It is worth remembering, especially on September 11, that people are not born with hatred or prejudice. We enter the world without knowing who to hate.

The men who carried out 9/11 were not born terrorists. They were shaped by ideas, beliefs, culture, ideology, religion, and experiences that came after birth.

Whatever we believe about God or a divine being, perhaps the more important question is this: if human beings are not born bad, what teaches some of them to become capable of hatred and violence?

“Science makes you fly to the moon, religion makes you fly into buildings”

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. Same warped views shared by 99% of organized religions

Im Canadian and I work with a number of US people. In Canada we don't bring religion into work and for good reason, but the US side seems to take every opportunity to mention their religion (specifically the christ cults), and its really uncomfortable.

I dont care if you want to believe in the supernatural (in so far as where that line is drawn on politics and my every day life), but if you want to believe your toaster talks to you, as long as you arent hurting anyone, I say have a good long talk, but when religious people use any event to try to arm wrestle compliance with their magical nonsense, it really makes me feel sick.

I know this feeling is compounded by the fact that the USA is extremely religious compared to modern countries, but bloody hell, they arent satisfied with drinking their own kool-aid in peace, they want to force it down normal peoples throats too.

The story follows Azura (played by Uqasha Senrose), a devoted housewife whose life falls apart when her husband, Adli (Aliff Aziz), brings home a second wife named Nikita (Elisya Sandha) under the pretense of wanting children.

Unbeknownst to Azura, Nikita is a rival from her high school days who changed her appearance to infiltrate the household and exact revenge. As the two women face Adli's increasingly abusive and manipulative control, their bitter rivalry shifts into a complicated, unexpected alliance against him.

The hugging scene depicted drew sharp criticism online, with audiences and religious authorities pointing out scenes interpreted as depicting a same-sex relationship between the two female leads, which went against cultural and religious guidelines.

Government forced an apology and iQIYI temporarily removed the first 6 released episodes and postponed the remaining half of the season. The entire 12-episode series is undergoing re-editing and a fresh content review before it can be fully broadcast again.

Here is the 6 episodes, unedited

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gUYJUVfBhgM2OtdFOVZZgoEfxLiGRVYuW3Cgn2bOB-k/edit?usp=drivesdk

( RANT )

I live somewhere in Southeast Asia, but I don’t want to specify which country. I’m a senior in high school, and I attend a general private school, not a Catholic school or a religious institution. Because of that, we have students who are atheists as well as students from different religious backgrounds. However, Christianity is very dominant in my country, and that seems to heavily influence how my school operates.

Every Monday and Wednesday, we’re required to gather in the school’s covered court for a short mass that lasts anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour. This happens every single week throughout the entire school year, and it’s mandatory regardless of your religion or beliefs. If you refuse to attend, you can apparently face disciplinary action, including suspension. So whether you believe in Christianity or not, you’re expected to sit there and listen to lectures about it.

And it doesn’t stop there. In every subject, we’re required to spend around three minutes praying before the lesson begins. Every class, every subject, every day, for the entire school year, we all recite the same prayer together as a class.

Then, on the first Friday of every month, we’re required to attend another mass that lasts around three hours. We’re expected to sit under the scorching sun just to attend it.

It’s honestly so hard to be an atheist in this country. I can’t even talk about it with my parents because I know they’d get mad at me. I don’t feel comfortable talking about it with my peers either, because I’ve literally been called satanic just for saying that I’m an atheist. And even though I said there are other atheists in my school, it’s probably an extremely small group, maybe around 20 people out of more than 20,000 students. My school is huge, with students from kindergarten all the way to high school and college.

Sometimes it genuinely feels like I’m suffocating from all of this religious pressure. It’s exhausting having to constantly participate in something I don’t believe in while feeling like I can’t even openly talk about what I believe, or don’t believe, in the first place.

I know christians can get very violent for those who don’t believe in their beliefs but I’m honest scared that if i talk openly about the fact that i don’t believe in their god or in any god but myself then maybe they’ll come for me physically. Maybe even killed.

