What does "respecting other people's beliefs" actually mean?

[Hakluyt]

I am often told I should - and I have been told that I haven't. But I genuinely don't know what it means.

I am a great believer in good manners, and I would always be polite if I was attending some sort of faith based event. I never go on prayer threads. I do try never to be rude. But the threshold for "disrespect" seems extraordinarily low- sometimes mere disagreement seems unacceptable.

Also, what constitutes a "belief"? The major world religions- OK- I get that. But do I also have to respect "new" religions made up in the 1970s/80s? Kabbalah? Is homeopathy a belief? If I say, for example "homeopathy is discredited bollocks and this is why" is that a public service or disrespecting someone's beliefs? Is astrology a "belief"?

Atheism isn't a belief system, obviously, but am I entitled to be offended and report the post if someone says that atheists lead empty lives devoid of joy? Or if someone says that science is evil and devoted to hiding the evidence for the paranormal/ the cure for cancer/whatever for it's own selfish ends?

This happened to me this morning: I was in a local shop, paying for my purchases. In walked another local lady.

'You're looking well,' said the shopkeeper.

'Oh, it must be because I have my appointment', said the local lady.

'That's good' we agreed.

'It wasn't a Muslim doctor this time,' she continued ' that's why.' 'All the others I have seen were Muslim. This one was Christian.'

At this point, both the shopkeeper and I were pretty much struck dumb. Neither of us wanted to continue the conversation - but the etiquette of politeness was still there. In the interest of politeness and respect in the presence of blatant prejudice, we withdrew.

In everyday life, I think that that's what most of us do.

People can be incredibly ignorant, skolastica :(

You did well to keep silent on that one. I might have been a little ruder.

Seems to me confusing British reserve with respect.

You could have respectfully put her in her place

Not saying you should have; just that it would have been possible to remain respectful and courteous.

By the way how do you know wha religion a doctor is? I have no idea what mine are!

By the way how do you know wha religion a doctor is? I have no idea what mine are!

• I don't think she really knew - just judged by accent and colour of skin.

So what she was saying was: "my doctor is white Caucasian like me", rather than a specific religion.

So being racist rather than religionist?

GotAnotherQuestion you said "Of course atheism is a belief. It's a belief that there is no God to believe in"

You have misunderstood. It is a fact that that no evidence has been found for a god. Therefore no rational person would 'believe' that there is one. Just as we don't believe in any of the other things for which there is no evidence.

Most of us (and this probably includes you) don't believe that the moon is a giant mouse waiting to pounce on the earth and eat the crust. The reason we don't is that there is no evidence or reason to think there's any truth in that.

If someone produces any evidence at all. Even the smallest reason to think there might actually be a god that would change of course.

That's quite different from saying "oh today I have decided to believe god doesn't exist'. That's how religious people do it apparently so I can see why you might assume it worked like that.

capsium You said to me "Nobody here, to my knowledge, is advocating this kind of dangerous activity" because I had used an analogy about what to do when driving.

My point was that (a) in other threads and in other places do people do give dangerous advice based on woo and (b) simply advocating belief without proof IS dangerous advice. The people who beat a child to death because he was possessed by the devil would not have done so had they been taught to look for proof first. They were brought up to be religious so reality didn't matter, only belief.

oh and GotAnotherQuestion you do realise that placebo is not homoeopathy working? It's placebo working. The actual homoeopathy is still complete nonsense.

Back I was talking in terms of talking about beliefs on Mumsnet, within talk guidelines. I have not come across anyone advocating dangerous activities. If they did, I expect their posts would be moderated. We all posses beliefs, they are a feature of humanity, people are allowed to talk about them, as long as they are not offensive.

I can tell you reality does matter very much within religion, what you are talking about regarding beating someone to death would be considered a crime here, in the UK, which is considered (traditionally) a Christian nation by many.

Of course it's a crime, but they were only following the beliefs they were taught were real. They applied the rules that many/most religious people on MN support as right and proper. They looked at their holy myths, they consulted a priest, they prayed and got a feeling of rightness and then did it. Just like devout Christians, Muslims etc will tell you is the right way to make decisions.

All the while the atheists/rationalists are shouting "No! find out first if it's real. Test it to be sure. Don't guess" and that we are told is disrespectful to religion.

Backonlybriefly - what FACT of proof is there that God doesn't exist in your opinion?

Is this a peer reviewed article or a scientific study I missed?

Oh and Back - I didn't say it would mean homeopathy works. But if someone who believes homeopathy will cure their cold and they take that alongside vitamin c, but they're belief is in homeopathy, they may recover faster than if you just give then the vitamin c pill. Then it's their belief that homeopathy works that is the placebo. You could hand them a banana but if they don't believe it will so the job as well, then it probably won't.

Mini - "I am quite uncertain as to why you are arguing with me"

I am arguing against your previous claim that a hypothesis is a belief.

"A hypothesis is a best guess, which is then tested."

Good. I'm glad you see that it is not a belief.

