The Limits of Tolerance

Try, if you dare, a thought puzzle. A hypothetical if you will.  What if there were a religion in the world, whose holy treatise demanded that they must offer everyone they meet the opportunity to convert, and if they refuse, the practitioner of the religion is advised by their holy book, to stick his finger up the refuser’s anus, wanted or not? What if the holy book of this faith demanded of the faithful that they must “digitize” all who refused to convert, save for those who practiced two specifically named, other religions, Christianity and Judaism? If members of those other religions were offered the chance to convert, and refused, they were to be spanked (while bare-bottomed) whenever seen by a member of this hypothetical religion’s faithful adherents.

Now let us suppose this religion was widespread, but practiced with varying degrees of observance to the rules. Some practitioners saw the anal probe practice as “outdated” and did not feel compelled to follow this instruction, while their more observant coreligionists did. Suppose that in certain areas of the world where this religion dominated, millions of Christians and Jews had been forced to flee, convert, or endure daily, humiliating spankings. Let us suppose that the fundamentalists of this hypothetical religion, were growing in influence, so incidents of pant snatching and rectal prodding, were increasing in numbers every day around the world. Suppose that the less observant did not practice this, but always leapt to the defense of those coreligionists who were prodding anuses, by offering blandishments about how the victims were given a chance to convert, or could usually avoid getting prodded merely by saying, “I’m considering converting”, even if they don’t mean it.

What if the “moderates” were almost universally apologists for the anus prodding elements, and frequently donated monetary resources to the more fundamentalist elements, and went further to question other religions right to criticize or ridicule their faith? In fact, pretend these coreligionists rioted, boycotted, and threatened any TV show, newspaper, comedian, or comic strip, that dared poke fun at their beliefs. What if these moderate “non-digital-probers” of the religion claimed that the “active finger set” had every right to “probe”, whomever they please, in those parts of the world where this religion was dominant, or even those places where its influence was growing? What if their spokespeople appeared on any news program discussing the problem of this religion-based anal intrusions, and always tried to distract from the issue, claiming that the growth in the popularity of anal penetration around the world was entirely the fault of the fact that, a tiny area of land that had once been dominated by this religion, was now in the hands of a nation that practiced another religion. Pretend they argued that their global frustration about no longer controlling a tiny strip of land, and thereby no longer having absolute finger-prodding dominion of this area, was what drove the “active finger set”, to be so active.

If such a faith were to exist, would we grant them special privileges to be above discussion? Would we censor ourselves to avoid offending them? Would we grant that their sticking fingers in peoples bottoms around the world, should be understood in the context of their loss of a tiny spit of land? Would we concede that we had no right to condemn their behavior or question the value of their faith? Would we think it right to never draw the connection between the rash of unlicensed, street-side, proctocology, and this religion which  includes that activity as a central element? In light of our legal restrictions on faiths that include the use of marijuana, or peyote, I rather think that the whole faith would be outlawed, restricted, and prosecuted until such time as they modified their dogma.

So why is it that we tolerate the Muslim shenanigans? Perhaps forcing indigenous populations to live lives as servants, barred from any position other than menial, is more acceptable than spankings. Perhaps killing people is less offensive than curbside rectal probes?

Perhaps we need to re-examine our priorities, and rediscover the capacity to name evil as such.