What are your thoughts on war?

Faith & Science Conversation
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I often look back onto the Second World War with both bittersweet pride and deep sorrow. On the one hand, we indeed freed Europe, China, and Africa from the clutches of Fascism, possibly stopping further genocide in many parts of the globe. Yet, we then enabled Stalin and introduced the most powerful extinction weapon to the world.

I also see a this war as I do many wars now. After moving to Nebraska, I came to find that many prisoners of war used to be housed here (far from the coasts in case of an invasion, meaning invaders could take these prisoners as a boost to numbers). After the war, many of these prisoners simply stayed here in Nebraska. My history teacher said that the school janitor back in the day was a German officer, and was the nicest guy you would ever know. When kids were misbehaving in a class he popped into, he would joke about his past service to scare kids into respecting their teacher. I could be wrong, but I think there is a dedication to him somewhere on the school grounds. In many cemeteries, you can find Japanese tombstones, and there is a large Japanese population here. These were the people we were told were our sworn enemies. Yet, they seemed exactly like us: normal people fighting for a cause they thought was true. Take away that cause and they become just like us. In a way, Jesus certainly told us to love our neighbors this way, and I’m glad that these ex-soldiers were able to enjoy the rest of their lives without hatred from others around them.

Where should we draw the line when analyzing war? Should we ever look back at such events with the fondness that movies often do? The Bible somewhat had a duality on war, where the Torah had Israel engaging in a war of conquest but the New Testament preaches a fierce policy of peace; what wisdom would Jesus provide to our troubled world?

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War is always awful, but sometimes necessary. I tease my wife who joined the DAR to please her sister, that the American Revolution was not a just war.

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When We get to Heaven’s Paradise there will be no War amongst other Behaviors. Christ Kingdom is not of this World.

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To push back a tiny bit on war being necessary I think it’s important we always remember everything is a choice. Choosing to fight back or choosing to not fight back even if it means being enslaved or killed is a choice. So the first thing I think of is that we can’t hide behind calling something a necessary choice. The whole “ I can’t help it or I have to” confused with I want too. I think it lacks accountability to hide behind calling things an unfortunate choice.

I also think it’s important to remember that Christianity is about having a kingdom with citizenship not of this world. So you’re supposed to be a Christian first, an American second. You don’t get to choose where you’re born but we get to choose if we join the military or not. Unless it’s a forced draft, and even some can get out if they have “flat feet.”

But back to Heaven first and America second and the choice to be accountable. I’ll use a very hyperbolic situation.

You get stranded on a deserted island with nothing but clothes on your back. No string, no hooks, no nets. No guns or arrows. You’re stranded on and island and for whatever fictional reason you know these facts. You have water to drink but no food and no way to hunt food. You have helping coming but help is 5 weeks away and for whatever reason in this world you can only goo a week without food before dying. You’re stuck on this island with 8 other people who are all kids. In five weeks yall will all be dead. Every single one of you. Unless yall decide to kill a few and eat them. By killing a few and eating them you can ensure that you and two others will survive. But none of them wants to die. They will cry, they fight, they will try to run, just like little pigs. You’ll have to hunt them, you’ll have to use a rock to smash their heads and then you can dismember and cook and eat them.

So you have a choice. You can choose to die and allow everyone to die. You can choose to live and have a few others survive. But you’re not forced to do either. Both are a choice. You can justify either position depending on your perspective.

So to me war is like that. Let’s say I’m drafted and forced into the military and then I’m forded into being infantry, instead of the signal intelligence analyst I was. I am then sent to the Middle East and I’m on a march with a squad and we come under fire. I can choose to fight back. I can choose to try to not shoot to kill. I can choose to try to run. I can choose to shoot to kill. I could choose to try to surrender. They are all choices. None of them are more necessary than the others.

When I was a teenager I thought the Bible was magically inspired by God. That every story was stories dictated word by word or maybe thought by thought by God. So when I read that God ordered Moses and the Hebrews to march on other cities and destroy them all, and take their wives as concubines as cruel as it seemed I presumed it was gods choice. Now I know that’s not how the Bible happened. I know most of it’s fiction. Moses was probably not even a real person. Jews were probably not even enslaved in Egypt. It’s just a myth. The Bible is more myth than reality. Old and new. Moses did not post the sea and Jesus probably never walked on water. Is just literary devices and good story telling to hyperlink back to earlier stories. We can’t really use the Bible to justify horroric things like genocide, trading women for animals, slaves and so on. But we can find meaningful passages and stories and ofersll arcs.

