A Question to Atheistic People

I find the history of churches (less so, religion) to be ridiculously interesting.

But that's about as far as I like to discuss religion these days. A belief is a belief is a belief. We all come to our own conclusions, and I don't think there's one opinion or belief or religion or non-religion that people should be more proud of than another.

To me, it's kinda like being proud that your favourite colour is blue. It's totally fair game to be proud of that, but I imagine there's better things to base your self-esteem off of.

 

I do live in India and I guess I'm an atheist... I really don't think about it too much. I think this example is quite interesting, because vegetarianism is common only in certain communities. This country is VERY diverse, but the communities who are vegetarian (and try to force others to be) do it primarily for religious reasons. The people who do so primarily for health/environmental reasons are very few. And other communities, or people who just don't believe the same things, often see this as a form of oppression, because it's essentially people dictating other peoples' diets because of their own beliefs.

It is a social problem which has recently become political, because in the last few years, the new aggressively Hindu government has been trying to ban beef in some states and they're doing other stuff like making it compulsory for schoolkids to learn Sanskrit (which would be equivalent to making Latin or Ancient Greek compulsory in the western world) and deliberately putting misogynistic and xenophobic things into school textbooks. They've recently started a kind of trend of beating up protesting college students with sticks, and calling them anti-nationals.

Essentially, they are conflating religion with everything else they possibly can, which of course gets on the nerves of other communities. There is support for them since they are the majority community (I guess it's equivalent to Trump supporters, though I don't claim to know a lot about the US political system)

In this situation, it's absolutely essential for not just atheists, but people of any and every religion to speak up about their beliefs and try to teach tolerance through this. Religious debates happen all the time and with a government which is trying to push an agenda on the entire country, it's very necessary to have them fairly and openly.

 

Religion interests me, but I do not follow one personally. That's pretty much it. I enjoy learning about various religions and certainly don't hold it against anyone if they are religious, I just don't believe in it myself.

 

I identify as an atheist but idk why people care so much. I would never look down on or question someone's sanity for being religious.