@Theaetetus,
Catchabula wrote:-Xris, I don't know you and I don't hate you, I hate very few people (there are some). You are quite indifferent to me at the moment as a person, but that may change if you want to take the trouble; you can always send me a little note. I was not attacking you, I was attacking the army. Why would you feel attacked here, unless you are associating with something I hate?
Catch, that same seed of hate you embrace against the armies and war is the same seed of hate that's causing it.
Catchabula wrote:One is what one chooses, no? I'll try to give an example that even I can understand. I may know my neighbour or not, I m open for any further (personal) contact. But then my neighbour proves to be the leader of the local fascist party. His windows are covered with racist slogans, his children are in uniform... Should I still ask about his hobbies, or about his car? Making abstraction of the dimension of "identity though choice" is actually a hypocrite thing to do.
Looks like you are allowing your neighbor to have an effect on you. To me, that doesn't make any sense. What your neighbor does is his business, what you do is yours. If you let his actions bother you that much, then the problem is not with your neighbor at all...
Catchabula wrote:I only think that personal ("existential") choices and associations are important and fundamental, and those who have joined the army have made an awful choice.
Is that statement true? Do you know that it's true? The awful choice, couldn't this be your perception of it? That decision to join the army was theirs to make, why therefore should it have such an effect on you? The awful choice being made is how we allow something to effect us that should have no effect on us.
Anonymity is a thing of the past. If we want to find the exact name and location of anyone on this forum, it can be done with
exactness. 5 and 10 years ago anonymity was really something but today we are moving towards transparency and frankly, there is no hiding anymore.
Transparency in the world which is actually good because it may ultimately stop the fighting in the end. It also makes us responsible for what we say and do. The internet used to be something you logged onto and played with. Signed up in forums to take on another personality and went wild with posts. Today is different.
The same energy is takes to hate the war is the same energy that allows it to continue. Hate is not productive at all. Seeds of hate produce more hate. Hate creates hate. Love creates love. Is there a rocket scientist in the room to confirm this?
Catchabula wrote:Why should I hide behind hypothetical reasoning or playful analysis, why should I not speak from the heart? Why should I give in to what is in many cases just a matter of strategy, the rhetorical moment par excellence: "try to be reasonable"? I think I can be reasonable, but this was not one of these times, due to a subject that horrifies me; I choose to talk emotionally as the subject deserves.
Speaking from the heart is one thing, speaking from a paradigm of hatred is another. I don't like the war either but I don't hate it and don't hate the people who sign up to go into war or work for the military.
Do you not see... it's the Christians who hate the Muslims and the Muslims who hate the Jews and this hate and that hate and that's what causes war. Remove hate and there is no war. So, ultimately, your hate isn't helping the cause, only hurting it. When will people realize that if we carry hate, wars will never stop... even if it's hatred against war.??
You are enabling it. Hate feeds it. It's the very hate you embrace against the war that feeds it with fuel to continue. Seems the people become a slave to their own emotions and a slave to hatred and greed and that's why there are wars. Replace hate with love and walla, no more wars. It's like magic. If you continue to hate, cancer will get the best of you. Hate is not good for the body and it's amazing what hate, anger and cancer have in common.
Mahatma Gandhi said: "
Be the change you want to see in the world."
Dalai Lama said: "We can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves."
The true great thinkers transcend their emotions, all others are just book smart. Emotions are the very last thing you want to have control over your actions. Emotions are another form of separation because our emotions are based on the 5 senses which is of a physical existence and perception of a physical world. Our emotions totally rely on things that don't even exist and only come into existence because we allow them to and or create them.
I didn't read all the previous posts and probably won't due to time and may not even respond. Catch post caught my eye so I started typing food for thought.
Peace!
