The Intolerance of Intolerance
 

So, I've been posting and reading a few threads where intolerance in politics, moral views, but mostly religion, is brought up. I'm going to go with the religious part of it for this debate, just to narrow it down a bit.

Here's an example on what is going to be up to debate.

Say there is a debate on Christianity's intolerance towards Pagans. One girl says that Christians (or even people in general) need to be more tolerant of Pagans. Now, maybe there is a Christian girl in the thread as well, that honestly believe witches will go to hell and work for Satan. She hates everyone who is Pagan. So we keep saying to her "you need to learn to accept us, we're not what you think" etc etc.

Well, my question/debate is...why should she be forced to go against what she believes in for our sakes? If the Pagan girl honestly thinks everyone is entitled to believe and think however they want, why is the Christian girl then not allowed to believe that all Witches work for Satan, or believe that the Pagan gods aren't real. If they aren't acting upon that intolerance, then why can't we just leave them alone? They can believe what they want, it's not hurting me in any way. The expect them to just accept us isn't fair. It would be nice and probably make things easier, but I don't think it's fair to expect them change their beliefs for us.'

This isn't exactly how I think, it's far more complicated than that, it's just a random idea I had.

What exactly is everyone view on this?

Hmm, I think there's a flaw in your sample argument, namely that Christianity preaches to "hate the sin, not the sinner."

Additionally, I think you may want to clearly define dogma, tolerance, and recruitment. I imagine they may come up several times in this thread.

Firstly I will start by raising an interesting book, White nation: fantasies of white supremacy in a multicultural society. In this book, Ghassan Hage raises an interesting point that it is reductionist to turn the issue into a tolerant/intolerant divide. While he is dealing more with white nationalism and racism, his points are equally telling of any discussion of Tolerance. After all as he highlights, it is not simply a case of this person being tolerant and this person being intolerant. Rather we each tolerate some things while not tolerating others.

So I would argue it is not so much that they are intolerant which is the problem. But rather what matters is the social and political consequences which come as a result of their views. Historically we have seen numerous cases where questionable ideas which have had devastating impact on their victims have gained legitimacy. It was only through the general public holding these views that they were able to gain such legitimacy. Examples of this include Race Science, Witch Hunts and even concepts such as Development and Progress.

You're right on that point Keyori, but that's not often how people take it. Many people believe that is the person doing the magic that is also evil. It might not be a correct assumption to take from the bible, but it is still their belief.

I'll define them if it comes up, though it really shouldn't matter. This is not about what we should have to tolerate or what we deal with. This is about the idea that we are being intolerant of THEIR beliefs so that they will be tolerant of ours. The actual beliefs shouldn't matter. Recruitment might cross this line as that would be an attempt to force their own beliefs onto you. I think we should all be able to think what we want of one another, so long as we realize they have the right to think what they want, whether you agree with it or not.

Although the reason why such views are not tolerating by many peoples is because of the political and social consequences they have. As I pointed out it is not simply whether someone is or isn't tolerant of something. But rather it is the consequences of said intolerance, one in particular which I raised was the act of giving legitimacy to certain actions.

Yes, and I realize that. This isn't about the consequences or the actions they take due to that though. It is merely about them being allowed to BELIEVE them. I never said anything about acting on them. The belief that Witches are evil people and the act of burning them for it are two completely different things. I said people should be allowed to be intolerant of others ideas, if that's part of their own belief. Taking any sort of action that may harm the other person is going far beyond just "intolerance". I feel that they are two completely different arguments/debates. This is about the actual intolerance of their beliefs. Too many people think that Christians should have to accept their way of thinking. Why? Just because YOU'RE accepting of it shouldn't mean they should have to be. This isn't about the actions that anyone takes, at all, this is about the beliefs themselves.

I wouldn't say I am particularly intolerant, but more of an inquirer. If someone claims something, then I would expect them to base their claim on something materialistic in this world. Whether that be scientific, historical, etc evidence of their claim. If someone claims something but doesn't really know, you better believe I won't handshake ignorance like it's my best friend. If they don't want my views then they can choose not to share. To go on the offensive with their beliefs requires them to have full supporting evidence to back their cause. If they cannot provide that, their argument is null and void.

