The world today is a mess. By that I mean that humans have made it into a mess. War and disease in Africa, rape and murder in the Middle East, social and economic upheavals in the west. People hate, murder, rape, abuse, lie to, threaten, torture and mistreat others. When it comes to looking at the world as a whole (not on a local or community level), I believe it is fair to say that we don't help each other, we don't think of the whole world as one family of humanity and we often treat other people as if they were less than us or beneath us.
Even though we have thousands of years of history to learn from, it seems we just keep repeating the same mistakes. Even though we can do a quick online search to read works by authors such as Homer and Hippocrates, it seems we can't learn from them. Even though we can read about campaigns of Roman leaders who lived more than 2000 years ago, it seems we can't learn from them.
Events in the past few months have shown me that we are intent on getting into a time machine and taking ourselves back to the dark days of the 1930s, the days when it was almost too late to stop the Holocaust but there was still time, just. The German expression "Ich habe es nicht gewusst" was often used in the aftermath of the Second World War by Germans claiming that they had no clue what was happening in the camps, that they didn't know that people were being exterminated by the hundreds and thousands. It translates as "I didn't know". Perhaps for some of them, that was true. Perhaps.
Today we have television, books and movies to teach us about the horrors of the Holocaust, to show us what people went through, to explain to us that it was a dark, dark time that must never ever be repeated.
The thing is, today WE DO KNOW. We have history to teach us. Ancient history but also very recent history. We can learn through books, documentaries, television, movies, formal education and even the internet. We can learn through diaries and personal stories, learn from survivors, people who saw and experienced the horrors of the Holocaust first-hand. We have HD movies for crying out loud, movies with amazing colour and sound and breathtaking special effects to show us the horrors of death and war and hatred and destruction. Yet even with all that knowledge and all those tools at our disposal, there are still so many people in the world today who choose to make war, to fight, to destroy, to murder, to hurt others.
What is wrong with us? Will we ever learn? Why do we continue to treat our fellow human beings as if they are somehow less than us, as if our lives and beliefs and values are worth more than theirs? Why do we continue on a path of "only our way is right" when we have seen, time and time again, that thinking like that will only lead to more hatred, horrors and atrocities?
Some people ask "If there is a God, why are there wars and disease and such in the world?"
My answer: Because of humans. We have the ability to make choices and decisions. We choose to kill, to murder, to hurt, to maim. Humans choose to do those things. That is why war exists, because humans choose war. I believe that God made us, gave us consciousness, gave us the ability to choose and to think and to tell right from wrong. I believe that God gave us the ability to use our imagination to think about how others feel and reason, to put ourselves in their shoes and imagine life as them. I believe He gave us the ability to think about actions and consequences, the ability to see beyond our own lives and see the world through different eyes. Whether one believes that it was God or evolution or alien intervention or the Flying Spaghetti Monster that made us and shaped us, what matters is that we are. We are thinking, feeling, reasoning human beings. Each and every one of us.
The only way to truly end war and famine and bloodshed is to choose to end them. We need to choose because if we don't then it might well be too late soon. God gave us the ability to choose, to decide, to think and reason and learn from our actions. God gave us all the tools we need to learn from life on earth, to grow through living, to become better people and work on making the world a better place. It is up to us to choose peace, to choose coexistence, to choose life over death. It is up to us to make the world a better place, no one else is going to do it for us.
Twenty or thirty years from now, when my children or grandchildren ask me why the world is as it is, I want to tell them that it is Because we made it so. I want to say those words to them with a smile on my face, not with tears in my eyes. I want to tell them that we saw that it was wrong and we knew it could no longer go on that way. I want to tell them that we chose to change our ways and work for a better world, that we chose to heal the world and unite the people. I don't ever want to contemplate explaining history to them using the words "We didn't know". Because we do know.
Even though we have thousands of years of history to learn from, it seems we just keep repeating the same mistakes. Even though we can do a quick online search to read works by authors such as Homer and Hippocrates, it seems we can't learn from them. Even though we can read about campaigns of Roman leaders who lived more than 2000 years ago, it seems we can't learn from them.
Events in the past few months have shown me that we are intent on getting into a time machine and taking ourselves back to the dark days of the 1930s, the days when it was almost too late to stop the Holocaust but there was still time, just. The German expression "Ich habe es nicht gewusst" was often used in the aftermath of the Second World War by Germans claiming that they had no clue what was happening in the camps, that they didn't know that people were being exterminated by the hundreds and thousands. It translates as "I didn't know". Perhaps for some of them, that was true. Perhaps.
Today we have television, books and movies to teach us about the horrors of the Holocaust, to show us what people went through, to explain to us that it was a dark, dark time that must never ever be repeated.
The thing is, today WE DO KNOW. We have history to teach us. Ancient history but also very recent history. We can learn through books, documentaries, television, movies, formal education and even the internet. We can learn through diaries and personal stories, learn from survivors, people who saw and experienced the horrors of the Holocaust first-hand. We have HD movies for crying out loud, movies with amazing colour and sound and breathtaking special effects to show us the horrors of death and war and hatred and destruction. Yet even with all that knowledge and all those tools at our disposal, there are still so many people in the world today who choose to make war, to fight, to destroy, to murder, to hurt others.
What is wrong with us? Will we ever learn? Why do we continue to treat our fellow human beings as if they are somehow less than us, as if our lives and beliefs and values are worth more than theirs? Why do we continue on a path of "only our way is right" when we have seen, time and time again, that thinking like that will only lead to more hatred, horrors and atrocities?
Some people ask "If there is a God, why are there wars and disease and such in the world?"
My answer: Because of humans. We have the ability to make choices and decisions. We choose to kill, to murder, to hurt, to maim. Humans choose to do those things. That is why war exists, because humans choose war. I believe that God made us, gave us consciousness, gave us the ability to choose and to think and to tell right from wrong. I believe that God gave us the ability to use our imagination to think about how others feel and reason, to put ourselves in their shoes and imagine life as them. I believe He gave us the ability to think about actions and consequences, the ability to see beyond our own lives and see the world through different eyes. Whether one believes that it was God or evolution or alien intervention or the Flying Spaghetti Monster that made us and shaped us, what matters is that we are. We are thinking, feeling, reasoning human beings. Each and every one of us.
“I'm sure that someday children in schools will study the history of the men who made war as you study an absurdity. They'll be shocked, just as today we're shocked with cannibalism.”
― Golda Meir
The only way to truly end war and famine and bloodshed is to choose to end them. We need to choose because if we don't then it might well be too late soon. God gave us the ability to choose, to decide, to think and reason and learn from our actions. God gave us all the tools we need to learn from life on earth, to grow through living, to become better people and work on making the world a better place. It is up to us to choose peace, to choose coexistence, to choose life over death. It is up to us to make the world a better place, no one else is going to do it for us.
Twenty or thirty years from now, when my children or grandchildren ask me why the world is as it is, I want to tell them that it is Because we made it so. I want to say those words to them with a smile on my face, not with tears in my eyes. I want to tell them that we saw that it was wrong and we knew it could no longer go on that way. I want to tell them that we chose to change our ways and work for a better world, that we chose to heal the world and unite the people. I don't ever want to contemplate explaining history to them using the words "We didn't know". Because we do know.