Chatting with friends friends last night, we were wondering why it is religious beliefs have to be respected as they do?
What I mean is, if I call you out on the sports team you support, or your fashion sense or music choice, that’s fine. If I question your sexuality, I’m not likely to get that bad a response from society, or if I mention that your superstitions are ludicrous, that’s fine.
But if I question or mock your religion, it’s so much worse.
How come? Why is the belief in a religious figurehead anymore respected than belief in fairies and the like?
Because theres still a LOT of religious people around. Don’t worry, their numbers are declining and eventually you won’t need to respect their views anymore than you would someone who believes in big foot.
I’ve often wondered about a corollary to this - that the only people who get offended are religious people. I can’t think of anything you could say to me which would offend me.
If you call my mother a whore then:
I know she’s not a whore so you are simply incorrect and I wouldn’t be offended
even if she was a whore then you would simply be stating a fact and I still wouldn’t be offended
With religious people on the other hand, you’re treading on eggshells the whole time.
I think that there is a difference between respecting a person and respecting their beliefs. I can’t say that I respect the belief in anything supernatural but I can respect the person enough to keep my opinion of it to myself. If they start shoving it down my throat or think that they’re superior to atheists in any way then all bets are off.
That, and as DigitalC said, we’re massively outnumbered at the moment and it would mean treating a lot of people with disrespect.
Because people take it more personally. Religion is a lie that people rest their identities on. When you start shaking that tree, it feels like a direct attack on the person, his or her decisions and choices, etc.
My guess is that at some level they are aware how tenuous it all is; that’s why they’re so sensitive about it. You’ll notice that people who are more confident in their beliefs can handle questioning with more equanimity.
Simple. Many people, irresepective of whether they strongly believe in a particular religion or not, self-identify as belonging to the group that religion represents.
Questioning the details of Catholic theology is one thing; insulting Catholics is quite another.
No-one strongly self-identifies as “fairy believers”, in that they are the children and grandchildren of fairy-believers, had ancestors who died because of their fairy-belief, or belong to a church of fairydom.
Atheists are in some cases just as prone to self-identification; insult Judaism to a Jewish atheist, if you are not Jewish yourself, and you will get in some cases much the same reaction as if you insulted Judaism to the most orthodox believer.
For this reason it is wise to tread carefully when “disrespecting religious beliefs” - to ensure that it is the beliefs you are “disrespecting”, and not the persons of those identified with those beliefs.
You don’t have to respect my religious beliefs, you just have to keep your opinion to yourself. Same goes with my clothes, my makeup, my food choices. If I want your opinion, I’ll ask. And calling my mother a whore is likely to get you punched.
That’s not to say that joking around isn’t usually okay (of course, you have to know your audience, or punching may commence). For example, I can joke, or hear jokes about “Catholic Aerobics” (stand, sit, kneel, stand, kneel, sit, stand). That doesn’t mean you’re allowed to mock things I hold sacred.
And I truly doubt you’re as dispassionate as you seem to think about personal comments. For better of for worse, part of how we see ourselves is based on feedback, verbal and non-verbal, that we get from others. Which only makes sense - we can’t always be objective.
Because religion has been brainwashing people from the beginning of time, and it has learned how to do it very, very well. Well enough that people are willing to die or kill other people because of the lies they were told by the religion.
To paraphrase a line from a movie: the first rule about the religion is that you don’t question the religion.
There are some interesting responses in this thread from a couple years ago, including some which question your premise (religious beliefs don’t really get any more respect, or less questioning, than other beliefs and preferences), some which make the distinction that Karyn made (between respecting beliefs and respecting people who hold the beliefs), some which say if you want others to respect your beliefs you ought to respect theirs, and some which say it’s a matter of keeping the peace and avoiding flamewars, among other perspectives.
mutantmoose and acsenray, I think your points go hand in hand, and I do think some borderline doubt must be a factor.
I think the words I used in the OP may be a bit strong.
Imagine it’s a case of teasing going back and forth between a religious person and a non-religious person;
“Well at least I’m not ginger/welsh/gay!” (bare in mind, these could be classed as discrimination if you really wanted to)
“At least I don’t have an imaginary friend I visit on Sundays/pray to 5 times a day!”, etc…
How come a religious person is more likely to be offended than the other? Or be the first to get offended?
Do you think religion deserves the level of respect it is given?
