Prompted by a story on NPR’s Morning Edition the other day, which chronicled the debate among atheists as to how to deal with religion and the religious. The Center for Inquiry advocates tolerance and respect; Christopher Hitchens came down on the side of scorn and derision.
Personally (and as a theist, I don’t get a vote) it seems to me that the reasonable approach is to deal with people’s actions, not their thought processes. Applaud any acts of peace, brotherhood and charity, regardless of the motivation. Denounce any acts of bigotry, violence and ignorance, regardless of the motivation.
When I was younger I was pro-scorn and derision ( quietly, I’ve never been a confrontational sort ). By the time I hit my early thirties I had come over to the tolerance and respect side and there I remain.
Tough choice. Man, these polls are hard to set up.
Religion is (generally) stupid, and reflects poorly on nearly all who choose it. But I chose tolerance and respect, in that I tolerate and respect each individual’s right to make really stupid choices - so long as they do not materially affect me.
The only time it gets touchy is when I determine that that individual’s choice affects me in some manner. At that point I reserve the right to act in a manner other than respectful and tolerant.
Well, for me, the phrase “with the tolerance and respect due all human beings” encompasses quite a lot. What I think is due any person is respect and tolerance right up to the point where that person’s fist hits my nose (or the nose of my child, loved ones, or some other defenseless person) literally or figuratively speaking. Then I reserve the right to make a strong defense and fight back in whatever way is appropriate. Scorn and derision feel good when venting, but I don’t find them terribly useful in defending my stance or for problem solving.
I’'ll respect someone’s belief, even if I don’t respect what they believe in, as long as that belief doesn’t cause harm. If you believe that Christ died for your sins, and that makes you want to be giving and loving, more power to ya. If that makes you want to beat up Jewish kids, your actions get no respect from me (obviously).
Hitchens is a drunken jackass and I find it a useful rule of thumb to consider the opposite of his viewpoint the correct one. jsc1953 has pretty much nailed how I feel about the subject.
This whole question of respect for beliefs is a bit misguided if you ask me.
I respect a person’s right to hold whatever beliefs he’d like to, but I will never respect those actual beliefs if I find them to be completely nonsensical. I’ll never tell a person he doesn’t have the right to pray to whomever or whatever he wants to, but I’m not going to respect that belief as being valid in way, shape or form. And for me, the same holds for any other religious beliefs. Pray to Christ, pray to Baal, pray to your ancestors, pray to Aleister Crowley, pray to a rotting rutabega … they all hold the same amount of weight with me, as far as respecting those beliefs. I.e., they are all equally ridiculous.
So, the answer is somewhere in the middle. I don’t go around with a sandwich board announcing that all theists are fools, but if I’m confonted by someone attempting to convince me of something ridiculous, then, yes, they’ll get a little scorn out of me.
And when I’m prodded on a message board too, I suppose.
I don’t like the choices. I think it depends on how you define “religion.” Religious people (who are most people) obviously deserve consideration and respect as long as they return it. And their right to believe should be honored.
The beliefs themselves do not automatically merit any respect, though, and many specific beliefs do indeed deserve scorn.
There’s a general trend amongst skeptics to treat religion as a special case, in my observation. They’ll happily debunk bigfoot or crystal healing but when it comes to considering religion they either steer clear or give it some token respect as if it were more valid than any other nonsense. I assume this is practical - most people are religious even if some are otherwise skeptical towards things like ghosts or astrology. And practically you don’t want to alienate people who have one sacred cow belief but who are otherwise rational.
I’m personally leery of this view. I don’t want religions to get a special status in terms of ridiculous beliefs just because they’re common and have a history behind them. I try to apply my mind equally critically to everything I encounter. So I chose the second option.
But that doesn’t mean I’m going to go around to every reasonable religious person and openly mock them. It does mean, however, that if we somehow get into a debate of the relative merits of any set of religious superstitious beliefs vs other superstitious beliefs, I’m not going to give the religion special consideration.
My answer is “it depends”. If someone is quiety religious and doesn’t try to push their religion on me, I treat them with respect for the choice they have made. I don’t respect their choice necessarilly, but I respect them as a free thinking human being. If I happen to see someone pushing their belief on someone, especially a small child, that bothers me. Does it result in my scorn? It depends. As long as the child/person has the ability to walk away from such preaching I am generally okay with it. I think it’s sometimes a fine line.
I generally think “leave them alone and they’ll leave you alone”. I’ve never had to deal with any confrontational religious types. I think in Australia most religious people are much less likely to be evangelical about it - religion is much more of a private affair (in my experience anyway) - so the question of how to treat religious people is much less likely to come up.
I chose the first option because I usually treat it, outwardly, with respect, since it is deeply important to many people. But not with reverence. I feel free to poke fun, in the right company, and have been known to be derisive. It all depends on the people involved.
In the privacy of my own thoughts… Religion isn’t logical, so it lowers my regard for people who have blind faith in it. It brings many people pain, guilt, suffering and death. But it also brings comfort, and enriches the lives, of many believers. A minority, I think, but it’s not inconsequential.
In general I am content to live and let live. Religion has uses. It’s just not for me. I think I was born missing something integral to religious belief… I was raised super-Christian, but it never took, even as a young child.
I am beginning to wish I’d included more choices, but alas, we do not have the option of editing polls. Apparently we’re getting all statistically integrity-fied around here.
But if it helps, I’ll clarify the 2 options, which I purposely worded to force a dichotomy. The poll doesn’t care about your opinion on religion per se (I think it can be assumed that an atheist’s opinion on religion is negative) – it’s about your treatment of someone who has somehow made public a religious viewpoint; and let’s assume that that was done in a non-belligerent way. For instance, a co-worker says they need to leave work to go get ashes on Ash Wednesday.
I’m not responding because of exactly this. Let’s substitute astrology for religion, and see how people answer. People believing in nonsense doesn’t make them bad people, but the nonsense is still nonsense.
