If your positions on issues, faith, whatever, are so fragile that you must prop them up by attacking others, or by taking from them what you demand for yourself, then you stand on flimsy ground indeed.
Being confident in yourself, of your reasoned stances on issues, faith (or non-faith as might be for others), allows you to give other people the dignity and respect you want for yourself. It lets you not feel threatened by what is different; that confidence allows you to maintain your own space in the world without diminishing the value of other people.
You then can communicate with those of different view points, learn from them, share with them, enrich them and be enriched by them. What is there to be so afraid of? Why react in fear and loathing when you can instead reach out, sure of yourself, in friendship and kindness to others?
--Beth Haynes Butler
Being confident in yourself, of your reasoned stances on issues, faith (or non-faith as might be for others), allows you to give other people the dignity and respect you want for yourself. It lets you not feel threatened by what is different; that confidence allows you to maintain your own space in the world without diminishing the value of other people.
You then can communicate with those of different view points, learn from them, share with them, enrich them and be enriched by them. What is there to be so afraid of? Why react in fear and loathing when you can instead reach out, sure of yourself, in friendship and kindness to others?
--Beth Haynes Butler
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