Texas Faith: Profiting from war

So, we the good people, the people of faith should take the responsibility to speak out against war and seek to resolve the issues through a dialogue. Think about it, when God created animals, he equipped them with horns, fangs and paws to resolve their disputes, where as he did not give any of that to us – but gave us a tongue instead; to dialogue and resolve the disputes. - Mike Ghouse
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Texas Faith: Profiting from warRudolph Bush Follow @dallaspolitics Email rbush@dallasnews.comPublished: May 15, 2015 2:36 pm

In a recent news report Pope Francis was quoted as saying “Many powerful people don’t want peace because they live off war.” “Some powerful people make their living with the production of arms. It’s the industry of death.”

An unexploded bomb, an unused bullet, is an economic dead end to military manufacturers. America has been at war 93% of the time: 222 out of 239 years since 1776. Military cast-offs has led to the the hyper-arming of municipal police departments. Over half of the national budget goes to the military while our infrastructure crumbles and people suffer.

His comments echo those of former President Dwight Eisnehower, who warned us of the danger of a military industrial complex.

Is Pope Francis right? Is it time to reduce our war habit by reigning in arms merchants? And what role should our faith leaders play in urging leaders of free and unfree nations to resist the urge to war.

(Thanks to contributor Amy Martin for submitting this week’s question.)

MIKE GHOUSE, President, Foundation for Pluralism and speaker on interfaith matters, Dallas

Faith leaders shoulder one of the most important responsibilities to preserve peace and harmony of the world we live in, as they have passionately, voluntarily or professionally chosen to propagate God’s will to sustain peace on earth. This includes among other things, the obligation to urge the political leaders from holding on to the temptations of going to war.

And what is God’s will? In the simplest words, he created a fully integrated, interconnected world wide web in harmony and balance, and wants us humans, who are endowed with the ability to manage our surroundings to preserve and maintain that balance (Quran, 55:1-13) for our own good. It’s a physical world for survival and spiritual world for peace of mind and healthy living.

Whether it is God, evolution or big bang, whatever created the universe we live in, is in perfect balance, if not we would not exist. The planets perform their duty precisely; seasons change on time, life is programmed precisely through a sperm and an egg and everything else runs on schedule with of course built-in anomalies. On a micro level, if our own bodies are not in balance, we lose our health.

The Native American Chief, Seattle had said, “… we are merely a strand in this web, and if we mess with it, we mess the whole system and eventually ourselves in the end.”

We the people of faith are all mini- avatars of Krishna, who had said, whenever the world goes awry, when people don’t trust each other, lie, betray, mess with the families of others, and go off the tract of righteousness (dharma) and cause chaos and insecurity for all, and then the self balancing act automatically goes into gear. Krishna then adds someone or I will emerge from among you to restore the dharma. Wasn’t that precisely what Moses, Jesus, Muhammad (pbuh), Buddha, Rama, Zoroaster, Nanak, Confucius and all the great Shamans in native traditions did?

Every religion is a natural system of the society designed to preserve the creation both physically and spiritually. When the people of faith volunteer to communicate the word of God to sustain that harmony, we have to see that there is an action that goes with it.

Pope Francis is my hero, my mentor and a mercy to the mankind. I am glad he spoke, we have to consistently speak. Edmund Burke’s quote comes to my mind, “evil exists because good people do nothing about it.” Indeed war mongering exists because we have let it happen.

So, we the good people, the people of faith should take the responsibility to speak out against war and seek to resolve the issues through a dialogue. Think about it, when God created animals, he equipped them with horns, fangs and paws to resolve their disputes, where as he did not give any of that to us – but gave us a tongue instead; to dialogue and resolve the disputes.

To stop uncontrollable aggression by the others, war may be needed; otherwise, it shows we have not evolved from an animal to human. Those who seek war are incapable of dialoguing, they cannot think beyond bombing, killing, subduing and pushing others. We the faith leaders need to communicate that and take an assertive stand against wars and war mongers. 

Thanks to Obama, perhaps the first non-war monger president in a 50 year period, who has used intelligence to dialogue and resolve the issues rather than bomb, bomb and mess up others and mess ourselves. On my part, I have decided to camp out in front of the white house should a future president acts like an animal.

To read other Panelist's take, go to Dallas Morning news at - http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2015/05/texas-faith.html/#more-55465

Thank you
mike
Mike Ghouse, President
America Together Foundation
(214) 325-1916 text/talk
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Mike Ghouse is a public speaker, thinker, writer and a commentator on Pluralism, Islam, India, Israel-Palestine, Politics and other issues of the day. He is a human rights activist, and his book standing up for others will be out soon | He is producing a full feature film " Sacred" to be released on 9/11 and a documentary "Americans together" for a July 4 release.  He is a frequent guest commentator on Fox News and syndicated Talk Radio shows and a writer at major news papers including Dallas Morning News and Huffington Post. All about him is listed in 63 links at www.MikeGhouse.net and his writings are at www.TheGhousediary.com - Mike is committed to building cohesive societies and offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day.