Jesus Approves Bombing

Alan Archibald, 2001

If you would not be robbed, do not fill your house with jade. Lao Tzu

It is not strange that such an exuberance of enterprise should cause some individuals to mistake change for progress. Millard Fillmore

All our lauded technological progress -- our very civilization -- is like the axe in the hand of the pathological criminal.    Albert Einstein

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the  genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children... This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.  Dwight Eisenhower, April 16, 1953.

America! America! 

God shed his grace on thee 

Til selfish gain no longer stain 

The banner of the free!

                                   America the Beautiful (seventh verse)

Some people never see the light til it shines through bullet holes.  Bruce Cockburn

***

A veteran of Russia's Afghan war commented that 'the most dangerous thing about the mujahedin is that they know how to die. They look you in the eye and they're ready to die."

On October 9th, al Qaeda spokesman Suliman Abu Geith said: "Americans must know that the storm of airplanes will not stop. There are yet thousands of young people who look forward to death like Americans look forward to life." 

In an interesting - and unexpected parallel - Martin Luther King Jr. held that "If a man hasn't discovered something he will die for, he isn't fit to live."

Clearly, the willingness to die - and more particularly, to die for a cause - unleashes the most powerful force on earth. Readiness to die inspires boldness and determination. 

The ability to "lay oneself down with a will" stems from such chthonic faith that self-interested caution and the need to subject personal judgment to rational analysis are thrown to the wind.

The early Christian, Tertullian, said: "I believe because it's absurd." 

In the late 1970s, Franciscan Father Bill Cieslak asked me if I knew that "the chief difference between first century Christians and our contemporaries is that first century Christians looked forward to dying."

Not only did they anticipate death with a certain giddiness, if they were fortunate enough to be slaughtered by infidels, death's goodness doubled since "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church."

Rev. Cieslak held that we moderns, even those of us who consider ourselves Christians, have grown tentative - don't quite believe that paradise is preferable to our earthly pleasure domes. 

Until the second World War, Christians perceived this world as a "valley of tears." Since then, our planet has become a much more pleasurable - if not joyful - place.

Propelled by the astonishing engine of capitalist productivity, most Americans have become "little kings." Our refrigerators, medicine chests and entertainment centers overflow with pleasure, healing and amusement. Our material advantages beggar the perquisites of recent royalty.

Not only have we become little kings, increasingly we have become "like gods" and are proud of the many accomplishments that position us at the top of the global pecking order.

Immediately after the 9/11 horror, Jeff Immelt, the new head of General Electric, exemplified America's brash dominion when he said: "My second day as chairman, a plane I lease, flying with engines I built, crashed into a building that I insure, and it was covered with a network I own."  

As a people, we feel at home with psychological "inflation," with grotesquely distorted egomania. In the marketplace, we admire the bloated sense of plutocratic grandeur that persuades Mr. Immelt his dominion is vast and quickly approaching infinity.

An unbridled sense of ownership has become a hallmark of "The American Way." This boundless sense of dominion bubbled to the surface in our initial response to the Twin Towers tragedy when military "intelligence" dubbed our pending war-on-terror, "Infinite Justice." 

America's limitless pretensions are, at least, matched by the straightforwardness of our global and globalizing egotism. 

Alternatively, the Islamic world believes infinity is an attribute of God alone. In a peculiar way, America's self-deification does impute infinite justice to God --- the god we've made of ourselves. 

Make no mistake. The attacks of 9/11 were abominations. 

Nothing so heinous has ever occurred on American soil.

There is no justification for these attacks. . 

Still, Islamic anger is more understandable than Dubyah's naive lamentation: "Why would anyone want to do this to us?" 

Republicans coined the phrase "Culture Wars." True believers throughout the GOP invested so much righteous anger in Culture Warfare that, for the last eight years, half the American political establishment defamed, ambushed and assassinated the character of the other half.

What we have now is Culture War gone global.

Many Islamics (not just fundamentalists) see American life as essentially sacrilegious. Where we see "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," many Islamics see "indulgent superfluity, libertinism, and self-centered individualism." 

