Thou Shalt Not Kill - How?

Well, I talked pretty good awhile back about how humans ignore God's 6th commandment and kill, kill, kill. Let's look a little deeper. I think I called it a rabid dog murderous nature of 99.9% of human beings, recently. As you can probably tell, that's a pet peeve of mine. Truthfully I didn't always feel that way, and even today, insects, flies and moths in particular that get in the house, or in my way, aren't safe around me. So let's face it, all human beings, with the alleged rare exception, are killers, murderers, even if it's something as small and insignificant as a fly.

Is there a way for humanity to live without killing? I honestly don't have a clue. We all, Christians, Muslims, Jews, etc. accept the idea of thou shalt not murder, in theory. But in practice, in real life, it's an accepted and easy way to solve problems, personal problems, and national or diplomatic problems. It may be a fight in a bar, gang wars, a world war or a police action, or "The State," meaning all of us killing a killer, how is that for hypocrisy? 

In church, mosque, or temple, we all say Thou Shalt Not Kill, or words to that effect. Since all of our religions are built on previous civilizations going who knows how far in the past, this is not a new thought, but what do you find looking back, murder, assassination, war, and it's been going on as long as there have been people, apparently.  Buddhists are anti-killing, perhaps more than any of the rest of us, but being human even most Buddhists will kill too, if no more than stepping on an ant, or swatting a fly. The Buddha himself was reputed to be against killing even an ant. I will say that a friend mentioned, and I agree so far as I know Buddhism is the only religion that has never been responsible for, declared, or started a war. But again, they are human, which means with an inborn prediliction for killing, so I could be wrong.

I just watched a short on TMC that was about a couple that immigrated to the US from Poland in the 1850's, they became citizens, became small farmers, had children, and when the Civil War came along he enlisted in the North to fight for his country. It said that he'd said he'd give his good right arm, for his country, and he did. Then it jumps to the Spanish American war and this man told his sons that they must enlist and fight for their country, they did and some didn't come home, then WW1 and WW2 same thing, this family proudly sending it's sons, and daughters, to work,  fight and die for their country.  In my family too, and in most, if not all, of those I know, it's the same story.  We fight for our country, some because we want to, some because we have to, some because we think we should.  Our parents, relatives, political leaders, priests and pastors, girlfriends and wives, everybody it seems, encourage us to do it. It's patriotic or protecting our family, or just the thing to do. At the same time ask any one of that myriad of people if killing is wrong, they'll say yes. Hypocrisy raises its ugly head.  Ask them if they believe in the 10 Commandments, they'll say of course, some, not many, would say  yes killing is wrong, period, yet others would say but in this case, or that case, it's necessary. Too many though have never given it a thought and see no need to, killing another person is like swatting a fly, easy.

Gandhi who in my opinion was a modern saint,  is the only leader that comes to mind who truely abhorred killing, which didn't prevent the Hindus and Moslems from killing each other. But he never accepted it, he came close to death several times starving himself in protest.  Well I've talked long enough for now.

Lee Murray