 |
| Open Theism Discussion Board > Public Forums > General Chat > Interesting Wiki Article... | Forum Quick Jump
|
| 
Truth Aficionado
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2003
Total Posts : 1544
| Posted 5/4/2008 7:38 AM (GMT -6) |   |
Tom said...
AFTER listening to his confession. But you can't use information gained after the fact to retroactively judge as "a terrible mistake" prior determinations based on intelligence that didn't include this information. Like Corey said, you judge the choice GIVEN the intelligence at the time, not given what was only found out later.
Count me in on supporting the war from the beginning. In retrospect I was wrong. Those that massaged the data, embellished the truth, kept to themselves the possible tragedies by going to war and fed us corrupt information in order sell us on the war in the first place still continue to press on with this ill advised campaign in Iraq. Regardless, if many of us got it wrong back then there are those that got it right from day one, like Obama and a host of others.
From the information I've seen, our foreign policy makers dictated our intelligence instead of our intelligence forming and guiding our policy.
-mark | | Back to Top | | |
 |
Corey
Five with a Four-wing
Date Joined Feb 2003
Total Posts : 1893
| Posted 5/4/2008 9:09 AM (GMT -6) | | | But did those that "got it right" have knowledge? I dare say not. If "knowledge" requires JTB (Justification, Truth, Belief), it's far from clear that Obama had epistemic justification for his position; it not clear that he had anything more than mere belief.
To revise that mere belief as being knowledge is intellectually dishonest. Convenient revisionism that suits an agenda.
Before God, in grace, we will with all our power to be that which He shows us we are.Post Edited (Corey) : 5/4/2008 9:14:47 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
|
One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 5/4/2008 10:37 AM (GMT -6) | | | youtube.com/watch?v=6BEsZMvrq-I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJiNtpIpD6k&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iovdIiSE8T8&NR=1
Whoever knows and recognizes how near God’s Kingdom is to him may say with Jacob, “God is in this place, and I knew it not.”
Meister Eckhart, "The Nearness of the Kingdom"
Once, having been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, "The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, nor will people say, 'Here it is,' or 'There it is,' because the Kingdom of God is within you.
Post Edited ("I am-in-I Am") : 5/4/2008 10:45:30 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
|
Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 5/4/2008 12:19 PM (GMT -6) | | | In addition to those youtube clips, we have other info. There have been claims by people in meetings with Bush long before 911 that Bush was looking for a rationale to justify an invasion of Iraq. There was the fact that Saddam was allowing inspections at the time we attacked.
There was the known exodous to Syria of vehicles to Syria prior to our invasion. No one in the government, to my knowledge, ever claimed that we checked to see if dangerous weapons or materials were being exported to Syria, another terrorist-friendly state that just recently proved it was willing to make weapons of mass destruction. Nor, to my knowledge, did any government official ever say, "you know, if those trucks into Syria are exporting they're nuclear materials/documentation, then we don't need to invade Iraq." The whole thing was very suspicious.
Then there was the revelation by British intelligence that admitted that the US administration intentionally hyped (not lied) the WMD rationale for public affect--again consistent with the fact that he had revealed he wanted to invade Iraq independent of 911. There is the on-going debate about the declaration of war required by the constitution. Why doesn't the administration ask for a formal declaration? Could it be because he likes an unconstitutional blank check?
I only bring these things out to say that politicians ought not get the benefit of the doubt. One could listen to almost any given politician for 3 months in a row and find so many contradictions and reversals that ones head would spin. The boy who cried wolf is as relevant today as it was when it was written. Benefit of the doubt goes to those who demonstrate a regard for truth and veracity. Politicians, for the most part, are the exact OPPOSITE of that kind of person. Moreover, why give the benefit of the doubt to double-speaking politicians when so much is at stake for the innocent anyway with respect to much of what they say--especially their rationale for war.
If politicians demonstrated a smidgen of regard for a plausible reading of the constitution and the framers own claims of their verbal intent therein, I might would have reason to give them the benefit of the doubt. Til then, I'm not going to justify the killing of anyone on their word alone. There is a reason why our ancestors fought long and hard for due process. Government officials as often as civilians (and many times MORE often) are quick to shed blood. Reading detailed history about wars that have already been fought almost always show that the rationale for those wars was far from ethically considered. Money is almost always a prominent factor.
