According to Chesterton, tolerance is the virtue of
people who do not believe in
anything. Chesterton meant that as a critique of
tolerance. But it captures nicely the
upside of unbelief: where religion is trivialized, one
is unlikely to find persecution.
When it is believed that on your religion hangs the fate
of your immortal soul, the
Inquisition follows easily; when it is believed that
religion is a breezy consumer
preference, religious tolerance flourishes easily. After
all, we don't persecute people for
their taste in cars. Why for their taste in gods?
Oddly, though, in our thoroughly secularized culture,
there is one form of religious
intolerance that does survive. And that is the disdain
bordering on contempt of the
culture makers for the deeply religious, i.e., those for
whom religion is not a preference
but a conviction.
Yale law professor Stephen Carter calls this "the
culture of disbelief," the oppressive
assumption that no one of any learning or sophistication
could possibly be a religious
believer--and the social penalties meted out to those
who nonetheless are.
The article in it's entirety can be found at:
<http://www.pathfinder.com/time/magazine/1998/dom/980615/will_it_be_coffee.html>
Any comments?
I personally found the article both refreshing, and depressing at the
same time. The authors opinion that it is a virtue to have "faith" was
depressing, but the fact that he felt he was in the minority was
refreshing. Although, I can't say I agree with him on either account.
-Paul Prestopnik