Lindy Mayfield wrote:

> Here, we can do an experiment and I'll play the guinea pig.  This is how
> I understand the story that I'm sure most have heard about the cracker.
> http://www.wftv.com/news/16798008/detail.html

> Now.  How open-minded am I expected to be and how much of the other
> side's point of view am I supposed to understand?  That's a serious
> question that I seriously ask myself time to time.  I'm not trying to be
> funny.  And how tolerant should I be?  

I think one of the first questions is "what do I want?" This usually gives
me a good measure about what to do. There's nobody who's telling you how
tolerant you should be, but it's you who can determine what you want and
measure your actions on your goals.

Back to tolerance and open-mindedness, In the described case, both sides
seem to have missed several chances of tolerance. It also seems the guy has
succeeded in tricking the church into helping him making a big ruckus about
the issue. One could say he stole something that was given to him under the
premise that he would treat it the way it is intended to treat, and he
didn't do that. (Formally, that's probably not theft but something like
fraud.) One could also say that if the church had treated this something
like "hey dude, it seems you have a problem. how can we help you?" (which
seems to me, from far away, more in the spirit of Christ than what they
seem to be doing), we wouldn't even know something has happened.

Anyway, I personally don't see anything to be worried about. People trying
to provoke others are a reality, and that's just one more who succeeded.
People letting themselves provoke needlessly are also a reality, and there
are a bunch more. Now as much as I'd like that the guy would have gone into
the church, maybe asked for permission before, asked how he'd be expected
to behave, and then done that respectfully, or as much as I'd like that the
church people would treat him either as a silly provoker that doesn't
really deserve any attention or as a possibly slightly disturbed young man
who needs some spiritual guidance and not legal action, none of that is
within the realm that I can influence, so I just let them bicker it out. If
that's how they want to live, that's their thing, not mine. 
 

> I'm not intolerant of peoples' right to get together [...] but I am
> totally intolerant of any of this leaking into society in any way, for
> example into public schools, laws, science books, government policies,
> etc.

You may be intolerant of this, but then you're into eternal suffering :)
IMO it is an illusion that it is even possible that none of what people
believe leaks into society at large. Of course it does; all our rules are
based on what we believe. If you've read my posts about religion, you
probably know that I'm no Christian. But I'm certain that much of what I
think and feel is deeply influenced by Christian beliefs; I was born and
raised and live in a basically Christian culture. I believe that this is
true for everybody in this situation. Maybe even the idea of separation of
church and state is a result of this same belief system of which
Christianity in one realization; I'm not sure, but I think this idea
wouldn't make much sense in a Buddhist mind frame.

So I think we just have to accept that we live with the people we live
with, that our rules are determined by what we believe (collectively), that
there are many people who believe things that we don't. For me, that's not
tolerance, that realism. (You can change the first of the three, within
limits, by moving to another place.)

Gerhard

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