I believe someone else already posted an excerpt from the following document on the board, but I wanted to comment on one specific portion.
It's a 1999 Australian Senate Committee hearing on religious freedom. The original can be found at:
http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/joint/commttee/j2444.pdf
The response I've excerpted is from Vincent Toole, a Legal Officer with the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Australia, addressing the roots of religious discrimination and intolerance.
Mr Toole-I guess so, and I guess it is the same thing-you will disagree but yet you
are the best of friends. That is the view we take. The fact that people do not necessarily
share our particular understanding and they think, `Oh no, that is the not the way I want to
believe it,' is fine. We are really trying to educate people and teach tolerance. That really is
getting at the very root cause of the problem. It is fanaticism that causes some of these
problems, where people have a singular view that their way is right and woe betide anybody
who disagrees with it. It gets to the stage, when you start having that elevated to a level of
government, where you have a very dangerous situation because then you are only one step
away from totalitarianism, where you have people in high places deciding what you can and
cannot believe on a whole host of things.
Tying in with your question before about what should governments do, I would have
thought in a free society that people should be able to have whatever beliefs they want
unless they become detrimental or positively disruptive to society at large. The price we pay
for a free society is to allow people to have whatever opinions they want, unless it gets to
the stage where they are destroying the public order. Now, whether or not it is destroying the
public order should be a matter for objective analysis, not a subjective, bigoted type of
imposition of other people's wills.
Now, let's rephrase some of what Brother Toole said and see if we can find an interesting parallel.
"Jehovah's Witnesses have a singular view that their way is right and Armageddon betide anybody who disagrees with it."
Or, focusing more on the here and now:
"Jehovah's Witnesses have a singular view that their way is right and disfellowshipping and shunning betide any congregation member who disagrees with it."
Here's another good rephrasing:
"You have a very dangerous situation because then you are only one step away from totalitarianism, where you have the Governing Body deciding what you can and cannot believe on a whole host of things."
Brother Toole graciously points out that "The price we pay
for a free society is to allow people to have whatever opinions they want, unless it gets to the stage where they are destroying the public order."
Perhaps he could follow his own logic a little further:
"Now, whether or not it is destroying the public order should be a matter for objective analysis, not a subjective, bigoted type of
imposition of the Governing Body's will."
Yes, how about the idea that people should be able to leave the organization of Jehovah's Witnesses without sanction? And should feel free to talk about the reasons why they did so with their Witness family, friends or acquaintances?
Ultimately, these well-spoken arguments boil down to "Give us the freedom we deserve in a free society--so that we can impose a much more draconian way of life on the members of our OWN little society."
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