Christian atheists object to being identified as having come from Christian backgrounds for the same reason men object if you start putting “male” in front of words like “doctor.”
A big part of power and privilege is the invisibility of belonging to a specific group, because it positions you as the unquestioned (and therefore justified) default. It means that your perspective is objective, unlike those agenda-driven marginalized people.
And all of that protects the status quo. Any marginalized person who wants to change it is self-interested and agenda-driven.
But the fact that you are NOT neutral in your pushback, that your self-interested agenda is trying to preserve the status quo, is occluded.
But the fact that you are NOT neutral in your pushback, that your self-interested agenda is trying to preserve the status quo, is occluded.
So men who don’t blink if a doctor in an article or conversation or whatever is identified as a “female doctor” or a “woman doctor” get indignant if you identify someone as a “male doctor.”
Men shouldn’t be a marked case, you see.
Men shouldn’t be a marked case, you see.
Men are just humans, above petty concerns like gender. White people aren’t ethnic. Anything that deals with the concerns of POC is a niche issue, not a human issue.
Atheists from Christian backgrounds benefit from Christian hegemony in ways that atheists from minority religious backgrounds don’t, and of COURSE they don’t want attention drawn to that.
But for the 900th time, ceasing to believe in God doesn’t magically set you outside a Christian worldview when you live in a hegemonic Christian culture. You have to do a lot of deconstructing to get there.
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