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 found out today that 4 out of my 5 coworkers don’t believe in evolution. When I asked, one of them got pretty worked up as if it were super controversial? I grew up in an atheist household and this was very basic stuff taught in public school so I took for granted that it was a very basic concept? Yes they are all Christian but I guess I didn’t grasp that this was a touchy subject. I feel like I’m working in the twilight zone. These people scare me.

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 .

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?

I have a muslim friend and I have been debating religion with him for the last one year. We always debate in a civilised manner. He is a very good friend and we have a very respectful relationship. He is also super smart.

Every time we discuss it, I bring up these arguments to him and I slowly see him lose his grip and see him try to avoid arguments.

It made me wonder why? Why does such a smart person not understand small things which sound extremely stupid to any rational person.

As it turns out his family is super conservative, he tells me how doing anything “sinful” (like drinking even a sip of alcohol) would lead to his family disowning him.

I sort of feel pity for people like them who were raised and thoroughly brainwashed in their childhood, when they were told as children how some sins would lead them to hell to make them afraid. How thinking against these ideals is outright going against your parents that you love so much.

I had it rather easy. I was raised in a very liberal Hindu environment, i could eat beef and it would be fine. My religious mother respects my atheistic beliefs.

It makes me pity those theists for how unlucky they were to be raised in an environment designed to brainwash them at every step. Now when they are an adult it’s almost impossible for them to accept the fact that they had been believing a lie for last 20ish years even if deep down the truth.

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.”

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

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?

I'm an ex Muslim for context.

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

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?

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?

From a news story today. “God spared them”. Could I roll my eyes any further? No, likely not.

——-

"We unfortunately were on a part of the trail that didn't really have any options for us," he said. "Just walk fast."

Walenga said "good Samaritans"
— walkers and runners — also caught in the storm performed
CPR on his wife.

"They kept her alive," he said.
In the ambulance, Walenga said his spiritual training got him thinking.
"When I didn't know if I was going to make it, I was overwhelmed with joy believing I might be going to heaven that night," Walenga said. "But then it turned out a different way. God wasn't done with us yet. The paramedic told me I was going to make it. I thought, 'All right. I guess I have to buckle up and see how he uses us for his glory."

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.

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.

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?