Life in our society can be very interesting, with so much social turmoil present in so many different facets of our life whether it be religion, government, or science. Tolerance is a word that everyone turns too thinking that all of the worlds problems would be solved if people were more tolerant of others. When people tell others to be more tolerant however, deep down they really aren't wishing for tolerance they are thinking the world would be better if people were more tolerant towards me and my beliefs. For why would they be preaching for others to be tolerant if they themselves hadn't already decided they couldn't tolerate the intolerance?
As you grow more and experience more life you come to realize that people all have very different motivations and backgrounds which lead to differences in opinion, wherein to obtain a world with so called "perfect" tolerance it would have to be one without beliefs and individuals. Logically for a world with perfect tolerance to work the world itself would lose its diversity and everyone would conform to a certain universal belief system or no belief system at all. The reason for this is we live a world of right and wrongs, and that is not just in a religious aspect. As infants from the moments we gain our senses we start learning and deciding the "rights" and "wrongs" of life in learning or how the world works and how we ourselves are suppose to interact with this world.
In other words while living in a world of good and evil, of rights and wrongs, perfect tolerance cannot be obtain unless one decides to not take a stand for either or admits that neither exist.
Our life experiences are so different and varied that of coarse each individual is going to have different beliefs on what is "right" even without religion, government, or science. Because of this fact I find myself struck with a profound sense of irony when you see pictures of people holding signs labeling others as bigots when they themselves are participating in a form of bigotry against another belief. We can tolerate only as much as our own tolerance allows, which makes it a folly goal to try to preach tolerance. Instead we should teach RESPECT, respect for others and respect for ourselves. If we respect peoples ability to be an individual, there is no level of tolerance which can be surpassed, but a common standard for everyone. One cannot always agree with or tolerate the actions and thoughts of another, but one can always respect another. In that way we wont have those participating in the oxymoron of decided they cannot tolerate what they see as injustices any longer preaching tolerance, and people who have decided to label another a bigot because of their own bigotries.
