There will always be war.

In its great evil war actually reveals the greatest truth.

That one man may make the greatest sacrifice and lay his life down for one side, and another man may lay his life down for the other side proves that there is no dualistic truth.

Who is to say that one is right and the other wrong?

Usually we solve this by saying that the people on the "good" side are acting rationally, and the ones of the "bad" side are brainwashing, not thinking straight, are mad, or they are being forced to fight.

Unfortunately the "bad" side say that about the "good" side too. No one lays their life down for the "bad" side. It is entirely relative.

In the West our military and governments spend a huge amount of time and effort brainwashing us. For example we like to think our brave soldiers fight freely for the side of good. Unfortunately it turns out a western soldier fighting freely for the side of good can be executed if they desert their post in battle.

There is no difference between the "good" side and the "bad" side. At the end of the day soldiers on all sides must lay their lives down for their governments. How can that ever be good for anyone?

But it illustrates a powerful point about the world. In a war of 2 sides A and B. Looked at one way A must succeed, and looked at the other way B must succeed. And its not a trivial disagreement, people are prepared to give up the biggest thing they have, their own life for this.

It means that "a point of view" can never be absolute. There is no way to get to the bottom of the world and find the bedrock of truth. There is no bedrock of truth!

All there is, is a realisation that we are adrift in an ocean and our feet will never touch the bottom. So better get used to being adrift.

What an apparently disappointing result.

Well yes and no. Disappointing for the person who was struggling against the ocean trying to get to shore, trying to grasp for some bedrock and a fixed view of the world.

But suppose our feet did touch the bottom and we walked ashore. Are we not then beached forever, trapped on the desert island that we crawled up onto? One day we are going to enter the ocean again, perhaps on a raft we have built, to search for land somewhere else. In many stories the castaway gets rescued and is reunited with their wife. Their feet touch the bottom. The story ends before we find them falling out of love and being reminded just how much their wife annoys them. There is the divorce and they are adrift again looking to find a new island om which to shipwreck. And so life goes on. Finding shore is never the end, it is always just the start of the next struggle.

So we remain adrift and give up this idea of putting out feet down on a beach.

Well eventually the ocean will wash us ashore. So we get out of the water and do whatever we are going to do. And a passing ship picks us up and we get home. And then we go sailing again. And the ship wrecks and we are adrift again. And then washed ashore. etc etc. While we may set foot on bedrock, we are just as happy and accepting as when we are adrift.

And so in war we find our country at war. We do nothing. Our side loses and we end up being ruled by a new government. We do nothing. The government doesn't trust us, thinks we are disloyal. Forces us to take part in its activities. We do normal things. Perhaps they get nasty and ask us to carry a gun and fight. We must chose whether our life is more important than other people. In this instance we do nothing. Perhaps we get shot by the government. Well we were going to get shot by someone, better we didn't shoot anyone first ourself. Small window of possibility that someone will copy our example. If everyone did not fight then the war would end anyway. If we survive perhaps eventually a new war starts. We do nothing. Perhaps our government wins and we get paraded around as an unpatriotic traitor. Sometimes governments and people can be unpleasant. But better to be a called a coward than to die. "Stick and stones may break by bones, but names will never hurt me" we were taught at school as a way to ignore bullies. Governments are often bullies to their own side as much as others.

But the problem is that, somewhere sometime somebody is going to struggle to get to shore and put their feet down and decide to belong on this island. And someone else is going to struggle to a different shore and put their feet down on that island. And the two people with their feet firmly set on different islands are going to come into a disagreement. And because their feet are so firmly set on their islands they are going to fight. And simply because of this innate weakness we have of forgetting to just drift with life and take things as they come (Jim Morrison was absolutely right we are all "riders on the storm") and we step up and our egos make a stand and we decide to make things a certain way and to hell with anyone who gets in my way, and we meet other people with different ideas who are "to hell with you" and it will always end up in war. This is the way of the world.

Great people have gone before us who have taught is not to fight, at least Earthly fight, and yet wars still happen. Jesus was not against conflict, he said we would be torn apart by his name, but he never condoned violence. We have no right to take another's life, God made that life it is not ours to take! Yet in the name of Jesus how many have been killed.

Now a very subtle side of this is that Violence and Peace are sides of the same coin. 

Consider a world where there was no violence. No one ever bulldozed another person out of the way. we all had indefinite time for each other. When there was disagreement, people were respectful and helpful. People didn't try to win at another's expense, people were not harsh, aggressive, greedy and only spoke helpful and supportive words. People sort to see all sides of a situation. Suppose people took no pleasure in the misfortune of others. Suppose people did not harbour resentment at other people succeeding. Suppose we took pleasure in people's progress, success and happiness. In such a world there would be no Violence. And in a world of violence where is the Peace? People just behave sensibly. There is no war or peace.

By contrast we do not live in such a world. We live in a world where we are often greedy for success. When others beat us to it, get the things we want, we harbour resentment. We celebrate when they fail because it means opportunity for us. we value our own happiness before that of others. We do negative things that look good from our perspective but bad from the perspective of others. We spread lies and try to persuade people toward our case, even while we hide the harm we have done and ill intention we have been motivated by. We divide people, we seek disharmony, we relish untruths that benefit us, and dislike the truth that hurts us. We are small minded in every way. And we meet other small minded people who we can control and war against. And the good people who seek to show up our machinations we seek to bring down too. And so the poison of the world spreads and we habitually fall short of the best and fuel conflict.

Now we can wish we lived in the first world, but why really do we wish this? If we are honest weakness is a living part of the world. It will not go away. It is from this poison that we are born. But it is not a poison we cannot feed on. The poison of the world can inspire us to change. This poison reminds us our faults and what we need to do to become well. This poison is in fact the same fuel of our growth and goodness. It is from war that we learn the value of peace. and unfortunately periods of peace make people complacent, lazy, greedy and uncaring and this leads to war.

Now the question is whether we can strive for a Peace that is not born of War. Well we can, but it is exceptionally subtle. How many people when a person bursts into their room in the middle of the night with a gun to kill us do not wish they had a gun to fight back with. But the moment we pick up a gun to defend our self we are creating war. That is how easy we become an instrument of War and not Peace. When Jesus died on the cross he was showing us what Peace really means. If you are not readily willing to carry an unjust cross then you are the soil of war.

This is why war will always exist. And knowing that war will always exist then do not get fooled into thinking that "this is the last war". "If we win this one, it is over." The only way to end war obviously is just to stop fighting, and all the self sacrifice, self suffering and abuse that this inevitably entails we must take onto our self and not throw onto other people. We must carry the cross for everyone else, and expect anyone else to do it. But we do this and soon we are filled with the poison of resentment that other people get life easy and ours is hard, or we get imperious because we are superior because we are carrying their cross. To not be an instrument of war is the hardest thing. That is what Peace actually means.