Reflections about Tolerance and Acceptance

Fear and Tolerance

Powerful fear can be transformed into many things. We’ll talk about how fear turns into hate and how we can help resolve this problem.

Why do many people concentrate on differences instead of what we all have in common? Many people hate others based on race, sexual orientation and religion. These people focus on the differences. Only focusing on differences leads some people to fear. Fear then leads to hate because it’s natural to dislike what causes us discomfort.

Many people find Wicca to be quite different from what they call “mainstream faiths” in the western world. Misunderstandings can lead to fear and that can transform to hate. Unfortunately people don’t ask Wiccans, “What is Wicca all about?”

The problem is many people take some surface comment from some biased person and they let that comment give them an impression of Wicca. The biased person does not practice Wicca. To ask that person about Wicca is just like asking a plumber to fix your computer.

As children, many people were taught untruths about Wicca. But as adults, they stick with the false stories. Still, they simply do not ask a Wiccan about their spiritual path.

It’s not completely their fault. Life can be hard and we’re all so busy. We often just take a first impression and run with it.

Unfortunately, so much prejudice makes many Wiccan shy, and they avoid coming out of the “broom closet.” A few brave souls step out of the broom closet to speak to the world, but they often run into closed minds and hearts.

The media makes things worse. We know how the media sensationalizes things. News broadcasts feed on creating fear. This in turn generates hate.

So now we have lots of people who hate Wiccans. Much of this hatred could have been avoided.

It may be easy to blame people for their ignorance, but we need to move past that.

What would we tell people about Wicca? We tell them the truth. We as Wiccans believe in harming none. What does this mean? We believe killing is wrong. We believe stealing is wrong, whether it be someone’s lunch, car or spouse.

Many of our beliefs compare with core beliefs of other religions including Judaism, Islam and Christianity. We don’t lie, cheat, steal, kill and so forth.

So we worship in a different way, but we share similar values. We need to help others and ourselves focus on what unites us so we can build trust and understanding. Concentrating on our similarities will help dispel hate and bring us all closer together.