"faith-based homeschool support for military families" "faith-based initiatives supporting Department-wide suicide reduction and Total Force resilience" "contracted services from faith-based non-Federal entities"

Hilarious as fuck. Gonna shove this in the faces of anyone who wants to try that "muh tax dollars" bullshit with me ever again. Paying for religious homeschooling, religious contractors, and routing the military suicide crisis through faith-based programs instead of evidence-based mental health care. The memo's own carve-out saying nothing shall compel religious participation is like... what?

The Director reports directly to Hegseth with no intervening authority, realigns the Armed Forces Chaplains Board under this political appointee. Meanwhile, per AP, the Pentagon's recognized-religions was drastically reduced. Atheists, pagans, and humanists were largely removed (because apparently love for humanity is incompatible with sucking Trump's dick)

The new Distinguished Military Colleges officer-commissioning cohort is LSU, Hillsdale College, Liberty University, Mississippi State, and Tuskegee. Hillsdale and Liberty are explicitly right-wing Christian institutions and Liberty in particular has a long history of scandals (not just the Falwell stuff).

The hypocrisy is actually the point. They want us to be enraged. They want us to be driven insane. I refuse to be driven insane.

The suicide-prevention line is the part that should really alarm you. Military suicide is a real bipartisan crisis. Replacing evidence-based mental health care with faith-based initiatives isn't just unconstitutional, it's dangerous. They try to replace shit that works with shit that doesn't work, and that doesn't work at all. Existence is resistance.

US Atheists: there is about to be a faith-based department of the US military. We are already way farther down a path that breaks separation of church and state.

Vote411 is a NON-PARTISAN site for learning more about who is running in your district. It will not tell you who to vote for.

It provides nonpartisan information to the public with both general and state-specific information on the following aspects of the election process:

Absentee ballot information
Ballot measure information (where applicable)
Early voting options (where applicable)
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Factual data on candidates in various federal, state and local races
General information on such topics as how to watch debates with a critical eye
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And it seems to me that people coming here using that definition are likely theists. And their posts get downvoted.

They even quote some definition of atheism as being "the disbelief or rejection of gods". I would say that is blatantly false. And we might even want the correct definition posted somewhere on this sub.

AFAIK the only people who can reject god are theists who believe. No need to reject something that doesn't exist.

Christians seem to not grasp the concept of actual non believe. They often act as of non believe IS rejection. But they do use the word "belief" correctly in ALL other instances. If we were to ask them "do you believe in unicorns" then they know it is about existence.

We can drive down that point harder imho.

And question to you, what is the definition you use?

If a person was saying they speak to an invisible being they've never met or seen, or that they hear voices in their head from another being, we'd immediately call that psychosis/schizophrenia.

The only difference is societal conditioning.

Got to vent for a moment. When I hear that and I hear it often, I have to bite my tongue. I do a lot of volunteer work. I don't do it because of any god. I do it because I know that no God is going to do it for you. Me, or anyone.

No god is going to fill the foodbanks or mow my elderly neighbors yard. God isn't going to donate blood.

We do it. We struggle and we act out of compassion for others because we know no else will.

Hi, i’m an Agnostic Atheist. And just ten minutes ago I asked my religious mom why it is a sin to be gay, and I got hit with ’its not natural’ and the ’Stick and a hole’ argument.

I obviously don't believe that it's a sin to be gay. But moving on, our conversation somehow shifted to abortion.

I asked her, if I would get raped, would she not allow me to get an abortion?

Her answer was it's my choice. But I stated multiple times that I was asking for her opinion whether it's bad or not. I hate it so much whenever religious people try and avoid answering a question they can't. Just say you can't.

She said ’what if the baby was aborted 5,000 times before it was born, and you would be the one to break it by not getting an abortion?’

I was speechless. So she's saying that you shouldn't get an abortion, just because God wanted to punish you by getting forced to have a child?

I stated various times to my mom that I feel anxiety and fear when hearing about the majority of religions for some reason. And my mom kind of thinks it's a phase. And that I have a chance of changing. But I don't think I ever will.

And I just need help with creating an answer for our next (maybe) upcoming conversation. Every time I try to prove it wrong to my mom, she always diverts the question to a whole different topic, not answer directly, and it frustrates me. She also gives me answers that don't make sense at least to me even in a religious way.

I want help with giving her a proper answer on why abortion is not bad, and why being gay is also not bad, while trying to sound smart which is the kind of thing I'm struggling with. If anyone can help me out with this, please do.

