(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . 48 hours spent trying to convince atheists that DailyKos is no place to mock religion [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-02-20 Below is the comment that set off my attempts to get critics of religion here on DailyKos to confront these truths; mockery is not a necessary part or even valuable part of legitimate, ethical religious criticism this not an appropriate site on which to engage in mockery of religion mockery of religion on DailyKos is racist mockery of religion on DailyKos is disloyal to the site and to the Democrat Party I kept asking some close variation of why mocking religion was so important to people that they’d participate in a racist act and risk damaging this site and the Democratic Party by mocking religion? This is the comment in the diary that led to my fighting to prevent mocking of religion on DailyKos. Voicing criticism and mockery of beliefs that you hold is not the same as attacking or oppressing you personally. You do not have a right to be free of offense based on religion. For those who are easily upset at religious criticism, you would be well served by thickening your skin a bit and remembering that if any given critique or disparagement by an atheist doesn’t apply to you, then it doesn’t apply to you. This is a summary of my argument. I am fully supportive of criticizing religion. I have spent decades criticizing the United Church of Canada for its relationship with First Nations, Inuit and Métis. Eventually, with lots of help from many other critics, I got to see the United Church of Canada change, make reparations, apologize, and become allies and strong supporters of Canada’s Indigenous people. I was also part of the successful push to get the United Church of Canada to fully open its arms and hearts and support the LGBQT2S community with all its resources. Two of our last 4 leaders have been members of the LGBQT2S community. Neither I or any other critic involved in these fights resorted to mocking religion. Obviously it is possible to effectively criticize religion without mocking religion. We recently saw this confirmed in the uprising in the Southern Baptist Conference. I am here opposing the idea that atheists on a Democratic site have a right to mock religion. Mocking religion on this site is both dangerous and racist. This is a Democratic website. According to Pew Research, For example, among Democrats and those who lean toward the Democratic Party, 95% of all nonwhites (which includes 99% of blacks) say they believe in God or a higher power, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey (2018). and Nearly half (47%) of black Democrats say they attend church at least weekly, and about three-quarters pray daily (74%) and say religion is very important in their lives (76%). That last number compares to 35% of white Democrats. So when you start mocking religion you are disproportionately attacking non-white minorities, the most loyal of Democratic voters. You will see this more clearly below. 40% of Democrats are non-white. Let’s suppose that only 70% of all non-white Democrats (though we know 76% of Black Democrats say this) say religion is very important to them. That means that 28% of Democrats are non-white people whose faith is very important to them. Now what % of the Democratic Party do atheists make up. Just 5% of the Democratic Party are atheists. Are all atheists interested in mocking religion? No, probably not. The best proxy I can find for wanting to mock religion is having the characteristics most associated with New Atheism. New Atheism, which is neither new or particularly atheistic, encourages confrontation with religion. Mocking religion is certainly confronting it if nothing else. [What follows is a recent change to the stats I used in this section over the last 48 hours. People who have been arguing with me over the last 48 hours won’t have seen these numbers] I am going to say a maximum 80% of atheists in the Democratic Party want the right to mock religion based on Ryan Cargun’s cluster analysis of New Atheist traits in Pew Research’s 2007 US Religious Landscape. (Both Ryan and I am sure that number is a huge over estimate. I am sure there are many people in that 80% who really want to engage in genuine, respectful, and ethical religious criticism or just get on with living ) but let’s go with 80% for sake of the discussion. Thus, 4% of the Democratic Party want the right to mock the strong beliefs of 28% of the Democrat Party. That 4% is largely white (not entirely but largely) and wants to mock religion while 28% of Democrats are non-white people of faith who say their faith is very important to them. I can’t help asking myself why would this site tolerate this mocking campaign? Why would any Democratic site? Especially since mocking has nothing whatsoever to do with legitimate, ethical religious criticism. It gets even worse because we know 35% of white Democrats say their religion is very important to them. We know from Pew Research that 60% of Democrats are white. Thus, 21% of Democrats are white people whose religion is very important to them. So now we have 4% or less of Democrats demanding the right to mock the very important beliefs of 49% of Democrats. Frankly, I think that is insane. This fight for the right to mock is clearly racist in that the mockery will fall disproportionately on non-white Democrats (70% of them being targeted by the mocking of religion and only 35% of whites being targeted). It is also clearly horribly disloyal to the Democratic Party and this site. Also why would anyone want to mock religion here, where you can’t find any Christian Nationalists, anyone planning to turn America into a theocracy, anyone who supports the takeover of SCOTUS by right wing religious extremists, anyone who supports book banning or anyone who supports further attempts to violate the separation between Church and State? In fact, based on comments here on DailyKos a strong majority of members want to increase the separation of Church and State. So I repeat, why here? What is the mockers end game? Is their plan to destroy this site or is it to badly damage the Democratic Party or both? I suggest it is just that their desire to mock religion is so powerful they aren’t able to think rationally about the consequences of their actions. They are attacking allies. Given how small in numbers and how lacking in political and media power atheists are those mocking religion in any media directed at Democrats are biting off their nose to spite their face. I will end by saying I am a member of American Atheists and now Canadian Atheists. I have been a member of Humanist Canada for many years. This isn’t at all unusual for members of the Brethren which I used to be or for members of the United Church of Canada which I was raised in and to which I have returned. I have been a Buddhist on and off since I was 7 (I was raised by Buddhists who also engaged in other religious and spiritual practices). My parents were too busy working. I was an Agnostic and then an Atheist each for about a decade. During that time I dabbled in Sufism but abandoned the practices when I joined the Brethren. During my atheist years I began to explore my Indigenous roots seriously and began training to be a Shaman with in my traditional Indigenous animism. Thirty eight years later I am nearly a full fledged Shaman. I still haven’t mastered what should have been my cradle language (the far reaching pernicious impact of the Residential Schools System) well enough to tell our story of our origins. It takes five days to tell and is done entirely from memory. I have finally memorized it in English. I joke and paraphrase Walt Whitman and say “I contain multitudes. So sue me!” I am trying to help promote atheists and atheism. Like quite a large percentage of left wing Christianity I have no fundamental issue with atheists and atheism. I do however pushback hard on atheists who insist on using mocking, denigrating language, insults, and gaslighting here on DailyKos. It offends me but it doesn’t do anything to advance the cause of atheism or atheists. I believe it actually hurts. I consistently seem to frustrate atheists by refusing to take a side. I am a cross cutter in this and nearly every other aspect of my life. I have a foot in many different camps. As physically impossible as that may be to accomplish in the natural world. I hope this makes my personal position clear and I never have to repeat any of this again. I won’t be available to respond to comments until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest. I am attending a professional development seminar to keep my knowledge and clinical skills in helping menopausal women current. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/20/2154131/-48-hours-spent-trying-to-convince-atheists-that-DailyKos-is-no-place-to-mock-religion Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/