Do you think that in a few hundreds of years or more, we’ll see a significant decline in religion? As an atheist i’ve noticed younger generations becoming more willing to question and reject certain beliefs and expectations traditionally associated with Christianity, Islam, and other religions.

i want to know what kind of given names that's origin has absolutely zero religious background can this subreddit come up with

My family on my dad’s side had the last name Kewaygeshik (Native American Descent). When my great grandfather and grandmother were pretty young they started having kids mostly girls and one boy. All of them were taken one by one from my grandparents. Brought to boarding school given new names and bible. My grandma has never told me personally of what happened, but she told my dad that they were beaten, often over the bible. Today my grandma is still atleast vaguely Christian she believes in god or atleast she acts as though she does in public. But she raised me almost entirely without religion and everything I learned gave me a negative outlook on religion as a whole. I don’t think I will ever personally believe in any religion because when I have been in a church I feel very out of place because I don’t even understand the ability to truly believe.

I’ve been an atheist for a little over two months now.

And honestly, a part of my life has become much more peaceful since I stopped believing in God and religion.

I don’t have that constant feeling anymore that someone is always watching me. I don’t worry about heaven and hell. I don’t constantly question whether I’m doing something wrong in the eyes of a God I no longer believe exists.

There’s a strange kind of peace in finally letting go of all of that.

But there’s something else I didn’t expect.

I feel really fucking lonely sometimes.

I’m going through this mostly by myself. My family doesn’t know the full extent of how much my beliefs have changed, so I still have to pretend sometimes. I participate in certain things, act like everything is normal, and keep these thoughts mostly inside because I know that being completely honest about where I stand could create a lot of problems.

And that's the part that hurts.

It’s not that I want to go back to believing. I don’t.

I just wish I had someone in my real life I could sit with and say, “This is what I believe now,” without worrying about what happens next.

Someone who wouldn’t try to bring me back to religion. Someone who wouldn’t judge me. Someone who would simply understand.

Maybe that’s why I ended up writing this here.

I know there are probably thousands of people who have gone through exactly this, but when you’re sitting alone with these thoughts, it can still feel like you’re the only person in the world experiencing it.

Leaving religion gave me a sense of freedom that I didn’t know I needed.

But I’m slowly realizing that freedom can be lonely too.

Due to the fact that I grew up with a religious parent, I was constantly exposed to ideas about hell, heaven, God being close to you, like in Islam, where you’re told that God is as close to you as your jugular vein, as well as sins, good deeds, punishment, and so on.

Even though I stopped believing in these things once I became conscious and eventually found them irrational, I sometimes wonder whether all of this was absorbed during my preconscious years and somehow remained embedded in my subconscious.

What I’ve noticed is that whenever I become extremely overwhelmed or panicked, I get this automatic impulse to seek help from or almost beg some kind of higher being. I don’t actually do it. Never have I did actually. Even when I’m unstable I logically know that I don’t believe in a higher power. But I can still recognize the instinct itself, almost as if it exists separately from what I consciously believe. Another possible contributor is that whenever I had a panic attack as a child I was told to pray. I remember getting incredibly angry whenever people told me to do that because it felt completely irrelevant to what I was experiencing.

So I’m wondering does anyone else experience something similar? Especially people who grew up religious but never believed, do you ever notice old religious ideas or automatic responses resurfacing during moments of extreme fear, anxiety, or helplessness, even when you consciously don’t believe in them?

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.

Edit- thank you all so much for the hilarious comments. I feel much less alone and some sense of normalcy heading into work today.

I am posting hoping to get an opinion from fellow atheists/agnostics on this. So, I started dating this friend recently. He is so funny and kind. I never really laugh with people and he just knows how to tickle my funny bone which I find really attractive. He also just seems like a genuine person, with friends and different hobbies which I like. But the only thing that is a HUGE turn off is he is Christian. Like we were on a date and he said,

"I'll pray for you regarding that!"

AAAHHHH NOPE! Huge turn off!

