Hello ,
Thanks for the feedback fellas,
Clark, first let me say that my respect for the people who have gone
to war is huge. My uncle--whom I was named for--deserted for a while
in WWII. My dad talked him into re-joining the army and he was
killed during the invasion of France in one of those scenes I
watched last week in "Saving Private Ryan".
And I've talked to other guys in length about their war experience.
An old carpenter I worked with showed me what the soldiers had gone through
when he told me that the army had been remiss in loading down the soldiers
with too much munitions. I asked him why--since soldiers certainly need all the
ammo they can get--and he said that it wasn't necessary since there
was so much available on the dead bodies of fellow soldiers along
the way. That really clued me in and the pictures made by Spielberg
brought the understanding into perfect clarity.
Was the nuclear bombing of Japan more or less moral then "what was
left" after the action had occurred (the chain of events that could've
came by not bombing)? To this Dan says, "That scenario doesn't exist
and has no value". I tend to disagree. It seems to me that *all*
scenarios exist on some mysterious supra-mental plane (although I
certainly can't prove it). Trying to reach this full view of what
is possible is what we do on the eve of decision making. The more
spotless the mind, the more chance we have in developing the most
detailed image of what the right thing is. And reviewing old
pictures of events shows us even more of what we could not see.
Given the circumstances on the eve of the bombing of Japan, I'd say
that there was a lot of quality in the decision to "finish" the war
in the same vein in which it came into being. Dan made a
good point about exploding the first nuclear bombs, saying it was a
statement of the intellect to the social level power players who
always make wars for the same reason (their social level interests).
He says that such statements are no longer valid which is a good
thing since someone else might come along with chemical weapons and
want to play the same game for much the same reasons.
But the question remains, was it valid to do it to Japan? I'd have
to say that ultimately, the answer is no. The allies could've
"surrendered" to Japan and given them what they wanted (what was
that? The folly of world domination by Japanese power players over
the power players of other countries?). We could've tried to con
them by only pretending to surrender. We could've demonstrated our
power in a more benign environment and then worked out a mutually
beneficial "terms of our surrender". A lot of possibilities were
present but not tapped because the social power players were sealed
up in the bubble of their perceptions and didn't have the energy
left to go for more quality. And so they felt they couldn't wait.
Does that mean the allies were wrong? ....wait, I have another idea.
We were also talking about abortion. Does a woman have a right to
expel a potential human life? Some people say no, if she allows
herself to get pregnant she should at least go the 9 months and
bring forth the child. Others say yes, a woman should have control
over what gets in and what gets out of her womb. Personally, if a
doctor said to me, "Bill, it seems you're pregnant...a baby will be
popping out your butt in 9 months", well, I would have an abortion.
Sorry, but I only have so much time in this world and being an
incubator for another human life is *not* on the schedule! So I
couldn't tell a woman to have a baby. I'd be violating my own
sense of The Golden Rule.
Now, surely people would come to me and say, "please, have the baby,
this wondrous event should not be stopped. A most unique life is
emerging out of you. Don't be selfish!". I would of course feel some
sadness for the unrealized opportunity of the child, but it just
would not be enough. Think of it like this: if there is a human
life trapped down the hallway in a house that might explode into an
inferno at any given moment, I don't feel compelled by any
preconceived edit to put my own life at risk (or even some more
surface element of my life such as my nice un-burned flesh). If my
energy was right and my mind showed me a way, I might bring that
human life forth. But that would be *my* decision.
The decision to bomb Japan was very similar in nature to my
envisioned personal nightmare of having to sacrifice all or part of myself for
another. It's all the quality you think you can afford on the eve
of decision. You can always ask human beings for more, but you
cannot penalize them for what they might not possess. Or if you
do penalize them, then the penalty must fit the crime. If I let a
human life perish because I'm frozen by a fear of having my flesh
burned, people might call me a coward but they won't put me in jail.
If you think our modern day dilemma over abortion is tough, think
about the future. My example of a child that can be developed to
full term in a jar in a lab. A woman might say, "no, don't want
that!" She might be legally obliged to pay the father child
support! She may hate the idea of this man who she had sex with
(who turned out to be a terrible person) raising a child that she got
started. She may believe in keeping the population down.
I really admire the Catholics for the way they go after the root of
the problem of unwanted children. What they really advocate is the
notion that sex should be about the propagation of life rather then
recreational activity. But hey, there is some recreational value to
recreational sex, right? Our local Cardinal Mahoney has
pointed out that there is a correlation between abortion and the
rise in violence and a general disrespect for life. He sees the
truth in that and feels that is enough to explode the "bomb" of
legal social restraint on the idea of abortion. As I said, *I*
personally can't do that. But I can live with the notion of
practicing intelligent self-sacrifice to avoid the circumstances of having
to go to war or of having to take responsibility for another human life.
Anyway, is there a science of morality inherent in the MOQ?
Science is about material stuff, it's more like a philosophy of
morality. The great souls have always used science in preparing
themselves for the eve of decision. Eat right, learn everything you
can, keep your mind calmly active and actively calm...for them, the
10 commandments are really 10 guidelines for happiness. But as
Jesus said, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.
It's all very subtle.
Bill
mailto:elg14@earthlink.net
MOQ Online Homepage - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Unsubscribe - http://www.moq.org/md/index.html
MD Queries - horse@wasted.demon.nl
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:03:05 BST