Belief System Tolerance: Can it exist?

I have to wonder. I certainly don't see it being practiced anywhere, not by religious belief systems, not by athiestic belief systems, not by anyone, really. Guided by this observation, I have to wonder if such a thing really can exist. Can a particular system of beliefs actually tolerate the existence of another without needing to wipe it from the face of the earth?

It would seem to me that any belief system, in order to have something to offer it's adherers, has to be right. Whether that rightness comes from divinity, reason, spirituality, or even LSD induced visions is largely irrelevant. The system has to claim to have some kind of knowledge. If it makes no claims of knowing something, there's really nothing to believe there. It's a non-system.

And each belief system, in order for it's knowledge to be correct, has to have a universal way to achieve that correctness - there is a right way to get knowledge, this is it, and this is what comes from that. It seems that it really does have to be an intrisically valid method to aquire information too - if it's just an abritrary method with nothing firmer to support it then whimsy, any knowledge it imparts is itself nothing more then whimsy, and this really devalues the belief system. Why believe something if you know it's only true cause you abrtriraly decided it to be so?

From here, I can't see how tolerance between belief systems could exist. Each system needs to be right to be anything, and each system pretty much needs to have a singular universal method of being right so as not to be a house of cards. The system NEEDS to be right to exists, and other systems, which also claim to be right are a major problem. If you're lucky, they won't make any claims in similar areas, and you can hit an uneasy truce, but in most situations there is going to be overlap where there are contradictions. Then they can't both be right, and since being wrong is death to a belief system, I don't see how any two systems could co-exist unless they're so widely disparate that they never make any overlapping claims. And since most belief systems are set up to deal with the things we can't directly experience - death, the infinite, the origin of the universe are very common themes.

As such, I don't think true tolerance can exist. At best, we'll be able to pull one belief system being dominant and telling the others "You're wrong, but we don't mind you being wrong, just don't expect to make any decisions."

Am I off track here? Is it possible for a belief system to be absolutely wrong but remain intact? What do you guys think?

P.S. Can we keep 'real world' examples out of this as much as possible? I don't really care if you think specific system X can't tolerate specific system Y, and that would just make things turn ugly. Lets keep it to the purely theoretical questions, please?

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Originally Posted by Phatose

Then they can't both be right, and since being wrong is death to a belief system, I don't see how any two systems could co-exist unless they're so widely disparate that they never make any overlapping claims.

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Contradictory belief systems can not exist alongside one another in one person's mind, but they can exist alongside one another in society. If believers are sure of their particular claims to knowledge, they can tolerate the claims of others. Only in cases where they have something to hide do belief systems become intolerant.

no, a belief system tolerance cannot exist

that is because those with no spiritual awareness (ie: secularists) will always (wrongfully) think that anything moral and righteous is incorrect. since their lack of spiritual awareness leaves them unable to comprehend the greater perception of reality that those with spiritual awareness have; they will always try to ostracize what they cannot understand

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Originally Posted by Navaros

no, a belief system tolerance cannot exist

that is because those with no spiritual awareness (ie: secularists) will always (wrongfully) think that anything moral and righteous is incorrect. since their lack of spiritual awareness leaves them unable to comprehend the greater perception of reality that those with spiritual awareness have; they will always try to ostracize what they cannot understand

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The premiss of original poster was that we would not go into particulars, yet here you are venting your intolerance of secularists already. Amazing.

Navaros, Gelatinous Cube, please, please, keep it theoretical. I don't want arguements about who's right, or which is the true path, or any of that stuff that always degenerates into nuclear flame wars. For the purposes of this thread, I don't care who's right if anybody.

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Contradictory belief systems can not exist alongside one another in one person's mind, but they can exist alongside one another in society. If believers are sure of their particular claims to knowledge, they can tolerate the claims of others. Only in cases where they have something to hide do belief systems become intolerant.

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Can a belief system really exist where the beliefs exist in a vacuum and don't have direct consequence to the real world? It's all well and good to tolerate someone else claiming to be right, but when it gets down to the nitty gritty, things have to get done - and if it's gonna be their way or our way, doesn't that tolerance have to go away or the believer become self contradictory or simply indifferent?

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Originally Posted by AdrianII

The premiss of original poster was that we would not go into particulars, yet here you are venting your intolerance of secularists already. Amazing.

