Despite President Obama’s recent declaration that the US is a “nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus and non-believers,” being an atheist in the United States is still virtually political suicide. Nonetheless, I was just reminded by this article that we have it better than many other places in the rest of the world. Take, for example, India:

Behind the disempowerment of atheists in the US and India in the latter, the state doesn’t even recognise atheism as a legal or sociological category is a widespread interdiction of debate when it comes to matters religious. There is somehow a dominant social consensus that criticism of religion or debate about religion is a no-no because one shouldn’t hurt other people’s religious sentiments.

Being recognized is the first step, but it is one that in some countries feels like climbing a mountain, especially when the state is not even willing to recognize that we exist or have a valid position.

The second issue raised by this piece is the following: Why should we be concerned with hurting other people’s religious sentiments? Are one’s religious sentiments so insecure that they need to be protected from criticism?

Some might reply that avoiding criticism of religion is simply acting tolerant. It is not. It is buying into a consipiracy of silence that itself breeds intolerance towards non-believers.

Tolerating somebody else’s absurd belief is not equivalent to remaining silent about it – it recognizing that each party has an equal right to not only believe what we want but to call out the other for believing it.