Drew Gilpin Faust: Why We Love War

Drew Faust, the historian who has been named Harvard's first female president, has been praised for her "people skills," but she's also done brilliant intellectual work on a crucial question for our time: why we love war. A Civil War historian who has published five books, Faust wrote recently about why war is "history's most popular subject."

In an article published in 2004 in the journal Civil War History, Faust explores the place of war in American politics and culture today. War, she writes, "offers an authenticity and intensity of experience" missing elsewhere in modern society. It provides "a moment of truth," when soldiers and civilians alike "have to define their deeply held priorities and act on them."

Causation is typically the big issue for scholars and analysts who study war: explaining and interpreting, in a dispassionate way, why particular wars have been fought. And of course much of our current argument is about the reasons the Bush White House gave for going to war in Iraq.

But for ordinary people, Faust argues, what counts is not so much the analysis of causation, but rather the personal stories, the human drama of war. The fascination with war can be "almost pornographic in its combination of thrill and terror." But that doesn't mean the details of suffering and the tragedies of death are overlooked. Personal stories of suffering and death make war "a force that gives us meaning"--the phrase is the title of a book by award-winning war correspondent Chris Hedges.

Faust's interpretation helps explain the way the US responded to the 9-11 terrorist attacks with a war on Iraq. "Even a war against an enemy who had no relationship to September 11's terrorist acts would do," she notes. People supported war not just because of the rational arguments offered by the White House, but also "because the nation required the sense of meaning, intention, and goal-directedness, the lure of efficacy that war promises." It was especially necessary to restore a sense of control after the terrorism of 9-11 had "obliterated" it. The US, she concludes, "needed the sense of agency that operates within the structure of narrative provided by war."

Those who write about war, she concludes – journalists and historians – need to acknowledge the power of war stories. Their job is to create "an orderly narrative," full of purpose and significance, about events that otherwise "would be simply violence," shapeless and meaningless.

Thus we are the ones who give meaning to war – so it's up to us to come to terms with the power of war stories. "In acknowledging its attraction," she concludes, " we diminish its power" – we move from being part of the problem to part of the solution.

Harvard's last president, Larry Summers, had been a Clinton administration free trade policy wonk. By choosing as its new president a scholar whose work has so much depth and significance, the university suggests a different sense of what intellectual leadership might mean.

Comments (44)

1. from Coppola's excellent script "Patton" (1970)--

   Patton: Men, all this stuff you've heard about America not wanting to fight - wanting to stay out of the war, is a lot of horse dung. Americans traditionally love to fight. All real Americans love the sting of battle. When you were kids, you all admired the champion marble shooter, the fastest runner, big league ball players, the toughest boxers. Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Americans play to win all the time. I wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed.

   That's why Americans have never lost and never will lose a war, because the very thought of losing is hateful to Americans.

   Posted by Mask at 02/10/2007 @ 7:03pm

2. Posted by MASK 02/10/2007 @ 7:03pm

   ha ha hee hee...

   guess the guy wasnt such a great prophet after all...one and one, about to be one and two in the last 50 years...shit...we're getting as bad as the french...

   hee hee ha ha...

   Posted by ibbleblibble at 02/10/2007 @ 7:26pm

3. War is pornographic, and Americans love their porn.

   Posted by crabwalk at 02/10/2007 @ 7:30pm

4. Help me out here, what was the famous quote by the ex Vietnamese Col when told that he never won a single battle? I am drawing a blank on the internets using The Google. I am about to go nookyoolar, I may not find it till Feb 30th.

   Posted by crabwalk at 02/10/2007 @ 7:47pm

5. i dunno...i think war is a tradition...

   its like agent smith said in the matrix...we'd go crazy without our beloved misery to make us happy...

   shaved apes huddle together and find meaning in their commonality of self inflicted self originating suffering. hooting and screeching they cast about for external demons to slay, and brandish their wickedly clever compensations for lack of natural weaponry, feeling godlike and invigorated when babtized by the blood of their foes, themselves...

   blood and iron, down with intelligence, up with death!

   Posted by ibbleblibble at 02/10/2007 @ 8:01pm

6. "Summers," not "Somers."

   Posted by googlenews at 02/10/2007 @ 8:02pm

7. Mask,

   Faust's is a very thought provoking argument and offers a window into the American soul. Her distinction between scholars and "ordinary" people, in their response to wars, is a very relevant and perceptive one in the present context.