Ironically, Republicans and Islamics are similarly attuned to the cultural corrosiveness of modernity. Until now, our modern Moloch has fed on the destruction of tradition, the trivialization born of novelty, the disposability of relationships, the propagation  of suck/fuck violence as freedom of speech, and the imposition of Value Void on our children. Moloch has rendered us a nation of cynics, those exquisitely prissy creatures whom Oscar Wilde defined as "know(ing) the price of everything and the value of nothing."

Although our outrage at the toppling of Twin Towers will eventually fade, we are, for the first time, stunned by our erstwhile use of violence as entertainment. We no longer stomach the "amusement of violence" as innocuous voyeurism. Suddenly, it has

become obscene to "cop a feel" from the gratuitous suffering of others, even though 24/7 repetition of the Trade Center videotape, was, in itself, obscenely voyeuristic. In this new milieu, even "la la land" moguls stumble over corpse litter to forswear their recent sins. 

Tragically, the military-industrial-educational complex is a resilient beast that expands its domain by claiming the impossiblity of "going back." Modernity depends on the idolization of progress and the ever-receding horizon of "manufactured need." 

Consumptive growth depends on the normalization of anxiety and the banal belief  that "s/he who dies with the most toys wins."

Those culture warriors who try to turn back the clock are dismissed as foolhardy opponents of progress, a ragtag band of soapbox orators promoting impossible dreams.

After all, "time marches on."

At least until 9/11 when the clock stopped.

That morning, the over-developed world was brought to standstill by three meticulously guided missiles. (It is a useful exercise to constrast this ruination with our bombardment of North Viet Nam, a "conflict" in which more ordnance was dropped on a land mass the size of Missouri than the total tonnage exploded over Europe in World War II.)

Even now, weeks later, the threat of more violence shreds domestic tranquility.

Everything is different. 

Modernity - even post-modernity - are sudden shards of hastily moulted skin.

While Christians, Jews and Buddhists accommodate the Religion of  Progress (and the degrading "acceleration of culture" that sucks at the same teat,) Islam has pointed slowly and deliberately at the purported superiority of seventh century Mecca.

Although none of us will undertake hajj, the crush of recent events (and the near inevitability of "another shoe dropping") open a strangely liberating panorama. Suddenly, we realize our ability to step aside, to pause, to turn our fixated gaze from the icons of fatuity to the contemplation of real alternatives.

Four days after September's calamity, I had dinner with a group of physicians and molecular biologists. Dr. K. - recently retired from an illustrious career in surgery - reflected on his experience as a Second World War Navy officer. This new war, he said, is categorically different from "The Good War" and that we must find new means of engagement. 

Dr. K. went on to lament the passing of Martin Luther King Jr., suggesting that the only way to overcome suicidal servants of hatred is to embark a path often praised but seldom followed: "Love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you." 

In a word, well-coordinated nonviolence may be the only way to defeat an enemy whose far-flung minions are scattered like lymph-borne cancer through the body of humankind. 

Even the lens of aggressive self-interest goes bump against the futility of bombardment. Twenty years ago no one suggested we bomb Italy to eliminate the Red Brigade: now, it seems equally absurd to advocate "massive damage" on a hapless population victimized by "terrorist occupation."

Gandhi said "the only people in the world who do not see Jesus as non-violent are Christians." Christendom clings desperately to Jesus' whip-weilding in the temple as the only Gospel validation of violence, even though there's no good reason to believe he did more than crack it.

We dread the impotence of nonviolence, the inability to pound our foes into certain submission. We share a dismal certainty that nonviolence wields no political clout. 

Yet, within living memory, Mahatma Gandhi, ambling half-naked across the Indian subcontinent, crystallized the soul power of non-violent satyagraha to topple the British empire. As an indicator of Gandhi's power, Liverpool (my former home) - which was the busiest harbor in the world in 1935 - shut down ALL port activity in 1985.

Within the United States, Martin Luther King's nonviolent organization turned the tide on social injustices that had festered since colonialism.

Americans have always lacked patience, a word whose Latin root asks us "to suffer" willingly.

Although each of us is signatory to the "comfortable disease of progress," King also pointed out that "unearned suffering is redemptive."

