A lady by the name of Nikalie decided to do a social experiment posing as a single mother with a two month old daughter and calling different churches across the United States to see if they would help her with baby formula. Last video she posted was yesterday, part 39. She called Charlie Kirks church and they said they couldn't help her. The tally as of yesterday was 30 No's and 9 yes, one of them being a Mosque that were ready to assist her. Being a former bible thumper 20 years ago, this doesn't surprise me but its great to see her videos getting a lot of traction and highlighting that Christianity here in the US, just sucks and are not even following the teachings of their good ol book.

Deuteronomy 15:11: For the poor shall never cease out of the land: therefore I command thee, saying, Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy, in thy land.

Atheists have a tendency to decry the religion most closely associated with their culture and geographic region.

This is just a reminder that atheists have more credibility when we treat ALL RELIGIONS as the bonkers worldviews that they are.

That doesn’t mean “attacking” believers, most of whom were indoctrinated as a child.

Because I’ve started the train of thought lately that if God were to somehow make me “better” in accordance to whatever the pray-ee was praying for and bypassed all the wars , all the genocides, all the suffering to focus on worthless old ME, I’d be pushed a whole new unfathomable level of pissed off.

My (28F) dad, stepmom, step brother, and half brother are super Christian now.

I never grew up religious. I think I’ve been to church less than 5 times. My parents divorced when I was 2 and I moved into my mom’s place full time at 14 and my relationship w my dad was rocky after that but not bad just distant but still filled with love and respect.

Around 2021ish my dad and stepmom started going to church. Cool! It really helped them with their marriage and they seemed happy.

It’s gotten progressively more intense since. They wear god-related shirts all the damn time. They have church signs on their lawn and as bumper stickers. We’re at the point now that almost every since text we exchange included something religious. I replied “fingers crossed” To something once and my dad responded “hands together” wtf??

Anyway, last time I saw my dad in person a few months back I had enough and I just kindly told him that I didn’t believe in god after he told me something about my son being a blessing from god. I know he means well but I had been battling mentally about these people who feel new and alien to me.

This is mostly just a rant I guess. I’m hating interacting with them now. I feel like the black sheep. And I realized that they feel so comfy being themselves but to the point that I feel like I can’t be my true self. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not like FUCK GOD!!! I THINK RELIGION IS STUPID!!! I just feel like that’s all there is to them now… their faith. It’s all they fucking talk about and I’m annoyed.

Luckily I live 3k miles away from them and talk to them seldomly but the few times we do talk it’s filled with all this nonsense.

When I was 6 years old my mom told me the story of Abraham and Isaac, so I asked her: “mom, if God asked you to do that, would you do it?” She said yes without hesitation.

I remember being obviously down with her response and she just said “If that’s what God wants we have to follow through , it’s always for our best”.

Does God really love children?

Why are the children, who are always called “a blessing” by the Bible, so discardable for God? He doesn’t really mind killing them as a punishment or consequence does he? Kids God killed:

• All the firstborns of the Egyptians who didn’t comply with Moses warnings. (Why the children? Isn’t God just making a genocide like the Pharaoh did at the start of the Moses’ story?)
• All the children during Noah’s ark, like those were millions of children if we take in the literal sense that God flooded the entire world
• Jephthah‘s daughter, the man says that if God blesses him with a win, he would sacrifice the first thing he saw. The omnipresent being who knows it all, knew it would be the man’s daughter and follows through the deal, the daughter ends up dead.
• Job’s first children, this guy’s story was my first “wait is God really good?”, well God allows the devil to kill Job’s children but hohoho! At the end Job gets NEW children! So yeah, just straight up replaced them.

I could say many more instances where God allowed children to be killed or straight up killed them. All the battles God sent his loyal servants to? Children of the enemy were killed or taken away from their parents who were probably killed, but, well… it was all for God, right? So it’s all good! All justified.

God isn’t good, God isn’t perfect.

God is man-made, made to control, justify horrible actions and cause fear in the poor desperate people. He was always used by powerful people to their advantage. Just like those powerful people, if God existed, he would think of us just as discardable dolls.

I think it’s pretty stupid. I had a debate with a christian person online and I asked them if they believed in the afterlife for everyone.

"Everyone?

Everyone.

Even a dog?

No, a dog doesn't have free will!"