   I mentioned, recently, that I detected a streak of "patriotism" in Americans, generally, which cuts across political and I'm sure across social divides also. That national ethos (although isolated pockets of jingoism exist in all cultures) is something that is quite alien to this foreigner's experience in other cultures including his own. Faust's analysis is more broad ranging than that characteristic but it invites the contemplation of what American patriotism is and why it lends itself to militarism.

   Of course the concept of winning isn't alien to anyone and that's why team sports, including wars, in which most spectators also take sides, are so popular around the world. Winning for the majority of these latter contemporary supporters, it seems, is seeing team America defeated.

   Patton's rule does not seem to apply here as most Americans have joined the majority of foreigners in barracking against the American team during its Iraq game.

   Posted by lrjones4 at 02/10/2007 @ 8:11pm

8. Posted by LRJONES4 02/10/2007 @ 8:11pm

   good morning.

   thats because we're the new rome, croc...we are big, bad, audacious and awesome. either your with us or againt us, and thank god for you, you aussies are definately with us. shit, you guys should have been the fifty first state! new zealand the fifty second...

   yuk yuk...

   Posted by ibbleblibble at 02/10/2007 @ 8:30pm

9. in addition to the need to define ourselves through conflict and adversity, could it be related that we also see ourselves as some kind of natural moral arbiter for all the globe's nations? why do we think we know what's best for everyone?

   Posted by katamantulo at 02/10/2007 @ 8:50pm

10. Before any political idealogue gets too uppity....remember even beloved (and BELATED) "peace activist" Jimmy Carter has used military force.

    Nobody thought "Operation:Eagle Claw" to rescue the hostages in 1980 WASN'T going to result in some guys (on both sides) getting killed.

    And like Communism, pacifism doesn't work unless EVERYBODY in the world agrees to it.

    I had NO problem with Afghanistan. It was the REAL opportunity to bring democracy to a Mid-East country. We could have sealed the borders with 1/2 the troops we have in Iraq and stopped ANYBODY from getting in or out. We could have spent A QUARTER the amount of money we've spent on Iraq and turned Kabul and the whole country into the next "Silicon Valley" and paid for it with a 10% cut of the pipeline deal with the Russians. And BY NOW (while we're "Surging" in Iraq)....Afghanistan could practically be a Paradise and we'd make fools of Al Queda and the Taliban...

    AND have given the kids in Iran something to look forward to and made Ahmadinejad look like Lyndon LaRouche as far as being a viable Presidential candidate.

    But Bush/Cheney/Rummy et al f***ed it up...and there's no fixing ANY of it...and it's a s**tload worse now than it was before.

    War wasn't the problem....incompetent war leadership was.

    Posted by Mask at 02/10/2007 @ 9:04pm

11. yuk yuk...

    Posted by IBBLEBLIBBLE 02/10/2007 @ 8:30pm

    Bullshit Ibbie. Which us?, Was that a freudian slip by a closet Bushite?

    Our PM, against the judgement of the masses, sent a handful of his forces.. Ok, Ok the entire operational military so you militarists could in turn protect Oz in this lonely part of the world. Wot with all those coal burnin' Chinese within a stones throw (and because you went quiet on our $300 million Saddam wheat bribe. Nice gesture, from your patriotic farmers. If they know).

    Posted by lrjones4 at 02/10/2007 @ 9:11pm

12. So doesn't this mean that Christianity, the major American meaning maker, is a complete failure?

    Posted by alkahest at 02/10/2007 @ 9:39pm

13. Posted by LRJONES4 02/10/2007 @ 9:11pm

    well croc, with those buzillion chinamen at your doorstep, nothing you guys need more than the great american aegis of security, wisdom, and self righteousness! you guys need walmarts and anna nicole smiths and wall sreet wisdom. hitch your cart to to the new american century horse and enjoy the ride! hell, you guys are almost americans already! just thank god you are, because if you think americanising them crazy towelheads is rough on us demigod americans, just look at how rough it is for them unamericanized towelheads!!!! a few thousand of us die...a few hundred thousand of them die...

    hell, the fact that in response to killing a couple and a half thousand of us we kill hundreds of thousands of innocent towelheads, should make you little southern hemisphere wannabe barry25 aussies especially happy and relieved to know that we americans already consider you kangaroo jockeys honorary citizens of our corporate imperium...

    and we really appreciate your token contribution to the imperial effort...we remember our friends and hell, like i said, you may as well be americans anyway...

