As much fun as it's been to watch the political comment threaders play My Favorite Cities, larger issues loom. One such issue was presented to me during the Dead Sea Scrolls audio tour at the San Diego Natural History Museum in a closing comment from Museum President Michael W. Hager. His gist was that the Scrolls are a vital part of understanding why an idea is important to a society and why it remains accepted and viable.

This is the thought - why an idea remains accepted and viable - that I want you to hang onto through the rest of this post.

One of the most central tenets of the Christian religion is widely disseminated at this time of year - Peace on Earth - and yet if one were to judge the importance of peace to the peoples of this world, one would have to conclude that it isn't an idea that is accepted and viable for most of them. In fact, historian Will Durant once wrote: "In the last 3421 years of recorded history only 268 have seen no war."

War is recorded history for most of us, at least as far as our textbooks go, and yet there is so much more to the topic than the dates of the major battles and the names of the primary participants. Where in the typical high school history text is the mistaken assertion of General Robert E. Lee while surveying the remains of Union soldiers on Marye's Heights above Fredricksburg?  Lee said, "It is well that war is so terrible - otherwise we would grow too fond of it."

Want to know why I suggest that General Lee got it all wrong? There was no CNN broadcasting "Shock and Awe" live and in color into the living rooms of the Confederacy, ringing loudly with the cheers of the citizenry that the Damnyankees were being bloodily repulsed as they watched. Only those who had to go through the experience of seeing and hearing and smelling and causing death while at risk of becoming one of the casualties could know war first hand. Having to be around such carnage for days at a time, over and over again, would certainly make an impression on those who had to be there.

But even that experience wasn't enough to inspire those who survived "the first total war of modern history" to work to eliminate war as the first course of action taken to settle differences. Thanks to the marvels of modern technology, things have only gotten worse. It is now possible for people to experience war at no personal risk, and with no unpleasant aromas to overwhelm the senses. One can even record live war coverage for later viewing, or one can wait for some entrepreneur to put together an anthology of "Shock and Awe's Greatest Hits" to be enjoyed over and over again after being received as a gift to commemorate the birth of the Prince of Peace. And if one has the right equipment, one can play it forward and backward, at high speed and slow, just as if it was that T&A movie your dad kept hidden in his sock drawer which kept you and your high school buddies so amused.