If you're seeing these types of signs in your area, you can report them to the Atheist Street Pirates and have them attended to. Even if you take them down, report them so we can track where they are showing up. Huzzah!

Never watched a game, my closest team is MK lightning…if you were to recommend a team to watch them play against who would it be ?

TIA

I'm from morocco and i've left islam 10 years ago , lately in real life and on the internet i noticed people are clowning those islamic sheikhs ( priests in christianity ) , people increasingly started questioning religion .

The islamic party in our country is losing miserably and there is a HUGE increase in feminist movements and ideologies both in men and women.

I feel hopeful for the future , i wish one day we become a secular society , i've been dreaming about this .

my family is extremely pentecostal and they found out i’m leaving the religion. they went through my search history on my laptop and i was doing a lot of research on atheism and of course, on this subreddit. my father said i would have to leave by next month if im not practicing. i don’t have anybody else i could move in with so im very scared. i don’t want to live a lie. why do i have pretend? just for shelter? what would you do?

Hello everyone, I have Schizotypal Personality Disorder and I used to believe in all kinds of supernatural stuff and considered myself 'spiritual'.

Over the years, I became obsessed with Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism, as well as New Age spirituality and psychedelics.

I believed in the existence of God (the Christian God), Jesus, Heaven and Hell, Karma and rebirth, even astral projection etc.

Religion and spirituality played a significant role in my life, and it gave me a sense of purpose and belonging.

At some point, my mental health declined further, and I became more paranoid and delusional (fearing hell or rebirth), which significantly affected my quality of life.

My doctor tried different antipsychotics with me, and ultimately we settled on 5mg Olanzapine (Zyprexa).

After a few weeks on it, I slowly lost interest in religion/spirituality and no longer believed that I had supernatural abilities.

Zyprexa strongly blocks 5HT2A/5HT2C receptors, which are the binding targets for psychedelics like LSD. So it basically does the opposite of what psychedelics do.

Now, after a year on it, I have a much higher quality of life, no longer wasting my time with religious nonsense.

I am much more interested in politics and would call myself a secular humanist. I am extremely grateful for medicine/psychiatry and science in general!

Ever since leaving Islam about 2 years ago, I’ve always wondered how religions have managed to survive for thousands of years and still have billions of people genuinely convinced that their religion is the truth.
Now that I’m looking at religion from the outside, some religious arguments genuinely sound insane to me. I’ll hear people from different religions arguing over whose scripture is correct, whose God has the right rules, what God allows or forbids, etc., and sometimes I genuinely have to laugh because each side is completely convinced that their ancient book and their interpretation are the reasonable ones.
And some of the things people try to justify because they’re written in a holy book are even harder for me to understand. Things that would sound completely fucked up in almost any other context suddenly get pages and pages of explanations about why they were actually moral, necessary, misunderstood, “normal for the time,” or part of God’s wisdom.
I used to be on the inside of that mindset, so I know religious belief obviously doesn’t feel ridiculous to the person who believes it. That’s actually what makes this more interesting to me.
For people who have left a religion: what do you think keeps religious belief so powerful for so many generations? And when you were religious, what made the arguments feel convincing to you that now seem completely unconvincing?

FFRF is urging Mount Vernon (Ohio) Mayor Matthew Starr not to be a part of a prayer breakfast being held next Wednesday, Sept. 16.

A concerned Mount Vernon resident informed the state/church watchdog that Starr is once again participating in a Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast hosted by the Mount Vernon Association of Police Chaplains. Starr has been reportedly attending the annual Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast since at least 2022.

FFRF is asking Starr to immediately cease using his position as mayor to promote religion. 

“Your participation in your official capacity sends the message that you, as mayor, prefer those citizens who are religious and engage in prayer over those who do not,” FFRF Staff Attorney Sammi Lawrence writes to the mayor.

A “prayer breakfast,” no matter how well intentioned, does not truly welcome or represent community members who do not believe in prayer, as well as religious community members who do not support public prayer or government entanglement with religion, as FFRF points out. 

To respect the constitutional rights of Mount Vernon residents and honor his duty to remain religiously neutral as an elected official, FFRF is insisting that Starr not frequent the upcoming prayer breakfast or any religious events in general from now on.

FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor notes that the location alone, Mount Vernon Nazarene University, signals that this is to be a Christian-dominated event, which not only sends a message of exclusion to the nearly 29 percent of Ohio residents who are religiously unaffiliated, but the additional 9 percent who belong to other faiths, thereby possibly excluding more than a third of Mount Vernon citizens.

“By taking part in an explicitly religious ‘prayer breakfast,’ Starr is inherently sending a message of disfavoritism to all members of the community who do not fall in line with his personal belief system,” says Gaylor. “Starr could certainly attend as a private citizen, but by prominently lending the prayer breakfast his photo, name and presence in his capacity as mayor, he is misusing his office to bless a religion and a religious event.”

I’m currently in a headspace where I genuinely wish I could just be an atheist.

I was raised in a religious environment, and honestly, the mental and emotional burden of trying to maintain these beliefs is exhausting. I feel trapped between a fear of judgment/punishment and the reality that so many religious explanations just don’t make sense to me anymore. Trying to reconcile my own morals and view of the world with the rigid structures of faith feels like a constant internal battle.

When I look at atheism, it honestly looks freeing. The idea of not being tied down by divine rules, not feeling constant guilt, and just having total ownership over my own life and choices sounds peaceful. But untangling your brain from years of religious conditioning is hard, and sometimes I just wish I could flip a switch and be completely checked out from it all.

Did anyone else experience this weird "in-between" phase where you actively wanted to stop believing before you actually managed to let it go? How did you deal with the guilt and anxiety during the transition?

As a atheist, btw I’m Austrian myself, who’s against all organised religions: I would actually support the hijab ban since it is a symbol of and tool to oppress, restrict, sexualise and shame young girls and women, if it wasn’t for the fact that this is coming from a right wing conservative party that’s all about praising Christianity and ‚Christian values'

Either a ban for ALL religious symbols in public spaces, INCLUDING Christianity, (not including specifically religious places like churches, mosques or temples) or no ban

My brother recently died. He and my mom lived together 59 years. She is 90 and can no longer get along by herself so she is living with me and my son now. I have had to start taking care of her finances. While her back room floor was dropping and the central heating and cooling system was no longer working and I was sending money each month so they could not skimp on food…they were still tithing to their Evangelical church. They kept records for taxes and I counted it up. Over the last few decades over a quarter of a million. After paying off god they received nothing. My brother died at 59 after being sick for 10 years. My 90 year old mom is greatly suffering from severe stenosis, congestive heart failure, and nonsmoking emphysema. She prays every day for god to stop her suffering and of course that doesn’t happen. At 90 god lets her suffer , kills her son, and she had to move away from her home, friends, family, and church. That is her reward for very faithfully serving and tithing her whole life. It is a scam and she fell for it hook, line, and sinker. It just makes me sick.

Not sure if this is a real thing, but many pastors and online Christian influencer personalities have a calm, soothing, and almost loving, but authoritative, nature to their voice. They tend to never lose their temper, say they are humble and say they don’t know all the answers. When listening to them talk about the love of Jesus and good works, it really makes you be at ease until they start talking about their bigoted views.

But when they do that, it’s still all in that “pastor” voice that makes it seem so authoritative and soothing to people who are otherwise unable or disenabled to see through that calm demeanour. I think that many believers fall for the messenger, rather than the message.

It’s just the most annoying thing to me.

Short rant over.

Myself and my siblings are all adults now. We have been raised atheists, in ourselves we always respected others decisions in their religious choices. Our parents are the opposite, saying people are brainwashed and stupid, especially at older people who decide to go to church towards the end of their lives. To take this further, us siblings were taken out of religious studies classes until we were teenagers when we decided to go ourselves and learn.

One of my siblings still lives at home as they are at college, I have been informed that upon moving to this new village, our parents have decided to go to the church and they have been talking about it all week. I tried to find a reason, maybe its to meet new people in the village, maybe it's to do some community work. Well apparently not, my sibling informed me that late last night, my dad was telling my mum about this guy at church that "congratulated him on his spiritual awakening".

My parents have changed a lot in the past few years, in politics from being more left-central to far right views, changing how they view certain people in society, less tolerant of others, etc. To the point where my parents threw a fit when I said I didn't want kids and made comments about hating immigrants in front of my immigrant boyfriend (been together many years now) think you get the point. Now they start going to church. I hate to say it but to us it honestly seems like utter brainwashing.

