A long time ago (or at least a few years ago), I was a YouTube video blogger. What that essentially means is that I used to post videos on YouTube for the entire world to see of me voicing my opinion on really whatever I wanted. I posted a lot of controversial topics, from religion, to atheism, to LGBT related issues, to abortions etc.
The response I got to these views was rather mixed to say the least. Some people thought I was weird, some people thought I was obscene and disrespectful while others thought I was an epic hero to the non religious communities. To me I was just a guy voicing his opinion in an honest and true manner (or at least tried to). It was a fun pass time, and I don’t regret doing that. But as time goes on, sometimes we just have to move and focus on other things in life. I think I learned a lot from my time as a YouTuber; some positive things and some not so positive things.
During my YouTube days I posted a video blog called “We are one, we are human”. Sounds a little bit new age and hippie like deep doesn’t it? Well yes I agree it does sound a bit hippyish, but I think there is still a bit of an inner hippie inside of me. I desperately tried to find some record of that video after I removed from the internet, but after searching my hard drives and cloud storage; I have been unsuccessful. Which is a shame really as this was to be my opening blog to my return to the blogging world (or least the written blogging world). But not to worry, my mind and memories are still intact and very much apart of me. So this entry shall be my reprise to “We are one, we are human”
Why chose this as my opening statement, so to speak. I’ve had many other views and topics which received a much larger amount of responses. But the intent of anything I say is not to win the approval or others, or create a media stir or even have my fifteen minutes of fame. It is a time for me to put down my inner thoughts in an honest manner. “We are one, we are human” is the one and single idea in which I am most proud of. That doesn’t mean I am totally and completely embraced in its concept and philosophy by the way, I am trying to become closer and closer to it everyday; but as human beings we are not perfect. We should all be striving to become closer and closer to this concept everyday.
But what does it mean? I for one would argue that the phrase “We are one, we are human”, is very self explanatory. But I shall explain anyway. Each and everyone one of us is a human being. We all came into this world in the same way, and while we won’t all experience the same cause of death; the very things that allow us to feel life will eventually fade away (for all of us). We are all made of the same blood, guts and bone. We all experience the same human emotions, from love to compassion, to jealousy to empathy etc. And it could be argued that we all want the same basic things in life, to love and be loved in return, respect, and a sense of belonging.
These ideas are so simple, yet for some reason so difficult for so many of us humans to follow. Where do we go wrong exactly? There are so many reasons for this, from pride, to arrogance; misguided beliefs, insecurities, fear of the unknown etc. These are all contributing factors to why we have; racism, classism, sexism, homophobia, territorial attitudes etc. The trouble is so many of us won’t take a step back, try to see things from the other person’s perspective and really ask ourselves “are my attitudes and actions really justified?”. Of course sometimes we will get some who will ask that question anyway and the answer will unfortunately be “Yes my attitudes and actions are justified” followed by a misguided reason to why the discriminative person feels they are somehow more superior. I suppose the way then we must look at this issue, is to acknowledge not what is different between us and other human beings, but what is the same or similar. Human beings tend to find it easier to feel empathy towards others they can relate to. My suggestion to those who are so high and mighty is to find something relatable. Then maybe you will be ready to ask yourself “are my attitudes and actions really justified?”. The issue here really is that many people don’t even try to relate to others who seem different. You’d be surprised how similar many of us truly are.
Then of course there is the whole religion issue. My thoughts on this have really very much evolved over the years on how I view this. I believe we as human beings, have every right to follow whatever path feels right to us. We have the right to believe what seems to be our truth, and reject what we are not persuaded by. The trouble happens when certain believers get extremely passionate with their beliefs, and have this obsessive need to tell the world about it and convert others. I believe that this is wrong, it is disrespecting the wishes of others and disrespecting that path they have taken in life. A persons beliefs should be a personal matter, you do not require your faith to be legitimised by the approval of the multitudes or even simply your friends. My advice is take your beliefs, or if you don’t have religious beliefs take your outlook on life and use that to better yourself. Just because its working for you, does not mean it will work for all others too.
When it comes to faith, you have got to realise and understand that not everyone is going to agree with your particular beliefs for many reasons. Morality is a very subjective idea and concept, for many people this is something that they have come to self discover through the experiences in their lives. When a person of faith or non-faith turns around and tells them they are wrong and must embrace their particular beliefs or perceptions; that creates a very negative and distractible tension. My advice is keep your beliefs personal, the entire world does not need to know about them. If they are interested in your beliefs they will embrace those beliefs by their own free will. Thats how I came to be a deist, I actively went to seek something that matched up with what I was starting to believe anyway.
But going back to the whole morality issue. For some persons from organised religions, they feel it is their duty to be the moral authority for the entire world, and this of course creates all sorts of divisions in humanity. It promotes, homophobia, sexism, racism, war, genocide and sometimes unsafe sex. This all boils down to not having enough respect for people who do not believe as you do. It would be an injustice to call this an “all or nothing” mentality, because really as far as many of these religious extremists and sometimes militant atheists are concerned, they have ultimate truth and everything else is just plain wrong; no questions asked. It can be very difficult dealing with persons like this, they really have no interest in listing to reason or rationality; and quite honestly they are just too stubborn to try. My advice for people with this frame of mind is the very same for any bigoted person and that is to try and put yourself in the shoes of your opposition. They need to ask themselves “How would I feel if someone else was telling me that my outlook on life and beliefs are wrong, demand that I must change them adapt this persons particular beliefs or outlook on life?”.
Because the bottom line here is, none of us deserve to be treated as second class citizens, or less than human or inferior. We can all take a step back, we can try to imagine what it is like for those who are different to us, we can embrace a more humble attitude and we can learn to feel more empathy for more of our fellow humans.
If we learn to do these things, maybe one day we will be able to honestly say “We are one … we are human”
Image curtsy of Petr Kratochvil via PublicDomainPicutres.Net
