Religious argument in public sphere: toleration and identity

A number of widely discussed court verdicts recently delivered in Yekaterinburg to defend so called «religious feelings» (R. Sokolovsky case) or against the «atheistic claim» for the priest’s apology (N. Ryabchevsky case) turned our attention back to the questions: why is it so difficult to tolerate when it concerns religion? If not human rights, what are those principles our public debates should be governed by? The author tries to find some possibilities for toleration both in religious and in secular spheres of modern society. The author starts with classical definitions (P. Nicholson and D. Heyd) of what toleration is and how it works, then, based on A. Margalit’s description of religious pluralism compares key arguments for and against the very possibility of inner religious toleration. Having relocated the results into public sphere, the author wonders if the virtue of toleration should be kept there. The preliminary conclusion is that it depends on what kind of identity - «thick» or «thin» - communication processes in the society are based on. Hence, two education policies are explored in the last part of the paper: the first one is aimed at reducing any strong connection between self and group identity, and the second one is based on communitarian respect for socially constructed self (Ch. Taylor). The dilemma is not solved yet, and the author ends up with a suggestion to compare the way reli gion(s) is taught at schools in Russia and in at least Northern (according to RSF project plan) Europe to get more clear vision of the «constellation» of modernity that we are planning to achieve.