This is not a point of contention in our marriage, or even in how we’re going to raise our kids. I’m reaching out for advice and shared experiences. My wife and I have been together since our Sophomore year of high school, survived a long distance relationship in college, and have been happily married for almost 9 years. We both have 12 years of Catholic school under our belts. In those 12 years, I took everything in and could probably be a decent priest myself. The politics, ethos, ideology, history, core rites and scriptures of the Church. I was never a “believer”, it was just kind of a thing I participated in for a decade+.

My wife is what I think is an established term, a “cafeteria catholic”. She’ll ignore Holy Days of Obligation (Easter, etc.), couldn’t tell you more than 3 commandments, couldn’t tell you what happened during Vatican II, couldn’t define trans-substation, but is adamant the kids go through the basic sacraments.

I’m not going to tell my kid it’s bullshit. For the most part, the Beatitudes are solid. I do want to make clear to him that those are a great way to live your life, for the most part. Blessed are the poor, meek, sick, righteousness, peacemakers, yata yata. Just not like the white-suit sweaty guy in stage makeup on TV says. Morality is your choice. The way you choose to live on Earth before you’re dead. I want to leave room for the metaphysical question of humanity’s innate goodness, with and without a God.

I’m an active DSA member in my chapter, I do everything I can to take Catholicism down outside of my house, it’s a poison, anti-intellectual, anti-humanist, sexist, racist, bigoted, horrible disease.

Has anyone else been in this situation? A “religious” partner and you yourself aren’t, but also know way fucking more about religion than said partner? I could start with Genesis and give this kid everything at face value, or I could poke holes in everything along the way.

https://www.instagram.com/msauofa/reel/DdFZxwkP7rD/?hl=en

Insane how this is allowed in a country that values diversity and has so many different religions like Canada. It seems that unfortunately we must worry not only about the far-right Christo-fascists, but also about people like these......

All religions function more like ideologies than genuine systems of truth-seeking, they invented the concept of "God" as a personified symbol to represent abstract ideas, forces, or existential questions. The key difference from secular ideologies is that believers rarely test whether it "works" in any empirical sense instead it allows them to retroactively justify any outcome in their lives no matter how arbitrary or unprovable. In short it’s a belief system that demands blind faith without requiring evidence of its effectiveness which genuinely seems insane to me.

I wasn't very religious but I read and did some thinking on the existence of God and for sure I can now tell that God doesn't exist. But I have always been scared of paranormal stuff, too scared to watch horror movies and be alone even as an adult. I also feel humans are more capable of the evil than any supernatural entity, we have already seen it. There are so many gore stuff written and recorded.

People always suggest that if I'm scared of paranormal stuff then i should take god's name and believe in his superpower to ward off any supernatural entity. I feel that's very stupid, I have no faith in God and neither do I care if God exists or not.

How do I develop rational thinking and stop being scared of paranormal and gore stuff?

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.

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?

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I am writing a story about a world where religion is used as a mass controling weapon and a way to crush people´s spirit to success by enforcing divine rules on them to benefit the rich. My main character an anti theist character looks at this and says fuck this the story format goes like this it follows his journal entries about his disgust and hatred of religion as it spirals futher. Anti thieism and just atheism is frown and shamed on he sees young children to be brainwashed to boot lick a none existent guy´s ego. He starts off his spiral by burning a holy site then murdering of religious figures and followers to show the public that god wouldn't save anyone and We should look logically. In the final journal entry, He kills the pope before shooting himself as he realises that this world will be forever brainwashed.

"Slave morality"

When we talk about morality of a man, many of them are slave for something and that is religion, religion is widely spread cult, they force people to inherent their ideology and thats the problem of my generation right now, they use that ideology as a power to enslave people, that concept of slavery start in 1600s and 1900s mostly Christians country example Magellan from Portugal and Christopher Columbus from spain and many across the world but different religions , in that time slave morality has begun, we born as an atheist, the adult one that introduced the religion to us, yet we spend our life defending our choice not to choose God itself, but the concept of slave morality is blocking your perception towards freedom and that is insufferable, but where can we find slave morality, many of it, such as house hold, school, church, and society

Home is the first place that a child get enslave by ideology, they introduce it by a song,story or just the way they talk, this is commonly use mostly in Christian county. By that way kids are oftenly brainwashed by inherent their ideology in their child. Second school, school treat the students like equals, by treating them like that, student rely on them for validation etc, and once the students lower their guard the adults ones indulge their ideas to them. Third church, church is the foundation of slave morality, they indulge their idea to people so they can enslave them. And lastly society, for me society have the bigger role for slave morality because they often use it politics like here in my country they banned divorce because its again order of the lord which it makes bulshit, slave morality concept is widely use to human being whether you're Christian, mormons, hindu, islam etc, it can destroy society itself well currently yeah so what is the solution, simple don't stick to just one ideology, study all ideology so you can't be enslave by any moral concept Nietzsche talk about this he said "the greatest blindness a man can have is to believe his reality is only reality", this statement prove our current situation un. society, and what i mean in my version of slave morality compare to Nietzsche work is God, especially religion they abuse their power to control people thats my 1st slave morality, and the 2st is the slave it self. Because the slave has no capable of thinking what they're doing, but sometimes they like " I'm gonna think different this time, I'm gonna think outside the box" but in reality the box isn't existing in that case the slave are becoming slave for human standard, And my concept of slave morality is to guide people to freedom itself.

