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CJaKfOrEsT
Member



Joined: 2004/3/31
Posts: 901
Melbourne, Australia

 Tolerance ???

Seeing as this seems to be coming up again and again through a variety of different posts, how about we discuss it as a topic of its own.

Today throughout the media the word tolerance frequently appears. Over here in Australia, the topic has been thrown around regarding Islamic integration into our multicultural society. There have been Current Affairs programs running exposés where young Muslims state that the will never integrate, without being given the opportunity to elaborate. Interestingly many Christians weigh into the discussion by expressing their disgust at the Muslims considering their religious beliefs to be justification for not blending into Australian culture.

The heart of the issue is a false idea of "good-guys" and "bad-guys". The idea that Mohummedans are such a threat to our "Christian society" is tragically naive. Give it time, and we "Fundamentalist Christians" will be the enemies to our "Democratic society". This is already happening. Just talk to any open air evangelist worth anything and they'll tell you tales of "Christians" and Athiests alike who a deeply offended at the "intolerent insistance" on them being sinners in need of a saviour.

Tolerance is a dangerous toxin that, if we allow to be tolerated (no pun intended) will slowly errode at the truth within us. As a rule, I tolerate all people, but I refuse to tolerate deception. We are to judge people be their fruit (Matt 7:16), and ideas by their spirit (1 John 4:1). Discernment is not an option it is a command. True there are many questions that are left unanswered in scripture, and in these areas unproven dogmatism should not be tolerated. True, no one knows everything about everthing (apart from those who were only wrong that time they thought they were, but weren't:-P), however there are some "truths" that can be known, as there are some "errors".

To quote Art Katz, "You really have to be zealous for truth, people."


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Aaron Ireland

 2006/2/22 10:50Profile
roadsign
Member



Joined: 2005/5/2
Posts: 3777


 Re: Tolerance ???

Quote:
I tolerate all people, but I refuse to tolerate deception. ... Discernment is not an option it is a command.



Let's say I am in a store and I disern that one product is a fake,and the other is genuine. I do not tolerat the fake (I don't purchase it) but I buy the genuine. Is that not how we apply Scripture?

Should I inform the store owner or the manufacturer of my "discernment"? Should I tell everyone I know about the fake. Or should I simply display and use the genuine?

We can get quite burnt-out in our "discernment" attempts. We also need to discern how to discern our discernment.

Spending more time with the geunuine than the fake may get us further in revealing to the world the fakeness of the fake.

After all what good is it to tell someone about a fake product but not reveal the value of genuine product (which is very costly)
Diane


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Diane

 2006/2/22 11:13Profile
ccchhhrrriiisss
Member



Joined: 2003/11/23
Posts: 4779


 Re: Tolerance ???

Hi CJaKfOrEsT...!

Thanks for pointing this out. Its always important to remember that "tolerance" is not the same as "acceptance." We can "tolerate" the views of this world, while still not accepting those beliefs -- even while we preach repentance.

Yet we must also be careful to truly love the people of this world, and view them as "[i]sheep having no shepherd[/i]." We are to have true love and compassion for the homosexual, the adulterer, the liar, the athiest, and the abortionist -- as well as to the murderer, the rapist and the thief. But we must also extend that same compassion to the self righteous, the high-minded, the ever-suspicious, the spiritual know-it-all, the hypocrite and the judgmental believer.

What seems to be more difficult is that we must extend this love and compassion to those that [i]do not agree with us[/i]. For some reason, pride often gets the best of us, and we don't like our views and beliefs to be dismissed or questioned by those with whom we share. But as representatives of Christ, we must approach such things with humility. And as representations of flawed humanity, we must realize that we are not perfect, and that we are prone to making mistakes -- even if we are convinced that our beliefs are true. There are alot of things that I used to be convinced of. Looking back, I often wonder, "What was I thinking?!?"

:-)


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Christopher

 2006/2/22 11:28Profile
InTheLight
Member



Joined: 2003/7/31
Posts: 2850
Phoenix, Arizona USA

 Re: Tolerance ???

Notice that one can't tolerate someone unless he disagrees with him. We don't "tolerate" people who share our views. They're on our side. There's nothing to put up with. Tolerance is reserved for those we think are wrong.

This essential element of tolerance--disagreement--has been completely lost in the modern distortion of the concept. Nowadays, if you think someone is wrong, you're called intolerant.

This presents us with a very curious problem. Judging someone wrong makes one intolerant, yet one must first think another is wrong in order to be tolerant. It's a "Catch-22." According to this approach, true tolerance is impossible.

-Greg Koukl


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Ron Halverson

 2006/2/22 11:45Profile
PreachParsly
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Joined: 2005/1/14
Posts: 2164
Arkansas

 Re:

I work at a school and there is a sign that says, "Intolerance will not be tolerated!"

:lol:

Doesn't that bring confusion?


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Josh Parsley

 2006/2/22 11:51Profile
CJaKfOrEsT
Member



Joined: 2004/3/31
Posts: 901
Melbourne, Australia

 Re: Being a man of one book.

Quote:

roadsign wrote:
Let's say I am in a store and I disern that one product is a fake,and the other is genuine. I do not tolerat the fake (I don't purchase it) but I buy the genuine. Is that not how we apply Scripture?


