Should we show respect for other people's "beliefs?"

I invited two JW's in for a chat a while back.

One was a talker...the other was apparently new to the system and kept very quiet...listening to each word his partner said.

At some point, I challenged the talker about the Leviticus passage that has the god of the Bible endorsing slavery.

We batted it back and forth...and the guy was definitely on the losing side.

Suddenly the new guy speaks up.

"I know why the Lord put that passage in the Bible," says he.

Well...the talker and I gave a surprised look at each other. This other fellow had not so much as offered a peep until that moment. And the talker looked like he could use any help possible.

"Why is that," ask I.

Quick as a wink...and with a smug smile of satisfaction, the quiet guy says, "Because somebody had to do the work!"


Wow!

The talker immediately looks at his watch and mutters something about having another appointment...and out the door they go.

I would never invite a JW for a chat. For me, it would be completely pointless. They are in my neighborhood to proselytize, and I have no interest in that. I am not concerned about showing them up, or backing them to the wall. I would be wasting their time, and they, mine.



It is different for me on A2K. Here, members are free to join a thread, or not. If I do engage in a discussion, it is either because I am interested in what some of the other members have to say, or I really want some clarification on some point of which I am unclear. If I become involved in a discussion, I understand that I may be challenged......................but challenging is not something that I characteristically do.

I agreed with your posts, Phoenix. I think if you have basic decency, you treat other people kindly and politely. Deferentially, actually.

(Speaking of situations in person, not on a debate board, obviously.)

If they wax nostalgic of religions or personal practices I don't subscribe to, I just listen and try to seem interested. I think that's just basic politeness. Why would anyone think they must immediately spew their opposing opinion in response to someone else's opinion? On a debate board, sure, but IRL?

Its not so much respecting their beliefs, as it is respecting them as humans.

I also agree with Phoenix about when it becomes personal. If someone else's views aren't impacting me in some negative way--why make an issue of it?

When I think about all the complex reasons a person has for their belief systems, how important it is to most of us, I try to remain calm and respectful it that person refers to their faith. However, if like so many fundamentalists do, they are making an absolute nuisance of themselves or coming after my kids, then I will insist that they stop.

My sister once had missionary school with my children (one 5 y.o. and the other one 2) while I was away for an entire week. When I came home my five year old was petrified with fear. She was having trouble sleeping and was very anxious. This, btw continued for several years. She was convinced I was going to hell because her aunt had told her I would.

Now to me this is underhanded and I was pi$$ed! However, my sister and her feelings is important to me and I didn't want to hurt her. So I waited a bit, so I could be calm and told her directly and firmly that I didn't want her talking to my children about religion ever again.

She objected saying that she was concerned about the conditions of their eternity and I must understand that she was obliged to talk to them and to me as much as she could.

Now I can see that if she truly believes, and she does, that I and my children will suffer for eternity unless she can talk me into believing as she does, then she's only being true to her faith in doing what to me seems idiotic and disrespectful. She is after all exercising her love for me. And I don't doubt that for a minute.

I struggled with what to say to her. I truly didn't want to jolt her........I know how much she depends on her religious beliefs and her feelings matter to me. I told her that I could understand her worry about me and my children. But she had to understand as well that I think her children are wasting their lives here on earth, the only one they're going to get, in preference for some afterlife I don't believe will ever be. Now to me, this is a tragedy. But, I said, I hadn't insisted her children listen to me about my concerns when they were as young as my children were at the time.

This helped for several years. She didn't talk to them about it again as far as I know. But it hasn't stopped her from talking to me about it. Still I know she has good intentions and I try to protect her from my impatience and anger about her persistence. I also try to protect her from my questioning of her beliefs because I know it is deeply disturbing to her sense of balance and control. And all this in spite of the fact that I understand it to be reaction formation on my part. But hey, a person has to defend themselves in some way. This one is mine.

I must say that I take every opportunity to avoid being in a situation where she finds it easy to start this conversation. And when she does, I tell her I won't talk about it with her. And I never again allowed her to be with my children when I wasn't present.....at least until they became adults.

