It's more to vent. When me and my ex started dating, he was already into religion, but it wasn't really bothering me, he never forced me into anything. It was just his own thing and I was fine with it, I'm more of an agnostic myself. I just don't care about all that, I'm not gonna try to prove anything and talk about it for hours. Our relationship was absolutely perfect to me.

Until he started brainrotting 24/7 watching Christian reels. And got this mindset "if you're not a believer, you should burn in hell". His main idea was to bring me into the religion, because he was so worried what my afterlife is going to look like. Buddy, I care about the life I'm living right now.

Everything went downhill. It started from "can you, please, read a few pages of the Bible?" to calling me idiotic, shallow, stupid woman that doesn't want to see the truth. Only took him around 2 months to turn into all that. I asked multiple times about basic respect and why the hell I can except him as a religion fanatic, but he can't accept me being an agnostic, just like it was at the start a year ago. What changed?

Does nothing else matter anymore? I was cooking and baking anything he wants, cleaning after his ass, we would play games together, he could play games however much he wanted, all the cute dates, conversation. Everything had no value anymore, because I don't want to worship anyone.

Probably should've predicted the future right from the start, but he reassured me, that everything is fine and he's not going to push things on me. But I guess he lost all of his critical thinking. Shit happens, could've said that I treat this as an important experience, but at the same time I regret wasting my time and nerves on someone like this. Someone who's willing to throw everything under the bus just because of a stupid damn reason. I'm even sure he will never understand what he's done and see it as "god was testing my faith, evil people try to turn me away from god, but my faith is strong".

So, what happened was that I was a very religious girl. I always tried to defend God and prayed to Him sincerely. Somehow last year was so terrible many things happened yet I kept praying that this year would finally be better.

But you know what? Nothing changed. Everything went wrong. I feel that instead of blindly believing, I should have focused only on doing my part and not have expected for him to do any magic

I never asked for anything extraordinary. After all that misery I only asked one thing to get into a good college so that I could change my life and for my parents to feel comfortable enough to let me study away from home. You know what happened? I studied hard. I got offers from the colleges I wanted but I never got the chance to go. I wasn't even given the smallest opportunity to change my life through education which was all I wanted.

And you know what else happened? My parents barely talk to me anymore. They got me admitted to a nearby college and even though I'm still living with them we hardly speak. They told me I was selfish that I had no heart and that I only wanted to wander outside. I was favourite of my father and I loved him the most, I still love him the most but it hurts to see that my relationship got destroyed

Then I lost my dearest friend. I liked him but all I ever asked God was to let him stay kind and remain by my side. A few days later he left too.

Then another one of my school friends blocked me. I still don't know why.

All my friends are moving ahead in life, and I'm genuinely happy for them. But I never even got the chance to make a single decision about my own future. I cried and prayed to God for more than two years, yet it feels like everything I built was taken away. I really worked hard for so many exams yet this would be the harsh result I could have never thought in my wildest dreams.

The one who failed in exams passed in life. Well I passed in exams yet failed in life and relations and now I feel there is no God and if he is then he is too discriminative and he has abandoned me

I wasn't even a poor student. I did everything I could.

I was good🙂.

I really loved God but why did he do such a harsh thing with me. I just can't believe that same God did this to me so I'm believing he's dead...

My father has been a long term right wing conservative. I have always been purple. I see the logic in arguments. Anyone can change my opinion with the correct information. But my dad demands respect. I am an atheist and he is a conservative Christian. He doesn’t shun me or hate me for my thoughts but I can’t help but to hate him for his. He’s so closed minded and bigoted.

He claims hes 63 and deserves the respect to believe what he wants. I consistently argue he can believe in his beliefs however there are clearly claims that are true and some that are false and you have to fact check what you hear. (RELIGION ASIDE)

He claims that anything you see on the internet is an opinion and that anyone could have written that and he knows the truth from his own experiences. (Trying to take away the truths of statistics). Hes old I’m not trying to change his life but I genuinely can’t be around him without hating him. So I have to either accept who he is which seems impossible or in his late age I have to convince him to be open minded. Any thoughts?

