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Master of sensitivity, that one.
From The Humanism of Adventure Time: A Cartoon For Kids (and Adults) That Teaches Science and Empathy:
You know how you like to complain about condescending religious people being all condescending at you? This is that. It's the same damn thing.
Open derision is not 'sensitivity', even (or especially) when your open derision is all about 'tolerating other people's delusions'.
Saying things like this is why people roll their eyes when you start talking, and don't invite you to hang out as much as they used to. It's not that they're clinging to superstition and magic, it's that you've become an asshole and tolerating your smug bullshit gets old fast.
Want people to stop treating you like you're just angry kids stomping and throwing a fit against the Church? Stop lobbing spite and resentment at innocent bystanders during conversations--it's just as awkward, uncomfortable and unwelcome as "I'll pray for you."
Sincerely,
Preparing to tolerate a boot right up your ass
"By giving Starchy a scientific cure while indulging him in his delusions about magic, Bubblegum recognizes that some people will always believe in things that are unproveable, and that their delusions should be tolerated so long as they do not negatively impact the rights or health of themselves or others. In doing so, Bubblegum shows us that our desire to know the nature of reality should not outweigh our sensitivity to the beliefs of others, no matter how ridiculous or incorrect they are. Bubblegum therefore teaches us two important lessons: how to better understand the world we live in, and how to interact with those who are set in their ways and prone to belief in superstition and magic." (Emphasis all mine.)Dear Atheists:
You know how you like to complain about condescending religious people being all condescending at you? This is that. It's the same damn thing.
Open derision is not 'sensitivity', even (or especially) when your open derision is all about 'tolerating other people's delusions'.
Saying things like this is why people roll their eyes when you start talking, and don't invite you to hang out as much as they used to. It's not that they're clinging to superstition and magic, it's that you've become an asshole and tolerating your smug bullshit gets old fast.
Want people to stop treating you like you're just angry kids stomping and throwing a fit against the Church? Stop lobbing spite and resentment at innocent bystanders during conversations--it's just as awkward, uncomfortable and unwelcome as "I'll pray for you."
Sincerely,
Preparing to tolerate a boot right up your ass
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--written as a non-atheist
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That is, I think the answer to both the asshattery issue and the tone of the article is that they're products of an echo chamber. Folks get so used to talking to people who share their POV that they develop a blind-spot to their own semantic choices, references, and inside jokes. It creeps into their casual, everyday language, and they lose perspective and miss how it might come across to people outside the echo chamber. (The same way generational language and slang works, basically.)
It makes it oddly easy to tell which of my friends and family are just-atheists, versus those who frequent support groups and forums and the like. The just-atheists tend not to casually toss around phrases like 'delusion' or 'magic sky daddy'. Just as the just-childfree friends simply don't want kids, while the forum-lovin' childfree grumble about 'crotchfruit'.
The atheist who originally shared the link didn't understand me when I pointed out that the author was in fact mocking the religious with his wording; she seemed to think I was disputing his right to find religiosity stupid or to express his atheism. She didn't seem to see the potential for offense until I put the same wording into a sentence directed at atheism.
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See, that's what I was thinking last night. I used to count myself as an atheist (this was maybe 24 years ago) but I was not within a group of them, I was just having my (non)beliefs at the time pretty much privately. My boyfriend at the time (not my current fiance, this guy came both before and after him, long story) was a believer, and a Republican. I was a non-believer and a Democrat. So we'd have some pretty incredible arguments about just about everything that has ever mattered to anyone, but I don't recall, not even with him, calling God a "delusion" or the "sky daddy". That's just plain mean.
Just as the just-childfree friends simply don't want kids, while the forum-lovin' childfree grumble about 'crotchfruit'.
Ok, this touches on another nerve for me. There is a median between "just-child-free" and believers in "crotchfruit" and I am one form of it. I'm not child-free by choice so much as I never had a man I wanted to have a child with, so I had to "choose" to remain child-free to avoid the whole "wrong daddy" thing occurring, and now that I think I do want a child, I'm probably too old to have one.
I find "crotch-fruit" a ridiculous way to sum up other people choosing to have children (or not choosing, simply dealing with the fallout of their "accidents") since by default it makes everyone just that, including people using the expression. More crotch-fruit. We're all crotch-fruit, I tell you!
It's such a classless statement and by default insults the very existence of even the person making it. So there's that, I guess.
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And good point on the general misanthropy in 'crotchfruit', which is ironic itself given how (if I remember right) it irritates many childfree forum folk to be labeled as bitter misanthropes. It's not 'breeders' misunderstanding, it's people taking what's said at face value.
Though now I have an awful urge to start calling babies 'soylent snacks'...