Yesterday coffee with John and a stop at the ShelfLife where I bought ‘The Faith Instinct.’ by Nic Wade. It has an overview, similar to my own studies, of the religious heritage of humanity, with an emphasis on the three monotheisms and Hinduism.

I am still looking for literature on ‘tolerance’ and Downtown Indigo had leads, but no books on this. The lead I did find was available through ShelfLife as a committed order, which will have to wait.

I intend to continue my Indigo search, because their ‘found-list’ was too long for me yesterday. Later today a visit to Tim for the physio and an evening inspection visit to the ethnic dinner venue of this month for Michelle and I.

I continue working on the idea of tolerance across identity boundaries, which I think is of crucial importance today. The diversity of social identities, political, cultural and religious can change, but only slowly and certainly will not diminish. So, we have to find ways of dealing with this diversity in a functional and productive way.

Spinoza:
Don’t condemn, don’t criticise, don’t ridicule, but try to understand.

In last Sunday’s talk, I quoted Spinoza’s adage: “Don’t condemn, don’t criticise, don’t ridicule, but try to understand.” This morning I thought about this as set of phases to go through in the process of tolerating and a means of learning to live with this diverse human heritage.

In elaborating on such a process, consider the following. Condemnation means that you do not ignore the other, but take notice and are invested. Next you criticise as a first step to accepting a difference between you that might be changed, but involves a partial projection on your own part.

Ridicule implies that you actually understand the other, but still cannot fully accept the other’s behaviour and values. Understanding means acceptance, but does not imply approval or agreement. Now we have arrived at the platform form of being ‘on talking terms‘, enabling accommodation.

Rather than asking who is the best, we ask what does each one contribute to the whole. Looking for the best leads to the monotony of the one, while accommodating differences leads to a celebration in diversity. But we should keep in mind that too much diversity does cause confusion and so it too has its limits.

Discovering where to draw these limits is a boundary process in which we reject stasis as well as confusion. Yet, we continue to look for a process and state that allows for adaptation, growth and diversity informed by the handed down traditions of humankind.

The way of evolution is one of adaptation for those that stay around. We should use it as a model to be applied consciously to our present dilemma of human cultural and religious diversity and so be guided by our own discoveries. We value bio-diversity, then who don’t we aim for ’culture-diversity’?!

How do we adapt to all that our human diversity has to offer, is our challenge today! It is either that, or be engaged in continued skirmishings for dominance, which tends to be mutually destructive and unproductive.

Not all ‘things’ can be accommodated, but neither must all diversity be excluded. It is like bringing up a child to become an adult in human society. Here a mix of caring, encouragement and discipline is needed and this we now must apply to ourselves in coming to grips with this diversity in our human heritage.
<9:19am and 9:45 edited.~