How to Appreciate Other Religions/Political Parties

This isn't compromising your beliefs.  Keep your beliefs, but learn how to appreciate where others are coming from, too. Even if for no other reason than to understand how to change their mind better!!

  Do you ever feel like you can't bring up the dual conversational unmentionables--politics and religion--without getting frustrated or upset?  Read on then!

• Finding Common Ground
• Values
• Many times beliefs are different ways of expressing the same values.  It's tragic that we don't realize this enough.  Let me give some examples.  
• Healthcare in the US--to definitely and admittedly oversimplify, one group thinks it barbaric to withhold proper medical care to the poor in one of the richest countries in the world.  Why?  Because they care about people.  That's the heart value that drives their beliefs.  The other side doesn't want universal health care because they think it will drastically reduce the quality of the care and further dig America into a debt hole.  Why?  Because they care about people.  Same value.  Different application.  Different way of serving that value.
• How about another extremely heated topic--abortion?  One side says abortion is wrong and their value is that human life (the baby's) is precious.  The other says abortion is morally permissible because life (the mother's) is precious.  Each can say one side is mistaken or deluded, but it helps me to avoid vilification to understand what value is driving the person's belief and often how drastically similar they are to mine--trying to protect a life. 
• Remember to remember why people are passionate about causes--they care!  They really love something!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

• Questions
• You may not have the same answers as someone in a different religion, but many times your heart is still crying out the same questions.  
• What's the purpose of my life?  Help/love others, glorify God, attain enlightenment, jihad, etc.--all different answers to the same question.
• Where did I come from?  God, evolution, God+evolution--different answers, same heart cry.
• How can I live on past death?  Nirvana, Valhalla, Heaven, Moksha, legacy, etc.--same desire for ourselves and our loved ones--that we'll live on in some respect. 

• Debating Safely
• Get Down to the Fundamental Question of the Debate
• E.g., the fundamental question surrounding abortion is, when does a human become a human?
• For universal healthcare it may be something like, what is the role of the government?  What are inalienable human rights?
• Getting down to the fundamental question that is actually being debated has two positive effects:
• Clarity is brought and distraction can be set aside
• It can show how gray the subject really is.  Highlighting ambiguity builds compassion and patience over disagreements.

• Understanding Differences
• Reactionaries
• Show me an extremist, a fundamentalist, a fringe voice and I'll show you a reactionary.  People that have extreme views or ways of expressing themselves aren't usually crazy--they're trying to use a valuable communication tool--contrast.  E.g., the most drastic tree hugging environmentalists aren't off the wall--they're trying to live and speak in such a way that shouts above the distracting hum of life.  If the rest of us actually cared like we should they wouldn't have to go to such extreme measures of living/behaving/communicating.  They aren't crazy.  They're just trying to get heard.  Same with any other example from religion, politics--fundamentalism, conservatism, liberalism, etc.  Don't hear what/how they're saying it so much as you hear their heart and what they're contrasting themselves with.  Furthermore, recognize the importance of reactionaries in society--nothing would change (as it needs to) without prophets, heralds, extremists, fundamentalists.  Find the middle ground between the two polar opposite extremists and you'll often find the truth.

