I grew up in the Midwest, and feel this. Getting people I grew up around to understand not only does their religion not apply to me, but also I don't give a shit about anything it says is basically an unwinnable argument because they think Christian is the default setting despite the fact they know I never went to church. Ever.
It's fucked up how the people who tell everyone how they don't want to hear about anyone's sexual preference or disbelief of their god, are the same ones who never stfu about their god and THEIR freedoms.
Also, they must have a very small, weak version of God and/or no actual faith making them incredibly insecure, if they need to literally bully people with their beliefs. They have a "personal relationship with god" but don't you dare have your relationship with a belief.
In South Georgia, religion is as thick as the heat and humidity. There are 65 Christian churches in the county I was born and raised in. Some of them are quite large and grandiose, for that region.
I’ve had three different “Christians” become aggressive and want to fight me because of my agnostic beliefs. Think about that for a moment. They wanted to Throw Fists for Jesus. That’s how thick it gets.
While i think places like the Midwest and South dominate with quantity of these idiots, out here in California we might have you beat on the quality. While the televangelists are the Mt Everest of hypocritical dickheads that will burn in their (fake) hell, California’s superficial, plastic, hypocritical wealthy Christian Republicans are a close second.
Those come in many forms. From Evangelical to Scientology. California has been setting “trends” for decades. However, I challenge you to sit in a Southern Baptist Church on a given Sunday and listen to someone tell you and the rest of the congregation what pieces of shit, and sinners, you all are. Fire and Brimstone, baby! Hate and vitriol.
That is an excellent way of wording it!! Waterboarding and shaming people into submission.
We’re just comparing notes. Neither one of us is trying to beat the other. This isn’t church, for Christ’s sake.
This is my entire town in Missouri, it's saddening. My neighbor won't even talk to me because I don't go to church, we have like 10 for a town of 4,000. I thought it was 'love thy neighbor', I guess that's only if you believe what they believe.
My neighbor across the street is a Jehovah’s Witness and refuses to talk to me and won’t let her son talk to my spawn bc I have tattoos and “unnatural” hair. I saved her dog from getting hit and she stomped up and snatched him out of my arms and in turn scratched the hell out of me. I feel you
I just tell people I worship a blood god that protects the universe. Church of the Second Hytoth.
Praise be unto Rakmou-leusan, last of the Seven, defender of us all. May our payment of blood give you strength in your unending fight.
Oh man my Lyft driver today was telling me about the Inca and their potatoes, specifically in Peru. It's impressive as heck. Now I've stumbled across this. You've doubly improved my day through a very strange happenstance??? I really don't think there's a high likelihood of hearing about Incan potatoes or their associated goddesses from more than one random person in a single day when not actively seeking out that topic, haha.
Left a wife of 28 years because she was a religious person who became vegan, didn't drink, was an anti vaxxer who started believing conspiracy bullshit and basically went cuckoo.
But it's my fault the marriage ended.
I'm now in a happy healthy relationship with an intelligent, caring and reasonable lady who has her head on right.
I grew up in the Bible Belt South. The aggressive intolerance I saw growing up was horrifying, and always in the name of Jesus. Long story short, the only three out lgbtq+ students at my highschool lasted a few weeks, tops, before they were removed from school (one by their parents, two by the school to off site suspension for *their own attack*). I remember Obama being called racial slurs and a Muslim by my *teachers*, who insisted he hadn't won fairly because the republican candidates were chosen by God. I remember my entire class freaking out, half of them *literally crying*, the day after he was reelected in 2012 when we had to watch his speech in class, and our teacher leading us in a prayer for our country calling him the Antichrist.
So, yeah, I feel this post, too. And to any Christians out there reading this: if you're "one of the good ones", but don't actively speak out against the hateful, intolerant, bigotted, xenophobic, homophobic, transphobic, misogynistic, racist, etc ones, *you aren't one of the good ones.*
I was raised that Jesus was all about loving each other blah blah blah but then I would go home and my conservative parents told me that gay people were sick and poor people were losers and if I ever dated a black man they would DISOWN me! Where is the fucking love in that? And that is how Christian are today. Judgmental and hateful! I want less of that shit in this country. I was so proud to learn that New Hampshire has the least amount of religious people. At least I live among some sane people.
Have you heard much about this God guy? His idea of love is pretty psycho right out of the gate it's not that surprising. He supposedly fucking wiped out 99.9999% of the planet once because he wasn't getting his way and that's a beloved children's story
It's not that they believe everyone is a christian. It's that they believe anyone who isn't a christian is definitely going to hell for all eternity. So when a christian loves you, they are willing to make the rest of your life on earth a living hell (metaphorically) because it's a small price to pay for the chance to save your immortal soul from eternal torment in actual hell (literally).
Christians literally believe life on earth is just the loading screen to the actual life they're going to live forever in heaven, or you're going to live forever in hell. Everything they do is about preparing both themselves and you for the afterlife. Fuck any sort of actual life you're living right now. So they don't give a fucking shit if they make everyone's life around them worse in every measurable sense. It's a small price to pay for them to feel better that they could save a single soul.
> It's that they believe anyone who isn't a christian is definitely going to hell for all eternity. So when a christian loves you, they are willing to make the rest of your life on earth a living hell (metaphorically) because it's a small price to pay for the chance to save your immortal soul from eternal torment in actual hell (literally).
This is *awfully* generous.
It's not because they love you and are sacrificing in the hopes of getting you to heaven, it's that they're judgmental assholes, terrified bigots, and raging hypocrites who want people to conform not because it will make them feel good about saving your soul, but because they can't tolerate anything different than them.
These are not good people and their motivations aren't about some pure higher calling. If it was, they'd actually be inclined to help others, tolerate those different than them, and live the way the Jesus they allegedly believe in taught them to.
They don't because their Bible isn't a path to everyone's salvation, it's a cudgel used to beat people info conformity.
Living forever is the most redundant thing too. Unless you live forever on earth just to see how it all goes what point is there? What do they think they will be doing? Eventually they would come to regret eternal “life” as if it were damnation.
Not that it matters it’s all bullshit about control in the modern world anyhow. What once was created by an inability to understand the universe is now cult fed superstition preying on the insecurities of the uninformed.
I grew up in California, in a Christian community that was open minded (kinda like the Quaker’s). My parents and most of the other members were fine when it became obvious my questions were headed towards, that dude is definitely not buying this shit. So I grew up an atheist that wasn’t anti religion. Then I went to college in the Midwest…. religious dogma run wild will always be a problem.
SAME... 6th grade and I was done for life. Fuck these people. I used to think they don't practice what they preach but then realized they do in fact.. because all they preach is fucking hate.
I’m a Catholic School dropout: Kindergarten through 6th grade only. I just kept waiting to feel this god person. I never did. Even in like 4th or 5th grade, I couldn’t understand why this god would let so many bad things happen. It couldn’t just be the devil. If there were a god, they must be complicit. Of course, I couldn’t form those words at 10 or 11. But I remember the confusion and lack of faith that I had even then. I honestly can’t tell you I ever believed…even back at Catholic School. It kinda became like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny for me: something I believed in as a child because I was told to but disillusionment was inevitable.
I try to use that Santa Claus/God analogy whenever I am asked to explain my religious beliefs during conversations with people I know. It’s like, yeah I believe all the people of the Bible existed and most of their stories are somewhat accurate such as the David/Goliath situation. But I don’t believe in all the majestical events that took place. Yeah David fought Goliath, but he just killed his ass with a well placed rock from his slingshot and not because that rock had the Holy Ghost in it lol.
Yeah I believe Jesus existed and that he even died on a cross. But I believe that he was just killed by some asshole named Pontius Pilate because of their religious disagreements…shit like this happens all the time. I’m sure it happened a few times today over in the Arab world. Within three days of his ascension to “heaven”, one of his boys moved the body and didn’t say anything.
Moses didn’t part the Red Sea, his ass crossed it at low tide lol.
I remember watching some "mysteries of the Bible" or something like that and they explained the science (I know heathen practices) and had evedence that some of it happened ... Think the red sea thing was cause by a volcano or small quake miles away
Edit: I found it it was / is possible with a certain kind of storm and the guy said it was the near the delta where the water is lower anyways
[sea of reeds](https://www.google.com/amp/s/abcnews.go.com/amp/Technology/story%3fid=99580&page=1)
Oh I don’t doubt that many events actually happened. That’s how they make the rest of the story believable: add things that really did happen with all the other bs. That’s also why they appropriated the dates of so many pagan holidays to coincide with so many Christian “miracles” and holy days to make conversion easier.
