Woman denied US citizenship for being an atheist.
 

Well, not JUST for that - but it really makes no difference in the end:

http://dividedundergod.com/2013/06/1...from-religion/

Also - not to dreg up old arguments, but this is a perfect example of what I was talking about when I mentioned religious privilege (As opposed to simply Christian privilege). The divide between the faithful and those who lack faith is VERY significant, despite it's invisibility.

Its funny because I was thinking of that argument about religious privilege because you told me there was laws that atheists can't run for office in certain counties, but then I recently found out that they're really old laws that legally cannot be enforced due to a Supreme Court case in the sixties, and not only that actually apply to anyone who does not believe in the Christian God specifically, so Hindus and Wiccans and Buddhists, etc would be affected as well.

And this is actually something that has affect religious people. During the Vietnam War Muslims could not use the conscientious objector since the concept of jihad even exists, to Christian opinion, means that no Muslim is a pacifist. To claim conscientious objector status you had to belong to a sect that very specifically and officially would say that war is wrong and no believers should ever take up arms (like Mennonites). A professor of mine who is a veteran tried to use the fact he was Catholic to resist being drafted but it didn't work.

Current law does state that religious reasons are not needed. That I can find, this is not actually a rule: http://www.uscis.gov/ilink/docView/S...0-0-44067.html This one is specifically for immigrants and very specifically says atheists are not excluded: http://www.uscis.gov/ilink/docView/S...0-0-49904.html

You DO need to back up your statements. She said " my lifelong spiritual/religious beliefs impose on me a duty of conscience not to contribute to warfare by taking up arms", so she's being asked to back that up.

From what I can tell this story came from a facebook page so this isn't actually a journalistic piece. If its real, its illegal, plain and simple.

My main example was actually the tax-exempt status of religious organizations, actually. Which is pretty solid proof of preferential treatment that extends beyond Christianity.

But in any case, Atheists can't Hold office in seven states in the USA. Yes the laws are old and unconstitutional, but they're still used in attempts to depose atheists who are elected. Also - privilege does not have to be explicitly legislated to be present. The "Stop and Frisk" laws don't explicitly say "ignore white people" but I still get a pass while looking sketchy and carrying a prop gun to a show. Everyone just assumes I'm not a criminal because of how I look.

Similarly, there's no need to actually enforce anti-atheist laws because the prejudice against atheists in America is so strong that it's virtually impossible to get elected without identifying as a member of the faithful.

As an atheist, I think I speak for all atheists when I say I aint even mad.

She could have just lied and said she was Catholic or something. Faith is cheap and lying about it seem to be enough. She could have said she was a Buddhist or something. No one would have batted an eye.

ಠ_ಠ tencharacters

I don't doubt that this is what they're doing - this is more likely just Beuracracy as opposed to Malice - but that's precisely the problem. The idea that this kind of conviction can only come from faith/faith-like things.

In fact, What's interesting in the second link, where it says atheists are not excluded, is the wording:

So it seems that the only way an Atheist can get an exemption is if it's determined that the claim springs in part from FAITH.

In any case, Kontan - if you hold that it's acceptable to lie in this situation - why not just lie when you take the oath? And for that matter why don't atheists or gays or trans people just stay in the closet for their entire lives?

Oppression never goes away if it's not confronted - which I suspect is why the woman in question cited her atheism the way she did in her original letter.

The point isn' that you can just lie - the point is you shouldn't HAVE to lie.

Atheist organizations can register as non-profits. And so can atheist religions like Raelians.

When has this happened recently? It was in the sixties it was deemed unconstitutional. Laws aren't really taken off the books when they've lost their teeth, there's still technically places with sundown laws but they can't enforce them, if I recall Jon Stewart was talking about a place where they still technically ban black people from voting, they recently wanted to take it off the books but due to some filing deadline they couldn't.

That's true for a lot of faiths. How many Wiccans are in office? Voodooists? And actually its true for some forms of Christianity too, remember the shit Jeremiah Wright got Obama in. Black Christianity is pretty damn hated by white supremacists. Last year was the first year there was a single Buddhist in the Senate and the first Hindu in Congress. Both were from Hawaii where both religions have a big presence.

Please stop comparing being an atheist to being a gender or sexual minority. Its not the same at all.

