We're always being told we should respect other people's beliefs, but....

[Hakluyt]

.....what exactly does "respect" mean in this context? I am an atheist, and I am always happy to be challenged on my lack of belief, and am frequently told that I must have no moral compass and that I have to put up and shut up when Christianity imposes itself on me. I have also been told that I must have no sense of wonder- and, on on particularly memorable occasion, that I couldn't possibly have any charitable impulses!

But if I say anything even remotely "challenging" about faith or people of faith,bi am accused of disrespect. So, what exactly does respecting other people's beliefs mean?

But I do seem to recall the 10 commandments say "have no other Gods"

Brilliant. So you have validation for your idol.

Makes perfect sense now.

and continues to give little reminders that He is always there

What sort of little reminder would he give a child starving to death or a child being murdered?

The problem is that any "little reminders" God might be leaving me that he exists would indicate that he is wicked and cruel and ignores the cries of the people he created.......

Then they can do whatever they want and not feel bad about it

Prisoners of a Christian faith account for 56% of the UK prison population in 2013

A different author said he sees it as God doesn't give up on the atheist

(BTW i'm assuming you mean the Christian god in your post because you mention the bible)

Just out of interest, doe god view people who believe in false gods as atheists in that they don't believe in him? If so, (and why doesn't he if he doesn't) why are his little messages so ineffective? For example, almost 100% of Afghans are Muslim despite god's little messages? Or does he lay off people of other faith? Why?

Perhaps when an artist is most unsettled and uncomfortable they will take issue with Christians or the bible, or public worship and prayer. But underneath it all is their argument with God himself, for whatever their personal reason for that.

I'm probably akin to an ex-smoker harping on about how much smokers smell of fags or something. Making sense of how it happened and feeling a bit cheated by the whole thing I am going to do a fair bit of thinking and analysing and talking. It isn't just Christianity I take umbrage with though it's all forms of superstition but culturally Christianity is like wallpaper so it's the most common target.

I can perhaps understand an atheists frustration at evil and suffering, and know often it is viewed that God's apparent inaction proves He doesn't exist; most of us at one time or another would have wished for some sort of super powers so we could rescue the weak or bring justice to evildoers. But God already has those super powers, so why doesn't He use them?

One problem in imagining God as one of us, but with super powers, is that He can affect every moral situation. yes, you or I would stop suffering of starving children or someone being beaten to death, because in our limited understanding we simply follow our moral obligation to intervene and stop evil as best we can. But when God acts, it is very different, because He could stop ALL evil if he chose. IF God were obliged to stop one country's starving children then wouldn't he be obliged to stop all country's? And murder? And robbery? Domestic violence, adultery, fraud, and even building violations cause people harm.

Suddenly we are faced with a genuine question: would our world be better if God stopped EVERY act of evil, both moral and natural? Even if we had free will, it would be useless if God made our choices trivial and sentence us to life in a "toy-world".

Reminders are numerous, too many to count. For me personally, they are acts of love (God IS love), the level of health I currently have, despite my crippling illness, the fact I can draw breath to start each day. The sunrise in the morning, the seeds that flourish into vegetables I can eat, the love and enjoyment of my dog, unnatural peace in turmoil, the knowledge that I haven't earned my way to heaven but God see's me as perfect because Jesus has cleansed me with the blood he shed for my sins .... so so many reminders.

God is treated differently because there is no one like Him.

Which god though? There are many ex-Muslim forums, or is that different because they didn't believe in your god? Why are they banging on about their indoctrination if it wasn't the real god?

People who believe in Santa don't have automatic rights to certain seats in the House of Lords. State schools aren't legally bound to provide opportunities to worship Santa. People who believe in Santa don't get to discriminate against people of certain sexual orientations. And actually there's no one like Santa either. And he's never drowned the whole world or ordered the slaughter of babies.

Even if we had free will, it would be useless if God made our choices trivial and sentence us to life in a "toy-world*

One word. Heaven. And gods original plan for that matter. If it had gone how god had wanted it to Adam and Eve wouldn't have eaten the fruit and would still be in ignorant bliss, so you're actually criticising gods own plan there.

so so many reminders

You live in the western world and have access to the benefits of modern science such as health care and education. Don't forget that humans have been around for 200000 and for the first 199900 we had little knowledge of medicine and very poor life expectancy and infant mortality, much how it still remains in most of the world. And all that development was through humans. God watched us dying young and in child birth and most of our children dying and all that suffering for 199900 years, suffering that he is happy for us to avoid now with modern medicine.

