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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The problem is pretty simple: there's no such thing as having a "respectful" disagreement about religion with a deeply religious person. Because they demand "respect" for every tenet of their faith. And respect seems to be synonymous with "assume it's correct."

They're incapable of hearing any deep critique of religious thinking without getting offended to the core. Case in point, when you ask the most basic and obvious question about religious belief, "Why privilege the Christian God over every other god that humans have worshipped throughout history? Why not Poseidon?" they completely ignore the implications of the question and immediately jump to outrage.

The outrage is pretty normal: When you frame it like that, religious belief--at least the literal, fundamentalist kind--is pretty ridiculous. Therefore you're disrespectful.[/quote]

[b]Your first sentence reflects a dislike and disrespect for those who are "deeply religious."[/b] If you typically begin your discussions and disagreements with this approach, I can certainly see why someone might not be able to engage in meaningful conversation with you. You're not really open to the discussion either. [/quote]

Not in the least. I have family members who are religious and whom I love and respect. The point is that those who have literalist religious beliefs are usually incapable of having a respectful, rational two-way dialogue about those beliefs. That's because they demand a special privilege for those beliefs that we don't expect or afford to any other type of belief. If you I say Orson Welles is the director who ever lived, and you counter that, no, it's actually Judd Aptow, I don't scream back at you that you're being insulting and disrespectful to my beliefs. If I claim the 1954 New York Giants were the greatest baseball team that ever took the field, and you tell me that's obviously not the case, I don't petulantly demand you concede I may be right. Or that there's no such thing as right or wrong, or whatever.

The problem is that for most religious folks, they hold their religious beliefs to be an unassailable truth. But unassailable truths are not something you should bring into honest, rational, adult debate if you don't want to be offended.

When atheists are offended, that offense is usually taken because of questions like "How will your children learn morals?" or "What stops you from murdering people?" Most religious posters on DCUM see nothing offensive whatsoever about such questions when asked of nonbelievers. [/quote]

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