The cancer of intolerance and how to fight it

Quoted and bolded for emphasis. Well said.

 

When we discuss the cancer of intolerance, we need to ask one question:
Who decides who the "intolerant" are that need to be fought?

 

I think it displays very bad taste to equate any and all ´intolerance´ with the nasty class of diseases we call cancer.

The first part is ok, as it is directed at the subject. Just be careful about directing it at the person.

 

Jabba, you did an excellent job of showing the range of behavior from distasteful to intolerant to destructive. And you could really use any group from cat lovers to power-mad dictators as examples.


Edit: to remove anything that could have potentially been misconstued. Since it's easy to do that without visual cues.

 

It's easy to fall into a pack mentality and think that everyone has to follow everyone else around and prove/disprove every post in every thread. This feeling is amplified when the people involved have a prior history. Just be careful about making this personal and loosing sight of the larger picture.

 

An example of extreme intolerance would be the militant atheism of Bolshevism in Soviet Russia, with the state-sponsored suppression of any religious expression. At the opposite end would be the militant theism of Afghanistan under the Taliban, with the rigid enforcement of behaviors required under the state-sponsored version of religious truth.

The opposite ends, extremism wraps around and tends to resemble itself.

But there's a lot of room in the middle for a level of intolerance that simply has to be tolerated.

 

good points, Jabba.

 

An example of extreme intolerance would be the militant atheism of Bolshevism in Soviet Russia, with the state-sponsored suppression of any religious expression. At the opposite end would be the militant theism of Afghanistan under the Taliban, with the rigid enforcement of behaviors required under the state-sponsored version of religious truth.

Perhaps we will do better with this thread if we mentally replace the word 'intolerance' with the words "extremist intolerance" as a working definition?

But there's a lot of room in the middle for a level of intolerance that simply has to be tolerated.

Which is the fundamental basis of diplomacy and moderation. You can have opposing views but you nevertheless find a way to live together. This sums up all that is wrong in the Middle East for example and is confounded by religious dogma - particularly religious dogma with a fundamentalist flavour.

 

Okay, Mr44, you're right.

Would it be a good idea to concentrate on one specific type of intolerance at a time, for the benefit of the discussion?

 

I for one don't understand the need for this thread. It's akin to creating a thread called "Murderers and why they are bad". Obviously a so-called Christian church that advocates the killing, or even the social ostracization, of gays is bad. Obviously an organization whose purpose is to forestall free speech and discourage religious freedom is bad. Why do we need a thread about it exactly?

 

So we can discuss 'intolerance' without cluttering/derailing/killing the atheism thread.

 

Would it be a good idea to concentrate on one specific type of intolerance at a time, for the benefit of the discussion?

excellent idea, my friend.

Why do we need a thread about it exactly?

Because that would come close to moderating for content, which is something we don't take lightly. Beyond the standard "wrong forum" threads, there is an important rule in the Senate that says we don't allow "mass characterization" threads.

We would lock a thread titled "Why are all liberals stupid, discuss" or "I think republicans are fascists" because the nature of those generalizations immediately start a flame war. Other than that, topics are more amorphous and have more free reign.

This thread was created in part to keep the atheism thread clean, and because someone wanted to discuss the offshoot idea.

 

Yes, I see all those reasons. It just seems so obvious. Is there any member here who actually opposes the idea of religious tolerance? Does anyone here know anyone who opposes same? More to the point, is there a real purpose to this thread beyond creating a safety valve away from the aetheism thread? Intolerance = bad. Got it.

 

Is there any member here who actually opposes the idea of religious tolerance?

Now that's an interesting question. Any takers?

 

Sure, I'll take this one, although I believe MasterZap has a text file ready to cut and paste for just such an occasion (and if he doesn't he should, to save him the typing).

Also, I apologize if this skews too far towards the Atheism topic, but I think I kept it re: intolerance fairly well.

I ask that anyone please read and understand my entire post before responding, because I have a feeling this one will be easy to quote mine. Take my statements in the context I make them.

