Starting a Blog

Well, I'm finally giving in.  I'm starting a blog.  I guess I just needed a place from which to sit back and complain about the world.  What really got me going was a newspaper article I read.  The comments really ticked me off, and I wanted some place to complain about it.  I didn't want to post a comment on the newspaper site, because it was just filled with idiots anyway who couldn't look past the tip of their own nose long enough to even acknowledge that the people around them were more than faceless computer constructs.  That's what the web is doing to people, it is dehumanizing us.  Not that I'm against the web; in fact, I work with computers at the moment.  However, people are forgetting their humanity, and it disgusts me.  When we start creating an 'Us' and/or a 'Them', when we start to think of others as less than ourselves, we begin the process of dehumanization.  What people don't realize is that we can't dehumanize others, we can only dehumanize ourselves.  And what happens when people lose their humanity?  They become capable of allowing anything to happen.  They become beasts-very smart, very dangerous, very unpredictable beasts.

While browsing the web this morning, I came across the article that started all of this.  It made me mad.  This particular article was an editorial by a member of the Mormon church, from outside of Utah, accusing those who were opposed to his church in Utah of bigotry.  Then, the comments began.  The author had come to his conclusions about bigotry based on the comments he had seen on this particular newspaper's site.  Then, of course, the comments began.  From both sides, Mormon and non-mormon, came a river of filth and hate and bigotry.  The non-mormons were justifying their bias against Mormons because the Mormons mistreated them first.  Then, the Mormons fired back saying that they had always been mistreated, ever since day 1.  While this is true, the Mormon church has been hated and persecuted and shot at and evicted for the whole of their history (for an example, see this), how much of it comes from their own actions?  Really?

Now, don't get me wrong.  I'm not accusing the Mormons nor the anti-mormons of anything, other than sheer stupidity.  I'm seeing this as an example of the major problem in modern society-the conflict of 'Us' versus 'Them'.  By labling any group of people as 'Them', we automatically exclude them from our personal definition of humanity.  The opposite is true-if we lable any group of people as 'Us', we, by definition, create a 'Them' (as long as our 'Us' doesn't include all of humanity).  Now, I'm not perfect in this, nor any other regard.  However, I do see how wrong this is.  Especially in this debate, where both sides are claiming to be more 'Christian' than the other, yet are ignoring the basic, fundamental aspects of Christianity.

Grrrah!  It just bugs me to see that no one has learned their lesson.  No one!  How many wars will we have to face before we learn it?  How many Shoahs?  How many Jim Crow laws?  How many genocidal dictators?  How many ruined homes and ruined cities and ruined nations and ruined people?  Will we ever learn?  Will we ever become one great 'Us'?