Hi Goldie,

I think what you raise is the big challenge we're faced with.  At some levels of understanding, one can say who is right and who is wrong very clearly, without even knowing anything about the context.  At other levels of understanding, no one can ever say anything about who is right and who is wrong, because it's all just conditioned by the context. I hope that we're growing collectively in a direction that surpasses both of those levels of understanding. In my view, that happens naturally as we follow the Way of Jesus. He was/is way beyond those levels of understanding and ways of living.

All the Best,

Rishi

Hi goldie08:

Of course we should be more tolerant!

Every one of us is a unique individual, experiencing their reality uniquely. Therefore, no one can tell anyone what their experience of reality is or ought to be like. But uniqueness makes us lonely, and we are trying to overcome the loneliness with uniformity and conformity, thereby denying our uniqueness.

I, however, believe that we are unique manifestations of the same God. I believe that, in and through the act of creation, God multiplied, diversified, and "uniquefied" ITself while remaining a singularity in an inseparable state of synthesis.

Thus, although we are unique individuals, we are all united in God. When we are aware of that, then we don't have to sacrifice our individual uniqueness in order to feel close and at one with each other. Then we can joyously share our respective uniquenesses with each other and celebrate our uniqueness and our oneness—at the same time.

goldie08,

Your post is long overdue here at wondercafe.

I've just been trawling through other posts in Religion and Faith forum, and I share your plea for tolerance.

If only there was more of an attempt to understand the other, instead of endlessly making the same points in a combative style.

Amen, Sister! Testify!!

Definitely need to be more tolerant.

But as to right and wrong - it all depends on how forcefull we are being when we judge. If another's beliefs start to affect me then we have a problem and I will tell the other person they are wrong (on several counts). Beyond that, I will let things go.

I agree 100%  Each unto their own.

As-salaamu alaikum

-Omni

There may come a point when we are not able to tolerate the intolerant.

That's the real struggle, isn't it P3? I like to say that I'm tolerant of everything but intolerance. However, there really needs to be some degree of tolerance even for that or the intolerant are just shut out into their own communities or into isolation and never have a chance to learn what it is like in a world of tolerance.

Mendalla.

goldie08,

When I open my fridge, a little light comes on. I like that little light, it makes my life easier (especially since I can now locate my favourite sammich by sight rather than by my failing memory).

And it does this. Day in and day out. This little light comes on. I know that it comes on because the fridge is plugged in. So, if it doesn't come on, I know there is something wrong with the plug.

Say, one day, in my quest for my favourite sammich, I open the fridge and the light doesn't come on...I check the plug, and it is plugged in.

I now feel anxious. Something is happening that shouldn't happen. My comfort is being perturbed. So I check the lights and there is no problem there. I check the fusebox and there is no problem there. I unplug the fridge and replug it. To no avail.

I am quite anxious now. All because my comfort level has been perturbed. An unexpected and unexplained event has happened in my life.

In the same way, being Right is comforting. Because if one is Right, then one doesn't have to think. One can just unconsciously go through the motions. I consider it to be a form of hypnosis.

So, if there is only Right and Wrong, then, well, that makes for a very simple world.

When, if one is able to look at it, life includes things like 'Maybe' and 'Perhaps' and 'Probabilities' and even things like 'What most of us think is True.'

One of the current worries I have is that people around the world seem to be falling into the need to be Right. Various fundamentalist and fascist parties are popping up everywhere. Extreme Christianity is commonplace in the USA. Fundamentalist politics seem to becoming the norm for some countries.

And all, I think, because people need Certainty. And are unaware of the mechanisms behind which they act and are acted upon in the world.

It is a fascinating and challenging time to be alive, that's for sure :3

Just a Self-writing poem,

Inannawhimsey

Inanna

How true.

Shalom

Mate

Goldie you are so right

Took the words from my keyboard.

Hi goldie08 and welcome to the WonderCafe,

Sounds like you are about to.

You ask the question and then answer it for us.

Very true.

Are those different levels inherently of equal value?  Do those different levels always produce that which is healthy?

Of everything or just of somethings?  Should we be tolerant of poverty?  Should we be tolerant of corporate (or personal) greed?  Is your question not, on some level, intolerance towards what you percieve as intolerance?

Grace and peace to you.

John

I also welcome you Goldie08 and excuse me while I wander on a tangent RevJohn has raised.

The reality is, collectively, we do tolerate both.  For thousands of years humanity has been admonished for tolerating greed which leads to poverty and yet, here we are, still wallowing after all these years.

