I just know some, if not all, of the Christians on this board will become offended at this, but that's not my goal, so I'll try to be as delicate as possible.

Christians tend to boast about the tolerance of their religion: Something along the lines of "Jesus says love your fellow man, no matter what" is usually their reply when asked about tolerance. But, are most Christians really as tolerant as they say?

As an example, I'll give you a paraphrased excerpt of an E-Mail conversation between me and my father (a very religious Christian). This was around Halloween, and he sent everyone in his address book a Christian webpage about how Halloween is a pagan festival and pagans are devil worshippers.

At this I thought, "Okay, Satanism and Wicca, while both pagan religions, are completely different religions. He obviously doesn't know much about the religions he's bashing. And just because their religious beliefs differ from yours, they're automatically 'devil worshippers'? Does that mean Jews are devil worshippers because they don't accept Jesus as their savior? Are Hindus devil worshippers because they believe in multiple gods? Where does it end?"

Anyway, a few months later (just yesterday, in fact), the subject of religion was brought up again. He said, "I'm very tolerant of others' religions." I don't see how a person can call hundreds of religions devil worshipping in one sentence, then say he's tolerant in the next.

I started to think about it and realized this: In my experience, when it comes to Judaism, Christianity, and Buddhism (3 major religions here in the USA), the Christians tend to be the least tolerant, yet the most ready to state their tolerance for others.

So, after reading (or not reading, as the case may be) this, what do you think? Do you think the majority of Christians are like my father, claiming they're tolerant but aren't really? Or do you think most Christians really are tolerant? Or, it it just about half-and-half?

Vote above. I'd love to see the majority's opinion on these boards, as most (if not all) people on PnP seem to be very tolerant and understanding.

-IMP ;) :)

It's hard to say. The intolerant are the most vocal so...

I'd like to give christians the benefit of the doubt on this.

Hmm..For one I don't like that we're generalizing all christians. For instance Quakers are extremely tolerant. And various sects take the tolerance level to various points. But if we are talking about members of orthodox or fundementalists of the christian community, then I'de say they're not really at all tolerant as they claim. But anyway, I'm saying about half and half, becuase its hard to say, when you paint in broad strokes.

:D Glad everyone here is so open minded!

Firstly, Christianity is engulfed in peace and love. I'm not stating this because I feel nobody here knows this, but much more to get to my second statement: I find it hard to feel that anyone who claims to be Christian and cannot show compassion towards his fellow man is not even Christian at all, but an imposter. The moronic fundamentalists have Jesus and the rest of the religion completely wrong.
And as Kevin said, the least tolerant ones are the loudest. Most others are decent enough human beings to not be hypocrits (which, ironically, is the one kind of person Jesus could not tolerate).

He does know that Christmas is a pagan holiday, right?
Dumbass.

Also, I voted that most, if not all Christians are tolerant of others. Mostly 'cuz they are. And just because you want to change a person's views on a topic (in this case, religion) doesn't automatically make you intolerant.
In the case of your dad though... yah. He is.

Where did you get that about the Orthodox Church? I was under the impression they were one of the better sects.

I was born a member of the Eastern Orthodox church, baptised and such. I went to sunday school etc. in that environment. And there were many occasions that various groups were spoken about with really not nice language, and a few people there were excommunicated for holding and expressing views counter to the church. Maybe that's just where I went, althgough that was St. Sophia's which is a famous DC area orthodox church. They do teach "tolerance" and "passivism" but the leaders of church didn't seem to me, to hold those views in practice.


That's just how it was to me.

Depends what part of the world your in.

Christians in the UK are tolerant more often than not. They're desperate for support so they're very welcoming.

But in other parts of the world, maybe not so much.

Having grown up in a Christian family, I voted that most are not tollerant, whether or not they're outspoken about it.

Catholics, by far are the least tolerant of all the Christian religions I think.

I honestly don't know much about paganism. I consider myself Theist right now, until I read more about other beliefs. Saying I'm a Theist is being very vague, I understand.

But for the most part, Christians believe that they're totally right, and everyone else is totally wrong, most of them without even taking the slightest look into other religions. So I don't know how most of them can say they believe in Christianity and not other religions, without even knowing anything about the religions they claim to not believe in.

