A Conversation with Reverend Fred Armstrong

HOW CAN PEOPLE OF DIVERSE RELIGIONS LIVE TOGETHER PEACEFULLY?
Well, I guess the key word to having different religions get along is tolerance. How we get different religions to tolerate each other is an age-old question. You know, they’re fighting over religion in Ireland. They’re fighting over religion in Israel. They’re fighting over religion in Iraq. People must be more tolerant of others.

DO YOU THINK PEACE IS POSSIBLE ON THIS PLANET?
Eventually… We have to think positive. In some ways, it’s more civil than it’s ever been. But we still have a long way to go.

HAVE YOU EVER FELT PEACE…?
I think I feel at peace probably when I’m with my family and we’re not fighting. Ha ha… Usually I feel peace with my friends and loved ones, I can attain inner peace for the most part. It feels great. It’s probably one of the great things humans can achieve, The stresses of the world makes it very difficult for us to feel peace. We’re all distracted, horribly, with all this peripheral stuff that goes on in our lives, and we’re kind of forced into it with the way everything is — Whether it’s government, religion, school, or education. I mean there are a lot of different pressures and it’s just tough to feel peaceful.

WHY DO YOU THINK THERE IS SO MUCH PREJUDICE?
Envy, and the lack of understanding. Not being able to put yourself in someone else’s position. The lack of tolerance. Fear. The fear of someone else for no apparent reason, because you don’t understand someone else. Prejudice equals ignorance.

IS THERE ANYTHING YOU WOULD LIKE THE YOUNG COMMUNITY TO KNOW ABOUT PEACE?
That peace can be achieved if enough people think that that it can. People can change their direction a little bit. If you had asked me this back when I was in high school, I would have said, “Absolutely. Yeah for sure.” I’m pretty surprised in many ways where we’re at right now. In the forty plus years since I went to high school, I would have thought that we would have come along much further than we have.  In some ways we have, but in other ways, the world’s exactly the way it was then and the way it was a hundred years ago and a thousand years ago.

WHAT VIRTUE DO YOU THINK THE WORLD NEEDS MORE OF?
Love. Love will translate to peace, understanding, honesty and happiness.