There're those who define tolerance as the attitude of the person who respects the opinions, ideas or attitudes of other people even if they don't match their own.
The point is, When does tolerance become stupidity? And worst, When does the intolerant take advantage of this stupidity to impose what wants to those who don't want it?
Should we be tolerant of those who want to discriminate other people by reason of birth, race, gender, religion, opinion, or any other personal condition, or social circumstance?
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I don't respect opinions. I respect someone's right to hold them. When those opinions result in behaviors that infringe on another's rights, then action must be taken.
I don't respect opinions either. Oh yes, they have the right to have them, but that doesn't make them correct.
I see no paradox in being intollerant of intollerance. None at all. It is a common refrain from religious persons that their intollerance be tollerated. Agreeing with that expectation would enshrine the very intollerance that I oppose. They can comfort themselves with circular logic and word games if they so choose, but it won't convince compassionate people interested in a tolerant, open society to abandon their logic and reason. So anyone who discriminates against other people based on race, gender, sexual preference or any other immutable characteristic can expect my opposition. And my disdain.
One example - The US Presidential Election.
P.s Truett, it's Tolerant and Intolerance, it's just one L! Like the one on your head, ROASTED!!! JK, sorry, I'm trying to earn some roast skills.
I never really viewed tolerance as having the capacity to be considered ''stupidity,'' I think it can end up bordering ''enabling,'' though. I don't really like the word tolerate, though. It doesn't really connote ''respect,'' it just seems like something or someone we ''tolerate'' out of an obligation.
@Deidre: I don't think tolerance is stupid, I think when tolerance reaches to certain point it becomes stupidity.
From my point of view the link is very revealing. A non-religious family tolerates imposing a religious tutor to their child, their parents make it very clear that they don't want their child to be exposed to anything religious, and the tutor baptizes the child without the consent of their parents and against their expressed wishes.
This is, of course, one of the best examples of how tolerance turns into stupidity. I would never let my children have a religious tutor, indeed, I don't understand why the parents allowed it.
And this is my point. Personally I think non-religious people tolerate things in relation to religion that, at first glance, honor us, but which we observe more closely tend to turn our tolerance into supine stupidity, things that, of course, we should not tolerate.
This is an extremely good listen when you've got some time on your hands. Sam Harris discusses this very topic with Ayaan Hirsi Ali in depth.
The Borders of Tolerance
https://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/the-borders-of-tolerance
Tolerance becomes stupidity when it doesn't happen.
Tolerance should always be measured with judgment and responsibility.
Then, tolerance becomes stupidity when the tolerant doesn't exercise it with judgment and responsibility. It isn't that what is tolerated in good faith is taken advantage by those who're tolerated to go beyond the tolerable, the tolerant are guilty that the tolerated exceed the limits of tolerance.
If that's what you're saying, I don't agree.
I would like to set the example of Spain. Next week is Holy Week. People dressed in KKK will stroll through the streets bloody and gore figures In most Spanish cities, often at dawn, cuting off the sleep of the neighbors, scaring the children and imposing a religious festival on those who have different beliefs, or lack them.
There have been Christians protests against other religious festivals that are public such as Ramadan nights, Diwali, and even the Chinese New Year celebration. It isn't only that the tolerance of the rest of the citizens towards the holy week, which creates real headaches for seven days to all the citizenship, is taken for granted, is that it bothers them that the tolerance that has towards them has towards to the rest of the beliefs. In some places they get to prevail against other beliefs.
This is the fault of those who tolerate? No, the fault of this is of those who are tolerated, because those who tolerate don't go to the court and we force them to let us sleep, that if the burka is also banned then the capirote KKK style too.
We tolerate and they believe that tolerance guarantees anything they do. That's the problem and that's what the link shows.
Tolerance can be condescending forbearance. "Islam is tolerant of other peoples of a book". "Islam is the only true religion but we will put up with others if they pay special taxes". Inclusiveness is better than tolerance.
@chimp3: Well, I would say that the tolerance that atheists exert towards believers is always condescending. I must be very condescending to talk about politics with someone who is able to tell me that the "theory" of evolution in schools should not be taught because his/her child should not have to deal intellectually with things that call into question their faith ¬¬)-♫
In my case I tolerate believers as long as they don't try to impose their beliefs to the rest of the people, but tolerate from the absolute certainty that their beliefs are garbage.
P.S.
During the crusades Muslims could pray to Mecca from the Christian Mediterranean coast if they paid a tax, while monks and priests blessed and cried at the docks to the crusaders that killing a Muslim was gaining entry to heaven. It wasn't tolerance, it was economy... And if you think it over, you will see that religion has always to do with economy, there has never been, and there will be no company more prosperous than religion, of any kind.