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We may not be smarter than people in the past, but we do know more than them. We have accumulated a vastly greater amount of knowledge than they had available, scientific and otherwise.
That doesn't prove that people who've believed in a religion for hundreds of years were wrong. However, the fact that something has been believed for hundreds of years isn't good evidence that it's true, either.
So yes, a proper response to "Who are you to think you know better than an entire history of peoples?" is "Someone who has more information than those people did." I suspect you do not apply this "How can you presume to be wiser than them?" argument to cultures who practiced and believed things for centuries that you don't consider true.
The fact that they didn't know what cancer is is not relevant. The fact that they did not know that diseases have a biological origin and are not the result of evil spirits or angering a deity is.
No one claimed that.
You show very little understanding of where I am (like, for example, by assuming I identify as a "rationalist" and then making further assumptions about what I believe about moral reasoning).
You suspect incorrectly. And you need to stop doing this. Engage with people in good faith and without the snide insults. That's not mod-hatted because it was a response to me, which I responded to, but I see you doing it to other people, and given your history of talking to people like this, I strongly recommend you do some thinking about how to actually have civil conversations with people who do not share your assumptions. That is what this place is for. That is how you have a "more than high school level" conversation, as opposed to just showing off how many digs you can slip in for an inflated sense of superiority.
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