Rich In Religion

Coexisting Within Religion

It seems that as time continues to progress, mankind is going to have to learn how to master coexisting peacefully with each other in terms of religious views, whether an individual has any of their own or has no religious background at all. There's a vast and ever growing amount of religions and beliefs that are all important to everyone on a personal basis, but not everyone is able to accept and respect these beliefs wholeheartedly. Unfortunately, it often seems like many of the problems in our world are sometimes rooted in religion, whether it deals with an uprising in another country or something as simple as a child not being allowed to pray in school.

In theory, you would think that it would not be so difficult for human beings to coexist together and be able to share their individual beliefs without offending each other. Yet for some reason, it seems that this is a virtue that not many of us have been able to master within the past few generations. Thankfully, it seems like the newest and most recent generations may be able to achieve this, because children in this decade seem very interested in equality and acceptance, whether it's in the context of race, religion, or gender. Even so, it seems unfair to them that they should have to spend their lifetime trying to fix the problems that we should have dealt with in past generations.

It would be interesting if every city could have a group that focused on welcoming people of all faiths to participate in an open discussion. It would be an area where people would not judge each other, but could talk and learn from each other instead. It always seems that much of the problems people have with each other in terms of religion is because they don't truly understand the full aspect of what the other person believes -- so maybe in a context where people could learn without feeling judged by each other, it would encourage more communication about religion and all of the different beliefs we share.

Georgia Student Harassed by Teacher for Being Pagan

Last week I was sickened to read a story about an eleven-year-old boy who was harassed at school for being a pagan. Both his teacher and his bus driver were in on the hatred of the straight-A student, the former telling him that his religion was not real—and then assigning a project about Christmas to the class, telling them they couldn’t include anything about paganism (which is ludicrous, since, if you know your history, you know the reason the date was chosen in the first place was to continue to forcibly assimilate pagans to Christian culture, as were most other holidays).

I was hoping that the story might be an Internet hoax; after all of the Christianity embracing that my own nearly all-white Midwestern school did—to the point of even having some all-Christian school groups—I thought there was no way this could have really happened.

But it looks like the story has been confirmed. The good news is that many groups have come forward to support the boy, named Christopher, and his beliefs, including Circle Sanctuary, North Georgia Solitaries, Covenant of the Goddess, and the Lady Liberty League. I am waiting to see the ACLU jump on, however, since we know that is the way to truly get anyone’s attention—and real action taken.

The school supposedly has shown interest in resolving this matter, but I have yet to hear of any disciplinary action regarding the teacher and bus driver, which is needed. This teacher needs to attend some kind of sensitivity training at the very least; I would argue for a suspension as well. I also want to hear that the school is hosting some kind of tolerance seminar—or at least a talk with Christopher’s class by his mother or a pagan group—to help his peers understand him and not ostracize him for his beliefs. I hate that a child is being singled out for this, but it just goes to show that hatred and fear of the unknown are alive and afoot in America as strongly as ever.

You can show your support for Christopher by joining this Facebook page and voicing your concern with his school. You can also show support by staying in the loop at your local school and standing up for any children being harassed, discriminated against or bullied there. Do we really need more teen suicides? I would think that this would be a time for teachers to show more compassion and understanding toward youths rather than act like bullies themselves.