How does it treat people who reject it — can it live in peace with those who disagree?

"There is no compulsion in religion" (Qur'an 2:256). Non-Muslims under Islamic rule kept their faith, courts, and worship. Kindness and justice are owed to all who live in peace (Qur'an 60:8); disbelief is answered by God, not by the state.

Mainstream atheist thought answers rejection with argument, not force, and defends religious freedom as part of freedom of thought. The record is not clean: atheist states in the 20th century persecuted believers, and contemporary atheist thinkers condemn that coercion as a betrayal of the tradition's own principle.

With argument at most. Rejecting agnosticism carries no penalty and could carry none — there is no institution to impose one; and coexistence is close to definitional, since punishing people over an unprovable verdict is exactly what the position condemns.

Jesus commanded love of enemies and never coerced belief — when a village refused him, he simply moved on (Luke 9:52–56). The record afterward is mixed: the persecuted early church pleaded for tolerance, but state Christianity later punished heresy and pressured Jews and pagans. Today virtually all churches affirm religious freedom — Vatican II declared coerced faith worthless — and Christians live peaceably as minorities across the world.

Judaism neither seeks converts nor teaches that non-Jews are damned: the righteous of all nations have a share in the world to come, and the seven Noahide laws set a basic moral standard for humanity. Classical texts hold both harsh statements about idolaters and the teaching that every human is beloved as God's image; the dominant modern reading — from the medieval Meiri to Sacks — extends full moral standing to all peoples.

Peaceful coexistence is the norm and the record is largely tolerant: no conversion by force is taught, and when the householder Upali converted, the Buddha told him to keep supporting his former Jain teachers. Ashoka's edicts command honoring all sects. The modern exceptions are real: Buddhist-nationalist movements in Myanmar and Sri Lanka have turned against religious minorities.

There is no missionary imperative and no doctrine of the damned outsider — the Gita has Krishna receive all who come by any path — and India's long hosting of Jains, Parsis, Jews, and Christians is cited with pride. The tradition's sharpest exclusion ran inward instead, against its own "untouchables"; and today Hindus divide over Hindutva movements whose targeting of Muslims and Christians many Hindus condemn as a betrayal of the tradition.

It claims to live at peace with them, and its record is comparatively strong: no tradition of forced conversion, little missionary drive, the langar open to everyone — and the ninth Guru, Tegh Bahadur, executed in 1675 for defending the religious freedom of Hindus, a faith not his own.

Rejecting secularism is itself protected by secularism: believers who oppose it keep full citizenship and may vote, publish, and organize against it openly. The line is drawn at capture, not conviction — arguing for a religious state is lawful, while making one faith compulsory is what the constitution resists; Rawls held that even the intolerant are owed toleration until they actually endanger free institutions.

With full civil equality: humanists defend freedom of religion or belief for everyone, including believers who reject humanism. Peaceful coexistence is not a concession but the core of its politics — persuasion only, never coercion of conscience.

Peaceful coexistence with dissenters is the point of the system: anti-liberal parties speak, publish, and run for office inside liberal states. The hard case is tolerating those who would abolish toleration — Popper's 'paradox of tolerance'; the mainstream answer is to protect even anti-liberal speech while defending the constitutional order itself against violent overthrow.

No penalty attaches to rejecting it: feminism works by persuasion, voting, and law, and lives daily with disagreement in every democracy — its critics publish, organize, and hold office freely.

This is where its two wings part decisively. Civic nationalism offers full and equal citizenship to everyone who joins the political community, whatever their origin or belief; ethnic nationalism has ranged from tolerated minority status to discrimination, expulsion, and worse. The honest record includes both minority-rights protections written by nationalists and ethnic cleansing carried out by them; liberal nationalists like Tamir insist a national state is obligated to protect its minorities.