Lifes Principles

Quotation:
"Every religion emphasizes human improvement, love, respect for others, sharing other people's suffering. On these lines every religion had more or less the same viewpoint and the same goal." The Dalai Lama

Overview
Religious groups differ greatly in their concepts of deity, other beliefs and practices. Non-theistic ethical and philosophic systems, like Humanism and Ethical Culture, also exhibit a wide range of beliefs. But there is near unanimity of opinion among almost all religions, ethical systems and philosophies that each person should treat others in a decent manner. Almost all of these groups have passages in their holy texts, or writings of their leaders, which promote this Ethic of Reciprocity. The most commonly known version in North America is the Golden Rule of Christianity. It is often expressed as "Do onto others as you would wish them do onto you."
One result of this Ethic is the concept that every person shares certain inherent human rights, simply because of their membership in the human race. People are individually very different; they come in two main genders; different sizes, colors, and shapes; many races; three sexual orientations; and different degrees of ability. They follow many religious and economic systems, speak many languages, and follow many different cultures. But there is a growing consensus that all humans are equal in importance. All should enjoy basic human rights. The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is one manifestation of this growing worldwide consensus.
In my opinion, the greatest failure of organized religion is its historical inability to convince their followers that the Ethics of Reciprocity applies to all humans, not merely to fellow believers. It is my belief that religions should stress that their membership use their Ethics of reciprocity when dealing with persons of other religions, the other gender, other races, other sexual orientations, etc. Only when this is accomplished will religiously-related oppression, mass murder and genocide cease.