(Author's Note: The core ideas of this essay were written at the turn of the millennium-we can argue about the correct date some other time - 2000 or 2001. I have tweaked it more for today. I may have to tweak this some more but the general theme is relevant today. I list this as a draft because I believe there is still a great deal to say.)
One of my least favorite songs is "It's a Small World." So it is kind of ironic that I chose that as the title of my topic today. But I have been kicking around a few ideas over the past few years and the title just seemed to fit.
At the change of the millennium it occurred to me how lucky we are. I spent New Year's Eve watching from the safety of my own home. The Y2K bug didn't scare me but I don't drink and I have always enjoyed being home with the people who mean the most to me, my family. I was impressed by the way the world came together to fight a common enemy, human shortsightedness.
The world is getting smaller. For 24 hours we watched as it got smaller still. Every inhabited spot in the world took time to celebrate the millennium. Never mind the fact that it might have been a year premature, that is not as important as the fact that the world came together. With all the hype from the last 2, 3, or 4 years about the Y2K computer problem, whether it was a hoax or not, we have shown that humans can pull together for the common good. (It seems that there are always individuals or groups who try to frighten or panic the populations, for whatever reasons.)
And that brings me to my second point. Everything is believed. About a couple of years ago I started kicking around this idea. It is not entirely my idea, but one I am beginning to share with a large number of people. Everything is believed. For most of my life I have been searching. I have read a lot about other belief systems, some of those written by people who fervently believe in what they are writing. I have looked at a lot of things and it is true, everything is believed. You can come up with any idea and I am sure that you can find people who believe in it.
There are many different religions in the world today. There are religions that believe in the spirituality of man; those that believe in the sanctity of nature; those that believe in one god; those that believe in none. There are those that believe in themselves and those that believe in nothing. Save the whales, save the ocean. Save the birds, save the trees. Save everything. (My wife says that is what I, the pack rat, believe in, save everything.)
All we have to do now is look around us. We see it in our society today. We saw that in the riots in Seattle (This was originally written around the 1999 World Trade Organization Meeting). Seattle was interesting in that people from many different groups came together to fight a perceived common enemy. Longshoreman, teamsters, Union workers together with environmentalist and animal lovers. It seemed that every belief group got together to protest what they felt was an affront to their beliefs. Everything is believed. Everyone has a voice. I think the riots in Seattle were an important event in our lives and coming so close to the Millennium celebration was extremely profound. Different groups coming together. This is very significant.
I have been reading a lot about the coming together of groups. Cultures are becoming less diverse, or at least less mysterious. This new "openness', I'll call it, is not happening just in cultures. I used to think that to believe in something meant giving it your whole heart and believing in that and nothing else. Well, in the past few months (years) I have learned that even the staunchest and most rigid religions of the world can break down the walls.
I find this very significant. For the first time in thousands of years, the religions of the world are becoming more open. I just recently found out that the Catholic religion has set up a Vatican committee that regularly meets with other religions "From Anglicans to Zoroastrians" not to persuade but to discuss the benefits of spirituality. That Catholics meet with other religions is not significant. The important thing is that these discussions were going on -- at least prior to 2001.
I often surf the internet at night and go into the Buddhist or Hindu chat sites just to check out different views. I wanted to point this out. And religions are a major point that I want to make. I grew up in a world where we were afraid that the world would end with a great war of religion in the Middle East. I am not going to say that that won’t happen but I will offer this to you. During the past 30 years our world has been full of terrorism. Things change. Just this past weekend I was reading in the esteemed journal 'The Economist" and they said that Islam was becoming more mainstream. The majority of Muslims have decided to become a gentler force. "We want to be seen as an opposition force and not as a resistance movement, and to work from within the system rather than seek to overthrow it.” I looked at the new millennium with great optimism. As we entered the new millennium new opportunities opened for all mankind. But we must become more tolerant and more understanding of each other. Those thoughts were wounded on September 11, 2001
We are becoming a small world. We are closer, we will have more interactions, and we will have more differences. We must learn to deal with those differences. Those differences will make us stronger. We hear the term a lot now about the global economy. That is still some future ideal. There are still many peoples that are not a part of our world. But we have taken that first step.
For those people to join the global economy they must be given the opportunity, they must be given the choice. Opportunity and choice. These things must exist together for the global ideal to occur. Economically, we can offer that. But there is one more thing that we must offer and strive for. We must strive for tolerance. Tolerance of others beliefs and cultures. That is an ideal that may prove to be somewhat more elusive. We must be able to accept other peoples' religious beliefs. That is the very nature of a people, of a society. A belief system is by its definition a very powerful force in a person's life. In some ways it is what makes them who they are. We must acknowledge that belief, that characteristic. We must allow it to flourish and coexist with our own belief system. This is important. This creates an important dilemma. I will leave you with that thought and this….does tolerance of other people's faiths or beliefs trivialize our own? If we acknowledge others as having a right to believe or worship as they do does that diminish our own? It is a narrow and difficult path to walk.
Some quotes on tolerance:
"No man has a right in America to treat any other man "tolerantly" for tolerance is the assumption of superiority. Our liberties are equal rights of every citizen." --Wendell L. Willkie
"Tolerance. I have seen gross intolerance shown in support of tolerance." --Samuel Taylor Coleridge
"The responsibility of tolerance lies in those who have the wider vision." --George Eliot
"Tolerance comes with age. I see no fault committed that I myself could not have committed at some time or other. "--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"People are very open-minded about new things--as long as they're exactly like the old ones. "--Charles F. Kettering
"Tolerance is another word for indifference." --W. Somerset Maugham
"Broad-minded is just another way of saying a fellow's too lazy to form an opinion." --Will Rogers
"It is easy to be tolerant of the principles of other people if you have none of your own. "--Herbert Samuel
"Tolerance is the oil which takes the friction out of life." --Wilbert E. Scheer
