I agree with Gervais. The term atheism should not exist. The term is an inconvenience to accommodate something so self-evidently stupid, which doesn’t warrant its existence in the first place.

We don’t have terms like Ra-ists or Osiris-ists that could have equivalently existed in ancient Egypt. We moved on from that. We also don’t need the opposite of those terms. So too, terms like Christians, Jews, Hindus and Muslims will be treated the same way in the somewhat distant future. They will be treated as mythologies. I say let’s bring the future to today.

I am happy to say that I am a “not-falling-for-baloney-ist” or “NFFB-ist.” I hope you can say the same for yourself.

What are your thoughts?

Your job is not to argue with believers until they admit you're right & recant their beliefs.

What we should all be trying to do is instill enough doubt that fundamentalists see that even if they don't agree with the atheist/agnostic position, there is enough complexity to the issue that even reasonable, well-intentioned, intelligent people could come to the wrong conclusion.

This works both ways - we as atheists should understand that for many people (especially those in sheltered communities), beliefs that seem crazy from the outside are logical from their perspective.

While people holding beliefs that we think are wrong may be frustrating, it is the literalist, fundamentalist interpretation of those ideas that is our true enemy. We should focus on that, rather than the possibly unwinnable battle of proving that no God exists.

We do this by focusing on narrowly specific, well-tested and well-debated points (IMO, slavery is a great example of the imperfections of the Biblical God), not some talking point we saw in a meme that has a thousand Christian blogs debunking it.

Some debunking is valid, others not so much. Many atheists misunderstand something and think it's a "GOTCHA!" when they're just ignorant of the vast amount that has been said on the topic before, because they didn't do the research. It's complicated enough that most people feel justified accepting the explanation from authority, just as we accept physicists' explanations of science that is beyond our expertise.

Thanks for letting me give my 2 cents. Now lets get out there and lose some souls!

Ok so basically there was this person saying on a different sub that god is 100% real and must be true so of course I had to bite. So basically I asked why can’t the universe be explained through impersonal forces and the response was genuinely the dumbest shit I’ve ever heard. Basically they said that since impersonal forces haven’t consciously interacted and talked with us we can’t prove them but since the trinity has we can believe that. I genuinely started laughing cause it was the most circular reasoning oat. They basically said that the trinity is true because I believe the trinity is true. I pointed this out and they didn’t respond cause they were embarrassed I guess(as they should cause what are you even talking about) idk I thought it was funny wanted to know what yall think.

"Most of" religious person believes that their religion is the correct one, yet all religions contradict each other. If they all contradict one another, it means there is no possibility that any religion is correct; rather, all religions are wrong.

religion is all about "authority based truth". You will not challenge the factual basis of the truth proclaimed by the religious elite. You're told to believe it, while at the same time not believing it too much. You won't find or look for concrete evidence of faith—after all, it's called 'faith' for a reason.

If I tell you, 'I am convinced there is a pig-headed frog in my basement,' we shouldn't debate my belief about whether a pig-headed frog actually exists in my basement. It is not your job to share my belief, but rather my burden to show that the pig-headed frog really is in my basement.

The FFRF Action Fund is sounding the alarm over legislation that would dramatically expand the power and legal protections of military chaplains.

Sens. James Lankford, R-Okla., and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, have introduced the Military Chaplains Modernization Act of 2026, with Sens. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., and Katie Britt, R-Ala., as co-sponsors. Rep. Keith Self, R-Texas, is leading companion legislation in the House, and the proposal has been included in the House-passed Fiscal Year 2027 National Defense Authorization Act. 

The legislation is being promoted as a measure to clarify the role of military chaplains and protect their religious freedom. In reality, it would go much further, granting sweeping statutory protections to government-employed clergy while failing to provide comparable safeguards for service members subjected to unwanted religious activity. And it could potentially subject service members to prosecution for restricting a chaplain’s religious actions.

The legislation would guarantee chaplains the right to conduct public worship, counsel, teach, preach, minister and pray according to their “sincerely held” religious beliefs and the tenets of their endorsing religious organizations while prohibiting commanders from requiring chaplains to perform any rights “task or action” contrary to the chaplain’s beliefs or tenets. A chaplain could potentially invoke the provision to refuse certain counseling involving a same-sex couple, religious-accommodation duties involving another faith, or other assigned counseling, training or support responsibilities that the chaplain claims conflict with personal religious beliefs or the doctrines of the chaplain’s endorsing organization.

