The Intolerance of Tolerance

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The change to which I wish to draw attention is the change in epistemology. At the risk of oversimplification, let me distinguish premodern, modern, and postmodern epistemology. The reason why a lot of Christians, for example, were excluded from university education was exactly the same that you would exclude someone from university education in a science faculty in the West. If despite spectacular GPAs and spectacular test scores and all the rest, he said, “I do have to tell you, I don’t believe in the atomic theory of matter” he’s not going to get into a chemistry course in the Western world. It’s not going to happen. You’re going to wonder what sort of kook this is.

a b Zagorin, Perez (2003). How the Idea of Religious Toleration Came to the West. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-09270-6. OCLC 50982270. Based on this analysis, we conclude that our respondents from Australia, Denmark, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States understand tolerance similarly. Furthermore, we find support for metric invariance, meaning that the factor structure of the measure is equivalent across groups. This indicates that participants attribute the same meaning to the three latent constructs regardless of country. Thus, it is possible to study associations between three dimensions of tolerance and other individual-level variables across countries in the future. We conclude that the cross-national sample provides evidence that our measurement of tolerance works in three large countries in the English-speaking world as well as in two Northern European countries. The aim of this research is to advance a new way of operationalizing tolerance; thus, our efforts center on identifying commonalities across countries and not to explain differences between countries. 5.2 The Relationships Among Tolerance, Prejudice, and Other Attitudes Contemporary commentators have highlighted situations in which toleration conflicts with widely held moral standards, national law, the principles of national identity, or other strongly held goals. Michael Walzer notes that the British in India tolerated the Hindu practice of suttee (ritual burning of a widow) until 1829. On the other hand, the United States declined to tolerate the Mormon practice of polygamy. [16] The French head scarf controversy represents a conflict between religious practice and the French secular ideal. [17] Toleration of or intolerance toward the Romani people in European countries is a continuing issue. [18] Modern definition [ edit ] Supposing he writes in and he says, “I’d really like to do astronomy, but quite frankly, I think the earth is flat.” Again, he’s not going to be admitted, because there are certain things that are now givens in those disciplines, and people who don’t fall in with the givens are excluded. Popper, Karl. "chapter 7, note 4". The Open Society and Its Enemies. Vol.1. ISBN 978-0-691-21206-7. OCLC 1193010976.Fourthly, precisely because it did not depend on revelation, except what you can discover to be revelation, it became methodologically rigorous. It becomes the foundation for what we mean by modern science. It becomes methodologically rigorous. All of this, until very recently, still dominates all our universities. So if you write a dissertation on some topic the issue of the grade you get or whether or not you pass or fail will turn, perhaps, not even quite as much on your conclusions as on the rigor of the methodology you apply to the task. For example, in biblical studies, let’s take study of the gospel of John. Up until 25 years ago in Society of Biblical Literature or something like that, the vast majority of papers were either doing exegesis or they were doing recreation of the Johannine community or they were doing source criticism or they were comparing the theological emphases of this book with that book, or something like that.

Political scientist Andrew R. Murphy explains that "We can improve our understanding by defining 'toleration' as a set of social or political practices and 'tolerance' as a set of attitudes." [1] Random House Dictionary defines tolerance as "a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward those whose opinions, beliefs, practices, racial or ethnic origins, etc., differ from one's own". [2] An examination of the history of toleration includes its practice across various cultures. Toleration has evolved into a guiding principle, finding contemporary relevance in politics, society, religion, and ethnicity. It also applies to minority groups, including LGBT individuals. It is closely linked to concepts like human rights. There is, of course, also rising secularization. That needs to be understood. This does not necessarily mean there are fewer people who go around calling themselves Christians. It just means it doesn’t matter. Secularization, as understood by sociologists, is not the process by which we abandon religion; it’s the process by which we squeeze religion to the periphery of life.If you discover the water molecule has two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen in Lima, Peru, low and behold, the same is also true in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Truth is truth. It’s true everywhere. With that kind of perspective, you want the same thing to operate in every domain. That, of course, was at the heart of Marxist historiography in the days of the Russian Empire. In a highly diverse culture, like that which dominates much of the Western world, the plausibility structures are necessarily far more restricted for the very good reason we don’t have all that much in common. The plausibility structures that do remain tend to be held with extra tenacity, almost as if people recognize that without such structures the culture would be in danger of flying apart. To “put up with” in political terms translates into allowing the expression of objectionable ideas (Sullivan et al. 1979), or more specifically, to extend social rights related to political participation and freedom of speech to groups one dislikes or disagrees with (Mondak and Sanders 2005; Rapp 2017). The “objection criteria” is at the core of this conceptualization, as “… one cannot tolerate ideas of which one approves (Gibson 2006, p. 22).” Tolerance, in this sense, is a sequential or twofold concept (Rapp and Freitag 2015), where the crux of the matter is the initial position of like or dislike.