Reply #31: Az, your post is a sensible and [View All]

[DemBones DemBones]

sensitive cry in the wilderness. The wilderness is a tangle of many different worldviews and there are beasts within the wilderness who would like to decrease their ignorance about the worldviews of others, to compare one worldview to another, attempting to understand as many worldviews as possible and how these worldviews interact with the rest of life, including our politics.

These attempts almost inevitably bring forth protests from the other beasts in this wilderness of tangled worldviews, beasts who have perhaps been wounded in unfortunate struggles between different worldviews. We all know and fear those ugly struggles that can and do occur and not one beast wants to have such a struggle. All of us bear scars from past ugly struggles, scars that are visible in our hides, especially painful in the thinnest parts of our hides, those patches over the very centers of our beings.

Is it any wonder that some beasts say we should never risk injury to our delicate centers? Has any beast among us not felt that way at some time or another? Have most not felt that way many times? "Protect, protect, reveal nothing and you will be safe" is a common thought. Is it any wonder that when discussion-minded beasts such as you and I, and the others who have made fine contributions to this thread, attempt dialogue on issues that reveal who we are beneath our masks, other beasts recoil from the thought of such potentially dangerous talk ?

But as you said, when dialogue about religion and politics is stymied or stifled, "The ability to dialog eventually atrophies and the sides become even further removed." So dialogue must continue, among those beasts who wish to undertake it. No beast will be forced to participate, of course, but dialogue must go on. If we can dialogue about politics, we can dialogue about our worldviews, no matter how distant they may seem from one another. After all, we are here because of the common threads in our political views and our political views are inevitably entangled with our worldviews, with our philosophies, religions, spiritualities, our beliefs and unbeliefs .

Where do we go next in our dialogue? Should we gather in the Meeting Room, a forum set up to allow relatively slow-moving long-term discussions such as our topics may require? Would you, Az, like to start a thread there or should we first discuss here the advisability of the move?