John W. Kennedy
Member posted 05-19-99 11:55 AM
Good job on showing tolerance of other faiths, there, JW. Now how about attacking the myth of a person being resurrected after three days (or even any number of days, for that matter)? After all, it’s not just we LDS types who believe in that little part of Christanity.
And for those who didn’t notice: I was being incredibly sarcastic with my remark about JW’s tolerance.
Dr. Fidelius, Charlatan
Associate Curator Anomalous Paleontology, Miskatonic University
“You cannot reason a man out of a position that he did not use reason to reach.”
For Skat!
Hey! It’s the religionists who send out the proselyters----Those of us who don’t feel a need for a group are the ones who are continuously being told to ‘Get in line.’
We who are not ‘groupies’ are not against those who are—Matter of fact we don’t even think about them 99.9% of the time.
Make that an even 100%
They must all be real. Like Phyllis said on the Mary Tyler Moore Show, looking over Minneapolis, “If God isn’t real, why would he have all those houses?” So, the real estate criterion defines it:the more temples ,the more real it is.
In acts 2 the apostiles were in the upper room and the holy spirit came upon them and the all spoke of the same accord. If the holy spirit tells everyone the same thing and doesn’t contridict itself why are ther baptists, lutherns, methodists as well as all other churches that profes to be christain with wide swings in ther religious beliefs? If god knows all, sees all ,hears all is evry place at the same time and nowhere is he not found. Why pray to saints when god can do it all? In revelation john keeps trying to worship the angle that he is with wonts to build an alter to him the angle keeps telling him to worship god and jesus only and not any graven images like saint charms, rosery beads, the bones of saints statues and other graven images. Does that leave any christians standing?
OK, I gotta jump in here, even against my better judgement.
Baptists, Lutherans, and Methodists do not necessarily disagree over anything, any more than we might with members of our own church. It’s just that not everyone likes the same style of worship or polity.
Now before anyone jumps down my throat, of course I realize that this is an extremely idealistic view, but it is the theory behind many denominations. The founders of United Methodism, Disciples of Christ, United Churches of Christ, amoung others never thought that other denominations were wrong, only that they had developed specific methods (hence, in one case, Methodists) of helping people follow Christ.
Furthermore, although most Christians believe that the Holy Spirit has helped (and continues to help) guide tradition, even pre-Vatican II Catholicism defined only a small part of their doctrine as the garaunteed product of divine inspiration. In other words, the Spirit is consistant, but doesn’t dictate every line in the church discipline. The teachings that different denominations do disagree on are pretty much agreed by most to be non-essential, even though one may feel very strongly about them. Of course there are a few assholes, and even entire denominations of assholes who think that they alone are loved by God, and everyone else can (and will) go to hell, but these are a much smaller minority than their vocalism makes them seem.
As for graven images, Obbie’s ignorance about these things, rosary beads in particular, indicates that he’s either had absolutly no contact with real Christians, or else was raised Catholic ;). None of the things you mentioned, Obbie, are worshipped by anyone, although Catholics and Orthodox may use rosary beads to help count their prayers, or those and any number of other things to help them focus on God while praying.
As for saints, well, I’m not Catholic, but there is this pretty universal doctrine called the Communion of the Saints, which says that all believers are part of a common community united by their faith. Since for some, all includes past, as well as present, they pray to saints for the same reason you talk to your priest and other churchgoers–they’re friends who are there to help you in matters of faith.
Sorry about such a long post, friends, but there was a lot to refute!
It is not “religious toleration” to accept a palpable lie. The Book of Mormon is provably a modern forgery, because it quotes a corrupt medieval text of St. Matthew. (Of course, the whole idea that Jesus, even if he did appear in the Americas, would preach the “Sermon on the Mount” verbatim, and that a miraculous, perfect translation of this pre-Columbian text into English would reproduce the exact, verbatim text of the King James translation of a Greek translation of an Aramaic original is laughable to begin with.) The accounts of the Resurrection on the other hand, are not provably forgeries; you may choose not to believe them, but that is not the same thing as being able to prove that they are deliberate lies.
