I’ve noticed more and more lately that there’s a trend in a lot of liberal and social justice circles to make disdain for religion as clear as possible. I speak not of out atheists talking about their atheism and challenging assumptions about people who don’t follow a religious faith. I’m talking specifically about treating faith and belief with contempt, turning religion almost into an insult.

It’s profoundly disrespectful, and it’s also extremely not productive. Not least because I suspect that there are a number of people who belong to religious faiths and don’t feel like discussing it in liberal and social justice circles because of the clear lack of respect for religious people. Why talk about your faith when people are using it as a tool for mockery, lumping all members of your faith together like a hivemind, desecrating objects you hold sacred, and speaking dismissively of your beliefs? Why talk about faith when it makes you an object of derision?

the primary argument levied against organized religions is that they’re prone to corruption and abuse of power of the worst kind; political manipulation and collusion with governments, open support for colonialism and imperialism, institutionalized misogyny and xenophobia, aggressive suppression of dissent.

on the one hand, this is well earned.  most of the mistakes that, for example, the catholic church has acknowledged in my lifetime happened hundreds of years ago, and the open secret of rampant child molestation was ignored for as long as possible, and even when they finally admitted to it, they blamed ‘homosexuals allowed into the clergy’ for their own abuses of power and suppression of the truth.

(and it probably goes without saying that when i say ‘religion’ here i really just mean christianity; no other religion has affected me so wholly despite my lack of faith and adherance.)

on the other hand, that argument is flawed because all social structures are prone to failure; it’s not actually an aspect of religion but of human nature.  these arguments are levied just as validly and just as often at corporations and governments.  large groups of people have to police themselves or troublemakers will slip in and cause problems.

the trick is that every other social institution is based around people.  corrupt governments can be overthrown, corrupt businesses can be shut down, corrupt officials can be replaced.  rules can be rewritten, business plans can be radically turned around, laws can be changed.  abuses can be exposed, and those responsible can be held accountable.

but religion is handed down from god.  if you want to reform religion you generally have to start a new one.  even just questioning religion, as often as not, gets you thrown out of the community.

consequently, while i do believe that most religious people are good, honest, and mean well, as a whole their religion likely doesn’t.  i’ll support their right to be automatically treated with respect in liberal / social justice / atheist / queer / scientist / etc circles just as soon as they start supporting the right of everyone else to be automatically treated with respect in mainstream society.

for every politely spiritual person i know there’s an angry missionary telling me that my life is empty, that because i don’t believe in (their) god i cannot truly appreciate the hope and promise of the future that i feel when i spend time with my nieces.

i went to my cousins wedding a few years back, it was a big christian wedding at a smartly designed modernist church, and it was a beautiful and life-affirming ceremony, full of community and hope and fellowship.  and the entire time i was thinking to myself, i can’t think of a single reason why gay couples shouldn’t be allowed to have this.

religious people are the majority and have all of the privileges.  if they’re going to enter into marginalized spaces and demand respect, especially if their religion did the marginalizing, they’d better have earned it.  as a white man, i don’t get to go into poc communities and complain when i’m immediately met with suspicion; i may not have earned their mistrust personally, but white people en masse absolutely have.  the onus is on me to prove that i deserve their respect, not on them to prove that i don’t.