Two forms of intolerance
Pablo da Silveira
For at least two centuries, Western societies were shaken by religious conflicts. At that time, believe or not believe, believe in the god who was considered wrong, or believe in god to be okay but in a wrong allegedly were sufficient grounds for loss of life. Many of the practices that horrify us today on Islamic fundamentalism (many, but not all) were considered normal by our ancestors. And it's great that we're out of it.
intolerance, however, has not disappeared completely. Overall has become less violent, perhaps learned to be more subtle, but still retains its ability to do harm. At times it is so brutal, and then almost all reject it, but sometimes it is presented so subtly that we fall into it without realizing it.
In particular, there are two forms of religious intolerance still very present in democratic societies. One is typical of those who are believers and the other is typical of those who disbelieve. In other words: the first is a form of intolerance towards those without faith and the second is a form of intolerance towards religious faith. These two mutual prejudices are probably the last vestiges that remain of those old clashes, at least where we got out of them.
The first form of intolerance, typical of many believers, is to think that someone with no religious faith can not be fully reliable in moral terms. This idea typically adopted a few centuries ago and another today. The old way (often between the XVII and XIX) was to say that someone with no religious belief has no reason to do their duty because they feared retribution. If you violate the promise does not lead us to hell, then there is good reason to honor them. The contemporary form that takes this form of intolerance is to say that if someone grows that have links with any specific religion or tradition, has no chance of incorporating values \u200b\u200bthat guide their behavior and to find moral standards that inspire. So the moral is never solid.
The second form of intolerance, typical of many people who have no faith, is believing that you can not have that kind of belief and be both fully rational. There may be many believers who are good people and intellectually strong, but somewhere there's something wrong. If these people were fully rational, would eventually abandon their beliefs. Therefore, and although it was not proposed, these people are harming their children, probably with noble intentions, they are transmitting the disease that they suffer. This view is typical of those who extend the Jacobin tradition.
These two ideas are biases in the strict sense: belief that is accepted as true without having to compare them. But it happens that both are false. Our societies are populated by people who are morally admirable (or at least much more admirable than other people who claim to act on behalf of their god) despite the lack of religious convictions. And our societies are populated by people who have religious beliefs and the same is all that we can be rational human beings (or at least much more rational than people who do not have those beliefs.)
This reflection may seem unnecessarily speculative, but it has practical consequences. For example, the clash between these two biases was one of the causes of the great "school wars" that lived in the nineteenth century. And the aftershocks of those wars are still affecting us today. As believers
maintained control over the state imposed religious education to the children of unbelievers. In part they did to strengthen their own cause and partly because they thought it was the right thing: to give a compulsory religious education was good for each member of the new generations and for society as a whole. Only such an education would ensure adequate levels of morality public and private.
When secularizing forces gained control of the state, decided (at least in countries like ours) trying to religious education as an evil that had to endure: ban was probably excessive, but we had to take steps to lower many people agree to it. Again, the secularizing forces were trying to strengthen his own cause while doing what is right: to weaken religious education was a breakthrough in the fight against obscurantism. Today we should know that these two views were based on prejudice and both unduly restrict freedom.
From "El País Digital"
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