truth preserving logic?(value of human life)

the son before the father?

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we had a thread about this once. the fundamentalists here strongly objected. personally, i don't think god himself is subject to human frailties, the but the interpretations of him found in the bible very often are. god is illogical? what, you mean... god didn't tell you?

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—i'm not entirely sure we value human life. we sure pretend to a lot over here, but i don't think anyone actually cares. we keep corpses alive -- but use stem cells to fight disease? hell no! and the death penalty, that's ok too!actually, i suspect it's more an issue of the government. i don't think, for instance, that the american public is for killing iraqi civilians. but we're sold on a war by our government, and there is collateral damage -- often we disregard the collateral costs for the ideological and political bs we're served. the government, to a degree, is taken hostage by the radical fundamentalist contingents, only to be partially moderated by the more secular mainstream.i suspect there is something of a similar condition in israel. most israelis i've talked to have been quite reasonable regarding their place in the middle east, and compromise with the palestinians. only a few have been rabid anti-palestinian. most of the people with the position that i've heard from are american jews. i suspect living there for a while, and serving the two years in the army, probably has a kind of levelling effect.i just find it odd when the christian fundamentalists stand up and fight for israel in equally as black-and-white terms are they fight for america. "you're for us, or against us!" what amuses me greatly is when they call me an antisemite because i question or speak against actions of the israeli government. yes, clearly, i'm just a jew-hater. that's why i argue for the jewish perspective on the torah and nevi'im, and why i end all my posts with a nice big hebrew name.anyways, as an israeli yourself, what's your take on the current war? do you think israel's response is neccessary and proportionate?Edited by arachnophilia, : typo

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ok, i'm glad i'm not the only one. i gave an explanation in another thread of how i thought palestine should be dealt with, but i don't think that would work here. hizballah seems like a bit of a different organization to me.i think, unfortunately, war is unavoidable in this case. launching rockets into civilian areas and taking prisoners are really acts of war. but bombing civilian areas in lebanon may not be the best response. you would think that killing ten to a hundred times as many would be a good deterent from messing with israel, but clearly that's not working.the middle east isn't exactly an easy situation to rectify.

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what jar said. and:someone told me once that in israel, when a suicide bomber blows up a bus stop, they rebuild it the next day. beyond ignoring the violence, making it like it never happened. i'm not sure the story's true though terrorists are trying to provoke response. response only justifies their methods, and over-response justifies it even more. all israel is doing is creating martyrs for hizballah, and giving them more lebanese support. perhaps counter-intuitive is the only way to go?on another note, and more in line with what jar said, how do you feel about quiet counter-terrorism assassinations, ala munich? in the movie (and in reality) it didn't really solve anything. — —,
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—Edited by arachnophilia, : subtitle. probably off topic anyways.

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tell me about it. what, honestly, would get them back? it was about the covert response to israeli hostages that were taken and killed at the olympic games in munich in 1972 by the palestinian balck september. the response involved recruiting mossad agents to secretly assassinate the people responsible for planning the terrorist action.apparently, it's also a true story (according to spielberg at least). there is some controversy, which you can read about in the wikipedia article. i wouldn't recommend it as a good movie (it could have used a better editor), but it was certainly an interesting movie.anyways, i'm just bringing it up to ask, is this an appropriate response? track down and kill the people responsible, and just the people responsible?

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that might be a good point. i said before that in this case, i thought that war might be inevitable, since hizballah is indeed an official faction of the government, and a majority in southern lebanon. technically, it's a government action, isn't it?

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