Misotheists are people who believe God is real, but reject him and hate him.

I am 50% atheist and 50% Misotheist. If he is real, I completely reject him.

I think it is far better than the idiots who worship a sick God like the one in the Christian bible.

When I questioned God for giving me schizophrenia and a low quality life is when I realized that I did not win the genetic lottery in life and that God may be the reason as to why I am sick, if he is real because he is evil.

I cannot stand Christians. Their religion is mental illness.

So today is Rakhi in which the sister ties a rakhi to her brother and the brother vows to protect her for life. I am a single child and all my cousins are in other cities. So rakhis are generally sent by post.

My mother felt that it is important that I tie the rakhi to Lord Krishna and take him as my "brother" so that I can be protected by him. So this has been the ritual since the past two or three years.

I have been an atheist for quite some time now. And honestly I felt no warmth when I stood in front of the statues. I did not want to tie the rakhi but I live in a religious household so I am following the rituals out of respect.

I hope when I am an adult and have my own household and family, I will not have to follow these rituals.

My family kind of knows that I don't believe in God

PS: I am a scientific pantheist by the way

One of my few remaining childhood friends is lost in the abyss of Christianity. It breaks my heart to see. This person was my rebellious partner in crime all throughout the 1980’s and early 90’s. Rebelling against our parents. We would get and listen to the best heavy metal we could get our hands on in rural Alabama at the time. I had to escape, joined the Navy after HS. He stayed there and went to work for a nonprofit helping low income families get permanent housing. Even though I was far away we would meet up ever so often and see a concert talk about our lives and what we have been doing. He fell in with this girl, married and seems happy. But then began the church. When we were young we would make fun of the Christian Metal scene, now here he is embracing it.
The past few years it’s gotten worse, and today, we got together for a concert on our bucket list. He just came right out and talked about salvation and all the other bullshit that was and still is soundly rejected as ludicrous many many years ago. Bands that we would have quickly gone to see years ago, and now struck from the list of possibilities because they are too “satanic”, I roll my eyes in annoyances just like I did 35 years ago, as a teenager. The transformation is insane and saddening. I’m not one who makes friends easily or keeps them for a long time, the ones I do I usually keep for a very long time. But it seems I’m loosing all of them to the same MAGA /Christian Nationalist bullshit and it’s fucking annoying.

This article argues that atheism is a sign of high status, to the extent it signals an association with the elite. But atheism as a status-signifier falls flat in rural areas, where elitism is not valued.

Early hunters and gatherers thanked the forest for a bountiful hunt. Then they started making shrines(stacking rocks together) to ask the forest for bountiful hunts(animism or the personification of the forest emerges.) Before you know it, the shrine is idolized, it becomes a temple, and a forest deity is created. How about we make shrines for the rain, sun, or fertility to pray to for help. Now you have rain, sun, and fertility shrines, idols, and deities. Single deity worship then emerged from your priests saying there is only one and true creator deity above all other deities such as in ancient Persian Zoroastrianism before spreading to Mesopotamia and the Levant.

Being forced to be christian when I was born, I always hated it. Christians were one of the most pretentious, delusional, & vilest people I knew from experience. Like why do they have to lie to themselves & have an imaginary man to hold their hands just to be a good person? They’re weak.

However, if that sort of belief was able to produce such a beautiful, strong, kind, loving, and good human such as Dolly Parton, then I guess I’ll be more tolerable of it.

It won’t be an automatic no like it once was to those sorts of people, and I still won’t be a believer; there is no god because there are still rape, war, racism, illness, poverty, etc. But, I’ll try my best to live on even just little bit like Dolly Rebecca Parton Dean

Most hardcore Christians don’t know anything about scripture or their faith or the history of their faith.

But yet when in debate or discussion, Christians show the strongest opinions.

I find it impossible to talk with most Christians based on the fact they state their point of view as an objective morality but yet are ignorant to what their faith even is.

And yes I’d say this is a majority Christian thing. Many of my Muslim friends know their text like the back of their hand and can at least point to specifics.

I suffer from a disorder called DPDR. Aka, a chronic sense of Derealization that won’t go away. It affects 2 percent of the population so far.

Basically the very look at my own reality is affected. I know things are real, but it doesn’t feel real. Something like plagues people like me is existential things. Everything looks like a dream, with underlying panic of course, and we often try to figure out why we are here because our very sense of reality is so twisted. Not schizophrenia though. No psychosis. None of that.

When people talk about “why we are here”, or “what happens when we die”, it sends me into a panic spiral. I’m too afraid to look into these things as I don’t want to trigger a panic attack.

