Our Need For War
By: Lisa     

     “Angels on the sideline, baffled and confused.  Father blessed them all with reason, and this is what they choose.” – Tool, “Right In Two”

     I’m watching CNN as Israel and Lebanon shoot missiles at each other, and I can’t help but feel sorry for the human species. We’ve come so far, with our technological and medical advancements, but even with our solar-powered, electronic, digital, satellite monitored gidgets and gadgets, we can’t seem to figure out a way to get along with each other. We can’t seem to figure out how to use what we know for peace. We take everything we’ve learned over the span of our entire existence and use it instead to build nuclear warheads and long-range missiles for the sole purpose of destroying each other. We can launch ourselves into outer space, use submarines to travel underwater, and yet we use satellite technology to target enemies and engage in submarine warfare. I don’t understand it, especially since, most of the time, when it’s not for power, the cause of war is over some religious belief, for an invisible being that may or may not exist. I believe in God, but I won’t force my beliefs on anyone, or think about destroying an entire culture just because they don’t agree with my spirituality. We’ve come this far, haven’t we learned yet that we need to focus on what we know is real for certain, like, oh say, disease, famine, corporate strongholds over consumers’ choices and safety, the outright destruction of our planet, crooked politicians that create crooked governments, crime, erratic weather that may be caused by excessive pollution, changes in our atmosphere’s chemical makeup that will make it difficult to survive, etc., etc.? These issues are real. They are practically tangible, they are researchable, they are verifiable. We placidly let those problems continue, but when it comes to God, or land, or which form of government works best (the answer, by the way, is none) we can’t leave people be, we have to go to war over it. And I’m not using the word “we” in reference to any particular nation or group of individuals, but rather, as the collective whole, the species that we are. So in thinking about this, I think our main problem, the cause of all of this, lies, at least in part, in our inability to practice forgiveness. 

     If there is one human capability that we only think we can achieve, but truly cannot, forgiveness is it. Humans have always claimed themselves god-like, the closest to God, made in His image. The reality is that we are nothing like God, and can never be, because we simply do not have the capacity to be like Him. We are animals, creatures on this Earth like all the rest, and by no means any better than the rest. We are imperfect, extending our lives with medical and technological advancements while all at once destroying ourselves by poisoning our water, soil, and air, all in the name of progress. But there is no progress. We use toxic chemicals in products that are supposed to keep us healthy. We eat artificial, preserved, manufactured foods made by multi-million dollar corporations. We no longer need farms, except to breed more disease in the animals we’ll eat, and we genetically modify plants so that we can fill our stomachs easier while children in impoverished African nations are starving to death. Bird flu, mad cow…feed the dead to the living, and reduce, reuse, recycle. Instead of really being more like God – which would mean being tolerant – we judge each other over our ideas of Him rather than our self-destructive actions. And when we can’t forgive each other for what is in our nature to do – and that is, make mistakes – we lead ourselves into conflict. 

     I’m amazed at the creativity people can employ when it comes to the infliction of suffering, and I feel hopelessness when we refuse to see the need for change, thereby refusing to change at all. Apathy is definitely one of humankind’s tragic flaws. It’s apathy that makes us kill each other without thinking about the fact that our enemies are just as human as we are; it’s apathy that makes us think we can suck the life out of the planet and not have to deal with the consequences; it’s apathy that allows the richest companies in the world to develop the most compact version of the I-Pod or a cell phone that doubles as a laptop, as opposed to using that knowledge toward finding cures for diseases and safe alternatives to the hazardous materials we use daily. It’s apathy that breeds selfishness, because when you don’t care about anything, you only care about yourself, your personal beliefs, and your comfortable lifestyle, and you’ll stop at nothing, even go to war, to keep things the way you like them.