Theos-Talk Archives (March 2005 Message tt00519)

--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "nhcareyta" <nhcareyta@y...> 
wrote:
> 
> And when these views are subsequently proven, by all reasonable 
and available means to be false,

Dear Nigel,

This post sounds to me like a prescription for disaster. Many 
religious or pseudo-scientific views can be proven by "all 
reasonable and available means to be false" to my satisfaction. Or 
to yours, or someone else's. Unfortunately what satisfies one won't 
satisfy another. So the only way to get along is to tolerate one 
another's divergences of opinion, once it has become clear that the 
evidence satisfactory to one person fails to sway another. Getting 
along with one another despite differences of belief is something 
Theosophists have always been encouraged to do, starting with the 
Founders. But they have not succeeded in doing so to any great 
extent, except at the local level.

they must surely be continually 
> challenged by thinking and responsible students who are concerned 
> with the dharma of theosophy ie; the search for truth rather than 
the maintenance of a deluded, self-satisfying belief.

Is there any necessary connection between searching for truth 
oneself and feeling obliged to continually challenge others whose 
views one finds objectionable? The latter sounds like a euphemism 
for harassment of dissenters from the party line, and the result of 
it is surely to drive them away.

Cheers,

Paul