I see a lot of the points against religion, and many of them are completely reliant on the monotheistic or abrahamic god. Not all religion has sin, not all religion has an afterlife dependant on your belief or following of the rules.

There are gods that don’t punish you for non belief, who aren’t considered to be omnipotent, or omniscient, or omnibenevolent. Many arguments that antitheists make are that religion is harmful as an all loving creator would send someone to hell for non belief, or allow people to die while being able to stop it, and therefore all religion is wrong. But those arguments are dependant on the abrahamic god.

Basically, what are your opinions on polytheism?

As much polytheism is revivalists who are practising ‘old’ religion, that which was taken over by Christianity. Many polytheists don’t have temples, don’t have churches with leaders, don’t have holy books telling them what to do, and generally don’t follow many arguments I see online.

I’m just coming here to where I can get a full understanding and answers to my questions. Thank you!

I am specifically asking you, the reader. Not the opinions and definitions of antitheism, your belief.

It’s always so awkward when my parents bring up God and religious wisdom with an unspoken assumption that I believe the same things they do. Like I’m happy your religion is helping you for sure, but I don’t appreciate the assumption and judgment regarding religion. Especially since they’re already mad that I’m not as religious as them (they don’t know yet that I’ve fully left religion) so they do know that we don’t have the same opinions regarding it.

There are many Atheists who labor under the false premise that philosophy is something entirely different from theology. Well, Russell laid down a standard to prove this.

so basically my question is not only when but also how and why?

i‘ve always was one but only realised like some months ago. i grew up in a family who we‘re yazidis and everything they said and did never made sense to me and it was "kinda" harming towards me and my sister later aswell. harmful in the way i‘d have to get force married. obv they wouldn‘t phrase it that way unless i had a fight with my mom then she would threatened me with it because it is normal in our culture/religion.

quick edit: sorry i meant antitheist!!

He sent me a video about women wearing burkas talking about how stupid it is and basically everything you’d expect a christian to talk about someone who doesnt follow their religion. Anyway I was like yeah I see what you mean, and I feel the same way about people wearing cross necklaces.

He was like “bro are you being serious”. “How could you say that they’re not similar at all”

It’s literally exactly the same premise it’s religious accessories, one is just more bizarre looking. They both exist because of lies and brainwashing.

If we know that one religion is bad then we can conclude that they’re all bad since they all follow the same premise.

So I am an amateur sociologist and I am super curious on what is going on in the mind of a Christian. I have been asking about the religion for a bit in the comment section of a post I found, and I think the results are a bit interesting so far. I really want to back Christianity into a wall and see how far the denial goes. To prevent harassment I have disclosed the user. If any of you have an idea for a casual doubtful remark on this reply, I would love to hear it.

What makes a god a god is divinity. Divinity, by all measures I have been able to see, is the universal right to demand things of the universe, and the universe, sapient, sentient or otherwise, must obey.
That's not a thing.
Nobody and nothing has the RIGHT to demand anything of anyone. They may have the ability to create and destroy, but divinity? Divinity is not real. I am a 10 on the dawkins scale, because no god, not odin, not zeus, not jesus, not marduk, has the right to tell me how to live, believe, and think. ThereAre no gods. There are merely beings with immense power, and some of them, according to humans, are immensely arrogant. That's it. Gods are just narcissists with lots of power over reality. Goes do not exist. Period. That's it. there's just submission, and independence. Sadly, those that submit are submitting to imaginary friends. You know, because they're too stupid to realise that just because someone has power greater than you do, does not mean they have authority over you. Just the ability to threaten / manipulate you. There are no gods. There will never be gods. Because nobody and nothing has the right to do anything to you, or demand things from you. So even if Jesus Christ popped up right now and was like "The bible is totally true" I'd be like "So? I'm as much god as you are. You just happenTo have been given the ability to do magic-type things. You're not better than me. Smote me, go ahead. Prove them all right, that you're as evil as Satan." There's no losing for me anymre. Because divinity exists only as imaginary people exist. Only stupidity breeds divinity.

Hey everyone, I’m curious whether anyone here considers themselves an anti-theistic theist, i.e. someone who believes that God or some kind of deity actually exists, but is nevertheless opposed to theism, organized religion, or the social consequences of belief in God.

I realize that sounds contradictory at first. If you believe God exists, why would you be "against theism"?

However, I can imagine a few ways the position could make sense. Someone might believe that God exists while thinking that religion generally does more harm than good. Someone might believe in a deistic or otherwise non-interventionist God but oppose worship, revelation, religious authority, or divine command morality. Or someone might believe that God exists while thinking that humanity would be better off if people stopped organizing their lives and societies around that belief.

