What is the most tolerant religion?

[michel]

This may be semantic but I don't understand the bolded line. Tolerance literally means allowing or permiting. Perhaps that's not the same as condoning, but functionally it becomes so. In my view, if I am tolerant of racism, for example, it means that I tolerate it, literally. It means that I do not speak up when someone says something racist. It means that I do not act when someone does something to hurt someone else based on race. Because I am tolerating racism.

I can't do that. (And I'm sure neither can you. )

I can refrain from hating the person who demonstrated racism. I can seek to understand why the person feels the way he or she does. I can feel compassion. But nevertheless I will still be working to change that person or at the very least minimize that person's impact on others. That, to me, is acting in love, but it is not tolerance.

Quite right.

funilly enough,I was looking for the Belief "test" thread that recently did the rounds. each time I take it, I try and answer as honestly as I can (sometimes the questions don't seem to have enough options), but U.U is always at the top of the list, with Hinduism as a close contender.

I'd like to think I am tollerant.

 

[lilithu]

It'd be nice to see Buddhism up there on the tolerance chart, but I know too much about the nature of the Dharma and it's established intolerance of delusion, ignorance, and egoistic grasping.

Cute. You almost got a little rise out of me!

For me, Buddhism would probably be 4 on the list (so it's up there! ha!). The reason why it's not higher is because I know that in Buddhism there is the belief Buddhism is the right path. Others are not condemned by any means but they are thought to be a mistake. (It's pretty much what you said above.)

Hinduism recognizes the validity of more than one path.

And UU actually seeks to lift up and celebrate the validity of more than one path.

I said that Buddhism is 4, that's because I would put Baha'i up at 3. Baha'i embraces a lot of world religions but it seeks to synthesize it into one path. (I'm not saying this is bad. If they're right, then it's obviously good. Again, being the most tolerant is not necessarily the best!)

 

[McBell]

I believe that Mystic was seperating doctrine from practice for the sake of simplicity. The reason why she stated "by doctrine alone" explicitly is because she knows that religion is more than doctrine. But if we are to rank religions by their tolerance there must be some measure. And if one tries to go by practice it becomes too messy because, as several others have pointed out, regardless of official doctrine there are people in each religion that are tolerant and there are those who are not.

So she chose to judge by doctrine. She's not saying that this is all that religion is about. She's saying that's how she's measuring it. And unless you are arguing that the adherents of some religions are signifcantly worse than others about adhering to doctrine, there is no reason to think this is a bad measure.

So it is basically becaus the doctrine, unlike actual practice, is unchanging?
Well, that makes sense.
Thank you for answering my question.

Specifically, I wonder if you are questioning her choice of Unitarian Universalism. Do you think that a larger number of UUs do not follow their faith than other religionists?

No, I was not/am not questioning her (or anyone elses) choice.
I was merely curious as to the reason behind seperating the doctrine from the rest.

 

[McBell]

Are you saying that a man who desires to have sexual relations with another man (and, for the sake of argument, not women) but does not act on those desires, is not a homosexual?

No I am not.
The term homosexual covers several different things.
I do not pick one definition and ignore the rest.
Which is what I would have to do in order to do as you have suggested.

 

[McBell]

How does it indicate something else? You lost me....

You mean to say that it doesn't come from them personally?

See post #83

 

[McBell]

I understand what you're trying to say, that doctrine alone shouldn't be the basis for an argument in this premise. If I am wrong with my focus on doctrine alone, I still stand by my argument that in principle and in practice, UU's are the most tolerant with Hinduism remaining a close second.

No, I do not believe that you are wrong for doing so.
In fact, I would say that it actually makes much more sense to do it that way simply because you have a set solid foundation to fall back on.
Unlike with the actual practices, some that very greatly, within a single religion.

My problem was that I did not understand the purpose of doing such a thing.
Now that I understand it, it seems to me to be the better way to go about it.

 

[Quiddity]

See post #83

How is that any different then what I said? :banghead3 (post #66)

 

[McBell]

How is that any different then what I said? :banghead3 (post #66)

I am truely sorry and apologize.
I do not know why your post (#66) did not make any sense to me before I understood.

 

[Quiddity]

I am truely sorry and apologize.
I do not know why your post (#66) did not make any sense to me before I understood.

It's ok... . It was just a bit frustrated because I kept trying to answer your question and I felt you were telling me that I was avoiding it on purpose.

 

[McBell]

It's ok... . It was just a bit frustrated because I kept trying to answer your question and I felt you were telling me that I was avoiding it on purpose.

No, I did not think you were avoiding it on purpose.
I was thinking that I was not explaining what I was asking very well.
When the fact was that I was asking clear enough (meaning you understood what I was asking) I was just not understanding the answer.

