Acceptance amongst ourselves

Hello everyone, and I haven’t been on this forum for quite a while, but I thought of something that I would like to discuss.

Acceptance…tolerance…I believe that these are extremely important things for someone to have. For if you cannot love another person, you cannot truly love yourself. But I’ve been sort of appaled with the matter of tolerance inside of relgion. I was going to convert to Catholism a year or so ago, but I found a nice little Christian church that is really friendly…but anyway, they’ve always been accepting towards everyone. However, I’ve been to other churches that have seemed very narrow-minded, and that bothers me quite a bit.
When I was going to become Catholic, tolerance was never an issue for me. The relgion seemed very accepting…but now with some of the Protestant churches, I see a lack of tolerance in some (but not all, of course) of the churches.
For example, some churches that I’ve been to have discriminated against certain people…like the gay community for example. I haven’t really formed a deep opinion about that group yet (I’m still fairly young, 14), but I believe that they are still people and should be treated with respect. I think that God plans one’s life out for them…and who knows, that might have been his plan…we never really know. But many churches are speaking out against it, and everything…and it just makes me sad that they cannot accept someone else who is different than them.
Also, some aren’t very tolerant of other relgions…basically saying that if you don’t beleive the Christian relgion and accept Jesus as your savior then you are going to hell. :sad: Well…i always used to think of symbolism…that everyone who was another faith, but worhsiped someone or something that stood for peace and forgiveness, they were in a way worshiping Jesus.
Some people try to convert people of other faiths to THEIR faith, and I don’t believe that is competely right. If someone doesn’t have a relgion, sure, it might be a good idea to introduce your relgion to them, because belief might give them personal strength…

Some people believe that the whole world will convert to Christianity one day. They believe that everyone will follow their set standards of beliefs. What bothers me is when someone automatically calls someone else’s beliefs wrong, just because they are not the same as his/hers. Who are we to point the finger and judge others? Why do people think that they have that authority to judge others that think differently? I don’t think that we will have world peace when one relgion sweeps over the world, and we have the same language…the same thought, etc. We are human, and we obviously think different from one another. I think that the only way we can have world peace is for there to be acceptance among ourselves…no matter what race or relgion you are. :wink:

Any opinions on this?

I completely agree, tolerance is very important, after all, there are lots of different types of people all over the world, so if one can’t accept that, how can we all co-exist?
I have a few beliefs about tolerance which make up a kind of tolerance credo that I try to follow that I’d like to make a mention of.
The first being about all different types of people. I definitely don’t like grouping people and using labels. I don’t like to divide people into little categories simply because of race or sexual orientation or religion. When I hear someone say ‘Gay people’ or ‘White people’, I feel weird, because those are just small traits that make everyone different, same as my taste for music differs from yours (probably :tongue: ). At the end of the day, we all have traits like that which make us different from one another, and focusing in on just a few traits like race or religion is silly to me. Forget labels I say, we’re all people after all.
The second thing I try to do is avoid being ignorant about other people. If I can learn about all kinds of different people, then I can understand them. Understanding is a big step towards co-existence.
The final thing I like to do is encourage tolerance in others. It’s not like I go up to strangers and tell them to be tolerant, but I do little things, like discourage racial jokes, or tell people about my own experiences when it comes to tolerance and acceptance.

Acceptance has always and will always be key to most things, unfortunately lack of acceptance is around in more ways than we like to think. Race, sexual preference, religion and political views are the big kickers to some degree gender still is a big issue.

But then there’s the little things too, people in longterm relationships trying to change something about their partner that they don’t like, rather than accepting it’s part of who they are. Sure many people moan about something their partner does that annoys them, but many accept that.

When it comes to religion there is one thing that really bugs me and that’s the handful that insist on constantly trying to convert me to their specific set beliefs. I respect religion, cut to it’s base forms most are just trying to help you be a better person. Unfortunately a of that gets ignored for the other things like, God, the Devil, Hell and Heaven. Why focus on that when you can focus on the main points like, how you treat other people?

