Qualifying Tolerance

A commenter on a previous post argued that liberals don't tolerate religious conservatives. I have a few thoughts, although I can't really speak for liberals in general.

First, it's important to draw a distinction between people and ideas. I have very little sympathy for the idea that an individual day trader is likely to beat the market on average. This doesn't mean I hate day traders, or that I don't tolerate them. It's true that I wish they would change their behavior, but that's because I believe they're deluding themselves and losing money (on average).

Now, the distinction gets blurry when the behavior is repulsive. So for instance, not only do I dislike racism, I tend to dislike racists as well (I need to write a post about racism soon). I dislike racists because they tend to hurt other people.

Now we come to religion. I actually don't mind most religious people, even religious conservatives. I disagree with Dawkins that religious people are unique in believing things without evidence. I do it all the time. My problem is with fundamentalism. I will try to write more later, but for now I'll just note that fundamentalism has real adverse consequences for lots of people. I don't dislike most fundamentalists as much as I dislike racists, but I do admit that I have difficulty "tolerating" them in the sense of respecting them or liking them. Why? Because fundamentalists have caused immense suffering in the world, and they are happy to continue doing so.

Again, I can't speak for liberalism, but there's a world of difference between tolerating gay people and tolerating suicide bombers and other fundamentalists.