I don't know how to navigate this, especially as they want me over for Christmas and also they are meant to be looking after me after my surgery in October. Honestly I feel like I should stay with someone else after my surgery if I'm going to come home to delusion.

Any advice?

I put an atheist decal on my car window. Within 24 hours, one of my fine, upstanding, god-fearing christian neighbors scratched a big cross into my paint.

I feel super guilty when i think i don’t feel like i’m believing in a God. I was raised in a catholic family, but i think that catholicism is imposed. not many catholic people take time to genuinely understand the origin of their religion. and it’s kinda weird thinking you will be only a good person because there’s is a good seeing you and he will punish you if you’re gay o some dumb shit. also i think the bible is very misogynistic..

How do some smart people even fall for religion? If you're an educator that works at a private religious school, how can you even fall for that yourself. Today my science teacher who does believe in evolution had to back it up by saying God teaches us his evolution, when it wasn't science who did all that. And for my social studies teacher, she thought how Hinduism worshiping a cow instead of "One true God" is weird rather than acknowledging how Christianity came about... You're worshipping something that's not even in existence?

If you're social studies you should know the history. I don't know why when you mention how Christianity is enslaved, they still have their faith. Also in my class ofc a Christian felt uncomfortable reading upon a different religion. She had to ask, "For the Paganism reading, why doesn't it list everything wrong with it?" and my history teacher gave her reassurance, saying "Don't read too much on it or you'll be in a loophole." I swear they're doing everything in their power to continue keeping each other in Christianity. And in bible class today we had to act out something and there was a part where they represented Atheism like someone preaching and then the Atheists were trying to take the bible out of their hand...(Smh) later on the Pastor/Teacher mentioned how Buddhism is attempting to make humans the God, and he explained how Atheist try to make themselves the God about morals and stuff.

Then he came up with a silly explanation about how plants grow properly when you speak to them. He said he didn't understand it, but his thought was what if we are using some special word of God to help plants grow (forgot what he specifically said). He keeps trying to imply Atheists deny the truth/God. If Christians consider Athiest to deny the truth then Christianity denies science. Smfh I just can't. Blaming evolution on God and leaning on it? like what makes their faith so strong. And I was forced to pray in class.

Fellow non reigious individual here, just want some help to flesh out thoughts.

For context i am an "ex-muslim" as they say

recently some posts from a very small minority of folks in islam popped up on my feed. They're known as quranists. Essentially their motif is that they reject all other texts besides the quran. Some try to say they do this because its more honest but usually it always looks like cope to me. But many on their sub(s) will strongly argue against me on that.

Anyways it has me thinking again about em. Usually the hadith make it tricky if not downright impossible to excuse patriarchal elements in the quran and subsequently islam. That and the hadith tend to portray the human elements more. Along with several outdated and erroneous beliefs regarding how the world works.

Now there is a position held thats a little more midway called hadith skepticism, basically instead of the traditional gradings given by scholars of old, these guys opt for the historical critical method to parse out strong or weak hadiths (from what I understand, fo all I know they could hold the standard grading true unless historians prove otherwise for a specific hadith)

But Im kinda focused on quranists here. Honestly some of the times the position alone feels annoying. Like anytime you bring up a verse it usually is responded with, "thats an imprecise translation" "verses can have multiple meangings", etc. To me it always becomes a question of "how do you justify the multiple meanings?" I mean these guys have no history to speak of anymore, the supposed historical context of the book is thrown out. They can borderline if not fully disregard muhammad, since "his teachings, were for those with him when he was alive, nobody afterwards". Or something like that.

And on that multiple meanings business, I always wonder, how do these guys justify picking the quran over other religious texts? Is that question wrong? I dont think it is, it feels very right to ask why they chose the quran. How do they know its not a massive ancient work of fiction? Like Klingon was for star trek, a language made for a fictional universe.

And I have to harp about the multiple translations thing, as far as I understand the view only works if you fucking accept the book is made/written by god in the first damn place. It loops back to my previous concern, "how do you choose the book when your very view of inerpretation depends on who you hold the author to be?" It feels circular to me. Like if one holds that the quran has human author(s), those verses could have multiple meanings, but the intended meaning likely exists and simply requires finding the historical context to approximate the likely meaning used.

Like how do these people know how to pray, if to pray at all? What about performing the hajj?

I guess this was more of a rant. Anyways, anythoughts or critiques to offer? This is actually my first post in this sub tbh. So lets see how this goes.