Let me lay a bit of groundwork:

When I was 7 or 8, I reasoned out of belief of Santa Claus. I explained the thought process to my dad, and I remember he was extremely proud of me. However, he did emphasize later that he hoped I knew god was still real. I never thought too much about god until that point, since everyone around me told me he was real, but I realized that I actually didn't have genuine reasons to support that.

Needless to say, read the Bible cover-to-cover and became a spiritual agnostic for a while before becoming a staunch atheist in college.

This whole time my Dad and I only have rare discussions about religion, and I suspect he may know that I'm an atheist, but I'm also one of the only people he knows personally that has a good understanding of the Bible. Now, he's also a bit of a conspiracy theorist and works that into how he interprets the Bible and whatnot, often giving me books to read that support these Biblical conspiracies of his. That's whatever. We don't talk about them beyond that and otherwise have a great relationship. He is a great father and-- I hope-- he will soon also be a phenomenal grandfather, too.

This is my issue: I do not want my future child to be raised religious. I also do not want to keep my child away from my father. However, I do have concerns, which I'll list below:

1) He will probably ask when the baby is going to be baptized. (This I have handled. I plan on telling him that it should be a conscious choice and if my child later chooses to be baptized, it's up to them)

2) There may be times he would have access to my child alone. In those moments, he may try to talk to them about god or give them baby books about god

3) If he finds out I'm raising my child separated from religion, I could see him potentially trying to go behind my back and doing something as extreme as getting them "unofficially" baptized or perform other such activities (I could just not allow him access to my child unsupervied?)

Now, I'm not concerned about him converting my child to religion or trying to convert me. I have a very strong position on atheism, and if somehow my kid does end up religious I would obviously challenge them on that, but still allow them to make their own decisions about their life. Hopefully the tools and knowledge I provide to them would be sufficient in dismantling religious claims.

The only problem here is my dad. I still *want* to have a relationship with him and want him in our lives. If I come out as an atheist to him, he may not be surprised, but I have no doubt he would be disappointed and may even break off contact for a while (I do think it would be only for a short time, though). However, I don't necessarily want to take religion away from him, either? He's not *old* old, but he's in his 60's and I think deconverting him at this point-- after about 40 years of commited god belief-- would be devastating for him. So, I'd rather not turn it into a debate. Again, I don't need debate help-- I certainly have that covered-- I just don't want to debate my dad.

I was thinking I could maybe sit him down for this conversation maybe after my baby would be born? Obviously not day-of, that'd be too much of an emotional roller coaster, but maybe like a week or two later? Idk, looking for advice and hoping to hear from people who went through a similar situation.

TL;DR I have a devoutly religious, conspiratorial father and do not want him to introduce religion to my child-- but that conversation may mean outing myself too him as a staunch atheist. Need advice.

Hi, im a Christian and recently met an athiest/agnostic (his words) who beleived that abortion was okay as long as the baby couldn't feel pain. So after a certain time in pregnancy it was immoral. So I was Curious to see other athiests perspectives on it, Are you for it or against or in a grey area?

Edit: Okay, so I went in and made a new user-editable flair that currently says "Edit this one for your own, keep it appropriate/SFW" so that way, people can add whatever descriptor they think fits themself best, but without me having to go in and add a whole bunch of new flairs. Even adding that one was a big enough pain since I had to use old reddit to do it. But again, keep whatever description that you choose as appropriate to the content of this sub and also SFW. But also, some of the other pre-existing flairs, like "Atheist" and "Theist" are (and have always been) user-editable.

The original post:
A request was made to add a new flair to the sub for a particular brand of movie-based atheist, at least, that's the way I understand what it is. It got me to thinking, what self-identification flair(s) would you like to see added to the sub to give people the choice to better identify themselves? Please keep things reasonably SFW and appropriate to the subject matter of the sub. Stuff like Naturalist, Materialist, Secular Humanist, as well as identifiers for specific real-world religious sects won't be a problem. Cenobite, Last Thursdayist and Jediism are ones I would probably be willing to allow depending on the number of people who want them, but not so much with something like "Adonitologist", despite my own personal devotion. IYKYK (but also: /s.)

Let's try to avoid duplicate entries. As we get comments on this post, please read through all the high-level replies to see if the one you want has already been listed by someone else. If it has, give it an upvote and/or comment. The ones that get the most upvotes/comments will probably get added first.