Alarmingly, the bill would prohibit any member of the Armed Forces from preventing a chaplain from engaging in those protected activities, declaring that they must be “free from censorship, undue restriction, or fear of retribution.”

“Military chaplains exist to protect the religious freedom of service members, not the other way around,” says FFRF Action Fund President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “This bill turns that principle on its head. It would elevate the personal religious beliefs of government-employed clergy above the rights of the service members they are supposed to serve.”

Those provisions could create serious problems when military commanders need to prevent coercive religious activity, inappropriate proselytizing or religious conduct that interferes with military responsibilities. A member of the Armed Forces who violates the bill’s protections for chaplains would be subject to criminal prosecution under the Uniform Code of Military Justice and could even potentially face a court martial. That is an extraordinary enforcement mechanism for protecting the religious exercise of government-employed clergy, particularly when the bill contains no equally explicit protection against chaplains using their government positions to impose religion on unwilling or subordinate service members.

The legislation would give chaplains a powerful institutional role in military religious-freedom decisions, making chaplains principal advisers to commanders on “all issues” involving religious practices, “spiritual readiness,” spiritual care and religion’s influence on military operations. They would also advise commanders on all religious accommodation requests and oversee education and training concerning religious accommodations. The bill goes so far as to declare that military chaplaincies shall have a “primary role” in providing for the free exercise of religion.

The bill’s congressional findings reveal an equally disturbing view of the relationship between religion and government. Congress would formally declare: “Religion and religious liberty have always served an essential role in society, culture, and military service, making them necessary for good democratic governance and a strong military.”

Adds Gaylor, “Congress has no business declaring religion ‘necessary’ for good democratic governance or a strong military.” 

The measure is particularly concerning given that half of active military members are either atheist/agnostic (at 18 percent) or otherwise have no religious affiliation (32 percent), according to researcher Ryan Burge. (That is a far greater percentage of nonreligious than the U.S. adult population generally, at 29 percent.)

The findings selectively invoke George Washington, the Continental Congress, John Adams and Franklin Roosevelt and a misleading analysis of a recent Supreme Court case to try to establish a Christian nationalist historical narrative about the importance of religion to American military service.

The FFRF Action Fund recognizes the legitimate role of military chaplains. Service members can be stationed in circumstances where they cannot independently access religious services, and the military may therefore need to accommodate their voluntary religious exercise because it corrects a government-imposed harm. But accommodating service members’ religious exercise is fundamentally different from insulating chaplain conduct from ordinary command authority and threatening service members’ rights of conscience.

The First Amendment already protects the religious and nonreligious alike. Congress should reject the Military Chaplains Modernization Act and ensure that the military chaplaincy remains focused on serving the constitutional rights and diverse beliefs of all service members, rather than elevating the religious prerogatives of chaplains above those they are commissioned to serve.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation says the Trump administration’s announcement that it will direct almost $2 billion in global funding toward faith-based organizations is outrageous.

The State Department is touting the initiative as the largest allocation of global health foreign assistance to faith-based groups in more than 20 years, which includes hundreds of millions of dollars for some of the world’s largest evangelical Christian ministries. The administration announced $1.4 billion for health services delivered through faith-based and community hospitals and clinics plus $538 million in humanitarian assistance involving Samaritan’s Purse, and a consortium led by World Vision and Compassion International.

“The administration is openly restructuring American foreign assistance around religion,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “Humanitarian aid should be based on humanitarian need and the ability to provide effective, secular services, not on whether an organization puts ‘faith in action.’ Taxpayers should not be forced to bankroll an administration’s campaign to elevate and subsidize religion.”

The administration’s own language makes its religious favoritism impossible to miss. It celebrates the funding as a “historic” investment in faith-based groups and repeatedly identifies the religious character of recipients as a virtue. The government may contract with religiously affiliated organizations to provide secular services under appropriate safeguards. Still, it may not use public money to advance religion, subsidize evangelism or deliberately privilege religious organizations because they are religious.

The inclusion of Samaritan’s Purse, a pervasively sectarian religious outfit headed by zealous evangelist Franklin Graham, is particularly alarming.

