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?

So whoever there is any discussion about faith schools you are openly opposed to them?

And for reference, 25 bishops in the House of Lords is not a "small Christian voice". It is the only block of people who are there as of right. And they have had a significant impact on policy and legislation on things like stem cell research, abortion, end of life care........

I think that for many Christians/Muslims etc respecting others' faith, means to acknowledge that people believe different things and that is life. This is not the same as saying all faiths and none are correct.
Christians believe there is only one way to God, through Jesus. Muslims equally believe there is one way. I think both of those groups can understand that the others think they are wrong, because they feel that way too. At the same time,they are able to co-exist (most of them) and accept that they have different views.

So I think it is important to recognise, that many religions are exclusive. Their followers see them as the only way. This in itself is not disrespectful to other people. It is. Simply a different way of seeing the world. It is a very post-modern view to say that all faiths and none are equally valid and true. In actual fact, they cannot all be equally valid and true, because many of them claim exclusivity. You may draw from that that they are all false,equally so, you want to.

I think that people are very wary about offending about religion. To a level,they want to be tolerant of everyone's beliefs,including atheism. But, the irony is, that modern society values tolerance so much, but it does not tolerate the idea of specific truth......so many people will say it is fine to believe whatever you want to, as long as you don't believe it is the only truth. There is a huge paradox and contradiction within this.

I think that although we see wars and other forcible things about religion, wealso see examples within countries and communities of different religions being able to respect each other and accept each other. It doesn't mean they say the other is right, but they recognise everyone's free choice to believe or not believe......if you like,to believe in the right thing or the wrong thing!

So coming back to the original question Haklyut, I would say that I respect your right to choose to be an atheist. I accept that is your choice and that you have chosen that whilst others have chosen to be Christian, Muslim....whatever. At the same time, it doesn't mean I think you are right. And I'm pretty sure you don't think the believers are right either.

Is it respectful to talk about your faith or lack of it or to try to persuade people of what you believe......I think it doesn't have to be disrespectful. Belittling what someone else believes (often goes on on these threads by both believers and non believers) is disrespectful. Forcing someone to discuss things they don't want to is disrespectful. Engaging in genuine discussion about belief or non-belief is not disrespectful. People need to be willing to say if they don't want to engage in conversation at particular times and people need to respect that. Having the conversation about why you believe something is or isn't true,mor why you do things a particular way,mor even why you think what someone else believes is wrong, isn't disrespectful if done in the right way.

It is really interesting to me how depending on which side of the argument you sit,you see things so differently. As a Christian,I view living in the UK as a Christian completely opposite to you Hak. I see Christians losing their jobs for expressing what they think, I have had friends trying to adopt, who felt they had to play down their beliefs to stand a chance of getting a child, I see living life as a Christian in this country as a difficult cholce,not a privileged one. And once you take the issue broader the picture worsens. According to the International Society for Human Rights (secular group) 80% of all acts of religious discrimination in the world are directed against Christians with 11 Christians per hour being killed for their faith!! I am not pretending that the U.K has any serious level of Christian discrimination going on compared to the rest of the world but I think it is starting to increase. The whole school issue is complex.The established church started alot of schools in this country and I guess the links have been historic.Our village school is a church school but does not ask for church attendance in its admissions policy. The head is not a Christian and neither are many of the teachers or governers. The vicar is a governor and the church appoints 2 further governors and that is the Christian imput in the school. Not all Christians think the daily act of worship should be mandatory. What I find hard to understand is that if so many object to faith schools, why do lots of people move into catchments and start attending church just to get into these schools?
I do have some concept of what it feels like for an atheist parent to have a child in a church school as I now have a child in a non church secondary school and almost every day she tells me something that makes my heart sink. The first poem they studied in English was riddled with swear words including numerous mentions of the 'f' word. The first book she came home with that the librarian had recommended was for 'older teenagers' and totally unsuitable for an 11 year old(IMO). So we all have these dilemmas and I guess one way to see it is that if you tell your kids what you believe and school teaches them something different, at least they get a choice...which maybe is a good thing!!

ChocolateWombat What do you mean by "belittling"? Only people can be belittled, beliefs and ideas cannot.

Am I "belittling" David Cameron by vehemently disagreeing with some of the things he believes? No. Only with religion is there this idea that you're somehow deeply insulting someone personally by expressing a view about a set of beliefs that is thousands of years old. It's ridiculous. And it should not be indulged.

And vdb There is no Christian persecution in this country. Expecting Christians to follow the same rules as their colleagues in the workplace is the very opposite of persecution.

And those Christians being murdered abroad? Guess who is murdering them? Other religious people not getting the respect they've decided they deserve.

Respect is earned, not demanded.

I agree that it is infuriating the way in which it seems to be regarded as acceptable to be rude about atheists, but woe betide anyone who says anything critical about any religious belief. And the idea that one is incapable of having any moral compass or decent values without some religious guide is deeply insulting.

But Also, no-one has been rude about atheists, except in Haks experience. And we have all agreed that such people are not Christians, no matter what they might claim.

On schools- yes, State Funded. They do exist. Not in such a number, for reasons already suggested.

Lastly... I have spent time in schools across all age ranges... 7 weeks in infants, 5 weeks in primary, 7 years in 3 different secondaries, and only in one did i see event a hint of religious worship, and it was a catholic school. Nothing else, let alone on a daily basis. The law might say that, but in practise, no schools do it.

