As a skeptic, one of the most grating words I can ever hear is intolerance.  Any skeptic, upon hearing this word uttered, is hit with instant paranoid dread and disgust, knowing that there is an almost infinitely likely probability that its sense is being mangled and distorted in such a way as to imply that one is equivalent to the Nazis for, say, ridiculing homeopathy or satirizing religion.  Of course, mocking ridiculous beliefs is not necessarily intolerant;  whenever I mock peddlers of alternative medicine, or insult the religious, or rape creationists with my rhetorical skill, I am nevertheless tolerating the rights of these fools to exist and to believe whatever silly shit they wish to believe.  I tolerate their presence; but I will not be forced to respect these morons.

Given my hatred of the way the word intolerance is frequently misused, naturally I was a bit disgusted to read a recent column by Paul Kurtz at the Center for Inquiry’s blog in which he criticized Blasphemy Day for encouraging intolerance, even going so far as to invoke the image of those rhetorically overworked swastika-laden Germans to argue his point.  Basically, Blasphemy Day was a response to those who insist that religion must be protected from criticism, either through laws against blasphemy or threats of violence.  The goal was to encourage the ridicule and criticism of religion and the preservation of free speech.  No one is arguing that religion should be destroyed by force, or that religious beliefs won’t be tolerated.  Contrary to Kurtz’s argument, those who would wish to suppress the right to criticize religion are those practicing a form of intolerance, working as they do to criminalize blasphemy or threatening violence against those who do things as harmless as publishing satirical cartoons and drawings.

Of course, Kurtz seems to miss the point completely.  He writes, “What would humanists and skeptics say if religious believers insulted them in the same way?”  The problem, of course, is that religious believers can’t insult skeptics in the same way.  There is no analog for “blasphemy” in skeptical circles.  We don’t threaten to murder people if they publish cartoons mocking science-based medicine.  We don’t explode in rage if people draw little insulting Hitler mustaches on skeptical leaders like Paul Kurtz.  Nor do we attempt to pass legislation that legally prevents the criticism of our beliefs.  Now, would a skeptic be offended if a religious person mocked or satirized a skeptical viewpoint?  If he had thin skin, perhaps he would.  But that mockery of the skeptical viewpoint does not constitute intolerance.  As I skeptic, I reserve the right to mock whoever I want, and in turn I would not be surprised to be mocked in return by those who believe otherwise.  That’s how the marketplace of ideas is supposed to work.

The issue in question here does not concern tolerance.  Rather, it is a much more benign question of manners.  Ridiculing the religious and causing fundamentalists great offense is certainly not a very nice thing to do, but that doesn’t make it intolerant.  In the grand scheme of things, causing offense to the religious is justified if it is done in an effort to bring down unfair blasphemy laws and the undue influence of religious violence.  However, even if I were to rage against the religious and insult them without some deeper symbolic purpose at hand, this would hardly be so terrible.  There is no great moral imperative to be nice to people who believe in idiotic things.  It  is my moral duty to respect people’s rights to speak their minds, to let others live freely, and so on, but no one has a right to demand that others be nice.  Is it still tolerance when we no longer tolerate the free expression of justified anger, of satire, and of mockery?  A tolerance that is spread so thin is in fact no longer tolerant at all.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 1st, 2009 at 10:13 PM and is filed under Blog, Skepticism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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