 
Beagler said:
Hi, let me introduce a possible theory,
Jesus talked about the destruction of the Jewish temple and Israel as a nation scattered. This happened in 70AD as He had prophesied as did the OT prophets. The jews then scattered looked to Europe as its new homeland but the OT prophets said that God would gather his people and plant them back in the land with all His heart. What was the driving force that after centuries of persecution of the Jewish people that brought about the return of the people of Israel to their homeland. May I suggest World war II and the terrible holocaust. Europe was no longer a safe haven and so where did the Jewish survivors feel the need to go? Back to their homeland. Scripture prophesied that "see I will gather them from the four corners of the earth. I will say to the North (north of Israel and you get to Russia) give them up and to the South do not hold them back. Thousands of Jews from all over the world feel a need to return to Israel. My point is Was this a result of War and so part of God's plan?
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I have heard it said by many Bible commentators that WW1 prepared the Land and WW2 prepared the "people" for that Land.
 
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