I'm so tired of religion being treated like a special set of beliefs

[ancianita]

37. It shouldn't be exempt. The history of many standing religions shows that they have not been exempt.

4,000 religions on the planet, most categorized into 5 major groups.
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/visualizing-religions-worldwide/#:~:text=According%20to%20some%20estimates%2C%20there,Buddhism%2C%20Hinduism%2C%20and%20Judaism.

Around here, it seems that the Christian group gets most criticized, and as a group it's based on the writings of another group, Judaism.

When the Torah was created -- some 700 years before Christians' Jesus showed up -- that was the point at which theological scholars say "rational religion" was established. Why rational? Because the Torah was based on thousands of scrolls, the original manuscripts of law and order in society.

Today's common law and international law are based on the principles laid out in those ancient Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek scrolls that were also the basis of the Abrahamic religions. In other words, today's laws are based on biblical principles.

Those biblical principles were thousands of years in development by some 40+ writers over millennia, across 3 continents. Atheists and agnostics should know that they stand as foundational to Western modern order.

The incomplete and/or mistaken views of religions' members might not hold up to rigorous inquiry, but their holy books, as historical ancient writings, have been THE most rigorously challenged of all books written by humanity.

There are recorded verifications of multiple eyewitness and expert testimonies, a standard of modern courts.
There are standards of direct and indirect evidence used in today's courts.
Not to mention geneological records...

Whole academic majors exist worldwide to study, scrutinize and prove/disprove ancient works. I went to undergrad and graduate schools, public and private, and took classes in the history of religion, philosophy of religion, theology, philosophy, etc., during which time I read/studied hundreds of original texts that stand as scholarship by smart people.

It's not as if one is stupid because one can't argue at those levels about what have now come to be beliefs.

Call them stupid rubes? You might as well call all of us the same for not being able to prove gravity exists.