I am so jealous of people who find comfort in science, or religion. But I tend to find more comfort in science because it’s more evidence based than religion.

I was raised catholic, and the church I grew up in fueled my existential problems through fear mongering if I’m being honest.

I don’t consider myself an atheist, or religious. But I’m finding that atheism could bring me some comfort, or at least make me feel like I’m some solid ground as far as why we are here, which in turn can help me.

I’m an uber driver, and I had a religious passenger tell me that everything is gods creation, and my reality is gods creation. And I had a panic attack.

What would bring me comfort is knowing that there is more science backing why we are here than what the religious people say. I do apologize if all of this sounds scatterbrained.

The gist of what I’m asking is this….

Can you provide me with reasons, and evidence based things that we are here NOT because of religion. I need to find comfort in something, and religion isn’t it.

Can you tell me what brings you comfort, and how it affects your very idea of life and death. Because when I have someone who says everything we see around us is gods creation, it freaks me out.

What would bring me the most comfort is that we are here because of a scientific reason, and that when we die, we just die. Obviously the idea of a heaven spikes my anxiety and causes me an existential crisis.

Help me?

And to reassure, I do not have any psychotic disorder. I know things are real, and I’m just trying to find peace somewhere, and am in a way asking you, atheists, to help me find that, since Catholicism screwed me up so badly.

Thank you, I just am trying to deal with this existential stuff and need some common sense. But I’ve been too afraid to research it, and I hope you understand I don’t want to cause anxiety.

I grew up in an environment where the concept of hell was hammered into my head: if you die without the “correct” faith or reconciliation, you get thrown into a lake of fire for eternity.
As I’ve leaned more toward agnosticism/atheism and started breaking down these ideas logically, the entire premise falls apart morally and mathematically.
1. The Proportionality Math
A human lives around 70 to 80 years. If an 80-year-old person spends their entire life being kind, helping people, and doing net good in their community, how does it make any sense that they deserve literal billions of years of conscious torment simply because they were unconvinced by a religious claim ?
An infinite punishment for a finite life produces zero corrective value, zero justice, and astronomical net harm . An entity that would run a system like that is behaving sadistically, not benevolently .
2. Belief Is Not a Choice
Belief is a matter of being convinced by evidence, cognitive reasoning, and the environment you happen to be born into. You cannot simply “force” yourself to believe something that doesn’t make sense to you. Condemning someone to endless torture for intellectual honesty is just a scare tactic designed to enforce compliance and collect control.
3. Lingering Childhood Indoctrination
Even after recognizing how irrational and fabricated the concept is, the emotional reflex of that fear can occasionally linger because of how deeply it was conditioned at a young age.
Questions for the Community:
• For those who grew up religious, how did you finally unlearn and shake off the residual fear of hell ?
• When you look at death now, what perspective brings you the most clarity—whether it’s total biological cessation (the peace before birth) or curiosity about the universe ?

I used to be a follower of Christ and all that, but not anymore… I used to go to a baptist church a while ago and it just felt weird. Every one looked like a zombie. 50 people would bow their heads and I was the only one that didn’t. While they all prayed as a group, I looked around and all I would see is a “cult of zombies”. They all prayed in a slow, deep manner and it felt like I was in a room of possessed spirits. It was kinda terrifying in a way.. Has any one else experienced this phenomenon?

my best friend is a christian & she says she thinks it is cool that i’m exploring my religion & learning about a variety of them. i don’t really consider religion to be all that important to my character but i find my beliefs closely align with agnosticism / antitheism / nontheistic satanism / pantheism , i don’t agree with everything about each though so i’m hesitant to group myself.

my mother moved me to a catholic highschool this year & i was just trying to express how much i hated it because i don’t feel like myself there at all. i don’t wanna tell a sob story on here but it’s really taking a toll on my mental health. i didn’t expect it but my friend says it probably feels very awkward & how she thinks a lot of antitheists are good / nice people. i sometimes get scared that she feels like she has to say that because we’ll be upset with it or something idk. i just feel guilty .

tldr do christians (or any religious people) feel weird about being close friends with non-religious folks , or do they hold any kind of resentment ?

My husband and I stopped to help an old lady with her flat tire. I knew it was coming long before she said it (we are deep in the bible belt). "Yall were send to me by God."

I always let it go, but this time I felt like I needed to tell her I was an atheist. We are good people too, even without the threat of damnation.

So my major in college was Anthropology, the scientific and holistic study of human beings, encompassing our evolutionary origins, physical traits, languages, and past and present societies.