I'm telling this long story because I think it illustrates the dilemma presented by this complex situation. It's neither simple nor easy.

I am much less tolerant and careful with a person I don't know. I don't want to be harassed by anyone about how I believe or live my life and I don't mice words about it with them. Still I try to remain calm and respectful when I tell them to leave me alone. And I must admit, sometimes I fail miserably. I try mostly to avoid such conversations. I don't hang out with these types voluntarily.

This of course goes for people who are not engaged on a debate forum. But even then, I sometimes wish I would be more successful than I am in dealing with those who annoy me to death. But I must not wish it too much because I so often fail.......and I enjoy it so when I do.

The extent to which the other person is harming me or others is a determining factor for me, as it is for everyone so far who has posted on this thread, in how rude I allow myself to be. Sometimes I think some persistent and callous people deserve whatever they get. And even if they don't, I give it to them anyway. I wish I would remember that I can challenge without cruelty.....but sometimes I don't wish it too.

This is a very difficult question and one that deserves a lot of discussion.

Yes - I realized after I wrote that that you were responding to a broader question.

There was an interesting news item on my local station, as well as on Peter Jennings.

It had to do with The World Faith Church. The one thing that struck me, is that one woman in support of the pastor, who obviously lives a lavish life style, still gives 10% of her weekly wages to this man. ($7.50).

I don't understand that kind of belief.

Lola, I understand what you're saying. I had the same problem as a child with the rapture. Believe me, it wasn't fostered by my mom.

I guess, concerning the title of this thread, I can't help but recall:

"I don't agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

If someone asks me not to attack their belief, chances are I'll oblige.

I can't think of any belief that I would respect though.

Ah, I just realised the title says "show respect for". That's different, showing respect is easy, it's just play acting.

Having actual respect for a belief I can't do. Not even when it comes to the few I hold myself. They're all silly, inconsistent things.

I've had a similar experience with JW. I met a woman on the street carrying brochures. Her face was slightly wrinkled and looked really friendly. She started telling me that we must all turn to god to stop the wars that are raging in the world. She referred to pictures in her brochure of children dying and starving, and of tanks destroying villages. This is evil, she said, and God will save us.

I asked her a few questions on this, and before long she was contemplating the idea that she knew this cruelty for what it was because she had seen it, and that if the world was a peaceful place she wouldn't know to apreciate it. The idea that good is defined by evil, and that they always exist in equal measure. She seemed stunned by the realization that it's not just black and white. Not just the saved and the damned. I felt a tinge of guilt as she walked off with a look of worry on her face.

Re: Should we show respect for other people's "beliefs?


Sometimes it's simply feeling empathy for another person who is being jumped on in a thread here or in a social situation.




That's another issue altogether. There are definitely beliefs which I believe deserve no respect whatsoever. The belief systems of the 3 you listed are 3 good examples.

Tico asked for a definition of belief.Nobody has given him an answer yet.I do believe that this insufficiency has provided the motive force behind the length of this thread.

Can anybody define "respect"?

Millions of people for thousands of years believed that the sun went round the earth.Millions of people now believe that it is right and good to pass on the wealth they have chiselled out of the GNP to their offspring.

I believe that when the two words mentioned here are used nebulously the discussion may end up providing a working definition of the infinite.

spendius.

Respect for others? Some of the dearest persons in my life hold religious views to which I am diametrically opposed. Bother me? Not in the slightest. These people live their belief, yet do not impose an iota of it on others.
On the other hand, I know a person who is a genuine Nazi in belief. He has white power bumper stickers and exhibits other signs of his belief. Since learning of it I can scarcely abide the man. I am polite in his presence, but do not repect him. Such persons project a negative power and hold to a belief system that relies on violence toward others. Some would sieze on the fact to label me "bigot." So what?

When someone says, "I respect your beliefs" or "I respect your right to your beliefs" is this:

1. political correctness
2. social courtesy
3. vain lipservice
4. deceitfulness
5. empathy

If I respect a person's beliefs, it is simply that. I think that, for me, his beliefs have validity.

