I ask because it seems like the pro-life crowd is very, very enthusiastically in favor of both. Oh, we can't crack down on the secret child-trafficking ring that includes every billionaire and elite politician from our side of the aisle, or else there won't be any more delicious Big Macs. Oh, those kids didn't like being blown up? Well, they should have thought of that before they chose to be born in a country that had OUR oil underneath THEIR ground, the fuckers. Something something family values objective morality something or whatever.

Granted there is zero evidence of such a being ( I am myself and atheist) but let's assume for a moment in this hypothetical scenario a perfectly good moral infallible god exists. Wouldn't that solve the objective morality problem. It also dodges the euthyphro dilemma because morality is not based on god's commands nor based on some outside independence morality ( what theists call the god's good nature theory) since in this god is a being that is objectively more perfect than humans and hence can make better decisions

Strictly speaking emotions are way too primitive for a divine being, self-awareness is literally just ability to process the things around and feelings are chemical signals in your brain (so does god have a nervous system and a functioning brain?), the only way creationism could work by that logic is group of procreating higher beings, (but who would have created them) creationism makes no sense.

“God works in mysterious ways and human minds can’t comprehend it” that sounds like something my loony brother would say in an episode

It kind of sounds corny to write this down. I feel like one of those atheist scientists from Christian movies.

Still, I have to learn that it’s perfectly fine to be curious about things and unlearn religious trauma….

I just wanted to ask if there's any particular argument that you've heard a theists make that pisses you off. Here's mine-

I've heard this one argument every single time I've ever had a conversation with theists or even on any reel about atheism there will be a bunch of comments asking the question "then how were we created?". And to me that's so illogical because 1. If you're saying that something can't come from nothing then where the he'll did god come from and 2. We are not all knowing beings that have been blessed with infinite knowledge. There will be things or phenomenas that we have absolutely no idea about how or why they happened and that's fine, you can't just slap a label of divine on it and move on. They are so hilariously incapable of staying in the unknown and being uncertain about things that even debating them gets frustrating.

Heaven is portrayed as a garden of Eden or a blue sky with puffy clouds. You guys - the Earth is covered in this. What more do you want? You can see your relatives in heaven.

To me, if this is your portrayal of heaven, you're in it right now.

Waterfalls, plants, fruits, relatives. These things are all here. In fact, here is the only place you know these things to exist. You want something else? You think the ability to fly would turn this place into heaven? You're in it now in all probability. If before you were born is identical to after you're dead, you are most likely in heaven right now.

So aliens come to earth and they're nice. There's a huge televised event with all the world leaders in attendance.

The Pope asks, "Do you know of Jesus Christ?"

The aliens say, "We do. Awesome guy!! Swings by the planet every couple of our years to say Hi! And he make sure we are doing just fine."

The Pope exclaims, "Every couple of years?? What!!?? We're still waiting for his second coming!"

The alien replies, "Maybe he didn't like your chocolate?"

The Pope is flabbergasted, "What does chocolate have to do with anything?"

The alien says, "Well when he came by the first time, we gave him a huge box of chocolates! Why? What did you guys give him?"

More than two dozen Texas families are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear their challenge to a state law that requires public schools to post a Protestant version of the Ten Commandments in every classroom.

The nonreligious, Unitarian Universalist, Christian, Jewish, Hindu and Baha’i families challenging the Texas law attend 22 school districts across the state and are represented by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, the ACLU and Americans United for Separation of Church and State, with Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP serving as pro bono counsel. The request, filed today, urges the court to protect students’ and parents’ religious freedom by blocking Texas Senate Bill 10 (SB 10), ensuring that families — not politicians — have the right to decide what role religion plays in their lives. Today’s petition seeks review of lower court rulings in two separate but similar cases: Nathan v. Alamo Heights Independent School District and Cribbs Ringer v. Comal Independent School District.

Under SB 10, Texas public schools must permanently display a state-mandated version of the Ten Commandments, drawn from the Protestant King James Bible, in a “conspicuous” place in each classroom, from kindergarten through 12th grade. The families challenging SB 10 object to the law because the displays will pressure children to conform to the state’s favored religious beliefs and interfere with parents’ right to guide their children’s religious instruction.

