Privatization: ?To make private; especially : to change (as a business or industry) from public to private control or ownership?
Our country has the mindset of ?I?ll believe what I want to believe, and you can believe what you want to believe.? You know: Tolerance (?sympathy or indulgence for beliefs or practices differing from or conflicting with one?s own?). We have come to the point that we all have our own private religions practiced in our own private lives. You have absolutely no right to criticize someone?s religion (or lack thereof). If you do, you will be labeled as a bigot and intolerant.
Bigot: ?a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices?
Intolerant: ?unwilling to grant equal freedom of expression especially in religious matters? or ?unwilling to grant or share social, political, or professional rights?
There are no longer absolute, black and white, rules.
Before I go on, let me give you two very different definitions of tolerance that I have come up with. First:
?Negative Tolerance? ? Acknowledging another human?s religion and understanding their right to freedom of religion. You respect their beliefs but do not accept them as truth.
Then we have:
?Positive Tolerance? ? Accepting all religions as equally true, and allowing others to worship as they please because you have no right to criticize another?s truth.
?It?s true because I believe it is true,? is the accepted statement of today. The problem with this statement?
Say I believe it is all right to steal from a local gift shop because I?ve donated to it before but I never got anything in return for my services. So I decide I?m going to get my reward. But I get caught in the act. According to the view above, I didn?t do anything wrong. I believed it was fine to steal. It?s my truth, and you can?t say that it?s wrong. So with no moral absolutes, and nothing black and white, we have a society that truly has no law. But the law must be absolute?it cannot change from person to person.
Increased lawlessness results from the view of no absolute truth. Because how can you condemn anyone if you believe in tolerating others beliefs? Yes, a tolerant person must even be tolerant of the intolerant. How can you call me a bigot if, according to your view of tolerance, it?s true if I believe it?s true?
But for me as a Christian, the Word of God isn?t true because I believe it to be true. Rather, I believe it because it is true. The Bible is true whether you believe it or not. There must be absolutes or our society is headed to ruin.
When you accept the view that many ways lead to heaven, you cannot include Christianity. Jesus said in John 14:6, ?I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.?
Everyone has the right to believe what he chooses to believe. However, I cannot and will not treat other beliefs as equal with The Truth. To do so would dishonor the holiness of God. Yes, you will call me intolerant and a bigot. But then again, I?m afraid the tables turn when you say that. Because how can you be tolerant of the intolerant?
This is the reason we can and need to teach morality in our society today. The “tolerance” logic just doesn’t work, and it turns on itself.
As I said, increased lawlessness results from a tolerant and a pluralistic society. Everyone is free to do what seems right to them! We don’t want to live in a society like that. No one wants to live in a nation where there is no law to protect them. So to promote morality is to promote the Law, which keeps us safe. To believe in tolerance and pluralism is to promote lawlessness, and a land that does not keep us safe. The choice is up to you–do you want to be under the mercy of the Law, or a nation with no law?
All definitions from Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary
(© Tim Sweetman, Revised Edtion)
Series Continued Here
December 5th, 2004 at 5:29 pm
Great post! I hate when people tell me it is all relitive and we have to be able to accept all other ideas. But here is something to think about: if it is realy is all relitive, then that statement (it is all relitive) has to be relitive also. And you can not put your trust in something that is relitive. Because if it is relitive then it is not always true, it can be false from other points of veiw. So the statement that it is all relitive falls apart on itself. Great stuff keep it up!
May 22nd, 2005 at 5:47 pm
Tim,
You’re presenting two views of tolerance – either infinite (tolerating everything that anybody does) or finite (tolerating only what you’d like to tolerate). I don’t think anybody’s arguing for infinite tolerance on anything. Nobody’s going to support rape, or murder, or theft.
Then again, nobody’s being asked to. What you’re being asked to do Tim is to leave those alone who aren’t interested in your message. If you’re a Christian, and you’re thrilled with it, fan-tastic! But that doesn’t mean that I have any interest at all in your religion, or your relationship with god. Furthermore, claiming that you’re right without any evidence seems pretty gutsy. For instance, I don’t know what happens when we die. I also don’t care. I don’t want you to believe like me – I want you to believe whatever you’d like. But I’m not going to claim that I know. You are.
And it’s that sort of nonsense that turns off people like me.
October 5th, 2005 at 12:07 am
Yes, the Taliban would agree with me. They would say that their truth is the only truth and the only way to heaven.
