I imagine George Bush waking up today to think that there is finally another democratically elected government in the Middle East, and it's a terrorist organization backed by Iran. Ironic, really.
Meantime, I am busy working for a non-profit client on a CD ROM in Macromedia Director that documents all the hate and terrorist web sites around the world, which gives me the strange feeling of being isolated from the world's problems in my pleasant home in a peaceful little town in California, while somehow being involved, albeit in a small way.
Still, I'm spending today as I have for the last month developing a tool to help people better understand what is going on in the promotion of the worst of human nature on the Web - from racism, to zenophobia to religious righteousness, from fanatical anti-abortionists to fanatical terrorists. The common theme is religion and its use to justify almost any inhuman activity you care to think of. Killing in the name of...
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"e;from racism, to zenophobia to religious righteousness, from fanatical anti-abortionists to fanatical terrorists. The common theme is religion and its use to justify almost any inhuman activity you care to think of. Killing in the name of...
First I did not kow what zenophobia meant, and did a search on it and kept getting this term: xenophobia as the word. It means fear of different people from different nations? Please correct me if I am wrong.
Next,I have read this piece several times trying to get my thoughts together to reply.
I was raised to believe in God. Not to judge others, and to have faith. My mom taught me well in regards to what the Bible had to say, and I studied the Bible often growing up.
The God that I grew up to understand and believe in, isn't the one that the fanatics seem to think is there.
Mom taught me that God loved all people, no matter what their life style, or beliefs are or were. Jesus spent his time with people who were considered to be criminals and not the best of the bunch.
She taught me that we are to love people for who they are inside, not what they are outside. Not their color, their handicaps, or even if they believed differently from what I did, that I was to respect that.
I think that today, Respect is missing from many things in what children are being taught and what they see, and I think that lack of respect in all areas helps to create this world that seems to be turning into one of total hatred towards all people and beliefs.
I don't agree with abortion. I, however and not going to fight with someone who does. As a mom of 5 children, and knowing how soon in my pregnancy I felt life move, I feel that any abortion is wrong. But that is my belief. One I can talk about, but not force on others. If that makes any sense.
One other thing that I think about tons is that post 911, we live in a totally different world. And often I wonder how I teach my children, those grown and still at home, what I was always taught growing up:
A stranger is a friend whom you have not met yet.
I agree - don't like abortion either, so I won't have one. In my view, God tells me what is right or wrong, but that doesn't mean I can tell you. Once we use religion to control, demean or attack others, we are not religious, we are fanatic, and fanatisicm breeds hatred and hatred breeds violence. As the great Irish comedian Dave Allen always signed off, may your God go with you.
Charles stated:
Once we use religion to control, demean or attack others, we are not religious, we are fanatic, and fanatisicm breeds hatred and hatred breeds violence.
This is sooo true.
Religion and faith are to help others, not to control or use violence to get what "that" religion or faith wishes for.
I sincerly wish that those who have faith of any kind, would search their hearts for that which is true and good and kind.
Life is precious and valueable. Not to be taken lightly.
Hi Charles..
This is fascinating to me as I believe that the www is a barometer of human success. We can be merely 2 legged animals or actualy reach out to the true nature of our soul, thus really becomming ourselves.
I see that the web demonstrates the extremes of polarity within our planet's society. On one hand we have the envious writing viruses to destroy other peoples' happiness and at the other extreme we have teams of developers offering their hard work for free in open source programs.
Currently I see the open source winning but then again I don't frequent the parts of the web where nasties are to be found.
However, being brought up as a Catholic here in Australia and seeing so much that pointed to the non-existence of God I went on a search to find out the truth. Nowdays I travel under the guise of a Hare Krishna although I am exactly the same soul that I always was.
Being as humble as a blade of grass, as tolerant as a tree and willing to offer respect to all living beings is the highest consciousness for ordinary humans, yet even among my brothers I see so many who have failed to recognise this simple truth. Jesus taught a similar doctrine. I have never come across any method of personal development that leads towards any other goal.
Being humble, tolerant, and respectful is pleasing to God (whether we call Him Allah, Krishna, Jehovah, Whatever) yet in our world people hijack religious doctrines purely to vent the spleen of their own predjudicial hatred upon their allocated victims.
God is beautiful and does not condemn followers of paths other than our own to eternal damnation. He gives credit where credit is due; even more, He is merciful, forgiving the transgressions of those who are truly repentant of their selfishness, even when we are still unable to control ourselves.
I can imagine that those who think that He does condemn followers of other paths to eternal suffering for the mere crime of being bewildered as to which path is correct as being hypocrites since no one could justifiably LOVE such a beastly god.
Yet that is our goal, to love God. Recognition of His amazing personal beauty inspires both love and surrender to His will (according to our ability), which bears no malice whatsoever.
Fanatacism is an indulgence like any other selfish persuit and is judged accordingly. Fanatacism keeps more people away from God than any other single cause. It is for this reason the Krishna says to Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita to abandon all religion and just surrender to Him. To surrender to our real (beautiful) nature.
As souls belonging to God our inherent (when realised) nature is similar to the nature of God and is all beautiful. Saints are renowned for their personal beauty not for how many heathens they have murdered.
One would necessarily need to be MAD to see following a religious path as anything other than a path to unimaginable beauty, and yet there we have it. Madness and other forms of self-indulgence are ruining our world. We cannot do anything to rid the world of the mad, that is God's arrangement.
We can, however, keep sharing and encouraging kindness, beauty, honesty, etc and especially generosity in any of its forms, which brings me back to the internet.
The internet is our connection to other souls who have chosen to be as wonderful as their karma permits. Let us keep on caring, sharing, humbly tolerating, and offering respect to one and all. But as we may respect a shark or a snake for it's beauty we must also avoid it wherever possible and sometimes even take steps to protect ourselves and our culture of love from such cruel danger.
I think that God is using the internet to network, to bring us all together, to do His work in showing the world how beautiful our lives really can be.
Humble apologies for verbosity.
tarunkrsna das
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