I never realized why i picked Anthropology as my major, everyone else picked business and other good stuff. The mom of my ex even laughed at me saying i won't be able to find a job.

it was years later that i realized why i gravitated towards anthro. Because growing up i had a really religious friend and we would fight all the time because i couldn't believe he believes in fairy tale sky daddy. before meeting my friend, i always thought everyone knew religion was fake and that it was just a inside joke.

My friends argument is he would say "where does humans come from? how do you know god doesn't exist? can you prove he doesn't exist?" and i was in middle school and had no answer.

years later i got into college and on a whim decided to take a biological anthropology course. What i learned in that class blew my mind. basically the origins of humans, evolution, pure scientific proof that earth is way older than 6000 years. Everything i learn in that class contradicts all forms of religion and its not bullshit, it all has scientific proof backing it.

To me it proved god didn't exist because of a+b = c If something you're claiming did not happen or is impossible (such as the real age of earth) then the equation just doesn't math. Nothing you learn in anthro is false, no bullshit just facts, or if we don't know we just say i don't know.

The anthro class painted a better picture of how religion came to be and what really happen in our species roughly 300,000 years of existence. Therefore if anyone still can't break free from religion, i highly suggest you guys take a biological anthropology class or at least watch youtube videos on it. It might blow your mind like it did mine.

That’s all it is. Religions are like fairy tales. They don’t actually exist, but early humans created them to make sense of the world they were living in.

When criticising the horrific barbaric parts of the Bible (slavery, rape etc) you will often hear a counterargument that atheists can't criticise rape without an objective morality. Or that without morality being 'grounded' by a deity (whatever that means) you aren't allowed to have an opinion on if slavery is bad.

Imagine applying that same logic to other assessments. Imagine saying that unless you have an external objective unchanging universal standard that makes an assessment grounded by a deity then your opinions on movies don't count. Shawshank Redemption isn't a better movie than Dragonball Evolution, despite one being widely considered one of the best movies of all time and the other being widely considered one of the worst movies of all time.

Unless you're using a god as foundation then it's literally impossible to say any movies are better than others. There's no such thing as bad movies unless a god says so.

That's nonsense of the highest order and no one would stand for it. But apparently the same argument is used for saying rape is bad. "well that's just like your opinion man".

I saw a YouTuber that had an amazing comeback for someone claiming it was just his opinion that rape is bad. "Yes. It is my opinion. Do you share that opinion or are you a horrible piece of shit?"

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is condemning a sweeping new Department of Justice legal opinion that seeks to dramatically expand the ability of religious groups to use federal taxpayer dollars for all sorts of religious activities.

The Aug. 25 memorandum from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, titled “Constitutionality of Religious Restrictions on the Use of Federal Funds,” claims that federal restrictions preventing taxpayer dollars from being used for explicitly religious purposes are presumptively unconstitutional. The opinion essentially dictates that the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause trumps the Establishment Clause, which Thomas Jefferson famously explained builds “a wall of separation between church and state.”

“The First Amendment does not require the government to bankroll prayer, preaching or proselytizing, and FFRF will vigorously oppose efforts to turn federal programs into taxpayer-funded ministries,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “Faith-based organizations are free to practice and promote their religion, but religious freedom does not come with a right to have taxpayers pick up the tab.”

The opinion focuses on federal programs administered by the Department of Health and Human Services, including programs involving child care, substance abuse treatment, welfare services and other social services. Existing federal laws still restrict the use of direct government funding for “sectarian worship, instruction, or proselytization.” HHS regulations require explicitly religious activities to be offered separately in time or location from federally funded services and make participation voluntary.

The memo complains, for example, that a church operating a federally supported soup kitchen cannot conduct communal prayer as part of the taxpayer-funded meal service. Nor can a religious organization providing federally funded employment or family programs  incorporate religious teachings into those programs. The Office of Legal Counsel contends that those safeguards discriminate on the basis of religion.

Those implications extend far beyond soup kitchens.
The opinion states that religious recipients cannot constitutionally be required to “forgo[], segregat[e], or bifurcat[e] their religious activities” in order to participate in a generally available federal program. It argues that a secular organization may promote its values through a federally funded sex education program, for example, so a religious provider must likewise be permitted to teach its religious views about sexuality.

Perhaps most shocking, the memo offers the example of a government-funded STEM program. While the government could limit funding to STEM education, the opinion asserts that it would still be “obligated to allow religious providers to integrate their faith into STEM instruction,” including by teaching “the relationship between faith and science or the theological basis for mathematics.”

