Reply #31: Well, I hate to point this out, but...

[varkam]

You might want to consider your use of the term "dogmatic". That also tends to rub people the wrong way in that in implies that there's a sort of dogma or central text in atheism. If there's one thing about atheists, it's that they're a herd of cats. There's not really any sort of dogma that one adheres to.

In a forum where atheists have a greater relative amount of privilege, they will control that much more of the rhetoric. Name-calling on religious people will frequently enjoy justification, and name-calling on atheists will deemed similarly intolerable.

But on a discussion board with a set of rules to abide by, the forum has nothing to do with it. Name-calling from both sides is regularly removed. If you see something that crosses the line, alert on it.

And THEN, you have other arguments to disentangle. For example, why is it an offensive act to classify atheism as religion or religious? There are sound and non-inflammatory arguments for each. You may not accept one or another, and you may have a better argument, but blithely dismissing any substantive claim is only effective among opponents who are stupid or acting in bad faith.

Why is it offensive? Well, I'm not sure that an explanation is required other than to point out many atheists find it so. Is that not enough to agree that it is offensive?

Also, the offensiveness of a term is completely irrespective to whether or not atheism is a religion - so it wasn't really the point of my OP to address that. I am, though, working from the assumption that it is not because I think that we should use language as it is meant to be used.

And is it really inflammatory to use "religion" as an epithet? Isn't that really analogous to using "atheist" as a slur?

When someone says that they are not religious, and then you tell them that they are...well, you do the math. Likewise, if I went up to a Christian and told them that they really didn't believe in God, I'm sure they would be similarly upset with me.

As a non-believer myself, I understand the pleasure in trashing the tabernacle. But once you take notice of religious issues that are not divisive and tyrannical, you have to find new ways of dealing with the whole schmeer, and that's currently a big stumbling block in the faith/doubt conversation.

I understand that, though I'm not entirely sure what that has to do with the OP.