"Faith" is the language used because this is replacing the old rule that you had to be of a particular religion that had it set in stone that military service is wrong. The Court can't say anyone who's anyone who kinda thinks war is wrong is exempt, this rule was made during the Vietnam War, remember, and after the escalation in 1968. Desertion rates were high and the penalty severe. A lot of people were trying a lot of different things to get out. Some men showed up to the draft board in dresses, shot up on drugs beforehand, etc. And a lot draft boards didn't care, one board had a member of the KKK on the board for years.

You can't get CO status if you disagree with a particular war. You have to be a pacifist. You have to strongly be a pacifist. The Supreme Court can't give so much legitmacy to disagreeing with a particular war, which would have excluded most draft able men and most of the enlisted army, or even a inkling that all wars are bad. Its easier to prove when you're a devout Mennonite, but how does a Muslim or atheist prove it (yes, the Supreme Court ruled that atheists can be COs a year before they decided Muhammad Ali could claim as a Muslim he was a CO, after years of legal wrangling)? They have to show that their conviction is as strong as the faith of a Mennonite.

They can't say that pacifism is a logical rational choice. Where would the war go then? They have to say it can only operate as a faith, a personal conviction that is very strong but is not based on evidence or rationality. Your disagreement with war has to be a strong personal conviction (faith), not an argument.

And I'd argue that being atheist and being faithless are not mutually exclusive. Aside from atheist religions like Raelianism, or Humanists, general examples like activism requires faith in the good of humanity and the ability for humanity to change, despite all the despairing news we hear every day. Otherwise what's the point? Anyone who faces an uphill battle kinda needs some kind of faith to see it through.

Atheist protip:

Don't confront faith. Even when it's silly. Even if you probably should. You're right, so just keep it to yourself. It's what I do. Keeps my blood pressure normal. Far as I give half a fuck, they can have the ten commandments on all the walls of every public school and make kids recite prayers to their gods. Obviously atheist kids don't have to participate or anything like that.

I don't even know why they're mad anymore. It aint like people care that you're godless.

I agree. Nicely put!

Sorry for taking this long to get back to you, been crazy busy

Nonprofit /= Tax-exempt and while nonprofits can BECOME tax-exempt, the process is long and arduous. Churches are automatically tax exempt and can register much more easily.

Yes it has happened recently. The only reason it's not more common is that again, it's virtually impossible for atheists to be elected.

The presence of oppression by other people of faith does not invalidate the oppression targeted against those who lack faith. I've brought this up before but atheists are the most hated minority in the united states by a wide margin granted I'd say the oppression they are targeted with is not as severe, but again this is because atheism is invisible.

In the rural community Ashley and I grew up in, our lives would have been in danger if we'd been outspoken atheists then. I was an outspoken Buddhist my senior year and I remember being confronted numerous times for it - one such conversation ended with the aggressor saying: "Well so long as you believe in SOMETHING I guess we're cool"

No but it's similar, in the sense that it's a minority status which is invisible and often demanded by society and loved ones to be kept in the closet. Which is why I made the comparison. That's how comparisons work - If atheism were the same thing as being gay we wouldn't have a different word for it.

This is precisely the problem: Faith is seen as something special, mandating special treatment. If one can get out of military service via their membership to a religion, but not by showing up in dresses or shooting up drugs it shows the derangement of our society.

Yet there process for a Mennonite is to drop off a letter signed by their pastor on church stationary. The process for an atheist is much more involved/non-existent. That's a problem.


Faith in the goodness of humanity is not the same thing as religious faith, and religious faith is not necessary to face an uphill battle and see it through. Again, the idea that religious faith is necessary IS a serious problem, for many reasons, not the least of which that if that idea that faith is necessary naturally leads to the idea that those who lack faith are somehow deficient/lacking in character.

Which is bullshit. It's also dangerous.

...aaannd of course, to underscore this point - Time runs a cover story this week which slams atheists for not helping in the recovery from the Oklahoma Tornado's despite the fact that there were TONS of Atheist groups there helping:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendl...oma-tornadoes/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cdiz0k0Rudw

Church does not equal theist. There are atheist religions and churches. I bring up Raelians a lot because they're actually militant atheists and responsible for some of those infamous atheist bus ads in the US.


Wait, so you're showing me a video of a guy who isn't using the oath, and Maddow is saying critics are THREATENING to get him out of office, but they don't have a leg to stand on, so he stayed in office.

