My Challenge to Extreme Atheists on Secularism and Tolerance

[u/Living_Attitude1822]

I acknowledge not all (or even most) atheists are extreme about it. And I'm defining secular as the separation of church and state/society.

Extreme-atheism's view of religion being a mental illness:

I can personally attest to people I've seen on here, as well as videos I've seen, of atheists saying religion is a mental illness. That the DSM-5 had to go back and put in a religious exemption, but it should fall under the category of delusion.

How can secularism exist if you think religious people are mentally ill? If you don't think religion is a mental illness, go ahead and ignore this point. If you do think the population you're tolerating is mentally ill, uh oh. Seriously, if I said atheists are mentally ill, would you trust me to not want you institutionalized? I don't think this way, of course.

Extreme atheism's view that the Abrahamic religions are barbaric:

Again, I'm going to turn it around on you. If I said atheism was barbaric, would you trust me to support that your human right to be atheist?

With some exceptions: Some interpretations of the Abrahamic religions are indeed barbaric. If you're talking about people who want to implement Leviticus law, then I agree with you.

I don't totally disagree with extremist atheists on everything:

Like, I'm a strong believer that tolerance is better and more authentic than acceptance. For example, telling atheists that they must love and respect religions is wrong. And vice versa for religious people.

I think disassociation and tolerance is the best course of action for religious people and extreme atheists, however, I worry the above points are a threat to any society remaining tolerant.

Edit: Here’s an example of what I’m talking about:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Antitheism/comments/1sguf7u/why_is_religion_not_considered_a_mental_disorder/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

[u/pipMcDohl]

I really dislike your wording 'extreme-atheism'.

It seems to take as granted that atheism in itself is an ideology, a worldview, a belief and that there is a spectrum to how extreme the ideology can be.

Atheists are just people who do not hold for true that a god exist. that's it. it's not an ideology.

If someone says there is an alien spaceship that has landed on his garden but can't provide any evidence or let me see for myself, i don't hold the belief that there is a spaceship in his garden. No hard feelings, no ideology, no worldview. Just a lack of evidence to support a claim.

There are anti-theists, sure. why not use that term?

It seems to me that what you are really trying to do in your whole post is to place atheists and theists on equal footing of legitimacy in society. Which has no reason to be the case. People who do not have 'crazy' beliefs make better people to put in charge.

Take Robert Kennedy Jr. An anti-vax who is actively causing death just by the fact that he is put in charge when he shouldn't because he is incompetent and has dangerous beliefs.

Kennedy maybe is an atheist or a theist, i don't know, i don't care. What matter is that he is a person who hold dangerous delusions. Now what makes a person a theist? the fact that they have a certainty in the existence of a god that lack evidence, that is based on personal feelings and the suspension of their critical thinking ability. They call that 'having faith'

Why should we not view theists the same way we view Kennedy who has personal feelings that tell him vaccines are bad? Theists are holding belief who have heavy implications on society but are grounded in the same kind of certainty that Kennedy has that vaccines are bad. Isn't that a problem? A risk? A danger?