Is Monotheism Inherently Intolerant?

[bigdaddy1204]

But conquered Muslims didn't have to pay that tax and were exempt, the purpose of the tax is to encourage religious conversion of the populace.

Taxation in this period was not a means at conversion - if that were the case, it doesn't fit with other evidence of the period which we know points to discouragement of conversion in the Ummayad period. Conversion was quite difficult and converts had to join one of the Arab clans, which could only be done by getting an existing member to sponsor you. Some of the early rulers actively discouraged conversion, because the tax revenue was simply too useful to the state.

As to the overall point, whether Monotheistic religions are inherently intolerant, the example of the tax is not necessarily evidence to support that claim. It does indeed confer a "superiority" of sorts on members of one faith (non payment of a tax), but there are also obligations attached (military service). Also, the other faiths are then tolerated. If it was intolerant, the other faiths would just be banned. I'd have thought the expulsion of Jews and Moors from Spain by "Christians" was perhaps a better example of intolerance. Although I'm not claiming that Christianity is inherently any worse than any other monotheistic religion overall. Did those people act in the true spirit of Christianity? Probably not. I suppose that's why discussion around these topics is unlikely to end anytime soon.

[fkizz]

By arguing that powerful historical figures could simply have been "pretending to be religious" you're indirectly invoking the "no true Scotsman" fallacy. You could apply this same logic to dismiss any conclusion relating to motives.

In highly religious times that's the case. Someone who claims that there is no God can't be a military leader, and a matter of minutes before the Knights Hospitaller actively sabotage you.

Just like someone can't claim to be a religious person if they are part of the upper echelons of the Communist party in China or USSR. Some of them may believe in God, but hide it, because State Atheism is enforced.

For example, despite Orthodox Church being suposedly almost destroyed under USSR, the speed of its recovery after the 90s was suspiciously fast. Clerics don't get converts with such speeds. Simply people who were already believers under USSR and pretended to be atheist came out of the woodwork.

Now what can be done is compare controversial religious leaders to openly atheist leaders on the levels of Mao and Stalin (that come from revolutionary period)

@Settra
The blood libel is of clear religious nature. It's a typical conspiracy theory against an alien community.

Blood Libel was one of the activities the Inquisition searched for. Two angles to consider is that 1) just accusation of practicing Judaism in secret could be enough for a sentence, no need to invoke blood libel 2) There are much worse things than blood libel that Inquisition hunted, blood libel is relatively tame compared to the rest. 3) it's highly correlated to children kidnapping and disappearing. plenty of other non-jewish people got this type of accusation as well, (using children for all sorts of weird rituals) a famous one being Gilles de Rais.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

warning: albeit historical, possible shocking content: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilles_de_Rais

So if you wanted to screw some wealthy jew who was your creditor and loan deadline aproaching, one could do that without invoking blood libel. (speaking in post-Spanish Inquisition reforms)

So blood libel is used later in XX century by more "secular" forces kinda tries to LARP as the Inquisition without understanding fully what's it was about, and to be fair it's just one more thing to add to the soup to create an atmosphere of a mass of people on emotions.

Exception maybe is the Orthodox Church (not secular). They have their own official blood libel accusations, which the Russian government doesn't disaprove but remains silent, but being honest Orthodox positions and politics are outside my familiar ground.

[Cyclops]

...
You'd be disappointed. A lot of manuals the Roman Church has on how to deal with other religions, came from the Roman Empire.

Can you give an example of a Roman Empire manual on how to deal with other religions? Also what is the Catholic manual on how to deal with other religions?

... Roman Empire also has instances of being far more brutal with utterly maiming/destroying a religion than Inquisition ever was. (exception maybe for spanish inquisition)

The Romans were by and large tolerant of foreign cults. They viewed some with suspicion (eg the castratos of Magna Mater) but generally tolerated them unless they disturbed the peace. EG Judaism was tolerated despite not worshipping the Emperor because it was a traditional national cult: when Jewish factions repeated rebelled their temple was destroyed but the religion was not banned, nor were its adherents systematically hunted down.