Dude belongs to a church (which is apparently equal to theist?) and doesn't even describe himself as an atheist. And never lost office. And was very popular getting into office.

The study this links to is pretty faulty. For example, when it says that people say they'd rather their kids marry a black person than an atheist. I really recommend the book Racism Without Racists that points out the problem with such surveys, in that white people like to give what they think the right answers are to appear not racist. Like they'll say they're okay with interracial marriage, BUT....you probably shouldn't...because the kids might be beat up or something. And its funny because I remember two different teachers in two different schools actually told us all in school not to marry Muslims because they'll convert your kids to Islam and kidnap them to Saudi Arabia and you'll never see them again.

Atheists do not exist alone as a group away from sex, race, class, etc. They can be heterosexual white middle class men and escape prejudice altogether. There isn't a special oppression for them. This survey didn't include new religions or aboriginal religions or surviving African religions like Voodoo or Santeria, can we honestly say people mistrust atheists more than witch doctors? I find this misconception about atheists interesting: "threaten common values from above -- the ostentatiously wealthy who make a lifestyle out of consumption or the cultural elites who think they know better than everyone else." They assume all atheists are white elites like Richard Dawkins. Considering how many militant atheists worship racist, misogynistic men like Dawkins and Hitchens, or how Muslims in France are being brutalized by secularists, I don't wonder where that stereotype comes from; atheists can be extremely oppressive when they belong to oppressive groups. Its almost like religious identities gain privilege from the members of that religious identity, weird.



You know I'm a Buddhist and I don't recall ever receiving such courtesy. When I was atheist I just got uncomfortable silences, never any confrontations, it was when I converted that people got argumentative. My Wiccan friends probably got the most shit. One had the cops called on her for reading a spell book in public. And the police actually took it seriously and confronted her mother about it.


You're being extremely ignorant. My reality is that 50% of bisexual women are *****, 75% sexually assaulted. I have to live with the notion that I have a really good chance of being ***** and possibly murdered, more than heterosexual women, less than trans* and people of colour.

They don't care about a closet or being polite and not mentioning it. They care about curing us, about killing us, shit even supposed allies just want us queers to assimilate and act more heteroseuxal and normal and proper, because heterosexuality should always remain the norm even if its between two people of the same gender. Its trendy now to say you're all for gay rights but forget anyone who doesn't fit perfectly in a heteronormative mold. And with internalized hatred they give you the rope and you hang yourself with it.

Nothing I've experienced as a queer was ever comparable to my being atheist. I wish being atheist was all I ever had to worry about.

I just told you that my professor (nor could many religious people like Muhammad Ali. Again, atheists could actually get out of military service before Muslims could because Nation of Islam wasn't recognized as a religion, so they couldn't use that as their religious reasoning) couldn't get out of military service that way at the time. And you do get out of military service that way now. Ask MoC how being trans is working out for her in the military. Its still grounds for dishonorable discharge to be trans and in the military, same with drug use.

If you're a member of the War Resistor's League or other pacifist organization, you could easily prove your membership. That pretty much shows that you're a pacifist and didn't just decide that you don't feel like taking the oath. its a problem when you don't belong to any group or organization at all, true, but its equally hard when you don't belong to a church; if I never go to Sangha, how can they write a letter saying that I'm a long time member and totally they know I'm a pacifist? An atheist in the WWL would have an easier time than me.

[quoteFaith in the goodness of humanity is not the same thing as religious faith, and religious faith is not necessary to face an uphill battle and see it through. Again, the idea that religious faith is necessary IS a serious problem, for many reasons, not the least of which that if that idea that faith is necessary naturally leads to the idea that those who lack faith are somehow deficient/lacking in character.

Which is bullshit. It's also dangerous.]/quote]

Because you're a white cishet middle class dude, people tend to like you and not want you dead. Faith in humanity isn't so much a problem for you like it is for me. Some days I feel like faith in a higher being is more realistic than faith that people are ever going to change in my life time.

I don't see how this is relevant. If theists form a church they have a much easier time getting tax exempt status than atheists who form similar organizations. That's an example religious privilege.

Which is what I said to begin with, these old laws are often used in attempts to remove people from office. You doubted that it happened, I gave you evidence.

And that is relevant HOW? It's one example of these old discriminatory laws being used against those who profess no faith.

...So then it would follow that if they're uncomfortable answering in a manner that makes them seem racist, but comfortable redirecting their hate at atheists we have a serious problem on our hands.

