Thought For The Day
Treat other people the same way you want to be treated.
You don't have to be religious to apply this principle in your life. Also, the Bible is not the only place the principle can be found - even though it's what I'm most familiar with.
When I mentioned this in a community, in support of the OP who mentioned something that I very strongly agreed with, I had this one user who read a little too much into my comment - and assumed that I must be a strong religious person who believes that everyone needs to follow the Bible. It wasn't my attention at all. I even mentioned that I thought a lot of Fundies were hypocrites, because they spend too much time condemning things like same-sex marriage (things that don't even hurt other people) to remember the importance of the Golden Rule. This user was appaently confused by my mention of Fundies, though.
The ironic thing is, a lot of Fundies see the concept of "live and let live" tolerance to be "wooly-headed liberal" thinking. For me, the issue is not about "conservative vs liberal" - even though I do, admittedly, lean liberal in many areas. However, some people on the liberal side are just as tolerant as certain people on the right are.
Yes, saying something like "we Christians are right, and you filthy heathens are all evil and hellbound" is definitely intolerant - but so is saying something like "you Christians are all morons who believe in dumb superstitions, and we skeptics actually know to use our brains" is just as equally intolerant. I really think there could be more tolerance from both sides.
So, yeah, if people of all religious/political persuasions would apply that principle in their lives - I think this world would be a better place.
I'll just end it with this wise piece of advice from the great Michael J Fox himself:
And don't resort to name-calling or inflammatory language or, mocking, or whatever you need to do. Just have a discussion about it, and we'll see what happens.
You don't have to be religious to apply this principle in your life. Also, the Bible is not the only place the principle can be found - even though it's what I'm most familiar with.
When I mentioned this in a community, in support of the OP who mentioned something that I very strongly agreed with, I had this one user who read a little too much into my comment - and assumed that I must be a strong religious person who believes that everyone needs to follow the Bible. It wasn't my attention at all. I even mentioned that I thought a lot of Fundies were hypocrites, because they spend too much time condemning things like same-sex marriage (things that don't even hurt other people) to remember the importance of the Golden Rule. This user was appaently confused by my mention of Fundies, though.
The ironic thing is, a lot of Fundies see the concept of "live and let live" tolerance to be "wooly-headed liberal" thinking. For me, the issue is not about "conservative vs liberal" - even though I do, admittedly, lean liberal in many areas. However, some people on the liberal side are just as tolerant as certain people on the right are.
Yes, saying something like "we Christians are right, and you filthy heathens are all evil and hellbound" is definitely intolerant - but so is saying something like "you Christians are all morons who believe in dumb superstitions, and we skeptics actually know to use our brains" is just as equally intolerant. I really think there could be more tolerance from both sides.
So, yeah, if people of all religious/political persuasions would apply that principle in their lives - I think this world would be a better place.
I'll just end it with this wise piece of advice from the great Michael J Fox himself:
And don't resort to name-calling or inflammatory language or, mocking, or whatever you need to do. Just have a discussion about it, and we'll see what happens.