Why do you need to form an oppinion about the gay community? Can’t you just accept them for who they are?

The funniest thing is… We draw limits where there aren’t! Guys, races don’t even exist! It’s the more overrated pseudoscientifical theory of all times! (By pesudoscientifical, I mean something that isn’t at all scientifically biased. You thought there was such a thing as races? Surprise: there isn’t. It’s a truthful as the Nazi belief that leftys are homossexual communists…)

Sexual orientation is another hilarious example. Did yu stop to read the history of humankind? Most of the time, people didn’t think about it. Men and women married because that was the only way to have children at the time, but having lovers of the same sex was not at all weird. Socrates had one. Alexander too. At the time of Jesus people still had. It was the Roman culture that forbid that, but it’s spread to Europe. Now, some will say it still is gross and antinatural: many biologists would disagree. In socially structured animals, such as wolves, ants and humans, homossexuality (or rather, lack of sexual restriction) tends to appear, for a lot of males aren’t needed, so they socially become “girls” to take care of the cubs. Do you get the idea? Anthropologists are there to tell you a lot of indian tribes do the same. It’s natural, and shock, evolutive that homossexuals exist!

And any person who is prejudiced about another political view—even if it’s Anarchism—can proudly call themselves enemies of Democracy. In good Old Greece, that would get you banned from Athens.

However, there is a nice logical reason behing prejudice and segregation. Hmm… I really should start a Geopolitics thread one of these days…

This is really just a small thing that I wanted to point out; I always think of it as the other way around. In my opinion, and from experience, true love needs to start with one’s self in order to spread outward. Now, it is possible to love yourself and not others, don’t get me wrong, but I find it necessary to make an effort to love all sentient beings. That is, starting with yourself instead of ending with yourself.

Just as I pointed out the concept of wishing all sentient beings well, this naturally goes hand in hand with tolerance of other’s differences.

Intoloerance between different religions is one of the reasons why I’d rather shy away from becoming a loyal member of some religions; but it depends on the religion. Although there are several main religions that we can name, there are thousands of minor religions in which some may be more accepting than others. (I haven’t gone into a lot of research on that, it was just a thought that I added).

Although I was born into a family of Christian background, I, myself, don’t believe in the Christian God. It’s something that can’t be proven (or disproven) so instead, I would rather choose to believe in reality. That is, anything that has scientific evidence to back it up. We may be talking about thousands of years of faith, but taking religion far too seriously as to be considered fact is what people did in Europe during the Middle Ages. Well, here’s news to you: That time period is long over!

Since I don’t believe in the existance of God, my opinion is that God doesn’t plan out the lives of people. Our lives are determined by several factors; some biological, others based on what kind of environment we grew up in. As for how we live our lives, that is up to us.

Onto homosexuality; Bruno has some good points that I never knew of before. I was never aware of how often if really occurred in nature, let alone that people didn’t even are about it before the time of Romans. It just goes to show you how much the world had changed since then; now homosexualtiy has been blown up into a huge issue when it shouldn’t be an issue in the first place. :neutral:

Oh, yes, in fact, my mother, who is a Christian believes that homosexuality is disgusting and unnatural; she once argued that it is against God; apparently it says so in The Bible. Now, she isn’t some huge crazy Bible beater - but she is still a Christian. As for The Bible itself, I still can’t see why some people believe so firmly in writings of over a thousand years ago; none of that sould even apply to our modern society! And yet, there are still some people who live by it.