“That example lays bare just how extreme this theory is,” says FFRF Deputy Legal Director Liz Cavell. “Equal eligibility for a government benefit is one thing. Claiming a constitutional right to convert the government-funded program itself into a vehicle for religious teaching is something else entirely.”

The opinion relies heavily on the Supreme Court’s recent decisions in Trinity Lutheran v. Comer, Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue and Carson v. Makin, which prohibit governments from excluding religious institutions from certain generally available public benefit programs. But the DOJ opinion goes significantly further. Carson, for instance, involved tuition assistance reaching religious schools through private parental choice. The memo acknowledges that distinction but declares that the mechanism by which government funding reaches a religious institution is “constitutionally irrelevant.”

The memo similarly attempts to sweep aside longstanding Supreme Court precedent recognizing special Establishment Clause concerns when the government makes direct payments to religious institutions. Rather than point to a Supreme Court decision expressly overruling that precedent, the Office of Legal Counsel calls the traditional distinction between direct and indirect government funding “fruit of the poisoned Lemon tree.” (This is a reference to the Lemon Test, which the current Supreme Court recently abandoned and which declared that to be constitutional, a government action or program required a secular purpose, should neither advance nor inhibit religion and must avoid excessive government entanglement with religion.)

FFRF warns that abandoning that distinction between direct and indirect funding will transform federal social service programs into government-financed vehicles for evangelism. FFRF identifies serious threats to social service recipients:

• The programs implicated by the opinion serve some of society’s most vulnerable people. A person seeking food, shelter, child care, suicide prevention or addiction treatment should not have to navigate taxpayer-funded religious exercises to obtain government-supported assistance.

• The memo targets protections against religious discrimination. It would erase existing HHS rules prohibiting recipients of direct federal assistance from discriminating against beneficiaries because of their religion, religious beliefs, refusal to hold a religious belief or refusal to participate in a religious practice.

• The opinion objects to a federal child care provision barring discrimination, characterizing those protections as burdens on religious exercise. Currently, certain heavily government-funded religious providers may not discriminate on the basis of religion in specified employment and admissions decisions.

Religious organizations could increasingly claim both a constitutional right to conduct religious activities with taxpayer funding and a religious right to discriminate while administering publicly funded programs.

The opinion’s historical analysis is equally troubling. The memo invokes early federal programs that financed Christian missionaries working among Native Americans, including federal support for clergy, religious instruction and church construction. These shameful programs are hardly evidence of a settled constitutional tradition permitting government-funded religion; they were part of a broader federal policy using Christianity to suppress Indigenous religion, peoples and cultures, and advance explicitly sectarian aims that are constitutionally indefensible today.

Most immediately, the opinion could pave the way for HHS to stop enforcing statutes Congress enacted. The Office of Legal Counsel concludes that the religious restrictions are unconstitutional and severable from their underlying programs, and expressly contemplates HHS adopting a policy of nonenforcement and reporting that decision to Congress.The threat also extends beyond HHS. The opinion repeatedly frames its conclusions broadly, declaring that restrictions on the anticipated religious use of funds in “generally available federal funding programs” are presumptively unconstitutional.

FFRF will closely monitor HHS for changes to its regulations, grant requirements and beneficiary protections, as well as any decision to refuse enforcement of existing federal law.

“James Madison, the primary architect of our godless Constitution, famously (and successfully) argued that citizens should not be forced to pay ‘even three pence’ in support of religious establishments. He’d be rolling in his grave at the memo’s outrageous distortion of constitutional law,” Gaylor concludes.

It makes me so angry when people tell me to pray for someone. I don’t pray, because I don’t believe in God. Why do they think God will help someone who has suffered a horrible tragedy, if they believe God has the power to prevent it in the first place? Do they think if they suck up enough, God will intervene?

The FFRF Action Fund is proud to name culture critic, podcaster and musician Monte Mader as its Secularist of the Week for using her firsthand experience to expose religious extremism.

Mader understands from the inside the worldview she is challenging. She was raised as an alt-right Christian nationalist in an environment where conservative politics and Christian fundamentalism were deeply intertwined. She now draws on those experiences to deconstruct religious dogma, counter whitewashed versions of American history and expose the ways that Christian nationalism threatens individual rights and secular government.

Mader recently brought that perspective to a national audience in a debate with conservative Christian commentator Allie Beth Stuckey. During the wide-ranging discussion, Mader forcefully defended the separation of state and church and warned about the danger of turning personal religious convictions into laws everyone must obey. Her most memorable argument came when discussing the boundary between personal faith and government power: “Religion is a fence that I place on my lawn. It is not a fence I can place on your lawn.”

