Respecting Religions

So I'm sitting in a teaching practicum listening to some exceptional professor of religion give a talk on how to teach religion. She was most delightful in personality and enthusiastic about her subject matter, but she seemed to assume something that really irritated me. She said that our aim as teachers of religion was to teach our students to respect and appreciate other religions. I asked her to clarify if she was advocating a respect for the religious believers or the beliefs themselves and she reassured me that we must promote a respect and appreciation of the beliefs themselves.

Although there are definitely quite a number of aspects of other religions that I respect and appreciate, I just don't see this point as an appropriate generalization. Clearly there are lines that are appropriate to draw even in religious beliefs that do not extend respect or appreciation for certain beliefs, and even at times the adherents of the beliefs themselves. I do not respect or appreciate the beliefs of a religion that practices child sacrifice or oppression of women. This emphasis on respect is just systemic of a larger trend in our society, which now requires not just a non-discriminatory stance towards beliefs and people we find objectionable, but some level of respect and even appreciation for them. I realize these comments may make me sound judgmental, intolerant, etc., but I worry that this extreme version of tolerance that is so emphacized in our society might come to bite us in the butt someday when people care more about embracing every viewpoint than searching for a truth that so often seems narrow before it can be aprehended in its breadth.