I’ll start! There was a lot of absolutist rhetoric there that said things along the lines of “All Christians are terrible, horrible, no good, very bad people!” I think a little nuance is in order, no?
Seconded.
I personally have adopted an “as long as it’s not hurting anyone” view of religions for individuals and smaller local groups, but I recognize that there’s a lot of factual hurtfulness that goes on systemically. That inherently will try and make this community devolve into intolerance, so there’s a tricky balance of moderating intolerance and welcoming open conversations that I don’t have the answer to.
One thing to keep in mind is that some people are anti religion due to experience. There are a lot of religions that ARE hurting someone by fly under the radar.
For example, I always see people say Lutherans are chill. Look up LCMS, it’s a literal cult. I grew up in it. There is a lot of abuse prevalent in it, ie teaching you how to hit your kid “correctly”.
But then people who speak up about it are labeled as “intolerant” or “edgelords” because “but everyone else told me Lutherans don’t hurt anybody!”
And even beyond that, there can always be specific churches within religions or denominations that are seen as “okay” that are abusing their power to hurt others. I am not going to go out and attack religious people or anything, but I’m also not about to be neutral on the subject when I know it opens up a world of potential abuse.
I am very against requiring religious tolerance, abuse victims require a place at the table.
That’s a very good point that people’s personal abuses play a key role in the intolerance of religion.
It’s a very blurry line between enabling detriment via tolerance, and disabling an inclusive discussion environment via intolerance. And, I’m not sure where that line could be well defined.
If this Atheist community would be prone to being more tolerant, perhaps there could be forums specifically for ex members of different beliefs. For example, I know there was an Ex-Mormon community on Reddit.
I mean, if you have to ban discussion of abuse and send abuse victims somewhere else to be “tolerant” then maybe… You shouldn’t be tolerant?
there’s a tricky balance of moderating intolerance and welcoming open conversations
Where does not tolerating religiously motivated hatred and intolerance fit into that framework?
I would classify that as harmfulness that should not be tolerated. However only at an appropriate level of generalization.
Articles about an individual going extremist should be met with disappointment in the individual, and disappointment in a system that would foster that extremism. But to call the whole religion a group of extremists would be too far.
When religion is used to strip away civil rights, I don’t think those actions deserve tolerance. Those actions are supported by large populations who were indoctrinated by their regional religion with mythologies that promise a happy afterlife if the members follow their leaders. Efforts to limit education and crticial thinking are used to avoid followers from realising the grift for what it is.
I realise the above is a generalisation, but they are real concerns of mine. At what point is tolerance just complacence?