I received this video clip on my phone and in a rare instance, really wanted to share it (originally from Huffpost somewhere/when).
A photographer named Platon talks about how a photograph he took without even realising some details about what he was shooting turned out to be not just uniquely powerful, but also showed how it and things like it can change minds and make people remember what’s important in life.
I’m an atheist by nature but I do not begrudge people their spirituality – I believe in respecting beliefs and that goes both ways. What we can do, is focus on the good things and leave the archaic things behind us in the past where they belong.
We need more people and stories like this one to be in the public consciousness to counter the hatreds and lack of understanding and intolerance and short-sighted views of far too many, be they Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh or even an atheist.
Everyone’s entitled to a world view and everyone should respect the view of others and not try and impose beliefs. The only time I would ever believe in telling something something against their belief is if they were causing harm – physical, mental or spiritual – to someone.
Life’s too short and too precious – yet somehow we keep letting these ideas cause terrible rifts between us all for no justifiable reason, no reason that can be proved one way or the other and all that happens is hate, greed, selfishness and apathy win and become stronger while the average person suffers.
Somehow we need to start rising above it instead of giving into the worst of our human natures as is happening more and more the past decade and scares the very crap out of me some days.
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