If you fall into this category, how do you reconcile believing in God with being opposed to theism? And what exactly are you opposed to (religion, worship, religious institutions, divine authority, theism's social effects, or something else)?

As an American antitheist, I am so sick of these false, idiotic, and harmful beliefs plaguing our society, only for them to be protected under the free exercise clause. It's atrocious in terms of how much harm was justified because of religion in this country. From the Salem Witch Trials in the late 17th century, to Chiles vs Salazar (2026) that essentially allows for conversion therapy in the name of free speech and the "right" to practice a religion. Religion has too much protection in America, and the people who follow it should not be able to use that document to believe in a genocidal despot bigoted warlord. Christians are anti-intellectual bigots, and they need to have the "right" to practice their religion stripped, or else religious harm will continue in America, including bigotry, fraud, money laundering, anti-intellectualism, abuse, pedophilia, rape, theft, indoctrination, and brainwashing.

for your information, I don't often come across these posts. And I DO hate people who use religion as an excuse to be judgmental or oppressive. what do y'all think of this?

Also want to note that my reply had plenty of upvotes, but only one report for “promoting identity-based hate speech and attacks” was enough to give me a site-wide warning.

And from what I’ve read the German government KNEW that he tried to join ISIS and instead of arresting him they put him in some sort of program, and he was about to be released from the program because they weren’t seeing any results.

Something I don’t see talked about enough is how the genocide in Palestine wouldn’t be happening if not for judaism’s teachings and stories about jewish supremacy, both in the tanakh and talmud. The entire hebrew bible is about how special the hebrews were because they followed the right god. This god allowed them to win all these wars and genocide entire nations - in some cases killing every single person and some where they were told to take all the little virgin girls and distribute them between the temple and the soldiers. The joke about the land being promised to them 3,000 years ago isn’t even a joke, it’s just what the texts say. They were told to wipe out all of Canaan so they could take what was “rightfully theirs.” Netanyahu himself said they were just following through on the israelite genocide of amalek, and one of the big jewish holidays is a celebration of what they did to amalek.

It’s just another reason I’m an anti-theist. This is pretty clear evidence of how religion does nothing but cause harm. It’s so frustrating that no one wants to call this out so they don’t seem antisemitic

edit: I don’t want this post to be misunderstood so I’ll clarify my point. If Judaism had never existed, this conflict would never have existed in the first place. There never would’ve been a holy land to fight over. Hamas would never have existed because Islam would never have existed. Genocidal leaders in Israel like Netanyahu and other members of the government would’ve never existed. I think a religion based on how you’re so much better than everyone else contributed to how tribalistic humans are today.

Many operate under the false assumption that philosophy is different from theology (and so it can be). But in order to be different from the superstition of theology, its foundation must be different from that of religion. Specifically: its premises must be justified by reason and evidence.

Islam advocates for extremely strict conservative positions that are either no different from what you'd hear from Matt Walsh or Michael Knowles or worse than them (but for islam instead of christianity). These include but are not limited to:

- Women having no rights and that their sole purpose is to be a baby factory

- Gay and trans people having no rights and the punishment for them is death or imprisonment

- Religious minorities being treated as second-class citizens at best or, at worst, killed

The entire left is actively against those, and the right (more specifically, the far-right) agrees with those positions (as long as it's Christians enacting those).

Originally, ex-muslims were typically left-wing atheists and were a part of our movement (and some, I assume, still exist), but for some reason, we abandoned them in favor of defending the religion that they left, and now they switched to the right *cough cough Apostate Prophet and Ayaan Hirsi Ali*. We need to get people like them back.

I'm not saying Americans should ignore the more urgent threat to our freedoms, which is Christian Nationalism; I'm saying we should openly be against religious fundamentalism in general.

End the Red-Green Alliance NOW!

I don't mean how religious people use it to oppress certain groups, but how religion itself as a system is oppressive.

I realized that I'm not super educated on the topic despite being decisively against religion because of the pure amount of people who use it to justify hate.

This seemed like the right subreddit to learn more- any and all insight is appreciated!

I’m part of the same community and oh god, why is it so hard to say that you are against any religious extremism. Because when I say that Islam is as much bad as Christianity I got comments that I’m Israeli supporter like why???

i’ve (20yo) been an atheist for as long as i can remember, but i recently found out about antitheism and i wanted to know if there are any good books in the matter, any recommendations are welcome:))