People Are Strange....The Continuing Saga..No. 1

We all know people are strange. It is really a matter of people being different from us. We judge people and make decisions about their suitability and acceptability based on the norms of our own culture and ethnicity (ethnocentrism). An example of this sort of thinking is easy to come up with. We politely refer to certain foods as "delicacies." That translates to, I would not eat that crap if I was starving i.e. monkey brains, fish heads, bull testicles, etc.

Now, there are people that truly enjoy these foods, but we consider them strange because they are unacceptable in our society, for the most part. The truth is that they are not so much strange and the people that eat them are not strange, they are just different and from different cultures. In my humble opinion, the people that consider this behavior to be "strange" are small-minded and think that the only true way is the way they believe to be right.

Beware of the true believers as they are the most dangerous people on the planet, regardless of what they might believe in. The true believers are the terrorists that will blow themselves and everyone around them to smithereens because they believe all people should be Muslims and practice Islam. Oh, but not just Islam, but their particular variety of Islam. They have no trouble blowing up fellow Muslims of different sects as well as Christians and Jews, for the true believer is intolerant of any dissent of any kind.

Christians have their true believers, as do Jews and pretty much any religious denomination, even within the Christian religion. These true believers are no less dangerous than those that attacked on 911. They are just a bit more insidious. We have a group that assassinates doctors that perform abortions, believing that they are acting in self defense of the unborn. We have the true believers that propound that cities like Las Vegas and New Orleans, when struck by natural disaster are victims of the Lord's wrath. They refuse to assist in the recovery or rebuilding of those cities, turning their back on the people that live there. These are very un-Christian kinds of thinking and activities in my mind.

Would it not be more consistent to allow these practitioners of different religions and beliefs, and the hedonists and pagans and whatever, to just continue to engage in their practices and let God judge them when the Judgment Day comes? If the true believer truly believes that if I am a Catholic and I am going to go to Hell for being a Catholic, why not just let me practice my beliefs and ride the bus to Hell when I die, rather than kill me because I do not believe as him or her? Intolerance of another's belief system has produced the worst atrocities known to man; the Christian Crusades, The Ethnic Cleansing in the Baltic and, lest we forget, Nazi Germany. Now, we have the intolerant, true believer Muslims becoming martyrs for their cause. I do want to note that the "true believers" within Islam of whom I speak are but a miniscule minority within that religion. We can no more lump all Muslims together as we can all Blacks, all Christians, all Jews or all Germans during WWII.

I shall close with the profound, but all too often dismissed, words of Rodney King. Yes, Rodney King !! He said, "Can we all get along? Can we get along?" Forget where it came from, the circumstances of which it was spoken and the individual from whom it came. The words are no less true and profound in today's somewhat messed up world. You can find wisdom in some strange places too.