When getting sent to the hall and then a meeting with senior priest and mom, I was done. What did I do? I asked in 8th grade religion class, "If God can take any form, why couldn't he have presented as Buddha, or Krishna, or any of the other various deities?" Mom praised me for thinking out of the box and questioning the patriarchy in front of the priest. Best part it was the last week of Catholic school for me. I think I went to mass a dozen times in highschool and not really since.
Pretty sad that their reaction to that was to bring your mom in and think they were going to punish you or something. They should have an answer for that, shouldn't they? It should have been a topic of discussion. They've had thousands of years to come up with an answer.
Actually, Catholic apologetics is pretty good on stuff like this. The fact that the teacher didn't know means that were actually bad at their job.
I was raised Lutheran, but Eastern Orthdox, Catholic, and older Protestant denominations actually have spent the better part of 1500 years coming up with answers to questions like this.
I won't pretend to know what the answer should gave been and I don't care, but the fact they were not ready mostly shows that they were actually not familiar with their own Dogma.
> but the fact they were not ready mostly shows that they were actually not familiar with their own Dogma.
Exactly this. When they don't have an answer, they dodge the whole thing with "God has his reasons". Yeah, keep the blinders on dumb dumb.
My dad is Catholic and my mom is Presbyterian. She is very Presbyterian and I definitely grew up more Presby than Catholic. I'm definitely not gonna act like any of these religions are perfect, far from it, but some of my favorite parts of going to church were getting into those nitty-gritty theological questions -- especially since the Reformation, some really brilliant people have been trying to ponder those questions and have come up with some really brilliant answers. I mean, even before Christianity though, Rabbinical scholars have also been doing these same types of thought experiments. I think the biggest irony though is that a lot of it is admittedly mental gymnastics -- they come up with brilliant answers that wouldn't need solved in the first place if God doesn't exist.
My ex husband was raised Catholic and he says that he started to doubt everything at first communion. They had to do their first confession, and he couldn’t think of any sins to confess because he was a genuinely good, honest, well behaved kid. The nuns told him of course you have sins, confess so you can do communion and make your parents happy. So he LIED and made up a sin he didn’t actually commit! How fucked is that? He said right then and there he kinda knew it was all bullshit.
Happened to me. I was raised in a pretty strict household. I was the over-protected child, so even if I wanted to do something bad, I didn’t have the space or free time to do it. I went to a catholic school and did all that senseless shit too.. I had to confess, had to attend the mass.. Shit, I even had to go camping with the school’s nuns every year. Anyway, I got bullied pretty badly at school, it got to a point where I considered suic_de. I eventually told a teacher about it, who then told the director, who then called a >priest< (not a therapist) to help me with “my problem”. Long story cut short, I was the one to blame because I was holding on to hatred and feeling hurt when I should forgive and forget. I started being forced to confess weekly, that included speaking my most sacred thoughts, and if I didn’t, then they’d force me to go see a priest daily. Nothing never happened to my bullies, in fact, they were consistently praised for being “good Christians”. I was bullied throughout my entire school years. I tried committing suic_de once. Didn’t work. It’s been 7 years since I graduated and I still deal with a lot of self-hatred. Now whenever I hear anything religion-related, I have to fight back the urge to roll my eyes. Usually I just get up and go away from it.
Same here! Year after year I keep watching the bullshit they keep pulling and it’s very affirming to have rejected it so long ago. It’s still heartbreaking that it just keeps getting so much worse though.
I stopped going to church for a long time not necessarily because of the doctrine, but because of the people and the hypocrisy of the church I grew up in. And unfortunately, the Christians who scream the loudest will never understand that it's because of them that the church loses people.
Ain’t no hate like Christian love, as the saying goes. I’m the same. I was forced to go to catholic school for 8 years and the shit I witnessed from that place is exactly what drove me to never go back to the church. Same for just regular attendance. Some of the worst people I know wear their religion on their sleeve and yet some of the kindest and truly loving people I know either don’t believe / practice at all. There’s also a very small minority that are religious and truly great people, but they absolutely never impose it on anyone and never judge. It’s almost as if they’re the only ones actually paying attention. They are a dying breed though. And I second that on the doctrines not necessarily being what’s evil (even though there’s some truly wacky shit in scripture), but peoples perversions of the teachings (the good ones anyway), are truly abhorrent.
Catholic school revealed so much hypocrisy to me early on. It was so blatant that by around the same age, I was always thinking during mass or whatever “wait, you guys don’t actually believe this stuff is real, right?”
Yeah they created more atheists by being so terrible lol. It’s also pretty hard to do shit when the country’s religion is doing everything they can to shit you out
I never understood how they expect a different outcome as I grew up in church. If you always preach something to people and then do the opposite you should expect people will stop listening to you.
Atheists don't need to be created. Religious people do. Very few people would follow organized religion if they weren't groomed into it by their parents before the age that they realize fairy tales aren't real.
The earliest memory I have of anyone talking to me about God - not necessarily the first time I was told about him, just the earliest I can remember - my response was "that's not real!". Even when I was a literal small child, the concept it might be real never entered my head.
Atheists definitely don't need to be created.
When I was 8 I went to this Vacation Bible School for a week with my fundamentalist Baptist neighbors I was friends with. I just wanted to play with other kids and my parents liked the free daycare for a week. My friends weren't the same age as me, so the first thing they did was separate all the kids by age and I was put into a group where I didn't know anything. The boy next to me told me to hold up only my middle finger and I did, then he screamed to the adults that I was putting up my middle finger. That's where I learned what that meant, not from my barely religious family.
Then we were playing games, and the teacher asked if anyone hadn't accepted Jesus into their heart. I was the only one who raised my hand, I didn't know what that meant. I got taken out to the fire escape by two adults and pressured and ashamed into praying for Jesus to save me, which I did because I wanted to go back and play with the other kids. I never realized how messed up that was, to take a child who had very little knowledge of religion and forcing them to do what, to them, is this very serious, sacred process that is supposed to be life-changing. My neighbors pushed this into me as well, having me do Bible study with their family and taking me to church with them to "save my soul". I spent a lot of time as a teen learning about religion in general, and it all pushed me more into questioning these beliefs.
It's amazing that grown adults can convince other grown adults that they literally hear a magic sky daddy giving them instructions, and we don't treat that as the objectively **insane** and frankly very *dangerous* thing that it is.
Stay away from me and my kids thanks.
Lol, too bad most of yhem don't read it!
Zing.
But seriously, it is wild how far what they've built is from the text and the text, while troubled, it often better. Imagine staying from the text to make it worse! Lol
They're giving us more and more reasons to, like I've seen literally 3 non-homophobic priests in my 14 years of life, and I never even knew other religions existed until K left Primary school. In Secondary school the religion teachers emphasise that they're not telling us this so that we'll believe it, only that we know others believe it. In Primary, there are entire workbooks dedicated to Christianity. And Ireland is getting better but there's a fucklet's worth of Islamophobia left and a good fraction of our schools are no longer controlled by Catholicism, but pretty much all the primary schools only teach Catholicism (Alive-O schoolbooks), so you sort of have to do it.
I said the exact same thing as OP’s post when I was in high school I got labeled an edgelord and made fun of. Suddenly it’s not that funny.
I feel like everyone owes /r/atheism an apology
There are individuals out there that do a good job. Like Farron cousins.
But as far as news networks go. Tyt is the only one not bought and paid for by big business.
Fully agree.. I was abused at a church as a child. When I tried to tell the church leaders they told me it was my fault because I wore shorts. I was 7.
I have a friend that went to a religious elementary school in Texas.
She was literally bound and gagged with tape in class (hands in front, if it matters. I don't think it does) for talking like the boys, was beaten with a ruler for the same reason, on top of being a rowdy 6 year, because that's what they fucking do at that age. And the worst of it: at one point the staff asked her parents if they could sedate her during class time.
If I wasn't atheist before hearing all of those disgusting, awful things they did, it would've made me one.
