Question For Fellow Atheists...

[Cephus]

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.

Certainly they can.  In fact, apologists will often point to scientists who are credible in their field, who also believe in gods, as a means of showing that belief in gods is somehow rational.  This is ridiculous.  Faith, by definition, is not rational.  Religion and science are not carried out the same way.  These people are rational in their scientific work in spite of their religion, not because of it.  That doesn't mean we don't listen to them, but the only thing I'm interested in hearing is how their gods can be validated rationally and that's not something they ever manage to come up with.