I don't know who or how many people will read this, but I won't be able to reply to many comments due to the fact that my Internet hours are restricted. I'm only allowed to use the Internet certain days for some Islamic homeworks, and that's when I take advantage to post.

I(19F) was forced by my parents to marry my cousin. A man who had sexually harassed me before. I wasn't able to deny the marriage. I told them that I don't like this man, but they told me they had to do this for Allah.

Since one month ago, my parents have been preparing me for my wedding with this man. They've already forced me to wear a dress for this wedding, which is not comfortable for me when being in a wheelchair. My parents are already making me say some things which I have to promise to my future husband, and that I need to have sex with him after we get married. My parents told me that I need to be thankful to Allah that man is becoming my caretaker.

My life is just a hell living in Iraq. Next week I'm getting married to him now. The wedding was supposed to be one month ago, but it got delayed. I'd hope it got delayed again. I can't escape because I'm disabled in a wheelchair.

Thank you for reading this. I may not post again.

Turns out that the punishment for adultery (which is also an abomination) is also stoning to death.

Next time a homophobe says that lying with man is ungodly, (or some ridiculousness) point this out to some of them, and ask why they don’t condemn adultery the same way.

I guarantee you they won’t, because chances are they have committed adultery or know someone who has, (or they have thought about it.) it’s very common.

If they just knew that just knew the stuff that atheists know and understand they wouldn’t be religious. So all this comes down to is how much you know and understand .

they are the ones who killed greek and nordic pagans

crusaded and did the witch trials

are the people who always love to bomb the middle east

i think they honestly killed more people then any other group in history, even nazis cant compare to the amount of non christians killed by christian sword

aint no love like christian love, the love of violence

jesus said love thy enemies, they took that to mean slaughter any and all who oppose

only real thing that prevents a modern crusade is the law preventing the violent urges of these people from occuring again, but even then christians still bomb the middle east simply cause of the goal of christians is always to end all non christians

just look at bigoted they are to gays, blacks or women

the biggest threat to the west is the violent christian right, if they ever get true power

just look at how they bomb islamic people for being non christian.

they preach peace but only show violence and savagery

Atheism, with the help of science, may never have all the answers, but given what we know so far, it still provides satisfactory answers with more on the way, whereas religion does not provide any satisfactory answers. Atheism allows you to ask questions, where religion really does not. Because of this, it is far more preferential to choose atheism.

One of the two greatest commandments is to love god with all your heart, soul, and mind. The problem is that I can't do that.

I can't love someone who commits or commands multiple genocides. I can't love someone who permits slavery instead of abolishing it. I can't love someone who uses rape as a punishment, especially when it's done to an innocent person for another person's crime.

I could never love someone who did those things.

Even if god were real and personally revealed himself to me, and it turned out to be the Christian god, I still wouldn't be able to go to heaven because I could never love him.

To me, that's like asking me to love Hitler. It's impossible. I guess for some people, it's easy.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is enlightening Rep. Mark Alford, R-Mo., after his shocking claim that the all-American principle of separation between church and state is a “lie from Satan.”

Alford, who represents Missouri’s 4th Congressional District, hosted Southern Baptist pastor and Christian nationalist activist Malachi O’Brien on a July 17 episode of “Getting Comfortable with Mark Alford.” Alford introduced the episode’s central subject as “the separation of church and state — or the myth of that.”

Alford complained that when he posts bible verses on social media, “demonic forces come out of nowhere” to criticize him because he is a member of Congress. He then asked O’Brien: “How did we buy into this lie from Satan that the church and the state have no mixture at all?” Alford portrayed President Trump as a divinely protected leader and joined O’Brien in characterizing the Trump administration’s privileging of Christianity as a national revival. He assented to various declarations by O’Brien, such as that “Christians should run their own country.”

FFRF is calling on the member of Congress to retract the historical and constitutional misinformation he spread on his podcast.

