semantics, tolerance, dawkinsMany religious beliefs can be practised or observed as intolerant. Part of this relies on religious systems are often exclusivist of non-believers (intolerance), then try to persuade others to join their faith (more intolerance). Also, there is a tendencyto judge others for things they deem “sinful” (again, more intolerance).
At the same time, it is politically correct to be tolerant, and most societies see it appropriate to be tolerant with different religious beliefs even though you are an atheist. However, I see this as a contradiction. To me, tolerating introlerance is not tolerance at all, but a jeopardising of freedom. As Dawkins famously said, let’s stop being so damn tolerant!
Here’s is an analogy that underlies the question: I can tolerate smokers even though I am not one. Their smoke stings in my eyes and makes my throat sore, but I tolerate them because they don’t try to judge me or convince me to smoke (in general). Similarly, I can tolerate people who vote right-wing although I don’t, as long as they do not try to convince me to do likewise. And so on and so forth. There is a difficulty in tolerating many religious persuasions; often one of their tenets seem to be intolerance per se. In other words, accepting them means accepting their criticism of my stance, and that, in turn, means submitting my freedom.
A formulated example was pointed out by Mark Cidade below (thanks!) in a Wikipedia on “Tolerating the intolerant” which, in turn, discusses Popper’s paradox of tolerance. That is apparently what my question is about. I wasn’t aware that Popper (and others) had written about this. I might as well read them now. :-) Seti also makes a great contribution, expressing my concerns in much better words than my own.
Nonetheless, can tolerating intolerance be called tolerance? Or is it just an empty, politically correct facade with little logical support?
Yes, tolerating intolerance is tolerance. If something wasn’t unfavorable, we wouldn’t need to tolerate it. Just because you label something as intolerant doesn’t change any of its other properties.
It’s unreasonable to be tolerant of others being intolerant. Golden rule the situation, if they’re fine preaching to you or are critical of you and your lifestyle, or someone else’s, you have no reason to be tolerant of that.
Tolerance should not extend as far as tolerating someone else’s intolerance, when their intolerance begins to impinge on someone else’s rights. If someone tells me I should tolerate their racism, am I to say, “Oh, all right then.” If they tell me they beleive deeply that a woman should be stoned to death for adultery, do I politely hum and hah in mild distress while the blood flies? I think not. They can think what they like, beleive what they like, in the privacy of their own home, and I will defend their right to beleive it (OK, Mental Health Act to the contrary notwithstanding.) Once they come outside into the public space, I and everyone else have the right to demand their “tolerance.”
Being intolerant of another’s intolerance does not make you personally intolerant anymore than being forced to kill someone in self-defense makes you a murderer.
Well Stalin was pretty intolerant of religion, when it suited him. Hitler was intolerant of religions he didn’t like (yea, Godwin baby). You can say that their intolerance of religion was a good thing, but really that’s pretty hard to defend. And yes, I’m aware that atheists and theists have been battling over who has to claim those jokers for the better part of a century: you’re talking about intolerance of religion, and those are good examples.
People are going to believe different things than you believe. If you can’t handle that, you’re going to have trouble in the modern world. Dawkins makes a lot of money trolling the Christians. I wouldn’t take it too seriously.
I think that tolerating intolerance can be called tolerance if a distinction is made between tolerance and acceptance whereas tolerance implies a possibly reluctant allowance of something’s co-existence instead of actually accepting that it is in one’s best interest for that something to continue to exist.
I think that one can also object to something while still tolerant of it.
I’m a non-smoker and I somewhat tolerate smokers and I even accept their right to smoke at all but I still object to the idea, particularly where public health and cleanliness is concerned.
See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toleration#Tolerating_the_intolerant
I once heard someone say that tolerance isn’t always a good thing. For example, we shouldn’t tolerate child abuse.
It depends, doesn’t it? Can I tolerate people who are intolerant of smoking around them? Yes. Can I tolerate people who can’t tolerate any religion other than there own? Yes, I can tolerate that.
Why? In the first case because I share that same intolerance to some degree. In the second case, because their intolerance has at best a second or third hand impact on me and even then the impact is minor.
But can I tolerate people who advocate violence against gays or minorities? No. Can I tolerate people who sexually and emotionally abuse children under the guise of religion? No.
So, what’s the difference?
I believe that it comes down to a) a matter of personal ethics, and b) the degree of harm I think it perpetuates.
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This then comes back to the question that’s been asked in other threads in different forms. The question becomes one of atheist ethics versus religious morality or dogma. It’s clear from a thousand different examples on TV and the Internet that religious believers have a hard time conceiving living life ethically without the threats of Karma or an angry god murdering them, and the wonder why atheists don’t run the street axe murdering people. Atheists tend to rely on a kind of ethical pragmatism regarding a cost benefit ratio.
For example, most atheists think murder is wrong. Why? Because they don’t want to live in a society in which people are murdered, they don’t want to be murdered themselves, and they don’t feel the need to go murder people. Most atheists believe that taking a life is wrong in most circumstances. Not because a god says so, but because of the social and personal results such actions produce. Most atheists also believe that molesting children for any reason is wrong, for the exact same pragmatic and cost/benefit reasoning I outlined above.
This brings us then to the issue of dogma. Since atheists don’t have a dogma of any kind, we apply the same reasoning and cost/benefit thinking across the board, rather than have specific exceptions defined by some tribal tradition. I think we tend to be intolerant of that tribalism when it crosses the line of our ethics.
So that that point, where our tolerance ends when tribalism or tradition crosses the line over ethics - is the point at which atheists like myself become intolerant of intolerance. Before that point I don’t think it matters so much. It’s like humoring a crazy aunt up to that point.
I can tolerate religious persons as far …
And I can tolerate a person, without tolerating his behavior, or tolerate a persons beliefs, but don’t tolerate that person constantly tells me about them.
A person might belief in god and teach me computer-science, but he might not tell me about his beliefs in the course. And in my spare time I only tolerate very little religion, esoteric talks and the like.
And tolerating a thing, and judging the toleration are two different things. If you don’t tolerate religion, well, you don’t tolerate it - that’s the meaning of the words. It’s not always good - for example it’s not good to tolerate the teacher of your child to tell them stories of the bible as if they were fact.
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