• False  Dichotomy 
• Maybe you're both right
• 'Either' / 'or' thinking  vs. 'both' / 'and':  Sometimes it isn't 'either' this 'or' that.  Sometimes it's 'both' this 'and' that.
• Perhaps the goal isn't about promoting one ideology and eliminating the other, but instead listening to both sides and finding a balance.
• Different Kinds of Truth
• A person, religion or political party can be dead wrong about one category of truth, but on the money in another.  This may sound strange to your ears, but hear me out.  What is truth at its most fundamental level?  An idea that helps you deal with reality, life, yourself, others.  Truth is a mental tool to navigate reality.
• Philosophical Truth
•  E.g., 'a' can not be 'non-a' at the same time and in the same sense.  That is absolutely true, but it is a very different kind of 'true' from the next kind of truth.
• Empirical Truth
• The kind of truth you get from a laboratory, an experiment, a test tube--the sciencey kind.  You're manipulating, removing and isolating variables to test a hypothesis.
• Descriptive Truth
• The kind of truth you get from the field, observations.  Your paying attention in order to learn something about a process, correlation, potential causation, etc--seeing patterns.
• Historical Truth
• Can't test it, can't observe it, but many of us would agree that it exists (at least beyond a reasonable doubt).  We  believe in it so much that we bet people's lives on it. #CapitalPunishment
• Ethical Truth
• "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
• "Don't do unto others as you would not have them do unto you."
• Instead of completely discounting a religion's holy scripture because you disagree with its empirical, descriptive truth maybe it is time that you started to appreciate its ethical truth and the next category below.
• Proverbial/Wisdom Truth
• "It is more blessed to give than to receive."
• "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush."
• "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth."
• "Don't remove a fly from a friend's head with an axe."
• "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."
• "Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise."
• If you really care about living life well you'll learn to appreciate wisdom from surprising and unexpected places.  You can learn a lot from a heretic.
• Artistic Truth
• Good literature, art, movies, mythology, comedy can often leave us saying something like, "That is sooo true."  (Especially good comedy.)  Art can get us to realize something that was right in front of us, but hadn't seen before.  It can resonate our deepest, inmost being.
• Paradigmatic Truth
• Gives us a framework to think within, a scaffolding to build understanding.  This is true both in science and in religion.  The easiest example I can think of is light.  By analogy we speak of light as being a particle and a wave.  In reality it's neither.  And both...Speaking of light as a wave and a particle may not be true in a literal sense, but incredibly true in a paradigm sense and is enormously beneficial for scientists.  (The same could be said of String Theory, analogies for dimensions greater than three, etc.)  In a similar, analogical, paradigmatic way religion can be similar.  It doesn't have to be true to be a helpful way to think about the universe and that has great and significant value.  More thoughts here.

• Perfectly Understandable Reasons That People Will Never Change Their Minds
• Trust (see more below)
• Loyalty: Is it really reasonable to expect people to turn their backs on their friends and families ideology?  
• Identity:  Is it really reasonable to expect people to give up their ideology and have to complete refigure out who they are?

• Concessions - Why It Isn't So Bad After All
• Good vs Right: Maybe not everyone has to be right.  Maybe being just being good isn't such a bad concession.
• Intermediary Beliefs: Can you imagine going to a remote tribes person and trying to explain the internet to them?  Before you could explain what the internet was you'd have to explain what a computer was, but to do that you'd have to explain what a machine was and then you'd have to explain what electricity was and then you'd have to explain...Historically maybe mythology and a great many false ideas were an essential stepping stones that absolutely had to be used to us where we are today.  Maybe we owe today's stepping stones a great deal of deference for getting us where we are today and for taking us to a better tomorrow.
• Beliefs Have Functions
• To balance out extremes: Polar opposites might be a way that the cybernetic system of society maintains balance.
• For the greater social good: Maybe the ideology that you're frustrated that someone you know believes is the only thing holding back anarchy in their life and in society at large?  Maybe you're completely unaware of all the positive ripple effects it is causing and that if you were aware of them you'd shut the h*ll up and not argue with them so vociferously.  

• Justified False Beliefs
• People for thousands of years people thought the Earth was flat and that the Sun moved across the sky.  They weren't idiots and they weren't suppressing the truth.  They were justified in their belief based on what they knew.  We'd all do well to remember that each one of us is a product of our culture and that in other's shoes we'd believe the same thing as they do.

• Attribution
• Malevolence vs. Benevolence: We have a choice in how to interpret people's beliefs--either negatively like they're stupid or maliciously denying truth or positively like they're trusting individuals or they're trying to protect something precious or they're acting out of a pure intentions/heart, etc.  It is far, far more likely that their beliefs are a reflection of their virtue and not their vice, strength and not weakness--their deep seated convictions and character.  Remember that.
• Internal vs.  External:  Are  they the devil or are they a victim of the devil?? Kind of nature vs. nurture.  Does a person believe something because they are a certain way or because they were raised a certain way?

