Response to DEVILS_ADVOCATE at New York Daily News Comments Section:

Heh!  Sometimes one needs a few "devils" to help keep one honest.  Thanks.  I appreciate the element.

I've read and re-read your reply, and you bring up some very salient points.

Perhaps I was a bit gruff.  It's just that I grow so tired of the "same ol' same ol'" when it comes to what I shall term "conservative religious ethics," which, by their implementation, tend to "hold back" people to the point of becoming stagnant.  Especially those that become so immersed in a religion that they are no longer capable of rational, coherent thought, and, in the worst cases, refuse to, or are no longer capable (the ultra-worst?) of "Thinking Critically."  (This means that we accept reality for what it is, don't make any bones about it, and deal with it intelligently and effectively.  That's my definition, at any rate.)

I grew up Episcopalian.  It was fun and interesting when I was young.  I stopped "going to church" when I started using the pew as a second bed.  Zzzzzzz.  Not really, but that was the effect.  My mind was starting to go numb from the constancy.  No change.  No Difference.  Nothing New Here.  Move Along.  Move Along.  Etc.

I stopped going when I turned sixteen or so.  Probably the result of all that hot tea in the undercroft (basement kitchen/after-church snack area), introduced to me by the genteel old ladies of the church.  Well, as much as a Northern-Lower Michigan grandmarm can possibly be "genteel."  I am definitely not from The Deep South.

Getting on with this:  I realize not everyone will agree with my view on this subject.  Also, I can not advise from a Master's Level, only from a layman's perspective.  So I shall endeavor to be a bit more selective and less cutting in my vocal patterns, and also try to be a bit more...Ahem!...Ed-U-Ma-Ca-Ted! ;-)

I don't hate religion.  I have engaged in a smattering of religious paths from time to time throughout my life.  Everything from the aforementioned Episcopal church of my formative years, to USA-bred-and-induced "born again" Christian fund(y)mentalism (I was a "holy terror" to my friends in those years, and I'm lucky I still have most of them after that debacle in my young-adulthood, primarily my late teens and early twenties!)

I've also appreciated and participated in various of the "neo pagan" revivalist religious faiths, especially modern Wicca/Witchcraft, which I still respect, greatly, although I am not active in any type of specific activities, anymore.  I've found my own path based on very personal, internally-modulated experiences.

Call them mentally-/emotionally-/dreamtime-/subconsciously-contructed-/non-physically-/ImmersiveRealityInformedByPureThought-based, call-it-what-you-will.  These experiences, coupled with an out-of-body motif of expanded consciousness that has to be experienced-to-be-understood (words can not convey the, Ahem!  "Inherent Meaning"), and I find most, if not all, religion, "merely folly" at this point.

I'm simply growing tired of everyone "being so concerned for the Afterlife," that they forget the Life In Front of Them!  Also, isn't this a major problem, everywhere, in every place on Earth?  People not really believing that the Now Is Where They Should Be Because They Are?  If we can't change the past, and the future isn't here yet, then what do we have?  Seriously!

Relative to the one issue you brought forth:  I have an issue with the aspect of "tolerating the intolerable," as it's a dichotomy for me.  I mean, yes, it exists.  Intolerance, that is.  To be "intolerant of intolerance," has the aspect of "shooting one's self in one's own foot," I suppose; ie, "Not Much Progress Can Be Made Here At All" type of thing.  I trust that's to what you're referring?

I mean, the aspect of, say, "trying to kill intolerance" is the same as "trying to hunt down Love."  The emotive states are inherent ones, and can't be "captured, destroyed, folded, spindled, or mutilated."  (Unlike the iconic "IBM Card" of computatational ages past.)

Well, I hope this is, at least, a better response.  I'm not a scholar, nor do I play one on TeeVee. ;-)  I wish to Love Everyone, althought this task is daunting, and I'm Still Learning.  However, on that case, are not we all?

Here's to Learning To Love Everyone.

Sincerely,
The One With A Condo On The Outskirts Of Purgatory,
--Firefishe

P.S.  Not All Intolerance Is Tolerable
P.P.S.  Not All Tolerance Is Tolerable
R.S.V.P.  Can You Tolerate It?! ;->