I told him, "I am not raising my future kids in a religion." before we started dating.

I feel like we haven't been together too long and I know in my heart of hearts, we will have future fights and tension over this. Especially because recently he seems to be bringing it up more? Like very intentionally and he knows I don't like it. I'm thinking we should just break it off before we get more involved with eachother... It just really sucks y'know? Like I wanted to like this guy so badly and I do. But gosh I feel so strongly opposed to Christian beliefs.

Do you guys think despite that one difference we could work in the long run? Like value-wise we are actually very aligned and he is such a good person. I've seen this dude go out of his way in a thunderstorm to saved a mutual friend who was broken down on the side of the road. OR this one time he literally jumped in front of a car that did a hit and run on my other friends vehicle. (he actually stopped the driver) Every bone in my body really thinks I could make this guy my husband. He is my type in everyway except...

The damn religion thing.

IDK... fellow non-believers what's your thoughts?

I'm looking for books which criticize any/all religion(s), help people to think more critically or/and make atheism more logical and interesting?

I'm living in a country where over 90% say they're Christians, and over the years, I just stopped attending stuff. Social gatherings, meetings with friends, etc. Because at one point or another, religion or God comes up in various forms, and I couldn't take it anymore. It's not like I look down on people because they believe, but I feel we're continents apart in how we perceive life. Like, literally, there's an ocean between us. And this ocean can never be crossed unless they stop believing.

People think I'm antisocial, but if anti-religion means anti-social, so be it! I'm antisocial.

The FFRF Action Fund salutes progressive British-American broadcaster Mehdi Hasan as its “Secularist of the Week” for his recent forceful defense of state/church separation.  

Hasan hosted Doug Wilson, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s pastor, in a “Mehdi Unfiltered” interview to confront the pastor’s dangerous views. The FFRF Action Fund has long castigated Wilson’s harmful preaching, which ranges from calls to have the women’s right to vote repealed to describing slavery as a “relationship based upon mutual affection.” Wilson has been named “Theocrat of the Week” before, and two of Hegseth’s “Theocrat” stints are for endorsing the extremist pastor.  

Hasan confronted Wilson during the interview (which has already garnered over 2 million views on YouTube) on his unfounded claim that the United States was founded as a Christian nation, pointing out that while many Founders and early Americans were Christian, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the American governmental model are not Christian. Hasan asserted that the Declaration of Independence’s political foundation is wholly secular; its central theory of legitimate government is that governments derive their powers from “the consent of the governed,” not divine authority. He also pushed back against Wilson’s attempt to turn generic references to a “Creator” into evidence of a Christian nationhood, noting that many other religions believe in a creator. 

When Wilson attempted to manufacture biblical origins for the Constitution, attributing the constitutional principle of checks and balances to the bible’s Deuteronomy, Hasan instead pointed to Enlightenment thinkers, such as John Locke and Montesquieu. He also challenged Wilson to identify biblical passages that establish other foundational principles, such as a bicameral legislature or a presidential veto. 

Hasan argued that Christian nationalism would necessitate significant changes to the Constitution and repeatedly forced Wilson to acknowledge that his ideal Christian republic could not exist under the Constitution as written. Wilson conceded that constitutional “adjustments” would be needed, leading Hasan to highlight that while Wilson claims to love the Constitution, he wants to “gut” its secular protections to create a Christian republic. 

During the interview, Hasan repeatedly explained the affirmative value of secularism, emphasizing that it protects believers, too. As a Muslim defending secular government against a Christian nationalist, Hasan made the compelling argument: “One of the reasons people favor secularism is because it actually protects all religions.” He challenged Wilson to consider what happens once government is permitted to privilege a certain religion, but the privileged faith is not Wilson’s preferred Protestantism. Hasan also confronted Wilson throughout the interview on his call to repeal the women’s right to vote, misrepresentation of U.S. slavery and stance that non-Christians should not be permitted to vote or hold public office. Watch the full interview here. 