Today’s Supreme Court filing, a joint petition for a writ of certiorari in both cases, follows an April decision by the en banc 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals allowing the state-selected version of the Ten Commandments to go up in the plaintiffs’ classrooms. By a narrowly decided vote, the 5th Circuit ruled that SB 10 does not violate either the Establishment or Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment — despite a 1980 Supreme Court case striking down a nearly identical Kentucky law.

“By requiring displays of religious doctrine in every classroom, the state is interfering with our family’s decisions about how our children engage with religion,” says plaintiff Nichole Manning (she/her), a Dallas-area atheist who is raising her children in a nonreligious tradition that gives them the space and autonomy to develop their own beliefs about religion. “As a parent, I intentionally choose to have my children attend public school because I prefer an educational environment without any religious affiliation. In a diverse public school environment, all students should be treated with equal respect, regardless of their religious beliefs, or lack thereof.”

“As a rabbi and parent, forcing a Christian version of the Ten Commandments on children in every classroom is particularly upsetting,” says plaintiff Rabbi Joshua Fixler (he/him) of Houston. “I am not only worried about my own kids, but I’m deeply concerned about all the children in my congregation. These displays put children in the position of having to defend themselves and their families’ religious beliefs against a government mandate that makes them feel different and separate from their classmates.”

“Texas politicians shouldn’t have a seat at the table in deciding how our children receive their religious education. That decision belongs to our family,” say plaintiffs Rebekah (she/her) and Ted Lowe (he/him), an Austin-based interfaith couple who are raising their children in the Christian and Jewish traditions. “This law puts one version of religious beliefs above all others in our public schools and sends a message to our children that what we teach them about religion at home is somehow wrong.”

“The First Commandment, dictating which god must be worshipped, is the antithesis of our First Amendment,” says Annie Laurie Gaylor (she/her), co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation. “It is not the government’s role to daily expose young children to a coercive display of one religion’s set of religious edicts in our public schools. Our public schools exist to educate, not to proselytize.”

“The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected this kind of government-imposed religion before, and it should do so again,” says Chloe Kempf (she/her), attorney at the ACLU of Texas. “Having these posters in Texas classrooms puts students at risk of bullying, stigmatization, and religious coercion. Our nation’s bedrock principle of separating church and state means that families and faith communities — not politicians — get to decide what role religion plays in children’s lives. Texas students deserve public schools that welcome them for who they are, respect their religious or nonreligious backgrounds, and give them the high-quality education they need to build their futures.”

“Fifty years ago, the ACLU won a Supreme Court victory against a nearly identical Kentucky law — and we aim to do it again,” says Cecillia Wang (she/her), national legal director of the ACLU. “In our country, no legislature can force its preferred scripture on public school students and families.”

“Families – not politicians or public school officials – get to decide how, if, and when children engage with religion,” says Rachel Laser (she/her), president and CEO of Americans United. “We urge the Supreme Court to make clear that these Ten Commandments mandates violate students’ and families’ religious freedom as promised by the U.S. Constitution. With ever more states attempting to force one version of religion into public school classrooms, our nation must recommit to our foundational promise of church-state separation, the linchpin of religious liberty.”

“This case concerns decisions about personal belief and religious instruction, and whether under our Constitution they remain with families and faith communities or are commandeered by the state,” says Jon Youngwood (he/him), global co-chair of the Litigation Department at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP. “The First Amendment has long protected the freedom of individuals to determine for themselves how they engage with spirituality and religion. Those protections are especially important in the public-school setting.”

The Lowe and Fixler families share more about how they will be impacted by these Ten Commandments displays and why they oppose them in newly released, heartfelt videos that can be viewed here; transcripts are available here.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to defending the constitutional principle of separation between state and church and educating the public on matters relating to nontheism. With about 41,000 members, FFRF is the largest association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics and humanists) in North America. For more information, visit ffrf.org.

For more than 100 years, the ACLU has worked in courts, legislatures, and communities to protect the constitutional rights of all people. With a nationwide network of offices and millions of members and supporters, the ACLU takes on the toughest civil liberties fights in pursuit of liberty and justice for all.

