PART I	ETHICAL CANONS CONCERNING WAR
	Chapter  1	About Ethical Canons and War
	Chapter  2	Decisions Precipitating War
	Chapter  3	Human Sacrifice
	Chapter  4	Amiriyah Shelter
	PART II	ETHICAL CANONS CONCERNING EQUALITY
	Chapter  5	Slavery
	Chapter  6	Arens' Atrocity Attribution Theory
	Chapter  7	Genocide of Native Americans
	Chapter  8	Intermarriage
	PART III	ETHICAL CANONS CONCERNING JUSTICE
	Chapter  9	Incarceration
	Chapter 10	Reemergence of Torture
	Chapter 11	Witchcraft Trials
	Chapter 12	Trials of Heretics
	PART IV	ETHICAL CANONS CONCERNING RELIGION
	Chapter 13	The New and Old Testaments
	Chapter 14	Transplanted Mentality
	Chapter 15	God and His Messengers
	PART V	ETHICAL CANONS CONCERNING EMPATHY
	Chapter 16	Karla Tucker and George W. Bush
	Chapter 17	A Girl with the Almond Eyes
	Chapter 18	Beyond Partiality: Building a World of Laughter and Love

A neutron bomb, also called an enhanced radiation weapon, releases most of its energy in the form of nuclear radiation consisting of neutrons. Because neutrons are uncharged particles, they can travel great distances through matter until stopped by collisions with light atoms. Living beings are susceptible to injury from neutron irradiation because the water molecules inside their bodies contain the lightest atom, hydrogen. Inorganic matter has a higher proportion of heavier atoms and is less likely to suffer damage from bombardment with neutrons. A neutron bomb is thus more damaging to living things than to inorganic matter.

Within the military, the idea of a neutron bomb was given considerable attention as an ideal weapon; it destroys people, but leaves their possessions intact. In the 1970s, ethical implications of the production of enhanced radiation weapons were debated. Ronald Reagan resolved this controversy in 1981 by ordering the full production of Lance missiles equipped with neutron bomb warheads. President Reagan often mentioned in his speeches that there are few problems that cannot be solved by consulting ‘The Good Old Book.’ One wonders if he was guided in his decision to produce the neutron bomb by Joshua 6:24:

“They burned the city with fire, and all that was therein: only the silver, and the gold, and the vessels of brass and of iron, they put into the treasury of the house of the Lord.”

  Doctrine of the 'Just War'

Misericord is a dagger, used as the 'gesture of mercy' to deliver the death stroke to a wounded soldier. In Latin, misericordia means pity, mercy, an act of clemency, from miserere, to pity and cor, cordis, the heart. To wage a just war is to really act misericorditer (the word Saint Augustine stressed) toward the enemy, as it is in the best interest of the enemy that their sins and vices are corrected.

Saint Augustine’s Doctrine of the Just War is he most often used justification for the collective violence and the notion of the ‘just war' has been used for centuries to rationalize warfare. Early Christians were divided with respect to these matters. Some, such as Tertullian, were pacifists. Many Roman soldiers after their conversion to Christianity deserted the Imperial Army. However, after the adoption of Christianity as the state religion of the Roman Empire by Emperor Constantine in 313, the Church ceased to oppose war as a part of its general policy. Afterwards, Saint Augustine (354-430) devised the Doctrine of the Just War. This doctrine has been subscribed to by a majority of Christian denominations ever since.

The Doctrine of the Just War claims that theocratic states must have strong armed forces. The theocratic state must be aware that its enemies will try to destroy it, since its very existence is aversive to those who disagree with its principles. The theocratic state fulfills the will of God and is the guardian of its people. If such state permitted its own destruction, it would provide arguments to those who believe there is no God, or those who maintain that it did not merit the protection of God. The defense of a state is the foremost duty of all its citizens. Society must be defended by military might because, ultimately, the display of military might is an act of love toward the attackers. However, questions that can be asked within this context are such as: Can wars be prevented? Can God prevent wars? What are God’s opinions on matters of war and peace? 

