Respecting a belief because it is based on religion?

shruikan2553

Something I have noticed often is that people with a religious belief think that if you say anything or ridicule the belief you're a smug atheist asshole or if you are fox news you call it the "war on religion". In a lot of gay marriage debates eventually the person against it gets backed into a corner and runs out of one liners from the bible to use the "well thats just my belief, you people call me a bigot and then you attack me for having a belief that different to yours".

These people would then laugh at Scientology or claim that Islam should treat women better but nobody else should dare to say something about theirs!

While I think that people should be able to believe anything you want, I dont think you can say that something out loud without anyone telling you that is the stupidest thing they have ever heard. For example, the idea that we are all the product of severe inbreeding that started when 2 people popped out of thin air sounds completely stupid to me and makes me wonder how people continue through the bible after such brilliant story writing in the first chapter. If someone tried to tell me it as true I would say its a stupid idea and yet that makes me the bad guy.

What do other people think? Should a belief be respected just because someone else came up with it and told them it was true?

Penn

Simplest answer is that it's not beliefs that should be respected, but the right to have those beliefs.

I'd append that though by noting that so long as your beliefs don't negatively affect another person, they should be respected. If they do negatively affect another person, then it's an infringement on the rights of another person and therefore shouldn't be respected.

robindch

WTF?

As Penn says, one must respect the right of individuals to hold a belief, but that does not imply any respect for the belief itself. Many religious people appear to think that it does. Similarly, a belief is not the same as the person holding the belief, so insulting or laughing at a belief is not the same as insulting or laughing at somebody. Again, many religious appear to think that a belief and the holder are the same, and use that to silence opposition to the belief, by declaring that an insult has been produced.

Ideas, of course, don't have feelings or rights and cannot be insulted.

smacl

shruikan2553 wrote: »

What do other people think? Should a belief be respected just because someone else came up with it and told them it was true?

I treat beliefs exactly the same way I treat opinions. People are entitled to hold them, but I'm not obliged to agree with them. Much like opinions, if you bring them to an argument or debate, you have to be in able to support their veracity if you hope that others will accept them. Unsupported they say nothing other than to declare the stance you hold.

Once you start talking in such a way as to contradict other peoples beliefs, or their strongly held opinions, you're liable to cause offence. Such is life. For example, I usually try to say what I mean without being mean, but it doesn't always work out that way.

Turtwig

Unfortunately there seems to be an opinion among adults that once they become adults their opinion matters. Some people just can't take criticism of their ideas without regarding it as a personal attack on them. Certainly when a person has emotionally invested a lot in their religion it doesn't help but I don't believe this is exclusively based on religion. I think the problem stems more from one's education and understanding of the etiquettes of argument and reasoning.

All you can do is be careful with your choice of wording and hope that some people learn how to take constructive criticism.

Kiwi in IE

Personal beliefs and the practice of those beliefs, so long as they are not impacting others, are worthy of respect. However when individuals or groups insist that their personal beliefs and the practice of them must apply to the whole of society, simply because they happen to hold the belief, they are not entitled to have their views respected at all.

For example if someone were to tell me that they do not use contraception because they are Catholic, I would be respectful of their belief and the practice of it. However if the same person were to tell me that I should not use contraception because they are Catholic, they are completely undeserving of my respect or even a civil response.

When discussing beliefs like opposition to gay marriage/abortion being legal, no respect is warranted! There should be no right to force laws on the whole of society that are based on a religious belief, even if it is held by the majority. Ethics should guide laws not religious 'morals'. They have a right to have their personal choice to not marry a gay person and not have an abortion themselves respected, but that is it.

Obliq

Atari private maternity hospital.

I have more of a problem respecting certain beliefs such as homeopathy or people who are anti-vaccine, than I do with religious beliefs (unless imposed on others). I find the belief in homeopathy particularly repugnant, as proponents invariably push it forwards as a workable alternative to "big pharma" and conventional medicine. I know someone who died of pneumonia, having rejected GP care on the advice of his homeopath. Certainly stupid on his part, but arrogant in the extreme on the practicioner's part. The anti-vaccine folk have the shear unadulterated nerve to suggest, nay, INSIST that the MMR vaccine has caused my son's ASD traits. There are very few religious people who would actively attempt to convert me to belief in a god, but I've met many, many of these unforgivable eejits.

Of course, the way religion affects our choices and lives here in Ireland gives me a massive lack of respect for the entire belief system, but on a personal level, to me these people are worse.

Rant over Ta for listening...

Sulla Felix

Don't pick this one.

shruikan2553 wrote: »

These people would then laugh at Scientology or claim that Islam should treat women better but nobody else should dare to say something about theirs!