While burning our material offerings at the altar of Progress, I wonder if we've sought peace and justice with the passion we've invested in pleasure, consolation, convenience, comfort and other forms of trivial pursuit.

It is widely assumed that non-violence can only be effective in a world more civilized than our own, that Gandhi himself was successful because he appealed to the British sense of "fair play."

Still, if we're hurtling toward a new form of "mutually assured destruction," the mere chance that non-violence may "work" becomes an appealing possibility despite well-reasoned, but ultimately suicidal, chest-thumping. 

Buckminster Fuller, the renowned design scientist known for innovative practicality, observed that "the most idealistic is the realistically most practical."

If  Fuller is right - or if he's even close to the mark - our refusal to take Jesus and Buddha at their word is at least counterproductive. If the exacerbation of terrorism takes a nuclear turn - and we should consciously acknowledge that Pakistan is undergoing rapid radicalization - our ignorance would be self-destructive as well.

The current conflict - like all conflicts of the Christian era - asks us to decide whether Semitic fondness for "the law of the Talion" will be superceded by the new covenant of love whose foremost spokesman enjoins us: "Resist not evil. Love your enemies."

Clarity requires acknowledgement that non-violence invites violence, that innocent people will be injured and killed, that non-violence deliberately flirts with "crucifixion" --- in the hope of subsequent resurrection. 

Given these liabilities, it's difficult to propagate non-violence. 

Until now, nation states simply isolated "the enemy" - located "the evil" over there - contrasted light and darkness with the starkness of Caravaggio. Now, the planet has assumed a sort of cortical covering in which "light" and "darkness" are the "conscious" and "unconscious" components of a single social Mind.

As this indivisible singularity becomes increasingly apparent - as we begin to perceive humankind as one continuous society - we progressively realize that "the conscious mind" cannot amputate its unconscious component without killing itself. (See Philoctetes footnote.) Rather, the conscious mind can only struggle to bring the unconscious to light, to deploy a modicum of orderly co-existence between these "psychological components," to realize that the Apollonian and the Dionysian needn't be locked in deadly battle.  

In the uncertainty surrounding recent events, I recall St. Augustine's dictum: "We know to the extent that we love." 

Perhaps the world has arrived at a millennial crossroad. Christ meant something when he said "Love your enemies." Might we be called upon to embrace "the shadow that can never be dispelled?"

After an initial outburst of thunderous sabre-rattling, President Bush and his advisors have been curiously thoughtful, unusually measured as they  weigh options. 

It could be they're making damn sure of their ability to kick ass, inflicting great damage with minimal allied losses.

This strange calm may also signify dawning recognition that killing and suicide are bound in more intimate embrace than commonly thought. 

Perhaps some baby-boomer on the president's staff recalled Marshall McLuhan's quip: "To the spoils belongs the victor." 

Carl Jung observed that if we push any human trait far enough, it suddenly transforms into its opposite. I remember attending a meeting of the John Birch Society in 1970. I went to amuse myself, expecting to chortle up my sleeve at this near view of benighted right-wingers. To my surprise, the Birchers, held a philosophy cheek-by-jowl with the extreme left. It was the John Birch Society that first criticized fluorine in water, a trait belittled in "Dr. Strangelove." Nowadays, "essential dogma" for anyone left of center is to "keep one's bodily fluids pure." And so, rigorous dietary vigilance has become a new religion. In similar vein, a Chapel Hill landfill administrator - who's also a card-carrying ecologist - recently confessed his shock at having abandoned leftist orthodoxy for a more libertarian view: "The federal government's political center of gravity is just too high."

As more and more life cycles come full-circle, perhaps military slaughter looks a little too much like suicide.

In any event, it remains a kindergarten truism that the only way to eliminate an enemy is to make him your friend, particularly when one's enemy is a Hydra-headed exemplar of the battle cry: "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church!" Bin Laden brags - probably with good reason - "Kill me and a hundred Osamas take my place."

Recently, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney voiced a seldom-articulated truth: "In politics you need two things. One is good friends. But mostly, you need a good enemy."

Soon after the Soviet Empire collapsed, we began to see the paradoxical difficulty of living in a uni-polar world, a world without "good enemies." Apparently, the universe is designed to manifest polarity - positive/negative, good/bad, ying/yang, us/them, conscious/unconscious. 

