Further to this post, it’s time to explain what tolerance is, why it matters, and why intolerance dressed as love is still intolerance. It’s painfully apparent that not everyone understands that message. Let’s quote from David’s Theology Archaeology site… David’s comments shall be in purple.

The liberals, Democrats, and leftists do not seem to understand the term they use all the time. They whine and cry that believers are not tolerant, yet get very aggressive, hate-filled, and angry at Christians who want to practice their faith wherever they are.

Here is how the American Heritage Dictionary defines the word ‘tolerance’:

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

It seems that the definition is flexible when the aforementioned groups of people attack those who disagree with them, especially Christians. They call Christians all sorts of names, seek to ban them from social media outlets, schools, and other locations where the public gathers.

They do not seem to tolerate Christians or their beliefs at all. But there is a reason behind that and it is not sociological, psychological, or even emotional. It is because the true Christian casts a light unto their dark lives and the unbeliever hates to see what they really look like inside.

They do not like what they see when a Christian lives by God’s word and exposes the sin and evil in the world around them. Non-believers do not like being shown that they are wrong and living on the wrong side of God.

The Christian Persecution Complex knows no bounds. Emphasis mine by the way, but we’ll come to that in a moment. In the world’s most powerful country, God in the Christian sense continues to be at the heart of every political ceremony, Christianity’s influence is prevalent, and Christians are not being persecuted left right and centre. What David decries is not the desire to deny Christians the opportunity to practice their beliefs, but in reality is the anger towards the religious right’s hypocrisy.

If you’re part of the LGBTQIA community, expressing yourself is met with condemnation, and what’s worse, that community is meant to believe being called abnormal is an act of love! The LGBTQIA community gets no peace from interfering Christians (and nor is that interference limited to Christians), yet it’s apparently the LGBTQIA community that’s intolerant for speaking out against this… I refer to the picture above.

David continues…

What makes this issue even worse is that while the non-Christians are rejecting God’s standards of right and wrong, they are busy creating their own. The post at Meerkat Musing is what started this all and we will quote from it.

Do we accept racism, sexism and homophobia as part of tolerating intolerance?

Part of their rule creation targets issues that do not exist. First off racism does not exist as everyone comes from the same two ancestors, Adam & Eve. There may be cultural hatred, skin color hatred but there is no such thing as racism.

The term seism is a bit broad but as the roles of men and women are defined by God, men are the head of the home, the wife is the helpmeet. The men run the church, the women have different roles but cannot run the church. And on it goes.

Obeying God’s word and keeping to his defined roles is not sexism. it is obedience to God but it is not sexism. While sexism may exist in certain areas, it is not as great as that author says it is.

Whoa, what?! Racism does not exist?! Tell that to the victims of the Tulsa Massacre. Tell that to Daunte Wright, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. Say that to the victims of South Africa’s brutal apartheid regime. What does David think hating people regarding skin colour is? It’s RACISM. It’s an issue that very much exists, and to tell people it doesn’t… I don’t know what to say to that. It’s absurd. It’s insane.

Sexism is definitely a problem. It’s why women like Sarah Everard are no longer with us. It’s why rape can be referred to as ‘getting some action‘. It’s why so many rape cases go unreported (because there is still a culture of assuming the victim is lying or deserved it). It’s why women are dehumanised by the religious right, out of an expectation they serve only one function – to have babies.

Then we have the overlap between racism and sexism, when several Asian women were killed in Atlanta earlier this year. Cases of anti-Asian racism have surged in the wake of the covid-19 pandemic, following inflammatory rhetoric from certain reckless national leaders.

Finally, we get to homophobia. being against homosexual unions, etc., is not the same as being afraid of a homosexual. But that is what the word implies. No one is afraid of homosexuals or even the rest of the queer letters.

Telling people that they are abnormal, not right, and living in sin is not being afraid of homosexuals. it is an act of love as Christians try to free the LGBTQ member from sin. trying to free someone is not an act of fear.

If the religious right is not afraid of homosexuals, why not let them and the rest of the LGBTQIA community live in peace? Love isn’t the motivator here – unless love is what this is meant to be? Or this?

