Connectivity, Religion, Misconceptions and the Effect on the World.

As the newest contributor to PAXNation I thought it best to introduce myself, but the question was how to do so. Then it came to me, not in a dream, or a flash of inspiration… but with two days that showed glimpses of true beauty online.

The first was a question started on Twitter by the brilliant Neil Gaimen. While he was working on something for a long term project that would bring together people across the world to partake in a giant creative collective he posed a question. “If you could meet anyone again, who would it be?” The answers that flooded twitter under the hashtag #DecTale where unexpected. Almost universally the thousands of followers spoke of loss. I was enraptured reading the sad, often tragic, stories of loss that touched every person who responded. But from this loss something profoundly beautiful happened. People connected to each other. As the stories where shared people reached out to perfect strangers to offer hope, to share pains, to let them know they are not alone in this. It was a pure moment, it was humanity as it should be.

The second was a question that I posed to a group online. I was most fortunate in being invited to join a group for Americans to meet and interact with Muslims from around the world. It was formed in an attempt to bring people together, and the group has always been one that celebrated open discourse. I asked question that was quite personal to me “What do members of the traditional religions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam) think of people from alternative religions.” I asked this, because as a Pagan myself, I have always been very aware of what people believed about my religion and well… me. The resulting conversation was brilliant, Christians and Muslims all speaking honestly about the nature of belief and religion as well as the connectivity of the different religions. There may have been different points of view over all but all came back to one thing. God (regardless of what you called him) was Love.

The conversation also brought up a point; there are Misconceptions about all religions. Christians are as misunderstood in the Islamic world as Muslims are in the Christian one. This got me thinking about how I have been misunderstood because of my religion. I can relate to the demonization of the Muslims in the Christian world, my own faith more than once being called “devil worship” and “evil” just because it’s not understood. For almost 20 years now I have done everything within my power to educate others about my believes. I have been feared, even hated, because of misconceptions of what it means to be Pagan. One case in particular stands out over the years.

When I was younger I had a part time job working for a book store. At the time I had also taken to wearing my large pentacle as an everyday part of my attire. I had never been ashamed of what I believed and, at this point, had never experienced any prejudice from those believes. While working at the cash register a gentleman who was checking out asked if I was a Cowboys fan, because of my necklace. I thought it a strange question, but politely explained what the pentacle meant and how it was a symbol of my faith. While doing this I finished putting his books in a bag and getting his change together, as I attempted to hand both to him he refused to accept them. His exact words where “I can’t take that you have cursed them!” The man was truly afraid of me. No matter how polite I was or how I attempted to calm his fears of the “evil witch” he wouldn’t touch anything I had touched. It was so disruptive to the store that the manager had to get new copies of the books, and money from a drawer I had not touched before the man would be satisfied. As bad as his refusal was, the worse of it all was the fact he would do nothing but quote scripture at me about how “Thou shall not suffer a witch to live” and damming me to hell in the process. All of this because he did not understand what my religion was about and in his ignorance chose to believe the worse in me.

These days many in the Christian world choose to demonize Muslims because of the same ignorance. Having no first hand understanding of what true Islam is, they chose to believe the lies perpetuated by the media. They chose to live in ignorance of a religion that holds close bonds with their own, because they are not educated in the ties that Islam shares with them. This, above all other things, causes the greatest harm to peace in this world. When those of faith, true faith, can find the universal truth held in all religions, that God is love, perhaps these petty differences can be set aside. In the end our humanity should be not the reason for our faith, but ultimately the sign of it.

In conclusion I ask one thing. When faced with one of another religion, and your own fears of them, take a moment to ask yourself this. Are we so different?

Thank you for your time.

Tenshi