Thread:User talk:WaitingforGodot/Trying to prevent RationalWiki judging Christianity too harshly/reply (20)

I sort of agree, but not quite. 1) There is that problem where if I was going to run for public office, I would have to fake having a religion to have any chance of election. 2) The statement that atheists aren't discriminated against or persecuted is based on one gigantic, fundamental assumption: that you live in the United States of America. When my family goes overseas to India in a few months, they will have to avoid all talk of religion. Saying anything bad or simply not agreeing with the beliefs of others there, and many other places in the world, can literally get you killed. There are many advancement programs, options efforts, and reaches for change in these countries for the enfranchisement of otherwise disenfranchised minorities, but not nearly so often for religious freedom or even just asylum. Atheists, women, racial minorities, all of them are discriminated against. But all in different ways, and in different magnitudes and contexts, such that they are in many ways not able to be directly compared. Saying atheists are totally on par with the 100 percent privileged because they aren't profiled (we are, it just takes us to be revealed as an atheist to happen) or beaten for our identity (we are, in many places of the world or even in some places of this country) to me is a huge 'not as bad as' argument.

No. I am not persecuted in the same way, or to the same magnitude as if I was a racial minority. My identity as an atheist results in minimal hardship compared to my identity as a woman. But saying there's no problem at all, or that others don't face problems, just doesn't sit right with me.