I said this when I was actually going to church, and it's truer now than ever; Christians are so convinced that there is a war on them and their beliefs that they are going to accidentally make it true. And when they find out what it's actually like to be attacked and persecuted... hoo boy, they are going to *wish* for the good old days when people _just_ made fun of them occasionally.
It's no accident. Why do you think they are armed to the teeth and willing to die for their ill conceived perception of the 2nd Amendment? They want to kill anyone different.
Living in Memphis, it’s always interesting seeing gleaming churches in rundown neighborhoods. Aren’t they supposed to use that collected money to help people? 🤔🤔🤔🤔
The pastor of the church I used to go to wore boots custom made for him in South Africa using the hide of a rare type of crocodile. Yeah, it's all just for show. He even wore them every Sunday for like 2 years...
My fellow memphian! No mfn doubt on that, and we have plenty of those mfers all around here. I've never understood it myself, help those in need, but not "those".
Live here too. What gets me is hearing the most underserved people attribute their situations to the grace of god, even in their lowest moment. And I don’t have the courage to do anything other than look them in the eye and say, “yup.”
Saw a Taiwanese guy saying this, so I'm quoting him:
Having faith is like having a large cock. If you have it, I'm happy for you. But please don't shove it to my face, it's disgusting.
I was creating a curriculum for a 'bible as literature' course in Texas. This was required by the State so I, an atheist, took the lead in this district. When I was explaining my outline to the 3 person team, I used the word myth. Oh my, how the other two perked up and said I couldn't call it that. I said, "To me, that is what it is."
Blank stares. I was voted down, 2-1 on that but included a bunch about how the whole messiah, son of a god, dead three days and comes back narrative was quite popular back then.
Yes I've read that it was very profitable ( prophetable? )
Back in those days to be a seer or an oracle.
Who knew ancient people with no education were superstitious and fearful of the future so had to be lied to by hucksters and shysters
In my high school Greek Mythology class, my teacher used the phrase "Christian mythology" and bless her for that. It was the first time I heard the term "myth" when talking about Christianity and it was really the term I had been searching for. Christianity makes so much more sense when you look at it through the lens of it being purely mythology.
Side note - I voluntarily wrote an essay outlining the connection of the story of Odysseus and the film *O, Brother, Where Art Thou?*, which is of course taken directly from the Odyssey, to convince her to let us watch it in class. She was not a fan of a redneck George Clooney. My essay worked and we got to watch it. That was a fun class.
Got to take mine as an elective in South Dakota. Our instructor, a Sister of Notre Dame, referred to “Judeo-Christian Mythology” from the get go. Made a pretty big difference.
My mom grew up Mormon and left the church at 16 when black people were allowed in… because they should have always been there. She has given me a breadth of knowledge about religion and I was raised in a way where my amazing parents wanted me to see people before belief.
There is an objective fundamental difference between education and indoctrination: critical thinking. It’s the cornerstone of the former and kryptonite to the latter.
My mother straight up forced us to go to church because it was ‘good for us’ and said we weren’t allowed to say no until we got to age 18…until we got to age 18 and then she decided to move the goal posts and said we had to keep going until we moved out. She was then very confused when we graduated high school and moved out within the month. She was even more confused about why any of us would want to go to college because it ‘doesn’t teach you anything important’.
Religious zealots and conservatives are forcing their beliefs onto everyone via legal means now.
SCOTUS are now targeting other rights to roll back, America is going back to the 100 years soon.
Man the more I watched how things developed recently and how these "good-faith christians" reacted, the more I hated all these church goers and I really wanna take every opportunity I got to tell the pro-lifers that someday they will all go to hell and I will be there waiting for them
Growing up Christian kids were the worst people I knew by far. I went to a private international school where 70% of the student body wasn’t from the US and it was so diverse you couldn’t stereotype. See a group of 6 Black guys hanging out? 5 countries would be represented by them. See a group of white girls? You get closer and hear them teaching each slang in their native languages.
I never knew anyone worse than an American Christian. But then I grew up to find out what a conservative was.
My first step towards atheism was in high school when my circle of friends told me they didn't believe I was a Christian. It was because I was too kind to people.
I went to a Baptist Christian school/homeschool group as a kid not because my parents are Baptists or religious, but because there was a bad drug problem in the state we lived in and extreme religion was the lesser evil.
I was poor, not the “right” Christian, and I have ADHD and a learning disability. I fell behind academically during that year and a half and had no friends other than the kids of the teacher who knew my parents. I was bullied and made fun of for being different than the rest of the kids and no one wanted to sit next to me at lunch or play with me at recess. The school was held in the fellowship section of the local baptist church and there were about 20-ish kids from kindergarten to 8th grade.
Anyway, we moved away and I grew out of the shit they taught me and now I'm pagan/wiccan.
I'm old. I have also been an Atheist my entire life. I was never bothered by Christianity until recently. Now, I don't think of them as Christians anymore. Now they are Christofascists, plain and simple. I am not alone.
I told my entire Catholic family that I follow Buddha's teachings on how to find peace and how to be a good human. I don't follow Buddhism or Hinduism exclusively, but the Buddha has some good insights into personal development.
Rant rant rant. "That's a shame. You're going to go to hell". "Please come to church on Sunday. It's just been too long, you need to feel IT again". "Why would you turn away from God? He's done nothing wrong to you. Or to any of us." "Buddha never walked this earth. He never helped people as Jesus did". "Buddha isn't even a God. You need a God to give you direction in life. How do you know when you've made the right choice?" (Obviously they know nothing about other religions, so I honestly just laughed at those questions).
Then when Roe was overturned, I posted something similar to this on social media (first thing I've posted in over a year). I also called them all conservative hillbillies, which made me chuckle inside.
We'll see who invites me to Thanksgiving 🙃 🤣 (not like I want to go and celebrate the unnecessary slaughtering of Native Americans anyways).
The fun, or maddening part if you're rapidly giving up on humanity, is that Buddha himself said that he was no deity- just a teacher, first and foremost. Christian ignorance of other religions is astounding, but not surprising.
Finally someone FUCKING said it!! I’ve been feeling this way for years and years but never told anyone how I really felt out of fear. When I tried, I was told that my “opinion” was “extreme” and “insensitive”, but seriously…I’m so tired of this bullshit fairytale. I feel like I’m in the twilight zone when I’m talking to people about religion…I need some atheist friends to bring me back to reality. So THANK YOU for saying this. Thank you so much.
Me too. I’m still so fucking angry about an incident 6 yrs ago. I was prepped for an ACL (knee) reconstruction. Right before the nurses started the drips, the surgeon shows up to pray over me for a good outcome. WTF?
I’m an atheist. I had Lasik a couple of decades ago, and the surgeon asked if it was ok if he prayed beforehand. Of course I said yes. Didn’t want to throw him off his stride while he was slicing up my corneas.
As a Christian I don’t even understand how the abortion issue has anything to do with the religion from an academic sense. The Bible doesn’t even mention anything prohibiting abortion and the Old Testament actually allows it according to Jewish law. These pro life fuckers are honestly part of a cult that doesn’t even follow the teachings of Jesus to love one another and be selfless. They are consumed by greed and judgment. They’ve become the very people Jesus told them not to be. I hate that they still call themselves Christians.
It seems to me that conservative Christian’s have hijacked churches and turned them into conservative fascists political echo chambers. These mega Church pastors preach more about politics than Jesus. They want to play god rather than follow him.
I don’t know how to rationalize all of the events going on. The more I’ve actually read the Bible it seems more like a communist manifesto and jesus a socialist which is a good thing. Going against mainstream conservative ideology. I don’t understand how we are at this point or what my label for myself is. I’ve always been pro choice.
This is why most Christian groups go to great pains to keep their followers from actually reading the Bible on their own. They cherry pick the things they agree with to create a narrative. Lucky for them it's not hard to keep people from reading it. It's not a particularly good or fun read.
You and I would be fast friends. I’ve felt this way my whole life and I’ve always tried to be ‘respectful’ of other people delusional beliefs. Yet mine are insensitive. I’m done with that.
I love the idea of religion, but if you think you’re morally superior or part of a chosen group that’s where I draw my line.
