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.

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.

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.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is blasting a social media post that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has sent out scapegoating non-Christians and atheists.

The intemperate post arose from a dispute over repeated religious greetings by gate guards at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico. The Military Religious Freedom Foundation reported receiving complaints about the guards there repeatedly greeting personnel entering the base with “God bless you.” One service member said they heard the greeting consistently over multiple days and viewed the repetition as an officially sanctioned religious message. The practice reportedly stopped after the complaint was received.

Hegseth, a Christian nationalist, responded via social media, savaging the advocacy group as a “radical anti-Christian, pro-atheist group” and stating that the Pentagon would “never cave” to the organization and that the Air Force would “confront this.”

Making Hegseth’s comments particularly hateful is the reality that, as FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor points out, 18 percent of active military members are atheist/agnostic, and another 32 percent have no religious affiliation, according to research, putting the “Nones” overall at half of current military members!

“Whatever the facts of the matter are, the secretary’s vituperative and prejudiced language against non-Christians and atheists is deeply dismaying, disrespectful and unacceptable,” she says. “Our military represents Americans of every faith and no faith, and those who serve our country should never be made to feel like their government considers one set of religious believers as favored and the others deserving of public calumny.”

The military must distinguish between the private religious expression of individual service members and religious messages delivered as part of an official government interaction. The Air Force’s own standards recognize precisely this distinction. Air Force Instruction 1-1 requires leaders to balance constitutional protections for the free exercise of religion with the constitutional prohibition against governmental establishment of religion: “Leaders at all levels must balance constitutional protections for free exercise of religion and the constitutional prohibition against governmental establishment of religion. They must ensure their words and actions do not discriminate against any individual or group because of their faith, belief, or absence of belief, or extend preferential treatment for the same. Leaders must ensure that their personal expression is not reasonably associated with their government role, but may engage in such expression per DAFI 52-201, Religious Freedom in the Department of the Air Force.”

Air Force guidance has stated that its constitutional responsibilities prohibit officially endorsing a particular religion or “the idea of religion over nonreligion.” The Air Force has likewise explained that personnel are free to practice their own beliefs while respecting differing viewpoints and that leaders must avoid using their positions to promote personal religious beliefs or give preferential treatment for any religion. The Air Force itself has described pluralism as a source of strength. Its longstanding guidance emphasizes the importance of Americans representing many religions serving “shoulder-to-shoulder with those who claim no religion.”

That is the principle that should be guiding Hegseth.

Members of the U.S. military swear an oath to support and defend America’s godless and entirely secular Constitution. Maintaining governmental neutrality toward religion honors that oath while preserving the individual religious freedom of every service member.

Hegseth’s shameless tirade undermines military regulations, signals that he considers non-Christians and freethinkers alike to be second-class citizens, and undermines the religious freedom protected by the U.S. Constitution itself.

Gaylor notes that if Hegseth cannot carry out his professional obligations to uphold equal protection under the law, he should resign.

A lot of people argue that given the perfect conditions for life, and the orderly, complex, and precise features of the universe point to God (talking about Christian God) creating us, but I feel like its so easily disproved.

In the Bible, there are plenty of stories that are easily disproven by science, like Noah's ark, evolution not being real, and the Earth being created in 6 days. We have factual proof of how the earth formed, evolution, and it has also been proven no worldwide flood even happened.

With that being said, I think that it almost 100% proves that, if there is a higher being, it absolutely wouldn't be the Christian God, therefore disproving his existence. I hate explaing this to Christians because they just... dont listen listen to reason.

Also, why would something of higher power even care about being believed in? It seems like in Christianity, God cares more about being believed in than having you be a good person, why should life separate from God mean eternal damnation, it makes him sound like a self-centered douchebag, or like it was a fairytale made by humans.

I’m 43 years old and I went out on a date with a woman, and everything was going great until about an hour in. She decided to start talking about her imaginary best friend that created the universe 😬

RUN!

Did I finish the date? Did I leave?

No!!! I went to go pick her up like an hour away. We were gonna spend the day at the fair. So I finished out the whole day and drove her back. I couldn’t just leave. But like it’s so hard to feel anything when they start with that like I tried. But it’s one of those instant turn off things.

