I think there is room for diverse religions in a community, afterall America is supposed to be a melting pot dedicated to personal freedoms (though honestly Canada does a better job of it). I used to be an aitheist because all religion seemed so fake to me, all about power and control, both of which are based on fear. None of it seemed honest, people were just going through the motions and didn’t really believe.

It wasn’t until I was old enough to really study various religions and decide what made sense to me that I discovered that some people really do have strong personal beliefs that they live by and it’s all about what is right for them and not what they think other people should do and believe. Some people, as in this article, seem to think that for a religion to be successful you have to stamp out all other religions. That if anyone in the community isn’t a member of thier faith then they are somehow failing and so instead of working harder to educate people so they will WANT to be part of that faith, they simply eradicate all other faiths so thier church is the ONLY choice.

I personally find that cowardly. Not just in religion but anything. To limit peoples choices so they have to do what you want is an act of fear and cowardice. To me is says that whatever your cause is (religion, politics, morality etc) isn’t strong enough to stand on it’s own and can only ‘win’ by eliminating the competition. We may not like what other people do or aprove of it but I think we should accept and respect that people have the right to choose what is right for them. Sometimes that means bad things happen and people make mistakes but thats how we learn. If you simply remove the possibilities for mistakes then how are people supposed to grow and learn?

I really feel like diversity in pretty much everything, but especially in something as personal as religion, is a good thing and should be encouraged. Because all religions are at heart the same religion. And only through our freedom of diversity will we gain the courage and acceptance to see that we are all on the same path so there is no need for fear. Good luck and blessings, Prana

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 16th, 2003 at 12:31 pm and is filed under General Stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.