Sharing the Sandbox. Are Different Religions ready to play together yet?

Some of the greatest, most fantastic wars in Earth's history have been fought over this subject, so honestly I expect this Hub to be a contentious one, but it got my back up the other day when someone told me that if I expected my spirituality to be respected I needed to grow up, because we need to learn to share the sandbox.

The single biggest problem with that statement, from my perspective, as a 'heathen' attending a 'religious' institution is that on a daily basis, I see examples of people who are unable to share not only the sandbox, but the shovels, the bucket, and all the little sand molding tools.

Canada's History has been filled with battles over religion, Europe fought over religion for centuries. there are still countries fighting over religion to this day, if we are unable to get past the point where we fight wars, how on earth can we share shovels?

I'm going somewhere with this, I promise......My Childhood was a very very very long time ago, but it seems to me that if we had been taught a little bit about Max Weber the world would have been a much easier place to live in. Remember that kid in the back that always smelled a little like pee? or whose clothes were a little big, or had that really really ugly haircut and coke bottle glasses?

Imagine what that kids life would have been like if we had been taught to 'walk a mile' as children. instead of not learning those lessons (if we did at all) until we were adults?

I am suggesting that part of the problem is that we all think that our way is right. Every parent thinks that only they know how to parent. The one who uses the belt has the right method, but so does the one who has the overly permissive style of parenting. Yes, I used two extremes, but I think you get my point right?

Elvis Costello once sang a very popular, and very well known song called "(What's so funny about) Peace Love and Understanding" This, indeed, the aim of most religions, or spiritualities, so why is there so little of it? Why is it that it is such a statement when a Catholic Church and an Anglican Church are built on the same plot of land and remain standing for a hundred years? Why is it that if a Wiccan attends a Catholic School, they are no more willing to speak up than someone who is openly homosexual?

Why is it, that we oppose eachother so strongly, yet cry for world peace? We build statues, cry every time we lose a soldier in the name of peace, We do, afterall call them peacekeepers.

I state for the record that I'm simplifying this, and joking for a reason. I'm leaving out all the elections of multiple popes, and the political garbage, and the changes of religion that came with every change of ruler certain countries for a century or so. Seriously, Have a sense of humour.

_{Oh, and I'm also not providing enough information so that anyone doing a paper actually has to LOOK IT UP at a Scholarly Source. ^{psst.. Wikipedia is not a scholarly source!! 8)}}

Before all the contentious religions, there was buddhism, and deism and all of the other spiritualities that don't pick fights with anyone because the basic principal of many of the earliest religions was

^{"Okay, if you don't like my god, find your own",}

^{"Okay, fine! I will, and he's better than yours is!"}

^{"No he's not!"}

^{"Yes He is!"}

^{"No he's not, but let's agree to disagree and keep being friends"}

^{"Okay, wanna come over for beetle stew?"}

^{"Sure, as long as You're not cooking!"}

(And don't tell me the fights in those countries are over those religions, they're over the newer ones trying to prove themselves, or over political, or financial values.)

Then came... "In the beginning ....And I won't even touch the topic of the whole true origins of the bible issue here, after skipping a step or two, at the beginning of the wars of religion, which started this whole mess, there was Catholicism, then a certain monarch decided he didn't like his wife, and it was probably a bad idea to simply have her executed, heaven knows, he would have come under some suspicion if he did it every time he wanted to remarry. (you know, he *was* married to a Catherine, an Anne, a Jane, another Anne, another Kathryn, and another Katherine, only the last of whom was widowed.) --In case you lost count, that was a total of six wives--

Anyway, it is to King 'Enry VIII (1491- 1597) that we owe The Church of England! Also Known as the Anglican Church! But hey, at least he never rewrote the bible. Before James I/VI rewrote it Exodus 22:18 did NOT read "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live", though that is one popular translation, another replaces the word witch with "sorceress' another replaces it simply with maleficia/um which is gender neutral and means anyone who practices witchcraft, but did witchcraft even exist in biblical times? A more practical translation is the one that reads "thou shalt not suffer a poisoner of wells to live" but hey, what do I know 8)

Anyhow, after Henry died, his kids took the throne and couldn't agree on a religion and kept switching, until Elizabeth I (1533-1603) took the throne and presented Europe, and eventually the world with a happy medium: Protestantism.

See, she had the right idea. If one works, And the other doesn't work, Find something in the middle.

I'm not saying I want us all to share the same sandbox.

For one there isn't enough room, for another, I don't have time to visit the psych ward (I'm not that delusional) It would just be nice if we all looked at our own origins, especially the origins of our religious beliefs, I know where my beliefs came from. despite the claims that I practice one of the most ancient beliefs ever to exist, I know it's only existed in its current form since about fifteen years before I was born. Oh well, maybe it is, in fact, that knowledge that allows me to not fool myself into believing that I am better than everyone else, or that my beliefs are the right ones. I don't have four hundred years worth of "I'm better than you because.........." built into my history.

I wasn't preaching, I said that for a reason, and it wasn't to convert you.. honest. What I was trying to say was that those who were Native to North America, had their beliefs, they were irrevocably changed, and I'm not going to try to say that in all those changes were detrimental, nor will I say that all those changes were bad. But *if* those europeans (All of them, in every part of North America) had stopped to learn about the practices of the Natives (native to the land, so quit being offended) before assuming they were wrong, they may have learned something.

Similarly, if we, stop and watch how the neighbour builds his sandcastle instead of telling him he is wrong, We just might learn, not only that there is something to his technique, but also that if the two of us work together, we can build a bigger, better sandcastle.