How people treat people

My comments about religion, (I personally believe that religion separates people anyway) are not just for Protestants or Catholics, Jews or Moslems. If it happens to someone else, it can happen to me. People who frighten people, or as is happening in Uganda, putting gay people to death, or in Georgia, teens who are undocumented are not being allowed to attend school events like the prom, or Moslems are being told how to pray and their mosques are being destroyed, or Jews have been chased all over the world, but the Orthodox are a little rigid (though comforting, I understand for many) I want to think for myself, and not be told what to think, how to think, when to think, and want to respect each other. I think the most important thing is how to respect each other and how we treat each other, and ur health. Apparently, according to a radio show, Evangelicals in the U.s. hae helped Uganda craft their law to either put gay people in jail for life or kill them. How humane. I remember reading "Tituba of Salem Village" when I was in high school, and when people were hung as "witches" and they were mostly traditional healers, but they scared people, or the holocaust against Armenians happened or the holocaust towards Jews and gypsies and others occurred, we must speak out. We cannot label people, and I may say there are tendencies and trends, and people get indoctrinated, which was my point about installation of patterns of behavior especially for middle-class, white people who are not only Protestant, but others too who grow up in middle-class society and have to hold up the system. I have friends of all political persuasions, and religions. Sorry to go off sometimes. I went off the railes and got derailed. However, the people I don't blame because racism, homophobia, fear of those who are different is inculcated and installed in our Protestant and Judeo-Christian socio-economic system. Work was very much a reason schools existed which was to teach us how to conform and be good workers. I can't quite remember the philosophers or folks that formed our ideas, but Adam Smith, poor fellow, has been misinterpreted. My husband said we got an unsolicited rosary and I've seen a cross, but not a rosary today. Hmm. I wonder if anyone I know would want one. I attended Christian-Jewish dialogs in Los Angeles in the 1980's, and started learning about my Jewish heritage, and started to learn about how Jews and Christians see things differently. My parents don't understand why my older brother and I are spiritual, but I have always been interested in religion, and churches, and different synagogues. I went to different Jewish organizations in Virginia because I was fascinated by the egalitarian Reconstructionist view of Judaism. Maybe they know what Heaven or some way of living is since their founders lived until 101 and the other until 95. We don't understand that our culture gives us false paradigms, and either/or thinking, and mistrust, and the "self-made man" etc. No one is "self-made." As I said, some of the most frightening people I knew were not Jewish, but some Jews I did not want to be like, but I do have an affinity with them, because there is a certain something that I relate to, even though I am more spiritual. Many of us who are blind get told, "God bless you" and are told that they will pray for us. That always set me off. So, I believe everyone needs to find their own path, and that spirituality and meditation are important for keeping down blood pressure, and stress. Have I redeemedmyself? I do not mean to write generalizations, but as I said certain cultural norms are evident and we don't know how we have been "beatendown" by certain work ethic ideas, and "cleanliness is next to Godliness" and that people are doing "the Lord's work." I'm interested to learn more and more about people. I found that certain Islamic views are analogous to ritualistic and Orthodox Jewish ideas. As I said, there is something comforting about knowing all the rules, and all, but I once went to visit an Orthodox family, and there is a hand-washing ritual, and no one can speak (even the little two-year-old) until the washing is done, and the bread is eaten, I think. But I understand how it fills the need for connection, and answers some complex problems. My dad, son, former boyfriend and husband are all self-professed atheists. I was "nothing" for much of my young life, but I am not now. God is a force in nature but is not punitive or deterministic. We need to speak about these things, and politics, and how we treat people and how we can learn and get closer to each other is so important! Koraling Lynne