Bottom line, David’s life is not impacted by the LGBT community. He calls them selfish and intolerant because they want to be left alone to live normal lives and don’t want religion shoved down their throats.

Do we accept people who espouse these ‘ideas’?

If they don’t, then they are being hypocritical and they are not putting into practice the true meaning of the definition quoted earlier. They are not being tolerant of those who practice their own set of beliefs.

That hypocrisy ruins their credibility and any authority they thought they had. They should have learned this lesson from those who grew up in the 50s and 60s of the last century as well as every generation that has existed since Adam & Eve.

What is this even supposed to mean?!

When you do not practice what you believe, no one tends to listen. That question exposes the real hypocrisy. The liberals, etc., do not want to live under God’s laws, that tell people to treat others correctly, yet expect everyone to live under their rules.

Why should anyone listen to them? They do not practice what they preach and take great measures to persecute and hurt the Christian church.

David won’t accept people who don’t share his divisive ideals; for that matter David won’t accept any position that exists outside of his ultra-literal interpretation of the Bible. Since he is unprepared to accept viewpoints outside of his own, does this not make him the hypocrite? Liberals don’t expect fealty to their rules – the religious right on the other hand, demands it. The ‘lefties and liberals’ and the groups David so vehemently opposes are quite prepared to live and let live – but that’s not enough for conservatives. At the first sign of anyone who isn’t white, male and heterosexual gaining equal rights to white heterosexual males they decry how they’re persecuted – when in reality they are unhappy they can’t persecute with impunity anymore.

I welcome diversity. I welcome the inclusive future Star Trek presents to us

No, he doesn’t and of course he would welcome the ‘inclusive future’ of Star Trek because it excludes God and his rules, standards, and instructions. humans in that universe are free to do whatever they want except be Christian.

He only welcomes a world that refuses to tell him he is living in sin and needs to accept Christ as his savior, then follow God’s ways as found in the Bible. He wants a universe where he gets to set his own rules and punish those who disagree with him.

Emphasis mine again. This is the world David wants. This is what every organised religion wants. ‘Worship my God in the right way or be forever condemned!’ There is no inclusion in religion, unless you adhere to the rules of that religion, regardless of whether the rules would do you harm.

If you’re going to suggest we accept racism, sexism and homophobia, under the guise of being ‘tolerant’, just remember that the ones who want to discriminate will never be tolerant.

That is an interesting point. One he should apply to himself as he will discriminate against certain people which makes him intolerant and unable to be tolerant.

An interesting and unsubstantiated accusation from David. I don’t tolerate intolerance, that’s for sure. I don’t tolerate discriminatory policies or values. Clearly David skimmed what I had to say and didn’t even attempt to understand it, despite quoting it! I refer to that final sentence, which he quoted – David has no wish to be tolerant. It’s his way or the highway. We all have to accept his belief system, and if we don’t he believes it is his right to interfere in the lives of others until they are harassed, browbeaten and coerced into accepting his system. Very tolerant!

God is the most inclusive person there is. His plan of salvation invites men, women children, disabled, sick, and so on. All they have to do is give up sin. Yet, that author and people like him, love sin more than they love themselves or God.

This is merely an argument for God’s cruelty. The God of the Old Testament slaughtered people routinely, often without explanation. They set up cruel tests, demanded people kill for them, and established a set of arbitrary rules – hoops for people to jump through – to confirm to what they wanted. That’s not inclusive – not in the slightest.

UPDATE 09/6/21

David commented that he’d not issue a response – yet he did.

We have done many articles recently using two non-Christian websites as a source for our topics. It is not wrong to do so and we may address more of the issues they raise n future articles.

What is important though, is how to respond to these people. One of the keys to approaching those that either do not believe or did believe and turned away from their salvation is that they do not accept God’s definitions, God’s thinking, nor anything to do with God.