If I don't respect his beliefs, but respect his right to hold those beliefs, (with the exceptions that I have mentioned before), I am showing respect for him as a person, who has the right to believe what he chooses.
What I am expressing is a general good will to him as a human being.

In real life, when someone expresses a belief with which I am not in agreement, and I don't want to get into a discussion with him about it, I might say something like, "I don't agree with that". I do not feel, in many cases, that it is necessary or appropriate to go into a diatribe about why I do not agree with his statement.

Let us say that someone has told an offensive, racist joke. I might say something like, "I really don't think that jokes like that are funny, or appropriate", and leave it at that. All the other person needs to know, is that I found the joke offensive. To have not responded, would have be tantamount to me agreeing with the spirit of the joke. To have laughed, when I found the joke offensive, would be gross insincerity.

Yes someone did. I did.

You still have not acknowledged the implications of this parenthetical...that you are treating almost like a throw-away line.

You draw the line in one place for the exceptions...but that means that everyone is free to draw the line wherever they want.

That is true. Each person needs to decide, for himself, what he thinks is an acceptable belief. There may be some common ground amongst people in certain instances. (ie- Hitler was a monster), but great variations in others. (i.e.-A woman's place in in the home.)

In many cases, the differences in what people consider correct beliefs is open to individual interpretation, based on ones' upbringing, and the thought, (or lack of thought) that one has given to a particular issue.

Re: Should we show respect for other people's "beliefs?
Frank

It depends of what you mean by "respect" and "believes".
Believing, to me, is to accept as true something that cannot be object of proof. And this is not only the case of religious believes.
When I sustain a philosophical position, I may use logical arguments, and good reasons but, in the limit, I cannot give a proof that my conception is the right one. There is no possible proof that Kant was right and Hegel was wrong.
That, in my point of view, can be extended to any situation of life. I belief there is a keyboard in front of me, but how could I ever give you the proof that the keyboard is there? So, even here, we are dealing with believes.
Only analytical propositions - a triangle has three angles - are true, because they don't need any proof.

This said, there are different levels of belief. It is different to believe in a God or to believe that there is a city named New York. The belief in a God is a matter of individual faith. But the belief in the existance of a city named New York has to do with perception, language and social agreement.
The Greek skeptics sustained that we cannot know anything, but we must accept, as social agreement, the facts of daily life.

Answering your question, I say that we must respect other people's believes. Respect is not the same thing as acceptation. I think that the belief in a soul or a God does not have any real meaning, but I respect those who believe: this means I don't want to convince them that they are wrong, I accept their believes as personal choices and, in order to respect them as individuals I must respect the right they have to believe in a God, or a Soul or gobblins.
But, if they want to convince me that they have reached the truth, then I will discuss with them and I have also the right to require they accept the discussion, and the exchange and critical exam of all arguments.

I would never be bored with Hitler or Bin Laden believes, if they keep those believes to themselves, or even accept to discuss them in forums like this one. But men like Hitler or Bin Laden don't want to discuss anything. They want to impose their belief by the force and terror. Therefore they must be stopped with those same weapons, force and if necessary, terror.

So, excepting those cases of fanatical terrorism, I respect other people believes, discuss them if they accept to discuss, because respecting their believes is not different from respecting them as persons. What I would never accept is that anyone tries to force me to accept his belief or faith or theory by other means than rational and critical discussion.

val:-

A couple of things-

If some item "cannot be the object of proof" then a belief in it is irrational.It is different when the item is not yet proved but the possibility of proof exists.An example of that might be Einstein's idea that light is curved.That was proved a few years after the prediction as Einstein believed it would be.

In the cases of Osama and Hitler hindsight is involved.What about beliefs that could,in certain hands,turn into similar horrorshows.Would you respect such beliefs only on condition that there was no possibility that they would and how would you know whether they would or would not.If one did it is easy to add it to your list and then claim you don't respect it anymore.A large number of people respected the beliefs,if such they were,of Osama and Hitler and a large number still do.

We can all be right with hindsight.

spendius.

I believe you have a keyboard.

spendius wrote:


So do I.

And it's a good example of the level of evidence I require to believe. I may be wrong in my belief about the keyboard, but I don't think it very likely that I am.