Blue and purple; are they the same color?

Yes, in some cultures.

If you think those two colors are different, some would suggest you have a cultural bias. In many parts of the world, in some languages and cultures, there is one word for both colors, blue and purple.

I am not a physicist, but I know we have a color spectrum, a rainbow. We can break the parts of the spectrum in any way, and we can give a color name to each section.

If you learn a new language, keep that principle in mind. Be an Anthropologist.

We should understand that humans always divide larger ideas into smaller categories, and ideas like colors belong to our culture. Ideas are not always true, sometimes they are biased interpretations. Sometimes we slice the pie in different ways.

That explains many of our modern political arguments. Often, we are talking about different things, in the same argument.

We have a classic example of this in the news. This happened among conservative political people, all associated with the US Republican Party.

One member of the Party published a statement, online “There’s no hope for any of us outside of having faith in Jesus Christ alone.”

That statement brought a harsh rebuke from a senior member of the Party “This is one of the most bigoted tweets I have ever seen. Delete it, Lizzie.”

• READ: GOP’s Max Miller, Ilhan Omar clash over ‘bigoted’ Christian post: “You have gone too far‘ | Fox News

It is clear how the Christians divided the spectrum: Jesus / not Jesus. The politician who corrected her had another pattern: Strong Religious Belief [bad] / Weak Religious Belief [good]. For that politician, a devout belief in Jesus is bigotry and must be deleted.

And then someone defended the Christian; a Somali Muslim and a Liberal politician, Ilhan Omar wrote back, “It’s also wrong to speak about religious freedom while simultaneously harassing people who freely express their beliefs,”

This story probably confuses people. Aren’t Christians and Muslims rivals, and sometimes enemies?

It is easy to understand that if Christians can’t believe, Muslims can’t either. The division is believe / don’t believe, be real, or just pretend.

This is a classic case of the people who don’t play the game making the rules. Religious people want to believe, not just express ideas that are vaguely spiritual.

Christians and Muslims have very different beliefs about God, but both groups have beliefs.

There are people, in the world today, who want to weaken belief, until it becomes nothing. When we say that ‘All roads lead to Heaven, and we only need to be spiritual.’ we are removing sincere belief in God.

“There are people, in the world today, who want to weaken belief, until it becomes nothing.”

Personal freedom is so hard to find.

Almost every story about Jesus in the Bible has an argument between people with different world views, or different ways to divide the spectrum.

One of my favorite examples is the story of the woman who was caught in adultery. Some religious leaders brought a woman to Jesus, to have her executed. They wanted Jesus to give his approval, so they could kill her by stoning, and make Jesus like them.

They had a strong case. The religious laws had severe penalties for adultery, and they could correctly stone that woman. Note that they did not bring the man who committed adultery with the woman. He should have been executed too.

The conversation was brief, and Jesus won the argument.

He told the executioners “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” (John 8:7) when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.” (verses 9, 10, and 11)

Both sides spoke to each other, but they had different conversations. One side focused on the authority to judge and condemn a victim, and Jesus focused on saving the whole world. One person was wrong, and deserved to die / we are all wrong, and deserve eternal punishment. With the Jesus argument, everyone should volunteer to be executed, or find a way to be saved.

That is how to win an argument; find the frame of reference, divide the spectrum correctly, and say what really matters in the bigger picture.