Still want to fight in a war?

Yesterday there was the possibility to watch on the Internet live video coverage of the Anders Breivik trial in Norway.

I think that I have already said most everything about that pernicious individual that I need to say. Almost anyway.

One thing came to mind though was one of the interchanges on YouTube between a Norwegian and a Swede the other week. Both were atheists, and both were convinced that those of their fellow citizens under the age of 60 who were not atheists would be agnostics.

As far as Breivik was concerned there is a war going on between Christianity and Islam in Europe and I assume from all the nonsense that he has issued about his reasons for the murders that he committed that he must in fact be a Christian. Of sorts.

It raises the issue though. If you are a committed atheist, life is extraordinarily precious. You have one chance to do something with it, get (or make) the best possible out of it, and realise that there is no consolation prize at the end, as religions often use as an excuse for the awful lives many people have to live.

So if you have only the one shot at this life, is there any purpose in fighting in a war, where you may lose that one life fairly early. Thanks for the sacrifice usw - you didn't have much to enjoy, but thanks to your sacrifice others may benefit.

Not that you would know or appreciate it. Any consciousness of that would disappear with your death.

However, as idealistic as it sounds, the chance of war disappearing entirely if everyone became atheists is actually quite small (as is the possibility of everyone becoming atheists!). Human beings are too flawed, and the instinctive greed and urge for power among some would not go away.

Of course if everyone submitted to reason? It may happen one day, but if you look at the issues affecting us, we are actually moving away from reasonable outcomes for the mass of humanity. Poverty, unemployment, usw - far from becoming rarer - are (since the Friedman inspired meltdown of 2008), are affecting more people, not fewer. The chance of improvement any time soon unfortunately remains slim.