No one is free from criticism. Harmful ideas should be condemned, when they are demonstrably harmful. But theist beliefs are such a vast range and diversity of ideas, some harmful, some useful, some healing, some vivifying, and still others having served as potent drivers of movements for justice; that to lump all theist religious belief into one category and attack the whole of it, only demonstrates your ignorance of theology, and is in fact bigotry.
By saying that religious and superstitious beliefs should be disrespected, or otherwise belittling, or stigmatizing religion and supernatural beliefs as a whole, you have already established the first level on the “Pyramid of Hate”, as well as the first of the “10 Stages of Genocide.”
If your religion is atheism, that’s perfectly valid. If someone is doing something harmful with a religious belief as justification, that specific belief should be challenged. But if you’re crossing the line into bigotry, you’re as bad as the very people you’re condemning.
Antitheism is a form of supremacy in and of itself.
"In other words, it is quite clear from the writings of the “four horsemen” that “new atheism” has little to do with atheism or any serious intellectual examination of the belief in God and everything to do with hatred and power.
Indeed, “new atheism” is the ideological foregrounding of liberal imperialism whose fanatical secularism extends the racist logic of white supremacy. It purports to be areligious, but it is not. It is, in fact, the twin brother of the rabid Christian conservatism which currently feeds the Trump administration’s destructive policies at home and abroad – minus all the biblical references."
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2019/5/4/the-resurrection-of-new-atheism/
I would compare some areas of the USA with some more democratic Islamic countries. Religion is everywhere and even if it’s not encoded in the law, it’s still a driving factor behind politics.
However, don’t think religion takes away hatred. Eugenics and some awful forms of racism were based on Darwin’s explanation of evolution. It’s not hard to take a Darwinistic approach to banning stem cel research either, because obviously it would be good for the species to keep the weak and ill our of our gene pool, right?
Not all churches are forces of good. In fact, I think most churches mostly exist to serve themselves more than the message of goodwill they show the outside world. If church goers would follow Jesus’s words, you would’ve been clothed, fed, and helped by those churches, despite the risks themselves. However, that’s not unlike charities and NGOs without religious orientations.
There are gay people who hate bi people. There are LGB people who hate trans people. Even the most disparaged will find reasons to hate those they should logically team up with.
I’ve encountered this myself with family members who I doubt have ever been to a church service other than for some Christian school propaganda. Despite being agnostic as hell, they think gay people shouldn’t be allowed to adopt children, because “a child needs a mother and a father”. People come up with these types of stupid preconceptions all by themselves if you let them.
Religion, as a concept, is often a mere conduit for the behaviour of its members. They’ll use whatever religious text they can find to back their point, just like the “5G is killing us all” people will find scientific papers to back their claims. However, they can also be a conduit for good; the red cross and (the European branch of) the salvation army are forces of good that were created based on religious beliefs.
We would do well to abandon the fundamentalist views many religious people hold, but they aren’t hateful or fearful just because the church says they should be. Look no further than QAnon or Trump to see how you don’t need any religious figure at all to set up a hateful cult of millions.
One interesting thing I’ve found discussing things with some extremely Christian (almost Republican Christian) colleagues back in the day, was that the stricter people adhered to their religion, the more they seemed to contribute to charity and advocate for taking care of refugees. When they criticised my lack of religion, I genuinely believe they did so in an attempt to save me from eternal damnation. These people are probably not the people you’ve met, and they hold pretty shitty opinions just as strongly (I foolishly brought up gay marriage once), but there are some real golden nuggets in there that I haven’t seen elsewhere in secular spaces.
I’m just going to say that as far as what you covered in that last comment there’s not really anything I disagree with. I only have one small criticism, and honestly it’s something that I’m sure you would have gotten to in a deeper explanation.
As far as eugenics and the negative side of Darwinism goes. I feel that science as an idea is free to change and expand. But, religion as a belief is far more rigid and set. This allows us to come back later and correct the science, but not the religion.
But yeah. I basically agree with the other things.