Welcome to the club; I’m fifteen. Now that I mention this, this would be a much better time for you to research the philosophies of different religions; you may find that you could even agree with some philosophies more than Christianity even. For example, I did some reading of the philosophies of Buddhism, which I have found interesting. At some point, I remember someone mentioning Taoism (a.k.a. Daoism). I decided to do some reading on that, too. /me points at Josh’s avatar. :josh:

:content:

Wow, there have been a lot of good points in here, I’m happy. :wink:

As for researching different philosophies (sp?), I should definately do that. It’s interested me for some time…I briefly looked up a little bit about Budhism, and it was actually pretty interesting. I remember that back in 6th grade, we did a little bit of exploring of other relgions…like Hinduism and Judiasm, etc, I really liked it. I wonder why I haven’t researched anything on the internet.
To add really quick, I think that the reason Christians don’t like homosexuals is because they think that being homosexual goes against God’s plan for Creation. And Bruno, you made some points that I never knew about :wink: . You mentioned that ‘homosexuality’, if you will, was even around in Jesus’s time and was considered normal. About that whole thing about not forming an opinion on homosexuals, whoever said it, you are right that I don’t need to form an opinion about them. I was going to say that I’d never really have been around the ‘gay community’ so to speak, but that would be classifying them into another group. They are people just like us…and well, I’ve been around people :wink: . that kind of opened my eyes.
I think when it comes down to it…I am afraid of being judged. There are some ‘Christians’ in my school that are extremely narrow minded. If you ask them about homosexuality, they say it is wrong. I should ask why. The problem is…they probably don’t know. They don’t have the knowledge to back up their opinions. And what about 'love thy neighbor?" Everyone ignores that and goes on to critiscizing others, and judging what is ‘right’ and ‘wrong’.
My Catholic friend was talking to them about her conformation, and he replied, “Well, that’s not the right way to do things.” She got mad at him (I don’t blame her), and he was like…“Well, do you believe Jesus Christ is your personal savior?” She relpied, “yes”. And then he acted like all was fine and dandy. But what if my friend said no? What if she was budhist or hindu or whatever that may be? Those types of people would probably tell you that you’d burn in hell for all eternity. :eek:
And well…I sometimes fear looking outside of Christianity for another belief system…because what if God was vengeful? Would he send me to hell? He seems awfully vengeful in the OT…but I’ve only gotten past genisis and part of exodus. :sad: But well, belief is a personal thing…and I can’t just believe something because someone of a higher authority (like pastors or whoever) say that it is right.
I"m just kinda confused, trying to sort this all out.
And Blissful Blues, that is really true…about having to love yourself before you can love others.

Keep in mind dreamer_chic, the Bible is a book, a book some consider sacred, but a book nonetheless. The Old Testament was written in a different time and society than what we live in now, so it’s important to keep that in mind when you read about how nasty God could be. This was a time when it was okay to own a slave or sacrifice an animal or something, and the Old testament reflect elements of the society it was written in, which explains a great deal why God could seem so nasty…remember, divinely inspired or not, the Bible was still written and compiled by people.

i definitely agree. while i’m not a religious person myself, i do accept other people’s beliefs and respect their faith, however different they are to my own. my (now ex) girlfriend is a common church-goer. she’s as christian as they come. she goes to church every week, and goes to various religious clubs and camps. though her church says that it is not right to date a non-christian, we had never let this come between us in the time that we were together. i respected both the law and the christian belief by not going ‘too far’ with her - though, i would probably not do this with a non-christian girl anyway.

i act quite similar music tastes. i like alternative/experimental rock and a bit of oldies stuff. i have friends that like rap, pop, jazz, classical. i’ve never had an argument with any of them over our music taste.

good post, dreamer_chick :smile:

I believe that people would be a lot nicer to each other if they just accepted the fact that they might be wrong sometimes. When people judge others they are assuming that the other person is “wrong” - sometimes without any proper reasoning behind their opinions. I think its important to be open minded to other peoples views even if you don’t agree with them. If you think you are right then you are dismissing a whole lot of ideas and it limits you to one way of thinking.

I think this is a problem with religion… people have their own interpretations of things like the bible, and base a lot of beliefs on them. But it’s hard to question those beliefs because then they will have to question the whole religious beliefs behind them too. If you have lived your whole life according to certain beliefs then it’s unlikely you’ll want to change your mind - it’s much easier to just convince yourself that you’re right. I’m not saying all people are like this, but I think some are, which can cause problems when people dont accept each other as they are.

