Replace “Atheists” with “Homophobics” or “Islamophobics” and “religious” with “homosexual” or “Islamic” and see what your above sentence turns into.
Just because you consider religious people to be victims of child abuse does not mean that is true. The fact there doesn’t seem to be a word for the hate of religion only means that the people who want to label hate don’t seem to see a need for one, not that those people don’t exist.
Replace “Atheists” with “Homophobics” or “Islamophobics”?
Wow.
I do not hate religious people…But I have no respect for those that would use their personal religion to control the personal lives of others.
A completely different sentence?
HL Mencken said it best. “We must respect the other fellow’s religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.”
I respect your right to believe in whatever. I do not respect you for believing in whatever. I get extremely angry when you try to force your beliefs on others.
end of story.
addendum: I think most people only believe in religion because they were brainwashed as young children. I think it should be illegal to expose children to religion before full maturity. If they want to believe in pink unicorns after that, fine. But brainwashing little kids is just wrong. It’s child abuse.
Moderator Note
This thread is about a specific word, not for your opinions about religionists. If you want to pursue this, start a new thread in Great Debates. At this point this is a hijack. Let’s drop it here.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
ETA: oops sorry, didn’t see the mod note. Post content deleted by poster.
Moderator Note
Let’s not continue this hijack.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Thanks.
A sentence that no longer works? let’s try it
“Homophobics don’t hate homosexuals they just laugh at and/or are appalled by the behaviour of homosexual people quite often”
No, sorry. Homophobes really do hate homosexuality and homosexuals, Islamophobes really do hate Islam and Muslims.
Many atheists, myself included are perfectly happy to accept that religious people can be good people, that they can follow their own beliefs and not harm a soul and not cause me one second of concern or complaint. You will be hard pushed to find a homophobe or (true) Islamaphobe that can say the same in regards to the target of their ire.
In short, I may criticise and mock religions or the religious but that is purely down to their freely chosen actions. I don’t hate a religious person just because they are religious.
I’ve never been a fan of the “whatever-ophobe” construction with the intended meaning of “anti-whatever bigot.” So IMO anything we can do to push back against that formulation is good.
To me it’s as grating as naming any political scandal “whatever-gate.” Yes, I understand the etymology. But it’s a bastard etymology that ought not be encouraged.
Some folks that “ophobe” is good because the problem stems from fear. I disagree. IMO the hate causes the fear. Not vice versa.
I’d vote for anti-theist or antitheist as well. All atheist means is one is lacking a belief in God or gods. The anti- very much implies the “against” nature being being discussed by the OP. Also, unlike some of the other suggestions, I think it’s a word that most people will have an intuitive understanding of what it means.
Obviously, this wouldn’t really apply to religions that either don’t posit a god or gods, like certain types of Buddhism, but I also don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone railing against the Buddhism in the way I’ve seen against Christianity, Islam, etc. I’m sure somewhere in the world there’s someone whose life purpose is ending Buddhism or anything that , but is it a meaningful enough distinction that it makes anti-theist not a good word?
Also, I’m not a fan of the -ophobe suffix in this context. I get that it can mean hate or enmity, but I think most people’s intuitive understanding of it is related to phobias, so I think it leads to a certain amount of ambiguity about how the word is used. So, it sort of makes sense in a word like Islamophobia, where most people that would be used to describe are motivated by fear of terrorism or Sharia or whatever. It makes less sense for homophobia, since it’s usually more hate than fear that drives that. And for religion, I seriously doubt there’s that many that are actually afraid of religion, except perhaps in the case of Islam or maybe certain areas of the world where one religious group is persecuting another.
And if anti-theist doesn’t work, perhaps because one really is against religion as a whole even ones that don’t have gods, I’d go with the less catchy, but unambiguous anti-religionist or anti-religious or something similar.
It can get murky. For instance, even if I hate the actions of one particular religious group, or any religious group that takes those same actions, does that make me a hater of religion?
If you “love the sinner but hate the sin”, does that make you homophobic? Under the current usage of the term, I’d say so.
But that depends on whether we’re talking about defining actions or not. If you hate gay sex, you’re homophobic, because gay sex is what defines homosexuality. But if you hate fashion and lisps, that’s not homophobia, because those things aren’t what define being gay.
Similarly, if you hate prayers and worship and singing hymns or just the simple belief in god, that would make you a hater of religion. But if you hate suicide bombers and crusades, that’s not hating religion, because while those actions may be perpetrated by religious people, they aren’t defining elements of religiosity.
Who gets to define those elements? Can the those of one religion(or none) define the elements of religiosity for all religions?
I’m talking about hating actions taken against those not of their religious persuasion, and those that do not follow their particular religious codes, not things they do amongst themselves(barring child abuse and the like).
Would the anti-christ hate religion?
The what?
I am an atheist, and I neither laugh at nor am appalled by the behavior of all religious persons. I can think of several belief I know and respect, whose admirable behavior is the result of their faith; I can think of others whom I detest whose comtemptibleness is born of their faith; and still others whose religion is irrelevant, in my view, to what makes them good or bad.