General Discussion
Welcome to Lemmy.World General!
This is a community for general discussion where you can get your bearings in the fediverse. Discuss topics & ask questions that don't seem to fit in any other community, or don't have an active community yet.
πͺ About Lemmy World
π§ Finding Communities
Feel free to ask here or over in: !lemmy411@lemmy.ca!
Also keep an eye on:
- !newcommunities@lemmy.world
- !communitypromo@lemmy.ca
- !new_communities@mander.xyz
- !communityspotlight@lemmy.world
- !wowthislemmyexists@lemmy.ca!
For more involved tools to find communities to join: check out Lemmyverse and Feddit Lemmy Community Browser!
π¬ Additional Discussion Focused Communities:
- !actual_discussion@lemmy.ca - Note this is for more serious discussions.
- !casualconversation@lemm.ee - The opposite of the above, for more laidback chat!
- !letstalkaboutgames@feddit.uk - Into video games? Here's a place to discuss them!
- !movies@lemm.ee - Watched a movie and wanna talk to others about it? Here's a place to do so!
Rules
Remember, Lemmy World rules also apply here.
0. See: Rules for Users.
- No bigotry: including racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, or xenophobia.
- Be respectful. Everyone should feel welcome here.
- Be thoughtful and helpful: even with βsillyβ questions. The world wonβt be made better by dismissive comments to others on Lemmy.
- Link posts should include some context/opinion in the body text when the title is unaltered, or be titled to encourage discussion.
- Posts concerning other instances' activity/decisions are better suited to !fediverse@lemmy.world or !lemmydrama@lemmy.world communities.
- No Ads/Spamming.
- No NSFW content.
Despite their desire to be, Christians are not persecuted like they claim.
This is not true. Christians are prosecuted world wide, and its not only Christians, but also Muslims, Budhist or any other religion.
Christians being prosecuted in Nigeria has no weight whatsoever on people writing things you don't like on Lemmy. Don't be so super whiny
Do you think people in Nigeria don't access internet and there are none of them on Lemmy?
Would it be a false equivalency to claim that sea-lioning, Gish galloping, and goalpost moving, are all just different manifestations of the same trolling strategy?
I mean at this point its not worth engaging since this is an account that was made only an hour ago and this last argument is so fucking silly.
One thing to note is that the posts you've linked criticize or make fun of religious beliefs, but they don't call for violence, discrimination, or other injustice against religious people.
If that was the case I would agree with you. But it's not what they were banned for, they were banned for not allowing LGBTQ+ content on their community.
Your response doesn't make sense to me. I'm referring to the four posts you linked on the atheistmemes forum. None of them express "hate speech" in the sense of calling for anyone to be treated hatefully, excluded from society, etc. They all express mockery or criticism of religious beliefs.
While this may be disliked by religious people, it's not the same as (e.g.) calling for them to be discriminated against as individuals, driven out of society, etc. which are all commonplace anti-LGBTQ+ remarks from American, Russian, or African right-wingers.
"Hate speech" does not mean "speech that I hate".
they were banned for not allowing LGBTQ+ content on their community.
This is false. They were banned for maintaining a policy which denies that LGBTQ+ people have a right to exist as they are.
Also, you were totally allowed to make anti-LGBTQ+ content. You were only prohibited from making anything pro- because let me tell you, if you've ever tried to get glitter out of an echo chamber, it is a total hassle.
Rule #8: This community does not affirm practiced LGBTQ+ lifestyles, with the exception of the ace/aroace (asexual/aromatic-asexual) lifestyle in certain contexts. However, abuse towards members of the LGBTQ+ community will not be tolerated. Pro-LGBTQ+ content is not allowed; however, sincere questions and discourse about LGTBQ+issues are permitted.
It is absolutely shocking to me the number of "I am an atheist but..." posts with crazy false equivalence arguments I have seen in the past several weeks on Lemmy.
Itβs understandable as the religious people also migrate away from Reddit. The fediverse cuts down their stupid βequal time for dissentβ argument. The fediverse explicitly enables them to fuck off and start their own instance where they can put up their own rules and federate with whoever they want.
Iβm with world on this one. Punch the damn nazis in their faces. No false arguments about tolerance here.
It is absolutely outrageous to call religious people nazis.
Right? They're way more likely to be neo-confederates or KKK members than they are to be Nazis.
Not all Nationalist Christians are Nazis... but almost all Nazis are NatCs.
Evangelical Christians and Nazis share most of their positions.
I do know some hardcore Orthodox Christians, and they are some of the kindest people I know. Far from being nazis
Nice Nazis are still Nazis. You may not be their target group yet, but it will come.
The two are different. My mother and the mother of my childhood best friend are some of the kindest people I've ever known. In the past 5 years I've discovered they support putting people in cages, selective human rights, and general Q adjacent beliefs that came from nowhere that I could see. They both are religious, not hardcore orthodox by any means, but both are indoctrinated weekly and it has changed them fundamentally. They're still extremely kind and generous but don't mistake that they would absolutely agree with a religious based government and whatever killings it deems necessary.
A decade ago I would have bet a million dollars I'd never hear those things from either of them. You're right, they aren't nazis. They're Christofascists.
Well, all nazis consider themselves Christian
Care to explain why is it a false equivalence?