Take sacrifices. Throughout the Bible we see them being ordered again and again. But then we see these verses.

Hosea 6:6
“ I desire love, not sacrifice. I desire knowledge of God, not burnt offerings.

Matthew 9:13
“ I desire mercy, not sacrifice now go learn what this means. “

We can look at the life of Jesus. He was zealous for liberation and justice. He never struck down anyone. He choose to allow himself to be murdered and he choose not to fight back and destroy them.

Thats all to highlight personal accountability. You can choose to be killed. You can choose to kill. But either way it’s a choice. Every time you decide to take any life, regardless of the species, it’s a choice.

You mentioned also the Old Testament. I think that there are different ways to understand the stories. We often see “commands” followed by the righteous obeying. But I want to highlight two stories where the righteous did not just obey but fought back against God.

The first is when Abraham pushed back against God over destroying Sodom and Gomorrah if he can find 50 good men all the way down to if he can find just a few. Abraham choose to argue, even if it failed instead of just saying ok kill them all. He was never admonished for it either.

We also see another story of Moses doing this.

Exodus 32:30-33 NRSVue

30 On the next day Moses said to the people, “You have sinned a great sin. But now I will go up to the Lord; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.”31 So Moses returned to the Lord and said, “Alas, this people has sinned a great sin; they have made for themselves gods of gold. 32 But now, if you will only forgive their sin—but if not, please blot me out of the book that you have written.” 33 But the Lord said to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against me I will blot out of my book.

There we see Moses offering up his life as well if God is going to destroy all the Israelites. God changed his mind.

We see it again right before it .

Exodus 32:10-14 NRSVue

10 Now let me alone so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, and of you I will make a great nation.”

11 But Moses implored the Lord his God and said, “O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people. 13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them by your own self, saying to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.’ ” 14 And the Lord changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.

Moses actually does this again in numbers 14.

So in those stories God gave orders or told his plan and the people pushed back. If Moses would have done it he would have been still righteous submitting to God. But it seemed God was more happy that they pushed back.

So why not presume that everywhere?
When they are told to go kill the Canaanites why not say, but god they are in your image too. Would not God have relented?
When they are told to conquer a land could they not have said but God you’re god everywhere even here you can make this place great. God would probably have agreed.

That’s not just based off of faith but the teachings of Christ .

Jesus taught our kingdom is of heaven, not this world. Meaning we don’t need to kill Palestinians and drive them away. God can be god anywhere. God can make anyone his people, even rocks if he chooses it.

So when reading the horrors stories in the Bible where mankind submitted to the things God said, remember they could have chose to is read be like Moses, one of the greatest, and push back and God would have listened. They could have had a new promise land. They could have avoided all wars.

When Abraham was to kill Isaac and was called righteous for agreeing he could have reminded God that god is not a god of human sacrifice. Obeying may be righteous. But if Abraham knew God’s true nature he would have pushed back and been blessed even more.

The last thing to consider is that almost all wars are fought by poor men. Mostly younger poor men. Men in their 20s-30s are the most likely to be on the battlefield and in the way of danger. Men on both sides. Most men join the army not out patriotism but because of a hope to avoid war, to make money, get respect and get their college for. Many men joined the army to get the GI bill for their kid. I knew a man who was a single father. His wife died. His daughter was 16 and he was 34. He joined the army to get the GI bill to place his daughter through college. While talking with recruiters he found out if he came a truck driver he would get $30k signup bonus. So he joined to get his daughter in college and to get that signup bonus to buy his daughter a good car. The other side is often the same. Muslims join to be respected and taken care of. Many of the Japanese suicide bobbers joined to get money to make sure their family was cared for.

Almost all wars are poor men fighting other poor men for rich leaders. Leaders who are themselves to afraid. Most soldiers also actually aim to high on purpose. Even in WW2 with Germans and in the civil war and in current wars. Google it.

So this is not about is war good or evil. But to make it clear it’s a choice.

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I would even go as far to suggest we are Christian first, citizen of the planet Earth second, and then an American third. Every nation of Earth shares this single speck of dust in the wide open ocean of the cosmos, so it makes no sense to fight over control of a mere speak when we could try and make this single speck a true home for us rather than try and conquer a pathetic amount of territory.

I would recommend reading Carl Sagan’s “Pale Blue Dot” poem, which really put things into perspective.

