General Discussion

I wonder where is the actual line of what is allowed and what is not on this instance

I'd like to know this too, because banning a community just because they don't want to talk about something - and that apparently offended someone, while allowing other communities free rein over content that could offend someone, makes me confused about how the rules are actually applied.

Speaking as an Atheist and lapsed Catholic:

I agree completely. While religion has a component of belief, it is primarily an identity, that the vast majority of people are born into. Despite not believing in God, in many ways I still consider myself a Catholic (as does the church). The idea that religion is about your personal relationship with God and belief is a Protestant one.

There is a reason why religion is included among other protected classes, but political affiliation is not.

Atheist communities online have a sanctimonious tendency to consider their bigotry above reproach. It's how you get the slide of figures like Richard Dawkins into the right-wing on the coattails of islamaphobia.

There's a fine line between making fun of a belief and stereotyping an entire religious group. And some religious groups - like Mormons or Wahhabists - are deserving of most of the hate they get. But the Catholic Church is not as bad as many make it out to be and millions have been massacred even in modern times over anti-Papistry. Spreading the ideas of Islamaphobia and anti-Papistry kills people.

I think there's a gray area with State Atheist countries. I think the way, say, the DPRK handles it - with the complete outlaw of religion - is not the right approach. In China, religious minorities are protected under the law but not allowed to join the Communist Party, which I think is close to the right approach.

Honestly, I love Lemmy as a platform and the idea behind it, but currently it really feels like an echo chamber when it comes to religious/political subjects.

As much as I hate to say it, I saw a much bigger diversity of opinions on Reddit.

You're fighting a losing battle.

The simple fact of the matter is that virtually every single human being is bigoted in some way or another AND virtually every one of them is convinced either that they're not bigoted at all or that their bigotry is wholly justified because the people they hate purportedly deserve it.

There's a particular set of bigoted views that's tolerated or even expected throughout most of the mainstream western internet, and according to those views, hating Christans (among others) is at least wholly acceptable, and generally even encouraged. And naturally, the bigots who do it are convinced that they aren't bigots, or at least that their bigotry is justified. And nobody is going to convince them otherwise.

Now, one could get around that, and particularly on the fediverse, by seeking out places that don't reward hating Christians, but unfortunately, those places are almost certainly just going to have a different set of people that everyone hates, and with the way society has divided up, their set is likely going to be even larger and more problematic than the set of people the first place hates.

Really, at least unless and until somebody manages to make a success of a site that actually takes a stand against hate broadly (instead of, as virtually all who claim that actually do just taking a stand against the hate of the groups they support and conveniently ignoring the rest), about the best you can do is settle for a place that's somewhat less noxiously hateful than another, and as necessary, block its worst elements.

And yeah - if you're so inclined, you can try to get the bigots to see the fact that they're bigots, but don't expect any good to come of that.

I think each user and place should do what they think is best. It sounds like you are talking about lemmy on this kbin magazine. Personally the ideal for me is everything allowed federation wise but the instance may not allow something based on how the maintainers feel but the thing can just find a home somewhere else in the federation. then me as an individual just blocks them if I don't like them.