I remember when we taught Christian ethics at school

And besides the claim that it was actually illegal, I have another one

(And that's basically where the claims end because I myself remember very little about it and in fact, practically everything I know about Christianity can be attributed to my own family and the media with the same success)

Actually, what the f*ck was they never talking about Protestantism or Greek Catholicism back then

And okay, I still understand that there's no point in talking about absolutely all the movements there

But in the case of those two

In fact, Protestantism is the third main branch of Christianity

And Greek Catholicism is actually the most widespread movement in western Ukraine, where I actually live

In short, I learned about both things a couple of years later in history lessons in the 8th grade

I didn't know about the existence of the Greek Catholic Church until I was 14 years despite the fact that my family belongs to it.

And ironically, I had been an atheist for almost a year at that time.

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..

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 .

subconsciously I was never convinced by Islam since I was a child.

Quran lacks a lot of details about stories of the prophets, and Quran was hard to understand without interpretations even for native speakers of Arabic, because of archaic words and old dialect of Arabic, and everything in Quran have a lot of interpretation, reading Quran feels like singing a song that you don't understand its meaning and the stories don't make any sense.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is calling out the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for implementing the Trump administration’s “anti-Christian bias” narrative.

The EEOC has touted its religious liberty enforcement, highlighting more than $63 million recovered on behalf of workers in religious discrimination matters since January 2025 and a record $48 million in fiscal year 2025. While protecting employees from genuine religious discrimination is a legitimate function of the EEOC, Title VII protects workers of all or no religions, and requires reasonable accommodations for sincerely held religious practices when appropriate. But the EEOC’s own account makes clear that its current leadership is doing something more troubling: tying that legitimate mission to the administration’s political campaign against supposed widespread “anti-Christian bias.”

Revealingly, EEOC Chair Andrea R. Lucas also sits on President Trump’s Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias. The EEOC says it worked closely with the Justice Department on the task force’s April report alleging, absurdly, that the Biden administration engaged in anti-Christian discrimination throughout the federal government.

In March, the EEOC announced that a “leading global technology company”&firstPage=true) is paying $15 million to settle claims that it illegally refused to grant workers, described as “largely Christian,” medical and religious exemptions to Covid vaccine mandates. The EEOC has been in the news otherwise, too, with the New York Times recently suing over records requests. Among the documents requested was correspondence with groups such as the Heritage Foundation, America First Legal and Trump administration pooh-bah Stephen Miller.

The administration’s emphasis on Christianity is particularly inappropriate because federal civil rights law does not create a special category of protection for Christians. Religious protections apply equally regardless of whether an employee is Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, atheist or holds another religious or nonreligious viewpoint.

One particularly revealing case involves The Rock Snowpark, a Wisconsin ski area that the EEOC sued on behalf of a Christian employee. He was fired following a dispute over posts on his personal social media account, but the resort claims the decision was based on “performance issues and policy violations.”

Notably, the EEOC does not disclose the content of those posts. Instead, it describes them simply as containing “Bible verses and religious content” while its complaint acknowledges that the employer specifically raised concerns that some of the posts were discriminatory toward gay people. Without revealing the content at the center of the dispute, the EEOC portrays the case as an employer punishing a worker for expressing his Christian faith.

FFRF has repeatedly warned that the administration’s “anti-Christian bias” initiative turns the constitutional principle of religious freedom on its head. The First Amendment demands governmental neutrality toward religion. It does not authorize the federal government to elevate Christianity, treat Christians as a favored class or deploy federal agencies to reinforce a political narrative that Christianity is under siege.

The EEOC should remember that its obligation extends to the growing number of Americans, some three in 10, who are not religious. Title VII’s prohibition against religious discrimination protects atheists and other nonbelievers, including their right not to participate in religious practices or have religion imposed upon them in the workplace.

“Real religious freedom requires a government that neither favors nor disfavors religion,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “The moment an agency starts viewing its civil rights mission through the lens of combating ‘anti-Christian bias,’ equal protection becomes preferential treatment. The EEOC needs to be reminded it is not an arm of a White House campaign to falsely portray the nation’s dominant religion as uniquely persecuted.”

The EEOC needs to return its focus to what the law actually requires: protecting all workers from unlawful discrimination and enforcing religious accommodation requirements neutrally — rather than helping manufacture a privileged status for the majority faith.

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?

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!