Have we forgotten?

[Thoreau]

With the current hostilities of war, politics, religion, and cultures, we often forget how to open our eyes and ears to those around us. How can one turn their ears away from the beauty of a cathedral choir as they sing hymns of worship and praise to god? How can we look away from the magnicificant beauty of a mosque standing high on a hilltop, covered in gold leaf and turqois stone, as the imam calls prayers of love and compassion from the minbar? How can we turn away from the inspiring Jewish temple with it's might standing high and the Star of David leading any in need?

How can we close our minds to our own brothers and sisters because they are different from us? Have we really forgotten how to appreciate all walks of life, religions, and cultures?

The day has come where we should exersice the ultimate good of human nature. In the effort to renew a sense of respect and compassion, I urge each of you in the coming weeks to visit places of worship that you have never visited before. Go to the mosques, temples, and churches that are not of your own faith. Sit and talk with their preists, congregations and followers and see what you can learn from them. Because I promise you one thing, if you try and if you open your hearts, you will learn something about yourself in return.

-MZ3Boy84

 

[Sarkus]

Stop preaching, please.

You are also confusing what your senses find beautiful with the words / symbolism / purpose of those things.
One can find a choir beautiful to listen to without needing to listen to / understand the words they sing - and find the architecture of a building beautiful without caring about the purpose of that building.

But either way, you are merely preaching.

 

[Bishadi]

With the current hostilities of war, politics, religion, and cultures, we often forget how to open our eyes and ears to those around us. How can one turn their ears away from the beauty of a cathedral choir as they sing hymns of worship and praise to god? How can we look away from the magnicificant beauty of a mosque standing high on a hilltop, covered in gold leaf and turqois stone, as the imam calls prayers of love and compassion from the minbar? How can we turn away from the inspiring Jewish temple with it's might standing high and the Star of David leading any in need?

How can we close our minds to our own brothers and sisters because they are different from us? Have we really forgotten how to appreciate all walks of life, religions, and cultures?

The day has come where we should exersice the ultimate good of human nature. In the effort to renew a sense of respect and compassion, I urge each of you in the coming weeks to visit places of worship that you have never visited before. Go to the mosques, temples, and churches that are not of your own faith. Sit and talk with their preists, congregations and followers and see what you can learn from them. Because I promise you one thing, if you try and if you open your hearts, you will learn something about yourself in return.

-MZ3Boy84

are you an artist?

you tap some sweet word

note post #2................then be what is so hard on reality; the "selves" are to busy using time for themselves, to actually give a hoot

sure we all like our own time to live but in this climate, this period, this time of ignorance; just read the news, the globe is up shit creek

but thanx for the picture

 

[scifes]

nah, i don't think this is preaching, as he's not calling to one religion in particular, i find the OP peaceful and soothing, something very appreciated and rare in the religion forum, (especially coming from an atheist[?])

 

[Balerion]

But war and politics are human nature. You can't have your choirs without also having battalions. Mosques and churches and temples don't exist without knives and swords and guns. Human nature is all of this, and you can't ask people to forsake one for the other.

These houses of worship you speak of, don't you know that they were built on conquered land? Land taken from another people with force?

Come on. This wishy-washy crap has never been the "true nature" of humanity. It's a romanticized, melodramatic dream. Yes, there is goodness in people, but humanity really is much more gray than that.

 

[wynn]

With the current hostilities of war, politics, religion, and cultures, we often forget how to open our eyes and ears to those around us. How can one turn their ears away from the beauty of a cathedral choir as they sing hymns of worship and praise to god? How can we look away from the magnicificant beauty of a mosque standing high on a hilltop, covered in gold leaf and turqois stone, as the imam calls prayers of love and compassion from the minbar? How can we turn away from the inspiring Jewish temple with it's might standing high and the Star of David leading any in need?

How can we close our minds to our own brothers and sisters because they are different from us? Have we really forgotten how to appreciate all walks of life, religions, and cultures?

The day has come where we should exersice the ultimate good of human nature. In the effort to renew a sense of respect and compassion, I urge each of you in the coming weeks to visit places of worship that you have never visited before. Go to the mosques, temples, and churches that are not of your own faith. Sit and talk with their preists, congregations and followers and see what you can learn from them. Because I promise you one thing, if you try and if you open your hearts, you will learn something about yourself in return.

-MZ3Boy84

How optimistic!

 

[wynn]

Stop preaching, please.

You are also confusing what your senses find beautiful with the words / symbolism / purpose of those things.
One can find a choir beautiful to listen to without needing to listen to / understand the words they sing - and find the architecture of a building beautiful without caring about the purpose of that building.

But either way, you are merely preaching.

But war and politics are human nature. You can't have your choirs without also having battalions. Mosques and churches and temples don't exist without knives and swords and guns. Human nature is all of this, and you can't ask people to forsake one for the other.

These houses of worship you speak of, don't you know that they were built on conquered land? Land taken from another people with force?

Come on. This wishy-washy crap has never been the "true nature" of humanity. It's a romanticized, melodramatic dream. Yes, there is goodness in people, but humanity really is much more gray than that.

While I am usually among the first to spit gall against optimism and positivism, I have this time decided to defend the OP, simply because believing that humanity is gray or beating down any notion of optimism makes life gray and devoid of optimism.


The OP's optimism might not have much substance nor provide any substantial encouragement. However, such an optimistic stance is still better than the gray, impersonal, purposeless realism that so many others propose.

 

[Sarkus]

It's not the content of the OP per se, nor the positivism / optimism you might perceive in it... but the fact that there's no request for comments or discussion, no request for information, nothing other than one person saying "do this for this reason".

That is preaching - just a different message to the norm.

