OK, I am trying to figure out here exactly where I stand with respect to the word "respect" regarding people, their specific beliefs, their 'right' to have specfic beliefs, etc. And I can use your help.

I would like to know how you designate respect toward people (although you can include, other animals, the unborn, saints, objects, etc. if you want).

For example, on first thought, I would say that I respect all people including murderers because they are people who were forced to be here by birth. I do not respect many beliefs including a particular murderer's belief that it is OK to murder because this belief causes exceptional detriment to others and I consider detriment negative, with exceptional detriment being particularlynegative. Now here is the more tricky part, I do not believe in 'rights' outside of law, so when someone says they have the natural or inherent right to their beliefs, I do not agree, but I don't think they need a right to have and hold a belief, quite simply just the ability to do so. I also don't consider it my place to try to change their beliefs via manipulation or deceit, but I am in harmony with my ability to argue against their beliefs if the arguments appeal to reason as fairly as possible. So from this point of view I guess you could say I do not respect their natural or inherent 'right' to believe (because I don't believe in the existence of these things) but I do respect people enough to attempt to change their belief only through reasonable persuasion and not deceit or manipulation.

How does this sound to you? Do you understand what I am saying? How would you use the word "respect" in these contexts, and do you see a difference or a distinction between a person, their belief, and their 'right' to have said belief (i.e. the person who committed murder, the person's belief that the murder was OK, and the person's 'right' to believe that the murder was OK)?

Thanks.

I don't particularly believe in respect. I consider it to be on the same ropes as pride. Once you get in a groove of filtering one's work (whether someone elses for "respect" or your own for "pride") you can lose track of reality. Why not take each individual thing for its worth instead of developing bias?

I understand what you're saying. I don't think respect fits naturally with "respecting someone's beliefs".

Well then would it be fair to say that you don't respect anything?

Well, I suppose you could say I respect an individual work, but don't transfer any of that respect to the person that did it. Although I may give a higher priority to listen to that person, I consider their work as if it was from a nobody. That doesn't meet my definition of respect. I'm not even sure respect is the proper word for the individual work; it might be more like appreciation.

Its cool that you say that because I am very much the same in that my appreciation is for the work itself, and the creator is relatively (at least in a particular sense of experiencing the work) unimportant. That is the basis for my name "Anonymous". I like the idea that any meaning, wisdom, or contribution that I make is independent of my own personal recognition. I am medieval in that sense. I go by Bo in parenthesis so that anyone who wants to track the harmonic progression of my ideas can distinguish me from other anonymous sources, but my words need not ever be tied to my proper name, e.g. my first and last name that I go by in the 'real' world.

I respect peoples' beliefs in that I do not intend to force my own on them, even if they oppose mine, because for all I know they might be right and I might be wrong (and that happens to be the case a lot). I do not respect people's actions if they intentionally cause harm or displeasure to those around them or to themselves.

You don't have to answer my question but I am going to ask it.

What happens in a case where someone intentionally causes harm or displeasure to those around them or themselves because of what they believe. Do you ever then consider it appropriate to intevervene with their belief system or do you just kind of wash your hands of the whole thing?

To quote a completely banal line from a great book I read the other day, "In the end, there has to be judgment".

You can start throwing relativity, belief systems and varied points of view at this but, in the end, you give an answer because that's how humans work. In the end, there are always answers.

What I'm trying to say is if someone has a belief system which allows them to be bastards to other people, they are bastards themselves and I shall treat them accordingly.
In other words, I do not respect such a belief system.

In another other words, there are actions that are absurd no matter how you try to justify them.

@The Gnasher,

Why not respect that the person and the belief system (while functioning in unison) form the 'bastard' character of the individual in your example, but that it is possible that at least some people, these 'bastards' as you say, can abandon, modify, or transcend their belief system with help if one has the patience and understanding to treat them as something other than a bastard?

Why not treat them as people with unfortunate, inopportune, maybe even unacceptable beliefs, but not simply as 'bastards'. In other words, are you intentionally opposed to seeking to understand others? Don't you embrace the belief that in the end no one really wants to be a 'bastard'.

