my honest opinion is that militant atheism is form of cultural illiteracy.

i start from the assumption that militant atheists are people who are not highly educated.

i think that religion is the preservation of certain cultural customs. religion is no longer needed to answer the ultimate questions of life, but its function is mainly to preserve historical rituals and objects that people previously considered a fundamental part of their own world view. religion is a historical curiosity just like cave paintings or stone tools. i think that christian worship is on the same line as a reconstructed pagan ritual. religious bodies are essential for the preservation of religious buildings and art. i don't trust that museums and governments know how to value them and keep them up. it's enough for one uneducated atheist to come to govermental body, and immediately demolish all religious temples. they'll demolish buildings like russia's saint basil's cathedral or thailand's wat rong khun temple. this is not even an exaggeration. the soviet union originally thought about demolishing the saint basil's cathedral in accordance with the communist ideal. in the end it was decided not to demolish it, because regardless of it representing religion, it is a beautiful piece of architectural skill. why throw out the baby with the bathwater?

probably we should burn mona lisa because she was a nun. michaelangelo's and raphael's art should be destroyed, because all of their works are catholic religious art. fuck the renaissance.

i remember in my teenage years when we played a historical card game in a youth center. of course, while that card game had medieval and late medieval historical subjects, it dealt with religious subjects. well, this atheist young adult had to start complaining on every religious topic. well, is it our problem that religion was a very essential part of medieval history? why are you complaining to us about a card game? history doesn't change.

i explained to an atheist how catholic scholasticism and the golden age of islam influenced the preservation of greek philosophical classics and the formation of the modern university institution. "well, why did that intermediate stage of religiosity have to happen? why couldn't it have been possible to go directly from greek philosophy to modernist thinking?" well, because we didn't have the conditions for it. most of the people were stupid and primitive at that time. the greek philosophers opposed the christians because their stuff didn't make sense. however, the common people didn't understand it. but is it even relevant to bring this up? i talked about the spread of writing and reading skills along with the spread of book religions. not about what should had happened. history just went in that direction.

i remember once when an atheist was nagging me that you know what christian people have done and so on. moreover, he listed things that the catholics and laestadians did, not the orthodox. why should i express my opinions on actions that we didn't do? even if we talk about the orthodox, still, am i responsible for what stupid people do in the name of my religion? no. and why should i argue with a person who doesn't even distinguish christian denominations from each other?

they don't understand that the fact that you yourself have been in a dangerous sect or cult does not mean that all communities are like that.

i got into an argument with an atheist about why theology isn't pseudoscience. she thought that theology was a pseudoscience. i asked why you think like that. the atheist answered that it examines things that are fictitious. subjects that you're supposed to examine, don't exist. i asked, are folklorists or literary scholars pseudoscientists when they study fictional literature? are film scholars, cultural scholars and artists pseudo-scientists when they study things that don't exist? are theoretical physicists and theoretical philosophers pseudoscientists when all they talk about is complete speculation and abstraction? she answered in the affirmative. at that point i thought how fucking stupid that person is. she thinks he's so smart when she's fucking stupid. science is full of speculation. it's self-evident to anyone who doesn't have a dunning-kruger as bad as she does.

the paradoxical nature of atheists is that they somehow invalidate and at the same time give way too much weight to religion. i vividly remember when an atheist asked me to kill myself because i am religious. wait, i should kill myself because i like fairy tale characters? why do you get mad at fairy tale characters? you wouldn't get mad if i watched digimons in that case.

atheism also usually exudes exoticism. if you go to a chinese restaurant, why don't you get angry at the confucian, buddhist, feng shui or taoist aesthetics in that restaurant? replace those statues with jesus statues or icons and the whole restaurant would be a complete fever dream from a western-centric point of view.

yoga originates from hinduism. many natural products are based on chinese medicine, which is based on chinese folk religions. many new age movements have culturally appropriated elements from indigenous religions, hinduism ja buddhism. i don't see western atheists complaining about these things.

if you consume japanese popular culture, why you don't get strong feeling about zen buddhist and shinto aesthetics that's literally everywhere along with western influences?

please work with your religious trauma. or just read a single book. your life must be hard if you clutch your pearls just because someone said to you "bless you" after you've sneezed. unless you're a child or a teenager, then it's understandable that you can't find nuance.

i don't think i would get along with a militant atheist anyway, as i am relatively "religious" compared to the average population. i pray, read the bible, fast, attend weekly/monthly church services (depending on how often they are held), read religious literature, go on pilgrimages and so on. for me it's mostly meditation, discipline and appreciation for history and culture.