For people who are working to help reduce animosities and hostilities across belief divides

[Jim]

I dénonce any way of believing in God that draws lines of alienation between people defined by ideology.

 

[Jim]

My all-purpose strategy for helping to improve the world for all people everywhere is to practice the changes myself, learn to be a better friend to more people, bring it up for discussion sometimes, learn to tell stories, and practice and promote a kind of community development that I think is helping to improve the world.

One of my ideas for reducing animosities and hostilities across belief divides is for people to immerse themselves in the communities of religions and in their stories. I created a separate thread on that topic some time ago.

 

[Jim]

I almost got pulled into some debating about prejudices, but then I realized that it had nothing to do with reducing animosities. In fact it’s just more of the same kind of debating that helps perpetuate them. My purpose in discussions about belief divides is to help reduce the alienation and animosities, and counteract their effects. Part of that is for people to stop dividing people up, in their minds, into groups and categories defined by what they think people believe or don’t believe. That’s only part of the reasons that I see for cruelty and violence in the name of religion and anti-religion. Another reason I see is a moral vacuum in which any excuse will do, for people to indulge their worst impulses. One answer I see to that is to practice and promote honesty, integrity and other virtues. What I think is needed most of all is people learning to value all people everywhere, and to care what happens to them. I thought that might not happen enough to turn things around in less than five more generations, but now I see a possibility of it happening sooner than that.

However that may, it seems urgent to me to work on reducing alienation and animosities across belief divides, which might include openly denouncing and ridiculing behavior that helps perpetuate them, especially persistently and insistently trying to incriminate all the people in one category or another, including Muslims, atheists, theists and fundamentalists. I think that kind of talk, insinuating that all the people in one category or another are inferior somehow in their character or capacities, might need to be openly denounced and ridiculed sometimes.

Mostly what I see for me to do is what I’ve been saying; continually improve my own practice of what I’ve been promoting, learn to be a better friend to more people, learn to tell stories, bring it up for discussion sometimes, and practice and promote the kind of community development that I’ve been talking about.

 

[Jim]

“I do not expect a Muslim to have a functional understanding of non-theism.”

- Stark naked, evil, shameless bigotry, and willful ignorance, dressed up to look educated. I’m calling a cigar a cigar. The emperor has no clothes.

 

[Jim]

Part of what I think needs to happen is for statements like that to be recognized as bigotry, as widely as a statement like “I do not expect a woman to have a functional understanding of non-theism,” “I do not expect a black person to have a functional understanding of non-theism,” or “I do not expect a Canadian to have a functional understanding of non-theism.”

 

[TransmutingSoul]

I almost got pulled into some debating about prejudices,

Yes a discussion about prejudice would have been better.

Regards Tony

 

[Jim]

I want to learn to be more gentle and sympathetic.

 

[Jim]

I said in another thread that I’m looking forward to the day when people will no more dare to depreciate people across religious lines than they do across race lines. Then it occurred to me that there might be a correlation between race prejudice and religious/anti-religious prejudice because they are based on the same fallacious ways of thinking. In other words when people project religious stereotypes on other people, or continually depreciate or vilify some category of people defined by what they believe or don’t believe, they are telling all the world that they are doing those same things across race lines. It might not be long before that becomes common knowledge, and the day I’m looking forward to might come sooner than I thought.

 

[Jim]

Another way to think about it is that possibly the more people are stereotyping people across religious and belief lines, the more that they are doing it across race lines. Most people might be able to see that for themselves, if they think about it. Widespread awareness of that might do a lot to discourage defamation campaigns across religious and belief lines.

 

[Jim]

I want to shine a light on some ways that are used in Internet discussions to induce hostility towards all Muslims everywhere, or fear of them, without people seeing what’s happening. On way is to argue, explicitly or implicitly, that anyone who does not endorse Islam’s worst excesses does not really believe in the Quran as the word of a God. That plants the idea in people’s minds that most Muslims endorse Islam’s worst excesses, and that the ones who don’t are pretending to believe something that they don’t really believe.

 

[Jim]

Update on my thoughts about alarms being raised about Islam.

Sometimes I see alarms being raised about Islam being intermingled with misinformation designed to induce hostile feelings towards all Muslims everywhere. Then in response to that I see things being said that I think do more to help perpetuate hostilities than to help reduce them, like “That’s racist!” “Islam is a religion of peace,” and “Muslim terrorists aren’t really Muslims.”

