fierceawakening:

deshretandkemet:

fierceawakening:

funereal-disease:

Plenty of people have outlined what’s fucked up about that “white male atheism is fundamentally different from Marginalized Atheism” post, but I just hit on the main reason it bothers me:

It positions religion as the human default, from which you are excused only if you’re sufficiently damaged. Like “I guess it’s okay if you’re shipping to cope” – if it’s just a consolation prize for being broken and pitiable, it’s not really okay at all. It’s okay if you can’t be religious because of trauma, but always remember that this is a personal flaw, a result of your damage, and that *healthy people* are religious.

Under this schematic, atheism isn’t simply another way to be human and think human thoughts. It’s a deviation from the “natural”, i.e. religious, state, and you’d better have a damn good reason for going against the grain. You think you can defect from normal society just because you *want* to? That’s just your white male privilege talking. Marginalized people have suffered enough to earn the right to defect, but you’re gonna shut up and praise God like a normal person.

This is exactly it! I’m not an atheist because I’m damaged, or because I don’t have numinous experiences, or because I haven’t enjoyed them.

I’m an atheist because when I think about the question of whether gods are beings or stories, my answer is consistently that I think they’re most likely cool stories.

Like, I try to tell myself “think they’re not stories for an hour or two, just to understand people better!” And my brain goes “but I’m pretty sure they’re stories…?”

I know people find this insulting, and I think I get why, but honestly… I’m in fandoms, and those fandoms have literally saved my life. “Megatron is fictional” and “Megatron is unimportant” have different truth values to me. So me thinking your god is probably a story too actually isn’t me thinking “your god shouldn’t matter to you.”

I get that it’s something you still might not like! And that’s okay!

But calling religion made up and calling religion stupid are actually different things.

And if this is referring to the post we think, it also is kind of insulting to religious people too? Like the ways it links trauma in is weird like it’s the same thing where trauma determines too much of how you think so it can end up invalidating.  Plus it really flattens down religion to Christianity or even only certain kinds of Protestant Christianity while claiming to speak for a wide swathe of people.  And tbh, the whole “only the default because you haven’t examined enough” thing is just meh.

Can only have sympathy for how it must sound to you as an atheist. : /

You mean implying that religious people only believe because they’re naive from not experiencing trauma? Yeah.

People believe the things they do for reasons.

You can think someone is incorrect about something while still respecting *why* whatever it is matters to them, ffs.