Why I don't respect your religion

Uhm, give me any good reason why I should?

I think that in current (not just cartoons-current but 21st-century-current) discourse people have started to confuse having respect for other people's right to practice a religion with actually having respect for other people's religions.

"Respect" means high regard or esteem. It means that you consider something or someone important and valuable. Is there any reason to consider other people's religions important or valuable?

I am an atheist. I don't see any particular difference between practicing a religion and adult people believing in Santa Claus. I am all for their right to believe in Santa Claus or any other supernatural being if they feel like it, but I don't see why I - or anyone who does not share it - should hold a belief like that in high regard. It's even harder to imagine why somebody who really believes in some kind of a deity would hold the beliefs of the people who believe in other deities incompatible with their own as worthy of respect.

I respect people's right to practice their religions, at least as long as it does not interfere with other people's rights. I can respect some particular social aspects some religions, for example the Christian idea of being generally nice to people, or the Jewish ban on proselytizing to infidels, or the Baha'i emphasis on education. I can respect some religious artifacts and buildings, and the skill of people who made them. I have a few friends who practice religions, and I don't disparage their religion to their face, because to do so would be disrespectful not only to the religion, but also to these people themselves. (I don't, however, hide my feelings about religion from them, as evidenced by writing this entry here - they know that not all their friends share their religious feelings, and they also know that sometimes their friends express their opinions.)

All of the above is, however, respect for people's rights, sensible social guidelines, the need to preserve historical artifacts, architects who build beautiful churches and good people who just happen to have what is, IMO, a strange hobby. I don't have any respect for the belief as such, or for things that religious people consider holy. And I don't take it well when somebody tries to demand such respect from me.

And, frankly, I don't understand how believers can respect other believers' beliefs, either. If you believe that Jesus is a god, and that those who do not believe in him as such go to hell at worst, and are very wrong at best, how exactly do you respect the belief of such people?

I suspect that the current talk about all of us respecting each others' beliefs does (or did) in fact come from religious communities, what with various religious leaders talking about respecting each other's religions, and now it has spilled over into the general culture. All those priests,rabbis and imams falling over themselves in showing respect for each other's religions so that you could show it, too.

Some of this is probably a genuine attempt at making peace in the world where relations between some religions are not very good. And yet some of it seems like religions' attempt to unite in the face of being more and more irrelevant in the modern world.

During the worst phase of the blasphemous cartoon protests there were a lot of Christian and Jewish religious figures saying things like we should have respect for Muslims' religion and shouldn't insult what is holy to them. Maybe some of them meant it as an attempt to make peace, but the cynic in me was laughing: "gee, religious figures demanding more respect for religion and trying to shut up those who say blasphemous things, how surprising".

By some strange coincidence all those Christian, Jewish and moderate Muslim religious figures that urge respect for the other religions never urge any respect for atheism. Or at least I have never seen them do so - not that I am watching them all the time. Here in Finland they are not quite as explicit about it as in the US, but over there the message is quite clear: atheists' lives are shallow, materialistic and without meaning, and by practicing our religion (or at least some religion, no matter that we think that they will go to hell) you will find meaning and become all spiritual and there will be hugs and puppies all around. Hee, makes me feel all respected...

The religious leaders can kiss my shallow, materialistic, meaningless ass. You don't get respect by telling other people what you consider holy and demanding that they consider it holy too. Actually, you generally don't get any respect for irrational beliefs in any way from people who do not share these beliefs. Try to deal with it.