Christianity was persecuted intermittently because they failed to sacrifice to the emperor, and their cult was an innovation without the appeal to tradition that gave Judaism some justification. It was also a social movement that undermined traditional hierarchies and proselytised the underclass, so it smelled a bit like a revolutionary movement. The slightest investigation revealed to the be pretty harmless and persecution of Christians was more of a shibboleth of certain political factions than a serious religious program.

Roman insistence on sacrificing to the Emperor was an important political question rather than a religious one. We have instructions from Trajan to Pliny concerning how to approach Christians in this matter indicating he didn't want an inquisition per se, although he had to execute them if they were publically obstinate and made a fuss about not sacrificing to the Emperor.

While Catholic persecution has followed a similar trend to Roman persecution in enforcing political ends (because it played a larger role in public administration and had a well developed political mission of its own) the intrusion into private belief was more severe, and denunciation of other religions (and other factions of Christianity) more active. Typically the Catholic church has attempted to replace the Roman emperor with rulers of its own choosing (from Charlemagne to Phillip II) and the administrative power of the church and its international reach meant that it could enforce greater uniformity of action.

[fkizz]

Can you give an example of a Roman Empire manual on how to deal with other religions? Also what is the Catholic manual on how to deal with other religions?

When I say manual, I refer to all inherited library and conserved documents that were preserved by Catholic Church and were lost to rest of Europe after Fall of Rome. All writings by political figures and Emperors on how to crack down dissidency were inherited.
There are many of them, there is not a single "warfare book" for anyone, as you can check in any military academy sylabus.

Except they had much less military might at their disposal, so they had to re-invent how to crack down on dissidency with a limited armed force compared to the romans.
Even today the USA learns from Roman Empire military history,

The Romans were by and large tolerant of foreign cults. They viewed some with suspicion (eg the castratos of Magna Mater) but generally tolerated them unless they disturbed the peace. EG Judaism was tolerated despite not worshipping the Emperor because it was a traditional national cult: when Jewish factions repeated rebelled their temple was destroyed but the religion was not banned, nor were its adherents systematically hunted down.

That's Objectively Wrong. Judaism was heavily peresecuted as well, not just Christianity. Destruction of the most important Temple of Judaism is not a sign of aproval. In fact in long term, Judaism was more damaged and persecuted than Christianity.

The Bar Kohba revolt is the climax of such tensions.

A few highlights of how the Romans did not tolerate religions who denied their Pantheon,

In an attempt to erase any memory of Judea or Ancient Israel, Emperor Hadrian wiped the name off the map and replaced it with Syria Palaestina.[...]Jews banned from Jerusalem[...]Total: 580,000 Jews killed, 50 fortified towns and 985 villages razed

Emperor Hadrian (not Christian Emperor) attempts to erase the country and identity of Judea/Israel and replaces it by Syria Palastina. Is this tolerance for you?
Jewish casualties;
Casualty count is by Cassius Dio.

Jews, feeling the "roman religious tolerance" are killed en mass following the military defeat, and then forbbiden to enter their homeland, causing them to become a nomadic tribe for the next 2000 years. Even today, the Hadrian creation of Palastina still bothers them, that's how hard the Roman Empire hammered down Judaism.
Point being, this extermination and crackdown of a different religion was done by.. a Polytheistic force.
You could be spared an extermination in the homeland if your religion accepted the Roman Pantheon as the Higher Up Gods. If not, you could expect a visit from the Roman Army.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_Kokhba_revolt

[Cyclops]

When I say manual, I refer to all inherited library and conserved documents that were preserved by Catholic Church and were lost to rest of Europe after Fall of Rome.

Cool. Where's the library? And what are the items in it? Specifically Roman books on how to deal with other religions, and Catholic books on how to deal with other religions. Also which Catholic books came from which Roman ones?

All writings by political figures and Emperors on how to crack down dissidency were inherited.

What an extraordinary claim. You're saying an entire corpus of ancient writing survived to the present day? We've lost so much in every field of ancient thought, medicine, history, poetry, yet all writings by political figures an emperors were inherited?

