Intolerance . . . is it really a bad thing?

This is a reply I wrote to Northern Tribe's post that I liked so much I decided to post it here. I'm not sure it makes sense, but I really enjoyed writing it. Sometimes I work out what I think as I write. So . . . be patient as you read.

I appreciate attempts to defend Christianity, as I am a wholehearted Christian. But your logic just doesn’t work for me.

Sometimes individual Christians are backwards, intolerant, unenlightened and generally ignorant about the faith they profess to hold. When that is the case, people everywhere need to not condemn Christianity but to adopt sort of a “suffer the little children” attitude (even though they are not truly little children, they perhaps haven’t had some of the same advantages some of us have). That’s a matter of individual Christians, though

When it comes to Christianity as a whole being an intolerant religion, well, then the question really comes down to whether Christ is tolerant. Two questions even. Is Christ tolerant, and what is tolerance? We’ve culturally made tolerance a synonym for kindness almost. Christ is kind certainly, and loving. But love and kindness are not tolerance.

“This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that ‘God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness we lie and do not practice the truth.” But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.

Christianity lives to proclaim the Word of God. That Word says that some men “walk in darkness” and some “walk in the light.” Light and dark are intolerant of each other. “And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore . . . on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.” Yet, to continue the metaphor, if, in reaching out to the darkness, the light were to become dimmer and dimmer and dimmer, more and more gray in an attempt to appeal to darkness, then . . . it would lose its appeal. We are called to be salt and light. “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.”

Your argument seems to be that Christianity is an excellent religion and therefore cannot be an intolerant religion, that it is tolerant of every kind of sinner and Pharisee and therefore cannot be an intolerant religion.

My argument is this. Every religion that makes a bit of sense is intolerant, that’s why there are so many wars fought in the name of religion. Religions are BY THEIR VERY NATURE intolerant of other religions, otherwise they don’t make any sense. If your God is the VERY GOD OF VERY GODS, then admitting that any other religion could possibly be true and right and valid, any other religion who claims that THEIR GOD is THE VERY GOD OF VERY GODS, well tolerance of another religion is just another word for unbelief in your own religion. That’s partly why tolerance is our cardinal virtue these days, because we children of fighting parents value lack of conflict so much and belief in anything so little. As a result, we have a generation without God searching everywhere but the church for something spiritual.

Nosey workers compromise candidates passport data, . . so what?

I turned on my computer today to learn that the top story in the nation was that the candidates passport data had been compromised. I thought about what is on my passport. Hmmm. Not much that I don't tell people all the time. Okay, if it was my passport, I wouldn't care if anybody looked at it, just so long as they didn't print out the info and sell it to somebody who would steal my identity.

I thought that maybe there was actually more in this record that was looked at than I was aware of, but yahoo's article said . . . or maybe it was the AP's (I didn't look) said specifically,

It was not clear whether the employees saw anything other than the basic personal data such as name, citizenship, age, Social Security number and place of birth, which is required when someone fills out a passport application. The file also includes date and place of birth and address at time of application. Agency officials said the files generally would not list countries the person has traveled to.

THIS is NEWS??? Who cares that somebody snooped around and discovered things they could have probably found out easily by just going to the candidates home page.