Don't Respect my Beliefs
Don't respect my beliefs.
Be courteous and patient towards me while you do your best to demolish them, and I'll try to do the same.
Imagine that you're carefully explaining to a member of the flat earth society why you're convinced that the earth is roughly spherical. You wouldn't be doing him any favours if you respected his belief; if you did, you wouldn't be able to show him why he's wrong.
Is it even meaningful to talk about respecting a belief that you are convinced is false? I don't think it is. It seems to me that 'respect for peoples beliefs' is often nothing more than a virtuous sounding code phrase that really means "anything for a quiet life".
Are there any beliefs deserving of respect? I don't think so. Even beliefs which it's widely agreed are true, or ones held by people who you trust, or ones you're personally convinced about the truth of. If we expose all ideas to thorough analysis and criticism, the best ones will survive and we'll be learning.
When we 'respect' each others beliefs we rob ourselves of the chance to learn, to test our reasoning and to get to know one another by talking frankly about the things that are most important to us.
So don't respect my beliefs, and I promise I won't respect yours.
The Out Campaign: Be Counted
If you're an atheist please consider supporting the OUT campaign launched by Richard Dawkins. As a start you could buy a teeshirt, or add the A logo to your website.
I admit, I sympathize with those sceptics on this site who fear that we are engendering a quasi-religious conformity of our own. Whether we like it or not, I'm afraid we have to swallow this small amount of pride if we are to have an influence on the real world, otherwise we'll never overcome the 'herding cats' problem.
Politicians follow where the votes are. They can only count atheists who are OUT. Some atheists are defeatist in thinking we'll never be effective simply because we're not a majority. But it doesn't matter that we're not a majority. To be effective, all we have to be is recognizable to legislators as a big enough minority. Atheists are more numerous than religious Jews, yet they wield a tiny fraction of the political power, apparently because they have never got their act together in the way the Jewish lobby so brilliantly has: the famous 'herding cats' problem again. And the argument applies not just to politicians but to advertisers, the media, merchants across the board. Anyone who wants to sell us anything caters to demographics. We need to stand up and be counted, so that the demographically savvy culture will come to reflect our tastes and our views. That in turn makes it easier for the next generation of atheists.
–Richard Dawkins
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