A few weeks ago, some friends and I were having a discussion about life and relationships, when a question regarding inter-religious relationships arose. "Is it possible/wise to date/marry someone of a different religious belief than yourself?" While the popular vote was that it is important to find someone who believes the same as you do, I begged to differ.
While it is true that two people from completely opposite ends of the spectrum, such as Christianity and Wiccanism, would not be likely to stand much of a chance together, many other religions have at least some similarities. With Christians and Muslims for example, even though Christians believe in Jesus and Muslims believe in the prophet Mohammed, they are both united under the same God. My point is that if they are willing to support and respect one another, they can make it work. I truly believe that humans should be able to co-exist in this way otherwise the idea of world peace will remain nothing but a dream.
As much as we all wish that world peace will happen at some point in the future, the fear of learning to understand other cultures holds us back. If we just put in the effort to get to know one another and understand how we work and how we think, we will come to realize that we aren’t so different after all and in the end, we all want the same thing in life. If we refuse to expect it of ourselves, that we can possibly understand or even love someone who’s beliefs are different than our own, how can we possibly expect it of the world? We are all the bricks that hold this world together and if one brick crumbles, the others have to work that much harder to keep it together. If another one crumbles, the load gets heavier still. We cannot rely on our neighbors to make world peace happen if we ourselves refuse to put in the effort.
As for children, I’ve heard from many people that putting kids in the situation where mom believes one thing and dad believes another is confusing and damaging to the child. Again, I cannot agree with this. When mom says it’s ok to get your ears pierced and dad says hell no, the kid is confused as to what to do. Does that mean the parents should not be together? Of course not. On the contrary, I believe that children with parents of different views and perspectives (and religions, for the sake of my argument) are a lot more able to make their own decisions and to make them wise decisions, as they have learnt to figure things out on their own, to not just believe what they are told to believe, just because they were told that it was so. Bringing your child up in a home where the parents are of different cultures/religions and yet live together harmoniously will teach a child tolerance and respect of others and it will show them how important it is to be open-minded.
I’m not saying that it is wrong to marry someone who is the same culture, religion and background as you, I am merely asking that you don’t completely shut the idea out. If we say world peace will never happen, then we are damning it to failure, but if we believe there is a way and everyone does their part, piece by piece, we will find a way.
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