If you're one of those people who assert that we should all 'respect each other's beliefs', i have a question or two for your consideration...
Do you respect the practice of insinuating yourself and your fellow believers into a traveling caravan, and then... when the opportunity presents itself, murdering them and stealing their possessions?
Or, do you respect the practice of allowing the patriarch of a family to decide, based on whatever criteria he chooses, whether a newly born infant within the clan will be raised as part of the family, or left out in the wilderness to die?
Or, do you respect the practice of mutilating a young girl's genitalia to ensure that she won't be tempted by pleasures of the flesh?
How about the idea that if you rape a virgin, you can be cured of AIDS?
I suspect that most readers of this blog would be HORRIFIED by most - if not ALL - of these practices, much less 'respect them' in any meaningful use of the word 'respect', yet these are ALL canonical doctrines of one or another religious/cultural group throughout history, and the latter two are practiced even in the current day.
I do not grant ANY practice MY respect just because someone wraps it in religious justification. You may choose to do so for practices that are less obviously heinous, but for me the same principle that allows YOU to draw the line at one or more of these similarly allows ME to draw the line at practices YOU may find sacred but which *i* believe are no less barbaric than any of the above.
The next time you tell me that i MUST respect one or another aspect of YOUR beliefs, i will assume that means YOU respect every belief on earth: from worshipping Satan (who many of you see as 'the bad guy'), to believing that your 'God' needs blood sacrifices to be happy, to treating women, gays, heck... anybody but WASPy type males... as 2nd class citizens, and all the other specific practices i outlined above. Your 'respect' of these won't actually affect MY refusal to respect what i find not worthy of it, but at least YOU won't be a hypocrite for expecting me to do so.
For your consideration.