To some extent, "the devil must be given his due." Just as Yahweh joined Satan to wager amicably for Job's soul, so "the unconscious" must be granted a role in the universal design. Without assignation of purpose, the unconscious grows embittered and vengeful.  

By trying to eliminate any "ordained" polarity, we defy the natural - and supernatural - order of things. Therefore, it is with considerable apprehension that I regard America's fondness for defiance. 

This much is certain: post-Soviet uni-polarity enabled the blitzkrieg emergence of "globalization," and the consequent alienation of cultures ignored or marginalized by "the new global order."

Suddenly, we witness the chthonic re-emergence of bipolarity. On the one hand swarm the "advocates of globalizing modernization"; on the other, "the gathering hordes of 'primitive' Islam." (This analysis overlooks "the sleeping giant" China, but that's another story)

Although I hope for a "kinder, gentler" reprise of Desert Storm --- with far fewer "points of light" illuminating the Afghani/Iraqi/Libyan/Syrian/Iranian/Cuban skies --- I also fear that Dubyah is a cheerleader at heart, and that finally, he has found his calling. From the sidelines of belligerence, he'll exhort the crowd to re-work his father's will, to "finish" the affair, to vindicate one of the most questionable adventures in the annals of American warfare.

Given the ferocity of Taliban barbarism, this essay affords no seamless entry to reflect on the grandeur of traditional Afghan culture. Much of the country lies in ruin, a tangled web of geopolitical debris wasted by Afghanistan's employment as proxy battlefield for the United States and the Soviet Union.

Nevertheless, two stories beg telling.

1.) In the late 60s, musician Tommy Graham left our Toronto community to study sitar and other Asian instruments. He was gone a year. When he returned, he found it impossible to describe the wonders of Afghanistan. Tommy had journeyed in many countries and experienced a wide range of culture. Afghanistan towered above the field. Its gentility, artisanry, amicability and warm welcome were second to none. 

2.) In the early seventies, I studied Community and Public Health Planning at the University of Cincinnati. where I enjoyed a year-long platonic romance with an Afghan woman named Maliha Zulfacar. I should perhaps mention that Maliha's mother was the first Afghan woman to train and practice as an architect. Although Maliha welcomed the opportunity to study in the States, she was dismayed by certain aspects of American culture, chiefly the disposability of things. In particular, Maliha disapproved the disposability of people, the deliberate engagement of sexual intimacy with no intention for the relationship to mature or endure. 

In the Spring of 1972, after completing her masters degree, Maliha returned to Afghanistan. Shortly before we lost touch, I realized Maliha was suspended between two radically divergent cultures. In her last letter, she described her daily rounds: up at dawn, she milked the family cow and then walked it to highland pasture. There, she spent her days in contemplation. 

Pascal believed that "most of humankind's problems arise from our inability to sit still." 

We are compulsively busy people, parsecs from realizing how our very achievements - as spectacular as they appear in our resumés - contribute to the exponential acceleration of culture. All of us are Systematically suborned to insure that "haste makes waste." 

We cannot be still. We are estranged from meditative centeredness. We know nothing of contemplative poise. Often, prayer reduces to formality or anachronism. 

We are restless meddlers with no tolerance for calm or quiet. The stillness that humankind has traditionally conceived as peace is now viewed as menace. We hold as axiomatic that "change is good." We welcome novelty for its own sake and remain oddly credulous at claims of "new and improved." Amidst this ceaseless sea-change, we welcome the background noise of information. We grope for NPR before the car is out of "park." As soon as the screen door bangs behind us, we ignite a squawk box. It doesn't matter which one - television, radio, video game, computer - they all serve the same purpose of avoiding the void, insuring that sunyatta and "self-emptying" never blip on radar. 

Ruled by the Golden Calf, we have made impatience a virtue.

"In your patience, you shall possess your soul."

We are fast becoming a soul-less people, persuaded that superior intelligence ordains us as "missionaries to the world." Mohammed Ali observed that "white people are really smart, but they sure are crazy." Malcolm X noted: "The white man seems tone deaf to the total orchestration of humankind." 

