It is a Satanic principal to tolerate no one until they prove themselves tolerable. Paradoxical? Certainly. However, I believe that it's my responsibility to temper myself socially in order to be able to interact with society in a way that best serves my needs, as well as observing the norms of the environment I live in. I expect this of others too. Who I am in polite society and who I am in my own home are different personas. I think this is more common than one might think.

The problem as I see it is those people who think that their own myopic vision of what is/isn't tolerable is the only way to function. These people are truly lost.

__________________
"The Lord can make you tumble, the Lord can make you turn, the Lord can make you overflow...but the Lord can't make you burn." - Randy Newman

I was recently reminded by one of our members that this is a board about "beliefs," and that everybody has a right to their own. The idea, since I had in fact criticized a particular belief, seems to be that individual beliefs are beyond criticism.

Elsewhere, a regular correspondent wrote quite the opposite: "Intolerance does not mean that I cannot criticise any belief or concept to which I disagree. People have no right to have their ideas protected from criticism. They have a right to protection of their person, their reputation, or attacks on their morality."

I reacted quite strongly to that statement. I agree completely, and it's something I've been thinking about lately, in particular because of our member's point that "people have a right to believe what they want."

Well, they may have that right, and I couldn't do anything about it anyway. Not really. I'm not in the business of trying to change other people's core beliefs (even if I thought I could). But I have an equal right to express my absolute dismay, and sometimes righteous anger, over some of the things that people believe. And this goes doubly, triply and more for those beliefs that lead to harm.

And do you know, I go even further. I think that I have a moral obligation to criticize potentially harmful, irrational beliefs, if only in the modest hope that my criticism can prevent some wrong. And the only way that I can do that, at least in venues like this one, is through critical analysis of the belief as it has been expressed to me.

Dennis and Lorie Nixon of Altoona, PA, lost two children in the early 1990's, one after the other, because they chose prayer and refused to get them the medical assistance they so desperately needed. They got probabltion for "involuntary manslaughter" after their young son died (after begging them to make the pain stop). But they didn't learn. A couple of years later, their daughter Shannon also died, after the usual rounds of intense prayer.

I won't list the hundreds of others (pediatrician Seth Asser and children's advocate Rita Swan investigated 172 child deaths in American faith-healing churches during a 20-year period, and found the vast majority had ensued as a result of religion-based neglect.

What I want to know is this: if any of these people had expressed such a belief on these forums, and spoke of their child's illness and how they were treating it with prayer as to their fundamental beliefs, how should the board members respond? Tolerance? "Yes, going with your beliefs is good." "You have a right to your own beliefs." Or should they rake these people over the coals, and go so far as to try to track them down and sic the police on them in an effort to protect the children? Their beliefs, in my view, take a very distant back seat to the rights of their children to be protected from pure irrational idiocy.

And this is especially true with the Nixon's second child, when they had received the direct evidence of the harm caused by their folly in the first case. But as I said, the most persuasive of arguments won't often change beliefs.

How about the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints (FLDS) and their belief that a man must be married to get to heaven, and must have at least 3 wives to get "the highest level." How is it even possible to reconcile the fact that human males and females are born in approximately equal numbers (one would imagine as part of the divine plan)? Thus, it is absolutely inevitable that some males will be left out, with no wives available at all. And this will be only through the fault of their fathers and uncles and community elders, who have been marrying up all the sweet young things. Oh, and not for their own pleasure at all, Oh Nosiree! Only, really, because it's God's will!

These "lost boys" are condemned to hell by the very inability of their god to do simple arithmetic! What shall we say? Shall we leave this uncriticized? Not I!

And the beliefs don't even have to be religious. The Belgians, for some strange reason, believed that the Tutsis of Rwanda were more slender, gracile -- thus more attractive, evolved and worthy -- than the Hutus. (They are, in fact, indistinguishable physically.) So of course the Belgians ensured that they held the "aristrocracy" to themselves. The power and wealth, as so often happens, were consigned to the "worthier" minority. That, unfortunately, didn't help the 800,000 Tutsis who died as a result of the belief-inspired hatred of them by the majority, subjugated Hutus.

See, here's my real issue. Humanity has been here for a very short time in the grand scheme of things. I'm afraid (no! I believe!) that we may be an aberration, that our propensity for believing against reason and against evidence -- even in the face of directly contradictory evidence -- means that we're fairly likely to extinguish ourselves and much of this earth, too. After all, now we have the ability.

Europe has already exploded a few times (in France, England, Holland and Denmark), and though it heats up and quiets down in cycles, I think there's worse to come. And it will get even uglier on that day when non-Muslim Europeans come to really see themselves being displaced.

So, unless we humans evolve so that our rational thinking is stronger than our ability to hold irrational beliefs, I think we may be doomed to be another fossilized footnote in the archaelogy of some future species.

__________________
evangelicalhumanist: Greek "eu"=good and "angelos"=messenger. Spreading the good news of Humanism.

WOW....ok...I for one believe we should very much here or anywhere else be able to share our opinions on anyone elses opinions so long as we do it in a civilized manner...and i have seen what appears at times it is not warmly welcomed to go against anothers thoughts...but seems to be smooth enough...world just is not perfect...

as for the sickly children...i hear you loud and clear and your thinking someone should have stepped in..but..always a but...we can not fix all things..and we dont know a DR. could have done anything nor that they could not have...i firmly believe with all my existence...we will go on the day we are meant to go..and not a second or day sooner..is this true or not..i dont know..but it makes sense that if this is true...there belief may be valid...and we all die at different ages of different ailments and this kind of stuff can make us a little crazy..because we each have our own idea of how it could have been better ...and as i would take my child to a Dr....i like it or not respect others ways..even if i hate them...i if one was posting about sickness of a child and hear them talk of not getting attention would encourage getting help...i feel the help one gets does not prolong a life...and only saves it if it is not your time to go...but lets one live more comfortable while here on the earth with the modern technologies....

as for the Mormons...i said on another thread I read the book escape and it changed me and for a few days i felt discomfort from having read it...and again...we each do what we can..not sure in this case what that is...i dont know where our rights begin and theres ends as far as there ways...there by all means seems to be great child abuse in these sects...and they sure seem they need to be saved...but if you have been in a state system...for as many great homes are out there...there are equally i think many a horrid story of happening for those who thought they stepped in and made life better...where are the lines..i am not sure...we can only each continue to do the best we know for our self and further educate ....my home life sucked to be put blunt...but there is no way i would trade it....it truly has given me a out look on life that i like..with the good the bad the ugly...i hear what your saying in your post...also the upset the passion of wanting things righted that seem to the average person wrong......what suggestions are there to improve...are we as a society working on them...are we forgetting to see the growth for the ugly that still appears...

Loving a Brother is not to tolerate - It is to Love

Love is not conditions and is given freely to all regardless of appearance or belief or it is not Love

Love ALL as yourself and tolerate "X" just doesnt ring that bell does it

There are many things which are completely intolerable, such as: blatant stupidity, senseless violence, baseless superstition, beings who are vile and obnoxious and instigate stupid confrontations.
The list goes on, but I can only tolerate so much of this.
One must draw lines, but they should be sensible and eminently justifiable.
One must always let compassion/love rule.

I believe we should draw the line of tolerance at people's rights. We should tolerate people doing anything but violating the rights of others. That's what freedom is all about.

__________________
"I fully comprehended the power of the human mind at the exact moment I came to the realization that I'm totally insane and have no idea what I'm talking about."