Should you respect someone's religious views?
 

Sometimes in a debate about religion someone will tell me I should be respectful of their or someone else's religious beliefs. Usually this comes as the result of joking .. making fun of their religion. Example: Someone once told me they thought it ridiculous that Mohammed jumped up to heaven from a rock in Jerusalem. I replied that Jesus is said to have ascended into the clouds from almost the same spot. This was taken as some good old fashioned ribbing -- which it was but then I was told that I was being insensitive to their religious beliefs.

So what gives? What do you all think? Is it insensitive and/or disrespectful to make fun of say, the Mormons belief that Jesus came to the Americas? Should I just shut up. Maybe religion and politics are not good conversations to have -- at least around sensitive people -- certainly not to inlaws.

I find religion to be funny, hilarious and worth laughing at.

The way I see it is, if they can dish it out, they should be able to take it without complaining that you're being insensitive. I used to live next door to a Scientologist who made fun of me constantly for being Christian... I tend to not really care about what other people think about my religious beliefs, but it did give me a good excuse to give him shit every so often for believing in Xenu =)

ETA: I don't really get offended if people talk shit about my religion to me, I just think it's funny when people get all hypocritical about it like my neighbor and your aquaintance. Everyone should be able to be made fun of equally!

I consider religion and politics a definite "no-no" to discuss with anybody. It always leads to arguments that are unprovable anyhow. It's a waste of time IMO :2 cents:

Bet you had some interesting conversations!

There was a guy in our industry back in the mid 1990's. His name was "spanker". A real genius and a great guy. Well, he was a Jehovah's Witness. Used to talk to him at 3am on the phone and debate religion after talking business. Eventually he felt his religion and work were at odds and he gave up his sites - even though he was making mid six figures at the time.

Funny story. Once he thought he knew the date the 144,000 would be taken up in the bible. Reference Revelations. he thought he would be one of them. So he had his attorneys put together some paperwork that I would get his websites if he mysteriously disappeared. He didn't. Well, come to think of it, where did that guy GO?

That's what makes it so fun to me. You can add economics to that.

I agree. I spent a few hours the other night, with a close friend, trying to prove to him that politics actually existed... But no luck...

Jesus simply wouldn't believe me...

I look at it this way you can laugh at any religion as long as you can laugh and don't mind other people making fun of yours.
You know how many Jewish jokes I make to other Jews and non Jews ?
It's only fair for you to take it if you dish it out.
As the old saying goes if you can't take the heat stay out of the kitchen.
That is as long as you don't make any real offensive remarks that are hurtful and doing it on purpose to hurt that person.

Virtually every religion is responsible for the deaths of thousands and thousands of people. I'll stop making offensive remarks when people are no longer killed for religious reasons, how about that?

As for respecting religious views... hell no. Respecting people's beliefs in holy books that say repeatedly that people like me should be slaughtered or - at best - treated like cattle is something I am not planning on doing any time soon. Muslims, christians and jews can go fuck themselves :321GFY

I'm fine with most of the Asian religions, though. I don't believe them to be true either, but at least they don't want to threaten my freedom or life.

i find religion sad and pathetic. I have pity for religious people because it wasn't their choice, they have been severely brainwashed by their own parents since birth. Its dangerous and creepy, and parents dont even realise it since they have experienced the same when they were a kid. Its fucking sick

Only if their religious views respect me and others as full human beings and they don't try to legislate their fairly tale ideas about how the world should work into law. But even then it's more of a case of not slamming the individual than actually respecting the religion or beliefs in particular.

I respect other's religious beliefs.
As long as they don't shove them down my throat. Or make vehicles explode. Or churches. Or schools. etc..

For example, the Jehovah Witnesses. They come to my door about once a month no matter the weather. I can recognize them right away of course. I barely give them a chance to speak and I say "Watchtower people? Listen, I respect what you're doing but I'm just not interested. Thank you. Bye."

It's all polite and they leave without feeling innsulted.

Same here.to each their own just don't expect me to believe the same way you do

I love talking to Jehovah's Witnesses. They liek to debate.

If someone would ask me to explain some differences between my religion and his,I would try to do it,but I guess I wouldn't like to tear down his beliefs and if I couldn't respect his religion,I would simply head another direction

For the most part no religion wants you dead. it is a small group of fanatics that are driving some to madness and crazy believes.
On a side note, as a jew I can tell you from the bottom of my heart to fuck off but if you think your Asian buddies can save your ass from the mossad when you do something to threaten the Jewish land then start praying to their boda shit.

