A world without mention of race or religion

[JuniperLea]

Do you think we could do it?

IMHO, we will never get past all the bigotry in the world unless we can lose all the words that tell us the color of someone's skin, the genitalia in their jeans (genes) or the Deity they worship. We can never expect everyone to have equal treatment as long as we continue to use language that divides us into neat little groups.

What do you think?

[dipsydoodle]

1. Just needs

some comedian to post the lyrics to John Lennon's Imagine now.

[noamnety]

2. are we including gender?

You can get rid of all the color and deity words you want, and we still wouldn't have equal treatment.

[JuniperLea]

4. by all means... let's include gender!!!

I'll edit the OP!

[mainer]

3. We'd still find a reason to kill each other

The Germans would still ridicule the Austrians. The Dutch would still insult the Belgians. The Capulets would still kill the Montagues.

[Cooley Hurd]

5. ...

Imagine

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

[JuniperLea]

10. Dream on!

Dream until your dream comes true!

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

6. I think that's baloney.

I like diversity.

[JuniperLea]

9. Diversity is fine, I like it too

But clearly you and I understand that finer point. Too many don't. Too many don't understand the concept of tolerance.

[Bluerthanblue]

25. I love the outcome you are shooting for, but

don't share the path you are taking.
If WE 'can understand the finer point' that being an individual doesn't mean being better than, or less than anyone else, then every one can come to understand that truth. To imply that 'we' get-it, but 'they' don't- is bigotry in and of itself.

We aren't carbon copies of each other- we all have our own unique differences that distinguish us from each other, and unite us in that 'uniqueness'- (I know that silly bumper sticker that says" remember you are unique, just like everyone else" ;-) )

There is also a beautiful saying that says something like "harmony cannot happen when everyone sings the exact same note"-

Being different and distinct is not only ok- its important- valuing people based on their differences or clumping people together and discriminating against a 'group' is what we need to learn to stop doing.
Its not the 'language' it is the mind-set.

But yet again Juniperx I LOVE and agree with your desire to encourage us all to see each other as the individuals we are, without pre-conceived notions, or prejudice.

peace-
blu

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

7. Unfortunately You'd Be Proposing Banning Some Religions.

The problem with religion in respect to controversy, anger and violence is that inherent in the fabric of belief within some religions is the concept that not believing the same makes one evil. Therefore in order to be rid of that connotation, that religion or aspect of that religion would have to be abolished.

[JuniperLea]

8. Not at all

Everyone is free to worship as they choose, they just can't be defined by their religion outside of their own place of worship.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

11. I'm Not Sure What You Didn't Understand.

Inherent within some religion is the ideal that if YOU do not believe as they, then YOU are a sinner deserving of punishment and/or death. That is part of the core belief so therefore there is no way to stop that ideal outside of the place of worship as the ideal is not limited to within the place of worship. In order for them to practice their religion faithfully, they MUST continue to judge you outside of their place of worship. Therefore, the only way to erradicate that ideal is to ban that religion or aspect of it completely.

[JuniperLea]

14. That's the point

In order to keep people from judging others, no one can be labeled. No one can ban another religion. If the religion you speak of cannot discern one religion from another outside of their place of worship, that's their own tough luck. The world is not obliged to adhere to things that make their judgment easier.

[The2ndWheel]

12. Why would you want to do it?

The moment everyone was completely equal, that utopia would collapse. The closer anything gets to 100%, that's when problems start. Then we try to fix those problems by creating new problems.

To me, if you want to be a bigot, go for it. Instead of trying to control language, and thought, and anything really, we should just know where everyone stands. It would far better than listening to people/politicians just flat out lie to your face. If non-bigot ways of thought and language are better, it will happen naturally. The more we try and do something about these issues, the worse we make it, and the easier we make it to manipulate and control language, and not always the way your(the royal your) side likes it, because it works both ways.

[BuyingThyme]

13. No way. That would be a world without baseball and ice cream.

[JuniperLea]

16. Shhhhh!

don't spill the beans! not everyone knows baseball is a religion... ice cream either!

we are free to worship as we see fit, right? we aren't hurting anyone else, right? as long as they don't know it's a religion, they won't hurt us:)

[BlooInBloo]

15. Making people *blind and dumb* isn't the answer to bigotry. Sheesh.

That just makes MORE bigotry.

Making people GOOD is. Duh.

[JuniperLea]

17. Don't put words in my mouth

It's a very simple concept. There is nothing wrong with being color blind.


Go piss in someone else's wheaties and condescend on someone else's parade.

[BlooInBloo]

19. You're the one who wants people to be stupid...

... as exemplified by suggestion that certain concepts be exised from our mental lexicon.

Maybe in christianity stupidity is a substitute for goodness (garden, anyone?), but this is real life. If you want goodness, don't ask for ersatz goodness-cum-retardation.


EDIT: LOL! We could also solve (or "solve") the bigotry problem by wishing simply that everyone was (say) white. That would also have the effect you advocate - making race-words disappear. We should TOTALLY do that! Eliminate all the non-whites! Eliminate bigotry! Woohoo!

Sheesh.

[JuniperLea]

24. Are you drunk or something?

You make no sense.

You must be arguing with yourself because what you have said here has nothing to do with what I'm saying.

Do you have any friends at all irl? Seattle's a pretty big town, but I've never met anyone there who is quite so backward. I'll ask my b/f... he's from there... something in the water? Nah.

What's your issue with me, bad boy? Why do you insist on condescending, calling me stupid and generally harassing me in every thread you run across with me posting?

[JerseygirlCT]

18. We'd find something else quickly

Wouldn't matter what.

If you'll bear with me for a second, this makes me think of my HS. Catholic, uniforms. They were pretty restrictive uniforms, too. The idea being that girls, especially, would compete with their clothing, and they wanted to stop that.

So there we all are, in our uniform uniforms. And what mattered? The kind of socks you wore. No kidding. The only thing we could be different with became an "us" and "them" thing.

Were we to eliminate religion or race as dividers, we'd come up with new dividers pronto. I'm becoming afraid we're hard-wired for that need for "us" and "them".

[OffWithTheirHeads]

20. Here is the deal

As long as we can't talk about our differences, we will never get over them. Until we can be honest about our cultural differences, we will never get over them.

[JuniperLea]

22. We've talked about them forever

We know the differences. It's time to live and let live and quit making such a big deal out of nothing.

[Jed Dilligan]

21. If we got rid of those differences,

we'd invent new ones.

Classify and categorize--it's what makes us human.

[JuniperLea]

23. That's what I'm saying...

Classify and categorize every human being together. Time to live and let live and stop the foolishness.

[Jed Dilligan]

26. I think that's unrealistic, but a good goal.

We will always sort ourselves out according to some genetic difference, color or gender or something else. What's important is that no power relation should be allowed to exist among these categories. In fact, no power relation should be allowed to exist at all. It will take the collective will of all people to destroy the relations of power among people. If you maintain the power relations while supposedly abolishing the categories, you are really just buying into a single, absolute categorization according to differences in power. That's the dream that today's conservatives and liberals share and why I stand apart from both.

[fishwax]

27. that doesn't sound practical, effective, or desirable to me

It doesn't sound practical because it isn't practical to refuse to label something observable. It doesn't sound effective because people could still notice these differences, even if they were magically without the words to express them. It doesn't sound desirable because I enjoy diversity.

Of course, there are other reasons as well, such as the inability to rectify past and current injustices.