Question In a conversation with a teacher today I expressed that I thought that teachings from the Bible and any other “facts” or “information” gained through reading it are false. My teacher responded to this by saying, “you do realise I am a Christian, don’t you?” I did, in fact, know that she is a Christian but I do not see why, just because she is a Christian, I have to pay such high respect to what she believes to be “truth”. I believe that the Bible is neither truth nor fact, yet she would not have to pay respect to my opinion. This has lead me to ask why we should have to give so much respect to someone’s views when they are based on religion. Why does religion demand such high respect when it is simply an opinion?

Accepted:
July 25, 2008

Comments

Opinions are only worth as much as the reasons they are based on. If the reasons are no good, the opinions don't deserve respect -- indeed, they deserve to be vigorously criticized. And that applies as much to religious opinions as any other kind of opinion.

Some Christians have a thought out position sustaining an admirable ethical way of life; other Christians have frankly batty superstitious reasons for holding a toxic mix of deeply unpleasant views that are a disgrace to humanity. (Similar things, of course, can be said about non-Christians!) Whether your teacher's religious views deserve any respect rather depends on which camp she is in. And, indeed, as you remark, just because a set of opinions are supposed to be "religious" gives those views no special claim on our respect at all ("that's my religious belief" is not an argument -- it just deserves the riposte "so what?").

For a terrific essay related to these matters, freely downloadable, read my colleague Simon Blackburn's 'Religion and Respect'. That essay is published in a recent fine collection of essays edited by Louise Antony (a panelist here!), called Philosophers without Gods which anyone interested in matters of religion should read. Or at least, that's my opinion ...