This person was apparently a Holocaust denier: https://www.scribd.com/document/254599625/American-Atheist-Magazine-Aug-1989
You can agree with something someone says, and disagree with something else they say or do.
Would you be comfortable quoting Hitler and agreeing with the content?
Edit: to be more precise, I neither equate O’Hair with Hitler nor do I imply that OP knew about her holocaust denial. I’m simply pointing out that a quote can’t always be separated from its source.
Do not compare yourself to others. If you do so, you are insulting yourself.
- Adolf Hitler
Yeah it’s not hard to agree with that, even if the guy was a monster of the worst kind.
Maybe I should quote someone else who said something similar, would be less controversial and to not put the asshat on pedestral, but in this case it was likely the OP didn’t know much about the person and just saw a text he agreed on.
The difference being, Hitler was well known for his bigotry. Some quotes are popular because they express an idea in a clever or entertaining way. Other quotes are used to invoke the gravitas of the original speaker or the original context. Sometimes it’s a bit of both.
Quoting Hitler, even for something relatively benign like his lunch order, implies that you support his ideology and actions. “I’ll have the salad, just like Hitler” has an obvious undertone of bigotry. Hitler might have shared some truisms, but chances are you can find similar, alternative quotes from famous people who didn’t commit a genocide.
Hardly anyone knows who Madeline O’Whatever is, and knowing she is a Holocaust denier, to me, means that she’s a nutjob. But it doesn’t mean all of her statements are false. The above statement is true, regardless of any unrelated delusions held by the speaker.
So look, I appreciate the sentiment, but none of that stuff happened to you or your families, or anyone you’ve ever met … so using “us” here send a bit of an edgelord vibe.
There are a lot of groups of people who Christians are currently oppressing, beating, and sometimes killing across the globe, but the time that “atheists” are among those groups passed quite some time ago.
There’s no need for this kind of moral posturing to dismiss Christians’ desire to enforce their religion on others. It’s not a right they have, end stop.
I occasionally get a coworker making jokes about me not having morals or something, but that’s about it.
Not what I’m advocating for. The fact is, humanism is a far more widely practiced religion than Christianity and requires no belief in a god. Fascists killing you for being gay is much more prevalent of an issue than Christians killing you for being a heretic.
This kind of language makes atheists look like edgelords trying to glom on to other people’s suffering in order to claim moral high ground via victimhood. It’s not necessary or helpful.
This is a great quote. Surprised I hadn’t heard it before.
