The Collective Voice of Reason

As Seth and I are the only ones left to make an entrance, I may as well do so now.

I'm 18 by American standards, attending university in Colorado, have recently relocated from Louisiana (and am yet thankful for it). I adore all coffee and chocolate and some music, books, and manga. I lurk in the HP, FMA, and SW fandoms. Well... I should amend that. I'm actually being quite active in the SW fandoms currently, considering that I am sewing a costume and aiding-and-abetting in other persons' furtherance of Star Wars geekness as well. My favorite new book that I've recently read is Good Omens. I am neither a martial artist nor a Mormon. And lastly... the only person I know on this blog is Sean~

I suppose I should mention that I tend to be very long winded; this applies to my writing as well.


Re: Toleration

... is it terribly rude of me to mention that I would really prefer the title to be "Tolerance?"

"Is toleration a good thing?"

Generally, avoiding avoidable confrontation is a good thing.

There is, however, a world of difference between indulging others in letting them believe their own beliefs unopposed and saying that in fact they are not wrong. I think it is this distinction that is marking the change of today's societies. It's not the mere tolerance that's weakening the states, Mr. Conners. It's going the step beyond and saying, not only will we allow you to practice your beliefs without persecution; we will forbid anyone from suggesting that it is wrong. You are all quite right in your own diverse and contradictory beliefs - somehow.

Naturally, differing cultures have different mores. This is anthropological fact; I don't think many people will disagree with that count. But to say that no one is wrong? That's just silly.

In a certain point in European history, the Church believed that the earth was the center of the solar system; Copernicus did not. These days we would say, oh, but neither of them are -wrong- really; they just have different beliefs, that's all. Well, obviously, we can't say that. The solar system -is- heliocentric; we can prove this with scientific fact. The Church was just wrong, flat out, and Copernicus was right. You can't console the pope by saying "You believe what you want to, dear... Copernicus is just being close-minded to your different culture is all."

You could argue with that example by saying, we don't know if the Jews or the Christians or the ancient Greeks had it right, actually, and we can't prove any of them right because philosophy isn't scientific like the example of Copernicus. We'll never know what true right and wrong is so we must allow everyone to go by their own system unmolested.

Rubbish. We may not know the amount of stars in the universe, but damned if there isn't a number of stars. We may not know the rights and wrongs of our neighbors' belief systems, but they are either right or they are wrong. There -is- a fact of the matter; we just don't know what it is exactly. To say "to each their own" and become a total moral nihilist is absurd. This is where we find ourselves in our 'enlightened' era of tolerance for the global community.

The problem isn't that we're going about trying to avoid conflict. The problem, Mr. Conners, is that we're trying to reset everyone's moral beliefs to conform to everyone else's - Muslims, Wiccans, sociopaths, everyone - without telling anyone that their beliefs are wrong per say and, for obvious reasons, it isn't working.

Ground-breaking is always rough work.

But it always yields as much good as you put into it.

Amen.