Intolerance of differing beliefs

I don't think that anyone can deny that we are living in an era of widespread intolerance. We become entrenched in our beliefs, and we can't understand how anyone​ can think differently. When we contribute to intolerance ourselves, we think nothing of it. When individuals dare to deviate from one of your beliefs, that's when people show their intolerance.

Religion is a good example of this. People judge others based off of whether or not they agree with religious beliefs. In some cases religions point out high profile members of the religion as individuals we should admire. One of the problems with this approach is that you can't give an individual or a group preferential treatment ​without lowering your perspective of others.

I will admit that I don't always view those whose thoughts are similar to mine as equals to those who differ. For example, I tend to be skeptical of anyone who defends our schools because I have yet to hear arguments that are not based on oversights and assumptions.

To an extent, I think this is acceptable. If we truly believe in the right to think for ourselves, then we should certainly have the right to disagree with others. The issue here is that there need to be limits. Individuality is not a sign of inferiority, and there is no excuse for the extent of intolerance that we have been seeing.

I wanted to bring up one last thing. Around the turn of the millennium, I bumped into a poll online relating to when the millennium would begin. I don't remember the details, but I remember four options. One was 2000. Another was 2001. Two more options provide those same years but with the insistence that you would have to be stupid to think otherwise.

Technically speaking, 2000 and 2001 were both correct. A millennium is defined by the length of time, not the start. Whether you view this millennium as 2000-2999 or 2001-3000, you are looking at a period of one thousand years.

The top two responses to the poll reflected both of these possibilities​. The issue I had was that both of them were combined with the criticism of the other side.