I've often suspected "tolerance" is merely a codeword applied hypocritically to bash Christian conservatives. A recent visit to ReligiousTolerance.org did nothing to dispell that growing impression.

For starters, they claim to be interested in providing an "objective" view of each faith:

"We will attempt to overcome our biases on each topic that we describe, by explaining each point of view carefully, respectfully and objectively. To this end, we have many of our essays reviewed by persons familiar with the issues who represent all sides of each topic." [1]

"We are religious reporters, not theologians." [2]

You be the judge as to how hard they "attempt to overcome" their biases...

Scientology

First, here's an excerpt from their pages describing Scientology:

In line with its objectives to promote religious tolerance and human rights, the Church of Scientology in 2003-SEP opened a new Church of Scientology International European Office of Public Affairs and Human Rights in Brussels... Since its opening, the Office has toured hundreds of government leaders and organizations, familiarizing them with the Scientology religion and the workable technologies of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard in the areas of illiteracy, drug and criminal rehabilitation and restoring moral values. [3]

How nice! Scientology truly desires to promote "human rights" and "tolerance." And apparently really does want to "restore moral values." (Perhaps they could have a talk with Tom Cruise the content of many of his films?) And RT.org feels free to unflinchingly call LRon's pronouncements "workable technologies."

This portrayal is certainly sympathetic and uncritical, and thus hardly neutral -- it lacks necessary qualifiers like "what scientologists see as", etc.

Islam

Next, onto Islam. The first thing we see, to explain Islam, is a link to "The Truth About Islam" which summarizes Islamic doctrine on its own terms. Next, we see a description of Islam which is also not written in a neutral format, but instead has the nice "PBUH"'s (Peace Be Unto Him) strewn about the text -- so that the text itself praises Muhammad and wishes him a great afterlife.

And:

Many unusual events have been recorded about Muhammad's (pbuh) birth and childhood... His mother said "When he was born, there was a light that issued out of my pudendum and lit the places of Syria." [4]

Jihad (struggle) is probably the most misunderstood religious word in existence... it is implied to be a synonym of "holy war" ... [but] The vast majority of Muslims have an entirely different definition of Jihad. It is seen as a personal, internal struggle with one's self. [5]

Again, the sympathetic tone: RT.org doesn't admit there are two meanings to "Jihad"-- instead it is implied that anyone who thinks jihad ever means "holy war" has misunderstood it. And of course: Peace be unto Muhammad!

Now, before I go further, let me state that I have no problem with using a neutral, or even sympathetic tone. None at all. But I think, in that case, it should be applied to every view.

Christianity

Note from the opening title that where Islam and Scientology were examined with a sympathetic eye and gave only a sympathetic narrative, Christianity will be explained "from all points of view (there are many!)"

Whereas Islam was delineated theologically -- that is, certain beliefs were presented as Islamic, and thus it was implied that if you rejected said beliefs, you rejected Islam -- we learn there are no rules for who is a Christian other than self-identification: "A 'Christian' includes any group or individual who seriously, devoutly, prayerfully describes themselves as Christian."

The logic is apparently that since "public opinion pollsters" cannot apply tests of dogma to see if the respondant's beliefs match a historical definition, then, of course, neither can they. Yet this is hardly what was done with other religions.

In the overview of Christianity, they insert Gnosticism in between Paul's conversion and the destruction of the temple in 70 AD and describe "Gnostic Christianity" as a "dominant group"!

And the supposed air of impartiality is utterly dropped when we arrive at what would seem to be the core of the matter for these authors:

One of our web site's policies is to avoid criticizing the religious beliefs of any individual or group. In this essay, the authors recommend that certain passages from the Bible and other holy texts be edited to remove passages that promote or condone genocide; mass murder; human slavery; oppression of women; torturing prisoners;execution of homosexuals, religious minorities, children, and persons guilty of trivial offenses, etc. The essay is based on the belief that such evil and immoral deeds can promote religious hatred, discrimination, and violence today.

We realize that believers who regard their holy text as God's word might interpret this essay as an attack on their beliefs. However, with the world sliding so rapidly into religiously-motivated mass terror, we felt that we should bend the rules in this case. [6]

The term here is not "bend the rules": the more honest description would be "break." Yes, the world is sliding into religious-motivated "mass terror", but there seems to be no recommendations at all to change the texts of the religion which is actually producing most of that violence. Nor even any an admission that "jihad" might have something to do with it! (Recall the previous whitewash, please.)

And, of course, this person is more than welcomed to remove the offending verses from their own bible. But that cannot be what they mean, or they wouldn't be writing this essay: What they are hoping to achieve, no doubt, it to remove the verses in question from other people's bibles.

And I'm not sure how you could achieve that without a a little help from our ever-so-coercive friend, the state.

Motivation?

Let's imagine someone (our would-be "hero") insists he is concerned about "violence." Then, person A sets off a bomb, killing women and children. He says nothing, or even says person A was "misunderstood". Then person B says that perhaps active homosexuals shouldn't be bishops. Suddenly, our hero gets all excited about "violence" and recommends taking action regarding person B.

Now consider the same story told about "intolerance": Where person A kills someone for being a homosexual. Nothing is done. Then, person B simply says homosexuality is bad. Again, our hero gets very upset at B and starts yelling about "intolerance" and demanding to force person B to change his religion.

Is this person truly concerned about violence? Or "intolerance"? Clearly not: if those things bothered him, he would notice it where-ever it happened, in proportion to the damage being inflicted.

Instead, we'd suspect "our hero" really has an axe to grind about person B, and is simply using these arguments, insincerely, as an excuse to do so.