Better Than the Butter Battle Book

War, escalation, the people, the leaders and the results of war are the subjects of the cartoon by Dr. Seuss and of almost every era of history. When asked, “What would you want most in the world”? and the answer is “World peace,” why is it that world peace is virtually unachievable? In the Butter Battle Book, Dr. Seuss makes a satirical statement about war and the mechanics of how the stage is set to allow an escalation from peace, which people want the most, to be sacrificed to enter into a war for their beliefs.
The question must be asked what is worth fighting for? What is worth going to war and risking the lives of the people of your own country? Beliefs seem to be the answer. Belief is a hard concept to define. What is involved in a belief, and why would it be worth sacrificing lives and prosperity? Webster’s dictionary says that a belief is a mental acceptance of the truth, actuality, or validity of something: a statement unworthy of belief; an idea steadily gaining credence; testimony meriting credit. An example given in the Butter Battle Book is the highly controversial belief that you must butter your bread from the top of the bread and not from the bottom instead! While this might sound absurd, there have been wars over religious differences that to an outsider may seem similarly absurd. Early Christians were martyred for their involvement in a peaceful movement that was simply different from the culture of the day. The nature of humans is to be suspicious of a culture that has different beliefs than the ones that they hold. This suspicion often escalates when the government is involved because of the challenge of power and authority that occurs when the beliefs of the leaders are challenged by the mere existence of the other group. Why do beliefs evoke such a passionate response? What role do beliefs play in society? They seem to be the foundation of a person, and since societies are built upon the people in society, then it would be safe to say that they are the underlying foundation of the society. Beliefs are what we teach our children. Beliefs are what judgments are made on between what is right or what is wrong. Belief seems to be the catalyst for advancements in our society as well. But the clash when one societity’s belief is different than the others is when a conflict occurs. The Zooks who buttered their bread from the top had taught their children the importance of this bread- buttering tradition; they had even condemned the Yooks for buttering their bread from the bottom. As a society builds up exclusive beliefs, they become so important that they are willing or even justified to fight for them if they are challenged. Of course, there have been no fights over bread buttering, but the conflict between the Muslim and Christian beliefs are similar from the prospective of the Muslims in that the belief of Jihad is called for against Christians because of their belief in a trinity of gods and several other discrepancies. Historically, religion has had a cycle of challenged beliefs surrounding the Jews, Christians, Muslims and factions within each of these groups as well as many other groups.
So then, the question must be asked, “Do we avoid beliefs”? Are they the cause of the escalations of war? If your answer is that everyone is entitled to their own beliefs and all war should be avoided, some additional questions are raised. What if you believe that they are entitled to their belief, but they are not willing to let you have your beliefs? What if their beliefs victimize another person? Also, what if the two beliefs are in such sharp contradiction to each other that they cannot live together? All of these questions help to draw the conclusion that beliefs are necessary, but there seems to be no black and white answer for people to live together under the umbrella of everyone is entitled to their own beliefs. So what is the answer? In the Butter Battle Book, the answer was to stand on each side of the wall with their opposing beliefs and build bigger and bigger weapons until there were no options except to ultimately destroy life as the Zooks and the Yooks knew it. The message of the Butter Battle Book was addressing the nuclear arms race of the latter half of the nineteen hundreds, but today we are faced with a similar battle of beliefs, especially here in America today. Do we give up beliefs? Or do we stand on each side of a wall, building bigger and bigger weapons against each other? As Christian countries are faced with the challenges of the Muslim countries, do we give up our beliefs or do we stand on either side of the wall of the disagreement and build up weapons of hate and prejudice against each other? The outcomes of these are yet to be seen, but we can carefully draw from the history of the church to evaluate whether there are beliefs that are worth fighting for. There are beliefs that are absolute truths that God has penned through authors of the Bible, beliefs that are the passions of people of the society we live in, and so as Christians we must continue to speak The Truth in love in every corner of our society. We must carefully avoid standing on one side of a wall and building up prejudices or fighting over disputable matters. What we must be willing to do is to fight not for our beliefs but for the One True God we believe in. Since God already has the victory here on earth we must not be fighting to defend God, but fighting to share the knowledge and truths of God. We must fight to go and tell others, no matter which way they choose to butter their bread, that there is a God that is available for all to believe in, Who offers salvation and eternal reward for each person’s willingness to believe in Christ Jesus, who is a belief worth dying for.