For a pretty good discussion on this topic, and the cause for the tip of the hat in the image caption, start here.
“We respect everybody.”
The Rules of the Road
That means that whether you are Unitarian Universalist, Roman Catholic, Russian Orthodox, Muslim, a member of the Church of All Worlds, or the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (The Pastafarians); an atheist, an agnostic, a pan-pagan, or something that fits no particular description but matters to you, you don’t get to put down anybody else because of their belief or opinion in this area.
That does not mean you cannot logically outline the problems you perceive in a particular faith or congregation, or that you cannot advocate for the position of the inherent absence of any entity that might be called a god. It does mean that if you use those positions to broadly smear a particular belief or its followers, or to come to conclusions about an individual because of their proximity to that belief, you are likely to be gently, or not so gently, corrected.
In other words, guys, using “Sky Fairies” to put down a religion is way out of bounds.
Using membership or belief in a religion to put someone down is a bad idea, generally. Using a derogatory word for a religion or branch of a religion doesn’t work too well, either. The conjugation “I am a member of an established religion. You are a heretic. He is a cultist,” works from the standpoint of any religion. If anyone has missed Emo Phillips on the multiple schisms of the Baptist church — well, I don’t recommend it as light comedy, but I always think of it when the subject comes up.
“Christianity” is not monolithic; neither, usually, are any of its offshoots that have grown past any single congregation. Today, “Evangelical” is a hot button, but it’s also a catch-all term for any proselytizing faith, and deliberately(?) misused by some movements within that category to inflate their numbers. It is also being regularly misused on Daily Kos, currently, to imply that it is synonymous with “Trump followers.” This may not be intentional bigotry, but it is bigotry nonetheless.
Proselytizing, and its antithesis
Personally, I’m about as ready to accept someone on Daily Kos trying to convince me to follow their particular God, or lack thereof, as I would be to have the reincarnated Ronald Reagan here trying to convince me to back trickle-down economics.
It’s why I have a particular level of animus toward people who call themselves atheists, but who cannot stand it that there are people in the world who do not agree with them. Talk about being bigoted toward all religions…
Your common or garden atheist is no problem here. A lack of belief in something does not usually translate into anything but an interesting discussion.
On the other hand, I’m having trouble remembering when the last time was, before this weekend, that someone posted a comment effectively beginning with “First, kill all the Christians.” (It was an interesting comment in that it only had room for a single division; Christians and atheists. Other possibilities weren’t even given a passing nod.) If you find yourself similarly tempted, you might want to find another place to write it.
If the idea of an organized religion seems silly to you, that’s perfectly fine. (Personally, I very much enjoy some of the more disorganized ones. I had a friend who decided at one point that her Goddess was named Caprice. Sounded good to me…) You can even mention it in passing, or write a comment or diary about it. As long as you don’t try to justify or prove your thesis in order to put someone down or make an assumption about their morality, you might even get away with it.
Lastly, one set of tangentially related terms that it may not ever have occurred to you to include in this discussion. It’s worthwhile, at least, to consider the basis and origins for Moral and Morality, Good and Evil, Wicked, and a few others in that general area, as used to define or judge actions, motivations, intentions, or general character.
You should be aware, at least, that for many people those terms are used primarily in a religious context, though many of the links are unconscious. To use them in describing people, or their actions, carries the implication that your readers are, or should be, comfortable with a particular theological basis, usually Christian, Judeo-Christian, or Abrahamic, for judging people and their actions. You may wish to consider whether these are, indeed, the standards you wish to use, considering the multiplicity of beliefs followed by the people likely to be reading your work.
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I’ve shut down membership in Community Moderation group (we had a wonderful month!); the Archive remains, and I’d appreciate it if people would message me with links to new diaries that you think might belong there. I’ve got a pretty fair list of interesting items that came up, waiting to be written about, and I’m open to more suggestions, so I expect to be doing these at least once a week for some time to come. Tuesdays still look like a good time. ;)
Comments are open.
Thank you all.
Caveat:
I am not on the Daily Kos Staff; I have no official position. I do not speak for the Help Desk, and just about everything in these except for direct quotes from the Rules of the Road is my personal opinion. Some of it I can back up with numbers, some is pure guesswork, and some of it is pulled straight out of thin air (or something), because it seemed to make a reasonable argument at the time.