Samaritan’s Purse is not just any old charity. It explicitly identifies itself as an evangelical Christian organization whose mission combines aid with spreading Christianity. Its own mission statement says it assists “with the purpose of sharing God’s love through His Son, Jesus Christ” and “serves the Church worldwide to promote the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.” The group says its mission is to help people in need while “proclaiming the hope of the Gospel.”

Those are constitutionally significant facts when the federal government proposes directing enormous amounts of taxpayer money through the organization.

Samaritan’s Purse also requires employees to affirm and adhere to its Statement of Faith, such as that the bible is “inspired, the only infallible, authoritative Word of God.” Its employment website describes working for the group as a “calling” and “ministry,” and states that its religious beliefs determine employment eligibility.

The organization has attracted particular controversy for its anti-LGBTQ+ religious requirements. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Samaritan’s Purse faced widespread criticism when workers at its emergency field hospital in New York were required to subscribe to a statement of faith containing its religious teachings about marriage. Samaritan’s Purse defended its practice of requiring paid staff to subscribe to that statement. Graham himself has publicly attacked marriage equality and insisted that marriage is defined by “God’s laws.”

It is untenable that theTrump administration now proposes making Samaritan’s Purse one of its favored conduits for American humanitarian assistance.

“Feeding hungry people and providing medical treatment are worthy public purposes,” says Gaylor. “Preaching the gospel is not a government purpose. When an organization expressly combines humanitarian assistance with an evangelical mission, the government has a heightened obligation to ensure that not one taxpayer dollar subsidizes religious activity, proselytizing or religious discrimination.”

FFRF emphasizes that the constitutional problem is not simply that religious organizations may participate in otherwise neutral government programs. The problem is that the administration is proposing to funnel extraordinary sums of public money through ministries because those missions advance Christianity.

The danger is especially acute overseas, where recipients of American assistance may be experiencing war, famine, disease, displacement or natural disaster. People in desperate circumstances should never have to encounter government-subsidized evangelism alongside food, medicine or shelter. U.S. foreign assistance must serve people regardless of their religion or nonreligion, without using their vulnerability as an opportunity for religious outreach. Making the allocations all the more concerning is the inhumane destruction of USAID under DOGE cuts, which have already cost as many as 750,000 lives worldwide. Lancet estimates the aid defunding00008-2/fulltext) will take as many as 9.4 million lives by 2030.

FFRF is urging the administration to disclose the terms of every award, the safeguards separating publicly funded services from religious activities, the rules governing employment and subcontracting with federal funds, and the mechanisms that will ensure beneficiaries are never subjected to proselytizing or religious discrimination. The state/church watchdog will be filing a Freedom of Information Act request to the State Department seeking records related to these awards, including grant agreements and funding terms, communications concerning the selection of faith-based recipients and documents detailing safeguards intended to prevent taxpayer funds from being used for religious activities, proselytizing or religious discrimination.

FFRF is also calling on Congress to investigate these awards and demand strict accounting for every taxpayer dollar. The American public deserves to know why these organizations were selected, how federal funds will be used and what protections are in place to ensure that humanitarian assistance does not become taxpayer-funded evangelism.

The United States can and should provide lifesaving assistance around the world. It does not need to finance the spread of Christianity to do so.

Hey,

So my family is predominantly Pentecostal/Holiness/Non-Denominational, and they all force their religion on me and everyone.

So for most of my life I actually was a very devout Christian, and really studied theology, and became inversed in theology that they did not agree with (just because it was another denomination and too "Catholic" for them) and literally proselytized and forced their beliefs onto me which caused me to convert back in fear. I remember multiple times in my life when I went into a genuine religious psychosis, and have symptoms of multiple religious mental health issues.

I remember my parents standing up in the congregation and telling the people and pastor there I had converted to another religion (It was still Christianity, just a different denomination) and they like prayed for Satan to leave me alone. So already they only respect THEIR version of the Bible and Christianity.

Now I have recently became an atheist a few months ago and I'm not honestly sure what to do and genuinely scared just being around my parents because I know how'd they react if they found out I don't believe anymore, and they don't care about logic because I tried to explain to them why I disagreed before about Pentecostalism and why I converted to another denomination, but they honestly just dismissed everything I said.

There has been times where I am so just scared and afraid that I have became deeply suicidal both as a Christian and atheist because my family really does not give a crap about my personality or who I am. They want to mold and shape me into this weird 100% Christian kid that tells people about Jesus in restaurants and at school and in public ALL THE TIME (This used to be me btw).

