different countries, associates secularism with tolerance, acceptance and peace. Joseph illustrates this opposition as the following: Sectarianism by definition it is just a it just makes people against – breeds hate… each other. And you have people going to like... I rather belong to this group than that group [...] So secularism is exactly against that. No hate the other, just – don’t accept the other, it matter, whether he believes that you should pray in this doesn’t manner or in the other it matter. For me secularism would be manner… doesn’t very much associated with tolerance what secularism would do is that even if […] you have different ideologies and even if you have different religions, secularism would kind of help to accept the other and not create and and just “us” “them” create an basically. “us” He recalls the peaceful period in Lebanon after its independence from the French and says: I mean the different religious groups, they really live together so much, but didn’t they kind of accepted each other got to bring this back you […] We know… acceptance and tolerance. And yeah, we got to stop fueling the sectarian system and I think it is secularism. The association of tolerance with secularism was mentioned by most of the students. However, while some students considered that being a secular person inevitably means being a religiously tolerant person because being secular in Lebanon is not by being part of a social circle that consists of one sect but by being exposed to different people and that would make him/her secular, other students considered that in a secular religiously diverse state, tolerance is a matter of education. In the focus group discussion few members disagreed about whether tolerance should and can be taught or it is a matter of exposure. Dalia, who attended a secular school and is currently studying psychology, argues for the importance of teaching tolerance at an early age: Studies showed that the younger the kids are and you teach them to be tolerant, the more likely is that they will be tolerant. So I think we should start teaching tolerance before university. Karl: No, it is a very small thing this idea of teaching tolerance. If you just teach people that they should be tolerant and they live their own lives outside within
different countries, associates secularism with tolerance, acceptance and peace. Joseph illustrates this opposition as the following: Sectarianism by definition – it is just a breeds hate… it just makes people against each other. And you have people going to like... I rather belong to this group than that group [...] So secularism is exactly against that. No – don’t hate the other, just accept the other, it doesn’t matter, whether he believes that you should pray in this manner or in the other manner… it doesn’t matter. For me secularism would be very much associated with tolerance […] what secularism would do is that even if you have different ideologies and even if you have different religions, secularism would kind of help to accept the other and not create “us” and “them” and just create an “us” basically. He recalls the peaceful period in Lebanon after its independence from the French and says: I mean the different religious groups, they didn’t really live together so much, but they kind of accepted each other […] We got to bring this back you know… acceptance and tolerance. And yeah, we got to stop fueling the sectarian system and I think it is secularism. The association of tolerance with secularism was mentioned by most of the students. However, while some students considered that being a secular person inevitably means being a religiously tolerant person because being secular in Lebanon is not by being part of a social circle that consists of one sect but by being exposed to different people and that would make him/her secular, other students considered that in a secular religiously diverse state, tolerance is a matter of education. In the focus group discussion few members disagreed about whether tolerance should and can be taught or it is a matter of exposure. Dalia, who attended a secular school and is currently studying psychology, argues for the importance of teaching tolerance at an early age: Studies showed that the younger the kids are and you teach them to be tolerant, the more likely is that they will be tolerant. So I think we should start teaching tolerance before university. Karl: No, it is a very small thing this idea of teaching tolerance. If you just teach people that they should be tolerant and they live their own lives outside within