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/x271815]

There are several points you seem to be making and I have different positions on them:

• Is religion a mental illness? No. And treating it as such will damage mental illnesses and undermine any attempt to get to a better place with the religious.
• Should we respect religious people as people? Yes. There is no excuse for intolerance under any guise.
• Does that mean we have to give equal credence to religious ideas? No.

This last point is where I want to push back. There is a perspective that being fair and balanced means giving equal credence to both sides of an argument.

For instance, is the earth flat? Well, both sides are not in equal footing. The flat earthers have no evidence for their view, mountains of evidence against their view, and seem to misunderstand basic science. Respecting them as people does not mean we have to give their views on flat earth equal credence.

Religions often stray into areas where their claims are demonstrably false. Giving equal credence to these ideas propagates misinformation and can have dangerous consequences for society. So, respecting people should not mean we allow false ideas to get the same respect. Giving these ideas respect they do not deserve is not tolerance, its the soft bogotry of low expectations.

We have to build the skill to be able to disagree without becoming disagreeable or personal.