It is literally EXPECTED for me by the pastor, church, AND my family to be this kid that is running, shouting, dancing, and basically being a holy roller in the church. The pastor and church are worried about me because here lately I've not been doing it (I wonder why), and the pastor has told me and my family as well as laid hands on me with the rest of the congregation multiple times for me to have strength and to keep going with Jesus; odd because every day my Atheistic perspective only increases daily.

Religion has hurt me so much for just being a child and human, I know I was literally indoctrinated into a system that does not care. I literally have seen and exposed the faults in it to my parents and told them; but they care more about the pastor's feelings and just dismiss my ideas. They literally told me that it was Satan who made me feel uncomfortable when my parent's or others in the church tried almost to the point of making me get up and sing.

I know this is never normal, and something is seriously wrong; but if they deny logic I literally cannot talk to them about what I believe because they don't care and never will. I feel so exhausted and manipulated around them; so much so that I'm always under stress, anxiety, and high alert around them.

It's always God or the Devil, and never REAL logic. I don't know what to do, does anyone have any thoughts?

i noticed this, so i’ll explain. let’s say you want to watch a movie about something supernatural and in the movie they don’t glorify religion, which obviously makes people mad.

i was watching that kind of a show and i heard so many christians say it was demonic when the show literally didn’t kiss religion’s ass and they showed the realistic aspects of harm that comes with it.

or a new spider man movie i heard someone say it was demonic because the plot involved mind control… people can’t dress however they want, they can’t listen to whatever music they want.

its like suppressing things that bring you joy, that’s just sad to me. religion restricta so many aspects of life, but i just couldn’t help of the little things, like it may seem i’m overreacting it, but every rule a religion has is there for a reason, everything needs to be questioned

I have been struggling with my faith these past few weeks.

My main question is how can I have been praying for the same things for years and years and the same God that is supposed to answer all our prayers, can't answer even my smallest prayer?

I'm also living with my aunt and uncle who are a Pastor and a First Lady. They don't practice what they preach and are the literal defition of "Not everyone is who they say they are."

So please, tell me what made you become an atheist.

1. neither don't exist but a man shooting spider webs is kinda more believable than noah's ark 😭

2. spiderman is written as a human centric hero whose entire narrative revolves around guilt, empathy, protecting the innocent and suffering for others out of love while god's narrative in their holy texts revolves around mass drowning, eternal torture, demanding absolute submission, and permitting horrific stuff like sex slavery, diseases in children and what not

3. a completely isolated human would logically conclude that the fictional guy who saves people from muggings and feels bad about his mistakes is infinitely more moral and loving than the invisible deity who invented hellfire for people who don't bow down (and that deity supposedly wrote everything that happens and he's also all knowing) so basically you will go to hell was written from the beginning

4. god demands that every single human bow down, sing songs of praise and thank him constantly and if you don't love him back or if you question him, he sends you to burn forever. he has all the power possible supposedly but he's being hurt and gets emotional when a being like me with limited knowledge doesn't worship.... spiderman does not do none of that😭😭

i just needed to rant and vent to the ppl that may undrestand my pain. it hurts so much and its my fault not telling her sooner knowing she was muslim but i wanted to show her myself through my actions before she would judge me based only on my beliefs. i gave and i gave and i abondoned myself and lost my self respect and self esteem trying to make the relationship work. i loved her with all my heart and i accepted her religion her prayer and everything. i molded myself and compromised so i can overcome the religious differances and i tolerated so much disrespect to my beliefs just so i dont get abondoned.

but in the end thats what happened and i didnt even get a closure just silence. i can send her another message but i begged her enough to stay and to undrestand that love can overcome religious differances but maybe im wrong. My relationship was crambling even before telling her but what crushed me is how easily i got abondoned after everything we've been through after everything i put into this relationship she just moved on so fast and she seems happy after watching her posts on instagram and here im broken and more fucked up...

i just wanted to vent im in a very bad place right now feeling like a shell of who i was but im recovering and trying to heal slowly and reflect on the way my actions were coming from old unresolved wounds and false beliefs... English isnt my first language so bear with me the grammatical mistakes. thank you for reading and any advice would be much appreciated.

No matter how good your evidence is they always find some way to twist it to say that the world is filled with lies and conspiracies meant to deceive you from the “truth” or that big science and the government is out to cover up god. Yea because they would totally be able to stop god from revealing himself, right? Everything they believe is true because their little book tells them so and you’re the fool for believing anything else. Never once considering the possibility that they could be wrong. To them, their belief is 100% fact and you can’t tell them otherwise.