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 02/10/2007 @ 9:42pm

14. Posted by ALKAHEST 02/10/2007 @ 9:39pm

    ha ha ha!

    as if hooting screeching shaved apes need any more encouragement to treat each other like shit...some retarded geniuses came up with two religions that on the one hand teach love and compassion and on the other hand set up a set of circumstances that egg on other shaved apes to even more and more frenzied slaughter than simple covetousness and rage...god and his exclusionary contractual unreasonable demands...

    yes, simply coveting one's nieghbors stuff and advancing the interests of ones own tribe at the expense of others' is not enough! posit the existance of a god who favors one population of shaved apes over another and POW! god sanctioned evil!

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 02/10/2007 @ 9:58pm

15. Posted by RIO BRAVO 02/10/2007 @ 10:18pm

    Do you think RIO has ANY idea how MANY Muslims immigrants there are in this country...total or even just one year?

    You'd figure a guy like him would worry more about "My damn tax dollars going to help them Mes'kins get OUR welfare"...unless he thinks he could reduce Muslim immigration to TWENTY (the total number of guys who pulled off 9/11) a year!

    Naw...while HIS OWN GEORGE W. will sign the "evil amnesty bill" of McCain and Kennedy...RIO will still be worrying about Muhammed ibn-Muhammed and his family trying to ESCAPE Iraq, due to that same GWB making it a craphole!

    Posted by Mask at 02/10/2007 @ 10:35pm

16. Posted by RIO BRAVO 02/10/2007 @ 10:18pm

    well, if the rightwing would avoid getting us involved in unnecessary land wars in asia...maybe we wouldn't lose so many...

    ADM...invest in it, get off the black gold crack and disengage from tat hellhole of dangerous religious fanatics, the middle east, and let them engage in their bloody fun to their hearts' contents...

    maybe let in a few who figure all the bullshit out about their religion and culture and want to live somewhere where people at least ascribe to the principles of freedom of speech and religion...

    salmon rushdie's of the middle east welcome...religious chauvinists...blow yourselves up to your hearts' desires'.

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 02/10/2007 @ 10:40pm

17. Posted by RIO BRAVO 02/10/2007 @ 10:18pm

    Rio you'd like it over here. Our PM keeps telling the mosque dwellers if they won't fit into out Aussie ways and become like us they can piss off back to where they came from. The mufti of Aus just got himself into strife, with our PM and others, for saying it's not a wonder Aussie sheilas get raped by good Muslim lads (one got 50 years last year) when they dress like uncovered meat.

    Also we've been able to jail quite a few of them for thinking terrorist thoughts. We've got that one down to a fine art.

    Posted by lrjones4 at 02/10/2007 @ 10:52pm

18. Posted by LRJONES4 02/10/2007 @ 10:52pm

    whats your deal croc? as an official "closet bushite" i need to know, since we closet bushites need to know in order to protect the free world...

    your an evangelical christian, right? or have i misread something?

    sorry...i get a little mean after a few canned miller lites. perhaps its the aluminum. do you aussies really drink fosters? or is that he crap you send stateside?

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 02/10/2007 @ 11:31pm

19. sorry...i get a little mean after a few canned miller lites. perhaps its the aluminum. do you aussies really drink fosters? or is that he crap you send stateside?

    Posted by IBBLEBLIBBLE 02/10/2007 @ 11:31pm

    DRINKING RECORDS

    Australia is a bloody large country, but it is very sparsely populated. North Americans particularly seem to labour under the following two myths:

    Australia is large, but not that large a country;

    Australia has a lot of people in it.

    Well, let's knock those myths on the head right now. Australia is almost 80% the size of continental USA, but contains only .07 of the population. That's right, you heard us. The size and .07 of the population. And that's about 20 million people. Total. That's less than the population of one large American city. So hats off to us for even having any international presence, or cultural recognition. A bloody good effort if you ask us (second only to our great drinking ancestors, the Irish). And what's more, those are today's figures. Naturally, the Australian culture has developed over the last two hundred years when we were much more sparsely populated and isolated. At the turn of the century, for example, our population was only four million. And all of our core cultural characteristics were certainly in place then, probably more so than now as there was much less immigration and international cultural exposure.

