Sammyjoe:
I am sick of the name-calling. As I’ve stated numerous times, I feel that it is a) loshon hara and b) chilul hashem to toss around terms like “apikorus”. You can make your point without these terms.
Orthodox Jews are a minority, but this does not mean that we have to conform to the majority of Jewry. However, I would NEVER state that they have to conform to us, nor that we have the truth. No one has a monopoly on truth. No one can know if what they are doing is correct. All we can do is to try to do what Hashem wants from us. This is the motivation behind our actions, but we all have different ideas of what it is that Hashem wants. Who are we to judge others and to say that they are sinning? We are not God. Others’ lifestyles DO in fact have validity just like ours, but this does not mean that we need to compromise our own beliefs. Let them do what they feel is right, and we will do what we feel is right. There is no need to spend time attacking them when it would be so easy to coexist peacefully. I would never try to “corrupt” the Torah and I do believe that it is eternally true, so I have not “rejected it totally”; rather, I try to live my life according to my conception of Torah values, which clearly is drastically different from yours.