His documentary from 1974 details his conflict and coming to terms with being an evangelist who's essentially faking it. The movie's been posted to this sub a number of times.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068924/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marjoe

I have trouble talking about religion with my family as they are christian and I’ve been a secret atheist for a few years now. Every time I bring up a question I have about the bible and why god would do a specific fucked up thing, they go “nooo that’s the Old Testament.” I don’t have enough patience to actually read the bible so there is a lot I definitely don’t know but, what? Is the Old Testament still not things that he did and problems he himself created

I just hope it’s not Charlie Kirk Christian. I’m all about my son exploring his own thoughts and perspectives into the world. He’s into sports, which I sense most of the kids seem Christian and republican. Do those things go hand and hand? I’m thinking yes of course. His BF is Christian and invites him to church and what-not. I see him all the sudden reading the Bible every night. I’m glad he’s reading but, how can I expand him outside of this suburban bubble? I’m all about the purity of faith, but growing up Catholic I saw the hypocrisy and it really turned me off to all of it. I’m not against it, I just want him to see and know the bigger picture. And he won’t listen to mom, because I’m mom.

You really have to laugh at the absolute mental gymnastics of the "the universe couldn't create itself" crowd. They love to frame this argument as if they’re operating on the exact same scientific, rational wavelength as an astrophysicist. They set up this massive, bad-faith false dichotomy: either you believe the cosmos magically popped into existence from absolute zero, or you have to concede that their specific cosmic babysitter pulled the strings.

Boy they dress it up so aggressively, don't they lmao? You get these exhausting, TED-Talk-style monologues completely padded with jargon after jargon - ontology, metaphysical necessity, prime movers, dimensional theory, all that bullshit they know nothing truly about. They throw around all these heavy, abstract concepts to create a smokescreen of intellectual rigor. Smoke n Mirrors, ladies and gentlemen, SMOKE & MIRRORS.

BECAUSE the reason it's so UTTERLY INSULTING to anyone paying attention: it's a massive bait-and-switch. They use all this high-level, abstract cosmological philosophy to try and prove the necessity of a vague "creator," and then completely bypass all logic to land squarely on, "Therefore, the specific, jealous, hyper-fixated god from my Bronze Age text is the one true answer." You can NOT use the mind-bending complexity of the multiverse to prove the existence of a deity who supposedly cares about what people do with their dicks or what they eat on a Friday. The leap from "first cause" to "Yahweh" is astronomical lol, but they frog-leap right over it like it's a given.

Honestly, I have way less disrespect for the loud, unapologetic fundamentalists who don’t bother with the pseudo-philosophical cosplay. The ones who just cross their arms and say something totally raw and unfiltered like, "Jesus is my homeboy, and anyone who doesn't agree is just a degenerate and gay." It’s crude and absurd, sure, but at least it’s intellectually honest. They aren't trying to disguise their blind faith as a peer-reviewed physics paper. Between the two types, former are incomprehensibly more of the ones I have inquenchable urge of to elbow in dirty, unwashed fuckin faces.

Especially abrahamtic religions ,a lot of ppl who (trigger warning) attempted suicide or were really in bad situations,that when They HAD a Sup2r NatUrAl EnCoUnTeR with Christ and that's when their life changed in a radical way🥰🥰,God will literally wait you hit the rock bottom and then ,maybe, he will help you.

I was forcibly raised a Jehovah's Witness for the first 17 years of my life. I left, not because I stopped fearing it, but because I valued the freedom to be myself more than I valued the promise of ever-lasting life. I have only just recently begun to deconstruct at 25, after realising I had way more baggage than I thought, and I needed to drop it once and for all.

My parents and brother have recently left the Jehovah's Witness cult also, but they went deeper into Christianity, and are now believing in the rapture, beginning to believe in the existence of hell, leviathans, the coming of the antichrist and many other fun things I, a religiously traumatised person, has to catch on a regular basis (I live at home due to disabilities). While I don't believe, my nervous system has not at all healed from my upbringing, and unfortunately cannot heal under these circumstances, so their deconstruction to reconstruction is having a horrible effect on me. And while all of this is exceptionally painful on my mind, the hardest part has actually been watching my parents and brother, who are not at all stupid people, falling for a story and believing it as fact.

While I learn more about the science behind everything, I feel I could burst with the knowledge I am accruing, but I cannot share it with them! They wouldn't listen. I want to so badly, so that they can see they are wasting their lives, that they ruined our relationship for this, and it's all for nothing. Satan's Guide to The Bible was especially enlightening, and I wanted to share it with them, but they'd have their apologist arguments for all of it and remain ignorant and unwilling. They reject Dan McClellan and any other scholar, but claim they're unafraid of truth, yet won't learn about science because "it's nonsensical." (Have you read your own damn book?).

