Give Theists Respect?

I've noticed a lot of people saying we should give Theists respect for their beliefs.

At first mention this sounds peaceful, enlightened even, but I've come to realize they deserve no respect whatsoever.

These are people who spit in the face of scientific discoveries, the work of Einstein, Darwin, Newton and other great men just totally disregarded.

All our technological progress ignored and mankind's achievements forgotten.

These are people who actually refuse to accept Evolution! Treat it as a religious faith rather than a proven scientific theory!

Then they teach their, frankly dangerous, beliefs, to children! These are people who live in a fantasy world and want the rest of us dragged down into it with them.

They believe animals and plants once talked and that firebreathing dragons will one day kill us all.

They believe love pours from the sky from an omnipotent being who needs nothing yet demands worship from human lifeforms.

They believe that people can be turned into salt and that the entire globe was once flooded, ignoring all the other ancient civilizations who didnt notice this global flood.

They believe 2 (and 14) of each animal on the globe lived on a boat together for a year.

They believe all people are inbred.

They believe dinosaurs, and everything that lived before dinosaurs and between man and dinosaur, all lived together at the same time.

They believe the entire universe is only 6000 years old and ruled by something that is invisible yet looks like a man.

They believe in an afterlife but not a beforelife.

They believe in infinite punishment for finite crimes.

They believe people can rise from the dead and then fly into the sky.

They believe inanimate objects can turn into animals, or people, or bread, etc.

They believe in an omnibenevolent God who created hell.

They believe they can enjoy a heaven while fellow human beings burn in hell.

These are not only ridiculous, but disturbing, and even more so when they teach these things to your Children!

These people deserve no respect, no respect at all!

19 comments:

  1. An interesting list. I think you would regard me as a Theist, I would regard myself as one anyway. So by your definition I deserve no respect.

    Yet I read through you list, and fully 50% of it I would have to say ‘No, I certainly do NOT believe that’.

    The majority of the rest of the statements I would require moderate to severe rewrites for them to anyway reflect my beliefs.

    The fact is there are only THREE statements in your list that I could give a Yes to. Are your definitions of Theists so very accurate?


    Now I try to have respect to other people. I consider all people are equal human beings. However you seem to consider this to be a wrong principle, and that you should only respect people that think the same way as yourself. Well that is great for civilisation!

    How about a few other things (you decide the options):-

    – Let’s not respect – women/men (you choose!!) – because they are different to me.

    – Let’s not respect other races, because they are different to my race.

    – Let’s not respect those that earn more/less than me because they don’t deserve it/are too lazy to earn more.

    – Let’s not respect the Democrats/Republicans (in USA) because they believe different to me.

    I am sure you could add extensively to the list.

    Maybe you feel that is the way to put the world to rights, but I certainly don’t.

    But then of course that would be another reason not to respect me.

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  2. Hey Q, at least we haven't burned any of you good Christians at the stake like you have unbelievers.

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  3. I don't know whether to comment, or to just sadly shake my head and turn off my computer for the evening.

    I have to raise the issue of unfair stereotyping here. And, I believe that's at the root of all the arguments amongst ACOG type atheists, Armstrongites, and other types of Christians. You can't really conduct a debate or discussion that makes sense if you are not familiar with the actual beliefs of the other individuals involved. Accusing "Christians" in general of believing the world is 6,000 years old makes about at much sense as referring to some Argentinian that you meet in the supermarket as being Mexican, just because he looks Hispanic. No intelligent conversation would result from that!

    Chauvinism can be a kind of cheerleading for one's "team", but can often be very misleading. As an example, Christians have been put to death by atheists in Russia, China, North Korea, and other nations. Seems like everyone can be guilty of killing everyone. Hindus over in India are currently slaughtering Christians. We've been asked on Christian radio to pray about this, in fact.

    There's nothing like inflammatory rhetoric to get people to comment on blogs and forums. Remember the good ol' days at PT Forum when we all butted heads over politics? It sometimes took hours to read and respond to just one day's postings. As the Who proclaimed at the end of "Won't Get Fooled Again", ....here's the new boss, same as the old boss... Ah well, at least nobody here has yet called me the Unabomber, or falsely labeled me as a Neocon. But, my point would be that any false labels at all just aren't cool. The Romans accused the first generation of Christians of sacrificing their children back in the day.