There are a lot of old laws that aren't followed anymore. Perhaps all those other people in the HoL, you know, the ones only there because daddy was an Earl or they're pals with Tony Blair (which apparently is acceptable), perhaps they could get around to removing them from law now they are outdated.

I'd love to see a breakdown of who is in the hol. Very interesting.... That's my afternoon sorted. Wonder how many are there just because they are "X".

In response to Hak and Bigdorrit re evidence for the actual existence of Jesus,it seems that there are few serious scholars who deny his existence and those that do are atheists trying to prove their point. Of the 2 references in Josephus it is generally accepted that the first is likely to have had some detail added i.e that Jesus was the Christ but that it originally read something like
"Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man. For he was a doer of startling deeds, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. And he gained a following both among many Jews and many of Greek origin. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day."
The second reference to the death of James has been 'almost universally acknowledged as authentic' and these scholars are not all Christians.
Probably needs another thread to do it justice but it is also of note that when people do start to write about Jesus,whether it be for or against him , there are no early writings that I know of that debate his existence.Cornelius Tacitus was not a fan of Christians but wrote .....
"Christus, the founder of the [Christian] name, was put to death by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea in the reign of Tiberius. But the pernicious superstition, repressed for a time, broke out again, not only through Judea, where the mischief originated, by through the city of Rome also."
It seems to me quite a recent thing that people want to disprove the existence of Jesus.

to return to the original question, I think it is important for us all to accept that we hold a wide and diverse range of views between us and that we enter into debate about those views only in a mutually accepted forum and whilst I would agree that some people hold views that I deeply disagree with,I hope that would not stop me treating the person respectfully if I were to meet them and get into discussion with them. It's a good question though because there are some extreme situations I can think of where I would probably struggle to show respect and would question its appropriateness. Hmmmm.

I don't really see why a comparison with fairies is so offensive. A real deep-seated belief in the existence of fairies (not twinkly little Barbie fairies fluttering around getting high on pollen, the other sort) was an integral part of life in this country for centuries, probably millennia. There was a complicated system of rituals and a whole mythological background. Historic fairy-belief still informs some aspects of our culture today.

But because now hardly anyone believes in fairies because it's in the past and we can all look at our ancestors with a slightly patronising and supercilious air it's offensive to compare any current sincere and deeply-held belief to that previous sincere and deeply-held belief.

It's fine to compare belief in the Abrahamic god to belief in a different currently-worshipped god, apparently, because those are religious views and have to be respected. But it's offensive to compare the Abrahamic god to a god or other supernatural entity worshipped in the past but not today (say fairies or Thor), because the religious views of dead people don't have to be respected. Watch out, though, because if you discover that there are in fact still people worshipping that god today then it suddenly stops being offensive to draw comparisons, because then we are back to respecting religious views. Except that if there are only a handful of people worshipping that god then it goes back to being offensive because you can write them off as extremists and weirdos and so you don't need to respect their religious views any more. Or something like that.

It's far less exhausting to decide religious views, past or present, deserve exactly the same amount of respect as political views, past or present -- no more, no less.

Tortoise- your last paragraph in particular was superb. Well put.

oK, so if everyone thinks that the faith schools and compulsory worship and all that sort of thing has so insignificant an impact that it's not worth bothering about, you'll all be quite happy for them to be scrapped, yes?

hak out of over 770 seats I would say 25 seats is a small voice. And yes I would be happy for faith schools etc to be scrapped because as I said before I am for separation of church and state (although I think there should always be education on major religions included in the school syllabuses - taught from an educational point of view not a religious point of view).

Hak, what did you say to the person who told you that menstruating women were unclean?

Sure, scrap them. We can hardly go and show people a Christian lifestyle if we only spend time with other Christians.

As for collective worship... It doesn't happen in non faith schools anyway, so no loss.

Collective worship happens in many non denominational schools.

We'd have to replace them with state schools though as it would leave a lot of communities without a school. Though i bet the kids wouldn't mind!

Really? Maybe its a CofE primary thing. I've never seen it (at any stage) and I'm a teacher.

I live in Scotland. All the state primary schools in our area lead active worship.

All schools are supposed to have collective acts of a 'broadly christian' character, unless they're schools with some other religious character, or they've applied for a determination that they can perform some other flavour of collective worship. It's the law, didn't you know? The fact that quite a lot of schools have non-religious assemblies instead just shows how anachronistic it is, but the fact remains that a lot of 'non-faith' schools, esp primary, do have decidedly Christian assemblies.

There is a statutory requirement for all state schools to have a daily act of collective worship of broadly Christian nature. It's in the Education Act.

Ha ha poor Scottish primaries! That should stop for sure.

All schools don't, whether they should or not. Assemblies are used to talk about exams or attendance, not worship. Much more useful!

It's the same law that covers England and Scotland.

Tha law is open to interpretation by the head teacher. I am sure there are state schools in England that lead active worship too.

The head of our local primary is a born again christian. He has free remit to peddle his faith to kids, and the law supports him.

Honeysuckle- it applies to Scotland as well. And schools do!- and get into trouble with OFSTED if they don't. Why would we lie to you?

Wow, wonder why my school never got picked up on it when ofsted and hmi came 6 times in two years. I read all the reports, they never mentioned it. We have to ensure we mention spiritual things when teaching, according to ofsted, as applicable e.g. "some people object to ivf/stem cell research for religious reasons" but that's it. No worship.

I'm not saying you are lying. I'm saying that in all the schools i've worked in, i've never seen it. We obviously have never been in the same schools, which isn't surprising.All I'm saying is that you can't say 100% of schools do it, because they simply don't.