Columnist Peter FitzSimons has taken aim at an NRL player's Mormon faith after he said he couldn't play games on Sundays. Sure, I agree the religion is false, but does that give me the right to belittle those who follow it, asks Michael Jensen.

People believe some pretty ridiculous things.

I was once stuck at a school reunion with a conspiracy theorist who, dead set, leaned in and told me that there was an annual meeting of all the world leaders, including the presidents of the US and Russia, in which the fate of the global economy was predetermined. He told me about UFOs, and about wind farms.

I was able to escape from under his beery breath before he got started on vaccinations and their links to autism.

Now, it dismayed me to think that we were products of the same education. Apparently, we had been taught by the same science and history teachers. And yet his views were not just implausible, they were risible. It wasn't worth engaging in discussion with him about his ideas because that would have given them the veneer of respectability.

It was actually kind of sad to see an otherwise decent guy with his head filled with such baloney - and baloney with a potentially dangerous sauce, too. Anti-vax views kill.

But here's the question: in a civil society, is ridicule of another's sincerely-held beliefs fair game? Must I respect the views of the conspiracy theorist, or the flat-earther?

I don't think there would be many people who would say "yes" to the second question, and "no" to the first. Ignorance and falsehood have a corrupting influence on individuals and on communities. They do damage. It is actually an act of love to expose not just the falsehood but the folly of obvious and persistent error.

But here's where it gets complicated: what if, as in Fairfax columnist Peter FitzSimons' article on April 1, the target of ridicule is a religion? Responding to Bulldogs player Will Hopoate's decision not to play on Sundays, FitzSimons took aim at Hopoate's Mormon faith.

This religion is simply silly, says FitzSimons, and not deserving of respectful treatment at all. He chose to highlight the fact that the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints (known as the Mormons) had racist views, which they changed in the 1970s, to indicate why he thought Mormonism contemptible.

Mind you, for FitzSimons, all religious systems are deserving of ridicule - and many religious people as well.

But here's where we might want to pause and say: FitzSimons is missing something important, and even himself courting danger. We know how quickly derision can become abuse and even violence. Mormons and Muslims are the little guys in the great playground that is Australia - to ridicule their beliefs risks isolating them even further.

One response might be to develop anti-vilification legislation such as they have in Victoria. (Indeed, I am not sure how FitzSimons' writings don't contravene that legislation regularly)

But the response of law is almost always a mistake. It is too lumpen. You cannot force people to treat one another with respect.

Neither should we compromise free speech. It is important in a free and open society, and a peaceful one, that religious ideas are free to be expressed, debated, and validly critiqued. And if someone wants to ridicule my faith, then I do not want them sued or thrown in jail.

In this era where everybody is bleating about being offended, it is time somebody said, "I can take it".

What we could see, however, is that there is a difference between valid criticism and disrespect.

And, I would argue, some belief systems have earned the right to be treated with respect. That's not to say they are to be treated with kid gloves; only, that in responding to them, it is a civic virtue in a pluralist society to show that it is possible to disagree respectfully.

The question then becomes, what differentiates the systems deemed worthy of respectful critique, and those worthy of ridicule?

As the Yale scholar Miroslav Volf points out in his new book Flourishing: Why We Need Religion in a Globalised World, religions and ideologies don't deserve automatic respect in the way that people do. When beliefs are contemptible, they deserve our contempt. Tolerating everything is not virtuous, it is simply gutless.

I have nothing but contempt for the religious beliefs of Aztecs, for example.

But the great religions of the world are different. The claim that they are simply poisonous is intellectually feeble and historically unsustainable, however much rhetoric is deployed to make it.

These massive systems of belief have made sense of life for millions of people over the centuries, and are expanding. While we can rightly say that religions have been complicit in great evils, it would also be true to say that religions have been the source of great advances. The great religions of the world also offer systematic explanations of human existence at a level of great intellectual sophistication.

Mormonism - which is very much a junior player amongst the world religions - nevertheless has its scholars, and its sophisticated proponents, and many of its adherents contribute admirably to their societies in the name of justice and truth.

It is not above critique - and I certainly think it is false - but I would argue it has earned a degree of respect.

What we need then - particularly from public figures - is not ridicule, but the practice of respectful engagement. That means that religious people should model dignified responses to genuine critique, too, of course, and not seek to hide behind the law. But it also means that we should call foul on some of the cleverdickery that passes for commentary on religious views.

Dr Michael Jensen is the rector at St Mark's Anglican Church, Darling Point, NSW.