Who would Jesus have voted for in the presidential elections?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It's pretty silly to speculate how someone who lived almost two thousand years before modern democracy would vote.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

But whether or not what you say is true, his original assertion (Jesus was immoral) is unaffected.  It's not as if he's forced to be pragmatic here; he can't alter world history, so what pragmatic negative is "bad-mouthing Jesus" going to have?  None.  So he might as well say what he believes.

Though he should be aware that a lack of respect for the founding of a belief system* of any sort (religious, political, all the same in this regard) is the same as having no respect for the beliefs of its believers (except in a highly vacuous sense; "I respect your right to believe that" and so on). And if someone has no respect for the beliefs of someone else, why should the second person have any respect for the beliefs of the first?

*As something seperate from any institutions that might go with it. That's actually quite important.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I disagree, actually, although that depends on the sense.

If you do not have at least some respect for the founding of a particular belief, then how can you have any respect for the belief? And if you don't have any respect for the belief, how can you have any respect for the believer, beyond mindless platitudes? And if you don't have any respect for the believer, why should you expect them to have any respect for your beliefs?

And this matters because it raises other questions; the motives of a secularist who has no respect for the religious should be questioned just as much as the motives of a political-christian with no respect for the non-religious. But if there is respect (in either case) then there is no real reason to worry.

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Proportionality has nothing to do with it.

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There is obviously a difference between not having a belief and not respecting the same belief. I've a lot of respect for, by way of example, Islam, but I'm certainly not a Muslim.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I don't think it's inherently disrespectful or offensive to suggest that the founder of a religion was immoral.

Don't be disingenuous. How could it not be?

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But not by Muslims or people with respect for Islam.

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That may be true. But it's also irrelevant as far as this is concerned.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I don't find "I respect you even though I find what you're saying absurd, and maybe dangerous" to be a "platitude."

What is "despite thinking that what you believe in is both stupid and dangerous, I respect you anyway" if it's not a platitude?

Anyway, you've not responded to my main point (or at least the point I was trying to make) here.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

An essential part of functioning in human society, as far as I'm concerned.

You could argue that, yes. And I would actually agree, though only to a very limited extent.

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Basically: lack of respect (no, actually more like active disrespect) towards the founding of a belief system = lack of respect for the believers of that religion, ideology or etc. Two points follow on from this, the first is that if person a actively disrespects the beliefs of person b, then person a has no right to expect person b to respect his beliefs. The second is this:

And this matters because it raises other questions; the motives of a secularist who has no respect for the religious should be questioned just as much as the motives of a political-christian with no respect for the non-religious. But if there is respect (in either case) then there is no real reason to worry.