Saturday, March 31, 2007

World peace?

There can be no sustainability without peace. Oh, we can achieve some environmental successes and economic prosperity, but ultimately, there can be no sustainable future for the human race without world peace, without social sustainability.

In the immediate future, the prospects for world peace are intimately linked to the ongoing war on terror, events in the Middle East and some form of resolution between Islam and Christianity as competing faiths. In this respect, this post and the linked speech by Bernard Lewis are insightful starting points for reflection and consideration. Embedded within this discussion are our constructs of governance, the role of religion, freedom and our abilities to not only comprehend differences in cultures but realize that in the words of Walsch, "what differentiates us, does not have to divide us".

Follow up: the earlier post has elicited numerous comments and this excellent, subsequent posting with a link to an article written by an Islamic scholar and former terrorist. Once more we see the role that ideology plays in people's acceptance and rejection of opinion, often without stopping to first consider the relative merits of the position presented.