intolerance

92:7.2New re­li­gions can­not be in­vented; they are ei­ther evolved, or else they are sud­denly re­vealed. All new evo­lu­tion­ary re­li­gions are merely ad­vanc­ing ex­pres­sions of the old be­liefs, new adap­ta­tions and ad­just­ments. The old does not cease to ex­ist; it is merged with the new, even as Sikhism bud­ded and blos­somed out of the soil and forms of Hin­duism, Bud­dhism, Is­lam, and other con­tem­po­rary cults. Prim­i­tive re­li­gion was very demo­cratic; the sav­age was quick to bor­row or lend. Only with re­vealed re­li­gion did au­to­cratic and in­tol­er­ant the­o­logic ego­tism ap­pear.

92:7.3The many re­li­gions of Uran­tia are all good to the ex­tent that they bring man to God and bring the re­al­iza­tion of the Fa­ther to man. It is a fal­lacy for any group of re­li­gion­ists to con­ceive of their creed as The Truth; such at­ti­tudes be­speak more of the­o­log­i­cal ar­ro­gance than of cer­tainty of faith. There is not a Uran­tia re­li­gion that could not prof­itably study and as­sim­i­late the best of the truths con­tained in ev­ery other faith, for all con­tain truth. Re­li­gion­ists would do bet­ter to bor­row the best in their neigh­bors’ liv­ing spir­i­tual faith rather than to de­nounce the worst in their lin­ger­ing su­per­sti­tions and out­worn rit­u­als.

134:3.6More than thirty re­li­gions and re­li­gious cults were rep­re­sented on the fac­ulty of this tem­ple of re­li­gious phi­los­o­phy. These teach­ers were cho­sen, sup­ported, and fully ac­cred­ited by their re­spec­tive re­li­gious groups. At this time there were about sev­enty-five teach­ers on the fac­ulty, and they lived in cot­tages each ac­com­mo­dat­ing about a dozen per­sons. Ev­ery new moon these groups were changed by the cast­ing of lots. In­tol­er­ance, a con­tentious spirit, or any other dis­po­si­tion to in­ter­fere with the smooth run­ning of the com­mu­nity would bring about the prompt and sum­mary dis­missal of the of­fend­ing teacher. He would be un­cer­e­mo­ni­ously dis­missed, and his al­ter­nate in wait­ing would be im­me­di­ately in­stalled in his place.

146:3.2The apos­tles were a bit dis­con­certed by the open man­ner of Je­sus’ as­sent to many of the Greek’s propo­si­tions, but Je­sus af­ter­ward pri­vately said to them: “My chil­dren, mar­vel not that I was tol­er­ant of the Greek’s phi­los­o­phy. True and gen­uine in­ward cer­tainty does not in the least fear out­ward anal­y­sis, nor does truth re­sent hon­est crit­i­cism. You should never for­get that in­tol­er­ance is the mask cov­er­ing up the en­ter­tain­ment of se­cret doubts as to the true­ness of one’s be­lief. No man is at any time dis­turbed by his neigh­bor’s at­ti­tude when he has per­fect con­fi­dence in the truth of that which he whole­heart­edly be­lieves. Cour­age is the con­fi­dence of thor­ough­go­ing hon­esty about those things which one pro­fesses to be­lieve. Sin­cere men are un­afraid of the crit­i­cal ex­am­i­na­tion of their true con­vic­tions and no­ble ide­als.”

99:6.3But as re­li­gion be­comes in­sti­tu­tion­al­ized, its power for good is cur­tailed, while the pos­si­bil­i­ties for evil are greatly mul­ti­plied. The dan­gers of for­mal­ized re­li­gion are: fix­a­tion of be­liefs and crys­tal­liza­tion of sen­ti­ments; ac­cu­mu­la­tion of vested in­ter­ests with in­crease of sec­u­lar­iza­tion; ten­dency to stan­dard­ize and fos­silize truth; di­ver­sion of re­li­gion from the ser­vice of God to the ser­vice of the church; in­cli­na­tion of lead­ers to be­come ad­min­is­tra­tors in­stead of min­is­ters; ten­dency to form sects and com­pet­i­tive di­vi­sions; es­tab­lish­ment of op­pres­sive ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal au­thor­ity; cre­ation of the aris­to­cratic “cho­sen-peo­ple” at­ti­tude; fos­ter­ing of false and ex­ag­ger­ated ideas of sa­cred­ness; the rou­tiniz­ing of re­li­gion and the pet­ri­fi­ca­tion of wor­ship; ten­dency to ven­er­ate the past while ig­nor­ing pres­ent de­mands; fail­ure to make up-to-date in­ter­pre­ta­tions of re­li­gion; en­tan­gle­ment with func­tions of sec­u­lar in­sti­tu­tions; it cre­ates the evil dis­crim­i­na­tion of re­li­gious castes; it be­comes an in­tol­er­ant judge of or­tho­doxy; it fails to hold the in­ter­est of ad­ven­tur­ous youth and grad­u­ally loses the sav­ing mes­sage of the gospel of eter­nal sal­va­tion.

134:4.3If dif­fer­ent re­li­gions rec­og­nize the spirit sov­er­eignty of God the Fa­ther, then will all such re­li­gions re­main at peace. Only when one re­li­gion as­sumes that it is in some way su­pe­rior to all oth­ers, and that it pos­sesses ex­clu­sive au­thor­ity over other re­li­gions, will such a re­li­gion pre­sume to be in­tol­er­ant of other re­li­gions or dare to per­se­cute other re­li­gious be­liev­ers.

