I'm about 90 percent atheist. I also have 100 percent faith in the teachings of Jesus. That's not a contradiction; it's a recognition. We don't have to believe in miracles to recognize that the core of what Jesus taught is the most important truth humanity has ever known: We’re all neighbors in an interconnected world, and we are to love one another as we love ourselves.

Jesus wasn't the only one to teach this truth, and the fact that so many teachers arrived at the same truth independently only deepens the recognition that we are all interconnected.

Right now, somewhere on Earth, neighbors are killing neighbors. It is happening as we read this. And every time, both sides believe they are in the right. Both sides believe God is on their side. Both sides believe they are “the Good Guys.”

Here is the question nobody is asking: What if war is not a failure of strategy, diplomacy, or intelligence? What if war is a failure to live the Golden Rule?

The word "sin" comes from the Greek term hamartia, meaning to miss the mark or miss the target. So what is the target? What is the Bullseye of Life?

Every major wisdom tradition arrived at the same answer independently.

"Love your neighbor as yourself." –Jesus

"Do not hurt others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful." –the Buddha

"That which is hateful to you, do not do to another." –Hillel (Judaism)

"None of you truly believes until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself." –Muhammad

These are different fingers pointing at the same Moon. The Bullseye of Life is to expand our circles of compassion to include everyone, even our enemies.

And war? War is the furthest we can possibly miss the mark. Hatred is hamartia. War is hamartia at the largest possible scale.

Everyone Is Our Neighbor

Look at the life and teachings of Jesus. Not what people claim in his name. What he actually said and did. He taught that everyone is our neighbor, even the despised Samaritan. He taught us to turn the other cheek. He said, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God." He said, "Love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you." He taught, "For what shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul?" He warned that a house divided against itself cannot stand. And he told us the truth would set us free.

That word "know" in "you shall know the truth" comes from the Greek ginosko. It doesn't mean intellectual understanding but lived experience. Jesus explains this in the verse before when he says those who abide in his word, meaning those who live the truth he was teaching, are set free.

What was he teaching? That we’re all neighbors in an interconnected world. That loving our neighbor is not a suggestion but the instruction manual for how our species survives and thrives.

And Jesus completely lived this truth until his final breath. After being mocked, tortured, and nailed to a cross, he forgave the very people who were killing him: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

What didn't those who crucified Jesus know? That he was their neighbor.

Some will say Jesus also said he came "not to bring peace, but a sword." But did Jesus ever carry a sword? Did he ever advocate hatred or killing? When Peter drew a sword to defend him at Gethsemane, Jesus told him to put it away. “Those who live by the sword will die by the sword.”

Jesus was speaking in metaphor, as he often did, about the division that truth creates when it cuts through familiar illusions. We know this because his entire life demonstrated it, right up to forgiving the men who nailed him to a cross.

And yet for thousands of years, leaders have claimed God is on their side to justify killing their neighbors. Both sides always claim it. As Lincoln observed during the Civil War, both North and South prayed to the same God. Both could not be right.

Who would Jesus kill? No one. He lived and died to show us that.

The Choice at Our Fingertips

It’s time for us all to remember what we already know.

We have everything we need to change the world. The internet connects 8 billion neighbors. And AI, our most powerful new technology, can be used to help us overcome the tribalism that divides our house, or weaponized to magnify our hatred and kill our neighbors more efficiently. That choice is ours. It always has been.

Eight hundred years ago, the Sufi poet Rumi wrote: "Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a Field. I'll meet you there." That Field is where neighbors meet, beyond tribe, beyond hatred, beyond the noise. Changing the world starts with each of us making a choice to treat our neighbors the way we wish to be treated. That's the start. The rest we figure out the only way we can: together.

The secret to ending all wars is living the truth we already know. But we must remember that truth must be lived, just as oxygen must be breathed, to matter.

Neighbor, will you meet me in the Field?

Rohr, R. (2019). The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For, and Believe. Convergent Books.

Rohr, R. (2024). The Tears of Things: How Prophets Journey from Rage to Compassion. Convergent Books.

Thich Nhat Hanh. (1995). Living Buddha, Living Christ. Riverhead Books.

© Psychology Today