What does this mean? It means that even if you disagree with someone you should respect them PURELY BECAUSE their belief is religious. How is that to be interpreted other than what I said?

If someone’s sincerely held religious beliefs have them wanting to burn witches, that should be respected, but garden-variety misogyny gets no such pass? Leviticus-inspired gay hatred is a fine and noble thing, but politically inspired homophobia is unacceptable?

What I am saying is that a person deserves respect or not depending on the quality of their beliefs.
What Curmudgeon is saying is that certain beliefs get a pass simply because they are “religious”.

Don’t pretend that we are talking here about fuzzy “I feel spiritual” emotions and “god gives me strength” claims.
The reason this matters is precisely the types of issues I listed — women’s rights, gay rights, the teaching of science. Heck you bring dominion theory into it and we’re up to global climate change and peak oil. Throw in other countries and we have the issue of whether god “gave” Israel (maximally defined) to the jews and whether madrases are a useful way to educate (male-only, of course) students.

Curmudgeon wrote that you don’t NEED to be religious to respect those who are. He didn’t write that you MUST respect those who are religious.

In fact, I think his suggestion was precisely on target (and precisely worded). Respect for religion is pretty widespread in the US, even if the number who actively practice their faith is low. At least some religions are very much in the economic mainstream culture.

Uhh, the problem, Curmudgeon, is that you engage in the very act you claim to condemn: you refuse to accept the worldview of other people.

You state that the very act of being religious is something deserving of respect, regardless of the content of those beliefs. Uuh, what?
The rest of us think this starting point — respect based purely on willingness to support a cause regardless of the nature and consequences of that cause —is nonsense.
Your starting point is no different from something like “You don’t have to support The Khmer Rouge to respect those who do” or “You don’t have to believe in a flat earth to respect those who do”.

And of course, at the end of the day, you don’t even believe what you claim. You want special pleading for your (“real”) religion, but not for all the other nonsense out there that claims to be religion. Respect for scientologists? Raelians? Moonies? Aum Shinrikyo? Burning heretics? Burning witches? Stoning adulterers? Killing gays?

The idea of the nobility of poverty is a straw man. The Sermon on the Mount does not assert that the poor are noble. Instead, it refers to those who are “poor in spirit” and calls them “blessed” as opposed to cursed, I suppose.

The rich, on the other hand, are certainly ignoble, according to the gospel: even if they obey all the Commandments scrupulously, they are still like camels trying to squeeze through the eye of a needle until they divest themselves of all of their possessions. Clearly the possessions are the impediment to fitting through the eye.