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.
You’re allowed to believe your internal feelings constitute truth. Others are allowed to mock that.
It’s more than about God, it’s about a way of thinking that’s pervasive in society. Evidence and logic be damned, my feelings trump all of that.
“It’'s about a way of thinking that’s pervasive in society. Evidence and logic be damned, my feelings trump all of that.”
Yes and we have entire academic fields full of research, evidence, and argument about the sticky reality of how different belief systems, social identities, and cultural heritage interact both constructively and destructively. For example, how colonialism typically plays out cultural genocide in the name oclf “civilizing” the native population. Modern western positivist ontology and epistemology (which is where most atheists sit) is also laden with these socially constructed features and does not exist in some privileged position outside of them. The problem that people are pointing out, is exactly the smug superior attitude of some atheists, which reveals their lack of awareness about their own position and the risks and limitations thereof. I say this as someone deeply embedded in STEM and evidence-based practice.
The expert consensus of every human-related field from medicine to philosophy to engineering/design to sociology to neuroscience and on and on is that, like it or not, feelings fucking matter.
Honestly I find this post hilarious. Using words like ontology and epistemology and citing the facts there are academic fields devoted studying something doesn’t change the fact that millions of adults believe in a fiction that may as well be Lord of the Rings.
Feelings matter, but they don’t trump reality.