Don't Respect My Religion (or Lackthereof)

The Purdue newspaper published an article today titled "If religions are fated to clash, let's clash with respect". I hold the position that you only respect things that deserve respect. The religions she lists that we should respect are "Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Wicca, Taoism, Pastafarianism". How about those with no religion? We don't have to respect those people? Or did she sneak "Pastafarianism" in there to appease the Atheists?

The message I get from just the first paragraph is that it's better to worship something ridiculous (i.e. Flying Spaghetti Monsters, Jesus, etc.) than not to worship anything at all. Great, so I can worship a potted plant and get more respect from Kelly than if I live my life based on evidence.

She goes on to tell a story about how a Christian was appalled at how children in other countries are taken to worship Buddha. This same lady apparently doesn't see the parallels between those children worshiping Buddha and her children worshiping Jesus. At least those children don't ceremonially eat Buddha every week.

The article goes down hill from there. "I’m a Christian, but I do not look at other religions as wrong in any way." If she doesn't look at other religions as wrong in "any way" then why is she a Christian? You have to look at other people's belief as wrong in some way, sorry, that's how it works. Not to mention that your religion (Christianity) specifically mentions that everyone else is wrong in every way, and they are all going to hell. Kelly can look over small technicalities like this.

She goes on to scold the Christian that was bad mouthing the Buddhists. Why is religion automatically off limits for any sort of critical analysis?

"As long as the religion is not harming anyone, what difference does it make? I’m firmly against any religion that believes in, say, murdering for fun, but that was clearly not the case." She did say she was a Christian right? I hate to break the news to you, but the Christian God seems to kill, and tell other people to kill, quite a lot. Not to mention the bigotry and hate spread throughout the bible.

"When settlers came to the United States to try to acquire land, we all know they were not very nice to the Native Americans. In addition to their kind gifts of small pox blankets, the settlers forced many Native Americans to convert to some form of Christianity. Native American religions have been lost because of this. These religions were usually very spiritual and nature-oriented, and some featured female deities, which is rare in present culture." Some featured female deities?! Are we deciding what to believe based on our feminist leanings now? Right, that sounds like a fun God, so I'll believe that one. Who needs evidence when you have personal preference.

This version of "respect" seems to mean ignore your differences and move on with your life (there's something to be said for that). I'm going to give this one a try, I'm going to ignore Kelly's strange ideas and move on with my life.