We have pointed out many times the number of empty words, words often used without real meaning such as peace, freedom, and education. There are also words used with very definite intentions even though they appear to be innocuous. Perhaps first and foremost among them are 'diversity' and tolerance'.
We are told that we ought to embrace diversity and that we ought to be tolerant. Interestingly enough, the very first problem with these term is no different than testing the use of calls for education or peace or freedom. When someone asks us to accept diversity and become tolerant, we must ask: tolerate what? Tolerate it why? Accept what type diversity? All of it, or only parts of it? For of course all that diversity really means is that A is different from B, and all tolerance means is allowing something to happen or be. It is only through the answers to these question that we can really know what the person is talking about or what they want us to do.
So you see, to actually understand what the preachers of tolerance and diversity want we find ourselves in the same boat as our friends who preach freedom: once we begin the discussion in detail, we aren't talking about toleration or diversity. We're talking about, at the least, acceptable personal and social behavior, and, at the most, good old right and wrong. For surely in asking those necessary questions we aim to draw conclusions about propriety or morals. Indeed, even the person asking for diversity must mean that they want you to accept what they support as right and true. If your compliance didn't matter to them, they wouldn't make any demands upon you.
Another and better question to ask is, if all it's really about is accepting people as they are (which, you may notice, in itself only begs the same questions as descriptive words alone do) then why don't you tolerate me? I'm diverse. All right, so maybe I am intolerant of your creed. Well, then. Put that in your pipe and smoke it too, if it's all about tolerance.
But, as we all know, it isn't about tolerance and diversity. It's about making the more conservative among us accept what we cannot. The fact of the matter is they surely do not appreciate our diverse opinions; they most certainly do not wish to tolerate us. And why? Simply because we disagree with them, and have the audacity to say so.
That leaves us with one final question. Who between us is truly audacious?
Showing posts with label religious tolerance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label religious tolerance. Show all posts
Friday, January 20, 2012
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Examine Your Own Creed Before Judging Others
The issue of tolerance, or, perhaps, intolerance, has been brought to Detroit. At Ford Field, a prayer gathering has called for Detroit and indeed the entire United States to turn Jesus or else we're doomed.
That sentiment itself is of course quite true. But the manner in which it is often presented can and should be subject to question. As such, it explains the diverse peoples outside of Ford Field who protest the particular manner in which the group, the New Apostolic Reformation, and its leader Lou Engle, are representing the cause of Christ.
The NAR is accused of being racist, sexist, anti-gay rights, anti-Catholic, anti-Muslim, and intolerant. We see no need to go into the details of their harangues. You can probably imagine them well enough and they're likely as not all over the Internet anyway. However that may be, theirs is an organization which, other than on free speech grounds, it would be difficult to defend.
But the people against them must be aware of themselves and what they may stand for as well. One common lament against Mr. Engle and his followers is that they are not for 'inclusion' but hate. They do not promote tolerance, but hate.
Well, are the protesters really practicing inclusion and tolerance themselves? Do they, by simple argument, hate what was and is going on inside Ford Field? Otherwise, why not include and tolerate the New Apostolic Reformation? Ah, because the sign carriers are for inclusion and tolerance of the people and creeds they like. So they protest, many of them never questioning whether their heads are on straight either.
We are not defending Lou Engle or the NAR in any way, shape or form. Yet we cannot escape the feeling that many of those who speak against him speak with forked tongue themselves. They're for tolerance and inclusion...of what they like. But as for Engle and Company, they would not tolerate or include.
The point here is that we can and must judge the actions and intentions of people if we are to understand the world and really make it better. This must mean the tolerance and inclusion of certain ideas and ways as well as the intolerance and exclusion of ideas and attitudes contradictory to human good. Protests against bigots are all well and good when we are actually dealing with knee jerk and intellectually shallow bigots. But notice that that involves the judgment that such persons are wrong in their ways.
