(January 3, 2017 at 11:38 pm)Astonished Wrote: As long as they don't expect me to respect them any more than I do the Westboro Baptists, the Taliban or that church two doors down from where I live that creates a significant traffic hazard for me when I try to bike through that intersection on weekends, they can call themselves whatever the fuck they want.
If you can't defend your reason for believing in what you do any better than anyone else with an irrational system of belief, really, you're no different. They may have gotten 2+2 = 5 instead of 2+2=11 like some of the fundamentalists, but they're still wrong.
I base the respect I extend on behavior, not proclaimed faith. I think there's a big difference between a deist who keeps his faith to himself, and a fundamentalist who tries to enforce his religion through the law, or a terrorist who kills nonbelievers.
They may all be equally wrong theologically, but I think respect encompasses a lot more than that.
