Should I Tolerate Or Have Tolerance?

Are tolerance and to tolerate two different concepts?

How can tolerate mean: "to allow the existence, presence, practice, or act of without prohibition or hindrance; permit," or "to endure without repugnance; put up with," and tolerance mean: "a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward those whose opinions, practices, race, religion, nationality, etc., differ from one's own; freedom from bigotry?"

I am very capable of having a "fair, objective, and permissive" view of differences. And for the most part I do. But having a "fair, objective, and permissive" view of differences and calling it tolerance is simply a poor word choice. Call it acceptance.

For example, I am pro-life. I put up with people who are pro-choice. I do not in any way prohibit their "existence, presence, or practice." However, I do not feel that requires me to have a "fair and objective" attitude toward the pro-choice concept. I think that it is wrong and I will defend that position and attempt to reason with pro-choicers from my point of view. And if at the end of the day they still have the same opinion, that is just fine. I do not consider them a bigot or myself a bigot. I think that they are wrong, but that is not bigotry. Bigotry is removing their status as a human because of their opinion.

If we have weighed the options we do not need to continue to have a permissive attitude toward concepts that we feel are blatantly wrong. But we can tolerate them; we can put up with them. And know this: we should always be accepting to people. But that does not mean we have to like their beliefs. In that way we have tolerance as defined above. And we should always tolerate as defined above.

John 4:1-45