[Creed of Heresy]

As for the slurs. Fuck man. I can't stand the word "fag", i am literally traumitized by it, i understand the context you used it in, and i'm not saying that particular time you used it was wrong. But, later in your post you used other slurs, and in relation to my disposition with the word "fag", i'm hoping you'll understand the importance of not ising slurs at all.
That perhaps, people are actually offended by the use of such words that demeans their being. Even if it's not particularly directed at them. That they are still affected by them.

Understandable. Such was not my intent to cause that sort of pain, quite the opposite. But frustration clouds judgment, I suppose. I've been frustrated every reply I've made. The recent posts by Solumina and now you actually calmed me down and caused me to consider back on what I've said and how I've reacted. One step of frustration to the next. It's not the first time this sort of thing has happened, I strongly suspect it won't be the last, either. At least they don't happen nearly as much as they used to.

( on a side note, i remembered why i don't post as much anymore, using a cellphone for this crap is hard. My screen keeps changing direction in the middle of my paragraphs and i loose my train of thought by the time i fix the fucking thing. Also damn typos...)

You're telling me. I sell the damn things for a living, and my job actually REQUIRES me to own and use a smart-phone for inter-business emailing, time-clocking, and other activities that could be more easily done with a computer.

Originally Posted by versus

Creed of Heresy, everybody that has posted in this thread is irreligious to different degrees. Actually, most of this forum is, and most of the people who aren't have dabbled with it. Our experiences with it are sometimes different, but we try to understand that our individual experience is not the totality from it being a part of our lives. You mentioned being assaulted because you are an atheist, and we believe you. It's the exact opposite of my experience as an atheist; I've never hidden that part about me, I've never been persecuted for it, my mother is Christian and still loves the ever living shit out of me and respects my decision, I've never even gotten into a full blown argument where I defend myself for it, much less physically attacked. With all of that, I STILL BELIEVE YOU. I recognize that my experience is not the default or the standard.

I could bring up dozens of blogs about people who came out as atheists and were immediately disowned by their families...or even outright abused for it. You are correct, though. Experiences are very subjective. One may suffer for the same problems that another does not, vice versa, neither may suffer, or both may suffer. It is fallacious of me to assume that I have it harder than others because of one simple reason, or that they may have it harder or easier either way because of different reasons.

Originally Posted by versus

Now fucking listen. You don't have a god damned fucking clue what it's like to be a woman or queer or trans. You have absolutely no fucking idea what it means when someone says "I had to use my white voice". When you made this thread and bitched about people making fun of your stupid clothes, nobody said that it was bullshit, or implied that you were making it up. When you talked about being attacked for being an atheist, nobody doubted you and said that your experience is bullshit because it's never happened to some of us. But when Solumina says that it's way harder for her to deal with being a women, with being queer, then it is for her to be irreligious, you said it was bullshit and then you fucking mansplain what real oppression is like. You don't even fucking know what the fuck it's like. There are so many things that people deal with that you don't even have to think about, that you've probably never even thought about at all, and you just dismiss and marginalize them because they aren't your problems so they must be made up or exaggerated.

See my above reply to Murder; I imagine you will have read it already, however. It's difficult to be empathetic when you spend your entire growing life in a situation like that. Just look at a lot of inner city individuals for that. Some turn out good. Many turn out completely apathetic to the concept of understanding. Hell, you don't need to look to inner cities. You can find that just about anywhere.

I only started volunteering at the RCC about a year ago. I only became a humanist about two years ago. I was an atheist of the nihilistic variety up until four years ago. During that time the only people I exhibited any kind of care to were my friends and my brothers. I was completely apathetic to nearly everyone else. After a while, my own bigotry and misconceptions started to crack as I began to come to know more and more people from groups I had once been indoctrinated into believing were "immoral" or "wrong" or "unequal." The only two groups I had ever really not had any bias against were gays [this level of acceptance was still rather low, however] and darker-skinned people [largely because I spent so much of my life with them constantly present].

The more the cracks began to widen, the more I began to realize how very wrong I was, and had been. The more I exposed myself to the parts of society that I had spent so long being told were intrinsically "bad," the more I came to realize there was nothing bad about that which supposedly made them bad.

Maybe three, four years at most, of trying to buck these misconceptions later... I have come to realize none of the vile claims are true, and I strive for all to be treated as equals to everyone else.

And yet...you are quite correct. To me, you are TOO correct, uncomfortably so. There is something in my mind, in my personality, that keeps holding to a bias, to a need to downplay what others endure.

I don't know why. Is it because of my own subjective experiences of my past? Am I still under the impression that because I had to experience so much trauma, that the trauma others endure must be inferior? Or is it some of that brainwashing, that early-conceived bias that is still holding on for dear life? I hope it's just a lingering bit of bias, because that...THAT, I can do away with with a bit more time and discussion. But if it's the former, that means somewhere in the back of my head I'm listening to others describing the horrific trauma they've experienced and comparing it to mine and finding it inferior. Even if I'm not consciously aware of it...

Ongoing therapy would get rid of that. I hope.

Well. Either way.

Solumina, I apologize. I did not intend to state that your situation is bullshit. To anyone else to whom this applies, I did not mean to imply that I am discriminated against more than you. Even if it seems like I all but directly stated as such, it was not what I intended, and I do not truly feel that way.

Well. I hope I don't feel that way, anyways.

Originally Posted by Saya

Sometimes I wonder if the whole "being atheist is worse than being a gay Muslim black transwoman" mentality stems from white straight cismen suddenly finding an area in life where they aren't top dog.

Yes, I was totally a top dog before I was an atheist, with the world handed to me on a silver fucking platter. The studies and findings in that sociology report I posted a link to was totally written by straight white cisgender athei- Oh wait no it wasn't, it was written by an Indian, a woman, and a white Christian male and undertaken by a widely-varied group of individuals...

Now, if it had included multiple varieties of what kind of individuals were least trusted/most disliked, say, atheist and gay, or female and gay, or black trans, or muslim woman, the results may have become very different...but it did not. It focused only on a single aspect; which single aspect about someone would people focus more on regarding how they could be trusted, embraced, and/or accepted? Being an atheist was what most people said they disapproved of the most.

That said, I imagine the more you add on top of that, the worse and worse it gets. I also imagine you DON'T need to be an atheist in order to receive all sorts of bias and bigotry, hell, being just one of the other things could still earn you such diatribe and hatred from others; the study did not say 100% for atheists, it said 40% of those polled replied that above all others they viewed atheists as being least compatible with their opinion on being valid within American society, and 48% responded that above all others, they would distrust an atheist the most. And then those polled stated that given the choice between giving a kidney to either an atheist or a Christian, both in equal need, most of them stated they would give it to the Christian. But yet...not 100%.

And it's a study. Not a census. So...take it with a grain of salt and all.

Originally Posted by saya

I think my favourite part is when he implied women can't be gay or atheist.

I think my favorite part there is when you committed contextomy.