In 2015, many liberal residents in Hamtramck, Michigan, celebrated as their city became the first in the United States to elect a Muslim-majority city council. They viewed the power shift and diversity as a meaningful rebuke of the Islamophobic rhetoric of then Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign. This week many of those same residents watched in dismay as a now fully Muslim and socially conservative city council passed legislation banning Pride flags from being flown on city property that had – like many others being flown around the country – been intended to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community.
I honestly can’t think of a single organised religion that hasn’t had atrocities committed in its name (or encouraged adherents to commit atrocities). A lot of unorganised religions and spiritualities also encourage/require some abhorrent shit too, such as genital mutilation or the use of human body parts in certain folk magics.
It’s especially difficult to argue against supernaturall beliefs. It means they don’t even have to pretend to care about reality.
You have too much faith in humanity. Blind, irrational devotion to your beliefs with no regard for reality is not exclusive to religion. Browse a conservative forum for a few minutes and you’ll come across plenty of atheists who also have fundy-esque devotion to nonsensical right-wing concepts like trickle-down. Not even cults have to be religious: just ask people who believe in the Jason Fung Diet or chronic lime disease why they think the scientists are wrong. Religion is just a means to an end for most dogmatists, their real god is the dogma itself.
