See, and that's where you're a dishonest hypocrite (ah, you got me there!) while moving your goalposts by miles. The religious people are all innocent, because those who aren't, aren't true believers and pharisees; but wow does that threshold drop when it comes to atheists (or 'smug materialists'), because now everything is their true god, and they just haven't realized that they really are religious, and are "just as bad as the religious people" (TM) because nothing can exist outside of religion, hallelujah.
You claim you were an atheist once, for a decade? Maybe you mistook being an atheist for being 'edgy' and smug. All it means is that I don't believe in you sky daddy. Never in my life have I talked about atheism except in response to religious people bringing up their religion and trying to explain to me how really I am religious. I just want to be left alone from your superstition, freedom from religion is the only religious freedom.
What you call "moving the goalposts" here was just OP's starting assumption that everyone is religious in some way (Bob Dylan's "gotta serve somebody" comes to mind) -- an assumption which you disagree with.
It would make for better discussion to call out this assumption and offer arguments against it than to resort to personal attacks.
The personal attacks aren't a resort for people like this. It's the thing they advance into these threads to do in the first place.
This is the person who said "Freedom from religion is the only religious freedom", which is something I would expect to hear from a guard at a prison camp whose job is to systematically destroy an inmate's hope, community and individuality outside of basic material desires.
Freedom of religion is freedom to believe or not to believe in any religion or philosophy a person may choose. It is the freedom to express that privately or together, to speak about or practice it openly. It is the freedom to seek meaning, in spite of how you may be looked upon for the journey or its outcome. Without this definition of freedom of religion in place, there can only be the state religion/philosophy and any of the people belonging to systems of belief that the state's adherents subjugate, subvert, or chooses to tolerate for the time being.
Furthermore, it's not a freedom that can just be taken away, even if someone writes a mean comment about it or codifies a law that criminalizes beliefs. It is a freedom embedded in base reality.
I am grateful that I grew up in a world where so many people around me valued this definition of freedom of religion so much. I am grateful for the meanings, symbolism and relationships I have been able to discover on this path. Being a former atheist allows me to cherish them all the more, because I remember what life was like without them.
May God have mercy on everyone in this thread, we are all going to need it. I resolutely believe we are in these sad political times because we have forgotten about God.
You claim you were an atheist once, for a decade? Maybe you mistook being an atheist for being 'edgy' and smug. All it means is that I don't believe in you sky daddy. Never in my life have I talked about atheism except in response to religious people bringing up their religion and trying to explain to me how really I am religious. I just want to be left alone from your superstition, freedom from religion is the only religious freedom.