    Regardless, the point is that there aren't that many of us. And so when we manage to stand up in the international arena and be counted, we are as proud as all hell. For example, we are the best in the world at many sports (although the Yanks wouldn't know it as they are not American sports). We have also invented the odd thing, such as the esky (to keep the grog cold and carry it to sporting events etc). And we are among the best drinkers in the world. In fact, at one time or another we have held world records in the field. This page serves as a tribute to Australia's finest.

    SNAKE LOVERS

    First, we pay tribute to what must be Australia's stupidest drinker who holds the world record for having the had the largest amount of deadly snake venom in his body and lived. We all know that Australia is home to 9 out of the top 10 of the world's deadliest snakes. When travelling overseas, we are frequently asked by worried tourists-to-be about how to avoid being bitten and killed.

    One not-so-bright Darwinite (that is, from Darwin) was having a few beers with his mate while driving from Mandorah back home (as you do). They were merrily driving along when this bloke (let's call him Bruce), spotted a King Brown on the side of the road. Now given that a King Brown is one of the deadliest snakes in the world, how would you react? Well, Bruce could only think of his mates. I remembered the guys at the Mandorah Pub wanted something to put in their fish tank. But I made the mistake of grabbing it with my left hand because I was holding a beer in my right one.

    Ahhh, bad move brucie. The snake, quite naturally after having been picked up by a beer swilling yobbo, "ripped" Bruce's hand open with its fangs. Now most blokes would give up the ghost right then and there (after all, one bite is enough to kill you). But not our Bruce. Noooo. Not our Brucie. I tore it off me and put it in a plastic bag and threw it in the back of the car. For some stupid reason I stuck my hand back in the bag, and it must of smelled blood, and it bit me another eight times.

    Within seconds, our piss loving larrikin was vomiting and having, let's just say, unfortunate bowel problems. However, luckily for Bruce, his highly trained mate was there to give him a hand; as only Australian mates do. My mate was trying to keep me awake by whacking me on the head and pouring beer on me.

    The end result? Neither the beer nor the whacking was enough to keep Brucie awake and he ended up in a coma for 6 weeks. His arm withered and died and had to be amputated, and he no longer has the use of his legs. His final word? I still can't believe I had me arm chopped off just for one snake. At least you can still drink with the other one mate. Hang in there.

    HAWKIE

    Snakes aside, this country's most famous drinking record was set by the legendary Australian Prime Minister Robert (Bob) Hawke in 1955. He drank 2.5 pints of beer in 11 seconds at University College, Oxford. Hawke recalls the incident as follows in The Hawke Memoirs (1994):

    "In more down-to-earth fashion I inadvertently achieved notoriety as a result of one the quaint and ancient customs of my college. A system operated at dinner in the Great Hall under which if an offence was committed - in my case coming to dinner without a gown (some bastard had borrowed mine) - on was 'sconced'. This meant having to drink two and a half pints of ale out of an antique pewter pot in less than twenty-five seconds. Failure to do so involved paying for the first drink, plus another two and a half pints. My chance of avoiding payment lay in downing the ale within the limit and hoping that the Sconcemaster - the President of the Junior Common Room - could not beat my time. I was too broke for the fine and necessity became the mother of ingestion. I downed the contents of the pot in eleven seconds, left the Sconcemaster floundering, and entered the Guinness Book of Records with the fastest time ever recorded. This feat was to endear me to some of my fellow Australians more than anything else I ever achieved."

    Eventually he was awarded an Oxford PhD for his drinking efforts.

    As for the other stuff: Jones – Private - xxxx (and fosters etc etc etc)

    Posted by lrjones4 at 02/11/2007 @ 01:47am

20. Posted by MASK 02/10/2007 @ 9:04pm

    you're right, mask. governments, especially those with a large standing military and an advanced war industry, can't be trusted to resist the urge to prey on their weaker neighbors. (sometimes the spoils are besides the point, and the allure has more to do with national self-agrandizement and the consolidation of popular support behind a regime -- remember the falklands?) that's why it's up to ordinary people to take a stand against war.

    war doesn't just happen; in democracies, and even in non-democratic states, the government making the decision to wage war must first appeal to the sense of vulnerability of its populace, must "convince" them that the war they're about to wage is "worth it". if that hurdle is complicated by the presence of a citizenry that is skeptical about the morality of war and its practical consequences, then the possiblity of war becomes that much more remote.

