Opinion of internet atheists

[anvi]

Well, I've said this before, but FWIW; I'm an atheist, but I do think religious traditions are incredibly crucial to understand and engage with because they often reveal what are the most profound and important concerns of human beings.  It's for that reason that religious belief and practice can so frequently yield both the most ideal and the most diabolical kinds of human possibilities.  But I tend to appreciate people's respective faiths on an individual basis; if their faith leads them to be better persons, I admire their faith, and if their faith, and not other factors, prompts them to be destructive to others in various ways, then I'm not a fan of it.  The ultimate "truth" or "falsity" of any given set of religious beliefs doesn't concern me (since none of us has a handle on "ultimate truth") as much as what religious belief and practice can enable people to do for themselves for for people around them.  I know it's a humanist sort of perspective I am adopting, but it's not one, at least it's not one I hope or think under-esitmates the importance of religion or motivates me to denigrate its practitioners who are committed, so to speak, in good faith.  JMHO.