If you are an adherent of a given religion, why ought you tolerate other religions? We must tolerate other religions because we do not know which religion is true, if any is, and this would be something very important to know if it could be known. So we must inquire, and our inquiry will be aided by the availability of a a number of competing religions and nonreligious belief systems.
But toleration has limits. No religion or nonreligious ideology may be tolerated if it doesn't respect the principle of toleration. And so we ought not tolerate a religion whose aim is to suppress and supplant other religions and force their adherents to either convert or accept dhimmi status. Proselytization is tolerable but only if it is non-coercive. The minute it becomes the least bit coercive we have every right to push back vigorously. But equally, we ought not tolerate the ideology of the New Atheists if and to the extent that they aim to suppress religion. But is there any such tendency among the New Atheists? Here is Stephen Prothero (God Is Not One, Harper 2010, p. 321) on Sam Harris, one of the 'Four Horsemen' of the New Atheism:
Harris then attacked the ideal of religious tolerance as "one of the principal forces driving us toward the abyss." "Some propositions are so dangerous," he wrote in a chilling passage, "that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them." For Harris, religious tolerance is almost as dangerous as religion itself. Belief in God is not an opinion that must be respected; it is an evil that must be confronted.
Like me, Harris believes that toleration has limits. Of course it does. But Harris and Co. draw the line in the wrong place, and they do so because they are not merely opposed to fanatical religion, jihadist religion, religion that violates freedom of inquiry and autonomy of thought, but to religion as such. For them, religion itself is the problem. But this is a shockingly puerile view that ignores the vast differences among religions, differences that Prothero's book does a good job of setting before us in all their richness.
On an approach more nuanced than that of the New Atheist ideologues, one grasps that some religions are tolerable, some are intolerable, some antireligious ideologies are tolerable, and some are not. If the fulminations of Harris and friends spill over into actions that involve the suppression of religion, then he and his ilk are intolerable and ought to be opposed with vigor.
My view is not merely that most religions and anti-religious ideologies ought to be tolerated, but that the existence of these competing worldviews is a good and enriching thing in that it helps us clarify and refine and test our own views and practices and helps us progress toward truer and more life-enhancing systems of thought and practice.
Recent Comments