The first thing is that I think the notion of "tolerance/intolerance" at all is a bunch of politically correct crap. It allows emotionality and, often, irrationality to hold sway. It says "it's okay for you to hate this person/idea, as long as you put up with it." It fails to encourage or even acknowledge the need to educate oneself and understand the reason behind the opposing view, and/or the reasons that the hatred of the view is either warranted or not.

So my first point is that I think the notion of tolerance needs to be done away with and replaced with another one: the notion of acceptance. In this case, you choose either to accept or reject something based on educated information in that regard.

For example, for racism to be acceptable there must be demonstrated a significant difference between different "races" of people. An educated person quickly discovers that there ARE no significant differences beyond the aesthetic, and perhaps varying proclivities for particular congenital diseases (such as sickle cell anemia in black people). Therefore the hatred of someone "different" from you based on "race" is demonstrably irrational, and so instead of just tolerating ("putting up with") this person that you hate, you come to understand and accept that what you hate about them is a fantasy; in the process, you come to understand and accept them.

That's in terms of people. Likewise, I do not believe that ideas should be "tolerated". They should either be accepted or rejected, and that based on their individual merit and their relationship to observable reality. I don't believe we should "put up with" ideas that are clearly false, or clearly inferior to other ideas.

Now, let me make it very clear, as I have done many times in the past, that when I talk about rejecting religious tolerance, I am rejecting tolerance toward the ideas of religion. In no way am I, or have I ever, endorsed intolerance towards religious people. People should be free to believe whatever they want to believe, but not all beliefs are equal.

A lone man who believes something irrational is called delusional and locked up for his own good. A million people who believe something irrational are called religious and get tax breaks from the government. I'm not advocating locking up the religious, but I AM advocating applying the same standards of reason and rationality by which we reject the single person's "delusion", to the mass irrationality of "religion."

The other problem with religious tolerance is that religion, as has been pointed out, fosters INtolerance. As Sam Harris points out, the moderates of a religion make it taboo to go after the extremists. In the name of "tolerance" we allow Muslims to threaten the very lives of other human beings for believing differently than they do. It's taboo to blame the religion because we're supposed to be "tolerant". I say that's crap. Either religion can prove itself and be accepted as logical, objectively evident fact, or it needs to be rejected like any other nonsense.

"Tolerance" is just another word for "apathy".

 

I understand what you are saying and I actually agree with you on getting rid of "tolerance" but one thing that I don't agree with is the irrationality of religion. Unless we know everything in the universe, and I mean EVERY single thing saying something is rational or irrational, right or wrong, is pointless. The belief that what science we've learned now makes everything that doesn't go along with it is insanity.

Humans have believed things science has taught them and a hundred years later humans have been proven wrong. Once it was scientifically

 

This is about the only thing in your post that I find particularly relevant to the conversation, and yet you gloss over it like it's not important.

This is precisely the point. Rationality is defined as what is most probably the truth of the matter. How is that determined? By the information and evidence available. And to believe something based on solid evidence -- even if there is only a little evidence -- is vastly more rational than believing something based on no evidence at all.

We refer to things as being rational and irrational all the time. If my car wouldn't start and I began insisting that it was because goblins were holding the pistons in place, you would consider that irrational -- certainly a great deal less rational than the fact that my car is probably out of gas, particularly when you can check the car and confirm that the car is out of gas.

What you are saying is that the world should accept that I might just be right about the goblins, and I disagree. The world should absolutely not do so, the world knows better.

 

DorkmanScott, what are the implications for human behavior of an acceptance/rejection regime vs. a tolerance/intolerance regime? Are the extreme implications of "rejecting" an idea any different from radical "intolerance" of that idea?

I imagine most people pinpoint the locus of their tolerance/intolerance of an idea based on some kind of assessment of their acceptance/rejection of it. In other words, what this thread is about in any case is the tolerance-intolerance continuum as a measure of someone's emotional/behavioral reaction to an idea they have rejected. It stands to reason that I will be tolerant of ideas I accept.