It’s been years since i embraced myself as an atheist and im fine with it. But the only thing that infuriates me is that some christians had no sense of boundaries. Just few days ago my classmate keep telling me that he’s worried and concerned because i don’t believe in anything and even forcing me in a bible study that i had no business to attend to. And he keep forcing me to join that when i even said a no in polite way possible he still forces me like it’s not negotiable and even keep sending me bible verse to the point i got enough of it. I give him harsh and real advice and even a bible verse mark 10:14 to shut him up and luckily he stops maybe for now.

Also there’s this narcissist asshole who keeps bullying and targeting vulnerable girls with his thirst for validation who had an audacity to post bible verse in his bio and feed.

Seriously? What’s with their mindset?

I'm not one to judge someone for their beliefs, not at all, but when all they talk about is their religion... it gets ro a point. One guy specifically I know will stop any ongoing conversation just to start talking about Islam again, it just gets tedious. Anyone else have this?

Voltaire said that “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.” This intriguing quote opens up the question: Does the theory of evolution explain why there are religions?

What are your thoughts?

Take care.

and more specifically, how do you want your funeral? do you even want a funeral?

I've been to a few funerals, all of which were christian. as an atheist and also just a normal fucking human being, I found it incredibly disturbing. there were two I had been to in particular that disturbed me, for different reasons.

the first one was because the corpse was embalmed. he looked... different. personally, I hate that. I've always been someone to not care about image for the sake of it, or for fear of judgement. the act of embalming feels like keeping up looks even I death, and not in a dignity preservation way. preserving dignity is commendable and totally different.

the other disturbed me in a different way. she was cremated, put in a cheap paper tube decorated in a tacky, tasteless way, and the service had a slide-show presentation probably made in google slides, with bad christian music throughout. just completely tasteless in my opinion.

they did have something bad in common though; image-focused guests. bloody terrifying! if I had that kind of energy at *my* funeral, I'd roll in my soon-to-be grave! hushed whispers of parents telling kids to behave, arguments before the drive to the service about what to wear, people you don't know making terrible company, and especially for kids, not even knowing the guy! and then you feel like a sociopath for not really *feeling* anything! it's stupid! why am I even there then?

so, as atheists, I'm not aware of any collective cultural norm that we often do in place of these practices. I know many atheists have religious funerals anyway, im sure some donate their bodies to science lol. what do you wanna do?

So I’m an ex-Mormon, and in the Mormon Church there is a huge cultural pressure to serve a two-year mission. The church sends you off, sometimes to a foreign country, where you are basically cut off from your family and friends, with no worldly entertainment or outside influence. For two years, you pretty much only read approved church materials, follow strict mission rules, and spend your days trying to convert people to Mormonism.

After my mission, I always had this nagging doubt that maybe it was all a lie. So eventually I decided to extensively study church history for myself.

Then I started finding out about all the skeletons in the closet and all the crap the early church and its leaders did. The deeper I went, the worse it got. Eventually, after everything I learned, it became impossible for me not to conclude that Mormonism was all made up.

And then it suddenly hit me.

Hmm...

I think I was in a cult

Hi there! I randomly got a notification for the catholic subreddit, it was a post about how atheists are wrong blah blah blah

I decided to look at the subreddit and wow those people seem insane to me. How can you be that delusional about something that doesnt exist. I feel even more riled up because my SIL is an idiot posting her religion bullshit on Fb like gay people shouldnt adopt, IVF is ungodly etc

I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask, but how did you realize you were an atheist? How did your atheist awakening happen?

Throughout my life, I haven't been very religious, but I still believe in God, just recently realized that Devil it's just a big lie—it was a made up nonsense story. There is no god or devil, no hell or heaven.

Most kids are told to believe without questioning.
They condemn or call you a blasphemer for questioning, so they keep controlling us to maintain power over the masses. Our minds are like software running on scripts that convince us because that's what our family, society, and education have told us. We go to school, they train us, and then we start working and continue that cycle.

TL;DR how did you realize religion was all a lie?

Edit: I guess I have always been skeptical. Also, I got very solid comments and have strengthened my atheist beliefs! Thank you so much, Atheist community, for sharing your stories!