• In-Group / Out-Group--Evolution's Legacy
• In our evolutionary past it paid to:
• Trust insiders unquestioningly.  If you want to take down a woolly mammoth together you have got to have each other's back without hesitation.  This legacy lives on in the tenacity we hold on to cultural beliefs even far past their expiration date.  Why wouldn't a person trust what ever their parents or an authority figure says?  Why would people lie to them?  Trust is a very good thing and the very reason  human society has come as far as it has.  Remembering that can help us see eye to eye with people we disagree with.  Consider your own beliefs.  How much do your beliefs line up with your chosen group's?  That might not be such a good thing...
• Distrust of others.  Let's face it.  We have a violent past.  There were time periods in our history in which something like a third or a quarter of all adult males died in battle (proof for this can be seen in the numerous bashed in skulls we've found and from comparing with current day tribal communities).  If you didn't distrust outsiders you died.  Therefore, our default state is to distrust anyone that is different--skin color, ideology, religion, political party, etc.  Distrusting and vilifying outsiders got us ahead in the past, but now it only hurts us and the world.  When you find yourself thinking in terms of 'us', 'them' remember where that distrust comes from and then remember to expand your circle.  The most important 'we' today includes everybody.  E.g., get beyond 'Republican' and 'Democrat' to something larger like 'Human'.

• Simian Simpletons
• What is the evolutionary purpose of our brain?  Survive and reproduce.  Not think rationally and critically.  It isn't to understand science, math and logic.  It is much, much more of a relationship machine than it is a computer.  It should be more shocking to us that we ever think logically than that we sometimes have lapses in judgement.  Be patient with your fellow humans.  They're doing the best they can.

• Leaders of Movements and Movements Are Different
• Sarah Palin doesn't represent all Republicans.  Osama Bin Laden doesn't represent all muslims.  Benny Hinn doesn't represent all Christians.  Child molesting priests don't represent the entirety of the Catholic faith.  Stop mixing up movements and leaders.  They're different.  Knock it off.  :)

• You Could Be the Wrong One
• Don't forget it.  
• Ever.  
• Ever.

• Maybe We're Better Off Disagreeing
• Seeing things differently is
• Enriching: ‎"The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas." --Linus Pauling
• Sharpening: Is anything more stimulating and growing than a good debate?

Pictures from here, here, here, here, here, here, here , here , here , here and here.

Proud to Pollute

We have a right to pollute the Earth.

We have a right to cut down trees, eat meat, have factories, use its resources, enjoy technology, hunt, and fish.

Let me tell you a story.  There is an organism that has put billions of metric tons of toxic gas into the air.  This pollution has caused a mass extinction of organisms across the entire globe and is changing the chemistry of the entire globe.  What organism am I talking about?  Maybe you’re already savvy to my trick here, but I’m talking about the single celled cyanobacteria of billions of years ago.  That gas?  Oxygen.

It’s a important fact to remember that all organisms produce pollution - big, small, simple and complex.  We all impact each other.  There was a time in evolutionary history that oxygen literally caused a mass extinction.  It was a toxin to anaerobes.  Everything poops, pees, farts, belches, exhales, respires and there’s some other organism, somewhere that’s impacted because of it.

Furthermore, all animals hurt some other organism to survive and that’s okay.  A cheetah has a right to eat an impala, a polar bear a seal, a rattlesnake a bunny wabbit and a bunny wabbit, alfalfa.


What's the 'essential' part in 'essential amino acids'?  Essential to all life?  No.  Essential to humans.   Cows have essentially no 'essential' amino acids since they synthesize them quite well themselves.  So, why are we different from other animals that make their own complete amino acids?  In our evolutionary history we had those amino acids in our diet so regularly that mutations could eliminate the ability to synthesize them and we'd still survive (something similar happened with our ability to make Vitamin C.  Boy that'd change the vitamin industry.).

We've evolved to eat meat.  It's why our gut is so small relative to our body weight.  If we were evolved for eating plants alone our gut would look like the other largely vegetarian primates like gorillas and proboscis monkeys - utterly, protrudingly huge pot bellies.  A small set of intestines shows we are made to eat a high energy diet that takes little processing to yield high quality results.  Also, it's pretty universally accepted that eating meat gave us the incentive and means to become as brainy as we are - we're hunters and a hunters diet gives enough fat to power our calorie zapping noggin.  Early stone tools weren't for cutting spinach; I can tell you that much.

