RE: The Fiction We Live.

I'd say that taking responsibility for oneself does indeed have a lot to do with respect towards others. As well as respect towards oneself. Acting responsibly is acting with consideration. Add a little valuation to consideration, and you have respect. But that train of thought might be worth a whole post :-D

I do feel like there are some underlying rules, like laws of nature. Lewis describes them as the Tao, rules that all religion and spiritual practices (the old ones, not the new age fusion crap) have in common. One of them is indeed respect: Love thy neighbor and such. It's a lot harder to love your neighbor than your brother.

Deep spirituality is normally not the problem, according to the theory of the Tao. There is common ground everywhere where there's "good". If the religion teaches to hate, though, then it's either misunderstood or evil.

Thanks for the thoughtful comment!