I don't think it's due to the fact that Christians, as a whole, are ignorant or anything of that sort, it's just that many churches feed this type of information to the Christians that attend.

Having a Baptist upbringing, have made a few observations.

There were a lot more politics involved in the church than realized. Baptist preachers run from the devout, kind soul-savers to the "in love with their own voices" to the hail-n-brimstone to the wiser laid-back sorts.

To me, it seems like it's all about who has the nicest church buildings or the largest congretation or the most televised sermons to the out-in-out blemishes. There are even jealousies and prejudices. And don't get me started on the Southern Baptists. While I tend to respect the black Baptist preachers more, the number getting involved in political issues is sickening.

And in white Baptist churches, it was very rare to see black people... which struck me as too prejudicial. One reason for no longer attending.

And they should have collection plates set up in private so people can make alms without the personal glory of dropping large bills or dropping in personal checks to be sure they are recognized. They aren't smart enough to know you can't buy your way into heaven. While the rich have a "camel's chance in passing through a needle's eye", it's a better one than those that think admission is based on dollars.

I like certain aspects of Catholicism... like penance and confession... even lent. But I'll be damned before I drop to my knees 100 times to show submission to the Lord God. If there is a God, he can look into people's hearts and see without having to look at their knees.

Not enough tolerance in any of the religions, by my estimates.

Alright, being Catholic, the idea behind kneeling for most people who do it is to show respect before someone greater than you (i.e. God)

Although at mass we pray a lot of different ways, sitting, standing, kneeling. Everyone has their preferred way and they're all incorporated into the mass to try and provide a catch-all. We recognize some people pray better standing, some sitting and some kneeling.

That being said, I find this question... well... limiting is probably the best word. I think the question could be asked of any major religion as a whole. My guess is that since this board is primarily American that it could be limited even further to say are American Christians tolerant...

I find that most individuals are tolerant to some degree of differences as well. I'd ask to what degree of tolerance are you talking? For that matter how tolerant are we? I'd argue there are definitely things that everyone on this board would find abhorrent, and ergo, not tolerate. Does that make us intolerant? Accuse me of arguing semantics if you want, but I think that it's a question of degree and not all or nothing. Or if you prefer, shades of grey as opposed to black and white.

Hold on a second. Does anyone else see the irony in what this thread is? "Christians are intolerant"? You criticize christians for a generalization your father made about other religions, yet isnt that mostly what you are doing here? I think that you could say that "a large part of christians" or "many christians that I know of" are intolerant but "most" or "all" makes you just as ignorant and hypocritical as you argue we are.

As others have said, many people think that Christians are intolerant because all anyone ever hears of them are the fundamentalists who scream about death to gays and such. The other couple MILLION of us are not quite this...excited. I mean sure, you have your McCains and other "familly values" public figures, but why do judge us based on what they say? There people in the Middle East, for example, blowing themselves up over a division within the SAME RELIGION thousands of years old, much less how they feel about people of other religions. Yet we dont have a thread about <I>their</I> "intolerance".

Really, Christian bashing has become the new "thing" to do among 'rebellious teenagers'. But please, just because your father appears to be an ignorant prick <I>and</I> a christian, doesnt mean we all are.

Saying that "all" or "most" BNP or KKK members are intolerant doesn't make you intolerant. Its just a statement of a perceived fact. And while my comparison obviously takes it to the extreme, the point still stands.

Now, I agree with your point about causation and correlation. There are plenty of people who are pricks and are Christians, but it doesn't really reflect on Christianity nor upon other Christians.

The thing is, and Boru brings up a good point, tolerance can be measured on many, many different levels. As such, its hard to get a proper polling on a question like this. Someone might find someone preaching to them as a sign of intolerance. Conversely, someone might not think that telling someone they are going to hell for being X faith is being intolerant.

I, for one, find that it varies much person to person, and that Christianity in general has no real affect on the tolerance of people.

Well said.

As someone who considers themselves Christian, I like to believe that Christians who really get it, are tolerant. That being said, what I really mean when I think that is all Christians should interpret the Bible and Scripture and Social Teachings of various religions the same way I do. So how tolerant does that make me? :)

I think a person's tolerance or intolerance honestly has more than likely little to do with what religion they profess...

