By some estimates, as of early 2026, there are 130-armed conflicts taking place around the world. Many leaders, soldiers and civilians are convinced that God is on their side. Upon a closer look, however, it seems fair to question whether God is content to have us kill one another.
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The Ravages of War
We kill one another for all sorts of reasons, and somehow, we manage to throw God into the mix. We kill for “God and Country,” which is the motto of the US Army Chaplain Corps. We kill to protect our way of life, including the freedoms we cherish. We kill in God’s name to uphold our religious beliefs. And whenever we kill, we absolve ourselves by believing that God is on our side; that it is his will that we fight, and fight to win.
Does it really make sense that God would have us kill one another?
Let’s start at the beginning. Some 13.7 billion years ago there was nothing, or so the scientists tell us; not even time or space. That’s as close to nothing as you can get. And then came a great explosion, called The Big Bang, by which the entire universe came into being. An explosion of that sort must have taken a whole lot of energy, and so, one way to think about God is that he is the sum total of all the energy that made existence possible. (For those of you who don’t believe in God, you can call him The Big Bang. After all, “What’s in a name?”)
The universe is very big, to say the least. Our sun has eight planets revolving around it. Poor Pluto just got demoted and now has the lowly rank of dwarf planet. There are billions of stars and planets in our galaxy, The Milky Way. And guess what? There are around 100 billion galaxies in the universe. So, Earth can be thought of as a tiny grain of sand in a vast desert that never ends.
If you look at some of the pictures coming back from the Hubble and Jack Webb telescopes, you can’t help but be amazed by the wondrous beauty of the universe. So perhaps we can think of God as an artist; an artist who uses the heavenly bodies as his canvas. And what does an artist want? Some artists may want money, or fame, or some measure of recognition; but the true artist seeks meaning; he wants to know that his work means something.
So how does God, the creator of the universe, go about finding meaning in his work? How does he know that his creation is indeed “good,” as stated in Genesis, Chapter 1? He creates a creature like us, in his own image; a creature that can fathom the existence of God, and that can also create a world of his own. And depending on what we create, we either validate God’s creation as “good,” or alternatively, nullify his creation as meaningless.
If we come to accept this line of reasoning, does it still make sense that God would have us kill one another; no matter what the lofty cause happens to be? Would God go to all that trouble, to create man in his image, in his search for meaning, just to have man kill his fellow man?
If we are indeed created in God’s image, then when we kill one another, are we not, in effect, spitting at God’s face?
Some people would say that we fight to defend ourselves. They have a point. Self-defense is morally justified. If someone is coming at you with an ax, then go ahead and shoot him in the head. Your life is just as valuable as his, and he should not be allowed to take it away from you. But the notion of self-defense is easily contorted. You could convince yourself that your perceived enemy, who has not as yet attacked you, will have grandchildren who may come after you one day. That’s not good enough. Self-defense, the type that is morally justifiable, is when the threat to you is immediate, and when there is no alternative but to kill or be killed.
All this leads one to believe that peace, and only peace, is the answer. God is not on our side when we kill one another. God is on our side when we begin to fight for peace, as hard as we fight in war. In war, when your best buddy dies in your arms, what do you do? You keep on fighting. So too with peace. When peace is your goal, and innocent people die in the process, because the bad guys prefer to keep on killing, what do you do? You keep on fighting, for peace.
Peace is not easy. In war, we fight for what we believe. For peace to happen, we often must give up at least some of what we believe in, to achieve something that we can believe in even more, like peace. And giving up on some of our beliefs is hard. It’s like giving up a part of ourselves; of our identity; of who we are.
So, when you hear God telling you to kill, perhaps you should listen a little closer. Perhaps it is not God telling you to kill. Perhaps it is someone else, speaking in God’s name, to incite you to violence. Perhaps a leader recognizes your natural reluctance to kill. You may need some form of inspiration to overcome your reluctance. And so, a leader doesn’t hesitate to bring God into the picture. As if God is somehow proud to see you kill. As if God is on your side.
Instilling false belief is a way of manipulating people to do what they would otherwise not do.
Taken as a whole, it makes more sense that God put us on this good Earth to live; not to kill, and not to die before our time. It makes more sense that a whole lot of work went into creating this beautiful world, and all the beautiful souls that inhabit it. Why would you go to all that trouble just to see it crumble before your very eyes?
If you want to know what God is thinking; why not use your God-given common sense?
Think of the world as an experiment of sorts. The force that created it all looks upon us to see what happens next. If we continue the way we are, with wars popping up at every turn, and with God’s name being hijacked for every purpose under the sun, then we will have rendered the possibility of meaning null and void. But if we pursue the path of peace, hard as it may be, we have a chance at validating God’s creation as “good,” and thereby justifying our stay here on this good Earth.
The choice is ours. It always has been. And everything we know and love lies in the balance. Let us resolve to tilt the balance in our favor.
If you want to see peace in our time, then please take a look at this 5-minute video, The Missing Piece for Green, to discover one way that gets us there. You can also visit our website and become involved: www.missingpieceforgreen.com