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WOW, I had no choice but to be Born and at some time after that I became an aware conscience that did have choices. Now My Spouse wants McDonald’s and I have no choice of what I want there, so I don’t always have a choice there, unless having no choice is having a Choice. This is an OXYMORON, there is no truth that you always have a choice. I have to go to sleep now I have no choice.

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Sorry is the basic premise of the context went over your head.

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I respect your position, and agree with it philosophically, but would say that sometimes, the choice you describe is between two evils, and it can be a loving thing to do to chose the lesser of the evils. WW2 was one of those in my opinion. Nazi Germany was committing atrocities and it became a moral imperative to stop their progress. No doubt there were those with less ethical motivations involved (arms dealers etc.) but overall a reasonable person could come to the conclusion that war was necessary, as the alternative was worse. The American Civil War might also be considered just as well, but even that is a little more shaky. Slavery would have collapsed on its on before long as it did in the rest of the world, and maintaining the unity of the states is not a good excuse, but harkens back to the expression of power. But, slavery was a great evil, and perhaps war was needed to show the price of allowing that evil. I don’t know. I can’t say any other war than WW2 was truly justified, and that moral ambiguity is perhaps why so many returning from those wars that followed have had so much in the way of PTSD etc., as not believing what you did was ultimately for the greater good, no matter how awful it might be, is hard to live with.

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Perhaps. But it’s still a choice and very much a machiavellian choice. People just have to remember it’s not really just two choices.

Consider the Black Power movements . We know that they were also being murdered. Many like King and Angela Davis were committed to non violence and King was willing to be martyred for it and was. The American civil rights movement was non violent.

The women’s suffrage movement was non violent and led to the 19th amendment.

There was obviously the Indian Independence movement led by Ghandi that was non violent.

The Singing Revolution of Estonia.

Right now we have the no kings protests that are overwhelmingly peaceful.

But let’s consider ww2. There are men like Viktor Frankl and his Logotherapy. We read of stories like on Christmas how German soldiers and American soldiers ate together instead of killing each other. The Cabin Truce of 1944. The next day the Germans built a carrier for the Americans and the German medic treated the badly wounded American and they gave them a compass and directions back to safety. This was after a bloody war. This peace happened because of a woman and her 12 year old son standing up to the men. There was numerous other acts of kindness in both sides. The Charlie Brown and Franz Stigler event. Stories of soldiers who helped others on the other side. Soldiers who decided to sing Christmas carols together instead of killing each other.

We also know it’s a fact in wars many soldiers purposely shoot to high. It’s such an issue that some armies try to get soldiers to lower their zeroing out so if they aim to high they still have a better chance of hitting the “enemy.”

We know of stories like how German cops and German soldiers defied orders from Hitler , even to the point of being killed to not participate.

Surely we don’t think bombing all the kids of Hiroshima was a better choice. Was that even a lesser of two evils? 80k
Civilians including 20k children died from the atomic bomb.

In every war you can search acts of kinds and peaceful rebellion.

So here is a real choice. Those acts of kindness, every soldier on both sides could have decided to drop their guns and sing. Many did it at individual moments.

What about in war world one where opposing soldiers in trenches decided to not shoot at each other during certain parts of the day to eat and use the restroom. Then when higher ups heard about it and demand they kill each other both sides independently concluded to aim their guns at the same spots every day and shoot so that the others ( their enemies ) knew to not be there at that time.

I bet most armies are full mostly of people who would rather toss a football to each other than kill one another. They don’t because of fear. They don’t because of pressure from higher ups. But if each was given a clear choice they would decide to toss a football. There are even situations of soldiers from opposing sides using gamer tags to reach out to one another in same areas to tell them to please clear out of a space they will be attacking it.

Most of the time most of the evil is carried out by a small portion of people holding power. If the powerless masses decided to fight back peacefully, it most likely would work out overtime. Historically we see it happening again and again.

In the civil war the same men killing each other a year later were neighbors. Working on the same pastures and farms.

So I just think that when we say there are lesser of two evil choices often there are non evil choices that require faith on the table too.

As mentioned, many soldiers come back psychologically harmed for life. Veterans make up the highest per capital suicides. Civilian suicide is at 16%. Veterans are at 33%. 17-18 veterans commit suicide a day.

Did you know the war on terror , for the same time period 4x more veterans committed suicide than military members died in the conflict? For each soldier killed in battle during the war on terror, 4 soldier killed themselves.

