I remember when the only thing I had to worry about was whether the other kids liked me or not and whether I had acne that day or not. Yes. They were odd years. Being a teenager is tough. But ignorance is also bliss. There are so many things I didn’t know then and sometimes wish I could unlearn. Of course, today is different for teenagers. With so many “anti-something” groups, there’s always some controversy about something.
Even today’s teenagers have to figure out whether they want to use a regular acne treatment or a natural acne treatment. Or whether they should have regular beef or the torture free variety. As I recall, the beginning college years is when all of those choices become “important” to us. This brings us to my point. There are so many “yes” or “no” choices out there that people have really made it impossible to like each other:
- “Oh my. You were such a nice person but then I found out you don’t care if your beef is tortured or not.”
- “I love you. But you’re a Democrat. I can’t love a Democrat. Goodbye.”
- “You’re Southern Baptist. I’m Free Will Baptist. It just wouldn’t work.”
- “Your mom worked for the steel mill. I can’t stand feminists. We can’t be friends anymore.”
- “Wait. You’re from Texas!? I can’t be seen with you.”
“But Mike. Those are absurd. I’d never be like that.”
Really? Are you sure. Have you ever seen someone with a tattoo and immediately decided they were “bad news”? Or maybe someone with a Mohawk haircut walks by and you get freaked out? Or maybe you read my “thoughts” post and decided you didn’t like me? These are only examples, but you should get the point.
The problem is people don’t have tolerance anymore. According to Merriam-Webster, a definition of “tolerance” is:
2 a: sympathy or indulgence for beliefs or practices differing from or conflicting with one’s own
What’s wrong with other people’s beliefs? Do they affect you? Is the fact that someone somewhere believes in reincarnation going to affect your own beliefs of what happens after you die? Tolerance is necessary to become an informed individual. I know. I know. I said there are things I wish I could unlearn. But that was a fib. I like knowing things. I think knowing things is important. How can you truly say that you don’t agree with someone else’s beliefs if you don’t even know or understand those beliefs? Isn’t it possible that your beliefs and theirs are more alike than you may think?
I’ll give a quick religious example:
- The Hindu religion is based on reincarnation. A quick way of saying it is that if your soul has not learned everything it needs to learn it is sent back in another physical form to learn more. Once your soul is fully knowledgeable, it goes to live with God.
- The Christian religions believe there is a hell that people who are non-believers go to when they die. Hell is a place of suffering. They also believe there is a Heaven where people who believe go when they die. There is no suffering there.
With those two concepts in mind, wouldn’t coming back to live on Earth be a form of suffering? And if you’re always a non-believer and never learn enough to believe (in any of your lives), would you not suffer for eternity in a physical body on Earth? Couldn’t hell be what we experience in our physical bodies? And then when we believe, we go to Heaven?
I’m not expressing my own beliefs here. I’m playing the “what if” game. But there is a possibility that those things could be true. I think it scares people to think that their beliefs may be “wrong” and it makes them go nuts when someone challenges them. But, again, “what if” there’s no such thing as a right or wrong answer?
I’m not saying I’m right. What I am saying is I’m giving you something to think about. Have a mature debate with your friends about it. Listen to what they say. Listening is a really good skill to use to gain knowledge. Speaking of listening, the next time you see a tattooed guy with a Mohawk, try asking him what he believes. He may surprise you.
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By BadEvan on Apr 30, 2008 | Reply
next time you see a tattooed guy with a Mohawk, try asking him what he believes
Does a fauxhawk or Homohawk count? giggles.
The one thing I can credit my mother with, is bringing me up diverse and culturally tolerant. She raised me around bikers, gear heads, soldiers, con-men, ministers, geeks, exotic dancers, Hindus, Jews and Gentiles. We moved around a lot. Plus she had many crazy jobs and boyfriends. It wasn’t until some one pointed it out to me that I noticed I’m color/culture blind.