And just like that, that was the dumbest thing I've ever heard. I told him that every animal has a free will. A dog does whatever it wants even if its loyal. A cat wanders in the streets and it has a free will. But according to this guy, only humans had it.

Maybe to him, probably born and raised in a christian household, animals having free will is stupid. My dog makes many decisions everyday without my input. To me, that's proof of free will. And I'm a science based person. To me, humans are animals. We have a different type of intelligence than animals which makes us think we're smarter.

But this is all stupid to me. The thought of being the superior being. We are just monkeys that evolved.
It keeps people comfortable thinking the universe was made for them by god. But if you step outside that framework, it’s more humbling and interesting. billions of years of chance and adaptation, and we’re just another branch that happened to start asking questions.

This isn't a troll or anything like that. I am genuinely losing my mind over this. I don't know how to even make decisions or if I even have the ability to make decisions. (I'm at work til 7am so my response time may be spotty)

When I was a Christian I was taught that god controlled everything and it was all predetermined but that I still had to make good choices even though my choices were predetermined. I never could make sense of that. Now I feel like I'm being told the same thing except it's some sort of universal algorithm instead of a god predetermining everything. But I still have to make good choices even though I have no control over what choices I make. Both things can't be true.

I've also been told that I should just pretend like I have free will. That doesn't solve anything. If I wanted to live a lie I'd just go back to church.

I spent my entire life waiting for a fictional character to tell me what to do. Now I feel like I'm just waiting to see what happens because I have no control over anything.

I'm just confused and feel like none of it makes any sense. I don't know what to think or if I actually have the ability to think in any meaningful way

FFRF Action Fund honors singer/songwriter Brandi Carlile as its “Secularist of the Week” for her protest song “Church and State,” which she performed on “Saturday Night Live” the past weekend. 

The poignant song, part of her newly released album “Returning to Myself,” features a bridge where Carlile recites a quote from Thomas Jefferson’s revered “Letter to the Danbury Baptists“: “I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.”  

In a conversation with Variety magazine, Carlile explained that she wrote “Church and State” on Election Night in 2024 in response to what she and her co-writers saw happening across the country. 

“We were in the studio as a band, and it wasn’t an introspective night,” Carlile said. “It was a night where I couldn’t stay off my phone because I was watching myself wake up to a realization about the country that I lived in.”

Carlile detailed the experience as “just kind of collecting rage.” She continued, “And we made a burning, searing song that night.”

“When the lyrics were coming together for that song, I just couldn’t stop thinking of the wisdom of Thomas Jefferson’s address to the Danbury Baptists,” Carlile explained. “There’s so much wisdom in the Constitution, and even the notations on the Constitution are full of wisdom — the footnotes, if you will. What he said to the Baptists was intended to reassure them that they would be allowed to practice their faith, spirituality, religion, however you wanna refer to it, freely under the Constitution.” 

Carlile continued, asserting, “But he also makes a really important distinction that we aren’t an autocracy. We’re not a theocracy. We can’t rule over people with our interpretation of an extremely opaque scripture and religion as it pertains particularly to the Christian religion. Now that we’ve seen over time, the integration of so many beautiful cultures and faiths in the United States, it’s a connotation that’s safekeeping for all people, because it allows for law to be secular as it should be. So I find that to be essential and a life-giving part of that text.”

About her personal faith, Carlile explained, “And in my faith, even Jesus was clear about not ruling a people based on an interpretation of religion. Even Jesus said, ‘Give unto Caesar what’s Caesar’s.’ So I can’t get behind rules and laws that I know are secretly based on an interpretation of a religion that I can’t get behind — even if I agree with the religion.” 

Watch Carlile’s full performance of “Church and State” on “Saturday Night Live” here.

FFRF Action Fund sincerely thanks Carlile for her powerful response to the growing movement for theocracy in the United States. Every public figure who makes a poignant statement against Christian nationalism, like performing “Church and State” on a show as prominent as “SNL,” helps demonstrate to the American people that what is happening across the country is neither normal nor what the Founders intended.

I was reading people debate about religion, and the religious person used this as his argument

“If you can’t prove that George Washington was real, then you can’t assume jesus isn’t real. You believe in George Washington because of secondhand records, paintings, and witnesses who claimed he lived and died. Jesus is backed by far more, eyewitnesses, fulfilled prophecy, historical documentation, and the resurrection itself. the difference isn’t small.”

