Our World?
My concept of the world comes from the intimately small parcel of it I have seen and experienced coupled with social influences encountered at the most impressionable age. It was the age at which my brain was programmed to encounter the world outside my bubble quiet often resulting in a grand detonation of the comfortable, safe place I and others carved out for me. Here in the land of the free, the culturally enlightened and selectively ignorant we do not even know one another. Worse yet, we have given up trying.
I believe that forces mortal men and women cannot begin to comprehend battle for our souls. I also know that because I express that belief some will label me as a weak minded nitwit who believes in myths and fairy tales of supernatural beings warring for souls. On the other hand, I cannot fathom that our world just happened. That something came from nothing. I have faith in what I believe. I believe I am in this world, but not of this world. My beliefs do not make me any more special than anyone. They are just my beliefs. I endorse the golden rule – “Love your neighbor as yourself.” That does not mean that I must accept what my neighbor believes or what my neighbor does only that within the law he is free believe and do as he chooses. It only means that I wish the same good life for my neighbor as I wish for myself. I entered this world with nothing and will leave it the same way. I am just passing through here, barely a blink in the breadth of human history.
E Pluribus Unum. In our country, hailed as the place where many views, cultures, religions, colors and creeds can come together and form one exceptional nation of free people we are failing. It is something each of us need ponder because our failure to come together as the one exceptional place – the only one – on this great ball hurling through space we will experience the loss of the place offering the last great hope for humankind. We have already partitioned ourselves into regions, rigid thought and thought blindly beholden to groupthink.
Why is it we cannot come together and live up to our national motto? Out of many, one. There are a myriad of reasons, but the most obvious is right before us. Some who read this will not attempt to understand how I believe or the principles that guide my life or even care for that matter. Instead, they will choose to denigrate me for my beliefs and most of them will never know me as a man. They have been programmed to believe a certain way and simply cannot accept that anyone should view the world differently. More disheartening than that are people who profess to share my beliefs and react the same way toward others. How can the great many become the great one if instead of attempting civil discussion we set out to denigrate, silence and destroy anyone who does not believe as we do?
At our institutions of higher learning we see people rioting to shut down a speaker who refuses to sing to their choir – anyone who dares offer a different view. How can one consider himself learned if he is unable to use the gift of reason or critical thought to even consider a different view? Every day in our government, we witness people trying to destroy one another, stifle ideas, crush political opponents and it is all because of their childish driven need for it to be their way or no way.
I know. That is how the world and democracy works. Right? No. That is how it fails.
© 2017 J. D. Pendry
Category: Politics
Nicely said.
I whole heartadly agree JD, Why can’t we all just get along. You all have a right to your opinion, just don’t take away mine? And we all should learn to listen and think before speaking.
Jefferson said it matters not if his neighbor believes in twenty gods or no god at all….
I am often reminded of Ghandi’s words when i deal with some of the folks you describe in your piece, “I like your Christ, he is so unlike your Christians”….
It comes down to whether or not your beliefs or lack of beliefs are something you feel everyone should share, for me what you describe are the people who don’t actually want to allow you the freedom to live as you wish, they want to control you along with everyone else.
The far left and the far right often fall into that trap in my opinion. They want to dictate how you live….they’ve both been pretty successful…you can’t drive a car, get married, own a weapon, catch a fish, own a dog or cat, or put something in your body that makes you feel good without government permission….but the government wants to keep making you think you’re free….we haven’t been for a long time in this country…too many people willing to concede their personal liberties to the point now that I’m not certain we ever get them back.
It can happen, JD.
I’m Catholic, along with my parents and sister. My wife is Evangelical Protestant, as is one of my aunts and several cousins. Other cousins are agnostic. My in-laws are very devout Buddhists. We get along just fine.
I’m White (German-Irish). My wife is Southeast Asian. Her godmother is Japanese. One brother-in-law is Black. Another is Filipino. I have Mexican cousins. Our family is very tight.
We don’t agree on every little issue, but we get along, and we’re family. It can happen.
“Why is it we cannot come together and live up to our national motto? Out of many, one.”
JD, that’s no so hard to understand when you consider that one of our two political parties has been hell-bent on dividing us along racial, religious, ethnic and gender lines under the banner of diversity and inclusiveness since the early 1960’s. It’s hard to melt all those differences when the damned Democrats keep smashing the pot.
Dems don’t want a melting pot, they want everyone in their own little pan simmering away.
Why? Because, JD, those raised with no sense of what you describe, which is simply ideology, have nothing to fall back on until they run into something they can latch onto.
I have no idea what the animus is toward Judaism or Christianity, but it seems to be coming mostly from a few sources, is picked up by others who have nothing at all, and that’s what they run with. If, for instance, I say that I’m a Druid, I get a blank look. If I say I’m Episcopalian, same thing. However, if I say I go to church -whenever- (undesignated attendance), then I get more nastiness than you could possibly expect in adults.
It doesn’t make any sense, but it’s as bad as witch hunts, which were ALL political efforts by the Church of Rome to eliminate all traces of paganism.
I don’t know why, but that’s how it is.
JD, you ask: “Why is it we cannot come together and live up to our national motto? Out of many, one.”
One of several reasons and, IMO, the primary cause is that our division plays into the leftist agenda. I’m not excluding the ‘conservative’ side of the scenario in my assessment, either. Both parties have an axe to grind, but the liberals are much better in getting across their message. It’s also helpful (for them) in that they control the pablum media from which too many get their ‘news’. Having an opinion not embraced by the Democrat Party or leftist professors, students, politicians, etc. almost guarantees condemnation by the left. Throw into the mix the clearly biased Leftstream Media, and it’s clear that our coming together is going to be a difficult task. With some exceptions, white people are NOT enemies of people of color. Republicans don’t want to destroy middle class America. (The liberals are doing that quite well by themselves, thank you.) Neither do they want to destroy Social Security or starve the elderly. The list goes on and on. The Republicans, and President Trump in particular, have an almost impossible task in uniting the country. They are opposed at every turn, often by other Republicans. The ‘other’ Republicans are the ones who didn’t get the memo re the results of the November election, which showed that mainstream America, those primarily in the red flyover states, are sick and damn tired of the liberal agenda and their never ending assault on America.
We are NOT enemies of others. Many would have us believe otherwise, of course, b/c it plays nicely into their agenda.
No,I don’t have sources to reference, or any chart where X crosses Y. My statements are based on the observations of a critical thinker.