It also implies that we may judge your ways. And if you don't allow it, it you refuse to let others tend rational judgments about your ways and your means, then you are no different than those you refuse to tolerate. You may indeed be worse. You may be self centered and self aggrandizing bigots of the worst kind. You may be hypocrites.
That sentiment itself is of course quite true. But the manner in which it is often presented can and should be subject to question. As such, it explains the diverse peoples outside of Ford Field who protest the particular manner in which the group, the New Apostolic Reformation, and its leader Lou Engle, are representing the cause of Christ.
The NAR is accused of being racist, sexist, anti-gay rights, anti-Catholic, anti-Muslim, and intolerant. We see no need to go into the details of their harangues. You can probably imagine them well enough and they're likely as not all over the Internet anyway. However that may be, theirs is an organization which, other than on free speech grounds, it would be difficult to defend.
But the people against them must be aware of themselves and what they may stand for as well. One common lament against Mr. Engle and his followers is that they are not for 'inclusion' but hate. They do not promote tolerance, but hate.
Well, are the protesters really practicing inclusion and tolerance themselves? Do they, by simple argument, hate what was and is going on inside Ford Field? Otherwise, why not include and tolerate the New Apostolic Reformation? Ah, because the sign carriers are for inclusion and tolerance of the people and creeds they like. So they protest, many of them never questioning whether their heads are on straight either.
We are not defending Lou Engle or the NAR in any way, shape or form. Yet we cannot escape the feeling that many of those who speak against him speak with forked tongue themselves. They're for tolerance and inclusion...of what they like. But as for Engle and Company, they would not tolerate or include.
The point here is that we can and must judge the actions and intentions of people if we are to understand the world and really make it better. This must mean the tolerance and inclusion of certain ideas and ways as well as the intolerance and exclusion of ideas and attitudes contradictory to human good. Protests against bigots are all well and good when we are actually dealing with knee jerk and intellectually shallow bigots. But notice that that involves the judgment that such persons are wrong in their ways.
It also implies that we may judge your ways. And if you don't allow it, it you refuse to let others tend rational judgments about your ways and your means, then you are no different than those you refuse to tolerate. You may indeed be worse. You may be self centered and self aggrandizing bigots of the worst kind. You may be hypocrites.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Tolerate Me
Tolerance. The word leaps from the mouths of liberals as though a mantra. We need to be more tolerant of people, especially, it seems, those who violate long accepted mores.
Well, let's put the shoe on the other foot. If tolerance is so great, why are you trying to change my, or anyone else's, for that matter, outlook? Aren't we as representative of diversity in our divergent viewpoints as all those different folks and actions we're supposed to blindly accept? Don't we merit the same kind of acceptance which we are supposed to offer everybody else?
In the aftermath of the 2010 elections and in light of many recent legislative proposals here in Michigan, as well as in Wisconsin, Ohio, and elsewhere, there have been many liberal sympathisers who have bemoaned the ignorance of the electorate in putting the GOP back in play. Conservatives have been called dummies and bullies and worse, all because we don't believe in the creeds of the left. Even the President has lamented that he likely hasn't explained himself well enough, as though we poor neanderthals simply can't understand him or his ideals. All because we have repudiated the vast excesses of the past two and a half years.
Well, here's one conservative who's sick and tired of it. Think me dumb if you like; label me (oooh, there's another sin of the right: labeling people. Heaven forbid we know anything about them) a bully or what have you. I have one thing to say, one thing to put in your pipe to smoke.
I'm a right wing traditionalist who believes in the individual who believes in himself and his country when he and they are in the right. I believe in doing and supporting what's right while working against what's wrong, and most importantly I have faith in a just God. Tolerate me.
Well, let's put the shoe on the other foot. If tolerance is so great, why are you trying to change my, or anyone else's, for that matter, outlook? Aren't we as representative of diversity in our divergent viewpoints as all those different folks and actions we're supposed to blindly accept? Don't we merit the same kind of acceptance which we are supposed to offer everybody else?
