Religious tolerance

Five YouTube videos concerning
various aspects of religious intolerance

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About people's attitudes towards other religions:

Most people regard their own faith group or denomination within their particular religion as the only completely true system of beliefs and practices. They regard other religions as being partly to completely false. Some go further and regard believers of other religions as Satan worshipers.

This does not trouble us particularly, as long as it stays at the level of belief. Unfortunately these beliefs are often translated into harmful actions, like:

	Ridiculing and belittling other religions and secularism, as is seen widely on YouTube, Digg, etc.
	Preventing a minority religious group from building a religious structure, cemetery, etc, as in Fayette County, TN.
	Prohibiting a non-Judeo-Christian group from adding their religious symbol to a winter cultural display, as in Watertown, NY.
	Boycotting stores unless they instruct their employees to give a Christian greeting to customers.
	Hurtful acts motivated by homophobic and transphobic beliefs taught by some faith groups.
	Etc.

Some YouTube postings have dealt with these topics. Five are posted below.

"Religious intolerance on YouTube:"

Melissa, TheBlessedBlogger, posted a video on YouTube because she was: "... tired of all the extremist religious videos advocating intolerance. [She suggests that people] Stand up for diversity, for tolerance and for basic human respect."

"Mr Mody's Human Struggle -- Religious Intolerance Videos"

Deb Handy prepared a video as a project for Mr Mody's Human Struggle class. It features some interesting quotations, disturbing pictures, and a short excerpt, in German, of a speech by Hitler.

Religious Intolerance:

"PeaceWantLove" interviews an unknown man who gives his opinion of the effects and cures of religious intolerance.

"Christian extremists disrupt Hindu Senate invocation"

"Veracifier" posted a video -- one of many -- of a U.S. Senate morning invocation given by guest chaplain Rajan Zed of the Indian Association of Northern Nevada. He is also the director of interfaith relations at a Hindu temple. For several days in advance of the invocation, some fundamentalist Christian groups had urged their members to object to the prayer, because Mr. Zed would be "... seeking the invocation of a non-monotheistic God." He was interrupted by three persons. One man called the prayer an "abomination" in God's sight; another paraphrased the Ten Commandments, saying that you "shall have no other Gods before you" As they were led away in handcuffs, one protestor said: "No Lord but Jesus Christ!" and "There's only one true God!". A male protester told the Associated Press, "we are Christians and patriots".

Police identified the protestors as being from Operation Save America/Operation Rescue. That group said in a statement:

"The Senate was opened with a Hindu prayer placing the false god of Hinduism on a level playing field with the one true god, Jesus Christ. This would never have been allowed by our Founding Fathers." ₁

"Stop religious intolerance teach love don't preach hate:"

"mp9yq9tx" posted a video whose beginning is reminiscent of the song in South Pacific titled "You have to be taught" to hate and fear. She/he wrote:

"Becoming a parent may be the biggest responsibly we ever undertake. Use it wisely for the good of all humanity. We are after all one race. We all seek love and kindness from those around us. Its not hard to pass on these gifts to all those we share this beautiful planet with. The monster of hate, intolerance, bigotry, and prejudice can be slain. We just need to pass on the powerful weapon of love, understanding, tolerance, and charity to our children so they can tear down the monster. From this point humanity may finally rise up to its full height and walk proudly together into the future."

Reference used:

1. Mark Tran, "Protesters disrupt historic reading of Senate prayer by Hindu," Guardian newspaper (UK), 2007-JUL-13, at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/

Originally posted: 2009-AUG-21
Latest update: 2011-AUG-14
Author: B.A. Robinson

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