Humanity // Current

Quest For the Truth - Contrast Essay: War Versus Peace

This is the final essay I wrote for my English Composition I class. I got a perfect score on it. I thought I might share it with you all. Enjoy the read

Since the beginning of mankind, there has been conflict and unrest among us. The undeniable differences that separate men from other men escalate and devolve into violent outbursts. Fighting, rioting, murders, assassinations, and war are all by-products of man’s inability to relate and empathize with different cultures, ideas, and beliefs. It is our human stubbornness and stupidity giving way to violence and genocidal extermination as opposed to looking for compassion and understanding within each other. We use war to strive for peace under the false assumption that killing those who disagree will give us peace. It is a logical fallacy to believe that those who suffer the murdering of their loved ones will simply lay down their arms and accept a shaky peace. However, it is abundantly clear that when given the choice between peace and war, peace is the more desirable option among the two choices. This is because peace is more prosperous for all than war, which leads to the bloodshed of many.
Peace is the end result of war, and its desired outcome. It’s also the state that occurs before wars begin. This is a preferred state of living for all people, because peace can allow for happiness and tranquility to blossom and flourish. Peace is a state where people are at their happiest and their most productive. More energy tends to be focused on the advancement of humanity through various aspects of human culture. The money that would be invested into war would instead be invested into that country’s economy. There is also a considerably less death and destruction to the infrastructure and cities within a country without the destructive elements of war. It would be intellectually dishonest to say that there would be no violence within a peaceful country’s borders; however, it would be acceptable to assume that the violence within a peaceful country’s border would pale in comparison to one whose borders are engulfed in the flames of war. Diplomacy could be the reason behind the increase of non-violence within a peaceful nation. Problems are solved by discussion and compromise rather than military might, and everyone may not be in agreement with each other at the end of the discussion, but everyone lives on.
War is the opposite of peace, and arises from conflicts from different or even the same country. War is bred by violence, and leads to more violence. Within that initial violence it creates survivors, who within their survival can become vengeful and create more violence. The energy that would be used to create and build is now used to kill and destroy anything perceived as an enemy. Death and destruction are abundant and surround the streets that children played or people ventured down during their everyday lives. The playgrounds have now become the killing fields; corpses lay where kids once ran and played. Mortar shells destroy school buildings and national libraries, destroying the histories and educations of the population. While force has been touted as the ultimate trump card since the creation of the bronze spear, violence seems to create more problems than it solves. For centuries, we have used war as the solutions to conflicts and yet we still have more conflicts that we attempt to solve through war.
Is war inevitable or can we stop the eternal suffering caused by the death, destruction, and annihilation of the seemingly unstoppable conflicts caused by our differences? It seems that despite our advancements in technology, medicine, and society, we cannot escape the violence and terror that inspires war. We do not strive to lay down arms and eliminate nuclear armaments; we instead find ways to build deadlier guns, rockets, and bombs. The terrorist attack of September 11th, 2001 is a prime example of how far people are willing to go to commit atrocities against one another. While one of the greatest strengths of humanity is to learn from its mistakes, war is a mistake we continually make over and over again.
As long as war continues, there can be no world peace. Peace is a fragile state that needs consistent stability to flourish and prosper. The world cannot be at peace when people are fighting each other. The chaos created by war does nothing to help bring stability to any country. Each time there is hope that we will not have to resort to wars again, because peace is a desirable state. There have been several shining examples of peaceful people making a difference, and non-violent movements creating social changes on both a community and a nationwide scale. There are more ways to change the world than putting people down the cross-hairs of a gun; however, there are people unwilling to see it in terms of pacifism. The new generation of leaders must find a way to provide peace to the constituents of their communities, and promote peace and tranquility above all else.
The youth of our current generation has finally been exposed to war. They have seen the televised horrors of terrorism, and experienced the horrific images of battle. While we have always justified the use of force to end conflicts, perhaps the youth have finally realized that it is time to change our ways. We possess the power to change the fate of the world for the better through peace. It is through our compassion and understanding for our fellow man that we can bring ourselves to the next stage in human and social evolution. Without our compassion and empathy for one another, we are nothing more than animals lashing out at the throat of our own against our own betterment. There is a better way to solve our problems than with a gun; it is to use our hearts and our minds.This is the final essay I wrote for my English Composition I class. I got a perfect... more

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Only Gnosis can save us

For sure the human race is now being tested. We are now seeing the culmination of centuries of actions and thoughts coming to fruition. And there are those who claim that the human race will not survive this century because our actions have become more about pleasing ourselves than looking to how they will effect the future.

