Comments on: A war on peace…

By: Bodiam Castle » Why Dont You Blog?

Bodiam Castle » Why Dont You Blog? — Sun, 04 May 2008 19:53:25 +0000

[...] changed. We are still hovering around 400-450 hits a day, although there was a spike to 600 when a previous post got Stumbled. These are still around 80% first time hits, so we need to think about why people aren’t [...]

By: Ted Goas

Ted Goas — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 05:00:24 +0000

While it’s never good to declare war on something, at least it’s something like ‘drink.’ The U.S., man, we have issues…

We have the war on terror (whatever that means anymore), something called the Bible belt, are slipping into a mini-recession when the only thing we make money on is foreign interest, you get the picture. Yes, some of us are pampered and are at war with our waistlines. I don’t know if we declare war on everything, but we’re ‘politically correct’ and love protesting.

Now I hear Britain is may be banning public smoking in certain areas?

By: Heather

Heather — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 07:15:37 +0000

Chaplain

“War against papercuts” is a great image.

You make a very good point about the implications of mistaking metaphors for reality, leading people to trivialise war. Ditto, Islam and the concept of jihad, of course.

By: the chaplain

the chaplain — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 01:35:50 +0000

I am disturbed by the current tendency of western societies to trivialize war by declaring it on everything except papercuts. This corresponds to my concern about Christian war metaphors. Talking about Christian life as spiritual warfare does two dangerous things in my view. First, particularly in a pampered society like the USA, it is ludicrous for American Christians to believe seriously, or at least talk as if they believe seriously, that they are at war with anything (except, perhaps, their own waistlines). What better way to trivialize the notion of war? Second, some Christians don’t believe that the spiritual warfare language is figurative; they believe it is literal. This belief leads them to assume some scary attitudes and behaviors.