We must have faith in tolerance
 

I’ve endured some very contentious exchanges with some very belligerent people about religion, faith and God. When I saw this editorial article in New York’s Metro Newspaper I knew that it had to be placed on here for people to read and be enlightened.

WE MUST HAVE FAITH IN TOLERANCE
By. Thomas Keown - (From the August 19, 2009, issue of New York’s Metro Newspaper.)

“You really can’t be an intelligent and thinking person with trust in science and also faith in God. Of all the new attitudes that welcomed me to when I moved from Europe this was among the most mystifying. Coming from the sheltered, potato-breeding backwaters of rural Northern Ireland to the Ph.D.-sprouting soils of Massachusetts many years ago, this supposedly “liberal” attitude to faith is puzzling still.

Last weekend I was having a chat with a pleasant young lady in a pleasant old bar and everything was going pleasingly well. My jokes were landing, my puns performing and she was laughing even when she didn’t realize the full extent of their cunning. But then the subject of church came up and she shut down. She saw people of faith as narrow-minded, unthinking and a little backwards. Not as those who do more charity and volunteer time more than anyone else in America, or led the civil rights movement or sequenced the human genome.

And fair enough. Every day there are bagfuls of examples of faith misused and folk claiming to be ‘Christian’ who wouldn’t recognize compassion if they saw it in their soup.

But could I get her to see that judging a product by its user is nonsensical and unworthy of her? That one doesn’t judge a car by its driver or a painting by its painter? I suggested reading books by smart Christians who were also scientists. Or C.S. Lewis. But, ‘I don’t want to read anything trying to persuade me of one side of something.’ Better steer clear of the Op-Ed page then. Or most books on most subjects in most libraries.

That so many clever folk can be so vociferously open-minded and tolerant of all things and all thoughts – but so closed-minded and intolerant of the merits of faith – is a contradiction that should be smacked down with a wet fish.

A few Sundays ago a brunch of God-lovers were singing songs and praying prayers at a picnic on Boston Common. The senior pastor was a Harvard physicist, the bloke holding up the words a Psychology Ph.D. Among the crowd were lawyers, doctors, grad students and MIT types.

Faith and intellect, God and science, learning and leaning appeared compatible that day. Will you tell the open-minded folk or should I?”

Greatly Needed
 

Great post, Snuka. I am a college grad who plans on getting a master's degree in the near future. A doctorate is a possibility. I am also a Christian who happens to be transgender. God has embraced me as his child because he has created me as I am. My prayer is to bring the love of God to transgender people who have rejected anything to do with Christianity because of the mistreatment by 'Christians'.

Reconciling faith and being transgender was very liberating to my soul. If it wasn't for my faith I wonder if I could have accepted the fact that I'm transgender. Thank God that his ways and thoughts aren't like ours.


Gennee
:love::love::pray:

I have met so many Christians that seem pretty unloving toward persons that are homosexual; well at least, they view homosexual persons as sinners who must seek redemption.

I have also met Christians who have yet to understand, but want to gain a better understanding, because they have questions about some churches' stance on homosexuality.

And, I have met Christians who are almost militant in their desire to advocate on behalf of LGBT persons openly, and become incensed that we are discriminated against in the name of God.

So, to judge based on being a member of a group, is what gets done to us. It is unfair, and it breaks down the opportunity for dialogue and purposeful discussion. Let's do better than that.

What about people whose religious faith commands that all infidels (unbelievers) should be put to death? Do they deserve the same tolerance?

"In our religion, there is a special place in the hereafter for those who participate in jihad.

We--with God's help--call on every Muslim who believes in God and wishes to be rewarded to comply with God's order to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it.

Acquiring weapons for the defense of Muslims is a religious duty. If I have indeed acquired these weapons, then I thank God for enabling me to do so."

- Osama bin Laden


If we say that faith in invisible gods is a good thing, aren't we really enabling the extreme fringe groups? Do they deserve the same open-mindedness?


Rick

No exceptions.

If one would have an exclusion list there's no reason for anyone else to remove your name from theirs.

So we should respect the religious faith of people who believe it is their duty to God to crash a jetliner into the World Trade Center Towers?

I don't think so.


"To kill the Americans and their allies -- civilians and military -- is an individual duty for every Muslim..." - Osama bin Laden


Rick

Rick

I can see what are you saying and it makes sense. But like Ben said if we exclude one why not exclude all? I will not respect anyone that uses religion to condone murder, but I will pray for a cure to their ignorance and I will forgive them their stupidity.
To forget is stupid
To forgive is divine :)

Maybe an alternative approach is to question the rationality of the religious beliefs that result in the death and destruction that we saw on September 11th, 2001.

I think most of us know that that it's really only a matter of time before the Muslim extremists obtain nuclear or biological weapons to carry out "God's order to kill Americans" on a wide scale. Instead of killing 3,000 people as happened in 2001, next time it could be three million.