Doctrine of the 'Good War'

Contemporary modification of Augustine's doctrine of the 'just war' is the doctrine of the 'good war.' Studs Terkel coined the term ‘good war’ in his book The Good War: An Oral History of World War II (1984) which won a Pulitzer Prize the year after its publication. Billy Graham used the combination of the Good War and the Just War doctrines to absolve President Bush I from guilt or blame for the anticipated loss of life during the 1991 conflict in the Persian Gulf. Imbued with the doctrine of the 'good war,' President Bush II displays a stature of Winston Churchill in his office and draws parallels between the WW II and his military exploits. 

The 'Lawful War' doctrine

Augustine’s Doctrine of the Just War was codified by Hugo Grotius in his book On the Law of War and Peace (1625). Upon close reading, however, it appears that Grotius did not codify the just war, as he stressed that since humans wage wars, they should at least follow certain conventions to make its impact less devastating. Drawing on classical sources such as Alberico Gentili's De jure belli (1598), Grotius anticipated the Hague Conferences, convened much later, in 1899 and 1907 by the Russian Tsar Nicholas II. These conferences codified the Hague Convention that spells out the rules of war, especially the rules for treatment of POWs and noncombatants. Grotius was a chief magistrate of Rotterdam, Netherlands, who opposed Calvin’s doctrine of predestination. For this he was sentenced to life imprisonment in the fortress of Loevestein from where he escaped by hiding in a chest of books moved out of the fortress.

The 'Balance of Power' doctrine

Flavius Vegetius in his Epitoma Rei Militaris wrote

'Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum'
 (if you want peace prepare for war.)

This doctrine asserts that the threat of war is essential to maintaining peace. Contemporary research in conflict theory concentrates on the processes by which nations develop their national strategies and decide upon waging war. This research takes into account the motivations and perceptions of leaders, decision makers, and their public appeal. Some political scientists assert that war may be an unavoidable element of international politics. Our view is that war is a complex phenomenon that also includes preventable components. The research here describes the search for preventable factors that influence the decision to initiate a war. 

Hebraic moral code 

William Durant in his Story of Philosophy (1926) notes that

“Christianity was at first a combination of Greek theology with Jewish morality; it was an unstable combination, in which one or the other element would eventually yield; in Catholicism the Greek element triumphed, in Protestantism the stern Hebraic moral code. The one had a Renaissance, the other a Reformation”’

Elaborating on this schism, Santayana in his Realms of Being (1927 - 1940) maintains that

‘Protestantism is convinced of the importance of success and prosperity; it abominates what is disreputable; contemplation seems to it idleness, solitude selfishness, and poverty a sort of dishonorable punishment. It is constrained and punctilious in righteousness; it regards a married and industrious life as typically godly, and there is sacredness to it, as of a vacant Sabbath, in the unoccupied higher spaces which such an existence leaves for the soul. It is sentimental; its benevolence is optimistic and aims at raising men to a conventional well being. Protestantism was therefore attached from the first to the Old Testament, in which Hebrew fervor appears in its worldly form.’

Protestantism, being the dominant religion of the United States, sets the tenor of our country. The combination of competence and fervor, as a major characteristic of American civilization, makes for one of the most resolute and militaristic nations of the contemporary world. Aside of the United States, the strongest association of Protestantism with the teachings of the Old Testament is in the Great Britain.

Protestantism and war-proneness

Association of Protestantism and war-proneness is discussed in Grace Halsell's book Prophecy and Politics: Militant Evangelists on the Road to Nuclear War. It seems that Protestants are as prone to produce wealth as to use the ability to project power that comes with it. Within this context Halsell debates the widely held religious thesis that 'human history as we know it will end in a battle called Armageddon and culminate with the return of Christ' and a related thesis that 'God has foreordained that we fight a nuclear Armageddon.' (1986, pp. 2-4). With each new war initiated by recent Presidents with strong Protestant beliefs-Reagan, Bush I, Bush II - the hypothesis about close association of militant evangelism and religious zeal of Protestant morality with the likelihood of a nuclear war gains credence.

