Respect: Atheist Style

1001 Atheist Reasons To Respect Disrespect:

Respect for Religion

"Respect” is Religion’s Cover to do what it Wants

How many times have you been in an argument with a theist, either in person or via the Internet, and they’ve at some point spoken the magic words...

“If you’re an atheist that’s fine, but you should respect my beliefs.”

Argh! A nightmare situation! Political correctness is pulling us away; something tells us that for some reason, we have to respect their beliefs. It’s like kryptonite to us; it is their magic umbrella that they whip out the second a little drop of logic wets their heads. Through those words, they can strut about like a triumphant peacock, safe under their respect umbrella, knowing that polite social convention prohibits us from taking further action. Well I am here to pour acid rain on that umbrella, because I don’t think we do have to respect people’s beliefs, and the beauty of this is that most theists agree with me. They just don’t know they do.

Case in point: the Westboro Baptist Church, the largest collection of nutters that Kansas has to offer, is run by possibly the most hated family in the world. At what point do people, Christian or otherwise, stand up and say,

“Yes they think all soldiers are burning in hell, as is Ghandi. Yes they think homosexuals consume faeces, yes they honestly believe that Barack Obama is literally the antichrist but...You have to respect their beliefs.”

No one says that or thinks that! No, we all treat the WBC how they deserve to be treated, and that is with ridicule. However, I will say this about the Westboro Baptist Church, they actually follow the scriptures; they’ve read them, understood them and follow them as much as the law will allow. They are the least hypocritical Christians out there, which goes to show that you’d have to be bananas to actually follow the scriptures.
Do All Cults Deserve Respect?

Nazism is another example; it wasn’t just a political movement, it was an ideology. It could be described as quasi-religious, a belief that the Aryan race was the perfect race and social groups such as homosexuals, Jews, Blacks, Slavs were inferior and needed exterminating. It’s funny, I can’t quite recall Winston Churchill giving a speech on respecting Nazism. As far as I know, almost the entire world was highly critical of Nazism. It just didn’t float our boat. We just weren’t keen on it. I’m sure poor Adolf was heartbroken the second we started persecuting his beliefs. What about the Aztec religion? Should we respect that? What if a load of people suddenly converted to Aztec belief and started sacrificing people to appease the Sun God? Should we respect that? Their religion does say they are allowed to take the beating heart out of someone before killing them by decapitation if the Sun is angry. Who are we to say that is not okay? Is it too much? Who gets to say what acceptable behaviour is?
Don't let Them Guilt You into Leaving them Alone

The reason I bring this up is because religious leaders are hiding behind this invisible shield of undeserved respect whilst enforcing laws that prohibit the movements of non-believers. The situation in Russia is a fine example of this; Putin has managed to take away the rights of LGBT citizens on grounds of religion, and his blasphemy laws restrict any backlash. Islam is carrying out horrendous tortures of women and children on a daily basis under religion’s protective wing. Christians are marching on abortion, trying and successfully managing to make it illegal in places, and falling back on “respect my beliefs” when challenged on it—which only results in desperate women doing desperate things. What makes the Holy Trinity immune to criticism? Why can we challenge Nazism, bizarre cults like Scientology and the WBC, but not Islam? Why is Islam free to do what it wants? Why can’t we point out the flaws in Christianity? In each book of the Holy Trinity there are blatant passages of hate, untruths, and complete bullshit, but for some reason we are to respect that. Both major religions are very clear how they feel about homosexuals yet for some reason I have to respect that? No I don’t respect that...I don’t respect a book that says,

“If a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them. (Leviticus 20:13)”

And this little gem from the Qur’ran:

“Slay them wherever ye find them, and drive them out of the places whence they drove you out... If they attack you (there) then slay them. Such is the reward of disbelievers.--2:191”

I don’t have to respect books that promote this. Is there good stuff in the Bible and the Qur’ran? Sure, but there was good stuff in Nazism too. For example, Hitler was very kind to animals. Nazis made the first highway. I liked Nazi attitudes towards the working man, too. But that doesn’t mean I have to respect Nazism, and it doesn’t mean I have to respect the Holy Trinity. A line must be drawn so that religions cannot back people into a corner, hiding safely and offensively behind their phalanx of respect. Too easily and too widely is that formation arranged.
Respect Humanity not Theocracy

We weren’t respecting religion when DOMA was broken as made clear by the Republican response nor were we respecting religion when we stopped burning witches and if we are going to continue to break down the restrictive walls religion has built, we need to do a lot more disrespecting. I am NOT saying we should get out our torches and set fire to churches while chanting “atheism rules!” We need to handle this calmly, rationally and politely. Education and debate; those are the atheist weapons, and it is only with those weapons can we make people see the folly of religion. We need to

let the religious in power know they do not have the right to lord their religion over us.

If they want to go without sex, alcohol or gambling, that is their choice—but don’t make it so other people have to do the same.