John W. Kennedy
“Compact is becoming contract; man only earns and pays.”
– Charles Williams
I don’t know that anyone has ever really defined what religious tolerance is, JW, but I think politeness probably has something to do with it.
So long as the Mormons (or the Wiccans or the Whoeverans) aren’t insisting that you follow their beliefs, is it necessary to go around declaiming “palpable lies” wherever you see them?
If someone were to tell me that the only way to experience God’s love was to rub blue mud in my belly button, I’d probably nod and say “My, I never thought of that”. I wouldn’t start looking for blue mud, but neither would I put much effort into calling their belief a palpable lie.
I don’t doubt that there are details of the Mormon holy book that are extremely questionable under examination. But faith is faith, and believing in something you may consider silly or fraudulent doesn’t change the fact that a person finds comfort and resources in their beliefs.
I say, so long as they’re not bugging anyone, let them rub that blue mud in as much as they like.
OBBIE-WAN – My own creed of religious tolerance dictates the following: If someone is going to attempt to worship an angle, he or she must respect someone else’s right to worship a curve or a straight line, if they so choose. 
And . . .
IOTA – Thank you much!
PHOUKA – Amen, Brother (or Sister)!
In my view, the problem that JW really has may not be so much with religious tolerance as it is with what exactly tolerance is. According to an e-mail forward I got recently, tolerance has traditionally meant merely acceptance of other people’s right to believe in things in which you disagree and that you would accept others regardless of their race, nationality, creed or gender. It also meant that you would try to live peacably with others despite their differences, and made a distinction between the person and their actions.
The New Meaning of Tolerance, however, makes some changes. Now, instead of each person having an equal right to believe in whatever he or she wants to, whatever he or she belives or says IS equally right. Not only does everyone have an equal right to his or her values and lifestyles but all values and lifestyles are equal. And the new Tolerance tends to equate Who I Am with What I do. These ideas come from Dr. John Martz, pastor of a local church.
I, and I think a lot of other Christians, find it easy to be tolerant of others in the traditional sense. I look at the Bible, and find that Jesus states “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, no one can come to the Father, but by me”. I thus consider followers of other religions, or those who choose not to follow any religion, to be in the wrong. This doesn’t mean I can’t be friends or good neighbors with them. It may mean that I try to get them to give me a chance to share why I believe what I believe with them since I would love for them to come to know God as I do.
New Tolerance is much harder for me. I don’t do well at giving other opinions equal validity with each other, much less mine. (I respect someone’s beliefs in Judaism or Islam much more than beliefs in Wicca or New Age beliefs).
“I respect someone’s beliefs in Judaism or Islam much more than beliefs in Wicca or New Age beliefs”
Arch, why is that? I don’t want to start a flame war, but being Wiccan, I would like to understand why that is.
phouka,
Why do I have more trouble respecting beliefs in Wicca than in Judaism or Islam?
Well, Judaism is easy for me to respect, the “only” “problem” Jews have is that they failed to recognize Jesus of Nazareth as the predicted Messiah. Islam is still one of the three great mono-theistic religions. I don’t know enough about Wicca to have much respect, in a generic sense, for those who believe it. (Meaning, if I met you tommorrow and you explained why you believe what you believe, I might respect YOU, without neccessarily coming to respect others who believe what you do.) I also, perhaps because my religious beliefs are all or nothing, tend to have more respect for other religions that say “If We are right, You are in Trouble” than for those that seem to be extremely “New Tolerant” of everyone else.
Nobody has to tolerate my religion, because I keep my yap shut about it. You can believe what you want to believe, it’s all the same to me - just don’t get in my face with it.
Tolerance made simple?
Archimedes said:
As much as I have disagreed with Archimedes in previous threads dealing with religious topics, I think we’re pretty much in agreement here. I agree with the definition of tolerance and think that “new tolerance,” as you have called it, is wrong – all ideas are NOT of equal validity (this is part of the post-modernist movement as well, I believe).
