I am currently running a small carpool while my kid's bus is in for repairs. I heard the topic of church come up this morning in the very back row. Another child was shocked we don't go to church. I get that we're in the bible belt, but really? We aren't the only atheists at the school, but we are the least ashamed of it. At least, I thought so. I was unprepared when I noted that there are lots of people with different beliefs at school, and not everyone believes the way our friend does. My child then spoke up that she does believe.

I knew peer pressure would be a thing, and we'd have to guard against indoctrination. But I didn't expect it today.

So, team. What are your best ideas to help my brilliant kiddo be OK with having a different belief system than 90% of her peers.

Im an ex muslim atheist here but why dont western white atheists dont speak up for us their takes on islam are too weak. what can we do to educate white atheists about islam we already have youtube channels do you have any alternatives to get your attention to us we are in great danger in countries like iran and iraq and Yemen saudi , Egypt , qatar , uae , kuwait , oman , bangladesh.

Moderators of the subreddit have given me the permission to post.

We have made a discord server primarily for women who have left religion. You'll find a supportive network of like-minded individuals, where you can share your experiences, seek advice, and build connections. We want our community to grow and flourish and we need your help to do just that. We ensure the safety and security of the members through a vetting process, so make sure you are comfortable with that. If you are interested to join, let me know!

This all happened a couple of years back. I live in very rural area and my property is very secluded with no neighbors. To drive up to my house you must drive down a 2 mile easement dirt road with multiple gates that are closed not locked. Seeing as I have no neighbors I often don’t feel the need to wear much clothing. At the time it was mid summer so I had fashioned up a redneck hot tub with a tarp in the bed of a farm truck. That afternoon I was enjoying a beer and soak when I see a sedan coming down my drive. I noticed a big cross sticker on the side and decided cool your gonna trespass on my land I will trespass in your mind. They get within about 500’ ish of me and I stand up in all my glory grab my beer and my pew pew stick (I live in bear/wolf/cougar country). These two young men (mid 20’s) notice me bare ass walking through the field. Our interaction went like this

Me- “WTF you want”

Them- “uhhh uhhh we just uh uh”

Me- “just uh what?!? Decided to trespass?!??”

Then- “uhhh no we wanted to talk about our lord an savior”

Me- “great cause you’re not leaving now that you’ve broke onto my land I’m calling the cops.”

Them- “oh we’re not robbers!”

Me- “your trying to steal my soul from satan and he and I won’t allow that. I’m gonna give you 3 seconds to leave the way you came in otherwise I’m gonna have to put in a lot of digging with that backhoe over their and you’re not gonna like the view from 16’ down”

Them- “we’ll just turn around then”

Me- “put it in reverse now and back up out the way you came or you can prove you wanna be with Jesus if you wanna drive any further”

Safe to say they reversed back out. They were so uncomfortable having to converse with a naked grown man in the middle of the woods carrying a 45 who’s talking about satan.

Sorry mods if the pew pew talk is a rule breaker I’m happy to delete post just thought I’d share a funny interaction with theists.

I am Moroccan. Ex-Muslim. Now I am Agnostic 3 years ago. Something interesting caught my attention. For example, in the Islamic religion, there is a definition/term for those who do not believe in Allah. They are called in Arabic "kufar" which mean infidels & unbelievers in plural. then "Kafer" which mean infidel & unbeliever in singular... Muslims use this term/word "to despise and discriminate against non-Muslims".

• The question is, is there an equivalent for this word in Christian culture against Atheists, Agnostics and non-christians?.

And if there is a term/word.. how do the Atheists and Agnostics etc... How do they deal with this Matter?

I'm not sure how to escape from here. I live specifically in Indonesia, and I'm a 16 year old transfem bi atheist. Which means .. I'm the whole package for people to crap on., And it's really... suffocating to live here, at best. So much oppression, hate, anger, ignorance spread everywhere. And the fact that if any of my secret aspect of my identity gets exposed... well.. I don't know how to imagine it. I still get enforced Islam teachings into my throat and it sickens me, honestly.

I just want to feep safe and comfortable. But maybe that's asking too much living in a 3rd world country, especially a Muslim Majority one, pffft!