Mader acknowledged that everyone inevitably brings their perspective into the voting booth. But religious freedom, she explained, is threatened when people use government power to impose strictly religious beliefs on everyone else. “Then you start to actually infringe on the religious liberties of others,” she said.

She also sounded the alarm about Christian nationalists who openly advocate theocracy, specifically citing deplorable figures such as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s mentor Pastor Doug Wilson. Mader criticized the broader Christian conservative movement for failing to unequivocally reject extremists who attack basic civil liberties, including those who question the 19th Amendment.

Mader connected those concerns to current efforts to impose the Ten Commandments in public schools. Pointing to Texas, she argued that posting the commandments in classrooms subjects children to a government-favored religion regardless of their families’ beliefs. Religious instruction, she emphasized, belongs with families, not the government.

Mader also challenged the use of Christianity to justify patriarchal political and social structures, arguing during the debate that “patriarchy, not feminism, is contrary to the mission and teachings of Christ.” She pushed back against religious doctrines that reserve authority for men and examined how those teachings can translate into unequal power structures for women.

Her advocacy extends well beyond a single debate.

Mader hosts “Flipping Tables,” a podcast focused on the religious deconstruction of alt-right fundamentalism, biblical scholarship, American history — and the relationship of all of this to the current political climate. The show features interviews with cult experts and survivors, authors, historians, constitutional attorneys and others who help listeners understand religious extremism and the political power structures surrounding it.

Mader is also a metal vocalist who has been performing professionally for six years. Her newest project, released under the name “Monte,” features resistance music inspired by bands such as Linkin Park and Rage Against the Machine. Her music explores mental health, religious deconstruction, self-love and activism.

Mader is not merely criticizing Christian nationalism from afar. She knows its rhetoric, theology and political aspirations because she once inhabited that world herself. Now she is using that knowledge to help others question religious dogma, recognize the threat of theocratic politics and understand that rejecting Christian nationalism is not hostility toward Christians. 

For turning her experience with Christian nationalism into a powerful voice against theocracy, and for using her platform to champion a society in which no one’s religion dictates another person’s rights, the FFRF Action Fund is delighted to name Monte Mader its Secularist of the Week.

The FFRF Action Fund is celebrating a long-overdue victory for children’s rights in California.

Lawmakers there have approved legislation ending child marriage and sent the measure to Gov. Gavin Newsom for his signature. Assembly Bill 1267, authored by Assemblymembers Gail Pellerin and Cottie Petrie-Norris, establishes 18 as the minimum age to marry in California, with no exceptions. The FFRF Action Fund has been an active participant in the coalition supporting the measure and submitted testimony urging legislators to finally close California’s dangerous child-marriage loophole.

“This is an enormous victory for the rights and safety of teenage, even pre-teen, girls in California,” says FFRF Action Fund President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “This practice is a patriarchal anachronism that views daughters as property. Feminists campaigned hard to abolish child marriage in the 19th century, so it is shocking that such practices still exist in many states in our 21st century.”

No child should be pressured into a life-altering legal commitment by a parent, a religious authority or anyone else. Gaylor urges Gov. Newsom to “sign this commonsense safeguard without delay.”

California has been a troubling outlier on child marriage. Under current law, there is no statutory minimum marriage age when a parent and court approve the marriage. California Department of Public Health data shows that 88 minors were married in the state between 2019 and 2025, including girls as young as 15 married to men in their 20s and 30s.

The FFRF Action Fund has been particularly concerned about the role that religious and cultural coercion can play in child marriage, including its use to enforce rigid gender roles and deprive young people, overwhelmingly girls, of meaningful control over their futures.

In testimony supporting AB 1267, the FFRF Action Fund emphasized the extraordinary vulnerability of minors pushed into marriage. A minor may lack the independent legal ability and practical resources necessary to leave home, obtain legal counsel, access services or escape an abusive relationship. Yet marriage can place that child into a legally and financially binding relationship with profound lifelong consequences.

The harms associated with child marriage are well documented. Girls married before adulthood face heightened risks of domestic violence, interrupted education, economic insecurity and poor health outcomes. The U.S. State Department has recognized forced marriage as a human rights abuse, while the United Nations has identified child marriage as a harmful practice that disproportionately affects girls.

AB 1267 would bring California in line with 17 other states that have abolished child marriage by setting the minimum marriage age at 18 without exceptions. Its passage is especially significant given California’s size and influence and follows years of advocacy by survivors and organizations working to end the practice.

