WAS RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE YET ANOTHER FOLLY OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT? —“The Middle A

WAS RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE YET ANOTHER FOLLY OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT?
—“The Middle Ages were, well, medieval. It is a fallacy (one that historians call presentism) to judge the past by the standards of the pre­sent. In a modern, post-Enlightenment world, religious belief is merely a personal preference, like a favorite color. But in most premodern civilizations, religion is a central, if not predominant, aspect of one’s personal and collective identity. To seek to corrupt or defame a culture’s religion would therefore be the equivalent of treason in the modern era. In both cases the crimes were thought to be severe enough to warrant the death penalty.
All of this is just to say that before the 18th century, religious tolerance was no virtue.”–

We are ending much of the 18th century’s optimism for reasons I’ve explained elsewhere. Is religious tolerance one of those optimisms that was a folly?