#please dont assign one to me

Can we please, please, please, please retire the phrase “culturally christian”? Or at least not use it as a blanket label to apply to people who don’t claim it? I didn’t spend years trying to separate myself from something that is constantly used to justify causing people harm for the most inane of reasons and can’t be proven to be true even by the fundamentalists who insist it must all be literal fact (despite it not being intended to be read as literally true in the first place), nor the years keeping my life as secular as I can manage, just for someone who doesn’t even know who I am to shove me back into it because I happen to still celebrate the secular version of a few holidays. You can’t just label someone without their acceptance of said label.

And yeah, I know I’m probably gonna get at least some flak for this, even though my issue with religion is moreso towards those who use it to harm people or insist that it is literal fact and that people like me are either stupid or willfully ignorant for not being convinced of the same thing. I’m just so tired of seeing people talk about “culturally christian” and knowing they mean “literally anyone who grew up being taught even the vaguest of christian teachings and/or celebrate some form of Christmas or Easter regardless of whether or not they themselves are christian”.

I would have also suggested retiring the much-less-often-used phrase “christian atheist”, but it turns out there actually are self-claimed christian atheists–those who accept philosophical teachings of jesus without believing in the supernatural stuff–so that phrase should be kept for those who call themselves as such and they are as valid as any other decent person with or without belief.