Message to a Fellow Atheist About Atheism, Veganism and Feminism

Okay. I'm going to try to explain to you -- AGAIN -- why I sometimes get annoyed with you on the subject of religion.

This post may be annoying to you, too -- but suck it up, it'll be good for you, if you let it. If you freaking LISTEN.

It's not because you're an atheist. I'm an atheist too. I hope you realize that. I really hope you do. And I hope you also realize that other atheists probably have the same problem with you. And, for example, with Richard Dawkins and Bill Maher and Sam Harris and Stephen Fry.

 

 

Except that they're not trying so freaking hard to HELP. They won't go to the excruciating effort to try to explain it to you. They'll just stop talking to you.

This time, I will try to explain by comparing atheists, vegans and feminists.

Probably, most people you meet who are vegans will never mention it to you. But there are a few who who are a huge pain in the ass about it. Even if you agree with them that veganism could solve the climate crisis and wipe out human poverty if every human became vegan.

 

You might agree with them about that. You might agree with them about many more benefits of veganism. You could BE a vegan, and still find them to be a huge pain in the ass the same way you and I do, and for the very same reason: over and over again, whether the subject is politics or history or technology or whatever, as soon as they see a connection to veganism, they make the entire conversation about veganism.

The same thing can happen with feminism. You could be a huge, committed feminist. You could believe that feminism is the most important topic that humans could possibly discuss. And I might just completely agree. And still, it could be between extremely difficult and impossible to stand talking to you sometimes, if you made conversations grind to a halt by making them all about feminism. 

Some conversations ARE all about feminism. But some aren't. Some conversations are all about veganism, but others aren't. Until they're highjacked by some pain in the ass who is incapable of discussing anything else. Then the conversations grind to a halt, unless two or more such pains in the ass happen to be present. Everyone else will leave and find something much, much, much more interesting to do.

This brings us back to you, and the subject of religion. Religion, which has permeated human life for most of the time that there have been humans. So that it's fairly hard to discuss history, archaeology, anthropology, politics, economics or sociology while entirely avoiding the subject of religion. But some people will try anyway, if you're around. Because the conversation was interesting and they wanted it to continue.

Okay. I tried. Again. I guess I'll try again. Even though it's exhausting and a huge pain in the ass. Because the odds are very slim that, this, time, you got it.