Daily 49er - opinion

Seek to understand religion

With regard to Ryan Ritchie’s opinion article on October 9, 2002, “Religious Ads too Intrusive,” Mr. Ritchie’s article is nothing more than a rant back at someone because he received a negative response about a previous article. He is so focused on his rant he misses larger issues he brings up in his article. Mr. Ritchie asks many questions that are not difficult to answers if you stop to think about them.

Q. Why do Christian groups advertise in the first place?

A. How else do you find a church of your denomination if Long Beach is not your hometown and you are not familiar with the area? You look for an advertisement, whether that be in the yellow pages, campus directory, or a sign in the grass.

Q. Why is it Christians are the only ones putting up signs like these?

A. True, I have seen no other on-campus organization put signs in the grass, but those are hardly the only signs around. A multitude of signs populate the side of the Psychology building as well as the railing outside the Student’s Union. Most have nothing to do with religion at all and are far larger in size.

Q. Why are there so many Christian groups on campus?

A. The variety of students on campus is vast. There are numerous Christian churches in the world. Why should the campus populous not reflect some of that diversity?

Q. Who cares if someone believes differently than you? It’s not your job or mission in life to convert everyone to become you.

A. While Christianity today is kinder and gentler than it was a few centuries ago, the directive to convert without respect to persons remains in some Christian denominations. No matter how misguided others view these denominations, they still believe they are doing the right thing and acting on the highest order of good. But to a deeper point, you should care that someone believes differently than you, not to convert them, but to try and understand them better-a difficult but worthwhile activity.

Q. Besides, who am I to think people want to hear me anyway? I don’t assume anyone reads these columns.

A. Mr. Ritchie is a senior journalism major writing for one of CSULB’s papers. He implied that people who believe in a deity are naïve. Ritchie has received at least one year of upper division journalism training from CSULB. That training includes writing for public discourse. Public discourse assumes other people will read your material. Isn’t it just as naïve that Mr. Ritchie would submit an article to a public forum and not assume someone will read it?

Please take responsibility for your actions, Mr. Ritchie. Your actions affect other people just as their actions affect you. I predict you’re not going to like mine. Your article is a gripe for getting flack from someone who didn’t like the way you treated him or his organization. That sign in the grass merely set you off. Your language shows you have little patience for these Christian groups and you give them almost no credit. If you really did “let people do as they please,” you would not have written your article in the first place.
 
As for the subject of religious tolerance, try to move beyond tolerance, Ritchie. Tolerance is merely putting up with something. Seek to understand. Disagree, but at least try to understand. That way, you will avoid doing a disservice to yourself and others.
 
William Scott is a post-baccalaureate education major at Cal State Long Beach.