I think that there are people who for career reasons are intentionally promoting hostile attitudes towards all Muslims everywhere, and that their propaganda is being circulated along with most or all alarms being raised about Islam in Internet discussions, regardless of anyone’s motives or intentions. I think that it can be helpful to correct some of the misinformation periodically, but I think that the propaganda mostly just needs to be ignored. At the same time, I think that the alarms need to be treated more thoughtfully and sympathetically. I think that there are dangers from Islam that most people debating about it in forum discussions are not taking seriously enough, including people who are raising alarms about it.

 

[Jim]

This is an update on my thoughts about this.

I’m picturing some people in all the religions, and people outside of all of them, who don’t feel divided from each other by the lines that other people are imagining between them, who look forward to a time when those lines will be forgotten by all people, and who are working to help that happen, in every part of their lives including in these forums. My thoughts in this post are for those people, and I’m hoping that some of them will see this, and post some thoughts for me.

I’ve been working on this for many years, offline, and online in many forums and discussion groups with some factions on all sides. My ideas about how all people will be freed from our prejudices and delusions, and how I can help, have always evolved, and are continually evolving. I’ve also had some other continually evolving aims and purposes in Internet discussions. Anything I do in these forums might be for some combination of any of those. I’ll just discuss some things I’m currently working on, without trying to sort all that out.

- Just trying to have some friendly conversations with people, on topics that interest me.

- Trying to do some things in these forums that some people have told me that they’re trying to to do, so I can be a better listener for them if ever they would like to talk to someone about what they’re doing.

- Trying to see through what I’m thinking of as a lot of smoke, dust and mirrors of words being used for other purposes besides communicating information and ideas, to see what people might be thinking, as they see it, and to help them do the same with me if they want to.

- Talking about a light that I’m imagining in science and in some religions, that I’m picturing as being behind the smoke, dust and mirrors of what people do with what they think they know from science, and what they think they know from the scriptures of their religions, hiding the light from people and repelling them away from it. The light that I’m thinking of lights up a path of progress in all the best possibilities in life, and includes freedom from our decisions being made for us by our desires and impulses, and a kind of love that I think the world and all its people need. It’s something like warm feelings and friendly intentions towards all people and all of nature.

- Some other ways of trying to practice and promote some kinds of attitudes and behavior that I think will help bring out the best possibilities in Internet discussions.

 

[Jim]

This is something to try, for anyone who is trying to help reduce animosities across belief divides. If you see yourself thinking in terms of groups or categories of people defined by what they believe or don’t believe, try to find ways of thinking about the problems and possible solutions that you’re considering, without thinking in those terms. I don’t mean to change your labels for those groups or categories. I mean without picturing those groups or categories at all, in your ways of thinking about problems and possible solutions. I’ll post some examples later.

 

[icehorse]

This is something to try, for anyone who is trying to help reduce animosities across belief divides. If you see yourself thinking in terms of groups or categories of people defined by what they believe or don’t believe, try to find ways of thinking about the problems and possible solutions that you’re considering, without thinking in those terms. I don’t mean to change your labels for those groups or categories. I mean without picturing those groups or categories at all, in your ways of thinking about problems and possible solutions. I’ll post some examples later.

I'll reiterate an earlier idea: find ways to discuss core values.

I think most healthy people share a lot of core values. I think that if you have NOT taken explicit inventory of your core values, it's easy for religious teachings to lead you away from your core values. (Other things can lead you away as well, of course.)

 

[Karolina]

I'm sorry I haven't been able to read through all the responses yet but I didn't want to forget what I wanted to share.

I recently learned that it's now illegal for public schools to have "ugly Christmas sweater day" and similar non-religious but still hinting at Christianity winter holiday traditions. In my opinion, that's going in the polar opposite direction of what would actually lead to more tolerance and acceptance. Namely, encouraging everyone to share their traditions with the school. Don't eliminate Christmas. Celebrate Chanukah and Kwanza and Eid... So that kids grow up not only knowing kids whose families differ from them, but actually feel a little affinity to these other traditions, so it's not so much us vs them.