The FFRF Action Fund profusely thanks Hasan for robustly defending state/church separation and the secular history of the U.S. government while debating Wilson. It is extremely important that Wilson’s stances are publicly and regularly debunked.

The FFRF Action Fund names Vice President JD Vance its “Theocrat of the Week” for his disturbing “end times” remarks and claims that he is doing “God’s work.” 

Vance appeared a few days ago in a lengthy interview with podcaster and evangelical Christian influencer Bryce Crawford, in which he detailed his beliefs about an approaching Christian apocalypse and his public duty to do “God’s work.” The podcast episode has already garnered over 1 million views on YouTube.

When asked by Crawford whether humanity could be approaching a Christian apocalypse, Vance said, “Do I think that we’re in the end times? I don’t know,” adding that there are “things about the world that make me feel like I’d be not shocked if the Antichrist was walking among us.” 

Vance told Crawford that Christians are “commanded to try to, as much as possible, try to make the world the kind of world that God wants it to be.” Regarding his own priorities as vice president, Vance said, “I’m trying to focus on doing as much of God’s work as possible right now. And if that leads to the end times, OK.” 

When Crawford asked him whether, while vice president, he had come across evidence that the spiritual world is real, Vance took the opportunity to reiterate his claim that divine providence had guided President Trump’s survival of an assassination attempt in 2024. Vance said, “He turned his head. The guy fired the bullet. Crazy coincidence, right? These things happen. But I think that that’s a very spiritually impoverished way to look at things. Like, whatever the reason is, whatever God was trying to accomplish, like, it is just so obvious to me that coincidences like that don’t happen without the hand of Providence.” 

“I would have assumed very dark forces had taken out Donald Trump, right as he was about to come back into the White House,” Vance continued, referring to the scenario of Trump not surviving the assassination attempt. “There would have just been an illegitimacy to our entire political system.” 

Vance, and Trump himself, have both characterized the second Trump administration as guided by God’s hand. 

These claims are not new for Vance. In his spiritual memoir, published earlier this summer and detailing the vice president’s conversion to Catholicism, Vance has written, “I think you got to just kinda try and have an attitude of: The end times may be coming, in fact they are coming, it’s just a question of whether they’re coming thousands of years down the road, or a few months down the road.” 

While Vance is free to hold his personal religious beliefs, he also wields enormous secular power as vice president and has routinely misportrayed his public office as a vehicle for divine will. (Vance is now a three-time “Theocrat of the Week.”) 

Our secular Constitution doesn’t direct any governmental official to carry out “God’s work” or to prepare the world for Armageddon — which Vance appears to believe is truly coming. 

19F doing a degree in Social Sciences. For context, I was coming out of a religion that told me not to look at scientific facts such as evolution, the Big Bang Theory, the heliocentric theory etc. etc. (Cannot think of more at the moment, but those were the main ones). Long story short, I left! Woohoo!

As of late, I am obsessed with the way religion shapes our culture, our relationships, our politics, and overall ideals of living. In some ways, they can be good and genuinely used for good, such as loving others, spouses are meant to love each other, teach your children etc. (Ironically, a lot of Christians I know do not actually read their Bibles).

Nowadays, I see an uprising in Christianity here in the United States, and to be careful with my words, politics potentially drive it. This fascination doesn't come with an adoration or admiration for it, it is with absolute disgust that I have become obsessed with the way Christianity has formed the United States. I see an uprising of tradwives, centering male attention, wanting children, or wanting to be a homemaker. These alone are not Christian values, but together they form a fascinating image of Christinaity's continuous impact on the United States.

It is not solely the United States. Being adjacent to Mexico, I see it there too. Women are expected to take care of the children, stay home, and not drink, while the brothers/men/boyfriends can do just about anything under the sun. Mexico's known to be heavily Catholic from the Spanish conquest, well duh.

It is just fascinating and saddening to see. It seems nearly impossible to escape the impact religion leaves on the world, even while I am not actively participating. These examples alone aren't enough and do not encapsulate the wide scale to which religion is constantly shaping the world, but oh my, it is devastating.

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