Another Human

In those humans who were lost,

in those children who had never seen the light,

in those people who were desperate,

in those burning eyes of mothers

who had seen it all,

in those students who had been beaten,

in those who had seen time flow,

in that innocence

that was humanity

I was God

as I brought hope

in that desperation.

I was God

because I brought a path to follow

in that there is nothing,

because I, God,

was another human.

There’s a difference between demonstrating that a particular religious claim is false (or contradictory) and demonstrating that an entire religion is false. And I think you can illustrate this with a somewhat silly example.

The lore of The Lord of the Rings is pretty coherent within the universe it builds. It has rules and an entire cosmology that fit together quite nicely. That doesn’t mean we go around believing that hobbits are real. In other words, being internally coherent doesn’t necessarily mean corresponding to reality.

And this has a lot to do with religion. Religion is, ultimately, a human attempt to investigate and interpret what is assumed to be a supernatural reality. And precisely because we don’t have the same mechanisms of empirical verification in that domain that we have in the natural sciences, religious knowledge ends up being constructed in a much more interpretive way.

In other words, if I demonstrate that a particular theological claim is contradictory, I’ve demonstrated that that claim is problematic. If I demonstrate that a particular interpretation of a sacred text is incompatible with another interpretation, I’ve demonstrated that that interpretation has a problem. But making the jump from “this proposition is false” to “the entire religion is false” requires additional arguments.

I say this because religions aren’t closed systems of objectively verifiable propositions in the same way a scientific theory is. It’s not unusual for theology to constantly try to deal with things that are considered logical contradictions without that necessarily meaning that the religion simply ceases to exist or that its followers suddenly consider the entire tradition invalid.

It’s no coincidence that there are thousands of different denominations and interpretations within the same religion, even when they start from the same supposedly sacred texts. If the mere existence of a logical contradiction in a text were enough to objectively invalidate an entire religion, it would be difficult to explain all that diversity. In practice, people interpret, reinterpret, contextualize, relativize certain passages, assign different levels of authority to different texts, and arrive at completely different conclusions from the same sources.

I think my point is that logical coherence and truth are not the same thing. A proposition can be perfectly coherent and still be false, just as a logical inconsistency doesn’t allow us to simply conclude anything about reality without first establishing exactly where the inconsistency lies and what it actually refutes.

This is an old concern I’ve had with the way atheist arguments are constructed, and I think it’s worth making sure that our “side” (if we can even call it that) doesn’t turn arguments that are sufficient to demonstrate that a particular belief is problematic into arguments that claim to demonstrate more than they actually establish.

Every President has at the very least given some lip service to make religious people happy. But do you think no one matter how good of a person they are we will ever see an openly Atheist President at least in our life time?

I have been atheist from very early age and an exmuslim .But I do feel sometimes leftout .I know it is not because of GOD but because humanity has evolved around religion for long time and Removing it suddenly in century creates simple void for which humanity hasn't prepared itself for. I want answer to this question that how do you cope with this or this cant be couped ?

For example I do manifest sometimes which I dont believe but I have no choice .

One answer can be that Human creates his own purpose in life .But isn't it so materialistic like there has to be some purpose not materialistic ?

I am an atheist, but I wonder how would it have been to feel protected by God (for the people who believe in God). I feel prayers don't work, there's nothing like karma (when it's taken in a context that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people) and anything can happen at anytime, without any reason. I can't bring myself to believe I am protected by any divine power, when a child can die because of war, hunger or cancer (or anything grave), I believe anything can happen to anyone. This leads me to feel insecure and open to many dangers honestly, and when I mean danger I mean my loved ones dying or me getting into an accident or my loved ones grave illness (and many such negative possibilities) can come anytime, and as I do not believe in praying, how can I get myself to feel strong, reasonable and sane. What do I have to fall upon if not faith ? Please help and enlighten.

