No. It’s the freedom to engage with them without acting like you’re an abused dog reacting at every man in a hat.
I am trans. My advocacy has involved engaging with people who hate that I exist and who are primed to think that I am mentally ill, a logistical problem or that I am a moral threat. I have minor religious trauma myself though I know a lot of my fellows who suffer aggregious mental health problems because of religious trauma due to their parents. Some queer people still believe in that Christian God and detangling that trauma takes a lot of gentle work. I have been learning how to engage debate and advocate with religious people on different levels to de-escalate the harm being done as a matter of long term survival plans. Every person requires different tactics. Being scornful or rough can be used as a goad in the tool kit because some people need to be approached in ways they recognize as authoritative but more often then not it’s the tool likeliest to lose ground rather than gain it.
Recognizing the values they have is the first step to getting them to recognize you which is the first step to them re-evaluating what they believe. They have to feel understood and seen before there is a chance they will offer that to you. And sometimes they will snap as a fear response to their veiws being changed but will feel bad for that response later when they don’t have their back up against the wall. It’s a process and some of that processing happens when you aren’t around. If you leave on a note where their take away is “fuck that person is an asshole” they aren’t going to spend that time reflecting on their own bad actions. They are going to reflect on yours.
They have to feel understood and seen before there is a chance they will offer that to you.
They need to discard magical thinking and bad reasoning. The trauma, they can deal with their therapist.
See that’s where we differ. I don’t give a fuck whatever they believe. I care how they act on it. I care about mitigating the actual damage they do because I have battles that I care about more than attacking them on whether or not they subscribe to belief in supernatural stuff. If their beliefs are actually doing nothing but giving them comfort that’s fine. Being right and being good sometimes require you to pick one or the other. Stripping people of the harmless things that give them comfort isn’t exactly a bro move… And “Just stop believing” is an incredibly patronizing way to deal with people. It’s just not how it works.
Not to mention if you want to stop someone from actively bad aspects of a religion trying to attack their belief directly is where the armor is thickest . They are trained to reject that out of hand. You can batter that shit all day and go no where. I attack the joints. I use whatever nessisary - I quote their scriptures and philosophies back at them, learn the historic timelines of the politics inside their movements, I approach them with kindness, I approach them using their own language because I don’t have fucking time to give a shit whether they in their heart of hearts believe in their superstitions because I don’t have time. All that really needs doing is they stop hurting us because all the rest doesn’t actually mean anything. Like if they are kind and awesome folk who totally stay in their lane but they believe in Sky daddy or crystals … Okay whatever. No skin off my nose.
People don’t actually choose what they believe. They do weigh their evidence and values but at some level it’s out of their control. Sometimes it’s because somebody else pops it in your brain at a formative time and that’s just part of your conception of the world or some other sense of personal evidence draws you to a conclusion. Did you choose to be an atheist or did you arrive at it independently ? Could you just CHOOSE to believe in Zeus or something as a matter of absolute choice? Probably not. Your beliefs formed because of your personal body of evidence drew you to to that conclusion. That’s also how some religiois people arrive at their beliefs . This doesn’t always cycle in one direction with religious people always becoming atheists. I know people who were atheists who stopped being atheists and started believing in something else. At some point a certain amount of humility is beneficial. The notion that yeah, we’re not completely rational creatures and that other people are allowed to believe stuff that you personally don’t agree… They just aren’t entitled to cause harm because of it and that also includes you does make the world a better place. If your bar is that you cannot be happy or care about people unless they agree entirely with your stance about the supernatural you are essentially gunna be holding your breath until you turn blue. Like - you can…But having zero chill isn’t exactly the most attractive social behaviour.