Your response is disappointing but understandable. I understand that no one likes for his or her beliefs to be called preposterous. But you’re shooting the messenger. I’m not the cause of modernity, but a symptom of it.
Anyone should feel free to dismiss the preposterous, but just feeling that something’s preposterous doesn’t make it so. What makes theistic religion preposterous is the existence of modernity. Modernity consists of several real, historical revolutions. I didn’t cause them. I’m not to blame. They’re real regardless of whether you want to accept their implications.
In the article I do indeed conflate theism and religion, but that’s because the details there don’t matter. After all, modernity consists of both philosophical and scientific revolutions, on the one hand, and social and political ones on the other (e.g. industry, capitalism, and democracy). They therefore count against theistic propositions as philosophical or empirical matters, and against the utility of religious practices and organizations. A resort to that distinction therefore offers the exoteric theist no escape.
You assert that the analogy between God and folkloric entities is baseless, but I detect no argument supporting your assertion. Again, the analogy isn’t the substance of the skeptic’s argument that the preposterous need be only dismissed. The substance is the sum of the revolutions known collectively as “modernity.” We’re talking here about all the philosophical, scientific, and social progress that happened in the West over the last several centuries. You’re not dealing just with one Medium writer’s articles, but with the transition from ancient and medieval outlooks to the modern one. I didn’t generate that transition but am just reflecting and reporting on its implications.
I’m also not just ranting. I’m explaining how it is and how skeptics and secularists these days really see it and should see it. I said we should slowly walk away not from a rant but from preposterous gibberish being spewed by an outsider. Modernity isn’t gibberish. I’m one with the zeitgeist in this case. The default attitude towards theistic religions changed several centuries ago. That’s why highly educated, developed countries tend to be more secular and skeptical, while exoteric religions thrive in poor, premodern populations.
You don’t think my article is productive, but you haven’t shown I lack understanding. There’s a big difference between promoting mutual understanding and covering up the truth in the name of political correctness. Are you sure you’re asking me here to do the former rather than the latter?
