Reply #14: reminds me (for some reason) of a story I heard long ago. [View All]

[Lerkfish]

where a young man visiting his girlfriend's family for a holiday dinner. At one point, the young man starts eating peas with his butter knife, apparently something he always did. Suddenly, he stopped when he noticed everyone else had stopped at the table and was looking at him. then he noticed they were all eating their peas with a spoon. His face turned crimson, but before anyone could say anything, the father calmly sets down his spoon and picks up his butter knife and starts eating his peas like the young man.

The moral of the story was that manners were intended to put people at ease, not to make them uncomfortable.

In the same way, religion, at its best, is supposed to bring together people of diverse origins and opinions. all too often it used to accomplish the opposite: to separate out and exile those who are different.