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?

happy to love outside of the rules

What rules? And you would need to show that doing so has had a demonstrable effect.

I think there must be some book somewhere that tells people how to try and discredit the life of Jesus.If you can honestly read the 4 gospels with an open mind and tell me at the end of it that you think Jesus was on balance a racist,then okay,but to take one example where he is rude to a Caananite woman and goes on to heal her child and use that to counter all the other examples of how he talked to and healed and spent time with all the people he was not meant to as a Jew,seems a little unbalanced.I would hope if someone were judging my life fairly they would look at the whole picture and make a judgement and not pick one incident and say,because of this we must conclude that...!

Yeah but you're human. And you want me to believe he was god and that his morality was superior to anything I could obtain. I'd expect him to be outstanding all the time.

I have read the gospels. They were written after Acts and contradict and copy each other. Hardly the well thought out holy book of a supremely wise creator.

And it's not that I think that that actually happened. I'm interested in understanding how you can know of this racist incident and still maintain that he is worthy of worship.

You want me to believe he created the universe. Made billions of galaxies and black holes and nebulas and on and on. But that during his visit to earth he was a bit racist. Why would he be racist? Which is one of the big issues with the OT. Why would this infinitely powerful god who made an infinite universe faff about with the comparable pettiness of race.

As I attempted to evidence before when you made the claim that Jesus endorsed violence

I said this before but it got missed What about all the violence Jesus ordered and performed in the Old Testament? it was the same guy right?

Also if Christianity is the source of morals than how do you explain other countries that have few or no Christians? Are they all savages without any conception of good and evil?

People make morals. Religions pick a few of them and throw in some new rules about control and paying tribute.

www.thevillagechurch.net/the-village-blog/jesus-calls-a-canaanite-woman-a-dog/
There are of course plenty of explanations for the incident but I think what it boils down to is the importance we place on ourselves. As Christians we accept we are 'sinners' in need of Christ.It seems from this story that whatever and however Jesus spoke to her, she accepted what he said but persisted with the conversation and was rewarded with her daughter being healed.It is a very unpopular view today that there is anything inherently wrong with our state as humans which makes reading passages like this unacceptable.
Whilst you state that contradictory gospels are
' Hardly the well thought out holy book of a supremely wise creator.' You could equally argue that it is hardly a very clever fakery, to write 4 books that contradict each other.If I was starting from scratch to create a false religion,the last thing I'd do is write 4 books that contradict each other. Whilst I accept that several gospels use the same source in places,I am also able to see from my own experience,that several people giving an account of the same event,do not all see,hear and conclude the same. This is how I view the gospels and each writer focuses slightly differently.

Christians are more afraid to say what they think about issues,particularly moral issues for fear of being mocked,misunderstood,accused of being bigoted and even losing jobs.
Anyone could be mocked, misunderstood or being accused of being bigoted if they say what they think about issues. It's the risk you take when you stick your head about the parapet- whatever those views are.

You sould most certainly not lose your job if those views are within the law. Ho has that happened to?

Turning the question around slightly so I am not always on the defensive,I would be quite interested to hear what those of you who feel the Christian voice has an undue influence on our society, feel is currently being unnecessarily imposed upon you (other than school eligibilty criteria and acts of worship which I accept are an issue)

It's a bit like "What have the Romans ever done for us, isn't it?" "Apart from representation in the House of Lords, school admissions, acts of worship and lobbying to be exempt from equality legislation, why do you feel the Christian voice has an undue influence in society?"

Hakluyt I don't think you answered the question in any way.Give an example of how currently your life is being restricted by an overactive Christian voice.I am genuinely interested and these discussions have had me researching alot about what humanists/atheists think.My genuine experience as a Christian is that it seems harder to be a Christian in the UK today than to not have a faith.
Backonlybriefly, at the risk of further irritating you I have no difficulty at all accepting that everyone has a sense of good and evil.This is a what we read this morning from Pauls letter to the Romans(from The Message paraphrased Bible)
14-16 When outsiders who have never heard of God’s law follow it more or less by instinct, they confirm its truth by their obedience. They show that God’s law is not something alien, imposed on us from without, but woven into the very fabric of our creation. There is something deep within them that echoes God’s yes and no, right and wrong.