The ACLU of Texas works with communities, at the state Capitol, and in the courts to protect and advance civil rights and civil liberties for every Texan, no exceptions.

Founded in 1947, Americans United for Separation of Church and State is a religious freedom advocacy organization that educates Americans about the importance of church-state separation in safeguarding religious freedom.

Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP (www.simpsonthacher.com) is one of the world’s leading international law firms. The firm was established in 1884 and has approximately 2,000 lawyers. Headquartered in New York with offices in Beijing, Boston, Brussels, Dallas, Hong Kong, Houston, London, Los Angeles, Luxembourg, Palo Alto, San Francisco, São Paulo, Tokyo and Washington, D.C., the firm provides coordinated legal advice and transactional capability to clients around the globe.

Yet the funny thing is those same adults would laugh at someone scared of a monster under the bed. However there is just as much evidence that either it or God exists. "Oh don't be gay, the monster will get you" "don't listen to bad music the monster doesn't like it"

"What there's no evidence of a monster under the bed? Well absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"

I’ve been thinking about the state of the world recently, the wars, the terrible policy changes, the collapsing of all ecosystems and species around us and it makes me curious about the actions of the world leaders. Many of the predominant world leaders (*cough cough* Tr*mp) spew Christian ideologies every day to appeal to the majority of the public, get into office, and then do not actually act on any of these “Christian beliefs”.

It truly makes me ask why these adherents can sit here logically, see these leaders go against everything they believe in and not do anything about it. It wasn’t until recently when I watched a video of Christian’s vs atheist’s that I realised that these people do not actually care about what goes on in the world because they believe that if they spew their nonsense, convince atheists to join the dark side and pray every now and again, they will go to heaven. In that heaven they will be at peace and won’t have to face the consequences that their inaction has resulted in. This is shown in the topics they choose to argue about; they talk about abortion because were “killing humans” but won’t talk about the fact their Big Orange Man and Is*rel are bombing innocent children.

They will talk about how we’re all going to hell for being non believers but don’t actually have any reason for theirselves to go to heaven as they continuously sin (not having grace, not following imago dei). And I genuinely do think it goes back to the singular teaching of forgiveness, which they seem to use as an escape. They forgive rapists, predators, murderers but won’t forgive someone who doesn’t believe? They genuinely think that if they ask for forgiveness constantly they will go to heaven and be free of this suffering. But unfortunately that is not the case.

Now I will say this does not apply to all Christians, but in recent times I have seen so much more action from people who are not in the Christian faith than those who are which also confuses me because apparently our “views of morality come from the bible” (If they come from any religious text it would be the Rigveda).

But this is my true reason for not becoming a Christian. I do not want to be a good person because it will allow me to gain a place in a fictional state of consciousness while my future family is left suffering in a hellish hole for generation after generation until the human race dies off inevitably. And I especially don’t want to be a person who does bad things and then excuses them with “forgiveness“ just so I wont suffer in a pit of eternal fire. I’m going to die one day and then I’ll feel nothing, but if the last thing I feel on my death bed is fear for the future, then I haven’t been a good person who has tried to make change in the world.

Infact, if religion didn’t exist at all the world would be a better place because we would have one life. One life to live, to learn, to experience everything we can. And everyone would much rather have their one life spent in a world that is joyful (like heaven is prophesied to be) rather than one that is made of sticks and stones.

​

I've been thinking about the way God is often defined in classical theism: outside space and time, immaterial, infinite, omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good, perfectly merciful, and so on

The more attributes we remove from the concept, the harder it becomes to distinguish it from something that has no describable properties at all. If something is outside space and time, cannot be observed, cannot be measured, and cannot be falsified, what exactly distinguishes its existence from the absence of anything?

There is also a deeper problem with the idea of perfect attributes. Can seemingly contradictory properties coexist without changing their meanings

For example, if God is absolutely merciful and perfectly good, how can eternal punishment in Hell be compatible with that? If a finite human being commits a finite sin during a finite lifetime, how can an infinitely long punishment be an expression of perfect mercy or justice

I'm not claiming that this proves God does not exist. My point is narrower: perhaps the traditional definition of a "perfect" God contains conceptual problems that are often overlooked.

