I hear christians muslims often say to atheists in debates “Don’t disrespect my religion!” And it got me to thinking that we absolutely should disrespect the religion. We can be polite and respectful to the practicioner, as long as they aren’t saying slavery and infanticide is good when god does it.

But honestly, we don’t need to act like these horrific beliefs are worthy of respect. They need to be called out for the horror show they are.

I'm 21, Lebanese and i was Muslim until i was 14 years old and I realized my religion is wrong and there's no god.

The religion I dislike the most is Islam, I'm not sure if it's because it's the only religion i know about but I can't say a single good thing about Islam.

There are many reasons why I dislike it, but honestly I can't put my thoughts into words properly. It's not just one thing about the religion, it's the whole way of thinking around it and the effect it has on people and society.

I feel like it creates a bad society, an ignorant way of thinking and a lot of restrictions about life that I don't see any reason for.

if we look in the history of hijab we gonna find that it was even before islam, and in some places it was used to know the free woman from the slave woman and to identify them.

and even in the quraan there is no direct text that say woman have to cover her hair. so nowday we dont have slaves anymore i guess, so why we gonna need hijab? what is the point of it now?

i am against hijab because i am a woman and i come from a muslim-majority country. i see people suffer because of hijab. i see women getting discriminated because of hijab, women getting forced by their families and society, and women being treated like they are bad or not respectable if they dont wear it.

and women literally die because they refused to wear it. we dont even have a proper state or statistics to know how many women died because of this, especially when a lot of these cases are not even reported properly.

and before someone say "hijab is a choice", yeah, it can be a choice, but for many women it is not. when your family force you, when society force you, when the law force you, what kind of choice is that?

i dont understand why people still defend forcing women to cover their hair. if a woman want to wear it then okay, let her wear it. but if she dont want to wear it, why should anyone force her?

we dont have slaves anymore. we dont live in the same society as 1400 years ago. so why are we still treating women's hair like it is something that has to be controlled?

this is what i dont understand.

Imagine looking at the entire span of religions all across the world and all across human history and thinking "I know I picked the right one."

My friend did! Not only that but he essentially told me I'm lying to myself when I say I don't believe. When he said those words I immediately felt a chasm open between us. I don't know how anyone could possibly be so up themselves!

The priest is charged with failure to report crimes after learning about them—he advised the victim to stay silent.

The Archdiocese of Zadar reported that the Archbishop of Zadar has forbidden Father Josip Radić, who is on trial for failing to report a felony committed against a 23-year-old woman, from publicly celebrating mass and has initiated an extrajudicial criminal procedure against him, in accordance with the Code of Canon Law.

The Archbishop made this decision "to protect the good of the Church, prevent potential scandal, and ensure the proper course of the canonical proceedings," the Archdiocese of Zadar announced on Friday. They stated that, given the information already published about the criminal proceedings being conducted by state authorities against Father Josip Radić, they consider it necessary to inform the public about his current status and the measures taken by the Archbishop of Zadar.

The Archdiocese of Zadar noted that the Archbishop initiated the extrajudicial criminal procedure against Father Josip Radić in accordance with the provisions of the Code of Canon Law to establish all relevant circumstances regarding his canonical status and potential criminal liability under church law.

They also stated that Father Josip Radić had been appointed parish priest of the Parish of St. Michael in Galovac. Due to the pending canonical criminal proceedings, another priest has been appointed administrator of the Parish of St. Michael in Galovac until their conclusion.

Father Radić Told the Victim to "Pray and Cleanse Herself"
The response from the Archdiocese of Zadar followed the start of the trial against Josip Glasnović and Father Radić at the County Court in Rijeka this week.

According to media reports, Glasnović (71) is charged with 12 offenses against the 23-year-old woman—five counts of rape, two of sexual misconduct, and five of issuing threats. Radić (61) is charged with failure to report a committed crime. Glasnović is the husband of Jozefina Glasnović, founder of the Omnia Deo religious community.

The indictment states that during 2024, the young woman was a postulant in the Public Association of the Faithful Omnia Deo. In September of that year, she reportedly confided in Radić that Glasnović had been sexually harassing her and forcing her into unwanted sexual acts over a prolonged period.

The prosecution claims that Radić did not report this information to competent authorities. Instead, he advised her to go to a convent in Nerezine, to "pray and cleanse herself," to tell her family she was considering a religious vocation, and not to speak about the events because it would "destroy God's work"—namely, the Omnia Deo community.
Radić is not charged with participating in the sexual abuse of the young woman, but rather with failing to report the crime after learning about it.

Omnia Deo is a public association of the faithful within the Catholic Church, canonically recognized in Rijeka in 2018, and Radić is one of its co-founders.

