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"We should try to understand religion because without such an understanding we lack an adequate sense of a fundamental part of human civilization and its history, and we therefore lack a proper understanding of ourselves."
Tim Crane in "The Meaning of Belief: Religion from an Atheist's Point of View"

Matias 8 June 6
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While I was deeply committed to my religion before deconverting -- to the point of some formal education ... er, indoctrination ... I do not consider myself necessarily as broadly educated on the topic as I could be. As a former fundamentalist I tend to see religion in terms of the specific harms of the fundamentalism I came out of.

Only after a couple of decades out of the reality distortion field of fundamentalism have I developed some comprehension of liberal Christianity and the middle ground between it and fundamentalism. I have been surprised at what I have found; it is a very different way of approaching Christian belief. Less toxic, still not for me. But it's important to understand the differences between cultural Christianity and the different degrees of observant Christianity, and it's both important and helpful to understand that how Christianity interacts with government, non-Christians, and non-Believers is not remotely uniform. How closely people hold their beliefs, how seriously and rigidly they take them, is not remotely uniform.

And this applies to other religions as well. My personal contact with other religions is way more limited and probably skewed than my personal contact with Christianity, which was plenty skewed to begin with.

I don't need to know more than I do to understand that the vast majority of religious belief shares the same failed theory of knowledge (religious faith), that it's not for me, and that it represents some level of harm to society generally. But I am generally quite careful not to assume too much about the exact beliefs, intensity of belief, application of belief, or motivations of individual believers until I get to know them. Many of them, especially outside their private clubhouses, are actually pretty decent humans. The fundamentalist hard-liners unfortunately have an outsize influence on society for ill, but I do not make the mistake of assuming that this is typical, either.

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It is because I understand and have experienced religion that I have become an Atheist in the first place. i understand myself and my position very well and do not need any more reflection for my position.,

@Matias Before converting to Atheism we were in several different churches. I was Catholic my wife Methodist , we were married in an Episcopal church, attended a Methodist,.Congregational, Presbyterian,Lutheran and Unitarian. I believe this number of different churches gave us a pretty good understanding of the different Christian religions. While in the service I studied the religions of the area I was posted to. This went from voodo to Budist and Hindu. Therefore I have had a pretty wide expossure to religion. My condemnation of religion is the same for all of them however, I have never let my own feelings prevent my becoming friends with Protestants,Catholics,Hindu and currently Muslim persons. Religion has been discussed with several of these friends a number of times very socially. Unfortunitely, these discussions has done nothing to change my mind regarding all religions. They are supressive.

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