Because

there is nothing quite like drunken fornication on a poker table..."

Actually, I agree with a good part of this: the parts concerned with freedom to choose (but not the rants about how abused Atheists are - they are not abused except in their fevered minds). But these days the "restrictive walls" this Atheist so fears and loathes are not built by anyone but Atheists in their Leftist personas. These days no one dares distress an Atheist/Leftist, who might faint at the microaggression of being in the presence of someone who is different - say an actual cis-white person who obviously has "cis-white privilege" regardless of actual economic or social birth status. Or gender privilege if one has not yet changed one's gender-clothes back and forth, and yet still goes into the opposite cis-lavatory. The resulting Leftist/Atheist bruhaha can lead to loss of jobs and lawsuits for those who object or even dissent.

But yes, it has been religion which, in now dimming memory has not accepted abnormal behaviors as normal. Now the abnormal is protected and the normal is "privileged" and shouted off the stage. And why not? There is no Atheist moral code, no unifying principles for acceptable behavior, much less principles for logic. Thus there is no "immoral code" either, and no Atheist standards for the maintenance of order in a civilization. And that is the actual objective of the iconoclasts, the standards destroyers, the removers of all restrictions which hamper their movement: destroy all barriers to their behaviors which they hate in civilization. With no one's behaviors judgeable or judged, all behaviors are EQUAL and not to be restricted -- and equally likely to be beyond libertine, and well into anarchy.

But total immunity is not the intent of the Atheist/Leftist either. It is only his own behaviors which are immune, and we learn that from this Atheist article above. Only those who actually subscribe to libertine anarchy are to be allowed immunity from judgment of their behaviors. Anyone who prescribes, or tries to prescribe limitation on behaviors (whoa, that would be morals: choke, gasp, swallow vomit in mouth) will be attacked, and by that he's not recommending torches this time around, just non-torch attacks (I think; maybe it's just British flashlights he means). And that, on his part, is ill-advised because no Atheist/Leftist can win a war of reasoning with an educated... um... non-Atheist.

Atheism is based in the anti-logic and hate rhetoric which infests this author. For him to claim that "education and debate" are their weapons is ludicrous. The Atheist can provide neither reasons (logical arguments based in first principles and Aristotelian deduction) nor empirical experimental, replicable, falisfiable data (real material science) which provides even a shred of evidence for Atheism. And further, the necessary support philosophy, Materialism, is demonstrably false due to its rather obvious and simplistic internal contradictions. So the poor Atheist might rant, but has no chance in a rational, logical head-butt.

Well this has been fun, watching yet another Atheist cherry pick verses and cults in order to produce a Literalist Atheist faux-analysis by which to denigrate and depreciate those who would "put restrictions which hamper the movements" of his poor, self-pitying, restricted self. It's just not clear which movements of his that it is which are hampered. Certainly not slobbering sex on a pool table.

In today's western society the main thrust in hampering is provied by AtheoLeftists who, for example, can't stand the presence of conservative arguments on their campus, so they get that microaggression stopped before it can even happen; who become ill at the sight of crosses and demand their removal for their health (gastric problems, ideologically triggered); and if anyone prays outside the confines of their own basements, the FFRF lawsuits fly in order to stop that atrocity. The concept of personal hampering is, well, relativistic, when it is asserted by an Atheist.

Still, there remain some areas of hampering, like group marriage, animal rights marriage - human/goat for example, lowering the age of marriage to 9 years old in order to accommodate those lovers who "were born that way" and are still without their New Rights, and the acceptance in the military of Trans-roaches or whatever abnormality is next. So yes, some "movement" is still "hampered", I suppose. But not much.

It appears to me -- no, it is obvious to me -- that what the author really can't stand is the actual existence of any remaining Christian (with Muslim thrown in too, because: equality). Because there might leak out of such a creature awful concepts of anachronistic (dead white man) civilization and its necessary need for restrictions on destructive behaviors, hated restrictions at least to some extent above and beyond total libertinism and behavioral anarchy (the Atheist default VOID). And that would ruin the Atheist's fragile digestion.

One last observation. I loved the author's vision of "desperate women" being deprived of shredding their progeny. Desperate women. There must have been 57,000,000 desperate women since Roe v Wade. What a mental image. And if you lay 57,000,000 dead fetuses end to end, they would reach roughly no Atheist conscience. Interesting.

H.T. to Richard Jefferies for the link.

Thoughts About Respect, Part II

There is another dichotomous pairing of incompatible concepts of respect which is in play in today’s culture war: the logical tension between self-respect and acquired respect.

First, self-respect is based in acknowledging that one has met one’s own standards on the one hand, and on the other self-respect can be based on what one is told one’s value is (conferred self-respect). The first is healthy; the second, conferred self-respect, is not.

Conferred self-respect can be too high or too low, and both are against reality and thus are abuses:

Obviously, abuse of the child can confer an artificially depressed self-respect which does not reflect the capabilities of the child.

