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Page 1 of 2 We often hear of the idea of ‘defensible behavior’. The actions, -the words, were justifiable because we were defending ourselves. Possibly there is such a thing as defensible behavior; on this relative level of living a human life. If we perceive ourselves as being capable of little more self control than the creatures of the Earth then I suppose we must resign ourselves to protection in a world of constant conflict.
Still, as necessary as we believe it to be there is nothing intelligent in an action that creates or perpetuates pain. And almost all action or behavior that we label defensible is hurtful action, justified by a rationale that supports the right to be hurtful; the philosophy of ‘an eye for an eye’. Yet such an attitude followed unchecked would lead to complete annihilation of humanity. That just wouldn’t fit the accepted Darwinian philosophy, although from that perspective we might suppose it to be a popular philosophy in some Christian denominations. Regardless, it follows that a universal intelligence, if it truly is intelligent, would create a way of living free of pain. It also follows that this same Supreme Intelligence would not exhibit such a lack of intelligence as to determine rightness according to church, denomination and who we believe in. These are decidedly limited and human delineators that would be cause for pain if we followed through with this distorted line of thinking. So is our culture of predominant Christianity in support of punishment, preemptive and active physical defense? In all fairness to the precepts of Christianity this could not be so. Yet here we are; a Christian culture. One of the most famous claims of the great teacher, Jesus, is to turn the other cheek. Two thousand years of proclaiming his teachings to be our society’s religious creed have not led us to embrace even this simple code. Apparently we are a society that sadly lacks in faith, principle and commitment. Thou shalt not kill… unless your church or government tells you to or in the defense of your property. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s property… unless of course it’s not really you but the lobby powers that dictate your government’s choices, and the property is another country. Then we can turn a blind eye and pretend we are no longer responsible. As a culture we talk the talk but we certainly don’t walk the walk, and we justify it by telling ourselves we are really doing all we can. I went to an ‘Amnesty International’ meeting in my fair city of thirty five thousand and there were an incredible twenty people present. I would venture to argue that there is more Christianity occurring outside of the churches of this land than within. I suspect that some day historians may look back on the most popular religion of the last many centuries as a religion of hypocrisy. A person once queried: “Who knows? If we ever actually tried it, Christianity might work.” Of course for that to happen people would actually have to try living the teachings; they would have to show up every day, not just on Sunday. That is not an easy thing to do, but in my own marginally adequate attempts I have found the rewards are wonderful indeed; my life is filled with happiness, not giddiness but rather the happiness of peace.
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