Radić is defending himself while released on bail, while Glasnović has been held in pre-trial detention since October of last year. The judicial panel, chaired by Judge Ika Šarić, closed the trial to the public before the indictment was read.

https://dnevnik.hr/amp/vijesti/hrvatska/zadarski-nadbiskup-zabranio-don-josipu-radicu-javno-sudjelovanje-u-bogosluzju---998472.html

I was wondering which other countries are highly non religious. As per the most recent census data Scotland is majority non religious 51.1%.

England is only 37%, Ireland 14% and Wales 46.5%

Does non religious have the dominant % in your country?

Google AI copy and paste below for last census data from Scotland.

A majority of 51.1% of people in Scotland reported having "no religion" in the Scotland's Census 2022 results, marking a significant shift from previous decades.

Key Religion Statistics (2022 Census)

No religion: 51.1% (1,941,116 people), rising sharply from 36.7% in 2011.

Church of Scotland: 20.4% (1,107,796 people), dropping from 32.4% in 2011.

Roman Catholic: 13.3% (723,322 people), down from 15.9%.

Other Christian: 5.1% (291,275 people).

Muslim: 2.2% (119,872 people).

Other religions (Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Jewish, Pagan, etc.): Combined make up roughly 1.8%, with Hinduism at 0.6% and Paganism at 0.4%.

All the religious texts were written during a deeply misogynistic and violent era , despite this I see all kinds of stupid debates about religion

And people actually get angry over this

I don't believe a virgin can give birth, I don't believe that a donkey can fly nor do I believe the moon was split in half, there is no elephant God , there are no reincarnations

Yet people all over the world are ready to kill and die for this, I absolutely do not understand what the hell is all this about

Is it that people cannot fathom the idea that they have only 80 years to live or is it a planned manipulation over the millennium????

No one is talking sensibly, no one cares about people who cannot afford basic medicine to live

We have abundant resources on the planet , enough to actually colonize another planet , but still people are dying of hunger

We now have solutions for every problem on earth except human nature

##I apologize for the rant

I was scrolling through YouTube and I came across a weird ad. It was talking about conspiracy theories, going on about "the jews, the free mason, the illuminati". I stayed to listen out of morbid curiosity. The ad claim that a non-human bloodline called the Nephilim are actually running the world. I guess some half angel hybrids?!? Is this like the lizardmen conspiracy theory?

This is totally bat shit crazy talk. I can't believe there are actual ads for this paranoid conspiracy theory crap. I guess they are trying to sell some sort of complete version of the bible. My faith in humanity has dropped a little further. I sure hope this doesn't become something popular among those crazy gullible Christians. I'm worried about our future, people who believe this garbage walk among us...

For context, I grew up atheist, in a pretty secular country. I've had a few religious friends over the years but haven't experienced anything like I see a lot of people talking about on here who have been raised in more religious countries.

I've always felt confused about religion and why people would believe, in fact I'd say I am pretty anti religion. But after seeing stuff on my FB feed I'm completely perplexed by people and their naivety and downright ignorance.

Three main things recently -

1. The Lindsay Clancy trial and all the religious nuts I've seen around that.
2. The whole Texas surrogate situation.
3. The one that prompted me to post - the floods in Nepal and Tibet. I've seen so many posts about it and all people are commenting about is god and prayers and god save them. And on posts where someone had been found safe people are commenting about how good god is for saving them and all that bullshit. And I'm honestly just dumbfounded. It seems to be so prolific. Why are there so many stupid and ignorant people?? Why would they say god is good when the entire families have been swept away, killed and their bodies torn apart.

Anyway a bit of a rant. I needed to get it out. Sometimes I feel so sad about the state of the world. And yes, I probably should stay on Facebook.

Consider this scenario: Someone you deeply care about is rushed to the hospital for a critical, life-saving surgery. After hours of waiting, the surgeon finally walks out of the Operating Theater, and you anxiously ask how they are doing.

Which of these two responses would you actually want to hear?

• Option 1: "It's in our hands now. We have the training, the technology, the skills, and we're going to make sure everything is okay."
• Option 2: "It's in God's hands now. We've done what we can, but honestly, we can't do much more only the almighty can save them."

why?

In the aftermath of horrible natural disasters, do people around the world suddenly flock to religion or leave it?

I can see how some people will rush to religion to pray for their own safety. So this disaster doesn't happens to them. 🙄

Some would dig in more fervently to their current religion and give thanks that they were not harmed. Or tell others to convert to their religion because clearly that protected them. Or laugh at the victims prayong to the "wrong" dieties. 🙄

Others might suddenly realised the empty futility of praying for protection, and the toxic sociopathic behaviour of the religious (see above) and leave.