While I agree, and as a result, I don't waste my time trying to convince a Muslim on the finer points of the Trinity. If we alter the story, and we have a friend purchase the "fake" breakfast cereal and he is poisoned by the arsenic that made it a fake, it would be our moral responsability to warn others of the impending danger, in terms that promote action. This wouldn't be an attempt to smear the store or the store owners, but to alert to a trajic mistake in manufacturing.
Quote:

After all what good is it to tell someone about a fake product but not reveal the value of genuine product (which is very costly)


This is a very true statement, however many Christians these days have been climatised to an environment that accepts everything and asks nothing. There are teachings getting around that are leading to people falling away from Christ (if they ever fell into Him at all). Have you ever noticed that backslidders rarely fall into atheism, they tend to head into ocultic beliefs, actively resist the spread of the gospel and are the hardest to win for Christ.

Believers need to be made aware of deception in the same way that sinners need to be made aware of their sin. All this reminds be of something that I read in Oswlad Chambers biography "Abandoned to God":
Quote:

Major John Skidmore, the League’s secretary in Manchester, shared a “no-holds-barred” relationship with Oswald Chambers. There was nothing they couldn’t tell each other—a rare gift for two men in the sometimes repressive atmosphere of the day and the holiness movement itself.

When Skidmore found himself in a mental cul de sac, emptied by his role of continually giving the truth out to others, he shared his dilemma with Chambers.

“What do you read?” Oswald asked.

“Only the Bible and books directly associated with it,” Skidmore told him.

“That’s the trouble,” Chambers replied. “You have allowed part of your brain to stagnate for want of use.”

Within a few minutes, Oswald had scribbled out a list of more than fifty books—philosophical, psychological, and theological, dealing with every phase of current thought. In a follow-up letter to Skidmore, Oswald said: “My strong advice to you is to soak, soak, soak in philosophy and psychology, until you know more of these subjects than ever you need consciously to think. It is ignorance of these subjects on the part of ministers and workers that has brought our evangelical theology to such a sorry plight.

“When people refer to a man as ‘a man of one book,’ meaning the Bible, he is generally found to be a man of multitudinous books, which simply isolates the one Book to its proper grandeur. The man who reads only the Bible does not, as a rule, know it or human life.”


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Aaron Ireland

 2006/2/22 11:54Profile
roadsign
Member



Joined: 2005/5/2
Posts: 3777


 Re:

Quote:
Believers need to be made aware of deception in the same way that sinners need to be made aware of their sin.


Unfortunately many professing Christians have been "made aware of deception", but they haven't done the thinking themselves. They just borrow someone else's predigested beliefs, including prejudices and misinformation.
I really like your quote re O Chambers. From that I gather that we Christians need to read to learn to THINK.

Anyone here read "Scott Peck"?.. or Bertrand Russel, "Why I am not a Christian"? THey give us something to think about.

Quote:
"Intolerance will not be tolerated!"


Rather poor choice of words, is it not? It seems like fuzzy definitions are being tolerated in this school.
Diane


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Diane

 2006/2/22 16:00Profile









 Re:

Oh Boy !!! :-D

Sure glad somebody brought this up.

I'm about as fearsome as a limp noodle in the flesh, but when we talk about "What is Truth" ... all I can see is Paul's reaction and from what I hear, he wasn't too fearsome in the flesh neither ... but Oh Boy, you didn't mess with Truth around Paul.


After reading Chris' post, I went to the old Webster's in the e-sword to look up "tolerance" and it just said "endurance" so I looked up "endurance" and I'm afraid I could not see Paul in this, when it came to enduring that which is false ....

Endurance

Quote:
ENDU'RANCE, n. [See Endure.] Continuance; a state of lasting or duration; lastingness.

1. A bearing or suffering; a continuing under pain or distress without resistance, or without sinking or yielding to the pressure; sufferance; patience.

Their fortitude was most admirable in their presence and endurance of all evils, of pain, and of death.



I'm sorry, but I love Paul, and he was a Tiger for Truth ... not meaning to be disrespectful of him at all.... But just read Galations Chpt. 2 slowly ... just for starters on Paul. Hoy Vey, whatta guy.


I'd rather see someone err on the side of Truth and then apologise later, if their delivery wasn't fine-tuned properly, than to see some tolerant limp noodle make waste of what Jesus Died for .... He [b]"is"[/b] The Truth.


:-(

 2006/2/22 18:04
deltadom
Member



Joined: 2005/1/6
Posts: 2359
Hemel Hempstead

 Re: I hate the word

I hate the word tolerance

1. The New American Standard Bible - 2 Verses: Display Verses
2. The Good News Translation - 1 Verse: Display Verse
3. The Message - 1 Verse: Display Verse

Bible versions that use the word!! Looked up on crosswalk.


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Dominic Shiells

 2006/2/22 19:41Profile
InTheLight
Member



Joined: 2003/7/31
Posts: 2850
Phoenix, Arizona USA

 Re:

Quote:
I hate the word tolerance



'Tolerance' is a wonderful word, if it is used in the traditional sense of the word and not the distorted meaning that is now popular.

The modern meaning of the word is something like, "all views have merit therefore no view should be considered better than another." On the surface that seems reasonable but when we look at it closely it falls apart. As an example, I am called intolerant if I say that the Jews are wrong in their denial that Jesus Christ is the Messiah. The problem is that either the Jews are right and He's not the Messiah or Christians are right and He is. One of the two positions must be false, therefore one view must be better than the other. So you see, we end up with hopeless contradiction if we accept the modern meaning of tolerance.

The answer is to reject that meaning and accept the traditional meaning which says that all people have merit and none should be considered better than another, but not all [i]views[/i] have equal merit. The Bible tells us that people have merit because all are made in the image of God, therefore all deserve respect. The Bible also tells us to "prove all things and hold fast that which is good."

In Christ,

Ron


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Ron Halverson

 2006/2/22 20:32Profile





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