Why should I respect other peoples beliefs

I hate people who push this garbage "but like you have to respect my beliefs cus thats the nice thing to do".

Screw that i will respect anyones right to believe whatever they want but theres no reason anyone has to respect the beliefs of anyone else, politeness be damned.

Yeah, like people who think that being Vegan and living on strange foods grown under plastic, processed in factories, and imported from thousands of miles away by air, is somehow better for the planet than lunching on the milk and cheese of a local goat. [I'm looking at you, Tofu]

I think they're wrong-headed and nuts, but there you are. They're people, treat them with respect while disagreeing strongly with their views. Quite possibly they think that I am equally wrong!!

c_man wrote: »

It's like the diversity courses they make you go to in many companies. Just go along, nod your head and say what's expected. It's all grade-A bs but the thing to do is go with the flow. There's literally no benefit to calling it out, starting an argument and being a dick. Stick it out and enjoy the free pastries with your fellow attendees later.

Short answer is you shouldn't.

You should "respect" your own beliefs by coming to them honestly and logically. To this end, it's perfectly acceptable to sub out some of the heavy lifting to someone who knows more than you, ie to trust that they know something you don't. It would be nice to come to our own conclusions all the time, but it's just not possible, there's always someone smarter than you. Regardless of whether you've figured something out yourself or taken someone elses ideas at face value, you shouldn't set them in stone and be open to changing them in the face of contrary evidence.

Everything else just goes in the "shít others believe" pile, to be ignored at will!

Geuze wrote: »

You seem to suggest that Jesus did not exist.

The majority of evidence supports his existence.

Care to share some of this evidence with us?

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

I expressed myself badly. I too have loved ones who are people of faith and wouldn't dream of dishing out constant derision. I have learned that there is no room for debate and discussion on topics of faith because they are privileged in a way that no other subjects are not, namely that they are exempt from the burden of proof and logic. It is not in fact possible to debate them without eventually coming to a dead end and that's the point I suppose.

Widdershins wrote: »

Would you mock their beliefs to their face even when they're not up for a bit of ribbing? I would feel a bit cruel if I did that. I think everyone is aware that their faith defies science.
As an example, I see memes on Facebook, pointing out the ludicrous chain of events in the Bible, or Quran (rarely), and I don't find these particularly bad. To borrow another poster's phrase, I just wouldn't directly ''rub it in their face''.

I'm not an aggressive person, I go with "live and let live". But I do get annoyed if others don't extend the same courtesy, and then I will mock them, yes.
Interestingly, that's when the whole "you have to respect what I believe" line gets thrown at me, usually.

Overall, I tend to apply the Socratic approach when discussing items of faith or belief. I just keep asking them about the details.
It tends to make me an unpopular person with some.

Cee-Jay-Cee wrote: »

Because quite simply they are those peoples beliefs and in fact none of your bloody business. You may not respect their beliefs but you don't have to shout about it or show it.

But what about when the try and force their beliefs on everyone else? IE lobbying for public policy due to religious beliefs?
Or they call to your door prosletysing?
Or the countless other ways people of religion try to force their beliefs into other peoples daily lives?

Do I still need to shut up and be polite cus "reasons"?

As long as they don't disrespect you (sexuality, marital status etc)due to their religious ethos then whats the harm in respecting their belief. Calling them dopes for what they believe in is outright rude and uncalled for

And for the record, I am completely against religion and believe it holds no more grip on reality than any schizophrenic delusion

You're just using the wrong word that's the problem. You don't respect religious nonsense, you tolerate it.

ScumLord wrote: »

You're just using the wrong word that's the problem. You don't respect religious nonsense, you tolerate it.

If an idea is worthy of respect, it will ultimately receive that respect all by itself. All manner of new ideas were once dismissed as crazy but then slowly, as the truth at their core refused to be dismissed, they slowly garnered respect. Others of course, were actually found to be crazy and left to die!

Relativity, evolution and so on don't need laws to protect them from question or criticism. Criticise away - they can (and indeed have) withstood the questioning and the sneering. Fundamental truth remains, no matter what you throw at it.

If any belief can't withstand scrutiny, it's because it's wrong.