Ideas and values have consequences, while these are not always negative, they do have consequences. As such I am not seeing how it is that you can so easily separate a belief or action from the consequences that it generates. To do so at best is nativity and at worst is blatantly providing justification for the more negative consequences.

Allowing people to believe in ideas which have negative political and social consequences is not something which I see to be of particular advantage. Examples I mentioned came from people believing in certain ideas and values.

Yet as I pointed out, the very action of believing in something can it itself be enough to provide legitimacy. As such it is important to look at what the political and social consequences are of a belief.

The belief that Witches are evil people that should be burned, is what provided the legitimacy for the action of burning them. In the book I mentioned in my first post he looks at how certain beliefs provide legitimacy for racist and discriminative actions. With Development theory and terms like progress, through people believing Development and Progress to mean certain things legitimacy was given to policies which have had absolutely devastating impacts.

As these actions themselves commonly require legitimacy and said legitimacy comes from beliefs and ideas held by people, I would very strongly challenge your assertion that we can so easily separate one from the other.

Then I take it you would agree with me then, that intolerance of ideas which have rather negative political and social consequences is not such a bad thing?

and I asserted that I am intolerant of beliefs which have negative social and/or political consequences. Especially those which provide legitimacy to quite harmful actions. If the believe is not having such negative consequences, then it is of little problem to me. I might not personally like it, but I can certainly tolerate it.

Well, the problem with ideas, Shalandriel, is that they more often than not end up spurring action. And when those ideas involve hatred of a relatively vulnerable group, those ideas are a major problem. I won't refrain from arguing with someone who, for example, thinks people of X group are a danger to society and should have restricted rights if any, on the off chance they'll never act on those ideas.

In short, intolerance itself isn't bad. It is what you are intolerant of and how those ideas may affect how you deal with other people that is the problem.

I see Shalandriel's point; lots of Pagans are experts at crying "intolerance" as soon as someone disagrees with them, and it may make them seem intolerant of Christian beliefs. However, this is simply a case of 'once bitten, twice shy' syndrome. Throughout history, people accused of practicing magick and withcraft were tortured and killed in horrific manners. While most modern Christians preach peace and brotherhood, they still worship a book that instructs 'thou shalt not suffer a witch to live'. All people of all faiths manipulate their respective doctrines and documents to their own personal gain and very few people are devoutly faithful to their religion even when it does not suit their lifestyle. The kneejerk reaction of calling someone intolerant is a fear mechanism that dates back to the witch hunts.
People will never truly be tolerant because they think their lifestyle is the only way to go. Humans seem to have a hard time understanding that what works for one person may not work for another, and they will always attempt to impose their own brand of righteousness on another group of people. Atheists who call believers 'stupid' are just as intolerant as those Westboro Baptists who say that Heath Ledger is currently burning in hell for 'glorifying the sin of homosexuality', who are just as intolerant as Pagans who cry every time a Christian or Muslim tells them they are going to hell.

The fundamental problem is that nobody has absolute, infallible proof that their path is the correct one. If everyone were secure in their own beliefs, Wiccans could go about practicing in their fertility cult, atheists would let people believe in whatever they wanted to without questioning their intelligence. Scientologists would happily go about ridding themselves of their thetans, Jehovah's witnesses would calmly await the Rapture, and everyone would leave their fellow neighbors alone because they would not feel the need to justify or prove their beliefs to themselves by getting someone else to agree with them.

You guys are taking this much further than it was meant to go. I don't care if there are consequences of acting on beliefs. I understand that, and I am against the acting on ones beliefs when it hurts others, as I SAID. This debate is NOT about those actions. This debate is about being allowed to believe in WHAT you want. This debate is NOT about deciding what is and isn't ok for people to believe in because of something that MIGHT happen because of those beliefs. I think that sex is the best way to raise energy for a rite, but I never trick my boyfriend into that, or even ask him to help me out in that aspect and that's in no way hurting anyone! Having this belief and trying to get him to participate/forcing it on him are two completely different things. I'd appreciate it if you could TRY and stick to what this debate was created for. Just because someone has a belief does not mean they would ever hurt someone in trying to enforce it. Aldrea put it quite nicely actually. I personally think, that since the Bible teaches love and acceptance, but also teaches to hate witches (in a round about way), that people might hate a witch, but recognize their right to believe what they want. I do NOT agree with the bible and I HATE much of what it teaches, that doesn't mean I think that Christians should stop reading it. That doesn't mean I don't think they have the right to believe what they want.