Of course, I could be talking rubbish since I’m not a psychologist and I’m not even religious, but I think that how you treat other people is more important than which god you believe in. Even if the christian god does exist, pissing people off by telling them they are going to hell all the time isn’t going to get you into heaven, no matter what you believe. :razz:

dreamer_chick, I really don’t think god would be vengeful if you research other religions and philosophies. If god gave us brains he’d want us to use them, right? I haven’t read the bible but as far as I know theres loads of different versions and they’re all written by people, so you have to choose which parts of it you want to believe - as you said, belief is a personal thing and you shouldn’t let other people tell you what to believe in.

Alright, the whole question about God being vengeful is something that was bothering me for awhile - at least about 3 months. So anyways, I went to see my Pastor (I’m Lutheran). I asked him, “How could a loving God send people like Budhists to hell? They never hurt anyone, in fact, they probably follow their teachings better than the average Christian.”

Anyways, he talked for around 10 minutes just from this little prompt, but I’ll try to give you the gist of it (he’s one of the most theoligically-wise persons I’ve ever met). When asked by a Catholic woman once as to if it was good to learn lot’s about one religion, or alternatively bits about lots of religions, the Dalai Lama replied: ‘It is better to dig one 6 foot well than 6 one foot wells.’ He went on to talk about how all religions have around 90% similarities to each other, which sort of leads you to believe that most, if not all gods are the same, and that it’s just one God making appearances in various forms so they’re acceptable to the culture in that area.

(This is me sot of building on what he said) I find it interesting, to the fact that everyone is basically the same underneath, yet theres all this extreme prejeduce against each other based merely on religious beliefs. This grows off the fact that it is extremely easy to write a large group of people off whom happen to be diferent from oneself. It takes way more effort to actually make an attempt to see things from the other persons perspective than to accept religion/race/gender/sexual orientation.

I had an epiphany a while back. I was just walking up to myself one day, it was a really sunny day. Anyways, this idea just hit me, basically it’s, everyone is the same. Although people may look differently, may believe different things, effectively, we are all the same underneath. Gay, lesbian, black, white, it doesn’t matter. We are all of the human race, we all have mothers, fathers, we all feel joy and pain. So this thought just hits me, and anyways, initially it made me feel great. But then I started to feel sad, because so many other people don’t put any thought or effort into this type of thing, and simply go on hating other people that just so happen to be slightly different from themselves. Its interesting, because a lot of religions endorse people to love everyone, treat everyone as they want to be treated themselves, but then the next page says something to the extent of hate gay people. (I dont feel like getting into the Bible discussion beyond the fact that the Bible is written by Gods followers, not faxed from heaven or something). More people need to read religious books etc, and discern from it what they truly believe in, rather than follow something blindly that really doesnt have their true beliefs at heart.

Alright, that was fun to type out. I`ll do it again sometime :smile:

I agree with Blissfull when she posted that you first needed to love yourself before you love others. That is such an important fact that is overlooked in today’s society.

If you search within yourself and make peace with yourself than accepting and tolerating others is so much easier. Regardless of their race, religion and sexual presence.

I was born and raised catholic. I had an extremely hard time with the religion and often times got myself into trouble because I was questioning the information in the bible. Like Josh pointed out, the bible is a book for reference. And I truly believe that each person gets something different from it’s scriptures.

I can’t tell you honestly that I follow one religion over another b/c I believe to be extremely open minded and liberal with my beliefs. IMO, when I meditate, pray or treat myself to a silent moment, I am with God. I do believe in God and don’t think I’ll ever stop. I also see other’s views or findings as “really good work or interesting theories”.

I believe in “to each his own”.

As far as reading the OT, if you’re doing it out of curiousity then continue but if you are looking for something else, read one of the newer bibles out there. Trust your inner feelings too.

Haha, I have free time for once so I finally got to check back here! Hmm, such an interesting topic.

I believe Amused Himself to Death is right in what his epiphany was: everyone is the same in that we are all humans, there is nothing that can superceed that, especially not mere words of our own invention. Tolerance is vital for any pursuit of reason, knowledge, faith, etc. “Classes” of people only exist in our minds.

