[Truth Teller]

(01-07-2015 12:02 PM)VolandoVengoVolandoVoy Wrote:  

NO!!! I really think fairy tales are best left for children under the age of ten.
For practical reasons, I largely keep my opinions to myself in public, but when I hear an adult tell me they are religious, I immediately lose a lot of respect for that person and assign them a lower category of perceived mental capacity and emotional maturity.
Scientologists, Southern Baptists, Muslims, Catholics, Jews, etc, they are all equally disconnected from reality and equally foolish.

That's generally the New Atheist position. Religious is for childish, deluded people, etc., etc., etc. Another common trope is that "When you understand why you reject all other gods, you'll understand why I reject yours."

Of course, the average New Atheist has about as much knowledge of philosophy or religion as I do of superconductivity. Most of the objections proposed are painfully ignorant. Indeed, most of Dawkins/Hitchens/Harris is just ranting against religion, with little attempt to actually engage the classical theistic arguments. Dawkins' attempt to counter Aquinas' Five Ways is horridly inept.