Being an atheist, I vehemently disagree with his assertion and give reasons for why I disagree:

>Religion is not “ancient superstition.”
>The great religions caught on because they successfully communicated something vital about the human condition to a large number of people. Their founders are probably some of the wisest and most insightful people our species ever generated.

So the only wise people that ever existed lived 1400 or 2000 years before today? There has been nobody wiser since? That nobody has communicated something vital since, that speaks to the modern world?

Or is it that there is a thing called inertia? That once started, it is almost impossible to bring something as large as the biggest religion to an end. Parents teach their children from birth about religion, and if you don't follow it correctly, you will burn in hell in the worst torment that you can't even imagine.

It hasn't "stood the test of time." It is inertia. Another example: we still use the 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour since 3500 years ago. We still basically use the Julian calendar from 2000 years ago, with the upgrade in 1582 with the Gregorian fix. I could name all kinds of things like that.

So, no, This is just some kind of mysterioso "the ancients" non-argument that people use all the time.

>Hardline atheists and hardline fundamentalists make the same mistake when they regard religious texts as collections of factual claims, rather than instructive works of literature.

Does this dude even know anything about atheism? No. Atheists don't make that mistake. He is the one who mistakes atheists for making mistakes.

Atheists are some of the best educated in the USA when it comes to religion. This is because most started as religious, but logic'ed there was something wrong, so the former religious study their religion in great detail to understand and try to avoid becoming atheists, until they just can't support the illogic of religion anymore and must therefore be atheitic.

Atheists know full well that religious texts can be read as metaphors and analogies and allegories. The issue is that we use it as literal in order to mock the religious. And it is hilarious because the religious will quote the bible as literal if it serves their ends, but say it is a story if that fits their goal.

I personally could interpret Matthew 14:13-21 many different ways. Dozens of ways. But most christians DO take it literally. And the biggie, most Christians think that Jesus literally died and rose from the dead, which is ridiculous.

How is thinking Jesus being a necromancer - bringing the daughter of Jairus (Mark 5:21-42), the young man from Nain (Luke 7:11-17), Lazarus (John 11:1-44), and self-necromancy of bringing himself back to life - any different than a talking snake in Genesis?

Finally, almost every single person is an atheist, no lie. Christians are atheists of Vishnu, Kali, Brahma, Ishtar, Zeus, etc. Almost everyone is an atheist when it comes to L Ron Hubbard. I'm exactly like the religious who are atheist about other gods, except I just am atheist about one more god.

Some will smugly say that they are are different versions of the same thing, all of them are manifestations of the same god, but almost all don't, except when it is convenient to say it.

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Here is a muslim that seems urbane - but he says literally that Mohammed split the moon in half and went to heaven on a winged horse. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQ-Y5NWV9kc&t=870s

Religious code switch back and forth between religion being literal and it being a story, as it suits them at the time.

And I don't mean all religious, there might be one or two out of the billion christians in the world who don't.