Comment by Kris Feenstra on May 22, 2011 at 5:49am

'Tolerance' has become a disgusting word in this era (in my opinion, at least).  It's a euphemism for all the things we don't like, but also don't really want to deal with.  Culturally, we act as if it's a matter of respect and keeping the peace, but in all honesty, I think we're just sheltering others and ourselves from reality.  

 

Hate, tension and disagreement exist.  These things will always exist.  Instead of learning how to deal with them in a healthy way, we're just placating our discomfort and becoming complacent.  How can a society advance if it stifles all criticism?

Comment by Akshay Bist on May 22, 2011 at 6:02am

The problem is that most rational people are afraid of the reaction that such statements cause. Religious people hold their beliefs dear. While they criticize anything & everything they don't agree with, any criticism of religion is crossing the line. Its stupid but its the world we live in. Too many crazies in it.

Comment by Mo Trauen on May 22, 2011 at 9:37am

Religion depends on, insists on, and enjoys a double standard.  The religious can condemn everyone else is the strongest terms imaginable (immoral, evil, etc.), but religion survives only by enforcing a "rule" that it is not subject to ANY criticism.  In short, the religious maintain their right to be intolerant of us by being intolerant of freedom of speech as well.

Comment by Derek on May 22, 2011 at 12:09pm

Anger is a perfectly normal emotion. It's totally justified when dealing with, say, religious bigotry.

 

I think you might like this

Comment by atheistrising on May 22, 2011 at 12:37pm

As a society we have accepted lies it does not take much thought to spot out lies. People are worried to point them out because normally the rational thinkers are a minority in almost all the countries. The thing is criticism is perfectly valid in scientific journals if i were to claim tommorrow I can make oil out of water and my claim cannot be reproduced in a lab my paper will be criticized and trashed, but in religion people get away by claims of lies like earth was created in 7 days, or that earth is 6000 years old, its a lie people you lack science and math education to understand that earth is 4.5 billion years old. I am against hate but a lie has to be called a lie.

Comment by Ron V on May 22, 2011 at 8:54pm

It may not be "religion" that we should hate (although the major monotheistic religions that exist are based on patriarchal myths and perpetuate intolerance and other memes  that are ultimately bad for this planet).  If there were a religion that truly promoted peace and recognized all humans as equals (and taught that nobody was worthy of death in this life or eternity simply for not believing in their religion), it might not be so bad.  But I believe that may be unrealistic and optimistic.

We do, however, need to address false beliefs and point out problems with the "memes" that have evolved and are perpetuated by religion.  I think Carl Sagan did a good job of rationally addressing beliefs without evidence, and I think we need to do the same (and thank goodness for the likes of Sagan, Stenger, Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, Dennett, Barker, etc.).  The major religions of today are the greatest havens for the memes based on superstition, magic, and belief without evidence.  The only way they will go away is if atheistic or free thought memes evolve and supplant them.  I believe we are in the early stages of such memetic evolution.

As I've posted before, there is irrefutable evidence for the progression from animism to polytheism to monolatry to monotheism.  It is only a matter of time before monotheism becomes a thing of the past- I hope we can come up with something better than what has preceded us.

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