Tamil Nadu. January 2015
[from FB post: March 15, 2017]
A prism is neither good nor bad. It is transparent. Whatever light you shine into it will be broken up into its constituent colors.
Religion is neither good nor bad. It is transparent. Whatever kind of person you are projects into it and it breaks you down into your constituent parts.
Hence - if you project shit, don't expect a rainbow as a result
I wrote the above while totally frustrated living in a very religious place filled with a lot of shitty people (Abha, Saudi Arabia). Those two things are quite different, by the way - religion and the individual. As I stated above, I believe major world religions are all prismatic. It is what we as individuals shine into them that is reflected out into the world.
Most recently I came across an article denouncing "religious tolerance". The idea shocked me, yet after understanding the author's thesis, I found myself agreeing. We must move BEYOND "tolerance" into the realm of "acceptance". You have your prism and I have mine. They both reflect the light of the individual, but in different patterns. Accept that fully, do not "tolerate" it. Tolerance has an undertone of "putting up with". I readily admit that I would rather be in a place where everyone tolerates each other than in one with a "this way or the highway" approach (like Saudi Arabia). However, I would prefer even more to be in a place where the issue simply ceased to exist. My religion, my "anything", would be simply "accepted" as part of who I am - value free. That, the author said, was the essence of "pluralism". I might remind Americans, the "pluribus" of "e pluribus unum" begat the word "pluralism" not "put-up-with-ism".
India, in spite of the recent spike in religious-connected nationalism, is a place of religious tolerance. The country could not function otherwise. The government reminds people of it all the time. Among the educated middle-class, it is less of an issue - at least outwardly. That being said, it is still "tolerating" - it is still "putting up with" rather than accepting. As the sign above indicates - it is something that people must be nudged to remember - constantly. Tolerate, tolerate, tolerate.
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