[collegeburner]

I can't respons to randerson's comment directly because it's dead, I'd recommend he look at Aquinas' just war theory and other Christian ideas on when war is ok. There are many problems with the military industrial complex we have but that does not mean we should have no defense. Guided missile destroyers fulfill a legitimate defense role and would be needed even if we were much less interventionist.

[randerson]

I didn't dispute whether it can be used for good, I'm glad we have these things and I'm also a huge fan of SQLite. But when your system shoots down an enemy (to you) aircraft, how do you reconcile that with:

"Do not murder." "Love your neighbor as yourself." "Honor all people." "Do not do to another what you would not have done to yourself." "Do not return evil for evil." "Love your enemies." the list goes on..

[oytis]

These are Christian commandments, so it would help to understand what Christianity thinks of war to understand these. Even ignoring the tradition and focusing on the Bible:

- Do not murder is a commandment Israel received on Mt. Sinai. After that Israel continued its journey to conquer the Promised Land, which involved killing a lot of people (i.e. kill != murder)

- If you think New Testament has changed this, there is an episode in the Gospel of Luke (3:14) when soldiers come to St. John the Baptist to ask how they should change their lives. Guess what - he never tells them that being a soldier (and that was voluntary at the time) and killing your country's enemies is a sin. In fact early Christianity was popular among soldiers

[Zababa]

According to google, murder:

> the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another.

According to wikipedia:

> Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification or valid excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought.

So if the missile was fired by people that are legally allowed to kill other people, "Do not murder" has been respected.

> Do not return evil for evil.

I feel like there is a difference between preventing someone to commit evil acts (defending yourself) and attacking them.

> Honor all people

You can honor fallen enemies.

> Love your neighbor as yourself. Love your enemies.

Might be a stretch, but I don't think love would prevent you from killing someone if that was necessary.

> Do not do to another what you would not have done to yourself.

Presumably you would rather be killed than be allowed to murder other people.

All of that may be a bit of a stretch, I don't know much about religious doctrine. But it's still coherant with "common sense" I think.

[harryvederci]

Congratulations, you have now passed law school!

[anigbrowl]

> I'd recommend he look at Aquinas' just war theory

There have been whole books written about this - though I can't blame you for not having read them, many of them are turgid in the extreme. Christian ethics aim to break cycles of recrimination and escalation, but not in general to the point of helpless passivity. Of course the strictures of just war doctrine are considerably harder to square with the de facto imperial power of a country like the United States which is practically and to some extent aspirationally similar to the Roman empire in its heyday.

For a more modern take on the ethics of warfare you might find it interesting to examine the Lieber doctrine, which was instituted during the US civil war and (nominally) still in force in many respects.

[aloisdg]

Why Abrahamic religions should care about logic when then have faith? "Honor all people" and "Love your enemies" was done at the Siege of Ma'arra.

[astrange]

Perhaps getting a copy of SQLite fired at you in a rocket isn't enough to make you part of the user community.