Believing in Deities is a Form of Psychosis

[ComradeMeow]

One of the reasons I oppose theism is because it is a failed epistemology that does not and inherently cannot lead towards truth. As such, while I wouldn't go so far as to say I have all the 100% correct conclusions about life, meaning purpose and so forth, I do not let my epistemological humility go so far as to say I'm not confident I have more accurate conclusions vs someone who is just embracing unsubstantiated assertions.

*applaud

Totally agree with you here. The Abrahamic faiths, particularly the fundamentalist-leaning parts, are the biggest problem by far. I have a lot of common cause with liberal Christians, post-Christians (e.g. Unitarian/Universalists), pantheists, etc.

*double applaud

A non-theistic version of Islam, I agree, isn't likely to happen anytime soon. Non-theistic Buddhism and Taoism already exists, though. Do you have any particular objection to those?

I have no objections at all. I only bitch about Islam a lot because I spent all of my teenage years dedicated to it as a convert and it invested much of my intellectual pondering. I wanted to leave private school when I was a kid and I was homeschooled throughout high school until I entered college. I literally spent 4 years understanding Islam and western philosophy which was the major reason I wanted to be homeschooled. I literally screwed up my entire education due to my infatuation of Islam.

So if I seem stuck on it for unreasonable purposes I wish you can understand why. I feel that if I do nothing with my own wisdom I will have wasted my teenage youth. This is something I hold a lot of faith in which makes me very unreasonable toward it but at least I can acknowledge it. 

"Hate" is an overdetermined charge. Most atheists don't "hate" religion, literally. Many of us find it highly problematic, and I grant you, the confusion of religion with theism isn't 100% justified (maybe just 90%) because of the examples I gave just above, of non-theistic religions. I think our true beef is probably more with theism and more precisely with affording belief to the unsubstantiated, whether that be gods, the supernatural invisible realms / afterlives, unsupported cosmologies, and the like.

I did not make an assessment as to whether atheists hate or love religion as a whole. I am sure a significant portion do but I encounter this online only which does not say much since everybody hates everybody else on the internet. It seems to be an endearing quality of religion though to redefine atheism as something it is incompatible with such as a dogmatic belief or set of tenets followed by a community. I have to agree with people like Alain de Botton in that we cannot religion be left alone to the theists who only seek to spread their insecurity. There is nothing wrong with having a belief, opinions, rituals, community or a moral code. These sorts of things should be promoted more if anything.

When I see atheists leaving religion only to leave such things to the theistically inclined I cannot help but wonder how idiotic of a move it is. Religion came about for a reason and not because some crackpot smoked a bad joint and saw some spooky shit. We have beliefs and we have faith in things but as long as we can evaluate why we hold them we cannot assess what we need to do to improve our lives. 

Also 90% is too low of a number if you ask me