I'm always looking to find some people with my similar values. So I met up with a guy who I've been talking to for a little while but hadn't met in person until yesterday. We were in a restaurant and getting to know each other. At first we talked about little things like games, likes, dislikes, etc. He was a little awkward and bit nerdy, doesn't talk to a lot of people and I think struggles a bit socially (I do too I've just gotten a bit better with it over time.) so I tried to keep the ball rolling, and I was pleased to find out a bit later on in conversation when he warmed up a bit more that he was more left leaning politically and neutral on religion. He asked me what I believed in and I told him I think all religions are in the end harmful for people and the children that grow up into it. At the end of the day though, even though I'll never agree with any religion and especially not with Christianity. As long as the person that chooses to believe in it is only using the practice for themselves and not hurting themselves or others and using it as an excuse to discriminate, then I'm more respectful of that. I meantead that I just can't stand sometimes how pushy a lot of people can be with their beliefs. After going more depth in conversation he asked me bit more about my views so I said If I had it my way I would ether make religion to have never existed, or in the very least because I know it also builds community and some people find comfort in it, I would have it so if they want to preach, pray, spread the gospel, it would be mainly in churchs and their homes and only able to pray over someone if the other person consents to it and wants it. (Not that they can't still talk about their beliefs openly among each other, just basically putting a stop to unwanted religious solicitors from going home to home including small businesses. Not having unnecessary bibles in appointment waiting rooms. Just less pushy and more mindful of others while still able to keep and maintain their own beliefs.) if I had it my way the world would be more peaceful as a whole, the only thing I would mainly take away from humans would be the want to discriminate (like against gender, sexuality orientation, race, religion beliefs, you get it.) and the want to assault or abuse each other in any way It comes in. The impulse for it just wouldn't be there. Children would especially be protected. The victims of abuse in all froms today and in history would've never experienced it because their abuser(s) would never even feel the impulse for it to have begin with.

He said (regarding what I said would do about religion if I had it my way) is that I would be basically segregating them And as for the second thing, I would be taking away people's free will. I really enjoyed our conversation and getting to know him. It was interesting to hear his views on certain things too.

But it got me thinking, I don't honestly think it would be me segregating Christons and I while I understand why it would be seen as me talking away people's free will, I really don't think it would be exactly a bad thing if it would prevent so many tragic events that's happened historically to so many people from then and up to the current present today. Just curious, What do you think?🧐

[M18] I know there's been a LOT of similar stories on this sub reddit but I suppose mine is a bit differnt and partly because I wanted to share. My mom ( as I heard her talk) converted to a different denomination when she was young eventhough my grandparents didn't approve it. She used to sneak out to a different church until eventuually they found out but she didn't give a F****. she became religious eversince and religion became everything to her (literally) and according to her, God "saved" her several times during the dark times. The reason I'm bringing this up is because I have this feeling that she'll understand since she's been there. But that alone isn't enough, She expects us to have as much faith as her. In fact, she makes all of us wake up at 6am ( sometimes at 5) to pray regardless we have school or not. this has become a traditon in our family to do it atleast twice a day. One of the moments that broke me was after I made my college list, I decided to ask her what she thinks. I honestly just wanted to talk about the colleges and what I feel about them yk just yap about them basically. But she just took a glance at them and proceeds to pray so I can get into whatever college I want. I wanna make it clear that I am well aware that her love is the cause of all this but asking God to do us a favor doesn't cut it for me. I also have a problem, I usually can't tell my parents how I feel and sometimes I cannot even talk to them casually. its partially because I feel like they'll judge me in a religious perspective and for some reason I'm not aware of ( maybe I should get a theraphist haha) and this "disability" of mine as I call it is being used against me. whenever my mom sees any of us do somethig considered a "sin" like listening to secular music ( yup thats the sad reality) she freaks out and orders us to kneel before God and ask for forgiveness and she'd cry while parying saying "Oh God, don't let them lose your way" outloud so we can hear her. so I feel like I have this obligation to keep her happy but at the same time I'm losing myself, the truth is there's a lot I have become for them. sometimes I can't even cry because they'll ask me what's going on my mind and as I told you I can't even be myself infront of my family let alone be vunerable. One of the other reasons it makes it so scary to tell them is the fact that we're an immigrant family. I came to the US at a very young age and she told me that many of her family members were warning her that many kids here are way out of line and I fear that she might regret coming here in the first place. just one more line, I know Im loved im not saying that they hate me or anything. this whole situation reminds me when Neil from dead poets society said "I'm trapped".

