It's a long road

Human beings are hardwired to fit in. There is a pack mentality necessary for survival in the wild that transfers right into what we now consider our modern world.

I think it is most evident in small towns where anyone who is different is often miserable. People like the idea of original thinkers on television and in movies, but unless that thinker thinks like them, many people, especially under educated people don't like them in reality. They find them threatening.

The same is true in the gangs of cities, or gated neighborhoods, or congregations in many churches. Tolerance is often a thinly veiled façade for an excuse to either get rid of, or change anything out of the "norm." The norm being what is believed by the majority, or ones in power.

We are all looking to be comfortable. We want to follow the leader and absolve ourselves from making the hard decisions. It is one thing to pay lip service to the Bible, or Koran, or any way or creed. It is something altogether different to live that way.

Believing there is only one way, or that your way is superior to everyone else's is pretty egotistical. The world has been around for a very long time and the universe even longer. Ways come and go. The way people interpret those ways is very diverse.

We are a work in progress with a long way to go.