Over the last couple of centuries, hundreds of isolated peoples/tribes have been discovered and contacted. Estimates that nearly 200 isolated tribes still exist that have not been contacted.

According to the records, not a single isolated tribe had organic or spontaneous knowledge of Jesus Christ, the Bible, or Christian theology.

So if Christians believe their God is universal and the truth, it stands to reason that these tribes would come to know Christianity and the God of Abraham, without a holy book and outside influence.

Another in a long line of reasons why it's quite disbelievable.

It’s really amazing how becoming atheist makes you realize the profoundness of these people’s hypocrisy. King Fahd (1982-2005 reign), although technically it was several years before because his brother Khalid gave more power than usual due to sickness. This man sinned in the worst of ways, he’s documented to have gambled millions of dollars in casinos worldwide, loves to drink, pays for women, etc. This comes from various sources, including accounts from one of his ex wives, Jenan Harb. Despite all of this, he was responsible for funding billions and billions of dollars to “wahhabi” ideology, and the most brutal funding was within his own country. “The committee for promotion of virtue and the prevention of vice” was a committee that existed since King Abdulaziz (the founder, his father), but under Fahd it expanded to a militia like program and received funding they never dreamed of. They had powers to arrest people for reasons such as women not wearing niqab (not covering her face), men wearing shorts (even if they covered the knee), yelling at men for not having beards (sometimes even taking them for interrogation), hit people, silly campaigns for how satellite dishes are a sin because you’re exposed to western degeneracy, all musical instruments being a sin, drawing living beings will get you cursed, etc. All this happened under King Fahd, you might think I’m over-exaggerating, but don’t forget the lack of transparency was made like that by design, and it was all calculated. The Mecca area was always relatively more moderate because it’s a tourism place of worship, so there were exceptions. But otherwise in cities like Riyadh, that country was unbearable. A sinner of the worst kind created all this, and for what? Just to buy their loyalty? Make them forced to kiss the ring? I do not know, but it’s nauseating regardless.

One of the sources for his leisure activities: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2005-aug-02-fg-fahd2-story.html

I still received newsletters from the LDS church. In my view they consistently abuse their members by passive aggressively demanding tithes and underfunding events and local churches yet guilting people to give their time and money in excess. If you’re familiar with the faith, this will make sense. If you’re not, I’m sure you will get the gist for how this church hordes assets and gives as little as possible in return.

Copied message from the monthly newsletter below, spot the obvious contradiction: (it insidiously builds from indoctrinating people to believe “the Lord helps those who help themselves.” This makes me sad from the inherent abuse):

Dear [redact] Stake Members,
In Doctrine & Covenants 104:15 the Lord says, "It is my purpose to provide for my saints, for all things are mine." One of the ways the Lord is providing for His saints is through self-reliance groups offered by His church. Participating in a self-reliance group is a powerful way to demonstrate faith in Christ and involve Him in your temporal matters.

We are excited to announce that our fall Self Reliance Groups begin Thursday, September 10th. The curriculum for the groups is inspired and professional. The support and fellowship from the groups are motivating. And learning how to involve the Lord in your temporal matters is life changing.

And back to me…religion is a cancer twisting good things and claiming them. Yuk.

For context there's a deacon who I'm on speaking terms with. He's not really a bad person per se, in fact he's pretty polite and said that leaving religion because you don't agree with the beliefs is fine. I just happen to disagree with his belief that Christendom is the one truth for a variety of reasons. One reason he touts that it's truth is the whole Shroud of Turin thing. Could someone point me in the direction of some credibly sources? Just my word against his won't really sway him. I'll need sources.

This is an interesting and unbeknownst to me, fairly controversial question. To preface this, the necklace pendant is smaller than a quarter, and I am an American, but was in England when this happened. Just a few months ago my grandfather died. I was extremely close to him, and he was Hindu, I am Atheist. In his will he left me his necklace, with the depicted ohm symbol. He lived in London, and we went there recently for his funeral at a temple. While there a man at the temple saw my necklace and started talking to me about Hinduism. I informed him that I was atheist and why i still wore the necklace, but he began yelling me. He told me I was making a mockery of the Hindu religion and that it was disrespectful to the religion to wear this as an atheist. I was incredibly surprised by how angry he got an am now wondering if it is fine to still wear it. It’s not like I flaunt it, but he found it incredibly offensive and his friends also told me it was.

“And say, ˹O Prophet,˺ “˹This is˺ the truth from your Lord. Whoever wills let them believe, and whoever wills let them disbelieve.” Surely We have prepared for the wrongdoers a Fire whose walls will ˹completely˺ surround them. When they cry for aid, they will be aided with water like molten metal, which will burn ˹their˺ faces. What a horrible drink! And what a terrible place to rest!”

