Is hate speech against religious people acceptable?

After the ban of the c/christians community for having a rule against LGBTQ+ content. I wonder where is the actual line of what is allowed and what is not on this instance. (lemmy.world/post/1762563)

There are plenty of instances allowing hate speech against religious people. Looking through them I can see how they can be pretty offensive for someone who was brought up religious.

For example !atheistmemes.

From their description

No Pro-Religious or Anti-Atheist Content.

Some of the content:

To clarify, I do not feel offended, as I am in no capacity religious and I am an atheist also. I also do not ask for the removal of that community as I don’t believe neither of the two should be removed.

But going through the content on atheistmemes the content there is far worse and more offending than it was on c/christians. While on c/christians only the rules where marginally breaking the rules, while there were no content that was in violation. This community in my opinion does both.

Allowing anti religion community while banning the pro religion one is creating a real deficit of different opinions here.

What is your opinion? Do you think that one should be allowed while the other not and why?

Overzeetop,
Overzeetop avatar

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.

kher,

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.

donuts,
donuts avatar

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.

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.

kher,

I agree, but I would not be selective in allowing criticism of one group while banning criticism of another.

Can_you_change_your_username,

It's a false equivalency. Sexuality and sexual identity are innate characteristics not learned beliefs or behaviors. Sexuality and sexual identity cannot be changed ideas can.

Zorque,

On the other hand you also don't change ideas by mocking others and denigrating them.

I agree that religious communities that vilify LGBT+ or any other group are toxic and shouldn't be tolerated... but groups that vilify all religion as toxic, whether religious people hold those beliefs or not, are often toxic as well.

You obviously don't (often) have atheist communities calling for death threats and concentration camps... but they do often tend to end up being echo chambers for hate and anger. That's not the kind of positive community I would want to be a part of, and I'm not religious at all.

gullible,

Atheist communities can go a bit too far in their critiques but I have yet to see atheists begin persecuting the religious irl, en masse or otherwise, whereas religious violence is absolutely constant. A chihuahua can nip but a pack of hyenas will consume you, anus to mouth in a few hours. That said, I blocked the atheist communities as I no longer have teenage religious angst, just a thorough hatred of bigots.

donuts,
donuts avatar

Criticizing someone for being gay is like criticizing someone for being straight, or white, or black, or short, or blonde, or left handed, and so on...

These are not things that people choose, concepts that are opted into, or beliefs that are endorsed or subscribed to.

If a person actively chooses to believe in and endorse an idea, opinion, or another subjective concept, then criticism of that choice or idea is, in my opinion, at least valid.

To me, that's a big difference. But I will say that if you feel that you are being unfairly treated then I would open a discussion up with the people who run your server. The great thing about all of this fediverse stuff is that the user community has a lot of power and agency. If your server has rules that you think are dumb or hypocritical, then you have all the power in your hands to get a new server going that better fits the kind of community that you want to see.

PineapplePartisan,
@PineapplePartisan@lemmy.world avatar

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 don’t get to do is say “Hey, I want to present my views that are antithetical to your community because you are a popular instance”.

MonsieurHedge,
MonsieurHedge avatar

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.

CarlsIII,

What’s funny is I’ve seen lots of Christians say that going to hell is a “choice.”

DrMux,

An adult has had plenty of time to reflect on that and make an informed decision. If someone was brought up in a religious environment and has not in their entire life had a choice in the matter, they are in any conceivable circumstance still a child (or, I dunno, being held against their will in a bunker, probably without internet access). Perhaps those kids shouldn't be using the internet unsupervised — that's for their parents to deal with. It's not for the users of a platform like this to deal with.

Religion and sexuality are NOT comparable. Yes, both can be considered a component of one's identity, but one is an involuntary intrinsic aspect of their lived experience, and the other is a voluntary decision informed by external factors.

Nobody is born a Christian.

Zorque,

The same way I don’t want LGBTQ+ people to not feel welcome

... then don't have a community that vilifies them?

I mean, I think an accepting community should also be accepting of those who chose to be religious... but that doesn't mean being accepting of those who use their religion to disparage or diminish others.

Overzeetop,
Overzeetop avatar

Oh, you're a fun troll.

I'm not sure whether to ask you

a) why, if you "don’t 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?

kher,

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!

fkn,

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.

