25.3. Why Do People Join New Religious Movements?

According to Marc Gallanter, typical reasons why people join "cults" include a search for community and a spiritual quest. Rodney Stark and William Bainbridge, in discussing the process by which individuals join new religious groups, have even questioned the utility of the concept of conversion, suggesting that affiliation is a more useful concept.

Jeffrey Hadden summarizes a lecture entitled "Why Do People Join NRMs?" as follows:

1. Belonging to groups is a natural human activity;

2. People belong to religious groups for essentially the same reasons they belong to other groups;

3. Conversion is generally understood as an emotionally charged experience that leads to a dramatic reorganization of the convert's life;

4. Conversion varies enormously in terms of the intensity of the experience and the degree to which it actually alters the life of the convert;

5. Conversion is one, but not the only reason people join religious groups;

6. Social scientists have offered a number of theories to explain why people join religious groups;

7. Most of these explanations could apply equally well to explain why people join lots of other kinds of groups;

8. No one theory can explain all joinings or conversions;

9. What all of these theories have in common is the view that joining or converting is a natural process.

25.4. Tolerance

In a general meaning, tolerance is an ability to accept something while disapproving of it.

In social, cultural and religious contexts, toleration and tolerance are terms used to describe attitudes which are "tolerant" (or moderately respectful) of practices or group memberships that may be disapproved of by those in the majority. In practice, "tolerance" indicates support for practices that prohibit ethnic and religious discrimination. Conversely, 'intolerance' may be used to refer to the discriminatory practices sought to be prohibited. Though developed to refer to the religious toleration of minority religious sects following the Protestant Reformation, these terms are increasingly used to refer to a wider range of tolerated practices and groups, or of political parties or ideas widely considered objectionable.

Philosopher Karl Popper asserted, in The Open Society and Its Enemies, that we are warranted in refusing to tolerate intolerance; illustrating that there are limits to tolerance. Philosopher John Rawls devotes a section of his influential and controversial book ”A Theory of Justice” to this problem; whether a just society should or should not tolerate the intolerant. He also addresses the related issue of whether or not the intolerant have any right to complain when they are not tolerated, within their society. Rawls concludes that a just society must be tolerant; therefore, the intolerant must be tolerated, for otherwise, the society would then itself be intolerant, and thus unjust. However, Rawls qualifies this conclusion by insisting, like Popper, that society and its social institutions have a reasonable right of self-preservation that supersedes the principle of tolerance. In his words: “While an intolerant sect does not itself have title to complain of intolerance, its freedom should be restricted only when the tolerant sincerely and with reason believe that their own security and that of the institutions of liberty are in danger”

So, in general usage, tolerance is a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward those whose beliefs or personal characteristics (race, religion, nationality, etc.), differ from one's own.

Religious toleration is the condition of accepting or permitting others' religious beliefs and practices which disagree with one's own. In a country with a state religion, toleration means that the government permits religious practices of other sects besides the state religion, and does not persecute believers in other faiths. It is a partial status, and might still be accompanied by forms of religious discrimination. Religious toleration as a government policy merely means the absence of religious persecution; unlike religious liberty it does not mean that religions are equal before the law. Toleration is a privilege granted by government (which it may do by law or charter), not a right against it; governments have often tolerated some religions and not others.