Talk:Religious toleration

The most "tolerant" religion?

Dharmic religions

Religious_pluralism

The article on Religious_pluralism, which is closely related to this one, is currently undergoing restructuration and on the list for Wikipedia:Article Improvement Drive. I would propose some collaboration between the teams working on the two articles, and perhaps we'll have to shift material from one article to the other.--Robin.rueth, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Name of the Article, Expansion tag

Religious tolerance redirects to Freedom of religion. But religious tolerance includes not only state tolerance, but also tolerance among sects. If "religious toleration" is a synonym (or Britishism?) for "religious tolerance", that should be added to this article. Otherwise, Religious tolerance should become an article on the subject. -- Beland 03:06, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I have redirected "religious tolerance" to this article because it is a variation on the same meaning. Religious toleration seems to be more than a Britishism because it has historical significance as well as application to the history of the British legal system with regards to religion. Thanks for pointing out this orphan, I did not know that it existed. As for tolerance among sects/religions, well, that is a tall order since many religions are exclusive by their very nature. In order to survive in a democratic society a face has of late been created to cover over these differences from outside of each sect/religion, while their doctrines often remain unchanged. I suppose if the world's religions could all get together and agree upon a common God and shrug off all theology the world would be a far better place and of course I would be dreaming. It is a pleasant dream though. MPLX/MH 06:42, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Why the expansion tag? I visited the referenced page on the tag and it is blank. It does not make sense. MPLX/MH 06:49, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The expansion tag simply refers to the request that follows it, to add information about religious tolerance among sects. I certainly agree it's a big subject. By "Britishism", I mean that I think "religious toleration" is how Brits say the same thing we Americans mean when we say "religious tolerance", and vice versa. -- Beland 03:03, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Actually, "religious tolerance" is the more commonly used phrase nowadays in the UK. Tolerance and toleration have two distinct meaning, with tolerance implying "accept" and toleration implying "put up with" Daduzi 05:00, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Accuracy dispute

After thinking about this some more, I've convinced myself that the distinction being made in the introductions of the two articles between "freedom of religion" and "religious tolerance" or "religious toleration" do not adequately represent how these terms are used in practice.

For example, England has a state religion, but it's perfectly fine to say there is a high degree of "freedom of religion" there. A state religion is an endorsement of a particular ideology. An endorsement law alone doesn't restrict behavior - that is to say, it doesn't restrict freedom. Other laws or non-legal forces might do that, though.

Likewise, it's perfectly fine to say the U.S. government is tolerant of a variety of religious beliefs and activities, even though it is prohibited from establishing an official church. However its actions lend to an unofficial enforcement or establishment of a state religion as political appointee's govern by their individual beliefs. This should be found unconstitutional based on the separation of church and state, though not outright setting a religion by declaration but by action is no less a violation. Using the presumption that the populace had "voted them into governing position, therefore my personal tenants are approved by them at large". And thus pass laws clearly based on a set of religious values, violating the freedoms of those that disagree with or don't follow the religion.

If you look at the two articles, they are very similar, largely because I think they are talk about two different terms which essentially describe the same thing. I think all of the material having to do with government restrictions (or lack thereof) on religious belief and practice should be consolidated to freedom of religion and freedom of worship. This article should focus on the concept for groups and individuals.

The section on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights also makes certain claims which I find do not ring true. The United States Constitution was written in the late 1700s, and is one of the most important ideological, political, and practical endorsements of the idea of freedom of religion in the fullest sense - there would be no official state religion. The Universal Declaration is also a powerful political statement, but it did not somehow change the goals of the nations or peoples of the world. Nor did it create "the" definition of "freedom of religion". I don't think it even endorses disestablishment. It just says that people need to be free to think and believe and worship as they please, and in plenty of states with official churches, they are. The treatment of this in freedom of religion is somewhat more accurate, but still jumbled and fragmentary.

I think a more accurate article would simply trace government policies toward religious belief and activities through time and around the world. The country profiles on freedom of religion are starting to do that, though of course an overview is necessary. -- Beland 03:58, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• I agree with what you say. Much of this article should be (and most of it already is) in freedom of religion. I'm going to try and eliminate the duplicated info from this article. --JW1805 03:04, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