PineapplePartisan,
@PineapplePartisan@lemmy.world avatar

It’s understandable as the religious people also migrate away from Reddit. The fediverse cuts down their stupid “equal time for dissent” 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.

I’m with world on this one. Punch the damn nazis in their faces. No false arguments about tolerance here.

kher,

It is absolutely outrageous to call religious people nazis.

Kalkaline, (edited )

Right? They’re way more likely to be neo-confederates or KKK members than they are to be Nazis.

blanketswithsmallpox,
blanketswithsmallpox avatar

Not all Nationalist Christians are Nazis... but almost all Nazis are NatCs.

MonsieurHedge,
MonsieurHedge avatar

Evangelical Christians and Nazis share most of their positions.

kher,

I do know some hardcore Orthodox Christians, and they are some of the kindest people I know. Far from being nazis

PyroNeurosis,
@PyroNeurosis@lemmy.world avatar

Nice Nazis are still Nazis. You may not be their target group yet, but it will come.

TinyPizza,
TinyPizza avatar

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.

1chemistdown,
1chemistdown avatar

Well, all nazis consider themselves Christian

kher,

This is not true:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relations_between_Nazi_Germany_and_the_Arab_world#/media/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_146-1980-036-05,_Amin_al_Husseini_bei_bosnischen_SS-Freiwilligen.jpg

DessertStorms,
DessertStorms avatar

Ooh, ooh, do "nazis were really socialists!!!11" next!!!

1chemistdown,
1chemistdown avatar

lol

dsemy,

This is such a fucking wild take - I doubt you’d actually say that to a religious person’s face, let alone punch it.

kher,

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.

fkn,

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.

kher,

But you are just assuming, you have no proof of this kind of posts on c/christians. They were not banned because of content, but because of not allowing pro LGBTQ+ content. Please read the linked post first. (lemmy.world/post/1762563)

markr,

It’s a new audience for old trolls.

Vaggumon,
@Vaggumon@lemmy.world avatar

Despite their desire to be, Christians are not persecuted like they claim.

kher,

This is not true. Christians are prosecuted world wide, and its not only Christians, but also Muslims, Budhist or any other religion.

christianitytoday.com/…/nigeria-christians-killed…

anteaters,

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

kher,

Do you think people in Nigeria don’t access internet and there are none of them on Lemmy?

markr,

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?

ThunderingJerboa,
ThunderingJerboa avatar

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.

anteaters,

They have not yet complained about people saying things about christianity. Only you do, abusing their suffering for your hurt feelings.

NewNewAccount,

You really think that’s a relevant response to the commenter you’re replying to?

Roundcat,
Roundcat avatar

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.

kher,

Like this one? lemmy.world/post/1440242

I am not saying that the community should be banned, I am just saying that if the c/christians were banned just for not allowing LGBTQ+ content, then applying the same standards this one should be banned as well.

And hate speech is incredible volatile definition, it seems like everyone is using it how they feel like.

BrianTheFirst,

These are all true though..

Roundcat,
Roundcat avatar

Based on my post, yes, that would fit. Allegations of child molestation are serious enough to incite violence against groups of people who are undeserving, and as someone raised Baptist, this would be something I would hear a lot from people who wanted to exclude or discriminate against Catholics.

Ultimately though, "hate speech" is a hard thing to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the speaker/poster was posting with the intention of hate, which is why it's seldomly used in prosecution. The above post could also be seen as a jab at recent news regarding a priest who got caught molesting children, or a criticism of the church rather than the adherents.

My issue with the banning of queer topics and members is that not all Christians are LGBT shunning. There are plenty of Christians who are queer, or have queer family, or are affirming or supportive of queer people. To ban the discussion or participation of queer topics and people would be to deny a group of people membership based on their interpretation/ belief/ or denomination of Christianity. To make that a rule in a general Christian sub comes with the implication "if you are queer affirming, you are not a true Christian and aren't welcome here"

The issue above feels more of a matter of exclusion rather than hate speech.

DessertStorms,
DessertStorms avatar

Oppression is about power dynamics.

There is pretty much nowhere on earth where Christians are powerless or oppressed, the opposite is true, they hold immense amounts of power globally. Meanwhile LGBTQA+ people are still oppressed, to varying degrees, almost everywhere, and have no structural power at all.

