BluffTHIS! 's Christian views on nuclear holocaust

[Lestat]

I'm not trying to stir up controversy. I meant what I said. I do not see religion as a good thing. I believe people have the right to believe what they want, worship whatever they want, and when they want. But I'm starting to resent how often it keeps popping up in my news. Maybe I'm just paying attention to it more.

I think I'm becoming an activist against religion. Not really... But I am starting to have much stronger feelings than I used to. I think some of this has to do with my exposure to SMP. But more and more I'm becoming undeniably annoyed every time some politician, terrorist, school board, or guy like Pat Robersten tries to attribute God to their cause. Maybe I'll make one last post/essay about why I think religion is damaging overall. Maybe not. It'll be hard to do tastefully.

As to 2+2, I've just decided it's taking up too much of my time.

[madnak]

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I'm not trying to stir up controversy. I meant what I said. I do not see religion as a good thing. I believe people have the right to believe what they want, worship whatever they want, and when they want. But I'm starting to resent how often it keeps popping up in my news. Maybe I'm just paying attention to it more.

I think I'm becoming an activist against religion. Not really... But I am starting to have much stronger feelings than I used to. I think some of this has to do with my exposure to SMP. But more and more I'm becoming undeniably annoyed every time some politician, terrorist, school board, or guy like Pat Robersten tries to attribute God to their cause. Maybe I'll make one last post/essay about why I think religion is damaging overall. Maybe not. It'll be hard to do tastefully.

As to 2+2, I've just decided it's taking up too much of my time.

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Well, I understand your annoyance. But I don't think suggesting that religion be outlawed is going to accomplish much. Unless you really think so, but the "right to believe" comment seems to indicate otherwise.

Good luck with staying away from 2+2. Probably harder than it sounds [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[soon2bepro]

I'll just drop a quote:


"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion." -Steven Weinberg

[Lestat]

"outlawed" was probably a poor choice of words.

How about banned?. Religion should be banned! Like smoking in public places. Everyone has the right to smoke, just don't make the rest of us breath it.

[Peter666]

What I don't get BluffTHIS is your unwavering support of Israel. Why should the West be involved in anything happening in the Middle East? Iran could never harm us, and even if they tried they could be put down very quickly and easily. What goes on between Israel and Iran is their problem, not ours. It would be equally horrible to have innocent Iranians killed as it would innocent Israelis through nuclear strikes. And so far, Israel is the one with the nukes.

Iran is not an imminent threat to the West outside of the Middle East, so the just war theory doesn't fly in this case.

[MidGe]

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How about:

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Stalin and Mao. Combined they account for roughly 90,000,000 people murdered. Add the rest of the atheistic communists and the sum of those murdered by communism is ~110,000,000.
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/COM.ART.HTM


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They were nutcases, but at least they weren't dillusioned about what they were doing and why.

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We are confusing things here, neither Stalin nor Mao ever justified their actions because there was no god, or on the basis of their atheism. However many theist leaders invoke god to justify their acts.

BTW, I believe that both Stalin and Mao were psychopaths.

[Peter666]

This is the typical "duh, look at me, I'm the fat communist Michael Moore" view of history. Tell me what was wrong with any of these actions: The Conquistadors, the Christian Crusades (all seven of them), the Spanish Inquisition, the Medieval Inquisition, the Roman Inquisition, the Portuguese Inquisition, etc...etc...etc...and Sieg Heil Jesus.

[BluffTHIS!]

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OK Hopey here goes. From the Catechism of the Catholic Church concerning just grounds for going to war:

The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time:

* the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;
* all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;
* there must be serious prospects of success;
* the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.

These are the traditional elements enumerated in what is called the "just war" doctrine. The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good.

Also:

Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation."109 A danger of modern warfare is that it provides the opportunity to those who possess modern scientific weapons especially atomic, biological, or chemical weapons - to commit such crimes.


So let's see how nuclear retaliation against Iran might square with that:

Lasting, grave and certain damage

A nuclear strike by Iran, either directly or through surrogates to whom they have given such a device, on western nations or Israel meets this criterion.

All other means to bring about a peaceful resolution have been shown to impractical or ineffective

Note that in the ultimatum I proposed Iran be given, that they are both being given a chance to avoid war first, and also only being asked to agree to conditions which are just, i.e. renounce support for terrorism against any state in the world and their threats to wipe out Israel, and also to give up developing nuclear weapons whose sole purpose is either to carry out those threats or avoid conventional military retaliation for sponsoring terrorism.

Serious prospects for success

Nothing more serious and successful than a nuclear attack when the enemy's ability to retaliate in kind has been removed.

Means proportionate to the end

Either retaliation for an actual nuclear strike, or prevention of such a strike when the prospects for same are highly likely, is a proportionate means, although one certain to inflict great civilian casualties as well.


Now I will admit that many catholic theologians would disagree with my views, but note that the catechism says that the prudential moral judgement for the means used rests with those charged with protecting the public good, i.e. our political leaders. The main reason some other catholics would disagree with such a nuclear strike is that I have advocated a pre-emptive strike, and pre-emptive to the degree of not just having intel that such a strike is imminent, but of preventing their avowed determination to produce such weapons.

Such a pre-emptive strike is justified in my mind by both the threats Iranian political leaders have made, and by their support of terrorists, and likely such support in the future which logically is likely to include nuclear weapons. It should be noted, that although it is true that producing a crude nuclear device and actually installing it on a ballistic missile or having the air cabpability to get to a distant country undamaged and drop it are two very different things. However, both China and Russia have shown a willingness to supply Iran with advanced weapons systems, and likely will with medium range missiles as well. In addition, intelligence sources believe that Iranian leaders favor as a method of use having terrorists drive nuclear devices into target cities and detonating them, a method very hard for us to detect in advance.

So again, I am all in favor of diplomacy and when that fails as it has, giving Iran via ultimatum a chance to back away from the precipice. But in view of the horrendous casualties that both Israel and western nations could suffer from a nuclear weapon by an enemy who has made such threats to "wipe out" another country, then we must not allow Iran to develop such weapons, and such effective action to prevent same will necessarily produce large collateral civilian casualties.

Although with other nuclear superpowers we can only retaliate after the fact, we can and should prevent rogue nations from becoming regional nuclear powers when they are so hostile. And we must use effective means to do so.

I do not relish the prospect of using such measures, and pray that it won't be necessary. But I also will not shrink from using such measures to prevent extreme regimes morally equivalent to Nazi Germany in their hostile intentions from acquiring the means to deal death and detruction to ourselves and our friends.

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Hopey, this thread kinda got sidetracked, and I haven't seen you respond to my post which I quote above again. Just wondering if you read it.

[Hopey]

Hi BluffTHIS!,

I have read your response, and while I do not agree with your reasoning, I see that you have given it much thought and feel that you can justify it as being in keeping with your faith. Actually, if anything, I find it a little scary that you can justify killing thousands and thousands of innocent people as being "Christian". This is similar to the kind of thinking that has lead Osama Bin Laden to believing that inciting acts of terrorism is being a true Muslim.

My feelings on the subject is that it is in no way necessary to use nuclear weapons in order to prevent Iran from using them against us (actually, against Israel, most likely). The west knows where the nuclear materials are being produced -- this isn't being done in secret. It should be sufficient to destroy the reactor site in order to prevent the materials from being produced. People would die in this sort of endeavour, but they would number in the 100's at most, not in the thousands or millions. I can almost guarantee that this will be what happens within the next year. The west will never allow Iran to possess a nuclear bomb.

Your statements that the people of Iran somehow "deserve" to be nuked because they aren't rising up against their government are absurd. They have as much chance of overthrowing their government as you have in overthrowing yours. They might be terrified that their government is leading them into war, but feel (rightfully so) that they are powerless to do anything about it. In a country like Iran, if you dissent, you die. Most Iranians are far more worried about their own government killing them than the Americans killing them for not overthrowing the government.

[Cyrus]

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No matter what religion you belong to, or what god you believe in, it's always perfectly acceptable to slaughter millions of innocents as long as it's in the name of your God.

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This is why religion should be outlawed world-wide.

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Do you think that if religion was outlawed

(a) people would stop slaughtering each other ?

or that

(b) people would find other excuses to continue slaughtering each other ?