There Is Still A Chance To Understand Rather Than Hate

It is a tumultuous time right now. Oh, it's not as bad as the 50's, but I guess for our lifetimes it's pretty rough. We're dealing with gay rights, racial issues and threats from Islamic countries.  It can lead one to take the easy way out and just keep to "our own kind" but that doesn't help anyone.

I recently saw a meme from Bill Nye who said there is "there is no such thing as race, that we're all one species". That's a good starting point for people to remember that we're all in this together.  As far as gay rights go, well all "gay rights" are just "human rights" too, aren't they?  This leads us to the last issue and that is that there are people from one particular religion who seem to have it out for us. This one is especially tough because there are a good dozen or so examples of their hatred towards us. This seems like a lot until you realize that there are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world.  I can't even do that math.  I can tell you it looks like this-1,600,000,000,000 to say maybe 30 people who've actually carried out attacks.  This isn't to say I don' think there's a problem, I do. However, when I see t.v. talking heads and memes trying to judge an entire people, I have to suspect they have other motives than true justice.

I have a friend that came from a hardcore Muslim area. She is NOT a member of that religion at all, in fact she's an atheist who was fortunate to get out and study at Tech. She's lucky her family had the money to protect her at home and get her to place where she can be free to live her life the way she wants. It makes me wonder how many of that 1.6 billion number really hate us or are just under a giant umbrella and are counted as enemies when they really aren't.  That's the kind of thing that keeps me from being a part of the "bomb 'em all and let god sort them out" crowd. Think about this, in 2013 there were over 13,000 murders in the U.S.  It would probably be safe to say that a couple of dozen of those were committed by plumbers (or teachers, or any other popular profession), and no one is screaming "kill all the plumbers".  I know you want to say "that's not the same", but it really kind of is.  Now with that said, there are certain groups, like ISIS that are declared enemies of the U.S. and I certainly hope we wipe them out without a second thought.

So I dwelt on that last part a bit too much for even my liking. The truth is, it's hard to justify giving someone the benefit of the doubt when they kick you over and over again. We just all have to remember that the people "doing the kicking" are a tiny, tiny fraction of the whole. I also must admit that I've come back to this blog a dozen times because I don't want anyone to think I'm giving this religion "a pass". Taken literally the Koran is SCARY, but then again, so is the Bible.