“Tolerance implies no lack of commitment to one’s own beliefs. Rather it condemns the oppression or persecution of others.” ~ John F. Kennedy
At least at this point in time, we have the right to believe whatever we want to believe about literally anything. We can believe the moon is made of cheese, the world is flat, birds aren’t real, or anything else that suits our fancy. That’s our right and it should be protected. If you want to believe with your whole heart that grass is blue and the sky is green, go for it. More power to you. Buy a T-shirt, go to a “green sky” convention with other “blue sky deniers,” etc. Enjoy the benefits of being an autonomous human being in a free country while you can.
What we believe — right, wrong or indifferent — eventually catches up with us and we have to live with the results. We invest ourselves in our beliefs, entwining them with our identities to the point we’ll excuse and justify almost any bad behavior in the name of whatever we believe. Some of the most atrocious, barbaric actions taken by humanity throughout history stemmed from strongly held beliefs. I don’t see that changing.
It’s most obvious in religion, probably because believing in things we cannot see requires a stronger commitment than believing water is wet (I can almost guarantee there’s someone out there with a web presence trying to convince people water is not wet, but I don’t want to look). Nowadays, with access to limitless information, that “religious fervor” kind of belief has spread into nearly every corner of human activity.
That kind of fervor tilts the scale, so that if someone dares to disagree, or just believes differently, they’re branded as an enemy and subject to attack. The more insecure we are about our beliefs, the louder and angrier we become when challenged. It’s like when you’re trying to get a kid to fess up to eating all the cookies in the cookie jar. They get louder and more emotional with every denial of the truth.
Secure people don’t have to condemn, compel, control, or manipulate anyone else to come around to their way of thinking. Those are generally the people we find most appealing, the ones we go to for counsel, and the ones we respect. They’re not trying to make us believe what they believe, they’re living what they believe and it shows up in their lives.
Where it gets sticky is not just in proselytizing our neighbors to sign up for our church/club/party/fan group/MLM. It’s when we start wanting to cry “persecution” and apply legal remedies to force people to agree with us, to do what we say, to comply with our wishes. We can believe what we want, but we can’t use our beliefs as our justification for oppressing someone else or causing them harm.
And sometimes that’s really, really hard to accept, especially when we’re not very secure in our own beliefs, and when we aren’t really trusting the universe to take care of things without our “help.”