Lincoln, e.g., said plainly in his 1st inaugral that the ONLY reason why he would initiate hostilities against the seceded states was if they resisted the payment of the tariffs. That's why he would not surrender the forts in the seceded states even though they were offering him compensation for the North's costs in building them. He said as clear as anyone could have that he was not fighting for slavery. He was trying to get slaves re-colonized out of this country right down to the end. His goals was never to give slaves equal rights in this country.
But having failed to save the economy of the north or the re-colonization of the slaves, his only conceivable legacy would be the freedom of the slaves. So he decided to make that his claim to fame at the last minute. History has been revised to portray that as his original goal even though he fought for re-colonization throughout the war.The same kind of history revision goes on to this day to justify our past wars that were really about money and power. They tell us that politicians lied to us for our own good. But we can't know what their true motivations are except that they are always obsessed with having a legacy no matter what.
Peronally, I'm not killing anyone on the testimony of a liar--whatever their intentions might be. If someone is about to kill my wife and my only knowable recourse to save her life is to kill the murderer first, I'll do it. But that's maximal information as opposed to the minimal information I'm receiving from the liar.
And Greg is right that coming up with a clear just war theory is difficult. But so are many decisions we make short of war. Child discipline can be done wrong. Does that mean we should do no child discipline because of fear we might make a mistake? I don't think so, personally. Because we know that zero guidance for children would be an almost certain greater evil for them.
The same thing applies to the state. Paul tells us that the state is a servant unto good for those who are well-doers. He said this about the Roman empire. There are greater potential evils than those commited by the state. The state, for all its flaws, is and always has been a lesser of evils. In fact, the state can only become more depraved as the people it governs become more depraved. People get the government they deserve.
So I'm not gonna argue that no war can be justified. I am arguing that we must be wise as serpents to adjudicate these matters for ourselves. Thanks be to God that He will not allow us to be tested above what we are able!
| | Back to Top | | |
|
Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 5/4/2008 1:28 PM (GMT -6) | | Great comments, Jeff, as usual.
Can you point to some documentation about Lincoln there?
So, we should not have joined in WWII for example, against Hitler? Here's the thing. You grant that the State is always the lesser of evils, that in spite of whatever evils the State perpetrates, its better than...I suppose "no State." But when it comes to war, this reasoning doesn't apply. In other words, there's NO conceivable circumstance (in your mind) in which war may be the lesser of two evils. I'm wondering HOW to justify that claim in light of conceding that the State WITH the evils it perpetrates necessarily IS the lesser of evils. You're willing to give the State qua State a pass on its existence in spite of its many evils...just not the evil of war? I agree outright way is a horrible thing. I just don't know how to say it can never be the lesser of evils, especially if we justify the existence of an evil State because of the overall benefits we derive from it.
I'm not doing a good job as expressing this.
I am concerned about McCain in office when I think about the likelihood of our going to war with Iran. But I'm more concerned about Iran obtaining nuclear (or as Busy says, "Nucular"!) capability, and we all know they absolutely will gain nukes on the watches of either Clinton or Obama, neither or whom will do anything substantial to forbid Iran becoming a nuclear power.
Now, maybe as Christians we shouldn't give a moment's notice to the fate of the human race, period. If Iran gets nukes and deploys them and we all light up the globe and scorch the face of the earth...so what? God'll just deal with it and so will we. Should that be our position? Maybe so. If not, what?
Tom
| | Back to Top | | |
|
Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 5/4/2008 3:34 PM (GMT -6) | | |
Obviously there is a bit of hyperbole to the saying "people get the government they deserve." But I agree with those who argue that a virtuous people will restrain their government. This is not to say that there are not virtuous people in an otherwise unvirtuous society. Lot is proof of that. But small minorities of virtuous people are not sufficient to trump the truth that leaven leavens the lump. Lot, again, is a case of that. I'm simply saying that people have legitimate modes of recourse (assembly to petition for redress, certain kinds of civil disobedience, etc) that when applied by the majority of a society will tend to keep tyranny and needless war-mongering in check.