There are many of them, there is not a single "warfare book" for anyone, as you can check in any military academy syllabus.

Why would I look in a military academy syllabus for a book about how the Catholic church deals with other religions? Or for Roman books on how to deal with other religions (especially in light of your claim that they were all inherited by the Catholic church)?

Except they had much less military might at their disposal, so they had to re-invent how to crack down on dissidency with a limited armed force compared to the romans.

Once again, what does military might have to do with dealing with religions?

Even today the USA learns from Roman Empire military history,

Cool story. Not sure how relevant.

That's Objectively Wrong. Judaism was heavily peresecuted as well, not just Christianity. Destruction of the most important Temple of Judaism is not a sign of aproval. In fact in long term, Judaism was more damaged and persecuted than Christianity.

The Bar Kohba revolt is the climax of such tensions.

A few highlights of how the Romans did not tolerate religions who denied their Pantheon,

Emperor Hadrian (not Christian Emperor) attempts to erase the country and identity of Judea/Israel and replaces it by Syria Palastina. Is this tolerance for you?
Jewish casualties;
Casualty count is by Cassius Dio.

Jews, feeling the "roman religious tolerance" are killed en mass following the military defeat, and then forbbiden to enter their homeland, causing them to become a nomadic tribe for the next 2000 years. Even today, the Hadrian creation of Palastina still bothers them, that's how hard the Roman Empire hammered down Judaism.
Point being, this extermination and crackdown of a different religion was done by.. a Polytheistic force.
You could be spared an extermination in the homeland if your religion accepted the Roman Pantheon as the Higher Up Gods. If not, you could expect a visit from the Roman Army.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_Kokhba_revolt

Objectively wrong. The Romans crushed several revolts that included Jews, but these were discrete political episodes, and generally the military action was initiated by Jewish forces (eg Jerusalem in 66 AD, and Bar Kochba in 132 AD).

For the Jewish rebels the revolts seem to have been religious in nature, responding to infringement of their beliefs by their Roman rulers, but the Roman responses were not the complete suppression or destruction of the religious community, merely their political pacification. Caligula's desire to be worshipped as a God was an unusual manifestation of a usually political state cult: it certainly fanned the conflict as did the later building of a temple to Jupiter on the old ruined Temple. However the looting of the temple was in response to a tax strike, the destruction of the temple was punishment for an uprising, not the obliteration of a religion (as events proved) and generally punishments were political in nature.

Harsh treatment of Judaism was concentrated in quelling uprisings such as these two wars (as well as the Kitos war, which I am less familiar with). Otherwise Jews were not regularly penalised, and its worth noting Christians were subject to the same penalties as Jews under the responses to Jewish revolts (eg they were excluded from Jerusalem after Bar Kochba's revolt). Likewise the original community of Jesus' followers in Jerusalem seems to have ben mostly destroyed in the siege of 66-70 AD: essentially repression of Jews tended to include Christians.

This reflects the Romans' largely unsophisticated approach to religion: they tolerated most cults except when they disturbed the peace. Christianity was a weird one because it looked Jewish to them (so if we're punishing Jews we better punish Christians as well), but many Jews decried them (well they are an innovation), and the Christians themselves tended to include more Hellenes and other non Jews over time (better stamp this out before it spreads). A lot of the persecution came from being in the "too hard basket".

As a result Christians subject to ongoing persecution, usually sporadic and locally dispersed but occasionally Empire-wide involving many deaths. in these persecutions Christians were distinguished from Jews as an innovation on the old religion and were not awarded the usual Roman respect for antique national cults.

TL: DR Jews were only persecuted in a few harsh instances (and some of those also targeted Christians) whereas Christians faced over two centuries of persecution that varied in intensity from almost unwilling legal repression to outright empire wide witch-hunts.

It is utterly ridiculous to suggest Rome systematically persecuted traditional Judaism and Jews in general to the extent that they persecuted Christians.