Meaning, I notice the person not there race or creed. A friend point this out one day when I was trying to tell him about a guy, Tony, that works at a place we eat at. I was describing him. Tall about 6′2″, a little buff, tattoo on his neck, mid 20’s. My friend had no clue who I was talking about. On our next trip there, I pointed out Tony to my friend. He laughed. “Why didn’t you say he’s black? He’s the only black guy that works here.” I hadn’t thought about. My friend says I do this a lot. I’ve noticed it to be true. My little sister is the same way. We don’t think of people like that.
I give my friends guff when they introduce me as their gay friend Evan. Am I your only gay friend? Is that all I am? Your gay friend. Why not your friend Evan or my writer/blogger friend Evan? Or even my really hot, intelligent, single gay friend Evan? That would be ok!
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By Deb on Apr 30, 2008 | Reply
It’s the strangest thing….I just had to click on this website…and I already dropped a card today…..
You win the award for best Entrecard! If there were one.
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By Deb on Apr 30, 2008 | Reply
Oh. Have you heard the Emo Phillips joke on religion?
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By Kelly on May 1, 2008 | Reply
Intolerance just makes me sad. Except when it makes me angry. I try not to go to the angry place so I can have actually conversations with people. It gets a little difficult sometimes because humans just seem to have this desperate NEED to be right.
Are we just the silliest things ever?
The guy who does the work on my house is regular Illustrated Man, and I can’t begin to count his piercings. Whatever. He does damn fine work, and that’s what I care about. (He’s also a single dad, recovering alcoholic and a really fine person.)
By Valerie on May 1, 2008 | Reply
I agree with a lot of what you said. That being said I find that I really make an attempt to accept other people for who they are, not who they *appear* to be, or based on generalizations of groups. Unfortunately I don’t find that a lot of people treat me the same in return, which is sad. But thats humans for you.
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By cybrpunk on May 1, 2008 | Reply
I like posts like these because they’re similar to how I feel on the subject. One of my favorite pasttimes was always to get involved in theological debates with born again bible thumpers who have no true concept of what they’re talking about. And when I’d stump them with a number of theories and concepts that their limited but overenthusiastic knowledge can’t handle, I’d tell them that I’m not religious myself and that they just questioned their beliefs.
Everyone should question their beliefs. How else will you truly understand them.
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By Andrew Hartley on May 2, 2008 | Reply
This is by far the best post I’ve read today… I’m so glad there are still people who THINK out there!
This is one of the reasons that Raconteur Theatre Company will be producing a Banned Play in October, in celebration of Banned Books Month - to get more people to open their minds just s a little more; to realize that people who think and believe differently than them are, often, the best people to learn new things and new points-of-view from.
It’s about the stories,
Andrew Hartley
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By asithi on May 2, 2008 | Reply
This often leads to people not wanting to discuss anything controversial because they are afraid others will jump all over them. I even see this happening online at forums. Hence, leading to less discussion and less of a chance to see other people’s point of view.
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By Caroline on May 2, 2008 | Reply
Love your entrecard by the way.
I agree with a lot of what you have to say, but I am not sure that tolerance is enough. I work with a group of people where I work to create an inclusive environment, not just a tolerating environment.
We recently held a forum for high school kids, and I have to say, the 150 kids that came in were way ahead of where I was as a teenager. They accepted and embraced each others differences, no matter what those differences may have been. They were truely inspiring.
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By Saphrym on May 2, 2008 | Reply
Thanks for the great comments. And I agree. Tolerance is not enough, but it is a start. There are just too many people who judge too quickly nowadays. There are too many people who don’t think. I love thinkers.
By Anthony on May 2, 2008 | Reply
Can you believe it? Your “what if” example is something that has been buzzing on my mind since a long time ago, and as I’m fed the world news everyday, this belief is reinforced, this physical experience on earth must be “hell”.
Regarding tolerance, I consider myself a very tolerant man. I’m not a relativist though, I firmly believe that there are some absolute principles (called “ethics”) which I’m not fond to tolerate deviations of.
