Thursday, August 13, 2009

My problem with "tolerance."

People these days often define tolerance as not only respecting other people's opinions and lifestyles, but also accepting them as morally ok. No lifestyle or opinion is better or worse than any other. None are more true or less true than another. It's all subjective. I have two main issues with this kind of "tolerance."

1) People who stress this kind of tolerance are themselves intolerant towards intolerance. It's a completely inconsistent lifestyle. It's also amazing how people who preach tolerance are quite intolerant towards Christianity in particular.

2) The logic of this belief says that morality is relative, so we ought to be tolerant of others. But how can we possibly have an objective moral duty to be tolerant of others when all moral duties are simply relative to the individual? What if I think it's morally okay to be intolerant of homosexuals? What right do you have to pass judgment on me? If I had a belief that they disagree with, they become moral absolutists pretty quickly.

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