+1 more
posted on Jul, 27 2011 @ 07:33 PM
The people of ATS are more 'awake' than most people, who are essentially in slumber, and barely realize that this planet has been held hostage from
its true potential, the paradise it is supposed to be. That all this suffering and idiocy and inequality is totally unnecessary.
What disturbs me though, is that the very energy that allows suffering to propagate, the emotion of revenge, is rampant even among there people here.
I see it in any thread about a crime or terrorist attack, people raving about how they would love to torture the person, how the person should burn in
Hell and be raped by demons, how the death penalty is totally necessary for this reason. I thought people here would be beyond that.
Revenge is a deadly cycle and never in reality resolves in justice. The only way to defeat evil, is to forgive it. And what I mean by this, is not to
'give in' to it, but rather, not to meet evil with more evil.
Take the events in Norway, which prompted me to make this thread. The killer committed his actions because he believed that the liberals were traitors
for allowing Muslims into Europe and felt it was his duty to put them to death. His hatred was fueled by the hatred many people in Europe have for
immigrants, and also by the polarization between the political left and right that is not just an American thing. Instead of denying our
responsibility in creating the tenuous atmosphere that caused him to shoot those poor kids, we take a high and mighty position that he was merely an
island, disconnected from the rest of us, and then we want to hate him and put him to death and never confront the original hatred that causes
unstable people to now and again create these tragedies.
Most of the posters on here I believe are Americans, and as a culture we are very individual-oriented, and that is why we are more apt to demonize a
harmful person rather than see them as a symptom of a larger problem in society. To our mindset, all people are islands and totally independent of one
another in a sense, so killing the really bad apples must solve the problem and the rest of us can walk home and feel happy justice was done.
I don't think this is enough. We are never going to run out of people to hang, we are never going to clean the gene pool. We need to change our whole
society, we need to become more compassionate as a civilization. Breivik's actions are more than just the work of one evil man, they are a symptom of
the new darkness and intolerance that is spreading throughout Europe over the fear of Muslims. I've always said that Muslims in Europe should be
worried because the hate for them is there that they could become victims of a new Holocaust. The same things that were said about Jews 100 years ago
are said about Muslims today.
If we want to honor the victims of Norway's recent tragedy, hating Breivik is the wrong way to do it. We are only holding on to the self-righteous
kind of hate that caused the tragedy in the first place. We should kill Breivik - with kindness. Norway should show him that no matter how cruel he
was to them, they will not stoop down to his level. And we should look into our hearts, and ask "Have I ever hated someone because they were
different from me? And why? Was I afraid of them? Afraid of change?" And if we say yes, we should make an effort to love instead of fear and hate.