Posted by anovagrrl on August 28, 2003 at 14:12:00
It seems that many the former COG on this website make a fundamentalist or evangelical profession of faith. I admit to a certain cautiousness about such people, primarily because their world view is based on patriarchal assumptions about the nature of divinity and legitimate sources of spiritual and moral authority.
To feel completely safe, I need to hear tolerance and respect for the diversity of ways that fellow human beings find identity, purpose, and meaning. I worry about debates where someone seems convinced that certain kinds of people or points of view are something more sinister than just different. The value I place on respect for diversity does not mean I subscribe to moral relativism. I believe in a universal ethical standard where it is categorically wrong to ever treat another human being as a mere object of utility.
I am not so anxious in my relationship to Higher Power that I feel the need to convince others to sign onto my program. Nor am I am so insecure about my values and beliefs that I feel threatened by those who find a very different path to a meaningful existence. I do, however, feel unsettled by people who cannot seem to describe a world that includes me or anyone else who may be different.
"When someone with the authority of a teacher, say, describes the world and you are not in it, there is a moment of psychic disequilibrium, as if you looked into a mirror and saw nothing." (Adrienne Rich from Blood, Bread and Poetry 1987)
Belief systems that divide the world into “us” and “them” can be profoundly inhumane. When there is no place for certain kinds of people in an individual’s world view, it has the effect of negating the others' existence—as though those “others” are no more than useless objects to be censored or demonized. Many people do not fit neatly into one’s explanation of how the world should operate. I try not to "should" upon others. I believe it is wrong to demonize the reality of another human being just because s/he inconveniently calls my ideals into question.