We'll use Menewsha as an explicit example for you guys to go off of. The most you could do on here is harass someone. You wouldn't be able to physically hurt them and most likely that user would get a warning our maybe even banned if you reported them (kind of like if you reported someone in real life to the authorities). I've seen this on here plenty. Where a Christian (or whoever) may say that witchcraft is evil, or certain people shouldn't be reading it. Then there's always the "you need to be more tolerant of our beliefs" "stop hating" etc etc. Why? It's the internet, their beliefs aren't hurting you in any way other than you can't win an argument against them because they won't change their mind. THIS is what I'm talking about. The actual intolerance against intolerance. Not the actions that may follow, not the consequences of that in any way. There are no consequences of being simply intolerant here on Menewsha, of having a different opinion from someone else. So, why do we seem to try and force tolerance onto someone? Why can't we just agree to disagree?

Because this is a debate forum. If you put your belief out in the open, you should expect for people to debate with you about that belief. Otherwise, what is the point of this forum? Everyone would just state their beliefs and run off. There would be no discussions and no debating.

And yes, we do understand that you aren't talking about actions, but you essentially asked why people try to "force" tolerance, and we have told you -- because thoughts lead to actions, and if we can debate with a person about their ideas and maybe change their minds, we can change their actions. I don't care about Christians thinking I'm going to Hell anymore than I care that their favourite colour is different from mine, but I do care about them harassing me on the street and threatening me based on this belief. I don't care about people believing one race or sex or way of life is better than another, but I do care when they push legislation or refuse to condemn heinous acts based on this belief. There is a group I have been unfortunate enough to encounter on various occasions who believe women are not living beings, let alone human, and they have every right to rape, abduct, kill, torture, do whatever they want to any woman they meet and can overpower, and try to justify this belief by saying it is simply a lifestyle choice and they'd never do any of that to someone without her consent. I would not give a thought to this group and their beliefs if I were certain they'd never act on it, but as I'm not, I feel I have a duty to try as hard as I possibly can to change their beliefs, because I cannot monitor them 24/7 to ensure they aren't acting on these beliefs.

What is the necessitation of debating? Is it a need to feel superior? I personally do it to gain knowledge and other's insights as I feel that can make me wiser. However, I can tell you that the point of a debate is to take the whole point made in each debate and address it fully rather than giving a useless one liner that serves no purpose. You absolutely cannot debate personal faith as it cannot be proven or disproven. So instead of giving us useless answers to a single line of text you decided to quote out of context of the whole idea, try giving us a whole opinion on the matter so the topic and ideas in it can continue to flourish and be discussed intelligently.

Personally, I think people should be allowed to believe what they want, as long as they're decent about it. Because quite honestly, no God who deserves to be worshiped would want his followers to be outright horrible to other people. As far as religion goes, the only way to make people "see things your way" is by showing love and happiness - not "OH RAWR UR GOIN 2 HELLZORZ." This goes for all religions, not just Christianity.

However, I think that if you don't want to have your beliefs criticized, you are not mature enough to enter a debate forum in the first place. If you join a debate, that is going to happen - that's what such a debate is; people criticizing each other's beliefs in order to find what is most agreeable and/or gain insight into the minds of others. A (hopefully) civilized argument with a point.

But, if someone believes that I'm going to Hell for my beliefs, even hates me for them, but doesn't treat me or anyone else poorly based on those beliefs, then so be it. I still don't believe it's good to expend energy on outright HATING someone simply for what they are or what they believe (you're only hurting yourself in the end), but if it's what you want, then so be it. Just don't go out and hurt anyone for it.

And just to get it out there, I don't follow any specific religion - though I do have some pretty strong religious beliefs; I do believe that every deity conceived by every religion known to man exists, and is in fact the same force, just known by a different name, with different things believed about him/her/it/them. Strange, maybe - and no, I'm not just trying to find a way to be peaceful and agree with everyone, because I have my own pretty beliefs about what "they" want for us and this world, gathered by my own studies of various religions and also things I just feel...could be right, could be wrong, but hey, it works for me.

