joedad

Sage Chapel on the Cornell Campus was the first such nonsectarian structure built and dedicated in the US – if I recall correctly. That it happened at an institution where knowledge is held in the highest regard would indicate that an attitude of religious pluralism is contained within a larger perceived pluralism.

Someone who sees the universe existing only within his or her own sacred writings does not experience this larger cosmopolitan religious attitude where sectarianism is viewed as existing within something larger.

This is a legacy of our past. It once conferred a survival advantage.

imho

joe

gcameron

Yguy has a point. The whole *premise* of Christianity is that "this is the truth" so it is hard to incorporate other beliefs within a Christian umbrella. All other gods, from a Christian standpoint, are by definition false gods. We may say "how totalitarianistic!" but this sort of attitude is pretty standard in other fields of thought, i.e. science. An astronomer flatly declares that astrology is *false*. He has no tolerance for it; nor should he. We may argue that the astronomer has better reasons for *his* declaration than the Christian has; but that is a separate issue.

It seems to me incidentally that there are two types of tolerance being discussed here. (I don't know whether they are according-to-Hoyle definitions of tolerance, so please don't start spouting Webster's at me...) One type is accepting the *value* of others' ideas. I don't think it's realistic to expect this sort of tolerance from most people, politically or religiously or scientifically. (How many biologists are "tolerant" of creationism in this sense -- and why on earth should they be???) The second type of tolerance is to "agree to disagree," and not coerce other people into your own beliefs even though you may think they are completely nuts. This second type of tolerance is essential to a free society. But it does not require that the adherents of one religion in any sense "accept" the wisdom of another religion. They simply have to leave the adherents of other religions alone.

Now, naturally, when you have a group of people who think they have a line on the truth, they are more likely to coerce others -- to violate the second form of tolerance. It requires vigilance to keep this from happening.

Starboy

So 'truth' == 'objective reality' and 'Christianity' == 'truth'. So Christian claims should be objectively verifiable. So yguy, exactly what do you claim is 'real'? Angels? Demons? Halos? Sin? Heaven? Hell? Ya right, all objectively verifiable.

Starboy