"If the world was blind, it would be free of hate"

free of hate? No.

Turn that crap down, I hate Johnny Cash remixes.

crayon851,

I really wish I could say there would be no hate if no one could see, but I am afraid that is impossible. As long as man is as man is, with all his imperfections, there will be hate. Someone will always hate someone else for something, no matter how big or small.

I don't think so. I think people who are blind are just as capable of hate as those who have always been able to see.

We hate with our hearts and minds, not our eyes.

Yeah, no.

Blind people have plenty of ways to get information.

And your thesis is easily enough tested right here. Very few of us have pictures of ourselves as avatars; appearance has very little to do with our interactions here. I'd say we're a slightly more civil and thoughtful group than a standard slice of real life (though it could be argued that the civility is enforced artificially by the moderators, as compared to real life), but I wouldn't say that things are Utopian here.

So you don't think that being blind to race and appearance wouldn't have a positive effect on our society?

Do you mean blind as in can't see at all or blind to the fact that race and appearance are different for everyone?

I'd say no. Hate grows in the heart, the same as all the good things like Love.

We can always find something to hate, just as we can always choose to find something to love. Race and appearance are just 'easy targets'.

Another problem I see is that this assumes that homogeneity -- lack of difference -- is a good thing. I disagree.

I think it is far more important to acknowledge and respect differences.

The world would have to be deaf as well as blind, unfortunately. Oh, and don't forget to lose our sense of smell. Touch may be a problem that would also require some intervention.

sozobe...

Why should one respect cultures whose beliefs and practices are patently inferior to ones own? Why should I not feel morally repulsed and utterly disgusted by tribal practices which dictate that a white goat be trussed up and thrown live onto a roaring bonfire to appease the gods and ensure a good crop?

Why should I respect the wide-spread custom in China in which a bear is sold to a restaurant and over a period of agonising weeks certain parts of the bear are chopped off to provide the patrons with such delicacies as bear-paw soup and bear-tongue stew and the like?

How about the Sharia law in northern Nigeria which has women stoned to death for adultery?

I respect no ones culture or 'differences' unless they measure up to my own standards of humanity, compassion and common decency.

Damn straight. Ill add to the list the chopping of shark fins and whaling (which I disagree with because the japanese do not farm the whales - they just hunt till extinction). The scum that illegally come into australian waters and hunt our sharks and whale deserve no compassion. Neither do the retards who thing it is wrong to blow them out of the water. Seriously, they shoot across their bow, and the hunters know they wont actually hit them so they keep going. Peoples do not differ merely by colour.

Your pasivist attitude forgets that if we respected other cultures equally, the modern developed nations of america and australia would not exist. Therefore hitler may or may not have won the war etc. and you probably wouldntbe sitting in front of luxurys like modern computers.
Hate is not always wrong. If a race of people (ancient example - vikings)is bent on murdering and pilaging everyone, you have to waste them. And you cant waste people unless you hate them, and it is right to hate people who do horrid things.
Think before you speak

We're on a roll RaceDriver 205... !

Why should I respect a culture like Islam which is a pain in the arse wherever they have settled as migrants? It's a culture straight out of a Hollywood sand-dune block-buster about blood-thirsty Arabs on the rampage for Allah!

It's a culture that's anti-democracy -- anti-music -- anti-dancing -- anti-alcohol -- anti-infidel -- anti-equal rights for women -- anti-assimilation -- anti-capitalism -- pro-suicide bombing -- pro-genocide of the Israelis -- pro-cutting-off-hands -- etc etc...

Respect other cultures as an article of faith... ? I don't think so sozobe. In fact I'd strongly advocate intolerance[/i] of inferior cultures which are still steeped in the mindset and practices of pre-medieval barbarism. I'd even go so far as to repatriate [/i] them back to their Islamic homelands.

Should we have respected the culture in India which saw widowed wives being tossed fully alive onto their dead husband's funeral pyres... ?

All cultures are equal... ?

yep, that't the crux of the matter: Were we blind, we'd just hate people with the wrong kind of voice.

Deaf and blind, we'd hate the people who smelled funny...etc...

herberts,

Do you realize that your "advocating intolerance of inferior cultures......" statement is doing exactly what you are accusing others of doing?

You are making judgments about others. You aren't picking out ones that you know of personally here herberts. You have lumped a whole lot of people together and decided for them just what it is that they believe and are anti or pro and you have decided seemingly that they are just flat out wrong and how dare they?

Can you see that, herberts?

Good point (about blindness and freedom from hate). Can't we also say, If we were free from hatred (not the same thing as anger), we would have sight?

I prefer Rayban aviators but I have a pair of Evos that i like as well.

I'm sighted, but I don't believe in the existence of "races". There ARE genes (i.e., genetic differences between individuals and even differences in genetic frequenices across (breeding) populations, but differences in complexion, hair textures, etc. do NOT make up distinct "races". The average member of a so-called "race" can have more similarities (when we look at the entire inventory of genes) with the average member of another so-called "race" than with many members of his own so-called "race". As such, I can see an asian, african, or scandanavian and see a variation on myself. And I don't hate myself.

momma Angel... as a religious person I know that places your political sympathies somewhere far to the left of Mao Tse-tung and Che Guevara - but for heaven sake woman, need you be quite so disingenuous and downright naive about the alien invasion which has settled upon a score of Western nations via the idiocies of political correctness and non-discriminatory immigration policy?

You're playing games with semantics and psycho-babble, momma Angel - and that's no substitute for addressing the realities of the situation we are faced with by using ones common sense.

There has been no public instrumentality more keen to flood our Western societies with alien foreign cultural and religious imports than has been the Christian churches. No institution has advocated and lobbied more loudly and forcefully than has the Christian churches that our Western governments should not discriminate with their immigration policy against those of the Islamic faith.

Together with Western governments being run by the trendy liberal-elite of the Left - the churches have betrayed their own congregations by advocating for a foreign people to come live alongside us with a religious tradition that is inimical to every last one of the secular and democratic values which are our inherent birthright.

Is it any wonder that after every popular revolution in which governments are brought crashing down - the next thing the mobs turn to is to bring the church hierarchy to judgment for their persistent betrayal of public opinion and public grievances... ?