I believe that too. I'm a bit tired of people who attribute homophobia to religion. I'm pretty sure humans are able to be stupid and hateful even without the help of religion.

Aren't Christians brought up to believe that homosexuality is bad? This in itself shows intolerance towards homosexuality. Almost every Catholic or Christian person I know has something against gays. These people also use the Bible to back them up on this issue, which I guess depends on how you interpret the Bible.

And yet I'm a Catholic who believes gays ought to be able to marry and women ought to be priests.

The fact that I'm lumped in with your statement there further proves my point that you can't really make a conclusive statement that "all" of a segment of a population holds the same views. "Tolerant" as an adjective is loaded now were you to argue is the Bible tolerant of homosexuality then you could conclusively say that yes, there are scriptural passages that say having sex with someone of the same gender is a bad thing. Yet Nevin, psycholopher and myself are all Christians and all of us are frequently appalled at the language that other Christians use to describe homosexuality, precisely because people such as yourself assume that ALL christians think those things.

No no no.. I don't believe ALL christians or ALL catholics. I'm saying MOST. The majority believe that homosexuality is bad. This is the poll "After reading the below post, do you think the majority of Christians are tolerant or not?" That's what I was replying to. ;)

Understood. I simply think this question is very broad and as such it's hard to come up with a definitive answer. Tolerant gives us a broad spectrum. Some denominations of Christianity hate other sects of Christianity, that would make them intolerant of other Christian religions. Some of them are very tolerant of Judaism but not tolerant at all of gays or lesbians. I think that tolerant is hard to argue one way or the other without being more specific (e.g. tolerant of other religions, tolerant of homosexuality, etc.) The question just in general asks are Christians tolerant. I also don't think you can prove it conclusively (hence this being a straight up or down opinion poll) because tolerance is a subjective term. I might consider "tolerating" something to require action to support it and another person might consider "tolerating" to merely mean you don't act to suppress it but don't necessarily encourage another religion/activity etc.

I do not know if the majority of Christians are tolerant or not, but those Christians I know are not bad to be around with. In other words, they are not intolerant, as far as I am aware.

Having said that, having read this book, I realise that there is a very frightening and intolerant Christian movement that has a massive influence upon American politics.

There definitely is a sect of Christianity that believes that the war in Iraq is a crusade of sorts.

I think that's what I keep trying to get at. You can take any accepted "segment" of the population. Christians, Jews, Hindu's, Muslims, Blacks, Whites, Hispanics and there will be differences in that label.

The question then becomes how do you average out all the different voices, and I'm still not quite sure on how to do that. Just as there are Christians who think all those who haven't accepted Jesus as their savior are going to hell, there are those who support gay marriage. There's a spectrum, as such it's dismissive and borderline ignorant to paint any segment of the population the same color and say they all think one thing and will always act this way.

Unfortunately, while the way to do it is a good question, how its done is pretty simple: you average out the voices via loudness. Thats how people view an entire race/creed/whatever.

Let's all take a moment to remember the difference between tolerance and acceptance.

If most Christians weren't tolerant, there'd be a hell of a lot more violence in this world than there is.

Yeah, I agree with this statement. I understand that Islam is supposed to be a peaceful religion, but when political cartoons are released depicting Muhammed in provocative scenes, it was responded with violence, killings, and demands for the author's heads. How many offensive scenes has Jesus been put into (ex: Christ Illusion album art, Slayer)?

There was no excuse for the violent protests by some Muslims to the publishing of those cartoons. You cannot, however, compare that to the action (or non-action) of Christians to offensive scenes of Jesus (although Muslims would probably object to that too, seeing as the view Jesus as a prophet).

The difference lies in the fact that Muslims have good reason to believe that they are on the end of discrimination and persecution in the West. Muslims are being attacked for the wearing of the hijab, and in more extreme cases, they are being kidnapped by the CIA and taken to jails in places like Egypt, where torture is commonplace, or if they are lucky, Guantanamo Bay. Others are being woken up in the early hours of the morning and being shot at by the British police who suspect them to be terrorists.

Therefore, when they see such pictures, it adds up to way more than just a picture of their prophet being insulted. It is yet another attack on them.