Brian K.

You seem to be really comfortable with using words like us and we, but you don't know any of us. I don't tolerate luvluv's or any other person's beliefs. If they honor me by sharing them with me I will appreciate that person and take into consideration what they have unveiled to me. This doesn't mean I will agree to any degree, but I wouldn't tell anyone my beliefs if they did not value them.
Brian

[ March 09, 2002: Message edited by: Brian K. ]</p>

Pomp

Of course atheists can be intolerant. So can theists, deists, pantheists, etc. Lacking beleief in a god does not necessarily make one more or less tolerant although, in my experience, atheists usually are, in fact, more tolerant, perhaps as a reaction to being in the minority in most places.

Presumably, this thread is in response to those of us who have refuted your views in the other threads you have started? That's not intolerance, that's debate. We do a lot of that around here. It might seem a little overwhelming, as you've been fielding comments from multiple posters, but I can assure you that most of us have no intent to offend you. I can certainly tolerate your right to hold your own beliefs, but that doesn't mean that I'm not going to point out flaws in the arguments you put forth to support them. If I've come off as overbearing in pointing out those flaws, then I apologize.

Now, off to tear apart your latest post in the C. S. Lewis thread.

Someone7

I'm very intolerant of those who are intolerant of others.

Alonzo Fyfe

Ultimately, this is an important point. We are all intolerant of some things. We must be -- insofar as we are living.

I am intolerant of those who seek to kill in the name of God. I will take action to prevent them from acting on these beliefs, and to prevent others from encouraging such beliefs.

The question is not whether to be tolerant or intolerant, but whether to be tolerant or intolerant of the right things.

Which begs a further question: What are the right things?

Ultimately, this does not answer the introductory question -- which can now be rephrased: Can atheists be intolerant of things they ought not to be?

Answer: Of course. Nothing about believing that no god exists automatically makes one infallible.

luvluv

This post is not in response to what anyone has said about ME in my threads, but in response to what people have said about Martin Luther King, Mother Theresa, etc. It seems you folks here have a J. Edgar Hoover file on everybody who has ever claimed any religion. That seems intolerant to me. I also find in these posts the insinuation, if not outright argument, that no religion has ever done any man any good anywhere at anytime. That seems intolerant to me, as well as false. There is a difference between not believing in God and saying that all religion is always bad, which seems to be the prevailing emotion around here.

My stance, I guess, is that I am a liberal Christian. I'm generally anti-war, anti-death penalty, anti-drug war... that sort of thing. I believe that abortion is wrong, but I am not sure as to whether or not making it illegal would make it worse. As to evolution or whatever, evolution as such would not hurt my theology very much. I tend to believe in a God who only values our decision to love Him if it is made freely. As such, I do not believe that God would coerce us into believing in Him even by leaving proof of his existence. In order to freely love and honor an omnipotent, omnipresent being, you would need the OPTION of not believing in him. Because if you really had direct knowledge of an omnipresent or omniscient God you would have no freedom to choose to love him or not. His very presence would be co-ercive. In a way, the very fact that he allows you sufficient grounds to be an atheist is part of His love for you. My basic theory is that there would be no observable difference in a universe created by an omnipotent God who desired the free love of his creatures and a universe formed by chance. God would have to leave the option open for it to at least look like chance in order for us to make free choices uncontstrained by His power. In short, I believe in a God who covers his tracks. This, by the way, is why you must know God by faith, and not knowledge. Knowledge would eliminate choice.

So in a way my theory almost works better if evolution were true, but I just have a hard time believing in it otherwise. At the end of the day I am probably a theistic evolutionist. I find it difficult to believe how folks could think that things like DNA emerged by accident, or that by a series of accidents I now have a moral compass. I think about that in about the same way you folks might think about the Trinity.

At any rate, this thread isn't really about the treatment you all have given me, just about the treatment you have given to everyone I look up to.

[ March 10, 2002: Message edited by: luvluv ]

[ March 10, 2002: Message edited by: luvluv ]</p>

Jeremy Pallant

Well I don't know about you, but what is wrong with calling Martin Luther a misogynistic, vicious anti-semitic propeller-head with an Armageddon complex?

(Edited to add...)

Whoops! My bad. For some reason I didn't see the word King, after the Martin Luther.

So why are we critical of people like Mother Theresa and Martin Luther King? (Got it right this time). Well, it's called the truth. Certainly Martin Luther was a remarkable individual, but to ignore his womanizing is dishonest. Mother Theresa is virtually worshipped, but to ignore the grevious harm she caused is to wilfully diregard the whole picture.

[ March 10, 2002: Message edited by: J. Mordecai Pallant ]</p>

bonduca

luvluv, people we admire are but fallible humans, and other fallible humans will have many differing opinions about them. Wouldn't quashing such diversity of opinion (and freedom of discussion about them) be intolerant.....?

By all means, come to the defense of your heroes. This place is about debate, after all.

luvluv

I consider it to be a useless occupation of my time. Why would it ever be relevant to get into MLK's personal life? That's the kind of thing that occurs in organized religion and politics, I guess I am a bit disillusioned to see you guys doing it, I thought that people who base their beliefs on reason would be less prone to mean-spirited gossip, which is what a lot of your "criticisms" amount to. If I plastered incidents from any of you guys' personal life on here, would that be progressing any line of argument? It's slander folks, pure and simple. You ought to be above it.

tronvillain

Hey, if you're going to hold them up as paragons of virtue, I don't see what's wrong with pointing out their flaws. Also, the truth is not slander.

Eudaimonist

luvluv, if an atheist critcizes Mother Teresa for letting people suffer when it was easily in her power to reduce their suffering, is that a good intolerance or a bad intolerance?