Worse than that, I find that a lot of religious people think all religious opinions should get special treatment.
I remember Il Pape conspicuously criticising the Danish cartoonists but nary a word said about the violent protesters for example.

Turtwig

Obliq wrote: »

The anti-vaccine folk have the shear unadulterated nerve to suggest, nay, INSIST that the MMR vaccine has caused my son's ASD traits.

Did people actually insist this to you personally?
*Gives Obliq a hug*

Obliq

Atari private maternity hospital.

Jernal wrote: »

Did people actually insist this to you personally?
*Gives Obliq a hug*

Thank you! Yes, if you count face book with people you actually know as personal. Lucky for her it was at a remove, or I'd have thumped her (and cohorts). Sigh. Ta for hug

Ps. I should add that I was so enraged that I spent the best part of 2 days discrediting everything they claimed, with proper evidence and peer reviewed research. Wouldn't have been able to do that a few years back before spending so much time in A&A, so thanks all!

robindch

WTF?

Obliq wrote: »

[...] I spent the best part of 2 days discrediting everything they claimed [...]

Welcome to the A+A mindset

swampgas

No, but I was born in a stable because there was no room in the inn.

Respect in this context is a hard word to pin down. To me, it suggests a certain amount of tacit acceptance that I'm uncomfortable with. I really start to dig my heels in when people demand respect for their beliefs simply because they don't like having them questioned. Tough, you're supposed to be an adult: your ideas, thoughts and beliefs are not sacrosanct. Allowing certain beliefs to be exempt from challenge is, IMO, dangerous for society.

I'd have to say that I don't really respect any beliefs at all. I certainly don't respect my own beliefs, I question them; they are always to a greater or lesser extent provisional. In so far as I respect anything as vague as a belief, I respect well-founded ideas, concepts, theories, and facts, but provisionally; I stop respecting them if they are shown to be inaccurate.

I do respect other people's rights, and expect them to respect mine. However concepts don't have rights. Other people cannot demand that I show deference to any concept at all if I don't want to - that's a form of mind control. My thoughts and beliefs are who I am, I will not compromise them by pretending to accept ideas I find wrong or abhorrent.

Hotblack Desiato

Atari private maternity hospital.

Obliq wrote: »

The anti-vaccine folk have the shear unadulterated nerve to suggest, nay, INSIST that the MMR vaccine has caused my son's ASD traits.

That's incredibly rude and insensitive, as well as being ignorant and wrong

It's not just their own kids they put at increased risk of disease, either - they compromise the herd immunity of the whole population including vaccinated kids.

robindch

WTF?

ninja900 wrote: »

[...] they compromise the herd immunity of the whole population including vaccinated kids [...]

And kids like one in our family who's immuno-compromised and susceptible to just about every bacterium that shows up within a thousand miles of her.

I spoke with her mum earlier this evening and she told me that her hubby's been doing the five-day anti-MRSA wash cycle. Yes, there's no vaccine contra-MRSA (yet) but just about everything for which there is a vaccine is a major health risk too.

I can't begin to fathom the degree of righteous, callous ignorance that seems part and parcel of most of the anti-vaccine crew.

smacl

swampgas wrote: »

I'd have to say that I don't really respect any beliefs at all. I certainly don't respect my own beliefs, I question them; they are always to a greater or lesser extent provisional. In so far as I respect anything as vague as a belief, I respect well-founded ideas, concepts, theories, and facts, but provisionally; I stop respecting them if they are shown to be inaccurate.

I think respect of a belief is possibly the wrong term, you respect the person and accept that they hold an opinion or belief. Or not.

Brian Shanahan

ninja900 wrote: »

That's incredibly rude and insensitive, as well as being ignorant and wrong

It's not just their own kids they put at increased risk of disease, either - they compromise the herd immunity of the whole population including vaccinated kids.

As the children of Swansea can, sadly, attest to.

Obliq

Atari private maternity hospital.

Ninja and Robin, you're bang on of course. Sorry for going off topic with this theme, but I find it so much weirder than religious beliefs (that have generally been brainwashed into a person, or at least represents a significant area of their upbringing and community integration) sthat grown ups who consider themselves well educated can pick up notions like anti-vaccine/homeopathy/big-pharma conspiracy theories and preach this crap as fact. I have been told on numerous occasions that if only I did more research (online, of course), I would soon see the correlations between vaccines and health disorders, homeopathy and miraculous recoveries.....etc. "Proof" is often presented, which can be easily trashed, followed by an uncomfortable moment where they splutter their continued support for these notions and give me evils for having shaken the bedrock (never build on quicksand, people...) of their beliefs.

