When I called someone out for being “delusional” and “a problem”, I was perma-banned from the r/atheism. Have I missed something? Are atheists at literal war with theists? Is it the common belief that theists are willing members of “murderous organizations”? What propaganda is being passed around atheist circles that I’ve been missing out on?
More directly, I guess, is today’s Atheism strictly about anti-Christianity? Cause that’s not where I’m coming from nor interested in going.
For added context of the conversation I was attempting to have - “everybody or nobody”; if a pride flag alone fails to represent everyone (which it inherently does), wouldn’t the proposed argument prevent hanging the flag? I thought it was a reasonable reply to the idea and was shocked by “murderous organizations” coming into play.
(I mean, people have been hanging American flags and singing the National Anthem too.)
The purpose of a pride flag is to show support for inclusion of people who have been historically excluded, marginalized, and attacked for merely existing as they are, and still are to this day, often officially and actively by governments and religious groups. It’s not a religious symbol of superiority or exclusion. Do you really not see the difference?
I do understand why you seem to think “pro-humanity and tolerance” equates to “anti-Christianity,” but that is unrelated to atheism, which just means, “I don’t believe gods exist.”
Well, it is a symbol of exclusion. Practically all flags are symbols or representing a portion of a population, which by default excludes other portions (American flag excludes Canada, Japan, etc). Unless I’m misunderstanding the flag. Does the pride flag represent straight people too?
Because I’m thinking of someone less emotionally stable than me, a straight white kid who doesn’t believe in god, who might have shitty parents and maybe doesn’t do well in school sitting in class surrounded by all these flags that represent gay people and buddhists and christians and Boy Scouts and the football team, etc. These are the kids who might turn out to be problematic. This is why the far-right extremists are out of control. They’re afraid of being forgotten and ignored just as they outcast minorities for generations.
So I support the idea of all or nothing for the sake of those who find themselves in the minority. Everyone (who isn’t opposed to equality) should feel equally represented.
So you’re asking to remove all symbols and flags everywhere?
I’ll take a reductio ad absurdum for this one:
Let’s remove all symbols and flags that represent groups, like crosses, pride flags, football team flags everything that isn’t on a national scale.
So all you would have in the end is your national flag. Great! Problem solved. Oh, no, wait. What about people that don’t have the nationality but are in the country? They look around and see national flags everywhere and feel terribly excluded. Okay, let’s get rid of national flags, too. Then we’ll just have the United Nations flag. Although, no, some countries aren’t part of or recognized by the UN. That won’t work.
Okay, no flags then, fine.
But wait, what about signs? If you have a sign that uses the western alphabet, which consists of symbols, you exclude everyone that doesn’t feel represented by these symbols. Imagine being a Japanese person in the US. Only western letters, so excluding.
Okay, let’s get rid of writing then.
I’ll just watch TV. It makes it difficult that the remote is mostly blank but I don’t want to be excluding. Hold on. There is a logo on my TV!
This is so excluding, I don’t feel like part of that company, the TV is excluding me.
Let’s get rid of brand logos too, then!
Your point is absurd. Also, you can’t possibly think a pride flag is as bad as, say, a cross. The flag is a symbol of acceptance, the cross a polar opposite.
Why should symbols represent everyone? The whole point of a symbol is to distinguish specific groups. If you support banning all symbols that support specific groups then it appears your advocating for total uniformity of humanity. If a symbol represents a specific group in a specific context that is dangerous or exploitative then ban it, I guess. For example the Swastika in a plain Buddhist context represents peace and that’s fine. A swastika in much of the world is most likely in indicator of Nazism, and thus should be banned. There’s a clear difference here. I don’t know why you’re jumping to binaries, the world isn’t binary. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance