the-least-undefinable-ordinal:

I think having no religious people at all would be strictly better than what we have now but the next best thing are those people who claim (often believe themselves) to be religious but treat their faith like a set of metaphors that have no impact on observable reality and can be reduced to “be kind to others, even if it contradicts the uncomfortable parts of our doctrine”.

I know atheists who happen to arrive to the same conclusions the bible did, like homosexuality and promiscuity being a mix of morally wrong, disgusting and degrading to everyone involved.

They will often cite some primitive form of reasoning but once you poke enough holes in their logic they inevitably reveal they’re just conflating things they find disgusting with things that are morally wrong and they need to have a reason for the latter but not the former, so they just make one up on the spot.

On the other hand, I know catholics who are pro abortion because “abortion is wrong but it’s not right to impose their religious beliefs on others”, of course this means they don’t actually believe abortion is murder; but it is kind of impressive how they can manage to avoid the worst parts of their own religion much better than so called atheists can.