How though, can we question the rationality of their religious beliefs without questioning the rationality of America's religious beliefs? They take orders from an invisible God the same as Christians in America do.

Bill Maher explains it this way in the movie documentary “Religulous:”

"Religion is dangerous because it allows human beings who don’t have all the answers to think that they do. Most people would think it’s wonderful when someone says, “I’m willing, Lord. I’ll do whatever you want me to do.” Except that since there are no gods actually talking to us, that void is filled in by people with their corruptions and limitations and agendas.

This is why rational people, anti-religious people, must end their timidity and come out of the closet and assert themselves. And those who consider themselves only moderately religious really need to look in the mirror and realize that the solace and comfort that religion brings you actually comes with a terrible price.

If you belonged to a political party or a social club that was tied to as much bigotry, homophobia, violence, and sheer ignorance as religion is, you’d resign in protest. To do otherwise is to be an enabler, a mafia wife with the true devils of extremism who draw their legitimacy from the billions of their fellow travelers."


And Sam Harris author of, "The End of Faith" says:

Moderates do not want to kill anyone in the name of God, but they want us to keep using the word “God” as though we knew what we were talking about. And they do not want anything too critical said about people who really believe in the God of their fathers, because tolerance, perhaps above all else, is sacred. To speak plainly and truthfully about the state of our world – to say, for instance, that the Bible and Koran both contain mountains of life-destroying gibberish – is antithetical to tolerance as moderates currently conceive it. But we can no longer afford the luxury of such political correctness. We must finally recognize the price we are paying to maintain the iconography of our ignorance.

We must find our way to a time when faith, without evidence, disgraces anyone who would claim it. Given the present state of the world, there appears to be no other world worth wanting.

It is imperative that we begin speaking plainly about the absurdity of most of our religious beliefs. I fear, however, that the time has not yet arrived. In this sense, what follows is written very much in the spirit of a prayer.

I pray that we may one day think clearly enough about these matters to render our children incapable of killing themselves over their books. If not our children, then I suspect it could well be too late for us, because while it has never been difficult to meet your maker, in fifty years it will simply be too easy to drag everyone else along to meet him with you."

Rick

The Muslims that I work with don't seem to have that faith. The Qu' ran does not require murder.

If in fact those quotes do indeed come from Osama Bin Laden then he's making up crap about Allah in much the same way that some in this country make up crap about Yahweh.

Those murdered by Christians are just as dead as those murdered by Muslims.

If you don't want to be tolerant, then don't.

I think each person has to make up their own mind on religion. I think part of the problem is that many can't talk about their faith rationally, but resort to something like, "This is what my Book says, so it's true, because God inspired that Book, because it says so in the Book."

I totally understand why some are belligerent towards religion--religion has caused pain as well as good, and many religious people I know think their sh** doesn't stink. As someone with religious beliefs, I also understand the positive ways that faith can impact one's life. Christians kill, Muslims kill, atheists kill, there's enough blame to go around. We all share one planet, whatever we believe.

With regards to C.S. Lewis, I don't see what the big stink about him is. I read his Mere Christianity last year, and I think he was trying to rationalize things that can't be rationalized... he didn't convince me of much of anything. His analogies of "begetting" for explaining the trinity made no sense to me whatsoever.

I totally agree with the comments made by bnmoore. My Muslim friends think and feel nothing in terms of the hatred mentioned by another poster. I've said this in some other places, but a lot of this has to do with fear. www.whydoyoufearme.com is a great site for this type of conversation.

Jeffrey,
That website looks great. I'm really interested in hearing more of what you have to say. What are your thoughts about how to bring change to this dynamic of fear, hatred & violence?
Nathan

Gp
 

"That so many clever folk can be so vociferously open-minded and tolerant of all things and all thoughts - "

This is a good point on tolerance/intolerance. I see that our human intolerance of whatever point(s) or issues there are in our world has us as humans intolerant to the point of killing or physically hurting others.

Even Jesus Christ was intolerant of the money-changers in the temple. Obviously He kicked them out and did not kill them, we are not told to what extent He whipped people physically.
He was also intolerant to an extent of the Pharisees and scribes of the day, but again He did not kill them.

I also ask myself the question 'Do I also not have to be intolerant of certain people in this world?' That would be people like rapists, pimps, drug peddlers and child-molesters, who hurt others for their own profit or 'amusement'.

I cannot reason with a drunk, abusive man who is hurting his wife, but I cannot tolerate his behavior towards her either.

I cannot tolerate a peddler who gives a child a narcotic which will end up destroying the child's life, but the peddler is so blinded by his greed for money, or his own selfishness that he will not listen to me, so how do I stop him?

I cannot tolerate a police officer who accepts bribes, but his own wage is so small that he has been deceived into thinking that the bribe will help him with his family.

This world certainly has been cursed, no mistake.