(January 13, 2014 at 12:26 pm)It Is i Wrote: I'm flabbergasted by humanity's apparent need for labels, and the vehemence with which it demands to affix them to everything and everyone in sight. I suspect it eases a sense of internal tension within oneself to apply a label to something. After all, who would be comfortable around anyone who is not subject to the masses demands, and who would dare befriend such an alien in this world? I applaud the OP's bravery in exposing their true feelings in a place where labels are so very important to others.Meh...
Sometimes what you say is true, and labels can be used to segregate things and people.
But, in this case, it's just a descriptor.
Imagine if we didn't 'label' colors, and you went in to buy a car and had to give a detailed description of the wavelength of the reflective properties of the car you wanted. Instead, we just label the wavelengths so you can just say 'blue'.
And then we label descriptors of that wavelength, such as matte, or metallic, or neon, or whatever. This way you can just say 'metallic blue, instead of having to give the hexadecimal values of the hue, saturation, and luminosity values. And so on.
There is no inherent baggage attached to color labels or their various descriptors.
There is also no inherent baggage attached to 'atheist'. It simply says, "I do not believe a god/deity exists." Nothing more.
The baggage we get is that assigned by the other side, who wants to tell us "Oh, you're an atheist, so you also <don't believe in x> <don't have morals> <believe everything is meaningless>" etc.
And that is technically their baggage, not ours.
