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tolerance and intolerance

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we use these words to characterize individual people or whole societies

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these are more or less black and white terms, they are polar

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we rarely think of people as being "sort of tolerant"

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not neutral terms

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in most contexts, tolerance is good and intolerance bad

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we usually ascribe these terms to the majority in a society and not the minority

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we usually think of minorities as either victims of the intolerance by the majority or enjoying the tolerance of the majority

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usually are associated with oppression and discrimination on one side and openness and kindness on the other

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historians very often point out examples of intolerance

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Roman Catholic Church

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Judaism was the only religion that the Roman Catholic Church tolerated over the centuries

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sought to create a homogeneous society with one conception of God, of religion, or the social order

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nevertheless, they tolerated an odd group of infidels who rejected the basic tenets of Catholic theology

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why were the Jews tolerated at all within the Catholic world

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religion

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more than a text or doctrine

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we find examples of intolerance in religious texts and we project this to the society as a whole

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but we shouldn't do this if we want to know how a religion functions within a society

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religious leaders don't necessarily dictate social practice

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religious leaders often have to run in front of where the society is moving

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when we talk about a religious society, we are not talking about the doctrines of that religion which are expressed in religious texts, but the way in which religious ideas are activated in practice

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what circumstances allow certain religious doctrines to be expressed and acted upon, and in which cases allow religious doctrines to be forgotten or ignored?

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It's not enough to know what the doctrine is, what the text is, what the preacher says, but also, what do people do.

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we are going to read religious words but ask a non-religious question about them, we are going to assume that these words were of divine significance and supreme and overwhelming meaning, but we're not going to look at them that way.

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this approach is called the sociology of religion