MistressDREAD
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Joined: 1/1/2004
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ahhh all tho this subject has veered a bit from the opinions of marraige I think that the subject of openmindedness and diversity are grand samples of humanity and how it places out towards each one of us as we go about making our choices with in our life as well as looking out
at others and making opinions of them based off of our views and beliefs.
Do we see the truth in diversity or only the differences?
As soon as we leave our little neighborhood and enter the world at large, we are bound to meet people that have different religious, political, and cultural beliefs. During those encounters, do we see the common threads that unite humanity, or do we just see the differences? If we seek the truth, wish to grow, want to gain knowledge and understanding, wish to know peace and experience happiness and love, we will be open-minded. We will be tolerant. Tolerant, not in the sense of putting up with the differences of others, but in the sense of welcoming the diverse ways humanity expresses itself. If you love flowers, don’t you love lilacs and lilies as well as roses? If we love people, shouldn’t we love Muslims and Jews as well as Christians, Iranians and Somalis as well as Italians, black, white, purple an healthy, disabled, young or old?
All ethical traditions teach tolerance. They express it as the Golden Rule. It is taught everywhere, proving there is truth in diversity, proving there is more to connect us than separate us. The truth is there, if only we look for it. Take a glance at how the Golden Rule is taught around the world . . .
African Traditional Religions: One going to take a pointed stick to pinch a baby bird should first try it on himself to feel how it hurts.
Bahai Faith: Blessed is he who preferreth his brother before himself.
Buddhism: Hurt not others with that which pains yourself.
Christianity: So whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them; for this is the law and the prophets.
Confucianism: Do not unto others that which you would not have them do unto you.
Hinduism: This is the sum of duty: do naught to others that which if done to thee would cause pain.
Islam: No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself.
Jainism: A man should wander about treating all creatures as he himself would be treated.
Judaism: What is hateful to you, do not to your fellow men. That is the entire law; the rest is commentary.
Sikhism: Precious like jewels are the minds of all. To hurt them is not at all good. If thou desirest thy Beloved then, hurt thou not anyone’s heart.
Taoism: Regard your neighbor’s gain as your own gain, and your neighbor’s loss as your own loss.
Zoroastrianism: That nature only is good when it shall not do unto another whatever is not good for its own self.
Are we practicing what we were taught? As we look at the hot spots around the world, whether it be Yugoslavia, the Middle, Near, or Far East, Africa or Ireland, or anyplace else, the answer is painfully clear. Intolerance is commonplace and the cost in human suffering is devastating. “No loss by flood and lightning,” said Helen Keller, “no destruction of cities and temples by the hostile forces of nature, has deprived man of so many noble lives and impulses as those which his intolerance and closedmindness has destroyed.”
Although it is religion that teaches us the Golden Rule, tragically, it is also religion that often is a cause of hatred and war.
Two key values of diversity are universalism; the view that it is the merit of an idea rather than our opinion of the person expressing the idea that counts, and organized skepticism; the studied practice of questioning everything. A community based upon openness to being always questioned is a community committed to struggle, to engagement in dealing with complex issues, for which there will be no one right answer, in all probability. Freedom is born in the moment when each of us first recognizes that the other is not himself, and decides to accept that fact. This goes for relationships as well and not just those of the mono type but also those of a poly time as well.
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