For people who are working to help reduce animosities and hostilities across belief divides

[Sirona]

A very good way to avoid animosities between people of different religious backgrounds in the first place would be not making baseless assumptions on those people's religious backgrounds, knowledge or sincerity while being blinded by one's personal bias.

And I'd suggest travelling. I've been to Mauritius, where Hindus, Muslims, Christians and the Chinese community co-exist peacefully.

 

[Vinayaka]

A very good way to avoid animosities between people of different religious backgrounds in the first place would be not making baseless assumptions on those people's religious backgrounds, knowledge or sincerity while being blinded by one's personal bias.

And I'd suggest travelling. I've been to Mauritius, where Hindus, Muslims, Christians and the Chinese community co-exist peacefully.

Mauritius is a model to the world. On Pereybere Beach we saw quite the variety of bathing suits. It's an iteresting dynamic for sure. So many public holidays!

 

[Jim]

I understand Jim.

I have been following your statements for awhile. I think you have a lot of the right ideas. But, there comes a point where I think it's not correct to label many, many people as having tactics, etc. It becomes a form of prejudice. I mean take the Games section for example. People can label some of the exchanges of the men there in bad ways, but really it's more like friendly male competition, I think:

By calling people out as deceptive, etc, we are creating a form of "Guilty until proven innocent."

Does it look like I think that it’s happening everywhere in these forums all the time? I don’t.

 

[Jim]

I’m still learning to recognize what needs to be ignored in people’s posts, and ignore it. I think that I’m doing that much better now than I ever have before, but I still make mistakes sometimes.

I’ve said before that one way to recognize unhealthy ways of doing things is to learn more about healthy ways. Now I think that for my purposes there might be no need to discuss unhealthy ways at all. Maybe all I need to discuss is healthy ways. I’m thinking of trying that now in the “Evolution vs Creationism” forum.

 

[Jim]

Now I’m thinking of trying sometimes to have friendly discussions with people about my disagreements with them, in discussions where they are having unfriendly conversations with each other.

 

[Jim]

I’m seeing again and again that sometimes any excuse will do, for people to indulge their worst impulses. One of those impulses is to vilify, disparage and denounce some group or category of people, and individuals in that group. I’ve seen people using the most amazing mental gymnastics to find new excuses and camouflage for that behavior if the ones they’ve been using lose their credibility. One popular excuse for that behavior is thinking that it’s a virtue, and even a social responsibility for everyone, to participate in some campaign of denunciation against some group or category of people. Another popular excuse for that behavior is thinking that it’s okay to treat people that way if the group or category is defined by what they believe or don’t believe.

I think that’s all part of human nature, but it’s also part of human nature to try to reduce and counteract the damage from the forces of nature, and bring them under our control as much as we can. I think that it’s well within human capacities now to learn to resist those impulses to draw lines of alienation and dehumanize people across those lines. One question is how to help inspire people to do that.

Currently part of my response to all that is practicing and promoting spiritual growth and community service with the aim of helping to improve the lives of all people everywhere, and learning not to post until I can do it with genuinely friendly feelings towards everyone.

 

[Sirona]

Before buying a product they ideally might have a very long time, prudent customers are advised to check whether the product actually does provide the function it is largely advertised to have and which is used as a major purchase incentive.

Prudent customers may also choose a different brand of product with the same function at a less expensive price, or with an instruction manual which may appear to some more consistent or easier to follow.

People buy all kinds of things for all kinds of reasons, anyway.

 

[Jim]

There are significant differences between research reports and religious scriptures, but sometimes people use them in identical ways. One of those ways is imagining them saying things that validate their prejudices and delusions, and their animosities, cruelty and hostilities across belief lines. Another way is belligerent attachment to thinking of some models, metaphors and stories as actual physical descriptions and histories.

 

[Revoltingest]

Things have gotten a little better after a brief hostile hiccup
from an angry poster (who realized the error of their ways).

 

[Audie]

Things have gotten a little better after a brief hostile hiccup
from an angry poster (who realized the error of their ways).

Reducing religious conflict will happen at the same rate that
religion is reduced.

 

[Jim]

Things have gotten a little better after a brief hostile hiccup
from an angry poster (who realized the error of their ways).

I wasn’t thinking of any hostilities that I’ve seen recently. Did I miss something?

 

[Jim]

Reducing religious conflict will happen at the same rate that
religion is reduced.

And science beliefs.

But I see science and religion beliefs more as symptoms than causes.

 

[Revoltingest]

Reducing religious conflict will happen at the same rate that
religion is reduced.

Alas, the kind of hostility & dangerous tribalism
which afflicts religion survives in politics.

 

[Revoltingest]

I wasn’t thinking of any hostilities that I’ve seen recently. Did I miss something?

You did.
But I dare not link the thread.
(I've been warned.)

 

[Audie]

And science beliefs.

But I see science and religion beliefs more as symptoms than causes.

You do have eccentric ways of seeing things.

Science does not do "beliefs".

If there were no religions, whose innate nature bringd
conflict, a great source of conflict would cease.

If science ended, we'd never have gotten past the
paleolithic.

Science is not a cause or result, how you can think
it is may be a mystery of nature.

What the heck are you even talking about.

 

[Audie]

Alas, the kind of hostility & dangerous tribalism
which afflicts religion survives in politics.

Absolutely. Tribalism is innate to both.

Flawed as it is, the govt of China is not a source of
conflict the way it is in the USA, and few Chinese wish
to introduce it.

 

[Revoltingest]

Absolutely. Tribalism is innate to both.

Flawed as it is, the govt of China is not a source of
conflict the way it is in the USA, and few Chinese wish
to introduce it.

Yes, China has a very effective way of diffusing conflict.
In-laws have told me of those....uh.....facilities.

 

[Jim]

I’ll repeat something I said, with one revision.

There are might be significant differences between research reports and religious scriptures, but sometimes people use them in identical ways. One of those ways is imagining them saying things that validate their prejudices and delusions, and their animosities, cruelty and hostilities across belief lines. Another way is belligerent attachment to thinking of some models, metaphors and stories as actual physical descriptions and histories.

 

[Jim]

What I want to practice and promote most of all, to help reduce and counteract animosities and hostilities across belief lines is friendliness and fellowship across those lines, and spiritual growth and community service revolving around self improvement guided by spiritual values and goals. I have some other ideas along with that. One of those is awareness of what I’m calling “science beliefs,” things that people think they know from science, and the ways they misuse research reports, which I see as identical to the ways that people misuse religious scriptures, in the reasons for that behavior and in its consequences.

Whenever I bring this up, people promoting and defending science beliefs start posting about differences between science and religion. No matter what differences there are between research reports and religious scriptures, and no matter how significant those differences are, that has nothing to do with what I’m saying, which is about how people are misusing them in hostile debating between factions. I see people imagining research reports saying what they want them to say, and using them to excuse and camouflage their prejudices, animosities and hostilities across belief lines, as much, for the same reasons and with the same harmful consequences as what people do with religious scriptures.

Anyone that anyone might say about differences between science and religion is irrelevant to what I’m saying here.