Facing The Challenge web site / Ground Rules

[ftah3]

This will address one of lou_selastic's points, but not the Facing 
the Challenge website or it's contents.  Haven't visited it, and so 
far have no desire to.  Curiosity may get the better of me later, who 
knows.

lou_selastic wrote:
> Secondly, I really do not see why it should be so offensive to 
> express the opinion that any particular belief system or faith 
> is "wrong" (meaning incorrect or erroneous, NOT meaning unlawful or 
> immoral). If Christians beleve that Jesus Christ is the only way to 
> find God (because this is what Jesus claimed in John Chapter 14, 
> verse 6), then any other faith which says there is another way to 
> find God contradicts this. They cannot both be right. One of them 
(or 
> both of them) must be "wrong".

No, there is no *objective* requirement than one or both must be 
wrong, and similarly no requirment that they both cannot be right.  
In my opinion, that is a fallacy, and when perpetuated by individuals 
in support of religious views, drives me crazy (not meaning you, lou, 
as we've not discussed this far enough for me to know whether you are 
stating a belief or arguing a point on a philosophical basis; I'm 
speaking generally).  

But that is not, in fact, the important point.  Whether one believes 
one's faith system to be right and all others to be wrong is only 
critical in terms of intolerance when that person therefore feels 
justified to act in a prejudicial way towards those not sharing the 
same belief.  Mr. X can believe that the only True God is the 
Southern Baptist God and that all people of other faiths are going to 
Hell, and that's fine and nothing wrong about it.  But when Mr. X 
proceeds to treat those of other faiths as lesser individuals, and 
attempts to curtail or infringe upon others' rights based on the 
strictures of his own belief system ~ that is (to me) the meat of 
intolerance, and is the aspect that could be argued "wrong."

Imho.

Mahoney