The Reasons of Ineffectiveness of modern Concepts of religious Tolerance

Abstract

The article examines a number of characteristic features of modern concepts of religious tolerance and its "expanded" version – tolerance in general. These concepts now have a noticeable impact on socio-political life. Despite its spread, the concepts of tolerance and the concepts of multiculturalism and pluralism that grew out of them proved unable to solve the serious problems facing the modern international community. The subject of this study is the characteristic features of the concepts of (religious) tolerance. The purpose of the study is to analyze the specifics of the origin of ideas of (religious) tolerance in the works of European thinkers of the XVII–XVIII centuries and to identify a number of features of the corresponding modern socio-political concepts due to this specificity. The article uses: an integrated approach that contributes to the comprehensive disclosure of the problem posed; a causal method that allows us to trace the connection between the features of ideas of (religious) tolerance in the past and certain aspects of relevant modern concepts; methods of generalization and classification. The novelty of the study lies in the fact that one of the goals of religious tolerance in the past has been revealed – to level the influence of Christianity (Catholicism) on society. An attempt is made to answer the question of the reasons for the ineffectiveness of the concepts of tolerance, appealing to the historical origins of the underlying ideas, as well as to the modern period of global changes and geopolitical transformations, including the current military-political situation in Ukraine. The results of the study can be used both in the theoretical, purely scientific aspect (religious studies, philosophy, political science), and in practical – in the strategic planning of the internal political course of Russia. The result of the study is the establishment of a number of reasons for those trends that are inherent both in the process of theoretical development of these concepts and in the practice of their application. The conclusion is that religious tolerance cannot be the foundation for solving interfaith and state-confessional issues in the world.