I like how you used the word "worship". I'd actually say Sam Harris is worse than both Dawkins and Hitchens.

In any case, none of this is really relevant unless we want to play the oppression Olympics. No one exists independent of their race/social class/etc.

Outspoken atheists come from the cultural elite because they have less to lose by being outspoken. If they're oppressive it's because they come from the cultural elite, not because they're atheists, so I'm not exactly sure what you're getting at here.

Different situation. I'm a dude - young men tend to be more willing to verbally/violently confront other young men at that age. My read on it was that the Guy had to back down because otherwise it would've lead to a fistfight and he wasn't ready to take it that far in the middle of class.

Also, you're in Canada, I'm in America. At the time I was in the Bible belt in rural Kentucky. This was a town which forced you to say the Lord's Prayer in Public school and posted the ten commandments and articles about secret satanists in the courthouse didn't give two shits if it was illegal.

The comparison I made has nothing to do with that - it has to do with the demand to remain in the closet, which IS a problem in the gay community.

My comparison would be wrong if I said that the gay experience was the same as the atheist experience. I didn't say that.

Saya, none of this is relevant to what I'm talking about. I'm not saying that there isn't oppression targeted at minority religions, LGBTQ, etc. I'm saying that there IS also oppression targeted at atheists and you're saying there isn't.

I would never dismiss your experience with oppression as a woman, or a buddhist or anything else, but you seem dead set on dismissing mine.

That's messed up. You should probably stop doing that.

You've got a point here, but again it's not a point that eliminates religious privilege - it simply points out that the way of proving your status hinges on being a member of a RECOGNIZED group that opposes war, and again - that's a much easier sell when that group opposes it for religious reasons.

While I sympathize, that doesn't make it the same thing as religious faith.

Look Saya, if you want me to say that you're more oppressed than me I'll say it - YOU ARE. DO you want me to say that I'm more privileged than you? I am. Do you want me to say that it's to a very large degree? Sure, yes, you're right It is.

That still doesn't invalidate my experience and the experience of people like me who are faithless, and it is inappropriate for you to try to do that. Again, I would never say something like that about you or your experience - and if I did in the past make a mistake like that I'd apologize for it now because I recognize that that's wrong, and that's not who I am anymore.

But none of that, and nothing that you have brought to the table gives you the right to dismiss someone like you have been. It's just wrong, and I would hope you give it some consideration in the future.

I don't really want to get involved in an intensive debate here but I feel compelled to say something.

You keep saying religious privilege but you're only really showing that very select religions have any privilege. You yourself have said acknowledged that many religions face persecution for their faith. I think if you were talking about Christian privilege, or even Judeo-Christian privilege this dialogue would be rather different.

Do you have a source for that? Most research into bullying and peer violence that I'm aware of indicates that females are much more frequently on the receiving end both from males and other females in every age groups. People have this concept of boys interacting aggressively with each other but the truth is that such interactions between boys are just more likely to be noticed and remembered.

Also she said that she did receive confrontation just not until after she converted so even taken into consideration the fact that you think people were more likely to be aggressive with you I fail to see how you can say it is a different situation as she was still the recipient of aggressive behavior due to her faith.

Perfect. -_-

I want to go on the record and say that I despise pacifists. It was tangentially mentioned. In other news:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p69XxYjfx-k

This.

Desp. These lots aint got much left. Marx is right to critique religion as he did. But we're to a point where it's no longer sabers and muskets. All that's left is the imaginative hope of prayer. Too bad prayer doesn't stop fists and bullets and laws. But if that's all they got left, then we shouldn't try to take their flowers away.

But... but I'm a broom. :(

I don't like calling it Judeo Christian Priviledge, or Christian Priviledge because of two things:

1) I feel that unfairly targets Christianity (even though they are the biggest offenders and usually when I'm talking about this in a material sense, I'm talking about them) and is an imprecise approach. My problem is not that Christianity has this power and things would be better if instead of Christianity, voodoo had this power, my point is NO ONE should have this power.

In a material sense, that means, right now, breaking Christian privilege - yes. But the point is not to then hand off that privilege to another faith and say "do better", the point is to pull the king off the throne, throw his silly hat away, break the throne down to kindling and set it on FIRE. Not put a new, better, more humaine king on the throne, because the problem isn't even necessarily the faith, the problem IS the throne.