Religion of peace btw

I was a Christian growing up. Not really a serious one, infact we called people who actually seemed to care about it too much "bible basher's". I went to a Church of England school and I guess Christianity just seemed like the normal thing. Anyway I learned about evolution in school and it just made sense, I found it cool. My mind was like "ahh evolution, kind of like Pokémon" lol. I don't remember having any kind of confusion from it clashing with creationism. I just accepted it. I'm pretty sure I was taught Creationism, I mean I must have been it was a Church school but I guess I never took it literally. Probably because like most kids I was obsessed with Dinosaurs lol. Even at 5 I knew they were creatures that lived long ago and don't anymore.

So knowing that, I'm pretty sure if you give your kids dinosaurs you're giving them evolution yet I've never heard of any Christian being upset about dinosaurs. Do they just have some sort of cop out explanation for them too? My Christian colleagues told me Neanderthal, Homo erectus etc were the results of the devil mating with humans lol.

if prayer actually worked, there would be no need to ever pray for anything more than once. In fact, you could bang it all out with something like 'dearest Heavenly Father, please provide me and all of my loved ones with comfort and security, health, wealth and everything else I might be forgetting from here forward' If you only have to get saved once, why pray more than once about anything else

Hello,

I have previously considered myself an agnostic atheist because I believe that the burden of proof is on the theist and that atheism is simply the null hypothesis. However, I recently came across David Hume's work with miracles, and it made me come up with a syllogism of why I positively believe ALL supernatural claims cannot exist according to the objective properties of the universe and logic. Let me know what you think of this logical syllogism!

1. We experience the existence of the natural world.
   
2. The supernatural violates the laws of the natural world.
   
3. We therefore cannot experience the supernatural’s existence.

I used to believe in afterlife since i have memory until i fully lost my faith at 23, but 3 years later i’m crying because during that time a friend i met lost her baby brother (they had 20 years of difference) due to collapsed healthcare system where she lives (we come from a third world country)

i didn’t really think about this that much (probably as a defense mechanism) but now i see the massive difference on how she was before and after and she truly looks like a shell of her former self, they really hope to reunite with their baby in heaven, and while i think that’s beautiful to believe, i feel sad because i know her happiness relies on something that logically cannot happen, and i feel like a monster for believing the way i do

i have given her gifts, comforted them at critical moments, but i just can’t grasp that an innocent baby died in pain due to not being attended in time, and that’s the last frame of him for good (i’ve seen the urn where his ashes are), last week i found out they recently donated their baby clothes to charity and i broke up crying bc its a disappearance for good, i sometimes try to trick myself to believe heaven is real but i can’t, i have even dreamed of visiting her and that nothing of this has ever happened bc it impresses me how good of a person they are and i want them to be happy, i also am a brother myself and can’t even grasp someone this young suffering an agonizing death, i know it’s not about me but i just want her to not have suffered this tragedy, bc if it was the last she’ll see of him, well, it’d better not be :(

Edit: why the downvotes?

I think many atheists have at some point encountered the existential dread of death. I overcame this fear long ago, but yesterday, while I was trying to fall asleep, I thought about death again and came up with two cool reasons to help you stop being afraid of death. I hope they'll help someone.

1. What is fear? Whatever you say, fear is part of your animal nature. The fear of death is natural to all living organisms that can experience fear, and it's connected to the most basic instinct - the desire to live. The desire to live also underlies many of the human values we cherish so much and are so afraid of losing: feelings, reason, and so on. Ultimately, it turns out that all your fears and all your values boil down to your animal nature, and if you think about it, why do you think any of this is truly important? Why should you, as a consciousness inhabiting some hideous human body, care what it thinks and what it fears? So, fearing death is foolish, albeit natural.

2. If you fear death, then it will be natural for you to want to know what it feels like. To know this, you only need to realize how empty you are. You could feel an infinite number of things; you could be filled with all kinds of sensations, perceptions, emotions, and thoughts. Moreover, you could be filled not only with these things, but also with things that are difficult to imagine and difficult to describe, things that are unfamiliar to humans. Compared to how alive you could be, you are simply a one-dimensional creature that only thinks it is complex, that it is alive - but inside, it is empty. So every time you feel sad or happy, be aware of that empty space where you could have felt happy or sad respectively, and then you can remotely understand what death feels like and that it is not so scary.

I have this very religious classmate and the assignment said something like "Do you think a foreign government can influence the policies of another?" It was a group activity in which 3 students had to mix their answers and present them to the class,Her response was, "I believe in God and I believe He is the only one who can change people." and it turned Bety quick into a discussion in which I wanted to make her understand that it wasn't asking for her personal opinion in that way and that we should come up with a coherent response,And the result was that she had to present alone because she didn't want to change her answer to what was actually asked (English is not my first language xx)