There are no Jews, Christians or Muslims here...
By livewyre
@livewyre (2450)
March 10, 2010 2:23am CST
There are just people who have adopted a faith or set of beliefs - what I mean is that people should be seen first and foremost as fellow human beings.
Two Jews may not think the same, two Christians may have different thoughts and two Muslims may disagree, so why do we treat them like they are all the same?
So my question is this:
Can we treat people as individuals or are we all defined by our faith?
2 people like this
8 responses
@PocketRocketsAA (628)
• Philippines
10 Mar 10
I agree with what you said, Livewire. Many of us have adopted and followed a particular religion, but having different beliefs doesn't change the fact that all of us are brothers, fellow human beings. We may be different in color, language and culture, but we are all equals, hence we should treat every one with equal respect regardless of their faith and beliefs. Different religions, different ways of life, different Gods, but the purpose of of religion is one and the same: to live a moral life with regards not only to ourselves but our fellow brothers and sisters.
@livewyre (2450)
•
10 Mar 10
I agree with most of your sentiments, but not exactly with the idea that the purpose of religion is always to lead a moral life - and maybe that's one of the things I am trying to get at. Everyone has their own reasons for believing what they believe, and personally I am interested in 'truth' rather than morality. It may well be that a lot of people who would tag themselves with the same religious label would actually say morality to them is more important than truth. Either way, hopefully a moral life is the outcome anyway
@PocketRocketsAA (628)
• Philippines
11 Mar 10
Thanks for enlightening me about what you said about the purpose of religion. I have to ask though, since I've encountered this in class, if truth is what your after then is it not more of a philosophy than a religion?
@jimeny (640)
• Israel
10 Mar 10
You have one mistake.
I am a Jew by birth. Jews belong to the same ethnic and religion group. You can be a Jew even if you don't believe in Judaism.
As to your question-
When we know someone, we can treat him as individual, but when we look at a group that we don't know personally- we look at them as a whole.
I'm not talking about religion only... for example- I can say that Chinese people are good at math, that Australian are polite and that Philipinos are good workers.
I'm not saying that they are, but that's the prejudice that we have of them because of 'previous' experience we had with people from the same group.
@livewyre (2450)
•
10 Mar 10
In terms of race discrimination laws in the UK, Jews are the only religious group who are genuinely seen as a racial group too. You cannot take up a case of racial discrimination because you have been discriminated against for anything relating to Christianity, Islam etc, but you CAN if you are Jewish. The legal definition is quite loose, but includes factors such as a collective history and culture even without the geographical location.
My point however, is that people should be encouraged to look beyond the religious label and not to make ill-informed assumptions based on professed faith, or any other idealogy.
@livewyre (2450)
•
10 Mar 10
It is not a mistake, it is a deliberate provocation, but I take your point that you can be born Jewish therefore you ARE Jewish come what may. My point however addresses your point directly. You are a Jew by birth, therefore you will be categorised as a Jew regardless of what you actually believe, so that is in fact a perfect illustration of my point: we cannot assume a belief-set based on the label alone.
Naturally we categorise people and are prejudiced because it is in our nature, my point was really to extend this thinking to religious groups. we are (mostly) aware that it is wrong to judge based on ethnicity or skin-colour alone, however I see a lot of religious intolerance that indicates to me that people assume too much based on a religious label. We know not to discriminate based on race, it still seems acceptable to discriminate based on religion (apart from in the case of Jews who are the only real racial group that are identified by a faith).
@jimeny (640)
• Israel
10 Mar 10
Jews are not a race. There are Arab Jews, European Jews, Asian Jews and more... the thing that make them all Jews is their culture and collective history.
People can't help themselves from categorizing other humans into groups... How else can they refer to a mass of human beings who share an opinion or a faith? you wouldn't check one by one whether they are A or B. You'll just go by the majority.
I know that Judaism have tolerancing groups, and fanatic groups, but the tolerancing groups are the majority so Jews are considered tolerancing.