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in that case the "premiss" is flawed.

one cannot ask a question whilst including the precursor that ideas necessary to adequately answer that question may not be mentioned

The question isn't who's right Navaros. It's a purely theoretical question about whether or not any random belief system can actually co-exist with another.

Re Nav. Just let it go. Its not worth it.

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Contradictory belief systems can not exist alongside one another in one person's mind, but they can exist alongside one another in society.

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I'd challenge even the first part of that. In my experience doublethink is a common phenomenon.

IMHO the problem with the first post is it treats belief systems as if they were like maths, an internally consistent way to develop/uncover knowledge. Whereas most of what actually goes on in the wet and messy place between our ears has little resemblance to the neatly ordered arguments of a "system".

And after all, even maths has had to abandon any claim to be complete. And if the most rigourous belief system known to us has to admit there are true statements beyond its power to prove, (and IIRC this is a generalisable result for ANY system, can anyone confirm that for us) then belief system tolerance certainly should be possible.

QED and thank you Godel.

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Originally Posted by Gelatinous Cube

Like Navaros said, tolerance won't ever happen.

As the Religious Hypocrisy thread showed, there is just a huge difference between following religion and not following it.

Those of us who do not follow any religion (although I personally am superstitious out of habit, and don't discount the possibility of a god by any means) chide religious institutions for promoting ignorance and backwardsness, while the Religious crowd chides people like me for their lack of morality and percieved arrogance.

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I agree. as human beings, no one can agree with another on everything. Hence why there are many branches with in each major "religion" and why there are many branches within the secular community as well. This is a major flaw within man, but through the disagreements with each others beliefs, comes better understanding and advancements. In fact, through all the piss and viniger we wade through in these forums comes a greater since of understanding of mankind than any of us realise.

Regardless, I don't believe that there is such a thing as perfect tolerance and it will never be achieved until the end.

Belief systems can exist side by side to answer your question, however if there is polar opposites in philisophy in the systems - it will lead to conflict. So for belief systems to co-exist together the basic premise of the systems must not be polar opposites.

Its not until zealous behaviors are shown by followers of a belief system do you have problems.

Interesting question.

A couple of points, for clarification:

A belief system, I guess you mean as what's commonly referred to as a religion (whether theistic, atheistic, animist, or otherwise); and I also guess that for purposes of discussing your question, we should assume that adherants to those systems march in lock-step on the weighty matters you mention (life, death, etc) - when we all know that there is actually a wide variation inside those systems.

With those 2 assumptions, and the way you framed the question, "No" seems the only answer, for the reasons you gave, namely: the system's assertion of an absolute correctness of outlook admits no validity (or only limited validity) to any other system's outlook.

But, if we toss out the 'lock-step' assumption, and say that each individual human can and does buy only (ever) some x percentage of a system's doctrine, then there might be room for tolerance - at least on the individual level.

Ya think?

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Originally Posted by Phatose

Can a belief system really exist where the beliefs exist in a vacuum and don't have direct consequence to the real world?

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I suppose it can as long as the belief system does not require non-believers to comply with either the views or the rules of behaviour (or both) of believers. In practice, many belief systems share a lot of basic rules of behaviour and can therefore exist alongside each other (and enrich one another).

But if you define belief systems as systems that exclude all alternative views and rules of behaviour, you are begging your question. In that case, tolerance is impossible.,

A religion, if fully adhered to, would be a belief system. But I'm using the term not just to avoid calling out the religious folks, but because I think even a personal code of ethics is a belief system which makes claims about being right.

Anyway, if you accept 25% of a belief system, doesn't that just shrink the belief system down? If you discard 75% of any system, don't you still have 25% where it's basically right? Just a smaller, more personal belief system? You'll have less overlap, I suppose, which is nice, but I suspect just tossing out 75% leaves you in a position where you now have to defend why you tossed out that part and not the rest, and then you're just making another, different claim about what a valid way to obtain knowledge is.

Worse, what do you do with the areas covered by the 75% part you tossed out? You don't have any guidelines to follow now, so you either need new ones, or you can't do anything

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I suppose it can as long as the belief system does not require non-believers to comply with either the views or the rules of behaviour (or both) of believers. In practice, many belief systems share a lot of basic rules of behaviour and can therefore exist alongside each other (and enrich one another).

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That's true I suppose. Seems it would be real hard, if not impossible to build a society that way though.

So, maybe tolerance is possible, but only if you're willing to divorce much of the usefulness from the belief system?