Bruno is quite right about race. Did you know, that genetically amoungst humans, the darkest skinned africans are most closely related to the lightest skinned norwegians? That’s right, africans are closer to europeans (and vice versa) than either are to any other group of people. Moreover, genetic similarities do NOT corrolate with skin color, ethnicity, or “race”. Race does not exist, it is completely unbiologically founded and has no bearing on reality. It’s a simple human invention because people have a tendancy to catagorize themselves, and if they catagorize themselves they have to catagorize everyone else.

I suppose that is one of the roots of intolerance: catagorizations. I detest catagorizing people, or having myself catagorized. We can catagorize the professions we do, or the general crede (religion) we adhere to, but a person is beyond all those things and cannot be rightly catagorized. I see far too much potential in all people to become great things. Science, for instance, is not about advancing human knowledge so much as advancing human wisdom, and I think that is forgotten alot these days.

Well, I’m sorry I’m going to cause trouble with this, but I hate unfounded claims XD. Homosexuality is not evolutionary, nor biological beyond simple sex drive frustrations. In the greek days, it was not seen as something “normal”, actually. It was a reality, but it was not a social norm nor seen as something that a person should do, and was frowned upon. Greeks would send their young adolescent boys out with a (generally) slave chaperone to guard against them getting seduced by any older man. That is the common practice. The reason homosexuality was a reality for greeks was because men and women were generally held seperate from eachother until marriage (or even if married, during festivals at times). So, because males have an incredible sex drive sometimes they turned straight towards other males for release, but that’s about it. In fact, I know of not a single civilization that considered homosexuality a norm, and this is across all ages. In Jesus’ time, it was definately not seen as something socially normal, and was always a “shameful” act kept from public view (otherwise it was “bad form”), just like with the greeks in the BC’s.

So, a lack of self control and an insatiable longing for sex doth make a large portion of the homo and heterosexual constituancy. It actually highly annoys me that people are soooo obsessed with sex. It’s stupid and dulls the mind, like alcohol, and like alcohol will not cause troubles only if used in extreme moderation and the proper contexts (and like alcohol, it isn’t in and of itself a bad thing, just in how people use, misuse, or overuse it). It’s even more stupid that our society fights over it, or treats hetero’s and homo’s as if the were different kinds of people (our society is handling this issue so crappily it isn’t even funny). They aren’t. It’s an act and a choice, just like some choose to eat chocolate and others vanilla. At the same time, it is not something that is a necessary part of life, or something people should flagrantly pursue as they do in our society. It’s rather disgusting to me, and that’s for both homos and heteros as I feel it completely marginalizes what love is and tries to cast love as sexual desire. Love isn’t sexual desire, sorry, that’s lust, and the two are as different as oil and water.

I think that’s the real reason as to why homosexuality is stated as impermissible and equally as bad as premarital (hetero)sex in the old law of the bible (added to the pile of other such stuff that isn’t bad in the proper contexts which they didn’t have back then, like not eating pork which was wise back when they couldn’t cook pork hot enough to kill the muscular parasites that make pork so dangerous to eat). Both are seen as equal taboos, not homo preferentially as is the common myth our society throws around, and that begs the question as to the deeper connective reasons why. It’s always wise to look past surface appearances and seek deeper meanings: what are possible (if any) long term psychological/sociological implications of such things? Is there a different, deeper issue we should be adressing and discussing rather than a meaningless term like “homosexuality”?(/soapbox)

Anyways, people have different views and that’s important. So intolerance is even more stupid in view of that. However, it is an intellectual cop-out and mark of intellectual laziness to say “I’ll believe what I want to believe, and you believe what you want to believe”. Also, just because something is a reality, doesn’t mean it’s something to seek after. Just because death by disease is a reality, doesn’t mean we should seek to infect ourselves with ebola. Human intellects are here to allow us to aspire to greater truths and wisdom, and that cannot be gained marginalizing all ideas into “you believe what you wish, and I believe what I wish” deals; that’s just a way to avoid confrontations that force a person to actually use their head and think, and to avoid getting egos smashed and ideas shot out of the water by better ones so that a person can continue to inflate their own self indulgances.