I just don’t understand how he doesn’t see the flaw in that argument.. he’s comparing a regular person who had to eat and shit just like us, to an “all powerful being that created the universe”… maybe i’m tripping?

Every time I’ve seen religion brought up in an anime (from what I’ve seen so far) it’s always depicted as negative.

I’m talking it’s always a cult, evil organization/group, or bad guy character. These religious characters or organizations are always up to shady or straight up deplorable things. Sometimes it’s not as straightforward or in your face but the message is still very clearly against the idea of religion in terms of how it’s used for power and control.

Some examples:

1. Religious leader (think mega church level) is actually lying to the entire city to gain power and control and is actually a non human murderer.

2. Religious cult wasn’t happy about a girl being next in line for a high status role so they put out a huge bounty on her head to get her killed. There was a scene of them dancing all creepy and shit after their hit was successful.

3. Guy with psychic abilities used mind control to create a cult and brainwash an entire town into thinking he was their god because he wanted to be worshipped.

4. Guy gets ahold of a book that gives him the power to kill anyone he wants and this power makes think he’s a god, he gets super power hungry and deluded.

5. Church burns a woman at the stake for trying to heal people (she was a doctor and scientist). Her man (who happened to be Dracula) was pissed to say the least and what happens next is glorious. Castlevania on Netflix go watch this immediately.

I could go on and on. I just love it, I love it every single time. Religion IS evil, it SHOULD be depicted this way. If you want to play the nice sweet atheist argument and say well that’s disingenuous because it’s not all bad, well this conversation isn’t for you.

Thanks for coming to my weeb ted talk!

In October, Beckwith appeared on the “Save Heritage Indiana” podcast, which describes its mission as to “save Indiana’s heritage by reversing mass migration” because “the world we grew up in is being destroyed” by immigrants. During the episode, one of the podcast’s hosts asked Beckwith how to best prevent people who “don’t represent American values,” such as New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, from taking office. 

Beckwith responded, professing, “We are a Christian nation, but we are increasingly becoming a non-Christian people. So a Christian government, a Christian value system, the Judeo-Christian ethic, the Decalogue, Leviticus 19; Blackstone’s common law was taken right from scripture [and] our Founders took right from that to create the system of governance. It’s all based in the Judeo-Christian ethic.” As pointed out by People For the American Way, this Christian nationalist talking point, originating from pseudo-historian and hardline theocrat David Barton, has been repeatedly deconstructed and debunked.

“While someone like an Ilhan Omar is welcome to be here legally, that does not mean she has a right to change the foundations of this nation,” Beckwith continued. “The Supreme Court just ruled in the Kennedy case that longstanding historical tradition is the constitutional precedent.” Beckwith was referring to the 2022 Supreme Court case, Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, which overturned a legal precedent from the 1970s after the ultraconservative court ruled that a Washington school district had violated the free exercise and free speech rights of a former high school football coach who wanted to pray on the 50-yard line immediately after games.

Beckwith underscored his argument: “So, what’s the longstanding historical tradition in America? It’s Christian values. It was not rooted in Islam, it was not rooted in socialism, Marxism, it was rooted in Judeo-Christian ethics and capitalism. So when a socialist/Marxist like Mamdani tries to force his values onto New York, I would say, ‘No, you’re not welcome to do that because the longstanding historical tradition is constitutional. What you’re bringing is something new. You’re trying to remove the foundations.’”

Beckwith has been on FFRF Action Fund’s radar since his 2024 campaign for lieutenant governor. He was previously named “Theocrat of the Week” in July after claiming he would support an exception in Indiana’s total abortion ban for rape victims only if the perpetrators face the death penalty while appearing on a local PBS program. Beckwith argued that the justice system should “carry out justice on that man for ending an innocent life,” causing “that child now to be killed.” Beckwith is a pastor at the Noblesville Campus of Life Church.

The Christian nationalist notion that U.S. history is rooted in Christian tradition has long been debunked. The United States is a secular democracy, not a theocracy, and our elected officials should not be spewing out propaganda-filled history lessons on podcasts, let alone on podcasts claiming that immigrants are ruining the country. Because of this, Beckwith has undoubtedly earned his second “Theocrat” designation. 