No, I don't

There is only ONE god..

All those that don't bow down before me are Heretics!

Read the fucking books.

See? Religion attracts idiots. And by idiots, I mean you.

Religion is ok but for fuck sakes keep it to yourself! i fucking hate people that preach, especially them fucking witnesses. on the other hand there are things you can learn from zen and buddhism to help you relax. i'm not going to become a monk though :D

Still hiding in his bunker?

Really? I lost a best friend to them because I'm too "wordly" and like to debate.

There are many idiots, and their name is Legion.

Seriously, though. Just because I grew up in one culture and think death by stoning is wrong, should I disrespect someone who thinks it right? Where does one draw the line?
Should I be disrespected because I think a euthanasia chamber should be available at every convenient store, available to all who want to use one, ala Soylent Green.

I have no answers. Unless someone encroaches on my ability to live how I want, and as long as I don't encroach on others, what do I have to say in the matter. Other than stay out of those discussions as one can't argue belief systems.

I can respect an individual's religious views if they can back them up and outdebate me.

I have one sentiment on the topic...

I'm fucking 100% intolerant of INTOLERANCE...swings both ways.

Intolerant religulous and non-religulous fucks make the world a shittay place...

Don't kill or hate people over a 'fucking story'
...sadly the biggest offenders often seem to be religulous.

-TJ

You provide the answer to your own question. Death by stoning is something people very rarely do to themselves. So, those in favor of it do want to encroach upon the rights of others.

When people say that they are opposed to gay marriage, they usually mean they want to prevent other people from engaging in them, rather than that they're not planning to get one themselves. Same thing with abortion, euthanasia, etc.

The problem with most religions is that they just don't want to allow people to live their lives according to different principles.

And the problem does not just lie with a few fundamentalists. It lies with the basic tenets of those religions.

Take this, for example:
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/...013&version=9;

Or better yet, look at this:
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/cruelty/long.html

So if someone actually believes the bible to be true, and has read it, how can those beliefs possibly be respected? That book is as vile as Hitler's "Mein Kampf", if not more so.

Well...

Its sure is one way to get people excited over shit that has nothing to do with them.
People always have an opinion.

I think everyone is wrong. Even me I am wrong more than most people.

No one agree's on anything, there will always be that one fucker that takes delight in disagreement.

Not everyone likes Obama, not everyone likes Bush or Mohammed, not everyone likes Jesus. At the bottom of it all it's the same dirty trick at the top. Nothing but old men convincing people to die for something in some illusionary significance.

i'm irreverent about almost everything, and i expect others to be also.. if they aren't and they don't like it, they can blow themselves. call me ig'nant

I avoid having religious conversations or discussions at all costs...I don't joke about anyone's religion either cause "religion" has been the cause of the most cruel wars..historically speaking... (GFY funny religion threads are an exception :) )

With that said... if someone tries to impose their religious views on me they better get ready to get argumentatively destroyed...

In Colin's case... I see no reason why they weren't able to take a joke (without getting offended) if they were mocking the veracity of someone else's religion ....

:thumbsup good and sound way to avoid problems that can't be solved

when people start respecting my atheism/antitheism, ill start wastching what I say about preists lol

Me too... but I keep it to myself in mixed company.

BAH! Imagine if george Carlin or Bill Hicks had done that!

Opinions are made to be shared!

"It appears to me (whether rightly or wrongly) that direct arguments against christianity and theism produce hardly any effect on the public; and freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men's minds which follows from the advance of science." [Darwin]
"If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities." [Voltaire]

"I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own -- a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotism." [Einstein]

"Faith means not wanting to know what is true." [Nietzsche]

"I cannot believe in the immortality of the soul.... No, all this talk of an existence for us, as individuals, beyond the grave is wrong. It is born of our tenacity of life – our desire to go on living … our dread of coming to an end." [Edison]

"The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma." [Lincoln]

"Religion is a byproduct of fear. For much of human history, it may have been a necessary evil, but why was it more evil than necessary? Isn't killing people in the name of God a pretty good definition of insanity?" [Arthur C. Clarke]

"Religions are all alike – founded upon fables and mythologies." [Thomas Jefferson]

"Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile." [Kurt Vonnegut]

"Religion is based . . . mainly on fear . . . fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand in hand. . . . My own view on religion is that of Lucretius. I regard it as a disease born of fear and as a source of untold misery to the human race." [Bertrand Russell]