Maybe I wasn't specific enough. I'm talking about the people who post their opinions, but don't try to force it onto others, but then they still have to deal with people trying to say that they are "intolerant" and need to change their way of thinking. Lets say a Christian posts in a Pagan thread saying "I think you're all going to Hell and you're way of thinking is wrong, but go ahead, not my problem." I see this ALL the time where someone else will then jump onto them spouting something like "I don't even BELIEVE in Hell, who are you to tell me I'm going to go there? Who are YOU to tell me your God is the only right one?" etc etc. This is the kind of situation I'm talking about. Not someone who HAS taken action, but someone who's made it pretty plain that they don't care what others think/believe even though they may not agree yet they have to deal with being told that THEY should change their way of thinking.

Shtona, really? A debate is not about who's right or wrong. Honestly, none of these are even REAL debates. We don't have an audience to try and convince, THAT is the point of a debate, not changing the other parties mind. We're also not even doing it in the right debate format, though that would be a tad complicated. Do not post if you're just going to snipe at what people are saying without even contributing to the actual conversation.

Then what you're wanting to know is not why people are intolerant of intolerance, but rather why people are intolerant of beliefs that differ from their own or offend them. If they're not taking action, then they're being tolerant, they're just also being dicks about it. That question, I don't know the answer to. However, I would ask you to realize that you are being biased in this discussion, because your premise is that Party B has no right to tell Party A their beliefs are wrong, but Party A does have a right to tell Party B their beliefs are wrong, and the only reason I can come up with for this double standard is that Party A was stating their opinion whereas Party B was stating their opinion specifically as a response to Party A. It seems to me that this distinction would make someone biased in favor of Party B if anything, but I'm not you.

That's actually a great point Philomel. What you are essentially saying is that if the aggressor kept to themselves then it would not cause the trigger effect from the defender. Thus there would be no intolerance to judge in the first place since everyone would be neutral. The only reason why we have the intolerance is because some Religions encourage intervention, which cause a chain effect of attack/defend.

I think it boils down to the issue of common decency, respect, and manners. Basically, 'If you can't say anything nice, say nothing at all".

This has become a heated topic simply because of the use of religion as the base example. If, for instance, I was to walk up to someone and say, "You listen to Celine Dion? You're a horrible, stupid person and you deserve to spend eternity being tormented," I would be simply be labeled an extremely rude and ignorant person and eventually would fall by the wayside of social progress. But as soon as I replace "Celine Dion" with Mohammed/Jesus/Buddha/Ron Hubbard, it seems I am well within my rights as a faithful Christian/Muslim/Jew/Pagan to use abusive and threatening language to a fellow human being, and then scream "intolerance" until my lungs bleed when someone respectfully asks me to shut up.

To continue, though, on the established example, many extremist Christians see secular progress as Christian intolerance...one of the more famous arguments against LGBT rights is that authorizing same-sex marriage infringes upon the rights of Christians to practice their beliefs in America. They don't realize the Constitution instructs our lawmakers not to be preferential to any religion, and ideally (but unfortunately not literally) keep religion (and thus opinion) out of impartial governing of our nation. I mean really, two guys humping in the privacy of their own bedroom never stopped a megaplex church from being built anywhere, did it?

The fact is, when you get on your soapbox and proclaim-- either in a loud voice or in Caps Lock--any sort of opinion, you are opening yourself up to disagreement, and I guarantee that someone who feels differently is going to be just as loud as you. That's the wonderful thing about the Internet--even if you don't live in "freedom of speech" America (:sarcasm:) you can express your opinions without fear of any true retaliation (offer not available to most Chinese citizens, void where prohibited). So if you don't want to be labeled as intolerant, either for lauding the superiority of your opinions over someone else's or defending your own to such a bigot, just take a seat and keep your mouth shut. It's the only solution.

But again, if you are secure enough in your beliefs, whether it be that Allah is the one true god, that Green Day is the best band in the world, or that human beings should subsist exclusively on Cheez-Whiz and Dr. Pepper, you can calmly and respectfully debate that point with someone without deteriorating into base, sophomoric name-calling.