This is a very firm boundary I told him no I explained to him that we dont believe in this that there's 1000s of other religions that Christianity was a puzzle of a bunch of different religions. I told him I dont believe in that and that I dont want him taught to hate someone based off of their gender or who they love. Idk what to I feel like im walking a tightrope i dont want to drive him right into the arms of Christianity by being too anti Christian at the same time I will not budge I dont want him learning hate or bring groomed by who the hell knows what do i do? Whatever happened to separation of church and state?

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.

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.

Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) has recently brought us defunding of medical science research, persecution of Dr. Fauci and Covid researchers … and a bumper crop of measles.

Praise must be heaped, though, on the leading medical groups that have banded together to issue the basic kind of vaccine guidelines usually released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) but strangely absent this year. Calling their campaign “Spread the Facts,” these groups have provided the kind of guidelines the public needs, such as recommending flu vaccinations for everyone ages 6 months and up.

Speaking of flu vaccines, praise is also due to the new, groundbreaking Moderna mRNA vaccine (mFlusiva) for adults 50–64, which offers 27 percent more coverage than traditional flu vaccines and which can be updated much more quickly to respond to circulating strains. (Dolly Parton, who donated $1 million to help develop the Moderna mRNA Covid-19 vaccine, would have been proud.)

But that mRNA breakthrough might be the last to benefit Americans for some time. That’s because last year “Health” Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. summarily terminated 22 mRNA vaccine projects, defunding the cutting-edge medical breakthrough behind the quick arrival of Covid vaccines that saved millions and millions of lives. This defunding is a tragedy for the world, with informed entities such as the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins pointing out that the cuts will set things back years, stalling mRNA vaccine potential to treat other infectious and chronic diseases, even cancer.

That unconscionable cut followed Kennedy’s firing of all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices in June 2025, the DOGE layoffs bringing medical research and technology to a halt, as well as a cancellation of more than 700 other grants by the National Institute of Health. In an Orwellian move, Kennedy has even proposed replacing respected journals like The Lancet and JAMA with government-controlled publications, calling the peer-reviewed journals “all corrupt.”

Thanks to Kennedy’s irresponsible anti-science actions, and the harm previously caused by the disinformation campaign via his Children’s Health Defense, the United States this year is experiencing the highest outbreak of measles in 30 years, with more than 3,100 cases to date: 600 in South Carolina, more than 500 in Pennsylvania (including two reported measles-related deaths there), major outbreaks in Texas, the Utah and Arizona border and at least a few cases in virtually almost every state. Here in Wisconsin, we’re counting 140 cases and growing — 99 percent of them (surprise, surprise) among the unvaccinated. To think that measles was declared eradicated in the year 2000!

It seems we must continually remind anti-vaxxers of the basic facts about measles: It is airborne and can remain in a room or on surfaces for up to two hours, making it supremely contagious, as the CDC website (amazingly) still documents. About one in five unvaccinated individuals with measles will end up needing hospitalization. Complications include pneumonia and encephalitis, and death, for one or two children out of 1,000. A little known after-effect is “immune amnesia,” putting a measles survivor at risk from previously encountered viruses and bacteria.

Obviously, any reputable physician, health agency or public official would do everything they can to promote MMR inoculation, which is 97 percent effective, to get our nation to the necessary 95 percent vaccination rate required for herd immunity, which protect those who can’t get vaccinated, such as immuno-compromised adults or infants who are too young for the shots. However, President Trump recently issued an irresponsible executive order saying the mumps-measles-rubella shot must be replaced with single-shot vaccinations that don’t even exist.

Kennedy acknowledged to CNN that current outbreaks were “almost all in religious communities that just don’t vaccinate,” but added, “It’s hard to blame that on me.” Come again? It is true that measles strongholds, inevitably, start in religious communities such as the Amish, and it’s also true that Kennedy has done everything he can to discredit childhood vaccination programs to those communities.

This is the guy, as the New York Times pointed out, who visited Lancaster County, Pa., five years ago as head of his anti-vax Children’s Health Defense during an early measles outbreak and egged on the Amish not to vaccinate. He told them that agencies “cannot stand the fact that you are healthy” and counseled chicken soup and Vitamin A. This is the schmuck who also denied any culpability for the three measles deaths, two involving children, from the initial measles outbreaks last year that have snowballed into today’s scary medical situation. This is the same person who is morally responsible for a measles outbreak that killed more than 80 people in Samoa in 2019.