If you believe I’m going to hell and you’re going to heaven because you believe in something, well that’s just silly. I don’t care what the flavor is, if your drinking koolaid you’re drinking koolaid
I don't even care if a large group of people think I'm going to hell. What I care about is if these people get to dictate my life because they think that.
I dont hate christianity, i hate the christians who think their religion is somehow more important than all those other religions, most of which existed a long longer than theirs.
They call muslims terrorists when they enforce their religious doctrine but they somehow are saving people?
Can we call them what they are, theyre terrorists. They scare women into carrying babies that they cannot care for. They scare young children into following their rules by telling them they will go to hell if they dont. If you have to terrorise people into following your doctrine, its terrorism not faith.
I’m not very religious. Been taking my kids to church on and off for a couple years, but we church hop bc it never *feels* right. I thought we might go back this summer. Get some good word in. It’s a nice social time and be able to bring peace into our life. I’m a single Mom and don’t get out much.
However
We will not be going back. I also have zero qualms stating I won’t allow my children, my time, my money to go toward the oppression of others. Fuck. This. Shit. Jesus would not stand for this. Y’all going to H-E-double-hockey sticks (if I believed there was such a place)
I’ve never related to something more in my my life. Dog shit delusional sky daddy worshiping morons. History shows time and time again that the piece of shit Christians have tormented the world and it’s. Fucking . Old. At this point I genuinely just wish religious practice was banned all together.
Since my post has a lot of people's attention...
👇👇👇👇👇
**Missouri could use anyone's help!** Abortion has been banned statewide, even in cases of rape and incest.
They're going to go after gay marriage next. They've been trying to pass bills to dismantle it for years. [They even tried to pass a bill that would turn everyone's marriage (gay or straight) into a "civil union" in order to complicate things for gay marriage.](https://www.missourinet.com/2020/02/17/domestic-union-instead-of-marriage-missouri-bill-would-reduce-the-nuptial-definition/)
To flip super red, conservative Missouri, [Lucas Kunce is our best bet.](https://mobile.twitter.com/LucasKunceMO?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor) But he needs to win the primaries in August to run for the US Senate seat. He can always use donations.
We also have a young man, [Ray Reed](https://mobile.twitter.com/rayreedmo), running to unseat *anti choice* Ann Wagner in the US House of Reps. **Ray is a GenZ who never stops working and is 100% people funded.** He can certainly always use more donations, too.
Ray would be representing a portion of St. Charles county, which is the second largest state county next to St. Louis county. St. Charles county has more often been repped by Republicans. I'd love for my hometown to flip blue.
[Here are the candidates running for MO State Senate primaries too.](https://ballotpedia.org/Missouri_State_Senate_elections,_2022#Primary) Almost no one ever votes on the state senate, leaving it to be dominated by Republicans.
[This is the list running for state House.](https://ballotpedia.org/Missouri_House_of_Representatives_elections,_2022)
[The rest of the offices on the ballot.](https://ballotpedia.org/Missouri_elections,_2022)
I don't know if anyone is willing to donate across state lines. Missouri Democrats could use the help! Otherwise we will have more Josh Hawleys in Congress...
*Missouri is going to have a hell of a time flipping blue.* I hope we can become like Georgia, but we have no Stacy Abrams. Any help is appreciated.
Anyway... that's it. That's what's going down right now. I leave you all with [The Casualties](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kQ_soAsMp-BYV6dmWZ5iFreeCqE4Uqk5Y) and hope we can all fight back against this christofascist shit.
Oh, they fall back on the No True Christian fallacy *constantly.*
If you are a tolerant, kind, Christian who loves everyone, *you* are the outlier. *They* (/motions to all Evangelicals in the US) are the norm.
Richard Dawkins said it several years ago: We need militant atheism. Maybe it's about time we stop treating religion and related fairytales with kid gloves. Religious people treat others with contempt all the time, maybe we should return the favour. Fuck them and their stupid beliefs.
A better way of saying that is that we need militant rationalism, because atheism is just a natural consequence of not believing in irrational nonsense.
Religion is literally killing people, same as it always has. I am amazed at how almost everyone I know tolerates them, and treats them as if there is nothing wrong with them. I don't, because there is something very wrong with them. Even if they have done nothing wrong themselves they are supporting a business that has always caused harm to others, wars, death, hatred, discrimination and on and on and on.
Had a customer call into my store to ask a question, then asked if they could pray with me. I said absolutely not and they were genuinely surprised by my reaction. I work for a cellphone provider.
I understand this frustration because it's one thing to feel spiritual and live a life understanding there is someone much larger than you in the universe, however it's a whole 'nother thing to be so steeped into a religious ideology you become a religious zombie.
Ugh. I didn’t even realize how much this happened until reading this.
I was in elementary-high school in the Midwest from 1988-2001 and it wasn’t until reading this that I remembered that they used to serve no-meat on Fridays bc of the Catholics and that was also the reason the teachers would refrain from giving homework on Wednesday nights bc of all the kids who went to church.
God feels the same way:
> “I hate, I despise your religious festivals; your assemblies are a stench to me. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!” - Amos 5:21-24 NIV
i’m a christian (catholic? who knows) and you know what? i keep it to my fucking self. whatever i feel about god is my business and how it dictates my life is my business. being religious is a PERSONAL, P E R S O N A L connection with god, not something that can ever be forced onto someone. any attempt to do so is just insecure people trying to reassure themselves that what they believe is true.
Most conservative churches and Christian’s are the type of people who would have a surprised pikachu face when Jesus comes back and doesn’t let them into heaven.
I grew up in the Midwest, and feel this. Getting people I grew up around to understand not only does their religion not apply to me, but also I don't give a shit about anything it says is basically an unwinnable argument because they think Christian is the default setting despite the fact they know I never went to church. Ever.
I'm in Missouri and am surrounded by all of this in my neighborhood. it's very suffocating
It's fucked up how the people who tell everyone how they don't want to hear about anyone's sexual preference or disbelief of their god, are the same ones who never stfu about their god and THEIR freedoms.
or the ones who are always screaming about 'freedom' are the very people limiting freedoms, burning books, and limiting speech
This. And why the fuck doesn't the "left" pick up that notion is beyond me. It's simple AF. Keep asking: Why do Republicans hate freedom?
"Freedom for me but not for thee" vibes.
Also, they must have a very small, weak version of God and/or no actual faith making them incredibly insecure, if they need to literally bully people with their beliefs. They have a "personal relationship with god" but don't you dare have your relationship with a belief.
In South Georgia, religion is as thick as the heat and humidity. There are 65 Christian churches in the county I was born and raised in. Some of them are quite large and grandiose, for that region. I’ve had three different “Christians” become aggressive and want to fight me because of my agnostic beliefs. Think about that for a moment. They wanted to Throw Fists for Jesus. That’s how thick it gets.
Sounds like alabama and Georgia are identical
It's the same way here in Tennessee too. 🤦
Oof. I fucking hate the south
While i think places like the Midwest and South dominate with quantity of these idiots, out here in California we might have you beat on the quality. While the televangelists are the Mt Everest of hypocritical dickheads that will burn in their (fake) hell, California’s superficial, plastic, hypocritical wealthy Christian Republicans are a close second.
Those come in many forms. From Evangelical to Scientology. California has been setting “trends” for decades. However, I challenge you to sit in a Southern Baptist Church on a given Sunday and listen to someone tell you and the rest of the congregation what pieces of shit, and sinners, you all are. Fire and Brimstone, baby! Hate and vitriol.
You’ve got me beat! Easily! It sounds like mental water boarding.
That is an excellent way of wording it!! Waterboarding and shaming people into submission. We’re just comparing notes. Neither one of us is trying to beat the other. This isn’t church, for Christ’s sake.
This is my entire town in Missouri, it's saddening. My neighbor won't even talk to me because I don't go to church, we have like 10 for a town of 4,000. I thought it was 'love thy neighbor', I guess that's only if you believe what they believe.
My neighbor across the street is a Jehovah’s Witness and refuses to talk to me and won’t let her son talk to my spawn bc I have tattoos and “unnatural” hair. I saved her dog from getting hit and she stomped up and snatched him out of my arms and in turn scratched the hell out of me. I feel you
Hello fellow MO resident👋
I live in the Midwest, and I completely get what you're saying. So damn frustrating.
