I am very much okay with people believing whatever they wish, so long as those beliefs do not affect others. When a government employee decides not to issue marriage licenses or a courthouse has Christian monuments while disallowing monuments placed by other belief systems, that interferes with a secular government. When children are married off or someone is killed for not adhering to religious preferences, you are imposing your religion's beliefs on another. If you refuse to get your child medical care because you choose prayer, you are putting them at risk before they can properly decide.
I do not proselytize, as I see no need to convert people away from religion, so long as it does no harm. I do push for a secular government and laws that protect people from the potential harms of religion. That is, I believe, tolerant of religion while aware of its risks.

Exactly.
People have the right to believe or not.

My thoughts exactly! well said.

Yest Educations is the way to tolerance and people learning critical thinking skills for themselves! Great concept

I think education, interfaith and interracial experiences help. Classes in college with Social Theory, Marriage and the Family and Demographics helped me expand my horizons-Sociology Major. Not so Christian schools or Christian colleges.

I am agreed with you .... I accept the Americans and the European whatever are their thoughts about our community, as they respect me.

I will tolerate everything but intolerance. There are some ideologies with which coexistence is impossible.

"But what [Orwell] illustrates, by his commitment to language as the partner of truth, is that 'views' do not really count;

that it matters not what you think, but how you think;

and that politics are relatively unimportant, while principles have a way of enduring, as do the few irreducible individuals who maintain allegiance to them."

Christopher Hitchens, Why Orwell Matters
Tags: ideas, orwell, politics, principles, truth

Sadly education has been on a downward spiral in the US for decades with the rise of home schooling and charter schools, with millions of Americans now having grown up more indoctrinated than educated. And it's getting worse, not better. I am all for tolerance too, but alas find myself in a country growing increasingly less tolerant. I don't think it's going to end well.

Tolerance is great, however I see it as a stepping stone to acceptance and consideration. Education is definitely the way forward. Then hopefully the generations to come will find things easier.

Thus, why conservatives like to defund or eliminate (certain) education. They like the close minded, uneducated, as they’re easier to control. I firmly agree with your statement.

Well said. I try to live my life by humanistic ideals.

Karl Popper said it best: [en.wikipedia.org]