We can damn well respect other people, if they are honest and kind. (Note that this is about respect, not deference, which is a different thing.) I respect a person’s human process, although it may be rooted in a belief I don’t pretend to share. Many people express their human core in religious terms. If one were to say to these people, nayh nayh doesn’t exist, they would be likely to misunderstand, to think that we do not share their deepest human experience. They may conclude that we have god\u2010sized holes in our hearts. I would say, perhaps, that I hear you; I do not believe; this is how I experience the thing. When a belief causes harm, I would say, I do not like the harm that this belief causes. One can respect human culture, tradition, and experience.
\nReligion, belief, spiritual experience, etc. are human experience and can be respected as such, without any pretense of belief.
\nLeave aside the question, does any sort of ?god exist. God, in human experience, is EXPERIENCE, a range of human experience that we may perhaps share, although we probably call it something else. God\u2010the\u2010experience exists. People do have experience that they identify as god. We can respect human experience. Religion, belief are part of human culture. I hope we can respect human culture when it is honest and kind.
\nIt is not written in the fabric of the universe that the hominids of Sol 3 must never be mistaken. It would be nice if we could be kind.<\/p>\n
From Molten Wood and Feral Ideas\u00a0 chasens.ca\/book<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We can damn well respect other people, if they are honest and kind. (Note that this is about respect, not deference, which is a different thing.) I respect a person’s human process, although it may be rooted in a belief I don’t pretend to share. Many people express their human core in religious terms. If … Continue reading “Disbelievers,”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chasens.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chasens.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chasens.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chasens.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chasens.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/chasens.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":101,"href":"http:\/\/chasens.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100\/revisions\/101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chasens.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chasens.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chasens.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}