Killing People is Easy

At this moment in time I am avoiding turning on the news. To hear of more murders and destruction takes the joy out of life.

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This morning I sat and looked out at the part of the planet I am on.

I could see the works of humans. Magnificent buildings and structures.

I am awe-struck that we humans produce such things and I do not use the word ‘awe’ in my conversation lightly (as in: that coffee is awesome, maybe because it is often awful). Awe is something I reserve for God-like actions.

I am also struck by the magnificence of the planet. I am not sure if you can have an objective measure of its magnificence or if humans are so adapted to it that we find home magnificent, but its beauty never ceases to amaze me.

That there are humans that make magnificent structures and have made them for millennium on this wonderful planet, that there are humans that celebrate its beauty, that add to it, these creations make those humans God-.like.

If you believe in God surely God would be very pleased with them.

So I find it hard to listen to the news with so much destruction and murder. Especially when it is done in the name of a God.

Especially when there is a claim that this is the right thing to do, as if some great intellectual feat had been accomplished by it.

As if this was a clever idea done by clever or sensible people with just cause. Especially when they say it was a hard decision!

You see killing people is easy.

I know there are all those stupid films where they talk about a ‘hard kill’, but it is ridiculously easy to kill people.

We have been killing people for millennia in the same manner that we can kill any living thing.

It does not take brains or brawn to kill.

In fact, the more stupid and weedy you are the easier as there are so many weapons out there for the incompetent.

A child can kill by picking up a gun and shooting it.

How hard it that?

How intelligent is that?

How magnificent is that?

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You can even kill people by accident, in a car crash for example. Without planning. Without intent.

You can kill people perversely or by torture, with much pain and suffering. We all know that this is not justice; it is not on the side of right. It is psychotic. You are not a judge or a righteous person. You are a psychopath.

You can kill people by neglect and abandonment, by lack of care.

Oh it is so easy to kill people, any fool can do it.

Why would I want to watch such childish stupid on the news or on a film? Why would you want to do that? What sort of a pervert are you that you play killing games? Grow up. Leave the base animal behind.

Killing people is easy, it is for the stupid, the dull, the base.

What is really, really hard to do is to help people to live,

It is especially hard to help them to live well.

That takes effort, care, love, intelligence, righteousness.

That is God-like.

That is human.

That is magnificent.

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Killing 52 (+4) Universes- The 7/7 bombings

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The Torah is a remarkable book. It outlines a creation story, how the universe came to be, and that it all starts with nothing. There is no universe, it is null and void. And then God says ‘Let there be light’. Sounds a bit like the Big Bang; this sudden creation of something.

It took Copernicus another 2500 years to find out that the Earth goes round the Sun, not the other way round. In other words, the whole planet Earth on which we live is not in the centre of this solar system, let alone the universe. This means that humans are not the centre of the universe. They are not the founders of it and they are not the centre of it.

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As we humans are not the centre of the universe,  we might get to thinking that we are so insignificant that each one of us does not matter, we are disposable.

 

 

The Torah says all the living things on this planet are created from this planet Earth and that humans are created also from Earth. The name Adam means red, the red earth.  All things, including living things, are therefore material (matter) which means we are all chemical beings.

But all things also have what the Kabbalists (the mystics) would say, a spark of the divine. So all material things are chemical, but also have the sparks of creation (the Big Bang) in them.

When humans are created, we emanate from God, according to the Torah, so we too have those sparks in, the sparks of the Divine or the energy of the Big Bang, if you prefer.

However it says in the Torah, we humans are also created after ‘the likeness and in the shadow of God’.

Humans, have a lot of sparks of the divine, but not only the sparks, they are in a similar spirit to God, in the shadow and likeness. This makes humans very special, very dear to God.

The Rabbis say that to kill a human is to kill a universe. You are killing what they are, their life; and you are killing what they could become; their potential. You are cutting off the sparks and the spirit.

I say this as we have just commemorated the 7/7 bombings in London, which occurred on the 7th of July 2005, ten years ago.

Fifty two (+4) human lives were obliterated.

Fifty two (+4) universes wiped off the planet.

All things are precious.

All living things are very precious.

Humans are in the shadow and likeness of God.

Killing humans is killing the likeness of God.

That is blasphemy.

Adam and Eve did not belong to a religion or tribe or cult. That is the beauty of these passages in the Torah. They were not Jewish, Christian or Muslim or anything. They were ‘every-human’.

adam and eveAdam and Eve are the first humans. However they arose, by Creation or by Evolution, they are the parents of us all. That is what the Torah is saying. All human life descends from them, either because God created them or Evolution evolved them.

If you believe in Evolution, then each one of us is descended from our same ancestors. We are all related, one species. Killing any one of us is obscene. You are murdering your family members. Each and every one of us is related, regardless of tribe or belief. The Torah is saying the same thing.

If you believe that God created humans then killing their descendants, any one of us, is blasphemy. How dare you? How dare you say you believe in God and then try to kill God; to kill God’s spirit; to kill us humans? We are all in the shadow and likeness of God.

To kill a human is to kill a universe; a created or evolved universe, an emanation of the Divine or of Evolution, a descendant of God or of our common ancestors.  A spark of the Divine or of the Big Bang, whichever you prefer.

Each and every one of us came from the same place.

Each and every one of us is precious.

It is not for you, or for any one of us to think or to act otherwise.