It may be a little redundant, but i feel this point needs to be repeated:

I don't care what they believe. It's when they take action on their beliefs that I have a problem. I have a problem with seeing people at college with the hate booth. I have a problem with people asking me to come to their church, they should at least ask me if i'm christian first before asking me that. I have a problem with the gay marriage law.

I suppose some religions feel that not taking action is the same as condoning it. But they need to keep their hate to themselves.

Except you are still not addressing the point that certain actions can only gain legitimacy when people hold certain ideas and beliefs. This does not always mean the person with the belief is doing the action. But rather as they hold these views, it gives the action legitimacy, which enables others to perform the action.

With the witch hunts, would you assert each individual went out and burnt whomever they believed was a witch? In some cases this may have been so, although I would doubt it was common at all. Indeed what I would assert more commonly happened is the believed witch stood trial and if found 'guilty' would be killed in whatever manner they saw fit. While the people with the belief in witches were not specifically killing them, it is only because they held these beliefs that the act of trying them and killing them had legitimacy.

My other example I have used has been notions of development and progress. In itself you could argue this is silly concept to cause problems. Again, like the witch hunts example, while the individual people holding the views and beliefs were performing the action, it was through them holding such beliefs that provided legitimacy to certain policies. As John H Bodley points out in "victims of progress" these policies commonly had absolutely devastating impacts upon their victims. Not only did this happen during colonialism, with the great powers spreading their empires. But it has even been happening up to recent times with the fourth world. It is only because people hold certain beliefs and ideas as to what development and progress are that certain policies aimed at the fourth and third worlds can enjoy legitimacy. This report demonstrates the catastrophic impact which this imposed development has had on tribal peoples.

Then there is my third example of Race science, where it is only through the population believing in the myths of 'race' that certain devastating policies have been enabled to go through. The work of many Anthropologists such as Ashley Montagu demonstrates clearly the impact this has had. For instance it was through such a view that helpful programmes in U.S.A like the Head Start got scrapped.

You are challenging the legitimacy of being intolerant of intolerant views. I am asserting that when they are views which have negative political and social consequences I will not tolerate them. If they do not have such consequences they are of little concern to me.

In this example it does not appear to have negative political or social consequences. I would even question who you are being intolerant of in your view.

Which would make their view tolerant. Tolerance does not mean liking something, it simply means accepting it. I will stop here as our biggest issue seems to be the difference between tolerance and intolerance.

@Phil: It wasn't that party A could tell them they disagree and party B couldn't do the same. It was that Party A said "I disagree, but I think you have the right to believe what you want" and Party B went "Well, I disagree with what you say about my beliefs, and those beliefs should change because they're intolerant of mine"

The topic is about someone who tolerates the other persons beliefs, but hates them and think them to be wrong. That is tolerance, yes, you are right. So I messed up the title, I still feel I made it perfectly clear what the debate was about. I was looking at that persons beliefs as intolerant of the others, not as the actual person being intolerant. Her views are intolerant of the other persons views, not of the actual person. Then the second person ends up yelling at the first person about how their views are intolerant and etc etc. So, we originally had a girl (Christian in my example), who's idea were intolerant but she was very tolerant of the other girl. The second girl (the Pagan one) then starts yelling at the Christian girl about her views being intolerant and how she should just accept them. So now we have the Pagan girl who's ideas deal with everyone elses views being tolerant of one anothers, but she's acting out on intolerance. The Pagan girl is yelling about the Christian girl being intolerant, when, in fact, it is the Pagan girl who is doing it. So, I wonder, if we're to be tolerant of each others views, why don't we have to be tolerant of their intolerant ideas? If this is a bit confusing, I apologize >.>

I think you're up too damned early. You took what I said out of context. I did not mean that we should agree to disagree to the point where we can't share/debate our ideas. But to the point where we're going to have to realize that we ARE going to disagree and people aren't going to change their beliefs. We can agree to disagree and still talk about those differences. If we didn't agree to disagree on some level it wouldn't BE a debate as we'd all be on the same side, or people just wouldn't post.