Captured Hostages - How can people be so evil?

[Jenia_San]

Hello,
I,myself,live in Israel,so I see such things happen often.
for example,a month or 2 ago,a bus blew up in my face while I was going home from school(likely I was just close enough to see but not to get hurt)!
also,learning to suffer could be an important lesson in spirtual evolution.
I know it sounds awefull,but reality is often not as good as it should be.
people die every day. people suffer every day. some people have nothing but suffering their entire lives. this is the reality humanity knows.
humans could be veiwing it all wrong,too,and death could be a good thing,as it only comes with destiny and when it does,it will free the soul from the pains of life...of course it's just a theory.

P.S.why do you have kanji in your text?

[TheSeeker]

I agree with Jenia.  Although I know I could not do something so horrible and live with myself, I understand that others can, and that perhaps I have done such things in past lives.  Perhaps we need to experience the full gamut of human emotions in order for our conciousness to mature, in order to get past this place.

[Rastus]

The reason is simple.  You can lose a 'battle' to win the war.  If you understand why humans incarnate, then you understand the events you describe.  The terrorists are actually doing tremendous work to end a 1000 years of tribal stupidity in the middle east.  Nothing like be-heading a blindfolded hostage to galvanise world opinion.

The murderers are helping to move along a process more quickly than it would otherwise happen, the victims chose the role.  Most people won't believe that, that someone would choose to be murdered.  But what is one death to immortal entity that re-incarnates?

[TheSeeker]

I'm pretty sure that Islam does not teach reincarnation Rastus.  Perhaps I misinterpreted what you posted.

[RJA]

Military commandos undergo extreme physical hardship during their training, including "interrogation" sessions and being dropped in the middle of nowhere without food or water and having to find their way out while eating bugs to survive.  Why do they do this?  Because they know that ultimately they are stronger and better prepared because of it.  And because of that they are better able to be of service to their country.

So, in theory, souls that choose to incarnate physically can be thought of as "spiritual commandos" perhaps.  Accepting physical hardship because of the spiritual growth that it brings and because in doing so they are able to provide service to others.

Or if you think of our little egos as the actors in the grand cosmic play, then souls taking on particular lots in life are like actors taking on particular roles.  Does an actor who portrays Ghandi have a worse role than the one who portrays Bill Gates?

Personally, I'm not convinced of the "we choose all the things that happen to us" assertion.

[CptPicard]

I'm sorry Rastus but you make it sound asthough the militants are doing a great job in beheading innocent people and that it's gods will for people to die in this horrific manner.  Therefore the religious believe the militants have is correct and our believe that it's inhuman is wrong!

So perhaps I should forget about being nice and to love. and instead go out killing people as it will make them and myself evolve more spiritually. (INSANE)
But I'll make sure that I kill them painfully buy beheading them or even torturing them.

"What a crock of ****"

[Nay]

Hi CptPicard..let me say, I've had a crush on you since the beginning of Next Generations..[]  *Make it so*

I understand what Rastus is saying..I think.[]  WWII really messed with me.  After seeing so many documentaries on it..how could I not be messed up?  I just couldn't understand how or why people would do such things, I started to question why in the world would a God let such things happen??  I had such hate in my heart for the people that did terrible acts..especially when it came to the children that were harmed or killed.

But then I started reading Sylvia Brown..ok, no laughing, she is one of the people that helped me learn more about the "other side" if you will.  According to her beliefs, we choose what we are going to do in our incarnations...we actually talk it over with the people that will be involved in that.  So all these people..thousands, upon thousands of souls got together and said, ok..I'll let you do this to even out some Karma, or learn a lesson to help us grow.  You see, on the "other side" we love each other..all of our fears and egos are gone, we know while we're still in soul form what it is all truly about.[]

That knowledge, be it true or not, gave me peace in a way.  It doesn't lesson the pain or grief that I feel for people that go through such horrific things, but it lessens my hate, for the ones causing the pain.  Because I feel they've talked it through on the other side.  Notice I said lessen... it still ticks me off..heck, because I'm only human when here.[]

There is a bigger picture to all this maddness, there has to be. []

My two cents.

Nay

[RJA]

Lest we think those "extremists" are really that different than ourselves I would suggest that if an Arab nation invaded our country and toppled our government under the guise of "liberating" us, we would also be driven to extreme measures.  Given our American pride and our gun culture and our resistence to Islam and a Islam-based government I'd guess that there would be quite a healthy resistance and that our "freedom fighters" - aka "terrorists" would also resort to kidnappings, suicide bombings and the like.

Also, although being kidnapped and executed is surely scary I doubt it's any more painful than the deaths that await most of us.  Nor is it more painful than the deaths experienced by the tens of thousands of civilans that have been killed by both sides in the current conflict in Iraq.  And I'm sure that many of those Iraqis unlucky enough to be interrogated by Americans experienced a lot more pain than those hostages.