Christianity has inflicted death and war and violence and hate since its conception, while LGBTQA+ people just want to exist as they are.

Speaking out against them is not comparable, and pretending it is is disingenuous at best.

Roundcat,
Roundcat avatar

I mean there are parts of Africa and Asia where there is indeed Christian persecution, but definitely not the same thing that many Christians in western countries talk about when they wish to pull books from a library, or establish prayer in a public school and get pushback.

DessertStorms,
DessertStorms avatar

Right, and in those parts of Africa and Asia Christians aren't in power. Also the fact that you could probably count those countries on one hand maaaaybe two, proves what a rarity it actually is, so bringing it up is neither helpful nor productive, it's just whataboutism.

Roundcat,
Roundcat avatar

Is it rare? Certainly. Are they any less deserving of our attention? Certainly not. I feel any group of people who faces violence based on their religion or religious background deserves justice, whether they are Uighurs in China, or Christians in...well China.

In fact feel the same way about the Persecution complex many Western Christians have that you do. In fact our conversation proves my point that the fake persecution that many western christians whine about subtracts concern or attention from real Christian persecution that happens outside the west.

HubertManne,
HubertManne avatar

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.

wethan2,

Just so you know, this is a post on c/general on lemmy.world, not kbin

HubertManne,
HubertManne avatar

yeah my bad. The interface can be hard to read at times.

MonsieurHedge,
MonsieurHedge avatar

Personally, I consider Christianity a hate group, so they get the banhammer the same as the KKK or whatever.

fubo,

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.

kher,

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.

fubo, (edited )

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”.

kher,

I still ask you to give me a post where c/christians were calling for someone to be treated hatefully, excluded from society

Xariphon,

They literally had a rule excluding an entire marginalized group.

fubo,

I didn’t say they were. I said that the four links you provided did not seem to be examples of the thing you were claiming (“hate speech against religious people”).

I said a very specific thing. Please don’t read into it the thing that you wished that I had said, in order to have an argument that you wanted to have.

notintheface,

Are you saying excluding a whole group based on sexuality from their community isn’t discrimination?

crowsby,
crowsby avatar

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.

ulu_mulu, (edited )
@ulu_mulu@lemmy.world avatar

The community that has been banned wasn’t discriminating people either, they were discriminating specific discussions. Where do we draw the line?

ElectroVagrant,

From OP’s linked post regarding this community, the rule in question was this:

This community does not affirm practiced LGBTQ+ lifestyles

That doesn’t appear to be related to mere discussion, but the basic being of LGBTQ+ people. I’m not sure what else “practiced LGBTQ+ lifestyles” might refer to, and the phrasing is just a longer way of saying they reject their being.

HuddaBudda,
HuddaBudda avatar

I have been a christian most of my life and I am not fully sure how to respond to this.

I feel like if you cannot test your faith, put it in the ring and let it dance with the other arguments. Then what is your faith except blind servitude? I also understand that not everyone is going to believe the way I do, and that is alright too. So long we get to debate logically, then I have no problem with it.

But I do think this is needed, Christianity needs to be judged, it needs to be criticized, because that is the only way Christians are going to grow.

But I also understand that Christians seem to be jumping into calculus 3 (Leviticus), before they've mastered the basics (Love your neighbor as yourself). So it is no wonder that most people who want to debate as a christian come from a place of (You are wrong, I am right), but also they don't understand the context of what they are regurgitating. Or even why it matters.

TL:DR Christians are going to bring in a lot of information that is wrong, but I also think it is necessary for that wrong information to be brought to the light for us to grow.

ElectroVagrant,

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.

dsemy,

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.

ulu_mulu,
@ulu_mulu@lemmy.world avatar

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.

iridaniotter,
@iridaniotter@lemmygrad.ml avatar

No, hate speech isn’t okay. But your examples are not hate speech, so there’s no problem.

autumn,

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.

Roundcat,
Roundcat avatar

To me “This community does not affirm practiced LGBTQ+ lifestyles” implies if you are a queer or queer affirming Christian, you are not welcomed in this sub, which is excluding a large amount of Christian fed users. Even with the views towards queer people aside, you are basically drawing a line in the sand in a faith based sub based on interpretation, denomination, and belief.

Rottcodd,
Rottcodd avatar

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.

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