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?

"you either have no opinion at all (because you cannot know) or you grapple with the possibilities (which is what most people do,including scientists)"

Opinion has little to do with it.

We know what repeated experiments and observations have shown to be true. On the rest, we have hypotheses that seem to work but haven't been proven yet. When any part of that knowledge is corrected and refined, we accept it and move on. We don't have opinions.

You have opinions based on your personal preferences and dogmas, plus a lifetime of indoctrination and reinforcement every Sunday among a group of similar-minded people. When your opinions are challenged, you take that as a personal affront because your whole idea of 'self' is invested into that opinion. If that opinion is wrong, then your whole world comes crumbling down.

The standard response to the "it's all so wonderful how can it be an accident" is "but surely if it was put together by an omniscient, omnipotent, all loving god, we wouldn't have things like the appendix"

Please can you explain why saying "I don't know the origins of life, but I am as sure as I can be, based on all the evidence at my disposal that God was not involved" an act of faith?

I see we are back at "Either illogical or eternal because I say so"

Frustrated - You clearly seem to think that this argument you are banging on about is a valid (and even ingenious ) one. It is not.

Our 'logic' is based on life on planet Earth and holds on planet Earth. As soon as you look elsewhere, you see that the universe does not adhere to it.

Speed of light is constant for every observer. Is it logical that however fast you travel, you will always see light to be going at the same speed?

Think back at the double-slit experiment that shows light behaves as a wave. Is it logical that you still get the wave pattern when one photon is sent out, meaning it goes through both slits at the same time?

The fact is that your "logic" isn't useful to explain the fabric of the universe or the behaviour of matter/energy in it. The best minds of the human race armed with our collective knowledge are trying to understand this complicated question, one step at a time. You think you unveil it all because you have binary 'logic'

"it's all so wonderful how can it be an accident" "

The problem with that argument is of course that if we assume that nothing wonderful can come to be on its own, then any god will also have been created by someone else. And that someone else will also need to be created, et cetera ad nauseam.

Wow - what a lot of posts. Too much to catch up on properly (was sorry to miss the odd bit about the secularity of makeup... DDs school is about as secular as a UK school is allowed to be and they don't allow it except for discreet concealer .)

So now we're on to 'eternal' - heck, we don't really understand well what time is (and maybe we never will get our temporally-constrained minds round it). Discussing what may or may not have been 'before' the Big Bang may not even be a particularly meaningful question.

there is no option that does not involve faith because none of us were there
There is the option of saying 'we dont know - but we'll carry on asking questions and seeing how far we can get in better understanding'. This requires no faith.

That is not what I said. Read and understand

No time to catch up yet, but you are using your 2 alternatives to explain why you are religious.

You need to admit - at least to yourself - that the one doesn't support the other and that you that were just wildly guessing when you decided the biblical god was real.

Froth all you like, but that's where you are.

"Those who grapple with it either believe in a supreme being who created it,or they don't. Often those who don't accept a supreme being, consider their opinion to be more evidenced and scientific,whereas in fact, their theory is as much,if not more of a step of faith!"

But I don't have an opinion. I just don't know. I don't understand why this is considered an untenable position.

Hakluyt you may have missed the fact that at the end of my last post I acknowledged that some Atheists do not have an opinion. However, many Atheists,lets take Dawkins and Hawkins for well known examples,they will propose spontaneous creation theories and expect everyone to believe them and mock Christians for believing in a Planned Creation, but both came out of nothing,so why should Christians be mocked for thinking it was planned and Atheists like these guys think they are worthy of more respect for thinking it happened accidentally.It does not make sense to me.
Bigbluestars...if you think my God is 'some old geezer pulling strings,then I guess that's why you would struggle to understand the concept of God, who whilst He may have become human to reveal himself to us, is of course not human otherwise he might struggle to be omnipresent,omnipotent etc.
CoteDazur I actually object to being accused of indoctrination and that no-one can challenge my opinions.I am more than happy to be challenged as that is how we learn. I am still searching/asking questions,and whilst I cannot see that I will ever doubt the existence of God as my personal experience of him has been too real and IMO the evidence of Jesus' existence and claims is pretty convincing, I am interested in scientific enquiry. Many of my Christian friends see no conflict with big bang/evolution and their faith. You could argue that were there a supreme being who decided to create an amazing universe at the click of his fingers then it may well have happened as the scientists describe. It stretches my mind further to think of it as accidental then to think of it as planned.
politicalblindspot.com/scientists-finally-discover-the-function-of-the-human-appendix/

"everything positioned perfectly (sun for warmth,moon for gravity,etc)"

This always makes me laugh, in an indulgent kind of way. Perfectly positioned by whose standards? It's so incredibly human-centric it's almost arrogant. Far more likely that life on Earth developed to suit prevailing conditions, than that Earth mammals were just waiting to exist while an intelligent being buggered around with the geological & atmospheric conditions to support us. It's all accidental, innit

That's the prospect that frightens some people, I think. Our universe and everything in it is an intriguing, beautiful, awe-inspiring, terrifying, tantalising, changeable, mysterious accident.

"However, many Atheists,lets take Dawkins and Hawkins for well known examples,they will propose spontaneous creation theories and expect everyone to believe them and mock Christians for believing in a Planned Creation, but both came out of nothing,so why should Christians be mocked for thinking it was planned and Atheists like these guys think they are worthy of more respect for thinking it happened accidentally.It does not make sense to me."

Because "proposing a theory" is putting forward a suggestion that may or may not be confirmed by observation and experiment in the future. planned Creation presupposes a Creator God, and there is no evidence for the existence of such a God. Suggesting spontaneous creation does not presuppose anything- it just says this is how it might have happened.

