When you examine some of the worst atrocities of humanity, look back through history’s wars, and examine some of the major conflicts in today’s news, a common thread in these conflicts is religious intolerance. I’m not a religious scholar and this isn’t a treatise on religion. It is a recommendation based on an incident involving a group of young children of mixed faiths playing together on the playground.
The conversation started innocently enough when one of the youngsters made a reference to one of his Hindu Gods. Another child quickly stated an opposing viewpoint due to her faith’s differing beliefs. In a matter of minutes, there was an all out name-calling, yelling, my-God-is-better-than-your-God rhetoric, threatening, fist waving, tussle brewing. Thankfully, one of the older kids interjected and made everyone apologize before these friends damaged each other’s friendship irreparably. Why do children as young as six years old already harbor so much intolerance for others’ beliefs? Doesn’t this sort of intolerance lead to the wars and genocides we read about from history and in our newspapers today? What can we do to foster tolerance of different ideas, religions, beliefs, etc.? These are questions that came from our youngster after this disturbance.
What did we do? First, we all agreed that these kids need to remain friends and learn to respect each other’s differences. As a family, we watched Elizabeth Lesser’s TEDTalk entitled “Take the Other to Lunch”. Elizabeth does a very good job of showing how much easier it is to accept a person’s differing beliefs if you get to know that person before passing judgement. And from our observations, this kind of engagement must start in early childhood. Otherwise, humanity may pay dearly with human lives lost in pointless conflicts. We should be joining each other for lunch instead!
Watch Elizabeth Lesser’s Talk and tell us what you think.
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