 

[scifes]

it's a reminder of peace at a time of war, it's sharing a nice thought among all the bad ones, not all threads or posts have to be directed towards some people to disagree with, albeit this being a discussion forum.

 

[Enmos]

With the current hostilities of war, politics, religion, and cultures, we often forget how to open our eyes and ears to those around us. How can one turn their ears away from the beauty of a cathedral choir as they sing hymns of worship and praise to god? How can we look away from the magnicificant beauty of a mosque standing high on a hilltop, covered in gold leaf and turqois stone, as the imam calls prayers of love and compassion from the minbar? How can we turn away from the inspiring Jewish temple with it's might standing high and the Star of David leading any in need?

How can we close our minds to our own brothers and sisters because they are different from us? Have we really forgotten how to appreciate all walks of life, religions, and cultures?

The day has come where we should exersice the ultimate good of human nature. In the effort to renew a sense of respect and compassion, I urge each of you in the coming weeks to visit places of worship that you have never visited before. Go to the mosques, temples, and churches that are not of your own faith. Sit and talk with their preists, congregations and followers and see what you can learn from them. Because I promise you one thing, if you try and if you open your hearts, you will learn something about yourself in return.

-MZ3Boy84

I don't think we have forgotten anything. Seems to me things have always been this way..

 

[decons]

But war and politics are human nature. You can't have your choirs without also having battalions. Mosques and churches and temples don't exist without knives and swords and guns. Human nature is all of this, and you can't ask people to forsake one for the other.

These houses of worship you speak of, don't you know that they were built on conquered land? Land taken from another people with force?

Come on. This wishy-washy crap has never been the "true nature" of humanity. It's a romanticized, melodramatic dream. Yes, there is goodness in people, but humanity really is much more gray than that.

I don't agree with you on "human nature". I admit that there are differences between humans and other animals, and these could be called as "human nature". But war and politics are not among these differences. Chimpanzees also organize and kill to solve territorial or leadership disputes. I wonder if it is a common method among other apes.

Please have a look at this 4 minute video about the way a chimpanzee attack unfolds. It is very familiar: www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7XuXi3mqYM.

The scale of war and politics we employ shows our capabilities, but not our nature. An aspect of our human nature, the use of language, makes us excel in science and live in great numbers, therefore our ape-like actions such as organizing and attacking are also in great scale.

But this natural difference, language, is also responsible for our unique ability to determine the basic rights for every member of our species, to agree on the protection of other species in principle, and to solve serious disputes with diplomacy.

Our proud species has another skill, imagination, that is responsible for maximizing our needs, interests and reasons to mobilize politics and war. We don't only fight for food, territory and resources like cimpanzees. We can imagine a power over territories and people we have never seen.

But it is our distinctive skills of imagination and language, that make people of different political, religious, economical backgrounds agree to meet on this same ground, internet, and argue their points.

We share a great deal of our genes, between 94 - 98.5 %, with chimpanzees. Therefore our common behaviour patterns are also our nature. But we can choose to meet with people of different interests, and discuss. Chimpanzees cannot. Maybe they don't need to. We do.

 

[wynn]

It's not the content of the OP per se, nor the positivism / optimism you might perceive in it... but the fact that there's no request for comments or discussion, no request for information, nothing other than one person saying "do this for this reason".

That is preaching - just a different message to the norm.

He was just trying to be nice.

Now we can discuss whether the OP is preaching or not, whether the OP poster was just being nice, and why this is a problem at this forum.

 

[Thoreau]

My intent was not to preach. If anything, the intent was to encourage any who read this to have an open mind when it comes to others faith, something that in my observation is severely lacking in today's climate. I believe that an active search and understanding for those different from you results gained knowledge and a sense of peace. And I would love to hear of the experiences of any here who, in the coming weeks, choose to act upon this request and visit the places of worship, their leaders and congregations.

 

[Balerion]

I don't agree with you on "human nature". I admit that there are differences between humans and other animals, and these could be called as "human nature". But war and politics are not among these differences. Chimpanzees also organize and kill to solve territorial or leadership disputes. I wonder if it is a common method among other apes.

Please have a look at this 4 minute video about the way a chimpanzee attack unfolds. It is very familiar: www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7XuXi3mqYM.

The scale of war and politics we employ shows our capabilities, but not our nature. An aspect of our human nature, the use of language, makes us excel in science and live in great numbers, therefore our ape-like actions such as organizing and attacking are also in great scale.

But this natural difference, language, is also responsible for our unique ability to determine the basic rights for every member of our species, to agree on the protection of other species in principle, and to solve serious disputes with diplomacy.

Our proud species has another skill, imagination, that is responsible for maximizing our needs, interests and reasons to mobilize politics and war. We don't only fight for food, territory and resources like cimpanzees. We can imagine a power over territories and people we have never seen.

But it is our distinctive skills of imagination and language, that make people of different political, religious, economical backgrounds agree to meet on this same ground, internet, and argue their points.

We share a great deal of our genes, between 94 - 98.5 %, with chimpanzees. Therefore our common behaviour patterns are also our nature. But we can choose to meet with people of different interests, and discuss. Chimpanzees cannot. Maybe they don't need to. We do.

When I said it was "human nature" I did not mean in any way that it was exclusive to humans. Obviously I am aware that other animals have primitive versions of some of our institutions, such as society and even to some extent political structure. I did not imply otherwise. It was your misunderstanding.

And I'm also failing to see what the point of your post is. My contention was that social, political, and military conflict are our nature. Nothing you have said has contradicted that. So I'll assume you agree.

While the OP's optimism is nice, it isn't realistic. Not on a large scale, anyway. Defend it all you like, but war and politics will always exist in human society. There simply is no way to avoid it.