My understanding of the world was deeply informed by the study of mythology, and its metaphorical interpretations, especially those studied in youth.

However there is great danger in taking just one single mythology, especially the one endemic to the culture in which you live, and promoting it alone as a metaphor which offers wisdom and a panacea for the worlds ills. Because that leads to exactly the same absolutism, as a literal belief in a deity, indeed it is no more than making a pseudo-deity out of a metaphor, with exactly the same anti-human and anti-tolerant results.

All of the evils of a religion are contained within it culture, including its mythology, ( It can not be otherwise if there are no literal gods. ) throwing away the bath water, (literal superstition I assume. ) will not stop the baby growing up to be a monsterous thug if that is its wish, and that is build into its nature.

I totally get you, but have to disagree to a point. I’m an atheist, because I see no use for literal belief in the gods or, if they might exist, any real role for them to play in a world we have come to understand more fully than our ancestors. Yet I find mythology a very useful tool for understanding how people think (even beyond the scope of religion), what they value, how they see themselves and their world. Traditional mythologies often have bits of philosophy and history included, but typically using symbols and heros/villains instead of the “facts” we moderns have come to expect. Insisting on literal interpretations misses the point. I can appreciate and even learn from Aesop’s Fables without claiming we must all believe that animals can talk like humans.

@skado

This post makes no sense.

As an atheist, I don't believe in an invisible being that resides somewhere beyond the clouds.

I chose rational thought, not magical beliefs. No baby or bathwater involved.

Throwing the baby out with the bathwater may give some people a notion of achievement or progress. However, if both are replaced with and give rise to a belief system that is more insidious than that which it has replaced nothing will have been achieved, quite the contrary, especially, if it is a belief system that focuses on the control of language and the establishment of 'authoritative ' conformity.

In my opinion it would be nothing short of foolish to believe that if all religions were to vanish tomorrow we would find ourselves in a world that is governed by reason and science.

Word salad.

You can come to, or reach, or arrive at, or even stumble upon, a conclusion.

You may think your way to a conclusion. You don’t feel it.You’re using the word “feel” fraudulently. You may be gaslighting.

Please name both parents.

Throw the baby out with the bathwater? Would that be baby Jesus? Maybe the baby is a figment of people's imagination. The art of imagination is exactly what theism is. Fiction is okay, or becomes dangerous when you make it out to be reality.