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.
So you can’t join sportsball teams (belief that the game is grand and the rules sensible), you can’t join a company (joint belief in, if nothing else, providing a certain thing and earning renumeration for it), you can’t join a choir because they all believe that singing is a thing that’s nice, you can’t even visit the cinema as others also believe that the movie is worth watching. You can’t join any political party. You certainly can’t be a metalhead.
Generally speaking: You cannot, possibly, partake in society as you are unwilling to share a social contract with others.
Please, just, fucking stop trying to defend your off-the-cuff definitions. At the least do some basic diligence and read this first.
Have I ever said anything about joining any group? It’s you who brought up the topic, who blindly assumed that religion is necessarily a social activity.
That makes you more theological than me.