As cliche’ as it sounds, several of my best friends are young-earth creationists (and anybody who has seen me post on that topic knows that I am certainly not). It’s just something we don’t talk about (though it was a little tough when I did a newspaper book review on Noah’s Flood, a book that posits a historical occurrence as the origin for the myth of the Flood, and their Sunday School teacher used it in one of their classes ).
Depending on how you did this, it probably wouldn’t go over too well with me if I was one of your friends.
“It’s a very dangerous thing to believe in nonsense.” – James Randi
Can one believe in unbiased truth and still be tolerant?
By this, I mean if you see a religion is based upon a provable falshood, shouldn’t one point out the obvious that the belief is false?
Even if you can’t prove it, if you think a religion is causing harm to it’s followers and to society itself, wouldn’t it be one’s duty to society to try and correct that situation?
Even if it’s a harmless belief, shouldn’t people believe things only if they are true? Is “impolite” or politically incorrect to seek truth?
I’ve been a follower of tolerance all my life, but I’m starting to wonder if that’s been at the expense of Truth, with a capital T.
I’m not saying there should be burnings at the stake, but instead of ignoring people’s wrong beliefs, maybe there should be SOME attempt to show them they are wrong.
Who is to say what’s right and what’s wrong, you are saying to yourself. This Revtim asshole? What the hell does he know?
(Although I am an ordained minister of the ULC, so it David Letterman, to show you what that’s worth.) Go to www.olc.org and become one yourself!
I agree with John W. Kennedy that there are damn good reasons not to believe SOME things. Why is the evidence there that some beliefs are wrong, did Satan put it there? Unlikely, and if you go for that chain of logic, then you must admit that all religions are equally likely, and sheer probability practically proves that the religion YOU believe in is false.
Ezstrete wrote
I just want to make sure I understood you correctly. I don’t claim to be an expert in any of those religions, but are you saying that their teaching don’t include the idea of standing up for what you believe in?
I always kind of thought that part of the idea of “religious belief” was that the person really thinks that the tenets of the religion are true. Tolerance is a great idea for people who don’t believe too strongly in any particular belief. But for those who do have strong beliefs, I’d suggest phouka’s suggestion that
My goodness, John W. Kennedy. You think that you KNOW that the book of mormon is a forgery. It has been PROVED by your source. The essence of the book of mormon is this: The Lord told me it is true. I know many people who also make this claim. The Lord has told each one of us. This is my claim, and many others with me. I have, on my side, the Lord himself telling me that the book is true. You have an unnamed source with speculation and conjecture doing everything he or she can to “prove” the book of mormon wrong. get back to the real issue in this thread.
What criteria are posed by the bible and other religious works that must be in a true church? If we list the criterium, and apply the list to the churches in this world, THEN we can see how close each church is to what the lord intended.
REVTIM – I say the following respectfully:
I think that the attitude you demonstrated in your post (knowledge of “the Truth”; letting people know that you think that what they believe is wrong; an apparent willingness to attack others’ beliefs under the guise of wanting to help them) is why so many people do not like what they perceive to be the modern Christian faith. Don’t you see that such attempts to “help” are almost always arrogant, aggravating, and off-putting?
That said, I also recognize the quandry faced by fundamentalist Christians (and I’m not saying you are one – don’t know), which is this: If I truly believed that JC was the one true path to salvation, would I not have an obligation to urge as many people as possible to forsake their “wrong” beliefs and follow Him? Oddly enough, I would say “no.” People believe what they believe, and very, very few appreciate having their beliefs attacked by someone who thinks they know better (not to mention that attempting to tell someone the “truth” in the context of religion is patronizing in the extreme). So what to do? I think that, as a Christian, I can be open about my beliefs TO THOSE WHO ASK. Those who don’t, I leave alone. I also think I can be positive about my faith WITHOUT having to attack the beliefs of others. In other words, I would be glad to tell anyone who is interested why I am a Christian, but I would not presume to tell that person why he or she should not be a Moslim (or Buddhist or whatever). If asked, however, what I thought of a particular faith, I would answer tactfully (I hope) but honestly. The key to this is “IF ASKED,” because I know that I do not appreciate it when others tell me that what I believe is “wrong” and what they believe is “right.”