Aspero sanguinis Saint Augustine, in his Contra Faustus (400) asserts that every religion, including Christianity, must have an exterior form of celebration and worship that includes sacrifice. The sacrificial gift (res oblata) must exist in physical substance, and must be destroyed. The oblation proper consists of the aspersio sanguinis (spilling of blood) offered to God. Recently, this topic attracted attention in connection with the planned sacrifice of the red heifer.

Temple and the red heifer

The First Temple, built in Jerusalem on the top of the Mount Moriah, was destroyed during the wars between the Egypt of the Pharaohs and the Babylonian Empire (approximately corresponding to the contemporary Iraq with Babylon located about 50 miles south of Baghdad). In the course of this conflict, Israel lost independence to the Babylon Empire. Hoping that Egypt will intervene on its behalf, Israel rebelled against Babylon, however, was defeated and its temple destroyed by the Babylonian armies in 586 BCE. Later, the temple was rebuilt and, again, torn down by the Roman Armed Forces in 70 CE.

As the Jerusalem Temple must be rebuilt before the coming of Messiah, religious fundamentalists collected millions of dollars for this project. However, the Third Temple cannot be build, as the access to the Mount Moriah is blocked by the shortage of ashes of a flawless red heifer, used for purification of persons prior to their ascension of the holy mountain. In 1990s, Texas fundamentalist ranchers started to fund research to genetically engineer a perfect red heifer. In 1996 they seemed to succeed, but during the following three years required for the heifer to reach the mandated age, a white hair appeared on the tip of her tail, rendering the animal unfit for the ritual sacrifice. Recently a new red heifer was genetically engineered and is now under close observation. If no hairs of a different color appear, the heifer will be slaughtered by cutting her throat and her remains will be used to manufacture ashes needed to build the Third Temple. After the Third Temple will be build, he stage will be set for the Armageddon, the final battle at the end of the world.

Metaphor for the Nuclear War 

One of our assumptions was that in the classical religious reference books, 'fire' within the appropriate context, such as

    And thou shall burn with fire the city, and it shall be a heap forever; it shall not be built again.

    Now the children of Judah had fought against Jerusalem, and had taken it, and smitten it with the edge of the sword, and set the city on fire.

    And the men of Israel turned again upon the children of Benjamin, and smote them with the edge of the sword, as well the men of every city, as the beast, and all that came to hand: also they set on fire all the cities that they came to.

 Thou shall burn with fire a third part in the midst of the city, when the days of the siege are fulfilled: and you shall take a third part, and smite about it with a knife: and a third part you shall scatter in the wind.

would be the closest metaphor for a nuclear holocaust. Let us look at the results of a computer-assisted frequency count of the word ‘fire’ in the Old and New Testaments, in the Qur'an, and in the Confucian Analects. As shown in the above figure, in the Confucian Analects the word ‘fire’ occurs 3 times, in the Qur'an 152 times, in the New Testament 72 times, and in the Old Testament, 427 times.

Within the Confucian Analects, the word ‘fire’ occurs twice in the following quote: ‘Virtue is more to man than either water or fire. I have seen men die from treading on water and fire, but I have never seen a man die from treading the course of virtue.’ The third occurrence of the word ‘fire’ is within the context of ‘procuring fire by friction.’

In the New Testament, prototypical quotes of the context of the word ‘fire’ are Matthew 7:19 ‘Every tree that brings not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire,’ Mark 9:47 ‘And if your eye offends you, pluck it out: it is better for you to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire,’ and Acts 28:2 ‘And the barbarous people showed us no little kindness: for they kindled a fire, and received us every one, because of the present rain, and because of the cold.’

