I’m a weird, intense person, probably “spectrum,” meaning on the autism spectrum. And no, I’m not officially diagnosed. At age 60, very few people will be diagnosed.
My point being, I stand in awe of people who take religion in stride, without taking any of it too seriously. They take it as ritual for the birth of a child, marriage, and death.
They view it as good moral rules, such as don’t lie, don’t steal. And yes, of course, there are 100 exceptions to the “don’t lie” rule. The religion approach is not very sophisticated, which is another reason most people just don’t take it all that seriously.
Advantages of being an atheist:
1) more skills of skepticism including things like “multi-level marketing” also called “network marketing.”
[and they probably have a new name by now! ]
2) avoid the trap of the promise of healing. For example, we have no idea why a child dies even though plenty of people are praying for him or her. Probably the best thing is to just respectfully offer the parents a sincere and heart-felt hug, and not try to lay any kind of philosophy on them.
3) Many of my posts here at our site are just topics for fun. But some of my posts are with the goal of providing a soft landing for people who are leaving religion. For example, it wasn’t until pretty late in my life that I found out just how many problems and issues the Bible have.
I’ve written about some of these in our Christianity (section 2), in which the Bible is
not considered authoritative.
Debate on Christian topics. The Bible is not considered authoritative.
theagnosticforum.com