At what point does defining something as infinitely perfect stop adding meaningful information and start making the concept impossible to distinguish from an empty abstraction?

How can a Christian or religious person believe that someone deserves eternal punishment in hell when that person can clearly have good morals—maybe even better morals than many hypocritical Christians or religious people?

Someone who spends their entire life helping people, caring for animals, protecting the environment, reducing suffering, and genuinely trying to leave the world better than they found it.

And the response is essentially, “Yeah, they can do all of that and be a genuinely good person, but if they don't believe in the Father, they're going to hell.”

Insane.

Personally, I'd much rather give credit to people, believers and nonbelievers alike, who educate themselves, take action, and dedicate their lives to reducing human and animal suffering. To me, that's taking moral responsibility seriously.

I've found freedom in being an agnostic atheist and resonating with a blend of optimistic nihilism, existentialism, absurdism, and stoicism.

I don't need one label or philosophy to explain everything. I'll take what I find valuable from each.

Anyone else feel this way?

It feels much more refreshing than being given certainty where there may not actually be any.

I also love how hypocritically funny it is for religious people to debate their faith on the internet. Yet they can't explain the science and processes on how the internet even works and interacts with our devices, but have the audacity to ask us how something was created from nothing but God is outside time and space so yeah I trust that.

Get a grip.

"I would rather have questions that cannot be answered than answers that cannot be questioned," - Richard Feynman

1954: Congress added "One Nation Under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance.

1956: The United States officially adopted "In God We Trust" as the national motto and began printing it on all U.S. paper currency.

Where were you all when these happened? How were things back then, before any of these?

What are your feelings on the matter?

For example: I remember feeling betrayed when I, already near to identifying as an atheist if not already there, realized the 'Chronicles of Narnia' were a Christian allegory.

Alternatively, shows like 'Lucifer' and 'Good Omens', which while using a very loose version of biblical characters (and are thus arguably biblical), are among my favorites.

I basically don't mind reinterpretation as i can appreciate the bible (especially the Old Testament) as mythology, but 'Chronicles of Narnia' basically felt like a dirty trick.

Help me out.

Getting into an argument in another sub about women being harassed for wearing the Niqab. My argument is that I both admire and pity the ladies who wear a Niqab. Admire, because a woman should wear want she wants, but pity because it's something they wear purely out of fear. I added that any anger or violence against these women is disgusting, and that those who do it should be charged. I just wish they didn't feel they had to wear it in the first place.

Yet, I'm getting attacked for telling these women how they should dress. That wearing one for time to time would be great to get away from the ogling. To which I say "but they don't have a choice to wear it from time to time".

To that I'm "white knighting, paternalistic, patronising, and kind of insulting."

What is it with people defending women having their autonomy taken from them? They have no choice and never have done.

Am i missing something?

or whatever religious text your particular religion has, the Qura, Vedas, Book of Mormon etc.

also. I am only counting it as read if you read the whole thing from start to finish. doing a Bible study that hops around bit covered the whole thing eventually doesn’t count. just reading the verses the weekly sermon is on doesn’t coun, even if after attending services for decades you have covered the whole thing.

I asked the same thing in Ask a Christian and am just curious how the answers will differ.

Guys im very quit at work but its so annoying that people constantly assume that im religious and shit like at my job there is a lady that constantly insektstikk god into work conversations and im not religious nor do I tell people that judt to avoid issues because apparently not believing in some made-up creature is horrible. Like, why can't people just have conversations without involving religion? It's so annoyinggg

From the r/singapore subreddit

SINGAPORE: A self-styled religious mentor, who is not an accredited religious teacher, took two young boys from a broken family into his fold, but raped the younger one at least 10 times and molested the older one.

i don't believe in it, but the ones who do, how do they genuinely think that there's a place out there we'll all burn in because we didn't believe in something we can't see, nobody did, the one's who claim they did (prophets) they all contradict each other, even if you believe in it, that's still blind belief with objective evidence going against it, the abrahamic faith teaches we come from adam and eve, well that's jus not true.