[fkizz]

Look. The Historical trauma of Jews losing their homeland and becoming wandering tribe comes literally from the Roman Empire.

If you're going to argue that Romans were tolerant to Jews despite that, there's no point in insisting further. (unless you changed goalposts)
It's like saying a person was nice to you because they didn't break all of your bones and left some intact.

It is utterly ridiculous to suggest Rome systematically persecuted traditional Judaism and Jews in general to the extent that they persecuted Christians.

The Christians often were victim of the same type of killfest that the Jews did, both of them refused to worship Saturn, but Christianism did the become the Official Religion of the Empire, while Judaism remained persecuted. That's kinda, like a gigantic deal when the Roman Emperor promotes you from persecuted status to Emperor seal of aproval status.

Anyway it's kinda non-edifying to start a discussion on who was the most opressed, who won opression olympics, but it's a fact that Judaism never got Imperial Seal of Aproval like Christians did from Emperors Constantine and Theodosius.
The punishment Romans issued on Jews were aimed at their Religious sensibilities on purpose, forbidding the Jews to visit their Holy Places where they could perform Cult.
Rome tried to exterminate religions who refused the Roman Pantheon. The ones who didn't, they allowed to live, the ones who did, they were eliminated.
For Christians before Constantine to not be killed for being Christians, they had to meet up in secret for worship and devise their own secret codes.

So it's obvious Roman Empire "tolerance" was extremely conditional.

For the Jewish rebels the revolts seem to have been religious in nature, responding to infringement of their beliefs by their Roman rulers, but the Roman responses were not the complete suppression or destruction of the religious community, merely their political pacification.

Wiping out half a million civilians, 50 towns and 985 villages is not a mere "political pacification".
Given not Worshipping the Emperor (ie. not doing a Religious act towards the Emperor) would count as an offense of perceived rebellion, how can you say that defiance of the Emperor is merely political? The Emperor was not just a political figure.

On Papal States having most of the Classical Antiquity knowledge and books in post-roman colapse, it's obvious. How do you think they ended up producing generations of Polymaths in an almost self-sufficient way, while having an almost monopoly on teaching for almost ~1200 years?

Back then there was no printing press. So books are this rare thing, which is also extremely time consuming to produce a copy off, needing several copist monks.

An Europe made of Visigoth and illiterate tribes without any Roman education is no match for that. Only with printing press making books a more mundane and less costly thing does the table shift, but that would take around ~1200 years, counting since fall of western Rome.
So not sure what's controversial in this. Most historians agree.

Once again, what does military might have to do with dealing with religions?

Where to even begin..

[basics]

It took a lot of shutting up and listening over the past few days to get to the heart of the question so it seems to me that tolerance or intolerance comes down to the God or gods we as humans worship. In my case I think of Jesus Christ Whom I believe to be God and how tolerant He is. For example His doctrine of loving one's neighbour as oneself is the bar which He sets as being the greatest of all the commandments besides loving the Lord your God with all your heart and soul. In other words He is quite intolerant of the lack of both these examples and demonstrated it when here on earth. On the other hand though His tolerance always over-rides the intolerance that He has shown by the fact of Him putting Himself on a cross as the substitute for sinners. What am I saying? There can be no doubt that He is saying the Christian has to have a toleration that goes way beyond the nature of man to live up to Him and what He did for them.

[Common Soldier]

Look. The Historical trauma of Jews losing their homeland and becoming wandering tribe comes literally from the Roman Empire.

If you're going to argue that Romans were tolerant to Jews despite that, there's no point in insisting further. (unless you changed goalposts)
It's like saying a person was nice to you because they didn't break all of your bones and left some intact.



The Christians often were victim of the same type of killfest that the Jews did, both of them refused to worship Saturn, but Christianism did the become the Official Religion of the Empire, while Judaism remained persecuted. That's kinda, like a gigantic deal when the Roman Emperor promotes you from persecuted status to Emperor seal of aproval status.

