Belief System Tolerance: Can it exist?

[Phatose]

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

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).

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?

[Devastatin Dave]

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?

[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.

[Devastatin Dave]

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.

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?

[Phatose]

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.

[Sjakihata]

Yes, theoretically speaking of course it can exist.

[econ21]

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.

[A.Saturnus]

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.

[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).

[KukriKhan]

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.

[yesdachi]

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.