What does it mean to be tolerant?

Mars Hill were Paul was tolerated as he discussed new ideas

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Question: What is tolerance? We hear a lot about it, but what is it?

ATP: A good friend of mine named Greg addressed this question as he spoke about the relativism that has become the thinking pattern of our age. His led into to his point about tolerance by speaking about the subject of truth.

"Truth" is relative people say. What is "true" for you may not be "true" for me?

That's nonsense of course, but it is the way that some view things religious. To demonstrate what he was driving at Greg related an illustration he used at a discussion panel on a campus in southern California where he was speaking to several hundred students.

As he answered a question about what real truth is he stopped in mid-sentence, pointed to a gentleman standing in the crowd and said, "Oh, by the way, your zipper is down." Embarrassed, the man looked down to see if that was in fact so, as several hundred students swung their eyes in the same direction. Turns out that his zipper wasn't down.

Greg then made his point:

"If I tell you that this man's zipper is down and it isn't, then my statement is false. But if I tell you that his zipper is down and it is down, then my statement is true. It's that simple."

Whether a statement or an idea is true or not, relates to how it squares with reality, not belief.

Let me say that again: Whether a statement or an idea is true or not, relates to how it squares with reality, not belief. In this realm, there is no such thing as something that is "true for one person but not true for another person." We know that intuitively every time we stop at a red light and expect others to do the same. No one would buy the excuse that a red light was "green for them." Green is green and red is red.

And we live this way in most matters in life. But for some reason in matters religious we think that all ideas are equal. They aren't. And that brings us to the subject of tolerance.

The dictionary says that tolerance is: the disposition to be patient and fair toward those whose opinions or practices differ from one's own.

Notice that it does not say that tolerance is the belief that all ideas are equal. It does not say that tolerance is the belief that all ideas are valid or true. Tolerance has to do with how we treat one another when our ideas or practices or cultures etc., are different. While we should respect every human being and be patient and fair, not all ideas are equal, not all ideas are valid and not all ideas are true.

What is interesting is that many who preach tolerance don't really believe what they say. Let some one say that Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven and people react as though some horrifying sin has just been committed just by making the statement. "That's intolerant!" they may say rather forcefully. Not at all!

Intolerance is the attitude being displayed by them. They are intolerant of anyone who disagrees with their relativistic thinking. The person who states that Jesus is the only way to heaven is merely expressing a viewpoint, which may or may not be true. There is nothing intolerant about that at all.

What is intolerant is the idea that views in and of themselves should not be expressed, unless they fit into some politically or religiously correct framework.