The Vocabulary of War is language that is used in order to prepare people to go to war. Wars do not happen on their own. People have to have dialogue that leads up to war. The vocabulary of war is the dialogue that is used to create the kind of agreement necessary to create war. Without the necessary agreement a war isn't possible.
In order for a war to occur you have to dehumanize the enemy. You have to define an "us" and a "them" where "we" are justified through some noble characteristic and "they" are subhuman and therefore "deserve to die". The enemy has to be seen not as individual people but as members of some evil group who's destruction is necessary. The vocabulary of war is used to demonize people as vermin who are to be exterminated.
The concepts of Heaven and Hell are examples of the Vocabulary of War. That "we" are chosen by God and "they" are rejected by God. That they deserve death and will be punished in Hell forever because they are unrighteous and unclean. "We" on the other hand are clean and pure and our group is so superior to their group that their group must be exterminated so that our group can flourish. If we are God's chosen people and they have sinned against God then we are justified in killing them because God is going to punish them and if God is going to punish them then why shouldn't we do it?
The God of Judaism, Christianity and Islam are fictional Gods that use the Vocabulary of War. In their God stories their Gods are thin skinned. They are angry and vengeful and violent leading the righteous into battle in a holy war against evil in general or evil incarnated as Satan who is the evil leader of "them" and is at war with God. Thus the real war is portrayed as an extension of the war in Heaven between the forces of good and the forces of evil.
Another example of the Vocabulary of War is to demonize the other on political values. "We" are a nation of "Freedom" and "Democracy" where "They" are "Terrorists" and the "Enemy of Freedom". Of course who is a terrorist and who is a freedom fighter depends on the position of the observer. For example, let's take Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein as examples. Are they terrorists or freedom fighters? Are they our ally or our enemy? If you ask America's president in 2006 they are the enemy. If you ask America's president in 1986 they are our ally. The Vocabulary of War tries to simplify a situation through the use of false absolutes where the reality of the situation is usually far more complex.
The Vocabulary of War is used to define a problem, define the divisions, dehumanize the enemy, and then to assert that war is the solution to the problem. That is it "us" or "them" and if "we" don't attack "them" then "they" are going to attack "us". There is no peaceful solution because "they" are subhuman and cannot be reasoned with. Therefore "we" must attack "them" because there is "no other choice". If "we" don't act then "they" will "take over" and dominate "us" forcing "us" to become like "them" and the forces of evil will be victorious and rule the Earth.
The Vocabulary of Peace takes the opposite view in that it humanizes people as individuals and looks for solutions to problems other than killing the enemy. Although war is sometimes necessary to defend oneself from a violent aggressor, it is always a failure of the human community to solve problems in a useful and productive manner. War does not solve the underlying problems that led to war in the first place and wars are often repeated over and over through thousands of years with people killing each other over religious differences based on property that some fictional deity supposedly gave them.
The Church of Reality chooses to undermine war at the vocabulary level by recognizing the differences in the vocabularies identifying the words and concepts that distinguish the two. Our philosophy is that reality is best explored in an environment of peace rather than an environment of war and that we are all better off understanding the dynamics of the use of words and vocabularies in order to affect how we relate to ourselves and each other and how we solve the problems relating to the differences in cultures and religion. We therefore choose to use the Vocabulary of Peace and to expose the Vocabulary of War for what it is and to promote the understanding of the processes of peace and war so that humanity can better understand itself.
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