Re: Is religion antithetical to democracy [formerly: Are Islam and Democracy Incompatible?]

AE <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> Christian tolerance always meant that everybody was allowed to become 
> Christian, not that other religions ever would have been tolerated.

Define tolerance.  If, on the one hand, you're referring to absolute
acceptance of other religions as true, then the absolute truth claims
of the Christian religion would of course be incompatable.  If you're
referring to love and peace even in the face of ideological
difference, then Christianity (as an ideology - not as an abuse of
societal hegemony) most certainly is compatable.  I'm afraid you seem
to be employing the former, which is a very PoMo definition, and I'd
challenge you to either knock down absolute truth as a philosophical
position or show me any part of Christian scripture that denys the
idea of tolerance on a human, rather than an ideological, level.

The idea that each man or woman is responsible for his or her own
salvation, for his or her own spiritual well-being, this is what
guided the greatest movements of self-government.  It's what caused
abolitionists to speak against the slave trade, and it's what adds to,
not detracts from, democracy.