2) Scientology. No seriously: You talk about persecuted minority faiths? Scientology is a perfect example of how much legal power and social clout comes from being a religion, even a distrusted and hated religion. Scientology actually recently surpassed atheists in certain polls are "most distrusted minority". They still get an insane amount of privilege from being considered a religion. Even though they're largely a hated minority, they're able to use their religious status to silence critics, rake in billions in profits & torture holocaust survivors to near suicide with virtual impunity. Now this isn't the only reason they're able to do this, but it's a damn big reason why, which is why they fought so hard to gain tax-exempt status.

3) Iboga/Ibugain. I was on the radio a few months ago with an activist/aboriginal shaman of the Bwiti faith. He was arguing that he and his people should be allowed, in the United States, to take Iboga (currently a a Schedule I-controlled substance). While I agree with him, and don't begrudge his tactic, of appealing to religious privilege in an effort to gain legal access to this substance - It is all things considered NOT a religious right to take this substance - it is a HUMAN right to do so - and to appeal solely on religious grounds is in the long run, inadequate to say the least.

While I recognize the realpolitik of the situation, it's important to be precise about these things, because if we are not, we cause problems for ourselves down the road. When you're dealing with oppression - you can't just knock out part of one leg - you've got to flip the whole goddamn table.

I should amend my statement, as It reflects a particular community and a particular means of interacting violently. I know that women are more likely to be the targets of violence, but the type of violent confrontation I was faced with, in the manner I was faced with it, was because I'm a dude. If I'd been a woman in the particular community at that particular school I would have been confronted, probably violently, but it would've been in a different way, and it wouldn't have been as public.

She said people got "argumentative" the confrontations I had went beyond argumentative. Also, I'd hazard a guess that people got argumentative after her conversion because her faith became more visible than her lack of faith.

I'm an atheist, but when I walk down the street nobody knows. They all just assume/don't care.

If I wore a shirt that had "God" with a circle and a red line through it, it would be a completely different situation. If I got up and talked about God not existing on the subway it would most likely only be a matter of time before I was assaulted - even in NYC.

But atheists can be religious. Many white/Western Buddhists are atheists or at the very least agnostic, since Buddhism here hasn't fused with other religions as it has in the East, and goddesses like Kwan Yin have been diminished even into Jungian archetypes that don't really exist. Raelians are militantly atheist. So yeah, atheist organizations wanting to be a religion have gotten tax exempt status. From what I understand it was actually a lot easier for Raelians to accomplish that in the states than it has in Quebec.

Attempts, but not successful attempts. White people can still successfully murder black people and face no consequences. Women are still ***** and there's only a 3% chance of her rapist ever being convicted. Christians can bitch and whine about it but they're getting dragged along whether they want to or not.

Because he's religious. You're trying to break this down as if being religious and being atheist is mutually exclusive. And this is one way why "religious privilege vs oppressed atheists" doesn't work. There's an awful lot of intermingling.

Except not really. PoC are still being killed on a daily basis with no recourse for justice. PoC are still denied economic advancement. No such oppression exists for atheists except a general distrust.

But you're playing the oppression olympics because you're trying to argue that atheists are the MOST oppressed, uniquely from other religious minorities, despite the fact that Muslims and Sikhs are being slaughtered willy nilly, despite the fact that Hitchens was beside himself trying to support the Iraq War so we could kill more.

Atheists in a position of power do not have "less to lose". How do reservation folk have less to lose? How do voodooists have less to lose? What do they have to lose? Dawkins and Hitchens can get away with it because they are neoliberals and imperialists. They aren't revolutionaries, they uphold the status quo with a different spin on it. Jeremiah Wright can be decried by a whole nation for him saying governments lie and white supremacy lives. He had a lot more to lose.

So I magically turned into a dude when I converted?

In Newfoundland, all schools were very legally run by churches until 1999, and after that there was a long transition period since we kept the same curriculum. I was obligated to do Bible study, the school would all collectively go to church on special occassions like Remembrance Day, the Catholics had to go to a different school until 1999, and even after that they had to go to the basement classes to do their religion courses. Despite being Buddhist I couldn't be exempt from a course in grade 9 called "Our Christian Heritage." Srsly dude.


The comparison is offense, and don't try to tell me whats a problem in my own community. I'm telling you, its far from it.



