I know I just restating the point of that post but respecting religious freedom will sometimes require you to respect someone’s belief that religious beliefs are categorically untrue, and there are a lot of people who are unable to handle this, and even more people who think they agree with this but haven’t really grappled with what it means.
Something that a lot of religious folks don’t seem to realize the extent to which non-religious people, more than any other religious minority, are expected to walk on eggshells around other people’s beliefs at the expense of their own for the sake of social decorum, in a way which no one else is expected to do with theirs.
To name a bit of an example I have personal experience with. When I was mourning my cousin a couple years ago, I was constantly faced with the situation of people trying to comfort me from a religious perspective.
And whenever this topic comes up, the conversation is always about how “you have to be mindful of their intentions, they’re trying to reach out to you and comfort you in the way they know, they’re being nice, you have to appreciate the effort they’re making, you have to meet them where they’re at and appreciate their attempt to help you”. Which is what I did, of course. In this situation, replying to their attempt to comfort you with any reminder that you don’t believe in this stuff is considered a big social faux-pas that will make you look like an asshole. And to an extent I agree, it can be rude and needlessly combative.
But somethin I feel it’s conspicuously absent from any conversation surrounding this type of situation like. Any interrogation of *why* is going “sorry, I don’t believe in any of this, this means nothing to me” considered a bigger social faux-pas than trying to comfort a grieving person with religious beliefs you know they don’t hold.
Why, even when you’re literally grieving, the onus is on you as a non-religious person to be mindful of other’s worldviews and tread lightly and meet them where they’re at and not contradict what they believe in and never the other way around.