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Solving the Problem of War |
Edict Date: 08-13-2006
For far too long humanity has suffered as a result of war. We are locked in a cycle where cultures and religions and political groups have fought each other over the same issues for thousands of years with no change in the underlying causes that lead us into war. Are we going to continue to go to war for the next several thousand years? Will we be at war for eternity? At what point do we give it up? Is it our nature to need to be at war or is it something that we can evolve beyond? And if we are to eventually evolve beyond war, what will we have to do to achieve that?
The time has come to address this issue. Why sit back and wait thousands more years when we can start to solve the problem now? Just because no one has figured out how to stop war in the past doesn't mean that the problem can't be solved. If humanity is going to evolve forward then we need to stop wasting our resources on figuring out how to kill people and use them to figure out how to thrive. Humanity has the capability of choosing what our future will be and we in the Church of Reality choose that war will not be a part of the future of the human race.
To that end, we, this day, as the Church of Reality, declare that we are determined to find a solution to war and to come up with a plan to end war and to implement that plan. We, this day, choose to assume that the problem is solvable and we commit ourselves to the task of finding that solution. We are a religion that solves problems and to us the word "impossible"¯ is just another word for "challenge".
The exploration of reality itself is a commitment to problem solving and since we are already in the problem solving business, then let us take on the big tasks and let us solve the great problems of humanity. We as Realists can contribute to the Tree of Knowledge a way to end war and therefore we commit ourselves this day to solving the problem and removing war from the human equation.
War doesn't just happen. War takes time to develop. There are many steps leading up to war that have to occur before a war can happen. War is like a disease in that it is something that grows, but it has to be in the right environment to survive. Without the right environment war can't survive.
Similarly war is like a hurricane. When the conditions are right, the winds begin to rotate and start a process that feeds itself growing bigger and bigger, drawing energy from the warm waters to fuel the storm. But when it moves over land or cool waters, then the storm loses strength and dissipates. War is like that. It begins in an environment that is ready for war. It starts where hatred flourishes. It requires that the enemy be dehumanized. That people are mentally prepared to go to war, and that there is sufficient polarization to fuel the war.
War is like a forest fire. It might be triggered by a lightning strike, but if the forest is wet, the temperatures are cool, and the humidity is high, then the fire burns out quickly. But if there is a lot of fuel and it is dry and hot and the humidity is low, then the forest is consumed, We can watch the war environment to see if humanity is hot and dry or cool and damp as a way of estimating the potential for war.
If we understand the processes that must occur for a war to happen, and we understand the environment that war requires, then we should at least be able to see it coming and predict it much the way we predict the weather. We could actually map this out based on population, resources, religious tensions, weapons, and such and be able to know before hand when a war is about to break out.
The solution to war might lie in our ability to manipulate the environment and create a new culture that is inhospitable to war. War requires two or more groups of people who mutually dehumanize each other. They have to create polarization between "us"¯ and "them" where "we" are superior to "them" and they are "unworthy" and deserve to be exterminated. The enemy has to be dehumanized into a group that is all alike, that they are vermin, and that their way of life is a threat to "our" was of life. Polarization is necessary for war.
If polarization is necessary for war, then depolarization could be used to create an environment where war can't occur. If the culture respects other people as individuals and although people are different, they are still all "us" and it is worth putting out effort to work out our differences. Then we become the wet damp forest and when the lightning strikes the fire doesn't spread.
We know for example that Muslims and Jews have been at war killing each other for thousands of years. However in San Francisco Muslims and Jews march together to protest the war in Iraq. Muslims and Jews only kill each other in areas where the culture of the greater society has no respect for each other. The Middle East is a hot dry forest where San Francisco is a cool damp forest. We speak the language of peace, not the language of war. This I believe is the key to solving the war challenge.
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