Saya, none of this is relevant to what I'm talking about. I'm not saying that there isn't oppression targeted at minority religions, LGBTQ, etc. I'm saying that there IS also oppression targeted at atheists and you're saying there isn't.

I would never dismiss your experience with oppression as a woman, or a buddhist or anything else, but you seem dead set on dismissing mine.

That's messed up. You should probably stop doing that.[/quote]

Yes, I'm oppressing you by telling you that you are not nearly the most oppressed people in the world or that your black and white division between atheists and religious folk is wrong. That's totally it. I'm totally in a position where I can employ economic, social, and violence oppression over you, just by being religious.


Its not, I already pointed out that Muslims were not given the chance, not even after the ruling that allowed atheists to claim CO status. It had to come later with the Muhammad Ali ruling. And seriously, try and see how quick people are to argue when a Muslim makes any kind of claim that they are pacifist on the grounds of Islam. Suddenly everyone is a religious studies expert. I don't doubt there would be a lot of trouble for them if there's ever a draft again.


Yeah, I only have a degree in religious studies and learned how faith operates outside of religion or anything. And that might take a lot more time than I can take on a forum post, but Authentic Fakes by Chidester is a good place to start.

As to why this isn't the same kind of oppression other minorities you claim atheists are more hated against, heres a good read on neoliberalism in the atheist movement: http://plover.net/~bonds/nolongeraskeptic.html

But you argue that atheism/skepticism/logic etc should be held above all others, it should have the power.

But it doesn't operate independently on a throne, like patrirachy doesn't operate independently from racism. Its part of a white supremacist (thus the black church has no real power despite being Christian) sexist (thus feminist/womanist theology has no power) hegemony. White American Christianity is unique in that it incorporates an American creation myth (literally in Mormonism) and merges with nationalism. It wasn't always this way actually. Early colonizers and slavers argued that if PoC were Christian, they'd be equals. Christian slavers and colonizers had to incorporate white supremacy into Christian dogma. Despite not having proper "separation of church and state" laws, this isn't a problem in Canada because we don't have a creation myth and being Christian isn't exactly crucial to our idea of Canadian identity. It was the case, particularly with assimilating the aboriginal, but seems to be part of a shameful, lets-not-talk-about-it past rather than a living present. Nor is this a problem in France or other secular countries. But despite being secular, we still have issues with religious minorities like Muslims because they still threaten our national identity. Like, absolutely oppressive Christian rhetoric has been used in the past, but a new secular "progressive" version has emerged. It didn't change the throne at all.

And its funny because most of their figureheads are white rich-as-Solomon celebrities. I think I found where their privileges come from.

Anthropology 101: Religion is part of culture. Its part of cultural expression. Specifically aboriginal religion has been a big part of anti-colonial rhetoric in the aboriginal community. Sitting Bull was murdered because they feared he might join the Ghost Dance movement. The Wounded Knee Massacre was also in response to the Ghost Dance movement. Eliminating aboriginal religion has been instrumental in trying to assimilate the aboriginal. The "Pan-Indian" (I put quotations because I really hate saying "Indian" in reference to Native Americans) religious movement is in part because those on the East coast really have lost a lot of knowledge of their original religions, and thus lost a big part of their culture. So they borrow from the Lakota and Sioux who didn't succumb to colonialization until much later. Its a huge part of aboriginal identity and history. Its not a cheap ploy to legalize a drug.

Prizing atheism above religion will not solve this, look at violence against Muslims in France, or their attempt at assimilation. Its not different whether its in the name of religion or in the name of secularism or progress. Essentially what can and will happen if enough turn to atheism is that it becomes the new core part of nationalism, xenophobia and racism. Few in the "atheist movement" really deny it because they want it. Dawkins would be pleased as punch if people were ripping niqabs off of women.

And again, I faced the same thing anyway.


My skin color or face didnt' change when I became a Buddhist. I didn't start wearing a mala bracelet until a few years ago. In high school, a lot of people were super ignorant about what me being Buddhist meant. Some thought I was Jewish for some reason. All they knew was I didn't share in what they thought was a shared identity. I was just different.

Honestly this kinda reminds me of when goths argue goths exist as a unique oppressed class of people.

Was that something you wanted to do? Do you think shamans, voodooists or even Muslims can get away with that?

Actually this is something I wanted to ask: is being able to confront people religion about any moment your idea of atheist freedom? Is not wanting to argue about religion at any time of your choosing oppressing you?