Face to face, I have argued with a few who (after being pushed to it) admitted to being in the happy position of a 1st world problem, where polio is not still living next door and measles are rare. Apparently, they WOULD vaccinate their kids if they thought there was a danger of them actually catching a nasty disease. How f*cking small minded is that? Make every attempt to persuade others not to vaccinate, and to avoid conventional medicine - give it 10/15 years down the road and no child is safe anymore (as per your examples Brian/Robin).

Honestly think these people are more thoroughly twisted than anyone else I know, and in that I include a Muslim woman apparently happy with her lot, and a few evangelists of different denominations.

smacl

My stock response to anyone telling me about the wonders of homeopathy is to ask them would they consider using a homeopathic contraceptive? Or would they use reiki to treat a broken arm?

kylith

Atari private maternity hospital.

I regard religious beliefs as like soap operas. I will tease my mum for her dedication to Eastenders, I will oppose the watching of Eastenders most vociferously in my own house*, but if I'm in her house and she wants to watch it then I totally accept and defend her right to watch whatever ridiculous nonsense she wants to.

Good grief, but I hate soap operas...

*She whinges and pouts that she wants to watch it until I say 'Fine, you can watch Eastenders. And after that we'll both watch Star Trek'. It usually gets her to quiet down.

gaynorvader

No, but I was born in a stable because there was no room in the inn.

I actually think homoeopathy can be helpful. I'd only use it as a supplement however. I'd rate it along the lines of garlic pills or multivitamins. It can be good for increasing your energy levels when you have a dose.

Banbh

Showed the doctor some bruising recently and she said I should take arnica. O, I said, I thought that was just a pisheog. No, says she, it works alright. Do I rub it in? No, you take it internally.
Well she's the doctor with a degree in scientific medicine so I bought some in the chemist and discovered it was a 'homeopathic medicine', that is, water.
I got on to the IMO and then to the medicine's board and discovered that doctors are not prohibited from peddling this sort of stuff in Ireland.
And, recently in a chemist, I overheard a customer looking for sea-sickness tablets. The chemist offered a choice of products, one of which is a homeopathic concoction, without advising the customer that he was wasting his money.

lazygal

After having both my children a nurse asked if I was taking my arnica. No, says I, but I am drinking water so pretty much the same thing. She pretty much implied I was jeopardising my healing by not taking the arnica she recommends to all woman post natally.

I took my diffene and paracetamol as prescribed and healed just fine.

smacl

Arnica is available as both normal and homeopathic varieties, where the latter notably doesn't actually contain any arnica whatsoever in a typical dose. The former is supposedly quite good.

gaynorvader

No, but I was born in a stable because there was no room in the inn.

smacl wrote: »

Arnica is available as both normal and homeopathic varieties, where the latter notably doesn't actually contain any arnica whatsoever in a typical dose. The former is supposedly quite good.

True, the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre did a study recently enough. Effectiveness of homoeopathic versions would largely depend on how diluted it is made.

smacl

gaynorvader wrote: »

True, the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre did a study recently enough. Effectiveness of homoeopathic versions would largely depend on how diluted it is made.

At typical dilutions, most doses of homeopathic remedies statistically contain less than one molecule of the stated active ingredient, which equates to no molecules, hence the memory of water fiasco which was shown to be total nonsense. About as effective for your woes as holy water, though quite a bit more expensive.

kylith

Atari private maternity hospital.

gaynorvader wrote: »

I actually think homoeopathy can be helpful. I'd only use it as a supplement however. I'd rate it along the lines of garlic pills or multivitamins. It can be good for increasing your energy levels when you have a dose.

Keeping hydrated with water with a slice of lemon in it will do the same job.

Obliq

Atari private maternity hospital.

gaynorvader wrote: »

I actually think homoeopathy can be helpful. I'd only use it as a supplement however. I'd rate it along the lines of garlic pills or multivitamins. It can be good for increasing your energy levels when you have a dose.

Ah.

Garlic pills have garlic in them, although you're much better off using the actual clove of garlic. I use it a lot, specifically an overwhelmingly awful remedy for whooping cough (or any bad cough) that knocks it on the head in the space of a few days. Works better than any conventional medicine I've spent a lot of money on.

Ditto for multivitamins - you're far better getting minerals and vits from your actual food as we pee out most of the pill form before processing it.