My comment about you seeming to be avoiding the question is because that is what it seemed like. However, i surmised that that was not the case because you kept explaining it differently.
If you had been avoiding answering the question, I doubt that you would have tried, repeatedly, to explain it.

 

[Stairs In My House]

This may be semantic but I don't understand the bolded line. Tolerance literally means allowing or permiting.

"Literal" meaning is a very questionable idea and I don't recommend getting hung up on it. The meaning you're describing is only representative of one limited syntactic environment, "tolerant of X", and even then it is not wholly representative of that environment, as I will explain.

lunamoth was talking about the problem of being tolerant, with no "of X", as in an adjectival predicate like "She is tolerant." or as a non-predicative adjunct like "She is a tolerant person." At this point, the synonymy you presented no longer holds; saying someone is tolerant is not the same as saying someone is permissive.

Now, it's quite unusual for a dictionary definition to be useful for really understanding meaning, but in this case the first entry for "tolerance" listed in the American Heritage dictionary actually captures this meaning quite nicely: "The capacity for or the practice of recognizing and respecting the beliefs or practices of others." Note that the words "recognize" and "respect" do not have any overlap with the meanings of "permit" or "allow" in typical usage.

Once a particular meaning of a word has been introduced into discourse, it can override the different meanings that word can otherwise have in different contexts. So once tolerance had been brought up in the sense I described above, the meaning of "respecting and recognizing" becomes transferred even to "tolerant of X", which in this case was "tolerant of intolerance." Note that this is specific to the context of that particular interaction, not a general redefinition!

So, in the context of lunamoth's post, my response was intended to mean, "There is a response to intolerance that, by failing to take the time to properly understand the other side, is not respectful and/or does not give proper recognition to those who hold the view that one considers intolerant. This is bad. However, by taking the time to recognize those who we disagree with as people who have arrived at their intolerant views through some kind of process which they believe to be cogent, and respecting their ability to reason and discuss these things, we can produce a response to their views that not only advocates tolerance but exemplifies it, and that doing so does not condone/permit/allow their intolerance." In other words, there is no contradiction between being a tolerant person and not putting up with intolerance, but there are ways to go about it that are more tolerant (in the second sense) than others.

 

[Stairs In My House]

No I am not.
The term homosexual covers several different things.
I do not pick one definition and ignore the rest.
Which is what I would have to do in order to do as you have suggested.

Well, in that case it isn't entirely accurate to say that calling for the death of those who engage in sexual acts with those of the same sex is propositionally equivalent to calling for the death of homosexuals. I will agree it is a subtle distinction and I'm not sure it's an important one when you're evaluating how tolerant something is or isn't (so I don't really know where lilithu was going with that), but it is still a distinction. Wars have been fought over less, I suppose.

 

[sandy whitelinger]

It's not the religion, it's the person that is tolerant or intolerant.

You're wrong. Tolerence is not a Christian principle.

 

[lilithu]

Well, in that case it isn't entirely accurate to say that calling for the death of those who engage in sexual acts with those of the same sex is propositionally equivalent to calling for the death of homosexuals.

Exactly.

I will agree it is a subtle distinction and I'm not sure it's an important one when you're evaluating how tolerant something is or isn't (so I don't really know where lilithu was going with that), but it is still a distinction. Wars have been fought over less, I suppose.

I wasn't really planning on going anywhere with it. I was responding to what I consider to be a gross misrepresentation of what the bible actually says. And distorting the scriptures of another religion displays an intolerance for that religion, imo. It is no more ok to be intolerant of Christians than it is to be intolerant of BGLT, imo.

But if you ask me why it's important to make the distinction, rather than me just being particular about the correct use of words, I'd say because being able to distinguish the difference between a person and a person's acts creates an opportunity for tolerance.

There are Christians who believe that "God Hates F*gs." Sorry, I am uncomfortable posting that but thought it important to show the difference between that attitude and Christians who believe in, "love the sinner, hate the sin." Now, from your perspective, you may think both views are intolerant because neither view allows BGLT to be who they are. I would agree with that. But I would also argue that while both views are intolerant, the former is much more intolerant than the latter. There is a functional difference between "kill all BGLT people on sight" and "welcome BGLT people as long as they don't express their sexuality." Again, I am NOT saying that the latter is ok. I am just saying that the latter is far preferable to the former. And the latter, because BGLT people are still seen as people, leaves open the possibility of community, which then creates the possibility of greater understanding and empathy. The way that Mestemia is interpreting the bible, he's basically saying that all Christians must believe the former, which negates any possibility of community or movement towards understanding. There is a difference.