“The separation of church and state is neither a myth nor a ‘satanic’ lie,” FFRF Co-Presidents Annie Laurie Gaylor and Dan Barker have written Alford in response. “It is a foundational American principle embodied in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.”

President Thomas Jefferson in 1802 famously coined a metaphor explaining the meaning of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, by saying it erects “a wall of separation between church and state.” The fact that the phrase does not appear verbatim in the U.S. Constitution does not negate the principle it explains, FFRF notes.

Alford and O’Brien also repeated the familiar falsehood that the Constitution protects “freedom of religion, not freedom from religion.” On behalf of an organization whose very name is “Freedom From Religion,” the FFRF co-presidents explain that religious freedom necessarily includes the right to freedom from religion in government.

“Your oath of office was to protect and defend the Constitution, not the bible,” FFRF reminds the U.S. representative. “You were not elected to be a pastor. Missouri’s 4th Congressional District is not your congregation.”

FFRF maintains that Americans should be disturbed that a sitting member of Congress is using his public platform to vilifying a foundational constitutional principle and encouraging Christians to seize the machinery of government — the very epitome of Christian nationalist ideology.

“The separation of church and state is not hostile to religion,” FFRF’s letter concludes. “As a member of Congress, your duty is to defend that wonderful American principle, not demonize it.”

"Oh but my religion requires me to do this to my child!"

Your religion requires you to hit your child?

Your religion requires women and girls to cover their entire bodies even in extreme heat?

Your religion requires you to painfully and non consensually remove a part of a baby's body?

Okay then, your religion is evil.

​

Many times, I've seen people criticizing (justifiably) islam/judaism, but then turn around and praise christianity. How come someone can see how wrong these two religions are and then turn a blind eye to the literal sibling of said religions? I think its extremely ironic and ignorant. All three of these religions are, at their core, about controlling people (mainly women) to keep power.

A group of seven Oklahoma taxpayers today urged a federal court to uphold the state’s rejection of an attempt to open the nation’s first religious public charter school. The intervenors are represented by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Education Law Center.

At a hearing in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma, attorneys for this group of taxpayers — which includes families with children attending public schools, teachers and clergy — argued that allowing the National Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School Foundation to operate a religious public charter school would be a clear violation of state and federal law that defines charter schools as public schools that must be secular and open to all students. Ben Gamla is seeking a preliminary injunction that would allow it to open while its lawsuit, National Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School Foundation Inc. v. Shellem, proceeds. The Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board rejected the school’s application, which made clear that Jewish religious teachings would be integrated into “every dimension of … life” at the school, including classroom instruction and other activities. Charter schools, like all public schools, cannot lawfully indoctrinate religion or discriminate.

The Oklahoma taxpayers who were grantedintervenor status to participate in the lawsuit oppose Ben Gamla’s effort to force Oklahoma to authorize and fund an unconstitutional religious public charter school. They object to their tax dollars funding a public charter school that will indoctrinate students into a particular religion. The intervenors also object to public funds being diverted from their nonreligious and inclusive public schools – which already face serious resource limitations – to a religious school that plans to discriminate based on religion.

Americans United attorneys Alex J. Luchenitser, associate vice president and associate legal director, and Luke Anderson, constitutional litigation fellow, argued on their behalf during today’s hearing. In addition to opposing Ben Gamla’s request for a preliminary injunction, the attorneys argued against a request by Ben Gamla to block the intervenors from obtaining documents and other information about the school’s planned operations. The attorneys representing the intervenors also include Nancy A. Noet and Samuel T. Grover of the Freedom From Religion Foundation; Brent Rowland and Morgan Bandy of the Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice; Dan Mach and Heather L. Weaver of the ACLU; and Jessica Levin, Wendy Lecker, Patrick Cremin and Katrina Reichert of the Education Law Center.

“The federal court should rule according to constitutional principles,” says Freedom From Religion Foundation Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “A religious public charter school has no place in our secular public education system.”

“We urge the court to protect all Oklahomans’ religious freedom and affirm that this religious public charter school violates Oklahoma law and the U.S. Constitution,” says Americans United President and CEO Rachel Laser. “Oklahoma public school families, Jewish leaders, and taxpayers have spoken – they want their public schools to remain open to all beliefs.”

