Question, I don't know if any gods exist or not, therefore I don't believe any do, what am I?

[MellowDem]

44. So you don't stop saying a word just because a group finds it offensive...

that's the whole point I'm getting at. Only for a certain class of words, ones you find "derogatory", do you stop saying the word.

More specifically, words that criticize a person for irreversible or inherent traits especially, from your examples, do you consider unjustifiably offensive. This makes sense. There is no logic behind attacking someone's character for their skin color, or ethnicity, or mental disability, or sexual orientation etc. etc., since it has nothing to do with character. I'm just trying to show you that this is really your reasoning, not the fact that some group considers the word offensive.

From your accounts, it sounds like you were ignorant of the derogatory nature of the word until you were informed by someone else, and once you knew of the derogatory nature, you stopped using it, not because a group found it offensive, but because you found out the meaning behind the word.

Lots of groups consider words offensive, but some of them are justifiably used against those groups.

Religion, oftentimes, is still conflated with being an inherent trait in many cultures, the same thing as skin color or ethnicity. It's not. So words that attack or belittle religious beliefs may be offensive to those that hold them, but they also may be justified, and the offense to the criticism is not logical. Belief systems are always fair game to criticism, and those that hold such beliefs will be subject to criticism as well.

For example, the Koran is a bigoted, misogynistic, homophobic religious text, and Islam is based on it. Islam itself is homophobic and misogynistic as a belief system. That makes all people who subscribe to Islam, Muslims, homophobic and misogynistic. If a Muslim says they are not homophobic or misogynistic, that simply means they are engaging in cognitive dissonance. It's like a member of the KKK telling you they aren't racist. It may be true, of course, but it's still cognitive dissonance and it's intellectually dishonest, they're essentially saying they don't believe what they say they believe. Now, because religion has so much privilege still, a post like that got deleted by a jury on DU, simply because people found it offensive.

That sort of logic is terrible, and should not be a reason to censor words or criticism.