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.
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Agreed. What I usually tell me people is that I respect their right to _have_ a belief, but not the belief itself. There's a huge difference.
Hehe and is that a belief of yours?
I agree actualy, however you can of course respect the right of a person to hold a belief differant from yours?
BRAVO! that was great
Spot on mate.
Religion should not be, forgive the pun, a sacred cow. I often tell people that anything I argue has a whopping big bullseye painted on it - once an argument is stated, it's open season, and in fact I encourage people to attempt to rip it to shreds. A solid argument can withstand any onslaught - think of it as a sort of natural selection for debates. :-)
It's a pity this attitude is all but nonexistent on the theist's side of the fence.
I must say that on the other side of this argument there are plenty of Christians that actually THINK they believe that critical thinking is actually what god tries to discourage. Of course, if they didn't use their brain at all, they'd probably just die. The question is, would they go to hell for committing suicide by self inflicted starvation, or would they go to heaven by reason of insanity?
Really interesting thought. Thanks for sharing.
Amen.
Quick thing:
When I was watching videos at:
http://beyondbelief2006.org/
One of the speakers mentioned that he knew the author of the Flat Earth Society, and that it was created as a hoax/experiment.
This might affect how you use it as an example.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading that little tid bit
@Asprin99: thanks for the info on the Flat Earth Society I'll look into that some more; Geocentrism might have been a better example.
right on!
please explain any of the objections raised in 'darwin's black box' and i'll join your agnosticism.
p.s. i'm not a flat earther but my friend at NASA says it's hard to tell which is the center (Geocentrism)… no point of reference out there you know…
Shaggy: from any arbitrary reference point, it can appear as though things revolve around us. (I'm going to try this analogy out, I don't know how well it will work, bear with me!) If you were stuck spending your entire life in your back yard, you could just as easily call the back door the front one, even though the rest of the neighborhood calls it the back door.
Eh, not so good…
The point is, your vantage point has nothing to do with the reality around you. The sun is the center of gravity in our solar system, even if it looks like it's spinning around us. "Hard to tell" does not mean "impossible" and "not with current technology" doesn't mean "impossible" either.
As for Darwin's Black Box, I can't say anything specific, as I haven't read it. I've had this conversation with a friend of mine before, though. For some reason, when it comes to Evolution, people seem to think any inconsistency in the theory invalidates the entirety of it. They also seem to think that the inconsistency and subsequent invalidation of the theory constitutes solid evidence for creationism.
Even if Evolution was proven entirely wrong, it would not prove creationism right. The evidence currently available points to evolution being pretty accurate. There is no evidence for creationism. For some creation myths, the only way to find out if they're true (aside from dying and having your god explain it all to you) would be taking a time machine back and watching some cosmic entity say "Hey, check this out!"
by the way, why do you think the earth is round? Is it evidence gathered with your own senses and reasoned with your own mind or is it because your teacher told you?
This is a question that my maths teacher once put to me and its stuck with me as a reminder that much of what athiests (such as myself) believe is in fact taken on pure faith.
@felix: In the many cases where I don't seek out first hand evidence, to say that I take things 'on faith' is to equivocate. When I provisionally take things 'on faith' I'm actually relying entirely on evidence; the evidence I have that my sources are trustworthy. If I later learn that the evidence doesn't support the claim after all, I'll reject it.
On the other hand faith in a metaphysical proposition is belief independent of evidence. If decent evidence was available, it would no longer be faith. Accordingly it sounds strange to talk about a 'provisional faith' because faith deals in certainties and cannot, in principle, be touched by anything we might learn about the world.
Please be clear that to take things 'on faith' is something quite different than faith of the metaphysical variety which is a mechanism that bypasses the only reliable method we have of evaluating a truth claim; by looking at the evidence.
Felix: An atheist is defined by not accepting supernatural beliefs, not by believing "in" something.
@Bdox: I think Felix was talking about the beliefs atheists unavoidably do have, even though atheism itself doesn't imply any.
An atheist might believe in the supernatural. All we learn from the label is that they don't believe in gods.
First words…
Today I chanced upon a video that conveys the spirit of critical rationalism. I found it through Salahudin, a Towelian, who adds a critique of his own, thereby exhibiting a spirit of pancritical rationalism. How about that? A real world example!!…
What I like to tell people (this provides both my beliefs, my faith that their belief is inaccurate as well as ends the conversation before it gets started) is that my belief is that of an Orthodox Agnostic…..
I don't know…..AND NEITHER DO YOU!
Personally, I am a Gnostic and do not see the scientific model of the universe as conflicting in any way to a divinely created one. The method of debate described is invaluable to moving toward higher truths, and it is one I use and appreciate having used on me. Its refreshing to hear someone vocalize it- thank you.
Of note: I would just like to point out a pitfall in many atheistic arguements. Most that I have read/heard assume that 'creationism' equals 'Christianity'. Granted that the religion which split into Judaism, Islam, and Christianity DO cover a vast amount of the population's beliefs, they are not the only posibilities. If one is to construct an arguement to prove one's beliefs or at least to defend them in a better way, they should consider more broadly the realm of possiblity. It often frustrates me when I say that I believe in a divine source that immediately a vast number of traits are heaped on to me due to the stygma of Christianity.
No offense or provokation intended, just a pattern I've noticed.
-revscrj
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Quite right, and elegantly put.
I would also add to the conversation the following:
-Do not assume I am less intelligent that you for my beliefs.
-Do not assume that your beliefs may not be wrong.