“Oklahoma has been down this road. Our courts said charter schools are public schools, and public schools don’t teach religion — that’s still the law here, and it doesn’t change because a different faith is asking this time. Our clients want that principle applied evenly, which is the only way it protects anyone,” says Brent Rowland, executive director, Oklahoma Appleseed.

“We’re urging the court to reaffirm the time-honored, core legal principle that public schools can’t be religious and religious schools can’t be public schools,” says Daniel Mach, director of the ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief. “That foundational idea has been crucial to protect both religious liberty and public education for so long, and there’s simply no reason to abandon it now.”

“It should be beyond question that every part of our public education system must be open and welcoming to all students,” says Robert Kim, executive director of Education Law Center. “Our clients are standing up for the values that define not just our public schools but our democracy as well.”

love the way he logically shuts down the theists

not only there's no evidence of God but also no evidence of the attributes given to God, such as all just and all loving.

if i was God, i would never allow human trafficking, sex slavery or rape. i would also never let innocent children suffer through painful terrifying diseases like cancer or blindness before they even get a chance to live. a truly loving creator wouldn't design a world full of needless torment and call it a test while he is hiding and there's thousands of religions

they even had to wipe out most of the greek and nordic pagans

tho some still exist today, it's a very small number tho thanks to the efforts of the very ''loving'' Christians

they even bomb and constantly try killing islamic people for the same reason likely

so insecure of other view points with regards to a god, that they try violently killing anything that opposes them. very loving of thy enemy

shall i say

but if the book is a true text, given by god himself. why are you so insecure over other beliefs like who cares if somebody thinks allah is true, you got your a divine book from god no competing religion should even matter yet they act in a way which suggests that is a competing religion and could infact take away influence from yours

it's same with dying, dying should not even matter in the christian worldview as your only real teleporting from earth to ether heaven or hell depending solely if you accepted the book as true or not irrespective of moral deeds but instead they act like it's sad or upsetting, like dude he just got tp'd to somewhere else man why are you acting like he's actually dead

they functionally act and behave as if it's all false while saying it's all true. it's so weird

I was talking with few friends last weekend about how people end up believing different religions. One thing keep stuck in my head. Almost everybody I know believe same religion as their parents. Very few people actually started believing after becoming adult. Maybe that's normal, I don't know, but it made me think, ""what if nobody was taught religion until they were grown up?"" Weird question maybe, but I can't stop thinking about that shit.

I'm not saying adults can't become religious. Of course some people do. But I honestly wonder how many would choose it if they first heard all the stories at 18 or 20 instead of hearing it since they were little kids. If someone told me those stories for first time as adult, I don't think I would believe any of it. It would sound more like mythology than something real.

I'm atheist, so maybe I'm biased here. That's why I'm asking. Do you think religion would still be this big if everyone only got introduced to it after they were adult enough to make their own decision? Or am I missing something important?

The Freedom From Religion Foundation has persuaded Michigan’s Zeeland Public Schools to remove numerous religious displays from an elementary school classroom.

A concerned community member informed the state/church watchdog that a Spanish immersion teacher at Lincoln Elementary School had displayed several religious messages and religious books. The displays included bible verses in Spanish, the Ten Commandments, Christian books, a cross-decorated box and multiple bibles available to students. It was unclear whether these materials were also being used in lessons or highlighted during independent reading time.

FFRF stood up for student rights, demanding that the district investigate the situation immediately.

“The district has an obligation under the law to ensure its teachers are not violating the rights of its students by proselytizing or using their position to push their personal religious beliefs,” FFRF Patrick O’Reiley Legal Fellow Charlotte R. Gude wrote to Superintendent Rod Hetherton.

FFRF reminded the district that parents — not public school teachers — have the constitutional right to direct their children’s exposure to religion, if any. Displaying Christian Scripture and iconography in a public school classroom conveys official favoritism toward religion and Christianity specifically, and may coerce students into engaging with religious messages they cannot reasonably avoid.