I agree with those who claim this. On the whole humans have become shallow, selfish, egocentric creatures who care nothing for anything but their own gratification. Not unlike many civilizations before us that fell because of these same tendencies. We say we must learn from the past in order to not repeat it, and then we forget to remember because it is too inconvenient to do so. We disrespect and disregard the wisdom of the ages and of nature that tell us everyday the secrets of and answers to lifes's questions.

We have become arrogant in thinking that nature is owned by us when it is we who are one with it. By thinking we alone are omnipotent over all other species we have now doomed our own. This arrogance is seen daily in everything from our polluted toxic environment, to our social ills, to our wars. And yet through it all we continue to claim that such abuses to the Earth and to ourselves are in the end for our own good. We live in denial to validate the very actions leading us to our fate.

In the Gnostic faith which I believe, the Earth we now live in and perceive is a great illusion perpetrated by those who put up these materialistic distractions in order that we may never know Gnosis, the true light. And in discerning this belief one cannot help but be struck by its relevance in today's world. We treasure money more than life itself. We look upon the powerful as strong and the truthful as weak. Our climate of discourse is one of self aggrandizement rather than self determination and caring for all. We seek to own instead of share, and look at disasters only as important when they land on our own doorsteps. In moral and conscious terms we are the antithesis to what the human in humanity should be imparting on the world. And yet, we wait patiently for "God" to save us. We even hook up large instruments looking for "God particles" to give us some meaning to life. And we are looking in the wrong places.

Is there hope for us? Will we collectively seek out the answers to the mysteries of the ages in the right place? Will Gnosis ever come? There are many references to the light, seeing the light, etc. in philosophic and religious writings down through the ages. Jesus Christ was described as "the light of the world." These are not references to be taken to mean that Christ is God, but to tell us he was the messenger to reveal how we can see the light that lives in all of us. Even our forefathers understood that and built Washington DC based on these mysteries and answers to finding that light in governance and the power and promise of man becoming God through the apotheosis. Of course, this means seeing all humans as equal and therefore is the reason why our world is now so out of balance. Our materialistic tendencies clouding the truth.

This is the key to hope for humanity. The simple action of "seeing the light" in ourselves and each other and in all that sustains us. And how is this done? Through simply seeing the world as it was meant to be seen beyond the distractions...a place where we live in harmony with nature, trust in its order, and see our interrelationship with it in nourishing our souls. This brings out our light, our divine selves, and brings us to Gnosis. The realization that we are the saviours we have been waiting for.For sure the human race is now being tested. We are now seeing the culmination of... more

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Bhopal: horrendous legacy

THE rickshaw driver pulls in to the side of the road to allow us to take shelter from torrential rain. There, under a shop's awning, a small crowd is waiting for the weather to break. The group includes Sapna Sharma and her brother-in-law, Sanjay. Sanjay is holding his 18-month-old nephew, Anshul, who has kohl-rimmed eyes and silver bracelets on his ankles.

As we stand talking, some of the people start pointing to the child's hands and feet while speaking animatedly to us in Hindi, and then Sapna explains through our translator that her son was born with 12 toes and 12 fingers.

Shortly afterwards, about a kilometre away in the Shankar Nagar area of Bhopal, we meet another Indian child with congenital malformations, three-year-old Raj, who is visually impaired, cannot walk and whose head is oversized. ''The doctors said bad water could have been a cause of my son's condition. Older people here are gas victims and now the younger people are victims of the water,'' his mother, Poona Bai, says.

Here, in the city of Bhopal, in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, hundreds of children are being born with deformities and mental health problems. As we walk back to our rickshaw, we come across more afflicted youngsters who have followed us along the road. They include 12-year-old Rajesh, who is barefoot and bald. The other children make fun of him as his mother, Yashdabai, explains that they do so because they believe he is mad. Rajesh's older sister, Sonia, scolds the other children and says she has to protect her brother from bullies. Sonia is barefoot, too, and as she speaks a colleague notices that the young girl has huge feet.

