[KenWittlief]

It would be easy to get lost here in the definition of the words 'tolerance' and 'acceptance'.

I only intended to point out that people often say one when they mean the other.

After the attacks on sept 11, the president and others went on national TV pleading for religious tolerance (by americans towards american muslims) and at the same time they repeatedly stated that Islam is a religion of peace.

If we are suppose to be tolerant of other peoples beliefs, then it doenst matter if their beliefs are peacefull, good, positive... From my way of looking at it, we tolerate people when we dont agree with them, when we are at odds with them

if there is no conflict or controversy, then tolerance is not required, because there is no issue there.

Im not sure I understand your example of WW2 and Germany. As soon as Germany invaded Poland, a full scale war was waged, most nations took sides and did everything they could to win the conflict.

And I dont think anyone knew what was really happening to the jewish people inside the borders controlled by Germany. Its not that anyone tolerated or accepted what they were doing, it was done in secret.

When american troops stumbled across the concentrations camps (my father was in Pattons 3rd army) they were in shock. They had no idea those things were going on until they started finding the camps.

going back to the topic of this thread, it seems like at least some of the examples given by RavenWriter, the student in the class would not tolerate religion even being discussed, or used in any context on test questions.