Advocate.

As in devil’s advocate. It’s an unfortunate colloquialism, but it describes me pretty well.

I’ve decided that I need to give up trying to explain my opinions, beliefs, and thought processes; I should just confess that I am inclined to disagree with you in general. Don’t get me wrong – I do have opinions, but my most dominant opinion is that you should be willing to question your opinions.

I think we all develop opinions for dumb reasons. There is usually an equation involved. Something like this:

A=B and B=C, so A=C

I support you, you support him, therefore I support him. Something like that. Opinion by association. Opinion as a package deal. It’s sort of like a package you choose from Dish Network. Yeah, there may be some channels you don’t really want, but you’ll take them because they are part of a package that contains a lot of things you do want.

Let’s take politics, for example.

I know that if you believe that capital punishment is wrong, then you also believe that abortion is okay, global warming is real, homosexuality is natural, Bill O’Reilly is insane, big business is all bad, Iraq was a huge mistake (we didn’t care AT ALL about those poor Iraqis. FREE OIL!!!), there were NEVER any weapons of mass destruction, and George Bush is the dumbest man alive. I call this the Enlightened East Coast/ West Coast Lib Package. Many of these opinions aren’t particularly related to each other, but they are all part of the package deal, so you must have them all.

Contrarily, if you believe that capital punishment is the answer, then abortion is wrong, global warming is a hoax, homosexuality is an abomination, Bill O’Reilly is a pretty sharp guy, big business is the American way, we had no choice but to rid Iraq of it’s evil dictator (oil..? WHAT? NOOOO….. we hadn’t even thought of …. I can’t believe you thought we…. NOOOOO), we JUST missed those weapons of mass destruction, and George Bush is really quite smart – he’s just a poor communicator. This is what I call the Amurican Patriot Package .

At what point did we agree to package our opinions in this way? I do it. We all do it. Usually, it’s in response to people of the other “package” trying to force their package on us (I might need to re-word that). I suppose it’s a show of solidarity. It’s a way to unite with other people subscribed to our package.

The downside? We have basically reduced ourselves to a society consisting of two opinion packages.

Difference.

Tolerance is something of a negative buzz word in the Christian community. It has the same stigma attached to it as the word relativism. Both of these terms constitute part of what’s wrong with Christianity today, say many. It’s what makes one a wishy-washy or a “lukewarm” Christian – to steal a bit of Christianese from the evangelical playbook. Most Christians view tolerance as the world’s attempt to legitimize every belief system and religion EXCEPT Christianity, and to eliminate absolute “right” and “wrong” by making everything “ok” under the guise of tolerance.

I can see that point. Here is an interesting quote:

“I have seen great intolerance shown in support of tolerance.” – Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Nonetheless, let’s look at an actual definition of “tolerance”:

TOLERANCE:
The capacity for, or the practice of, recognizing and respecting the beliefs or practices of others.

Notice it does not say the “approval of” or “agreement with” these beliefs. In fact, in my mind, when I hear the word “tolerance”, I think of reluctant acknowledgement at best.

I was fortunate enough not to be very popular in school. Sounds strange to say that, I know, but looking back I am thankful for it. At the time, it obviously wasn’t great. I always had a handful of good friends, but for many, many years, I didn’t really fit into the acceptable norm. I moved to New Jersey right when I turned 12 years-old, and coming from the midwest, it was a culturally shocking experience to say the least. It does something to you when you are so scrawny, so pale and so gawky that you can’t walk into a room of total strangers without at least a few people stopping what they’re doing, turning to notice and occasionally commenting – sometimes to each other, and sometimes to you.

Whether people tolerate us or our beliefs is irrelevant, and should not dictate how we treat other people.  It’s about respect for people as human beings.  It’s about common decency. 

The highest result of education is tolerance.” -Helen Keller

“Tolerance implies no lack of commitment to one’s own beliefs. Rather it condemns the oppression or persecution of others.” – John F. Kennedy