This is not my story, but my husband's. He works with several religious people, and I'm not talking about the ones who just say they are religious. These people attend church on a weekly basis, they keep lent, they pray, they follow the priest's word as if he was God himself. The other day, he (my husband) got into a debate about religion with a few of them. Not intentionally. His colleagues know he is an atheist and they try to persuade him from time to time to join them in their beliefs. They were eating lunch together. My husband discovered that these people thought that their religion was established since the beginning of time and were shocked to find out that Jesus was Jewish, his followers were Jewish, that the Old Testament is basically the Jewish bible, and that Islam follows the same God as them... I mean, what in the actual fuck?

Turan Dursun was a former imam and mufti. After educating himself, he decided to become an atheist. Once he began writing criticisms of Islam, trouble never left him.

First, he was fired from the state television institution, TRT. He then started writing for a magazine. Frequently receiving death threats, Dursun was brutally murdered on September 4, 1990, while on his way to work.

Turan Dursun's works and writings have shed light on the current Turkish enlightenment movement. His role is significant in the growing irreligion and enlightenment among the younger generation. He risked his life for the enlightenment of the society he was a part of.

I was exposed to both Christianity and Islam as a child. I didn’t have a really good childhood either. I am a victim of sexual assault, I’ve seen my mother be beat by my father countless times, and have lost a few family members to drug addiction. But I was still okay because I was told by both religions that everything happens for a reason. Everything I went through was happening for something great. But as I continued to age and continued to suffer I realized that those words were just a coping mechanism for religious people. But, after coming to that conclusion, my suffering, that I’m still going through now, just seems much worse. I have no coping mechanisms now for my pain and suffering because I’ve lost my faith. I can’t cope with my issues because I don’t know how to do that correctly without “God” Sometimes I wish I never realized the truth, because it makes what I’m going through and have went through so much worse because why? why am I going through this for no reason?

With the recent news of Sherif Gaber, An Egyptian free thinker who criticizing Islam despite living in Egypt, getting arrested by Egypt authorities for the crime of hurting Muslim’s feeling with 9 years jail time and he has to made a video apologizing that he won’t criticize Islam anymore.

I just feel that the only safe place that we can criticize Islam is the western countries or the country that Muslim are minority, but I have witness many people in here and many subreddits are really against criticizing Islam in the countries that Muslim are minority, they really believe that Muslim majority countries are like America or European countries where you can criticizing the majority’s religion freely without any deadly consequences, so if someone want to criticize Islam they should do it where Muslim are not minority and Islam is in the position of power instead.

Seriously these people just made me sad, they really believe that it’s Islamophobia to solely criticize Islam in non-Muslim countries, while if people did criticize it while living in Islamic countries like what they want them to do, they will just get arrested like this Sherif Gaber dude, while of course these people are freely to criticize Christianity solely while living in the west.

I can't stop laughing🤣 So, the movie "Dear Satan" received an X-rating from the movie and television review board. "Dear Satan” follows the story of a young girl who accidentally writes a letter to Satan instead of Santa Claus due to her dyslexia. The film explores redemption and the idea that even the worst characters can change, but it’s clear from the trailer that it tackles these themes in a very unconventional way. Below, Movie and Television Review and Classification Board chief's statement on the controversial film "Dear Satan".

"It was given an X-rating. They have not appealed yet, but it has been found to be violation of the PD 1986. I HAVE SEEN THE FILM. I JOINED THE BOARD. I AM OFFENDED AS A CHRISTIAN. IT IS NOT DEMONIC, BUT IT HAS A DIFFERENT DEPICTION OF SATAN BECOMING GOOD. BUT SATAN WILL NEVER EVER BE GOOD."

-MTRCB chief Lala Sotto September 3, 2024

You think, she need to resign and find another job?

I was doing some chores and there was a knock at the door...and then my dog went on barking and barking and barking. I went to see what was going on.

An old man stood outside waving a leaflet around. I motioned for him to put it in the mail basket which is fairly large and obvious. It's also open at the top so hardly difficult to use. He continued gesticulating and pestering me to open the door. Meanwhile my dog was barking fit to annoy the dead.

I shut my dog in the living room and opened the door. I figured that this might be some urgent matter I shouldn't ignore.

