I've met Christians who don't believe in dinosaurs because they think the world was created only 2020 years ago, which is absurd.
That probably has far less
(arguably nothing) to do with their beliefs and more to do with those people being
(to put it nicely) utterly friggin' stupid. If not for the blatant ignorance and dismissal of factual history and science with hard irrefutable evidence to support, then the blatant ignorance and lack of understanding for their own religious texts they claim to follow in which none of the ones I can think of even suggest the world is only 2,020 years old.
Pretty much its the same as those idiots that crawl out of the woodwork every January 1st to say "happy birthday! Wow, I can't believe America is 2,020 years old today!!!". The only difference is we're allowed to say they're stupid, but 'those' Christians apparently have religion as an excuse.
I don't respect people who have to be told to be nice by an ancient book. You have to think for yourself.
I wouldn't say I lose respect, more that I question the earnestness of their motives.
There's some religious people that somewhat regularly tend to follow things up with "we have to do this because .... religion" or "you must act this way because ... religion". Makes me wonder, if they weren't terrified of being punished via spontaneous lightning bolt or going to hell when they die, would these people be worse people? If they weren't religious with either fear or bribes given as incentives to do nice things, would they be instead be awful people? Why do they have to feel they do good things because of an omniscient being punishing them rather than because it would just be decent thing to do?
Religious people probably wouldn't suddenly start raping and pillaging if they suddenly found out there was no god, they likely just say "because the big guy upstairs will be mad if I don't" just to reinforce their already existing moral choice, but I much more trust an atheist who is nice because "it's just the right thing to do" with no other grand motive more than I trust the old lady basically telling us "I didn't want to do it, but I wouldn't go to heaven if I didn't".
I think all religious texts have their own variation of moral guidance. I don't see why they feel moral choices are a religiously motivated thing though when pretty much all religious text
(and children's books) essentially boil down to "look, just don't be a dick, alright?", a slogan everybody should be able to get behind without fear and treats as an incentive.
