I wish to respond to Colleen Farrelly's Feb. 8 Viewpoint, "Bible Supports 'Just Wars.'"

Farrelly argues for the justice of some wars (such as the current one in Iraq) by appealing to several passages of the Bible. The sayings of Jesus, however — which include commandments to love one's enemies and to practice pacifism (Matthew 5:44 and Luke 6:29) — are wisely passed over in silence. Her editorial maintains that war is a favored method of God by which to eradicate evil from our world.

Since she has proved that war can be just because the Bible has God approve of many wars, it follows that anything else the Bible has God approve of is also just. In light of this, an examination of the Bible's teachings will cause us to change our opinions on what is just and unjust.

To begin, we must return to those glorious days of hunting witches and punishing heretics, for Exodus 22:18 imparts the following divine order: "You shall not permit a sorceress to live." Further, we ought to stone to death anyone who breaks the Sabbath, as the Lord commands in Numbers 15:35: "The man shall be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp."

Throughout the books of Exodus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, the Israelites often invade their neighbors, committing genocide and taking women, children and livestock as spoil. On one notable occasion they were so fortunate as to secure 32,000 virgins as "booty" (Numbers 31:35).

In Deuteronomy 20:13-14, God offers some advice to the Israelites on what to do once they have conquered a certain city: "you shall put all its males to the sword, but the women and the little ones, the livestock and everything else in the city, all its spoil, you shall take as plunder for yourselves." Since God's commandments are just by definition, it appears that a just war is to include murder, plunder and rape.

In keeping with Farrelly's argument, I can only conclude that — in addition to esteeming the Iraq war to be just — we ought to kill witches, stone to death those who do not observe the Sabbath, murder prisoners of war and rape at least 32,000 virgins who happen to reside in any countries that we might conquer in the course of our war against evil.

For if we are to believe that the Iraq war is just simply because the Bible has God approve of war, then we ought also to believe that persecution, murder and rape are all just activities, because the Bible has God express equal approval of those acts.

Toby Svoboda is a senior psychology and social philosophy major.

This viewpoint appeared in The Marquette Tribune on Feb. 17 2005.