I like to think that I'm educated. I went to university and I worked in the legal field... yeah that was 10 years ago and I've been watching soaps and eating bon bons for the past decade. (insert sarcastic eye roll and for those who don't get sarcasm I don't watch soaps... even Desperate Housewives is too mindless for me). I read alot of news on the net, keep up on current events, documentaries and educational tv. I read the newspaper and know what is up in my community, my own little world. The Hero and I discuss these things too. I like to think I'm open minded. I have my own ideals and morals. I walk a path of faith that is different from many of my friends yet I have friends from many walks of life. Perhaps some would judge and say I am compromising my own beliefs by not only being around like minded = same people but I don't think so. I hope if you asked any of my friends, who are different than me, they would be able to tell you who I am and what I stand for.
Recently I have heard some things that have blown my mind. Not because they are necessarily crazy, wild thought processes (at least not all of them) but the fact that the defense of those ideas is so virulent. When questions for clarification and understanding of the thought process are met with stonewalling, accusations and non-answers it puzzles me to no end. To be blown off with answers that I'm not them so I can't understand, well that insults my intelligence. I may not agree with them in the end but a respectful answer of questions with factual information is never a bad thing. That is how we become more understanding of each other, more.... dare I say that word....tolerant.
It seems that we judge first to avoid judgement. We are only concerned with the affect on our own life and not how it touches those around us. We become afraid of our governments and forget that we have a voice in creating them. We have a voice to stand against things without fear of persecution. We have FREEDOM!!! So if we are free why are we so afraid? What has sent people into hiding? We have all the information in the world at our finger tips but we take little snippets and run with them. (all the warnings of false things in my email box and the need for snopes is evidence of the amount of crap info online) We take things at face value and forward them onto the world. When did we stop asking questions? When did we stop demanding answers and facts and just take "because I said so" as truth? When did we become too afraid to share our beliefs and passions without putting ourselves on defcon 1 status first? When did learning and discussing become such a war? I remember a day when I would learn so much from a hot discussion about something, with several sides passionately giving us their views. Now you just get "you aren't one" so you can't possibly understand. So when did we become so afraid of those who don't think like we do, don't believe like we do, don't live like we do???
The LORD is my light and my salvation - whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life - of whom shall I be afraid? ~ Psalm 27:1
We will not walk in fear, one of another. We are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes which were for the moment unpopular. This is no time . . . to keep silent. ~Edward R. Murrow
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