Respect People Whose Beliefs (You Think) are Stupid?

"/Heathen"? Really? Was it necessary?
Also, his argument is completely valid. And when arguing, you should argue every point your adversary makes, not singling out points that you think you have one over in.

Yes I was confused about his post why is my argument invalid? Also I thought maybe it was because I used "god" and he thought I was implying god wasn’t real, but that was not the case I use to use “god” to refer to all deities like god and Allah ect. so to not offend anyone. I now realize deity would work much better don’t know why I didn’t think of it before.

I was perhaps unclear and confusing about my post. I was merely stating the obvious that atheists have a deep seeded belief in no deity and “Theists” have a deep seeded believe in a deity. Not that they believe for the same or similar reasons.

What if they have faith that God doesn't exist?

Oh wait, it doesn't matter because this is a thread about respecting people and all that bullshit. This is why I said, "Hey guys, no religion debate" a few posts earlier, because I knew it'd turn into bickering and make the whole thread about religion vs atheism.

Well we are off topic yes but not completely. This thread is inspired by a thread about religion; because of this most of the debate has something to do with religion. Respecting those who believe and don’t believe in god is the primary focus you were getting at so a debate between the two is not completely off topic. Though this debate has moved over to the SQFA thread now so it should retreat back on topic.

When a religious person puts it to me in this way (and many of them do), my immediate temptation is to issue the following challenge: 'Do you really mean to tell me the only reason you try to be good is to gain God's approval and reward, or to avoid his disapproval and punishment? That's not morality, that's just sucking up, apple-polishing, looking over your shoulder at the great surveillance camera in the sky, or the still small wiretap inside your head, monitoring your every move, even your every base thought.' As Einstein said, 'If people are good only because they fear punish-ment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.' Michael
Shermer, in The Science of Good and Evil, calls it a debate stopper. If you agree that, in the absence of God, you would 'commit robbery, rape, and murder', you reveal yourself as an immoral person, 'and we would be well advised to steer a wide course around you'. If, on the other hand, you admit that you would continue to be a good person even when not under divine surveillance, you have fatally undermined your claim that God is necessary for us to be good. I suspect that quite a lot of religious people do think religion is what motivates them to be good, especially if they belong to one of those faiths that systematically exploits personal guilt.

- Richard Dawkins

Why make up my own argument when this one is so good? xD

Note that I gave up on answering WhiteLions post, as I find nothing to argue with that I haven't already. It seems that we have been taught different things in our History classroom :s

gibbous actually made a good post arguing these points, but Shaggy(rightly) felt it was derailing the thread and requested that we stop so we did.


Back on topic: I have been thinking about this question as I debate in some of the other threads. One thing that I have realized is that, regardless of whether I agree with someone's beliefs pr what those beliefs are, I generally respect those who show they are knowledgeable and clearly have thought about and debated internally what they believe, usually as evidenced by their ability to make arguments in their favor and defend what they think.

For example, I rarely agree with Fiery_Penguin_of_Doom and have spent a lot of time debating politics and other topics with him, but I respect him for his knowledge of the subjects and the fact that he generally cares about the issues and addressing them in a reasonable and knowledgeable way. I actually think my respect for him grows the more I debate him, because he always brings the things I mentioned above to the topic.

Fuck yeah that's the only reason. You think anyone would willing go through the bullshit of rejecting thier physical wants if there wasn't the threat of hell lingering over them? They'd have to be crazy.

Now if you pay attention to this statement you'll notice many occults follow the same physiological effect of reward and punishment. From typical little small time groups that aren't even recognized all the way up to that good ol' Jonestown mass suicide. This is a very rudimentary but effective form a brain washing. Mind you have just as much a medical back ground as I do an engineering background mainly because doctors are looking for new improvements in technology and that's a lot of cash sitting in front of us engineers, more so than the military. Bluntly speaking don't put a damn tin hat on me, not quite my style then again what you think of me I don't really care too much about.

I think respect is something that cant be controlled by the society, and its completely up to the person to decide...For example if i were in a town which everyone was racist and thought black people are inferior to white, no matter what the peer pressure was or any other pressure it wouldn't be enough to make me respect those people, or at least that belief...I believe everyone would react the same way..