The Great Architect of the Universe has created so much diversity that surely He must love it.

For evil to triumph,” said British statesman Edmund Burke, “it is only necessary for good men to do nothing.” But all too often, good people are manipulated by appealing religious leaders into thinking they serve God by stamping out the opposition and imposing personal morality codes and religious teachings on everyone else. Many of the acts of terrorism throughout the world are done in the name of God, as though persecuting those who disagree with majority opinion is somehow doing God a favor.
As the French philosopher Pascal put it, “Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.” Before the triumph of religious extremism, moderate individuals often quoted Voltaire, our Masonic Brother, as the embodiment of a cherished ideal. “I may not agree with a word you say,” Voltaire declared, “but I will fight to the death your right to say it.”
Today tolerant voices seem faint. In their place comes a call to unseat the opposition, silence all dissent, and legislate standards of belief and morality upon the believer and unbeliever alike. In the wake of such thinking, anti-Semitism is on the rise, racial prejudice is being reborn among younger generations, and gay bashing is gaining approval in some quarters.
On the other hand, the Bible insists upon loving others and doing good to all people, even when you disagree with them and disapprove of their lifestyle. The divine Book speaks of a God who loves all people unconditionally. The Great Architect of the Universe has created so much diversity that surely He must love it.
Bigotry, hatred, and intolerance are the seeds of enmity, murder, and war. Such things are condemned in the Bible, and they can never honor a God Who loves all people equally, Who is all merciful and all compassionate, and Who expects the same qualities from those who seek to fulfill His will.
The time has come for good people to resist intolerance whenever and wherever they find it. Tolerating a different lifestyle or belief doesn’t necessarily mean one has to approve of it; it means that what freedom you expect for yourself is what you must allow others.
Martin Niemoller, the Berlin pastor who openly defied Hitler’s attempt to control all thinking in Nazi Germany, went to prison at Dachau in 1937 because he denounced anti-Semitism even though the church hierarchy had accepted the official Nazi-mandated creed: “One People, one Reich, one Fuehrer, one Church.”
When the war ended, Niemoller spoke about his own responsibility for what took place in Germany, and he spent the remaining years urging thoughtful people to resist intolerance and totalitarianism, even when it appears in the name of God. Niemoller wrote: “In Germany they came first for the communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up.”
The majority may be more powerful, but might doesn’t make right, not even when majority spokesmen quote the Bible for support and urge people to give up thinking for themselves and give in to “God’s Will.”
It’s never wrong to do what’s right.