Legal definitions - Religious toleration is a legal expression and it means what it says: a putting up with, a toleration of another religious belief due to the fact that a primary religious belief has already been established by law. Freedom of religion means an absence of an established religion so that the state has no preference by law. Clearly England has by law a state established religion and so does Saudi Arabia. It is only a matter of degree to the extent that other religions are tolerated in those countries. On the other hand by law, the USA has no established religion. Freedom of worship is similar to Religious toleration in that freedom of religion does not require action but freedom of worship does. To the legal extent that a person can express their religion by freedom of worship is the degree to which freedom of worship exists in any given country. The three phrases all have legal interpretations and they all have very distinct meanings and applications under law. From a lay perspective the act of muddling them all up only creates confusion and problems for the persons who do not know the differences. MPLX/MH 17:19, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Freedom of religion does not mean the absence of an established religion, it means what its name implies: the freedom of individuals to choose and/or practice any religion they wish. The UN Declaration of Human rights, for instance, is quite clear on the matter: aricle 18 states that "Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance." The existence or otherwise of a state religion is not mentioned. We're confusing religious freedom with secularism here.

In practice the distinction between religious freedom and religious tolerance in a legal sense is that religious freedom is a right the government protects by not taking action to restrict the religous choice or actions of individuals, whilst religious tolerance is something that the government has to actively legislate for, for instance through anti-hate speech laws. The two terms are, however, very closely connected in that for religious freedom to be ensured religious tolerance should be widespread. In the minds of the ordinary person the two terms are virtually interchangable.

With that in mind I'd recommend either merging both this article and religious intolerance into religious freedom, or incorporating this article into religious freedom and the religious intolerance article into religious persecution, since "freedom" and "persecution" are the more common buzz-words used in discussions on such matters.

Daduzi 04:53, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

"Vatican II"

"Vatican II", a Council held 1962-1965 under John XXIII (1958-1962) and Paul VI altered Church teaching to enshrine Religious liberty. This has been rejected as apostasy by Traditionalist Catholics and as schism by the party of Marcel Lefebvre (Society of Pope St. Pius X).

The changed teaching has had influence on the larger faction of the Church that accepts Vatican II, and should be reflected in this article.

I believe that the so-called Constantinian shift too is relevant and should be linked to.

WikiSceptic 20:03, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Proposed Merge

This article largely covers the same ground as Freedom of religion, and I am therefore suggesting that it be merged into that article, with a redirect from this title. Historically, "Religious toleration" only has, so far as I am aware, distinct connotations in English history, where it is used to mean connote freedom of worship for different religious groups while the establiched Church was retained. Such a matter can be discussed within the Freedom of religion article. Gabrielthursday 22:29, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

religious tolerance vs religious toleration

I think the article should be moved to "religious tolerance," a term that is a lot more common than "religious toleration." A quick Google search reveals that this is indeed about 4 times more common. -71.107.7.249 22:39, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Religious view of religious tolerance

I think it would be interesting, but I really can't put that into to the article because that would require me to have every single religious book in the world, as a Christian I only have one the Bible, but it would take a long time to find verses to find some that support or reject religious tolerance. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.141.202.96 (talk) 02:45, 12 May 2007 (UTC).

A couple of places to start:

1. Religious tolerance in the Bible
2. Religious intolerance in the Bible -- Boracay Bill 03:52, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Criticism

This article is about the historical expansion (or contraction) of state toleration for minority religions. The Criticism section is about the atheists who don't "tolerate" religion itself (even though Dawkins, for example, actually does tolerate religious views in others), and simply does not belong here.Silas Maxfield (talk) 00:58, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

The lead sentence in the article says: "Religious toleration is the condition of accepting or permitting others' religious beliefs and practices which disagree with one's own.". I disagree that the article's scope is limited to to (as you put it) "state toleration for minority religions". The article doesn't presently contain much information regarding toleration by individual religions, religious groups, religious persons, or nonreligious persons of philosophies, organizations, groups, or individual persons holding differing views but such information might be within the legitimate scope of an article titled "Religious toleration". "Criticism", though, strikes me as a bad section heading for the information presently contained in that section. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 04:18, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was no move. JPG-GR (talk) 00:09, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Religious toleration → Religious tolerance — Far more common term —TheMightyQuill (talk) 18:37, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.

• Support: Google count:
  • "Religious tolerance" 1,100,000 hits
  • "Religious toleration" 217,000.