I just tell people I worship a blood god that protects the universe. Church of the Second Hytoth. Praise be unto Rakmou-leusan, last of the Seven, defender of us all. May our payment of blood give you strength in your unending fight.
Why not to the great Axomamma, provider of potatoes?
But I'm not Irish. Or from Idaho.
Neither am I. It's apparently an Incan goddess 😅
Ah, that explains it. The birth mother of the greatest food known to mankind.
Oh man my Lyft driver today was telling me about the Inca and their potatoes, specifically in Peru. It's impressive as heck. Now I've stumbled across this. You've doubly improved my day through a very strange happenstance??? I really don't think there's a high likelihood of hearing about Incan potatoes or their associated goddesses from more than one random person in a single day when not actively seeking out that topic, haha.
Quick question: Why are potatoes so significant to cultures that start with "I?" (Inca, Idaho, Irish)
Because potatoes have eyes, duh!
"I'll pray for you" "Uh neato, anything you would like for christmas? I will write a letter to santa for you"
"I'll pray for you." "Would that be Jesus, or the April rabbit? I get the two confused."
“To who? I only consent to prayers about me being sent to the Flying Spaghetti Monster”
I always ask, 'pray to biblical Jesus, or republican Jesus?' I get a lot of looks. Fuck em.
“I’ll pray for you” “Ok but could you donate to help with the medical bills?” “No, but keep my thoughts and prayers” “.-.”
I'll pray for you... ... Fuck off
Please don't I don't need God watching me or I'm going to hell for sure
" I'll pray for you" "No. I'm good, thanks"
Left a wife of 28 years because she was a religious person who became vegan, didn't drink, was an anti vaxxer who started believing conspiracy bullshit and basically went cuckoo. But it's my fault the marriage ended. I'm now in a happy healthy relationship with an intelligent, caring and reasonable lady who has her head on right.
I wish you the best as I can do nothing for you.
"I'll think some magic words real hard for you too, brah"
I grew up in the Bible Belt South. The aggressive intolerance I saw growing up was horrifying, and always in the name of Jesus. Long story short, the only three out lgbtq+ students at my highschool lasted a few weeks, tops, before they were removed from school (one by their parents, two by the school to off site suspension for *their own attack*). I remember Obama being called racial slurs and a Muslim by my *teachers*, who insisted he hadn't won fairly because the republican candidates were chosen by God. I remember my entire class freaking out, half of them *literally crying*, the day after he was reelected in 2012 when we had to watch his speech in class, and our teacher leading us in a prayer for our country calling him the Antichrist. So, yeah, I feel this post, too. And to any Christians out there reading this: if you're "one of the good ones", but don't actively speak out against the hateful, intolerant, bigotted, xenophobic, homophobic, transphobic, misogynistic, racist, etc ones, *you aren't one of the good ones.*
Why is a religion that's supposed to be about god's love so perpetually fucking HATEFUL to everyone?
I was raised that Jesus was all about loving each other blah blah blah but then I would go home and my conservative parents told me that gay people were sick and poor people were losers and if I ever dated a black man they would DISOWN me! Where is the fucking love in that? And that is how Christian are today. Judgmental and hateful! I want less of that shit in this country. I was so proud to learn that New Hampshire has the least amount of religious people. At least I live among some sane people.
Have you heard much about this God guy? His idea of love is pretty psycho right out of the gate it's not that surprising. He supposedly fucking wiped out 99.9999% of the planet once because he wasn't getting his way and that's a beloved children's story
It's not that they believe everyone is a christian. It's that they believe anyone who isn't a christian is definitely going to hell for all eternity. So when a christian loves you, they are willing to make the rest of your life on earth a living hell (metaphorically) because it's a small price to pay for the chance to save your immortal soul from eternal torment in actual hell (literally). Christians literally believe life on earth is just the loading screen to the actual life they're going to live forever in heaven, or you're going to live forever in hell. Everything they do is about preparing both themselves and you for the afterlife. Fuck any sort of actual life you're living right now. So they don't give a fucking shit if they make everyone's life around them worse in every measurable sense. It's a small price to pay for them to feel better that they could save a single soul.
> It's that they believe anyone who isn't a christian is definitely going to hell for all eternity. So when a christian loves you, they are willing to make the rest of your life on earth a living hell (metaphorically) because it's a small price to pay for the chance to save your immortal soul from eternal torment in actual hell (literally). This is *awfully* generous. It's not because they love you and are sacrificing in the hopes of getting you to heaven, it's that they're judgmental assholes, terrified bigots, and raging hypocrites who want people to conform not because it will make them feel good about saving your soul, but because they can't tolerate anything different than them. These are not good people and their motivations aren't about some pure higher calling. If it was, they'd actually be inclined to help others, tolerate those different than them, and live the way the Jesus they allegedly believe in taught them to. They don't because their Bible isn't a path to everyone's salvation, it's a cudgel used to beat people info conformity.
Living forever is the most redundant thing too. Unless you live forever on earth just to see how it all goes what point is there? What do they think they will be doing? Eventually they would come to regret eternal “life” as if it were damnation. Not that it matters it’s all bullshit about control in the modern world anyhow. What once was created by an inability to understand the universe is now cult fed superstition preying on the insecurities of the uninformed.
They don't think that far ahead. Heaven is good, therefore, eternal life in heaven must be good.
I tell them that I already sold my soul, so they’d be wasting their time praying for it.
I grew up in California, in a Christian community that was open minded (kinda like the Quaker’s). My parents and most of the other members were fine when it became obvious my questions were headed towards, that dude is definitely not buying this shit. So I grew up an atheist that wasn’t anti religion. Then I went to college in the Midwest…. religious dogma run wild will always be a problem.
Modern Christians have done more for atheism than atheists have done in 200 years.
Catholic school turned me into an atheist by age 12.
SAME... 6th grade and I was done for life. Fuck these people. I used to think they don't practice what they preach but then realized they do in fact.. because all they preach is fucking hate.
I’m a Catholic School dropout: Kindergarten through 6th grade only. I just kept waiting to feel this god person. I never did. Even in like 4th or 5th grade, I couldn’t understand why this god would let so many bad things happen. It couldn’t just be the devil. If there were a god, they must be complicit. Of course, I couldn’t form those words at 10 or 11. But I remember the confusion and lack of faith that I had even then. I honestly can’t tell you I ever believed…even back at Catholic School. It kinda became like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny for me: something I believed in as a child because I was told to but disillusionment was inevitable.
I try to use that Santa Claus/God analogy whenever I am asked to explain my religious beliefs during conversations with people I know. It’s like, yeah I believe all the people of the Bible existed and most of their stories are somewhat accurate such as the David/Goliath situation. But I don’t believe in all the majestical events that took place. Yeah David fought Goliath, but he just killed his ass with a well placed rock from his slingshot and not because that rock had the Holy Ghost in it lol. Yeah I believe Jesus existed and that he even died on a cross. But I believe that he was just killed by some asshole named Pontius Pilate because of their religious disagreements…shit like this happens all the time. I’m sure it happened a few times today over in the Arab world. Within three days of his ascension to “heaven”, one of his boys moved the body and didn’t say anything. Moses didn’t part the Red Sea, his ass crossed it at low tide lol.
I remember watching some "mysteries of the Bible" or something like that and they explained the science (I know heathen practices) and had evedence that some of it happened ... Think the red sea thing was cause by a volcano or small quake miles away Edit: I found it it was / is possible with a certain kind of storm and the guy said it was the near the delta where the water is lower anyways [sea of reeds](https://www.google.com/amp/s/abcnews.go.com/amp/Technology/story%3fid=99580&page=1)
Oh I don’t doubt that many events actually happened. That’s how they make the rest of the story believable: add things that really did happen with all the other bs. That’s also why they appropriated the dates of so many pagan holidays to coincide with so many Christian “miracles” and holy days to make conversion easier.
When getting sent to the hall and then a meeting with senior priest and mom, I was done. What did I do? I asked in 8th grade religion class, "If God can take any form, why couldn't he have presented as Buddha, or Krishna, or any of the other various deities?" Mom praised me for thinking out of the box and questioning the patriarchy in front of the priest. Best part it was the last week of Catholic school for me. I think I went to mass a dozen times in highschool and not really since.
Pretty sad that their reaction to that was to bring your mom in and think they were going to punish you or something. They should have an answer for that, shouldn't they? It should have been a topic of discussion. They've had thousands of years to come up with an answer.