In the aftermath of the 2010 elections and in light of many recent legislative proposals here in Michigan, as well as in Wisconsin, Ohio, and elsewhere, there have been many liberal sympathisers who have bemoaned the ignorance of the electorate in putting the GOP back in play. Conservatives have been called dummies and bullies and worse, all because we don't believe in the creeds of the left. Even the President has lamented that he likely hasn't explained himself well enough, as though we poor neanderthals simply can't understand him or his ideals. All because we have repudiated the vast excesses of the past two and a half years.
Well, here's one conservative who's sick and tired of it. Think me dumb if you like; label me (oooh, there's another sin of the right: labeling people. Heaven forbid we know anything about them) a bully or what have you. I have one thing to say, one thing to put in your pipe to smoke.
I'm a right wing traditionalist who believes in the individual who believes in himself and his country when he and they are in the right. I believe in doing and supporting what's right while working against what's wrong, and most importantly I have faith in a just God. Tolerate me.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
What Does Islam Mean?
How we handle the Muslim world is obviously one of the trickiest tasks we face in the coming years. There is an awful lot of distrust of Islam and no real idea of how to allay the fears of it which many seem to harbor. Yet how we view and work with the Islamic world is nevertheless critical to our future. This is especially true in the Metro Detroit area, where we have many Muslim friends, who participate freely in our local society. They are good, outstanding members of our community, They merit our attempting to understand their creed.
So, how do we view Islam? That is a question which doesn't have an easy answer. The most logical point would be to look towards Muslim teachings for guidance. Yet that brings on a few difficult questions, not the least of which is: who exactly do we go to for answers?
There are many more sects within Islam than most folks imagine. A brief internet search reveals that there at at least five branches of the religion, dominated by the Sunni and the Shi'a with several smaller groups. Within Islam are four schools of thought, any of which are deemed valid to follow.
This rudimentary understanding of Islam really only heightens the problem. When there are many sects of a religion, coupled with the lack of any real hierarchical structure within it, then who actually speaks for Islam? The ones who preach peace or the ones who cry war?
Compare this to he Catholic Church, were we find a highly structured organization which can be approached as to the Catholic stance on such and such a question. We may not like what it says to us, but we cannot doubt what it means to say.
Unless we can find a source of Islam which speaks for all of Islam, can we actually ever know whether it as a movement can be trusted or not? This isn't to say that individual Muslims are bad people. As likely as not, the overwhelming majority of them are fine and outstanding members of their communities struggling with day to day life as most everyone else does. Yet do those folks speak for all of Islam when they speak, or simply for themselves?
Without a final source on what Islam means it will be difficult to understand it more fully. And without such understanding, can the other hurdles ever be overcome?
So, how do we view Islam? That is a question which doesn't have an easy answer. The most logical point would be to look towards Muslim teachings for guidance. Yet that brings on a few difficult questions, not the least of which is: who exactly do we go to for answers?
There are many more sects within Islam than most folks imagine. A brief internet search reveals that there at at least five branches of the religion, dominated by the Sunni and the Shi'a with several smaller groups. Within Islam are four schools of thought, any of which are deemed valid to follow.
This rudimentary understanding of Islam really only heightens the problem. When there are many sects of a religion, coupled with the lack of any real hierarchical structure within it, then who actually speaks for Islam? The ones who preach peace or the ones who cry war?
Compare this to he Catholic Church, were we find a highly structured organization which can be approached as to the Catholic stance on such and such a question. We may not like what it says to us, but we cannot doubt what it means to say.
Unless we can find a source of Islam which speaks for all of Islam, can we actually ever know whether it as a movement can be trusted or not? This isn't to say that individual Muslims are bad people. As likely as not, the overwhelming majority of them are fine and outstanding members of their communities struggling with day to day life as most everyone else does. Yet do those folks speak for all of Islam when they speak, or simply for themselves?
Without a final source on what Islam means it will be difficult to understand it more fully. And without such understanding, can the other hurdles ever be overcome?
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