What is Religious Tolerance?

Suppose that I don't believe that the Qur'an is sacred. Is that intolerant? What if my kitchen table happened to be unlevel and I decided to prop it up by using a spare Qur'an -- is that intolerant? To be truly tolerant, should people tolerate my believe that the Qur'an is just an ordinary work of fiction? What if I am out of Charmin and -- well you get the picture.

Now, replace Quran with Bible -- is there any difference? Shouldn't my supposed feelings towards the Quran/Bible be tolerated as part of religious tolerance? Isn't the outcry and the killing due to the Newsweek story just a symptom of religious intolerance?

 

No, there is no difference. I don't think Newsweek should have apologized, and certainly not the President. If it happened, then repremand the soliders involved - period. We should never do things just to appease other countries and we are never responsible for the actions of others (I am speaking about the 30 or so people who died in Afghanistan protesting this - it is the fault of the protestors, no one else)

 

You are asking a difficult question. Is it "tolerance" to permit Jews and Christians to live and work in a Muslim society IF they pay special taxes and accept limits on their citizenship?

Or, is it "tolerant" for the State of Israel to grant full civil rights to Israeli Arabs but not permit them to serve in the IDF? IDF service is not limited to Jews, BTW; the Druze are also subject to military service.

I don't know, either. I suspect, though, that "tolerance" is a matter of degrees.

 

I agree with you. I think that we were totally put on the defensive by this story and the people who killed were given a pass. I don't know anything about the Geneva Convention, but flushing a Qu'ran seems pretty tame when it comes to methods of "torture." However, riotous murder is an order of magnitude worse in term of degree of wrongness.

 

When it comes to tolerance, often it seems that only the victim has the right to define it. However, I don't think that's right and would prefer to explore a true bidirectional meaning. Doesn't it all boil down to turning the other cheek and to live and let live?

 

Religious tolerance is watching the world's citizens kill each other over an invisible man while talking about peace and love.

 

Israeli Arabs are permitted to serve in the IDF, but they are just not required to serve.

http://www.israelactivism.com/factsheets/Israel_human_rights.asp

 

Ah. This is news to me; I stand corrected.

 

http://www.religioustolerance.org/quot_tol.htm

 

Toleration means permitting all of the other fools to be wrong, knowing, of course, that you're the only one that's got it right.

 

Ha! Beat ya' to it. That was one of the quotes on the page that I linked to, above.

(Just kiddin' around)

 

Thought I'd seen that somewhere here before, but couldn't quite find it again before I made my post.

 

Well, I say two thirds of the point goes to you. It's one thing to post a link to a page of quotes which, oh-by-the-way, just happens to contain a really good one; and knowing how to separate the wheat of said good one from the chaff of all the others, and then post it accordingly.

That's, in part, why I said I was just kiddin' around.

 

Say, DesElms, 1000+ posts? Do you get Grand Patoobah status now?

 

Ohmygod... the verbosidometer rolled over without my even noticing. How 'bout that. As to your question: Grand Patoot status, maybe.

 

Well, when people ask if you're a little behind you can honestly say no.

 

Very good. That one made me laugh out loud.