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?

CoteDAzur, yes that is my point. It could be said that god created the universe with a big bang, using science as an argument about belief or faith is useless, yes glad we agree, maybe now we can concentrate on whether using scientific evidence can be used to argue that homoeopathy is a crock of shit!

Hakluyt, yes of course, please read what I wrote. I am saying that neither precludes the other.

"maybe now we can concentrate on whether using scientific evidence can be used to argue that homoeopathy is a crock of shit!"

No need for argument. Yes it can.

Now, back to the big stuff.....

Mini - You didn't have a point. Why were you referring to Big Bang when we were talking about Higgs Boson?

Do you at least understand that I don't have "a very strong belief that god doesn't exist"?

Science is usually used to state that ones belief is correct and discount other beliefs. My argument is the reverse of this. I am saying that we have a belief in a theory, and that these facts and theories are basically built upon preference or belief, or more precisely upon consensus/acceptance. Science is not like philosophy but there is a philosophy of science. Philosophy can establish logical facts, if the premises are correct the conclusion is always correct.

CoteDAzur, I posted a link earlier.

I have no idea what you just said there, Mini.

Where, sorry

This discussion about the god particular is very interesting because it shows something very important. None of us had the knowledge to understand all the different areas if science. For quite a few people, understanding anything complex in science is out of their reach.

So what happens us that someone does done research, publish them and then someone else that can understand explains it in more understandable way and ten maybe it reaches us, lay people and we learn that we have discovered this new particule that... Does something but it's very important to understand the origin of the universe.
In fact, only the people who are specialised in that field will be able to understand the consequences if the discovery. We, lay people, just have to trust, believe what theses searchers are saying and what it means for us. We can not have a direct experience or understanding of it.
In done way we believe that this god particule has done special meaning because we have been told so.

On the top of it, there is the bias of the people doing the experiments or analysing them. For example, I remember reading some research, looking at all the data in the paper and coming to the opposite conclusion than the people writing the paper . Or the same research is analysed in different ways by different people and leads to different conclusions.
I've seen that happening with Heath quite a lot, with 3 different 'doctors' saying how this shows X and we should all do Y (all different of course).

Now the issue is that we can't possibly read all the research on all the subjects, we have to rely on other people doing that and telling us what is the 'truth'. So we believe. We trust someone's word about a subject that we hold as the truth.

"Science is usually used to state that ones belief is correct and discount other beliefs. My argument is the reverse of this. I am saying that we have a belief in a theory, and that these facts and theories are basically built upon preference or belief, or more precisely upon consensus/acceptance. "

So Catholic Church believed Earth was stationary and the sun revolved around Earth. Galileo "believed" that the Earth was revolving around the Sun. Where's the "preference of belief", consensus, etc?

There was reality and a belief that was later proven to be wrong. That's it.

Btw saying that you saying god doesn't exist is a fact because we haven't been able prove it does exist us wrong.
Because we can't prove something YET doesn't mean it not true ...

So in that respect you believe that god exists or you believe that god doesn't exist.

CoteDAzur, I suspect there are still people who believe the earth is flat! Yes, I am inclined to think the catholic church had to believe the earth was the centre of the universe and were compelled to make others believe this too, for fairly logical reasons.

"There was reality and a belief that was later proven to be wrong. That's it"

well not exactly. There was once a consensus albeit wrong and based upon limited knowledge, now we have a new consensus based upon a new theory and based upon greater/better knowledge which has not been disproven...well at least not yet but we have no reason to think with 100% belief that paradigm shifts in science never occur, because you have just evidenced that this can happen with your example.

DaVinci - "someone does done research, publish them and then someone else that can understand explains it in more understandable way and ten maybe it reaches us, lay people and we learn that we have discovered this new particule that... Does something"

This is true. However, laymen like us can and do read, learn, and understand the research. I am one of the laymen, but I'm interested and I like to read. If you are interested enough to participate in such a debate, I recommend you to do the same.

cote re the sun and Galileo, of course now we know the earth is round.
At the time there was little proof that one was right and the other wrong. Especially the calculations from Galileo were at odds with the day to day experience of people and then at odds with their explanation on the world worked. It was a huge leap.
Why would they have trusted some calculation on a sheet if paper that was going against their daily experience. Was it not obvious that sun is turning round the earth???

At that time, I am sure it was clear it didn't make sense and lacked common sense. Unless you were a mathematician and could understand said calculations. And even then it might look very weird.
Just like the idea that a particule can be a physical object or a wave of energy but seem at off with daily experience.

But we have learnt to expect 'weird' ideas from science and to accept them.

Consensus has nothing to do with any of it. Paradigm shifts have occurred and most probably will again, but not because consensus failed. They occurred because something new was discovered and a belief was proven to be wrong.

What do you mean 'I recommend you do the same' ...

I do read around science thank you but I also my limits and that there are some subjects I can only discuss on the surface. I also know some subjects I will never understand because they would need me to have a phd.
I would hope you do know your own limits too that you have to trust other people too.

"Why would they have trusted some calculation on a sheet if paper that was going against their daily experience. Was it not obvious that sun is turning round the earth???"

Actually, it was easy to convince people and many were indeed convinced, but the Church was a scary presence at the time that tortured dissenters with abandon and killed them in inventive and agonising ways.

I just read a book called The Sky's Dark Labyrinth - historical fiction about Galileo's discovery & conflict with the Church. If you are interested in this subject, you might find it interesting.

And not every layman can read and understand research.
You might do for some subjects but most people don't have the ability to do so.

Which takes us back to the fact people just have to trust whatever they are being told, research or not. Therefore they believe.

What seems to be the problem with recommending that people read advanced science topics for themselves and saying that it is entirely possible for laymen (like you and me) to understand them?

"people just have to trust whatever they are being told, research or not. Therefore they believe."

"Believe" in the sense of "trust the professionals".

Not "belief" in the sense of "totally baseless belief in fairies".

Cote Consensus has everything to do with it. We now prefer Einstein over Newton but Einstein doesn't actually disprove Newtonian physics. Its a paradigm shift. Its a little like us, we are talking at cross purposes, using different language and ideas and our conceptual framework so different. We may never reach a point where we can actually debate and come to a conclusion or reach consensus. This is similar to working in different paradigms. Its like arguing about poverty, when one says the true measure of poverty is absolute poverty and the other insists that it is inequality/relative poverty. neither position is correct.

Consensus has nothing to do with any of it. Paradigm shifts have occurred and most probably will again, but not because consensus failed. They occurred because something new was discovered and a belief was proven to be wrong

Belief is the same as consensus, we accept the validity of the claim, we have a belief that it is true and we have a consensus when we agree that we believe it to be true.

But as we have said before, what science says today is not THE truth. It doesn't have the full ownership of saying 'this is exactly how things are' because 1- it can be proven wrong and 2- not everything has been proven yet.

It's for these 'not proven yet' things that belief and consensus on what is right that we have so much discussion.

Well I am glad there was enough scientific consensus for the engineers to design my iphone. Can you imagine what a pickle they would have been in at apple if they couldn't get past agreeing on which conceptual framework to use?

"But as we have said before, what science says today is not THE truth. It doesn't have the full ownership of saying 'this is exactly how things are' because 1- it can be proven wrong and 2- not everything has been proven yet. "

Absolutely. That's the difference between proper science and pseudoscience/woo. It doesn't matter how much evidence you throw at pseudoscientists and woo mongers, they remain obdurately wedded to their "beliefs". Show a scientist new evidence and he'll say "bugger, back to the drawing board"