Dear abby: easter and apostasy

[lemonsharks]

DEAR ABBY: Easter is a day to be thankful for Christ that our sins are forgiven. Opinionated atheists at the dinner table distract from the meaning of the celebration. Is it wrong on Easter Sunday to exclude relatives who no longer practice the Christian faith? — SAVED IN MINNESOTA

DEAR SAVED: Before making up your mind, ask yourself, “What would Jesus do?”

Comments

[conuly]

. If they're actually the kind of atheists who can't resist constantly harping on about the invisible sky-fairy and paedophile priests, even at a religious celebration where they are guests, then I feel like they are possibly guilty of quite bad manners.

I don't like to admit it, but it does happen. And not just among the newly deconverted, where we can say they're still processing and that this sort of talk is an important part of that (at least for some).

Those people will be happier uninvited for their sins anyway.

[lemonsharks]

Now this stance is obviously informed by my background. I wouldn't say that

"this huge and important piece of your identity is meaningless because you're too intellectually stunted and deliberately ignorant to admit gods are fake"

is as harmful as

"you're destined to an unknowably long eternity of torture worse than the worst torement you can imagine unless you beg and grovel in the correct manner as prescribed by me"

but it's definitely getting close.


(Some assholes never grow out of being assholes. Would that we could send them all off to their own private island to lord of the flies each other while the rest of us proceed onward to a functioning society built on a foundation of mutual kindness.)