It's a completely meaningless, nonsensical question

It's like asking whether a person ever feels the presence of Orange. Or Blue. Or Bookshelf.

"God" on its own can be defined in any way. "God" is "nonsensical, intangible idea". So one saying that they feel the presence of a "nonsensical, intangible idea" means nothing to me on its own.

Further, how a person intereprets the source various feelings they have is not proof of that source. If I have a stomach ache after eating a bunch of ice cream, I may truly believe some devil is causing it, sent to me by my mean neighbor. That is, what I feel is the source isn't much proof of anything. And if a person is raised, indeed indoctrinated, in a belief system that tells them that these are the sources of the feelings humans have, based on no evidence, then it brings their interpretations even more into question.

Funny how those who believe in religion and many times are indoctrinated in religion all interpret feelings all humans have as being from their specific god or gods exclusively, right in line with what they've been indoctrinated with.

When I was a Christian, I swore I had moments of the divine. I had feelings of awe, feelings of wonder, feelings of emotional empowerment or exhaustion, many of these brought on by religious ceremonies meant to do just that. I attributed them all to god. Now that I'm an atheist, I still get all those feelings, but they aren't part of some manipulation to make me attribute them to some unverifiable, unknowable source.

It's sad to me...

how the leaders of a fictional belief system based on a fictional book would then go and make up a further fictional place that wasn't even in the fictional book and promise their followers fictional promises based on fictional premises. You'd have to be pretty gullible to believe any of that, and you'd have to be pretty zealous to take advantage of people that gullible.

I would ask how I'm engaging in "intractable religious intolerance"...

but that's just another one of your ad homs, and irrelevant to the thread anyway. I would ask you to address my points about how belief is indeed a choice, whether a person identifies with the belief system culturally or not, but you never answer substantive points.

If you disagree with my opinion, actually address my opinion, rather than me. If you have an argument at all. Which I suspect you don't.

Religion is a belief system, not a culture...

Cultures form around belief systems, but religion is still just a belief system. Losing the beliefs one was indoctrinated into may mean losing access to certain parts of ones culture they were raised in, things that are familiar or comforting on their own, and of which the belief system underlying it is irrelevant, and this is a terrible reason for anyone to believe anything. It's a form of social pressure.

In other words, all the article is saying is that for some, giving up those comforting cultural traditions is less important than their ACTUAL beliefs. For others, engaging in cognitive dissonance and intellectual dishonesty is worth it to keep the cultural aspects they like.

Many religious people want to keep identifying with cultural aspects of religion while not really believing a lot of it, or any of it, and certainly not wanting to be associated with their belief system's own plainly stated, nasty dogma.

Good evidence that religion is a scam...

And it's followers are gullible. Then again, when gullibility is part of the belief system, that's what you'll get.

What pisses me off are all those sheeple that were screwed over by the Church for centuries when it had much more power, and gimmicks like this were just one of the many methods of manipulation of an ignorant, mostly illiterate lot. Shame, shame, shame.

No, I made relevant points about why I think the article is wrong...

You addressed zero of them. Indeed, ignoring the relevant points seems to be your only strategy. Maybe some more ad Homs. Making this about me personally is your go to. You have no argument I guess.

God's a tyrannical dictator...

At least the God of the Bible is. He fits the definition pretty well. Look up how many people God killed himself. Then combine that with how many people God ordered killed through his servants. Hell, the devil barely killed any, and that was with god's permission as part of a fun bet god made about Lot.

Gotta wonder how a Christian Democrat likes worshipping a god that has slaughtered innocent babies or committed mass genocide of the whole world or requires worship and love, the consequence of which not doing is eternal torture. I'd say massive doses of intellectual dishonesty and cognitive dissonance.

Nope, I like bigots outing themselves nt

Pointing out dumb as shit articles is presumptuous now?

Who made you chairperson of the School of Snarky McSnark? Was it the same person that taught you the best form of discussion is ad hom irrelevant attacks?

As for conserve phobia, well, it's a made up word as basic reading comprehension would've pointed out, and also combined with autocorrect, leads to hilarious results. Results which, by the way, are still far more compelling than this stupid as all shit article. This article has been repeatedly destroyed on here, and the apologists for it have engaged in a lot of logical fallacies, just like the author. It's fun to see people ignore devastating relevant points against their position and play the schoolyard game.

I never said people don't fear Islam...

Or that the fear can't be irrational. A lot of the fear on the right is irrational, if not hypocritical. But a lot of fear of Islam in general is perfectly rational.

For example, it's rational to fear Islam for the misogyny it spreads, because it is a substantial part of the belief system, proven by any reading of the religious texts.

The believers I least fear are the most intellectually dishonest ones. They lie to themselves and others to ignore the nastiest parts of their religion while keeping the label. It's a rational response to such a terrible belief system to simply lie to yourself about it and say, for example, that Islam is a peaceful religion that is all about gender equality. Christianity has already created an alternate universe apart from its texts in order to survive in the modern world, and Islam will go through the same process. Heck, there is an amusement park being built about Noah's ark, a story where God committed mass genocide over the entire Earth. Watering down, lying about, or just plain ignoring what amounts to terrible religious texts with so many contradictions and inconsistencies is the main challenge of Abrahamic religions today.