"Where ignorance is our master, there is no possibility of real peace." That's a quote by the Dalai Lama. You have to hand it to that man. He is the spiritual leader of the Tibetan people, yet he is not allowed to step foot in his country. You would think this situation would make him bitter, but it doesn't. He believes that he will once again step foot in Tibet at some point within his life time. He seems to hold no grudge against the Chinese and I have read quotes where he has actively complimented them for one point or another.
What's even more odd, is that he has publicly called himself a hypocrite, because he espouses that there should be a separation between politics and religion, and yet he actively practices both. He seems to struggle with this situation, yet it is a situation not of his own creation. While he could walk away from one role or the other, that would be breaking the nature of the Dalai Lama, a role that his people believe was destined for him since before his birth... and so, he carries on. Getting back to his quote, I believe he is correct. I sometimes think that ignorance is something that we teach. Now, I am not necessarily blaming the school system alone here. When I think of it, I am guilty of this too. It seems that much of the history of our world revolves around warfare. We teach the dates of large bloody battles and we try to make it sound heroic to fight and die for our country. We teach our children that it is okay to kill, as long as we are doing it for OUR country. In the ten commandments, it says "Thou shall not kill." It does not say "Thou shall not kill, unless your government tells you to... then its okay." While I find it hard for any Christian to argue against this point, I know for a fact that many do. I believe they do, because of the way we teach history. Not only that, but because of the constant bleating in the popular press that to be a soldier is to be a "HERO". While I believe that some soldiers can be heroic, I also believe that many common people can also be heroic. The teacher that shielded her students with her body when gunfire broke out at her school... the fireman who runs into a burning building to save someone else's children... or the man that held up traffic so that an old woman could finish walking across the street safely. These are all acts of heroism in their own rights. By romanticizing the job of a soldier, I believe we do the children of this nation a disservice. While I think it would be naive to think that the military does not have a place in society, I think that its defensive aspects should be highlighted. The way that history is taught, it almost seems that the victors are deified... whether they were the aggressors or not! I also find it scary that some people actually believe that people who are against the war in any way should be seen as the enemy. Recently, I saw on Facebook a meme that said "If a person spits on a soldier, I believe that it should be okay to throat punch them." Really? First off, I have not heard of anyone spitting on our soldiers since the early seventies when the Vietnam war (police action, remember, we haven't officially been in a war since World War II) was winding down. Secondly, does anyone really believe that a lethal blow is the right punishment for that type of behavior? Personally, I don't think it is right for anyone to spit on anyone. Common decency screams that! Yet if someone spit on me, I think I could handle it without giving them a lethal blow. To make matters worse, it seems the "throat punch" has now become a meme in its own right. Look it up on Google. Then try to tell me that "Ignorance" does not breed violence. I was literally shocked to see how many throat punching memes there are out there. It may be me, but I don't see anything funny in it. Particularly since there are likely people stupid enough to actually try it out on somebody! Well, I rambled a bit. To get back to the quote, I believe that ignorance is one of the greatest stumbling blocks in front of having actual peace. As long as there are people who believe that it is okay to act violently to get their way, or that we need to be as violent as the next person, then we will never have peace. I personally do not believe that we can achieve peace through war or that war can solve differences. Believe it or not, this post was supposed to be about my abhorrence of ignorance. It went off on a tangent there, though, and will now likely aggravate my sister. Sorry Michelle, I will try to make tomorrow's topic a little less divisive. My final thought here: To have peace, you actually need to practice it.
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