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?

There must be lots of Agnostic historians lurking somewhere.I think I will just accept it is a minority view which people have a right to!
Found this interesting article in my search though.

www.science20.com/writer_on_the_edge/blog/scientists_discover_that_atheists_might_not_exist_and_thats_not_a_joke-139982

Not sure how I'll cope when I have to go back to work and not get to spend all day on MN.

If the bible says that there was a particular king on the throne or tells us what shepherds did with their flocks that can be accurate yes, but that doesn't mean that if they add 'and I heard there was some guy who claimed to be god" that this is accurate too. It doesn't work like that.

I like American spy thrillers. They speak of real places all the time and real people, but the actual story is fictional.

As it happens I understand that some of the bibles claims about what went on around 0BC actually are historically inaccurate. But there's little point picking at the details when we know that it doesn't really matter and I'm not historian enough to give proper weight to those errors.

And of course there may even have been a guy called Joshua Ben David. I doubt you'll find an atheist claiming to have evidence that he didn't exist. That would be daft wouldn't it unless you knew the name and address of everyone in the world at that time.

It's enough to say that the people who claim that there is conclusive evidence are wrong and the reason you seem to see a lot of them saying that is because there are a lot of believers.

Oh and I think the creationists say that the Leviathan mentioned in the bible is a dinosaur. But their main evidence for dinosaurs existing alongside man is that they must have done because god created man at the same time he made the world. Also apparently if you add up all the begats in the bible you can work your way down to the birth of christ and add 2000 years.
You have to add or subtract a bit to make it work and there are various fuzzy bits because some people had the same name.

vdbfamily that's an interesting article. I agree with some of it of course. i think we are indeed predisposed to believe in things greater than us. There's the pattern matching thing that they mention. We want to see connections and purpose to events. There's the built in trust of those tall beings that surround us when we are kids and so on.

Some of it makes me wince though.

"studies showing, for example, that even people who claim to be committed atheists tacitly hold religious beliefs, such as the existence of an immortal soul.”

That's a contradiction in terms since if they believe in an immortal soul, or even if they believe that belief is the way to know things, then they are not really atheist at all. Perhaps the writer meant "people who are not in organised churches who believe in an immortal soul"

They are right that when someone dies that atheists feel a need for a farewell ritual, but it's about the people left behind rather than speaking to the person who has gone or to a 'god' who is looking after them now.

I'm sure they are right too when they say that there was an evolutionary advantage to belief. There's an evolutionary advantage to banding together in a mob too and killing any stranger. It doesn't mean we should do it now. (but interesting in itself)

There is also the notion that the presence of an invisible moralistic presence makes misdemeanors harder to commit

That one really ought to work. I don't know why it doesn't, but as has been pointed out before there are at least as many religious people as non-religious in prison (proportionally).

Actually there are slightly more religious people in prison, but I don't think we should make too much of that. After all saying 'You've found god' is a good way to get early release and that is because of the myth that religious people are more moral.

That's a contradiction in terms since if they believe in an immortal soul, or even if they believe that belief is the way to know things, then they are not really atheist at all.

As has been said countless times atheism is simply a lack of belief in god or gods. There is not a doctrine of atheism that says anything else has to follow. It is quite possible to have a lack of belief in god but to still have other beliefs - in a soul, reincarnation, ghosts, etc. Some atheists may find that irrational.

To be honest,it is not something I have ever given much thought to but can see Velvet Greens point that a belief in no god does not automatically assume no belief in all things spiritual. As I have said previously as well ,I am no expert in all the differing websites but it is probably fairly safe to say that Atheists differ as much in what they do or don't believe as Christians. We are all complex beings and none of us think the same as any one other really.

VelvetGreen while you're right that you can believe in one thing and not another that is actually true of religious people. It's been said many times that Christians are atheist when it comes to believing in the gods of Asgard, Hindus or Islam.

I would imagine that a Christian actively believes those other gods are unreal. I say that because they can't reasonably reject them on the grounds of lack of evidence can they. They'd have no answer to "why not reject Christianity then?"

So if having faith that one thing is true and other things are not - purely on the basis of a feeling - is religious. Then an 'atheist' who didn't believe in Jesus, but believed in a soul or Reiki is actually following a different religion and is not an atheist at all.

An atheist then would simply be someone who doesn't believe things without at least some reason to think they might be true.

It goes without saying that this is the only rational position to take and it's a position that most people take when doing mundane things like shopping or driving a car. There'd be a lot more accidents if people rejected traffic lights and just started and stopped because they 'felt' the light ought to be one color or another.

If you have an absence of belief in any god then you are an atheist. You are writing a definition that may suit your brand of thinking, but it is not the definition of an atheist.

If your atheism is based on lack of empiric evidence then it would obviously be contradictory to believe in something else for which there is no empiric proof. Someone may also be an atheist because their experience leads them to believe there is no god, but other experiences may lead them to believe in e.g. ghosts.