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I think you are talking about the internment camps and calling these prisoners of war is wrong. They were victims of racial prejudice and laziness with no legal/rational/intelligence basis for their imprisonment or even outright excuses for robbing of them of their property. There was no evidence these countries sent spies and saboteurs to America in preparation for war. It was a travesty and a tragedy in the same category as slavery and native American massacres and reservations.

I think war is a lesser evil than a world united in a single society dominated by evil. I think this is what Genesis chapter 11 was about. Better a world divided than a world united under a single evil way of life. Frankly division has the advantage of competition limiting just how depraved people could be.

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https://history.nebraska.gov/marker-monday-german-p-o-w-camp/

And

Those other camps were equally prejudiced but I was referring to these POW camps stationed in Nebraska

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We have to consider if it was the Sovereign God who forces Us into War without Us Knowing it’s God. Yes Hitler and Japan Forced the US into War. I see the final Result of That War II to be a Prophecy Fulfilled, which is The Jewish Chosen People were given back the Land of Israel today. Seems the War was God’s Purpose.

As for The US Civil War, We were already taught by Exodus that Slavery is Wrong. No Man should own another Man, again God could have forced that War.

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So… this was in Germany?

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No. This was at the school I attended in Nebraska. As the first article says, some of the German POWs found spouses here in the States and vied for U.S. Citizenship. They were already working in the ranches and farms in the region, so I suppose some of them just settled down than head back to their war-torn homeland (especially with the country split between four powers, and later the center of the Cold War). I guess one of them decided to take up a local job listing as a school janitor.

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No. German POWs were held in many places in the US during WW II. A few camps were in Michigan.

I don’t see any evidence that there were Japanese POWs in Nebraska,although there were Japanese POWs in other parts of the US.

There were, however internment (concentration) camps in Nebraska of Japanese Americans, naturalized Japanese Americans, and legal Japanese residents of the US. These camps were not of POWs but of normal citizens and residents of the US gathered in an enormous xenophobic wave of US government tyrrany. The evil done to these families is unforgivable.

The Nebraska Historical Society has a brief article about it here:

https://history.nebraska.gov/nebraskas-japanese-american-history/

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Huh. So I suppose there were German POWs but the Japanese population here came from people leaving their lives behind. Kinda sad now that I think about it.

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The humane treatment of prisoners on our side had a real side benefit of healing the wounds of war. Also, it became known that surrender meant having a full belly which also was a benefit, although the German army leadership tried to spread lies to the contrary.

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In Finland, we have kept the memories of our wars during the WW2 alive to remind the following generations of how destructive and terrible the wars are - never again, if it depends on us.

Choosing between two evils can be a bit darker choice than what you described. During the WW2, Stalin had decided to occupy Finland and turn it into ‘a happy communist state’ (read: hell under the dictatorship of Stalin, including the destruction of much of the population). Stalin was supported by a secret deal with Hitler about how they would divide the bordering countries.
Finns did not have enough of sufficient weapons to repel the attacks of the Soviet troops. Finns turned towards west and asked for support and a possibility to buy modern weapons from the western neighbours and all the relevant western countries. The countries were afraid of a possible confrontation with the Soviets and refused to help or sell weapons. The only country that was willing to sell weapons was Germany, with the assumption that a deal with the Germany would make Finland some sort of a friendly or allied country.

A hard choice between two evils: let Stalin to occupy the country or make a deal with Hitler. Finns hated both options but they were forced to make a decision. Stalin wanted to occupy the country while Hitler did not plan to rule the country. Finns tried to buy the weapons from Germany without making strong commitments. With the weapons Finns got, they could stop the attacks of the Soviet troops but the price was that after the WW2, Finland was punished as an ally of Germany.

Did the Finnish leaders make an acceptable choice? It is easy to judge what was done in the history but at that moment, the leaders just tried to choose what seemed to be the lesser evil in an impossible situation.

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I was unaware of that, thanks for sharing. It is never as simple and straightforward as we would like in war, or in life. I hope to visit your country some day, along with its neighbors. I would love to see the aurora borealis along with the other amazing sights.

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Maybe I can reveal a state secret from the time of WW2.

When Finland was in war against Stalin/Soviet and there were bloody battles, there were prayer meetings in the Presidential quarters, lead by the President and his wife (both believers). That they prayed for the end of the war and that Finland could maintain independence was no secret.

What was held as a secret was that in those prayer meetings, they did not pray just for Finland and Finns, they prayed also for the Soviet people, including the troops that were attacking Finland.
The PR people feared that if that information would spread, it could weaken the moral or fighting will of the troops, therefore it was kept as a state secret.

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