Wherever life is harsh and hope is grim

I recall how I used to watch television on PBS while alone and dealing with the effects of schizophrenia. These shows had political experts weighing on political topics like when I watched the long running interview show Charlie Rose. In reflection upon viewing this show, and others like it that also gave political interviews, the idea of American exceptionalism was of interest to me.  

 

American exceptionalism is the belief that the history of the United States is inherently different from that of other nations. This belief claims that the US has a unique mission to transform the world.

 

I have heard many persuasive reasons to support this belief that the US has a unique mission to transform the world which I respect greatly. There is the US as the preserver of free speech, a defender of democracy, a protector of human rights, it’s the USA using its vast military to police the world, so there are many good reasons to support such a view. People also often believe America's history and special mission gives it a superiority over other nations.

Another observation that I wonder about, and if it is not closely related, is if supporting this exceptionalism belief is the Christian religions influence in America and its close religious connection to Israel. Seen by many people in the US the Jewish people are the chosen people of God. This belief is foundationally based on the teachings of The Old Testament scriptures. From this scriptural belief does America as a Christian nation believe it has a special religious connection of faith with Israel as the ‘chosen people of God.’ Does this special relationship exist and does this supportive relationship in America’s view of itself allow citizens there to see themselves as special in Gods eyes just like Israel.

  I wondered about this and what really is happening in global affairs based on this special religious connection if there really is one. Is what’s going on between these countries anything of particular strategic importance.  I have the opinion there is a strategy from this relationship shared between them that much I get from watching political experts talk on different political talk shows. Do Americans see themselves as on the side of good therefore if true. I think I know myself that they do see themselves this way too. A lot of the time, imperfectly, that may very well be true that they are on the side of good in my opinion, for numerous other reasons too, so I believe it.

How does an average person, beyond these global politics and global strategies for peace and stability in the world, healthily look at other outside nations on people’s there that are not in this arrangement or that are not in any way friendly toward them however.

Do religious people here suspect outsiders in other nations because of their learned ideologies and political views. Do we commonly determine that the others are godless and even evil because of their religion. Do the nonreligious here, alternatively while looking at hostile foreign governments and their citizens, reject those multitudes value differently based on values of patriotism or nationalism.

What about looking differently and a great deal more favorably on the billions of peoples in other countries around the world however. Is it not true that some people are seen by us on some level as good or evil, friend or foe, with whoever is making the distinction making it hastily and even irrationally. We seem to produce far too easily a gut level visceral fear of others, and an appetite of anger, hatred, and violent intension toward others common to the human condition. It is a hasty dismissal of them and departure from seeing in them dignity, value, and a hope for the good in what they are in the world. This judgment is self-interested, sometimes nationalistic, regularly it believes Gods favor is with us but is it from good or from evil. 

I believe that God loves all people everywhere on this Earth regardless if the wind of doctrine for those people there is damaging to their own perspective of life or even if it is hostile to our own. I suggest that God is big enough to see their error of perspective they have and forgive it. I think that God can and does forgive human vulnerability from the effects of these doctrines at play because we people in general are not all great choosers of our way through this chaotic information competing life. With rouge and imperfect understandings all of the time effecting us we always face missing thought and information. There are no perfect people nor are any of us remotely close to it.

In the case of any American or Canadian person who instead of being born in America had been born in Iran would by being born in Iran naturally there shout the exact same rhetoric taught by the Supreme leader of Iran. How then is it his or her fault the way he thinks, the errors he knows there, with such overarching naturally fed ideological processes effecting his life through those persuasive beliefs.

If God exists, which is my belief, and He sees more clearly then our swift judgments, our lack of insight, with a real fairness that we can’t easily see the world with, what might that mean for humanities real value. He is God and that is why despite our reasoning He asks us to love each other and that love includes everyone and is intended for us all.

We are all loved in this world, all of us, in my opinion. If Christianity doesn’t teach that or really believe it then Christians are wrong. The very terms of existence are irrational when it comes to knowing absolute truth. Maybe some minds come nearer to the truth but life has always been lived with us facing an incomplete puzzle, extremely incomplete, with most pieces missing, and knowledge very limited for us as we look around in confusion. Ideas themselves usually are the ideas closest to ones proximity of reality which therefore create a view which isn’t normally capable of traversing distance and to knowing the full picture.

Is it fair for all of us that those ideas nearest ones reality do not always just necessitate the truest or most just form of all ideas. To judge the person wherever they are who is near such limited awareness unfairly is irrational. The human condition presents ideas imperfectly to all of us wherever we are by the way. To judge others on ideas found in that environment alone, and to put a kind of arbitrary condemning responsibility on him/her in their choosing such a path by those limited ideas, is unreasonable and cruel. By imagining they could have, in all their human vulnerability, willed themselves to a different understanding to another way is absurd.

 Choosing another more accurate path is almost impossible when the whole world, as we know it, is seen through our distinctive culture, with us experiencing life directly and distinctly through that vantage point. People interact and develop variations of thought in life expressed to them there where they are, because where they live are the dynamics of multitudes interacting and making graduated changes across history and over time. These dynamics gradually influence the present day reality for people. Why while these others live in distinct territories in countries around the world do we have cause to judge them through such an imperfect lens with them being viewed this way because of human natures great irrationality. We even believe that those who we judge constitute being seen as evil itself as these other people we suppose are in distinct opposition to Gods favor. These kind of prejudices are suited for ancient, earlier, far more ignorant times. We now know the world is round and we also how ideas are spread.

 

In this inability to understand reality with fairness evil preys on us. To believe that God weighs out our fate, deciding our eternity, on the answers we come by always, only sparing limited numbers of us for no other reason then us happening upon the right sermon, one we may hear only by being in the right country at the right time, is the most irrational and unreasonable assumption to make about a good God who knows all ideas, and sees all possibilities, unlike us who judge each other very crudely. God sees far beyond our mortal limitations of what’s possible and what real struggles each mind knows in this life.

 

God can have mercy on all of this world and He really does love humanity. I believe however mired in the irrational and the unjust people can find themselves that they are loved. Wherever lives are oppressed; wherever life is harsh and hope is grim; wherever a way to a better future existence seems impossible; God can and will make it possible for people to hope and inevitably for them to find a good future with Him.