“Tolerance is the positive and cordial effort to understand another's beliefs, practices, and habits without necessarily sharing or accepting them.”

ahh that that was the case today

yes

Islam seems intollerant.

Any dogmatism that believes that it is more right than others, and is also in the business of conversion, proselytizing, jihad, world hegemony or a tryanny of political ideology is as bad as any other. Islam is hardly the only special interest group suffering from this malady.

A virtue often lacking in religionists.

As well as most athiests.

The positive and cordial effort to understand another's beliefs, practices, and habits, without necessarily sharing or accepting them, is one aspect of tolerance.

My dear EGL... Do you really put proselytizing--ie a peaceful attempt to present beliefs in the same category as the violent jihad and world hegemony we see around us? These hardly seem to be the same thing...unless of course, the facts being presented are so frightening to you that you must lump them together.... So what is it that frightens you sir...the Gospel? It means "Good news". Just seems funny.

I know no athiests who lack in this virtue... and all that I know who are Islamic are actually very tollerant... to label the group based upon the actions of a very small and highly radical minority is inappropriate and... well... intollerant of difference in and of itself.

A very good definition. However, today's "tolerance" has morphed into governmentally enforced acceptance.

Yes. However, you should accept the beliefs in the sense that they exist and they have the right to exist.