Anyway it's kinda non-edifying to start a discussion on who was the most opressed, who won opression olympics, but it's a fact that Judaism never got Imperial Seal of Aproval like Christians did from Emperors Constantine and Theodosius.
The punishment Romans issued on Jews were aimed at their Religious sensibilities on purpose, forbidding the Jews to visit their Holy Places where they could perform Cult.
Rome tried to exterminate religions who refused the Roman Pantheon. The ones who didn't, they allowed to live, the ones who did, they were eliminated.
For Christians before Constantine to not be killed for being Christians, they had to meet up in secret for worship and devise their own secret codes.

So it's obvious Roman Empire "tolerance" was extremely conditional.

In the case of the Jews, it was because the Jews were involved in major revolts that they punished, not because of their religion. In fact, the Romans exempted Jews from sacrificing to the emperor, an exemption they made for no other group. The Jews were not hindered from practicing tneir religion outside of Palestine, and Roman restrictions in Palestine were due to Jewish politics which seemed to be inseperately tied to their religion.

Jews were invovled in large scale massacres of non Jews in the Kitos war, so the hostility brtween Jews and non Jews has not been one sided. Judaism has always had a national element, and it was Jewish nationalism the Romans responded to.

Outside of Palestine, the was no Roman cracked down on Judaism until after the empire became Christian, and even then, for most of the Byzantine empire the restrictions on Jews were on the most part no worse than those they suffered under Islam. Yes, Jews were 2nd class citizens, but they were also 2nd class citizens under Muslim rule too, and several times the Jews revolted or aided the enemies of Byzantium, as when the Persians conquered Jersualem.

It must be pointed out that Christians, unlike Jews, were never involved in major revolts against the empir. as Christians.

Wiping out half a million civilians, 50 towns and 985 villages is not a mere "political pacification".
Given not Worshipping the Emperor (ie. not doing a Religious act towards the Emperor) would count as an offense of perceived rebellion, how can you say that defiance of the Emperor is merely political? The Emperor was not just a political figure

Given that the scale of the Jewish revolt, it was not a surprising result, and no different treatment than others who had opposed the Romans. The Jews were punished for revolting, not for their failure to observe religious acts toward the Emperor, for which the Jews were uniquely given especial exemptions.




Papal States having most of the Classical Antiquity knowledge and books in post-roman colapse, it's obvious. How do you think they ended up producing generations of Polymaths in an almost self-sufficient way, while having an almost monopoly on teaching for almost ~1200 years?

Back then there was no printing press. So books are this rare thing, which is also extremely time consuming to produce a copy off, needing several copist monks.

An Europe made of Visigoth and illiterate tribes without any Roman education is no match for that. Only with printing press making books a more mundane and less costly thing does the table shift, but that would take around ~1200 years, counting since fall of western Rome.
So not sure what's controversial in this. Most historians agree

It wasn't until around 500 CE that book production began to be primarily in the hands of the Church, mostly because there was nobody else left to do it, and by around 1400's that you had the rise of secular book production, so the gap is more like 900 years, but that is a qubble. The other point is many of our surviving classical works were due to copies by Charlemange and his successors, during the Carloingian revival. The font that Chralemange scribes (Alcuin) developed is the basis for the modern "roman" font.

The Papal states may have played a leading role since Italian cities managed to survive better than most of the Roman cities in the rest of western Europe. Even in the early middle ages,say around the 9the century, the Dark Ages, Rome still had a significant of perhaps 50,000, more than most other cities in Western Europe (Andulsia not culturally part of Western Europe at the time). So it is not surprising the Papal States would have the majority of post Roman classical works if they did.

[basics]

I think the important thing is that despite what was written or not the word of mouth is still the most basic element behind Christianity. There is no doubt however that the written word signed, sealed and delivered on what was said, why? Because if what was written is preserved and available to all generations it adds value to their lives one way or another. And, if that word actually delivers what it says whether oral or written is that not to the benefit of man?

[Vladyvid]

Yes, monotheism is inherently intolerant, for the very simple fact that it condemns unbelievers. Why is this even a question? I mean this is pretty obvious.

