A Philosophy of War and Conflict

[Leonardo17]

Sorry for delaying my messages. I don’t always have time to concentrate my attention to the debated of this forum.
 
BrianSoddingBoru:
 

“I’m as sure as Canby that landing airplanes on skyscrapers (or anywhere else) never entered their thinking.
What exactly do you mean by ‘all true forms of spirituality (I have a pretty good idea of your answer, but I’d like to hear it from you directly)?”

 

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- Ordinary religion is when you simply accept a group of dogmas and unverified beliefs and try to abide by it hoping for short term and long term reward (from the deities). Spirituality is more like the place where all religions originate. It requires a lot of critical thinking because it’s a more dynamic process. Although it’s a bit more “difficult” than the former, anyone with sincere spiritual aspirations knows that nothing good comes out of the murder of some people you don’t even know inside a building or skyscraper. Putin does not know that (obviously) but we do (at least the great majority of us do).
 – How we know that: Because it’s in every major spiritual teaching of this world (all of them basically)

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Desse23:
 

“Way to not address my point: How do you know that you and Swami whateverhisnameis and whteverhecookedout are correct, and everybody else is wrong?”

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- I don’t. That’s what I am saying. All of the questions you are asking are questions I am asking myself on a regular basis. There are really time when I say “What if I’m on my deathbed someday and I realize that nothing is going to happen? What if they simply dim the lights and that’s just it?” In fact many spiritual teachings are actually saying that that’s just it.
 
Spirituality (for me) is a work in progress. As I said: Religious people have it very easy in comparison to us. + many people who start as spiritual people gradually become religious or attached to dogmas more than having active endeavors and a more dynamic belief system.

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“I was asking you, about your comfort in believing without a good reason, not about others and stray dogs.”

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- It’s not really comfort if you ask me. Decreasing the power of your small self, being more involved with your True Self opens new doors to life (in a nutshell). It’s not really about comfort. There are many ways to be more comfortable in this world. Spirituality is not really about that.

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“What about your "spiritual" seeking for answers to "uncomfortable questions" is demonstrably better than any other way?”

 

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- It’s truth probably. I’m not saying that “my way is the only way”. But if you are on a genuine spiritual path (and there are several of these) than it has to be something that deal with Truth.
 
/ I was watching the new about fundamentalist Jews spending their lives studying the Bible (and being except from military service) + I saw these Jewish settlers harassing local Arabs. So when you are a spiritual person you may ask questions like “How is this related to God?” / If you see stuff like that and you can ask “What does this have anything to do with God?” than you are in some sort of spiritual path. If not you are being deceived or you yourself are in self-deception.

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“I was not asking about what your belief is, but how you came to your belief (aka good reasons why i should share your belief). Of course many people see answers, duh! Why do you think your answers have any merit?
 
You are talking like a religious person, but completely lack the introspection to realize.”

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- As I said, these are questions I’m constantly asking myself as well. You can keep asking me expecting some response like “Because the Lord sent us is Book and in it everything is written”
 
/That’s really not how it works. At least not in this century

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“What is "energy" in this context?
Why do the ages match with centuries AD?
Lowest age starting in 1200. Why 1200? What was the "energy level" in 1199? What were humans like if after 1200 they were "basically animals and act accordingly with their animal instincts"? What about ancient Greek philosophers and their followers made them "animals"?”

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- It was not my intention to debate this. But did you watch Gladiator I + Gladiator II (2024). I think the second movie is much more realistic. It is more successful in portraying the Roman as the true animals that they were. Gladiator I portrayed them as the superpower of their ages. Bringing light and civilization to the world (!).
 
In fact Bronze Age (before 1200) civilizations were much more civilized than Romans if you ask me. + Many Roman aristocrats were admirers of the ancient Greek. But the Greeks themselves were like barbarians if you compare them to Bronze Age Minoan civilizations for instance.

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/But this is just me having a chat. I won’t have the courage to repeat any of this in an academic setting. But this is still how I Think.

 

“What "animal instincts" were dropped by 1900? I am particularly asking with regards to tribes in New Guinea and the Amazon rain fores who didnt even have contact with modern civilization by 2026 and how their "energy levels" could have potentially changed.
What better "understanding of spiritual stuff"? What the fuck is "spiritual stuff"?
Higher energies since 1900 and French Revolution: When did the French Revolution happen?”

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- That’s the philosophy of Sri Yukteswar. He took the Hindu belief of Yugas or ages. Many before him thought that these ages lased for millions of years. He modernized it and turned it into something that looks like the belief in the “Aquarian Age” in new age communities.
 