What little balance we display is attributable to the mutual cancellation of extremes --- drinking diet soda while eating éclairs; dropping bombs and rations on alternating sorties. 

I ponder this noise and hurry, this sound and fury. I wonder at our simulacra of "balance," and am haunted by the thought that "This won't end well." 

Still, I'm open to being surprised. The law of unintended consequences generates outcomes that range from "surprising" to "weirdly ironic." 

For example, the United States supported both Saddam Hussein and the Taliban. 

Given our track record, what might we reasonably expect from the next Islamic leader on whom our favor rests?  

On September 30th, Attorney General John Ashcroft announced that fresh terrorist attacks on the United States were likely, and that the risk of such strikes could increase after military action in Afghanistan. No sooner did those strikes begin than the percentage of Americans' expecting terrorist reprisal rose from 22% to 43%. 

Am I missing something, or do most folks think military action jeopardizes national security? 

Under these circumstances, it is surpassingly strange that we don't even ask whether national security might be enhanced by investing new military outlays on domestic anti-terrorism instead.

Although Ronald Reagan referred to the  Soviet Union as "the focus of evil in the modern world," the USSR - in the end - was torn apart by centrifugal force, not by military conquest. A seventy year diet of dialectical materialism sapped the spiritual vitality of a whole people. Starved for any meaning that transcended "bread, vodka and a state-subsidized apartment," the communist superstructure simply collapsed.

Likewise, Rome and England - and their Mayan/Aztec counterparts - saw their empires crumble without any defining military moment. 

Yes, the Second World War was, arguably, "a good war."

But it's difficult to say the same about other wars and "conflicts." 

The Canadians, for example, never undertook to revolt against England, yet Canada is an exceptionally peaceful, humanitarian country, singularly dedicated to the Common Good. Some go so far as to argue that Canada is the only civilized country in the hemisphere. Is it possible that our Revolutionary War sowed the seed of "justifiable" warfare in the American character? (Recently I watched the Disney classic, Johnny Tremain with my two children. In one scene, "the clever Minutemen," camouflaged by buckskin, hide in the woods, killing the redcoats invisibly. The well disciplined Brits would soon re-assemble and resume their fatal march. Watching this scene in horror, I realized that "the redcoats" marked the apogee of "civilized" warfare - making sure that only clearly-identified combatants would be targeted - whereas the stealthy Minutemen impressed me as the original terrorists. I was embarrassed for my country, pausing the tape to explain to Maria and Daniel that these "peekaboo" killers were behaving monstrously.)

The Civil War? Lincoln originally viewed the demise of slavery as an imminent inevitability, and believed the South would spontaneously abandon the practice within 20 years. 

The First World War? Near as I can tell its chief purpose was to lay groundwork for the Second. 

Viet Nam? Korea? 

The 90 plus military interventions perpetrated by the United States in Latin America? Chile? Guatemala (where 200,000 Mayan peasants died)? Nicaragua? 

It's time for proponents of realpolitik to take a close look at "wu wei"  the ancient Chinese philosophy of passive resistance that undergirds ju jitsu and other martial arts. Similarly, we might consider Christ's blunt admonition to "Love your enemies" or his enigmatic enjoinder, "Do not resist evil."  We need to recognize that "cycles of violence" only end when someone breaks the cycle, when someone inserts a rose in pointed gun or cannon, when everyone is so sick of slaughter that "peace" is finally swallowed like a bitter draught.

              

Washington is abuzz about "a new kind of warfare," but no one is asking key questions concerning values and the cross-cultural conflicts they engender. Notice that the entire nation shut down in the wake of 9-11 except for the "Buy Channel" whose agents were "ready to take your call" 24/7. 

All of us - particularly those on the Left - are unflinchingly self-righteous when we derogate certain elements of Islam: its treatment of women comes immediately to mind. We conduct little searching dialogue, and none that is humbling. 

Several weeks before the Twin Tower attack, the United States and Israel "walked out" of the Durban Racism Conference,  the decade's most significant forum on racial/ethnic divisions. Other American and European nations stayed at the table and hammered out a respectable document that brought to light important issues systematically stonewalled by the U.S. and Israel. 