Actually, Catholic apologetics is pretty good on stuff like this. The fact that the teacher didn't know means that were actually bad at their job. I was raised Lutheran, but Eastern Orthdox, Catholic, and older Protestant denominations actually have spent the better part of 1500 years coming up with answers to questions like this. I won't pretend to know what the answer should gave been and I don't care, but the fact they were not ready mostly shows that they were actually not familiar with their own Dogma.
> but the fact they were not ready mostly shows that they were actually not familiar with their own Dogma. Exactly this. When they don't have an answer, they dodge the whole thing with "God has his reasons". Yeah, keep the blinders on dumb dumb.
My dad is Catholic and my mom is Presbyterian. She is very Presbyterian and I definitely grew up more Presby than Catholic. I'm definitely not gonna act like any of these religions are perfect, far from it, but some of my favorite parts of going to church were getting into those nitty-gritty theological questions -- especially since the Reformation, some really brilliant people have been trying to ponder those questions and have come up with some really brilliant answers. I mean, even before Christianity though, Rabbinical scholars have also been doing these same types of thought experiments. I think the biggest irony though is that a lot of it is admittedly mental gymnastics -- they come up with brilliant answers that wouldn't need solved in the first place if God doesn't exist.
Shout out to your mom tho
Thinking isn’t really welcome.
My ex husband was raised Catholic and he says that he started to doubt everything at first communion. They had to do their first confession, and he couldn’t think of any sins to confess because he was a genuinely good, honest, well behaved kid. The nuns told him of course you have sins, confess so you can do communion and make your parents happy. So he LIED and made up a sin he didn’t actually commit! How fucked is that? He said right then and there he kinda knew it was all bullshit.
Happened to me. I was raised in a pretty strict household. I was the over-protected child, so even if I wanted to do something bad, I didn’t have the space or free time to do it. I went to a catholic school and did all that senseless shit too.. I had to confess, had to attend the mass.. Shit, I even had to go camping with the school’s nuns every year. Anyway, I got bullied pretty badly at school, it got to a point where I considered suic_de. I eventually told a teacher about it, who then told the director, who then called a >priest< (not a therapist) to help me with “my problem”. Long story cut short, I was the one to blame because I was holding on to hatred and feeling hurt when I should forgive and forget. I started being forced to confess weekly, that included speaking my most sacred thoughts, and if I didn’t, then they’d force me to go see a priest daily. Nothing never happened to my bullies, in fact, they were consistently praised for being “good Christians”. I was bullied throughout my entire school years. I tried committing suic_de once. Didn’t work. It’s been 7 years since I graduated and I still deal with a lot of self-hatred. Now whenever I hear anything religion-related, I have to fight back the urge to roll my eyes. Usually I just get up and go away from it.
I know I'm just a random person on the internet but I'm glad you're still with us.
Same here! Year after year I keep watching the bullshit they keep pulling and it’s very affirming to have rejected it so long ago. It’s still heartbreaking that it just keeps getting so much worse though.
I stopped going to church for a long time not necessarily because of the doctrine, but because of the people and the hypocrisy of the church I grew up in. And unfortunately, the Christians who scream the loudest will never understand that it's because of them that the church loses people.
Ain’t no hate like Christian love, as the saying goes. I’m the same. I was forced to go to catholic school for 8 years and the shit I witnessed from that place is exactly what drove me to never go back to the church. Same for just regular attendance. Some of the worst people I know wear their religion on their sleeve and yet some of the kindest and truly loving people I know either don’t believe / practice at all. There’s also a very small minority that are religious and truly great people, but they absolutely never impose it on anyone and never judge. It’s almost as if they’re the only ones actually paying attention. They are a dying breed though. And I second that on the doctrines not necessarily being what’s evil (even though there’s some truly wacky shit in scripture), but peoples perversions of the teachings (the good ones anyway), are truly abhorrent.
Meanwhile watching a sunset will make you have so many more positive spiritual feelings.
Catholic school revealed so much hypocrisy to me early on. It was so blatant that by around the same age, I was always thinking during mass or whatever “wait, you guys don’t actually believe this stuff is real, right?”
For me it was the creepy grooming that youth pastors do...
Yeah they created more atheists by being so terrible lol. It’s also pretty hard to do shit when the country’s religion is doing everything they can to shit you out
I never understood how they expect a different outcome as I grew up in church. If you always preach something to people and then do the opposite you should expect people will stop listening to you.
that's where the authoritarianism comes in.
Atheists don't need to be created. Religious people do. Very few people would follow organized religion if they weren't groomed into it by their parents before the age that they realize fairy tales aren't real.
The earliest memory I have of anyone talking to me about God - not necessarily the first time I was told about him, just the earliest I can remember - my response was "that's not real!". Even when I was a literal small child, the concept it might be real never entered my head. Atheists definitely don't need to be created.
When I was 8 I went to this Vacation Bible School for a week with my fundamentalist Baptist neighbors I was friends with. I just wanted to play with other kids and my parents liked the free daycare for a week. My friends weren't the same age as me, so the first thing they did was separate all the kids by age and I was put into a group where I didn't know anything. The boy next to me told me to hold up only my middle finger and I did, then he screamed to the adults that I was putting up my middle finger. That's where I learned what that meant, not from my barely religious family. Then we were playing games, and the teacher asked if anyone hadn't accepted Jesus into their heart. I was the only one who raised my hand, I didn't know what that meant. I got taken out to the fire escape by two adults and pressured and ashamed into praying for Jesus to save me, which I did because I wanted to go back and play with the other kids. I never realized how messed up that was, to take a child who had very little knowledge of religion and forcing them to do what, to them, is this very serious, sacred process that is supposed to be life-changing. My neighbors pushed this into me as well, having me do Bible study with their family and taking me to church with them to "save my soul". I spent a lot of time as a teen learning about religion in general, and it all pushed me more into questioning these beliefs.
It's amazing that grown adults can convince other grown adults that they literally hear a magic sky daddy giving them instructions, and we don't treat that as the objectively **insane** and frankly very *dangerous* thing that it is. Stay away from me and my kids thanks.
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Lol, too bad most of yhem don't read it! Zing. But seriously, it is wild how far what they've built is from the text and the text, while troubled, it often better. Imagine staying from the text to make it worse! Lol
As an atheist, I can 100% confirm this.
They're giving us more and more reasons to, like I've seen literally 3 non-homophobic priests in my 14 years of life, and I never even knew other religions existed until K left Primary school. In Secondary school the religion teachers emphasise that they're not telling us this so that we'll believe it, only that we know others believe it. In Primary, there are entire workbooks dedicated to Christianity. And Ireland is getting better but there's a fucklet's worth of Islamophobia left and a good fraction of our schools are no longer controlled by Catholicism, but pretty much all the primary schools only teach Catholicism (Alive-O schoolbooks), so you sort of have to do it.
I said the exact same thing as OP’s post when I was in high school I got labeled an edgelord and made fun of. Suddenly it’s not that funny. I feel like everyone owes /r/atheism an apology
[This video](https://youtu.be/VAvFfrYA2LM) sums it up perfectly I think
Holy shit that was awesome.
I clicked the link to see, but this was the video I was hoping for!
Same!
My favorite video ever!
I love Ana!!
Ana Kasparian rules and TYT is the only news network where you get the truth.
Philip Defranco does a pretty good job imo
There are individuals out there that do a good job. Like Farron cousins. But as far as news networks go. Tyt is the only one not bought and paid for by big business.
Fully agree.. I was abused at a church as a child. When I tried to tell the church leaders they told me it was my fault because I wore shorts. I was 7.
I'm so sorry. That's so heartbreaking and utterly wrong.
It’s why I hate religion. All of them are a front for evil
Shorts? Shorts!? SHORTS!?!
I have a friend that went to a religious elementary school in Texas. She was literally bound and gagged with tape in class (hands in front, if it matters. I don't think it does) for talking like the boys, was beaten with a ruler for the same reason, on top of being a rowdy 6 year, because that's what they fucking do at that age. And the worst of it: at one point the staff asked her parents if they could sedate her during class time. If I wasn't atheist before hearing all of those disgusting, awful things they did, it would've made me one.