I know that will seem like a cop-out to you but it is genuinely what I believe.

RE Christians and the law,the law is currently influenced more by Human Rights legislation than religious freedom. There are lots of cases but several of the more high profile ones have been to do with homosexuality.Registrars not wanting to oversee the weddings,adoption agencies not wishing to include same sex couples, adoptors/foster couple being refused a child because of their refusal to agree to actively teach their child that same sex sex was okay, B&B couple having married only policy, counsellors and therapists sacked for either refusing to do relationship counselling for same sex couples or agreeing to counsel someone who state they are troubled by same sex attraction and then being investigated because they were set up. Christians have also been taken to employment tribunals for offering to pray for people,not wanting to be involved in the process of abortion,talking about their faith at work,not wanting to be forced to work Sundays,saying marriage is to be between a man and woman,wanting to wear a cross,have a palm cross on your work van dashboard etc. Whilst I would not have necessarily supported the Christian in all these cases, there is not a situation where these people are allowed to follow their conscience, they have to be forced to go against it or leave. Allowing an adoption agency to only foster to married heterosexual couples does not in any way prevent same sex couples adopting,neither does a registrar opting out of same sex ceremonies prevent any same sex couples marrying.Would you want to be married by someone who disapproved of your marriage anyway? Just seems silly that we can't let people act within their consciences if it is not having a detrimental affect on anyone else. On the subject of praying for people,I can remember years ago,my local service station had been robbed at gunpoint and I was living with a very enthusiastic Christian girl who decided to bake the staff some cupcakes and asked me to take them round with her.She said how sorry she was that they had had such trauma and offered to pray for them.They were delighted and truly touched and I learnt not to be so afraid to offer as people are free to say NO.

It's not hard to respect other's beliefs, so long as they don't confound any of your deeply held moral principles. If people are respectful, nice and good, and they believe in God, what other way is there to be with them except respectful, nice and good? I wouldn't mock an atheist's beliefs.

Of course, if an atheist tried to mock mine I would leap at the opportunity to crush them with logic and I wouldn't mind being scathing about it! But if people are nice, just be nice. How hard is that?

'morality and empathy are a natural consequence of our evolution'

That's your assumption. it's not a fact. There are large parts of the world where life is very brutal and morality and empathy a bit thin on the ground, and it seems a bit off to imply that people are non-evolved because of that.

Ah, thank god for the Little Sisters of Mercy, and the Christian Brothers, and their unbounded morality and empathy, eh? It must be religion that causes it.

Allowing an adoption agency to only foster to married heterosexual couples does not in any way prevent same sex couples adopting

Nor does saying "you can't get on my bus because you are black". After all there are plenty of other buses.

there is not a situation where these people are allowed to follow their conscience That's incorrect. In every case they were allowed to follow their conscience and get another job.

What you mean is:

there is not a situation where these people are allowed to follow their own laws.

'Maybe we should let schools teach facts and contemplate on the nature of reality, not fantasy.'

Children should learn about religion in a basic way - because as soon as you go into detail you get into moral judgements e.g. about karma, caste or sex equality. But at the same time atheistic beliefs should be given equal weight.

Children should learn about religion in a basic way yes they should because they are going to encounter religious people.

When you say 'atheistic beliefs should be given equal weight' you are probably trying to be even handed, but there are no atheistic beliefs. It's not an alternative religion.

It reminded me (though you probably didn't mean that) of those schools teaching creationism and giving it equal weight to science.

It is a belief system really. Atheists believe that something came out of nothing. That's like believing that 0 + 0 = 1. It's just as logically impossibly as a god who is all-good and all-powerful in a world where evil exists.

I'm not aware of the other theories - or belief systems! What are they? How would they not involve something coming out of nothing?

I'm afraid it is true. Are you well-travelled?

Yes, I'm aware of other belief systems. I'm afraid it's still true.

I can only imagine you mean they would believe in the existence of an eternal .. something? Something has to be eternal, or it has to start. There obviously is something, so it had to start, or it has to be eternal. I didn't realise atheists could belief in the existence of eternality. Is this your understanding?

Something out of nothing- that's a new one to me.