Tribalism is killing us.

It’s all very well to have your own tribe, to build it up and maintain it with your own beliefs and ideas about who you are and what is your relationship with your universe, your deities, the other people you share the world with. It is beautiful to celebrate your worldview with dances and art, rituals and traditions.

But it is not all right to attempt to safeguard those things by forcing everyone else to give up their cherished beliefs, their values and connections with their own dieties, and accept yours. Getting the world to agree with you does not make you any more right. It does not validate your beliefs and traditions.

It is fear of having your stuff taken and invalidated, attacked and destroyed by those who don’t value what you do, that makes you defensive and belligerent, that makes you take and invalidate someone else’s stuff, that makes you attack and destroy those who decline to join you in your particular world.

Civilization came about so that diverse peoples could live side by side, trade together, interact, live as neighbors, thrive as all folk wish to do, grow families as most folk want to do. Tolerance of difference, acceptance, or even appreciation: connections as human to human are the basis and goal of civilization.

The planet is too small for uncivilized peoples to share. We are too close together physically, too intensely needing resources that become dearer and dearer as our numbers overrun and overwhelm the world. If we do not accept that we are not and need not all be the same, we are gonna die. Homo sapiens will go extinct, our long, long chains of family, every one of which goes back to the beginning, will end. Not when the sun novas in a few billion more years, but sooner, much sooner.

Keep the beauties of your tribe. Let everyone else keep the beauties of theirs. The only absolute rule is this: you can have your worldview as you cherish it, only if you allow me to have mine as I cherish it. If you think your god tells you otherwise, maybe you need some new prophets.