[Serious] Over the top

[Belacqua]

not all of us here are interested in being overly accurate and fair.

You can say that again. 

I'm not here to pounce on every atheist in an atheist forum every time they make a statement that seems mildly unfair.

Nor am I. Most of the unfair statements are so familiar that everybody lets them go. That's why I wanted to focus on statements that are just ridiculously over the top. 

You can be damn sure, though, that any unfair statement made by a Christian on this forum will be more than a little pounced on. There is a double standard. Atheists are held to a far lower standard.

when an atheist comes to an atheist forum, often times they're here to chill or to vent or to just express more freedom and to feel more of the "faith"-linked privilege they don't feel in the real world. Not all of us are here for the debates.

And that's fine. No one wants to curtail the fun of chatting with your friends or telling jokes. Even if that includes things like "Jeez I hate Christians" that's par for the course. 

Going back to that original remark in the OP, it's not nice to say, but it's not even much of a big deal, since I can't think of any situation in which people are informed by their religious views anyway (so in agreement with Shell here). Religious views don't inform, they just guide. A theist scientist doesn't discover gravity or the big bang because of their faith in God.

Oh, I already forgot the wording of the OP quote, lol. But I do recall you, Belaqua, arguing for the fact that religious views inform people with regards to scientific discoveries and such. So I was remarking on that instead.

Well, the wording of the quote is so bad that the meaning isn't clear. I specified what I think it is supposed to mean. It is clear English for me to say "my national origins inform who I am," for example. If one self-identifies as being a Catholic or an atheist, those things can also "inform who you are." 

inform

give an essential or formative principle or quality to.
"religion informs every aspect of their lives"
synonyms:
suffuse, pervade, permeate, infuse, imbue, saturate; More

Am I really not allowed to say that the quote in the OP is ridiculous? The forum is designated only for agreement among atheists?

I guess when the whole New Atheism thing got rolling, and people were more comfortable coming out of the closet, there was some indication that atheists were supposed to be thinking people. People who value facts and reason. If there is some benefit in being an atheist, as opposed to being a creationist, it's because we are more careful to justify what we hold to be true about the world. 

But I am learning that such justification is neither necessary nor desirable, for a lot of atheists. Wyzas, for example, is more than willing to make strong negative judgments about billions of people in the world without feeling the need to provide facts or arguments at all. 

If being an atheist is just about preferring a different set of unthinking unproven beliefs, I don't see why anybody would be pleased to identify that way. 

OK -- I have learned my lesson.