? why
Posted on: February 26, 2008 - 6:11pm
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? why
You should respect and tolerate other people's religious beliefs > ? why
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What do you mean by "respect" and "tolerate"?
Just one of those old sayings, "one must respect and tolerate other people's beliefs and practices", I think the idea of mutually respectful tolerance is still banded around today
But why ?
Wars start because of the lack of respect and tolerance for other peoples belief's. Most of the wars of man started because of the lack of respect and tolerance for other peoples belief's.
If Jesus was born today he would be institutionalized as a schizophrenic with delusions of grandeur.
No reason except that we all live together and some religious nuts will kill you if you don't see things their way. However, "tolerate" is a little vague: it can include mockery (luckily) - except for Danish cartoonists...
Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly.
Isaac Asimov
respect religious beliefs? are you fucking serious?
if someone told you clouds were made of cotton candy and they were going to toss their kid off the roof of their apartment complex so the toddler could grab a chunk and continue to float across the horizon with a sugar high would you just stand their and respect that belief?
I'll respect the believer, but not the belief.
There's indeed a lot of people who claim their beliefs deserve respect just because they believe in them. To those people I have always responded with either one of the following (depending on how they ask): either "Show me the merit of your beliefs", or just "Bullshit they don't".
To me, in order to grant any respect to a belief (or belief system), it has to meet certain criteria:
1) The belief itself must at least have some merit on it's own (like teaching to love our neighbors).
2) The belief itself is personal, i.e. doesn't demand the believer to preach it/enforce it unto others. (If the believer and/or those who teach it does so anyway, by default I lose respect for them and call their belief into question).
3) The belief itself doesn't imply in any way that anyone who does not share it is inferior or wrong (as a side note, doesn't it pisses you off when people tell you they're gonna pray for your soul and wish you find their god?).
4) The belief itself doesn't require nor suggest any practice that would result in the endangerment of health/life/property or otherwise of the believer and/or any other person.
5) -For organized belief- The belief or those who teach it doesn't require you to pay any kind of fee (monetary or otherwise) in order to learn it and practice it.
6) The belief is not exclusive, i.e. anyone who freely chooses to learn about it and practice it can do so without hindrances of any kind.
7) The belief itself is suggestive, not demanding. This is, if it has any rules or set of directions that could be taken as guidance, it must be clear that these are only that, guidance, as oppose to rigid rules to be strictly followed to the letter. (The same consideration mentioned in rule two applies here). From this it can be inferred that the belief must be then open to interpretation.
8 ) The belief itself is internally consistent, this is, if it has different teachings/guidances, they must all be consistent to each other.
9) The belief doesn't make any extraordinary claim -preferably- or if it does, then it either backs them up with sound and peer-reviewed evidence, or at least has the decency to recognize it can't do so, and that such claims are not to be taken literally but metaphorically as a device for teaching.
And these are just top of my head. If any belief doesn't meet this criteria, then anyone demanding any respect for their precious beliefs not only is not gonna get any, but will also lose the respect I by default grant to any person that is a stranger to me.
Respect is something you earn, and is certainly something you can lose by merit of your actions.
If anyone exercises other criteria or thinks on any other then please add it to the list, this could end up being quite useful the next time someone barks their belief deserves respect.
"Peace, and may you get all the respect you deserve" Pat Condell
Lenore, The Cute Little Dead Girl. Twice as good as Jesus.
I think religious beliefs demand respect because that stops people from questioning them.If people did that they would surely realise it's all rather silly. Like Dawkins says in The God Delusion, the ridiculous stigma and respect attached to it must be broken before theism can be eliminated. As long as it's taboo to question someone's absurd beliefs,they will thrive. This is why I give no respect to it, anymore than I would respect someone's belief that people with red shirts should be beaten.
I will respect the person but not the belief.
Psalm 14:1 "the fool hath said in his heart there is a God"-From a 1763 misprinted edition of the bible
Argument from Sadism: Theist presents argument in a wall of text with no punctuation and wrong spelling. Atheist cannot read and is forced to concede.
Hate the sin, not the sinner.