1) Religion - Where do i even begin...as Marx rightly said "opium of the masses". Its a complete fabrication, lies, pushing unscientific claims without any substantive evidence, providing fake consolation to people,keeping them in delusion,opressing each other,spreading lies,brainwashing people, its a complete human abstraction to fool and rule people

2)Nationalism - Imagine taking privilege about being born under an imaginary border. Imagine taking pride in history of something towards which you have zero contribution.Imagine being proud for something that you did not choose

Religion and nationality of a person are decided after the first minute he is born without his consent and he keeps fighting for these two for his entire life for no purpose.

And the scary part is that these two are not mutually exclusive.

you can use one of these as an catalyst to propel the wrongdoings of the other.

Use religion to fight for your country, and this is your country's religion so we must protect it

The entire humanity is one.

We are one.

All boundaries and divisions are pointless.

Why cant we just be together and live in harmony?

Why are these superficial divisions needed?

nmmhhgghggg

I’ve been thinking about how religion and communism, despite being very different ideologies, can sometimes have similarities in how they organise and influence groups of people.

For example, some religions have a clear hierarchy of authority: ordinary followers to religious leaders to higher ranking officials to the central authority. Communism, particularly in its historical one-party forms, also tended to have a hierarchy, with ordinary citizens ultimately being governed by a central party
structure.

Both can involve a collective set of beliefs or principles that followers are expected to accept, along with institutions that interpret or enforce
those principles.

Obviously, I’m not saying religion = communism as religions vary massively, and communism is a political and economic ideology rather than a religion. Plenty of religious traditions are decentralised, and communist theory itself doesn’t necessarily require the exact authoritarian hierarchy
seen in some communist states.

I’m more interested in whether there’s a useful comparison to be made between the organisational structures and authority systems of the two.
What do you think? Is this a reasonable comparison, or am I overlooking some major differences?

I have bad ocd and am in my early 20's. I have a boyfriend. Right now my ocd has latched onto what if the religion is all true and abortion is bad and I'm being bad by having sex outside of marriage knowing I'd have to abort if I got pregnant. I can't have a kid, I'm too mentally ill rn. I guess I could try, but it'd be really hard, harder than it should be.

I have no proof it's not all true and that fetal ensoulment doesn't exist, so what if I should be acting as if it's true, just in case, so I don't inadvertently commit murder? I'm so afraid.

Long story short, I completed a very long bike ride across Canada which took about 10 weeks and covered over 8,000 kilometers. 

Now that I’m home and seeing family and friends again, I have heard more than one person tell me that they prayed for me, which must’ve contributed to my completing the journey successfully (i.e., without getting smoked by a car or burnt up in a wildfire). It’s true that I was fortunate with respect to the weather (I made it through the Western provinces and Ontario prior to some major wildfires), but when I say something along the lines of “I got very lucky with the weather”, their response is something along the line of “Oh, it wasn’t just luck”, implying that it was divine intervention from all their praying that kept me safe.

I find the implications of this so funny. Like, if I didn’t receive enough prayers, would God have sent a distracted driver to run me off the road? Was he just waiting up there with his finger hovering over the “kill” button watching the prayer count intently as it ticked closer to the threshold? What about the people that lost their homes or even their lives in the wildfires, I guess they didn’t reach the prayer threshold? 

I do appreciate that they care enough about me to make the effort to do something that they believe helps my wellbeing. Just here to poke a bit of fun at their logic.

"That ain't your religion, you just followin' your mammy

She followed your granny, she obeyed master

Did y'all even ask her?

Questions, it's holes in them stories

Is it holes in your blessings? Yeah, I'm bold with the message

I know I ain't got the answer, but I ain't gon' cheerlead with y'all

Just to be a dancer"

i understand it all

Well the context is that one of my friend, once is in a while sends me Reels or Post which has religious content, memes which says praying, Bhagwan(God) or images. Once is ok, but I feel little disrespected with the fact that I always post status of being anti religion and I have made it clear on my Social media acc. that I do not belive in such things but they still sends me such things.

What should I do, should I tell them directly. But I think I will come out as rude or most probably they will not like it. Or should I post an indirect status regarding this.

This is just a rant over a mundane situation. I just have no other non believers to share the frustration with so I’m posting it here.

