Why Religious Beliefs Do Not Deserve Respect
One of the things that infuriates me about Christians is that they think everyone else should respect their beliefs. For a long while, society has largely done so. Now, with vocal atheists coming out and verbally assaulting Christianity and the silliness that Christians spew forth, there's a steady stream of whining from believers with hurt feelings. But it's not only Christians who are whining about a lack of respect from the so-called New Atheists -- other atheists are complaining, too. Yet, there are several good reasons why Christian beliefs should not be respected at all.
I wonder how many people would respect a man who walks down the street talking to invisible friends. We usually put such people under psychiatric care for that kind of behavior. Yet, we are expected to show respect for those who get on their knees and talk to an imaginary being in the sky. It would seem to me that the guy with the invisible friends is more sane -- at least he believes that he can see the people he is talking to and that they talk back. That alone is enough justification in my book to give no respect to what bible-thumpers say. Admittedly, while this reason is enough for me, even many atheists aren't going to agree with me. They would likely call me 'militant', or perhaps label me an 'atheist fundamentalist' (an oxymoron to be sure) for saying so.
So now I wonder what America would be like if we ditched our laws, our current legal system, and our entire Constitutional framework and replaced it with something else. I think the Code of Hammurabi would be an effective legal framework. I particularly like the 2nd law:
If any one bring an accusation against a man, and the accused go to the river and leap into the river, if he sink in the river his accuser shall take possession of his house. But if the river prove that the accused is not guilty, and he escape unhurt, then he who had brought the accusation shall be put to death, while he who leaped into the river shall take possession of the house that had belonged to his accuser.I'm sure many people would call me nuts if I tried to organize a political movement to institute such barbaric laws. After all, they were written nearly 4000 years ago. Society has moved on since then. See where I'm going with this? Anyone trying to push Hammurabi's codex on the modern world would quickly become a pariah. Yet, we are expected to show respect for those whose beliefs derive from a set of documents that were written 2000 years ago by disparate people who managed to contradict each other on several points. We are supposed to respect these people who tell us that homosexuality is an abomination because their book says it is so, yet who conveniently ignore the bits of their book that they don't agree with (such as the part about stoning to death disobedient children). If you still think we should respect religious beliefs, then maybe you should consider that Christians surely don't respect any beliefs that don't correlate with theirs. These are people who say that their religion is the moral compass for the world. Love thy neighbor. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Then they go out to atheist blogs and assault the author with insults and derision. How loving and compassionate, that. Are you still not convinced? Then turn your attention to the Christian penchant for forcing their regressive views upon the rest of the world. From little things like Earl Adams getting a book about lesbian sex pulled from a public library, to major issues like the stubborn insistence on teaching abstinence to the people they should be teaching about safe sex -- particularly in Africa, where the Catholic church is implicitly involved in the spread of AIDS. No amount of proselytizing is going to override biological processes. I have outlined four reasons here why Christian beliefs are not deserving of respect: belief in invisible beings is delusional; the mores of a long dead, barbaric culture have no place in the modern world; Christians do not respect the beliefs of others; Christians repeatedly try to impose their belief system on the rest of society, sometimes with catastrophic results. If you don't agree with the first two reasons, I can understand. But the latter two reasons are very serious and affect each and every one of us. By passively tolerating religious nonsense, you make it easier for them to force their misguided morals on everyone. If you enjoy having others dictate what is and isn't morally offensive to you, or what you can and cannot do in your private life, then go right ahead and be a nice, quiet atheist who doesn't want to hurt anyone's feelings. Personally, I don't have it in me to keep quiet. It's long past time for the wall of religious respect to be torn down. These people need to be challenged and their attempts to impose their antiquated beliefs on the rest of us need to be stopped. Atheists need to speak out against religion in all of its forms and expose it for the fantasy it is. Tolerance of irrational belief systems encourages the erosion of social progress and the spread of unsafe, and sometimes barbaric, practices. If you want your children and their children to live in an age of reason and security, rather than an age of superstition and madness, then not speaking out is tantamount to a crime against humanity.
Don’t ever ever buy into their claims that they are atheists.They are militant anti-theists and there is a huge difference.Although viewing themselves as “free thinkersâ€, they all have a Party Line they follow rather closely.But the militant atheists -the ones who have devoted their lives to refuting Christianity- are almost like the demons …who believe more firmly in God’s existencethan do Christians !It can unequivocally be stated that militant atheists are some of the people who most solidly believe in God !Ain’t talking ‘practical atheists’ here …those who don’t even think much about atheism. They’re the true atheists.Professional atheists who’ve dedicated themselves to eradicating the Lord do so because they hate Him.They’re the God-haters.To which they’ll invariably reply: ‘How can we hate something we don’t believe in ?’.Exactly ! It’s their belief in God which drives them to relentlessly attack Him. Run of the mill, everyday ‘practical atheists’ don’tgive God a second thought. They’re the ones I worry about.Whereas militant atheists are fighting against the innate knowledge of suppressed in their hearts.As a militant atheist I can unequivocally state that there is no time in your life that you totally disbelieved in God. And -in fact- were driven to work against the Lord by belief in Him !It isn’t that militant atheists don’t believe God exists.Instead: That they don’t want God to exist.So when debating don’t ever buy into their *how can we believe in a sky pixie* claim because they most certainly do though they will never admit it.They have a fire and hatred in their hearts for God and that is what brings them into religious newsgroups on a regular basis.They want to destroy your faith like they have destroyed their own.
They want to destroy your faith like they have destroyed their own.
You seem to have misunderstood my post. I’m an atheist myself. And I’ll tell you now your claim that ‘militant’ atheists (by which I assume you are referring to the really vocal ones) believe in God in some way is rather twisted.
It’s their belief in God which drives them to relentlessly attack Him.
I suggest you get a dictionary and look up the definition of ‘atheist’. We have no belief in any sort of supreme being. We deny that God exists. When we attack religion, we are aiming at the dogma. We poke fun at people who believe in imaginary friends. To say that atheists attack God because they really believe in him is rather silly.
It’s their belief in God which drives them to relentlessly attack Him.
By this argument, if you attack and ridicule a man who believes that space aliens are giving him orders via his teeth fillings, that must mean you believe the space aliens really exist, but you just hate them for some reason.
It’s hugely annoying when other people claim they know better what’s going on in my head than I do. It’s a perfect example of Christian disreapect for others’ beliefs — he won’t even acknowledge that atheists actually believe what they say they believe.
I wonder how many people would respect a man who walks down the street talking to invisible friends.
If I knew an adult who genuinely believed in, say, Santa Claus, I could respect him if he had other positive qualities, but asking me to respect that belief itself would be asking too much.
If I knew an adult who genuinely believed in, say, Santa Claus, I could respect him if he had other positive qualities, but asking me to respect that belief itself would be asking too much.
Point taken. I also respect members of my family who practice religion, though I think their beliefs are silly. But, in general, people do tend to brand as ‘crazy’ strangers who wander around talking to invisible people. They are very much not respected and are often mocked and insulted (in general again — some people really are kind toward them). We would be concerned about family members who do the same and would most likely seek psychiatric help for them. Yet, we don’t bat an eye when people talk to the all-knowing, all-seeing, invisible guy in the sky. That’s what I was getting at.