I'm not going to agree wholeheartedly that prior to incarnating the hostages and the militants agreed to all of this, but I am going to assert that what is going on with these few hostages in Iraq is no worse than what is going on every day all around the world, and has been going on for thousands or millions of years.  It's human nature playing itself out in gazillions of different ways.  But I've tried to move beyond the "evil" v. "not evil" paradigm because I do believe there is a cosmic "plan" of sorts and I just trust that ultimately it is all bringing about a rise in consciousness.

[Rastus]

This site is about Astral Projection.

The original question in the thread is about a cosmic 'Why'.  I prefaced my answer by saying if you truly understand why humans incarnate...

Don't confuse your Karmic intent with concious action.  I never said the Islamic terrorists had a concious clue about the karmic reasons they do what they do.  I can pretty much say they don't, their entire upbringing is against it.  Whereas in Europe and The Americas, it's possible to have a different religions or be enlightened without the threats of an Islamic Extremesit country.  Having concious knowledge of you karma(Karma being your pre-incarnated game plan, plan hint hint, it's not carved in stone), is viable definition of being enlightened.

CptPicard:  You have the free will to run around killing people, how does that further the reasons humans incarnate on earth?

[Jenadots]

Maybe it is just to remind us that evil does exist within the souls of some people.  

And Rastus, by all accounts the terrorists who have done these beheadings are not Iraqi's, they are imports - Jordanians who just happen to see an opportunity to murder Americans.  No one invaded Jordan.  

I often wonder what men like them pray for 5 times a day. And notice, they select only easy targets.  They are not attacking fully armed marine units that can and will fight back.  Nothing, absolutely nothing, justifies what they have done. No excuse is good enough.

They are evil, personified.  Certainly not the only evil in the world, perhaps just the most visible right now.  

As to serving a good purpose, just what might that be?  The only sadness and outrage over the beheadings - and little it is -- are coming from the victims families and friends, coming from people here in the states who cannot conceive of doing such a thing to another.

Our veneer of civilization is very thin.  I agree with that.  In essence, we are one nuclear war away from the caves.  Who knows what any of us would do to survive - to protect our loved ones, and to keep what little we might have?  Fight if attacked, yes.  But to drag sleeping people from their beds and them behead them is not self-defense or fighting for a cause.  It is simply murder.  

Maybe those who committ the beheadings do it because they think they have nothing left to lose, nothing and no one they value enough to want to conduct their lives like more civilized men.  

They are not civilized and no good can come from what they do.  It certainly doesn't get them much of what they claim they want.  

Five minutes after they are dead, what do you suppose goes through their minds/souls, knowing the agony they inflicted on someone else?

I cannot fathom it, and hope I never do anything in this lifetime that will lead me to finding out.  

Doesn't mean I don't wonder if it isn't time to start terrorizing the terrorists and their families.  Which, of course, would only make things worse.  That would make all of us -- well, them.  

The real question is how do you stop a fanatic?  I don't think anybody really knows.  

[CptPicard]

quote:Originally posted by Jenadots

Maybe it is just to remind us that evil does exist within the souls of some people.  

And Rastus, by all accounts the terrorists who have done these beheadings are not Iraqi's, they are imports - Jordanians who just happen to see an opportunity to murder Americans.  No one invaded Jordan.  

I often wonder what men like them pray for 5 times a day. And notice, they select only easy targets.  They are not attacking fully armed marine units that can and will fight back.  Nothing, absolutely nothing, justifies what they have done. No excuse is good enough.

They are evil, personified.  Certainly not the only evil in the world, perhaps just the most visible right now.  

As to serving a good purpose, just what might that be?  The only sadness and outrage over the beheadings - and little it is -- are coming from the victims families and friends, coming from people here in the states who cannot conceive of doing such a thing to another.

Our veneer of civilization is very thin.  I agree with that.  In essence, we are one nuclear war away from the caves.  Who knows what any of us would do to survive - to protect our loved ones, and to keep what little we might have?  Fight if attacked, yes.  But to drag sleeping people from their beds and them behead them is not self-defense or fighting for a cause.  It is simply murder.  

Maybe those who committ the beheadings do it because they think they have nothing left to lose, nothing and no one they value enough to want to conduct their lives like more civilized men.  

They are not civilized and no good can come from what they do.  It certainly doesn't get them much of what they claim they want.  

Five minutes after they are dead, what do you suppose goes through their minds/souls, knowing the agony they inflicted on someone else?

I cannot fathom it, and hope I never do anything in this lifetime that will lead me to finding out.  

Doesn't mean I don't wonder if it isn't time to start terrorizing the terrorists and their families.  Which, of course, would only make things worse.  That would make all of us -- well, them.  

The real question is how do you stop a fanatic?  I don't think anybody really knows.  