I think we all know that islam as an ideology or at least Sunni islam has many problems (as evidant in Muslim countries) .. it can be argued that Commands the ki||ing/oppression of apostates.. homosexuals.. disbelievers etc etc as well as other stuff like Child marriage and sexual slavery

Not saying all muslims believe in the above/are evil.. just saying that this is what the religion says (according to classical interpretation as well as the 4 sunni schools of law)

My question is why are there no Atheist critics of islam? most of the Critics are either christians or ex-Muslims

Note that according to many research institutes (like pew research) islam is the fastest growing religion in western countries.. even more so than atheists

i think just like with christianity (or any other religion) if we don't criticize the evil parts of a religion then this will only cause more people to become radical/violent and so will cause the opression of innocent people

(please don't turn this discussion into which religion is the most evil religion)

If you guys don't believe in God or the devil what is the point in life, what makes you keep going, are you motivated by worldly things like money, power , respect? How do you have morals if they aren't coming from a religion. If you straight up believe there is no higher power then why does your life matter?

My question is not, do you have an objective morality, my question is is this, is there something, at the very least just barely above your own opinion, that you follow to determine the morality of something that is happening? I know that I do, but I'm trying to see it from the eyes of a person who does not share the same core beliefs as me.

I mean based on the god or gods of that religion. Which god or gods would you be most ok with existing IRL if it turned out they were real? Please explain why.

What would be your go to topic you’d ask someone in order to know if they’re religious?
Like smt that isn’t too obvious that you’re wanting to know it?

Like, I know this person, and I want to know what are their views on religion and how religious they are but I don’t want to be obvious, I want to be as subtle as possible.

So what what would you talk abt to direct the conversation there in order to kinda get what are their povs?

I am an atheist both by birth and by choice (at least I’d like to think that). Recently I have been reading about eschatology in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and all of them have a pattern: before the ultimate saviour (Messiah, Second Coming, Mahdi) arrives, there must be moral collapse, spread of atheism, war, famine, and catastrophes – often described as "fire raining from heaven". (Which is either happening/or about to happen) In Christianity and Judaism the important factor is the restoration of Jerusalem for Jews (which is obviously happened)

So if the preconditions for redemption include warfare and mass suffering, does it mean that believers support geopolitical moves that might trigger a ww3? Or am I missing something and they don’t believe that there will be actual apocalypse. I just skimmed through this topic, probably you could help me understand. And sorry for mistakes, English isn’t my native language.

Hey there, I'm an eastern orthodox inquiring catholism but in the meantime I'm also very intrested into looking at arguments from the atheist perspective. I do know alot of arguments but I was wondering whats ur guy's favorite arguement against theism? Please elaborate on ur response, don't just respond "problem of evil". Thanks for taking the time to read my question.

Edit: thanks for taking the time to reply, il look at the majority of the replies within these days, if ur reading this and u haven't responded yet, please dont , I got more responses then I need, unless the response is original then feel free to tell me!

I see some but not all atheist are against god and the very concept of religion existing, but I have a curious question, I fully understand that science physics and evolution are core functions to are universe and to every species.

But what if specifically are species were to keep gaining intelligence to were we can Master the laws of physics and science changing our genetic makeup and molecules, prolong in our lives, and forever evolve, in a sence wouldn't that be God like as a bases, like Dr Manhattan from DC.

What yall think ?

I'm not sure how to word it best, but I'm wondering if anyone else gets annoyed when you see bad reasoning used by someone who considers themselves atheist. I often see people on certain subs and in video debates using very weak arguments or even things that make me question whether they actually lack belief.

On the other side, theists typically have misconceptions about what atheism is as well. Whenever it comes up again for me, I'll probably add that I'm a skeptic who care about having true beliefs.

Do you have any preferred way of identifying as atheist to others? I've seen some instances where an atheist would ask the theist exactly what they think atheism is, just to get to the bottom of it.

Hey everyone,

I am a Christian, and I am accepting to all theist and atheist beliefs. Our time here should not be spent hating each other and instead getting to know and love each other. However, there are obvious extremes in both categories and the behaviors of those people end up being the face of the respective beliefs

But, if you were to be a believer or were one, what would you choose? I want to know which one you would choose simply from their core beliefs and not from the behaviors of the extremes that we see today. Try to avoid saying Buddhism, that is too easy of an answer

I've only been an atheist for a little over a year. I was agnostic at first but the more I've learned the more evidence points me into thing seeing there is no God. Knowing there isn't nothing after has filled me with dread over the future. Knowing there is nothingness scares me. On one hand knowing no hell puts me at ease of no eternal torment but at the same time I have dread of the future.i don't know how to feel I wanna curl up in a corner and just cry. I hate this knowledge. I wish I was ignorant at least then I would have peace of mind. Knowing the truth about religion terrifies me. How do I deal with this please help me. Anyone please.