I realize there is a toleration article, as opposed to tolerance, but I'd like to move that one as well. - TheMightyQuill (talk) 18:40, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

• Weak support: If you get more Google hits for tolerance, you might as well move it (after all it could be moved back without much effort). The literature I used (actually only Coffey 2000) used tolerance and toleration synonymously. Zara1709 (talk) 19:29, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
• Strongly oppose Tolerance is a general and vague term; religious toleration is the subject of this article. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:23, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
• Strongly oppose Religious toleration is the term used to describe the issue of public allowance of religious liberty. It is a term of art. Gabrielthursday (talk) 05:56, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Then I don't understand. What is religious tolerance? And if they are so different, why is toleration used throughout the article? By my count, toleration is used 21 times, but tolerance is used 10 times. If it's really different, that's fine (I'm no expert) but you should probably make the difference clear with references. - TheMightyQuill (talk) 14:11, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Toleration is specifically defined, by the OED, as Allowance (with or without limitations), by the ruling power, of the exercise of religion otherwise than in the form officially established or recognized. Accordingly, the laws so providing are called Toleration Acts. This is the term of art; tolerance can mean this, but it normally does not, and distinctions should be encouraged, as Fowler said. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:43, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Most of the uses of tolerance here are in badly sourced and dubiously literate sections, like the Iranian nationalist nonsense about the Cyrus cylinder; the use in the intro is elegant variation, and should be pruned. What this needs is not a move, but a clean-up. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:47, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

• Support "Tolerence" is more common a name than toleration. YahelGuhan (talk) 05:59, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose. As I intimated below, I just don't see any compelling reason for the move. "Religious tolerance" already redirects here; nothing more is needed. Deor (talk) 02:12, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose. I agree with Gabrielthursday that this is a term of art, and refers to a protection that can be offered by governments through laws and constitutions. An example is the Act of Toleration 1689. (It was not called the 'act of tolerance'). EdJohnston (talk) 02:21, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

I'll gladly remove my move request if the two words mean different things. This should, however, be made more clear in the article, particularly since tolerance redirects here, and the word tolerance is used throughout this article. - TheMightyQuill (talk) 04:27, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

• Weak oppose I am largely indifferent about whether it is called tolerance or toleration. In the American Midwest, "tolerance" seems to be used more, but I don't really know about other areas. In the literature, it seems to be a relatively even split. If there is indeed no difference in meaning between the two terms (as appears to be the case), then there is no clear common name, and I would tend to say no move, but the synonym should be better represented in the text. For instance, the lead should begin, "Religious toleration, or religious tolerance, is..." and both terms should be represented in the prose of the article. Wilhelm meis (talk) 23:19, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

• Note: The hits on Google Scholar ("religious toleration": 16,000; "religious tolerance": 15,500) and Google Books ("religious toleration": 2010; "religious tolerance": 2179) show a much more even split in usage. In the online Encyclopaedia Britannica, "religious toleration" gets 203 search hits; "religious tolerance," 165. I'm not sure that there's a compelling reason for this move. Deor (talk) 21:05, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

If Daduzi is right, above, about British use of "tolerance", it is strictly an Anglicism, and may be intended to indicate a middle way: less limited than "toleration" and inheriting its positive air, but less threatening to the Established Church than freedom of religion. If so, dictionaries seem to have missed it, but (if sourceable) it deserves an article of its own. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:57, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

TOLERATION BY THE RELIGIOUS

In many contexts it is those who do not believe in god(s) that are not tolerated. Do examples of this belong in this section? Congomouth (talk) 19:34, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Not unless that can be cite-supported. Also, getting into examples in specific contexts would, I think, invite edit-warfare between editors who are members vs. nonmembers of specific example groups.

A question occurred to me while writing this: "Is religious evangelism a form of religious non-toleration?". It also occurred to me that, offhand, both evangelism and non-tolerance seem to be mostly associated with Abrahamic religions (hmmm... are the saffron-robed Hare Krishna groups seen at airports evangelistic or just aggressively annoying?) -- Boracay Bill (talk) 00:53, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Most Tolerant Religion... moved here... Discuss

"The most tolerant religion is considered to be Buddhism. A monistic and open-minded religion. However, since it is a Dharmic faith, nations practising Abrahamic religions have had a long history of non-tolerance and discrimination toward it (Anti-Hinduism). In fact in several countries, it is not even recognized as a religion despite being the oldest relgion in the world and being practised by over 900 Million people world-wide."