This is the horrendous legacy Bhopal is facing 25 years on from the world's worst industrial accident. The Bhopal gas disaster, as it became known, has been dubbed the ''Hiroshima of the chemical industry''. It happened shortly after midnight on December 3, 1984, when a cloud of poisonous gas escaped from a Union Carbide pesticide plant. The release of 42 tonnes of methyl isocyanate (known as MIC) from the factory exposed more than 500,000 people to toxic gas. Up to 10,000 are thought to have died within the first 72 hours after the leak.

At least 25,000 people exposed to the gas have since died, and today in Bhopal tens of thousands more Indians suffer from a variety of debilitating gas-related illnesses such as respiratory and psychiatric problems, joint pains, menstrual irregularities, tuberculosis and cancers. Then there is the escalating number of birth defects, including cleft palates, webbed feet and hands, twisted limbs, brain damage and heart problems.

Shankar Nagar is a slum area of the city, just north of the derelict Union Carbide factory. For years local campaigners have been demanding that Union Carbide, now owned by US multinational Dow Chemicals, clean up the abandoned pesticide plant, but so far their pleas have been ignored.

In 1999, a Greenpeace investigation found severe chemical contamination of the environment surrounding the former factory, which, the NGO said, was polluted with heavy metals and chemical compounds.

The report said: ''Analysis of water samples drawn from wells serving the local community has also confirmed the contamination of groundwater reserves with chemicals arising either from previous or ongoing activities and/or incidents. As a result of the ubiquitous presence of contaminants, the exposure of the communities surrounding the plants to complex mixtures of hazardous chemicals continues on a daily basis.

''Though less acute than the exposure that took place as a result of the 1984 MIC release, long-term chronic exposure to mixtures of toxic synthetic chemicals and heavy metals is also likely to have serious consequences for the health and survival of the local population.''

The Greenpeace study was backed in 2004 by Amnesty International, whose Clouds of Injustice report said, ''toxic wastes continue to pollute the environment and water supply … and it is appalling that no one has been held
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Some words of wisdom from an anonymous source.

Life and the lessons it teaches are both truly amazing, as long as it is without having others intentionally out to teach "their" lessons. It is Life, itself that teaches the necessary lessons, usually in the most trying of times. But, It is the severity of the circumstances surrounding a lesson that allows understanding. Not only just the realization of said lesson, or understanding as to why, but also the knowledge it contains, which is found on a multitude of levels. Events occur the way that Life needs them to, and seeking an understanding will just cause more issues to arise. Understanding comes when an individual is ready for it, and not when one is seeking it. Life will provide the answers in ways that are unfamiliar, but when the time comes for an individual, they will immediately understand the lesson.

Without the severity of the circumstances that Life places around it's lesson, understanding would not be attainable. This is why it is not for individuals to commit acts of revenge, or to intentionally interfere with others lives. Everyone is on their own path, and to intentionally cause others to encounter or experience suffering is in itself an act of evil, Life is too short and complex to intentionally be adding more suffering, and by doing so is the work of evil. Good does not intentionally cause issues or pain, no matter what. The influence of evil must be overcome within ourselves, as change comes from within. The battles between Good and Evil are only found within each of us, and can be seen on a larger scale, as it is the balance between the two that creates what we see in society as a whole.

We can only change ourselves, and to engage in activities that aim at influencing others to be more like "us", is, in actuality, the unwillingness to accept differences in others. This could result in conflict, as it could be seen as "right vs. wrong" "more right than you" or an inflated ego. Judging others' morality based on being gay or having a different belief system, is also the unwillingness to accept differences that surround us. Justifying oneself or seeking validation would be just as sinful as that is someone who murders, Those that believe that they are more important or better than others, or believe that they are "Right" and others are "Wrong" or to trying to make others have the same view, irregardless of what strategy is being utilized for said purposes, are all ways that demonstrate the unwillingness to accept differences.

It is the failure to cherish the differences in others that causes the amount of suffering that we see in our world. And only by changing our individual ways of thinking will we be able to overcome suffering. Cherish all life, not just the people, but all of Life's creatures. Realize that universal knowledge is too vast and is composed of all things. Failure to do so will ultimately have the consequence of causing the fall of civilization as we know it. As it will be our differences that not only saves us, but allows all of us to become fully aware of how amazing life truly is.

---AnonymousLife and the lessons it teaches are both truly amazing, as long as it is without... more