exocrinous

I ask you, what state would the world be in if we had had a progressive Soviet Union? One that was 50 years ahead of the states on queer issues? One that was committed to racial and religious equality? How would the fight for global communism be going today if Genocide Joe had not armed the US with material for their propaganda that claims communism is right wing? If everyone in the world knew today that the USSR had been a haven for queer and Jewish people, decades ahead of the capitalist regimes, how easy would it be to persuade people into allies of the communist cause today? How much would a genuinely positive example help us?

Joseph Stalin fought the Nazis on the battlefield, but he was their ally in the cause of bigotry and hate. He had every opportunity to choose to become a progressive, and he refused. Fuck him.

The Institute of Sex Research was burned down in 1933. It wasn't a "different time", it was a time with the same political issues and the same Nazi rhetoric attacking trans people. Had something been done to prevent the rise of the Nazis and protect the Institute of Sex Research, trans healthcare would be 50 years ahead in technology and we wouldn't be facing the same issues today. But Genocide Joe (the Russian one) opted not to do anything about the Nazis until 8 years later when Hitler brought the war to Russia.

Genocide Joe was aware of the issues. He chose not to protect trans people, and he chose to persecute gay people. Marx said a worldwide revolution would be required, but Joe said fuck that, homosexuality is bourgeois, and stayed in Russia. He is in large part responsible for the current plight of LGBT people.

And I wasn't calling atheists genocidal when I mentioned their cultural Christianity.

That’s why this isn’t a meme about atheists. It’s a meme about antitheists.

That's why this isn't a meme about atheists. It's a meme about antitheists.

I moved back to Windows for the games years ago. But I'm never going to install a copy of Windows 11 because fuck that shit, and the next time I move to Linux, I suspect games won't be a problem.

Have they fixed Discord streaming yet?

Western atheism and antitheism often exist as reactions to Christianity on a factual or ethical basis, while remaining within a Christian cultural and moral context. Historically, Christians and atheists have worked together to attack other religions, such as in the case of the stolen generations in Australia or the cult panic in America. This pattern of behaviour is counterintuitive if you're culturally Christian (as most atheists are), but from a broader cultural perspective it's kind of obvious. Christianity and white atheism exist as offshoots of the same history in the same way that Catholicism and Protestantism do.

If you have an actual understanding of pre-roman polytheism, then you're capable of seeing the difference between belief and worship. A difference Christians have tried to erase, and white atheists have not challenged. Giving up cultural Christianity is beyond most white atheists' ability to even imagine. What I call cultural Christianity, they would just as soon call "common sense" or "reality".

Also I've never met an antitheist who has spent longer than an hour thinking about whether they're advocating cultural genocide of indigenous people.

Ah, okay. I misunderstood you because you used the word cult in a very sweeping way right after I said it was a slur. I understand you now.

I would make the contention that at least one religion exists and has evidence: The worship of money. Money isn't real, it's a social construct given power and made part of our reality by our belief in it. It's mystical. Many people spend their entire lives worshipping it. They want it, they venerate it, and they seek wisdom from the people who have it. The worship of money is misguided, and unwise, and it fundamentally mistakes the point of life. But it is evidence-based. People worship money because they see its material power over the world and respect it as the giver of life, love, and happiness. That sounds like a religion to me, and there's no empirical proof which can dismiss these claims about money that are the core belief system of Mammon.

A cult is any small religion. Often pagan religions, the remnants of genocided indigenous religions, and many religions descended from the golden dawn. Oh, and it's also that thing Jesus had up until Rome declared it their state religion. And personally, I like the religion of Jesus a lot more than Post Roman Christianity.

If we're talking about abusive religions, there's absolutely no difference between one rapist's religion and an international religious organisation of rape apologism like the Church. There's no reason you need a different word to describe the two. They're both abusive religions.

Sociopaths are not in control of society. Sociopath is Latin for "someone with a social illness". Basically it means people with autism, schizophrenia, ASPD and the like. Disorders that make it hard to fit in and follow the rules and get basic respect from others. It doesn't actually refer to a specific diagnosis because it's not a medical term. It's arguable that it was ever an English term.