Can one be against homophobia, sexism and religious intolerance?

[Vague_Boy]

I confront people on being wrong on all accounts.

 

The problem is that people who are "wrong" often think that they are in the right and that it is you are wrong.

 

Someone who thinks that homosexuality is a crime probably doesn't see homophobia as intolerance. After all, nobody worries about people being intolerant towards pedophiles or murderers do they?

 

And homosexuality was considered a crime in the UK in my lifetime. Personally I don't think that it should ever have been a crime but 50 years ago, plenty of people would have thought it quite logical for it to be one.

 

What is considered "right" or moral in one era or society isn't always the same throughout the world or throughout history.

 

Homosexuality was considered quite normal in Ancient Greece, in particular the love of a man for a young boy was considered the purest form of love that there could be.

 

Yet in Mauritania, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iran, Somalia, United Arab Emirates and Somalia, homosexuality is a capital offence.

 

In the modern day UK, sex with young boys and the death penalty for homosexuality are both beyond the pale.

 

We enlightened modern Britons obviously think that we are right.

 

BUT THEN SO DOES EVERYBODY ELSE!

 

So do we assist these deluded cultures by imposing our own personal standards of morality on them?

 

Well, you could try. That's how wars often get started.

 

 

So to create a tolerant society you have to ban everything and everyone that you find intolerable.

 

And the question would then arise, who gets to decide the criteria for what is and is not intolerance?

[unbeliever]

The problem is that people who are "wrong" often think that they are in the right and that it is you are wrong.

 

Someone who thinks that homosexuality is a crime probably doesn't see homophobia as intolerance. After all, nobody worries about people being intolerant towards pedophiles or murderers do they?

 

And homosexuality was considered a crime in the UK in my lifetime. Personally I don't think that it should ever have been a crime but 50 years ago, plenty of people would have thought it quite logical for it to be one.

 

What is considered "right" or moral in one era or society isn't always the same throughout the world or throughout history.

 

Homosexuality was considered quite normal in Ancient Greece, in particular the love of a man for a young boy was considered the purest form of love that there could be.

 

Yet in Mauritania, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iran, Somalia, United Arab Emirates and Somalia, homosexuality is a capital offence.

 

In the modern day UK, sex with young boys and the death penalty for homosexuality are both beyond the pale.

 

We enlightened modern Britons obviously think that we are right.

 

BUT THEN SO DOES EVERYBODY ELSE!

 

So do we assist these deluded cultures by imposing our own personal standards of morality on them?

 

Well, you could try. That's how wars often get started.

 

 

 

 

And the question would then arise, who gets to decide the criteria for what is and is not intolerance?

 

I tend to apply a standard of harmfulness to whether or not something is permissible. 2 men having a sexual relationship is harmless. A man having a sexual relationship with a boy is extremely harmful.

This secular moral standard serves us very well.

I can't think of anything in modern western society which is categorised as acceptable or unacceptable, which is not based on this criterion.

 

False moral standards usually arise from god(s) dating back millennia over-riding the harmfulness standard and insisting that something which should not be permitted is, or vice-versa. Keep gods out of morality and you tend to get it right.

Edited July 6, 2015 by unbeliever

[Cyclone]

Recent discussions on this forum have reminded me of the dichotomy of tolerance.

 

I'm heterosexual but I feel compelled to support the rights of homosexuals to be treated as true equals in our society.

I'm a man, but I feel very strongly that it is essential that women are treated as full equals.

I'm an atheist, but I feel compelled to support the rights of people of faith to follow said faith. I tend to extend this to non-religious belief systems as well.

 

When a person of faith tells me that their god(s) demand either that homosexuals are evil and should not be tolerated, or that women are not our equals and we are entitled and required to apply different rules to them than we do to ourselves I feel stuck.

When cornered I find myself compromising religious tolerance in favour of the other 2, but that compromise always makes me feel like I have failed. Looking back, I have sometimes avoided such debates so as to avoid that awkward choice.

 

Perhaps the time has come to set minimum criteria for tolerance in order to be tolerated.

After all, if I show too much tolerance to the intolerant am I not automatically being intolerant myself by endorsing said intolerance by my silence.

 

Things get even more confusing when dealing with religious people who are themselves, on the basis of their religion, guilty of religious intolerance.

However, since anybody reading this has probably now developed a decent headache, I'll leave it there.

 

I don't think that religious tolerance (ie accepting that people will believe all sorts of nonsense) means that you have to accept them expressing intolerance.

They can believe it to their hearts content, but the moment they express or act on it, I don't have to tolerate that.

IMO.

 

---------- Post added 06-07-2015 at 11:57 ----------

 

Intolerance of intolerance is intolerance.

 

I disagree, challenging intolerance is not intolerance.

 

There's a bit of discussion of the philosophy of it here.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

[unbeliever]

I don't think that religious tolerance (ie accepting that people will believe all sorts of nonsense) means that you have to accept them expressing intolerance.

They can believe it to their hearts content, but the moment they express or act on it, I don't have to tolerate that.

IMO.

