Is Lebanon on fire? You wonder what to do? You never hear anyone present a way to resolve conflict that really sounds like it would work?
Scientific materialism holds the key.
If the men who kidnapped the Israeli soldiers had been scientific materialists instead of Muslims, they would not have kinapped anyone. They would not have seen themselves as morally superior to the Israelis. They would not have seen themselves as morally justified in kidnapping them.
If the Israeli military had been run by scientific materialists, they would not have bombed anyone. They would not have seen themselves as morally superior to the kidnappers. They would not have seen themselves as morally justified in bombing them.
Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, all have the same problem. They all teach good and evil, and free will, and a god who teaches us good and evil, and who supports us in our struggle to work for good and against evil. And the worst problem is the nice, loving clerics of all three, who tell the world that the true message of these three is the one message of love.
In reality, it is a trap of logic: If there is a god who can tell me what is good and what is evil, then, with time, I will come to know a few things that are clearly good, and a few things that are clearly evil. If others do not agree with me, they have evil in their hearts. They may someday be converted, and god may forgive them, but it is my duty to stop them from putting their ideas into practice. Because they are evil ideas.
And, it is my duty to put my ideas into practice. They are good ideas.
However, scientific materialists look at things this way: that other person's ideas are simply the product of a high capacity brain with a particular combination of genetics, nutrition, exercise, and learning from life. That is what produced those ideas.
Likewise, my ideas are the product of a high capacity brain with a different combination of genetics, nutrition, exercise, and learning from life. That is what produced my ideas.
In fact, if you read the last two paragraphs carefully, you begin to realize that the human 'person' simply does not exist. The human organism is an animal. There is no such thing as a person. We must change our English textbooks. A noun names a place or a thing. No persons.
So, If I am angry at a human animal, there is no person inside to be angry at. The bahavior I hate was caused by factors outside the control of that human.
If I think that human is dangerous, I may take steps to stop his dangerous behavior.
Here, you may think I am back to violence. And this philosophy does not rule out violence. But actual self defense, not berserk massacre of an enemy, takes a fine tuned reaction to dangerous bahavior.
One guideline is to never let your re-action become more violent than the dangerous action you are re-acting to. That is the idea behind, 'an eye for an eye.' The Israeli leaders did not take an eye for an eye.
But you cannot just put a guideline into practice. You cannot do it until you feel right doing it. And you cannot feel right with measured reaction, or better yet, wait and see what happens, or negotiate, or give them some of what they want, you cannot feel right about these ideas until you see only animals, no free will, animals you have tormented, in fact. If you tormented these animals, you will need to soothe them.
I am at the love part now. I can love everyone. You cannot love everyone, until you see the light. We are all animals. Love your fellow human animals.
We atheists can truly love the sinner, while hating the sin. We can love, because we never draw a line and say we cannot accept as rational, that human's behavior. We never draw a line to stop us from understanding behavior.
That is why only atheists can love everyone.
P. S. I am stuck in a hospital where my wife is to have surgery today, and the hospital hot spot system will not let me look at your comments. The main body of diaries, with comments, are listed as pornography. I can edit the diary. But I cannot see your comments. Anyway, I just want to ask you to not start a flame war, using a diary about peace. Pretend you are all atheists, and you do not hold me resposible for what I wrote. It was the genetics, nutrition, exercise, and life experience that was talking. Not me. There is no me.