Shouldn't people respect my religious beliefs no matter how dumb or wrong mine are?

Answer 1

No. I respect your right to believe whatever you want but I don't necessarily respect your beliefs.

Answer 2

People can respect you without respecting what you believe. There have been people who handle snakes as a part of religion. Now I can respect them as people, and still say that they're asking for trouble.
Also, if you know your religious views are wrong, don't you think that's something you might want to look into? I'm just saying...

Answer 3

I respect the fact that you are a human (ok, I'm assuming that one) and you have your own beliefs. Those beliefs can be dumb, wrong, so far out there that even your own family has thrown you out... BUT, so long as you aren't trying to pass laws that say I have to believe in it... and you can function in society without harming yourself or others.... I couldn't care less what you believe. It's not up to me to go around telling people about their beliefs (wrong or otherwise). I have more important things to do than to waste my time trying to convince other people that believing in pink unicorns on the moon is silly. Believe all you want. ^_^

Answer 4

First off, your question is poorly worded. For one thing, if you believe your own beliefs are dumb and wrong, then even you do not seem to respect your own beliefs. Why should anyone else? For another, "respect my religious beliefs" can be interpreted many ways, many of which are probably not what you meant.

Anyhow, I will try to answer what I *think* you meant to ask..

No, no one should automatically respect your religious beliefs, but they should--in most, but not all cases--respect your right to hold whatever personal religious views you have.

I draw the line when it ceases to be a personal religious view. That is, when it affects others, such as passing judgment or the common practice of condemning others to "hell" if they do no proscribe to the same religion. I also draw the line when you make it a public view--By opening up that door, you are allowing others to comment and criticize on your views. If you are not prepared for that to happen.. Then don't share your views.

Another line of thought.. If people should respect your religious views, then shouldn't you also respect theirs? If so, how do you handle the situation when their religion dictates that they must be disrespectful and rude towards other "non-believers?" You want them to respect your views, but in the process of respecting theirs as well, you have to accept that they won't respect your views. It becomes a paradox.

And of course, there's the obvious situation of "My 'god' tells me I must kill you and eat your flesh.." Should I respect their views and allow them to do so, sacrificing myself to the religious views of another which I do not even believe in?

In summary.. Yes, people should respect your *right* to hold whatever religious views (or lack thereof) that you wish, so long as such views never venture beyond your own personal space. But do not expect them to respect *what* your views are, nor expect them not to respond should you make them publicly available for comment and criticism.

Answer 5

If you think your beliefs are dumb and wrong, why should you expect anyone else to view them differently?

Should I respect somebody who keeps maintaining in the face of all logic and reason that 2+3=56? Clearly respect in the case of illogical belief is not possible.

I can respect people's right to believe whatever mindless drivel they want to. What I can never respect is the mindless drivel.

Answer 6

Sure so long as they hurt no one.

In the early 1990s Hindus and other spiritually oriented visitors began making pilgrimages to San Francisco from all over the world to worship at one of the weirdest shrines ever to sprout mysteriously from the earth. The object, which once served as a traffic barrier, appeared in the park around 1991. Soon colorful chalk hieroglyphs began to grace the gray concrete surface, and bunches of flowers were left beside it, offerings to the Hindu god Shiva, it turned out. Before long, a group of heavy stones from William Randolph Hearst's kidnapped Spanish abbey (coming soon) had appeared around the object, arranged in the form of a sacred rock garden. By 1993 a steadily increasing flow of pilgrims went to the shrine, identified as a "stone phallus of Shiva," to meditate, pray, chant and burn incense. "It's become a symbol to hundreds of Hindus, Buddhists and New Agers," one devotee told the San Francisco Chronicle. The director of the park's Asian Art Museum, Rand Castile, backed the object's claim to spiritual authenticity: "This is a very serious religious statement in the Hindu religion. It's no laughing matter."

But alas the Golden Gate Park authorities, preoccupied as they are with harnessing the materials of nature, have little respect for things of the spirit. In the winter of 1994 they removed the offending organ. Still, the site itself, a conductor of the earth's mysterious energies, continues to attract mystical adepts as well as the curious.

See!
No harm done.

♥Blessed Be♥
♥=∞

Answer 7

Err, might that include sacrificing your first-born?
(a genuine historical, but not too current an issue)

Suttee?
(officially outlawed since Victorian times...)

Or denying them medical treatment or blood transfusions as being "against your faith"?
(now those still turn up in the courts to this day.)

No. "It's my religious faith" does not work like an unlimited "get out of jail free" card.
But I say that without jumping to the other extreme and insisting that everyone ought to conform to my beliefs under penalty of the law.

Answer 8

sacred space like a house provides shelter and room to connect with the eternal. the wise would not care to enter a dumb or wrong space if that's where you actually reside. if you do actually consider your personal relationship to the sacred to be dumb or wrong, whether people respect it or not is the least of your worries. hopefully your question is rhetorical. if not, please realise relationships with the sacred and eternal are not subject to those types of qualifications.

Answer 9

Yes

Answer 10

if you live in America it's your constitutional right to practice the religion of your choice . . I don't care if you worship a giant space spaghetti monster as long as you are happy with it and you don't try to convert me to your religion of choice . . I would respect your beliefs

Answer 11

Everyone should respect people's beliefs, shouldn't matter if they're dumb or "wrong"