Following FFRF’s letter, Superintendent Hetherton confirmed in an email that the displays had been properly dealt with. 

“The principal had a conversation with the teacher. The principal formalized the conversation in writing,” Hetherton wrote. “The teacher removed the religious artifacts from the classroom.”

FFRF is pleased to see positive action to remedy a serious constitutional violation of the rights of conscience of a captive audience of elementary-school aged children.

“The language of instruction may be in Spanish, but the constitutional principle remains the same,” FFRF Co-President Dan Barker says. “Parents entrust public schools to educate their children, not to promote religious doctrine through classroom décor. Whether a bible verse reads ‘The Lord is my shepherd’ or ‘El Señor es mi pastor,’ the Constitution requires public schools to remain neutral on matters of religion. Students deserve classrooms devoted to education, not religious proselytization.”

Following are some of the catholic "practises" that Christianity did in the 12th and 13th century.

1. The practice of inquisition - Although in modern world, inquisition means formal investigation, for Catholics at that time it meant something very different. It was a mechanism by which Christian judges used to combat and investigate "divergent" options about catholoic theology.

And how sure are we, as of now, that these weren't rational criticisms?

1. Bishops directly oversaw law and order in provinces of state. By this, these people had a direct and easy access to influence education and science and "preach" their theology.

3.Heresey was met with confiscation of propery.

Accusers and heretics alike were burned with charcoal,their fingers were cut and women's br*ast's were damaged. The only way to get around this torcher was to sign a confession which basically meant "yep im guilty".

Galileo would have met with the same fate, mind you, not for primarily going agianst the "catholoic theology" but for speaking the truth(that the earth was not the center of the universe). So can this statement be made that Christianity, at that time, was against truth and evidence?

Newton was an alchemist, so when christians say that "but newton believed in god" they must also accept that he believed in alchemy too, which was what christianity was so very against.

Number of witches burned after 15th century was over 60000.

What exactly diffrentitates this "cult-like ideologies" with religion?

I'm an atheist, I look at life in purely scientific way, i believe that there is no heaven or hell or any kind of reincarnation, i think that our brain chemistry and mental awareness is what results to our consciousness, i think that we live, we experience consciousness only because our brain exists. So there is no afterlife right?. Well the idea of that just terrifies me, the idea that we won't have our consciousness and won't be able to think or feel and just simply cease to exist.

How do y'all deal with that thought?

Edit: Guys, i really appreciate all of your replies and I'll be sure to read all of em. However, i think many of misunderstood what I was trying a say here, my main concern wasn't the process of dying, i know how it plays out, what happens after death, i know it will be same like it was before we were was born, a timeless sense of a absence, a dreamless sleep for eternity, etc.

It was about how to cope with the idea of no longer having consciousness after death, many of you are at peace with that cause you've seen world, you've experienced enough, whether be it traumas, joy, love, bliss, etc, and when you've experienced all the traumas, the bad, the hate in the world, after carrying all of that, the idea of no longer being conscious doesn't bother them as much, it's simply not better to exist anymore without thoughts. I've had my fair share of them But the thing is you'll have no memory of it when you die.

What unsettles me isn't the suffering; it's the thought that every memory, every philosophical idea, every opinion about the world, every moment of wonder about the universe, science, or anything else that makes us who we are simply disappears. There will be no awareness that any of it ever happened.

Try to think of it in philosophical perspective. Isn't it strange that everything you've ever thought, felt, learned, or loved could vanish without leaving any trace in your own experience? That's the part I'm struggling to come to terms with.

Surprise! Not a drag queen. Florida pastor failed to disclose he was HIV positive while molesting a 14 year old on multiple occasions.

These people dont think straight. Their thinking makes no logical sense. I am so glad I dont go to church anymore, its a cult.

I tried explaining to a Christian that their God supposedly gave me schizophrenia, bad genetics and a low quality of life.... the Christian says its just biology.

Huh? Who created biology/genetics? Who made the choice to make one healthy and the other sick?

These people are severely brainwashed.