It is true that most people have good hearts and simply want to live each day of their lives as best they can. Generally speaking most people will adhere willingly to rules that make sense to them. They obey traffic lights and drive on the proper side of the road. They pay for items at a store rather than stealing what they want. They work as a community, understanding that if we are to live peacefully each of us must be conscious of our obligations to each other.
Sadly there have always been aberrations in human behavior. For one reason or another we have thieves and murders, greedy businessmen and dictators. These are people who spurn the rules and take whatever they want for themselves, more often than not without any sense of guilt. We have never been completely able to understand their behavior. We wonder if they were born that way or developed criminal tendencies from life events that left them tainted. Perhaps they result from both nature and nurture. What ever the reasons they are outliers in society whose behaviors rock the safety and security of our mutual agreements to live in peace.
All too often such people end up in charge of companies and nations. They manage to curb their ugly tendencies just enough to avoid punishment and to portray themselves as saviors for the rest of us. They bully their way to the top and then inflict their poisonous ideas on the rest of us. Once they are ensconced we either meekly follow their rules or have to rouse ourselves from the comfort of our routines to take back our freedoms. Thus we watch the repetitions of history that should have taught us to be wary, but often get past us because we were not paying attention to the warning signs.
We humans are complex beings. We are only beginning to garner some understanding of how our brains work. We do not yet know exactly why some among us develop mental illnesses nor how to control and treat those illnesses in the ways that we heal hearts. Perhaps in a glorious future we will find the ways to stop mental illness by repairing the mechanisms that create havoc in an individual’s brain. Until then we will grapple with the diseases of the mind that inflict so much harm on both the individual with the illness and those with whom he or she interacts.
Humans the world over are mostly moral people but sometimes we entangle our personal beliefs with what is truly right and just. We use religious beliefs to judge others and sometimes even attempt to encode our thinking into laws that everyone must follow. Given that the many religions of the world do not always intersect in the same ways, attempts to create a one size fits all version of societal beliefs always ends badly. History is littered with the bodies of individuals who were imprisoned or murdered because their faith did not conform to the beliefs of those in control.
We definitely need laws and courts and even fair punishments for crimes but we must be cautious in using the personal beliefs of a few to outlaw those with which they do not agree. Why should it matter to us who a person loves and wants to marry so long as we are not forced to adhere to their beliefs? Why can’t we simply live and let live? There are much more important issues to consider. Why do we attempt to criminalize an individual who has quietly changed his or her identity from that which someone proclaimed at birth? We don’t have to be them or even embrace them, but we certainly should not be punishing them. I truly doubt that anyone would choose to go through the hell that they too often endure just to be contrary. Why can’t we simply accept and love them without judgement?
There are movements all over the world to place religions and religious beliefs at the heart of governments. When that happens there will always be losers who will either abandon their own personal beliefs or live in fear of being discovered. Why can’t those who are praying in Congress and claiming to be sent by God simply enjoy their faith quietly. Do they not understand that the most effective way to influence others is by the examples of behavior?
I know people of many different religions and all of them hold moral values that iIadmire. I do not feel the need to convert the Jews that I know to Christianity. I have never believed that Muslims have chosen the wrong path. It does not matter to me that the generous and loving Buddhists that I know have beliefs that differ from my own. I am a Catholic but I know and love Baptists, Episcopalians, Methodists, and non denominational Christians. Jesus is at the core of our beliefs but from there the variations are many. I know agnostics and atheists who are more loving and kind than some who adhere to strict religious dictates. I prefer keeping religions out of public schools, out of our government.
It is not up to me or anyone else to judge how people live unless they do something horrid and hurtful. I am fully against all efforts to force individuals to conform to certain sets of religious standards other than the obvious crimes of murder, theft, and violence. Beyond that let people be whoever they wish to be without argument or hate. Protect people’s freedoms but do not enact laws that make criminals out of those who choose to follow a different way of thinking and living. If we really think about it, it should make perfect sense. Then we can get back to working on the things that really matter like making sure that every person on the earth has food to eat and a safe place to stay. It really is as simple as that.
All It Takes Is A Little Love 