Why I won’t be going to Skeptic or Atheist meetings anymore

[daaron]

34. Definitely aware of sexism and racism, but as I posted elsewhere -->

self-identification isn't a reliable indicator. Too fluid, as you point out in regards to my own complete conversion. (BWAHAHAHA!) It was particularly easy for me - seeing as I was raised by an atheist, had once considered myself atheist, and fell back into the habit when confronted with narrow-thinking Christians on moving to a sort of fundie dominated area - to take that label for the benefit it bestows (along with, I know, it's obvious drawbacks). That benefit, of course, would be that nobody wants to touch me with a 10-foot pole, which is how I like it. I figured it'd be too confusing to keep two labels going - one for meatspace, and one for cyberspace - so I picked one.

But my positions haven't changed. I still find early Christianity fascinating. How is it that upon my label-changing, all of the magic of my negligible remaining belief drained out and evaporated in a puff? I would have been arguing the same arguments as before, but with a different label - surely the new label has no influence on those arguments.