We proudly proclaim that terrorists will not dictate our actions, and - like Timothy McVeigh - claim to be "captain of our own soul." Yet the Twin Towers grabbed our attention and won't let go. We say we will not negotiate with terrorists. Yet we plan to "drain the swamp," devising a Marshall plan to rebuild Afghanistan and all the nascent nations in its geographical orbit. What if we had been equally responsive (or "proactive" as bureaucrats like to say) when we had our chance in Durban? 

Osama bin Laden and his minions are sociopaths. They probably would have attacked anyhow. Still, had Washington undertaken creative dialogue in Durban, the entire Islamic balance of power would have tipped  however slightly - in our direction. What would happen if - immediately - we reopened the conversation begun at Durban?.  

Absent any soul-searching discussion, we re-dedicate ourselves to business-as-usual. We immerse ourselves in the fever pitch of Yankee ingenuity. Our finest engineers re-double their efforts to devise technical solutions to problems that are essentially spiritual. 

This idolatrous adulation of technique recalls last year's photo-finish presidential election, and subsequent obsession with voting machine technology. Predictably, MIT and Cal Tech are now collaborating on a "fool-proof voting booth." 

However, as Camus said: "Genius is a profound grasp of the obvious," and so, in our benightedness there is no mention of Canada's refusal to use any sort of voting machinery, but instead utilizes hand-held paper ballots with squares directly opposite each candidate's name. Canadians actually check their choice on a single, integral ballot with no intervening technology. A fringe benefit of manual voting - and manual counting - is that it takes so long to come up with a dependable vote count that no figures are released until voting booths have closed in all time zones.

Wendell Berry observed that "the problem is not bad politics, but a bad way of life." 

Still, it is unpopular - verging damnable - to indict the American way at such a tragic time. 

Nevertheless, correction is needed most when wanted least. 

The brilliance of the American spirit will be dimmed unless we honor the suspicions of the world's 50 Islamic nations and probe them in open dialogue.  

The brightest light casts the deepest shadow. 

Despite its seductive allure, it is wrong to stare at the light until blinded by it. 

For the sake of wholeness and healing, we must explore the shadow and learn its lessons well.

The shadow knows.

***

Footnote on Philoctetes. 

This essay was inspired by a long-dormant memory of the mythic Greek warrior Philoctetes. Since it is too difficult to make a rational argument concerning his relevance to our current quandary, I include this footnote. 

Philoctetes was the only figure whom Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripedes made their common protagonist. 

Why was Philoctetes - a relatively minor hero - so valued by the ancient Greeks?

"Philoctetes. A Greek chieftain who inherited the bow and arrows of Heracles. He started with seven ships for the Trojan War, but was bitten on the way by a serpent at Lemnos. On account of the stench of the wound the other Greeks left him behind and went on to Troy. As an oracle, however, declared that Troy could be taken only by the arrows of Heracles, Odysseus and Diomedes went to Lemnos to fetch Philoctetes. He accompanied them to Troy, was healed by Machaon, slew Paris, and returned safely home. The drama Philoctetes by Sophocles still exists. The legend was dramatized also by Aeschylus and Euripedes." The New International Encyclopedia, Dodd, Mead and Company, NYC, 1916

"Homer states that Philoctetes was distinguished for his prowess with the bow; that he was bitten by a snake on the journey to Troy and left behind on the island of Lemnos; and that he subsequently returned home in safety. In the post-Homeric accounts, Philoctetes or his father had been given the bow and arrows of Heracles (see Hercules) as a reward for kindling the fire on Mr. Oeta, on which the hero immolated himself. Philoctetes remained at Lemnos till the tenth year of the war. An oracle having declared that Troy could not be taken without the arrows of Heracles, Odysseus and Diomedes (or Neoptolemus) were sent to fetch Philoctetes. On his arrival before Troy he was healed of his wound by Machaon, and slew Paris; shortly afterwards the city was taken." Encyclopedia Britannica, William Benton, Publisher, 1957

Why is Philoctetes' relevant to our current conundrum?

In a word, Philoctetes stank. The stench was so repellent that he was cut off from the body politic, relegated to isolation, treated as an unapproachable pariah. However, until he was reincorporated by society - until he was given a role - his fellows could make no headway in their common desire to defeat Troy. 

