<HTML><FONT FACE=arial,helvetica><HTML><FONT SIZE=2 PTSIZE=10 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0">In a message dated 6/11/2005 5:13:15 PM Pacific Daylight Time, ophite@gmail.com writes:<BR>
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<BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">Tolerance is a virtue. I take appeals to my tolerance seriously, and<BR>
appreciate people who bring my lack of tolerance to my attention.</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" BACK="#ffffff" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=2 PTSIZE=10 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0"><BR>
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</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" BACK="#ffffff" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=2 PTSIZE=10 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0">Indeed. That is why I objected to the implications of Jim Meyer's statement that <BR>
"</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" BACK="#ffffff" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=2 PTSIZE=10 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0">Any human being, who claims to know the one and only truth is either <BR>
mentally challenged, a self delusional sycophant, oblivious, or a charlatan."<BR>
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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?<BR>
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Jim Meyer also wrote:<BR>
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"The definition of an intolerant person is once who claims monopoly on <BR>
the truth."<BR>
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I disagree, though Jim Meyer may have been quoting Doug Wilson here, rather than stating his personal belief.<BR>
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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. <BR>
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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."<BR>
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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."<BR>
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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."<BR>
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Ted Moffett<BR>
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