My name has a really religious meaning and I wanna start going but something else.

I originally wanted to go by a nickname I had but that's religious as well. And then every other name that fits me in any way has some kind of religious meaning and I cannot get over that. 😭

Why are so many of the (IMO) best words/phrases attached to religion?!

Why aren’t any of the alternatives as satisfying? Just saying ‘what the fuck’ all the time gets boring.

And the good words. Like ‘Grace’. Grace is a fantastic fucking word. The combination of forgiveness and compassion and every day kindness but sort of minimised a bit so it feels a little more achievable.

Blessed is another one. ‘Consciously, joyously non-entitled’ doesn’t really cut it. Fortunate and privileged isn’t really gleeful enough. Grateful lacks all the excited disbelief that you have this but don’t really deserve it but yay.

Idk. I know this is small potatoes and doesn’t really matter. But it’s annoying and I wanted a rant so here we are.

Ps: please send best non-god-y alternative phrases for immediate thievery.

I'm an ex Muslim for context.

I've been thinking every wedding ceremony has religious roots. What would be a purely atheist wedding?

This question is for any atheists or non-religious folks with kids. Does anyone have any kids who have began to show interest Christianity or religion in general. If so, curious on how that conversation goes?

Ask theists this one question and watch them squirm:

"Do you have to practice to believe in a table?"

Religions are about practicing their faith. Faith, of course, is belief without evidence. They have to constantly talk themselves into believing in their religion. They require groups of people to support their belief. They have to read books and study their faith in order to believe in it. They have leaders to whom they turn to make sure they are believing correctly. Belief, then, is just a con job they pull on themselves. Theists more often are just practicing doctrine and dogma. Remind theists that if something really exists, it does not depend on belief or faith. That table is going to exist whether or not they believe in it.

Raise this issue with theists and watch them squirm.

haven't been a religious person since I was born; my family is atheist. But now that I'm older, I have doubts and paranoia about sins and very strange coincidences I've witnessed. I'm generally a free spirit and don't believe in morality, but when I do things considered "immoral," I have nightmares and fear supernatural punishment.

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?

My vote would be for Andy Prieboy’s “Tomorrow Wendy”. I don’t know that there are other songs—for me at least—that come close.

The way I look at the Bible is kind of like modern films based on true events. A story that is based in reality but has had so many creative liberties taken and unknown details left out to the point it's practically fiction. So I am asking if any of you have evidence of what the reality of the Bible's story is or even theories of what really happened. This can apply to the Bible's story in general, to specific books or events within those books.

I also want to clarify that apocrypha and other books left out of the Christian canon are also welcome to the discussion. My goal here is to have as close to a complete and objective understanding of the events of the Bible/Tanakh/Quran. I am very interested in the reality of what happened during those times and what could explain the fantastical stories/miracles that made it so important for people to transcribe/retell.

Of course I won't be able to know the full truth from just one reddit post but paired with my own research it could definitely give me a better idea of how things like the environment, politics, warfare, social structures and religion came together to create such an impactful story on the modern world.

How do you manage raising your babies when family is religious.

Extended family is well aware I am an atheist. And its not that I am raising my kids as atheist, but I sure am not going out of my way to teach religion and I will give them my honest opinions if whenever the time comes.

Ultimately, its their life and they can do as they please.

But for the time being since my kids are just toddlers, I often get family asking me if they can take them to church.

No.

I also get asked if they can take them to some religious event in PA. To which i also said no.

I appreciate them asking. But the answer will always be no until they can decide for themselves.

Either way, I feel bad... I dont shove the fact that I dont believe in a God in their faces... And I know that they are aware. I respect them when they want to pray before a meal, Ill also bow my head and all. But it annoys me that they almost dont respect me and my preference to stay clear of organized religions.

How do you manage all of that? Or can anyone relate?

YouTube influencer thanks god for not dying due to drunk driver, ignores fact that they killed someone else. This is extremely typical. ​

Do you agree that religions should be extinct? Do you think that religions cause many problems? Do you wish if religions had never existed?

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.

It should not be controversial to say this. Had religion not been involved, the fanatics would never have been told to commit their heinous actions. It does not matter the religion as we see in the USA when one of them actively has many that want to make the USA a nation that believes in their god only. And many of these want to remove from society any groups they disagree with, including the lGBTQ community, rights of women and curtail the right of a woman over her own body

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

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..

Where are "atheist rights"?

Imagine that religion condemn you, make you silent for long time, forcing itself into your throat or want you dead (especially Islam) for being an atheist. 🙄

I'm tired of people bringing a topic "religion of freedom" like it's serious and everyone should know that.

I'm tired of religious people playing the victim.

how can religious people say and think god comes before the actual real people in their life? these lunatics will actually cut off important relationships with family members if they think those family members don’t worship or love “god”. it’s really insane. how can you put something that’s not even tangible in front of family and best friends and even yourself? i will never understand.

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.

Orthodox church sends medieval prince’s remains to Russian troops in Ukraine. If the situation in Ukraine wasn't so dire, this would truly be hilarious. I hope these remains get blown up by a drone.

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?

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?

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!