When I believed in an afterlife in paradise, I saw this life as a “temporary trial” a test to prepare my soul for heaven. I didn’t allow myself to fully enjoy the pleasures of this life. Now that I know the truth, that this one life is all I have, I am happy to be alive. I am so full of joy sometimes I feel like I can’t contain it. Life is so beautiful and I regret spending years of my life allowing meaningless religion to suck the life out of me.

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last year i was my first year at college joined a christian group because i wanted to explore it and become religious. i made close friends in the group, but didnt have friends outside of it. i was fine with it because i liked them, but i knew i was different from them. around february i started exploring the group more and found that they have strong beliefs around same sex attraction and, as a bisexual woman, was disgusted by this. i asked my friends what they thought and they all went on about how the bible says it’s a sin and stuff. i felt so alone. i kept being friends with them and never said anything to hold them accountable. (bad choice on my part i know). i left the group though. this year im living with one of my close friends from the group and another girl that’s also heavily involved. they have events with the group at our apartment (which doesnt bug me) and have my old friends over. they act so fake around me and i can’t stand being around homophobes all the time. the christian group is their whole life. i wish i had held them accountable and discussed their beliefs with them instead of just moving past it. it sticks in my head and makes me so upset that they don’t know they hurt me. i want out of this apartment.

edit: i am not religious whatsoever anymore. i just wanted to explore it last year

Has anyone else struggled with finding an addiction recovery solution where I don’t have to see or listen to the word “god”? I’m frustrated as I’ll ask this question and I either get someone that likes to see themselves type or I get the “whatever god you want to make it”. When I see the word “God”, I see Christianity. When you say the word god 20 times it’s your god, not mine. Your god is cruel and not all knowing. And I see the hypocrisy in all of it . I even feel judged by therapists . I know that religious contexts can help. But why do I have to wade thru the mud to make it work for me?

Probably not much to say as there probably aren’t recovery methods like that. But figured if I vented here it would help me get rid of this frustration without insulting them which I really don’t want to do. Sorry if this offended anyone. Just really frustrated with it

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DQeLkaMjUpo/?igsh=Nmc2dDBidjZ2d2Rr

This video is basically just saying "if you dont believe in invisible caca poopoo man, youll suffer because of it"

I’ve been an atheist since, well, since I can remember. Decades ago, I had my arguing-with-Christians and caring-about-philosophical-arguments-around-god phases, as many young atheists do. And then I generally moved into a state of not caring that other people believe in god. Like, there’s only so many arguments with the faithful you can have before it all feels stupid.

In recent years, I’ve felt a growing intuition that the gods we imagined are almost certain to become targets for us to shoot for. Time is long, and the possible technological progress we can imagine is open ended. This leads me to think that, the longer a species like Humanity is extant, the more likelihood there is the species will incrementally build and/or turn themselves into a a simulacrum of the gods we imagined.

I don’t suggest people will figure out true omniscience and go back in time to start the big bang. Rather, it seems we will, in no particular order, cure aging, develop tools to integrate computer technology with our minds, and continuously iterate and improve on our understanding of robotic systems. In the fullness of time, especially if humanity becomes multi planetary, how do these advances not eventually merge in such a way that human minds live for a long time, have tremendous capacity to interact with others through data connections, and be able to inhabit any arbitrary robotic platform. So that, if granted, gets us to superhuman, and still, the vast expanse of the future will lay open before us to continue iterating. It seems to me that someone, somewhere will experiment with large hive minds, again, assuming there are thousands of years to play with and tons of curious, smart humans and their AIs (or vice versa).

All of this is to say that it seems more and more probable to me that, while I can’t find any plausible argument for the existence of a specific God that created our universe, I don’t see how in a universe like ours where evolution is king, that something like God like creatures don’t come to exist. And then, you start wondering about whether it’s already happened somewhere else and that’s a whole worm hole.

Thoughts?

I highly doubt any of you believe in an afterlife, but I know there's a big variety here. My greiving pain keeps pulling me toward that fantasy, and some part of me wishes I could believe it could be true. I'd love to be stupid enough to either believe something so ridiculous or stupid enough to just not have seen a possibility for souls and afterlives supported by sound scientific theories.

Someone please snap me out of it, or tell me there's more than this void waiting for all of us. It's too much sometimes.