Tolerance and Acceptance : My Take on the Differences

First I will post the dictionary definition of both. Then discuss the differences.

Tolerance: The ability or willingness to tolerate something, in particular the existence of opinions or behavior that one does not necessarily agree with.

Acceptance : Favorable reception; approval. Belief in something; agreement.

So now that you have had the opportunity to read the technical definitions, take a moment to let that sink in. There really is a difference in the two words.  You.re welcome to read the full definitions of the words but we will use these for the discussion. 

Usually my posting topics are sparked by discussions I have with people on Facebook. And without going terribly deeply into what the discussion, the basic premise was a quote from Kirk Cameron's belief on homosexuality.  Basically he was saying that he tolerated it because it is apart of the world. However, he chooses not to accept it because of his beliefs.  Why can't people accept that? Christians are the most tolerant people you could ever meet.  No, Christians don't accept a lot of things of this world.  Because we aren't of this world.  We lead totally different lifestyles from people of the secular world.  And that is a choice.  But we also have the choice to not accept things of the world.  We know that for the most part we must tolerate things of the world because the world is where we live.  It's like as of right now, I tolerate the fact that abortion is legal.  However I refuse to accept that it is ok.  Thus, that is why I am a staunch abolitionist.  I am also tolerant of the homosexual lifestyle.  However, it is also something I won't accept as ok. BUT I do accept a homosexual as a beautiful creation of God.

It honestly breaks my heart to see the Christian faith mocked, and belittled.  I have had people so in my face about being tolerant.  You must tolerate this, you must tolerate that.  But what YOU don't seem to tolerate is the fact that I don't agree with you.  People don't agree all the time.  That's the beauty of being human.  We can express those differences in opinions, that's the beauty of being an American.  I can take this post and go so many different ways with it.  I can go down the morality path and I can also go down the political path.  but in doing that this could be forever long.  I may actually break those two things down into two posts later on.