@apocalypsereturns (368)
• India
10 Mar 10
I agree with you on the point of viewing people as fellow human beings rather than as a person of a different beleif.
There are fight between even two brothers , even they dont think alike so how can 7billion people think in the same way.
everyone is unique and has to be accepted that way.
I think the person is bad not the religion
@Makro74 (591)
•
10 Mar 10
Actually, the route problem is intelligence given to the human race and the ability to think and make judgements of right and wrong and yet have many animalistic instincts.
The bottom line is, we are no different materially to our nearest animal relatives- the monkey, and we have the bio functions of all mammals and indeed living beings on this earth. However, the human race only advances due to the creative intelligence it possesses and to be able to make and think. This is what differs us from the animal kingdom.
But with great power of intelligence comes responsibility which God has given to mankind. Mankind being weak becomes irresponsible, arrogant, greedy and turns on each other- this is the destructive element of possessing such intelligence.
With this status of Man, God invites mankind to worship Him and therefore correctly ensue his responsibiltiy. But humans are feable, they succomb to worldy desires and forget their creator. For all intents and purpose, all life on Earth is obedient to the Will of God. Man however, often is disobedient - he does not recognise the folly of his ways until it is too late.
Juduaism, Christianity, Islam was sent however, as a Mercy from God to correct Man's ways so that he realises his true purpose on Earth. God has sent down guidance in all these religions through their founders, so in essence their is nothing wrong in the pure teachings of that religion as they were at the time of their creation. The problem is man himself, not being able to reconcile petty differences and finds excuse to differ one from another.
Religion is one such excuse to either persecute or fight in the name of - both are inconcievable to be part of the Will of God in any true religion. Moreover, if you look very deeply into any religion, you will find a chronology of peace being advocated but only twisted and corrupted by the stench of man's conspiracies.
No, individuals need to be respected whatever they believe in, unless they commit crimes for which the authorities need to be fair and just in accusing them. We are however, defined by our faith in the community we may belong to or as to what be believe. But this should not get in the way of day to day life.
For example, it is appalling that in India, we still have, in places, a system where an upper caste rich person is all too powerful and committs attrocities on lower caste people - eg raping a lower caste girl, but if she ever lifts a finger in accusation, she will be shuned and punished.
This is what mankind in their faith and traditions seems to think as appropriate, but no religion preaches such cruelty others.
God has created individuals to add shine to his creation, but they all have one purpose, to worship God for it is Him they will all return.
@livewyre (2450)
•
10 Mar 10
I believe we are wrongly defined by our faith - it is a mistake to do so in my opinion because a religious 'label' may give a hint as to what a person believes, but this does not define them.
I don't believe you should assume that because someone chooses a specific label, that you can predict every moral decision they will make, or every specific belief that they may have.
@livewyre (2450)
•
11 Mar 10
Hi Makro, your post is quite lengthy and deals with your beliefs which while interesting, only address the actual question in the discussion when you say 'We are however, defined by our faith in the community we may belong to'.
That is why my reply is limited to this comment specifically, because this is the crux if the discussion.
I agree that man was created to worship God, however my question is centred around the idea that if someone says they are 'Christian' or 'Muslim', we automatically tend to make a whole load of assumptions based on our limited knowledge or experience of that faith.
@snoopyfan (1312)
• United States
10 Mar 10
I agree with your points. I am Catholic and I respect all religions. The only time I get upset is when people bash me for what I believe in. I know different religions say I am praying to the right God or non-believers really bash us and I have been bashed here a few times to the point I am avoiding some people. To be honest I have often wondered how does anyone now that we are all praying to the same God. This is only my opinion but since in my faith God created everyone maybe and just maybe all these different Gods are one and the same. I believe we all should respect each others no matter what your faith is. If someone is Jewish, or Muslim they deserve to be treated the same as other Catholics and Christians. Jesus said for us to love our neighbor. It is so easy to do that with friends and family(some family members LOL). How hard is it to do that with people we don't like. It is very hard for me to love my neighbor when I don't like the person I do pray for them. I don't ask a lot when I am meeting people about their religion it may come up later. By that time I already have some kind of relationship with them.
