The Olympics being on TV for the past few weeks has gotten me thinking about a few things. Namely, it has me thinking about an aspect of mankind that I have been extremely detached from, being mostly unconcerned with both playing sports and watching them.
However, as bored as I am watching the Super Bowel and wondering when they'll stop throwing the piece of leather around and get to the halftime music, I cant help but get riled up when watching my school's volleyball game. Its a part of myself I'm not very in touch with, but it comes out nonetheless.
But why? What is it about sports that can tweak us emotionally?
Then I start thinking about war. Its the same thing in a lot of ways. There are two teams, often both of them are trying to achieve a similar objective, and the clashing of these two teams often causes a split between people. You have some rooting for one team, another rooting for the other team, both want to see their team succeed. It gets both sides emotionally involved with the outcome.
Bot obviously there has to be a difference, right? War often has values driving it, whereas sports if for the simple enjoyment of competition. So, in a way, maybe you could say sports is what you would get if you took all the ideologies out of it, leaving just the thrill of battle and victory. The concept of competitive sports comes from our simple desire to battle.
But where is our desire to battle directed? Against other people? I don't think so. We're not really fighting against each other. What always interested me was the many armistices that happened on Christmas during World War I. Those times always made me think of a football game, where there is fierce competition between the players during game time, but are completely okay with going out for a drink with the other team after the games over. After all, its just a game, right? No reason they cant be friends. I wonder if alot of soldiers have the same outlook towards war. War is just a game they have to play, and when its over they still share their humanity.
So what is our battle against? It would have to be something that isn't human, since we have nothing against humans at their core. How could we? We're the same as them. Its as Paul said: our battle isn't against flesh and blood.
Rather, its against ideologies, the basis of war to begin with. Yet why is it in our battle against ideologies, we kill other humans? Are we really defeating these ideologies? Would the ideology of Islam be dead if every Muslim had been killed? Would Christianity die if every Christian was dead? Would Atheism be gone from this earth if we simply killed all Atheists? There is clearly more to an ideology than the earthly form it takes, and so ideologies cannot be defeated by a simple destruction of its earthly representatives. It has to be defeated in the spiritual realm. Only then can the slaves of an ideology be set free instead of killed.
War is the ultimate curse of mankind. A sort of self imposed suicide. We, mankind, all being equal beings, are cursed with the nature of killing our brothers instead of targeting the ideologies that control them. I believe one author referred to it as "breaking the web of lies." As soldiers in the history long battle of evil, we shouldnt be fooled into thinking our battle is against flesh and blood, but rather against the spiritual strongholds that exist within a certain ideology. Only then can we set the captives free instead of killing them.
Thats all.
~Jared