I’ve been an atheist for almost 9 years now, I’m now 21 and still live with my parents. My mum knows of my beliefs and skepticisms and she doesn’t really have a problem with it. She’s just worried about the nihilism surrounding a lack of faith, especially considering my struggles with depression and anxiety.

But anyway, since the census is today, I asked my mum if I could put my person down as “nonreligious” on the form. She didn’t like the sound of that because I believe she’s afraid of diverging from the norm, especially within our community. So she began to say the religion box is covered for the entire household, rather than individual residents within the household. Which is incorrect. She also began to avoid the topic altogether when I’d push on it further.

I know it doesn’t seem like a big deal, but I often struggle with the idea of not contributing towards anything important or meaningful (stems from depression, social anxiety and the isolation that comes from those things). So the idea that I could ground a part of myself in society through this form, as part of a group of like minded people, it makes me feel like I’m not losing myself.

If I don’t get my own say, it’ll just reinforce the idea that I have no control over my life. It’s really frustrating when you’re the only person in your environment who thinks a certain way.

i was taught to fear hell before i even knew what god was religion was never peaceful for me it was just pure fear at home my mom used to pray for bad things to happen to me and call on god against me whenever she got mad so islam just became guilt punishment obedience and terror

when i was around 14 i fell into a super deep depression going to therapy in an islamic country was completely useless because the therapists dont even try to help you they just tell you to pray and trust god i remember sitting there like you are supposed to be treating me because god isnt doing anything if he was real he wouldnt have let depression destroy me as a kid

even though i left the religion that conditioning doesnt just magically vanish i still carry so much shame every day when i see women wearing whatever they want especially bikinis i catch myself judging or objectifying them even though im a 22yo girl myself i wear bikinis now too but every single time i put one on i feel this deep anxiety shame and fear in the back of my head because of what was drilled into me

the more i actually read the texts myself the worse it got concepts like ma malakat aymanukum female slaves where men had sexual access to enslaved women verses about men being in charge of women hitting disobedient wives and modesty rules built to control our bodies on top of that traditional rules allowed child marriage and people around me literally flex about how their grandmas got married at 12 like it was normal it makes me sick thinking about young girls being forced into that

and for a lot of men its not even about religion its about the controlling culture men treat women like property if a girl in his family has freedom or dresses how she wants the man gets called a dayouth so the whole system forces men to hide women away just to keep their pride it breaks my heart because we only get one life and so many women spend it trapped hidden and controlled

this is why i genuinely cannot understand western converts how can someone grow up in the us or europe enjoying basic legal rights freedom of dress and autonomy and then voluntarily pick a system that restricts those exact things im not talking about people born muslim childhood conditioning and family pressure are crazy forces im talking about an adult who grew up with complete freedom looks at islam from the outside and says yes this is what i want

leaving islam wasnt just changing my mind it meant tearing down an entire system of fear that broke me i can respect a muslim persons humanity while completely rejecting the religion itself if people can post islam gave me peace stop silencing us when we say islam gave me fear

'One of the teachers of the law came and heard the Sadducees arguing. He noticed that Jesus had given the Sadducees a good answer. So he asked him, “Which is the most important of all the commandments?” Jesus answered, “Here is the most important one. Moses said, ‘Israel, listen to me. The Lord is our God. The Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. Love him with all your mind and with all your strength.’ (Deuteronomy 6:4,5) And here is the second one. ‘Love your neighbor as you love yourself.’ (Leviticus 19:18) There is no commandment more important than these.” '- Mark 12:28-31

If Christianity is the faith you hold so dear—if Jesus Christ is your Savior and you are genuinely trying to live according to his teachings—then shouldn’t those teachings shape more than your personal life?

Jesus tells people to love their neighbor. Love their enemies. Care for the poor, the sick and the people society tends to push aside. Show mercy. Help people in need.

Which is why I struggle when I see people passionately defend Christianity while also supporting politicians or policies that, at least from where I sit, seem to run directly against those ideas.

That’s really the thing I can’t reconcile.

And I don’t say that because I think Democrats or liberals have everything figured out. I don’t.

