Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
>
> In the main I concur with Justin, but I reiterate my point that it is
> inadvisable to proclaim values such as "Freedom, Equality, Property,
> and Bentham" & "religious toleration" are "Western." That is exactly
> how Osama bin Laden & Co. think & tell their followers. Why should
> we agree with them that such values are alien to nations outside the
> G8 circle?
>
Perhaps someone else can provide the historical data in more detail than I can, but I have the general impression that religious toleration is fundamentally a _NON-western_ value, practiced first I think by Islam, and only adopted, and quite grudgingly, by the west after it had almost destroyed itself in the religous wars of the 16th and 17th centuries?
When was it, by the way, that non-Anglicans were first allowed to enter Oxbridge?
According to Christopher Hill, the last execution of a Unitarian in England was as late as 1699.
Carrol