Question For Fellow Atheists...

[robvalue]

Is it just me?  Am I the only one who is bothered this much by this?  About the only way that I can deal with it is knowing that there is absolutely nothing that I can do about it...

When I find out someone has an imaginary friend as an adult, my level of respect for them goes right out the window.  They might be perfectly nice people, but my level of respect for them as intellectual beings pretty much goes to zero, at least with regards to their religious beliefs.

Rational people, in the act of being rational people, are not religious, period.

Bold mine.

That is the crux of the matter. We're discussing whether someone can have otherwise respectable beliefs, as well as religious beliefs. I think it's very clear that they can. I will take whatever other things they have to say into consideration with an open mind, if they can do so without bringing their religion into it. If they insist on bringing it into everything, then yeah, intellectual conversation is pretty much a non-starter.

If someone wants to write off a religious person entirely without hearing anything else they have to say, that is up to them, but I think it's a mistake.