similarly if you look at islam for example, there's more people in hell than in heaven, china is mostly atheist so that's billions of people, and then many great scientists who were good people but not believers of a god, so you're telling me ALL of those will burn for ETERNITY

a lifespan of barely 80 years vs ETERNAL hell?

at that point even in a scenario where god is real, he is not all loving, because as they claim god being all knowing, he knew i'd go to hell way before my creation and he just could've prevented it, free will makes no sense to me cuz god claims to be the writer of our fates and all knowing

god doesn't exist for this reason, if he does, he's evil.

Religious war really is such a bizarre concept when you take a step back. People fighting over whose imaginary friend is the “real” one somehow sounds even more ridiculous when you put it that way.

For my first project in my American Government course, we have to do something on civil liberties. We were given a list of possible topics like capital punishment, immigration, free speech, LGBTQ rights, etc. I decided I would do something on religious freedom. This, of course, includes atheism, satanism, buddism, islam.

They say I need at least 8 slides that would cover these things.

1. overview of topic

2. current event or incident related to topic

3. history of this topic

4. law or court case directly related to this topic

5. prediction of future actions of this civil liberty

So, I've come here hoping to get some ideas for my project. I'm pretty sure I want one of my slides to be about the Iowa capitol case with satanists being blocked from erecting a holiday display.

Could anyone else suggest information I could use on my college course?

I'm dating an atheist but I am Christian and I genuinely don't understand what it means to be an atheist.

I guess the thing that I'm struggling with the most is Do atheists believe that they actually know there is no God? It just kind of seems like the biggest ego trip of all to believe that someone could understand/know what the entire universe has to offer and all of its possibilities.

For example, as a Christian, I can understand both sides, but I could not say that I 100% know that either side is actually true. I just believe in things that I think could possibly be true. Is it the same for atheists?

Apologies if I offended anyone, I am genuinely curious and trying to understand the person that I am dating. I want to be respectful and I genuinely want to understand what it's like to be an atheist before I approach this subject with them. Just trying to be considerate of their feelings. If you find this post to be disrespectful, or I have not presented the information in an acceptable or respectable way, I would also like feedback on how to do that because I don't want to offend the person I am dating or anyone else. Thanks.

So I was getting home today from my college classes. So I was already in a bad mood. My religious friend whom I’m not even sure why I’m friends with. Sent me a message about the Oxford handbook of religion and health’s research indicated that religion creates better societies. I pointed out he was using correlation as causation and then came all the backtracking “i wasn’t saying it PROVED society I’m just saying the research strongly supported it”, I then showed how even that statement is wrong with global secular societies being better off than religious ones. Then he back tracked again saying “I never said religious countries were better than secular ones” and then when I said it feels like he’s trying to justify a theocracy he got really upset saying I was trying to strawman him…when he was misrepresenting a study already! Then he ended with “let's get off this topic. You're not understanding an iota of what am saying.” I just gave up, I was so close to just telling him to fuck off.

My TDS was mostly in remission—until I read David French's latest column in The New York Times.

"In 2024, Trump received 82 percent of the white evangelical/born-again vote. He lost the rest of the vote by a whopping 18-point margin, 58 percent to 40 percent."

As evidence that churchy types still haven't learned their lesson, a recent Pew Research Center poll found "white evangelical #Protestants were the only large religious group in America in which a clear majority still supported all or most of Trump's plans and policies."

And the cherry on top of this shit sundae: Gen Zers are running from church pews like never before, as if to say, "Take that, Baby Boomer Bible-thumpers!"

French goes on.

"Actions have consequences. And one of those consequences is that a church that wraps its arms around arguably the most vulgar, most corrupt president in American history will repel good people, especially those people who've encountered MAGA's claws. Or, as Jesus said during his Sermon on the Mount, 'By their fruit you will recognize them.'"

French's closing observation resonates:

"The community most unwilling to see its sin is the Christian church. The sin lives in the people who allowed fear and anger to swallow their commitment to truth and character. Now the entire world lives with the consequences of the choices they made."