So, I think alot of intolerance comes from a misunderstanding about all this, as well as from naivety, lies, twisted truths, and most of all, incomplete knowledge (just look back to that genetics thing inregards to race for an example). Moreover, there are of course two extremes in this issue. The horribly intolerant extreme, and the nihilistic “everyone believes what they want” extreme. Both are as ignorant as the other, and both just as self defeating and as serious a road block for intellectual growth and the advancement of our kind.

Therefore, let us escape intolerance by listening to and evaluating and exploring and seeking to understand all ideas in all fairness; and by understanding others have different beliefs and ideas, and celebrating these as a chance to further refine ourself with. People will choose what they choose to do, be that right or wrong, so it is tolerance and righteous to not beat the person, but instead adress the act! But let us also escape naivity by avoiding indifference, and instead seeking out truths, proper ways, and values, and by evaluating every idea with others, and by seeking out more and more knowledge with which to reinterpret and better interpret our ideas and world.

Also, it’s important to realize what tolerance is. Are we tolerant of murder? No, but why? Are there not things we should not be tolerant of in an absolute sense? Also, am I not talking about actions now? So then, doesn’t tolerance really mostly exist in the realm of ideas to guide the finding of beneficial and good actions, and as a weapon to stop judgmentalism against people themselves? For instance, when should people be tolerant of things like opression, genocide, prejudice, and descrimination, and when should they make a stand against such things with all their hearts?

I think we should think about these things, and try not to build one’s stance on the word “tolerance” itself, because if one does that, one can easily be manipulated by that word and anyone who knows how to throw it around. Same goes for any mere word or concept, as such can only create reactionism, and thus, opportunities for manipulation.

:confused: Please explain. Is there any evidence supporting this?

I agree with you about the “I’ll believe what I want to believe, and you believe what you want to believe” attitude, but I think you should respect other peoples ideas if they are not harming anyone. Its fine to question people’s beliefs and to discuss your own opinions, but only as long as the other person wants you to.

This is true. But where do you draw the line between which actions are acceptable and which are not acceptable? Some people are tolerant of murder. What if it was a terrorist or a criminal who is killed? Is it okay to kill if you are potentially saving other peoples lives?

Isn’t it also true that across the entire diverse spectrum of human beings, there is only something like a 4% difference between the most distantly related of us? I remember reading that somewhere.

Think about it, if an animal or a human has no sexual release available, it might just do the next best thing. If there are no female dogs around, a male dog might find another male dog to enjoy himself with.
However I don’t think this is the exact case with humans. I know a lot of homosexual people, and the fact is, they are the way they are, and that’s it. It’s not like people make a choice like, “I’m going to turn out straight,” or “I’m going to turn out gay.” It’s just how you are, and I for one think that’s perfectly fine :smile:

Or even someone’s leg. It’s also worth pointing out that animals DO masturbate, so the need to find a sexual partner is no more or less neccessary than it is for humans.

Sexual acitivity plays a big part in the bonobo (chimpanzee) society. They perform various acts (and are the only non human apes to do some of them) including female-female, female-male, male-male sex and it has nothing to do with needing a “mate”.

Which I guess means

is wrong.

Sexuality is not and never has been a choice we make, it is who we are. Whether it’s biological, evolutionary or upbringing, I have never once thought “I think I will be straight/gay/bi” I have never said I will find that person/gender attractive but not that one.

We do make the choice on who we persue sexual activity with on an individual basis, but not our defining sexual preference. I truely believe that the main reason people say it’s not genetic is some way, is because it makes it easier for that person.

It’s easier to hate someone for the choices they make than it is to hate them for something they have no control over.

Though, I’m interested in why this has come up when they topic was about excepting people for who they are, not why people are the way they are.

