Time blogger Joe Klein has produced a couple of posts purporting to identify the characteristics of “right-wing extremists” and “left-wing extremists.” LWEs hate America, capitalism, mom and apple pie, while RWEs think America and capitalism are never in the wrong, that universal health care equals socialism, etc. Determining to what extent these stereotypes match up with actual people who hold power and influence I leave as an exercise for the reader.

However, another one of Klein’s marks of a RWE is that he or she “believes that there are inferior religions.” By this standard, virtually everyone in the world is a RWE. For instance, is there anyone, even atheists, agnostics, or whoever, who doesn’t believe there is more truth in Buddhism or Christianity than, say, Scientology? Maybe there are some who profess to believe that all religions are bunk through and through and that there is no meaningful differences between them, but this must be a rare breed.

It’s also puzzling to claim that it’s a sign of “extremism” to hold that one’s beliefs are true and that the denials of those beliefs are false. While I’m certainly sympathetic to the view that the world’s great religions have more in common than is immediately apparent, it would seem rash to conclude a priori that there are no meaningful differences in the claims they make about reality. If a particular Buddhist denies that ultimate reality can be meaningfully described as a personal being, doesn’t she ipso facto disagree with her Christian friend who affirms this very thing? And isn’t she committed to the view that, in that respect at least, he religion is “superior” to her friend’s?

Note that this is a different issue from whether one should respect the beliefs of others. I happen to take the view that a variety of positions about the nature of reality and human beings’ relation to it can be rationally held. That doesn’t mean they can all be true; where there are genuine incompatibilities, at most one can be right. But our epistemic situation appears to be such that we can’t publicly demonstrate the manifest superiority of a single view in a way that will convince all reasonable people. We can and should acknowledge the fact that reasonable people of good will and deep moral sensibility can come to conclusions different from ours. But none of that changes the fact that to believe x is to deny not-x, and that if I believe x, then I hold that to believe x is superior to believing not-x (since, other things being equal, it’s better to believe truth than falsehood).

It’s interesting, and perhaps significant, that people apply standards to religious belief that they apply in virtually no other area. Take politics. Like religion it involves longstanding disagreements that are resistant to any lasting solution. And hopefully most of us would acknowledge that there are people who don’t share our political beliefs who are nevertheless just as thoughtful, morally sensitive, well-informed, etc. as we are (moreso in many cases!). And yet, recognizing that in no way commits us to being relativists about politics, does it? Does recognizing that there are smart and decent people who disagree with me about abortion, or the minimum wage, or single-payer health care or whatever mean that I would be wrong – and even extremist! – to hold that my views are “superior” to theirs? If I didn’t regard them as superior in what sense would they even by my views?

True tolerance, it seems to me, doesn’t mean denying that we disagree about things. It means recognizing disagreement and finding ways to respect each other and live together anyway.