In the Qur'an, representative contexts of the word ‘fire’ are: ‘God said, ‘And he who misbelieves, I will give him but little to enjoy, then will drive him to the torment of the fire, an evil journey will it be,’’ ‘Those who call the Book, and what we have sent our apostles with, a lie, soon shall they know-when the fetters are on their necks and the chains, as they are dragged into hell!-then in the fire shall they be baked,’ and ‘Verily, the sinners are in error and excitement. On the day when they shall be dragged to the fire upon their faces!-’Taste ye the touch of hell.’’

In the Old Testament, the characteristic contexts of the word ‘fire’ are: Deuteronomy 13:16 ‘And you shall gather all the spoil of it into the midst of the street, and shall burn with fire the city, Joshua 8:8 ‘And it shall be, when you have taken the city, that you shall set the city on fire: according to the commandment of the Lord and Judges 18:27 ‘they smote them with the edge of the sword, and burned the city with fire.

Biblical Landscape

To observe the spiritual landscape of the Judeo-Christian civilization of the last five thousand years, its salient features can be captured in rough contours by computer-assisted frequency counts of the key words in the Old and New Testaments. The place names show its origins as firmly anchored in the Middle East.

Fiefdom of the Lord  It is a fiefdom (tithes, 'love offerings'), ruled by the Lord, a person who has power (mentioned 260 times)over others. The word 'Father' is mentioned in the Bible 971 times and the word Mother 292 times. Remarkably, the word 'Lord' occurs in the Bible 6,748 times.

Love, Death, Blood, and Fire

The frequency of the word 'fire' in both the Old and New Old Testaments is 506. Only a few other words other than proper names have a greater frequency of occurrence. The frequency of the word 'fire' and also of the words 'blood' (375), 'death' (342), and 'love' (281) are shown in the figure on the right. In the New Testament, the word ‘fire’ is used 79 times, in the Old Testament, the word ‘fire’ occurs 427 times. While the context of the word ‘fire’ in the New Testament is mostly innocuous, in the Old Testament, the context is often ominous: vivid descriptions of firestorms God used to punish whole cities and eternal fire in the descriptions of the hell. 

Punish or forgive? 

The word ‘punish’ occurs 55 times, while the frequency of the word 'forgive' is 48.

Anger and hate

The word 'anger' occurs 228 times, 'wrath' 194 times, 'hate' 85 times, and the word 'curse' occurs 92 times.
This can be compared with the word 'happy,' which occurs 25 times.

Good and Evil  Bible stresses moral standards embodied in the Ten Commandments and enforced by rewards coming to the just and punishments awaiting the sinners. The search for evaluative categories shows that the word ‘Good’ occurs 655 times and the word ‘Bad’ occurs only 17 times. Thus at first glance it may appear that Bible stresses more good than bad. However, in the Bible, ‘Bad’ is not bad enough. Stronger expressions for ‘Bad,’ as ‘Evil’ and ‘Wicked’ appear 894 times, and suggest that the Bible is quite concerned with the dark sides of the human nature, stressing prohibitions against violence perpetrated by an individual.

During a discussion at the Sunday school a little girl asked why is God so cruel? How could he burn down a whole city? How could he order to kill children? A member of the audience raised his hand and replied, ‘Because they were bad. They committed unspeakable crimes against the Lord.’ The way he pronounced ‘bad,’ in a long Southern drawl, still rings in my ears.

 Discovery and knowledge  

The occurrence of words such as 'discovery' or 'knowledge' is either nil or negligible, suggesting that Bible appeals to people hardly concerned with learning, science, discovery, but primarily concerned with power, moral codes, self and others.

Collective Violence

Bible is also deficient with respect to condemning collective violence. This imbalance between accentuation of evils of personal behavior and relative laxness with respect to violence perpetrated by a community, state, or nation is characteristics of the Judeo-Christian civilization. The commandment 'you shall not kill' is firmly enforced. However, the logical implication of this commandment - 'we shall not kill,' is seldom enforced and frequently circumvented.