When I posted earlier how I believe in “to each his own”, I mean that I accept people for what and who they are.

I don’t particularly care about what their beliefs are as long as they don’t hurt me. The problem that I can accept someone for not sharing my interests but if they are going to be violent or verbally offensive then why should I subject myself to them.

I don’t think that way of thinking is an intellectual cop-out at all.

Passing judgment on people is not tolerable in my book but it happens. Sometimes people have to agree to disagree and look at a more common goal, like peace.

Some people tolerate murder and accept it as a viable sacrifice. I hate to constantly bring this up but what of some of those suicide bombers. They aren’t just killing themselves or other innocent people. They are sacrificing themselves for a belief they hold very precious. Is that type of murdering wrong? For who?

Homosexuality is over-rated and exploited way too much. Why can’t it be viewed as someone finding a common interest, respect and companion amongst other things in someone else that just so happens to be of their same gender. So, they can’t procreate. But neither can people who are sterile by accidents or complications with their health. Does that make them less human. I mean, after all, isn’t that what we all are… human.

So true Iluminada.

We are all humans, so trying to define eachother under catagories seems silly to me. Mere words like “homosexuality” or “black” lead to “me and not them” contrasts, and thus the main source of intolerance, division, wars, etc. We should not be so obsessed with catagorizing ourselves, and by consequence others, I think. Actions are one thing, people are something completely different and seperate from anything they do. Humanity still has alot of growing up to do on that issue.

It is true that probably the main thing that seperates humans out from animals is the ability to rationalize and create catagories. So it is a human propensity to catagorize everything so that we can best understand and relate. But, this very ability which has alowed us to progress in sciences is also our major defect in dealing with eachother. Humans need self control in that, to not catagorize eachother. Because we are all human no matter what we do or believe, and should be treated with the same love and dignity there in.

Actually, the most diverse humans are less than 1% different. We’re about 2% different than a chimpanzee.

The whole biological discussion on “homosexuality” should only be used in another thread as there’s too much in it. Sufficive to say, no, it not only is not evolutionary, but cannot be evolutionary. Why? Because to be evolutionary you have to out breed everyone else, and a “homosexually” driven creature could never outbreed any “heterosexual”. Moreover, it isn’t genetic whatsoever. They’ve looked and found no common genes between people who said they were homosexual since birth. However, did you know that how you think will literally change the shape of your brain to optimize the ability to think in those ways? For instance, if you took up piano your brain would literally transform to look just like a long term pianist. Our brains are very plastic and we can change them if we apply the will power to do so. So, if you believe you are something, you will find ways to make yourself that then, even by modifying your own brain. I think that’s where alot of the confusion comes from, that and what was said about people wanting to say it’s their nature so they can’t help it. Also, it couples with something that is genetic and is our nature and that is the sexual drive. So, on the sexual drive side of things, homo and hetero is genetic, but hetero isn’t genetically different from homo.

However, what people choose is what they choose, but they are still people, and we should love them no less! Hating someone just because they have differing ideas and are in a different catagory… that is intolerance and so wrong. That’s the point of all I’ve been saying. Throw aside all catagorizations except human and there you go; no other catagories actually exist. Treat others like how we want to be treated.

Murder is killing innocents, there is no excuse for that that should ever be tolerated, as one would not like to be murdered oneself, so it is hypocritical to say it’s fine someone murdered others who also had friends and family who loved them and a life to live. Killing is different in that killing is in self defense, be it at the individual or national level. However, it’s such a fine line, as one can imagine, best to avoid the whole thing.

It is wrong to force someone to discuss a subject if they don’t want to, but it is a cop-out to use that as an excuse to justify things and to avoid being questioned over one’s actions. We should never have to avoid questioning anything afterall, even if it’s a reality due to others.

There’s so much to this all, and it is so deep, but I’m pressed for time so I can’t continue or make things better. Tolerance is a tricky issue, and it’s easy to use the word to control others. Know well where a oneself stands.