First off, how can we wager which religion is the most tolerant? Secondarily there is no source to this claim. Third other religions and spiritual practices beside Hinduiism have similar veiws concerning religious tolerance... simply because a "religion" is tolerant, doesn't mean that its followers are... nor does it mean that if a "religion" is intolerant that its followers are rude violent, and crude. Removing this for now and placing here. Also, I don't see how being the oldest religion in the world has anything to do with religious tolerance (and that claim is disputed...) Please Discuss. Wolfpeaceful (talk) 20:09, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure this particular passage is even worthy of discussion. It has no source, so it is not verifiable; it is unprovable, so it is original research; it is an easily disputed pro-Hindu diatribe, so it is definitely POV rubbish; and I don't see one redeeming thing about it to counter the fact that this violates every core policy of Wikipedia. Good riddance to it. Wilhelm_meis (talk) 12:00, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Well no, Wolf... Buddhism isn't even a religion or a faith because it does not believe in a Supreme Being, aka God! At best it is an impersonalist form of spirituality involving mysticism where its success or failure as a transcendental practice is determined 100% on the ability of the practitioner. God is not worshipped, there is no sense of loving devotion and service to the Supreme Being - so how the hell can it be considered a religion? It's about as "religious" as ©️ Transcendental Meditation which has absolutely no moral compass whatsoever and no concept of "sin" or "redemption". Ningnongtwit (talk) 08:07, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

I retract my comment as I have since learnt that a religion is a set of beliefs, instructions, etc not necessarily ethical or moral or anything to do with God. For instance football fanatics indeed class their support for their favourite team as a religion. Ningnongtwit (talk) 12:14, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

inclusion of India in contexts of rel toleration

I have added in the section - contexts of toleration; an example why India choose to be a secular nation even after being formed through a partition in the name of religion - this is obviously because Hinduism preaches secularism in its scriptures, especially the Vedas. Therefore before making any rvs, pls talk here. 117.204.88.31 (talk) 07:25, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Article needs improvement and clean up

The article goes into no detail about the various voices in favor of and opposing religious toleration throughout history. Where is John Locke? Mill needs to be discussed more. The article also states there are five contexts for understanding its topic, lists only four and goes into detail on none of them. I will be back from time to time to work on this. Jonathanwallace (talk) 14:11, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

John Locke/Sam Harris

I just added a section on John Locke. This needs to be improved and some references added, and I will be back to do so. I also modified the reference to Sam Harris. I misunderstood from the existing content that he wrote from a Christian fundamentalist perspective, when in reality as his Wikipedia bio illustrates, he is skeptical of all religion. Jonathanwallace (talk) 14:50, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Clean up

I moved the Sam Harris section down to put the various references in somewhat chronological order. I created a separate Hinduism section and moved appropriate content there, deleting some opinionated words and revising to meet NPOV standards. I also fixed some problems with the references. The article still needs a lot of work. Sections should be added on Mill, Dworkin and Rawls, who are referred to near the top but never discussed. How about the effect of the Reformation on tolerance, more information on toleration towards "People of the Book" in areas and times of Islamic or Ottoman domination, etc. I will be back from time to time to try and improve this, but hope others will jump in. Jonathanwallace (talk) 14:54, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Discuss, don't edit war

There seems to be a bit of an edit war (reported at WP:3RRNB) on this topic. Bold, Revert, Discuss is work remembering - please discuss, don't revert. JoeSperrazza (talk)

Thanks, I am eager to discuss his reasons with the IP user as I stated on his talk page and in edit summaries. Jonathanwallace (talk) 02:36, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

More work needed

I added sections on Mill, People of the Book, Johann Reuchlin, Edict of Nantes, Universal Declaration of Human Rights. However, this article badly calls out for an overhaul from a PhD type who really has an overview of this topic. Jonathanwallace (talk) 15:57, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Merger proposal

I have flagged this article and Toleration for merger. The rationale is that the "Toleration" article, which is inadequate, contains only religious toleration examples (all of which are now included here). I have also expanded "Religious toleration" to include discussion of Walzer, Dworkin, Rawls et al who discuss toleration of political and ethnic groups, gays, etc. Therefore I propose moving this article to "Toleration" and creating a redirect here. Jonathanwallace (talk) 11:18, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Instead of merging, Toleration article should be extended as there is many ways of toleration itself.--DeeMusil (talk) 11:56, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

The surviving article would be named "Toleration". It could continue to be extended with all kinds of examples. Right now, it doesn't make sense to have two separate articles because the content dealing with other than religious toleration is only a small part of the article. In the future, if there were substantial additions to this section, we could consider separating the articles again. Jonathanwallace (talk) 14:07, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

One anonymous opinion

Hinduism (sanaatan dharma) is most the most tolerant religion in the world because It accept the ideology of Buddhism and Jainism without any discrimination and war when It is only way of life in India. And On the other hand It has been remaining it's tolerance in spite of facing many discrimination and attacks on it since past. Islam is the worst religion — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2409:4063:4C8D:DEDE:0:0:EE09:3207 (talk) 14:17, 23 December 2021 (UTC)