"if something, like homeopathy, for example, has been proved not to work, it can't then be proved to work. If it worked, but we didn't know how, then obviously different theories would emerge and be tested until finally we found out. But it's not that it works and we don't know how- it just doesn't work."

^This. Exactly.

It makes me to see so many pull out that old "Oh but we don't know everything. It may be proven in the future. So you must respect my opinion" etc.

I wish people would search scholar.google.com more often than google.com.

"then it's their belief that homeopathy works that is the placebo."

No. Homeopathy is the placebo.

""Of course atheism is a belief. It's a belief that there is no God to believe in"

NO.

Atheist says "I listened to all your stories and none of it makes sense, so I don't believe any of it".

I reject your claim because there is no proof for it.

That is not a belief.

You must understand these basic issues before you debate them.

No I don't respect religions and beliefs, but I respect the person

Brilliant post DaVinciNight What are the limits of human knowledge? we simply don't have knowledge of everything, this doesn't mean that we never will, or we will. We simply don't know. Discussing the Higgs boson and the so called god particle yesterday with someone, when they said, even if this proved that creationism was entirely wrong headed, does it necessarily prove that God doesn't exist.

Now off to look at GotAnotherQuestion links, thank you

"Discussing the Higgs boson and the so called god particle yesterday with someone"

Higgs Boson is the God Particle. That is what it was nicknamed, anyway. It has nothing to do with God, obviously.

"... when they said, even if this proved that creationism was entirely wrong headed, does it necessarily prove that God doesn't exist. "

Since you are have a Physics diploma (from Cambridge, no less), would you care to explain to us why the discovery of the Higgs Boson should prove that "creationism was entirely wrong headed"?

I've never thought of atheism as a belief, either. It would be like saying my not believing in Santa is a belief in itself, which makes no sense to me really. I can understand the view of atheists is that there is nothing to believe in - therefore it is lack of belief.

I can understand it must be frustrating to be told that your unbelief is a belief. There certainly are the more militant atheists who are even stronger in their stance of unbelief; but they still don't have a 'belief'.

Neither 'side' can prove there is or isn't a God, but I do get that the onus is more on me to 'prove' my belief than on an atheist person to prove something that she doesn't think is there. I'm fine with that, to be honest. Doesn't mean I'm going to come up with any quantifiable goods that will satisfy that person, but also doesn't mean I'm going to be sulky and say 'well you can't prove there isn't one either'. That wouldn't be polite, for one thing ;)

Creationism and the Higgs, erm what?

It's splitting hairs.

Like I said earlier about believing in fairies, you believe in their existence or you believe that they don't exist.

Same as God.

Both are a belief. One for and one against.

So yeah, that includes Santa. If you don't believe in Santa then you DO believe that Santa is made up.

Remember a double negative equals a positive.

I really don't know why the big deal about atheism being a belief that no God exists.

As I pointed out earlier, 3 out of 4 dictionary definitions given fit the profile for both theist AND atheist. The 4th is the only one that pertains to theist exclusively.

Not my words, if you don't like it take it up with dictionary.com

It's not splitting hairs, if you have a belief in a god you are using definition number 4. You might subscribe that another definition holds true for an athiest but that's disingenuous because the context is different. Surely that's not hard to understand. Same word yes but they have subtle yet important differences.

Atheists can not be attributed to have the same belief as definition number 4 which is the context it is being used in. Therefor atheists do not hold a belief.

"I really don't know why the big deal about atheism being a belief that no God exists."

Well, the big deal is that it's not true.

I don't know if the universe was created by a conscious entity or if it happened by accident. It would be foolish to claim that I have that knowledge.

What makes me an atheist is that I heard all about your Gods and religions and didn't buy any of it. I have rejected your belief. I told you "That sounds like a lot of tosh". That is not a belief. It's an absence of belief.

You live with your religious faith. I live without religious faith. I don't live with some 'atheist faith'.

"Remember a double negative equals a positive."

What double negative?

"I don't believe your God story" has only 1 negative. That is the position of an atheist.

"... when they said, even if this proved that creationism was entirely wrong headed, does it necessarily prove that God doesn't exist. "

Yes the Higgs Boson has been given the nominal name God Particle...and, your point is?

If it can be "proven" that this created the earth and everything after stems from this event, then it can't also be that god created the earth and everything on it in seven days. Of course people are free to believe what they believe irrespective of science. And it could well be that having concluded that this matter/antimatter theory is the best on offer, that in another 100 years there is a paradigm shift where some other theory is considered better. Plus, there are already plenty of Christians and even Jews who don't read the bible literally and therefore do not think that god created the world in seven days, even if he didn't create it, this still doesn't prove conclusively that "god" doesn't exist.

It would be like saying, there was a crime, we have a very good idea who perpetrated it, we didn't see them but circumstantial evidence suggests it was them. So then we try this person, they are found not guilty, does this mean that the crime didn't happen and/or the person said to have committed it doesn't exist, no he just wasn't responsible for what you thought he was, neither does it preclude the fact that he could have committed other crimes.

GotAnotherQuestion, I agree with you a double negative=possitive

Errmm you have no idea what a Higgs particle even is. Google it