For example, millions of people have been saved by modern antibiotics, I take it you would think nothing of going to the drs if you had an infection, an infection that, 100 years ago would have killed you. I wonder if god thinks 'crap, wish I'd thought of that instead of having to watch all that suffering'.

the fact I can draw breath to start each day. The sunrise in the morning, the seeds that flourish into vegetables I can eat, the love and enjoyment of my dog,

A, oxygen and evolution
B, cosmology
C, biology
D, psychology and pedigree chum ;)

"so many reminders"

Ebola- an elegant virus in action. God is astrounding in his wizardry.

I can bet you if you read the book yourself you won't find any instructions to be hypocritically unkind to fellow-sinners.

If I read it myself? :)

I have read the whole bible cover to cover many times. It's not that kind of a book, but I was making notes, comparing and actually studying it. Whereas most Christians I have encountered have only read a few inspirational passages recommended to them by their priest. Carefully chosen to avoid the tricky bits (most of it).

The whole "but do we want him to turn the world into toy town" is a poor argument. Remember God thought the garden of Eden was a good idea. He doesn't say 'I knew it wouldn't work' He says "it was ok until you spoilt it. Funny that he never saw that coming really.

More importantly the bible doesn't say god just passively allows bad things to happen, but that he does them himself and tells other people to do them.

I don't know how much you know about your bible. How about the bears? Elisha is offended by some kids calling him baldy so he asks god to sort them out and god sends bears to tear the kids to pieces. God apparently gets off on that kind of thing.

On a larger scale in the bible he orders his followers to invade neighbouring countries. He tells them not just to take their land, but to slaughter them all. Sometimes he says keep the youngest girls to rape. He tells them to kill all the babies though.

In Leviticus he lists people who should be killed for not following his rules, including all gay people. He approves of slavery too and mutilating the bodies of small children.

Have you read Job? God meets the devil by the road and they stop for a chat. God bets Satan that he can't make Job lose his faith no matter what he does to him. With God's permission, Satan abuses, tortures and kills Job's servants, wife and children.

Of course none of this was god really because he doesn't exist, but it is your religion. Your god of love.

It's also the basis of the other Abrahamic religions. Remember Abraham? He was god's favourite and he earned that place because when god said "take your son and kill him and I'll reward you" Abraham said "ok then". He was a true believer was Abraham. A role model for all believers.

The description of god in the bible looks so bad to modern Christians that they have taken to saying the Old Testament doesn't count. I've never heard a sensible reason for it not counting unless god had therapy before incarnating as Jesus. Some say it is simply untrue because it was altered/mistranslated and so on. The bits that support their position though are accurate. Just the bits that make them look like they are worshipping a bloodthirsty psychopath.

Believers say I should respect their beliefs when they carry a book which says that all kinds of atrocities are good. A book that if they actually followed it closely would have them in prison in any civilised country and on sexual offenders lists.

Now you admit that your god is the only true one. I'm glad to hear it as many Christians try to avoid saying that nowadays. I think it's more honest to say out loud "mine is the only one".

You say "I don't go round threads mocking people for believing it", but it does mean you don't take their beliefs seriously.

It means that you think that hundreds of millions of people sincerely believe in a god that doesn't exist. You are quite right, but that includes Christians too.

I see most of that was already covered by others, but the suggestion that I read the bible myself gets me every time :)

It's probably for the best that atheists don't have access to a god willing to rain down fire and brimstone.

the "peace that passes all understanding", and to my often annoyance it's the latter that really gets to the bones of it. The former are just band-aids.

If that were true why do Christians seek help for mental health issues, and commit suicide as often as non-Christians? of religious groups, from Orthodox Jews to evangelical Christians, reveal no evidence that the frequency of depression varies across religious groups or between those who attend religious services and those who do not.

then they will [know] that anyone treating them cruelly isn't following God properly

Why would you say that? A quick read of the OT reveals a god who has a voracious appetite for horrific cruelty. It's your morality that knows it's not nice to be cruel and spiteful, nothing to do with the bible.

www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1358421/The-tantalising-proof-belief-God-makes-happier-healthier.html

Interesting whistle stop tour of some research by Tom Knox journalist.

