A bit of respect...

Hey all! It looks like I have a somewhat semi-consistent thing down now. I'll probably just be posting every two weeks or so since that seems to be best schedule wise. Maybe every now and then I'll break tradition, but for now, I'm just gonna bank on two weeks... But, I did get a flurry of ideas the other day. I happened to attend the Psychology Undergraduate Research Conference (PURC) to see Dr. Lieberman speak. It was quite enthralling in a very nerdy sense, but it has given me a bit of food for thought. So, any of those ideas may work their way here soon enough haha.

Anyways, this post starts off with another story (for some reason lots of my posts seem to be quite anecdotal now...). Well, I was walking down Bruin Walk with two of my Christian friends and we were just having a basic talk about our days. We were telling stories here and there to catch up and what not, and happened to pass a few of the religious protesters with the giant signs. The interesting thing about today, though, was that there seemed to be a counter movement. Some people seem to have assembled and were fighting against the Christian movement present by advocating the merits of science and what not (I personally have a beef with this, since I don't think that science and Christianity have to be mutually exclusive, but that's another post entirely...). Anyways, one of the things that the people were pushing was evolution. We just kindly refused to take any of the fliers and just kept on moving on. But, this time, when we passed by, one of my friends simply snickered and said, "Evolution, wow..." The other friend snickered as well and we all ended up continuing on our way back to grab food.

Honest to goodness, I'm almost somewhat hesitant to put this story in for fear of offending people. I know that evolution is essentially the norm of how humans came to be, and even the Pope has advocated that the way humans came to be can adhere to the principles of Evolution. Yet, there are still a large number of people in the Christian community who don't believe in Evolution...

In fact, this spot is ideal for a history lesson! Haha. Anyways, I've heard that the founding of private schools was actually an anti-intellectual movement. I never really understood why people would say that, since I simply thought that they were separate institutions for academia. Yet, I learned from my brother Dave and also Professor Phelan that after the Scopes trial and that whole fallout, there was still a large group of people that did not want to teach Evolution in their schools. Thus, this fraction of people broke off and happened to form a section of private schools. Of course, I bet there's a whole lot more to it than this, but the basis of the foundation of private schools seemed to stem from a wanting to avoid teaching Evolution, which is quite interesting... I didn't know if that was just something my high school did (being Valley Christian and all), or if it was something generalizable. Of course, I don't know how true this may be of schools now, but it does have interesting implications...

Anyways, for anyone who's reading this that believes in evolution, it would only be natural to scoff at the snickering of my friends. I don't know if they were trying to come off in such a way, but that's certainly how it appeard to me... And yes, that is why I am so hesitant to include this story. Yet, it illustrates my point quite well, so I think it is worth it...

Regardless of what a person believes, please have the decency to show them and their beliefs respect. If you scoff, snicker, or anything of that manner towards what someone believes, they're typically not going to take such things lightly. The thing is, people tend to view beliefs, possessions, values, etc. as an extension of themselves. If you insult someone's beliefs, they may have put a lot of time into thinking what they think, and thus are not going to respond kindly if you insult what they hold to. Also, the situation could potentially worsen if they view your beliefs as silly as well, just creating one big quarrel...

The thing is, insulting one's beliefs doesn't really help the other person out. It may help the person insulting out, because it can reinforce their beliefs while demeaning other options available. Yet, if you're trying to get someone to see different sides of the spectrum, you may just turn them farther away rather than closer... For some people, this may not matter, and that's alright and something I can respect (Catch that there? Haha). I'm mainly calling out my Christian friends here and hoping that they shall take heed to what I'm saying. Of course, don't get me wrong and think that I'm saying all Christians act this way, but sometimes it's easy to fall prey to dogmatism and think that your belief is entirely right without listening (or respecting) anyone else.

If you really want someone to see your beliefs/respect them, I suggest just listening to them. People like to talk, and if you act in a non-judgmental way to hear what they have to say, they may be more willing to hear what you have to say. At CCM one night, I saw a documentary called Craving (I believe that was the title, anyways). In this movie, a man goes out to talk to people who claimed themselves to be staunch atheists. All this man does is simply go out, talk to these people, and listen to what they have to say. As the documentary progresses, the people become more and more open to talking to him and tell him more of why they believe what they believe. In the end, these people all tend to view the man in quite a favorable way. I don't think any of these people were converted, but that wasn't the point exactly. What the man set out to do was to show that these people are human and have beliefs, just like us, and that they should be respected. Just having a Christian that wasn't dogmatically trying to disprove their beliefs seemed to create a favorable impression on them, which may have greater context for their future interactions with other Christians, or just thoughts about Christians in general.

So yes, in conclusion, please have the open-mindedness and respect to hear out any other viewpoints that people may have. Shooting down views before you hear them, simply because they don't align with what you believe, doesn't really seem to help anyone but yourself. Please, just be respectful and listen to what people have to say. I don't mean you have to agree with everything someone else says, but just being able to listen to them without jumping to conclusions is a sign of respect and decency and can have a positive impact on them. So yes, I hope I have given you some food for thought...