{"id":4036,"date":"2018-10-09T10:14:34","date_gmt":"2018-10-09T14:14:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/?p=4036"},"modified":"2018-10-09T10:15:08","modified_gmt":"2018-10-09T14:15:08","slug":"moving-with-agreement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/2018\/10\/moving-with-agreement.html","title":{"rendered":"Discovery, not division"},"content":{"rendered":"

We were at a community festival. With a few minutes of free time. Spontaneity hit and we started yammering.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve lost a lot of friends the past few years,\u201d he soon said, matter-of-factly.<\/p>\n

I nodded. And, our conversation about politics and religion ended in agreement.<\/p>\n

Did we agree that politics and religion are divisive? Sure, right along with aging, sex preferences, and brain waves. Friends come and go. Mostly go, after the age of 25 years, according to a study from Oxford University\u2019s Department of Experimental Psychology and the Aalto University School of Science in Finland<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Experts don\u2019t know whether the human brain shapes our social environment or if the environment shapes our brains, but a 2018 experiment<\/a> shows parallel neural activity between friends, suggesting \u201cthat friends are exceptionally similar to one another in terms of how they perceive, interpret, and react to the world around them.\u201d<\/p>\n

What can I do with this information? Spectate. Debate. Or, discover.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery stumble, every loss, every disappointment, every tinge of pain can be used to break through the barriers of the problem and discover what belongs to wisdom and Love.\u201d\u2014from science & religion to God<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We were at a community festival. With a few minutes of free time. Spontaneity hit and we started yammering. \u201cI\u2019ve lost a lot of friends the past few years,\u201d he soon said, matter-of-factly. I nodded. And, our conversation about politics and religion ended in agreement. Did we agree that politics and religion are divisive? Sure,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":429,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community_world","category-christian-science"],"yoast_head":"\nDiscovery, not division - Everyday Spirituality<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/2018\/10\/moving-with-agreement.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Discovery, not division - Everyday Spirituality\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We were at a community festival. With a few minutes of free time. Spontaneity hit and we started yammering. \u201cI\u2019ve lost a lot of friends the past few years,\u201d he soon said, matter-of-factly. I nodded. And, our conversation about politics and religion ended in agreement. Did we agree that politics and religion are divisive? 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With a few minutes of free time. Spontaneity hit and we started yammering. \u201cI\u2019ve lost a lot of friends the past few years,\u201d he soon said, matter-of-factly. I nodded. And, our conversation about politics and religion ended in agreement. Did we agree that politics and religion are divisive? 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