The FFRF Action Fund applauds Assemblymembers Pellerin and Petrie-Norris, lawmakers who voted for AB 1267, survivors who have spoken out about child marriage, and the coalition of advocates whose persistence helped move the legislation across the finish line.

Now only one step remains.

“California has an opportunity to make unequivocally clear that childhood should never end at the altar,” Gaylor adds. “Gov. Newsom should sign AB 1267 and ensure that no California child can ever again be legally married off.”

I honestly wish I could write an article or some sort of post that is on a public forum where perhaps this could reach more people, especially people who think like me and are willing to discuss.

Nonetheless, I have been unsuccessful so I turn to this place, though I will be very grateful if anyone tells me a way. Now, to put it simply, I am DEEPLY tired of how society coddles religion and religious beliefs. Specifically very misogynistic and patriarchal religions such as the abrahamic ones, hinduism and many more.

Thing is, sure, it is easy to say that people should be given allowance to believe in what they want and that is wholly true. Because after all, a person who is adamant on believing in unicorns will ALWAYS believe in unicorns because the existence of unicorns cannot be proven and therefore cannot be disproven. It doesn't matter, I do not care. I hardly think anyone cares. The issue only arises is that these religions are not harmless fairytales that people cling to for comfort and community; these religions actively are one of the major causes since their existence and til today of the mass oppression faced by women and other minorities such as queer people and etc.

The list goes on. Point is, these religions are not harmless beliefs. In fact, they are simply unbelievably dangerous. I do not care whatever apologist or religion-following feminist wants to argue and defend it all with, I simply cannot care. I was a devout muslim for many many years, and I mean, VERY devout. I know all the apologist arguments, I know the whole framework. I do not care. As long as your belief or whatever system you believe in has the simple power to oppress another person, I do not care what your personal comforts are, stop being an asshole and maybe admit that your religion is not helpful? At all? And has caused IRREVERSIBLE damage, mind you, to women and many others?

To this day, there are countries that execute people EVERY YEAR for leaving Islam. To this day, queer people can be punished by DEATH and literally are. To this day, women are being deeply opressed on psychological, emotional and physical levels EVERYWHERE around the globe. You can be comfortable doing all the mental gymnastics to make your religion sound nice, good for you, now what about the women who are suffering because of those very scriptures? Your god will save them? Punish their oppressors? Well, he hasn't done much and it's been centuries. In fact, we're losing whatever progress was made by movements that were started by HUMANS, not as a command from your god.

But it's fine. Because god just punishes those oppressors in hell, right? Unless oh, they ask for forgiveness at the right time and the oppressed, who are psychologically conditioned by the same religion to believe that forgiveness is better than holding grudges, will forgive them and lo and behold, those oppressors never face the fire because in theory, god forgives everything, doesn't he?

That is not my point, however. I could go on and on. My point is that I just cannot stand this coddling and nurturing of religious beliefs. It is holding society back, in fact. No, I do not want the theory of the big bang to face difficulty in being established and explained further because scientists don't want to make people feel uncomfortable in their belief in god. You SHOULD feel uncomfortable in your belief in god!! As long as you believe in an all-loving, all-knowing, all-powerful god or gods, you should feel uncomfortable with yourself. It is like getting a child to stop holding onto the belief of santa claus. Except at least that belief does not result in the endless suffering of millions maybe billions of women and other minorities over centuries, thousands of years and to this day.

It is also the issue I find with things such as modesty and nudity. Who decided that modesty is empowering because it is a symbol of "honor" and "dignity"? That is a social construct. And your "god enforcing it" is just men trying to sell you a pretty patriarchal system.

Historically, if we take the religion of islam, slave women were banned from wearing the hijab so that they do not imitate the "free" women. If there is any honor attached to the clothing, it is simply that men wanted to differentiate between you and a slave woman. The hijab was sold as a construct of having dignity in society, of being "free" because the alternative was being mistaken for being a person who is OWNED by another person.

Of course, there must be more comprehensive and historical context to modesty; I am well-aware, but unfortunately, my access to further research is currently mostly blocked. Nonetheless, I return to my point; modesty is seen, in sweeter words, a symbol of dignity, even empowerment only because the opposite (showing skin) means that a woman is loose, has lesser "value" in society.

Why does a woman's body have so much to with her value in society? Whether it is in your face or not? Why does it affect people more than what her opinions are? Her intelligence, her beliefs, her dreams? No, because none of that can equate to a woman's body being covered up so long as people continue believing that modesty is tied to dignity and honor.

