Difference

 Difference is something that we encounter everyday. We find ourselves next to people with different hygiene standards, different interests, different educational backgrounds, different jobs, different social statuses, and many more differences that make us all unique individuals.  Traveling abroad heightens one's sense of difference.  Possibly because we are looking for it and possibly because there is more of it to be found.  I chose these two paintings for this post because they represent one of the most fundamental differences between populations, religion.  For some reason, religion has been a difference that many societies have not been able to reconcile.  Someone is right and someone is wrong, but who?  

I refuse to choose one religion because I am incapable of deciding which one is correct.  This is the same sentiment that I feel towards cultures.  Every culture that I experience has something amazing to contribute to the world and also something that they could do better.  There is not one culture or religion that is "right."  What I find most unappealing about religion, is the mindset that it holds the only truth.  Many cultures have this same mindset.  Switzerland likes to think that they have all the answers and that they have done it "right."  In the meantime, they don't have many nice things to say about other countries in Europe or outside of it.  It is still surprising to me how unpopular America is.  There is nothing like an attack on your country to make you want to defend it.  When talking to Swiss people about America I hear things like, "you are all fat, none of you home cook your meals, all of your products come from large corporations, your judicial system is unfair, you created unhealthy food and made the world fat."  Some of these accusations are partially accurate, but none of them are the whole truth about America.  I had an argument with a boy the other day about how it is America's fault that Swiss people are becoming obese eating McDonald's, Burger King, and Starbucks.  I had to laugh a little at his desire to blame anything negative about Switzerland on the U.S. and then pointed out that we were not holding them at gun point forcing them to eat.
There is strength in patriotism and religion.  They are forces that unite people under a common cause, but these forces can also divide.  If these forces are being used to separate people of difference, then they are no longer being used for their original purpose and become tainted.  Cultures and religions are most beautiful when they are being shared providing an opportunity to learn and grow.  The greatest injustice that one does to a culture or religion is to have one encounter with it and label it.  There is more than one type of American just as there is more than one type of Christian, Muslim, and Buddhist.