So you’re saying that because a religion allows you to choose which of God’s commandments, carefully passed down through every generation, you personally want to follow based on your gut feeling, can’t be shamed?

No, that is not what I said.

Why should the ones who choose to deny parts of their religion be seen as representative of it over those who’ve chosen to uphold them?

I definitely answered this in my original comment.

Because if the majority of people following a particular religion reject a prior view as false or wrong, then arguably that view is no longer part of the religion.

Religions aren’t crisp, unchanging, monolithic entities where everybody believes the same thing forever. If we’re talking about judaism in the sense of the views and practices jewish people actually subscribe to, then that seems like we are referring to beliefs they actually hold in a mainstream/current sense, not beliefs they previous held but now reject?

This is not inherent to all religions. Some particular religions are intolerant of other beliefs. Some aren’t. I’m not sure of “most”, you’d actually have to start listing out religions and gathering evidence for that claim.

There is nothing inherently “good” about religion at all. Honestly, I believe it cheapens the human race. It says that humans aren’t strong enough on their own. They NEED the guidance and help of invisible beings to do the things they do

It’s arguable whether anything is inherently good at all.

The idea that belief in a god cheapens the human race, or that belief in a god makes people weak isn’t any different from saying belief in natural forces that we analyze scientifically cheapens the human race or makes people weaker in some sense.

God had no part in it. God doesn’t deserve the credit. I put in the work.

Scientific arguments can be made for why your success isn’t truly your own either. I.e. socioeconomic class, geographical proximity to resources, nature vs nurture arguments etc.

On top of that, not all theists would say you don’t deserve credit for your hard work.

But the main problem with religion is that it is an override switch for critical thinking. Things that are obviously, and proven to be helpful and right. They can become muddy at best and downright wrong when viewed through the lens of religion.

Failing to think critically is not an issue solely held by theists. Atheists can and regularly do fail at this. Normal people of all types fail at this often. The assumption that theism implies a failure to think critically is just wrong. Most theistic beliefs can easily be made consistent with scientific thinking for what it’s worth.

In the end the small positives aren’t worth the negatives, and for those “good religious people” you still support machines that are into child marriage, child molestation, keeping women down, and hurting other humans just because your god said it’s cool.

I don’t think religious institutions are the only institutions that do these things. Perhaps I am wrong? But to claim these crimes are solely a theistic thing seems incorrect to me.

But even if they are, the institutions themselves and the religious beliefs are distinct. All religions really try to do is to explain things we don’t really have answers for. This is not inherently bad, atheists do this about as much as theists as far as I can tell.