They're causing harm, and I don't respect that.

The way to treat a bastard is you do try to understand him, and if the circumstances allow it you may even try to change his belief systems. But if you don't consider the fact that right now he's a bastard then you are being a fool and you will, as we say around here, "break your face".

I'll say it again:

That means you can try to understand people, and you may even succeed in understanding why their belief system led them to do what they have done – but that doesn't allow them to justify their actions.

@Draygone (only if you are interested)

Well that is why I above followed up with the question wherein this situation where their behavior (based on their belief system) is actually doing harm, do you consider it appropriate, maybe even necessary for you to intervene with respect to attempt to changing their belief system or do you wash your hands and turn your back to the fact that they are causing harm because of their belief system and they will not stop until their belief system changes. The reason I'm asking you this is because you don't want to 'force' your belief system on anyone, although I am not sure what you mean by force (brainwash, logically persuade, manipulate, harass, insist, politely suggest?). At any rate some people who do have their beliefs sufficiently addressed/attacked (both respectfully and disrespectfully) may as a result stop doing the harm. Do you see what I am asking?

@The Gnasher (if you are interested)
Are ANY actions justified? How does one justify something? You seem to suggest that somehow there is no burden of proof on justification regarding socially acceptable behavior, yet there would need to be justification against socially unacceptable behavior. Are you suggesting this? I have more questions but I would need to hear your answer to these questions first, otherwise I might be wasting both our time with an excessive follow up.

Brainwash, manipulate, harass, those would be forcing and I would not do those. I'm willing to discuss and compare beliefs without trying to force someone to change theirs to mine. But if their belief harms others, I will logically persuade, insist, politely suggest.

....Well, maybe not politely, depending on how stubborn the person is and just how harmful his beliefs are.

@Draygone
Thanks for the reply. I appreciate your perspective. I dare say I respect it too.

Kind of. Replace "socially" with "common sense". It's that old saying. You do to others what you want people to do to you. If you don't want something done to you, don't do it to others – not because of a system of society or anything, but because that would be being a cretin.

I think respect is necessary to a healthy world.

I was never a big fan of this rule, especially because it only really applies in very specific scenarios. After all I always want people to challenge my beliefs and try to argue with me, but when I do it them (consistent with the rule), they have this kind of "common sense" retort of why are you questioning us so much, we don't want to talk about this stuff.

But if you do patron this rule (and this is my real point) and you are struggling mentally, emotionally, spiritually, don't you want people to try to strongly, patiently and empathetically understand you instead of write you off as a 'bastard' and leave you to your misery. If so, isn't it just a matter of "common sense" that you will treat other 'bastards' with the same strong, patient, and empathetic understanding?

Who said I don't?

My point is:
Someone has just stabbed you.
You can try to have strong, patient and empathetic understanding for the guy, but that still doesn't stop your bleeding.
And I'd advise you to stay away from the guy until you're certain that he's unarmed.

Respect people = yes
Respect stabbing = no
Being a fool = no

@The Gnasher

OK, you and I would agree that we should try to understand the man. We would also agree that we should be cautious against him stabbing us. Where we disagree is that you either need to or choose to think of him as a 'bastard' as a way to prepare against his stabbing, whereas I think of him not as a 'bastard' but as someone simply likely to stab. In other words, you don't need to project negative connotations onto an individual in order to be cautious or be prepared (in other words, to not be a fool) and in many ways this compromises the accuracy of your estimation of the individual both in actuality and in potential which can be negative to both you and the individual as well as society as a whole. Would you agree with this?

I say we think alike, only I use a word in a loose meaning and you don't.

When you say 'someone simply likely to stab', that is my definition of a 'bastard' in the situation. There aren't any more negative connotations associated because 'simply being likely to stab' is already negative enough to warrant what I would, personally, call a 'bastard'. =]

In the end, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who isn't, on some level, a bastard – it's exactly our ability to understand, and forgive, and choose that lets us live alongside other people, and love them.