I do not respect religious beliefs nor do many of you in here. How can you say you respect someone's belief and then turn around and berate their entire ridiculous belief system. The fact is that you don't. You don't respect their beliefs, and you don't have to. So why is it so many people feel the need to almost apologize for their criticism of religion by saying crap like "I don't agree with you but I still respect your beliefs." Who cares. You are going to crack some eggs and hurt some feelings no matter what you say when you talk about a subject as apparently touchy as religion. You shouldn't be bothered by that. It's not your job to coax them to not believe their juvenile fairy tales, but you can make them feel like idiots for doing so.
There is nothing special about religion that should make it socially untouchable. Religious beliefs should be held to the same standards as scientific or medical beliefs. Just because you BELIEVE that draining yourself of blood is going to get the sick of you, doesn't mean it will actually work. Just because you believe that a bowling ball will fall faster then a feather even on the moon with no atmosphere, doesn't mean it will. In the face of mountains of evidence against them, nobody would hold these beliefs and still be considered sane. Yet this is exactly the sort of thing that happens with religion. People believe that there is an almighty creator that will take them to heaven if they obey the rules here on earth. In itself it's a harmless belief. But when they start doing things like blocking medical research or procedures and affecting the way other people have to live their lives, it has gone too far. These people need to be put in their place. Faith is a flaw, not a virtue.