That makes it very tough to deal with because they will avoid the truth as much as possible. Take for example, the post we wrote yesterday, Meerkat Musing’s owner did not accept the fact that telling a person the truth is love. He wrote at this link the following:

What truth does David tell? Every religion claims to tell the truth. Each version of each religion believes itself to be infallible and inerrant. One faith’s truth is another’s lie, and all the while, people who don’t believe or who have had their lives damaged by the religious are being forced to accept, among other things, being called abnormal in the name of love! This is where David’s hypocrisy shines through once more – he demands to interfere in the lives of others, and decries people who wish nothing more than to be left alone from the people calling them, among other things, ‘abnormal’.

why it matters, and why intolerance dressed as love is still intolerance

That is because he rejects God’s definition of love, replacing it with his own limited version. It is a long process taking patience and love to get such people to see what true love really is:

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind, it is not jealous; love does not brag, it is not arrogant. ⁵ It does not act disgracefully, it does not seek its own benefit; it is not provoked, does not keep an account of a wrong suffered, ⁶ it does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; ⁷ it ^[b]keeps every confidence, it believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (1 Cor. 13)

God’s love tells everyone to forsake evil, wrong behavior, and so on. However, only God defines those categories and places different actions in each category. Star Trek and unbelievers do not have the authority or power to change that categorization.

Hmm, interesting. God’s love… let’s see what form that takes shall we? To quote from the Skeptic’s Annotated Bible…

God gets angry with king Abimelech, though the king hasn’t even touched Sarah. He says to the king, “Behold, thou art but a dead man,” and threatens to kill him and all of his people. To compensate for the crime he never committed, Abimelech gives Abraham sheep, oxen, slaves, silver, and land. Finally, after Abraham “prayed unto God,” God lifts his punishment to Abimelech, “for the Lord had fast closed up all the wombs of the house of Abimelech, because of Sarah.” 20:3-18

Random killing…

“And Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the Lord; and the Lord slew him.” What did Er do to elicit God’s wrath? The Bible doesn’t say. Maybe he picked up some sticks on Saturday. 38:7

Animal killing…

Get some animals, kill them, chop up their bodies, wave body parts in the air, burn the carcasses, and sprinkle the blood all around — in precisely the way God tells you. It may well make you sick, but it makes God feel good. 29:11-37

God (as we are told by David) forsakes evil, but to anyone reading this or the link above, do any of these actions seem good to you? Do they seem just? And please, don’t answer with the tired mantra ‘God works in mysterious ways’. I want to know what you think about these actions. To ask a question that I asked of David (and one that he refused to answer), would you kill if God commanded it? Would you punish someone through death if God ordered it? Think about that… God wants people to kill on their behalf, often without explanation or because this omnipotent deity is offended. What kind of God demands a blood sacrifice for being offended?!

How is any of this a demonstration of love?!

I am reminded of an earlier discussion with David that touched upon the theme of charity. Jesus spoke of helping the needy and feeding the hungry.

James 2:14-18 – What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.

Deuteronomy 15:7-11 – “If among you, one of your brothers should become poor, in any of your towns within your land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother, but you shall open your hand to him and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever it may be. Take care lest there be an unworthy thought in your heart and you say, ‘The seventh year, the year of release is near,’ and your eye look grudgingly on your poor brother, and you give him nothing, and he cry to the Lord against you, and you be guilty of sin. You shall give to him freely, and your heart shall not be grudging when you give to him, because for this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake. For there will never cease to be poor in the land. Therefore I command you, ‘You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land.’

The Son has definitely surpassed the Father in this instance… one preaches fire and brimstone and death and destruction, in the name of obedience, the other teaches helping others. For some reason a lot of Christians (not all, but a lot) have selective amnesia when it comes to the Bible.

It’s tempting to dive into what David has to say about Bruce Gerencser’s abortion post, but Bruce doesn’t need my help to fend off the typical arguments put forward by forced-birthers. The one point I will make is that God has (if we take the Bible literally) slaughtered entire cities, including children, and commanded the same. God permits scores of abortions in the form of miscarriages, every single day. I already know David’s answer – ‘it’s because of evil and sin’. Well, if murder is a sin, why does God kill and command to kill so often, and often without explanation, and then tell us it’s in the name of love?

There’s more – a lot more – that I could go into, such as David repeating his claim that racism isn’t real. Ironically, David describes Tulsa and apartheid as examples of people hating other people over being different – if that doesn’t describe racism, as defined by any reasonable person, what does?! That’s all I have to say. Read what I’ve had to say, read what David’s had to say, and decide for yourself.

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