A culture of disagreement

"The most striking feature of contemporary moral utterance is that so much of it is used to express disagreements; and the most striking feature of the debates in which these disagreements are expressed is their interminable character. I do not mean by this just that such debates go on and on and on - although they do - but also that they apparently find no terminus. There seems to be no rational way of securing moral agreement in our culture."

-- Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A study in moral theory (quoted in Paul Lample's Revelation and Social Reality)

Forbearance and humility

"In past Dispensations, the believers have tended to divide into two mutually antagonistic groups: those who held blindly to the letter of the Revelations, and those who questioned and doubted everything. Like all extremes, both of these can lead into error... Baha'is are called upon to follow the Faith with intelligence and understanding. Inevitably believers will commit errors as they strive to rise to this degree of maturity, and this calls for forbearance and humility on the part of all concerned, so that such matters do not cause disunity and discord among the friends."

-- From a letter written on behalf of the Universal House of Justice, 1980