[Recently] Peter Duran proclaimed the popular view of religious tolerance in today’s world.

I believe this view can be fairly summarized as follows: Religion is no more than personal belief or opinion. Since it is merely one person’s belief versus another’s, it is unacceptable to consider your belief superior to another person’s belief. Therefore all religions should be considered equally valid.

This idea is also known as pluralism and epitomizes the current culture’s high view of “tolerance.”

Not only is this idea irrational, it is profoundly intolerant. Why is this idea irrational? The view that it is unacceptable to consider your belief superior to another person’s belief really boils down to this: “we must not tolerate the intolerant.”

This is called a self-refuting argument which means that the statement refutes itself and is therefore irrational. Sort of like someone saying, “I can’t speak a word of English.” The statement, by its own definition, is irrational.

As Mr. Duran explained, “All of us ought to denounce proponents of ‘my religion is better than yours’ for the sake of personal freedom and national harmony.”

According to Mr. Duran’s viewpoint he should be denouncing himself because he is proclaiming that his own view of religion is superior to everyone else’s who disagrees with him.

Why is this idea intolerant? Consider that what Mr. Duran is actually saying is that every religion in the world that believes it has important, unique truth should be denounced. In one stroke, Mr. Duran has condemned every religion in the world. How intolerant is that?

In the old days, tolerance as a virtue was directed at people. In today’s relativistic society, tolerance has been updated to be directed at ideas. No matter how ridiculous or counter-productive an idea is, it should not only be tolerated, but given an equal seat at the table of truth.

Mr. Duran, I respect you and your intelligence and your education, but I believe many of your ideas are illogical and just flat out wrong. Do you tolerate my viewpoint as being just as valid as yours or is your viewpoint superior to mine?

Many try to answer questions of comparative faith with a better or worse answer. As an evangelical Christian I would like to encourage everyone to consider questions of comparative faith to be answered with true or false.

Either God exists, or he does not. It can’t be both. Either Jesus rose from the grave, or he did not. It can’t be both. Either the New Testament has been reliably preserved or it has not. It can’t be both.

Claiming it is just as valid for someone to believe the Holocaust never happened as to believe it did happen is not tolerant or wise. It is ignorant, disingenuous and dangerous. The same goes for the important matters of faith.

Be tolerant of people; do not be tolerant of bad ideas.

Pepper Adams
Peachtree City, Ga.

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