Culture and Religion

A world view where the guide for society is based on human nature,
 not on ancient scriptures.  Home  or Topic Groups

This collection of topics, a brief view of life, could be used to teach an adolescent the basics about life.

Love

'Love one another' is a frequently heard slogan. According to the Bible, there are two basic commandments with the second being: 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.'

Every human being is in some way different than another. To love another there must be respect for the other with recognition and acceptance of those differences.

Many religions make this love difficult. Each religion has its followers and of course everyone else is not a follower. To distinguish one group from another, the non-believers are either ignorant or intentionally denying the beliefs in the first group. Those ignorant will be approached in an attempt to indoctrinate them while the second group will be declared as a problem to be avoided or perhaps harassed since they pose a danger where those in the first group might be tempted to leave and follow the beliefs within the second group. These behaviors are not of 'respect and acceptance' but rather based on attempted change to achieve conformance.

Nearly every political policy will make this love difficult. There are rules and regulations that seek to protect citizens from harm but most policies are intended to provide a benefit to some to the detriment of others. Sometimes it is just a case of majority rule, where those having something in common will pursue policies to the detriment of the minority. Recent tax cuts for the wealthy is one example, where the poor pay for the benefits gathered by the rich (whose income is often unearned but paid based on holdings not on effort). These policies could be based on religion, race or some other human characteristic. One example is communities that are mostly Christian might attempt to bring their Christian teachings into the public school classroom, which will isolate all non-Christians. The policy's goal is conformance not acceptance and tolerance.

Many communities and countries have economic classes where a few are born within families having wealth (money, land, business, etc.) while many are born with less. Those born with wealth and privilege will often attempt to hold onto that distinction, either blaming the rest as either not worthy of those privileges or as claiming the rest do not work hard enough to achieve the higher class. Since those of wealth usually have more influence on politicians, this inherent inequity is difficult to address where everyone should have the same basic needs satisfied like health care and education; these services should not be distributed based on position at birth. Health care in America is based on what can be purchased (so those parents that are employed can support their children better than those that have lost their jobs) while education is based on the local economic base (so poor communities cannot afford the same quality of education as rich communities). There are few societies having enough 'love' where these problems are addressed since national policies often prevent the same universal health care and education for everyone.


created - December 2011
last change - 12/17/2011
Here is the list of topics in this Life Topic Group
All Topic Groups are available by selecting More TG.
All topics in the site are in the Site Map, where each Topic Group has its topics indented below it.

Ctrl + for zoom in;  Ctrl - for zoom out ;  Ctrl 0 for no zoom;
triple-tap for zoom to fit;  pinch for zoom change;  pinched for no zoom