Wow, what a headline! (Actually, would have liked to post it to "The Military" - where I think it belongs - but thought better, enough heat surely coming in after this post anyway)...
Seriously, I think/believe it is one of the most serious topics that soldiers from all angles are fighting with, all of us are consoled by the promise of impunity on the other side of life (just the Spanish example, but it is the same for any nation/religion, seems it is a natural part of the soldier´s job)...
Check this vid (one of the most emotional pieces I know which drives me to tears, but why is that so if GOD *
prohibits* to kill?? Am I insane? Or is the Muslim insane believing the same just at reverse?):
"Death is not the End" - Hommage to the soldiers
that gave their live for GOD and Spain (I have a translation up on this forum elsewhere, but here the pix say it all):
Or, let us take the example of myself: Created in a normal (protestant) environment, both my culturally condiditoned as well as my sentimentally conditioned ethics revolve around those 4 points as a soldier: I *do* understand (as I have read the Coran and other holy books) ideas from the other side, but, inevitably (as those ENY solds!) am falling for my personal upbringing, i.e. "christian" culture. What do my christian briefs tell me?:
"Though shall not kill" (just to mention one, but the one that soldiers have to live with and make their peace with).
In Koran, in Budhism, Hinduism, The Tora, in almost all religions,
it comes down to the same:
Killing is forbidden, by God (no exceptions mentioned in any religion AFAIK).
Why do we soldiers train to and then, later, exercise kill (and even in *name of* religion, e.g. our bishops "benedict" arms??), one of the mysteries I never have been able to solve (agnostic myself), when my own book of rules (Bible in my case) prohibits it, and why can we be even *proud* of "standing there" doing it (though I am, hence the dilemma!)?
Today, with my age, I cannot see it anymore, but I remember that as youngster I (seemingly) understood it: There are so (too) many excuses!;
"Oh, but we are not killing for pleasure, we are defending (ourselves/religion/culture/nation/beliefs)!"
"The others do not stick to our book, why should we?"
"We are not allowed to kill by God? Have to turn the other cheek? But what, if it´s my son killed? I am not Hiob, after all, and my sins are forgiven!"
"Infidels are not mentioned, let us start a crusade!"
In this context I want - as I am leaving this forum for some time - to present to you an interesting discourse, by
Daniel Dennett, a philospher and physicist (and from my POV a profound thinker and great person), held when he was presented with the "Richard Dawkins Award" in 2007, during the Atheist Alliance International Convention.
In all my life time (and I am not an atheist by definition!) nobody ever has detailed so impressively
why we believe, why we
want to belive, why we
need to believe and what the consequences are, and what the "guilt" idea means for us, from a totally rational POV (though I am not along with the conclusions in total), a true thinker the way I think we soldiers need to start dissecting our motives and the things that speed/slow us.
Let me start with the elogy that goes with every award, by Mr. Dawkings himself, and then reproduce Mr. Dennets discourse (
for our rather superficial readers, do *not* go on from here if you cannot spare or concentrate for an hour to listen to arguments on such a serious subject, that is about the time this post will require from you from here onwards - intentionally parted in two sections...). For me, these questions Daniel Dennett is discussing are existentially serious, have been part of the center of my life, and I would mind hearing stupid or uneducated comments, if you will allow me a personal plea.
I would really be interested to hear comments from (alphabetical order) FACMan, Jily, Koen, MontyB and Solideo when I come back. Myself, I am intrigued and reflecting (again) right now (I am slow, sorry).
Rattler
Elogy for Dan Dennett when awarded the "Richard Dawkins Award", 2007, by Mr Dawkins himself:
A philosopher by training, Daniel C. Dennett is known as the leading proponent of the computational model of the mind. He has made significant contributions in fields as diverse as evolutionary theory, artificial intelligence, cognitive science, animal studies, computer science among others. Never one to avoid a good fight, he has clashed with such noted thinkers as John Searle, Roger Penrose, and Stephen Jay Gould. In this regard, Dennett is emblematic of the third culture intellectual.The strength of the third culture is precisely that it can tolerate disagreements about which ideas are to be taken seriously. There is no canon or accredited list of acceptable ideas. Unlike previous intellectual pursuits, the achievements of the third culture are not the marginal disputes of a quarrelsome mandarin class: they affect the lives of everybody on the planet.
"Dan Dennett is living proof that philosophy is not, as many think, airy speculation and effete musing.," notes Steven Pinker. "Time and again Dan has worked as a razor-sharp cognitive scientist, analyzing the implications of research more thoroughly than the researchers did themselves. His elucidation of different explanatory "stances" (physical, intentional, design) provided the key ideas behind mental modules (or multiple intelligences) for different domains of knowledge. His analyses of behaviorism, artificial intelligence, imagery, consciousness, free will, and evolutionary psychology just brim with insight and original ideas. And it doesn't seem fair that someone with such serious and important ideas should be so much fun to read!"
Marc D. Hauser credits Dennett (along with Jerry Fodor) as one of the two empirical philosophers (those who use data to drive philosophical discussion) who has had an extraordinary impact on evolutionary studies of the mind. Although these two often hold quite radically different positions, they have each contributed in important ways to our understanding of the mind, and how psychological findings bear on profound philosophical distinctions.
According to Hauser, "Dennett has had a significant impact on studies of animal cognition due in part to his work on the intentional stance and his intuitions about the kinds of inferences that humans and nonhuman animals might make with respect to other minds. When Dan laid out, in his typically lucid and playful fashion, how ethologists might go about studying intentionality from a Gricean perspective (I know that you know that I want that banana hidden from view from our fearless leader), this opened the door to a series of studies and analyses of animal behavior.
"Most crucially, Dan's insight into the problem of other minds, and of using studies of false belief to test for such mental states, set forth a cottage industry of research in animals and human infants. It is the combination of Dan's playfulness and creativity that makes him an asset to those of us working on animal cognition. One is almost tempted to say that in the same way that imaging provides a tool for understanding the neurobiological and functional architecture of the human mind, Dennett represents a tool for those of us studying animal minds."
And, from my POV, the human mind is just another animal mind...:
Discourse about "Faith, Belief and The Concept of a God" on the same occasion, by Daniel Dennett
Part 2 (the most impacting IMHO - if you heard part 1, of cause...):
(Continued in next post, R.)
