this post was submitted on 28 Dec 2023
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Progressive Politics, Gun Control, Single Payer Healthcare and Free Abortions for All!
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This reinforces why many of the more ardent atheists believe religion generally is the greatest force of evil in the world.
Meanwhile, an exceptionally zealous slice of Christians in the U.S. think
That just so happens to also reinforce that Christianity specifically is perhaps most relevant evil.
Well, being absolutely certain there is no god is going too far for me.
But criticizing and strongly opposing religious beliefs because they have influence in our lives seems reasonable to me. Opposition to Christianity makes far more sense to me generally than opposition to Islam, because the former has people trying to Biblically define when life is conceived and impose that particular definition on everyone; the latter are half a world a way.
I mean...we spend a lot of time attacking different political ideologies we both claim not to believe in...so...I guess you can be Li'l Johnson, and I'll just be Johnson Jr.
Do you think the Church of Satan is full of a bunch of insecure people?
I deleted it because Lookin4GoodArgs already fixed it later down the chain of comments.
That's interesting. I think it's safe to assume you also think the Satanic Temple (who I should've used in the first place, but I get all these edgy groups mixed up) are attention whores...
Do you also not appreciate that they expose the hypocrisy of Christians via religiously-affiliated after school programs and religious icons in government buildings?
We currently have prominent Christians arguing that the separation of church and state is a misnomer. The Supreme Court just gave the thumbs up to Christians being able to discriminate against same-sex couples.
So, what's the deal? Should Christians be free to carve out these public spaces for themselves alone? Or should atheists, attention whores they may be, push back to at least expose Christian hypocrisy for all to see? At best, atheist opposition will either make public life more secular (as I believe it should be) or make it more tolerant for religious people generally rather than just Christians.
There's a particular rhetorical strategy I'm increasingly learning to identify with your help. It's called minimization.
I've identified a pattern of Christian exceptionalism and clearly juxtaposed it against the attention-whoring, as you call it, of the Satanic Temple.
You implicitly disagree by maintaining it's not Christian exceptionalism (after all, you're an atheist), they're just trying to celebrate a holiday. You ignore the activity of zealous Christians altogether. They're faultless not because they're not trying to make Christianity the state religion, nor because they and they alone can discriminate against same-sex couples, nor because they want their religious icons in government buildings, nor because they want Bible study after school programs to the exclusion of other religious programs—no, no, it's because...they're trying to party. Thus, complex legal strategems that take years to manufacture and construct and represent a danger to American democracy are minimized to a celebration. And the self-described Satanists are the party poopers.
It's good stuff. I genuinely appreciate your help.