Clash of Cultures II

Submitted by M. Tovey (United States), Jul 7, 2007 at 18:40

It may be argued, and with sufficient evidence to a point, that the essence of religion is faith. And as pointed out by reader Whaley, M. D., when faith and reason are worn out in the face of an enemy that resorts to neither, then comes the bloody conclusion that usually results in a clash of cultures.

As to winning or losing because of conquering the will, the Germans lost because they lost faith in their Fuehrer and the Reich he promised but could not deliver. In the meanwhile the Japanese did not lose faith in their emperor, but lost enough faithful followers such that their will was diminished by mere numbers.

In these modern times, faith, or more to the reality, belief (there is a difference, however minute) indeed is at the core of the ideology that uses terror to press their case for global dominion. Identified as Islamic by evidence and by their own declaration, these believers follow a person as much as the ideology, that even as ephemeral as the person their Prophet might be, he is as real enough as they need him to be to reinforce their beliefs.

In numbers, these same believers are part of a worldwide population so huge there is little doubt of their continued presence and their numbers continue to grow.

One cannot rationally make this type of presence think they cannot succeed by reason. The use of force in like fashion can only reinforce the radical mentality that force is the only tool needed to win. The only alterable part of this is the nuclear variable, to diminish the numbers (of either side) in order to win.

In a war of faith versus reason, the reality is that faith becomes the last resort. And herein lays the distinction. If correctly placed in the higher realm beyond the reason of human rationale, at the altar of the Sovereign Eternal Almighty God, faith in Him will have the victory, even in the face of human disaster. Faith and belief in anything else, or anyone else, will certainly result in finishing this clash of cultures, as it has been so dramatically and historically pointed out.

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