Jenadots, I couldn't have worded it better myself! I agree with you completely.

[daem0n]

ignorance + delusions, with a bit of apathy

[RJA]

I think we humans are far too eager to externalize evil to something outside of ourselves, rather than acknowledge our own complicity in acts committed by others.  This is especially symptomatic of western society where our individuality is very strong, and we don't associate as strongly with a larger tribe, per se.

When a gangbanger kills someone it's easy to say, "He's evil.  Execute him and justice will have been serverd."  But it doesn't solve the problem.  I think a healthier approach is to think of our society as a business and each of us as co-owners.  Criminals are defective parts that we churn out and thus a "quality-control" problem.  Rather than dealing with the "blowback" of higher and higher rates of defective products we need to all take ownership, find the underlying causes and address those problems.

On a global level, the same concept applies.  We are all the human race, and at a soul level we all are responsible to some degree for the state of humanity.  Terrorists are a symptom.  As a global society we need to identify the underlying cause and address it.  Just killing the terrorists won't bring about long term peace or stability.

Furthermore, mystics from various religious traditions (in addition to certain schools of thought in psychology and physics) assert that seperateness is an illusion.  We think of ourselves as 6 billion different people, when in fact we are 6 billion individual manifestations of the same creative force.  Like waves in the ocean.  Individual waves don't actually exist - a wave is simply energy passing through the water and temporarily changing it's shape.  All waves are part of the ocean - they aren't individual waves.  Likewise, Hindu scriptures use the example of two islands in a sea.  They appear above the water as two seperate entities, but in fact under the water they are part of the same land formation.

Christ said, "The Father and I are one" and he also said that he wanted for us to be one with him in the same way that he is one with the father.  Traditional Christianity uses the first half of that assertion to support the believe that "Jesus is God" but misses the real meaning - i.e. that Jesus reached enlightenment by entirely subjugating his individual ego to the will of God.  He recognized that he was not seperate from God, but was a manefestation of God. This truth is also why Jesus asserted that "whatever you have done to the least of my children, you have done to me".  He meant that literally, not figuratively.  If we can also come to this realization, not just on a mental level but on a spiritual level then we realize the pointlessness of intolerance and casting moral judgements and the need to do our part, through love of others, in bringing about fundamental spiritual change universally.

[Jenadots]

Yes, we are all one on a quantum level of consciousness.  I truly do believe that.  However, once in the physical, we are both one and separate.  

Those who committ atrocities separate themselves even further from the rest of us.  The reasons do not matter.  There are a multitude of reasons why global terrorism is expanding and what its appeals are.  Even if the rest of us could "fix" everything that is wrong - or that we think causes the problem, it is not likely the problem would go away.  It is not about poverty or a million other things - it is about power and a warped sense of "see what I can make people do."

As for the broken parts - the ones with defects, the comparison to a company doesn't really work.  If I have a vacuum cleaner with defects, I can try to get it fixed or I can just put it out in the trash for the trash compactors to reduce it to a little bit of garbage.  

We can't do that with people.  When people refuse to be rational - refuse to be civilized - refuse to have any regard for the value of another living being - then just what do we do with them?  We don't know how to fix them.  We can lock them up or kill them.  

My personal favorite is neither -- lobotomize them in the violence center of the brain and send them home to do whatever it is they might be capable of doing.  

I do not care why someone beheads another.  I care that they never get the opportunity to do it again.  I want the world to be a better place and am as helpful as I can be in my small portion of it.  But I
refuse to be "understanding" of this sort of thing.  

It is barbaric and savage and medieval and maybe it is time more people around the world started to say so.  Maybe then those who commit these atrocities will not be treated as heroes in some segments of their own culture and religion.  But they have also made it quite clear, woe to the Islamic person who dares to say they are not heroes.

There is no shame in being poor.  There is no shame in suffering or being hungry.  Life on planet Earth has never been fair to all its people.  But most people who are poor, and suffering, and hungry do not behead others or commit other acts of violence against those around them.  

Why not?  Because they have not become evil in their separateness that is human life here. They choose another path for themselves.

[CptPicard]

In the news it's all you see, DOOM and GLOOM! Atrocities and murders.
3 hostages were captured and 2 have all ready been killed by militants beheading them – I only hope and pray the last victim Kenneth Bigley is still alive and will be freed.

My deepest love goes out to the families of these poor people who are suffering such a violent and gruesome death.

But how can a human do such evil things... I just don't understand – It upsets me so much I want to cry.  

It is believed that humans choose there life's lessons before coming to earth and that we have all reincarnated before many times, see //www.afterlife101.com But who would choose to reincarnate to be brutally murdered or even to be the murderer?  What is the spiritual meaning in that?
Why do we have to suffer a painful death to spiritually evolve – because it really doesn't make sense?

This world is a very scary place and I'm starting to hate it.

When is it all going to end?

P []