[Common Soldier]

Yes, monotheism is inherently intolerant, for the very simple fact that it condemns unbelievers. Why is this even a question? I mean this is pretty obvious.

Simply because most of the forms of monotheism today are intolerant does not mean the idea of monotheism itself is inherentlh intolerant.

Most monotheism today descends from the same source, Jewish monotheism, and the Jewish god (monotheism) was a "jealous", i.e., intolerant god of other gods. But does that have to be the case for any monotheism from a different origin? The late antiquity classic philosophers came up with a type of monotheistic belief, which did not "condemn" unbelievers - people who did not accept the philosophical monotheistic views were not condemned because of it.

[basics]

Most religions down through the ages had the principle of appeasement to their gods because as death was inevitable their adherents were bound by the notion that somehow one had to work at their salvation. If they died for the honour of their god that became the ultimate for each person and if they inflicted death so much the better. Christianity is built on one Man dying in the place of all others meaning that one didn't have to prove anything to that Saviour God other than to believe that He actually did this wonderful thing for them. Today that same Saviour is being revealed to many people all across the world in the same fashion that He has always been revealed to them that God has called. From righteous Abel, the son of Adam, God has brought Jesus Christ into the lives of many breaking out into an explosion on the day of Pentecost after His crucifixion and resurrection. So yes, God is intolerant of unbelief but He knows that this stems from the curse of sin He placed on mankind which made salvation impossible for man and his actions but He, God, in His great wisdom and love took away that burden by becoming sin at a cross on behalf of all those that He saved, past, present and future.

[MaximiIian]

As someone relatively unlearned in these things, I turn to the question over to the floor.

Monotheism isn't necessarily intolerant, in the sense that a monotheistic religion cannot abide the mere existence of non-monotheistic religions. It's "intolerant" in the sense that it completely disagrees with any non-monotheistic train of thought, but I would not classify that as actually intolerant. Even Abrahamic religion in general, I would not class as unilaterally intolerant.
Christianity has been, and conservative forms of it still are, intolerant. In the sense that it actively sought to eliminate non-Christian religions.
Islam mostly was not intolerant, until the last few hundred years under the influence of some puritanical theological movements. The change kinda started around the time that the major Islamic powers began to decline.
Judaism, as mentioned before, in its modern form is very tolerant of other religions, in that it does not seek to disrupt them and in fact discourages conversion. Second Temple Judaism is a bit more complicated, owing to the highly interwoven nature of political, ethnic, and religious identity in the ancient world.

But Zoroastrianism, Sikhism, Yazidism, Vaishavism? Monotheistic (sometimes rather loosely), but not really known for being intolerant.

And while it is true that pre-Christian polytheistic religions were generally tolerant of other expressions of religion, usually seeing them in terms of ethnic or tribal traditions, it's also true that they had an instinctive reaction of confusion or anger towards the nascent monotheistic faiths in the Levant. Persecution of Jews goes back a long ways, keep in mind.
Similarly, the Romans were not too keen on allowing the native Celtic religion to flourish. The motives were political in a sense, as the druids were seen as a threat to Roman authority. But the Romans utilized propaganda that depicted Celtic religion as barbarous and savage. Let's not forget that Caesar's conquest of Gaul was basically genocide.
In addition, while I generally applaud the efforts of Julian to restore Hellenism across the Roman world, his plan had its flaws. To be frank, it would have seen the destruction of most previous kinds of paganism in favor of his own Neoplatonist sun-worshiping monadism. Not exactly the paragon of polytheistic tolerance and acceptance of others' faiths. He wanted to eradicate Christianity, even if it meant jacking their structural organization and the unifying element of a single theological dogma.

And I say this as a Pagan. The real history is more complicated than it first appears.

