Scientifically speaking, we humans are all alike, because all humans can trace their family tree back to a surprisingly small group of common ancestors. And recent evidence shows that every person on Earth’s most recent common ancestor might have died less than 2000 years ago.
And If you simply count the number of parents you have (2) and then keep multiplying by 2 (because every parent also has 2 parents) for each generation of your family, you’ll discover that you alone have billions of ancestors just within the last thousand years or so. And that’s true for all people because…we all share ancestors.
Yet, if you ask people about this they will probably tell you about how different we all are. And about how something as simple and as superficial as skin pigmentation can penetrate deep down into a human beings soul to make them altogether a completely different species of human being from you.
And they’ll probably tell you about how our belief systems are so different and varied and in such opposition to one another as to make us all completely incompatible. So much so that we all have to fight unceasingly, without the hope of ever agreeing with each other, forever.
And this is all because we are so different from one another…even though all of the evidence that we have discovered here on Earth and even out in space, shows us that we are not.
And not many of us ever seem to realize that our belief systems, which we hold so dear and to be incontrovertibly ours throughout time, are simply that. Belief systems: meaning based on beliefs that are not supported by facts but rather by… thoughts and ideas that we have or by stories that we have been told.
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an acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists.something one accepts as true or real; a firmly held opinion or conviction.
And even though we can provide no concrete or indisputable proof, evidence or even facts to support our firmly held beliefs, we don’t care. We just believe.
And even though we are presented with facts from years of scientific study that explain how much the same we all are and how we have all shared the same planet and are of the same planet and are all composed of the same elements and proteins and chemicals and “star stuff” from this finite world…
We still don’t care.
And so we fight, over ancient books written by ancient minds and untruths told by small minded people and misconstrued notions forged from ill conceived imaginations. And when the facts prove us to be wrong or when we discover that our proofs have no facts to support them?
We, at best, say maybe…and then fall back on our beliefs, which we know, by the very name we give them…to be unsupported convictions held together by opinion, acceptance and faith.
So is this because thinking, that which separates us from the other animals in our world…makes it so? And is it that “making it so” is better than discovering “what is so”?
And is that what it means to be human? That we embrace what we make… more lovingly than what we find?
And thus we tragically end up with… not “I think therefor I am”, but rather…I believe therefor I am…(with the addendum) and you’re not.
So isn’t it also interesting to note that while science seeks answers in an effort to provide hope for the future of all human kind, faith almost always provides us with the hope for global destruction of all human kind so that we can go to another place where we won’t be able to screw everything up with our belief systems.
Hmmmmm…kind of makes you think doesn’t it? (or maybe not)
ipledgeafallegiance 
I am of the opinion that you have studied human kind long enough to come to this conclusion and you know what I’m willing to bet you are one hundred percent correct. The only thing that bothers me is why do we take pleasure in harming each other. What do we gain by it? Can we not use our temper tantrums in a creative way? We can use any kind of God given gift to help each other.
I have no belief, having been born into a catholic household. However I do have a large number of friends who have strong faith and I cannot reconcile your post with them. In my own opinion I think mixed education is the key to understanding our fellow citizens and education in general is the key to understanding the world we live in. Finally I think extremism in all its forms breeds intolerance and hate. Hate towards homosexuals, hate towards race, hate towards creed.
As for the key element within your post, we are all more alike than we appreciate, yes I agree wholeheartedly. Look for similarities not difference. I wonder if in the future will anything change? It looks like we were all born to argue, differ and fight. Just look to our friends and family.Yet we also have a large ability to love. The question is which do we have more of?
Loved the visual and the quote by Tolle.
What you’ve written is very much like my idea of religion, at least the part that is for daily living (as separate from the part that goes deeper as part of contemplation): science, Big Bang, anthropology, individual belief systems and the acceptance that they exist only in people’s imaginations, ancient orally-transmitted wisdom that could’ve got misinterpreted by smaller minds processing them and thereafter turned into dogma by even baser minds… I think Religion is just Acceptance, not even Tolerance, because Tolerance is less than Acceptance. But Acceptance breaks down as it is not adequate protection against evil moral cretins who bully peaceful people… And you can’t stop any of this from happening; you can’t make the whole world ‘good’… We are here as sentient beings on this beautiful Earth only by chance, kept there by a strong invisible force called gravity, with systems inside us that work all by themselves… and we choose to fight about religion like a child might say “My daddy is the best”, while each child’s daddy is the best, for him…