"No, respect has to be earned, not handed out like food rations." - I agree with this.

Here is how I look at it - If someone comes up to me and says they believe in and worship Odin or Zeus, I give it the exact same weight (maybe more even) as someone professing to believe in the xtian god.

Respect is present, then maintained or lost. Trust is earned. Treating people with dignity - which may be what was called respect in your conversation - should be automatic. I suspect that you and your friend may have been thinking of different definitions/applications of the term respect.

Edit: I have to add that I chuckled over the ambiguous use of "religious" here (once again). Since a common definition of "religious" is "having to do with a predictable, ritual response to a given stimulus", saying "I agree with respecting other beliefs, but not if they are stupid beliefs" could be read as a religious statement. To follow that with "a 'stupid belief' (is) most religious beliefs" is hilariously twisted.

I used to believe that peoples believes deserved respect, no qs asked
but if i were to say 'I believe organized religion is harmful to our society and is a mean to control the masses' would i receive the same unquestioned respect from a someone who was hardcore religious?

If individual people are willing to talk to me about their believes and listen to mine with respect, then that's what they earn, if not then know
so i do it person by person, looking at it from a micro perspective that a macro

i think there's a difference between respecting a person's right to hold their beliefs, and respecting the beliefs themselves. the first i do think should be automatic, but the second is up to each individual. i certainly have no respect for racist beliefs, so why should i be forced to have respect for religious beliefs i disagree with, simply because it's a religious belief and not a social one?

yet another example of the social taboo that exists in our society when it comes to questioning religious beliefs.

Yeah, I do think we had different definitions, harold.

I see the point of not respecting illogical or harmful beliefs (such as racism or anncoulterism) but my problem with her is that she completely dismisses any type of religious argument for anything. I don't think that's very fair, or sensible, as if people completely dismissed her opinions, she would be angry. (At this point, because I know her so well, she would probably contest that it was because she had logically thought about her beliefs and they haven't).

I don't believe that you need to earn respect. Respect - or allowing each person no matter their opinions or background to be treated with dignity - *should* be handed out. People need to be respected by each other (I think that this is one of society's big problems).

Another is something that you just brought up, Cinders. Many people, when upon hearing opinions they disagree with, assume that those who hold them haven't thought them through. This is a sort of "backthought", as I doubt people realize when they do so, but it can lead them to not respecting their opinion because, in the back of their mind, they don't feel that people have thought it through and made and created a valid opinion.

This can go both ways, especially with religion. Many religious people assume that non-religious people just haven't yet seen the "light of God(s)", so they are just in some sort of perpetual phase of doubt. Personally, I know how difficult it is when you are raised with a religion then you must decide how you truly feel. My atheist friend and I went through this around the same time. We studied the Bible (as we were, at the time, both Christian), our scientific opinions, did some soul-searching, and tried to get our questions answered. Here is where we separated. I found that my questions were answered within some of the Bible and I became what I consider myself to be now, a rather devout Catholic. My friend did not find answers and I saw how difficult it was (and still is) to try and get her parents and friends to accept that she had come to a different opinion.
While both of us have informed, studied, valid beliefs, they are completely opposite. I totally respect her opinion, as she does mine.

This can often go another way as well. Sometimes non-religious people believe that all those who are religious do is repeat what they have been "spoon-fed" their entire lives. I won't try to say that this is never true ;)
But, I have many religious friends (Christian, Jewish, and Muslim) who came to a point of doubt in their teenage years and felt the need to expand their knowledge about the world and their beliefs, so they could truly know what they were praying. They came to rational, informed decisions.

To end this: You do not need to accept the beliefs/opinions yourself to respect them as valid and others' rights to have them.

Another side note - anncoulterism. LOL! (Hopefully, Cinders, you meant that to be funny, because that's how I took it ;)

Kateliness, when you say you should give people respect straight off, why?
why shouldn't people have to earn it? if you don't have respect for someone it doesn't necessarily mean you disrespect them, it just means you neutral until they do or say something to tip the scale

Perhaps we have different definitions of respect - I was thinking that when you meet someone, you should treat them with dignity, no matter what - that's my personal definition.

As for why, I feel that before you truly know a person and have walked a mile in their shoes, you shouldn't judge. And I feel that when you don't respect someone (don't treat them with human dignity), you have judged them.

And I do have to disagree with you on the neutrality thing. When it comes to respecting opinions, I feel that you can either respect their opinions or not. I'm not seeing a neutral ground here. If you could please explain, I'd be grateful :)

dignity, i think of different to respect, please don't think that i'm really weird around new people lol I am (i think) a fairly friendly person but as far as being neutral goes I'll try and use a example

say for example I meet a new person until you find out some information from them all you have to judge upon is appearance and personally i don't respect people for how they dress (except for my friend who has the guts to where a 9/11 truth t.shirt)
using that topic as a example if I were to ask a person that i didn't know their opinion on 9/11 and they said they don't believe any of the conspiracies or that any of it were the government's fault i wouldn't disrespect them for disagreeing with me but i wouldn't necessarily have respect for them even though i'm still going to treat them with dignity and not just ignore them but have the decency to take a interest and
ask why they thought that and they replied with a reasonable answer which actually had some thought in to it then they would earn a little bit of my respect. If they were to reply 'because they explained it on the news and stuff' then i would have to be disrespectful and laugh at them

hmmm I'm not explaining this very well, maybe the best analogy would be how do know if you like a book or not until you read it

you're still lumping respecting people and respecting their beliefs together, which i think is the problem. i can respect a person and not respect a particular belief they may hold, because they are not the same thing. a person is not defined by their individual beliefs, and vice versa.

Exactly what Bliss just said.

Are you talking to me or amazondebs or both of us?

I was trying to separate the two. I think you need to respect people as a whole, but you don't have to accept their beliefs/opinions to respect them as valid and others' rights to have them.

Anyways, I agree with you bliss, but maybe it wasn't so clear with all my relgious anecdotes squished in :)

respect must be earned but judging others is the along with faith the root of all that is bad. yes i think that all faith is stupid.

Normally I try not to get caught up in digressions from the topic, but whoa - that last statement was pretty broad! How do you define "faith" for the purposes of that statement? Does it include faith in elected officials?
Faith in scientific theory?
Faith in astrological phenomena?
Faith in ancestral spirits?
Faith in a particular justice system?
Faith in a bank maintaining your financial records accurately?
Faith in a web site's database remembering your account info?
Faith in reincarnation?
Faith in a parent to welcome you when you visit? Faith in a spouse or lover to respect you?
Faith in karma?
Faith in the predictability of sane discourse with your peers?
Faith in the normal functioning of your body (that your muscles will obey your nerve impulses)?
Faith in spirits embodying local geographic features?
Faith in magic?
Faith in being able to do anything you put your mind to doing?
Faith in the real estate market?
Faith in the significance of dreams?
Faith in a retirement fund?
Faith in your memory?
Faith in an afterlife?
Faith in psychoanalysis?
Faith in the clinicians that perform experiments for scientific studies, that they are accurately recording data with sufficient controls?
Faith in your senses?
Faith in the spending power of your currency - that tomorrow you will be able to buy approximately the same amount of goods or services with your money as you can today?
Faith that a freak accident won't randomly cause your death in the next five minutes?
Faith that your home will still be there each time you return?

Each of those (as well as many more) have plenty of cases that cast doubt on them as worthy of faith. But nevertheless, we - all humans, every one - live our lives by faith. By and large we all share the same faiths; there's just a few on which some differ. Being more specific would really help in the debate spot.

by faith i mean beliving in somthing that u cant prove/have little or no concrete evicence of