Mythologies of War and Peace

I happened to pick up my copy of Myths to Live By by Joseph Campbell this morning when I was having breakfast, and I was pleasantly surprised to be reminded that he had a section there (section 9) titled "Mythologies of War and Peace". After all the talk about war and religion and "human nature", this section made so much more sense. The section starts out:

"It is for an obvious reason far easier to name examples of mythologies of war than mythologies of peace; for not only has conflict between groups been normal to human experience, but there is also the cruel fact to be recognized that killing is the precondition of all living whatsoever:life lives on life, eats life, and would otherwise not exist."

And then a few sentences down:

"Plainly and simply: it has been the nations, tribes, and peoples bred to mythologies of war that have survived to communicate their life-supporting mythic lore to descendants."

The whole section is some 30 pages long so it's impossible for me to quote everything he says, however, it's a nice reference for understanding where this whole "religion"and "war" connection comes about, and certainly, it is not just exclusively an Abrahamic Religion issue. He talks about many ancient civilizations, and also the Abrahamic religions...And towards the end he says (and the year he's saying these is 1967):

"But we have heard the likes of all this more recently and close at hand. The idea, as we have seen, became assimilated to the Biblical image of Israel; and in the period of the Dead Sea Scrolls passed on into apocalyptic Christianity (see Mark 13:3-37). It is the idea essentially of the dar al-Islam and dar al-harb of the Arabs. And we have it again in the peace of Moscow-spies, informers, police crackdrowns, and all."

Good old Joseph Campbell...So, this whole "war" thing, with or without religion, is I guess in our "genetic coding" somehow. What I think is, the only reason we have violence and war in the books (and throughout mythology) is because it is in human nature to begin with, and thus, things got written down that way. And if even Buddhist monks can encourage people to wage war, I don't know what that says about our natures in general.

On a slightly different note, something from Sam Harris' book caught my attention: That it is the age of nuclear weapons and therefore any religious war will have terrible consequences. I agree that we live in dangerous times like that, however, I'm not really sure if those terrorists have access to nuclear weapons. Is he talking about us nuking them? Because we have done it (twice!) in the past. I read somewhere that the whole "suicide bombing" thing is happening because it is the cheapest method for causing that many casualties, not because everyone is dying to become a martyr and go to heaven. If going to heaven was guaranteed, I'd like to really see their leaders blow themselves up. Not gonna happen is it? But if they are "cheap" like that, I highly doubt they have access to nuclear weapons, etc...Nuclear weapons were a far bigger threat during the Cold War if you ask me...But then again I'm no expert. Sheesh, can I get into trouble for blogging about these things???? I sometimes feel "uncomfortable"...LOL