Shared sacrifice in a time of war

[godhatesrepublicans]

As I write this, The day's headlines include the following:

Israeli Strike Kills 56, Mostly Children
U.S. to Send 3,700 Troops to Baghdad
Pentagon Extends Tour for 4,000 Troops, Increasing Number in
Iraq
13 Iraqis Killed, 12 Tortured Bodies Found, 3 Kidnapped as
Shi'ites Turn Against US
Mother, Children Among 12 Killed in Israeli Lebanon Raids
Va. Medic Is Killed as He Tried to Aid His Fellow Soldiers
Delhi (OH) Combat Veteran Never Held Infant Daughter

War is one of the oldest and most incredibly stupid human
traditions. I once heard an explanation of why we never outgrew
it as a species from a friend in college during a rather complicated
drinking game. I've never heard an explanation that made more
sense, so I'll share it now.

"Maybe it's just a way to replace human sacrifice," he muttered
while reaching for another beer. "We take our youngest, most
vital people, and feed them into a meat grinder over trivial
meaningless crap like real estate no one wants or natural
resources we could just as easily get somewhere else. Then we
make sure as many women and children get killed as possible to
add to the whole bloody mess. Human sacrifice meets mass
production."

Now almost twenty years later, I still don't see a better
explanation. The United States invaded Iraq because it was an
easier target to find than a widely dispersed Al-Qaeda. If you
believe that the human race was created in God's image or if you
believe we descended from common evolved ancestors, the end
result is that distant relatives are killing each other over nothing. I
wouldn't trade the life of an Iraqi child or an American teenager
for a billion barrels of oil, and if YOU would, then shame on you.

Once again Israel and Hezbollah are killing helpless civilians over
a worthless dirt-patch that I wouldn't build an outhouse in. If that
scrap of wasteland is ANYONE'S idea of a "Holy Land" then they
clearly need to travel more. I could see calling green Ireland or
Connecticut's rolling hills "holy," but every scrap of the whole of
the Middle East looks like a cross between the Lunar surface and
a used cat-box to me. If you'd allow a single child to be sprayed
with white phosphorus because you think God values property
more than the life of a child, you deserve an eternity in Hell.

My ministry is therefore going to make an unprecedented call.
Instead of allowing this perverted human sacrifice practice to
continue, we call on the world's political leaders to admit to what
they are doing, and to begin instituting REAL human sacrifices.

In ancient times when leaders wished to prove to their followers
that they were serious about their latest claims, they would
sacrifice one of their family members to the Gods to assure
victory in their planned adventures. Before the Trojan war, King
Agamemnon sacrificed his daughter Iphigeneia to the Goddess
Artemis in order to get his ships to the war faster.

The meaning of this sort of thing was clear. If the King was willing
to kill his own children in order for a thing to be done, then the
least the peasants could do was send their sons off to risk death
in battle under the King's flag.

If the Republicans and pro-War Democrats wish to continue in
their desires to lead our teenagers off to be human sacrifices and
to slaughter the innocents of other parts of the planet, feeding
them into the meat-grinder of foreign wars over meaningless
matters of pride and boundary lines on maps, fine. Let's see
them put their own flesh and blood on the line first though.

If the majority of the Senate and the President and his Cabinet
are willing to stand on the Capitol Steps while each of their first
born children have their hearts cut out upon a stone altar by the
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, then we as a nation should
be willing to send our sons, daughters and our selves off to risk
death.

Unless our "leaders" are willing to take such an action to prove
their sincerity and willingness to join the rest of us in mutual
sacrifice, we at Matthew 23 Ministries will have to say that any
who wish to avoid military service are fully justified in being
conscientious objectors.

If you have sons or daughters who are considering the military,
keep them out. If you are a member of the armed services,
refuse to go into combat until we see some rich, politically
connected people's children having their blood spilled first.

I admit, this is an unusual position for a Christian preacher to take,
but these are unusual times.

Please feel forward to forward this position statement to your family and friends.

Brian Davis, Webmaster
www.GodHatesRepublicans.Org

War Prayer
by Mark Twain
<1904>
It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was
up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of
patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy
pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and spluttering;
on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of
roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the
sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue
gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers
and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked
with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass
meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the
deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at
briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running
down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached
devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles
beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid
eloquence which moved every listener. It was indeed a glad and
gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to
disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness
straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their
personal safety's sake they quickly shrank out of sight and
offended no more in that way.

Sunday morning came--next day the battalions would leave for the
front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their young
faces alight with martial dreams--visions of the stern advance, the
gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the
flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce
pursuit, the surrender! Then home from the war, bronzed heroes,
welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the
volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the
neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth
to the field of honor, there to win for the flag, or, failing, die the
noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a war chapter
from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it
was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with
one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating
hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation

God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest! Thunder thy clarion
and lightning thy sword!

Then came the "long" prayer. None could remember the like of it
for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The
burden of its supplication was, that an ever-merciful and benignant
Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and
aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless
them, shield them in the day of battle and the hour of peril, bear
them in His mighty hand, make them strong and confident,
invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to
them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory--

An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless
step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long
body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his
white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his
seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With all
eyes following him and wondering, he made his silent way; without
pausing, he ascended to the preacher's side and stood there
waiting. With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence,
continued with his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the
words, uttered in fervent appeal, "Bless our arms, grant us the
victory, O Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and
flag!"

The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside--which
the startled minister did--and took his place. During some
moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes,
in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said:

"I come from the Throne--bearing a message from Almighty God!"
The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger
perceived it he gave no attention. "He has heard the prayer of His
servant your shepherd, and will grant it if such shall be your desire
after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import--that
is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of
men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware
of--except he pause and think.

"God's servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused
and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two--one uttered,
the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him Who heareth all
supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this--keep it
in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware!
lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same
time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which
needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon
some neighbor's crop which may not need rain and can be injured
by it.

"You have heard your servant's prayer--the uttered part of it. I am
commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it--that
part which the pastor--and also you in your hearts--fervently
prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it
was so! You heard these words: 'Grant us the victory, O Lord our
God!' That is sufficient. the whole of the uttered prayer is
compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not
necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for
many unmentioned results which follow victory--must follow it,
cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also
the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into
words. Listen!

"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go
forth to battle--be Thou near them! With them--in spirit--we also
go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite
the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody
shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the
pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of
the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help
us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help
us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing
grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to
wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and
hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy
winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee
for the refuge of the grave and denied it--for our sakes who adore
Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter
pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their
tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet!
We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love,
and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore
beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.

(After a pause.) "Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The
messenger of the Most High waits!"

It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because
there was no sense in what he said.