I have been writing about Progressive Christianity for #ThermalThursday for a while now, so I’m sure you just knew I’d be writing today about the recent religion discussion on Daily Kos. Not to disappoint, here are my conclusions, FWTW, gathered not only from discussion here but from living my young adult life in the Bible Belt with mostly agnostic and atheist friends: Right-wing Christians, and sometimes Christians who consider themselves relatively moderate to left-wing, currently and historically have had an inner-circle problem: If you’re in you’re “good,” if you’re out you’re “bad”.
So many, although of course not all, atheists who reject Christianity were rejected BY Christianity first. Whether raised as part of the in group or on the outside looking in, they are rejected, often harshly; and often either for things they can’t change, like identity; or for things they don’t want to change because they consider them positive, like questioning authority. In addition, given the persistence of preachers, these issues often tear families apart. Coming from a place that is “supposed” to be about community and comfort, this HURTS, deeply and persistently.
At the same time, many other people are HURT deeply and persistently by the wider culture, such as by racism or anti-semitism or poverty. These people are either raised in or join a Christian or other religious group where they DO find community and comfort, even to the point of their religion being responsible for their literal survival.
Amongst all the diaries that I read over the past week plus, the one that stuck with me the most is this one, “Don’t believe — but don’t be a d*ck,” even though it was one of the shortest and as a general rule I don’t rec short diaries. Because it pointed me to this article on Jezebel written by an atheist, “How to be an atheist without being a d*ck about it”. Lots of good ideas in the article. The conclusion includes a rant regarding a survivor of sexual assault who leaned on a spiritual force to make it through:
You're going to pat yourself on the back for being "smarter" than this person whose humanity was violently stripped from her when she was just a child?... Who... are you to tell her how to survive?
There are a lot of people in the world who have nothing. Faith in a higher power gives them one thing. You know what we call people who try to take away other people's one thing?
Welp, you know. It’s poor form to try to take away another’s one thing. And by the same token, if a committed atheist or Pastafarian or whoever writes a rant here out of pain and fear of what the US might be becoming, Christians, please try not to take away their one thing either!
Those who have been hurt BY religion and those who have been hurt and find solace IN religion are never going to convince each other to change their minds. On this, I hope that we can agree to respectfully disagree. My 2 cents.