Proposition One
IF GOD EXISTS...
Is It a God of life, or a god of death?
Is war peace? Does might make right?
Humanity may choose to be governed by law which serves
life/liberty, or may choose death/slavery. But not both.
Mathematically, despite reductions, the combined nuclear arsenals of the United States
and the Soviet Union are still equal to the killing power of a couple of tons of TNT for every man, woman, and child on earth.
Should nuclear weapons fall from the heavens, plunging humanity
into a hell of flame and nuclear aftermath, why blame God?
After all, wouldn't it have been human hands that framed the
delivery vehicles that carried the firemaking warheads into the
heavens, and human ingenuity which guided the fire back to
destroy the earth's inhabitants? Isaiah 29:16.
The problem is largely visionary. Ask yourself, are the values
which guide this country any more than dollars and cents?
Certainly there are not many who would proclaim unequivocally
that they placed a higher value on cars and boats than on human
life, but actions (or inaction) tell the tale.
In truth haven't Bill Clinton, George Bush, Ronald Reagan and the
country they've led been possessed solely by a cult of
materialism? Haven't we burdened future generations with
unbearable debts, unbreathable air, undrinkable water, and the
very real possibility of extinction?
For example, prior to adopting the "free Kuwait" slogan in 1990,
and subsequently carpet-bombing the Iraqi desert with artillery
shells made of depleted uranium (Village Voice, January 15,
1991), President Bush more closely approximated truth by stating
"our way of life ... depends on the vast oil resources in the
middle east." Bush proceeded, in a theater of operations where
nuclear weapons stood in the wings, to proclaim his values more
loudly than words by dropping megatons of munitions on human
beings to secure control of vast oil reserves. The radioactive
dust which blew back onto U.S. soldiers was reported in February
1994 by CBS News as a likely cause of the infamous "Gulf War
Syndrome" which the government initially tried (and failed) to
blame on Iraq.
Of course, a huge stockpile of weaponry was expended in that show
of unstoppability. Since then, arms manufacturers have been
happily accepting orders for new, ever-more-lethal weapons from
all over the world.
In the aftermath of this "great American victory,"
tele-theologians have concocted and disseminated visions which
characterize Jesus as a patriotic prince of war, and encourage
the idea that the Creator's fury was always intended to rain down
from heaven as fire. Truly, it seems, "the eyes of the seers
have been covered." Isaiah 29:10.
Mega-dollar preachers overlook an important principle:
"He that leads into captivity shall go into captivity; he that
kills with the (bomb) must be killed by the (bomb). Here is the
patience and faith of the saints." Revelation 13:10.
Assuming that God is life, how can those who profess to follow
Jesus while supporting carpet bombing hope to evade the fact that
their service was to mammon?
Obviously mega-death is in service to mammon. Of course, it's
only a matter of time before the arms merchants and
manufacturers, transporters, and users will be blown up along
with everyone else. Meantime, they enjoy their homes, lawns,
cars and boats in uneasy denial. And they should be uneasy.
While homes, lawns, cars and boats are not, of course,
intrinsically evil, it IS evil to imagine that these things are
of greater value than human life.