Why do we disrespect each other's belief?

Question

Why do we disrespect each other's religion and culture? Why do we have to be offencive to prove "My Religion is Best"?

This place gives us freedom of speech. That certainly does not mean that we are eligible to fume at different religions. I always see posts about marry magdalene and other Dan Brown stuff, Idol gods, muslims jews no one is spared.

I'm a Hindu. And i loved Da Vinci Code just as thriller FILM. I'm not going to believe a single in this film. Because how can i trust him as i don't know much about christianity. But liking the film does not make me a anti-christian. As i also liked Gladiator. This also does not make a follower of roman religion of that era.

I pray to Shiva at the same time i pray to Jesus Christ and Allah as well. There are different names. Whatever we call him. God is One.

What do you think?

Answer 1

It's easier to say "Your god is dumb" than to engage in intelligent debate.

Answer 2

I wish more people were as tolerant as you are. Keep up the good work.
People often feel threatened by other's beliefs. To give the example of the novel and film "The Da Vinci Code," if the supposition that Jesus had a family and that the family line still exists, this would probably destroy the belief that Jesus is fully divine, which would bother a lot of people a great deal.
By the way, there is no proof that God is one, either in a monotheistic sense or in a monistic sense. God could very well be plural (just as there may be parallel universes).
As for other beliefs, let's take the mutilation of women's genitals as an example. The fact that several human societies insist on cutting off a girl's clitoris seems totally outrageous to people like myself, who believe that women deserve a full and happy sex life.
Many people in the world still apparently see nothing wrong with slavery - Islam refuses to officially condemn slavery - but this is horribly wrong. Of course, it makes no difference to me if you believe that Krishna had 16,000 wives, but the doctrine of Original Sin makes a great deal of difference to me, as I see it being one of the most pernicious doctrines that has ever been invented.
Tolerance is necessary. But it isn't easy.

Answer 3

I agree with your sentiment that we shouldn't be disrespecting each other's beliefs.

Nonetheless, the problem is, I dont think you can prove that Shiva for instance is equivalent to the ONE True Eternal God The Creator. Even the Christians believe that Jesus (peace be upon him) is not equivalent to God The Father, hence the Christian formula: In the name of The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit. It has always been in this form and it's blasphemous to change it to, say, "In the name of The Holy Spirit, The Son, and The Father" because these 3 entities are not equal.

I'm a Muslim. So, there's no way I will or can say that there is something else equivalent to the Abrahamic God - Allah (The God) for the truth be told, there isn't.

It's not about who you pray to, it's about what you believe in.

God alone knows best

Peace and Love.

Answer 4

I don't agree with you on the Shiva part.
But I respect your opinion.
I respect all of the peoples opinions here
wheather you are an Atheist, Muslim, Catholic, Protestand, Jew, Shintoit, Satanist, Shamanist, Progonist or any other religion.
Or if you are a plain disbeliver.
I respect all. Nor do I try to prove my religion is best.
But i don't like it when my religion gets disrespected or atacted by aqusive questions coming from ussualy atheist people who
have little if any knowledge about religion.
All i do when i answer is explain them where they are wrong in aqusing.
Because if a person is religious....he knows what he beliefs in and finds it logical. He has thought about it many many times.
And he actualy has read his religious litherature.

I am a Christian...but i am very interested in other forms of religion, not to convert to them or to practice but to find out more.
Or truely question information out of interest.
I belive that is what this part was made for.
Yet it is becomeing a strugle between non-belivers and belivers
or diffrent beliefs trying to outsmart eachother or find some error.
You see for many many years there have been people trying to proof that religions are flase or that one religion is better than the other. And nobody ever sucseeded. Because every religions beliefs their religion does not have human, earthly nature but has a spiritual begining and source. And thus all religions belive they are the right one and have answers to all tricky questions.
It is a pointless strugle.

I respect all opinions....but i disrespect people disrespecting other religions. Or religion in general.
I find it rude, inhuman and more over dumb.

Answer 5

God is one? Hmm, I think that, perhaps, this man is on the right track. If there was a God, he/she/it could only exist outside the normal universe. This would mean God would transcend space and time all together and could descend into the universe however or as whoever he/she/it pleased. There would be no way to proove or disproove this, so why not, hey?

On the other hand, string theory has described the higher-dimentionality of space and time such that there is no room for God. The existance of higher dimentions has been proven by the effects of quantum field theory (which is evident in the lighting of an LED or in the workings of your smoke detector. Even the computer processor chip requires this sort of physics to work).