I just think it would be something when people go to Heaven and they find out God has gone by many names and all the arguing over who is praying to the real God was just a waste of time that could have been used getting to know someone and loving our neighbor.
Thanks for the great question
@livewyre (2450)
•
10 Mar 10
Thank you for your considered response, I was not meaning to try and make out that we are all praying to the same God - that is a very different discussion! I am however urging people NOT to judge people by their own conception of someones faith, as more often than not, our preconceptions are way off the mark.
@snoopyfan (1312)
• United States
10 Mar 10
I understand you weren't making that point and you are right that is another discussion. I was just using that as a example. I agree with you people shouldn't be judged by their faith and more what type of person they are only. Everyone no matter what their religion is does get stereotyped in that faith. And yes agree again preconceptions are off the mark. We shouldn't judge yet sadly we do.
@laura_lmaxi (678)
• United States
10 Mar 10
Everybody should be treated as individuals because we are all different, in some cases, different religion means different lifestyle, but as I said before we are all individuals human beings that can have different points of view of everything regardless of the religion. I am atheist, and I get along mostly with everybody that can be tolerant with my way of thinking, as I am tolerant with his. I don't think it is good to label everybody, because even inside of any religion there are different points of view so I think we should be treated as different individuals
@livewyre (2450)
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10 Mar 10
Exactly - we can't expect everyone professing to have the same faith to have exactly the same beliefs - that is why they are different factions and denominations. There are even differences between people who say they are of the same faith on some quite fundamental questions.
@mr_pearl (5018)
• India
10 Mar 10
Wonderful topic!
Personally, I don't believe in any religion. I believe that we're all humans and we should treat each other equally. It is simply useless to criticize or nag or mistreat someone who is in our power and who doesn't belong to our religion. Nature didn't create these religions; it created us! And if we stand united as humans only, we'll have gone far ahead than where we're now.
Unfortunately there are some frankensteins, who understand this truth, but pretend that they don't! Some of the fools, don't understand this at all. I have had conversations with many about this and most of them tried telling me the same thing- 'My religion is the best and TRUE!' I have not given up though, I keep spreading the message all the time... We should all do it! right?
Happy myLotting!
@livewyre (2450)
•
10 Mar 10
Thank you - I have no problem with people saying that their beliefs are true - after all I wouldn't expect them to believe them if they didn't think they were true - to me, truth is the most important thing.
My problem comes with the assumptions that people make based on someones beliefs - or even the beliefs that are assumed because of the religious 'label' someone wears. It is important to see someone as a person first before they think about the label - of course my discussion title was meant to provoke a response, there are plenty of people here who assign themselves all sorts of labels of this kind - my concern is that lot of people will have a preconceived idea of what each group believes without bothering to find out if this is the case. Even Atheists can be categorised based on someone else's idea of what an Atheist should be.
@neildc (17239)
• Lapu-Lapu City, Philippines
10 Mar 10
i also don't believe that we will be saved because we are christians or muslims or jews. it's the way we live and how we believe in the almighty. i have seen people in the same group. they belong to the same religious group but they don't agree with some things. each individual will be judged according to their works not being a jew, a catholic, a christian, etc.
@livewyre (2450)
•
10 Mar 10
'Judged on works' is a specific belief that I would not necessarily adhere to, but i appreciate the point that it doesn't matter what 'tag' we carry, it's what is in our hearts that counts.
However the point of the discussion was not meant to say 'all faiths lead to God' because that is a specific belief that I do not adhere to - and that is my point... other people who may choose to apply a particular religious tag to themselves MAY choose that specific belief, and therefore, even though we may have chosen the same religious 'label' our beliefs may be diametrically opposed and therefore we cannot assume a 'brotherhood'.
To be more specific, people have an idea in their heads of what a Jew, a Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Sikh etc... believe - however the reality is that all faiths hold people of widely differing opinions and they cannot all be lumped together.