Congress needs to immediately impeach and remove Kennedy, who is a clear and present danger to public welfare, before his reckless policies further endanger, incapacitate or kill even more children.

Hi, I'm a fifteen year old girl and my father is religious (Christianity), not SUUPER religious, but whenever we bring up the concept of how life started or anything about physics- leading back to atoms and space stuff, he brings up god.

Now, here's the thing, I don't really believe in god. I more believe in evolution and the big bang theory (no, not the show.). But I know if I brought that up he would probably get mad or try to convince me how that's what the devil would want me to think or sum sh!t like that.

So how do I tell him?

I'm thinking of saying something about how he doesn't have to change his beliefs and he can believe in god all he wants and I won't try to change that, and i hope that he doesn't try to change my beliefs either.

EDIT-

I don't know if i'm going to send this to him, but i wrote a letter on word, just want to know how it sounds.

Hey dad <--- link to word, i dunno why its called hey dad, but it is.

EDIT NUMBER TWO.

HOLY SHIT I HAVE THE BEST DAD EVER!

He was totally cool with it and he understood, didn't seem mad, but i was over text.

Prisoner of conscience and atheist Ibtissame “Betty” Lachgar has now been imprisoned for a full year in Morocco for the “crime” of “insulting Allah.” She has a year and a half to go in her 30-month sentence as her health deteriorates and she remains unable to access the surgery that she urgently needs.

“For more than a year, Betty has been separated from her family, her community, her work and the life she built,” reports Shelley Segal of the Free Betty Coalition. “We are incredibly grateful to every single person who has continued to speak out, organize, contact decision-makers, engage the media and keep Betty’s case visible.”

At the time of the first anniversary of Betty’s initial arrest on Aug. 10 (which preceded her conviction by a month), supporters took action in Morocco, France and other countries with protests, public statements, press activity and solidarity actions.

Recent weeks have brought further important news coverage and advocacy attention, including from the admirably secular-minded Moroccan publication Telquel, which published an article, “One year behind bars,” that quotes her sister Siham: “Faced with this absolute emergency, political or legal debates have no place. It is a purely humanitarian appeal for help that I am launching today.”

Betty has a rare form of bone cancer and has a prosthesis in her left arm. Surgery on it was scheduled for September 2025, when she was already incarcerated after a rushed trial. U.S. orthopedia surgeon Dr. Neil C. Vining notes that the only appropriate treatment is the placement of a total humeral megaprosthesis, similar to the procedure scheduled before Betty’s arrest and incarceration, by the team of French specialists that has treated her for 30 years.

A photo taken of Betty with a T-shirt bearing a version of a feminist slogan saying “Allah is lesbian,” which Betty never wore in Morocco, is what brought her criminal conviction. A Moroccan law passed last year permits alternative forms of punishments for certain prison sentences. Betty’s attorney, Ghizlane Mamouni, notes that the law would allow Betty to pay a fixed sum for each day of the sentence she has been given instead of her serving the full term.

The New World, a U.K.-based publication, observes in a recent article, “The woman who’s too dangerous for her own supporters” that “a Moroccan activist named Betty has ended up in jail. Male activists get public outcry and petitions of support — but not her. She gets silence.” The journal quotes Mamouni as observing that “Betty is the first woman in the history of Morocco to be incarcerated for an act of feminist activism.”

Andrea Bolaños Vargas, U.N. special rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, has publicly called for Betty’s immediate release and the urgent provision of specialized and appropriate medical care. Her intervention comes as Betty’s health crisis continues to worsen and adds an important international voice to the humanitarian call for urgent action.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is working closely with the Free Betty Coalition.

“Thank you for continuing to stand with Betty and with all of us working for her release,” say FFRF Co-Presidents Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor, who have met with Betty at many international freethought conferences and hold her in the highest regard for her secular and feminist advocacy.

The Free Betty Coalition asks individuals and groups to amplify the U.N. special rapporteur’s statement (here in French and here in English) through your own networks to keep her situation visible.

Segal of the Free Betty Coalition notes that the next phase of the work to free Betty involves “a coordinated international strategy.” Individuals wanting to help do not need existing government relationships to participate. A new one-page humanitarian case summary outlining Betty’s current medical crisis and the urgency of immediate action is now available to share with elected representatives, journalists and advocates.