Would it be easier to say, since EVERYONE believes in something different, that people, individually, can't be tolerant of each other depending on your definition of of tolerance. Are you speaking of being able to live in the same community with tolerance or in the whole world spectrum? Or are you speaking of their thought process?

I'd imagine that it's indeed everyone who doesn't agree on everything is incapable of being tolerant of each other, but are largely powerless to enforce that intolerance.

I suppose any of em would make for an interesting conversation though, so they all work for me.

My apoligies if this isn't the clearest of threads. I'm kinda tired and thoughts just don't seem to be crystalizing. Think I'll head to bed, maybe it will be clearer to me later.

And I guess you'll haveto define 'tolerance' too.

If tolerance = allowing other systems to exist without killing them, then maybe we can agree tolerance is possible...even preferable.

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Originally Posted by Phatose

I'd imagine that it's indeed everyone who doesn't agree on everything is incapable of being tolerant of each other, but are largely powerless to enforce that intolerance.

I suppose any of em would make for an interesting conversation though, so they all work for me.

My apoligies if this isn't the clearest of threads. I'm kinda tired and thoughts just don't seem to be crystalizing. Think I'll head to bed, maybe it will be clearer to me later.

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Actually, this is a good thread.

If the belief system on a group of people commands them to kill all those that don't believe in what they believe in, whether this belief system be that of a religious nature or that of a secular persuation, then no. But these belief systems in turn needs to be confronted which starts the arguement that the less violent belief systems are now being intolerant to the beliefs systems that strive for complete conformity. So, in all aspects, I still say that it is impossible for humanbeings to be "tolerant" to each other. Does anyone follow my train of thought or am I way off base?

Ah, well, in the space of 5 minutes, I've reversed my position.

My original logic went something like this. Imagine Bob, lives in the united states or europe or just about anywhere these days. Bob's belief system, just for the sake of the arguement, holds dear that anyone who has a yellowing lawn should be shot. (ridiculous, I know, but it's just for the sake of the example.)

Bob's neighbor has a yellow lawn. Now, bob would like to shoot him, but the general belief system of just about everyone else is that it is not acceptable to shoot someone over yellow lawns, and anyone who does so is gonna be in trouble. So Bob doesn't shoot his neighbor.

Now, my original thought here was that Bob hasn't really become tolerant, he's simply been impotent. He wanted to shoot his neighbor, but couldn't.

But I realized there was a problem. Bob isn't actually unable to shoot his neighbor, he's just unwilling because of another part of his belief system that says not getting tossed in jail or executed is more important then dealing justice to those with yellow lawns. Bob isn't actually impotent, he's just chosen his priorities. And in this case, it is in fact tolerance - I don't like X, but it's not worth consequence Y so I'll let it slide.

So, I guess tolerance can exist, it's just a matter or priorities. Tolerance can exist, as long as there aren't clashes between issues that are absolutely top priority or unbendable. But, I suppose unbendable issues are actually pretty rare when you get right down to it.

Yes, theoretically speaking of course it can exist.

Sure it can. As easily as people of different “Belief Systems” tolerate one another. In my community there are so many churches that some (of differing belief systems) are right next each other and get along very well and in some cases let other belief systems use their facilities on off days.

I think it boils down to the people. If people are tolerant, they can exist together.

Note: Any off the wall belief systems that call for the killing of another belief system obviously could not exist together and probably wouldn’t want to.

I'd divide beliefs into those concerning knowledge of what is and those concerning judgements about what should be. The two may often be fused and intermingled, but that's where I would agree with Hume's maxim "you can't get an ought from an is"

In terms of what "is", some belief systems may be intolerant if their source of knowledge is some sacred text or other form of divine revelation. Their divinity, if by definition infallible, has said what is and voices that contradict it are wrong. Some religions, of course, are much more tolerant than others - e.g. because their divine revelation is more vague and mystical, rather than comprehensive and effectively closed.

By contrast, belief systems that are based on empirical observation and logical deduction - on science - are probably going to be tolerant of a lot of whacky ideas. Yes, it may be that there are spirits out there; some outlandish complementary medicine may work; Gawain may be right and this universe is just a molecule in a larger universe; etc. We can rule out some possibilities - e.g. that the world is round; that witchcraft spread the Black Death etc - but many others are harder to disprove. These ideas might be derided as extremely unlikely and dismissed for practical purposes, but they can be tolerated as possible. Often the sign that a supposedly "scientific" belief system - e.g. Marxism - has effectively become a "religious" one, is where its advocates will not tolerate the possibility that it is wrong - that capitalism will not collapse and inevitably be replaced by communism etc.

