Progressives insist that they are the ambassadors of tolerance and compassion and have done so now for decades. They clamor for their endless list of causes behind the garish guise of these two high virtues and insist they stand on the moral high ground in all social issues.
Much to the chagrin of progressives, however, the roots of tolerance and compassion are decidedly religious in origin and remain so. They actually form the Golden Rule. And while the Golden Rule gets bandied about too often to count these days, many often forget that the maxim is inherently religious. That is, it simply would not exist were it not for religion.
After all, it’s a foundational maxim for all the major religious traditions of the world. Even the Wikipedia entry states as much as does the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
All known world religions address the nature of good and evil and commend ways of achieving human well-being…there is a substantial overlap between many of these conceptions of the good as witnessed by the commending of the Golden Rule.
Here’s a key proviso in relation to the Golden Rule though. It only makes sense in a decidedly religious context. Religious faith not only provides a foundation for the Golden Rule but also guideposts. A sense of wholesome direction and discipline are established.
Bereft of the necessary religious foundations, tolerance and compassion mutate into vacuous pity and a complete disregard for boundaries. Almost anything is allowed. We are reduced to bestial impulses. Wanton hedonism emerges alongside blinding narcissism under very deviant definitions of tolerance and compassion.
Tolerance, in particular, warps into “anything goes and you’re not allowed to criticize it.” This is evident among progressives now more than ever and, sadly, in America at large today.
Unlike religious faith, when one finally decides to peer behind the curtain of progressive claims to such virtues, one finds that no moral foundation whatsoever exists. Their ideas are rooted in nihilism and narcissism. At best, they draw from comic books, films and television shows. These have formed a hopelessly insular and circular narrative for them ad nauseam.
For example, the Star Wars universe has become a moral guidepost for many progressives. I’m not kidding. Last I checked though, George Lucas is not some grand harbinger of wisdom.
In fact, the very first Star Wars trilogy alongside pretty much the entire genre of fantasy draws from J.R.R. Tolkien and his seminal classic, The Lord of The Rings. Here’s a fun fact for progressives: Tolkien was very much a devout Catholic and says as much in his own words regarding his work:
The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work.
Tolerance and compassion remain fundamentally religious values. Sadly, progressives have not only abandoned religious wisdom – wisdom that has remained for centuries upon centuries – they generally malign the very notion of religious faith unless it involves some silly New Age dreck from the likes of Ram Dass, Marianne Williamson, or Osho and his fleet of Rolls Royces. It’s no wonder that such high virtues have devolved into self-serving progressive virtue-signaling.