ICAN wins Nobel Peace Prize.

[2ndRateMind]

So, I am truly undecided on this one.

ICAN is the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.

Seems to me, even if your own cities had been nuked, and your own people massacred, it would still not be a moral action to order a reciprocal nuclear strike. Revenge is no excuse to obliterate innocent millions.

If that's not moral, then clearly a preemptive first strike could not be moral either.

But the whole idea of deterrence is that your enemy should not know, and could not judge, whether you would act morally or immorally in response to their aggression.

How do we get from a MAD (mutually assured destruction) world, to a SHE (sane, humane and ecological) world?

Best wishes, 2RM.

[Aetixintro]

[Replying to post 1 by 2ndRateMind]

First, a country should know the risks of violating the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons! Upsetting the World in the process!

Even then, the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons is enforced by UN (Security Council).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on ... ar_Weapons

If a nuclear ban ever comes into existence then we are already in Utopia? Why not, rather, include all nuclear powers into a New START Treaty?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_START

The fighting the Problem of Overpopulation in safe countries by 1 child or 2 children policy!

Are we getting there?

[2ndRateMind]

The fighting the Problem of Overpopulation in safe countries by 1 child or 2 children policy!

I have yet to be convinced that 'over population' is the problem some think it to be. The world already produces enough food for everyone to eat, and eat well. It's just that fully 1/3 of the world's population don't have the money to buy that food.

So, how do they get that money? The preferred method of the first world seems to be economic development; the economic growth of of the developing world. How do you get economic growth? Economic demand, which fuels economic growth, is a function of people with needs to meet and the money to spend to satisfy those needs.

Clearly, the world has enough people with needs. What they want and lack is the money to spend. But half of all the world's wealth is owned by the richest 1% of the world's population. The richest 1% own as much as all the remaining 99% put together.

So, it seems to me to be that the problem here is not too many people, but the concentration of too much wealth in the hands of too few.

Best wishes, 2RM.

[JP Cusick]

How do we get from a MAD (mutually assured destruction) world, to a SHE (sane, humane and ecological) world?

I find that the idea of "MAD" being a political policy was not true - it was simply the reality which the USA saw and lamented.

At first the USA wanted the nuclear power to dominate and possibly to destroy any other Country in the world - so when other Countries got the H-bomb too then all of a sudden it became a "MAD" policy - because they could strike back against the USA.

There is also a clever saying that nuclear power was around long before anyone thought of any nuclear explosion, and so we did not really invent nuclear power - we simply discovered what was already there to be had.

As like inventing an airplane - but aerodynamics was always there long before people discovered how to imitate it.

So we need to look for God in these circumstances, and so maybe God knows that people will wipe out huge parts of sinful humanity through nuclear war and perhaps there is no way to stop our pending reality.

Of course if God has already decided that there will not be any nuclear war then no person can change the will of God.

[2ndRateMind]

So we need to look for God in these circumstances, and so maybe God knows that people will wipe out huge parts of sinful humanity through nuclear war and perhaps there is no way to stop our pending reality.

Much of what you say is good stuff. But I have to take issue with this. The traditional Christian view is that we are all sinners, all falling short of the ideal that God wants for us. And I don't disagree with that. But I also think most people, most of the time, are mostly good, not not mostly evil. That bias is what allows civilisations to occur. For me, wiping out indiscriminately huge parts of humanity, however sinful, would have the undesirable effect of wiping out huge parts of humanity, however virtuous. And so I cannot recommend a nuclear exchange between nations, or think it to be 'a good thing'.

And at the end of the day, for good or ill, such an exchange of nuclear devastation would be our choice, not God's.

Best wishes, 2RM.

[JP Cusick]

Much of what you say is good stuff. But I have to take issue with this. The traditional Christian view is that we are all sinners, all falling short of the ideal that God wants for us. And I don't disagree with that. But I also think most people, most of the time, are mostly good, not evil. For me, wiping out indiscriminately huge parts of humanity, however sinful, would have the undesirable effect of wiping out huge parts of humanity, however virtuous. And so I cannot recommend a nuclear exchange between nations, or think it to be 'a good thing'.

And at the end of the day, for good or ill, such an exchange of nuclear devastation would be our choice, not God's.

This is another example of why it is wrong to judge things as "good or bad" because it is judging quality and we humans can not do that accurately, and it is a poisoned mentality to judge anything as "good or as bad".

If we consider Noah's ark and the flood then surely those people who were drowned would surely see that as a "bad" thing and as not a "good" thing, but God decided by a much different calculation - and so they got flooded.

The USA is an evil Country and our world does wrong consistently, so God might see it as right and as righteous that we get nuked and reap as we sow.

When people do wrong and they live sinfully then it hardly matters that the same people judge it as a "good thing".

[2ndRateMind]

I am not persuaded that, on the whole, what God judges as 'good' is entirely different from what humanity judges as 'good'. Else, what does 'good' mean? Anything? Nothing? Truth is, when we assert that 'God is good', we must be asserting some moral state humanity would recognise, that God's goodness is similar to our own conception of goodness, or we might as well say nothing at all. There would be no grounds for mutual understanding.

To be sure, one could then assert that 'God is Red. But His red is not like our red.' Similar lack of meaning would be conveyed. For a word to have any purchase on the reality of meaning, it must have a universal meaning. So when we say 'God is good', let us presume that divine goodness could be justified through some human conception of goodness. Else we are all truly lost, and with no hope of salvation.

Best wishes, 2RM.

[JP Cusick]

I am not persuaded that, on the whole, what God judges as 'good' is entirely different from what humanity judges as 'good'. Else, what does 'good' mean? Anything? Nothing? Truth is, when we assert that 'God is good', we must be asserting some moral state humanity would recognise, that God's goodness is similar to our own conception of goodness, or we might as well say nothing at all.

So when we say 'God is good', let us presume that divine goodness could be justified through some human conception of goodness. Else we are all truly lost, ...

Jesus gave a specific answer to this same thing, as quoted below:

Matthew 19:
16 And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?

17 And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.

18 He saith unto him, Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness,

19 Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

20 The young man saith unto him, All these things have I kept from my youth up: what lack I yet?

21 Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.

22 But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions. ~ Matthew 19:16-22
---

The text says not to call Jesus as "good", then Jesus responds with the commandments about doing right (do right not good), then Jesus equates being "good" to being perfect, which then the young man went away sorrowful.

So the Bible tells us about the poisoned "knowledge of good and bad" from the Garden of Eden, and here again Jesus is denouncing anyone calling Himself as "good" so understanding this message does not make anyone as lost - it is the opposite of being lost.

[2ndRateMind]

[Replying to JP Cusick]

So, Jesus is claiming that God is perfect, and admitting He wasn't. And challenging the young, rich ruler to belief in a goodness that wasn't necessarily materially advantageous for him, but nevertheless good for wider humanity. I don't see how this contradicts the notion that the concept of good has a meaning common between God and His children.

Best wishes, 2RM

[JP Cusick]

So, Jesus is claiming that God is perfect, and admitting He wasn't. And challenging the young, rich ruler to belief in a goodness that wasn't necessarily materially advantageous for him, but nevertheless good for wider humanity. I don't see how this contradicts the notion that the concept of good has a meaning common between God and His children.

I can see that you are trying hard to change and twist the words into what is not being said, and I must wonder why people resist the truth with so much determination?

Judging anything as "good or bad" is the poisoned knowledge told in the Bible, and the other lie told was that we people are like God which we are not, and so if we want to start judging correctly then we must stick to "right and wrong" and shun that poisoned knowledge.

This is really a simple message, supported by scripture, and you need to stop trying to make it complicated or confusing.