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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6699709" data-attributes="member: 4937">Meh.  The fact that its making a contentious point that isn't part of the theme of the article is the point.  It tribal signaling.  It's not so much primarily intended to cause offense as it is to garner the sympathy of the rest of the tribe.  "I'm an atheist, so if you are an atheist, then you'll agree with the rest of what I say as well."   Plenty of tribes define themselves primarily by who they aren't or who they oppose.   That's nothing weird.  Announcing such a marker reminds me of the homeless people who when you actually look the in the eye always want to say first, "I'm a Christian." in the false assumption that I'd be more willing to help them because of it.  Essentially it's just pleading, "No really, I'm a good person.  I believe all the right things necessary to deserve your sympathy." It's like believers that put Ichthys on the back of their cars so that other members of their social tribe will know them.  Or it's like certain social groups that put so many bumper stickers on the back of their car you can no longer see the back of their car so that likeminded groups will recognize a fellow member of their creed: "Coexist" written in the symbols of religions that the person isn't member of, etc.  Or it's like a church that names itself, "Apostolic Pentecostal Full Gospel Holiness Missionary Baptist Church of God in Christ Jesus", just so that from the name alone you can check off the boxes no whether or not you are in the tribe.If it is intended to be offensive, sort of "Flying Spaghetti Monster" or "Darwin Fish" style, it's predicated on a false assumption of what I find offensive.  It's a bit less than pleasant to think that someone dislikes you so much that they are trying to insult you, but the snark itself isn't offensive.  The only reason to point out the snark and how unhelpful it is to the theme, is if you want the essay to be more persuasive, which in full honesty I don't.Besides, I detest victim based morality almost as much as I detest shame based morality.   I'm not victimized by original poster declaring he doesn't believe in God.   I am explicitly not demanding any authority figure protect me from the victimization I'm not actually experiencing.   And I'm explicitly calling for people to not passively aggressively attack ideas by cloaking themselves in the mantle of victimhood.   Agreeing that it is offensive and victimizing for the OP to declare God doesn't exist, would in fact be agreeing with the underlying principles of the essay and the world view it is trying to advance - namely, that we should be aggressively defending the conversational space from ideas that offend us (or others) even when it wasn't the intention to be offensive.</blockquote>

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