An example is the recent hubaloo's over the appointment of Harriet Meyers for the supreme court and the illegal alien issue. In both cases, Bush stood firmly against millions of his own grassroot supporters. Between the rallying of Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter, and George Will, they stopped both of these attempts by Bush. But these type of things could be done all the time with similar effect on other issues. But people just don't do it. It has been said that the civil war could never have occurred had the churches not split into northern and southern demoninations over the issue of slavery. Having divided over slavery (a subject for which each side could make plausible arguments), the government was free to use that division for its own ends.
I think you make a good point in distinguishing the lesser of evils idea with war. Pointless war (the "civil" war was one IMO) might be a lesser of evils GIVEN the moral state of a people. But it is not the lesser of evils in an absolute sense. We are to pay taxes to the state because of the ministry it serves and because that ministry is ordained by God Himself, according to Paul. But on the other hand, there are circumstances where the Christian is to obey God and not the government.
So it seems that there are specific cases where we are to disobey government even if anarchy is worse than government. Maybe war is not one of them. I just tend to think that it might very well be for the very point you make--not all people deserve to be killed despite what their society does; and yet war makes no such discriminations as government typically does with its own rules for due process in its criminal proceedings, etc.
The fact that John the Baptist told Roman soldiers how to behave as soldiers meet for repentant ones tells me that the use of the sword, per se, for the state is no inherent evil. But the very fact that people try to come up with criteria for just war is evidence that war is a bit more difficult to adjudicate in terms of the clear role of the state than normal criminal justice type activity. War almost inevitably results in the killing and/or suffering of civilian with no normal due process. These things happen as mere side-effects if nothing else.
Scripture seems to me to cleary sanction the government use of the sword to avenge evil-doing for the sake of deterrence. Defensive war seems to be clearly entailed in that power, to me. The question is, when government usurps powers that God never delegated to it, are we to be part of that when human death and suffering are involved?
Til now, I have assumed that a Roman soldier involved in local and regional police powers could function thus legitimately because maintaining order against the riotous and rebellious is a legitimate function of the state. But I have never assumed that Rome's (or any nation's) offensive war-making for the glory of Rome or the addition of taxpayers or to transform them from barbarians into "civilized" ones could ever be considered a legitimate role of the state. Therefore, participation in that kind of killing and infliction of suffering, I think, would be inappropriate for the Christian.
None of this is to say that the Iraq war is an offensive war. Maybe it's not. And that's why I won't judge anyone for participating. I simply don't know enough. And I certainly have no problem with those who are not acting in military roles. I'm just saying that from my reading of history and my analysis of political rhetoric, I don't trust these people as far as I can throw them. So my default posture towards them is to be skeptical. Consequently, I feel way less comfortable with foreign war than local police powers, and even local police can be very abusive of their power.
In short, I don't have enough knowledge to judge the participants of the war. But I also don't have enough knowledge to feel comfortable killing what might be civilians IN that war. Because I'm not convinced it is truly defensive--even in the sense of preemptive defense. Does that make sense? It's like Rom. 14--let each be fully persuaded in his own mind, for anything not of faith is sin. Maybe politicians really do lie to us for our own good because they know they have to given the state of the electorate. But how could I know for sure? Maybe they're just foxes in the way Herod was. 
As for good books on Lincoln, as a man, see Thomas Di'Lorenzo's two books on him. You can also see much of the same info free under his articles under the LewRockwell.com site (look for Thomas Dilorenzo under the "columnists" link on the main page). There is also a good book called "Forced into Glory: Abraham Lincoln's White Dream," by an editor, I think, for Ebony magazine. As far as the motive for the war, Lincoln was very clear. It was about the tariff and not slavery. But some good books to read are Jeffrey Hummel's "Emancipating Slaves and Enslaving Free Men," and Charles Adams' "When in the Course of Human Events." Pat Buchanan is fixing to publish a book called something like "The Unnecessary War" showing how our involvement in WW II was unnecessary and uneffectual overall. See http://www.lewrockwell.com/buchanan/buchanan76.html for a short description. Di'Lorenzo makes the same argument for the civil war.
Men are TOO quick to shed blood. Most wars are probably just examples of that. Recently on 60 minutes an interview was done of the guy who spent the most time with Saddam while he was in prison. To my memory, the gist of that guys testimony was that Saddam said he wanted Iran to think he had nuclear weapons to deter them from further attack against him. In other words, he felt he needed to bluff Iran to deter them. There is no reason to believe that either Iraq or Iran would ever attack us with nuclear weapons. THey know that would be suicidal.
