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

"chris alden" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> AE <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> > chris alden wrote:
> > > AE wrote:
> > >>Christian tolerance always meant that everybody was allowed to become
> > >>Christian, not that other religions ever would have been tolerated.
> > >
> > > Define tolerance.
> >
> > The base of tolerance is to believe the other person is equal to
oneself.
> The other person, or the other person's ideology?  Certainly you're
> not accepting my ideology as equal to your own, or as correct in the
> long run.  Are you being intolerant?  Human tolerance allows for the
> person being tolerated to be wrong, while still loving him.
>
> > The mere fact that Christians believe there is only one god and all
> > other ones are false means it is impossible to truely tolerate other
> > believes.
> You're not "tolerating" my belief, by your own definition.  You are
> making an exclusive truth claim that all exclusive truth claims are
> bad, but that the ultimate goal of tolerance is to accept all truth
> claims as equal, even if they are exclusive.

No, what he stated was an observation -- there was no qualitative statement
made. You are assigning to him the motivations under which you operate.
>
> > Others are tolerated while known to be on a wrong way and any true
> > Christian would have to try to evangelize them to protect them from
> > perdition.
> So it's intolerant to introduce an idea to a person who may or may not
> accept it as true? Don't cite examples of the Catholic church ramming
> religion down the throats of Native Americans, or cite the Spanish
> inquisition.  Those are examples of religious hegemony, and are not
> compatable with Christendom.

Depends on your definition of "introduce", which, in the christian
dictionary, tends to be something anywhere from "do it or you'll be
ostracized" to "do it or we'll kill you".
>
> > These two facts - monotheism and the order to evengelize - make it
> > impossible accept other religions as equal.
> Are you accepting my beliefs to be equal to your own?

No, he was objecting to you making a judgement. That was very clear from his
statements. Again, you are assigning him your own motivations.


-- 
"There are 10 kinds of people in the world:
those who understand binary numbers and those who don't."
-----------------------------
Byron "Barn" Canfield