The arrogance of toleration

Different strokes.

tolerance is arrogant-damn right! I mean, we're all more or less a threat to one another-they haven't outlawed letter-openers yet-but who's accountable for our safety? You could say the government, but cops are real pro-active about moving violations and retro-active on everything else, so my answer is me and my body of knowledge are responsible for my safety.

The fact that I view organized religion as a threat is more a matter of my respect for it than of any particular ill will or pre-judgment of its individual adherents.

Good intentions of ordinary christians have (at least to me) certainly caused incredible horrors.
As have intentions, well meaning or no, from non christians.
But the world doesn't actually revolve around christianity - there are many other ways of being and ways of warring.

Underlying some of all that has been territoriality, avarice, rapine, on and on.



As far as I can see, just one woman watching, getting along has not been rewarding in a way that attracts humans, except for once in a while.

I dig what you're saying, but I'd say attracting humans to a line of thought is a lot to ask. The best thing now is to get published in a journal-but part of the problem is there's no conscientious middle class-like it's no longer a thing unto itself to run a millhand family-it's all invincible achievers, well payed epicureans and grunts.

I'll have to decipher what you said (I don't know anything about millhand. Back manana.)

I'm becoming more and more involved in interfaith dialogue. I stumbled across a PBS program while channel-surfing last night titled, Three Faiths, One God which spoke to the similarities of the three Abrahamic religions and brought focus groups together of varying faiths in an attempt to get to know each other as individuals rather than as born enemies. It was very interesting and worth catching if stumbled upon.



My own way of looking at it is in the same light as an extended family. Within each family there are similarities and differences. The similarities are the glue that hold them together, the differences are what allow each member to be an individual yet part of the whole. Focusing on the differences can tear families apart. Focusing on the similarities allows individuals to grow and mature with the support of the group.

We needn't all be the same, nor should we simply tolerate our differences (except weird Aunt Margaret), but we should strive to understand each other and help each other grow.

Of all religions, the Christian should of course inspire the most tolerance, but until now Christians have been the most intolerant of all men.
Voltaire

Honest discussions - even and perhaps especially on topics about which we disagree - can help us resist hypocrisy and arrogance. They can also help us live up to the basic ideals, such as liberty and justice for all, on which our country was founded.
David E. Price

why?

It seems to me that the issue with inter-faith relations and striving to help each other grow is that, particularly with faiths that hold facts and literal truths as prominent, there needs to be a certain amount of selflessness involved. To want someone else to grow "spiritually" or otherwise, is not to want them to grow in a certain direction, it's not that specific, it's about the general well being and prosperity of a person/people. A willingness to admit, more than just that truth A could be wrong but that maybe, it's not important, it shouldn't be the focus or the end in itself. This is best seen when we meet someone who we find totally likeable but they contradict our current attitudes/assumptions, how do/should we react? I can only imagine the fanatic scurries away into his hole precisely because, that admission of something else, another way, another possibility, would constitute a denial of self. So it's a good job there are a considerable number of decent religious folk that keep religion from becoming synonymous with extremism because who knows what we'd do then.

An example of a literal truth argued about and the true religious importance behind it would be the debate over the historical Jesus. Religiously or spiritually speaking, I don't see how on earth it matters. If someone fixates on the lack of belief in Jesus as lord and saviour over and above the life and works of the person denying Jesus in this way, we surely have a big problem. This ties in with the selflessness thing because to me, the fixation is there for a reason. They're fixating on it because the denial or questionable attitude constitutes a denial of the believer's identity. If who I am is so dependent on this and I/or another bring it into doubt, who am I? You can't strive to help each other grow with this attitude. Not only this but that fixation is IMO, religiously speaking again, totally antithetical to growth.

millhands are people who work in mills/heavy industry and are not foremen etc. The union still uses the term 'Millwright'. What I mean is, there will never be a grass-roots movement in this generation because no one wants to be grass roots. Religion is a poor substitute for that-like if you can't get agreement go for hysteria. What's got to happen is we've got to get desperate one more time.

Some will disagree with that, say if we stop warming the globe we've got all we need to build heaven-but I'm tired of Wall-Mart and iPods and leasing flexfuel cars already and whatever comes after that crap unless theres a disruption will only be more exquisitely squalid. So why tolerate? So something you don't agree with can live, because there's room for everything? What if you're wrong and you're thing goes on because you weren't obstinate about it? I'd rather take what dreams may come...

Huh??

I'm not sure I followed that one either.

T
K
O?

Well, as opposed to simply killing whomever or whatever you disagree with,
yeah.

Well, there are those who do that as well. And we, being of the tolerant kind... tolerate them.

There is a difference between tolerance and cowardice, but I think they get mixed up sometimes.

Also, that christian proverb "hate the sin, not the sinner" is pretty much useless, since most people cannot distinguish between objections to their behaviour or statements and attacks on their person.

When I think of how I feel when asked what it means to tolerate another religion.... I can't even fathom the idea of it!
I can't stand 'em! LOL

But, seriously I'd say to tolerate would be to accept. Meaning, being able to accept that they have different beliefs. Not to accept their beliefs.

I'm always saying that we only tolerate views that are compatible with our own.

For example, those that profess tolerance seem to be highly intolerant of intolerance in others. (I know I am.)

Yeah... One thing I cannot tolerate is intolerance. When I experience intolerance I get really intolerant towards it. So intolerance is highly contagious...

Which begs the question posed in a thread I started a long time ago:

Is it intolerant to be intolerant of intolerance?

There were some masterful attempts to deal with it, but the thread eventually stopped I think because nobody could quite get their mind around the question.

But to me, to be tolerant of religion (or anything else) is to allow others their intolerances so long as they cannot require me to believe what they believe or impose any consequence on me if I do not share their beliefs. If the folks at the fundamentalist church on the corner tell me I'm going to hell because I don't share their religious views, that is nothing to me. They can't send me there.

If they they take out an ad in the newspaper enumerating my sins, however, or burn a cross on my lawn, or attempt to deprive me of my peace, rights, livelihood, or opportunities, that is quite another matter and does not call for tolerance but would call for civil action.

A live and let live attitude is the best policy for everybody.

Well said, foxfyre (and welcome back).