Is religious tolerance a bad idea?

[CapelDodger]

There's a certain truth to that, although one could argue that what they try to do is demand people attempt to achieve non-monkeydom in their actions.

There are, in away, two flavours. One - Ideology - is generally the product of people way up the blue end of the Asperger's spectrum, a rationally perfect (!) society if the human element is ignored. The result always tends towards the hive-society - which is thoroughly inappropriate. Humans are a group-species, not a hive-species.

The other - Religion - recognises some human element after "wouldn't it be nice if we were all good?" fails to persuade. (Not that a few blissed-out missionaries haven't been sent out to the stew-pot long after that fact was establisihed.) Thus the carrot and stick approach allied to a Big Boss and his program. I don't doubt a very common religious intention to actually create a perfect, or at least better, society by these methods. It has a lot in common with punishing a loved child for their own good.

Religion is more successful (or less damaging) than ideology, but it's obviously not good enough. Just consider what's happened in the world since the end of the Cold War. Ideology had its century in the Sun, and we're back to religious conflict with ideology riding the tail. Meanwhile what's really going on is about economics - human interactions - and technology.

A satisfying society has to accomodate our real human nature, which is basically monkey but with some add-ons.