If Islamic terrorists are, on some level, mythic representatives of Philoctetes, we are unlikely to make significant progress in our war on terrorism until we actively engage open dialogue. Ironically, everyone sees the need for dialogue between Jews and Palestinians, even though our current wrath impels us to re-enact the mutual escalation that brought these ancient and honorable cultures to the brink of fratricidal destruction.

The prospect of open dialogue with bin Laden is no more welcome than trench warfare knee-deep in rotting corpses.

The alternative will likely be worse.

***

"The impasse contained in the scientific viewpoint itself can only be broken through by the attainment of a view of nothingness which goes further than, which transcends the nihil of nihilism.  The basic Buddhist insight of Sunyata, usually translated as "emptiness," "the void," or "no-Thingness," that transcends this nihil, offers a viewpoint that has no equivalent in Western thought.

The consciousness of the scientist, in his mechanized, dead and dumb universe, logically reaches the point where --- if he practices his science existentially and not merely intellectually -- the meaning of his own existence becomes an absurdity and he stands on the rim of the abyss of nihil face to face with his own nothingness.  People are not aware of this dilemma.  That it does not cause great concern is in itself a symptom of the sub-marine earthquake of which our most desperate world-problems are merely symptomatic.

... It is becoming ever clearer that the terrors of war, hunger and despoliation are neither economic, nor technological problems for which there are economic or technological solutions. They are primarily spiritual problems..." Frederick Franck

Frederick Franck was born into a non-observant Jewish family in Holland. He was subsequently baptized a Protestant. After graduating as a dentist, Franck began the first dental clinic at Albert Schweitzer's hospital in West Africa.  Later, having embarked a career as writer and artist, Mr. Franck heeded Pope John XXIII's call to build a society of peace on earth (Pacem in Terris.)  Franck became the official artist of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) and, as a tribute to Pope John, has created a temple of all faiths called Pacem in Terris on his property in Warwick, New York.

It is becoming increasingly apparent that we shall not have the benefits of this world for much longer. The imminent and expected destruction of the life cycle of world ecology can only be prevented by a radical shift in outlook from our present naive conception of this world as a testing ground to a more mature view of the universe as a comprehensive matrix of life forms. Making this shift is essentially religious, not political or economic.  Vine DeLoria Jr.    

Our society is dedicated almost entirely to the celebration of the ego, with all its sad fantasies about success and power, and it celebrates those very forces of greed and ignorance that are destroying the planet.  Sogyal Rinpoche, Tibetan monk     

Nothing more strangely indicates an enormous and silent evil of modern society than the extraordinary use which is made nowadays of the word "orthodox." In former days the heretic was proud of not being a heretic. It was kingdoms of the world and the police and the judges who were heretics. He was orthodox... All the tortures torn out of forgotten hells could not make him admit that he was heretical... The word "heresy" not only means no longer "being wrong"; it practically means being clear-headed and courageous. The word "orthodoxy" not only no longer means being right, it practically means being wrong... (This) means that people care less for whether they are philosophically right... The dynamiter, laying a bomb, ought to insist that, whatever else he is, at least he is orthodox... General theories are everywhere contemned... We will have no generalizations... We are more and more to discuss art, politics, literature. A man's opinion on tramcars matters; his opinion on Botticelli matters; his opinion on all things does not matter. He may turn over and explore a million objects, but he must not find that strange object, the universe, for if he does, he will have a religion and be lost. Everything matters, except everything.   G. K. Chesterton 

There are two ways of lying as there are two ways of deceiving customers. If the scale registers 15 ounces, you can say "It's a pound." Your lie will remain relative to an invariable measure of the true. If customers check it, they can see they're being robbed, and you know by how much you're robbing them: a truth remains as a judge between you. But if the demon induces you to tamper with the scale itself, it is the criterion of the true which is denatured, and there is no longer any possible control. And little by little, you will forget that you are cheating.  Denis de Rougement

Unless the cause of peace-based-on-law gathers behind it the force and zeal of a religion, it hardly can hope to succeed......There must be added that deep power of emotion which is a basic ingredient of religion.   Einstein 

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. Einstein