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.
Atheism is more valid though and there is an abundance of proof.
From biology we know there is no life after death which disproves most religions. From experiments we also know that praying doesn’t affect physical world. None of the known miracles couod have been reproduced under controlled conditions which makes it likely they are all made up or hallucinated.
The moment you declare that your belief is more valid than another Person’s belief is the moment you out yourself as a bigot wishing to impose those beliefs upon others.