The flip side is that educators today are inclined to artificially boost all children’s self-respect, and to inflate it to the point of saturation. This is done on the presupposition that children come from disadvantaged environments where developing healthy self-respect is difficult. But artificially inflated self-respect is not healthy either, and it leads to a narcissistic-like attitude if the artificial self-respect does not match actual accomplishments or developed capabilities.

The dichotomy comes into play when adults, groups of adults or classes of adults, demand that their acquired respect, which is naturally derived by other people's observations of the reality of the actions and character of those involved, be matched to their inflated, saturated concept of self-respect which they have for themselves. This attempts to force the rational observation into equality with the irrational self-concept. Because they are demonstrably not equal, the demand is irrational.

So it cannot work that way. The act of making such a demand will affect the amount of respect which these people will receive by reducing the acquired respect, not increasing it to the inflated level which is demanded.

Because this should be obvious but apparently is not, the demand must be countered with the rational concepts:

1. Acquired respect cannot be demanded into existence.

2. Demanding acquired respect is irrational.

3. Demanding acquired respect cannot occur in actual reality, regardless of force.

4. Demanding acquired respect will result in a decrease in acquired respect, not an increase.

An example from recent political news is the attack on Martin O’Malley, for saying “all lives matter” to a group of black racist activists. They demanded that O’Malley change his statement to only “black lives matter”, implying that respect for blacks is demanded at a level which is higher than any respect which is to be afforded to non-blacks. O’Malley caved to the demand, and at least pretended to give inflated respect to “black lives” over all other lives, which, for a white man, is absurd, and for an American of any race or class is the equivalent of denial of universal human rights and constitutional equal rights.

In a class-oriented philosophy, inflated self-respect is innate to the elite class (Messiahs), who self-endow with delusions of superior intellectual and moral characteristics. This irrational inflation of self-respect (and delusions of superiority) beyond any conceivable reality cannot ever be equal to voluntarily conferred, rationally acquired respect. So that demand will always be met with failure and conflict.

Perhaps it is designed to do so.

Thoughts With Respect to Respect.

There are two, at a minimum, diametrically opposed concepts regarding the nature and requirements for affording respect.

The first concept makes a claim on every human to afford respect to every other human, based on the equal yet special value of each human. This means that there is a human "Right" to respect.

The second concept claims that respect is not a human "Right", that it must be gained, like trust, through an observable, consistent production of responsible behaviors.

Because these concepts are not just incompatible - they are mutually contradictory - then there are the following possibilities: (a) one of them is false; (b) both of them are false; (c) one or both concepts are incompletely stated,so that the contradiction does not actually occur when the concepts are complete.

Before deciding how to approach this issue, it should be noted that the concepts, as stated, are currently used in ideological arguments and culture war scenarios. If the concepts are wrong or incomplete, then their usage is bound to lead to false conclusions. I believe that to be the case, because...

Both concepts are acceptable under modifying conditional statements, and so are not contradictory. But the complete statements must attach.

First, the idea that respect is a human Right derives from the western Judeo-Christian concept that all humans are equal in the eyes of the Judeo-Christian creating entity, i.e. God, and further, that all humans reflect the image of their creator. This concept leads to the concept of natural human Rights, such as the Right To Life, Right To Liberty, Right to Pursue Happiness, which are all artifacts of having respect for individual humans. None of these rights interferes with or imposes upon the rights of other humans. Further it is the anti-classist concept, wherein there is merely one class: humans. And finally, this type of Right To Respect is independent of the behaviors of any individual, or the characteristics or behaviors of any subclass of humans.

Respect is commanded for all humans, and exists at a certain nominal level in our constitutionally driven and protected society, for all humans regardless of class, character or behaviors.

Second, the idea that respect is not a Right, but must be gained through the consistent display of responsible behavior derives also from Judeo-Christian influence in western society. But this concept operates at a different level than the previous concept. This concept operates on a plane where the original human-class Right to Respect is a given, and yet there are individual behaviors now in play. On this plane it is possible, and in fact necessary, to determine whether an individual's behaviors command respect (mass murderer, for example). Also at this level it is possible to determine whether entire classes of individuals command respect (NAZIs; Stalinists, etc). It is perfectly acceptable at this level to apply observations of behaviors to the decision of whether a person or class deserves respect - above and beyond the prior classless fundamental human rights.

And it is even necessary at times for the lack of respect for certain individual's behaviors to wind up in a revocation of the underlying human Rights. For most individuals and classes/groups, there is no conflict between the two concepts, so long as the modifying caveats are included in their definitions.

This complete definition and understanding needs to be brought into the culture war, because it demonstrates the propensity to make false conclusions when using incomplete or even false terminology.

It is not rational to demand respect beyond the fundamental, constitutional natural Human Rights; behaviors do matter and must be considered.