I agree, I won’t argue against their usefulness. I just meant disabling them for myself personally. I used to tend to judge posts and comments from their upvote/downvote scores rather than their actual content, now I can see them for what they are, in my eyes. I found that pretty cool and refreshing.
Yeah, I agree with your statement. Not in a degrading way though. I know people whose lives have been so difficult, agonizing and full of abuse. Religion is what got them through those times and gave them hope. I am an atheist too, a very radical one at that, but I can imagine these people would have similar reactions if their only source of spiritual comfort was aggressively denied.
So they do need serious psychological help, but not because they are stupid to react that way, if that was what you meant.
be the change you want to see!