Intolerance and closed mindedness
Today, I sat down on the tube next to a gentleman on my left and leaving space for an approaching lady to sit to my right. Eventually the lady sat down one seat away on the right so I had her, the gentlemen and a three ladies in front of me and to the left of the gentleman, the rest of the carriage was mostly empty but as the train drew away everyone seemed comfortable and there was no atmosphere.
What happened next was very interesting, but first you must understand that I hadn’t actually showered so I could understand if somebody decided I was a bit stinky. Though the gentleman directly on the left seemed entirely tolerant of my existence, as was everyone else.
Then, I reached into my bag and got a book out.
I had two books, on software and religion, but I chose to read the book on religion, which espouses a point of view with which I am somewhat sympathetic. Though I admit, some aspects of some religions make me uncomfortable I have never really proselytised my own views and try to be tolerant and express an interest in other belief systems and the cultures that go with them. I don’t often think about the topic, and am certainly not a religious practitioner, so this is probably the first time I’ve read a book on religion in public.
So what happened? Well a few seconds after I opened the book, the lady one seat away to the right, who certainly did have the option to sit further away earlier on, decided to stand up and move down about one third the length of the carriage. I instantly suspected I was smelly, or had burped or sniffed in a disgusting way, but looking around I saw the confused faces of the other passengers in this little cluster and they all seemed sufficiently surprised to rule that out. The next thing I thought of was the book and as soon as I started examining the back cover – necessarily exposing the front cover – the other faces become less confused, and returned to their own business. Had the book, who’s title was visible on the back cover, made this woman move away? Wow!
I can’t think of any other reasons why this lady would have moved away, and the fact that she had brown skin and my skin and the skin of the author are both white reinforces the reason somewhat since religion often divides – I believe – along the lines of skin colour. So yes, it probably was the book. Er… Wow!
I’m a white male living in 2008 in a polyglot and cosmopolitan city where the traditional culture matches my own cultural upbringing. The historic cultural backdrop of London matches the Christian cultural backdrop I was bought up in. Why should an atheist with such a background experience such extreme religious intolerance simply for reading Richard Dawkins
Wow… simply moving away demonstrates a high level of intolerance. I would generally define intolerance as murder and arson, and I am neither murdered nor burnt from my home, but on a relative scale this was somewhat more than the none at all I’m used to or the nearly none I feel for others. Yet putting tolerance aside, isn’t it pretty closed minded to assume that a book that is opposed to the existence of God is necessarily intolerable? and that a person reading an intolerable book is himself intolerable? Jesus Christ!