 

This is all too vague, people. Too vague.
Throwing all 'intolerance' in one bag.
I'm intolerant toward people who park their cars on the sidewalk in front of my house. Does that mean I'm a 'cancer', to be 'fought against'?

As it is, 'intolerance' as a whole is a non-topic. We should be more specific. Even 'religious intolerance' is too vague for me; all the nations the posters here come from have laws for it. We might as well discuss driving through a red light.

 

The presence of evidence is mostly irrelevant. How many theorys did humanity have a hundred years ago that are now utter rubbish? What is to stop all of the theorys now from becoming rubbish in another hundred years. The belief that with the knowledge we have it is okay to pass judgement on others for their beliefs is wrong and arrogant. Your car may have been stopped by goblins, or it may be lack of gas. A bum on the streets ramblings are just as possible as a team of scientists findings after 20 years of work. In the end probability and evidence are simply things we cling to as they make us feel as though we know much, things that make us feel right, things that say others are wrong. One should accept that everyone has legitimate beliefs and respect that their beliefs are just as possible as their own.

 

I think the OP is intolerant towards intolerance...

 

DorkmanScott, who decides what the parameters of rationality are? Who sets the standards by which "religious delusion" on the one hand and "quantifiable logic" on the other are established? If a hundred million Hindus share an experience of deity that is repeatable inside the laboatory of their minds, do we still reject that experience as "delusional", simply because we ourselves have never experienced it? And how do you view the US constituional right to religious freedom? Should that be abolished via an amendment?

 

Depends on what you mean.

Should "Religion" be "tolerated" just as much as any other idea? Yes.

Should it be tolerated more than any other idea? ABSOLUTELY NOT.

Why should "religion" merit a magic aura of "tolerance" that makes it immune to criticizm? It's silly.

/Z

 

I object to the use of the word "regime", as I'm not talking about any kind of codified laws here. I think the term "paradigm" would be much more appropriate.

I think there's a difference. Intolerance is, in my thinking, taking active action against something with which you disagree. Rejection is simply ignoring it after you give it a fair shot.

Okay, but the point is that I'm saying that continuum is flawed and ultimately irrelevant. Intolerance is not the problem. Ignorance is. When people reject something without having all the available facts, that's bad. If they reject something with good, expressible reasoning, IMO that's good. Intolerance is not inherently a problem, that's my argument. Some things ought not to be tolerated.

Nothing. That's the beauty of it. We get proof of something and we accept it. The proof changes, the ideas change, the acceptance changes. That, when not accompanied by blackballing or witch-hunts, is a good thing

That is absolutely not true. Perhaps both of them have a possibility of being right, but an EQUAL possibility? Never in a billion years.

Now, if the bum could prove his ramblings with solid evidence, then it's worth listening to. But rational minds must be focused on evidence.

Then I'm just as right as you are and you shouldn't be arguing. Right?

Come on, this is absurd. You know full well that you live your life based on the evidence available to you. If you buy tickets for a concert you expect to get in to see the concert. If the concert promoter told you your tickets had been stolen by gnomes, so sorry, but no refunds, I have a hard time believing that you would accept and respect that as a "legitimate belief" which is "just as possible" as the more probable fact that he's ripping you off.

That's the thing though. Aside from as it pertains to religion, everyone already agrees on what is quantifiably logical and what is not. Every minute of the day is spent on pattern recognition and problem solving. Every idea presented to you -- by television advertisements, by co-workers, by anyone and anything -- must pass muster as being worth your belief, and you test it by comparing it to observable reality and your experiences and the evidence available to you. Only religion gets a pass when it comes to critical or logical thinking, and that is wrong.

Yes, because a hundred million Muslims and a hundred million Jews and a hundred million Christians have all shared the EXACT SAME EXPERIENCE, which mean

 

Again, what then is the implication in practice for the things which "ought not to be tolerated"? Provide some examples about how we should go about not tolerating beliefs that we've rejected as ignorant.