So what’s different with Christianity?
The Taliban worship a dead prophet…
Christians worship a living Savior, and we know of the Savior from the Bible, which has been proven over and over again throughout time.
Our truth IS the real truth, and really any religion claims that. But Christians are different from the many false religions that worship other gods. Allah is not God. He is the Taliban’s god…they have broken the second commandment by making their own god in their minds…or rather follow a prophet who has done this and in turn have broken it themselves.
We worship a risen and living Savior. And I’d hate to be the man who doesn’t look at the quesion of if their is a heaven and a hell.If there is only one God. Ask yourself these questions, and read God’s Word for yourself, and see if it holds true.
April 5th, 2006 at 7:39 am
I have begun answering your questions on my main page.
December 19th, 2005 at 1:12 pm
“The Taliban worship a dead prophet…”
Wrong. The Taliban were Islamic fundamentalists (think Wahabbis). They worshiped God the Father (or, in Arabic “Allah”).
“Christians worship a living Savior”
Wait, didn’t Jesus Christ /die/ on the cross? Isn’t that the entire point of your religion?
“and we know of the Savior from the Bible”
I always find it interesting when Christians talk about the Bible. They seem to forget that overhalf of it is taken from some of the Jewish holy texts, and the other half were written centuries after the supposed death of Jesus, and compiled that much later. Final canonisation of the Christian bible occured somewhere between the 4th and 5th centuries BCE.
“Our truth IS the real truth”
Prove it. Oh wait, you can’t. Saying something over and over again doesn’t necessarily make it true, and that even goes for something that has been repeated over and over for centuries.
“and really any religion claims that.”
Name me four other religions that claim that.
“But Christians are different from the many false religions that worship other gods”
How? You worship three gods instead of one? You think homosexuals, jews, and leftists are “bad” and going to hell? You spread hate and intolerance throughout the world? You have a history of multiple genocides?
“Allah is not God.”
Looks like you weren’t paying attention during Arabic class. /Allah/ means /Father/. Do you know what Father means in Arabic, when used in a religious context? Yep, you got it right – God! The same God of Abraham that you and your religion also claim to worship.
“He is the Taliban’s god”
Well, the Taliban does claim to worship Allah. But they support violence and suppression of faiths and ideas that they didn’t agree with. Kind of like how Christians claim to worship God…But support violence the suppression of ideas that they don’t agree with.
“they have broken the second commandment by making their own god in their minds”
Except, not. It seems to me that by that logic, you and your religion are ALSO breaking the second commandment. Any old guy can claim to be the son of god. Isn’t that heresy, though? Well, by following the same train of thought that you were, it seems that you and your kind are breaking the second commandment. Maybe you should all renounce your faith and convert to Judaism. That’d make sure that you weren’t breaking any commandment.
“or rather follow a prophet who has done this and in turn have broken it themselves.”
Have you even read the Qu’ran? I’m not going justify that with a response.
“We worship a risen and living Savior.”
Except he died. Then went to Heaven, as you claim. But he still died. He can’t be alive and be in Heaven at the same time. That’s a contradiction. Maybe you should revise your theology.
“And I’d hate to be the man who doesn’t look at the quesion of if their is a heaven and a hell.”
My question is, how can you accept something so blindly without ever having seen evidence of its existance? Following something blindly never leads to good things. Never.
“If there is only one God.”
I think the real question is – does any sort of Supreme Being even exist? Once that is answered, determining the number of Supreme Beings (or lackthereof) is fairly easy.
“Ask yourself these questions, and read God’s Word for yourself, and see if it holds true.”
You know, it is only the Qu’ran that claims to be the direct word of God. Every other holy text in either christianity or judaism claims to merely been ‘divinely inspired’. If you don’t believe me, you can go and take a look at the ecunemical councils – when the various patriarchs were hammering out a compilation of what they thought the Bible should be, they included only the books that they believed where ‘divinely inspired’, and threw out the rest (the books of the apocrypha).
I think you should do yourself a favour and read all of the holy texts from the various faiths that claim to be divinely inspired. That might give you an idea of how totally insane your claim to truth might sound to someone of a different faith. Read what is left of the Zoroastrian texts – the first monotheistic faith in the world.
In the meantime, I suggest you re-examine what it means to be a christian. What’s that famous line? “Judge not, lest ye be judged”