Re: Religious weirdness in fandom But is it really an acafan versus non-acafan thing? Because I'd quite frankly be surprised if most non-acafen would respond any more positively than the acafen.
Ah, but with acafandom, I had expected tolerance for "Meme X is crucial to me; let me explain how for a sentence or two, and then we can discuss how that relates to Topic Y at hand." I see that pattern plenty of times with SPAG, with characterization, with accuracy-of-location-detail, with portrayals of sex or race, with... other religions. It was disconcerting to be told, "your Important Meme of choice is irrelevant to the discussion."
And while Buddhism is not similar-to-Christian, it also has an acceptability. Mostly through vague ideas about how it works, and that it's similar to Christianity in believing in a single creator-god and "being good to people." (I'll refrain from thoughts on how accurate those are.)
I actually occasionally used fanfic and fandom meta discussions as methods of thinking through religious issues, without necessarily overtly saying that that was what I was doing.
It gets weird reactions. There's a great deal of casual agnostic/atheist though in the fannish community, that gets very annoyed to find out anyone is actively religious. Gets the same kind of reaction that bringing up sexual kinks in a non-fannish discussion does... everyone looks uncomfortable when they realize that someone has erotic thoughts about a subject they thought was totally non-sexual. Same kind of squick reaction--"how dare JKR announce Dumbledore is gay! Now I know he's a pervert and I'll never be able to read the books again!!!"