If that were so why are as many Christians battling depression? That's not my own research but the study quoted on the Christian Today article I posted earlier in response to claims that Christianity is the best way to achieve a peace 'that's passes understanding'. What with so many Christians struggling with mental health issues I worry where it less them when reading other Christians claiming how healing and wonderful being a Christian is. Are they doing it wrong? Being punished? Where identified, the benefits of religion come down to better social support networks yet are found in all organised religions so nothing supernatural going on.

I have no problem with people not respecting my views. I mean, you can respect that I have the right to believe there is a loving God, in that you don't try and legislate to make it illegal, without respecting the belief in a loving God itself. Simplistic maybe.

As a Christian, I don't think Christianity or indeed any other belief/non belief system should have privileges over other people. I'm not into state funded religious schools, but then neither do I think street preachers should be arrested for telling people they're going to hell. I think that's horrible, but in a society that should relish the free exchange of ideas, the best way to counter such ideas is to do what gets done on MN every day - challenge them, not criminalize them.

If someone's faith can't stand up to a bit of honest scrutiny, they're better of without it, IMHO.

And as to the mental health issue, as someone with bipolar, I see no reason why my faith would mean I was immune from any kind of illness, mental, or otherwise.

People who believe in santa know it doesn't bring with it the message of condemnation of sin that the bible does. Santa is all nice and fluffy and not real at all (sorry to break it to you! ) so of course its in a whole different ball park and is much more acceptable to a heart hardened to God and His holiness, a holiness that by contrast highlights human frailty and unholiness.

headinhands:
A, oxygen created by God and delivered to our cells via a carefully crafted respiratory system
B, cosmology, created by God and unexplained by humanity
C, biology- the science of the mysteries created by God a fraction of which is comprehended by mankind
D, psychology and pedigree chum ;) The bible is very much a book about having a balanced mind too, with or without "man's best friend".

BackOnlyBriefly:
You say you've read the bible, that's good. But if you've honestly read it cover to cover, have you done so using an atheist apologetics website to warp shape your viewpoint? The reason I ask is that the examples you give are terribly out of context. We all know how easy it is to twist what is said, I'm sure we've all been at the receiving end of that at some time in our lives.

In brief, the Elisha bears is such an old and dare I say it, slightly boring argument. Firstly, being mauled doesn't mean dead (google modern day reports of being mauled by a bear and surviving with just scratches), and secondly the KJV was the first translations to imply children, other more true translations say it for what it is, when you dig deeper into the original words used, and mean "young men", most likely the age group found in our military today.

Finally, God brings judgment to people, and rightly so. We all have our personal views on justice and if you ask anyone in the street they will tell you there isn't enough justice carried out these days, particularly in relation to child murder and paedophilia. How many times have you heard people say "they deserve to have the same done to them"? So why is it ok for us to stand in righteous judgement, but not God?

All this public special treatment nonsense is getting pretty boring too. People all have different opinions and guess what dear atheists, there are an AWFUL lot of people who don't believe in God but who also disagree with you on that score. Banging on about special privileges is hypocritical don't you think? Ultimately you're asking for exactly that, just because YOU don't like the God element. Why? Because it makes you uncomfortable!

I didn't claim that chistians are exempt from as much human frailty as non-Christians, for some reason a few atheists jumped on that all by themselves.

Wow BigDorrit, your first line is absolutely stupid and suddenly stops without being finished.

It's really not up to you to say an ex-atheist wasn't really an atheist! If they say they were then I believe them over you since they walked that road. Same was as I believe you when it tell me you're an atheist.

The ex-atheist was speaking about hindsight and seeing with fresh eyes, with the blinkers taken off. That is the moment they saw how angry they had been and for what reasons. I think if I remember rightly it was to so with having prayed for God to help in the way they wanted, and He didn't, so they felt let down. Then they followed the belief that God can't possibly exist or He would have intervened because hats what a loving God would do, you know, the sort of things many atheists have said here.

You mentioned something about people doing what they like and saying a few hail Mary's. Well first off that isn't in the bible, Jesus said I am the way the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father but by me". That means no hail Mary's.

However the bible is explicitly clear about the behaviour of the believer. God treats you like his offspring and will correct you, "He disciplines those whom he loves". Sometimes God's discipline is the heavy heart of a troubled conscience, other times it is physical. Not always though, assuming this is dangerous and could lead you to become a bit of a Job's comforter! So no, they don't get away with it at all, in fact, more is expected of them.

As for being bemused about me failing to comprehend other people don't believe in God, what a silly thing to say, of course I am well aware of that. I've just been messaging a whole bunch of you, atheists I think you're called!