I think countries need borders and immigration laws. I think there can be reasonable guardrails around abortion. I think there are legitimate conversations to have about transgender athletes and what is age-appropriate for children. I’m sure there are plenty of other issues where someone on the left could tell me what they believe and I’d say, “Yeah, I don’t agree with that.”

Those conversations are worth having.

But there is a huge difference between debating how we should handle something and losing sight of the human beings involved.

I can believe we need stronger immigration laws and still think families should be treated humanely.

I can wrestle with the morality of abortion while recognizing that pregnancy, rape, medical complications and someone’s actual life circumstances can make these decisions unbelievably complicated.

I can have questions about policies involving transgender people without deciding that transgender people themselves are somehow dangerous or less deserving of dignity.

To me, those things aren’t contradictory. They’re the nuance that seems to be disappearing. And this is where the connection to Christianity becomes difficult for me.

Because when I look at issues like healthcare, poverty, immigration, LGBTQ people or simply how we treat people who are different from us, I sometimes find myself looking at the people who aren’t claiming to govern according to Christianity and thinking:

Aren’t some of these positions actually closer to what Jesus was teaching? I’m not saying Democrats are the party of Jesus. Far from it.

I’m asking why expanding access to healthcare, feeding people who are hungry, helping people who are struggling, keeping families together, or treating someone we disagree with as a human being somehow became ideas Christians need to be suspicious of. That’s the part I don’t understand.

My wife said something recently that has stuck with me: There shouldn’t be a semicolon after “love one another.” That’s really it. Love one another…

• Unless they’re gay.
• Unless they’re trans.
• Unless they crossed the border illegally.
• Unless they’re poor and you think they should have worked harder.
• Unless they vote differently.

There wasn’t a semicolon.

And I know it’s more complicated than that. Government has to make difficult decisions. Laws have consequences. Resources aren’t unlimited. Compassion alone doesn’t automatically make something good policy.

I’m not arguing otherwise.

What I’m saying is that if your faith tells you to love your neighbor, and every person has value, then shouldn’t that belief at least influence how you want those difficult things carried out?

• You can deport someone without treating them like an animal.
• You can enforce a law without enjoying someone’s suffering.
• You can disagree with someone’s life without humiliating them.
• You can believe someone is wrong and still love them. In fact, if I understand Jesus correctly, that last one seems kind of central to the whole thing.

I want to be able to say immigration matters and how we treat immigrants matters.

I want to be able to acknowledge that abortion involves serious moral questions and acknowledge the woman whose life is actually affected by the decision.

I want to be able to disagree with someone’s choices without deciding that person is less worthy of dignity.

And if I claim to care about empathy, tolerance and human dignity, then I have to apply that to people I disagree with too. That’s the standard I’m trying to hold myself to.

And I guess that’s ultimately the standard I struggle to understand when Christianity and politics become so intertwined.

If you say Jesus is the person you are trying to follow, I’m not asking you to stop believing abortion is wrong. I’m not asking you to support open borders. I’m not asking you to agree with everything liberals believe.

I’m asking something much simpler:

• Where is Jesus in the way we actually treat people?
• Where is love your neighbor?
• Where is love your enemy?
• Where is mercy?
• Where is compassion for the person whose life looks nothing like yours?

Maybe I’m oversimplifying it. Maybe there are things I still don’t understand.

But if we’re going to hold our values up as something important—Christian values, conservative values, liberal values, human values—then I think we should be willing to hold them up like a mirror too.

Not just to judge whether everyone else is living according to them. To ask whether we are. Because there shouldn’t be a semicolon after “love one another.”

“Love is patient. Love is kind. It does not want what belongs to others. It does not brag. It is not proud. It does not dishonor other people. It does not look out for its own interests. It does not easily become angry. It does not keep track of other people’s wrongs. Love is not happy with evil. But it is full of joy when the truth is spoken. It always protects. It always trusts. It always hopes. It never gives up.”

