You would think it wouldn’t be that hard understand. It seems that “everybody” likes to generalize and put people in their labeled cubbyholes when they don’t agree with their worldview. Wait, did I just do that? It seems so much easier to group types of people together rather than to set aside a given perception and deal with the individual. it seems all “Christians” are perceived as right-wing conservative republicans. It also seems that most people are okay with that generalization. However if “Christians” dislike something that makes us “racists”, “hypocrites” or “bigots”? Believe me when I say, I know there are some amongst the body of believers. But again, don’t we all do it?
What do you think of when you hear terms like “Extremist”, “Jewish”, “Islamic”, “French”, etc. Or if you see someone on the street dressed a certain way. Don’t you immediately put them in their little slot in your mind? We do it at our jobs, with our friends, to random strangers, at school and throughout our lives. Even places like MySpace and Facebook make it easy for us to categorize those that we dare call our “friends”.
Now ask yourself this, “how wrong is that?” Why am I so quick to judge what I see or what someone else has labeled someone as? Why don’t I try to form my own opinions by actually talking to these people and getting to know them?
All I hope to ask is that you try using that gray matter between your ears before you fall in with the crowd.
PS: For you non-programmer types “!=” means “is not equal to”.