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The document discusses the importance of tolerance and empathy. It argues that tolerance is an active process of connecting with others and finding compromise, even when people seem very different. True tolerance is based on recognizing shared humanity and understanding different perspectives through empathy. The document provides historical examples of religious tolerance and calls for embracing diversity in the pursuit of peace.

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Ana-Maria Simionescu
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33 views

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The document discusses the importance of tolerance and empathy. It argues that tolerance is an active process of connecting with others and finding compromise, even when people seem very different. True tolerance is based on recognizing shared humanity and understanding different perspectives through empathy. The document provides historical examples of religious tolerance and calls for embracing diversity in the pursuit of peace.

Uploaded by

Ana-Maria Simionescu
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as RTF, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Ana-Happiness comes in many forms.

In the company of good friends,or in the feeling you get when you make someone elses dreams come true. Its ok to let yourself be happy, because you never know how great that happiness might be. Filip: Sometimes pain becomes such a huge part of your life,that you expect it to always be there, because you cant remember a time in your life when it wasnt. But then one day you feel something else. Something that feels wrong only because its so unfamiliar, and in that moment you realize youre happy. Ana: But what means to be happy?It means to find peace within yourself. And if it happens, you become the kind of person you can live at peace with others. Filip: We talk about tolerance, but how many of us know what tolerance is? We are different and this is what bothers you. You fear that which you not know but do you even know yourself? Ana:The true basis of tolerance is empahty . Empathy is the capacity to recognize and, to some extent, share feelings (such as sadness or happiness) that are being experienced by another sentient or semi-sentient being . Filip: Tolerance must be treated as an active process of connecting people in an effort to find a unanimous compromise between sides . Tolerance itself entails that we are open to objective analysis of our fellow humans differences . As it oftenly happens , it is much more easy to be intolerant , passive, cold , dissmisive , cinic : That is why i believe tolerance is key to long term solutions . Tolerance for example is the answer to solve animosities between neighbouring countryes . For example , the state of Texas recently wanted to implement very strict laws against mexican imigrants , which lead to an uproar from the community . Ana: While some people were supportive , other became even more against immigrants , for no apparent reason , just that the general opinion was that mexicans had a bad influence .This mindless generalisations is a serious offense against individuality and fair rights Filip: . On the other side of the spectrum , Canada is famous for being a very cultural diverse country where differences are perceived as something to cherish and most of all , canadians of english and french descent coexist in harmony under the same flag , and example to us romanians regarding the animosities between romanian of hungarian descent and romanians of romanian descent .

Ana: But who are you to tell me that i am wrong? Friedrich Nietzsche once said: You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist. Filip: You are mad on gypses, on black people, on all the people who don`t look like you , who don't behave like you would expect , for you they are all the same , but this is what drives your ignorance , the desire and the idea that everything must be the same . So what if we are different ? The first who made us so was God. Ana: If you remember, in the parable of Tower of Babel, everybody loved everybody , so they started to build a tower to find god. Then, He made them different but only making them to speak different languages. In our times, we learn the other languages but we hate one anothers because of our differences , the things we could not possibly understand like hows it to be a different colour , age , religion , these things that we do not know first handedly . The questin is why? . God said: "you shall love your neighbour as yourself". But do we listen to him? Filip: He also said: "thow shalt not bear false witness against the neighbour." but he didn`t say "only if he is like you". I`m sure that not all of you know that inspite of their religion, the Jews were helped by muslims in antiquity in a common effort to prevent extinction . Ana: In 1348, Pope Clement VI issued a bull pleading with Catholics not to murder Jews, whom they blamed for the Black Death . Filip: Paulus Vladimiri was a Polish scholar and rector who at the Council of Constance in 1414, presented a thesis , Treatise on the Power of the Pope and the Emperor Respecting Infidels . In it he argued that pagan and Christian nations could coexist in peace . Ana: Sir Thomas More , Catholic Lord Chancellor and author, described a world of almost complete religious toleration in Utopia (1516), in which the Utopians "can hold various religious beliefs without persecution from the authorities " Filip: Maybe you should say "Ok, but in modern times religion is not an issue anymore" . This is right, but if those and many other men weren`t tolerant, maybe we had this problem in our days. Ana:It doesn`t matter if we are christians, muslims, if we believe in buddha or in other gods . Tolerance is a matter of respect and trust and an active process of bridging people that are

seemingly very different but fundamentaly all human . Tolerance is not ignorance idealised but more of a process of empathy towards those arownd us , a process that helps us know the world around us so that we can live in peace with it . Filip: So the problem of intolerance can be put in another perspective . What if the actual problem is that some people seem to have a complete lack of emapthy? Why is it that they have such a cold cinnic view on the world around them? Ana:In 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states: Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance Filip: In 1965, The Roman Catholic Church Vatican II Council issued the decree Religious Freedom In 1986, the first World Day of Prayer for Peace was held in Assisi. Representatives of one hundred and twenty different religions came together for prayer to their God or gods. In 1988, in the spirit of Glasnost, Soviet premier romised increased religious toleration. Ana: I would like to conclude that tolerance is what make us human , and we all need to embrace difference and diversity in the pursuit of peace and happiness .

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