You do not have a right only to follow God's opinion.
All world religions are defined as such by their doctrines and teachings about the supernatural. Even if a religion seems disinterested in the supernatural its belief that it has the way to ultimate truth is supernatural. Sometimes the magical is hidden and it is the actions of the religion which speak not the words. The notion of supernatural infallible knowledge is there at least tacitly.
When religious believers say their beliefs and opinions should not be challenged for they are sacred, it clearly proves they are are more concerned about getting offended than they are about anybody offending God. Or do they care about God at all? God is supposed to be a God of absolute truth so to use, "I have a right to my opinion" to silence the truth or possible truth is anti-God. They need to be told to get thicker skins.
We object to other people's views on loads of things and will tell them that
and we will try to persuade them to think differently. When it is religion we
try to persuade them out of we may get a hostile reaction. People root their
faith in stupid reasons and when it is challenged they see no option but to form
battle lines and try to scare the challengers into silence. If people think
debates about religion and whether it is true or false are dangerous because
they lead to hatred and persecution then they fear religion even if they profess
to support it. They are intending to support something they see as dangerous
tribalism.
Nobody seriously suggests that as it is traumatic to give up your religion or
religious belief that nobody should encourage you to do so. If you adore your
local clothes store you could be traumatised by finding out that the clothes are
made by slave labour. The person who challenges us is not to blame for how it
makes us feel. And we should be used to having our precious ideas challenged.
Any grown-up person would be.
It is ONLY over religion that many people say, "Let people believe what they want. Even if two religions contradict each other both are right." Religion creates a hostility and antagonism towards truth and slanders those who challenge its truth claims as bigots.
Christians have succeeded in making many people think that the Christian
religion should have special rights in relation to freedom of speech. The critic
of the religion can be silenced or condemned or socially frowned upon while the
Christians can preach all they want.
Many Christians though do not evangelise or try to attract others to the faith.
But if they are Christian, they will believe that they should. The Christian
then who says, "I have a right to my religious opinion", upon hearing something
that challenges the truth of the religion should be told that they have given
that right up by claiming to be Christian. A religion is about giving you the
opinions and beliefs it wants you to have. It is up to it not you. If you have
to promote your religious faith, you simply have to let yourself be exposed to
challenges and you cannot run away from them.
Suppose you believe that God forbids abortion even when it is needed to save
the life of the one doctor in the world who can cure cancer - there will never
be another like her. If she is a believer, I will respect her right to refuse
the abortion and die. But I will not respect her if she tries to stop others
having abortions to save their lives - say if she rams an abortion clinic with a
lorry.
If you believe in the Sabbath day, stay in the house resting but do not start
trying to use legislation to force stores to close on that day etc.
I will respect you if you believe that the communion bread is actually not bread
but the body of Jesus Christ. I cannot however respect this belief. Even if it
is not silly, it certainly looks silly. I cannot be blamed for ridiculing it.
Dismissing is a form of rudeness where you ignore the truth that a person has
spoken
An example of dismissing is the following.
A - I challenge belief in Catholicism for people are better off without that
religion. B - but many Catholics are good people, leave them alone. Good people
claiming to be in a religion or to believe in it has nothing to do with the
question of whether the religion is good or not. And B is not dealing with the
core of the issue - your right to challenge a view you find unhealthy.
Another example. A - the Church should do gay marriage because the Church in
marrying provides a service for the state and the celebrant of marriage -
religious or otherwise - represents the state when he or she officiates at a
marriage. B - the Church is a big thing in society so the Church should be
exempted from performing marriages it does not approve of. That is not dealing
with A at all. It is off-topic which is the rightness/wrongness of the separation
between Church and state. And as far as B goes, you don't argue that the Church
is big in your country therefore the state should collect taxes for it or that
other religions should not be allowed their own schools!
What if the vast majority of people took the opinion that religion is a form
of schizophrenia and religionists should be incarcerated? What if the vast
majority of people took the opinion that science was fraud including medical
science? And religion itself is often missionary and has an ethos of sharing the
faith in the hope that people will enjoy the benefits of adopting the beliefs
and opinions of the religion? To say people should be let believe what they want
denies that religion should teach religion. And it is intolerant towards the
fact that belief should be about what you think is true and not about what you
want. A religion that is concerned about what it wants to believe and not the
truth will turn into a cult that abuses its members and be afraid of critics.
Consider how the Jehovah's Witnesses are like that and leave death and broken
families and a deliberately mistranslated Bible in their wake.
If opinions deserve respect, then the more they have been thought through and
the more evidence they are based on, then the more respect they are entitled to.
The opinion or view of a person who honours, seeks and carefully evaluates
evidence is the one deserving of the most respect. Take miracles. The miracle
beliefs of most Christians do not deserve much respect if any for they make no
effort to reasonably substantiate the beliefs. They make serious allegations
about miracles happening. You need excellent evidence if you are going to say a
miracle is a true miracle. It is a matter of being respectful to the persons
you invite to agree with you and a matter of respecting evidence and truth and
its a matter of integrity. Even if the miracles reported by the Church are true,
that does not mean the belief of most Catholics deserves the same respect as
that of the expert believers. They are superstitious in their attitude.