    BB

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  4. Tell me Bicycle Bob, how much respect do you have for people who perpetuate the myth of a flat earth? How about astrology? How about witches on broomsticks? How about witch boards? How about hobgoblins? How about people like Balaam who can curse a people because he knows the real name of their God?

    Yeah, that's what I thought. So, throw your myth on the pile and we can burn it all and be done with it.

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  5. I'll agree with Questeruk that stereotypes are no help here. Misinformation will not change truth, no matter how strongly it is stated.

    Since you mention such individuals as Newton and Einstein, have you ever bothered to enquire into what they believed? Why would I want to spit in the face of someone like Newton who as far as I know both believed the truth and produced good science?

    Keep your faith in a "proven scientific theory" if you want to. I will keep mine in something truer and more believable. Continue the religious wars espousing your own religion if you so choose: just reinvestigate those claims and drop the idea that "science" and truth are always the same, because they aren't and never have been.

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  6. Corky, once again we're getting into the ridiculous. I know of a satirical "flat earth society", but don't know of anyone who seriously believes that we live on a flat earth today.

    As for astrology, Dennis Diehl would probably be a better person to consult with over that. He's written on that topic on a regular basis.

    Sometimes stereotypes evolve from misunderstanding. I have a friend who is a Wiccan priestess. Wiccans consider themselves to be white witches, aligned with the forces of the universe. It deeply bothers her when some Christians associate her with Satan.

    I only know about Balaam what I read in scripture, but I have heard some quite disturbing tales about Ouija boards over a period of decades.

    As for bicycles, I happen to enjoy all manner of two wheel transportation. I really gutted myself on a nice 10 mile ride on my bicycle last evening. It provides for an excellent cardio workout to supplement my weight training. Hiking is cool, too.

    BB

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  7. Questeruk,

    I gotta say that the last line, "These people deserve no respect, no respect at all!" by itself sounds pretty bad but in the context it should be understood as, "These people deserve no respect, no respect at all (for their beliefs)".

    Have you ever read the Bible? It's a lot more complicated than my writing. It has huge gaps that are not written but are *understood* to be there.

    IOW, "it goes without saying".

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  8. “Have you ever read the Bible? It's a lot more complicated than my writing. It has huge gaps that are not written but are *understood* to be there.”

    Yes, true – but this has resulted in hundreds of different groups, each with their own ‘special’ reading of particular scriptures, as well as many others giving up on the Bible entirely.

    But then surely the Bible was written that way for specific reasons.........

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  9. Questeruk said...
    But then surely the Bible was written that way for specific reasons.........

    Heh heh, what makes you think so? It's been edited so many times that we can't make head or tail of it.

    The only reason I can think of is to tell you to throw the thing out the window. It definitely can't be understood because if it could be there wouldn't be 30,000 sects of Christendom.

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  10. If we begin to classify or group people, one subset would consist of those who attempt to have a relationship with God, and those who would prefer to distance themselves from Him. We all go running about trying to find support for our particular point of view, or ignoring the issue completely and hoping that it would go away.

    Unfortunately, in the course of doing this, others who believe differently from ourselves are often reduced to a state of vulnerability, a point from which they can be easily attacked, diminished, or felt sorry for. But, such activities do nothing to resolve the basic question or issue, and are at best a self-serving exercise.

    At the end of the day, amongst humans, relationships are the most important thing in which we are all involved. How we do treat one another is the thing most remembered. It would be a very rare occurrence for any human to be able to live in a vacuum. People need people. And, why would there not be a spiritual parallel to this basic human need?
    We live in a world in which atoms are a microcosm, or miniature model, for our solar systems and galaxies.

    BB

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  11. Biker Bob,

    Ha. Except for those last two sentences, I couldn't have said it better myself.

    And, it's time that other people quit insisting on teaching my children silly shit that ain't true or can't be proved.

    When theist can prove a supernatural world exists with gods and demons and angels, then it will be okay to at least call Yahweh an hypothesis.

    That's why I ask the question over and over, where is your proof? What evidence do you have? Alas, all I get is silence.

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  12. Corky said....“That's why I ask the question over and over, where is your proof? What evidence do you have? Alas, all I get is silence.”

    Getting proof of even physical things can be very difficult.

    For example in current theories of the universe it is estimated that 74% of the total mass-energy of the universe is ‘dark energy’. What is dark energy? It’s a hypothetical form of energy that cannot be detected.

