I love when people who don't know me find out I went to catholic school for 13 years. I tell them i learned evolution, and religion was left to religion class, but the most important thing it taught me was that aethism was correct. Like what did they think we'd learn when taught the history of the catholic church and religion as a whole? The closest conclusion to religion you could come to was that there could have been some truth at some point, but human hands have spun and edited it to meaninglessness, but aethism seemed better.
What got me, growing up going to a Lutheran church, was the pastor telling us in catechism class that pretty much all the magic shit was merely metaphorical, along with how every church of every denomination I had ever gone to did things Jesus explicitly hated on in the bible. But especially churches of Catholicism with the gilded everything and statues and depictions of God and Jesus, the worship of Mary, and just the creepy nature of how they handle rituals like communion.
On the other hand, Baptist church is fun as fuck. Singing, dancing, better food at reception. It's like a party!
I feel like one has to be atheist, or at least agnostic, to really be looking at religion and theology for the interest of learning culture and history, because a religious person is not very likely to actually explore another faith because they already "know" that it is "wrong." And theology can tell you so much about people, culture, and how history has been shaped.
Yeah. I remember thinking that guy (Obama's pastor) was dangerous. Funny how I don't recall Obama repeating that nonsense though. Turns out Obama was a pretty decent guy.
Desantis is all kinds of bad though, even before his religious leader espouses nonsense.