I agree with you on all points.

In the linked article, I don't find any suggestion that reprehensible ideologies deserve respect. Only references to how individuals are treated.

Are you seeing something different?

So we're clear, I am not conservative by any means. Reviewing the article for hints, I don't see anything that I would call "thinly-veiled conservative propaganda" at all. The same words in the same order could be written anyone with any political perspective. Maybe my skeptic muscle isn't working right now. Please point out what you mean.

That said, the content doesn't have anything specific to do with atheism or religious bias. Tangentially, the right is fueled in large part by religion, which fuels the hatred being mentioned. I don't think that's too much of a stretch.

I posted the link because it's on a prominent atheist blogroll. I subscribe to many of them and collect the articles here, because Lemmy is a link aggregation website. It's pretty typical for people in a community of perspectives with one specifically in common to share many (not all) similar values and interest in similar topics, so I thought that a topic of interest for the author in question would be appreciated by enough of our community to be worth sharing.

To be sure, am not rooting around the web looking for articles about natural disasters and puppy mills and topics completely unrelated to philosophical discourse and superstitious belief. My posts will, at least, be humanities focused. Often, I find the propensity for humans to seek out and find - or create - differences to compartmentalize each other into rival groups of particular interest and relevance here.

Hmm?

This is exactly what I needed to see today.

I agree that intent is more important than words. It's incredibly easy to be disingenuous, and impossible to prove. Influential people take that to the bank.

As one who has never burned a book to the best of my recollection, I'm flummoxed by the pleading for respect of dogma.

It's one thing to be respectful of other human beings, in adherence to the social contract. It's quite another to demand respect for an arbitrary thing, such as a point of view.

For example, I refuse to knowingly use Apple products in my house and, by extension of the same principle, my family chooses to use products on offer by companies who respect the rights conferred by ownership rather than effectively leasing a device to me with provisions. If I am vocal about my distaste for the way Apple does business, and you happen to be an Apple user, I expect that you understand that I mean no disrespect to you, the individual. I don't care one whit what you use privately, provided it doesn't perturb my rights to act differently from you. Anyone who has had this conversation from either perspective knows that being an Apple user is practically a religion on its own, so I think the comparison is apt.

And yet, nobody is going to put up a serious problem if I smash an iPhone. People understand that destroying a physical object in protest is not meant as a personal affront.

Meanwhile, religions throughout history have committed no small number of human rights violations and atrocities that pale in comparison to burning a book. Nobody has ever caused harm to another human being by setting fire to a book in protest, unless they then threw that book at someone wearing flammable pajamas.

We need to start asserting something like Bibliocism, wherein all books are holy, and burning any of them should be condemned. There is no reason that my kid's early reader "Pat and Meg" should be treated with one iota less reverence than "The Quran."

Everyone thought it could have been an honest mistake. After all, she was home schooled. But then, they found out her name is actually Margaret.

It’s alright that you don’t believe what I do but there’s no need to berate or mock what I believe.

I will be respectful to you. No such courtesy is owed to beliefs. Anyone here is free to berate or mock beliefs all they like.

I don’t go around telling people they’re going to hell because they’ve been mostly a horrible person.

Good for you?

I do know God is real

No, you don't.

if it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t have made it through such a bullshit life as I have.

Apparently you are a stronger person than you think, even if you humbly choose to give that credit to mythological figures.

I’m sorry you don’t want me here.

First of all, I never said or implied that. Second, don't apologize for what you perceive to be my desires. It's disingenuous and childish.

if this is how an atheist looks on social media then what is the difference in your thoughts towards me and my belief if this is how you conduct yourself?

I don't understand what you are implying here. If you exist in a bubble where beliefs are sacrosanct, beyond reproach, you may not want to involve yourself in a community that is effectively the antithesis of that mindset. That has nothing to do with whether I want you here or not. It has to do with feeling comfortable.

I guess you put everyone who talks about God in the same box. Such a shame!

Again, I'm not going to guess at your implication here. There's nothing shameful, in a community called /c/atheism, to make a distinction between 1) people who believe in gods, and 2) people who do not.

It’s like me saying that I think people that wear shoes are delusional.

If those people are insisting that they have shoes on their bare feet, run around saying how awesome those shoes are, and prattle on about how they wouldn't have gotten to where they are today without those shoes, all the while you're looking at their naked toes... then they are delusional. You would be right to say they are, and you should make sure everyone around you can hear it.

As unfortunate as it is, there is almost certainly no such thing as hell, either. Sometimes, people who behave abhorrently get to live out their entire lives being hateful and influencing others to be the same way for the sake of superstition and fear, and then they die peacefully in their beds. Some excellent people get abducted and murdered. Innocent children are trafficked, starve to death, and die of causes that have been treatable for a hundred years.

There's no rationality to it, no fairness. It's just how it is. Armed with rationality, unclouded by paranoia and cult worship, maybe we can help a handful of others around us to see the mess for what it is and they can get some social comeuppance while they're alive to experience it.

I don't mean to yuck your yum, but this is a community supporting atheism, not supernatural revenge theory :)

They need to be convicted in trial and immediately shot in the back of the head, and then we can string them up above a bridge so the public can see the consequences of that kind of wickedness. There should be no excuse to not put these people to death.

I'm not sure there's any ambiguity about what he means, unless his words are to be interpreted the same way apologists interpret "The Bible."

Also, gods would first have to exist for anyone to belong to them, so I think we can assume that he belongs to none, just like the rest of us. Just a plain old, smooth-brained, garden variety, bigoted asshole.

Hey, @AvaddonLFC