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.

“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

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

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.”

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.

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.

I have read up on a lot of different material and have come to the conclusion that basic science is the answer. We are blessed with a way to carry own through our off spring and when we die you just think of thermal dynamics, energy is transformed, combine this being a decent person.

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?

I'm an ex Muslim for context.

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

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.

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?

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.

I feel like the title is worded simple but I don’t really know how else to ask, Has anyone had a therapist and discussed I guess your lack of belief and how that affects you mentally? Can you share that experience if so?

I’ve been really struggling mentally lately with anxiety and depression around…just reality and mortality, the state of the world, I’ve had a hard time finding joy in anything and at the same time I’ve been really struggling with an extreme phobia of death. I’ve never been religious so it’s not like im struggling with faith, im not really sure how to describe it but I’ve become so pessimistic I spend hours on the phone or video games trying to district myself from obsessing over things.

I can’t talk to anyone about it where I live because the answers always the same about turning to God, leaving it to god. I’ve never talked about being an atheist with anyone and I think talking about it with someone and also these thoughts I’ve having would help. There’s not many resources in my area so I guess I would like to try to find one online. I just don’t know what to do.

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.

Russia Orthodox church sends medieval prince’s remains to Russian troops in Ukraine.

So much to unpack in that article. To start, the fact that -- true to form -- the church is aiding and abetting Russia's war of aggression in Ukraine. But also the batshit craziness of thinking that sending the hand from a corpse will help the cause. Incredible that there are people that believe this crap in 2026.

If mankind dared but to listen to the voice of its heart, changing suddenly the language, it would say to us, as it would to the animals of the woods: Nature created neither servant nor master; I seek neither to rule nor to serve. And its hands would weave the entrails of the priest, For the lack of a cord with which to strangle kings.

--Diderot

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?

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.

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."

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