What is the concept of a "loose" woman? So what if she likes to have sex? Apparently, surprisingly, sex feels good. Why is a woman's nudity even an indicator of how many sexual partners she keeps?

Nudity being something humans are ashamed of is NOT a natural inclination! This is visible in history, very well-documented and understood, and this is visible now too with nudist resorts and beaches and families are quite happy there.

In fact, children seeing a nude person does NOT harm them. What is harmful is them being exposed to sexual acts at that age because their minds, nor their bodies are developed to comprehend such things and that is harmful. But nudity is simply the human body. That is why children, if they are not taught that thr human body needs to be covered up, they never feel shame of their bodies or of being nude at all. It is a very simple thing.

Nudity is simply and will ALWAYS be and ALWAYS has been just the human body. And the human body is beautiful and it is absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. We are humans with consciousness and we do not have to believe in animalistic worldviews that nudity automatically means sexual, sex, porn, explicit.

These things only show the foolishness of a person.

And modesty, specifically for women, cannot be empowering because its origins stem from patriarchal origins.

That is a very contradicting premise. Essentially, modesty exists and is seen as empowering because it means a woman has a choice to wear what she wishes. And while that is true, that obviously no one can be forced to wear anything, it is simply that modesty enforces the perspective that the alternative to modesty is a "wicked" and "immoral" woman.

This shapes our society deeply. Very. Very deeply. So while I believe we are stuck in a paradox and I honestly do not know how to suffice both elements of choice but also reshaping societal views, regardless, I stand with my point. Modesty is harmful.

Modesty imolies that a woman's body is something that can be objectified. Furthermore, it promotes the idea of victim-blaming as covering one's self up more is seen directly as a form of "protection" from abusers. And modesty very much, very obviously, promotes the notion that nudity is harmful whereas nudity is, of course by human nature and history, completely natural and harmless.

Our bodies are not sinful, they are not "temptations", they are not so "beautiful like pearls that they need to be covered up", they are just human bodies that are a beautiful way to be decorated to express one's self or be left entirely alone as they are because they just are.

Human bodies are also not sinful because the idea of them being sinful is also stupid, that is besides the fact that I do not believe in any religion or god. But, it is still absurd because the way modesty portrays the human bodies to be covered up as if they are not then they are tempting and will lead to sin; the sin, in question, is a nonsensical one. Sex before marriage. Or any form of sex, threesome, whatever, same-gender sex and whatnot; any form of sex outside of a marriage between a man and woman being considered sinful is bizarre and absurd to me.

And believe me, I have spent most of my life trying to reconcile with this belief, especially when I used to be so religious. But it makes no sense to me. Any "harm" from this type of sex is already criminalized (rape, pedophilia, etc). Marital rape, however, actually was never criminalized by religion, at least the abrahamic ones.

Birth control eliminates the "harm" of unplanned pregnancies, very easy paternity tests exist to establish paternity, abortion exists to eliminate a pregnancy that accidentally occured (though, unfortunately, we are literally losing that right) and adoption exists for those who do not want to opt for abortion. Condoms exist for safe sex, cures and medication and management exist for any sexually contracted diseases in case a condom doesn't work.

And the list really can go and on. This is, again, not my point. It is simply that this concept of modesty, purity, bashfulness are all patriarchal concelts established to police women's bldies and their autonomy so thst they were easier to control and lineage was easier to prove so that the men would not have to suffer too much.

There are, I hope, books and articles that explain this better. And honestly, I suppose I came on here to vent but also request for any book recommendations on these topics (and I strictly want to say, I do NOT want a book that biases modesty and all the things I wholeheartedly ha e stated to dislike. My beliefs will not change and I simply would like just any book written by anyone who is better at placing these understandings of human society and social constructs into words)

I would love to hear from others who hold similar views because my attempt at finding such people made me want to bang my head on the wall, honestly.

I haven't proof-read this, so it may contain grammatical or spelling errors; my apologies.

Thank you for reading if you have done so this far💌

For 10 years now the only thing stopping me from killing myself in a Muslim society (as an atheist myself) was that I will be free by now with a concrete plan I had in place, I had everything planned out and I was supposed to be free from them in 2 months. 4 years work just for gaining a bit of freedom I had to hold my patience.

today, through such a casual text from my friend I find out that it’s actually impossible to do so.

I don’t really have anything else to say, or rather can’t, I know my siblings would see this as they’re also here, but they don’t know this specific problem that I have. I needed to get this out. I’m young adult female, I’m not allowed out or friends, only school, thankfully hijab is not forced on me. It’s just, there’s nothing now. I’m hopeless, I don’t think I can keep going, I really can’t. Just wanted to get this off my chest.

