1. *"You’re presupposing that all religions are false and there is no God. However if you open your mind to the possibility of God’s existence or one of the religions being the truth this line of argument falls down."*

I don't believe in God for many reasons, but frankly it doesn't matter in this case. You see, even if God or gods existed, I wouldn't worship them. I wouldn't convert to a religion of that God. I believe there are ethical rules that even gods need to follow, and so, I can follow the rules instead of following the gods. "Causing suffering is wrong" is one such rule, for example. If God causes suffering, he is doing something wrong. God of course can say that everything he does is good... but come on, it's like Kim Jong Un saying North Korea is a great place to live.

And this idea of ethical rules that are above gods is nothing new. It was explored already in ancient Greece and in ancient India, and probably some other places too. There are schools of secular philosophical thought which have it as their basis, as well as we have Buddhism. Buddhism does not say there are no gods, but it says there are more important issues than worshiping them. I find it more just, and more objective, to try to understand those rules and live by them, than to rely on the subjective whim of God. (Even though Buddhism also sometimes devolves into a typical bigoted religion, and ancient secular philosophies never really became widespread).

But that's not really connected to my previous claim. My previous claim was that the fact someone converted to a religion doesn't make that religion more true. I think that's obvious by itself. No matter if God or gods exist, and if they do, which religion is true, just the fact of someone converting means nothing.

2. *"People are not better without religion. Let’s say this time in history, people have moved as far as they ever have from religion. But has racism improved? Nope."*

Yup. Well, racism *did not improve* but I understand the meaning. And yup. There is less racism now in the world than before. Maybe you just don't realize how much racism there was through the history. And sexism. And every kind of prejudice. Until recently, on the historical scale, it was common and considered normal for people to discriminate against one another because of how they looked like, how they dressed, what they believed in, what were their life choices. what language they spoke, because of their gender and sexuality, and so on, and so on. A member of a minority was often at risk of being robbed, beaten, exiled, and killed. Religions didn't do much against it. On the contrary, they thrived in it. Every time something went wrong, a priest or an imam used minorities as an easy scapegoat to blame. Jews. Women who resisted being second-class citizens. Homosexuals. Migrants from distant countries. They suffered and religions were okay with that.

Only nowadays, and in secular societies, things get better. We came up with the idea of common human rights. We banned slavery (how it worked in Islam?). We work to make every member of the society equal under the law, and even though it's a long process and there were and there will be still many mistakes along this path, it's already much more than religions done in the previous 1000 years.

I know there are verses. There are always verses. And then there are other verses which say something very different and they are excuses for injustice. It’s the same in Islam, as in Christianity. If one of them was a true religion, I would expect God to come up with something better than that.

3. That video.

Wow. Just wow. A question to you: do you believe what that guy is saying? Really? Because… this is horrible. What that guy describes is basically a toxic relationship that you really, really need to run away from, like right now. It's a situation when a child is beaten every day by a toxic, angry father, to the point of bleeding, the child cries from pain and goes to the mother for help, and the mother says "if your father beats you it means you did something very wrong". "If God wants to burn you forever in hell, it means you did something very wrong"? Man, that's evil. Nobody deserves being tortured forever, not even the worst human beings that ever lived. It's as if this guy was an orc praising Sauron. I don't know what else can I say.

Maybe this:

In modern secular countries, the idea is that prisons are not for punishing. The reasons criminals are sentenced to prison — in theory — are a) to separate them from the society since they're dangerous; b) to reeducate them, so - we hope - they can return to the society; and c) to create a disincentive for other would-be-criminals to do what they did. The punishment in the sense of a vengeance for their crimes shouldn’t be seen as something positive. We moved away from that. It's a cruel, barbaric idea. On the contrary, we hope to turn criminals into valuable members of the society. It's often hoping in vain, but it's a good thing to do. Sometimes it works, and every person who was a criminal and is no more is a reason why we should do it.

PS. I forgot about one more point — the idea that bad things come from disobeying God and that’s why God punishes us (with eternal burning in hell - let’s not forget what is that punishment for our misdeeds). But there were millions of people who lived their lives pretty well while being disbelievers. They worked, they loved, they raised their children, they suffered through hardships, they laughed on good days… Millions and millions of people who lived simple lives and did nothing worse than maybe killed an animal for food or lied about someone they didn’t like. And then they died. So, which one is it — will they be punished with eternal torture or will they go to the paradise? Because if they go to the paradise, then it means we don’t need to be religious at all. We just need to live our lives the best we could. And I’m okay with that. But if they are tortured in hell forever then… something is very wrong here. And I don’t know if it’s ethical to convert to a religion out of fear. To convert, because God practically terrorizes us to do it. I’d rather say it’s ethical to resist such God.