"You Can't Expect ISIS Not To Kill People"

Do you remember learning, for the first time, that people kill people? I do.

I talked to two people, today, who think that beheading Christians and burning pilots alive in cages (overseas) is just fine.

Two guys from my work. One is my friend... almost more than anyone else there. The other one sits in an office and supervises people.

I can't get over it.

I'd just seen these pictures:

I was so angry (at ISIS), I was shaking. And when people see that you're angry, it doesn't help you convince them. The office guy laughed, told my friend, "She's a woman, you know she's gonna win." Then, "But that doesn't make her right."

"That's all they've been taught," my friend told me, seriously. "That's what they grew up learning to do."

And I tried to tell him that beheading people and burning them alive in cages goes against everything that makes a person human. EVERYONE has a conscience. I've heard that there's a psychological barrier that makes it really hard to kill a person, the first time. It's innate.

"It's wrong.. in America," he said.

He literally told me that this would only be wrong in America. We don't murder.. because we're Americans.

Muslims in other countries? They have a different background, a different religion. Different standards. So they can just, you know, keep calm and murder on.

It's crazy. But of course, without faith in God, you can't have an objective standard of right and wrong. That's what I should have said. I should have asked him, "So, do you believe in God?" I couldn't figure out a way to work that in between Friend Guy's arguments and Office Guy's loud laughter.

I wish we would bomb ISIS and wipe them up off of God's green earth so they can't slaughter and rape innocent people any more. I said so. Maybe it's wrong. Ann Voskamp wrote this

http://www.aholyexperience.com/2015/02/the-wake-up-call-to-the-church-that-is-isis-whos-answering/

about praying for ISIS as well as their victims. If you want to read a good, encouraging, Christlike article about ISIS, I suggest you click that red x on the upper righthand corner and head straight over to her blog because I'm not even thinking about praying for these people right now. I'm just pessimistic enough to think that there is no hope for them. None. I want them gone. Dead.

"If you were in a fight with another girl in your apartment, and I'd never been there, and had never met her, would it be right for me to break in and beat her up?" he asked me.

If she were chopping my head off. YES. IT WOULD BE RIGHT. IT WOULD BE RIGHT TO BREAK INTO MY APARTMENT AND BEAT SOMEONE UP THAT YOU DON'T KNOW, WHO IS CHOPPING MY HEAD OFF. This is not a fistfight. THIS IS LINING PEOPLE UP IN THE SAND AND CHOPPING THEIR HEADS OFF.

They were common laborers. Their crime? Christianity.

"They could have fought back" -the next thing he said to me.

Really?

I wasn't informed enough to argue, except hypothetically. ISIS is a big group. I told him that I was sure that each of these men was attacked and kidnapped by more than one terrorist. On the march to the sand? It's actually kind of hard to fight a man who's holding a knife to your throat.

Then I read the story, and there's this (http://www.foxnews.com/world/2015/02/16/video-purports-to-show-isis-militants-beheading-christian-hostages/)

"Walham secured his visa in late 2013. He arrived months before militias seized the capital Tripoli in August 2014. He found work as a plumber in the coastal city of Sirte, which was largely destroyed during the war and was the hometown of ousted Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.

It was there that Walham was kidnapped on Dec. 28. Six days later, gunmen seized another 13 Egyptian Christians from Sirte in a targeted raid on a housing compound for laborers.

Abanoub Ishaq, a 19-year-old worker from el-Aour, was there the night the militants burst in just before dawn, knocking on doors with a list of names. Those who answered were hauled away, Ishaq said. He managed to evade capture by remaining silent after receiving a phone call from a Muslim neighbor who warned him not to open the door because militants were searching for Christians.

"We heard nothing but my friends' screams, then they were silenced," he told The Associated Press."

But let's just say they could have fought back. Let's just pretend for a moment that they could have escaped if they had tried a little harder. That they thought it was their Christian duty to die for their faith, quietly. I guess their murderers have full impunity, then. I guess that should be a basis for judgment in murder cases from now on. "Could your victim have escaped you if they had fought a little harder? Yes? Okay, then! No prison time whatsoever and we'll reimburse your court costs! We're so sorry for the inconvenience! Case dismissed!"

I didn't convince either of the men I was talking to. But listen to me. I'm discouraged about this because people aren't talking about it, they don't seem to care. Like we shouldn't bother about people in Iraq, Syria and Libya. Things are just different there, and it's never going to affect us.

I'm not naïve enough to hop along with my happy little life, thinking that nothing bad will ever happen to me because I'm an American and that makes me safe and comfy and happy hop skippy forever. This is the kind of evil world we AMERICANS live in- and you're stupid if you think we can just stay out of it, just stay out of that little none-of-our-business fistfight going on over there in Iraq, and Syria, and Libya, and be perfectly safe forever. You're stupid.

Being a Christian doesn't mean you'll be safe forever either (obviously). (See pictures above). God is not interested in making sure that you, personally, get to sit in front of your TV eating popcorn until 2072.

I feel guilty about my comfortable little life. I can't really enjoy it anymore, because I keep thinking about these people, who hadn't done anything to deserve being brutally murdered, anymore than you or I have. Sometimes I imagine what it would be like to be just moments away from being beheaded or burned alive. I'm not a brave person.

And it makes me sick to see the silly things that a lot of people are outraged about, rather than this.  Like animal rights and the rights of the earth (whatever THAT's supposed to mean). Catcalling. Women getting offended when men comment on their looks. That's why I wrote the last post on food rights, although I thought it was funny at the time. I walked into Walmart and they were playing a propaganda video on all the TVs about the rights of Mother Earth, our beloved nurturer and sustainer.

What about HUMAN rights? Since when did HUMANS become less important than dolphins, rocks and trees? So, since we're American, we can close our eyes to the horrible things happening to non-American HUMANS? "It's not our fight," they say.

It will become our fight one day- but then, it will be too late.

I know, it's a lot to ask- American soldiers, go over there and get those bad men. But soldiers surely know that they may have to fight. I'm planning to go to a (semi-dangerous) place to help kids. So I don't feel that bad about saying that other people should go on an even more important mission (who kind of chose that life). Honestly? I feel like we should all do something to help people who haven't been given as much. Is that crazy?

I don't want to just sit around and watch the show. 

And then there's God, and words of wisdom I heard Dennis Prager say, refreshing after the morally relativistic lies.

"God's primary expectation of us is to treat each other with goodness and justice. Fighting evil is directly tied to that."

Sometimes I listen to Conservative Talk and I want to just shout AMEN! And sometimes I do it.

Thank you, Dennis Prager. You are one of the few voices of reason in my lopsided crazy depressing world full of lopsided crazy depressing people. Because seeing people shut their little sleepy eyes in the face of horrendous evil is more depressing to me than the evil itself. Well, that's about all I have to say. I owe you something funny (or, encouraging?) next. It's a beautiful world full of daisies and butterflies. Good night.