Shouldn't Atheists learn to accept religion?

[pocaracas]

I think religious belief is different from things like anti-vaccination in that it doesn't cause any bodily harm to people. Whether it causes mental harm is something people disagree on, but it's really a decision for the individual if they want to believe in something that may be damaging.

errr..... no.
Religion DOES cause bodily harm to people.
9/11/2001?

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/11/03/world/...id-attack/

http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/says_a...oning.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...ashes.html


Also, people don't decide to believe in something. They just believe it and then find a way to justify it.
http://www.michaelshermer.com/the-believing-brain/

I disagree with the drugs comparison in that I think religious belief is a good thing and so nothing like drugs at all. I also don't think it causes more harm than good in society. I think it's only harmful when taken to extremes, as in the case of terrorism, when people try to impose their beliefs on others or when they take their sacred text literally. Not every person with religious faith does these things -the vast majority of them never hurt anyone.

Indeed, most religious people just want to live and let live.
But they do form a body of support for the extremists: https://muslimstatistics.wordpress.com/2...ort-jihad/

There have also been murders in my country over ideological differences. During the late twentieth century and even the early 2000's thousands of people were killed in Northern Ireland because of conflict between Catholics and Protestants. While that was also down to political differences religion definitely had something to do with it. So I understand that religion can be a cause for violence. But so can race, and football, and those things aren't considered inherently damaging.

Football, race or those things don't have a rule book telling people to harm others for going against them...

And by respecting a belief I mean respecting a person's right to have it and the validity of that belief. Many atheists I have seen online are openly scornful of religious people and insist that having a belief in god is the result of stupidity or brainwashing. They don't consider it a 'real' belief because it is not backed up by logic. But I don't think beliefs have to be logical in order to count for something.

It's true.
Believers believe mostly because they are taught to believe since their youth. It's called indoctrination.
Their continued belief is a testament to how well the human brain accommodates such a method of teaching. Not a result of "stupidity". Some very intelligent people are believers. They are victims of the indoctrination methodology.

Beliefs need not be logical, no. They are just intuition, the pattern seeking within our brains, coupled with that priming through indoctrination, generates the gut feeling that is the belief.
The belief is then processed... all data available is considered... but through another major brain flaw of ours, confirmation bias - unless overwhelming data exists to disprove the belief, the brain can sort out or explain away discrepancies in data that doesn't align with the initial belief, or gut feeling; and take any data that seemingly confirms that belief as valid.
I used "seemingly" here, because that pattern seeking brain of ours will also interpret some data in ways that need not be aligned with reality - often we see correlation in events, but it is well known that "correlation does not imply causation"; it takes great care to distinguish these two - many many medical studies often confuse them.


That said, it is also true that religion helps some people cope with the troubles of every-day life. Helps people feel a part of a larger community.
Some people, without religion, become depressed.... of course, some people are depressed, even with religion... so it's not a vaccine for this particular malady. It does help. But at what cost?

Can anyone be intellectually honest and state that a god exists? any god that mankind has ever worshiped! No.
As long as religions operate on beliefs, they don't operate on reality.... they operate on the real thoughts of people - thoughts we know very well can be about fictitious characters. And many of us do so desire magic to be real.... time travel, to be all powerful, all knowing... What I could do if I were so powerful...

Knowing what I know about how beliefs come about and how religions exploit brain flaws, how can I do anything but scorn those beliefs and feel pity at those who utterly fail to understand these mechanisms?