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therufs comments on State of the Solstice 2014 - Less Wrong
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For one, I don't think that much anti-religion talk is needed at an atheist celebration. It could be about the things we are passionate in instead (like science, the representation of which I liked), but I feel uncomfortable 'dissing' religion.
I have a lot of friends who believe in religions and know of many, many smart people who were religious. Therefore I find a lot of anti-religious writing to easily edge on the offensive, especially when said in the context of a celebration. (Much of it to me sounds a lot like "Obviously smart people shouldn't be religious, anyone who is is stupid", which I feel is incorrect and arrogant). It's a sensitive topic, and hard to do well, so I would recommend just in general avoiding it.
But also, I just find it repetitive. I'm already an atheist (agnostic), I was a long time ago. That's like a really, really basic thing in my philosophical understanding. Hearing someone provide an argument for atheism is like hearing them explain addition. By this point it's kind of uninteresting. I realize that some people here apparently had really important experiences discovering atheism, but I didn't.
For what it may be worth, I've historically been pretty cranky about badmouthing religion, and I don't remember anything triggering my "harumph" reaction. (Edit: I went to Solstice in NY.)
This said, my current model of reality is that the atheist community in the US is marginalized to some degree, and it isn't the responsibility of a marginalized community to abide by the expectations of its marginalizers.
I think we agree a lot here, but that last sentence sounds to me like, "If someone is marginalized at all, they should feel free to act like a jerk".
I don't think any of us think that we need to completely abide by their expectations. But I think that having respect for another group and being careful to be respectful to them shouldn't be an unreasonable ask.
As a guideline, I don't think anyone should be generally jerky. And I am on board with mutual respect.
I probably should have said something more like "It isn't the responsibility of a marginalized community to abide by the expectations of its marginalizers in its own space." In particular, I see a need for spaces where people can express their own experiences without censorship or self-censorship or having to explain themselves.
By way of illustration: I used to be one of those people who ran around nontheist blogs insisting that anyone with complaints to level about Christians or Christianity be excruciatingly specific that not every Christians was a terrible person (or whatever). Then #NotAllMen happened, and lo, I was ashamed of myself, and stopped doing that.