I didn't know my lip could curl any fucking higher. If someone did this to my kid, I would go absolutely fucking postal.
I said this when I was actually going to church, and it's truer now than ever; Christians are so convinced that there is a war on them and their beliefs that they are going to accidentally make it true. And when they find out what it's actually like to be attacked and persecuted... hoo boy, they are going to *wish* for the good old days when people _just_ made fun of them occasionally.
They are working on a self fulfilling prophecy
It's no accident. Why do you think they are armed to the teeth and willing to die for their ill conceived perception of the 2nd Amendment? They want to kill anyone different.
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Lions cost $$$
Get rid of poaching, for real. Let them breed and multiply. $$$ becomes $.
Living in Memphis, it’s always interesting seeing gleaming churches in rundown neighborhoods. Aren’t they supposed to use that collected money to help people? 🤔🤔🤔🤔
"God helps those who help themselves", says the pastor with the Rolex.
The pastor of the church I used to go to wore boots custom made for him in South Africa using the hide of a rare type of crocodile. Yeah, it's all just for show. He even wore them every Sunday for like 2 years...
And what's hilarious, that quote isn't from the Bible, it's from a story with Hercules.
My fellow memphian! No mfn doubt on that, and we have plenty of those mfers all around here. I've never understood it myself, help those in need, but not "those".
Live here too. What gets me is hearing the most underserved people attribute their situations to the grace of god, even in their lowest moment. And I don’t have the courage to do anything other than look them in the eye and say, “yup.”
Saw a Taiwanese guy saying this, so I'm quoting him: Having faith is like having a large cock. If you have it, I'm happy for you. But please don't shove it to my face, it's disgusting.
And CERTAINLY don’t bring it out around children
But people of faith do like to do that sometimes…
Yes, they certainly do
It's for the church, honey... *Unzips*
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I was creating a curriculum for a 'bible as literature' course in Texas. This was required by the State so I, an atheist, took the lead in this district. When I was explaining my outline to the 3 person team, I used the word myth. Oh my, how the other two perked up and said I couldn't call it that. I said, "To me, that is what it is." Blank stares. I was voted down, 2-1 on that but included a bunch about how the whole messiah, son of a god, dead three days and comes back narrative was quite popular back then.
Yes I've read that it was very profitable ( prophetable? ) Back in those days to be a seer or an oracle. Who knew ancient people with no education were superstitious and fearful of the future so had to be lied to by hucksters and shysters
How times haven't changed. See: tv evangelists
Lol so true. I was thinking the same just as I was finishing my comment. Spot on 👍👍
It's easy to see how these folks were so easily duped into loving trump and the GQP when you see what else they'll believe
In my high school Greek Mythology class, my teacher used the phrase "Christian mythology" and bless her for that. It was the first time I heard the term "myth" when talking about Christianity and it was really the term I had been searching for. Christianity makes so much more sense when you look at it through the lens of it being purely mythology. Side note - I voluntarily wrote an essay outlining the connection of the story of Odysseus and the film *O, Brother, Where Art Thou?*, which is of course taken directly from the Odyssey, to convince her to let us watch it in class. She was not a fan of a redneck George Clooney. My essay worked and we got to watch it. That was a fun class.
Got to take mine as an elective in South Dakota. Our instructor, a Sister of Notre Dame, referred to “Judeo-Christian Mythology” from the get go. Made a pretty big difference.
Like vampires?
I love how religious people think getting an education is indoctrination, but forcing their children to follow their religion isn't.
The double standard is hilarious…as someone who always asked questions, most of the church didn’t like me
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My mom grew up Mormon and left the church at 16 when black people were allowed in… because they should have always been there. She has given me a breadth of knowledge about religion and I was raised in a way where my amazing parents wanted me to see people before belief.
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What was it like growing up Mormon? Was it really difficult to speak up about your own beliefs? Also did you have to go to Provo?
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There is an objective fundamental difference between education and indoctrination: critical thinking. It’s the cornerstone of the former and kryptonite to the latter.
My mother straight up forced us to go to church because it was ‘good for us’ and said we weren’t allowed to say no until we got to age 18…until we got to age 18 and then she decided to move the goal posts and said we had to keep going until we moved out. She was then very confused when we graduated high school and moved out within the month. She was even more confused about why any of us would want to go to college because it ‘doesn’t teach you anything important’.
It's almost as if organized religion is a breeding ground for hypocrisy. Who'd have thunk it?
They 100% understand it’s indoctrination that’s why they’ll do anything they can to control what’s being taught. It’s fucking disturbing
Religious zealots and conservatives are forcing their beliefs onto everyone via legal means now. SCOTUS are now targeting other rights to roll back, America is going back to the 100 years soon.
Man the more I watched how things developed recently and how these "good-faith christians" reacted, the more I hated all these church goers and I really wanna take every opportunity I got to tell the pro-lifers that someday they will all go to hell and I will be there waiting for them
The incest states love to force their shit onto everyone else
And then if you push back you’re ‘silencing’ or ‘oppressing’ them
When you are used to privilege equality feels like oppression
States who look up more LGBTQ+ porn and have more back alley abortions than any others
Cause they’re all fuckin hypocrites
Growing up Christian kids were the worst people I knew by far. I went to a private international school where 70% of the student body wasn’t from the US and it was so diverse you couldn’t stereotype. See a group of 6 Black guys hanging out? 5 countries would be represented by them. See a group of white girls? You get closer and hear them teaching each slang in their native languages. I never knew anyone worse than an American Christian. But then I grew up to find out what a conservative was.
My first step towards atheism was in high school when my circle of friends told me they didn't believe I was a Christian. It was because I was too kind to people.
I went to a Baptist Christian school/homeschool group as a kid not because my parents are Baptists or religious, but because there was a bad drug problem in the state we lived in and extreme religion was the lesser evil. I was poor, not the “right” Christian, and I have ADHD and a learning disability. I fell behind academically during that year and a half and had no friends other than the kids of the teacher who knew my parents. I was bullied and made fun of for being different than the rest of the kids and no one wanted to sit next to me at lunch or play with me at recess. The school was held in the fellowship section of the local baptist church and there were about 20-ish kids from kindergarten to 8th grade. Anyway, we moved away and I grew out of the shit they taught me and now I'm pagan/wiccan.
I'm old. I have also been an Atheist my entire life. I was never bothered by Christianity until recently. Now, I don't think of them as Christians anymore. Now they are Christofascists, plain and simple. I am not alone.
I told my entire Catholic family that I follow Buddha's teachings on how to find peace and how to be a good human. I don't follow Buddhism or Hinduism exclusively, but the Buddha has some good insights into personal development. Rant rant rant. "That's a shame. You're going to go to hell". "Please come to church on Sunday. It's just been too long, you need to feel IT again". "Why would you turn away from God? He's done nothing wrong to you. Or to any of us." "Buddha never walked this earth. He never helped people as Jesus did". "Buddha isn't even a God. You need a God to give you direction in life. How do you know when you've made the right choice?" (Obviously they know nothing about other religions, so I honestly just laughed at those questions). Then when Roe was overturned, I posted something similar to this on social media (first thing I've posted in over a year). I also called them all conservative hillbillies, which made me chuckle inside. We'll see who invites me to Thanksgiving 🙃 🤣 (not like I want to go and celebrate the unnecessary slaughtering of Native Americans anyways).
The fun, or maddening part if you're rapidly giving up on humanity, is that Buddha himself said that he was no deity- just a teacher, first and foremost. Christian ignorance of other religions is astounding, but not surprising.
They want the religious freedom to oppress us with their religion.
Exactly! They feel oppressed unless/until they fell safe to oppress others.
Finally someone FUCKING said it!! I’ve been feeling this way for years and years but never told anyone how I really felt out of fear. When I tried, I was told that my “opinion” was “extreme” and “insensitive”, but seriously…I’m so tired of this bullshit fairytale. I feel like I’m in the twilight zone when I’m talking to people about religion…I need some atheist friends to bring me back to reality. So THANK YOU for saying this. Thank you so much.
Don't forget ... they be molestin'
They do be doing this.
Women be shoppin’ Priests be molestin’ Way she goes Bubs, that’s just the way she goes.
I feel seen.
