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.
But that is the inherent problem with religion. Somone “knows” the “facts”. By definition. A religion where everyone could believe what they want wouldn’t even make much sense.
I have nothing against belief. We can’t KNOW, so everyone can come up with their own idea and believe in it. For whatever reason. I don’t care. But religion is the pure evil and rarely does more good than bad. If at all.
People getting out of any a cult is rare and hard.