In terms of what "ought to be", I suspect the key thing here is how much freedom a system of moral beliefs allows. If the system is very prescriptive - you must not eat X, you must do Y at time Z, people who W should be Vd etc - then it will conflict with other systems is possible. Other systems of morals may be much more minimalist - just avoid doing some very bad stuff, maybe try your best at furthering some worthy generalisation and then more or less anything goes. What some on this board might describe as secular liberalism might be an example of the latter kind of tolerant moral belief system. Nonetheless, even then there are some interesting and topical tensions along the edges - should we tolerate dictatorships or human rights abuses in other countries? should people be free to engage in blood sports? should women be allowed to abort their own foetuses? etc.

It depends whether the believes involved are ethical or ontological. For ethical believes, a compromise may be difficult. It can only be achieved if the differences are not too big.

Tolerance of strained or hostile positions can and does exist. It occurs on a societal level mediated by law. Two simple examples: the porn industry and Christian mores, the K.K.K. and the N.A.A.C.P.


(Contrary to the designs of the original post I don't believe examples are outside the bounds of theoretical discussion. On the contrary, examples give clarity and focus to theorectcal fare. This is why I gave the illustrations).

You could have a totally tolerant belief system... it may not last long however as it gets trampled by the less tolerant ones.

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Originally Posted by AdrianII

Contradictory belief systems can not exist alongside one another in one person's mind, but they can exist alongside one another in society. If believers are sure of their particular claims to knowledge, they can tolerate the claims of others. Only in cases where they have something to hide do belief systems become intolerant.

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I don't think so Adrian. Here the civil law clearly states and everybody accepts it; the prohibition of customs and others laws that go against the state religion, for example multiple wives of a muslim. As long as there exists and party state that requieres of religion to become and remain strong they'll show their religiuos face and limit all the others that "seem wrong".

The best ideas will win out eventually, because it's all a function of people's brains (it's all an illusion). People die and their ideas die as well, unless there is a good system to perpetuate those ideas.

And Good information always beat Bad information, especially in the internet age.

Bad information can be promulgated in absence of Good information.
Good information can be promulgated in absence of Bad information.

But together, the Good information is favored.

Humans can be tolerant. A belief system can not.......

Whenever someone BELIEVES something, they tend to be intollerant of anyone who DISBELIEVES that same something.

If one believes in tolerance, they tend to be intollerant towards anyone who is intollerant (which means that they are actually intollerant of the majority of opinions in the world - which hold on to deeply rooted beliefs)

I am sure that others have written this - i simply read the thread opener and reply to that in many cases

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Originally Posted by Soulforged

I don't think so Adrian. Here the civil law clearly states and everybody accepts it; the prohibition of customs and other laws that go against the state religion, for example multiple wives of a muslim.

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Customs and laws, aye - but I was speaking of beliefs, thoughts, the privileged knowledge that believers claim for themselves. Not of rules of behaviour, laws, customs and so forth.

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Originally Posted by Pindar

Tolerance of strained or hostile positions can and does exist. It occurs on a societal level mediated by law. Two simple examples: the porn industry and Christian mores, the K.K.K. and the N.A.A.C.P.


(Contrary to the designs of the original post I don't believe examples are outside the bounds of theoretical discussion. On the contrary, examples give clarity and focus to theorectcal fare. This is why I gave the illustrations).

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Yes. It is necessary to make a difference between tolerance and respect.

It is possible to tolerate other’s attitude, way of life, beliefs without respecting them and even while hating and despising them.

Tolerance is the base of individual freedom, the right to do what one wants to do as long as it does not arm others and to accept others individuals choices whatever one might think of them.

That's what the law is made for.

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Originally Posted by Petrus

Yes. It is necessary to make a difference between tolerance and respect.

It is possible to tolerate other’s attitude, way of life, beliefs without respecting them and even while hating and despising them.

Tolerance is the base of individual freedom, the right to do what one wants to do as long as it does not arm others and to accept others individuals choices whatever one might think of them.

That's what the law is made for.

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I agree. Tolerance and respect are conceptually distinct. Tolerate suggests a base disagreement that is contained due to some other factor. Respect suggests admiration.