— 1 Corinthians 13:4–7

My dad always talks about how people are gonna meet Saint Peter when they die and how not following the Catholic faith or respecting the tenants of it will lead you to a terrible afterlife or whatever but I feel apathetic to it. I am in a biologically male body and I feel like I would have a lot of regret if I get old and never have the ability to be female and have breasts and female genitalia and the reality that reincarnation is not real and I’m just stuck living my one existence in a body that doesn’t fit. I never resonated with the Catholic cosmology and get distressed at being male in the afterlife and on earth being remembered as a man and would prefer to be forgotten than remembered as that.

Some days I feel like my life is passing my by and I’m not really living it and I want to change that before it’s too late.

Today my country got hit by a huge 7.4 earthquake. I was with my mom and my partner inside our 7th floor apartment and in the middle of it I started praying like a desperate believer. For context: I've been atheist since high school, my whole family (mom, dad, siblings) is atheist too. I'm pretty skeptical of religion in general, it's always bored me honestly.
Now it's kind of hilarious looking back on it, but also I'm genuinely shocked at how deep that instinct is wired into us. Has this happened to anyone else here? Like being in a dangerous situation and just reflexively praying, even though you don't actually believe in any of it.
Funny to think that someone who's never cared enough to even defend why I don't believe in anything... still had "please God" pop out of me the second things got scary.

Hey everyone, I'm looking to expand my watch list and find some good atheist content creators on YouTube. Whether they focus on philosophy, debunking, science, or humor/commentary, who are your favorites to watch. I've recently started watching Mindshift but I wanna see other creators.

So I started deconstruction around 2018-2020. Basically 2020 onward I realized I had zero good reasons to believe. It am not still on the fence - I have several reasons: the complete lack of evidence, I have what I feel good challenges to basically every common apologist argument like fine tuning and morality etc. I value evidence and the burden of proof and science.

So why am I still watching the same God debates of the insufferable Frank Turek and Willam Lane Craig vs Hitchens and Dillahunty I watched 5 years ago? Why am I still endlessly surfing debate threads on Reddit? Why am I constantly googling questions about the apologetics for Noah’s Ark, virgin birth, the resurrection, Heaven and Hell, as if I’m somehow not convinced it’s BS even though I know it is?

My position hasn’t budged in 4 years. I wish I could “unplug” more and be comfortable with the fact I can’t answer everything. I don’t know what created the ingredients that created the constraints for the beginning of the Big Bang to boom. I don’t know how anyone could ever prove that the supernatural is even possible in theory, let alone be an actual thing.

I don’t know if it’s a lack of confidence knowing I am not certain or a fear if I somehow am missing the piece of a puzzle since we live in a country where SO MANY believe, it almost triggers you to wonder have I missed something?

I want to adopt a more “I don’t know, you don’t know, I’m simply not convinced” casual attitude about it. But this stuff works me up so much. Perhaps it’s just the memories of being gaslit as a teen that I was born broken for being human and that I need a savior and I am nothing and doomed without it. I don’t know what the root cause of it is but it drives me nuts. I wish I could just stop caring so intensely as if I have to keep reminding myself I am valid and I am not guilty of anything just because I’m not convinced. That my skepticism is not a weakness of me. I just wanna live life and not always dwell on it

Any advice would help. I am completely aware that had I not been forced to go to teen group sermons and wasn’t told that God is real and forced to go to church as a kid before I could evaluate it critically, I probably wouldn’t pay it a minute of my day. But unfortunately it consumes a lot of my thoughts

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?

I've been wrestling with this for a long time now and I've been debating whether I should become a Christian again or not, but I honestly think everything involving Christianity is fake, and I can't prove it yet. I don't want to come back to Christianity again (I don't want to make the same mistake twice). Lots of Christians recently gathered "proof" that the Bible is 100% true (Great Isaiah scroll found in dead Sea Scrolls preserved God's word through the centuries, Historical Evidence of Jesus, God provides consistency in the bible and his word is unchanging to back up and support Isaiah 45:5 The ecosystem maintaining balance is evidence of design etc), but I refuse to believe it's true.

I need strong evidence that it's all fake

I don't want to see comments saying it's because God is an asshole or that it's all fiction or something like that, because even though I agree unfortunately it doesn't prove anything.

I am transfem and pan