Respecting religious beliefs

I've written before about feeling uneasy about the idea of having 'respect' for other people's religious beliefs. Respect for religion seems to mean that religion is beyond criticism. All our other beliefs and opinions are considered fair game for argument, but religious beliefs have special status in our society.

If someone expresses an opinion about taxation, social welfare, relationships or solving traffic problems, it is normal to expect them to explain why they hold this opinion. We are all generally expected to have good reasons for things that we believe and things that we do (and the things that we believe usually motivate/influence the things that we do).

For instance, the war in Iraq isn't ipso facto a bad thing. We expect people to have damn good reasons for doing things like invading other countries, but if they do have those good reasons, many people will support it. If the invasion was motivated by solid evidence of a nuclear weapons program and those weapons were found and taken out of commission, many people would consider that to be a great result. If it was motivated by solid evidence of a nuclear weapons program that was later found not to exist, then that wouldn't be considered such a good result, since the question should rightly be asked why the evidence wasn't sound. However, if it was motivated by flimsy inaccurate evidence (or worse, no evidence at all) then people would be understandably upset. In our society, it's just not acceptable to do things like that without good reason.

The same thing that applies to countries and Presidents also applies to all of us in our everyday lives. We expect that the people around us have good reason for behaving the way they do and for believing the things they do. When people don't, we consider them abnormal and possibly even mentally ill.

Imagine that a mother tells you that she believes her month-old baby son should eat nothing but pureed strawberries for the first two years of his life in order to grow up healthy and strong. You would probably be appalled at such stupidity, and would most certainly argue with her that it isn't healthy. If she couldn't be persuaded by arguments about nutrition and the studies showing the need for protein, fat, calcium and other vitamins in the diet, you would probably start becoming a bit concerned for the child's wellbeing. If she explained to you that the reason she firmly holds this belief is because her neighbour's 6-year-old told her so, then you might be inclined to start looking up the number for CYFS and hoping she gets some psychiatric treatment.

Not only are we all expected to have reasons for our beliefs and opinions, we are expected to have _good _reasons. It is perfectly socially acceptable to ask someone why they think what they do. We also think nothing of debating ideas with other people, offering our thoughts and our reasons for them. Both sides use evidence to back up their arguments, although in most social situations nobody has enough evidence at their disposal to settle the issue one way or the other.

But religion is somehow off limits. It is not socially acceptable to ask someone for evidence of the truth of their religious beliefs. Religious beliefs have to be protected from inquiry, shielded from critique. It's considered 'disrespectful' to point out to someone that you think their religion is just an ancient myth and to give them the reasons why you think so.

I do firmly believe in freedom of speech and freedom of thought. People have the right to believe whatever they want. However, part of being a member of human society is that we are expected to have good reasons for the beliefs we hold and the actions we take. Religion is the only area of life that gets a free pass. Why?

Surely, if it could withstand criticism, argument and evidence, we would treat religion the same as any other area on which there can be different opinions? Are we required to 'respect' religion because the set of ideas can't survive on their own merits?