No, that is not what I'm telling you. See, here you are playing a game I'm not that interested in, where I say something, then you take what I say in a manner that you know I didn't mean for your own rhetorical purposes. Why would I participate in that?

Not in my view. If an inaccurate belief is widely accepted and significant in people's lives, taking that belief seriously even if you do not yourself accept it seems to me a mature attitude.

First, you obviously think that being cynical about religion is in some way bad. Why?

Second, it has long been my view that the best way to encourage people to have an intelligent debate about the meaning and cause of religious traditions is to just do it--bring up some particular issue or topic and discuss it. The alternative methods of having a meta-conversation about how we aren't having such conversations, trying to figure out why we aren't having such conversations, or criticizing people for not having such conversations seems much less effective to me.

Even your moderator is a New Atheist. This forum rocks ( only if you are New Atheist ofc ) h0-h0-h0-h0.