Chris says:
The fact that someone believes strongly in something is a reason for us to disrespect their belief and to discount it as the product of a fevered, fanatical and irrational mind.
Allowing myself some pedantry, I would say in response that I don't think this is well expressed. I take it Chris means to disparage the holding and expression of beliefs in exorbitant, unreasoned, overly dogmatic ways. But in that case what should not be respected is the manner in which the belief is adopted and propounded; which isn't the same thing as disrespecting the belief itself. Here what matters is the content of the belief in question. All kinds of beliefs that one may judge provisionally (on the basis of the evidence and argument available) to be sound can be held in unreasonable ('fevered' or 'fanatical') ways. I'm not going to disrespect atheism just because there are fanatical atheists. And the point can be generalized to other beliefs