Israel is both willing and able to keep that region free of nuclear weapons. It is in their defensive interest to do so. And preemptive strikes on their part is MUCH easier to justify since the states in those regions have declared their enmity and ill-will against Israel. When we get involved, it just makes it easier for OTHER motives to needlessly complicate military action and goals. Motives like oil prices and global economics. Sounds too much like Roman imperialism to me. When civilian deaths become the side-effects of such complicating motives, I lean to the side of non-participation.
All we need to do is declare to the world that we will help Israel defend themselves militarily if we HAVE to. Til then, we need to let THEM fight defensively so that it can be justified on THOSE grounds. The gainsayers can then be easily silenced for their lack of regard for the security of a state. As it stands, there are GOOD reasons for questioning American involvement. And that serves to no good purpose. It makes it more likely that the war will one day become so politically unpopular that we pull out. And then all the atrocities we fear would occur will happen anyway. And most of the American casualties, at least, will have been for nought.
Post Edited (Similtude) : 5/4/2008 3:58:55 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
|
Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 5/5/2008 5:55 AM (GMT -6) | | | Let's keep this going, Tom. Maybe government isn't a lesser of evils. But if not, what is it? We need to think this through. It seems to be a lesser of evils in some sense at least, though not in others. Every time I try to convince myself that the 1st & 2nd greatest commandments can never come into conflict, I hit something that makes me wonder. Why are they even separate commandments with different ranks if they can never come into conflict?
Peter said of his insubordination to government, "We must obey God over men." Is that saying that God's glory can trump the temporal "good" provided by the state in certain circumstances? What think you, D?
Post Edited (Similtude) : 5/5/2008 6:28:11 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
|
Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 5/5/2008 7:45 AM (GMT -6) | | Yeah, Jeff. I’m open. I like what you’re saying. I guess my frustration is over what seems to me to be the insistence on the one hand on the ambiguity of it all, so that there’s no way to clearly render THE Christian position on political issues, and the insistence on the other hand on the separation of Church (faith) and State as two separate arenas of existence and choice. I don’t get it. If Church and State are separate, then why should ANY Christian (Greg included) stand up and say that ‘war’ should or shouldn’t be pursued by the State in this or that situation? But he does denounced war as a Christian. How is this not claiming theological grounds for a political position? If Church and State are separate, they’re separate for Christians as well, and that means there is no clear ‘Christian’ position on political issues and we should just shut up. We can speak out, or act out, but never as an expression of our faith. But Greg seems to agree that whatever we do politically HAS to (or at least MAY) be an expression of our faith. But he insists there’s no ONE political position that expresses the Christian ‘faith’. So what’s the point? I don’t see how this differs really from just saying we don’t vote our faith. I mean, really: 100 Christians expressing 100 different political opinions and each saying their opinion is an expression of their faith? If faith is THAT flexible then I don’t think it’s that defined or meaningful in the first place. Of what use for informing one’s participation in the political process is a faith that’s flexible enough to be an expression of contradictory positions, a contradiction regarding which Church leaders have shown themselves incapable of adjudicating? So I wonder, should we just say ‘faith’ is for heaven, for the private spiritual life, and for Christian worship, and that’s all, and not attempt AT ALL to let our faith motivate how we participate in the secular life of the societies we live in. Seems to me we either do this, or we push for a full-fledged theocracy (like Islam).
So I guess I’m wondering whether the only political positions worth determining on the basis of faith are those positions that CAN be clearly determined by the faith for all of us. Otherwise, we should leave each other alone ‘as Christians’ when it comes to voting. But I don’t get the feeling from those who argue for a clear separation of Church and State, or for the ambiguity inherent in political issues and the flexibility Christians enjoy to vote, like, say, Greg, that there’s much room for Christians on some issues. I hear an undercurrent of “How in the world could you [as a Christian] vote McCain?” or “How in the world did you [as a Christian] vote for Bush?” or “How could you as a Christian have been for our going to war in Iraq?” and that from those who say the faith is flexible enough to permit diversity on the issues. That’s confusing me.