There are Buddhists who are atheists, but believe in reincarnation. They may well argue that Buddhism is a philosophy, not a religion. There are Pagans and Heathens who do not believe in god, but use the personification of nature as a way of connecting with the world and abstract concepts. They may believe in a spiritual dimension to all living things, but not in any god. All atheists - without god.

Rational thought based only on empiric evidence is not part of the definition of atheism - it simply and only refers to god/gods. Belief in anything else is irrelevant. People with religious faith quite rightly get challenged when they try to argue that atheism is any more than this or that other patterns of thought or behaviour necessarily follow.

Interesting article, silly (and misleading) title.

I'm not just an atheist, I'm an a-supernaturalist. 'karma' for me is essentially just accepting that if I do something good, the world will be a slightly better place, if I do something bad it will be a bit worse. The interconnection is simple. I don't believe there is any 'narrative' - other than what people create for themselves.

The similarities between atheists and religious people says, I think, rather more about the latter than the former.... they can make 'gods' from their own human nature. 'spirituality' is an emergent property of the human mind.

Karma for me is simply cause and effect - nothing woo at all.

The point i'm trying to get across is that there are many reasons someone may be an atheist in the same way there are many ways one may become a theist. It doesn't necessarily follow that all atheists will also be skeptical, rational thinkers in all areas of their lives. Obviously many will try to be so.

Incidentally - did anyone see this, linked to in the comments section of the article vdb posted. Worth having a look at for anyone who thinks atheists don't face prejudice and hostility.

VelvetGreen...that link has shocked me. I have spent all my life around Christians of all varieties and don't recall ever meeting one who thought/spoke like that. Who are these people? Very bizarre.

Why are you shocked? Do you think that Christians are incapable of irrational or violent action? Have you not see the anti abortion campaigners?

Of course Christians are capable of irrational and violent actions...they are human beings after all. And they often feel very strongly about emotive subjects such as abortion, but to be writing such comments as are on that website is not in my mind Christian at all, neither is the murder of abortionists. There are ways of protesting peacefully. Anyone who thinks it is okay to write stuff like that is not following the example of Jesus.

Perhaps that's what religion tastes like when it is not sufficiently diluted. They will be in the US which seems in practise to be much more overtly religious than the UK. They have political leaders who say that gay people are the cause of hurricanes and such.

I'm just thinking aloud, but if everyone around you believes the same thing (true at least in some areas of the US) then it reinforces it. Perhaps you get more reasonable religious people when they interact daily with other beliefs (and non-belief)

At the very far end we have those Islamic countries where everyone is Muslim - unless they want to be killed - and in Europe in the past where you had to be Christian or be killed.

UKIP Councillor Blames Floods on Gay Marriage

Sadly true.

Which is why atheists have to keep on about it even if it offends people. Some places you can grow up just knowing your religion is true and never having met a non-believer. You never realise it's a choice.

So it's vitally important that everyone knows that some people think it's untrue. Then they have the option to look into it themselves if they want to.

And it's the reason why faith schools are considered so important by the churches. It's vital to get the kids believing before they meet someone who might tell them they have a choice.

back- I have family like this. THeir upbrining was so controlled that they did not even realise that there were people who had no faith until they were around 13 years old. No faith was never an option to them.

It must be incredibly difficult to break out of that.

I had it easy really. My family was only mildly religious. God was taken for granted, but hardly mentioned. The only reason my sister and I were sent to sunday school was that a neighbour did a kind of walking bus thing to the local church.

My mum said "hmm do I want the little buggers darlings off my hands for a couple of hours every sunday.... god! yes please!"

So when I started spotting plot holes there was no real pressure to stick with it.

Luckily not me- but I have close relatives who are still being brought up in this way. Their parents so tightly control their environment that the children have no concept of a godless life.
By the time they are old enough to know about life outside of church then they are pretty much set up for life, or faced with a very difficult personal disengaging.

Backonly briefly .... whilst I can see alot of the anti faith school arguments I don't think your statement makes any sense

And it's the reason why faith schools are considered so important by the churches. It's vital to get the kids believing before they meet someone who might tell them they have a choice.

If less than 10% of the UK are church going Christians,surely the default position for most kids is that they are from non church backgrounds. It is surely the beliefs of the home that will impact the kids more than what school is saying.From my point of view,sometimes attending a church school is the only time a child will hear about the Christian faith,so this is more of a balance because at least they then get a real choice. Once they get to secondary school it is all secular to the extreme in most cases.

Part of the problem in the US may be that they overdid their interpretation of secularism on one key point - kids don't get sufficiently (if at all) taught about other religions and worldviews in a neutral manner in schools.

Here, UKIP suspended David Silvester - too much even for that party of mavericks - and 'It's raining men' re-entered the charts. Humour rather than the sheer nastiness of that US link.