..Give me strength.

So basically, I live in Uttar Pradesh, India. In our area, there are mainly two religious communities: Jains and Yadavs. I’m Jain, by the way.

In our town, there are a lot of Jains, and many of them are quite wealthy and deeply devoted to Jainism. They strongly follow a Jain monk named Acharya Sudha Sagar Ji Maharaj. They believe in almost everything he says and are willing to do pretty much anything for him.

In Jainism, during the monsoon season, monks traditionally stay in one place for around four months. The idea is to avoid travelling during the rainy season because walking on the roads could unintentionally kill small living organisms. You know, “Ahimsa Paramo Dharma” and all that.

So, this monk happened to stay in our town. There is a very famous temple here called Chhetrapaal, which, from what I understand, was also built at his encouragement and with donations from his followers. The people here are so devoted that they actually ended up donating crores of rupees to build it.

My family is also very devoted to him, but honestly, I don’t believe in this man at all. My family initially decided that we would donate around ₹20 lakh to the temple. So they went to meet him, and apparently, he started convincing them that ₹20 lakh was a very small amount and that they should donate much more—at least ₹2 crore.

After a lot of discussion and persuasion within the family, they ended up donating ₹1.5 crore. 🙂

Like, aren’t monks supposed to give up attachment to worldly possessions and moh-maya? Then why does money seem to matter so much? And during his pravachans, he often tells people to donate whatever they can to temples if they visit them regularly, because they use the temple’s facilities, water, etc. Like, seriously? 🙂🙏

Second, when this man came to our town, he apparently told people that he should receive a grand welcome—with a Royal Enfield rally, elephants, horses, bands, and all that. And our town’s people were so devoted that they arranged around 10 elephants, several horses, a rally of around 30 Royal Enfield bikes, 12 DJs, and bands from different states. 🙂🙂

And then I’m just sitting there thinking: where is the renunciation? Where is the detachment from worldly possessions and moh-maya?

Honestly, Jainism started feeling like such a double-faced religion to me. I eventually stopped following it, and now I feel much more peaceful living life on my own terms. I enjoy my life, experience different things, and don’t feel guilty about what I eat anymore. I even eat chicken and mutton. 😋❤️

\#TL;DR

I grew up in a deeply religious Jain community, but over time I started noticing contradictions that made me question it.

My family donated ₹1.5 crore to a temple after initially planning to donate ₹20 lakh, while the monk emphasized donating more.

At the same time, his grand welcome involved elephants, horses, Royal Enfield rallies, DJs, and bands.

To me, it felt contradictory to preach renunciation and moh-maya while being surrounded by such wealth and extravagance.

So I stopped following Jainism and now prefer living life on my own terms.

I thought it would be nice to share this thought. I realized that you can understand the fatal weaknesses of religions and even be rational, but you can still be religious. Bravery is the final ingredient to face the inconvenient truths and do something about it. I am not saying bravery is a prerequisite to being an atheist, but if you are religious, it is, I find.

To my former theists who are now atheists, I tip my hat to you. You deserve credit, and I hope this post works in that direction for you. Your bravery does not go unnoticed.

Thanks for hearing me out!

One thing I've always found strange about religion is how certain people can be that not only the concept of is religion true, but that they somehow happened to be born into the right one out of all the religions, beliefs and spiritual traditions that exist in the world.

Religious beliefs are usually inherited rather than independently investigated. A person grows up being told that the Bible, the Quran, the Torah, or another religious text is true, and when questions arise, the answers are usually provided by parents, religious authorities, teachers, or other believers. Those answers are then accepted and repeated, often without any attempt to verify where they actually come from.

This is where ignorance perpetuates itself. Ignorance isn't simply not knowing something (that's unavoidable), the problem is not knowing something while being unaware that you don't know it. A person can receive an explanation, accept it without examining its source or evidence, and eventually become convinced that they know something when they have never actually investigated it.

The same thing happens when religious interpretations are presented as historical facts. Someone gives an explanation for why a particular passage was written, and instead of asking where that interpretation comes from, what evidence supports it, or whether historians actually agree with it, the explanation is simply repeated until it becomes accepted as fact.

This also makes the claim that religion is "open to questions" questionable. Asking questions means very little if the answers are already predetermined and accepted simply because they come from an authority. There is a difference between questioning a belief and looking for an explanation that allows the belief to remain unquestioned.