So letâs just start with âothers hostility or contempt and derision.â Thatâs just a persecution complex that wanna-believers are well known to create.
Person A says âI donât believe there is a Godâ
Person B says âperson A is persecuting me and my faith!â
So itâs not so much that it affects your âfaith walk,â itâs that your âfaith walkâ affects your judgment. You see persecution where there is none and persecutors where there are none.
For what? That they donât believe what you believe? Again spare us the âhostility and derisionâ schtick because thatâs all an act. Itâs pure make believe.
Thatâs just you projecting. Youâve been told repeatedly where they (we) stand on all this:
You want to believe in all that stuff? Thatâs one thing.
You want to force the state to teach my child that itâs all literally true? Thatâs a whole other ballgame.
And yeah, we donât play that ballgame nicely, and weâre right not to.
The one thing religious adherents wonât say about that out loud in public is that âyou have an obligation to just lay down and passively allow us to indoctrinate your kids,â but thatâs what they want to do. Thatâs why this state, for example, is trying to ram the Bible down childrenâs throats. You will never see a secular humanist/atheist equivalent of that, at least not if youâre honest.
What you will see, to repeat, is the common refrain âseparation of church and state,â and sans a handful of extremist barking lunatics, thatâs as far as it goes. Itâs pure theatrics to assert otherwise.
There are some religious adherents that are at least honest when they both acknowledge the existence of a separation of church and state and admit to being offended by it. But here is my response to it: thank you for your refreshing honesty; Iâm offended that youâre offended.