Monday, May 21, 2007

Faith Matters

This weekend we've heard of the rockets launched from the Gaza strip on Israel, and the retaliation from the Israeli Military.
Just an hour ago the AP sent out this new report with the headline: New Israeli air strikes kill 5 militants. You have to go down to the 4th paragraph to see that the attack that killed those 5 militants followed an air strike that killed 8, among those killed 6 civilians.

Since May 16th the Israeli bombings have killed 40 Palestinians, and on the Israeli side? The rockets fired have wounded several Israelis and disrupted life in Israeli towns near Gaza.

Despite the big difference in casualties and harm done, the news media is reporting from the Israeli point of view, CNN's reporter stood outside an Israeli home, with some parts of it's roof missing, telling the viewers that the family living in that home was luckily not hurt, while there was no pictures or reports from inside Gaza at all, even though 6 civilians was killed just hours earlier from a military air strike.

This is of course not a new phenomenon, ever since I came to the US, I've been struck by the extremely angled reporting from the Middle East, and how the media, left and right both, seem to always take the Israeli side.

Why is this?
I know that there are extremely influential Jewish voices in this country.
I know that there are more Jews living in this country than living in Israel.
I know that the horrible atrocities in Europe that killed more than 6 million Jews can never be forgotten.

But,
I also know that the bible says that one should bless Israel, and if one does, and if Israel come together, that's when Jesus will come back. Christians all over the world follow closely, and their whole future rely on, how Israel is doing.

This is, what I think, the key for our totally blind acceptance for everything Israel does, our commitment to defend Israel no matter what, so in the long run we can save ourselves and get to heaven.
Nothing is going to stand in the way of our salvation, and in this case certainly not the Palestinian people.

Who are the strongest Israel supporters in our country? I dare to say it's the same people with the Pro-Life bumper stickers on their cars. But again, it's all depending on who's life is at risk if you're pro-life or not.

My conclusion is that religion of any sort is violent and cause a lot of harm, sometimes hands on and sometimes just by principles and personal gain.
Most important of all, all Governments that are founded on faiths of any kind is doomed to cause bloodshed for the ones not sharing that same faith.

6 comments:

Björn Asserhed said...

ironically enough, I think the most religious (with the full and real sense of the word) among jews, muslims as well as christians, are the ones that grieve the current developement the most.

Kyrie eleison - Lord have mercy!

Home Swede Home said...

The ones who grieve the most are of course the people caught in the middle of the fire, not knowing if there will be a tomorrow for themselves or their loved ones.

The fact remains, to fullfill the prophesy and to reach the goal of the preparation for Christ's second coming, the believers are willing to walk over lots of dead bodies.

Home Swede Home said...

ops, I forgot to welcome you to my world Björn!

Anonymous said...

Hi! here's another newcomer to your world!
Magdalena, I agree in the things you say, but I think you generalize a bit talking about believers. Maybe lately you've only seen these so called believers who would walk over bodies for their salvation, but believe me, there are others too, who are not like that.
Me, for example. I'd never do that, I don't really care to exactly know when Christ will be returning. Someone said only the Father knows the time. All I try is to be ready when it happens.

Home Swede Home said...

Hi Martin and welcome in to my busy and sometimes very irrational brain. Thanks so much for your comments.

Of course there are a lot of people that are not the way I discribed, but my point is that there's not a big difference in people of faith, no matter what faith they have.

Right now when we're so obsessed with the 'evil' forces of Islam for example and what it does to people, one seem to forget that the 'Christian-loving-faith' is presenting the same threat and evil to millions of people in the middle east.

The western world faith based governments have a more sophisticated way of killing than the the muslim based. But for the people losing their family members or their own life, it's as terrorizing no matter who's holding the gun.

When the body count is over the Christan western world will no doubt be the winner.

Meanwhile, the Christian right over here will be totally unaware, because they are protesting Gay rights, walking in pro-life rallies or some other way more 'loving' activity rather than caring for a couple of million dead arabs.

Anonymous said...

hi again,
Yes I agree.
May God have mercy over them. Most probably it will be the proud, judging, so called christians all over the world, who will receive the more terrible judgement.
Having said that, let's not mix up Faith in the Father and Religion.
/M