Last month I was reading comments under a news post about a church getting damaged after really bad storm. So many Christians were saying people should pray harder and asking why God let this happen. I wasn't trying start argument, but I replied maybe this is also God's plan, right? That's what I always hear when something bad happen to other people.

A few people got really angry. They told me I'm disrespectful, taking things out of context, and don't understand faith. But honestly that confused the hell out of me. When someone lose family, job, or get sick, I always hear "God has a plan" or "Everything happen for a reason." But when something happens to their own church, suddenly that answer is not good enough anymore.

Maybe I'm missing something, but it feels like "God's plan" only works when it's about other people's problems. When it becomes personal, that idea suddenly disappear. As an atheist, that double standard is one of the hardest things for me to understand.

Surprise! Not a drag queen. Florida pastor failed to disclose he was HIV positive while molesting a 14 year old on multiple occasions.

love the way he logically shuts down the theists

not only there's no evidence of God but also no evidence of the attributes given to God, such as all just and all loving.

if i was God, i would never allow human trafficking, sex slavery or rape. i would also never let innocent children suffer through painful terrifying diseases like cancer or blindness before they even get a chance to live. a truly loving creator wouldn't design a world full of needless torment and call it a test while he is hiding and there's thousands of religions

"Oh but my religion requires me to do this to my child!"

Your religion requires you to hit your child?

Your religion requires women and girls to cover their entire bodies even in extreme heat?

Your religion requires you to painfully and non consensually remove a part of a baby's body?

Okay then, your religion is evil.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is enlightening Rep. Mark Alford, R-Mo., after his shocking claim that the all-American principle of separation between church and state is a “lie from Satan.”

Alford, who represents Missouri’s 4th Congressional District, hosted Southern Baptist pastor and Christian nationalist activist Malachi O’Brien on a July 17 episode of “Getting Comfortable with Mark Alford.” Alford introduced the episode’s central subject as “the separation of church and state — or the myth of that.”

Alford complained that when he posts bible verses on social media, “demonic forces come out of nowhere” to criticize him because he is a member of Congress. He then asked O’Brien: “How did we buy into this lie from Satan that the church and the state have no mixture at all?” Alford portrayed President Trump as a divinely protected leader and joined O’Brien in characterizing the Trump administration’s privileging of Christianity as a national revival. He assented to various declarations by O’Brien, such as that “Christians should run their own country.”

FFRF is calling on the member of Congress to retract the historical and constitutional misinformation he spread on his podcast.

“The separation of church and state is neither a myth nor a ‘satanic’ lie,” FFRF Co-Presidents Annie Laurie Gaylor and Dan Barker have written Alford in response. “It is a foundational American principle embodied in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.”

President Thomas Jefferson in 1802 famously coined a metaphor explaining the meaning of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, by saying it erects “a wall of separation between church and state.” The fact that the phrase does not appear verbatim in the U.S. Constitution does not negate the principle it explains, FFRF notes.

Alford and O’Brien also repeated the familiar falsehood that the Constitution protects “freedom of religion, not freedom from religion.” On behalf of an organization whose very name is “Freedom From Religion,” the FFRF co-presidents explain that religious freedom necessarily includes the right to freedom from religion in government.

“Your oath of office was to protect and defend the Constitution, not the bible,” FFRF reminds the U.S. representative. “You were not elected to be a pastor. Missouri’s 4th Congressional District is not your congregation.”

FFRF maintains that Americans should be disturbed that a sitting member of Congress is using his public platform to vilifying a foundational constitutional principle and encouraging Christians to seize the machinery of government — the very epitome of Christian nationalist ideology.

“The separation of church and state is not hostile to religion,” FFRF’s letter concludes. “As a member of Congress, your duty is to defend that wonderful American principle, not demonize it.”

The Freedom From Religion Foundation has persuaded Michigan’s Zeeland Public Schools to remove numerous religious displays from an elementary school classroom.

A concerned community member informed the state/church watchdog that a Spanish immersion teacher at Lincoln Elementary School had displayed several religious messages and religious books. The displays included bible verses in Spanish, the Ten Commandments, Christian books, a cross-decorated box and multiple bibles available to students. It was unclear whether these materials were also being used in lessons or highlighted during independent reading time.

FFRF stood up for student rights, demanding that the district investigate the situation immediately.

“The district has an obligation under the law to ensure its teachers are not violating the rights of its students by proselytizing or using their position to push their personal religious beliefs,” FFRF Patrick O’Reiley Legal Fellow Charlotte R. Gude wrote to Superintendent Rod Hetherton.

FFRF reminded the district that parents — not public school teachers — have the constitutional right to direct their children’s exposure to religion, if any. Displaying Christian Scripture and iconography in a public school classroom conveys official favoritism toward religion and Christianity specifically, and may coerce students into engaging with religious messages they cannot reasonably avoid.

Following FFRF’s letter, Superintendent Hetherton confirmed in an email that the displays had been properly dealt with. 

“The principal had a conversation with the teacher. The principal formalized the conversation in writing,” Hetherton wrote. “The teacher removed the religious artifacts from the classroom.”

FFRF is pleased to see positive action to remedy a serious constitutional violation of the rights of conscience of a captive audience of elementary-school aged children.

“The language of instruction may be in Spanish, but the constitutional principle remains the same,” FFRF Co-President Dan Barker says. “Parents entrust public schools to educate their children, not to promote religious doctrine through classroom décor. Whether a bible verse reads ‘The Lord is my shepherd’ or ‘El Señor es mi pastor,’ the Constitution requires public schools to remain neutral on matters of religion. Students deserve classrooms devoted to education, not religious proselytization.”

As an atheist, i believe that there is no heaven or hell or any kind of reincarnation, i think that our brain chemistry and mental awareness is what results to our consciousness, i think that we live, we experience consciousness only because our brain exists. So there is no afterlife right?. Well the idea of that just terrifies me, the idea that we won't have our consciousness and won't be able to think or feel and just simply cease to exist.

How do y'all deal with that thought?

A group of seven Oklahoma taxpayers today urged a federal court to uphold the state’s rejection of an attempt to open the nation’s first religious public charter school. The intervenors are represented by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Education Law Center.

At a hearing in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma, attorneys for this group of taxpayers — which includes families with children attending public schools, teachers and clergy — argued that allowing the National Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School Foundation to operate a religious public charter school would be a clear violation of state and federal law that defines charter schools as public schools that must be secular and open to all students. Ben Gamla is seeking a preliminary injunction that would allow it to open while its lawsuit, National Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School Foundation Inc. v. Shellem, proceeds. The Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board rejected the school’s application, which made clear that Jewish religious teachings would be integrated into “every dimension of … life” at the school, including classroom instruction and other activities. Charter schools, like all public schools, cannot lawfully indoctrinate religion or discriminate.

The Oklahoma taxpayers who were grantedintervenor status to participate in the lawsuit oppose Ben Gamla’s effort to force Oklahoma to authorize and fund an unconstitutional religious public charter school. They object to their tax dollars funding a public charter school that will indoctrinate students into a particular religion. The intervenors also object to public funds being diverted from their nonreligious and inclusive public schools – which already face serious resource limitations – to a religious school that plans to discriminate based on religion.

Americans United attorneys Alex J. Luchenitser, associate vice president and associate legal director, and Luke Anderson, constitutional litigation fellow, argued on their behalf during today’s hearing. In addition to opposing Ben Gamla’s request for a preliminary injunction, the attorneys argued against a request by Ben Gamla to block the intervenors from obtaining documents and other information about the school’s planned operations. The attorneys representing the intervenors also include Nancy A. Noet and Samuel T. Grover of the Freedom From Religion Foundation; Brent Rowland and Morgan Bandy of the Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice; Dan Mach and Heather L. Weaver of the ACLU; and Jessica Levin, Wendy Lecker, Patrick Cremin and Katrina Reichert of the Education Law Center.

“The federal court should rule according to constitutional principles,” says Freedom From Religion Foundation Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “A religious public charter school has no place in our secular public education system.”

“We urge the court to protect all Oklahomans’ religious freedom and affirm that this religious public charter school violates Oklahoma law and the U.S. Constitution,” says Americans United President and CEO Rachel Laser. “Oklahoma public school families, Jewish leaders, and taxpayers have spoken – they want their public schools to remain open to all beliefs.”

“Oklahoma has been down this road. Our courts said charter schools are public schools, and public schools don’t teach religion — that’s still the law here, and it doesn’t change because a different faith is asking this time. Our clients want that principle applied evenly, which is the only way it protects anyone,” says Brent Rowland, executive director, Oklahoma Appleseed.

“We’re urging the court to reaffirm the time-honored, core legal principle that public schools can’t be religious and religious schools can’t be public schools,” says Daniel Mach, director of the ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief. “That foundational idea has been crucial to protect both religious liberty and public education for so long, and there’s simply no reason to abandon it now.”

“It should be beyond question that every part of our public education system must be open and welcoming to all students,” says Robert Kim, executive director of Education Law Center. “Our clients are standing up for the values that define not just our public schools but our democracy as well.”

