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Missile Defense

Technology has always found its greatest consumer in a nation's war and defense efforts. Since the last attempts at a "Star Wars" defense system, has technology changed considerably enough to make the latest Missile Defense initiatives more successful? Can such an application of science be successful? Is a militarized space inevitable, necessary or impossible?

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rshow55 - 11:55am Oct 27, 2002 EST (# 5305 of 5307)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

I've been posting a sermon http://www.wisc.edu/rshowalt/sermon.html that I think is outstanding from time to time on this thread since Feb 24, 2001. It is time for church, many are deeply concerned about matters of life, death, and suffering - and it feels right to repost my Feb 24th 2000 posting again.

"I have the priviledge of posting a sermon, When the Foundations are Shaking by Dr. James Slatton of the River Road Church (Baptist) in Richmond, Va. - a church I grew up in, a church where my parents have both been deacons, and active in other ways. This church is much like the one Jimmy Carter goes to, theologically, though it is much richer, and more republican, and perhaps basically more conservative. River Road Church has resigned from the Southern Baptist Convention, for various reasons, but is well within the conservative Protestant tradition. I have deep intellectual, moral, and personal respect for the people at River Road Church.

"I believe that most people of good will, including exalted ones, could benefit from the 21 minutes this sermon takes.

WHEN THE FOUNDATIONS ARE SHAKING ..... by James Slatton . . . . http://www.wisc.edu/rshowalt/sermon.html

"I think any military leader, or political leader, who ever attends any kind of religious service, anywhere in the world, could relate to this work.

"I think any member of the clergy, of any faith or creed, anywhere in the world, could relate to this work. I wish religious people in a position of leadership WOULD listen to it.

"People of a more secular view might want to skip ahead to 9:27 in the sermon . Thereafter, it is a tribute to a Russian colonel, who kept nuclear war from destroying us all, during the Reagan administration. And a teaching of lessons that most people know, and live well by, that are important to the preservation of our world. I believe that people of enough good will to be human would be interested, and moved, by this part of the sermon, no matter how secular their views.

"The notion is abroad that no politician can do much about nuclear weapons, because they cannot get their populations behind them. They think so because, when people are surveyed, no one wants to talk about nuclear weapons.

"This is the wrong answer. To deal with this threat, people in a position to influence events must face it. So the matter has to be realistically discussed.

"James Slatton's sermon offers a triumphant example of how possible and practical such realistic discussion is.

"James Slatton is a fine man and an effective clergyman. But he is not uniquely able or influential. There are many, many clergymen, all over the world, of many faiths, who could, and often do, say similar things, in similarly powerful ways.

"The motivation for missile defense largely comes from concern about the seriousness of the threat from nuclear weapons. Approaching the problem with care, and a search for disciplined beauty, we should be able to make the world a far safer and more humane place than it now is. That is Bush's basic objective, I believe, and we need to carefully consider proper means to actually achieve that end.

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