Month: March 2006

The one to blame

I suppose God is as at least as old as human mankind is able to speak. Some might call that blasphemy, since God is believed to be there since the beginning of time. Well, I will try a different approach and say: God was there since the beginning of time, I just don’t like the way God is used by some humans.

But how can God be used? Isn’t God the one who looks after us, guides us, inspires us, and if we go down the wrong path, might even punish us?

Well, that is where the whole thing gets tricky. Take George Bush and Osama Bin Laden, both think that God is on their side, that they are doing the right thing, one of them calling it a Crusade, the other one a Dschihad, in the name of the Lord. Using God for “political” reasons is nothing new, it has been done, well, I suppose, since human mankind is able to speak.

Take a soldier, fighting in a recent war. He follows orders of his superiors. If he is asked to explain his actions, he most likely replies: I had to, that was an order. So how does his superiors justify their actions? Well, they might refer to their “leader” from whom they got their instructions. This goes up all the way to generals, who might refer to the president of their country.

But once you get to the very top, the air gets thin and it gets difficult. How does a president, king or dictator justify his “decisions”? There is no one really above him, no judge, no president of the world – to guide him. Humans, even kings and presidents, can make mistakes, they can have flaws.

That’s where God comes in. He is the flawless strong guy, that makes no mistakes, that is always right, that knows what is going to happened and what is ultimately right and wrong. Explanation to all glory victories and gruesome failures. (To the woman who are reading this– don’t worry, I don’t think God is a guy, I think there is no he or she above us, something both of it maybe.) But if that is really the case, if it is that old guy, sitting above the clouds, inspiring great leaders of this world, he has done a lousy job so far.

I think that the opposite is the case, look at the miracle of life, the sun rising, flowers growing and kids playing, God has done a terrific job in creating the world and letting it develop, but to use him to justify decisions made by humans is flat out wrong and highly unfair to a true mastermind.

Just my thoughts

On the Information Highway to Hell

Modern times! We are living them, day in and day out. A ship sinks somewhere in the pacific? We know about it instantly. A huge chemical accident on the other side of the world — live footage within the hour!

The world is connected, and there is news to be heard, seen or read every second of the day. The newsmakers of today tell us about injustice, about people suffering around the world and about the need to do something about it. They let us know when something is wrong. I think that this is a good thing, and that it could make the world a better place.

But media these days also tend to generalize. For example – a lot of people in Arab countries think they know how “all” the Western people think and feel about them, that “we” look down on them and that “we” make fun of their religion. At the same time, we are shown pictures of Arabs going on the street and protesting against the western way of life, making us think that “all” the Arabs are the same and they all are against us. Black and white. The media hardly ever shows us the shades of grey in between or tries to make both sides understand each other a little bit better.

Actually, that is nothing new, wars have been fought and people have been killed because of information’s they where given since the dawn of human mankind. The next big war is out of questions; unfortunately we still have not learned to ask the right questions and look behind the information we are given.