Hehe. I find this point of view exactly as believable as any other religion I have heard of.
Apologies for the late reply, but I hadn’t seen this
Well, for one, because your claim is inaccurate. Religious intolerance promotes what you claim. I said “religious tolerance.” That’s the exact opposite.
I’m a Christian. You appear to be an atheist. My best friend is an atheist as are most of the people I interact with online. I do not believe any of them are inferior to me, and none of them believe I am inferior to them. (Or we couldn’t be friends.)
You may believe religion is ultimately bad. There definitely are a lot of people who use religion as a reason to do bad things. But there are people for whom religion inspires them to do good things. It is thus possible to tolerate religion as long as it doesn’t promote bad things.
Racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and so on: all of these are unquestionably bad. It is not possible to tolerate bigotry and accomplish anything good.
Like it or not, I know people who both are genuinely good people, looking out for others, defending the oppressed, but who would also say “have a blessed day,” not realizing that it has picked up negative meaning from non-Christians. People have blind spots.
If an atheist believes they are superior to me because they are an atheist, I don’t see them as any different than someone who believes they are superior to me because they are a fundamentalist Christians or because they reject “trans ideology.” At the end of the day, it’s just an opinion that “people like me are superior to people like you.”
And that tribalism is the actual underlying problem.
Well, yeah. This is obviously true.
The problem is when you try to do the same thing back to them. Because then you’ve just communicated you don’t actually believe it is wrong.
Besides, it doesn’t work. No one learns the desired lesson. You are just seen as a jerk or hypocrite. I’ve tried it. Y’all hated me for it.
I would see someone write something condescending or that offended me. I would take the same tone back. The idea being “if you can do it, so can I.” Did anyone ever understand? Did it stop anything? Hell no.
Again, I don’t like the “have a blessed day” thing because it’s so often not about being nice but about being an exclusionary identity marker. It’s just like, this type of thread reminds me of my depressed friend who will have a small thing destroy his whole day.
Yeah, i tried that for a short time. There’s no upside. At best, the other person is confused. More likely, they think you’re a jerk. In no cases do they have a revelation that they did something unpleasant.
To me, it doesn’t matter if it is good or bad, because there are very real things out there that could be either. Your god being evil wouldn’t make one an atheist. It is the fact that there is no real evidence to even support the existence of a god in the first place. For instance, if Santa Claus inspired me to do wonderful things, would that be evidence that he actually existed?
No, but it would be evidence that you should tolerate your friend who believes in Santa Claus, and draws strength and inspiration from that belief.
I am pretty sure that toleration and acceptance of adults that believe in Santa Claus would not be too wide spread, especially if it was done openly and people gathered publicly to celebrate his existence.
While your overall point isn’t wrong, I think you read too much into my post. I wasn’t advocating that anybody deliberately “do the same thing back” to the more aggressive subset of “have a blessed day” Christians who use the phrase for deniable microproselytizing.
I was just commenting that other groups such as Muslims have similar phrases that are used conventionally with no religious intent but have a literal religious meaning that those Christians might not be on board with.
So yes, I was pointing out that sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, but no, I wasn’t suggesting that anybody should deliberately attempt to “sauce the gander” by saying “alhamdulillah” or similar to a microproselytizing “blessed day” Christian in order to make that point.
I’m sure it wouldn’t be, because it would be seen as a Christian here’s that MUST BE STAMPED OUT. But that doesn’t mean the lack of tolerance would be right.
If all that was asked was that others be tolerant, then this discussion probably wouldn’t be a thing that happens over and over again. Now, it may be that tolerance is all that you ask for, and that is all very well and good, but it is also your own point of view and not generally what is encountered by many out there.
I am willing and do “tolerate” so much from insensitive persons.
This requirement that I do it more just satisfy some of the most bigoted people in America(no experience in other places). Just no.
You can “bless”, pray for, bible thump to your hearts content. I don’t need to be bothered by it. So, don’t bring it to my door. Same with your Trump-cult shit.
Most I can do, at this time, is walk away. And I do. You’re talking to the air, fool.
(I don’t mean any person particularly, just in general)
I think most atheists are tolerant, we just talk shit about Christianity when we’re out of earshot. My husband, a former Catholic, is now so anti-Catholic he won’t even attend family baptisms. We have a friend who is a Presbyterian minister who also hates Catholicism for various reasons, that are totally different reasons than my husband’s reasons. Whenever they start complaining about Catholicism they go on and on and I check out. I think it’s mostly boring as hell.
But none of the three of us would ever say that to a Catholic family member or friend and risk damaging the relationship. Some atheists are loud and vocal and terrible but most of us just keep our opinions to ourselves. We are aware that we live in a very Christian culture and that this stuff is important to people.
It’s just challenging because there’s no way to explain why you’re an atheist without offending theists. There’s really no polite way to say, “I think this thing that is super important to you and fundamental to your identity is complete bullshit.” That’s not a nice thing to say to anyone. But I would be lying to pretend that’s not fundamentally my position. How do you sugar coat that?
Ditto.
I’ve never had anyone tell me to have a blessed day, but if someone did I’d be as likely to think ‘Wiccan’ as to think ‘Christian’. And I’d probably answer the same way as I do when told to have a merry Xmas: “No, thanks – don’t believe I’d care for one.”
I’ve actually referred to myself as blessed and I don’t believe in God. So I guess I don’t even consider blessings a strictly religious thing. I just mean I’ve got some good stuff going on. I’m lucky. Etc.
Not that I would ever say anything like “have a blessed day.”
But I might say something like, “I’ve been blessed with a wonderful husband.” I mean he is at least in the most symbolic sense a miracle, an amazing thing that happened that I can’t explain. Not an actual gift from a benevolent God but so out there I really don’t know what else to compare it to but a miracle. I say there are three great miracles in my life. My husband, my son, and my writers group, all of which just seem really statistically improbable to have been in my life. Like lightning striking three times.
Not a bad way to look at things, I’d argue.
Like lots of English words, there are many definitions of blessed.
I’m blessed with a great dog. Not the same as some snarling, snippity teenage clerk saying “have a blessed day, hon” with a smirk.
Excuse me!
So is it like “bless your heart” down there, or what?
Exactly the same.
I got “have a blessed day” from a Latino cashier at a Bucc-ees south of Houston.
Probably the same thing when anybody starts going on about the minutia of anything you have no interest in. E.g. Star Wars vs. Star Trek or for me, basketball, pro or college.
Yeah, when anyone starts talking pro or con a particular religion I normally say something to effect of, “You realize you’re basically just telling me how much you love or hate Marvel comics, right?”