"Quote - "Tolerance is based off of being secure in your own beliefs. What ever those beliefs are. In general, if you are easily offended, you should look at WHY more than WHAT....."" Actually I've been thinking about this statement and I'm going to muddy the water on it. It's true, in part, but there are also other factors. When I was a smoker, there were people who were justifiably secure in their belief that smoking was a harmful, destructive activity. However, in addition to being secure in their belief, they cared - about me, about themselves, and about others who might be affected by the smoke I spewed. Therefore some of them were not 'tolerant' of my smoking. Based on this example I'd have to say that sometimes intolerance is an act of caring. When things are clearly harmful it's easy to see that this kind of intolerance is probably a 'good' thing. However, some things aren't as clear as to whether or not they're harmful. Is intolerance a good thing when you care enough about some 13-year old to impose your views about sex upon them? You could be saving them from a very difficult life based on having to raise an unwanted kid or deal with an STD. On the other hand, maybe nothing will happen. Even adults make stupid choices - drunk driving, unprotected casual sex come to mind but there are other questionable choices we all face. Many times it's not just the one who made the choice but others also have to pay the consequences of those choices. Is it intolerance (in the negative sense) or is it caring when you prevent them from making those kinds of choices? Life is rarely black and white.

Before they made me they broke the mold!
http://home.roadrunner.com/~kflach/