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Dear Selma,
Religious tolerance in a secular state applies
unconditionally to beliefs in general. The tolerance
to practice, however, is conditional, the condition
being that the religious practice must not be harmful
to the individual and the society as a whole. Your
example is therefore inappropriate. Tolerance also
does not mean that one cannot speak out against absurd
beliefs. It only means that one cannot suppress them.
You are as free to criticize Albert's beliefs as
Albert is to express them.
Cheers,
Santosh
--- Carvalho <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Dear Santosh,
>
> Here atlast is a debate I can wrap my arms around. I
> never said I'm a non-secularist, I said I'm not an
> Indian secularist.
>
> Let me construct a hypothetical example to
> illustrate
> why a true secularist would not have "religious
> tolerance" and "separation of church and state" on
> the
> same side of the balance sheet.
