Religious intolerance
- Dependence on religious intolerance
Nature
Religious intolerance involves acts denying the right of people of another religious faith to practice and express their beliefs freely. Religious intolerance is expressed in discrimination, repression and religious rivalry, and results in or results from persecution. It leads to war and persistent hatred between nations and between peoples within nations.
Incidence
In segments of the Islamic world, close political and cultural ties between Israel and the United States are often perceived as symbolic of anti-Islamic policies by the Western world.
Certain Christian groups in the UK campaign against the practice of Yoga, particularly in public premises, claiming that, in essence, and as a Hindu practice, it is a cleverly disguised form of devil-worship.
Counter-claim
There are limits to religious tolerance as senseless and obviously fraudulent cults proliferate. Governments may begin, as in the USA, to establish tests (there are presently some 14 criteria to be met according to one USA government agency) to establish bonafide religious movements of an independent nature. The excesses, also, of traditional faiths are not always tolerated with equanimity when single religious leaders or councils promulgate violence to human life in various forms, or socially injurious doctrines. Socially irresponsible religions, religions whose political activities are self-serving, and religions that hold and seek wealth, cannot claim respect. That religious intolerance can be a good thing is seen by the actions of the missionaries who put down human sacrifice and cannibalism in the indigenous creeds.