That’s a good question. I know a lot of people, like my own husband for instance, who believe in the existance of things that I don’t. He thinks our house has a ghost. I think there is no such thing as ghosts. When he says he thinks he heard the ghost, I say that I think he must have heard something else, because I don’t believe in ghosts. It’s a reasonable conversation on both sides, no ones’ feelings are hurt, and no one had to mention invisible pink unicorns.
I just think that whole line of rhetoric is a dead-end. Believers don’t evaluate their faith in a scientifically consistent way, and indeed most consider that a necessary part of faith. We can say faith is irrational til Christ returns, but believers already know it. Their response is that they have the right, and the personal and spiritual imperative, to be irrational in that way. The absence of any number of IPUs will never change that, because they don’t believe there’s a cosmic mandate to worship IPUs.
The “generally considered” part is the nub of the matter.
If religion were some sort of oddball fringe phenominon with no history, treating it as a pathology of some sort would make some form of sense.
On the other hand - an institution which has been, since the dawn of recorded time, a fundamental building-block of our society (and indeed all human societies) demands a more respectful treatment.
It should not come as a huge surprise that many people consider religion to be a big part of their self-identity. Calling 'em crazy or stupid (or worse, evil) isn’t a very effective way of weaning them off it.
It’s quite simple, I think. You say, god. Or more specifically the god you believe in. You don’t capitalize it as a believer would indicating you give the term no special meaning or power. It’s simply like cat, person, wife or any other non-loaded identifying word.
How hard is that?
Here’s where the problem comes in:
What if he says the ghosts are telling him to harm people?
Well, he doesn’t. Okay, but what if his neighbor’s ghosts are saying that, and everywhere the neighbor looks he sees insistences from harmless, ordinary folks like your husband that ghosts are real, faith in ghosts is important to everlasting life, and ghosts can easily ask the living to do hard and terrible things in the name of that faith?
To me, belief in ghosts is really not dangerous right now, because if I don’t believe I can just ignore it, but if the above things were true, I’d be a lot more worried about it.
I see what you did there.
Alright, I propose a modification to the OP: discussions of religion in GD are allowed, but no religious people or atheists are allowed to participate. **Der Trihs ** and mswas will be appointed to oversee the religion-thread-eligibility approval process.
Well, first, most religious people are going to think it is all about the ridicule even if you say it isn’t; and second, they are likely to respond with “witnessing” in some form (“god speaks to me/to my spiritual figure of choice, not a pink unicorn”) , thus establishing the “witnessing” vs. “pink unicorn” debate which is the lowest common denominator of religious debates.
Indeed, I would propose a new law: that all religious debates, if they go on long enough, tend to degenerate into ‘witnessing’ vs. ‘the pink unicorn’. 
If you mean the only way we’re allowed to express disbelief is through capitalization, then…
How hard is giving up my right to say the words “I don’t believe in God” because you do believe in God? Well, how high does the scale go? It’s over that amount of hardness.
That sounds like a good argument for not having religious debates, which is well and good, but I thought we were talking about actually having religious debates here, and how to do that.
You capitalized. 
You’d think, but Liberal has expressed great offense at the non-capitalization of god before.
Do you mind if I poke a rather large hole in your explanation? There is no large block of people that believe in “religion”-there are many groups of people that believe in many religions, and many of those groups regard those other religions with much more disdain than atheists in general treat religion on this board. That religion that existed at the dawn of time? I think it’s a safe bet that you don’t follow it, and probably don’t know too much about it. Now, should I treat every single religion out there with respect, or is there a list of those I can respect and another list of those I can dismiss?
I outlined a number of other tactics I think aren’t dead-ends in an above post, if you missed that. Trust me, I’m all for effective religious debate.
Sure, and those are all reasonable points for debate. But that’s not what Czarcasm asked. He asked:
He wants to know how I treat people who believe in things that I think don’t exist. Well, you know, the answer to that is, it depends on the situation. With my husband, I’m not shy about telling him that IMO we don’t have a ghost. But I’m not going to be insulting about it and tell him he’s delusional or stupid. Hell, he could be right for all I know. I don’t disrespect him or the fact that he thinks the house is haunted, I just don’t agree with him. If it’s someone I don’t know really well, I probably wouldn’t mention my disagreement at all. Why should I? I’m sure they know that there are people who don’t believe in ghosts.
I agree that “delusional and stupid” are rude things to call anyone for any reason, especially if they really are delusional or stupid. I think, in fact, that the best evidence they’re meant as insults most of the time is that most people would not call someone they actually believed to be insane “delusional”, they’d have some compassion.
That said, to me – and I don’t think you necessarily disagree here, Sarahfeena, just noting, and this is also more on a different track of the thread right now – there’s a big difference between “you’re delusional” and matching belief with belief, as you do with your husband about ghosts. If someone says “I believe in God” I don’t think it’s rude to say “I don’t believe in God”. Liberal seems to be arguing that it is. I think it’s rude for him to insist he can state his belief but I can’t state mine.
Not at all - if you can.
This isn’t a very good attempt, however. 
Obviously, there are many religions. However, purely for the pupose of discussion, I was referring to “religion” in the aggregate.
“Religion” in the aggregate has existed since the dawn of time. Obviously, the details of particular “religions”, in the plural, have varied.
Are you seriously proposing that I did not know this? Is this all part of the “argument by insulting other’s intelligence” we have been discussing?
Why yes, I do think we should make the default position treating every religion with respect - with exceptions for those which advocate breaking the law, etc., or are clearly some form of scam.
Is this some controversial point of view?
Personally, I feel there are certain beliefs (and belief systems) which I am morally obligated to treat with scorn.
Fred Phelps’ church, for example; for all I know, they may geniunely believe in the rightness of their cause as much as I believe in the deliciousness of bacon.
If I am obligated to treat hateful unsubstantiated beliefs with derision, does that affect how I should behave toward benign unsubstantiated beliefs?
NB. I use the term unsubstantiated to mean just that. I use it merely to clarify that I’m only talking about articles of faith here, and not as a pejorative.
For those who are true believers, failing to break the law if it’s G/god’s will that you do so would demean your faith, no?
Well he shouldn’t. Attempting to hold others to standards you feel are appropriate ecspecially in the area of personal beliefs is not what I consider proper behavior for anyone much less one who considers themselves a Christian. But please note it doesn’t change my opinion of him in any way. Anything else would be judging him.
It is. It presupposes that all religions are deserving of my respect, and leaves it up to interpretation as to which are “scams” and which are “genuine.” IMO, Scientology is clearly a fraud, but its adherents are as devout as any Christian/Muslim/Jew/Satan worshiper of your choice. Who decides? They’re just as devout in their belief. Why are their beliefs less deserving of my respect than yours? Honest question.
This is what, to me, brings the argument full circle. You seem to be saying that there is as much chance of ghosts existing as not. And if you and I were having a discussion (not about religion) and you mentioned that, I would ask what you would do if your husband said that your dog was talking to him. And telling him to sell all your possessions and invest in overland submarines.
There is as much evidence for talking dogs as there is for ghosts. For all you know, do talking dogs exist? Is there really any reason to act as if they do?
I would not ask as an insult. Only to point out that believing in things for which there is no evidence has a sort of common denominator.