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My question, put as simply as I can: Is it ethical to benefit from the sacrifices of others on your behalf when one refuses to do the same for them?
You are assuming there is benefits from war. In fact, others do not see this. The military has through out history been used to make certain people money or give certain people power. It all comes down to a question of faith. Where does a person put his or her faith.
When it comes to who can make change, solve the problems of mankind, who do the people look to for change? They look to the politicians, to the rich, to the powerful. This means that the people put their faith in money and power.
This means that money and power is our god. We worship money and power and the military. We believe the military will protect us. We believe that mutually assured destruction will protect us.
Not everyone believes in this. I believe mutually assured destruction will kill us all, unless we an break free of that line of thinking/worship.
I believe that when we put the government in control of our morality, deciding who we should kill, than we no longer have a government worth fighting for. At that point we have lost the most important freedom of all, which is the freedom to do the right thing.
Do we put the government above God? When God tells us not to kill, and the government tells us to kill, who do we listen to?
I do not agree with the Jehovah's Witnesses stance. God does command people to fight war, but God does not allow the government to make the decision for you. That decision does not belong to the government.
None the less, it is good to see a religion at least trying to protect the rights of the people to follow God. I believe the World Peace Church will do a much better job of this though.
God's plan is to eliminate war all together. Not through the governments, but rather by getting the people to be more powerful than the governments. My eliminating poverty, and all other ways that the powers that be enslave us.
Here's a video that shows the basics of how God plans to do that: