Is there a double standard in this Group between atheists and believers?

[struggle4progress]

28. Maybe personal experiences play a role

Over the years, I have heard plenty of conservatives express views about how different genders should dress and groom. At one time, where I lived, there was controversy about whether women could wear "pants suits" or whether they had to wear dresses. Former hippies like me remember the rage long-haired men inspired in some quarters -- and the fundamentalists who insisted the Pauline epistles required us to have short hair: some of us had fun pointing out to them that the standard depictions of Jesus showed him with long hair, as it was a sure way to trigger incoherent blather

Since then I've always wondered about demands for conformity, based on interpretations of the Bible in combination with claims that the Bible is "inerrant and infallible." A major use made of belief in an "inerrant infallible" scripture is that the person, claiming to possess this "inerrant infallible" text, implicitly claims also to possess an "inerrant infallible" reading of the text, and then explicitly claims enormous authority for his/her personal views, demanding our obeisance to those personal views

It may be unfair, but I have difficulty escaping this personal history and this psychological analysis, when reading the story of the little girl. The school's later response, involving matters such as alleged confusion of other students, caused by the little girl's use of the girl's rest room, does not particularly encourage me to change my mind: I would think the adults should pleasantly explain to the other girls that different people look different, and then tell the little brat-demons to straighten up or else

On the other hand, when I've had a document notarized, nobody has ever inquired into the document contents or my religious beliefs. Knief says she never had trouble at the bank before and says the notary in question "went to find another notary .. to .. do the authentications," but she also describes this as "the worst slight I have ever received." Perhaps Knief is a sheltered waif, and the fact that one notary went to find another to notarize Knief's paperwork really IS the worst slight Knief ever received -- but I suspect the claim will strike most people as a bit histronic