I don't have any solutions, I really wish I did, but I don't.  Perhaps it is disillusionment or just plain weariness; a desire to end the headache caused by banging the head against the proverbial wall of "rightness" but I am at the crossroad of realization that the only thing I can control is my own actions. 

I can choose to be intolerant or tolerant.  I can choose to focus on the positive or the negative.  For my personal sanity I am choosing peace and with the heart felt hope that others will choose it as well.

And maybe this is why after thousands of years nothing really changes because self preservation is the override mechanism of the human machine.

LB

"Forgive me, my friend, that I led thee to seem as mad as myself, making thee fall into the same error I myself fell into, that there were and still are knights-errant in the world."    

Miguel de Cervantes,  Don Quixote

   The way I see it is, when I was working as a Foreman of a crew, I would go to a job, & I would look at what needs to be done before the crew & I would go do the work.

When I examine what needs to be done, & collect a vision of the process & materials that we need & I go by what ever bluepreints my boss either provdes, Or I get the blueprints from an engineer that will stamp the blueprints with his stamp so that the drawing is approved with all the specifications that are needed for whatever structure & cosmetic features are requiered.

These specifications are very important to the function of whatever we are building & the "tolerance" is very precise.

If we move outside of those tolerances, we risk the possibility of failier of those specifications, & the overall stucture will fail under load.

The remamifications could be catastrophic.

Now when my crew & I go to do the job, we first look at any risks to our safety, & examine the work environment for our protection agaist possible risk of safety throughout the plan.

We then go about doing the job but unforseen circumstances would sometimes arrive where we change the plan, & do one step before another because the materials have not arrived for one step. so if the fact of us going to another step in the process doesn't have an effect to the specifications, we will go to the next step, so we can keep working on the job instead of downtime occuring.

But if the specs are hampered in any way, were will stop & rethink our aproach, & wait if nessisary.

I am the site foreman, & I have a vision in my mind as to how to do the job.

Yet my boss may delegate me to do it a cirtain way, but since I'm the site superviser, I will find changes to steps in the process are nessisary at times to suit our abilities to do the work, but the specifications are paramount in the overall quality & function of the build.

I also will have my workers come to me & say, we have an easier way to do this step in the process, & they explain what it is, & it may be different to my vision of how it's supposed to be accomplished but if the step my subordinates suggest is easier, yet still is within the requiered specifications?

I say make it so. & they are happy because it will make their job that much easier.

So my point is, there are different ways to acomplish the goal & different aproaches to build this sructure, that will indeed do it's fuction without any risk of failier.

And all through the steps of the process, at times there were changes made in order to make things work better overall. & in the end the specification according to the blueprint have been accomplished & the build is done right for the function.

Now the build will get a stamp of approval by the engineer, & the building will get an occupancy prermit so that it shows the build is complete & ready to perform it's function.

So there are right ways of performing this task, the right way was staying within the specifications.

Different ways of aproach, & the steps were changed at times, but as long as everything  was within tolerance of the specifications, the job is done right.

Once we start to wander or deviate from the specs outside of the tolerance threshold, then we are doing it wrong.

The effect may not be evedent right away but the ramifications can be catastrophic.

Bolt

Hi goldie08 and welcome:

This poses a huge struggle for me -- in theory, I agree, yet in life, how does one live in the truth of that and still set boundaries around what can be lived with? I'm thinking about my first mother-in-law's openly racist comments in front of my children (over many occasions)...in the end, I decided she could no longer stay at our home when she visited our neck of the woods.

I carry guilt about that since I do hold the belief that there are various levels of understanding and also carry the belief of the Golden Rule...the command to Love. I feel as though I failed with her but in the circumstances, I didn't know (and still don't) how to carry the conflicting values...how to live in the paradox of that dilemma.

Yes, it does brother. However, for me, that tolerance only goes to the point where it violates another person. One can have racist, sexist or homophobic views but it doesn't mean I have to subject myself or my children to those views for the sake of tolerance. My journey through life has been filled with paradox and this is a good example of that.

Interesting analogy Bolt.  It leads me to think of all the wonderful and different designs that each and every architect can come up with. 

The architect has the vision, the crew puts it together.  However, the same crew can build many different kinds of buildings, just as the same architect can design a myriad of different structures.

I think each profession has its own set of "tolerances", and when the work starts, they begin to blend.

The build is only as good as it's foundation.

The structure is only as strong as the footing.

The blueprint is designed as built according to the tolerance of it's foundation.

Bolt

When does tolerance become patronizing or an excuse for passivity?

Even Jesus challenged the Pharisees truths.