What do we mean when we talk of respect?
This could easily be a huge topic all by itself.
Dictionary.com gives several relevant definitions:
1)
"esteem for or a sense of the worth or excellence of a person, a personal quality or ability, or something considered as a manifestation of a personal quality or ability: I have great respect for her judgment."
I think in this sense, we can respect a particular quality or ability of a person regardless of that person's other qualities. I think it also points out how our other feelings for that person can affect whether we give them respect. For example, we would find it easier to respect a mediocre quality in one of our friends whereas we would skip over the same quality if we saw it in a brutal dictator. Some might argue that this is fine since a qualities excellence is relative to a person's other qualities. That doesn't seem inconsistent but it does make "respect" a synonym for "like"
I believe that when we categorise ourselves, we predispose ourselves to a higher amount of bias against anybody who has categorised themselves differently. Therefore, as atheists, we need to be careful of avoiding this bias when deciding whether the religious are worthy of respect. Being religious afterall is
not like running a brutal dictatorship so whilst religious beliefs might be dismissed from this kind of respect, the other aspects and personal qualities of religious people should be judged regardless of how we feel about religion.
2)
"deference to a right, privilege, privileged position, or someone or something considered to have certain rights or privileges; proper acceptance or courtesy; acknowledgment: respect for a suspect's right to counsel; to show respect for the flag; respect for the elderly."
Again, this definition seems to apply to religious people but not to religious beliefs themselves. It would certainly tell us to respect a person's right to believe whatever they want to believe but that doesn't say much about the content of the belief.
3) "
favor or partiality."
Although I'm sure this is not what is meant when people generally use the word, it does appear to be the kind of respect that is under attack from some atheists at the moment. The idea is that one can become so respectful towards religion as to make religion immune from criticism even in areas where we would happily criticise anything else.
Although I would agree with the idea here, their reaction appears to be to ridicule religious belief and believers. This doesn't make any sense to me since atheists then get accused of being disrespectful and, as a result, any criticisms are ignored or at least setback considerably. On the other hand, if we criticised in a respectful way then our concerns would be listened to, wrongs would be righted and we wouldn't make needless enemies.
Yes, some people would still be offended. But the argument appears to be that since
some religious people are offended by genuine, honest criticism, we might as well offend the rest of them as well by being unnecessarily offensive.
To what extent is it possible to disagree with someone yet respect their beliefs?
Should we be respectful of intolerant or hateful beliefs?
So far I haven't really talked about respecting belief itself. Initially, it feels like I do respect some people due to their beliefs. Being supportive of GLBT rights is a good example of a belief that I would respect. However, on closer inspection, I think I like people who adhere to this belief and respect only those who act on it and make their belief a reality. Therefore, I'm not entirely sure that a belief, any belief, is worthy of respect (or disrespect for that matter).
If we respected all beliefs regardless of their content then of the definitions I gave above, 1 and 3 clearly could not apply without rendering their definitions meaningless. 2 merely leads me to respect their right to believe anything and not the beliefs themselves, as I discussed above. However, for the sake of argument, I will assume that it is possible and meaningful to respect a belief itself.
It also seems clear that there are some non-religious beliefs I would not want to respect. To take an extreme example, Hitler's belief in the Final Solution. Therefore, there appears to be some sort of criterion or mark that allows me to distinguish between a belief I would want to respect (perhaps more accurately "tolerate") and a belief that I would not. Additionally, this mark does not appear to have anything to do with a belief being "religious". In this case, Hitler's belief would be just as offensive regardless of whether he saw it as part of his religion or not.
So far, I would tentatively conclude that, assuming respecting belief is a meaningful act, some beliefs should be respected and some shouldn't. The mark is the potential for that belief to cause harm. Harm, in this sense, is not merely harm to a being but also harm to processes or activities such as science.
Is it reasonable to put all religions into one category when debating this question?
If we are talking about specific beliefs that we feel shouldn't be respected then clearly not as I don't think there is any belief that is shared by every single religion. However, if we were talking about categories of belief, then it might be more reasonable.
An example of a category of belief that might be objected to are those which the believer holds to be true yet rejects the need for evidence or reason in determining his belief. This, it is argued, would allow those beliefs that would otherwise be discounted as harmful to gain a foothold in society.
This creates a problem because the same belief can be harmless in the mind of one believer but harmful in the mind of another. For example, the belief in the second coming within their life time have lead some to spurn long term solutiuons global issues such as poverty or climate change whilst others holding that belief support these efforts. It appears to be difficult to criticise the first group without also criticising the second since, if it were true that the second coming is happening in 5 years time, it would be rational to ignore global issues as they would be solved at that time anyway.
