Isn't it time to stop "respecting" religious beliefs?

[mariner2]

There are 1000s of religions in the world, (every one of them the only true one) and no matter what nonsense they spout we are always being told how we should respect the views of their devotees and tiptoe politely around them
Perhaps they should get the same level of respect as people that beleive in the tooth fairy and Santa Claus, in fact perhaps a little less, as no one to my knowledge has ever killed anyone in the name of the tooth fairy.

[Theland]

I am not looking for a cop out, honestly, and if I need a brain exercise, there's always Soduku!
There are several main reasons for my belief, the origin of everything being but a part of those reasons.
Others are:-
The Bible best describes the human condition, in my opinion, in a way that a variety of religions and philosophies have blatantly failed to do.
An ideal Christian situation, straight from the chocolate box picture of course, is a family involved in church, Sunday school, and the community, above suspicion and respected by all. These are the bricks that have helped to build our society over many years, even if under threat now.
Bible prophecies concerning the end times are remarkably congruent to events taking place right now in the Middle East. So, all in all, there is enough there to convince me that the revelation of scripture is true and reliable.

[Teddio]

Providing a person's religious views and practices are "harmless" then tolerate them by all means. Respect is an entirely different matter.

[JockSporran]

Mariner, you clearly don't believe in freedom of thought.

[wildwood]

Although being an atheist myself, I tolerate all religious beliefs except the ones that advocate harm to others. Seeing many (including some western) religions have some horrendous passages and/or teachings in them, I feel justified to prefer the evolutionary theory.

A devoted christian family friend recently lost a close relative and she found solace and comfort in her belief. I did somewhat envy her that she was able to belief in her religion enough to justify the premature taking of her son. The same religion however accounts of how this deity murdered all the Earth's inhabitants 4300 years ago because they did not believe in him, except the 8 believers - and we are repeatedly told this God is good!

[mariner2]

Jock - I don't believe in freedom of thought??
I'm not the one indoctrinating children to slavishly follow what their parents believe - if my two year old decides he believes in god when he gets older that's up to him though he will have to follow my football team I'm afraid.
There isn't a single religion that allows freedom of thought is there, you have to believe certain things otherwise you're out?
I'm advocating freedom of thought, not being force to respect all religious views no matter how outlandish is freedom og thought isn't it?

[beso]

Given that many devotees would kill you for not being respectful it might be prudent to at least pretend.

Those who would kill in the name of their faith appear to share a common belief in the wretched philosophy of an evil schizophrenic called Abraham who decided there was just one God and was willing to murder his own son to demonstrate his faith.

Joshua of the Israelites showed how it was done properly by committing genocide against over 30 tribes and plundering all their valuables. His technique of accusing the vicitms or crimes against humanity is still popular today as is his practice of worshipping the stolen goods.

Jesus realised that not everyone was impressed by this kind of brutality and introduced a completely contradictory philosophy, yet incongruously continued to uphold the holiness of the original murderous rampages.

Later Mohammed and his followers introduced the idea that killing those who would not accept "the truth" was actually doing them a favour.

Remarkably, half of the planet's population seem to expect the rest of us to respect thesebeliefs.