Posted by
The Proud Liberal on Monday, October 15, 2007 12:14:54 PM
I grew up with the commandment "Thou shalt no kill." And as near as I can tell it's only in the last five to ten years that the commandment has come to be rendered "Thou shalt not murder." I think this was changed to justify the collateral damage of war and killing of innocent citizens of a foreign, "enemy" State. But the thought behind this I think clearly has the United States and its enemies in mind.
In fact, this puts God in the position of condoning any killing of civilians in any war, including Japanese atrocities and German's lining civilians up against a wall and shooting them dead. This is because every State defines murder for itself and a State that invades another and kills civilians in the process will define this as collateral damage rather than murder. Thus, God becomes an agent of the State, unless we are willing to acknowledge that God has free will to render a judgment on the foreign policies of individual States. We come inevitably to the proposition that "God is on our side." So it becomes clear that the proposition that "Thou shalt not murder" contains the unstated assumption that "God approves of our politics and so our collateral damage is different than their collateral damage."