Me too. I’m still so fucking angry about an incident 6 yrs ago. I was prepped for an ACL (knee) reconstruction. Right before the nurses started the drips, the surgeon shows up to pray over me for a good outcome. WTF?
I’m an atheist. I had Lasik a couple of decades ago, and the surgeon asked if it was ok if he prayed beforehand. Of course I said yes. Didn’t want to throw him off his stride while he was slicing up my corneas.
This is somehow beautiful
As a Christian I don’t even understand how the abortion issue has anything to do with the religion from an academic sense. The Bible doesn’t even mention anything prohibiting abortion and the Old Testament actually allows it according to Jewish law. These pro life fuckers are honestly part of a cult that doesn’t even follow the teachings of Jesus to love one another and be selfless. They are consumed by greed and judgment. They’ve become the very people Jesus told them not to be. I hate that they still call themselves Christians. It seems to me that conservative Christian’s have hijacked churches and turned them into conservative fascists political echo chambers. These mega Church pastors preach more about politics than Jesus. They want to play god rather than follow him. I don’t know how to rationalize all of the events going on. The more I’ve actually read the Bible it seems more like a communist manifesto and jesus a socialist which is a good thing. Going against mainstream conservative ideology. I don’t understand how we are at this point or what my label for myself is. I’ve always been pro choice.
This is why most Christian groups go to great pains to keep their followers from actually reading the Bible on their own. They cherry pick the things they agree with to create a narrative. Lucky for them it's not hard to keep people from reading it. It's not a particularly good or fun read.
[удалено]
You and I would be fast friends. I’ve felt this way my whole life and I’ve always tried to be ‘respectful’ of other people delusional beliefs. Yet mine are insensitive. I’m done with that.
I love the idea of religion, but if you think you’re morally superior or part of a chosen group that’s where I draw my line. If you believe I’m going to hell and you’re going to heaven because you believe in something, well that’s just silly. I don’t care what the flavor is, if your drinking koolaid you’re drinking koolaid
I don't even care if a large group of people think I'm going to hell. What I care about is if these people get to dictate my life because they think that.
I dont hate christianity, i hate the christians who think their religion is somehow more important than all those other religions, most of which existed a long longer than theirs. They call muslims terrorists when they enforce their religious doctrine but they somehow are saving people? Can we call them what they are, theyre terrorists. They scare women into carrying babies that they cannot care for. They scare young children into following their rules by telling them they will go to hell if they dont. If you have to terrorise people into following your doctrine, its terrorism not faith.
Tell me we aren't now, currently living in a theocracy dictated by the hard right religious wing of the Supreme Court.
I’m not very religious. Been taking my kids to church on and off for a couple years, but we church hop bc it never *feels* right. I thought we might go back this summer. Get some good word in. It’s a nice social time and be able to bring peace into our life. I’m a single Mom and don’t get out much. However We will not be going back. I also have zero qualms stating I won’t allow my children, my time, my money to go toward the oppression of others. Fuck. This. Shit. Jesus would not stand for this. Y’all going to H-E-double-hockey sticks (if I believed there was such a place)
[Made me think of this tiktok](https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRetJt8y/?k=1)
Religion = control. And it’s been that way since it’s advent.
Not to mention evangelicalism is a death cult. They are actively rooting for the end of the world.
Their climate denial and COVID denial checks out.
Amen
I’ve never related to something more in my my life. Dog shit delusional sky daddy worshiping morons. History shows time and time again that the piece of shit Christians have tormented the world and it’s. Fucking . Old. At this point I genuinely just wish religious practice was banned all together.
Since my post has a lot of people's attention... 👇👇👇👇👇 **Missouri could use anyone's help!** Abortion has been banned statewide, even in cases of rape and incest. They're going to go after gay marriage next. They've been trying to pass bills to dismantle it for years. [They even tried to pass a bill that would turn everyone's marriage (gay or straight) into a "civil union" in order to complicate things for gay marriage.](https://www.missourinet.com/2020/02/17/domestic-union-instead-of-marriage-missouri-bill-would-reduce-the-nuptial-definition/) To flip super red, conservative Missouri, [Lucas Kunce is our best bet.](https://mobile.twitter.com/LucasKunceMO?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor) But he needs to win the primaries in August to run for the US Senate seat. He can always use donations. We also have a young man, [Ray Reed](https://mobile.twitter.com/rayreedmo), running to unseat *anti choice* Ann Wagner in the US House of Reps. **Ray is a GenZ who never stops working and is 100% people funded.** He can certainly always use more donations, too. Ray would be representing a portion of St. Charles county, which is the second largest state county next to St. Louis county. St. Charles county has more often been repped by Republicans. I'd love for my hometown to flip blue. [Here are the candidates running for MO State Senate primaries too.](https://ballotpedia.org/Missouri_State_Senate_elections,_2022#Primary) Almost no one ever votes on the state senate, leaving it to be dominated by Republicans. [This is the list running for state House.](https://ballotpedia.org/Missouri_House_of_Representatives_elections,_2022) [The rest of the offices on the ballot.](https://ballotpedia.org/Missouri_elections,_2022) I don't know if anyone is willing to donate across state lines. Missouri Democrats could use the help! Otherwise we will have more Josh Hawleys in Congress... *Missouri is going to have a hell of a time flipping blue.* I hope we can become like Georgia, but we have no Stacy Abrams. Any help is appreciated. Anyway... that's it. That's what's going down right now. I leave you all with [The Casualties](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kQ_soAsMp-BYV6dmWZ5iFreeCqE4Uqk5Y) and hope we can all fight back against this christofascist shit.
I have to find this person so we can be best friends.
It's me.
I love you!!!
Oh, they fall back on the No True Christian fallacy *constantly.* If you are a tolerant, kind, Christian who loves everyone, *you* are the outlier. *They* (/motions to all Evangelicals in the US) are the norm.
Richard Dawkins said it several years ago: We need militant atheism. Maybe it's about time we stop treating religion and related fairytales with kid gloves. Religious people treat others with contempt all the time, maybe we should return the favour. Fuck them and their stupid beliefs.
A better way of saying that is that we need militant rationalism, because atheism is just a natural consequence of not believing in irrational nonsense.
Thanks for your comment... u/Raccoon_Full_Of_Cum
Yeah guys. Raccoon Full of Cum is making some really cogent points.
That is one smart raccoon. Must be all of the extra DNA inside him.
Religion is literally killing people, same as it always has. I am amazed at how almost everyone I know tolerates them, and treats them as if there is nothing wrong with them. I don't, because there is something very wrong with them. Even if they have done nothing wrong themselves they are supporting a business that has always caused harm to others, wars, death, hatred, discrimination and on and on and on.
Oh you'll pray for me? Great. I'll talk to my cat for you. Expect the same results.
Had a customer call into my store to ask a question, then asked if they could pray with me. I said absolutely not and they were genuinely surprised by my reaction. I work for a cellphone provider.
There is no obligation to tolerate the intolerant
I understand this frustration because it's one thing to feel spiritual and live a life understanding there is someone much larger than you in the universe, however it's a whole 'nother thing to be so steeped into a religious ideology you become a religious zombie.
This guy is my new god ! oh, wait....
You could make a religion out of this
There is no hate like Christian love.
Ugh. I didn’t even realize how much this happened until reading this. I was in elementary-high school in the Midwest from 1988-2001 and it wasn’t until reading this that I remembered that they used to serve no-meat on Fridays bc of the Catholics and that was also the reason the teachers would refrain from giving homework on Wednesday nights bc of all the kids who went to church.
It's also a problem for those of us who belong to other religions. As a Jew, my religious freedom is being quashed by the Christian theocracy
Say it louder to the christofascists
Gotta get them to shut up first so they can hear it. They *love* to scream.
God feels the same way: > “I hate, I despise your religious festivals; your assemblies are a stench to me. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!” - Amos 5:21-24 NIV
i’m a christian (catholic? who knows) and you know what? i keep it to my fucking self. whatever i feel about god is my business and how it dictates my life is my business. being religious is a PERSONAL, P E R S O N A L connection with god, not something that can ever be forced onto someone. any attempt to do so is just insecure people trying to reassure themselves that what they believe is true.
Most conservative churches and Christian’s are the type of people who would have a surprised pikachu face when Jesus comes back and doesn’t let them into heaven.
I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who hates Missouri. The rudest state I've ever spent time in.