[basics]

If we begin with the thought that God, the One true God in Father, Son and Holy Spirit, created us and all the rest for His good pleasure out of which we could commune with Him and Him us, but that communing was based on our belief in Him which quickly fell away because of sin. He knew what was going to happen because in His time it has already happened, us just living it out in the time He set for us. The garden of Eden was and still is a perfect picture of what man could be had he been content to believe God. That was interrupted by the deceit of an angel who already had the knowledge of good and evil and who used that knowledge to convince Eve that God didn't mean what He told them about death. Adam chose to believe her over God and that set the ball rolling to the detriment of what the garden stood for and what would become of man. Man still begins life under the very same deceit and has fortified that by instituting many false religious beliefs and non beliefs into our world yet before Adam and Eve were cast out God made a prophesy that one day a " seed " of Eve would come into the world to save many from the disaster that began at Eden. That man is Jesus Christ ordained to be the Lamb of God sacrificed from before the beginning of the world. His sacrifice covered all periods of our time so that none were ever left out of the promise made at Eden.

[Valden]

Yes, monotheism is inherently intolerant, for the very simple fact that it condemns unbelievers. Why is this even a question? I mean this is pretty obvious.

'Monotheism' signifies the belief in one god. It is an abstraction, and as such has no agency to be either tolerant or intolerant. Some adherents of monotheistic religions may be intolerant, or tolerant, but that is a far cry from the claim you are making here. To say that simply by believing there is one god, not multiple gods, you are 'condemning unbelievers', seems to me to be a completely unjustifiable characterisation. There is nothing in the simple belief in one god (monotheism) that demands intolerance. Indeed, the question framing this thread is fundamentally misconstrued. The 'intolerance' that seems to be being discussed regards specific creeds and doctrines within certain religions. It does not hinge on the fact they are monotheistic. For the sake of clarity, the thread should more accurately be entitled: Are the Abrahamic religions inherently intolerant?

[basics]

Yes, monotheism is inherently intolerant, for the very simple fact that it condemns unbelievers. Why is this even a question? I mean this is pretty obvious.

Vladyvid,

If God were to stand on Who He is which He does then the curse He placed on all men places each one under condemnation of death. The onus on man is to seek God and be forgiven through the blood that was shed for them by God the Son at Calvary.

[95thrifleman]

Vladyvid,

If God were to stand on Who He is which He does then the curse He placed on all men places each one under condemnation of death. The onus on man is to seek God and be forgiven through the blood that was shed for them by God the Son at Calvary.

Flashy sermonising aside, for everyone preaching fluffly bunny christianity you have someone like the westboro baptist church. The same book justifies both attitudes.

You can sit there and claim YOUR interpretation is the correct one till you are blue in the face but it does not change the fact that christianity can and does justify intolerance very easily.

[fkizz]

Flashy sermonising aside, for everyone preaching fluffly bunny christianity you have someone like the westboro baptist church. The same book justifies both attitudes.

You can sit there and claim YOUR interpretation is the correct one till you are blue in the face but it does not change the fact that christianity can and does justify intolerance very easily.

You can claim the same about atheism if you look up how believers and clerics got shot down in communistic persecution and the enforcement of state atheism as the official doctrine.

Ultimately the quality of the human individual is more relevant than it seems.

[Prodromos]

Flashy sermonising aside, for everyone preaching fluffly bunny christianity you have someone like the westboro baptist church. The same book justifies both attitudes.

Really? Are you sure about that 1:1 ratio? 'Cause I don't think that's right.

[basics]

Flashy sermonising aside, for everyone preaching fluffly bunny christianity you have someone like the westboro baptist church. The same book justifies both attitudes.

You can sit there and claim YOUR interpretation is the correct one till you are blue in the face but it does not change the fact that christianity can and does justify intolerance very easily.

95thrifleman,

It all depends on which Christianity one follows. Scripture tells us that light cannot live with darkness meaning that God's call to His people was, is and always will be, " Come out from among them My people." So, we separate ourselves but that does not mean that we desert them simply because out of love our desire is that no-one perishes and that is why we evangelise to them at any opportunity. We are to love them as we love ourselves yet we are to contend for every bit of Scripture that is denied by them. So yes, there are systems that do not follow Jesus Christ to the letter or who misquote His teachings. These will be the first to be judged on that great day of the Lord.