Zero, we’re not talking about a whole species that goes homossexual. We’re talking about homossexuality as a minor phoenomenon in social species, in portions of a large society. Anyways, many things don’t make sense to the evolutionary point of view. Religions. Philosophy. Industry.

Anyways! I’m going to follow Josh’s suggestion and ask for theories here: if we ALL agree segregation sucks, if we ALL know humans are all the same and intolerance is a social illness… Why does it happen?

Why do humans segregate? Why is intolerance so popular? Why?

If we understand that, maybe we can find solutions to it.

Great question! And for this, you must put yourself in the annoying reductionistic mode that a little girl would use on her Father. Consistent pestering of Reality until it gives you the answer you are comfortable with!

First is Why is there intolerance? Because people are not comfortable with different people around them. Why are people so uncomfortable with differences? Because people do not know themselves enough to see anybody else that resembles them. Why do people not know themselves? Few reasons but mainly because people are too lazy or afraid to tackle the task of finding out what makes us tick. Why are we lazy and afraid? Because Society unfortunately breeds Spiritual ineptitude (and I use the word Spiritual loosely, associating it more with Philosophy). Why does Society breed ineptitude? Because Corporatism and Religious Dogma runs rampant, where its only financially beneficial if people are blind consumers of the Truth rather than Dicoverers of the Truth (this applies to Church and State). Why does Corporatism and Religion run rampant? Because the Truth must be concealed at all costs. Why must the Truth remain concealed? So people remain as consumers.

While this is basic and simple and has many holes (theres not just one answer to each Why and each of those answers has their OWN Why) its just an example of a very quick reduction of the situation. The best way to do this easily is to “get high” and I don’t mean controlled substances. The ancient term for “get high” related to ascending the Conciousness to gain a “higher” perspective…sometimes this was literal when they did engage in these substances and ‘left their body.’ If you see things in the grandest spectrum, the answers will come easily.

You’re very right Bruno, and sorry if I’m coming off confusing. The point I’m trying to make is that it should never be used as a catagorization of people themselves. It does not make a person who they are, and that’s something that seems lost in this current social setting.
Everyone seems to act as if what one calls themself makes them inherently something different from everyone else, while this is both not realisticly the case and not morally the case. And you’re quite correct that there is a heck of alot that does not fit in the evolutionary point of view (like alturism), so it can’t be called that lol, and I don’t think it’s right to try to use something that is not true to try to justify calling a group of people as something inherently different from everyone else (which they aren’t).

Which leads right back into the answer to those questions you are posing. Part of why I hide alot about myself is due to this very issue: while I’m a mystery, no one stands in any direct reactionist relation to me. But why is this the case? Simply put, if someone catagorizes themself, they by consequence are catagorizing everyone else, and this in turn means that that person has to defend their possition and vice versa. While someone is unknown, one won’t attack that person because one doesn’t know if that person is actually of the same “catagory” as one places oneself (to one’s great embarrasment to find out if one does attack the other person). That’s why teachers in particular are not supposed to reveal their views on a subject they are teaching or even in general.

Intolerance stems from this inherent issue. It isn’t as simple as humans fear the unknown, because humans are attracted to the unknown and to new things and curiosities. Infact, I’ve never seen where it was ever an “unknown verses known” issue. It is a lot like what Ego was talking about though with comfortability, and this comfortability comes from catagorizations. We feel most comfortable with people of the same “catagory” as ourselves. Why? Because we know they will stand for our thoughts and interests against challengers from other “catagories”, and we know people of other “catagories” are likely to eventually challenge our possition for being in the “catagory” we are. Just look at politics for a stunningly clear example of this phenominon.

This is an inherent problem with human nature itself, there is no source to it, and hence that is why it is universal to all situations, all contexts, all relationships, etc. Of course, what I’m saying is an oversimplification and it’s far more complex due to “variations of a theme”. Dogma? That’s simply a variation of this very theme. Thus, part of a transcendant mind is to transcend this issue of catagorizing people as entities fundementally astranged from ourselves.