“The greatest ignorance is to reject something you know nothing about.”

After reading two beliefnet blogs (Beck, Bath and Bizarre and some of the blogs on Brit Hume I started wondering...when did Christianity become so intolerant and Christians so arrogant? And where is that reflected in the teachings of Jesus? Nowhere that I know of. Yet those who are in the limelight continue to give Christianity a bad name and the rest of us, who claim to be loving Christians, do nothing to stop it. As a matter of fact, many people just love listening to these un-Christ-like "Christians" and supporting their rants. It makes me almost ashamed to call myself a Christian and know that other people are afraid of me because of those intolerant, arrogant, in-your-face, conservative Christians who believe like Beck and Hume.  

Well I, for one, would like to stand up and say, loud and proud, that I am a TOLERANT, LOVING CHRISTIAN WHO SUPPORTS ALL RELIGIONS AND THE GOOD THEY DO FOR THE WORLD. Instead of bashing other religions or using the third grade, "my God is better than your God" argument, I choose to learn about other religions and try to understand them.

There is an old saying that goes, "It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt. " Those "Christians" or those who call themselves Christians bash other religions without knowing enough about them to really intelligently comment on them. Thus, they continue to show their own stupidity. Unfortunately, their loud comments make other people believe all Christians are as ignorant and foolish as they are. IMHO, if you don't know anything about any other religions, you shouldn't comment on them at all.

Many people follow the tenants of Christianity without following the "religion" and they are turned off by those blatant "Christians" who are in their face and anti everything that doesn't exactly follow their beliefs and dogma.

IMHO, it's time to start following Jesus' teachings rather than religion's rules. Of course, that requires us to spend much time learning exactly what Jesus taught. And while we're busy learning, we will be too busy to bash others. Sounds like a good way to become better Christians and better world citizens.

I must say, this quote from Bhagavad-Gita As It Is best describes my beliefs about God and getting closer to God. "God is the same in every religion. He is called different names in different faiths; just like people from around the world see the sun from different angles and call it by different names. Just as all rivers all eventually reach the ocean by their different courses, so we call all reach God through our different methods."

Or this from Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, "A man can reach the roof of a house by stone stairs or a ladder or a rope-ladder or a rope or even by a bamboo pole. But he cannot reach the roof if he sets foot now on one and now on another. He should firmly follow one path. Likewise, in order to realize God a man must follow one path with all his strength. But you must regard other views as so many paths leading to God. You should not feel that your path is the only right path and that other paths are wrong. You mustn’t bear malice toward others."

Then, of course, there's the good old Golden Rule which appears in almost every religion on this beautiful earth. Check some of them out here. It's time we started following the Golden Rule — and teaching it to our children once again — and demanding it from our "celebrities" and leaders.

Rev. Claudia "Red Feather" Barber

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