I'm a great one for natural remedies, once I can see them working, but I have a massive problem with the "water has memory" brigade offering me a placebo for an actual problem. My neighbour is well into it all, and I had to bite my tongue hard when my dog was dying and she (very kindly) made me a fecking arnica mixture (don't touch the pills - put into a bottle of water and "with feeling" shake the bottle in single downward motions exactly 10 times, else it won't work). I restrained myself from asking whether, to be on the safe side, one might also turn around 3 times and prostrate oneself in front of an arnica plant.

Sarky

No.

Obliq wrote: »

Ditto for multivitamins - you're far better getting minerals and vits from your actual food as we pee out most of the pill form before processing it.

I'm sure there was a piece linked here a month or two ago that suggests taking vitamin supplements, which are essentially an overdose of substances your body usually only needs traces of to function, drastically increases your risk of dying from various illnesses.

If someone else hasn't found the link by the time I'm back from sorting out PhD registration with the secretary, I'll try to find it myself.

Obliq

Atari private maternity hospital.

Sarky wrote: »

I'm sure there was a piece linked here a month or two ago that suggests taking vitamin supplements, which are essentially an overdose of substances your body usually only needs traces of to function, drastically increases your risk of dying from various illnesses.

If someone else hasn't found the link by the time I'm back from sorting out PhD registration with the secretary, I'll try to find it myself.

Yes, there was some doctor on the Ray Darcy show a few months back promoting his book on debunking the supplements mythology. Properly getting it in the neck from callers supporting the 'big pharma' conspiracies (although there is of course truth in the claim that research is only put into money making medicine, and not natural medicine). He had some very interesting research done - will try to find it.

gaynorvader

No, but I was born in a stable because there was no room in the inn.

kylith wrote: »

Keeping hydrated with water with a slice of lemon in it will do the same job.

Obliq wrote: »

Ah.

Garlic pills have garlic in them, although you're much better off using the actual clove of garlic. I use it a lot, specifically an overwhelmingly awful remedy for whooping cough (or any bad cough) that knocks it on the head in the space of a few days. Works better than any conventional medicine I've spent a lot of money on.

Ditto for multivitamins - you're far better getting minerals and vits from your actual food as we pee out most of the pill form before processing it.

I'm a great one for natural remedies, once I can see them working, but I have a massive problem with the "water has memory" brigade offering me a placebo for an actual problem. My neighbour is well into it all, and I had to bite my tongue hard when my dog was dying and she (very kindly) made me a fecking arnica mixture (don't touch the pills - put into a bottle of water and "with feeling" shake the bottle in single downward motions exactly 10 times, else it won't work). I restrained myself from asking whether, to be on the safe side, one might also turn around 3 times and prostrate oneself in front of an arnica plant.

Sarky wrote: »

I'm sure there was a piece linked here a month or two ago that suggests taking vitamin supplements, which are essentially an overdose of substances your body usually only needs traces of to function, drastically increases your risk of dying from various illnesses.

If someone else hasn't found the link by the time I'm back from sorting out PhD registration with the secretary, I'll try to find it myself.

I don't actually take multivitamins or garlic pills, but I don take those verocca boost or whatever they're called when I feel like I have a dose coming on. As for homoeopathy, I always tended to "under-dilute" it by interpreting a glass of water to mean a shot glass (easier to take that way too imo). I don't think water has a memory, and I can only speak from personal experience that it did help me when recovering from a long-term fungal infection (though that was drawn out by a couple of incompetent GPs not being able to diagnose a fungal infection and not listening to me when I told them I'd already been on antibiotics several times, and it was in all likelihood fungal, but I digress). I'm not sold on it though, and would be interested if it was just a placebo or if it actually helped.

realdanbreen

shruikan2553 wrote: »

Something I have noticed often is that people with a religious belief think that if you say anything or ridicule the belief you're a smug atheist asshole or if you are fox news you call it the "war on religion". In a lot of gay marriage debates eventually the person against it gets backed into a corner and runs out of one liners from the bible to use the "well thats just my belief, you people call me a bigot and then you attack me for having a belief that different to yours".

These people would then laugh at Scientology or claim that Islam should treat women better but nobody else should dare to say something about theirs!

While I think that people should be able to believe anything you want, I dont think you can say that something out loud without anyone telling you that is the stupidest thing they have ever heard. For example, the idea that we are all the product of severe inbreeding that started when 2 people popped out of thin air sounds completely stupid to me and makes me wonder how people continue through the bible after such brilliant story writing in the first chapter. If someone tried to tell me it as true I would say its a stupid idea and yet that makes me the bad guy.

What do other people think? Should a belief be respected just because someone else came up with it and told them it was true?

Why is it that those who say they have no intereset in religion are the ones that get all worked up about religion. If you believe that you are just like shep the dog or daisy the cow then fine just chill out and accept that.