Respect can only be given, it can't be taken!

challengemaster wrote: »

Well, considering it's actually backed up by science that religious people are less intelligent than their non-religious counterparts, technically there's nothing wrong about calling them stupid.



http://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/wp-content/uploads/The-Relation-Between-Intelligence-and-Religiosity-A-Meta-Analysis-and-Some-Proposed-Explanations.pdf

Such Nonsense.... Are you an abstract / conclusion reader?.. Ignoring the finer details and limitations is only twisting words to suit your worldview... In any event let's review

A meta-analysis of 63 studies showed a significant negative association between intelligence and religiosity.

challengemaster wrote: »

First, intelligent people are less likely to conform and, thus, are more
likely to resist religious dogma.

This is wrong...for the simple reason that the meta analysis itself states that it's context is paramount here... I.e in atheist societies (Scandinavia, etc) it's conformist to be an atheist... And vice versa... Nice detail you omitted from your post

While we are on the topic of context...

The available data did not allow adequate consideration of the
role of religion type and of culture. As mentioned hereinbe-
fore, the articles included in the meta-analysis did not provide
enough information to code religion type as a potential mod-
erator. There was also not enough information to consider the
role of culture in the intelligence–religiosity association. Of
the 41 studies in the college and no-college groups (the popu-
lations on which we base most of our conclusions), 33 were
conducted in the United States; the remainder were conducted
in Canada (3), Australia (2), Belgium and Holland (1 each);
finally, one study was conducted in several countries but pri-
marily (87% of participants) in the United States, Canada,
and the United Kingdom. Clearly, the present results are lim-
ited to Western societies.
Earlier we alluded to some possible effects of religion
type and culture. Specifically, it was mentioned that the
emphasis on beliefs as the intrinsic component of religiosity
(and, as such, the component with stronger negative relation
to intelligence) might be an attribute of American Protestant
religion, and may be less true of Judaism and Catholicism
(Cohen et al., 2005). Stated differently, the stronger negative
relation of intelligence with religious beliefs may also be
limited to American Protestant population.

So, all of a sudden it may be limited to the American protestant population

And then considering this...

http://www.gallup.com/poll/1690/religion.aspx

We could propose that the protestant population of USA is 37%...or just over 1/3

All of a sudden your meta analysis isn't very generalizable anymore.... And lacks any significant diverse sample

challengemaster wrote: »

Second, intelligent people tend to adopt an analytic (as opposed to intuitive) thinking style,
which has been shown to undermine religious beliefs.

Let us continue our analysis of this wondrous science you have located...

And let's continue with this...

challengemaster wrote: »

Third, several functions of religiosity, including compensatory control,
self-regulation, self-enhancement, and secure attachment, are also conferred by intelligence. Intelligent people may therefore
have less need for religious beliefs and practices.

"We also mentioned above that atheism is not likely to be
considered nonconformist in majority atheist societies, like
Scandinavian societies (P. Zuckerman, 2008). Atheism may
also lose its association with nonconformity in majority athe-
ist subcultures, such as the subculture of scientists (Larson &
Witham, 1998). One might even speculate that in majority
atheist societies, atheism is associated with conformity rather
than nonconformity. Even in these societies, however, several
other proposed causes of the negative relation between intel-
ligence and religiosity remain intact. First, religion remains
negatively linked to analytic style, which characterized more
intelligent people. Second, although religion in atheist society
is not likely to be self-enhancing, it probably continues to
provide functions such as compensatory control, better self-
regulation, and a means of reducing loneliness through attach-
ment to God. To the extent that intelligent people have less
need for these functions, they are less likely to be religious.
Obviously, these conclusions are a topic for future research."

It "probably" continues.... Ie we assume..but we don't know

And then this is a nice ending to the paper

" One last limitation of the present work is the lack of evi-
dence supporting our explanations for the intelligence–reli-
giosity association. Except for the extreme case of religious
fundamentalism (Sherkat, 2010), we clearly posited a causal
relation from intelligence to religion and identified specific
mechanisms to account for it. As described below, the edifice
we built is in need of empirical testing."

So our proposition of a relationship between. Religious belief and intelligence lacks empirical evidence.... How ironic...

Isn't it interesting how labelling people stupid based on the problematic and limited theoretical assumptions of researchers with no empirical evidence to back it up...is somewhat problematic?? Don't you see the irony here?

ANYWAY... To answer the OP

You should respect people's beliefs because regardless of what you hold dear...putting your utmost belief in science alone to account for everything is a limited worldview.. And closed minded..