Also, psychology says the best way to bring people together is over a joint enemy. Why haven't we acknowledged that a nuclear Holocaust, the erosion of the environment, or the objectification of human beings (the list is so long in examples...) Are common enemies to us all? In my humble opinion, I think the powerful people interested only in the bottom line have a very short term view of what's important, and they capitalize on what's in it for them now. The wealthy and powerful people will not easily give up that power and control and luxury lifestyles in order to make the world a better place. There's been a few exceptions, of course, of virtuous rich and powerful people, but they're free and far in between. As long as they rule our government and control our public sectors, only their interests will be represented, funded, propagated, and endorsed publicly. We're up against tyranny dressed up in "free market" clothing.

And hate is more newsworthy than love, just look at the news. Drama pays more than teamwork and tranquility. Anyone watch a Jerry Springer show lately? It seems entertainment is King, even if it means that it costs us freedoms, friendships, or inner growth.

I'm sorry, I seem to not be offering many solutions, other than perhaps a total political revolution, which is probably a pipe dream.

But this forum and this thread certainly points in the right direction.

So to sum up, I think educating our kids in World cultures, religions, and languages is where I would start. I personally do that via homeschooling (Global Citizen Academy).

 

[Jim]

Sometimes when I see people feuding, I think of people learning more about the use of models, metaphors and analogies in science, as possibly part of a solution to the problem. A while ago I thought of starting a discussion about that, then I thought that it might not do any good. I don’t think that what people are feuding about is actually the reason for their feuding, at all. I have some ideas about the reasons, but I might be a long way from knowing everything about it that I would want to know. Another approach might be to try to learn from people who avoid feuding, why and how they do that. Maybe I’ll start a discussion about that.

Then again, a discussion about models, metaphors and analogies might be helpful somehow to people who are working to help reduce animosities and hostilities across belief divides.

 

[Straw Dog]

I’m thinking that your work might have far more value than you realize, yourself. I’ll say more about that after I do some more research. For now I want to post about my ideas and experiences, and I’m hoping that others will post about theirs.

I’ve been thinking that one of the most consequential things that we could be doing is growing close friendships with people across the widest belief divides. Now I’m not so sure of that, but I don’t have any ideas about what anyone could be doing in their everyday lives, better than that, to help reduce animosities and hostilities across the divides.

I’ve been feeling like I haven’t been doing as much about it as I thought I was. I’ve spent possibly hundreds of hours in friendly discussions with people across the widest divides, but those haven’t led to the kind of friendships that I think is needed. I have friendships like that with people where I live, who all say that they don’t believe in God, and who know that my life and my ways of thinking are God-centered, but I can’t picture how that can ever make any difference in the violence in other parts of the world that I’ve been telling myself that I’m helping to stop. Intuitively I feel that it’s meaningful, but I’m having a hard time explaining it to myself.

If there are better ways to help stop the animosities and hostilities across belief divides, than growing friendships across those divides, what are they? I know about various kinds of interfaith initiatives. I also see a lot of power in storytelling. What else?

Having no imaginary friends, I see no discord between fellow human beings. I have nothing to prove beyond our common nature, needs, and wants. It’s obvious once we all begin to observe, analyze, and empathize.

 

[Jim]

Now I’m thinking of discussing uses and misuses of models, metaphors and analogies, not to single out anyone for misusing them, but because awareness of when and how people are doing it might be helpful for anyone who is working to help reduce animosities and hostilities across belief divides. One kind of misuse that I’ve been seeing of a model is adversarial reactions to people disbelieving it or even questioning it.

 

[Jim]

So to sum up, I think educating our kids in World cultures, religions, and languages is where I would start. I personally do that via homeschooling (Global Citizen Academy).

I think that helping with the education and training of children and junior youth might be the most consequential thing that some of us can do to help improve the world for future generations. I think that the more we train ourselves in the kinds of attitudes and behavior that we want them to learn, the more they will learn.

 

[Karolina]

Now I’m thinking of discussing uses and misuses of models, metaphors and analogies, not to single out anyone for misusing them, but because awareness of when and how people are doing it might be helpful for anyone who is working to help reduce animosities and hostilities across belief divides. One kind of misuse that I’ve been seeing of a model is adversarial reactions to people disbelieving it or even questioning it.

Could you give an example of what you mean?