The Accused Christian, Part II

 It has become common parlance to label people with whom you disagree as having bad motives. This is a sloppy form of trying to win an argument or advancing a point. In logic, this is called the ad hominem fallacy, meaning that instead of attacking the opponent’s position, you attack the person. Today, Christians are accused of being “intolerant”, when nothing could be further from the truth. We are labeled with all kinds of ugly characteristics.

The first thing to get settled is whether or not there is an objective truth. This causes many people difficulty today, in our post-modern society where many have decided that each of us is allowed to determine what truth is for us; what is true for you may not be true for me. That leads to moral relativism, where we each get to determine our own moral laws. The logical law of non-contradiction prohibits this. That law basically says that a thing cannot be true and not true at the same time (or "A" and "not-A") in the same relationship. The animal is a dog or it is not a dog; it can't be a dog and a non-dog at the same time. This means that a truth is true for me and must be true for you as well. There are physical truths, mathematical truths, and even moral truths. The laws of particle physics are not different for you and me, and for both of us, four plus four must equal eight. The real problem arises when people claim that there is no objective moral standard. In that case, Mao, Stalin, and Hitler were justified in what they did because it met their moral standards. The next time someone claims that each of us is entitled to determine his own moral truths, take his wallet, and tell him that your morality thinks that it is just fine to steal.

A belief is one step removed from an objective truth. The truth is what it is, and a belief is what a person thinks is truth. We can certainly believe untrue things. Believing the wrong thing does not change the truth. My favorite example of this comes from Christian author Frank Turek, who asks, "If you decided that you didn't believe in gravity, would you just float away?"

The word tolerance comes from the Latin tolerantia, meaning to "endure". It means that if you tolerate something, you endure it or live with it. Generally, with regards to other people, you tolerate one of two things: their beliefs or their actions. Almost universally, we tolerate other people's beliefs, even if we consider them to be untrue. One of the foundational principles of our country was religious tolerance. As Christians, we tolerate the Hindus, the Muslims, the Buddhists, and so on, and we expect them to tolerate our beliefs as well. We do not always tolerate other people's actions; although we may tolerate the radical Muslims and their beliefs, we do not tolerate acts of terrorism.

Acceptance, however, is a totally different matter. I may tolerate your beliefs, but I am under no compunction to accept them as true. The sky is blue, you may believe it to be green, and I can certainly tolerate your viewpoint, but please don't demand that I also believe the sky to be green. And therein lies the problem where one group of people demands that another group of people not only tolerate their beliefs but accept them as true. I happen to get my moral truths from the Bible and God's instructions for us. Not everyone does.

And where these aggrieved groups fall off the lexicographic cliff is when they take those who do not accept their beliefs as true and label them as intolerant "haters" or “ists” or "phobes". Because I believe the sky to be blue does not make me a green-sky "hater”, a “greenophobe”, or a “colorist”, and you are not suffering because I do not accept your belief in a green sky. Please, do not even consider calling me intolerant.

You may believe that stealing is morally perfectly acceptable, but I will not tolerate your behavior, stealing from me, and I will not accept your belief in theft as morally correct or true. Although I am intolerant of your actions, that does not make me a hater, and I would reject your attempt to make me the moral villain. You may desire my DVD player and feel that you are suffering because you do not have one, but I am not causing you to suffer by denying you the right to take mine.

I am hopeful that at least some people will not accept the rampant name-calling today as a valid form of argument, whether they be called racist, bigoted, intolerant, or any kind of “-phobe”. An illusion is a deceptive appearance or impression, and those who would toss those words around are trying to create the illusion that not only do they have a valid argument, but the moral high ground as well. I would claim that they are actually suffering from a delusion, which is a belief that has no evidence in fact.