Tag Archives: Violence
North Country
1 in 3 women is subject to abuse during her lifetime. This can and must end.
That statistic should shock us beyond belief. And the terrible thing is that we don’t talk about it; we rarely talk about it; and when we do we far too often place blame on the victim.
I’m going to start writing about this more, because I realized after watching this film, that though I have become aware of this issue and pay attention to it, I am not outspoken about it; and I NEED to be.
MEN: Go out tonight and rent this movie. Weep over the horrid ways we treat women, or silently acknowledge this mistreatment. Decide to learn, speak out, and love.
We must stand against the silence, we must educate ourselves, we must grow sensitive and build communities that lovingly embrace those who are victims, rather then look with a blaming eye. How do we become that loving community?
The Pacifism discussion begins.
This discussion is sure to create some interesting feedback and debate. Zach brings up some questions about Pacifism, which Ariah tries to address. No script, no agenda, so it get’s a little off on tangents.
This is only half of the show, the second part of this discussion will air next week. And then we’ll continue to discuss pacifism and the Bible as long as there is interest.
We’ve also added to exciting parts to our show: Myth of the Week and the Friend Spotlight!
You could be the Friend of the week and if you are, you’ll win a BIG prize! Listen in and see if your this weeks big winner!
Please send your feedback and thoughts to ariahfine@gmail.com or call and leave an audio message at (615)349-1210
Or Download Here. (right click and choose Save link as…)
Brief shownotes:
-Ariah and Zach discuss Pacifism
-Myth of the Week: ?
-Friend Spotlight: ? Could you be our big winner?!
Disclaimer: No animals where hurt in the making of this podcast
What would you do if…
It’s the typical question that get’s asked of anyone who declares themselves a “pacifist.”
What would you do if someone was attacking your family (loved ones)?
It’s the magic card up someones sleeve to stump that said pacifist into agreeing that sometimes violence, and war, is okay and necessary. I’ll be honest this was a difficult question to handle when I first started thinking about pacifism. What made it difficult was the passage we talked about previously, “Love your enemies…” What suddenly happened was that now both the attacker and the victim are my loved ones. It’s like having to change the question to:
What would you do if your wife was attacking your father?
(or pick the two people closest to you)
Now I’m not so sure killing the attacker would be my pat answer. If I love that person I certainly wouldn’t want their death. I love the victim though as well and I don’t want them to die, so the situation is now far more complex then the original question presented.
For me, this question simply confirms to me that thinking as a pacifist, or rather, thinking about what to do with ‘killing’ not being one of the options.
So, What would you do if…
“The most violent society on earth” really?
I was browsing through my New Man magazine, courtesy of my dad, and came across an interesting movie advertisement. End of The Spear is a new movie about Jim Elliot, Nate Saint, and three others and their families contact with the Waodani Tribe in Ecuador. In high school, I was a fan of Jim Elliot, having been quite inspired by his memiors, Shadow of the Almighty. Though, I do think their intentions where good, I’ve started to question the way their mission was carried out.
What struck me about this advertisement was this statement:
50 years ago five families dared to make contact with the most violent society on earth.
I’d personally like to see a reference for that fact. I’ll look up the statistics in a minute, but I would suggest violent might properly be measured by “number of people killed” or something similiar. My guess would be the USA is probably the most violent society on earth. I’m mean really, how do you measure something like that? Let’s see what statistics we can pull up on google…
- Yes, this society has created sick, violent individuals, after all it is the most violent society on earth.
- Although an unpopular proposition, the assertion that America is the most violent society on earth is true.
- …one dedicated group’s incredible will and desire to save the most violent society on earth
- South Africa may be the most violent society on earth that is not at war.
Where is the outrage?
Can somebody please explain this?
I’ll speak to my war supporting Christian brothers and sisters. I hear lot’s of “support our troops” from Christian organizations, and pulpits and the rest. Rarely do I hear a straight-forward acknowledgement of the fact that what we are “supporting” them in is often the killing of other human beings in the act of war.
That being said, I think there is also a proper and necessary place for a support of justice in regard to murderous abuses like the ones we know about here. Tell me please what your response is.
Dear Anonymous
To anonymous and others who have enlightening things to tell me about,
I would love to IM or email with you about the things that you obviously think I am un-informed about. My understanding of war does not come from a philosphizing political point of view.
Most of my thoughts on issues like this come strictly from what I see Christ said. My hope is that others like yourself would come to see that maybe war isn’t such a hot idea and then YOU can be the genius who comes up with the pacifist foreign policy that would work.
I concur to the blog world that Anonymous will likely be able to rip to shreds any thoughts or arguments I give on any sort of political grounds. I concur that Anonymous is likely far smart then me when it comes to these things, and if you would like to know more of Anonymous’ thoughts please go to Anonymous’ blog.
Now, anonymous, out of curiousity…
Say you were crazy like me and for some reason thought killing people was just a straight up bad idea. Say your right about the Iraq Body Count thing, but you still think the numbers of dead people is too high. What if you were President (or whatever position you would want to choose, except God), would you do to try to carry out the ethics of not going to war? No round about answers or arguing how it just won’t work. Just pretend your crazy and you have these crazy ethics. What would you do?
London shooting
Okay, time for a serious blog. If anyone has been paying attention to the news then they’ve probably heard about Jean Charles de Menezes and I don’t know about you but it’s a little freak to me.
The basic jist is that Friday London police chased a guy in the subway, he tripped and fell and they shot him five times, dead. Already I was a concerned because it sounded like marshall law, it seemed like they could have apprehended him without shooting him, I mean he tripped and fell, some witnesses said they had pinned him down when they shot him.
Now we find out that he had nothing to do with any of the bombings.
Does this disturb anyone? We are becoming so scared of dying that we are killing ourselves trying to stop those who might kill us.
My friend Karma is an anarchist. She was anti-war like me, but she was anti-policemen and stuff too. I figured it made sense to have people keep the peace, but she felt that when you give people power they often abuse it. She has plenty of examples on her side, police beatings, racial profiling, Jim Crow, Rodney King, riot cops at the FTA and WTO protest, the list goes on.
Now I’m starting to agree with her. I mean what happened to being a community that watched out for one another? What would a city without police look like? Would we all feel more responsible for caring for each other in our community? Would we make it a point to know all our neighbors?
Or would we all carry guns and triple lock our doors and just watch out for “our own”?
I hope everyone is thinking about this. I mean the police chief actually said there might be people shot while looking for suicide bombers. And what about racial profiling on top of that?
Lord what is this world coming to?