A friend of mine recently posted some things on Facebook that offended me. The postings were of a political and religious nature, and while they were not directed at me, I found them to be rather insulting.

I delayed posting this so that I could be a little more objective and separate any “hurt feelings” from any lesson that could be learned.

Personally I could not care less what his (or really most anyone’s) political or religious leanings are. My offense was that he obviously did not recognize that by going beyond talking about his views and actually insulting the beliefs of others, he was insulting the friends he relies on and doing the very thing that he has indicated in the past that he despises.

My real surprise was that this is a person who has backed me up countless times in discussions about the interpretation of the paranormal. While we don’t always agree, his willingness to debate and express viewpoints that were well thought out impressed me from the first time we clashed in an online forum.

While we have not investigated together yet, I have interacted with him and his team on several occasions. We have sat together and broke bread. We have spent countless hours discussing evidence, sharing experiences, and decrying the vicious way that so many people in this field attack those whose viewpoints do not line up lock step with their own.

I have STRONG political views, which I am happy to discuss when the proper venues (and preferably adult beverages) are available. But even with those views, I believe that the truth is not likely to be found at the extremes of the left or right. My personal opinion is that any doctrine when wielded inflexibly will have weaknesses.

My one guiding philosophy in politics, religion, the paranormal, and life in general is that well meaning people can disagree. An opposing viewpoint does not necessarily make the opposition stupid, ignorant, or evil.

A secondary philosophy is that broad generalizations never seem to pay off. By pointing out your disgust for the people who believe differently from yourself, you show that you will overlook any good intentions and ignore possible insights to a problem in favor of preserving a vision of your own superiority. While obvious exceptions come to mind (i.e. racism, criminal acts, moral issues), I think it shows a weakness of character in most cases.

Now, based on his own words, I find myself in that group of people he finds stupid, ignorant, or evil whether he knows it or not.

In the paranormal field many of us spend a lot of time talking about the sharing of ideas. If we summarily dismiss every viewpoint that we do not agree with, our dialogues become monologues and the conversations stop. If we insist that our viewpoints are the only possible valid viewpoints we will soon find ourselves standing alone.

Well…that applies to life too.

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