On abortion, and other complex issues...

I think that issues which are so complex, due to the number of unknown variables in specific instances, can't be decided simply. There just aren't any "one-size-fits-all" answers to issues this complex.

And that's what people seem to want.

Bang.

This is the answer.

No thought necessary.

No consideration of circumstances.

Now let's make it a law.

An established tradition.

An accepted fact.

An unchangeable belief.

That's much scarier, to me, than the alternative, where people appear to disagree, based on their interpretation of a situation due to their own experiences and what they've been taught.

I don't see that they actually disagree. To me, it appears that they just haven't yet managed to effectively walk a mile in all the variables of the experience of others.

That's a much more difficult path to arriving at agreement with everyone, but it's much more realistic and healthful than establishing an "accepted fact" and making it "just the way it is", as in making it "the law".

This is the same principle behind an email to a friend recently in which I told her I couldn't agree to the idea of "agreeing to disagree" because I honestly didn't see that we disagreed. Only that our viewpoints were not, yet, overlapping to the point where we could both say we saw things in the same way.

To me, God is the all-encompassing point of view that includes and comprehends all points of view which are more limited.

This is the true meaning of omniscience and omnipresence.

And spiritual growth, to me, means working toward becoming identical with the all-encompassing point of view of the Divine.

This is the ultimate in compassion and understanding.

And yet, it doesn't preclude the possibility of making personal choices as a human being, or being angry with someone whose narrow perspective is doing them, or you, harm. Interestingly, anger toward another from a place of compassion is much more effective than anger from a place of disagreement and resistance.