Should all beliefs be tolerated?

[Salnax]

palou said:

Salnax said:
I feel that all people should be respected, and all beliefs should be tolerated (though not necessarily respected), but that there should be no special protection of actions based on beliefs. Yes, there are foul beliefs that benefit nobody, but the people holding these beliefs should be respected enough to contain them. People always deserve the right to have their own stupid ideas, especially when they have little to no impact on others.

Should they however be aloud to spread the belief? That is how I would define not "tolerating" a belief. It does not mean to attack people, simply an attempt to kill off the belief itself, in the long run.

I think that a bad and/or stupid belief will ultimately die out provided that superior ideas can also be permitted, and thus compete with them. If anything, openly showing a bad idea makes it subject to more scrutiny and criticism. Besides, controlling speech without interfering with personal liberties seems like a difficult task at best.

I recognize that my opinion sounds a bit overly optimistic, but I truly believe that if one belief is better than another, it can come out ahead by default.