But in a nutshell: Rome had to fall down. Rome 2.0 had to fall as well. The Ottoman dynasty was way better in every way than the Greek Dynasties of Constantinople. And even King Carolus was by far better than 90% of Roman Emperors since Caesar. That’s because the “energy” was evolving. Mankind first degenerated (after the Bronze Age Collapse of 1200 BC). Than it started evolving again. So after the sack of Rome in 410 AD, mankind started moving up again. Becoming more energetic, more intelligent. After the Great plague in 1350 AD, things started moving even faster. Than we had to renaissance and the Industrial revolution etc. Some say that at the height of Kali Yuga (4th century AD). Most people were so dumb that even you gave them modern education opportunities it wouldn’t work for them because that’s how they are wired. Just like Trump supporters not understanding US interests in South-Korea and Japan, these guys could not understand arithmetic or literature even with the best teachers. (Because of low spiritual energy levels)

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“Rest of the message”

 
This isn’t some academic environment. So if you want to have a chat on these things I am willing to have a chat on these things
 
Agrboda:

 
“That doesn't address the question. You comprehended something on an intellectual level, and your new understanding led you to have different emotional reactions to people. That has nothing to do with spirituality. Therapists use cognitive behavioral therapy to help people with depression to change the way they think about things, and the changed thinking results in a different set of emotional reactions than the client's original thinking did. But this all occurs on an intellectual level. If I understood you correctly, you were saying that some "inner eye" allows you to tell what is and is not beneficial so you can repeat it. Intellectual understandings are not rooted in any inner eye and are available to anyone in much the same way that you talk of people reading and reading do. You haven't described finding something beneficial from a different path, the path which led you to not looking down on people was the same path as those who you suggest can read and read and never get anywhere. That's all you did was read. No inner eye is required for that.
 
Can you try to answer the question properly and explain what specific, concrete benefits you achieved by appeal to some "inner eye?"”

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- I mentioned the “inner eye” as this gut feeling that I have after 20+ years of being into spiritual stuff. I don’t thrust everyone and everything on these issues. I intellectually know that things like scientology is not good (because of all the people who end up wasting their times and resources for nothing – You probably know this as well). But I also have this inner compass. You can bring be different types of theists. I think I would be able (after getting to know them a little of course) which one has this “sincerity” I am talking about, which one is simply repeating some old formulas (I know many people like that too) and which ones (unfortunately) have crossed the line and are now located in the field of fanaticism and irrationality.
 
/So I don’t know if this answers your question. If I understood correctly you asked about my personal benefit from being on a spiritual path. I wanted to tell you that there were several benefits and one of these benefits was the one you mentioned above. And yes this is some sort of cognitive-behavioral type of benefit. And yes: this is not uncommon if you are on some type of genuine spiritual path.

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(Did I get it right?)
 
The GrandNUdger
 

“Everytime you say this I inform you that there is no atheist/spirtuality binary.  Here in the us, "spiritual but not religious" is cultural code for "atheist".  Sure, in general, we could all work on being more compassionate, however compassionate we already are.  I don't think ukraine, particularly, has the luxury of a faux compassion under pressure of concern trolling propaganda about all that poor russian grain.”

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- That’s just my opinion. Ukraine is in war. So if they are bombing the “Wildberries” depots I think this is a terrible waste as well. But it’s ok because they have to push the Russian people to stop denying the realities of this war. But there are 2 billion food insecure human persons in this world. + the Russians are not hitting Ukrainian grain ships anymore. So is it too much to ask Ukrainians to leave these ones alone?

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“Bit of a problem there.  You can't challenge them.  Not just because that's not how moralizing or theosophy works..but because they're going to bury you in very non-compassionate absolutely legit quotes from whatever shared magic book you conjure up.   The three involved in my example..and we could add israeli expansionists and iranian clerics to this list for completeness, believe in a warlords god.  A god that...allegedly...did absurdly fucked up things because it was a tuesday and his guy needed a solid.  They are following religions that were palpably and very successfully invented and reinvented over the centuries, both within and between their respective faiths, to split people into two groups at the very least..with different sets of rules covering in and out group dynamics.  Your peaceful god is not their yahweh, not their jesus, not their allah.  In the us and russia, they're pretty convinced that jesus is a queer plot to trans and or feminize everyone.”

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- I absolutely agree. In the 00’s I was a member of a very similar free belief system forum where we used to have our conversations in my mother tongue etc. They just couldn’t stand it somehow. It’s all started with our website being hacked etc. Than at some point they took the website over and there is no such “free thinking” forums in Turkish language anymore (not that I know of).
 
