There are times I read posts on various threads here and it is enough to make me cry, especially when it comes to matters of religion and culture. I
see so much intolerance and so much bigotry and so much willful ignorance and a refusal to truly educate oneself as opposed to mouthing favorite
prejudices.
When you look at the richness and complexity of human culture. The beautiful array of races and the range of expression we humans have from the
sublime to the grotesque. From the darkness of the holocaust to our most profound musings about our place in the universe... how can a soul say my way
of living, of worshipping, of expressing love is the only or best way?
When you look at the vast diversity of life our little ball of blue contains from viruses right on the edge between living and not, to the majesty of
a blue whale... all of it, squirming, eatting, breathing, copulating, breeding, living and dying... how can one look at this diversity and see nothing
but a resourse, a profit margin or a hinderence, worse yet something to market as your own as if life itself is nothing but a commodity?
And when you look out at the universe itself, ranging from the most minute speck of matter to massive stars or galaxies... knowing that infinite
distances conceal in every dark spot of sky what has been called a virtual snowstorm of galaxies... each and every one home to millions of stars and
untold planets, and possibly, no probably full of life... How can a person look at such a spectacle and not feel as Rainer Marie Rilke wrote..."It is
breathtaking just to be here."
How can one look at this magical, this mystical, this wonderous display of creation in all of its glory and proclaim that your and only your path to
the ineffable, that which we call the divine is the only way and to consign all others who feel, live, worship or pray differently to some hell
fire?
I cannot imagine such a God that would be so restricting.
If God is unknowable, and God is infinite, then the pathways to that God are also infinite, requiring only an open heart and an open mind.
Compassion, mercy, awe, love... all the finest expressions the human heart is capable of are the key.
There is no place for bigotry, or hatred, or intolerance on the path to the infinite.
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