    Posted by katamantulo at 02/11/2007 @ 08:56am

21. Cluck cluck, baaahh

    Posted by RIO BRAVO 02/10/2007 @ 10:18pm

    Ruined our society? Just like those damn Irish, Italians, Germans, Jews and Polocks did when they came here. God!. I wish it were just the Anglos that kept AmeriKa safe from those evil immigrants. Now if only the repub controlled corporations would stop hiring Mexicans (people that use the term Rio bravo) we could be the pure white Christian (but only certain types of Jesus freaks) country we were meant to be.

    Posted by crabwalk at 02/11/2007 @ 09:44am

22. Rio chickensht, has your vaunted military (the one you are to afraid to join) secured the borders of Iraq? Have they made Baghdad safe? Is it safe for female soldiers to be out at night even in the Green Zone? What is YOUR plan to win in Iraq? You don't have a plan, do you?

    Why won't you answer these simple questions? Waiting to hear the answers from Bubba or Scarborough?

    "Over the next couple of weeks when we find the chemical weapons this guy was amassing, the fact that this war was attacked by the left and so the right was so vindicated, I think, really means that the left is going to have to hang its head for three or four more years." (Fox News Channel's Dick Morris, 4/9/03)

    Posted by crabwalk at 02/11/2007 @ 09:56am

23. Keep in mind RioPollo, the people you want to kill in Iran are just like you. Religious, conservative, nationalistic and afraid. They are the ones that voted in Achminijad, helped by your little war on their border. Think about that. He NEVER wold have won if it were not for people like you. That is all you have won in the ME, a victory for their rightwing.

    Happy?

    Posted by crabwalk at 02/11/2007 @ 10:30am

24. Posted by LRJONES4 02/11/2007 @ 01:47am

    well done...kind of reminds me of the american south...

    as a young man i remember dreaming of the day i could legally drink...walk into a bar and hit on females. i was screwed, however, as right before i turned 18 a pack of fretful mothers decided that although 18 was old enough to fight and die for one's country, it was not old enough to drink beer...so scant months before my 18th birthday they raised the age to 19...next year again they raised the age to 20...i was actually "legal" for a few months before they raised it again, but eventually i turned 21...

    this entire experience, of course, as spinoza would have predicted, served only to increase my desire to partake in the forbidden pleasures of overdrinking...i remember the night before they raised the drinking age to 21. a friend and i went out to drink our faces off while still legal. we later calculated my beer consumption that night at around 50 12 ouncers over thecourse of the evening, which ended, predictably in a fight (the other drunken rutting young buck and i circled each other warily for a few minutes, exchanging taunts and insults, then i stuck out my jaw and told him i'd give him a free shot...when he pulled his fist back to give me a massive roundhouse i sucker punched him 4-5 times in the face...

    maybe those fretful mothers had a point...

    regardless, i dont drink much anymore...

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 02/11/2007 @ 10:51am

25. Posted by IBBLEBLIBBLE 02/11/2007 @ 10:51am

    that, by the way, is whats known around here as a "war story"...some masculine anecdote (real or imagined) that involves some feat of manly stupidity that seemed cool at the time, but in retrospect...still seems kind of cool despite its stupidity...

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 02/11/2007 @ 10:56am

26. you know, how is it that fretful mothers can organize and legally enshrine their fears in terms of alcohol consumption nationwide, yet many of the same happily, proudly, yet tearfully send these same young folks off to a lied into meatgrinder of a war?

    cause if you dont think some 18 year old who got his freakin legs blown off for a pack of lies deserves a goddamned beer...sigh...

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 02/11/2007 @ 11:10am

27. These same mothers don't want their kids to have safe sex either. Theatre owners will gleefully take your money to show death and destruction, but many will not show Flashdance type movies. Bad for morals. this country has bizarre morality structure.

    One of the reasons I chose Tennessee for school was their age was 19. Then Reagans moms got the whole nation bumped to 21. So, where did we get our booze? From the sheriffs cousin. Gotta love the south, where they still treat traitors as national heroes.