But back to 2026, I’m into Morihei Ueshiba now. It’s not that I am doing some sort of religious (or anti-religious) propaganda here. Even on a purely intellectual level, their approach are unfounded. If God wants the Jews to kill all the Palestinian Arabs (that’s exactly what they are saying right? Because they are “The Chosen People of God”) fine. But in that case who is the voice in the ACIM who say things like “defending is attacking” or “in my defenseless lies my strength”. What are than those spiritual principles? They don’t just fit right? So one of us here has lost it. Is it them? Or is it me? (It has to be one or the other )

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“I think you're on to something, you might want to consider that it also applies to you.  Maybe all this true spirituality stuff t is what you would do, what rules you would make, as a god?  How does it apply to war and conflict?  Do you have thoughts on the issues of countries a-z in general, if not in particular to this war?  Do you think that, generally speaking, war should be waged in such a way that it does not upset either population, even if that civility prolongs a war and is directly against the interests of ones own soldiers?  Is it limited to grain shipments that don't pay for military operations?  I ask, because that's already part of the contemporary theory of just war in not-shithole countries.  The russians go on human safaris daily in Kherson.  Western soldiers might not be permitted to return fire when fired upon if that fire is deemed ineffective.  Ukranian pows are raped and tortured, russian pows are fed and clothed and cared for and given a telephone call back home.  If they're north korean they might even get a ukranian paid for trip to south korea.  Ukraine targets military hardware, decision making centers, production facilities, and dual use entities.  Russia has a hell of a track record with maternity wards, apartments, and public parks.  Sometimes they manage to cram multiple categories into one, like bombing theaters full of children, then bulldozing over their crime to build a gala site for the dissemination of kremlin propaganda.”

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- That’s what I wanted people to say when I started this Thread. To this I could add that terrorism is not warfare. Another thing that can’t be done (even in asymmetrical warfare) is using your own population as a human shield against the enemy. Again: If you are a soldier, that’s not how you fight.
 
And I might also add that wars are gradually becoming more civilized. The Japs released plague infested fleas on Chinese cities. That’s what they did in the middle ages, catapulting plague infested bodies into cities and then raping, torturing, murdering all they can as there was no modern press to document their crime.
 
Today we say for instance that “when they fight democracies have to fight with one hand tied on their back” just as you said, Ukrainians cannot bomb Russian shopping malls on a daily basis. That’s not how they operate.
 
So back to the Middle East: This is not how Iran is fighting. Therefore Iran is not a hope against Israel. On the contrary Iran is what gives legitimacy to Israel’s activities in Lebanon and Palestine. + I don’t know where Israel is going breaking all the above mentioned rules of engagement.

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“Ukraine is waging a remarkably "civil" war precisely because they need to keep western backers on-side.  Look...not because western nations are moral paragons in war and elsewhere, but because western politicians in general do not like to be attached to those actions counter to the narrative of a civil dominion.  It didn't start out that way.  In the beginning, it was, as a war commentator whose name escapes me put it so well, a large soviet army attacking a small soviet army.  The ukranian leadership is still almost entirely comprised of combatants from that paradigm...and alot of ukraines troubles, aside their sometimes friends in the west, stem from that.  Still, you have concerns.  The question this all seems to beg, to me, is just how much more civil need the ukranians (or anyone really) be, in your understanding of ethics, in this (or any) existential fight?  “

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- I sort of agree with this stuff. Ukraine made a social decision and they did this during the Maidan Revolution. Here “Western Values” does not mean Western imperialism and capitalism (as Putin tries to present to his people). These are the more modern values. And this military example is just that. We are now fighting wars in a more human way. The Soviet way was never up to date if you ask me because even that model was based on the Tsarist model and the whole thing was built by ancient Imperial Russian Generals. It’s not that we “love” our soldiers more (there is that also), but just like the rest of the world, armies are evolving too. And that’s why you had these street protests in Kiev. They wanted the “more modern” guy as defense minister. Not the “Soviet guy” who was Zelensky’s first choice.

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“In general, if not in reference to this particular conflict, do you see civility and morality in warfare as a liability, or a display of strength?  Both? More generally, do you think that war should be so civil that there's little civil reason to end one, or not start them?  Conversely, have you ever considered the opinion that war should be allowed to be so brutal, so cruel and petty and full of carnage...that it strongly dissuades a given public from supporting (or signing up and waging) one?”

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- What I had in mind was everything happening in the Middle-East in general. In the Arab insurrection of 1916-1918 Ottoman soldiers were keeping their last bullets to their selves and it was not a joke. Being taken alive by those desert-dwelling Arabs (in that Era) was not the smart thing to do. But this is not what I am referring to either. The type of violence we are witnessing in this region since decades is simply inhuman. + The perpetrators of this violence are actually the descendants of great civilizations. So even in this context, I find it difficult to understand that type of warfare that is happening between closely related ethnic groups (if you look at the demography of it).
 
You know: Before the Bronze Age collapse, Assyrians had the best trained soldiers. They had subdued the entire Middle-East at some point and they even took Egypt for a while. So how does that turn into some leader dropping phosphorus bombs on its own women and children? And how do some people (even in my country) still hope that they can impose this on us?
 
And finally: What is this Crazy-Hair of yours doing? (He cancels Military drills with Koreans in order not to upset Kim Yon Un?)

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- I mean really, as a spiritual person, I am worried about the state of the world. And I believe in this “Aquarian age” thing. I see it as the natural evolution of our kind. That's because there is no other way forward.