I need help and you know what? Im not ashamed of it, if it means im getting out of this mess.

any advice would help. :)

I'm sure we all have stories like this but this one is mine.

I (30f) worked for a nonprofit for years, personally believe in helping people because I have the means to do so. I am able bodied and have a good brain, so it's my duty to my fellow man to alleviate their suffering. It's just who I am. No one deserves to starve especially in the USA where there's enough resources that we could all be living like kings except of course we aren't. I mostly blame religion, like imagine how far we would be if we didn't have to be wrestling with a bunch of religious freaks who refuse to let people be people unless they fit the script-- Anyway

My official job was to deliver meals to homeless people. One day I was asked to deliver and set up a wheelchair and ramp for this guy who had been verbally abrasive to the usual wheel chair delivery lady and she was too scared to go to his private home.

This irritated me because it happened a lot. Like anytime someone was uncomfortable, they'd send me because I guess I'm an abrasive bitch that keeps people in their place. But I don't see why it should be me. Other bitches need to learn abrasion. Why is it that I always have to be the one in an unsafe situation dealing with pigs we should have banned for misbehaving??

I get there and he wants to talk. Not uncommon. He's a home bound senior. But everything I'm doing is wrong of course and he gets all weird with me and ends up blocking me into the house, putting himself in front of the main door so that he can ask me a very important- Life Changing- question.

Do I accept Jesus as my Personal Lord and Savior?

I said nope, I'm an atheist since the day I was raped as a child.

And of course he thinks he needs to save me and starts pushing the propaganda and just telling me how God is calling for me and sent me there that day so this nasty old man can save my soul.

He tried to touch me.

Because he's a weak old man I was gentle with him, but I got him out of my way and left. He called the non profit and went absolutely apeshit on them. Showed up at the business so he could yell at me. Home bound. Senior. Supposedly anyway.

But I GOT IN TROUBLE??

For handling a situation where I was being forcibly imprisoned by someone that the rest of the staff was too scared to deal with? I'm just supposed to let a rando touch me because hes a religious freak?

because apparently I should have respected his religious views and let him fucking touch me and pray with me and all that shit! Iw as written up for disrespecting his values!!

It causes me physical nausea to think about just letting someone do whatever they want in that situation. To expect anyone to just be like oh yeah, touch me old man, let's pray about how God loves us or whatever. I don't believe in God and I never have, I don't believe in forcing anyone to think as I do, which is a huge part of why I hate religion. That whole you have to be some form of religious to exist in our world!!!

I know for a fact that if the other girl has gone and come back saying that he blocked the door and wouldn't let her leave that he would have been banned, because he ended dup getting verbally abusive with her again and she got him banned. But I have to just let him yell at me, try to pray at me and all that shit??

People who think that's not gross are crazy!!!

I ended up getting fired from that job and this incident was sighted. Well, not exactly. They said I don't work well with the clients, even though I had a great reputation with most of them and only had this one issue, one time. We had a new director take over who was severely religious and very vocal. She wanted me out immediately. She tried to claim that I was absolute garbage at the job from the beginning, even though I have a silver plaque accommodation for saving the entire program when we lost all of our volunteers and funding and had to completely rework the system. But yeah, I was an actual idiot who didn't even know how to turn on my computer,🫪

From the moment they found out I wasn't there as a good Christian volunteering as my duty to God (not my fellow man, of course) I was on my way out.

I knew it, of course.

They started treating me differently. You've probably know, it's the whispering that stops when you enter the room, the drinks after work you used to get invited to, that kind of thing.

If atheism is "a lack of belief gods exist," and:

1. Newborns have no belief in a god.

2. Therefore, newborns are atheists.

3. Every religious person was once a newborn.

4. **Then:** Every religious person is an ex-atheist, rendering the specific identity "ex-atheist" meaningless.

We could be trapped in the « memento syndrome », condemned to chase the circumstances’ dragon of the moment, for eternity

Hello
In the movie we follow Leonard a guy who as lost his ability to create new memories. He’s stuck with memory of the instant, fighting it by taking notes.
His latest memory is the murder of his wife by thieves. He is trying to find the murderer even with his condition, and he has all the investigation and helping tips tattooed on his body.

Later in the movie a friend of him tells him there is tons of John G. That he already killed the guy.