    Posted by crabwalk at 02/11/2007 @ 2:00pm

28. ahhh the south...land of contradictions and insane clarity.

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 02/11/2007 @ 2:54pm

29. Posted by CRABWALK 02/11/2007 @ 2:00pm |

    yeah...the daughters of fundyvangelist idiots will never have unprotected premarital sex, nor will they ever get raped by someone who has genital warts. that moral upbringin' is a foolproof shield against any such eventualities, and if becky sue does get raped by some guy with genital warts, gets it herself and one day has cervical cancer, well, thats just gods will, right? she was probably dressing very unchristian anyway when she got raped and infected with genital warts, so...gues she just learns her godly lesson, right?

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 02/11/2007 @ 3:05pm

30. and what godly lesson is that, by the way? god is a sadistic asshole...

    what a great religion these inbred ignorant cowards ascribe to.

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 02/11/2007 @ 3:13pm

31. Posted by KATAMANTULO 02/11/2007 @ 08:56am

    KATA, don't try to link me with the "Military-Industrial Complexers". I don't buy into the idea that if we GUT our military, then suddenly we'll have peace and world brotherhood.

    The great years of military reductionism in the US and SOME of Europe...lead to Hitler walking into Czechoslovakia and Austria.

    It's a lesson as UNDER-remembered by the Left...as over-hyped by the Right....but one that cannot be forgotten.

    Posted by Mask at 02/11/2007 @ 3:58pm

32. Posted by IBBLEBLIBBLE 02/11/2007 @ 3:13pm

    Remember the great Bill Hicks, IBBLE...he noted that according to the fundies...

    "Eternal torture awaits all who don't believe in God's INFINITE LOVE!"

    Posted by Mask at 02/11/2007 @ 3:59pm

33. Posted by MASK 02/11/2007 @ 3:59pm

    lord protect me from your followers

    abstinance - the number 1 cause of immaculate conception (please, fundyvangelists...try it out and see what happens...maybe the second coming is awaiting)

    come the rapture we'll have the world to ourselves...

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 02/11/2007 @ 4:05pm

34. Posted by MASK 02/11/2007 @ 3:58pm

    i was speaking for myself alone, mask. i was trying to reply to your comment that "pacifism doesn't work unless everyone in the world agrees to it".

    by the way, one can be an anti-militarist (though i take it you're not) and not a pacifist, like the good folks at antiwar.com.

    Posted by katamantulo at 02/11/2007 @ 4:46pm

35. as far as "gutting" the military goes, it stands to reason that if our armed forces existed primarily to defend our shores from foreign attack (and not to garrison a far-flung empire) it would be a lot smaller, nimbler and less draining of the public coffers than it is now.

    it's interesting to speculate on the size of such a military. as a rule of thumb, i'd suggest maybe ten times that of canada's armed forces (based on the size of our relative populations)? would reducing our military to that size mean "gutting" it?

    Posted by katamantulo at 02/12/2007 @ 08:04am

36. If you are celibate, how can there be a second coming.

    Posted by crabwalk at 02/12/2007 @ 08:55am

37. Posted by CRABWALK 02/12/2007 @ 08:55am

    ba dump bump - pshhhhh (comic drum flourish)...lol

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 02/12/2007 @ 10:38am

38. Posted by IBBLEBLIBBLE 02/10/2007 @ 7:26pm | ignore this person

    Chech your history....lolol 1-2????

    lololol 30 million south koreans would differ....lol and you are missing Panama, Gulf war 1, Grenada

    Posted by CPT at 02/12/2007 @ 10:54am

39. It's a lesson as UNDER-remembered by the Left...as over-hyped by the Right....but one that cannot be forgotten.

    Posted by MASK 02/11/2007 @ 3:58pm | ignore this person

    Considering the consequences of the reduction of western militaries...i would not see that in realtion to the rhetoric...overhyping

    Posted by CPT at 02/12/2007 @ 10:56am

40. IBBEBL

    Please answer this quesiton...i have always been curious as to why looney lefties take such delight in ridculing the faith of others?

    Does it make you feel superior???? or are you that petty? I am really curious. Or do you one of those that blame Christianity for all the ills of the world?

    The question remains as to why and what motivates people like you to go out of you way to denegrate people of faith?

    Just curious.

