Let’s Stop Calling New Atheism, “Atheism,” and Start Calling it What it is: Anti-Theism

[Fumesucker]

187. Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

You are assuming that I hate theists, I try hard not to hate anyone at all. I spend a considerable amount of mental effort to avoid antagonizing people around me by questioning their philosophy of life which I have learned from experience is inevitably taken as being condescending.

In return I get to listen to my own philosophy of life consistently and dare I say religiously belittled and I'm not supposed to feel condescended to or else I'm an insensitive clod. Even my own fucking brother who knows how I feel about religion uses phrases like "Good Christian woman" and doesn't realize the unsaid subtext. I just keep my mouth shut because I know saying anything will just start a fight.

Listening to anyone over the age of about eight saying "Santa Claus Bless America" would have a great many people Christians included either getting irate or laughing at the speaker. I'm supposed to accept what is to me the same thing and always keep a straight face, indeed I'm thought odd and probably unpatriotic if I do not participate in saying Santa Claus Bless America.

To me at least the idea of publicly flaunting of religion denigrates both religion and the public space. But then I grew up both in the austere contemplative form and the more extroverted physical Christianity and I know which one makes me more uncomfortable.

Probably 99% of the time I shrug stuff off like a duck does water but every now and then the religious privilege gets to be a bit too smug. You come across to me as if I were to tell a black person, a minority, how they should feel about being black, not something I would dream of doing.