Let's get along -or else.

“Come on people now,
smile on your brother
everybody get together
try to love one another right now.” -The Youngbloods

There is a lot of nasty bickering going on in the world. In fact, I think we’ve reached the saturation point. Pakistan hates India and vice versa. Israelis want to obliterate the Palestinians and anyone who wants to help them. Iran is busy torturing and oppressing it’s own population because they had the gall to protest rigged election results. Christians are competing amongst themselves for Tight Ass of the Year Award when it comes to the social issue du jour. The Catholic Church continues the hypocrisy of vilifying homosexuality while engaging in the cover up of institutional pedophilia. Meanwhile conservative Muslims treat women like door mats then get pissed at anyone for calling them misogynists. I think we can safely say we have insufferable, arrogant behavior down pat.

Hey here’s an idea. Let’s have a contest to see who can be the most tolerant. Tolerance doesn’t mean you have to like or agree with someone, it means you have to allow the opinion that they have as much right to exist as you do. There are two important criteria here - does the actions of others directly affect you and are they inflicting harm on anyone? The pagans have one commandment: do what you will, harm none. That’s good place to start.

All these folk talk about how loving, forgiving and compassionate their God is- and by extension it’s adherents, so it’s see the proof. It’s easy to be considerate of those who believe as you do BUT who can show the most compassion to people who aren’t like them. Which group can come closest in practice with what the Big Guy asks.

The Red Cross is already ahead by providing first aid training to the Taliban. Anger ensues, “but they are bad so they shouldn’t get help”, the critics complain. Doctors without Borders are frequently threatened for the same reason. In this contest people are people period. You can’t take sides and decide who’s right or wrong. Claiming that you and your God are better than someone else and their God, is easier said than done. Prove it or shut up.