Tolerance?

Every so often you see something that makes you wonder.

It could be something good or something bad, but it just doesn't fit into your version of reality so you have to adjust.

Now, I used to think that religious people had principles that led them, such as love thy neighbor or do good works.

Now history shows that religious people have performed some of the worst abuses, and in certain countries still do.

Stoning sinners, burning heretics, wiping out entire populations of heretics, were clearly things that had ties to religion.

However, naively I guess, I felt I lived in a country, and a time where we acknowledge differences but accepted other people's rights.

Now accepting someone's right to be "wrong" can be hard, especially if you think it condemns them to hell.  However, you tolerate their beliefs and they tolerate yours.

Agree to disagree is sort of the phrase I would use to describe our current state of affairs in this country.

However, more recent events have revealed that the intolerant side of religion is alive and well.

I'm not just talking about the anti-abortion advocates who have an argument about protecting the unborn,  This extends to questioning the lifestyle choices of others.

I also find their insistence that this is a Christian country rather intolerant.  If you consider the Vikings, the first Europeans here weren't even Christian and the Native Americans weren't.

Its not very Christian, at least my version of Christianity to give out smallpox infested blankets or to enslave people or to routinely massacre Native American women and children.

Then again maybe it is, maybe it is.

Makes you wonder.