    Posted by CPT at 02/12/2007 @ 11:02am

41. cpt In the real world people from all walks of life wrongly ridicule others beliefs,but nobody does it more than those on the right.Evangelicals even go so far as to claim that they decide who goes where after death and if you don't believe as they believe you go to hell.Dismissing others beliefs is the ultimate ridicule.Then you have those on the right, like ann coulter, who claim that they decide who believes in God and who doesn't.Again,this is another good example of how the right ridicules others beliefs by not allowing us to have any unless they're the same as yours.

    Posted by i'm nobody at 02/12/2007 @ 1:37pm

42. Posted by CPT 02/12/2007 @ 10:54am

    you show your age, cappy. i know its hard to believe that the korean conflict ended OVER 50 years ago, but in hostilities did...grenada? panama? ok, kinda counts as one, right? well, counting the two as seperate, we have...3 and 2 by the time this is over, unless we win in afganistan, in which case we end uo 4 - 2...but since we HAD to go invade iraq, it appears afghanistan might go toiletward as well, so then we break even at 3 - 3...not bad, but still not playoff caliber...

    ok, what else...

    Please answer this quesiton...i have always been curious as to why looney lefties take such delight in ridculing the faith of others?

    Does it make you feel superior???? or are you that petty? I am really curious. Or do you one of those that blame Christianity for all the ills of the world?

    The question remains as to why and what motivates people like you to go out of you way to denegrate people of faith?

    Just curious.

    1. ridiculing faith of others? out of my way? well captain, when people oppose vaccination for preventable illness based on irrational religious ideas...i mean, when people, organizations, religions act in ridiculous ways, is not ridicule a logical consequence? i found fundyvangelists' inability to foresee the possibility their daughters may become at some point, victims of rape...ridiculous. even if the vaccination DOES encourage sexual activity, what self righteous abomination of a human being wishes genital warts and cervical cancer upon their own daughters as punishment for a moment of indiscretion...sorry, its an alien mindset to me, and if it is supported by a specific religion, i gotta say...i have a problem with the faith responsible.

    2. no. no. no. but i find such concepts as "hellbound saints who did not take jesus christ as their personal savior" as not only absurd, but in fact ultimately a force for evil and divisiveness...

    3. go out of the way? posting here is not exactly out of the way...what motivates me? an unhealthy addiction to truth, something, historically speaking, christianity has not been to friendly with itself when it conflicts with mythological doctrine...

    well, blessings to you cpt...

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 02/12/2007 @ 2:59pm

43. I was reading the book entitled: For those who Love about former President John Adams and Abaigal Smith Adams and there life leading up to being the President, in addition to reading about the history of our American protester forefounders and I am under the impression that it was the Loyalists and the king and queen of England that instigated our first war, for example John Adams was one of the first protesters of the American colonys and there original protest started with the words defined and the Laws they started to write down on the speech podium. They never planned to use violence or weapons, but then the King got embarresed in front of his family and slaves at not being allowed to be our king, he got angry, so he threated us with war. So I read that John Adams had to nominate Former first President George Washinton to be the General that would gather a bunch of men and start a protest army, and from there you have the history of our first experiment with war. So if you look closer you will see the original Gun salesmen are really Lord North and the King Queen command of England, they are the instigaters of WAR from the start, they are the manipulators of War and they are the uneducated grudger's behind all WAR on Earth, because they want to become the KiNg of the World. So only a Tory loyalist would complain about America in any way, because America is a melting pot, it was built by a varitey of melting pot people that come from all parts of the world. So America has to fight because the king queen command keep on selling people the guns to instigate WAR on America and any other country that wants to live FREE from a manipulative King Queen Command.

    Posted by Theweb74 at 02/12/2007 @ 4:35pm

44. Drew Faust is a brilliant scholar? All she said was that war brings people meaning and drama and significance in their lives. This is a very vague and irrelavant appraisal of human nature and is utterly unmoving to me intellectually. Any layman can make a similar observation, I would expect more from a Harvard prez. A true scholar is Harvard prof Mahzarin Banaji, who researches the evolutionary psychology of human conflict among groups. Analyzing why people behave and develop biases and aggression toward groups with different races/interests is truly interesting and closer to brilliant.

    Posted by Markus_Z at 02/12/2007 @ 9:23pm