134:4.4Re­li­gious peace—broth­er­hood—can never ex­ist un­less all re­li­gions are will­ing to com­pletely di­vest them­selves of all ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal au­thor­ity and fully sur­ren­der all con­cept of spir­i­tual sov­er­eignty. God alone is spirit sov­er­eign.

134:4.8But the mo­ment you lose sight of the spirit sov­er­eignty of God the Fa­ther, some one re­li­gion will be­gin to as­sert its su­pe­ri­or­ity over other re­li­gions; and then, in­stead of peace on earth and good will among men, there will start dis­sen­sions, re­crim­i­na­tions, even re­li­gious wars, at least wars among re­li­gion­ists.

88:2.7In olden times the fe­tish word of au­thor­ity was a fear-in­spir­ing doc­trine, the most ter­ri­ble of all tyrants which en­slave men. A doc­tri­nal fe­tish will lead mor­tal man to be­tray him­self into the clutches of big­otry, fa­nati­cism, su­per­sti­tion, in­tol­er­ance, and the most atro­cious of bar­barous cru­el­ties. Mod­ern re­spect for wis­dom and truth is but the re­cent es­cape from the fe­tish-mak­ing ten­dency up to the higher lev­els of think­ing and rea­son­ing. Con­cern­ing the ac­cu­mu­lated fe­tish writ­ings which var­i­ous re­li­gion­ists hold as sa­cred books, it is not only be­lieved that what is in the book is true, but also that ev­ery truth is con­tained in the book. If one of these sa­cred books hap­pens to speak of the earth as be­ing flat, then, for long gen­er­a­tions, oth­er­wise sane men and women will refuse to ac­cept pos­i­tive ev­i­dence that the planet is round.

52:6.53. Eth­i­cal awak­en­ing. Only eth­i­cal con­scious­ness can un­mask the im­moral­ity of hu­man in­tol­er­ance and the sin­ful­ness of frat­ri­ci­dal strife. Only a moral con­science can con­demn the evils of na­tional envy and racial jeal­ousy. Only moral be­ings will ever seek for that spir­i­tual in­sight which is es­sen­tial to liv­ing the golden rule.

71:3.2Much as it is to be re­gret­ted, na­tional ego­tism has been es­sen­tial to so­cial sur­vival. The cho­sen peo­ple doc­trine has been a prime fac­tor in tribal weld­ing and na­tion build­ing right on down to mod­ern times. But no state can at­tain ideal lev­els of func­tion­ing un­til ev­ery form of in­tol­er­ance is mas­tered; it is ev­er­last­ingly in­im­i­cal to hu­man prog­ress. And in­tol­er­ance is best com­bated by the co-or­di­na­tion of sci­ence, com­merce, play, and re­li­gion.

110:1.5The Ad­juster re­mains with you in all dis­as­ter and through ev­ery sick­ness which does not wholly de­stroy the men­tal­ity. But how un­kind know­ingly to de­file or oth­er­wise de­lib­er­ately to pol­lute the phys­i­cal body, which must serve as the earthly taber­na­cle of this mar­velous gift from God. All phys­i­cal poi­sons greatly re­tard the ef­forts of the Ad­juster to ex­alt the ma­te­rial mind, while the men­tal poi­sons of fear, anger, envy, jeal­ousy, sus­pi­cion, and in­tol­er­ance like­wise tremen­dously in­ter­fere with the spir­i­tual prog­ress of the evolv­ing soul.

47:4.2Spirit-fused sur­vivors oc­cupy the man­sion worlds in com­mon with the Ad­juster-fused as­cend­ing mor­tals. While the var­i­ous or­ders of ce­les­tial life dif­fer, they are all friendly and fra­ter­nal. In all the worlds of as­cen­sion you will find noth­ing com­pa­ra­ble to hu­man in­tol­er­ance and the dis­crim­i­na­tions of in­con­sid­er­ate caste sys­tems.

191:4.3“Peace be upon you. You all know that we have one Fa­ther in heaven, and that there is but one gospel of the king­dom—the good news of the gift of eter­nal life which men re­ceive by faith. As you re­joice in your loy­alty to the gospel, pray the Fa­ther of truth to shed abroad in your hearts a new and greater love for your breth­ren. You are to love all men as I have loved you; you are to serve all men as I have served you. With un­der­stand­ing sym­pa­thy and broth­erly af­fec­tion, fel­low­ship all your breth­ren who are ded­i­cated to the procla­ma­tion of the good news, whether they be Jew or gen­tile, Greek or Ro­man, Per­sian or Ethiopian. John pro­claimed the king­dom in ad­vance; you have preached the gospel in power; the Greeks al­ready teach the good news; and I am soon to send forth the Spirit of Truth into the souls of all these, my breth­ren, who have so un­selfishly ded­i­cated their lives to the en­light­en­ment of their fel­lows who sit in spir­i­tual dark­ness. You are all the chil­dren of light; there­fore stum­ble not into the mis­un­der­stand­ing en­tan­gle­ments of mor­tal sus­pi­cion and hu­man in­tol­er­ance. If you are en­no­bled, by the grace of faith, to love un­be­liev­ers, should you not also equally love those who are your fel­low be­liev­ers in the far-spread­ing house­hold of faith? Re­mem­ber, as you love one an­other, all men will know that you are my dis­ci­ples.