A Toleration Primer

[Dr_MWJ]

Before one waxes euphoric singing the praises of toleration, one ought to understand its definition and etymology. In essence, toleration is cowardice. It is the inability of the individual to stand for anything, so by default, that person stands for everything.
The word toleration derives from the Latin tolerare - to suffer, bear, endure. Originally in the early Roman Republic, tolerare referred to an individual who had to withstand the injustice of non-Roman peoples such as the Etruscans or Samnites. It is this sense that lies behind the first definition of tolerate to endure or sustain pain or hardship and toleration as the endurance of evil or suffering (The Oxford English Dictionary, Vol. XVIII, 1989).
Toleration is the vice that stands in opposition to the virtue patience. Patience is the virtue of enduring suffering now in the hope of attaining a greater good later. Toleration is the vice of enduring evil now in the hope of postponing suffering until later.

 

[buffalo]

Love is not tolerance

BISHOP FULTON J. SHEEN****Christian love bears evil, but it does not tolerate it.

http://www.catholiceducation.org/images/authos/Sheen8.JPG  *Christian love bears evil, but  it does not tolerate it. *

It does penance for the sins of others, but it is not broadminded about sin.
*The cry for tolerance never induces it to quench its hatred of the evil philosophies that have entered into contest with the Truth. *
It forgives the sinner, and it hates the sin; it is unmerciful to the error in his mind.
*The sinner it will always take back into the bosom of the Mystical Body;
but his lie will never be taken into the treasury of His Wisdom. *
*Real love involves real hatred:
whoever has lost the power of moral indignation and the urge to drive the buyers and sellers from the temples
has also lost a living, fervent love of Truth. *
*Charity, then, is not a mild philosophy of “live and let live”;
it is not a species of sloppy sentiment. *
Charity is the infusion of the Spirit of God,
which makes us love the beautiful and hate the morally ugly.

 

[djeter]

Part of a reply from another forum (but on this same topic):

We have “killed the author of life.” [Peter in Acts 3:15] And our lives need to be rededicated to Him. And anything worth doing is done in relationship with others, based on love. That is what the Church is and the whole purpose of our Catholic faith is to be a part of that.

My suspicion of you and others who “choose not to choose” is that you advocate the “square circle,” a neutrality that is not there. Your god is Neutrality and you refuse to commit much to anything. In certain intellectual regions your God travels under other names such as Autonomy and Rights. To recap a bit from an essay by J. Budziszewski, professor of philosophy at the University of Texas and a specialist in ethical and political theory:

“We meet this jealous and negating god on the philosophic right, where conservatives like Michael Oakeshott tell us that the specific and limited activity of “governing” has “nothing to do” with natural law or morals. We encounter him on the philosophic left, where liberals like John Rawls and Marxists like Jurgen Habermas invent devices like the Veil of Ignorance and the Ideal Speech Situation to convince us that if we wish to understand truly the principles of justice, we must pretend to forget not only who we are, but also everything we ever thought we knew about good and evil.

We meet this god in law, where many jurists treat ethical distinctions such as “family” vs. “non-family” as “invidious classifications” that deny citizens the equal protection of the law. We meet him in education, where elementary school children are offered books like Daddy’s Roommate, Heather Has Two Mommies, and Gloria Goes to Gay Pride.

In fact, we meet this god everywhere: in the university, in the movie theatre, in many churches and synagogues, and, it goes without saying, on the even more ubiquitous altar of the television.

It might seem remarkable that people who insist that tolerance means moral neutrality should themselves be so earnest in ridiculing those who aren’t neutral. But of course, they themselves aren’t neutral either.

The scandal of Neutrality is that its worshipers cannot answer the question “Why be neutral?” without committing themselves to particular goods-social peace, self-expression, self-esteem, ethnic pride, or what have you-thereby violating their own desideratum of Neutrality. Yet even this is merely a symptom of a deeper problem, namely, there is no such thing as Neutrality. It isn’t merely unachievable, like a perfect circle; it is unthinkable and unapproachable, like a square circle. Whether we deem it better to take a stand or be silent, we’ve offended this god in the very act of deeming.”

dj

 

[DOShea]

Tolerance itself is not inherently bad, but it isn’t something of itself. Whenever tolerance is discussed, one must define what is the subject of the tolerance (just as one would have to define the what of rejection).

When it comes to faith, evil is not tolerated, but other things are (like bad singing). So I don’t think you can just conclude that there is something wrong with tolerance, in and of itself. The national motto of the U.S. is e pluribus unum (from the many, one). Without any tolerance, it would be ONLY one. With nothing but tolerance, it would be e pluribus pluribum, from the many, many. That is the problem with excessive tolerance - that it becomes so widespread that no unity at all results. Do whatever you feel like. Behave however you see fit. That’s where the problem comes in.

 

[Joe_Kelley]

In discussing the Capital Sins Dorothy Sayers notes that the sin of Sloth is called Tolerance in this world; in hell it is named despair.