It's impossible to read the majority of newspaper headlines in this day & age and deny the glaring fact; there is evil out there & it MUST be dealt with! Not only can one simply turn on the 6 o'clock news & see/hear about the latest atrocities that ISIS has perpetrated, or any other manner of evil occurrence, a simple Internet search has convinced many 'believers' that 'Satan IS alive & well on Planet Earth'! This is not to deny the existence of evil, but one can't help but wonder, sometimes ( if one is at all empathetic ) if much of the problem might have been avoided if, one, those 'on the receiving end' had acted ( rightly ) rather than ( reacted ( whether rightly or wrongly ).
The Foreign Policy of these United States of America ( lately, U.S.Inc ) seems to be more of a reactive one! The Preemptive Strike, lately popularized by G.W. Bush has taken that policy to new levels, with our armies seeming to react before or enemies even act. Of course, this ( evil ) has been going on for so long that it's next to impossible to nail down where/when it all began! It's said that 'revenge is a dish best served cold'; before the events of '9-11' when the World Trade Center in NYC was attacked, there was a long forgotten ( by most ) battle fought near the end of the Ottoman ( Muslim ) Empire. Before the recent attacks in Paris, there was the murder of Knights Templar in France. This is barely mentioning the fact that we in the West & most lately ( infamously ) the U.S., have been carrying out acts of terrorism in Eastern lands for hundreds, even thousands of years!
Some will immediately object to this line of reasoning, avowing that the American forces have committed justifiable homicide because their enemies were so evil, there could be no reasoning with them! Ignorant sayings like 'there's no good Muslim but a dead Muslim' & statements such as a current presidential candidate has been spewing forth are likely much of the reason that Muslims ( even the peaceable ones ) hate 'us' & everything 'we the people' stand for'. One could easily prove from the Quran that Islam is not a peaceful religion, but then again, another could as easily argue, from the Hebrew Scriptures, that neither is Judaism ( you thought I was gonna say 'Christianity', didn't you? ); one has merely to review the history of Christianity, though, to see that we have not proven ourselves to be a very peaceable religion either!
'So, other than the wars & desolations these past number of centuries have borne witness to', one might ask, 'how would you suggest we deal with the problem of evil?' Do you really think that if the Jews had shown love to Hitler, that whatever number is the latest ridiculous assertion might not have seen the inside of a gas chamber, or fallen bullet-riddled into mass graves? Are we to believe that if all those Cambodians had merely 'bowed the knee' to Pol Pot they would have been allowed a peaceful co-existence, or that if Christians simply convinced their captors that Jesus loves them, that ISIS would cease & desist their beheading of them?!
It's really no wonder that with the Foreign Policy of the U.S. Inc., that ISIS ( just the latest iteration of reactionaries from Eastern lands ) has reacted in such a manner; it's actually somewhat surprising that they haven't done more & worse! From some reports, ISIS is losing steam, but when they do finally reach the end of their rope, no doubt some other group will take up the reigns & continue to terrorize the 'panty-waisted cowards' here in the West. 'Why is that?' one might ask. Well, it's quite simple, actually!
The Problem of Evil stems from humanity, or as some might say, 'human religions'! When one person disagrees with another, they may simply, out of consideration for their relation to each other, agree to disagree, but when a group of people, no matter how they're related to another, religiously decides that they're right & everyone else is wrong, then is when wars & desolations start to make the evil felt; one can simply read a history of the Civil War to bear witness to this! This is not to say either that all Organized Religion is necessarily evil, there is one true religion, but all religions have those who adhere to this true religion & not so much to all the tenets of their chosen ( or forced ) religion!
For those who trust in newspaper headlines to fulfill prophecy rather than trusting the Works & Word who fulfilled all prophecy, it's easy to believe that as the evil ( seemingly ) continues to spread, we must meet fire with fire, we must nuke them before the nuke us ( so to speak )! Is there an alternative? It seems that there is no way out, that we can 'give peace a chance' till we're 'blue in the face', but don't hold your breath; things have going evil's way for so long that it's going to take at least that long for people to realize ( although it's been staring us in the face for all of history ) that there is always a choice! We can choose we to act rightly, no matter how else everyone else acts, or we can choose to react ( usually wrongly ) to their wrong actions. It's easy to react rightly when one does rightly towards you, but it is difficult to react rightly when someone treats you wrongly; what will you choose?
Charles Haddon Shank
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