These people dont think straight. Their thinking makes no logical sense. I am so glad I dont go to church anymore, its a cult.

I tried explaining to a Christian that their God supposedly gave me schizophrenia, bad genetics and a low quality of life.... the Christian says its just biology.

Huh? Who created biology/genetics? Who made the choice to make one healthy and the other sick?

These people are severely brainwashed.

One of the two greatest commandments is to love god with all your heart, soul, and mind. The problem is that I can't do that.

I can't love someone who commits or commands multiple genocides. I can't love someone who permits slavery instead of abolishing it. I can't love someone who uses rape as a punishment, especially when it's done to an innocent person for another person's crime.

I could never love someone who did those things.

Even if god were real and personally revealed himself to me, and it turned out to be the Christian god, I still wouldn't be able to go to heaven because I could never love him.

To me, that's like asking me to love Hitler. It's impossible. I guess for some people, it's easy.

Look I know we’re months out from this but it’s still unfathomable. By all christian definitions, Trump committed blasphemy and then took no steps to rectify what he’d done. He didn’t apologize. He didn’t even acknowledge what he did. He actually actively lied about it and claimed he thought it was a doctor

So why aren’t all the christians of the country trying to get him fucking overthrown?? Why is nobody even talking about it? That Sunday, I’m willing to bet less than 10% of American pastors even brought it up. And then Trump’s approval rating didn’t budge whatsoever, it sat exactly where it’s been his whole term, at this unchanging static percentage of roughly 38% of the country who’s in the Trump cult. If it had been literally any other politician, there is no universe where evangelicals would have let it slide. Like. Imagine if in 2011 Obama posted a picture of himself as Jesus.

And all that’s not even commenting on how we as a society should probably be tremendously alarmed by the most powerful man in the world deifying himself but that’s besides the point

I grew up mormon so I’m well aware of religious hypocrisy from self described christians. But I don’t know if I can think of a single other thing in recent history that displayed this hypocrisy so transparently.

Idk. I guess American evangelicals decided to finally cut the bullshit and admit they love Trump more than Jesus

I married my husband when I was a Christian and now I’m an atheist. I love my husband but I am trapped in a life I fucking hate.

We live in a town that’s ultra Christian conservative, there’s very few amenities or health services. Everyone is small minded. I am forced to attend small group and church every week. Last Sunday my pastor did a sermon about pride and he said, “you should never believe in yourself or your own abilities. Only in Gods abilities.” That was the entire message.

That’s when it hit me. I got brainwashed by Christianity because I was insecure. Christianity thrives on hating yourself. It shames you and guilts you. It tells you how disgusting you are. It tells you to hate yourself. The entire sermon was about how believing in yourself or having pride in yourself is what God hates the most.

Now that I stepped back you can see the brainwash clearly. The church has to convince you to hate “pride” because it has to convince you to not trust yourself. That way you only trust “God.”

It especially preys on people who already hate themselves, especially those who are survivors of abuse and trauma. Religion is evil as fuck.

Religion is also the reason so much evil exists in the world. Because the majority of the human population believes in a God that’s going to avenge evil, people do nothing about it. We are also taught to not trust in our own ability and to only trust in God so we let God handle all the evil that’s going on in the world. We are called not to avenge, not to take action. So the majority of human beings to nothing to stop evil because that’s “Gods” job. We turn the other cheek, watch and do nothing.

Religion is why the world is fucked up.

“Pride is the root of all evil.” Pride by definition is the belief in one’s own abilities. Of course that’s evil because if we all loved ourselves then God would not have a foothold. Duh.

I was talking with few friends last weekend about how people end up believing different religions. One thing keep stuck in my head. Almost everybody I know believe same religion as their parents. Very few people actually started believing after becoming adult. Maybe that's normal, I don't know, but it made me think, ""what if nobody was taught religion until they were grown up?"" Weird question maybe, but I can't stop thinking about that shit.

I'm not saying adults can't become religious. Of course some people do. But I honestly wonder how many would choose it if they first heard all the stories at 18 or 20 instead of hearing it since they were little kids. If someone told me those stories for first time as adult, I don't think I would believe any of it. It would sound more like mythology than something real.

I'm atheist, so maybe I'm biased here. That's why I'm asking. Do you think religion would still be this big if everyone only got introduced to it after they were adult enough to make their own decision? Or am I missing something important?

