[Vision2020] An Open Letter

[Tbertruss at aol.com]

In a message dated 6/11/2005 5:13:15 PM Pacific Daylight Time, 
ophite at gmail.com writes:

> Tolerance is a virtue. I take appeals to my tolerance seriously, and
> appreciate people who bring my lack of tolerance to my attention.


Indeed.  That is why I objected to the implications of Jim Meyer's statement 
that 
"Any human being, who claims to know the one and only truth is either 
mentally challenged, a self delusional sycophant, oblivious, or a charlatan."

Billions of human beings in our world do believe in one and only one true God 
as the central and essential truth of their lives.  Does this mean they all 
match Jim Meyer's description?  And if Jim Meyer only meant the nit picking 
interpretation of his statement that a human being who only believes in one and 
only one truth (such as believing in only that 1+1=2, but no other truth about 
anything at all) has a problem of some sort, so what?

Jim Meyer also wrote:

"The definition of an intolerant  person is once who claims monopoly on 
the truth."

I disagree, though Jim Meyer may have been quoting Doug Wilson here, rather 
than stating his personal belief.

A person can quite fervently believe they have a monopoly on the truth, yet 
remain very tolerant of differing viewpoints and those who follow them.  There 
are devout Christians in the USA who would defend the rights of atheists, 
agnostics, gay civil rights activists, Muslims, Hindus, Jews, etc., to express 
their point of view and proselytize, yet are quite convinced their belief in the 
one true God of their religion is the absolute central essential truth of 
their lives. 

Again, I think there are many who believe that the one and only God of their 
religion is the one central essential truth from which all other important 
truths follow, who are not "mentally challenged, a self delusional sycophant, 
oblivious or a charlatan."

Apparently, Jim Meyer thinks some believers in religion in our area fit that 
description above.  But to make such an extreme statement about all believers 
in the one true God of their religion, which Jim Meyer's statement seemed to 
imply, struck me as "intolerant" itself, as an "absolutist" statement that 
contradicted his own statements about "flawed" men, how a "thinking man can 
approximate the truth to the extent that it is possible."

Making extreme broad statements about an entire class of people based on 
their belief in one central essential truth for their lives is not an effort to 
"approximate the truth."

Ted Moffett

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