"why should Christians be mocked for thinking it was planned and Atheists like these guys think they are worthy of more respect for thinking it happened accidentally.It does not make sense to me."

I don't agree with Dawkins et al because they make unproven claims like the religious folk, but if I were to rank beliefs on a scale of respectability, Occam's Razor would mean I would rank theirs higher than yours.

"I actually object to being accused of indoctrination and that no-one can challenge my opinions."

I didn't accuse you. It wasn't your fault.

You are obviously wedded to your opinions and take any challenges to them as people being rude, evangelistic, etc.

"I am more than happy to be challenged as that is how we learn."

Re origins of the universe, how we learn is by reading about the staggering advances made in this domain in the past couple of decades, the experiments currently being undertaken, and the theories that they have launched and supported. Not by asking the same binary question over and over again and thinking it means something.

"Many of my Christian friends see no conflict with big bang/evolution and their faith."

That would be the clever ones who don't deny reality to fit their dogma. A deity can very well have created our universe with a 'big bang' and let evolution take its course to produce us humans. There is at least acceptance of proven reality there.

With flat-earthers and young-earthers, you just wonder what has gone wrong with them - hardware or software.

vb, scientists don't expect anyone to believe them. Propose a new theory and you expect it to be tested - sometimes to destruction.

It's so incredibly human-centric it's almost arrogant
ITA, except for the 'almost'. A lot of religious questions such as 'why do I exist'; 'what is the purpose of my life?'; 'what happens to me when I die' are products of our self-importance. The universe doesn't need me to exist; it doesn't need any of the human race. The fact that life has emerged, and that some forms of it are to varying degrees sentient is a source of awe, but not something that requires any supernatural explanation.

I am starting to see why frustrated is frustrated because whilst you all constantly rebuff his 'binary' claims,none of you can come up with an alternative to the suggestion that the universe was always there or it appeared from nothing. I cannot personally see an alternative theory and I am not sure why if you all feel he is being unreasonable in claiming that.

"I am starting to see why frustrated is frustrated because whilst you all constantly rebuff his 'binary' claims,none of you can come up with an alternative to the suggestion that the universe was always there or it appeared from nothing."

I have said repeatedly that I don't know. And I have asked repeatedly why it is relevant in a discussion of the existence of God. I don't know where the universe came from- the only thing I do know is that God was not involved, because all the evidence points incontrovertibly to the fact that God does not exist, so he couldn't have been. I don't know whether frustrated is still here or whether you can speak for her, but what would be her response to someone saying "yes, I think the Universe has always been here" or "Yes, I think the Universe spontaneously generated.?

vdbfamily but I said before if we accepted the binary claim that doesn't then mean that your god is real. Only that some 'eternal something' is real.

How do you get from the 'eternal something' to knowing what god wants you to do with your hair?

The 'binary claim' was put as 'eternal or illogical' - an assertion that the 'universe from nothing' idea is impossible. It may seem illogical to our limited minds but that's irrelevant. Also, it's actually pretty clear that the universe - this universe - isn't eternal (just think about the 2nd law of thermodynamics for a minute, even without all the cosmological evidence). So I don't think either part of frustrated's 'binary' is valid. The universe may have arisen from 'nothing' or it could have arisen from an unknown previous state. But as the Big Bang marks the start of space-time for our universe, the very idea of 'previous' may be mistaken.

The point frustratedBaker is making, Hakaluyt, is that both are a belief; you either believe there was nothing before there was something, or you believe that there was something before there was something else, both are opposites so you can't believe in the two together.

And the point is that both views are not provable because we weren't there and can't observe or test it, but whichever view we have is only an educated guess (belief) and one view shouldn't make a person feel that it gives them he right to put down the other view, or ridicule them, or get personal and crabby and generally unpleasant in their response.

No one was there when the world began so you have to believe it happened accidentally all by itself or that it didn't. Both are a belief. Both are equal from that standpoint. Different, yes, but unequal, no. So both sides should ideally respect each other's views even if they disagree wholeheartedly.

You don't have to compromise your views just by choosing to be nice to someone that you happen to disagree with. So why be spiteful? There is just no need.

I think the point is that both the possibilities are unproveable and involve a degree of faith. So, if there was Spontaneous Creation,then whatever combined to cause it must have come from somewhere,even if just a bit of gas and a spark of something,it had to be there somewhere. Something does not come from absolutely nothing.
So...once into the realms of speculation and believing the unbelievable,surely believing in a supreme being who exists and had always existed outside of our human timezone and who planned the universe, is no more irrational than believing that there was nothing and out of that nothing there was a cosmic event that created our wonderful universe.
No-one is saying you must believe what I say. What I am asking is why is my idea more incredulous than the alternative?

sorry crosspost but similar view

pickled - I don't 'believe' in either of those alternatives - it is (certainly at the moment) unknowable so I'm agnostic on the matter.

Careful BigDorrit doesn't accuses yoy me, and FrustratedBaker of being some sort or MN trinity! That really was quite comical last night.

Ah then you're not atheist about it, that's not what's being discussed. The atheist viewpoint is. I think frustratedBaker made that point as well.

But there isn't an atheist view on the origins of the universe.

All atheists have a view on qua atheist is the existence or non existence of a god.

Something does not come from absolutely nothing.

That's an assertion which may not be true, whether it's within your (or any human's) comprehension.

Postulating a Supreme Being doesn't get you past this - an even more wonderous 'something' which came from absolutely nothing.