Yes, quantum field theory means miracles can happen. What is a miracle? It's just something that would be impossible in classical physics. Quantum field theory makes creation of energy possible as long as Heisenburg's uncertainty principal is obeyed, and that is only in 4D. Take into account the higher-dimentionality of string theory and WHAM, miracles can happen.

Is there a conciousness controlling this? Well, that's a difficult question. There are two ways of looking at this:

1) conciousness is the result of nature. Physics laws are obeyed and they result in a concious sensation. It is nothing more than an illusion based on the reactions in our brain that MUST occur the way they do due to the laws of physics and chemistry.

2) the whole universe, its workings and all the laws therein are the result of conciousness. Conciousness is, in fact, the underlying entity in the universe. From this conciousness all the laws of physics came and we are yet to understand this conciousness as a whole, only our small part of it.

Hmm. Both are equally valid and both are totally unprovable either way.

I prefer not to believe in a God at all. I believe in the first of the theories. You can believe in a God (or many Gods) if you like, and I won't disrespect that. It is totally possible. I respect that you can believe in these things. I would like all people to extend that respect to all other people.

And that's all I have to say about that.

Answer 6

Thank you very much for asking this question. I've wondered that myself. I am speaking to both sides of the aisle when I say it's ridiculous what some people ask or how some respond. I am a believer. I believe that atheists are in for a rude awakening. However, it is their absolute and inalienable right to chose not to believe.

That said, the rude questions/rude responses make me nuts. If you have a point to make, make it without the insults, without the baiting or else no one pays any attention. I have used the following example a couple of times because it just burned me. Someone asked recently: "How can I prove the bible is full of crap?" Now, I ask you. If this were a true quest, wouldn't the better question have been "Is the bible REALLY he word of God" was it truly necessary to insult a millions of people consider holy regardly if the askers own opinion.

I'm sure there's an equally insulting question from the "believers" side but to be honest I haven't come across one.

Answer 7

Hey Raja,

I think the answer is the ego. When a person entrusts their beliefs to someone or something, they want to believe that it is the right way, the right answer. They want to believe that they are intelligent and made the best possible decision based on the knowledge they had. For someone else to come along with a different point of view challenges their ideas, ideals, and in a way, their intelligence. For example, let's pretend that "Joe" has read up on a lot of religious material and decided to follow Christianity. When a Muslim comes along and says, "Hey, look at the way I do things... you don't have to like it... but look, here's how I do things.", Joe will probably see that as a threat to what he knows and a threat to the decision he made (what he thought was an educated decision). My Answer is ego.

However, there is another solution to this.... pride. If you have centuries of a certain mentality, for that to be questioned or for something alien to be introduced, we freak out! Why? because we are also creatures of habit. Change is something that we can adapt to, but are not usually comfortable with at first. Imagine this... if an alien spaceship lands in your backyard right now, would you freak out? If so, why? :-D

Answer 8

I dont know much about Hinduism, but I certainly dont slam Hindus. People start insulting others when they have nothing intelligent left to say. Debates and discussions are fun but you know you are winning when your opponant has stopped being civil and starts hurling insults. I see people bash christianity 500 times a day here simply because they dont understand it, when Christians are asked questions, they answer them. Usually the asker doesnt like that they really HAD answers (because of course, they thought they wouldnt) so instead of accepting the answer to the question, the asker then calls us names.

Everyone knows insulting someones beliefs will never change that persons beliefs so why even bother? It's just an admittion of defeat :)

Answer 9

Though I do agree that there is a great deal of disrespect flying around this section, I think its kind of necessary for it to be there. Its a measure of the caliber of person you are talking to. Some of us do try to be respectful, and some of us don't. some of us cleverly word it so it is disrespectful to prove a point. Some of us try to be so off-the-wall outlandish that it can be taken as anything.

I've said it once, and I'll say it again- if you don't like the question you're looking at, move on to the next one. You'll have more fun that way.

Answer 10

i respect other peoples rights to believe as they wish. I believe this is a gift of the creator which we should all respect. I have no problem with strongly disagreeing with people and feel no need to bash them over areas of disagreement. The movie the Davinci code could have been allot more palatable if the author didn't try to push this off as truth. He could have put a disclaimer and said it is fiction but he knew he would sell more by creating a controversy. The part that angers people it is full of easily proveable out right lies, which are unfortunately swallowed by people who are not inclined to check out and see whether their is any truth in the claims being made. It isn't a matter of someone simply misunderstanding your faith but deliberately trying to flay it.

Answer 11

I think that the disrespect comes from the fact that we do not understand the other religions. Everyone was brought up with a certain religion in their home, and that's the one we were taught to believe is the "right" one.