Why do we continue to say PEACE ON EARTH and never see it?

[RestoreGore]

Call me a bit cynical, but I actually get angry now when I see those three words together at ONLY this time of year. Is it just a phrase to be used to denote a holiday? Wouldn't we have peace on Earth if men really wanted it? Are we just deluding ourselves by saying it year after year while more and more innocent people die at our own hand of PREVENTABLE circumstances on our part? I stood last night at my window with my one candle lit crying because on what is supposedly the most blessed night of the year, more than half of our world is killing each other and I felt helpless to stop it.

We will NEVER have peace on this planet until we change the greedy hearts of men, and with every passing year that those words are said and we still find ourselves immersed in the horror of war, poverty, and pestilence, I find it harder to believe that it is possible. So I'm tired of seeing "Peace on Earth" and listening to the Pope pray for peace and hungry children from the security and SPLENDOR of his basilica whose worth in gold alone could feed every hungry child on this planet a hundred times over every year, only to see the next year no different. I'm tired of it just being used as a soundbite for a holiday card and other peoples' misery being used as an excuse to collect money to see it never get to where it should go.

This next year I want to see some REAL ACTION behind those words. Is that too much to hope for on this the most blessed day of the year? Too much to hope for to actually SEE the words of Christ LIVED? To actually SEE poverty eradicated? To actually SEE hungry people around the world hunger no more? To actually SEE peace? If it is, then what is the point of this holiday if we as humans are not going to back up our words with action? Oh, how I pray for that on this the most blessed day of the year... to actually get to a year where I won't have to pray for it anymore.

So on this day I pray for all of the souls lost to the human condition of speaking words but never backing them up. And instead of praying for peace, I'm praying for WISDOM, TRUTH, and MORALITY to once take hold in this world. For we will never have peace without them.

[Sherman A1]

1. one word

GREED

[RestoreGore]

16. Yes, true. And there is one other word...

Religion. More people have died throughout history in wars in the name of God for supposed "peace" than for any other reason.

[pocoloco]

2. His disciples said to Him, "When will the Kingdom come?"

"It will not come by waiting for it. It will not be a matter of
saying 'Here it is' or 'There it is.' Rather,the Kingdom of the
Father is spread out upon the earth, and men do not see it."

Gospell of Thomas 113

[RestoreGore]

11. What I see

Is war, poverty, hunger, disease, and injustice, and I don't want to see them anymore. I want them GONE. But of course, that goes to the discussion of freewill, which then angers me even more in seeing what freewill has wrought upon this Earth that we can most certainly see.

[RC]

15. Which I interpret as meaning there is no

Heaven. We have to make do with what we have here. We have to see the Heaven we can make right here on this Earth, if only we would open our eyes.

[sweetheart]

3. "Justice on earth" is a more appropriate phrase

Peace without justice is tyranny, it is
the police state perfect with every person in a prison cell, peacefully rotting away.

But the corporate diet of propaganda pushes this 'peace on earth' thing, as its self
defeating to supress social justice, even if it means peace will be disturbed... so
the left repeats this programmed-narrative from the propagandists central.

Peace without justice, that is their way.

Your beautiful prayer is heartfelt and sincere, merry <holiday> :hi:

[RestoreGore]

8. Peace with Justice

Yes, that's it. The greatest gift of all. Merry <holiday> to you too.

[Boojatta]

13. Do you really think that the OP meant that nonviolent civil disobedience

is automatically a blemish on what might otherwise be a perfect peace? Alternatively, do you advocate war between nations as the only practical method for reforming laws or changing regimes?

[sweetheart]

14. neither

The op reminds of how trite and repeatable the 'peace on earth' thing is,
and that a culture that repeats those words can be behind, and participating
in barbarity across the planet with its imperial army bringing 'peace' on earth.

A little less 'peace' might be nice, given what its come to represent... :sarcasm:

I advocate whatever works to bring justice, and sometimes it is not peace.

"All troubles in the world arise from the inability of people to stay at home."

[blues90]

4. I feel the same way

Peace should be the daily thought but instead it is one day a year and then it evaporates just likethe talk about Katrina . People go right back to their everyday lives as if they are in a perpetual trance driven by greed and self interest .

Peace and all hope for it after all the years of hearing the word seems to have desensitized the human race to the same extent we can watch a bloody murder scene that years ago would have left us with nighmares and an unsettling uneasy feeling .

It appears the word peace has lost it's meaning and now is just a word left for holidays .

There are people who spend their lives promoting peace year round but few of them compared to the massive numbers in the population .

How long have we been waiting and hoping for peace ? Now we are so much further form this concept than ever before and this is quite disheartening and depressing . It is a dream well washed and deluted down to a far off hope and for those only who suffer as the true hearts of humanity .

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

5. Peace starts with the individual

and finding peace within. This is not an easy task, and one that must be continually practiced.

[RestoreGore]

7. Absolutely

We cannot have peace in the world unless we as humans are at peace with ourselves. The question then is, how is that made possible on a worldwide scale, and is that even possible?

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

10. Some won't agree with me,

but I do think group meditation and other practices of peace, such as zkr, Dances of Universal Peace, etc, can help. I have seen a coming together of mystics around the world to do such practices. Of course, the practice would depend upon where your heart directed you.

[blues90]

6. Just now listening to Hartmann playing JFK about peace

It is absolutely amazing and astounding to hear JFK talk about peace and the UN being the peace promoters . Look what bush has done to the UN with Bolton and how the US has not even paid their dues to the UN .

The entire idea of peace seems to have ended the day JFK was murdered . We are so very far from peace or the very concept of peace that there seems to be no a road or path left to get there .

We should have been there long ago that today all the issues of killing and poverty would be well in the past .

So , no I don't feel we will have peace on earth until there is such a catastrophic event , one that rocks all to their very core of existence , perhaps only then will we see just how wrong we have been .

Perhaps man with all his efforts toward defense which takes all presidence above all else will backfire into a release of nuclear power across the globe will be the final effect that wakes us up to the reality of what the meaning of life was all about .

It is not capitalism or corporatism or consumerism that reveals reality, it is mans capacity to view all life as a valuable asset and the earth as our mother where we all need for our very existence .

[RestoreGore]

9. Yes, but I'm afraid that catastrophic event...

May just be the one that not only ends war, but everything else. That is why it is so hypocritical of nations to say Peace on Earth when they have nukes pointed at each other. And I agree with you about the UN. A body I once respected, now reduced to a bought and sold organization allowing themselves to be bullied by madmen on all sides.

[blues90]

12. It is a shame

There was a time when it was the issue to drop the numbers of warheads and this has certainly vanished , actually it has acceled at an alraming rate and now everyone want a few .

The very idea of all having the potential to destroy the planet as a deterant is madness and this is where all the money and efforts are now directed . More and more bio weapons and crowd control weapons along with spying and cameras and detention camps , it just never ends .

This is why for me the only way to find an end is for it to backfire .

Some will survive and possibly realize what they had done and peace will become the natural progression rather than the dream .

I don't see any other way at this point in time . Not with the buildup of nuclear arms we see now .

Perhaps since man has advanced to this point using technology for all the wrong reasons , man has in all sense designed his own end and done so willfully .