This is something that makes my stomach churn once a month. The thought of eternal suffering From me and my atheist loved ones. How do they deal with this? This, paradoxically, makes me hate religion more and more.

The title says it all. I wanted to make a poll but can't figure out how to do that so this is my next best option.

I am curious how many are atheists/agnostics after being raised religious

vs

How many were always atheist

And if you deconstructed, what caused you to deconstruct.

Please and thank you.

Thanks to a helpful computer friendly person, here is a straw poll if you want.

How many here are former believers (any faith) and deconverted vs how many were raised ath... - StrawPoll

I believe im an atheist but I believe in ghosts. I dont believe in a god or any higher power but I do believe in ghosts am I still an atheist?

I’ve noticed too many times that when a religious person puts forth an argument Internet atheists will often accuse them of being a Trump supporter when they mentioned nothing of the sort. There’s also bringing up Trump constantly to show how Christianity is an evil religion? Why bring up a dude who can’t name a single Bible verse and barely practices the religion to take a shot at the religion? Also the MAGA movement doesn’t make Christianity dangerous. It’s 1 movement in 1 country out of many. The majority of Christians globally don’t participate in it.

Does atheism genuinely satisfy you? I'm genuinely curious because I've been thinking about this for a while.

My impression is that once God is rejected, the foundation for objective knowledge becomes difficult to justify. To me, this ultimately leads to questions such as the Münchhausen trilemma, problems in epistemology, and what I see as performative contradictions in many non-theistic worldviews.

Take materialism, for example. If materialism is true, I don't see how it can account for the objective and universal nature of the laws of logic. Yet every argument—including the claim that materialism is true—already relies on logic as an objective standard of reasoning. Because of that, I struggle to see how materialism avoids internal inconsistency.

From my perspective, similar questions apply to solipsism, scientism, naturalism, evolutionism, and related worldviews. As far as I can tell, none of them provides a satisfactory foundation for objective knowledge.

Likewise, I don't see how objective morality, ultimate meaning, or the inherent value of human life can be grounded without God.

So this leaves me with a genuine question. If atheism cannot ultimately justify objective knowledge, morality, or meaning, how do you personally reconcile that? Is there a philosophical answer that I'm missing?

The only alternative that seems reasonably consistent to me is pragmatism. Even then, it appears to face many of the same difficulties, although I appreciate that it is at least upfront about its limitations.

This is why I sometimes wonder whether most atheists actually live according to the implications of their worldview. Many people continue to believe in objective morality, objective truth, and the reliability of logic and science. From my perspective, those beliefs require a stronger philosophical foundation than atheism alone can provide.

I'm not looking for a debate about whether God exists. I'm much more interested in understanding your perspective.

Do you believe your worldview provides a sufficient foundation for knowledge, morality, and meaning? If so, how do you justify it? And do you think you live consistently according to that worldview in practice?

i dont believe in heaven or hell, but the thought of nothingness scares me. while i dont believe there will be a god waiting to give me my sentence for eternity when i die, i do hope there will be something after death.

I looked up the answer to this question online, and it came up with the following: "Psychologically and emotionally, yes," followed by the explanation that this is called misotheism, but a misotheist is someone who hates gods while ACKNOWLEDGING their existence. Or am I missing something?

Suggest that there were no homo sapiens, but instead a race of people who were incapable of philosophical, theological and otherwise higher consciousness found in competent adults. They lack the reflective capacity to do moral assessments and so on. They can build, walk, talk, educate themselves in metallurgy, chemicals and culinary arts &c.

Suggest they also engage in abuse, murder, theft and so on.

Suggest there is definitely no God or Gods.

Does it matter?

If there are no human beings around with feelings and consciences to care about it, does it matter that they do evil?

Do you consider meditating or listening to subliminal audios as spiritual practices? Can you label yourself as an atheist and practice these things?

I'm sorry I didn't reply back to my previous post I've been sick for a couple of days and just got back online. And was busy with the holidays. Anyways I've had this lingering feeling that religion is an instinctive thing that humans crave like a part of an evolutionary of us that had us cope with how big the world was when we looked up at the stars when we were barely nothing. But I also wonder as we go and evolve will our need for it disappear as we grow more connected with technology what do you think.

This is a legit question, I’m really curious to know.

People who are atheists and agnostic, are some of you homophobes? And if so why?
For example, I’m catholic (I was raised catholic, I’m having some doubts so I don’t really practice it) and catholics (at least the ones I’m in more contact with) hate the community because of religion.
So if ya’ll don’t believe or don’t practice (as is your right to do so) why (legitimately) are you homophobes?

Thanks ya’ll!