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Well, that DOES bring up the other side of the coin, and we each need to assess our own perceptions as to how they may harm others.
THAT is where conflict comes in and THAT is not about prejudice. What IS the harm in a belief system we are faced with, and have we taken the log out of our own eye?
Well, that DOES bring up the other side of the coin, and we each need to assess our own perceptions as to how they may harm others.
THAT is where conflict comes in and THAT is not about prejudice. What IS the harm in a belief system we are faced with, and have we taken the log out of our own eye?
each group has people that fight to gain power. The casualty in this war is truth, or the most valid claims. Clouded until its too late, the truth of the real intentions reveals itself to late.
most people do not understand that we describe the systems interactions to the best of our ability and others tag us as this or that, to gain the advantage. sorta god, sorta theists, sorta atheists, and many other labels are given.
all used to "sell the belief statement" by people that need to make their world view more real.
each group has people that fight to gain power. The casualty in this war is truth, or the most valid claims. Clouded until its too late, the truth of the real intentions reveals itself to late.
most people do not understand that we describe the systems interactions to the best of our ability and others tag us as this or that, to gain the advantage. sorta god, sorta theists, sorta atheists, and many other labels are given.
all used to "sell the belief statement" by people that need to make their world view more real.
Jumbo10, as most of the other people on here already know, I am a survivor of the 9/11 attack on the WTC, one of the 15,000 or so who made it out before the buildings went down.
The World Trade Center was a place where people of all different races and religions worked together, and of course it's not the only place like that. Day-to-day life gets people learning to know and like one another, finding their commonalities rather than focusing on their differences.
What seems to me to get lost in the perception of what happened on that day is the irony that a group of people saw all Americans as a blob of evil sameness and committed murder with that mindset--and the response was to view another group--all Muslims--as a blob of evil sameness. I've been talking and writing against falling into that trap ever since, and probably will for the rest of my life.
I think it's inherent in our humanity, this thing we've got in us to constantly separate ourselves into Us vs. Them, whether it's by religion, race, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, age, whatever. We have to become conscious of it and acknowledge it so we can make the choice to be different and to start viewing people as individuals, not as one of Them.
It takes risk to open up to someone who is different in some way, but as with everything, the higher the risk, the greater the potential reward.
What is prejudiced about recognizing different beliefs? No one is saying the people in those systems of belief are evil, rotten, no-good scoundrels. But they are different.
Not being snarky, but you must live in a wonderful cohesive, and either, all on the same path, or all are accepting of other faiths, sort of place.
There are other parts in the world where it is not anything like that, as the OP has expressed, there is that moment of silence when expressing what church he attends.
I have gotten 'lectures' for admitting I did not go to church.
Prejudices find their way into all corners of humanity and it's sad. Why? Well, I do not think that there is anything I could say that has not already been said, in a nutshell, it is human nature. We must assess what if before us in order to know what our next move will be.... fight? or flight?... or perhaps make friends.
The issue today is that these normally protective 'instincts' have merged with the ego with a heavy helping of religious dogma. The prejudice is now an extreme.
What can we do about it? I'm not sure there is anything we can really do. Education would be the logical and ideal answer, but there are many in their own religion that have a 'full cup' in that department and will refuse to accept, or even take the time to listen to the workings of a different faith.
Not being snarky, but you must live in a wonderful cohesive, and either, all on the same path, or all are accepting of other faiths, sort of place.
I live in a small town in Illinois. It's mostly white, but we have a mix of other demographics. We have a variety of different religions represented in town, and about 2 dozen churches. It's a nice place to live, for the most part.
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There are other parts in the world where it is not anything like that, as the OP has expressed, there is that moment of silence when expressing what church he attends.
I have gotten 'lectures' for admitting I did not go to church.
OK? Do you lecture others for going to church? There are people that come to this board for sport every day to trash religious people in general, specifically conservative Christians.
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Prejudices find their way into all corners of humanity and it's sad. Why? Well, I do not think that there is anything I could say that has not already been said, in a nutshell, it is human nature. We must assess what if before us in order to know what our next move will be.... fight? or flight?... or perhaps make friends.
The issue today is that these normally protective 'instincts' have merged with the ego with a heavy helping of religious dogma. The prejudice is now an extreme.
I realize that. And I'm happy to get along best I can. But simply disagreeing with someone is not the same as hate.
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What can we do about it? I'm not sure there is anything we can really do. Education would be the logical and ideal answer, but there are many in their own religion that have a 'full cup' in that department and will refuse to accept, or even take the time to listen to the workings of a different faith.
oh well.....
Honestly? Pretending that we're all identical won't help. We have differences. Embrace them. Maybe even discuss and learn from them.
What is prejudiced about recognizing different beliefs? No one is saying the people in those systems of belief are evil, rotten, no-good scoundrels. But they are different.
We know that they are different. We are different to them. This is established pretty early. So we move forward.
Coming from an upbringing/belief that our religion was the only right religion and everyone else was varying shades of wrong, on a scale of "headed to hell in a handbasket, to barely squeezing in through the heavenly gate", I concur, MQ: I obviously had to wake up and become conscious of it before I could acknowledge it. I simply didn't know there WAS any other way to view people. And I'd been taught that it wasn't Us dividing people into groups of Us and Them, it was God, and God had said Them was the enemy unless and until they became Us. It was literally impossible to argue with God.
For me, it was the internet that exposed me to other ways of thinking and finally got through to me. First, I was able to view other brands of Christians as not teetering on the edge of the abyss, and possibly even understanding things that I didn't. I was able to start trying on their beliefs for size. Then, I was given the gift (although at the time, it didn't feel like a gift) of actually experiencing reality from the perspective of an atheist for a period of time. I had become the enemy, but I didn't hate God and I didn't want to "sin" - I simply no longer believed that a God existed. It was hard having the people who had once been my "Us" now treat me as a headed-for-hell "Them", but it showed me exactly what I'd done to others all my life. Humbling, but in the long run, as I said, a gift.
So, maybe for some of us the only way we ever get over our prejudices is to actually experience seeing life through the eyes of the "other"?
As it stands, I think I'm a woman without a country, i.e., without an Us. That can feel scary, but it helps when I realize, regardless of lables, we're all in this together.
I agree.
I had a similar change, Pleroo. Though not quite as fundamentalist as your experience, mine was only a level lower. Big emphasis on sin and death. Jesus was this scary guy on the big stained glass window glaring down unsmiling at me because he knew what I was really thinking.
I decided to be an atheist, at several times in my life, in fact, but I just came to realize that I didn't not believe in...something, so I opened up my mind.
Fortunately, I did work in NYC and I was at the WTC for 20 years and the people in the office freely talked about their various faiths, or the fact that they held none at all.
First of all, I'm just fascinated by that sort of thing, but being exposed to so many sincerely spiritual people who were all trying to be better humans because of their spirituality made me understand that there isn't one way to make the journey.
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