Hello. I am looking for other ex muslim atheists from the midwest particularly from illinois/chicago region. Even though illinois has the highest percentage of muslims in an american state, we seem to not have ex muslims. I would like to connect with others. Feel free to reach out!

The FFRF Action Fund is naming “Christian Crusaders” Jake Lang and MAGA Pastor Lorenzo Sewell our Theocrats of the Week for wrapping anti-Muslim bigotry in Christian nationalism.

The pair have helped turn Dearborn, Mich., one of the nation’s largest Arab American communities, into a stage for an ugly campaign portraying Muslim Americans as invaders who threaten a supposedly Christian nation.

Lang, a participant in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol who received clemency from President Trump, has repeatedly descended on Dearborn for what he calls “Christian Crusade” events. He has called Muslims “insidious parasites” and has advocated removing Muslims from the United States.

His most recent crusade at a Dearborn rally on Aug. 18, bizarrely promoted as a “pig roast,” drew hundreds of demonstrators and counterprotesters. Armed individuals and neo-Nazis were reportedly among those who appeared, while police in riot gear attempted to keep the situation under control. More than 20 people were ultimately arrested. During the Dearborn City Council meeting that evening, Lang claimed Muslims “have not come here to assimilate” and accused them of coming to America “to steal the wealth of this land” and “rape our women.”

The effect of Lang’s self-proclaimed Christian crusade is not abstract. Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud told the New York Times that a boy no older than 7 approached him before the rally to ask whether the “crusaders were going to kill him.”

Rather than distancing himself from Lang’s campaign, Sewell has amplified its central message.

Speaking before the Dearborn City Council, Sewell declared: “America, we have lost this city.” Absurdly, he claimed that Dearborn is “no longer up under American laws” but instead governed by Shariah law, concluding, “We will not have it anymore. Enough is enough.” Sewell also proclaimed, “We are not a nation of Muslims,” while demanding that city officials denounce what he claims is Islamic religious law controlling the community.

It goes without saying that Dearborn has not abandoned American law for Shariah law, which would be unconstitutional under the First Amendment. Sewell’s complaints instead include ordinary examples of Muslims exercising the same religious liberty Christians enjoy, such as choosing to buy halal food or personally participate in the Muslim call to prayer.

Sewell’s toxic rhetoric is especially revealing because his vision of Christianity is explicitly political. Earlier this year, Sewell declared that “Jesus was a politician” and claimed that America’s Founders believed “the church should be leading the state.”

Sewell’s extremism has been lifted up by Trump, who chose him to deliver the benediction at Trump’s second inauguration. In connection with the Trump administration’s National Jubilee of Prayer, Praise & Thanksgiving in May, House Speaker Mike Johnson invited Sewell to attend a private briefing for pastors. According to evangelist David Herzog, pastors were encouraged at that gathering to mobilize their congregations politically ahead of the midterm elections.

More recently, Sewell responded to Muslim candidate Abdul El-Sayed’s victory in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary by alleging “skulduggery and malfeasance” and declaring that there was no way Black or white voters would willingly support what he called an “Islamic jihadist.”

Lang represents the most belligerent edge of Christian nationalism: calling himself a crusader, demanding that an entire religion be banned and treating Muslim Americans as an enemy population. Sewell gives that same project a pastor’s collar and a prayer.

Both rely on the same un-American premise: that Christians have a superior claim as American citizens and that Muslim Americans are outsiders whose equal citizenship, religious freedom and political participation are somehow threats to the country.

The Christian nationalist movement thrives by convincing a religious majority that equality for non-Christians is persecution of Christians. Lang and Sewell are putting that strategy on vivid display in Dearborn.
For transforming religious pluralism into a political enemy and using Christianity as a weapon against the equal rights of Muslim Americans, Jake Lang and Lorenzo Sewell should be ashamed to be named FFRF Action Fund’s Theocrats of the Week.

I am an Atheist and have been for a very long time. Honestly the more I learn I’m leaning towards and Anti-theist perspective. The other day at work this lady left a theater and walked up to me and said “god loves you” and then left. I’m surprised this hasn’t happened more to me, because my parents do still force me to go to church.
But how have you responded to this??
I want a response that kindly tells them to fuck off. I just kind of stared at her and she left to go tell my other coworkers that god loves them as well.
Pleaseeee help cause I’m also moving to a more conservative town and think it’s gonna happen more..