    A further approximant 22% is thought to be composed of ‘dark matter’. What is dark matter? It’s hypothetical matter that is undetectable by its emitted radiation, and its presence can only be inferred.

    That leaves just 4% of the total energy density in the universe that can be directly detected.

    So this whole physical universe is 96% ‘undetectable’, and can only be inferred from things such as gravitational effects. Either that or our understanding of the universe is badly wrong.

    If 96% of the physical universe cannot be detected, but only inferred, is it so surprising that actual physical evidence of the presence of a spiritual plane may prove difficult, especially if you are not allowing it to be ‘inferred’ in any way.

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  13. Corky,

    No, I don't believe you can honestly say that you only get silence. But, some of us do offer evidence that is real enough to us, but does not pass the criteria by which you evaluate your incoming information. I liken this to having an analog television receiver, and not realizing that your neighbor who has a big screen digital set can choose from 3 or 4 channel 5's, or for that manner 3 or 4 of any channel. Agnostics and Atheists (like I used to be), are simply not able to receive the spiritual channels.

    I had an interesting conversation over the weekend with one of my long term friends. He mentioned that at one time, he knew that he had the Holy Spirit. This was something very different for him as compared to his previous lifetime up until that point, and the time thereafter. He told me that he knew that it had gone away, he missed it, and really wanted it back. I reminded him about the parable of the prodigal son and how God always welcomes us any time any of us turn around our lives and come back to Him. I've got to tell you, I just couldn't hold him back from then on. He was absolutely determined to go to church, and to restart his relationship with God. We ended up getting on the internet and finding a good Bible based one. It was just awesome observing his enthusiasm from that point on, as I watched him process it all. It was also emotionally draining for me because I was so happy for him. Now we'll get to continue our friendship on the other side, too. Hope you don't mind my sharing that here on your blog. It was definitely a high point for me!

    BB

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  14. Corky,

    Have you ever considered that "conscience" is evidence of God? We all have it, whether we are believers or non-believers. Evolution provides no imperatives for it. To my knowledge, humans are unique in the animal kingdom, partly because we do have conscience.

    BB

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  15. Jon,
    Of course you have to have life existing already in order to have life evolving (changing).

    Evolution has nothing to do with the origin of life. Evolution is about the "origin of the species" of the life we see today - which is different than it was millions of years ago.

    That lifeforms on the planet have changed over time is evident in the fossil record. What caused these changes is what the theory of evolution explains.

    To go beyond life already existing life to the origin of life you have to go to a different science, "Abiogenesis".

    Scientists involved in abiogenesis do claim that the science is proved. A biochemist named Michael Behe claims it is not proved but Behe's theory was falsified so there you are...

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  16. Q,

    When it comes to evolution or any other science, our "feelings" about it mean nothing. If we don't like the imagined "meaning" of it, that doesn't count either.

    Many a person has dropped out of physics class after the formulas lost any meaning to them. That didn't make the formulas wrong.

    The way I look at it is that science flys us to the moon and Mars but religion flys us into tall buildings.

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  17. Jon,
    You don't have to agree with me to post here and I'm not the only one who reads your posts.

    As strange as it sounds, I don't have a religion, evolution is not a religion.

    Back when I was a religious Armstrongite and later a Christadelphian, the words "going to heaven" sounded really weird and silly to me. Now that I'm completely away from religion, even the word "God" takes on that same sound.

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  18. You sound bitter. Not all "theists" believe all the things on your list, just like not all "theists" wear magic underwear and are promised to enter the third level of heaven...dude, get a grip.

    Of course believers and non-belivers deserve the basic fundamental dignity and value due to being fellow citizens of this earth; however, respect is earned. It's about personal decisions that affect your character- not what doctrine/dogma/holy book is believed. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions and beliefs because everyone experiences their world differently.

    Your myopic bigotry is doing nothing to earn respect. Rather, it's making me laugh at your seeming never-ending rants. Besides, your replies to these comments are more self-righteous than those with whom you're still spiritually shadowboxing.

    I pray you will one day have the calm that comes with knowing that not all people have to believe the same, or experience their lives the same to be deemed worthy of peace and love. I also hope that you understand that bigotry comes in many forms...

    Hugs and blessings (from wherever you experience them).

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  19. The Duke Family said...
    You sound bitter.

    Omigawd! Surely not! It's people like you that makes me just love Christshuns. So, shun me - please.

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