Fear of "Them black folks (and others)"

[The Straight Story]

I have here before related the story of my best friend Mike moving out of our small hood and a black family moving in. The first ones ever to move into our small area (of about 90 houses).

I became good friends with him, and later with another kid who moved in who was half Vietnamese and half white (Phillip). Those two BTW are still friends. Arthur makes CD labels for Christian groups and Phillip lays carpet.

My mom was not like many in the hood, she did not care a person's color. She stood up to those damn bigots.

But in some odd way, looking back on it all now, I see that others were not as upset about the color of people but their culture and what they feared about said culture.

They feared a great many things - so much so that several moved out. They were worried about how black people or Vietnamese people would change things in our small world. They were different from them. Skin color was not the main issue for these people, they did however judge them based on that and saw them as a culture/group that had differing values than their own.

It was not their race as much as it was perceived by some what people of their race did - ie, their choices and life styles.

And I finally get that more now than ever before here.

Because I grew up a Baptist. I broke off from them and became a pentecostal for a spell. Then a Lutheran, then an atheist, later to Buddhism, new ager, agnostic.

I was your typical white American guy in some ways.

But it is not my race that people fear now, it is my culture. That of being someone who believes in something more than this world.

Those same people who were afraid that Blacks moving in would screw up our local culture, through being different and having different ways, never went away. They are here everyday.

Even the most racist of people I knew back in the day were accepting of people of color if they felt the same way they did on issues. If they just accepted the same ideas and values. If they were just like us they would forget the whole color part of it.

Religion is a choice, but one that is branded often as being something negative and harmful to the 'community'. You can accept me so long as I fit the simple ideals you hold in our small community - but there will be no shortage of telling folks like me how bad and evil we are, how many wars we have caused, etc and so on.

All the while the most non-religious among us have made the weapons (A bomb, etc) used in wars. Our scientists who have sworn off or made fun of religion are the same ones finding new ways to make better biological weapons, greater nuclear weapons, etc, with which we might all kill each other.

Sometimes I feel here like my friend Arthur must have felt moving into our hood. If you have any religion at all you believe in things unseen, fairies, etc and so on. You are a threat to the 'real' people we have here. I am the cause of wars, whereas he was the cause of white women leaving their husbands and going with someone else. He was a threat to their way of life simply because he was not like them - in color or culture. He lived different than they did.

I look at their ways and see them as wrong. I look at our science now and I see the people we are supposed to look up to and turn to as disagreeing over many things. It's not all settled by a long shot.

Preachers and Scientists are not so much different. They each see which side their bread is buttered on and post what they see can aid their cause. And if you don't agree you are wrong and should be ignored.

Real science listens to the input of the many and looks for truth. It is ever changing and growing, and the common thread is that we know so little.

Scientists have always bucked the trends and proven time and again that the truth is not something static but rather something dynamic - ie, we don't know it all but we strive to do so.

I don't know if my views are right or totally wrong. I do know however that if there is one thing I have learned in my time here it is that we as a species don't have all the answers. Some of us see a higher power in all this.

And sometimes I wish people on the left were just as accepting of that as my family was of other people. Those racist and cultural bigots I knew growing up were wrong. And all we wanted was for them to have an open mind.

Here on DU, what I thought was a bastion of people being open minded, I see time and again how biased we are against religion because of our experiences with it. We had a bad experience therefore anyone with religion is bad.

Back in my day we expressed the same views when it came to race. And while race is not something one can change the lesson is still the same - just because someone from group X (even many from that group) does something bad does mean the whole of that group is wrong and should be feared.

I don't have all the answers. But I do have a lot of questions. Just like you do. And just like with science the answers change as we learn more.

Faith to me does not mean I give up being rational, it means I believe that there is so much more out there that I don't know that I am willing to entertain other possibilities. Newton was right, but Einstein (and Lorentz, et al) showed that he was not always right.