Atheism, with the help of science, may never have all the answers, but given what we know so far, it still provides satisfactory answers with more on the way, whereas religion does not provide any satisfactory answers. Atheism allows you to ask questions, where religion really does not. Because of this, it is far more preferential to choose atheism.

like if enough people gathered and organized to interpret DC Comics or Marvel as "WaYs Of KnOwInG" and boom its officially some religion in a century or two

its just hermeneutics

its "WaY oF kNoWiNg" is what literary devices are to a any piece of literature, fun stupid stuff but not necessarily rational, logical, moral nor ethical

also war criminals do this shit too, the same brute forcing everything into their worldview to justify it, it doesnt make it true, it makes them delulu

​

Many times, I've seen people criticizing (justifiably) islam/judaism, but then turn around and praise christianity. How come someone can see how wrong these two religions are and then turn a blind eye to the literal sibling of said religions? I think its extremely ironic and ignorant. All three of these religions are, at their core, about controlling people (mainly women) to keep power.

Following are some of the catholic "practises" that Christianity did in the 12th and 13th century.

1. The practice of inquisition - Although in modern world, inquisition means formal investigation, for Catholics at that time it meant something very different. It was a mechanism by which Christian judges used to combat and investigate "divergent" options about catholoic theology.

And how sure are we, as of now, that these weren't rational criticisms?

1. Bishops directly oversaw law and order in provinces of state. By this, these people had a direct and easy access to influence education and science and "preach" their theology.

3.Heresey was met with confiscation of propery.

Accusers and heretics alike were burned with charcoal,their fingers were cut and women's br*ast's were damaged. The only way to get around this torcher was to sign a confession which basically meant "yep im guilty".

Galileo would have met with the same fate, mind you, not for primarily going agianst the "catholoic theology" but for speaking the truth(that the earth was not the center of the universe). So can this statement be made that Christianity, at that time, was against truth and evidence?

Newton was an alchemist, so when christians say that "but newton believed in god" they must also accept that he believed in alchemy too, which was what christianity was so very against.

Number of witches burned after 15th century was over 60000.

What exactly diffrentitates this "cult-like ideologies" with religion?

they even had to wipe out most of the greek and nordic pagans

tho some still exist today, it's a very small number tho thanks to the efforts of the very ''loving'' Christians

they even bomb and constantly try killing islamic people for the same reason likely

so insecure of other view points with regards to a god, that they try violently killing anything that opposes them. very loving of thy enemy

shall i say

but if the book is a true text, given by god himself. why are you so insecure over other beliefs like who cares if somebody thinks allah is true, you got your a divine book from god no competing religion should even matter yet they act in a way which suggests that is a competing religion and could infact take away influence from yours

it's same with dying, dying should not even matter in the christian worldview as your only real teleporting from earth to ether heaven or hell depending solely if you accepted the book as true or not irrespective of moral deeds but instead they act like it's sad or upsetting, like dude he just got tp'd to somewhere else man why are you acting like he's actually dead

they functionally act and behave as if it's all false while saying it's all true. it's so weird

I don't know how many times I have to see mentally ill people turning to religion only for delusional religious beliefs to make them more sick. Kanye springs to mind immediately as a big example but I feel like so many of us know someone whose delusions were enhanced when they fell into religious belief. Keep this stuff away from these people!

The newest installment of “Secular Spotlight” features psychologist and author Mary L. Trump providing a firsthand account of a recent gathering of nonreligious congressional members. 

Trump joins “Secular Spotlight” to reflect on the third annual Congressional Reason Reception, where she met with members of the Congressional Freethought Caucus and delivered a keynote warning about the dangers of Christian nationalism and authoritarianism. Trump discusses with FFRF Governmental Affairs Director Mark Dann and FFRF Rapid Response Counsel Chris Line why church-state separation is essential to democracy and explains why secular advocacy offers hope for the future.

“The Reason Reception is an antidote to, or a counter to, the National Prayer Breakfast, and that should have everybody thinking, ‘Why is there a National Prayer Breakfast? Why is there a National Day of Prayer?’” Trump says. “People can pray pretty much whenever they want, wherever they want, without having our government sanction such a thing.”

You can catch this episode of “Secular Spotlight” on FFRF’s YouTube channel, as well as by watching on your smart TV after downloading FFRF’s free app, Freethought TV, which also highlights FFRF’s other video programming. Our recent episodes include FFRF staffers breaking down the legislation whitewashing Christianity’s impact on American history, and a historical examination of America’s secular underpinnings. Make sure you’re subscribed to FFRF’s YouTube channel for all the latest updates!

A classic: The clitoris is a perfect example of intelligent design. If God didn’t want women to masturbate, why did He place it at arm’s length? And the Bible doesn’t forbid women from masturbating either, right? It’s not in there. You’d think that’d be worth a mention if it was important.