We're in the 21st century, and the vast majority of us still believe in an utterly and obviously fictional creator deity. Plenty of people, even in developed countries with decent educational systems, still believe in ghosts or magic (e.g. voodoo). And I–an atheist and a skeptic–am told I need to respect these patently false beliefs as cultural traditions.

Fuck that. They're bad cultural traditions, undeserving of respect. Child-proofing society for these intellectually stunted people doesn't help them; it is in fact a disservice to them to pretend it's okay to go through life believing these things. We should demand that people contend with reality on a factual basis by the time they reach adulthood (even earlier, if I'm being completely honest). We shouldn't be coddling people who profess beliefs that are demonstrably false, simply because their feelings might get hurt.

  • no banana@lemmy.world
    89·
    1 year ago

    To be fair I – an atheist and skeptic – do not believe in a god or higher power but can not be certain that a god or higher power does not actually exist even though I would personally claim our current scientific understanding to strongly suggest that no such thing exists.

        • samus12345@lemmy.world
          43·
          1 year ago

          Agnostic atheist or theist are the only intellectually honest positions. Nobody knows for a fact whether gods exist, no matter how much they insist they do.

          And it's important to point out that there is a difference between a specific god or any sort of god. I know for a fact that the god of the bible does not exist, because he's a clearly defined character and can therefore be disproved.

      • rentar42@kbin.social
        54·
        1 year ago

        That's a silly idea. I can definitely come up with a definition of an immeasurable entity that has no powers, no effects and no way of being detected and call that thing "god". it would be unfalsifiable and thus irrelevant to scientific inquiry, but it wouldn't be "logically inconsistent".

    • ubermeisters@lemmy.world
      49·
      1 year ago

      We have no right to tell others what to think is true. That's the Crux of the issue for me. The church has no right telling me God exists, and I have no right telling my neighbor God doesn't exist. That's a personal belief and should stay as such. Note, I believe the same thing about separation of church and state and wish we actually had it.

      • no banana@lemmy.world
        12·
        1 year ago

        I don't know. Our whole existence is resting on the ability to influence our peers. Telling other people what we think they should think and do is kind of part of humanity.