315
submitted 6 months ago by darth_tiktaalik@lemmy.ml to c/atheism@lemmy.ml
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[-] spacecowboy@sh.itjust.works 102 points 6 months ago

How to ensure your children will hate and abandon you.

[-] ThatWeirdGuy1001@lemmy.world 28 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

"I just don't understand why none of my kids talk to me!!"

[-] caseyweederman@lemmy.ca 75 points 6 months ago

Why do you have braces? Are you saying god made a mistake?

[-] Spacehooks@reddthat.com 28 points 6 months ago

I like the glasses example whenever possible

[-] streetfestival@lemmy.ca 15 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

As a glasses wearer, I approve :P

[-] Hexarei@programming.dev 6 points 6 months ago

I like calling braces a gender affirming procedure

[-] LEDZeppelin@lemmy.world 47 points 6 months ago

So “All lives matter” was yet another Christian right wing bullshit. Who would’ve guessed?

[-] Blackout@kbin.social 47 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Moral monsters Dan and Jennifer Mead

Lol that's how you should describe all the Christian hypocrites.

[-] Canadian_Cabinet@lemmy.ca 32 points 6 months ago

The title made me think that the school was being transphobic and the parents were sticking up for their kid. Nope, they're just bonkers

[-] ElcaineVolta@kbin.social 32 points 6 months ago

why has that egg donor had orthodontic work done? such a sign of disrespect for her perfect and all-knowing creator.

[-] NatakuNox@lemmy.world 25 points 6 months ago

Loving and supportive partners would already know everything about their kids. These people are just mad that they are not loving and supportive, and now are punishing the school for filling that role.

[-] Facebones@reddthat.com 11 points 6 months ago

"My children are my property and NOT humans. They are my playthings to do with as I wish, and nothing more. Any attempt to treat them or refer to them as individuals, humans, or anything more than my 'belongings' violate my God given property rights"

-Every conservative, full stop.

[-] NoTagBacks@lemm.ee -1 points 6 months ago

As a preface, I absolutely agree that the parents here are very likely to be wrong in that it seems like they were ideologically opposed to their son's identity.

HOWEVER. I find it difficult to trust the validity and/or truth in the details given about this particular story as the article and title are both blatantly biased. On top of that, the claims made about the intentions and motivations of others are aggressively ignorant and just insanely unhelpful. You want people to double down on transphobia? Tell them they're a terrible person and they're only transphobic because _____. I get it, conservatives, Christians, etc should respect Trans people and their autonomy, but it's better for literally everyone to find the best way to reach these people in a way they'd actually be receptive to, rather than trashing and dehumanizing them as monsters. If they're conservatives, it shouldn't be surprising when they act like it. We should also recognize that they're people who are capable of learning to be better.

I used to be homophobic. I was a fairly conservative Christian back in the day and the justification came via biblical principles. I didn't learn to be better by being characterized as "he only hates gay people because he's secretly gay himself" or "he just wants to control what other people do in the bedroom", but rather by actually engaging my own rationalizations. I would have rejected the premise that I hated anyone who was homosexual, so any rhetoric that mirrors the dishonesty of this article would have been a non-starter. In fact, it would have seemed to me that there were no legitimate arguments to be made against my position, so I would have felt more justified with the given approach above. Being in a few opposing positions on the topic, I never believed that my concurrent position was morally wrong, even though I would strongly submit today that my position before as a conservative Christian absolutely was immoral and extremely uninformed. The takeaway I'm trying to emphasize is that going on the offensive for any such position is not only ridiculous, but very counterproductive.

While I understand the frustration with what this article appears to portray, the added dishonesty is harmful in that we're dehumanizing two parents who probably legitimately believe what they are doing is justified and moral. Attacking them would make them double down on their beliefs and who would directly suffer for it? Their son. So where I always found the blatant bias of articles or the always ridiculous non-argument "you just believe _____ because _____" inherently dishonest and icky, I think we should definitely take better stock of how we approach these topics for more than just the intellectual honesty, but also to recognize the second, third, and even fourth order effects our method of approach manifests. Outrage, especially about something moral, feels good, but what good is it when directed the way it is in this article? I could accuse them of being blind and only utilizing outrage as a clickbait tactic, and I have a chance of being correct, but I'm not arrogant enough to assert that I know for a fact what they believe and intend and post that on the internet.

this post was submitted on 24 Dec 2023
315 points (93.6% liked)

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