By Sharon on May 2, 2008 | Reply
I know you are playing “devil’s advocate” in the second half of your post. That’s what gets people thinking. It is important to try and understand what others believe in religious aspects of life because many times this moves their actions throughout life. For instance, I volunteer in a Bible education work and I have to be prepared to make a defense or explanation of my beliefs at a moments notice in a way that will be easily understood by whoever is listening.
As for your summary of belief in reincarnation and hell - yes, to me they do both sound like suffering. Coming back to this earth in another form does not remove your imperfection or the wickedness we find on the planet. I doubt your personality would change that much, and as we know from our own experiences, we are prone to repeat the same mistakes. Not to mention we could end up much lower on the food chain and have to repeat the process indefinitely after being eaten by a much larger or cunning creature ?.
The hope I hold for what happens to us after death has nothing to do with a burning hell or reincarnation. For me death is an end to imperfect human existence with the hope of resurrection to a perfect life on a perfect earth (as originally intended) for eternity for those who demonstrated faithfulness to God and for those who never had a chance to know Him.
John 3:16: “For God loved the world so much that he gave his only begotten Son, in order that everyone exercising faith in him may not be destroyed, but have everlasting life.”
John 17:3: “This means everlasting life, their taking in knowledge of you, the only true God, and of the one whom you sent forth, Jesus Christ.”
Psalms 37:10, 11 “And just a little while longer, and the wicked one will be no more; And you will certainly give attention to his place and he will not be. But the meek ones themselves will possess the earth, And they will indeed find their exquisite delight in the abundance of peace.”
Psalms 37:29: “The righteous themselves will possess the earth and they will reside forever upon it.”
Revelation 21:3, 4: “With that I heard a loud voice from the throne say: “Look! The tent of God is with mankind, and he will reside with them, and they will be his peoples. An God himself will be with them. And he will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore. The former things have passes away.”
Acts 24:15, “I have a hope toward God, which home these men themselves also entertain, that there is going to be a resurrection of both the righteous and the unrighteous.”
As for the wicked - the users, abusers and violators of the planet and fellow man - death means non-existence without a possibility of reward/resurrection. Their meaningless, empty life will be their reward in full.
Psalms 146:4, “His spirit goes out, he goes back to his ground; in that day his thoughts do perish.”
Hell, Sheol or Hades is merely the common grave that holds no fear of eternal damnation or suffering.
Job 26:6, “Sheol is naked in front of him, And the place of destruction has no covering.”
Ecclesiastes 9:5, 10, “For the living are conscious that they will die, but as for the dead, they are conscious of nothing at all, neither do they anymore have wages, because the remembrance of them has been forgotten….All that your hand finds to do, do with your very power, for there is no work nor devising, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in Sheol, the place to which you are going.”
In the book of Acts chapter 2 verse 31 it even speaks of Jesus Christ being in Hades for 3 days before he was resurrected. Does it really make sense that the perfect Son of God, the Messiah, would have been sent to a burning place of torment for sinners for 3 days to hang out with Satan if he was a sinless man? Not really. Hades is the Greek word for hell which in its purest sense is the common grave of man, nothing more.
These are just a few of the scriptures on which I base my beliefs. There are an endless amount I could reference, but I think I’d need an entire blog and the rest of my life to add them here. The Bible as a whole is a handbook of how to live our lives and what God plans to do to fix the mess our first human parents got us into and how we can be a part of that solution. It is rewarding sharing these hopes with others.
By Seek Health. Feel Great on May 3, 2008 | Reply
we all have the freedom to believe in anything… Hi you’re my blog of the day on my entrecard.. Thanks
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By feefifoto on May 3, 2008 | Reply
Oh, I’m sorry — I could never be friendly with someone as liberal and, frankly, wrongheaded as you.
BTW — love the new widget.
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By Saphrym on May 15, 2008 | Reply
@Sharon - Normally people would shy away from quoting so much of the Bible. So thank you for sharing. And thank you for having an open mind.