Reply to Why do atheists and anti-theists care about the beliefs of religious people?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Try a search on this topic.  It's been here before.

My take?  I don't care what you believe or practice as long as it doesn't harm anyone (including through restriction of freedoms, such as the FLDS) and you don't bring it to my doorstep.[/quote]

I wouldn’t care either if it was like someone’s favorite flavor of ice cream for example…totally innocuous and almost entirely inside their own heads. However, even discounting the more blatant harms that Bible believers sometimes commit, there are insidious harms that destroy families and lives every single day.  I can cite examples if you want but I have personal knowledge of many people  and the harm that was done to them. Including some who no longer are welcome in their families , who have had siblings commit suicide due to shunning , etc etc. 
And before anyone says “that’s just the fringe or the fundamentalists “, no it is not. Not to mention , as has been stated by many , moderate Christianity gives cover to the more extreme versions. And at least one of those extreme versions wants to make this country into a Christian taliban and sincerely believes that god is now in charge.  Look up what the current speaker of the house believes and what he and other Christian nationalists are trying to accomplish for their god. 
 Some scary crap.  Much scarier than someone’s opinion on an ice cream flavor ..

This is why “atheists care”. [/quote]

You have personal knowledge of people harmed by people who believe in the Bible?

Who, what, when, where, why?[/quote]

Me - by my Bible-believing sibling who stopped speaking to me because I was an atheist and didn't attend a family funeral because I was there, along with other non-believing family members.[/quote]

+1. I'm sorry that happened to you.  I'm the PP that you both are replying to.  After something happened within my own family, which I won't give the details of but suffice it to say that it destroyed relationships that were very very important in our family and almost destroyed one of my children, I have spent the past 2 years reading about, listening to, and learning about the cult mentality that bible literalists have.  The harm is very real, very huge, and world wide.  There is an entire organization in Australia, for example, just to help people that have been kicked out of their families for either questioning their faith or being gay, or both.  Many of these people are teenagers.   
This is a worldwide epidemic.  There are organizations being started all the time in order to address the religious trauma people are experiencing and dealing with.  Recovering From Religion, The Secular Therapy Project, etc.  Because I have a child involved, I recently spoke to a therapist that herself has not spoken to her parents for 10 years because they found out she was gay.  She was so devastated at being shunned by her own parents that she went back to school to become a therapist and counselor for others like her.   
Watch the documentary "Witness Underground", and especially watch the part of the show where the man cries about not being allowed to attend his beloved brother's funeral because he was being shunned. I can give more examples, but I'm sure people will ignore what they don't want to face.     
I've said it before, but the christians that use the Bible by cherry picking the loving parts, and use it to make themselves better people and treat others well are not the ones I have any problems with.  But anyone that takes the Bible literally and REALLY reads what is in there, and lives by the words in there, are terrible human beings.  They may be good Christians, but they are terrible human beings.   
In my family, for example, it was 1 Corinthians 5 that destroyed relationships between my children.    It's right there...and it's horrific. 
[/quote]

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