I'm just saying "please shut up about your sky wizard" is a perfectly understandable attitude when you, a non-believer, are forced to spend decades showing deference to this bullshit, and in some cases having it shoved down your throat from every direction.
is it understandable: yes should it probably be sublimated to "don't be a dick": also yes
Yeah, but what counts as "being a dick" is sort of what's up for discussion here. I think it's "being a dick" to invoke religious belief as a politician, because it's intentional exclusionary towards those who do not share those religious beliefs, even in basic contours.
It's hard to understand I think for most Americans, because even non-christians are typically monotheistic, but imagine that the US had a significant population of people who worshiped the stars. It would be pretty offensive to prattle on about "God" to those people.
on the scale of politician dickishness? such a nothingburger that i don't know that it really makes a ripple. (i say this as a non-observant jew bordering atheist myself. i get the impulse.)
That doesn't mean it's politically optimal. It's not. If you want to win elections, you probably shouldn't say that sort of thing. But I think we show a lot more tolerance than is expected of any other religious minority.
The worst of it, in my lifetime, was the bush administration. Peak evangelical power, and also the height of the debate over whether gay people should get to just be normal people. I got very tired of being told that it was “religious bigotry” for gay people to want rights.
Ironically Bush was a big time God-botherer and he imposed his religious ideas on policy (even leaving aside claims he thinks God told him to invade Iraq), but his speeches included the word 'Atheist' as part of lists of faith communities deserving consideration, much more than his own father's did.
I always suspected that W was personally close to an atheist.
His father said he didn't think you could be both an atheist and a patriotic American. Imagine saying that about Muslims or Jews
I've heard that about both all my life, and especially about the latter.
100% agree and today was pretty eye opening seeing how large the backlash is on Bluesky to atheists objecting to religion in politics. This is a totally valid belief that people can hold
*scrambles to table, knocking over furniture on my way to post* GOD IS GLONZO
*youth pastor voice* you know who else liked to chew on power lines?
Even ignoring the power of actual religious institutions, it’s fucking nuts that we’re supposed to live in a Democracy under leaders and among voters who will tell you point-blank how belief in God impacts their worldview and ideology and then never be allowed to question the source of those ideas.
Yeah it's fine to be sick of Christianity as a dominating cultural hegemony. I hate that that's what counts as antitheism in the modern zeitgeist, instead of like, trying to get Israel and Iran to blow each other off the map.
Yeah I was really think we’d see a huge divergence and adoption after the Catholic Church’s massive and ongoing abuse of children, but nope, apparently that is not a bridge to far for the majority of the degenerates that is humanity. I guess a consolation prize is how ‘non-religious’ is growing.
believing in Glonzo is a bipartisan requirement to hold federal office and i'm somehow supposed to be okay with that