You've seen these guilt trip photos showing the leveling of land and the emergence of buildings - the decimation of a habitat.  The message is that's awful.  Is it?  Is it really awful that humans exist?  Or, is it amazing that biology has produced an organism that is doing something amazing, building edifices, cities, nations, technology that have never existed before (to our knowledge).  Is it worth it to destroy some environment to make the Large Hadron Collider?  Yes.  Yes, it is.  If I had to choose between the extinction of the California Condor and the building of the LHC, I'd shoot the bird myself.  Thankfully we don't have to make that decision, but what does it take to make a LHC?  It takes a whole bunch of awful stuff like strip mining, fossil fuels, habitat destruction, and vast societies to pull great minds from.  It takes a lot, but it's worth it.

People like microbiologist Lynn Margulis have helped me see this.  She eloquently pointed out that life is tough, far tougher than we realize.  We couldn’t wipe out life even if we tried.  We could blow up all the nuclear bombs in the world and we still won’t be able to kill life, lives, yes, but not life.  Somewhere, deep within the recesses and bowels of the earth, life would reemerge, recolonize and start the evolutionary process of populating every niche and corner of the planet all over again.

With ‘rights’ come ‘responsibilities’.

During my seminary days, I remember being haunted by this Bible verse: “All things are permissible, but not all things are beneficial.”  What a scandalous verse.  “You can do anything you want, but you’ll have to live with the consequences,” is what it’s saying.  Questions concerning moral permission aren’t usually answered in ‘yes’ or ‘no’ but in ‘not in this way’ or ‘only with wisdom guiding.’

Please recognise that I write this as a reactionary.  I’m reacting to the over-exaggerating, fundamentalist environmentalists that try to scare the world with global warming hell fire and polar ice cap melting apocalypses.  I recognise that I need the planet in working order, as a healthy ecosystem to eat, breathe, flourish and even to enjoy the wonder of nature.

There’s two ways that the manner in which we pollute and destroy is fundamentally different from other organisms: our time scale and our scale of influence.

Time Scale

Life is exceptionally keen at turning water into wine, coal into diamonds, lemon into lemonade.  Any example of pollution that I can come up with produced by an organism has over an evolutionary time scale become a fertilizer, a gourmet dinner, or a breath of fresh air.  We, on the other hand, are presenting pollution in never before seen quantities and types that are posing new obstacles to life.  Can life overcome it? Of course.  Should we wantonly decimate the work of millions of years to test that out?  Well, listen, I love evolution.  I love it on many levels.  I love its pragmatic elegance.  I love the way it comes up with ingenious engineering inventions.  I love the baffling serendipity that it exists.  Life is miraculous.  So, know that it crushes me to lose any of it.  Please hear me say that.  It is a great, weighty, crushing loss.

Scale of Influence

There’s never been another organism that has wielded so much power.  We’ve been to the effing moon for Pete sake.  We have the power not only to destroy other species, but whole ecosystems, and an entire biosphere.  AND we have the power to knowingly do it OR to not.  We are not separate from the system.  When we poison the Earth we are poisoning our drinking well and ourselves.  When we destroy millions of acres of habitat we are destroying the 'lungs', 'heart', and 'guts' of the living Earth.  That's dangerous.  That will have consequences.

Humans don’t do moderation well.  We like either/or scenarios, on/off, right/wrong.  It is vastly easier for us to completely condemn and guilt every act of normal living: being a carnivore, driving, using electricity, etc. than to ask and then answer the tough question of, how much is too much?  So, we condemn any use (See Romans 14 for an interesting Biblical commentary on this right/wrong vs responsibility topic).  We guilt people for existing - like the planet would be better off if humans didn’t live in it.  That’s wrong.  We have a right to be here.  We have a right to live.  It is good that evolution made us.  It is good that we are creating societies and technology that may have never existed before.  It's good that something new under the sun has come about.

It's also wrong to say that we just need to live like the Native Americans.  Let me remind you a little history: they wiped out almost all the mega-fauna in the Americas after they came over the Bering straights.  Not the greatest environmentalist examples if you ask me.  They were constrained in their exploitation by technology far more than their ideology.  All that to say, going back to the Stone Age isn’t the solution.  It’s asking the tough question of:

How much is too much?
How much is enough?
What are our rights?
What are our responsibilities?
What can I do with out?
What can I enjoy?
*What is sustainable?

And, those are tough, tough, gut wrenching questions.