 

Surely religious tolerance is more than allowing people to believe things. They must be allowed to express themselves, to recruit and so on. They also expect the right to raise their children in their belief systems, which I don't think we want to deny them.

If their ideas are intolerant, we can either be intolerant by forbidding them from sharing and spreading them; or we can be intolerant by allowing those ideas to be spread with limited challenge.

[Cyclone]

This is a classic dilemma with a simple solution. You want to be tolerant, but how can you possibly tolerate other people who are so intolerant themselves?

 

Tolerance, you see, can be good or bad. A tolerant society needs to prohibit certain practises, and even suppress or expel intolerant people. How else can it be a tolerant society? One does not have to tolerate anything and everything; in fact, one should most certainly not!

 

So there’s no need to beat yourself up about it. Tolerating everything and everyone is a false goal.

 

Well put.

 

It's like having a free society (ie free to act as you wish).

To make that possible we have to actually set limits on the freedom, so that my freedom can't interfere with somebody else's freedom.

 

---------- Post added 06-07-2015 at 12:15 ----------

 

So to create a tolerant society you have to ban everything and everyone that you find intolerable. That would be a closed society full of intolerant people. Or would there be no one left because each person that suppresses or expels an intolerant person would also need to be expelled because of their intolerance. The only people that are intolerant of intolerant people are intolerant people.

 

 

The tolerance paradox arises when a tolerant person holds antagonistic views towards intolerance, and hence is intolerant of it. The tolerant individual would then be by definition intolerant of intolerance.

 

By nature a tolerant person finds intolerance abhorrent. They can't allow someone else to be the victim of intolerance whilst claiming to be tolerant. Hence why it's a paradox.

Tolerance is not an absolute state though. Just because you won't tolerate intolerance, doesn't make you uniformly intolerant.

 

---------- Post added 06-07-2015 at 12:18 ----------

 

The problem is that people who are "wrong" often think that they are in the right and that it is you are wrong.

 

Someone who thinks that homosexuality is a crime probably doesn't see homophobia as intolerance. After all, nobody worries about people being intolerant towards pedophiles or murderers do they?

Easily solved by examining the morality though. Homosexuality doesn't hurt anyone, it's consensual. Murder is not. Murder by definition is killing someone who doesn't want to die, it's inflicted on them. Hence why we conclude that it is wrong, and hence why we won't tolerate it.

 

---------- Post added 06-07-2015 at 12:19 ----------

 

I tend to apply a standard of harmfulness to whether or not something is permissible. 2 men having a sexual relationship is harmless. A man having a sexual relationship with a boy is extremely harmful.

This secular moral standard serves us very well.

I can't think of anything in modern western society which is categorised as acceptable or unacceptable, which is not based on this criterion.

 

False moral standards usually arise from god(s) dating back millennia over-riding the harmfulness standard and insisting that something which should not be permitted is, or vice-versa. Keep gods out of morality and you tend to get it right.

 

Seems quite accurate.

[adrea]

So to create a tolerant society you have to ban everything and everyone that you find intolerable. That would be a closed society full of intolerant people. Or would there be no one left because each person that suppresses or expels an intolerant person would also need to be expelled because of their intolerance. The only people that are intolerant of intolerant people are intolerant people.

 

 

The tolerance paradox arises when a tolerant person holds antagonistic views towards intolerance, and hence is intolerant of it. The tolerant individual would then be by definition intolerant of intolerance.

 

This sounds right to me, most people are both tolerant and intolerant, it would be a very unusual person that can tolerate everything or is intolerant of everything they don't like. Everyone is different with very different experiences and this will reflect in what they can or can't tolerate.

 

---------- Post added 06-07-2015 at 14:54 ----------

 

 

By nature a tolerant person finds intolerance abhorrent. They can't allow someone else to be the victim of intolerance whilst claiming to be tolerant. Hence why it's a paradox.

Tolerance is not an absolute state though. Just because you won't tolerate intolerance, doesn't make you uniformly intolerant.

 

I disagree, a tolerant person would tolerate intolerance, only the intolerant would be intolerant of intolerance.

 

You could say that the EDL are intolerant of Islam, but they will say that their intolerance is based on Islam being an intolerant religion, and they are just challenging that intolerance. You might then be intolerant of the EDL because you are intolerant of their intolerance towards Islam, but then someone else might be intolerant of your intolerance of the EDL. Its a vicious circle of intolerance.

[Cyclone]

You've contradicted yourself by defining someone as either tolerant or intolerant a paragraph after saying that it would be very unusual for someone to either be totally tolerant or totally intolerant.

[Blaster Bate]

I'm not endorsing any discrimination, people are people. Some need more educating than others and I do not back off from a discussion (as you know ).

If islam is not sexist can you show me a passage from the Koran telling a wife how, when and why to beat her husband?

[Cyclone]

Nobody claimed that there were not sexist instructions in the Quaran, much like there are in the Bible.

[Blaster Bate]

Nobody claimed that there were not sexist instructions in the Quaran, much like there are in the Bible.

Well give an example then where the bible instructs a husband on wife beating.

Even Mohamed hit his child bride.