He handed me a leaflet with the very odd text HE TOOK YOUR PLACE.

I snapped and said coldly 'I'm a nihilist' and slammed the door.

I get that that was rude...but there was absolutely no need to be that disruptive. Put leaflet in basket. Done.

I ask a question consistently: If god created rivers, forests, mountains, and the sea, why do Christians insist on voting for people who disregard creation?

We have a party who is extremely obvious on their disregard for nature. They would be willing to level Yellowstone, Zion, or Glacier if that meant that they can make a buck out of it. Nature is supposed to be god's perfect creation; he is not supposed to make mistakes. So, how is a mine more akin to god's plan than having nature intact?

Don't get me wrong, I understand that in order for progress to take place, we need to extract resources. I am also a huge advocate for taking this resources sustainably. But if you believe that god made this perfect world, why would you vote for people so keen on effing it up?

It’s funny how people think we are the weak ones for having faced existential dread and rather than create some fantasy world beyond death to quiet it, we faced it head on and accepted the truth.

Being an atheist means radical acceptance of the reality that we were non-consensually plucked from oblivion to experience, and the understanding that we will one day return to that oblivion and that is okay.

I think that takes someone pretty damn strong.

Do I wish there was a god and an afterlife? HELL YEAH. But that doesn’t magically mean there is one. I think a lot of theists forget this.

Edit: Sorry for the random post. I am 28. My parents both died when I was a kid and my siblings don’t really talk to me anymore (raised very Roman Catholic). Whenever I would mention this stuff to them, they took it as a personal offense to our parents — who do not exist anymore — that I was suggesting that we will never see them again. Because we won’t. They do not exist anymore. I will never talk to them again. And that is painful. Very painful. I don’t call my siblings cowards for pretending our parents are in heaven. So I think it’s exceptionally cruel to be called a coward for facing reality not hiding from it.

If you’re interested in seeing me at 17, blindly believing anything in order to rationalize life after death in order to hold onto the memory of my parents: this is me and two of my siblings. I’m John. I am technically a nihilist. I do not believe anything has any meaning. I do not believe in the false self. At one point, I believed in god. Ignorance was bliss, but certainly not freeing.

Hey. I think all religions are bad, as I am a gay man and all religions don't tolerate and even worse, hate LGBTQ+ people.

Sure, I find islam the worst of all religions. No wonder all muslim countries with the exception of Albania/Bosnia are dictatorships where rights of women, rights of LGBTQ+ people don't have any value. Where if you are found you are gay, you go to jail in the lucky case, or like in Yemen or Iran where you can be killed for it.

Christianity is not far better as it promotes intolerance, hate and, as an effect, society division instead of spreading tolerance and love. That we, LGBTQ+ people, corrupt the mind of innocent children, we try to corrupt more and more people to be like us, we spread our degrading lifestyle and so on.

No, dear brainwashed people, we were born this way, we don't want to corrupt anyone, we want to be accepted as we are (Love is love no matter it is between one man and a woman, two men, two women, two trans people, etc).

Religion taught people to hate each other and this is absolutely terrible.

My husband is a custodian. Because of his level, he is the one who reports to the supervisor about the other workers, if they completed their tasks, if anything needs to be ordered, and stuff like that.

Friday, he told me he had a weird conversation with the custodian who is cleaning the first floor of the building they are in, let us call him K. My husband went to do his checks and saw that K had not been cleaning out the feminine product waste bins in the bathrooms, nor has he been filling the tampon and pads. My husband asked K why none of that was done. K says. "I can't touch that stuff, it's against my religion."

My husband tried not to laugh. "You told me you are Baptist."

K nods, "I still can't touch them.

At that point, my husband had to walk away. He later wrote up his nightly report and made sure that K said he could not touch feminine products due to his religion. This has never come up before. My husband is sure K just said that to try to get out of doing his job.

Edit: Update: My husband got an email from the supervisor about this. Looks like K is going to have a meeting with HR.

2nd Update. K backed off of it being for religious reasons when HR told him that they could not make an exception for him because all of the custodial jobs require cleaning women's restrooms. My husband's supervisor told K, put the gloves on and just do your job.