Religious toleration

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Religious toleration is the condition of accepting or permitting others' religious beliefs and practices which disagree with one's own.

In a country with a state religion, toleration means that the government permits religious practices of other sects besides the state religion, and does not persecute believers in other faiths. Historically, toleration has been a contentious issue within many religions as well as between one religion and another. At issue is not merely whether other faiths should be permitted, but also whether a ruler who is a believer may practice or permit tolerance. In the Middle Ages, toleration of Judaism was a contentious issue throughout Christendom. Today, there are concerns about toleration of Christianity in Islamic states (see also dhimmi).

For individuals, religious toleration generally means an attitude of acceptance towards other people's religions. It does not mean that one views other religions as equally true; merely that others have the right to hold and practice their beliefs. Proselytism can be a contentious issue; it can be regarded as an offense against the validity of others' religions, or as an expression of one's own faith.

Timeline

• 539 BC, Cyrus the Great issues a declaration of religious freedom; the first known recorded history of religious tolerance.
• 364-332 BC, Ashoka the Great declares religious freedom in the Edicts of Ashoka
• 311 AD, The Roman Emperor Galerius issues a general edict of toleration in his own name and in those of Licinius and Constantine.
• 313, The Edict of Milan issued by the Emperors Constantine I and Licinius proclaiming religious toleration in the Roman Empire.
• 622, Muhammad declares religious freedom in the Constitution of Medina
• 1190, Genghis Khan composes his code of law, the Yassa, in which there is religious freedom for all who were under his rule.
• 1554, Castellio writes the pamphlet "De haereticis, an sint persequendi" (Whether heretics should be persecuted), the first modern appeal for toleration.
• 1571, January 11 - Maximilian II declares religious toleration towards the nobles of Lower Austria, their families and workers;
• 1573, January 28 - Warsaw Confederation granting religious toleration.
• 1598, April 13 - King Henry IV of France issued the Edict of Nantes, allowing religious toleration of the Huguenots.
• 1609, July 6 - Rudolph II grants religious toleration in Bohemia.
• 1657, April 20 - New Amsterdam granted religious toleration to Jews;
• 1689, English Act of Toleration passed, granting toleration to Protestant dissenters.
• 1829, April 13 - British Parliament granted Catholic Emancipation in the spirit of religious toleration;
• 1900 Robert G. Ingersoll publishes his plea for religious liberty.
• 1948, December 10 The United Nations General Assembly issues the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 18 declares that everyone has the right to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, and to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.
• 1965, December 7 The Roman Catholic Church Vatican II Council issues the decree Dignitatis Humanae (Religious Freedom) that states that all people must have the right to religious freedom.
• 1986, October 7 The first World Day of Prayer for Peace is held in Assisi when representatives of one hundred and twenty different religions came together for prayer to their God or gods.
• 1988, April 29 - in the spirit of Glasnost, Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev promised increased religious toleration.

Criticism

Contemporary authors such as Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Daniel C. Dennett have all written about the potential social hazards of allowing religious beliefs to go unchallenged. In The End of Faith, Sam Harris notes that we are unwilling, as a society, to tolerate unjustified beliefs in, for example, architecture. He asserts that we should be similarly unwilling to tolerate unjustified beliefs about morality, spirituality, politics, and the origin of humanity. In his preface to The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins says, "If this book works as I intend, religious readers who open it will be atheists when they put it down."

See also

• Freedom of religion
• Status of religious freedom by country
• State religion
• Religious pluralism
• National church
• Secular state
• State atheism
• Toleration
• Religious intolerance
• Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
• Conversational intolerance

Further reading

• Barzilai, Gad Law and Religion. Ashgate. ISBN 978-0-7546-2494-3.
• Beneke, Chris Beyond Toleration: The Religious Origins of American Pluralism. Oxford University Press, USA. ISBN 0-19-530555-8.
• Coffey, John Persecution and Toleration in Protestant England, 1558-1689. Longman Publishing Group. ISBN 0-582-30465-2.
• Curry, Thomas J. Church and State in America to the Passage of the First Amendment. Oxford University Press; Reprint edition (December 19, 1989). ISBN 0-19-505181-5.
• (2000). Toleration in Enlightenment Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521651967.
• Hamilton, Marci A. God vs. the Gavel : Religion and the Rule of Law. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-85304-4.
• Hanson, Charles P. (1998). Necessary Virtue: The Pragmatic Origins of Religious Liberty in New England. University Press of Virginia. ISBN 0813917948.
• Kaplan, Benjamin J. (2007). Divided by Faith: Religious Conflict and the Practice of Toleration in Early Modern Europe. Belknap Press. ISBN 0674024303.
• (1997). Beyond the Persecuting Society: Religious Toleration Before the Enlightenment. University of Pennsylvania Press (December 1997). ISBN 0-8122-3331-X.
• Murphy, Andrew R. (2001). Conscience and Community: Revisiting Toleration and Religious Dissent in Early Modern England and America. Pennsylvania State University Press. ISBN 0-271-02105-5.
• Walsham, Alexandra (2006). Charitable Hatred: Tolerance and Intolerance in England, 1500-1700. Manchester University Press. ISBN 0719052394.
• Zagorin, Perez (2003). How the Idea of Religious Toleration Came to the West. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-12142-7.

References

External links

• Background to the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights
• Text of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights
• Jehovah's witnesses: European Court of Human rights, Freedom of Religion, Speech, and Association in Europe
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• History of Religious Tolerance
• The Foundation against Intolerance of Religious Minorities

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