Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Google Podcasts | RSS
What is true tolerance?
True tolerance is where we extend to each other the right to be wrong.
False tolerance, on the other hand, naïvely asserts that all ideas are created equal and this must be rejected. Not only is this obviously false, it’s unlivable.
Unfortunately, as Stephen Prothero has put it, “The ideal of religious tolerance has morphed into the straitjacket of religious agreement.”
Contrary to what is commonly believed, the height of intolerance is not disagreement, but rather removing the public space and opportunity for people to disagree. You can still love someone and think they are wrong about important moral and spiritual questions.
However, true tolerance is usually not what people have in mind when they say people should be free to believe in whatever God (or no god at all) they want to.
Here is the simple, but profound point to grasp—merely believing something doesn’t make it true. Put differently, people are entitled to their own beliefs, but not their own truth.
Belief is not what ultimately matters—truth is. Our believing something is true doesn’t make it true. The Bible isn’t true simply because I have faith. Truth is what corresponds to reality—telling it like it is.
The bottom line is that we discover truth; we don’t create it. Reality is what we bump (or slam!) into when we act on false beliefs.
Spending a few minutes fondly reflecting on your junior high, high school, and college years will bring this principle vividly and painfully to life.