From my many conversations over the years about religion, the existence (or otherwise) of any Gods and Theism etc. I find a common tactic being frequently used to shut down any possibility of proper illumination of many core beliefs. The strategy seems to be that as soon as an obvious absurdity or logical fallacy is pointed out "offence" is taken and the "hurt" card is played, i.e. "you mustn't hurt my feelings so stop making fun of my religion!" This, of course, is a classic diversion/sophistry tactic, not only is pointing out facts about a belief not "making fun" of anything (although the absurdities may indeed be funny!), but, there's a clear separation between the person holding a belief and the ideas contained within the belief itself. Otherwise, we'd never be able to discuss and resolve truth claims about anything (perhaps that's where we're headed?). Any conflation between ideas and people is dangerous since it bars the path to criticizing ideas, i.e. the bedrock of free-speech and free-society. This is an odd place to find ourselves, because people had this largely figured out 2,500 years ago, see below..
It's no wonder that, as a species, our political and ethical progress is so glacial, we should all "man-up" (sexist?) and grow thicker skins (any colour is fine), the critical art of the debate is being lost. As as wise man (Socrates) once said, "the unexamined life is not worth living" and I must say I agree with him!
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