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?

"atheists saying "give me proof" still wouldn't believe"

If you show me proof today, I'll believe right away. No problem.

"Oh you wouldn't believe it even if I showed you proof" is not a valid argument and it certainly does not lift the burden of proof from your shoulders.

Sense and Sensibility has an accurate for the time description of the seaside town of Lyme Regis. This does not mean that Marianne Dashwood actually existed, or jumped down some steps on the Cobb and banged her head.

You can only take fulfilled prophecies as proof of your religion if you also believe in the other religions that have fulfilled prophecies and accept that all the psychics that claim to predict the future are channeling god too. If you say that the other prophecies were just a fluke or that people are desperate to make it fit or that they were deliberately vague then why can't you say that about your fulfilled prophecies.

"If you show me proof today, I'll believe right away. No problem"

Me too. Of course we'll have to add "proof" to the list of words we need to define. So far, I think it's atheist, secular and theory.

If you read Chapter 9 of Darwins origin of the species entitled 'on the imperfection of the geological record' you will understand that the fossil record was not supporting his claims in any way whatsoever. This link quotes him on it.
www.darwinsdilemma.org/darwins-dilemma.php
Whilst there have been finds since then which some scientists claim are inter-species,every one of them has been disputed even amongst evolutionary scientists. The fossil record is incredibly sparse and some of it seems to question evolution,such as the the Cambrian explosion.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambrian_explosion
For the record,I believe in intelligent design but am totally open to the methodology! But I do wish scientists could sometimes just be neutral rather than evolutioary or creationist.Surely that is what sscience should be about.
To cite a recent example. There have been a few recent discoveries of blood cell/tissue being found in fossils.The Creationists celebrate evidence of young earth and the Evolutionists set about proving how body tissue can survive millions of years(which they had previously stated it could not possibly do and were so convinced that no-one hed ever bothered to cut open a fossil to see what might be inside.)
Why is it impossible for someone neutral to say...wow that is an amazing discovery,lets see what we can learn from it?It always has to be...well ,we know the answers,so lets make this latest discovery fit.
I am really keen to learn more about this area but need some neutrality as there are too many large gaps in evolution for me to just accept it as it stands.The fossil record is one of the gaps.

Jesus was quite happy to give people proof in the bible, why can't he turn up and give me a fair shot? It can't be about my free will as he was happy to do all sorts of stuff in front of his disciples. (Although I might say 'why do you care enough to materialise in front of me and perform miracles but not have stopped that guy across town killing his girlfriend last week'. I'm a bit argumentative me)

"People have pointed out the bible is accurate from an archeological perspective as well as from a prophetic perspective"

So the Earth is 4000 years old? That is news to me

Actually, Quran is far more accurate and prophetic - i.e. talks about stuff that is only much later invented & shown to be true.

I thought loads of Christians accepted evolution? Even the Vatican. I'm not an expert on evolution by any account, it's not why I reject religion, I didn't lose my faith because of the theory of evolution. It was only after coming out of religion that I developed a passing interest in cosmology and so on so I don't feel qualified to defend it. So again knocking evolution down would do nothing because it's not part of why I reject religious claims. I reject them because of what I am seeing now, not what scientists say did happen.

And can we be clear here that evolution isn't about how life on earth started but how life moves from simpler life forms. I think how it got started is abiogenesis. And I am definitely not clever enough to get into that.

The fact that some transitional fossils are not preserved does not disprove evolution. Evolutionary biologists do not expect that all transitional forms will be found and realize that many species leave no fossils at all. Lots of organisms don't fossilize well and the environmental conditions for forming good fossils are not that common. So, science actually predicts that for many evolutionary changes there will be gaps in the record.

Also, scientists have found many transitional fossils. For example, there are fossils of transitional organisms between modern birds and their theropod dinosaur ancestors, and between whales and their terrestrial mammal ancestors.

"wow that is an amazing discovery,lets see what we can learn from it?"

Isn't that exactly what is happening? The research h team concerned is working on an attempt to extract dinosaur DNA- which is pretty bloody amazing in my book!

Dino DNA?!?! Shudder.

Amazing, isn't it? DNA doesn't generally doesn't survive very long- but the current idea is that the blood may have been preserved by iron free radicals (I think. Don't quote me) and they are wondering whether DNA might have been preserved in the same way.

Interestingly, the lead researcher in this is a woman called Mary Schweitzer- who is a Christian, and extremely pissed off that her research has been hijacked by loons Young Earth Creationists.......

It's amazing that there is still a group of people called Young Earth Creationists in this day and age. The power of human stupidity and singular proof that it will never die

I have several Young Earth Creationists in my family. One teaches science at a high school.

How weird. What is their reasoning? God made Earth 4000 years ago but put million-year-old fossils under the ground to trick us?

I started out thinking "I pity those children" but no, actually I don't. If I were his student, there would be no end to the fun I could have in that science class

It's not even just the fossils. Has he never heard of radiometric dating based on half-lives of radioactive materials?

I also get sent a subscription of "Creation " Magazine. creation.com/creation-magazine

It is mind boggling.

Cote-many Creationists belive that it is not god who planted the fossils but Satan - the old trickster.

Not only that but satan also controls the instruments that perform carbon dating, fixing the results as they are displayed on the screens. He also tampers with the minds of the scientists making them gullible and ready to accept these "anti christian" results.

Unfortunately this science teacher teachers creationist theory in biology too. Not Evolution.

He is a Biology teacher?

Is this happening in the UK?

As I said before, he would have loved me as a student in his class. I would have loved his classes and milked endless entertainment out of them, for sure. Even back when I was in school and books were the only source of information. These days, with information at the fingertips of everyone with an internet connection, I would expect him to be ridiculed in class on a daily basis.

Why is it impossible for someone neutral to say...wow that is an amazing discovery,lets see what we can learn from it?It always has to be...well ,we know the answers,so lets make this latest discovery fit.

Well no, because if none of their current theories fit they would have to amend the theory, make a new hypothesis and go through all the tests and so on. And there would be lots and lots of scientists corroborating any findings. What they won't do is say. 'Even though we don't know how or why, I just feel in my heart that god did it.' If scientists are unable to answer why then it's left unanswered until they can.

She is a biology teacher, not in the UK it is a Western country though. Unfortunately she is rarely challenged, all the children are from strict religious backgrounds. The school role is 750.

My neice ( who did go to the same school) did once ask her geography teacher why the East of South America was almost a perfect fit to the Western coastline of Africa- were they ever joined together?

My niece was told to pray and stop allowing evil ideas like this to enter her mind.

Eek. I actually challenged my biology teacher when he was teaching us the basics of evolution. He was very gracious though.

That place sounds like the Christian equivalent of Saudi Arabia.

So continents never moved, either?

Cote- Nope. Would have taken too long - they only have 4000 years to fit everthing in remember.