Believers, what do you want from skeptics in the religion group?

[cbayer]

5. Not a believer, but an advocate of believers and someone who strongly supports

interfaith coalitions, particularly those that include non-believers.

I want to thank LostOne4Ever for her thoughtful, thorough and researched post, to which I am going to directly respond here. My only objection to her post is that it included specific call outs of members, particularly of members who can't respond, and I think that is very unfair.

1. Recognition that the vast majority of believers on this site support 1st amendment state/church separation issues, to include freedom of and from religion. This does not preclude discussion of what may or may not constitute such a violation, as there are grey areas.

2. An elimination of attack on religious believers simply for being religious believers, to include accusing them of being mentally ill.

3. An end to the use of terms that are meant to belittle, ridicule and marginalize believers and those that support them, like religionista, apologist, delusional etc.

4. A give and take of listening and responding with an ear to trying to understand what the other person is trying to say.

5. An attempt to quit trying to tell believers what it is that they do or do not believe in. They actually have a say in that and there is not a single definition.

6. An attempt to quit trying to link beliefs and practices to theism that have nothing to do with theism in general.

7. An end to making the false equivalency of comparing beliefs in things widely held not to be true like santa claus, the easter bunny, tooth fairy to beliefs in a god or gods. Comparing these things are only meant to belittle and make fun of people and really have no comparison to a belief in a god or gods.

8. Less silly dogmatic arguments about words that may be defined differently by different people, particularly when there is discussion about practices and organizations in the non-believing community that have, in fact, adopted some of these terms themselves.

9. A recognition that there is, in fact, a vital and growing arm of atheism that is fighting for common causes, in short, a movement. Just because an individual is not involved in it does not mean it does not exist.

10. A recognition that there are leaders within this movement, and while not of the stature of the pope, they are leaders nonetheless. The four horsemen are often defined in this way.

11. A recognition that no one is alert stalking your safe haven and that there are rarely posts hidden or removed there. It would be helpful to ask the admins of the site about the actual number of alerts sent on posts in that group before making the accusation. There is also no evidence that any "quote mining" whatsoever is going on, but a recognition that whatever is said there is public information and no rules exist that prevent anyone from being quoted. A safe haven does not mean that one can say whatever they want about anyone they want. The rules of the site still apply.

12. For the A/A group to enforce or change the rules about calling out and attacking other members, particularly those who are not able to respond or dispute things said about them. Not only is it an SOP violation, it's against the groups own rules and it's really just plain wrong.

13. A recognition that anti-theists exist and that they are generally intolerant, often prejudiced and sometimes outright bigoted.

14. An attempt made to quit generalizing believers generally and "anti-atheist bigot" specifically. There is sometimes a case to be made against some actions or statements by atheists or atheist organizations and making that case is not in and of itself bigoted.

15. A recognition that while the pope has some positions on which the vast majority of people on this site vehemently disagree, he also has positions that many support. Supporting him in these areas is not equivalent to being an apologist for pedophilia and misogyny and no justification for being called a bigot.

16. An attempt made to quit attacking believers on what you think they said, and rather base your criticism on things they actually DID say, including distorting things supposedly said years ago and taken completely out of context.

17. A recognition that articles posted do not necessarily represent the beliefs or POV of the member posting them, but are often just posted for discussion. Unless a member has posted an editorial comment indicating their personal position on an article, no assumption should be made.

18. Finally, I would like a recognition that believers and non-believers on this site have much, much more in common than they do differences and that the divisiveness often promoted in the religion group is destructive to the site, the party and the platform that we support.