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Just finished writing my own post contra Graham, but for different reasons. But I'm on his side for this.

There's a fair bit of social science backing the general idea that in/out group identities can become unreasonably rivalrous, formed on nonsensical basis (as in the minimal group paradigm), derogation of out-group and favoritism toward in-group on unrelated or frivolous grounds, more critical-mindedness concerning the out-group than the in-group, etc.

That being said though, I will agree that sometimes attribution of bad outcomes to group psychology can be overdone; missing that some bad outcomes are consistent with genuinely rational actors.

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Completely agree!

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I feel like this post is eliding the difference between a set of beliefs and a community that happens to have those beliefs

I think people saying "atheism sucks" are quite rare, usually what they say is "atheists suck" meaning (those people i see arguing on reddit suck)

How much should *that* affect you?

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I think if someone says 'atheists suck', that would bother me more than 'atheism sucks', if anything!

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