The struggle of how to look at the world

In a chat room I was in recently I was listening to a debate between an Islamic Sunni and Shia defender. I was not of a critical mindset listening to their discussion or in the reaction I gave toward either chatter. There is a reason I wasn’t critical or hostile toward them. I have an evolving perspective of life, the world, and the human condition that has lead me to where I am.

 

My perspective has been growing and changing a lot lately. There is a reason I find no justification for the condemnation of either person in this chat room and a reason that I refuse to condemn anyone anywhere of whatever religion, nation, or culture. There is a reason I won’t condemn and a reason why I now have universal compassion.

 

I’ve been increasingly made more aware and empathetic to what we’re all up against in thought. Clearly there is a great vulnerability experienced by the human person in the world up against the existence and persuasion of thought and it’s systems of all kinds.

 

Anyone who study’s history and uses philosophical inquiry to try and appreciate life the more they must see the human person is an impressionable, vulnerable, susceptible, easily persuaded, often naively manipulated, very gullible victim in a planet of ideas, ideology, religion and tribalism.

 

Consider the person as a blank piece of paper. As the person goes through life all arguments effect the person on the page of the paper. The person isn’t capable of a great discernment merely by existing in nature because whatever culture, whatever personal experience the person has, it can and does effect any person anywhere they happen to be in the world. A person is susceptible to any kind of system or persuasion of thought. No one is truly immune to catching the bug of whatever ideas overwhelm their experience, location, nation, or because of whatever religion happens to dominate their environment there etc..

 

A person may think they have this great will that they can use anywhere to sift through all human experiences.They may naively think that they could have lived in any other persons shoes everywhere at all and still arrived at the same version of the truth as they presently profess to know but they are greatly mistaken.

 

Thinking oneself able to guarantee to personally know all worthwhile thought is a conviction you may hold but it is like a delusion or a kind of very grandiose false belief. I routinely experience such false beliefs with schizophrenia only these false beliefs are held by you and by most of humanity in some form.

 

Maybe your solidarity and who you accept and who you don’t accept is nationalistic or religious or racial. Maybe you lose favor for non Canadians, non Americans, other races, other cultures, other religions which teach people a tradition you find morally corrupt, ideologically flawed. Maybe you think God is on your side and has decided to favor you over billions of other people.

 

I wanted to say to the Sunni that despised the Shia, and vice versa, why can't you have an understanding for the human condition. I wanted to say to them in a clear way why do you think God favors you and hates the other group. Isn't such thinking confused, angry, a kind of trap that our vague, foggy, unclear minds fall into. Isn’t it a perspective that people constantly arrive at while agitated by what we clearly don’t fully perceive and because of what we misinterpret. These judgments are ones we make far to easily of one another, where often there is no forgiveness, no understanding, just a rivalry and a form of dislike that is often venomous.

 

Aren't the Muslims themselves, with their great philosophers, insightful enough to know that Sunni and Shia converts are simply innocent human minds who have become persuaded by different teachers. Shouldn’t they find understanding then by realizing that vulnerable listeners should retain their same humanity despite the version of Islam they adopt, despite it’s “authenticity,” despite what they hear and get drawn into and follow. Isn’t it really true that people do more commonly then uncommonly get blindly persuaded by teachers of different kinds. These articulate and persuasive teachers have different ways of looking at the world and their sermons and lectures are very compelling to minds looking for guidance. These different ideas suggest what, God, or Allah, as Muslims call God, desires.

 

Then there is Christianity to consider as well. There was the Thirty Year War fought primarily in Central Europe between 1618-1648. Initially it was a war between Catholic and Protestant states. Christians for a long time have fought each other over doctrine and those arguments over theology continue today. There were the religious wars the crusades. There was the Inquisition a Christian version of the same kind of struggles Muslims have faced with Christians killing Christians.

 

I started off by saying I find no reason to condemn anyone anywhere. I love Canada, it’s a great country, and persuasively it can be argued to be the greatest country anywhere on Earth. There is a freedom to love all of humanity from these shores. There is a freedom from here to love and to be compassionate and to hope for all men and women and children everywhere. It is my right to believe in something fairer then what I often hear. That fairness is reachable only by transcending the voices of the supposed knowledge and wisdom around me. It is a freedom to hope in a purpose that doesn’t exclude 3.4th of the world to eternal damnation. It is belief in clearer thought that is reasonable and really understands the ideological struggles humanity faces with different ideas. This outlook sincerely empathizes with the people in all the billions of personal experiences lived in life. It is a search for compassion that empathizes even with those minds trapped under the sway of the rottenness forms of thought who live under the most unfortunate of circumstances.

 

I have my answer how to live with God. I will try to love fearlessly in the face of all evil. I will love beyond the confusion ideas can mobilize themselves in.