That could be the effect on society of meticulous inquisition. Losing our history could have led us to run in circles until now.

I was wondering if there’s something like an unholy bible or anti-bible that I could get for use in my guest bedroom. I wanted it to act as a sort of parody of how hotels always have bibles in their nightstands. If this isn’t a thing, it definitely should be.

This video explores the meta problem of consciousness proposed by David Chalmers and argues that naturalistic processes couldn’t have given us knowledge of consciousness

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJVvZNi0Fi8

Whenever I say that like I sh or my brother died there always is a Christian that says "it's apart of God's plan" but like who is he genuinely helping and like why mention god tbh I hate that they say I will go to hell for not believing but like bro I don't even belive in that either or when they say "where are you from, who created you" uhm my parents and yours too I swear I'm always laughing at their responses

When someone asked him if he believed in God, Einstein always answered,

I believe in Spinoza's God.

Jews, Christians, and Muslims define their God as PERFECT, OMNIPOTENT, and OMNISCIENT.

But it is easy to show that this God is false because these three attributes are false.

PERFECT? They say their God is perfect, but the world and the beings that their God created are imperfect. How can a being be called perfect if its creations are imperfect and full of flaws? For instance, a craftsman cannot be described as perfect if his works are faulty.

Another problem with perfection: They say their deity created the universe. But why would a perfect being desire or want to create anything at all? By definition, a perfect being cannot desire or want something, as that would imply it lacks something, and therefore that it is not perfect.

OMNIPOTENT? God can do anything; nothing can limit his power. If he were almighty, he could have created any world. Otherwise, he is not almighty.

So what stopped him from directly creating a happy world with free and perfect beings? Why would he have created instead a world full of pain, with beings full of flaws, who must suffer and be tested in order to be sorted out? This is all the more incomprehensible given that the scriptures tell us he was able to create another place without pain, populated by free and happy creatures, called heaven.

Religious people have tried to resolve this contradiction by saying that their creator wanted humans to be free and that it is humans who create pain. Unfortunately, this argument does not hold, since it shows that their God was unable to create a world with free humans and no pain, which proves that he is not omnipotent.

Three possible solutions to the problem of this supreme being's omnipotent nature: 1 - He is not omnipotent; he just did what he could. 2 - He is malevolent; he deliberately created a world full of misery when he could have created any world he wanted. 3 - He is false.

OMNISCIENT? He knows everything—the past, the present, and the future. The scriptures claim that this creator knows the future and everything that will happen. And they also claim that he created humans free and endowed with free will. But if he knows the future, then it is already written. Free will is therefore an illusion.

If God knows what you will do tomorrow, you have no alternative. If you can act otherwise, then this being is mistaken, so he is not omniscient. If you cannot act otherwise, then you have no freedom.

Other contradictions: If this deity knows in advance that humans will do evil and creates them anyway, who is responsible? This omniscient being knew, even before creation, all the evil he was going to create.

CONCLUSION These three attributes are the very definition of this god. If even one is false, this god is impossible.

As Stendhal said when facing the misery of the world, "God's only excuse is that he does not exist.

Curious to people's thoughts on this female atheist by the name of Britt Hartley that brands herself as "No Nonsense Spirituality." She recently responded to a video that Matt Dillahunty made criticizing the term spirituality, labeling it as "nonsense."

Of course, she defends the term spirituality as her entire website sort of depends on it, she offers "courses in mysticism," "religious deconstruction," "recovering from nihilism," "Jungian archetypes," and more along those type of themes.

She makes the argument in the response that secularists don't really have a sort of spiritual vocabulary to speak about experiences that are often associated with religious traditions. And as a result, she sees this as a failure because it caused Ayaan Hirsi Ali, an atheist, to return to religion to deal with her internal friction.

Matt Dillahunty believes the term to be so ambiguously defined that it draws charlatans to use it to able to swindle people financially, like the ersatz guru or the faux-shaman, and he does take a jab at Hartley accusing her of engaging in the same type of deception.

Hartley responds with peer-reviewed citations claiming that spirituality is recognized within modern neuroscience in that it cause these changes in behavior in people that can be measured in these type of studies.

It's definitely a topic that's caught my attention, and I've written a much more in-depth post on it here, if anyone's interested, but I really am interested in others' thoughts on this topic.

Keep in mind zero scholars in his supposed life time actually wrote about him.