Treating that as agreed upon, another possible way of looking at it which may or may not increase the range of application:
[types out; deletes; tries again]
For a given religious text, there is only one religion which views it as containing divine, holy words. All others treat it as containing falsehoods. For a Christian to ask a Hindu to treat a Christian text with the same accord as a Christian does would be ridiculous, as would it be for a Hindu to ask a Christian to treat a Hindu text with the same accord as a Hindu does.
To worship one imagined deity, and to treat another imagined deity with equal reverence, assuming that the first imagined deity is imagined to have commanded his followers to worship and revere only him and/or his pantheon, constitutes hypocrisy, internal contridiction.
(If the above is not true, why?)
Now, we take the example of an athiest, in these circumstances taken as someone who sees no reason to believe that any deities exist. He looks around and sees each group revering one text while refusing to revere others. He sees no reason to revere any.
It is reasonable for a person of a given religion to request that someone of the same religion follow certain precepts as a way to demonstrate reverence of which he may or may not be aware. To request that a person of a different religion follow certain precepts as a way to demonstrate reverence which is rendered impossible by his conflicting (mutually exclusive) reverence of his own religion is ridiculous.
And now, To request that a person who is no part of any religion and/or a generic person follow certain precepts as a way to demonstrate reverence which the person does not feel and views as unwarranted... where was I going with this? *tries to remember*
It if it unreasaonble to expect those of a different religion not to revere one's only items, it is unreasonable to expect those without a religion to revere one's holy items.
To request that a person act in such a way: why? Because one feels that people should act in such a way. Others disagree. To request that people act in such a way, even for an entire POPULATION to request that only one other person act in such a way, without any reason or desire to, is rude and unmannerly.
'If I'm not harming you, leave me in peace.'; 'Even if you behave in this way which I don't agree, though I tolerate it please don't try to get me to act in the same way';
Ah! And here, a parallel which I think may have been niggling at the back of my mind for some time now... the person who drinks alcohol and tries to get another person to also drink.
The 'Why? Why?': that I don't claim to understand, nor shall I speculate at this time. I suspect that even such people in question don't know, and while there could be many hypotheses, for a given person only one or a few would apply, and said hypotheses would be useless if no one except the hypothesiser could see how the hypotehses applied.
That's the heart of it... maybe others behave irrationally (in this case, the 'storing in an elevated location' the clearest behaviour which doesn't have any obvious advantage for the text's care), and certainly that can be tolerated as it is their choice to make, but to ask others who aren't part of their group and don't believe the things that cause them to do such things to do them anyway is unreasonable.
And to take things further: as a way of demonstrating this, one could easily spawn a number of religions, one for each object in an average person's house, and go around asking people 'If you own spagetti, please never store it in the north side of your house!' (as Pastafarianism first comes to mind), or 'Keep all forks downturned!'.
The number of people who feels such a way means nothing. Whether they're the majority or not means nothing. Immediate example that comes to mind, as supper's just been served: even if the majority feels that those of different skin colour are inferior, that is not justification for asking another to treat them differently.
no subject
Treating that as agreed upon, another possible way of looking at it which may or may not increase the range of application:
[types out; deletes; tries again]
For a given religious text, there is only one religion which views it as containing divine, holy words. All others treat it as containing falsehoods. For a Christian to ask a Hindu to treat a Christian text with the same accord as a Christian does would be ridiculous, as would it be for a Hindu to ask a Christian to treat a Hindu text with the same accord as a Hindu does.
To worship one imagined deity, and to treat another imagined deity with equal reverence, assuming that the first imagined deity is imagined to have commanded his followers to worship and revere only him and/or his pantheon, constitutes hypocrisy, internal contridiction.
(If the above is not true, why?)
Now, we take the example of an athiest, in these circumstances taken as someone who sees no reason to believe that any deities exist. He looks around and sees each group revering one text while refusing to revere others. He sees no reason to revere any.
It is reasonable for a person of a given religion to request that someone of the same religion follow certain precepts as a way to demonstrate reverence of which he may or may not be aware. To request that a person of a different religion follow certain precepts as a way to demonstrate reverence which is rendered impossible by his conflicting (mutually exclusive) reverence of his own religion is ridiculous.
And now, To request that a person who is no part of any religion and/or a generic person follow certain precepts as a way to demonstrate reverence which the person does not feel and views as unwarranted... where was I going with this? *tries to remember*
It if it unreasaonble to expect those of a different religion not to revere one's only items, it is unreasonable to expect those without a religion to revere one's holy items.
To request that a person act in such a way: why? Because one feels that people should act in such a way. Others disagree. To request that people act in such a way, even for an entire POPULATION to request that only one other person act in such a way, without any reason or desire to, is rude and unmannerly.
'If I'm not harming you, leave me in peace.'; 'Even if you behave in this way which I don't agree, though I tolerate it please don't try to get me to act in the same way';
Ah! And here, a parallel which I think may have been niggling at the back of my mind for some time now... the person who drinks alcohol and tries to get another person to also drink.
The 'Why? Why?': that I don't claim to understand, nor shall I speculate at this time. I suspect that even such people in question don't know, and while there could be many hypotheses, for a given person only one or a few would apply, and said hypotheses would be useless if no one except the hypothesiser could see how the hypotehses applied.
That's the heart of it... maybe others behave irrationally (in this case, the 'storing in an elevated location' the clearest behaviour which doesn't have any obvious advantage for the text's care), and certainly that can be tolerated as it is their choice to make, but to ask others who aren't part of their group and don't believe the things that cause them to do such things to do them anyway is unreasonable.
And to take things further: as a way of demonstrating this, one could easily spawn a number of religions, one for each object in an average person's house, and go around asking people 'If you own spagetti, please never store it in the north side of your house!' (as Pastafarianism first comes to mind), or 'Keep all forks downturned!'.
The number of people who feels such a way means nothing. Whether they're the majority or not means nothing. Immediate example that comes to mind, as supper's just been served: even if the majority feels that those of different skin colour are inferior, that is not justification for asking another to treat them differently.
*dressed quickly to descend; posts*