Here is an email I received in response to one of my essays.
Just found your essay tonight. I have a couple of comments. Your whole essay destroys the premise for which is supposedly was written. It is filled with judgement and intolerance. Truth in itself is intolerant……is it not? Not everyone or everything is true. Is that a correct statement? Is it a intolerant one?
Yes, but intolerance is not necessarily a bad thing. Christians are intolerant of gays simply for existing. I am intolerant of Christian meddling in others’ lives, especially their attempts to take away ordinary human rights and push gays to second class status. If they would leave others alone, like the Amish, then I would be happy to leave them alone.
The label which is being placed upon Christianity in the 20th century is not about it’s exclusive claims to be the way to God or heaven, but rather it is about the refusal of practicing Christians to accept certain lifestyles such as homosexuality. It is also about the refusal to believe that the baby in the womb is just tissue. This is why Christians are being labeled as being intolerant now.
Gays don’t particularly care what Christians think about homosexuality. What they do care about is Christians trying to kill them or take away their civil liberties. We simply want to be left alone.
My view on abortion is posted in musings. Both abortion and banning abortion have major attendant evils. There is no hope for compromise. One way out is better contraception. Having a baby should require some deliberate act (other than having sex). Every baby deserves at least two adult caregivers who can and want to care for him or her. This is not an area where I have a complaint with Christians, only when they murder adults who aid abortions.
I notice that you quote some words of Jesus and use them to judge Christians. By using them, I’m assuming that you believe that Christians should be practicing what they preach? Was Jesus tolerant? He was intolerant because he claimed to be the Son of God. He claimed to be the absolute way, the absolute truth and the absolute life. He was intolerant because he said that he was the only way to the Father. He was intolerant because he said that he was the door to heaven and that those who would attempt to come via another way were simply thieves and robbers. He was intolerant of the politicians who robbed from the poor to fill their own pockets. He was intolerant of the religious who looked good on the outside, but were rotten on the inside. He was intolerant of those who would use religion for personal gain! So when Christians say that Jesus is the only way to heaven, they are only presenting the truth as it was presented by Christ. Though Christ was intolerant on some issues, he was very tolerant on others. He spoke of forgiveness and second chances. He spoke of love and compassion.
Yes, I found Jesus’s belief he was the only messiah distressing. You came by your arrogance honestly. It is still unseemly and has lead to millions of murders, much to Jesus’s shame. Other spiritual teachers were not so full of themselves.
One other thing about your essay. You mention that you will never see a Muslim keeping a person out of a mosque due to skin color. I don’t know if that is a true statement, but I do know this. Go to any country in the world where Islam is predominant, and you will see the real definition of intolerance. In the Sudan for examples, millions have been killed and or raped, kidnapped, displaced, robbed etc………why? Because of the color of their skin? No because they are Christians! If you want to label someone or some religion as being intolerant, you might want to look at Islam to begin with.
You are quite right. Muslims are even worse that Christians for believing they have an exclusive handle on the truth. However, within Islam you will not find the same prejudice based on skin colour you will in Christianity. Black people still worship in segregated churches in the south.
Muhammed himself had people killed because they disagreed with his teachings and his followers are carrying out his words to kill the infidels!
If you read the Qur’an, you will find it demands extremely fair treatment of infidels. It does not justify wantonly killing them. It does not demand women hide their faces. Yet traditions have grown up with almost the same power as the Qur’an.
I once spoke to a Arab man who wanted to convert to the Christian faith, but he was afraid to for fear of his life. I can also personally tell you another man who had to leave his family, his country and all of his possessions so that he could live. His crime…he would not convert to Islam.
No Muslim is threatening my civil rights or my life. Many Christians are. I fight my enemies. Christians are the bullies of the world, exploiting and oppressing. Take the Iraq war, for example, where Christian America is stealing oil from Islamic Iraq. You have a hell of a lot of nerve to complain about the Muslims after what your Christian country did to them. And don’t give me that BS about 2001-09-11. Even Bush has admitted he lied about implicating Iraq. Further, in the decade prior to the Iraq war America bombed Iraq daily, killing about one in ten of her citizens, mostly children, in ways that violated the Geneva conventions. America claimed she did this in self-defence even though she lost not a single man nor plane.
Thank you,
Mike
This page is posted |
http://mindprod.com/feedback/god/godintoleranceofchristians.html | |
Optional Replicator mirror
|
J:\mindprod\feedback\god\godintoleranceofchristians.html | |
Please read the feedback from other visitors,
or send your own feedback about the site. Contact Roedy. Please feel free to link to this page without explicit permission. | ||
Canadian
Mind
Products
IP:[65.110.21.43] Your face IP:[18.97.9.174] |
| |
Feedback |
You are visitor number | |