What do atheists mean when they talk about religion?

[dmallind]

10. Two answers, Bish.

1) We respond to how the word is used. If you want to define and focus the response, define and focus the term better among your co-religionists first.

2) We respond to its real contingent application. This is where the supposedly "more sophisticated" theologians get their noses up their own asses in thinking that it's the fault of atheists that we respond to more basic ideas of God than their increasingly ineffable trumpery. When every church, every religious snake oil mountebank, every Sunday morning Metatron on the political talk shows starts referring to God as not a being but the ground of Being, then we'll respond to that. It's no use superciliously whining that atheists almost always respond to big-beardy-in-the-sky images instead when you haven't managed in 2000 years to get more than 0.01% of your believers past that view, your Excellency. When they start using sophisticated theology (beyond parrotting your bogus minge that we don't "understand" it) in their political lobbying, in their evangelism, in their PR, in their preaching, then we'll start responding to it.