There's a lot of ground for hope. Perhaps most all, there's something called a tipping point - when all of a sudden things change. I don't know what it will take to break the hold of the rigid kind of Islam so prevalent these days - or the hold of the mental barriers so prevalent in the West.

I know that here in Quebec, Canada, the tipping point came quite suddenly about 40 years ago, when suddenly the rigid Catholicism that had held sway for centuries seemed to vanish, as if something seemingly rigid and solid had suddenly evaporated.

The tipping point, of course, can go away from good things (as a democratic Germany, in 1933, tipped over into a Nazi Germany), as strikingly as it can go toward something better.

My hope: that we tip toward peace: through more mutual recognition of what is happening, and especially through breaking Western blindness, breaking the Muslim use of the offense card when horrific violence is happening, and through getting all the information possible and speaking our truths.

If you've followed me on this exploration you will know that my hope is for a solution in the Middle East and beyond, a solution that will come through massive shifts in parts of the Muslim religion.

I'm hopeful that such shifts will come because of the historical records. Christianity had the Crusades - invasion after invasion of the Middle East areas in the name of religion. Christianity isn't, at present, into murdering those it labels infidels. It's changed.

Christianity had massive witch hunts in Europe and some witch trials in what has become the United States. Now it isn't into this kind of activity.

Christianity's record is quite gruesome when it comes to religious conversion - for example, some Roman emperors decreed, convert or die. Again, it has changed.

Throughout many parts of the world, the rigid versions of Christianity that held sway have given way to much more loving much less harsh varieties, much more open to acknowledging that this religion is not the one and only right one.

That leads me to hope: that the rage barrier, the self righteous rage, the listening to imams - that the many barriers that are currently keeping large segments of the Muslim religion from following the path to tolerance will likewise - like the walls around Jericho, like the Berlin wall, like apartheid laws in South Africa - come tumbling down. Sometimes it has taken a war - as with Nazi Germany. Sometimes it has not - as with the Berlin wall. Best if something happens without violence - if water comes through, small holes here and there, like through a dike holding back a flood of knowledge and awareness. The water can flood like Katrina flooded New Orleans. In this case, on he rooftops will be those who would not listen, those invested in the rigid Middle East religions, the branches of Islam that espouse jihad and approve of religious terrorism.

Of course all those within upholding religious terrorism will not see the error of their ways. There are still, at present, members of the Ku Klux Klan in the United States. However, they do not hold most of the power.

One thing that matters is reaching a tipping point.

That is my hope: that we get to that tipping point soon.

My hope: that through whatever route it happens, we do reach a world without violence done in the name of religion, and even more, a world where people think and talk, and where every revolution is a revolution without violence.

These writing are my contribution toward having the tipping point happen as soon as possible.

Plus, here's another article. It's on one of the most powerful ingredients for peace: empathy.

CLICK HERE FOR...
Give Peace a Chance
- by giving empathy a chance
An Open Letter to All People,
and for now, especially all Muslims -
Feb/Aug
2006   MORE

CLICK HERE FOR ...
WHAT DO I WANT?
in a nutshell, the development of empathy

Welcome to the ongoing exploration.

signed,

Elsa
March 31, 2008

copyright Elsa Schieder, 2008, 2011, all rights reserved

****

Click here for more hope for a Middle East solution - though empathy.

Click here to go from this hope for a Middle East solution to
some facts about the Muslim religion.

Click here to go to an overview of all the pieces.

Middle East Solution: The Hope.
One path: Stopping Terrorism in Middle East Religion.
Peace Core: terrorism protection, no jihad, end to religious terrorism.

Wanted: Middle East Solution and World Wide Solutions.

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MIDDLE EAST SOLUTION, IMPORTANCE OF EMPATHY
STOPPING TERRORISM, DEFINITION OF EMPATHY
TERRORISM PROTECTION, EMPATHY DEFINITION
MUCH MIDDLE EAST RELIGION, NOT FEELING EMPATHY

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