Tolerance

Most people like the idea of tolerance.
The truth is that they only accept it in a very generic way.
To be tolerant, is to accept change, and to accept difference whenever it is upon us or just around us. Embracing change becomes a requirement for tolerance.

World peace is all about tolerance. It is about accepting different people, with different ways and different values to be themselves even when right in front of you.

Religion is about absolute certainty. Is about repeating the same words over and over, in a church or holding a rosary, forever and ever, until the end of time, even if that means defying logic or letting go of common sense. When it is all about faith, thinking about it does not matter:

Amnesty International has condemned the stoning of a 13-year-old girl in southern Somalia. The human rights organization claims the teenager was stoned to death after her father informed the authorities that she had been gang-raped. She was reportedly accused of adultery and the stoning, in front of a crowd of around 1,000, was her punishment. Reporter Jon Manel and Kate Allen, director of Amnesty International, discuss the influence of militant Islamist group Al Shabab, which has control of some areas in Somalia.

From this article.

Well... Gay marriage, abortion, public displays of affection, and an endless list of behaviors that people have, will obviously clash at some point with some religion's law that clearly states that no one can have such behavior. No one can be different. No one can be outside what such religion claims.

You can surely see where this is going as far as tolerance goes. World peace, for one, will have to wait a long time... If you don't believe me, ask the 13 year old girl mentioned above.

[Definition] Tradition

Tradition: an inherited pattern of thought or action.

In religious debates, a position that supports a religious based action or tradition, against a secular action, can turn into a conflict where only one side can win. Although it's not always about winning and losing, and compromising is most of the times possible, tradition is sometimes a concept that people believe to be of importance.

For some, a tradition holds an importance higher than an unknown or simply recent non-traditional behavior.

For example: tattoos.
In a lot of work places in our society, tattoos are not seen as tradition, and so people applying for sensitive positions are often discriminated based on having visible tattoos. Bank tellers, Presidents, most managerial positions, are usually some of the positions where the issue is most prevailing. It is as if all bad people in the world could be identified by having tattoos.
Most people allow themselves to have double standards. Sometimes without even noticing. For thousands of years, man has marked his body with paintings, carved it with scars, and all that became tradition in some cultures. Tattooing is tradition. But if you're applying for that very nice job, the standard changes and your tattoo is now bad.

Religion is also tradition.
So was burning people at the stake that were thought to be witches, or heretics, persecuting and forcefully converting people based on their religion (crusades, inquisition), hanging criminals in public places in the old west, and other barbaric acts once done and accepted by the population as traditional: that inherited pattern of thought or action, passed from generation to generation (for whatever reason).

Don't let this become tradition!

When something is just tradition, it is just that: something that has been done a lot. Nothing more, nothing less. Lots of bad things have been done in a traditional way, and so have good things. When a tradition is challenged, all we should do is think about it as if it had been created today.

Next time someone defends something based on tradition alone, or in other words, because it has always been so, demand a better answer. Doing wrong over and over does not make it right. Tradition can be changed, and when a bad one, changing it recycles our minds, our ethics, our values and ourselves. And when times and people change, so should their traditions.