And yes people can still be atheists but stand for the right of freedom of religious expression. The same way someone who is straight can stand for the right of free sexual orientation.
One is a community of people saying "these people should be killed" the other is "these ideas are stupid". You didn't link anything from atheist memes that advocates the death of religious people.
Itβs a new audience for old trolls.
Religion is about what a person believes. LGBTQ+ is about who a person is.
If you want to hate people for who they are, do it somewhere that isn't Lemmy.world. If you don't want to see people posting about your belief, go make your own Lemmy server and defederate.
Some people are brought up since childhood in religious environments, and for all they know they are Christians. They didn't really chose to be one.
The same way I don't want LGBTQ+ people to not feel welcome, I do not want religious people to not feel welcome, just because they were born in such an environment.
The whole point of the fediverse is choice. Religious groups can create their own instances and put in rules that reflect their values. They can federate or defederate from other instances based on their desires.
What you donβt get to do is say βHey, I want to present my views that are antithetical to your community because you are a popular instanceβ.
Oh, you're a fun troll.
I'm not sure whether to ask you
a) why, if you "donβt want LGBTQ+ people to not feel welcome" you;re okay with a community who's basic rule system includes making LGBTQ+ people unwelcome or...
b) if you were brought up in a rich family, would it be unkind or offensive to post about people who have food or shelter insecurity and blame the rich for their problems? Should all socialism or welfare communities be blocked so that you are not offended by people who don't have money?
No reason for hostility.
a) by the same point I would disagree with a community that is making religious people unwelcome. I am only advocating for applying the same standards across the board.
b) Well you came exactly to my point, no they should not be banned!
This is an inherently ridiculous position. You can stop being religious at any point for any reason. Hell, if you willingly participate in a system that calls for discrimination against innocents, you are not welcome in any space at all.
I don't care if the book that tells you to HATE THE DEGENERATE is the Bible or Mein Kampf. Religion is not an excuse to be evil.
Some people are brought up since childhood in religious environments, and for all they know they are Christians. They didnβt really chose to be one.
In my opinion, the people who have been indoctrinated into a religion from birth, and who have never been exposed to fair religious criticism or alternative ideas, are the exact people who should be.
Like political parties and clubs, religion is an idea, and in my view ideas are never above questioning or criticism.
There is no line. It's up to whoever runs each instance.
I know you're looking for a broad moral rule that applies here, but you won't find it. Federation allows us all to coexist.
So if an instance owner decided that a specific community has policies they don't like, it's totally fine for them to shit can them.
To OP: no, hate speech & discrimination against religious people is not acceptable nor allowed. The examples cited appear to not meet that threshold to the admins or moderators of that community. I would recommend discussing this with either group if you believe otherwise.
If you would like to discuss religion there are a variety of communities you can find here and for Christianity specifically, here.
While I think the topic of religious discussion across the fediverse could be interesting, I don't think this thread offers a constructive basis from which to have this discussion, and as such I am locking it. For those interested in discussing the topic on a more constructive basis feel free to make a new thread here, or for religion more broadly or Christianity specifically, whichever active communities you find in the linked search results.
Imo, you should be allowed to mock everyone, religions, LGBTQ+ or atheists
The moment you start giving special treatment to atheists and consequently inferior treatment to Christians you start threatening the basic tenets of freedom. Which in the long run could be very dangerous for a free society
Personally, I consider Christianity a hate group, so they get the banhammer the same as the KKK or whatever.
The Fediverse is pretty radical. I'm an atheist also, an exmormon, and I think this might just be a misunderstanding.
The rule, "no LGBTQ+ content," I don't think is saying "no gay people." I am pretty sure it is just asking to avoid the topic, to prevent bigoted discussion from happening.
As fair or not as you want it to be, LGBTQ+ is a controversial topic for religious people, and I think it's fair to just put a pin in that discussion in your community. But what do I know?
No, hate speech isn't okay. But your examples are not hate speech, so there's no problem.
To me, "This community does not affirm practiced LGBTQ+ lifestyles" isn't hate speech, but is anti-lgbtq, which is a thing the admins of lemmy.world are right to take action on if they're trying to cultivate an instance that is friendly to lgbtq folks.
I think that's why even though the community had additional rules in the sidebar about not condoning violence against lgbtq, and athiestmemes has content Christians find offensive, the admins deleted the community. It's clearly still a contested subject within the thread, but at the end of the day lemmy's general response to people that don't like the rules of their instance is to find another instance.
Something else to note is that there are multiple levels of shunning in fediverse. The admin in the thread deleted the community, but would still federate with a server that hosted it.
I fail to see the examples you give as hate speech against religious people.
If there was content like memes equating jews to lizards, going off on muslims being inherently violent, or saying all catholic priests were child molesters, I think you would have a case, especially since the last two are memes I would commonly see on Reddit's religiousfruitcake sub.
The first example you give just comes off an an edgy (lol I'm so logical. These ideas are the same)
The second is making fun of the placements of two signs
the last two are plays on the question "If god exists, why does he let bad things happen?" Which is a question that many atheists ask themselves.
Hate speech would be a call to do violence against religious people, or spreading stereotypes that perpetuate violence and discrimination. All I see here are mid to bad jokes.
Also, and this goes for any community here, just because a joke or meme offends you, doesn't inherently make it hate speech. I think a christian sub would be in their right to post memes poking fun at atheism.