**StGermain **, FWIW I don’t particularly care one way or the other about what you believe in, nor should anyone else - it’s your choice.
What I originally meant in the OP was the kind of situation mentioned in this post, not some Dawkins style of attack on religion and your intelligence for believing in it (the kind of ‘stuff it down your throat, in your face, your in idiot for believing’ kind of opinion)
I don’t have a problem at all with religious people, it’s not a factor that would be taken into account when i was making a new friend, for example.
What I do take issue with is the notion of ‘crossing the line’ that surrounds joking about religions.
As long as “beliefs” of any kind are involved, nobody holds the winning hand. To pretend your beliefs are better than mine is to demonstrate that you’re a pompous twit. If you expect me to drop my belief for yours, you’re operating from an exaggerated sense of your own importance. If you press the issue, I feel I am within my rights to walk away and never be bothered by you again. If that’s somehow precluded, I’ll just ignore you. You can have your beliefs all to yourself.
I think people misunderstand the difference between being entitled to respect for the right to believe something and being entitled to respect for the belief itself. I can respect that people have the right to believe that there’s a space ship waiting for them on th other side of the Hale-Bopp comet, but that doesn’t mean I can’t think it’s ludicrous.
I also think that most anyone who insists that their religious beliefs be respected almost can’t help but be hypocritical. Nobody truly respects any and all religious beliefs, no matter how crazy or repugnant. How many of them respect the beliefs of race religions, for instance? Do they respect the NOI belief that white people are devils? People who say they respect all other beliefs aren’t really thinking it through, in my opinion. You can always find something they won’t respect.
I think it’s not necessarily ‘religious beliefs’ so much as everybody has something that they don’t like being criticized or maligned. For a lot of people that’s religion. And to some of those people, any sort of vaguely negative comment is criticism (or persecution).
I think she meant keep your opinion of her beliefs to yourself, not your opinion of the subject matter itself. You could still talk about entertainment, politics, etc., in terms of your own opinions.
“I hated Benjamin Button” is different from “I can’t believe you liked Benjamin Button”.
Yes, this may still lead to indirect statements about the other person’s beliefs (“Anyone who liked Benjamin Button is an idiot”), but it’s not a direct attack.
To me “respecting” religious beliefs means discussing it only if you’re genuinely interested in information, or you actually have an insightful point to make. Most people who say they want to discuss religion with a believer just want to be jerks, and think they’re clever. They don’t even consider that maybe the believer actually might know something of his beliefs and have put genuine thought into it. Instead, the wise guys just seem to think that anyone who professes religious belief is following a crowd in sheep-like manner, and by asking wise-guy questions, to which they expect they will not get an answer (or to which they would from the outset determine no answer could be satisfactory) they make themselves feel superior.
When it comes to things like sports teams or musical taste, there’s little of that attitude. Even when one is mocking or cracking wise, it’s less from a sense of perceived smug superiority than from a more even-handed sense of humor, which they’re just as willing to be on the receiving end as on the giving end.
For my opinion/belief, both these statements are an expression of your belief/opinion and neither is a comment on my belief/opinion. I see them as statements to be evaluated against my own beliefs/opinions and if I agree I can confirm that we share those opinions/beliefs or if I disagree I can object to your view. Neither statement is an evaluation of my belief/opinion as such. I can choose to accept that you have exerted your right to express your opinion.
If instead you had said, “Zeldar, you’re stupid to like Benjamin Button” or “Zeldar, you’re stupid to believe in X, Y, or Z religion, or in any religion at all, or to disbelieve in religion” I would see that as a statement that you’re full of shit. I might choose to point that out to you in some verbal, non-verbal, or physical way, or I might choose just to file it away and await further opportunities to decide if I had any use for you opinion/belief at all.
In short, you have a right to your opinion. I have a right to mine. Let’s just leave it that way and discuss matters without the things getting personal.
I’m not sure I agree. I think it is quite common to express one’s opinion with regard to sports or music with exactly that intent. It’s just that fewer people feel as invested in their sports and musical opinions than in their religious opinions.
Furthermore, I’ve seen exactly the same kind of trash-talking in religious and sports and music discussions. The situations I’ve seen have involved a place in which a majority of the people are working class, rural, believers who are ganging up on a perceived outsider. There are variations in tone – it can be put in terms of friendly joshing – but the message is clear – Our Views Are Right.