Nostra Aetate and Religious Tolerance

After reading the Nostra Aetate, I was pleased to see that a document like this existed and that Pope Paul VI placed so much emphasis on the inclusion and tolerance of other religions. It made me think about how ridiculous it is that people discriminate against each other based on religion. Some examples, such as the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide, show that people get so worked up about the differences between religions, that they go to extremes to justify their beliefs. I do not understand why it matters so much.  Religion is a choice that people make, just like they choose what they are going to eat for breakfast or what clothes they are going to wear. Usually, people don’t get too upset if someone’s opinion about what the best color is differs from their own, but when someone’s opinion about what the best religion to follow differs, some people go ballistic. They try to shove their own religion and beliefs down the other person’s throat in order to convince them that their religion is wrong.  This is absurd. Do you honestly think that someone is going to convert to your religion when you are disregarding their opinions and bashing their own religion? Of course not. I think that we need to stop labeling people based on what religion they choose to practice and instead recognize the fact that we are all human and have more in common than religion.  A quote that stood out to me was, “We cannot truly call on God, the Father of all, if we refuse to treat in a brotherly way any man, created as he is in the image of God”.  This is such a basic point that many people seem to miss.  If they would only stop and think about how their actions are completely contradictory to the beliefs they are trying to portray, then maybe they would realize how hypocritical they are acting. Instead of degrading followers of religions different from their own, they should accept that that person has different beliefs and get over it.