I can live in both worlds. Science and religion. Because I respect and love what science has to offer me while being open minded enough to see that there may well be more out there that I don't know about yet - because we as a species have not progressed to the point that we can test it.

My mom baked a cake and took it to Arthur's house to welcome him to our little space in the world. She just accepted that he was there and wanted to make him feel welcome.

It would be nice if we could do the same here for each other.

Back in the 1800's Science was a way many saw to reveal how God worked - it was not one or the other, it was team work that us humans put forth to try and understand. In the 20th century science and scientists became 'God' and used that power to make better weapons which we used to kill one another.

We can get along, but at some point people on both sides of the aisle have to put aside their prejudices and work together.

Science is no threat to me. It is something I have loved since I was 13. And religion is no threat to you.

The threat we have in common is people using religion, and people using science, to promote their own needs and views.

Us little folk all really want the same thing. A simple life and freedom to be ourselves. The people in power are who we should fear - whether they have religion or not.

And all Arthur and his family wanted when moving in was people to just accept them, and not pre-judge them based on their own personal experiences.

[BlooInBloo]

1. Comparing the treatment of black folks to the treatment of religious folks is pathetic.

[The Straight Story]

2. Sorry my friend

I was trying to compare how some felt about them and their culture more than race.

To some the initial response was based on race, but on looking further it was based more on culture (in my own personal experience).

This is all based on what I saw growing up. Your experience may be different. It does not make what I saw any less valid.

[Beregond2]

3. I sympathize.

I get very tired of the bigotry displayed here toward religious people, particularly when those doing the talking usually know next to nothing about it.

I wish people could get past their (justified) anger at the various right-wing, literalist, fundamentalist churches, and do some reading on the topic. They might find it is a much more sophisticated and intellectually stimulating area than they imagine.

I have nothing against atheism that is arrived at after thorough study. In fact, I think that any spiritually evolving person MUST go through that stage. But I also think there are stages beyond it. They involve realizing that science is, in fact, reachng an understanding of the world that is completely congruent with the traditional insights of mystics. Scientists are coming to realize that the fundamental "stuff" of the universe isn't matter and energy, but consciousness. And that evolution isn't random, but seems to be directed toward ever-increasing levels of consciousness, that life is the universe becoming aware of itself.

These ideas may seem far from the doctrines of traditional religions, but in fact there have always been thinkers and movements in each religion that interpreted those doctrines in just this way: Kabbala in Judaeism, the Christian mystics, the Sufis in Islam. The religions of the East of course are completely expressive of this.

The split between science and religion had it's uses, but it has also brought us to the terrible pass we are in today. If we are to survive these times and create a better civilization, we MUST reintegrate the two. But that can't happen until people on both sides of the issue open their minds and put aside their bigotry.

[Smith_3]

5. I take it you are a reader of Fritjof Capra.

I recommend the book "The creative cosmos" by Thomas Goernitz to you. And if you don't know it already "The Emperor's new mind" by Roger Penrose.

[Beregond2]

6. Thanks.

The books of Ervin Laszlo are good on this as well.

[Smith_3]

8. Thank you. Those I never heard of. I will be checking them out.

:)

[The Straight Story]

9. I think perhaps your reply was more to the point than my OP

"But that can't happen until people on both sides of the issue open their minds and put aside their bigotry."

Well said.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

4. Agreed

Good OP. I especially liked this line:

Real science listens to the input of the many and looks for truth. It is ever changing and growing, and the common thread is that we know so little.


I guess because I feel those on a spiritual path do the same thing; listens and appreciates the input of the many, realizing that there is a core of Truth within it. And our evolutionary journey towards that Truth is what makes life so fascinating. And the common thread between religion and science is that we know so little.

Thanks for posting.

[City of Mills]

7. Kick for thought

I've always been of the mind that science is based on Thinking, where religion is based on Feeling. How's that for a baseless generalization? :)