Saturday, March 27, 2010

Is it a sin to build a nuclear weapon?

"Can we go along with the intent to use nuclear weapons? What it is wrong to do, it is wrong to intend to do. If it is wrong for met to kill you, it is wrong for me to plan to do it...Likewise, if I intended to use nuclear weapons in massive retaliation, I have already committed massive murder in my heart."

Richard T. McSorley, SJ

This is why I still love the Roman Catholic church. In spite of all the pedophilia, mysogony, patriarchal nonsense, there have been many good things and people to come from it. Father Richard McSorley was one of the good ones. He spent his life devoted to teaching nonviolence and bringing our attention to insane and sinful militarism.

The world now is full of nuclear weapons that can destroy humanity and life on the planet earth as we know it. The threat to use these weapons on our fellow human beings is satanic. It is crazy thinking. Our hearts have been poisoned by fears of our perceived enemies.

People want to feel safe and secure. Having weapons to defend oneself seems like a reasonable thing but they all too easily get used to exert one's power and control and they quickly get used for "pre-emptive" purposes. The U.S. has slipped down that slope and perpetrated great sin in the name of freedom and democracy. It is a cosmic joke to justify our carnage as pre-emptively necessary to our defense, and where will it stop? We ultimately will turn against ourselves as we did in the Civil War and do today as pro-life advocates kill abortion providers and teabaggers spit on our legislative representatives and call them racial slurs like niggers.

There is a poison in the human heart which is triggered by fear and the desire to control. We Unitarian Universalists proclaim a very different way of life which is based on the valuing of every human person, the interdependent web of all existence, the free and responsible search for truth and meaning, and justice, equity, and compassion in human relations.

The Unitarian Universalist values are truly remarkable and precious in our modern world which turns to militarism as its answer to the ugliness in the human heart. We Unitarian Universalists turn to our faith. We are ridiculed and mocked for it and marginalized as being irrelevant in a world far more cynical than we are willing to admit let alone accept.

We UUs believe that the Spirit of Life is stronger than any toxic fears and in the end will prevail in the Universe.

7 comments:

  1. Define 'Spirit Of Life.'

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  2. Sin is a mistake. It is being off the mark. It is going down the wrong road, being on the wrong track.

    Spirit Of Life is the Ground of Our Being. Some people, but not many, think of this as God but in this sense God is a verb not a noun. Spirit of Life is "Isness" and "Muchness".

    All the best,

    David Markham

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  3. So why not ask if it's a mistake to build a nuclear weapon? Or do you intend to imply a god is involved in the decision? And why all the capital letters? That is a literary devise to imply godliness is it not? Yet no god is necessary to understand or discuss the concepts and issues you raise. Do you assume that UUs would be incapable of grasping complex issues and having a rational discourse about them without belief in an imaginary supernatural being?

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  4. You rasie some interesting questions.

    I was approaching the problem from the context of a religious discourse. If you would rather approach it from a political or rational discourse, that is helpful too. I don't think one approach is necessarily better or worse than another. It depends on which discourse would resonate more meaningfully with the intended audience. UU A Way Of Life is targeted towards a religious audience. If the audience were different I would do you as you suggest and change the language and metaphors to better suit that audience.

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  5. How exactly do you know who your audience is? Or do you assume readers are all believers in God and Jesus because you do? You also identify as Roman Catholic. Do you also assume your readers do too? This guy says Satan is a Catholic, do you think so too?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKg4HLsu5gE&feature=sub

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  6. In don't "exactly" know who my audience is, nor do I assume that they all are believers in God and Jesus. In fact I assume that many of the readers do not believe in God and Jesus. I assume that most of my readers don't identify as Roman Catholic, but I want them to know that some extent I do because this is how I was brought up and lived most of my life. I didn't watch the youtube but I would agree that Satan might well be a Roman Catholic and since I believe in Universal salvation I also believe that someday Satan will make it to heaven with the rest of us.

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