T
| | Back to Top | | |
|
Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 5/5/2008 7:57 PM (GMT -6) | | |
Tom: But Greg seems to agree that whatever we do politically HAS to (or at least MAY) be an expression of our faith. But he insists there’s no ONE political position that expresses the Christian ‘faith’. So what’s the point? I don’t see how this differs really from just saying we don’t vote our faith. I mean, really: 100 Christians expressing 100 different political opinions and each saying their opinion is an expression of their faith? If faith is THAT flexible then I don’t think it’s that defined or meaningful in the first place.
Jeff: I agree, Tom. I think there definitely is a proper role for government. Where I see the ambiguity is in trying to figure out how a vote can be meaningfully directed towards that end given:
1) the extent to which politicians are not completely truthful about their agendas,
2) the extent to which all politicians are in competition with a host of competing influences that water down or undermine even the best of agendas and intentions.
So at one level, I think we have pretty good clarity. At another we don't. But I hear Greg saying we DON'T have clarity right where I think we do. Indeed, I don't see how Greg could possibly have any clarity about a state that uses force on people when he claims, at times, that force is inherently counter-love. But then, like you say, he says God USES force for something like, I guess, lessening evil.
But how could anyone know with any certainty that they are lessening evil by voting for a particular candidate given the 2 sources of uncertainty above (and possibly more). And again, I ask, why try to influence the use of force without sufficient certainty that it will direct to the end we intend? Think about Obama and Hillary. Obama's people told the Canadian prime minister that Obama's comments about NAFTA were meant only for the voters.
Can we really trust this guy? And as for Hillary: do you think if Rush Limbaugh was asking Republicans to vote for Obama instead of her in the Democratic primaries that she and Bill wouldn't be going ballistic? Can we really trust that these people are telling us what they really intend to do? I think political realities and hidden agendas tend to be the real driving forces of most politicians. There are those rare people like Ron Paul that won't even take matching funds that people will never elect to an office of real influence. And probably a lucky thing for him, cause he would probably be terminated if he was successful in defunding as much as he wants to defund.
But, as you have said, if God is essentially loving in what He does, then He is no more loving than the state by using force for this reason, and for the same reason. For the state only lessens evil in quantity. But by doing so, it can cause evils that might not otherwise have occurred. The same would be true of any directing of force that God might do, it seems. So it seems to me that the only way God could be completely free of CAUSING harm (at least indirectly) that might not have otherwise occurred is if God doesn't intervene in the directing of force.
But I have a hard time seeing how scripture can be consistent with such a view. Christ spoke of the days of vengeance and fulfilment of prophecy resulting in woe to those who gave suck. And as open theists, we are almost compelled to see this as providential as opposed to mere fore-knowledge. How could God have foreknown what was going to happen to the babes of Israel that far future to Daniel's prophecy, given how many volitional choices occurred in the interim, if not by His very determining to BRING IT about?
So we have on the one hand that God has ordained government. Maybe it's not to be a lesser of evils so much as it is to prevent the total corruption of humanity as before the flood rendering the creational project too futile with regards to God's purposes for it. And maybe only as a side-effect is it a ministry of good to well-doers. Maybe it's to prolong the creational project by preventing its premature termination due to a pre-deluge-like corruption so that more people will ultimately be saved via UR. Maybe it's all three, intentionally. But I still think we have clear enough information to the effect that the state is LIMITED in it's divinely delegated authority--just like parents are. These limits are what allow us to adjudicate when we can rightly disobey government or parents. And some of these limitations may have to do with war-making and war-waging. I think this is the gut-instinct that grounds the thoughts of those who think about what constitutes just war.
But I don't see how Greg's approach can give any clarity to the subject. It seems to muddy the waters to me. Alan needs to join this conversation. I think he has once said that he thinks there are just and unjust wars. Where are you D? Post us a youtube video if nothing else!
Post Edited (Similtude) : 5/5/2008 8:09:59 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
| 37 posts in this thread.
Viewing Page : 1 2 |
| Forum Information | Currently it is Monday, November 09, 2026 6:06 PM (GMT -6)
There are a total of 97,718 posts in 6,040 threads.
In the last 3 days there were 0 new threads and 0 reply posts. View Active Threads
|
Forum powered by dotNetBB v2.42EC SP3
dotNetBB © 2000-2026 |
|
|