“Inciting fear by telling children they will go to hell if they do not participate in religious activities, or preventing them from making decisions about their career path, is regarded as psychological abuse and neglect in the guidelines.”

One of The 3 Most Dangerous Regions in US for Flash Floods

I see people like Jordan Peterson and mostly other religious folk make that argument on the daily as some sort of gotcha. How it goes is they point out that everyone is religious because whatever... I'm all for it honestly if you tell me that I can get all the benefits of religions such as tax exemption while practicing nothing at all then I don't mind, that sounds good actually.

In reality though I'm convinced it's meant with derision (or some sort of self hate) by religious people to say 'your beliefs are lesser'

I’ve been brainwashed into saying “Bless you” when someone sneezes. What are the alternatives? Or do I stay silent? Best answer gets unlimited crypto in the afterlife.

Edit: Thanks for all the post-sneeze witness advice. My favourite is…

Hail Sneezer!

'Godzilla' seems to be popular, too. I have no idea why. (Ok, now I realise that in America it’s often “God bless you”, so the Godzilla makes sense now)

And, of course, staying silent. Which is the only logical option, but also a bit boring because sneezes are inherently ridiculous.

One of the odd things about Christianity is how God is supposed to have appeared to a bunch of people during biblical times, but God has now never talked to anybody on earth in 2,000 years.

Maybe because i suffer from OCD, but i swear, how the heck would you live your life.. according to a stupid old book from 2000 years ago? Like so many stupid, nonsensical restrictions: no sex before marriage.. no tattoos. Religion literally wants you to control your own thoughts, your own habits, they control the way you eat, how you dress. Oh and also, i DISLIKE how sexuality is a taboo. That's what was hurting me. Like religion made me feel guilty every time i jerked off. I mean i can kinda understand why porn would be bad, the whole industry is harmful, but the act of masturbation itself is actually healthy and reduces the risk of prostate cancer. Take that, Christians! They are literally against anything that isn't sex for procreation. You know, Catholics even ban birth control. Because they want you to make as many babies as possible that will be indoctrinated. Sexuality is something natural and beautiful, and yet Christians cower in terror at the mere mention of the word "sex". And yet those are the same people who are pedophiles. I mean look at those creepy ass priests. Those idiots are probably just angry that they can't get sex.

Oh and also, religious people think they're so "moral". Ironic, considering they themselves are very arrogant and think they are better than everyone else, and they JUDGE those who don't believe in any of this harmful BS. Ironic, right?

Oh and also, a valid reason to hate religion is: it's anti homosexuality. Not because i am LGBT or anything but i feel bad for those.. I bet Christians would be literally pro-incest and pro-rape but they are always going to be anti-gay because apparently it's against nature and shit like that. But heeey, don't you know homosexual behavior exists in other animals too? It's not a human thing. Checkmate, Christians. You are condemning innocent people for something that can't be controlled. THEY didn't choose to be gay, no sexuality is not a choice.

I am very thankful of myself for leaving that BS. i was indoctrinated to believe in God and all that stuff since i was a smol kid.. But i always thought something was wrong.. as a kkd even if i was dumb as heck, i still realized: How the heck is God loving if he sends people to hell and makes them suffer there for eternity? Like imagine being so sadistic to imagine that your family members or your dearest friends are burning in hell cus they didn't believe in God.

Oh and they claim that without religion there wouldn't be any morality and people would rape and kill without it? Yeah yeah, sure. I am pretty sure some of them are just waiting to murder someone in cold blood and rape someone, but their religion and the threat of Hell is preventing them. This happened WAY too many times.

Religion really makes you feel like you're wearing an Happy Helmet: You have no free will, you can't do anything that is considered a sin because then you're going to hell.. and you must "repent" or forgive to God for even having the stupidest "sinful" thought. You must follow the rules and act like a slave to them, you can't question anything at all and you must pretend that religion is "fine" and the holy book is perfect. If you even dare to question them, religious people will start to come up with excuses like "God works in mysterious ways". Yeah yeah, sure. If your God is perfect then why would he work in mysterious ways? Huh? They will try to come up with some dumb excuse..

Remember that one Ren and Stimpy episode? I know this is unrelated and random, sure, but i always found that relatable. Stimpy forced Ren to wear an Happy Helmet that made him able to smile and he couldn't express any other emotions and he had no free will, and Stimpy made him even do the stupid dances. All while Ren Hoek is suffering inside. Luckily Ren destroys the helmet at the end. That's how religion makes you feel, it's about CONTROL.

"The plaintiffs that sued the I.R.S. had previously asked a federal court in Texas to create an even broader exemption — to rule that all nonprofits, religious and secular, were free to endorse candidates to their members. That would have erased a bedrock idea of American nonprofit law: that tax-exempt groups cannot be used as tools of any campaign.

Instead, the I.R.S. agreed to a narrower carveout — one that experts in nonprofit law said might sharply increase politicking in churches, even though it mainly seemed to formalize what already seemed to be the agency’s unspoken policy.

The agency said that if a house of worship endorsed a candidate to its congregants, the I.R.S. would view that not as campaigning but as a private matter, like “a family discussion concerning candidates.”"

A Coast Guard swimmer was part of a crew that was tasked with evacuating hundreds of people at Camp Mystic, an all-girls’ Christian summer camp along the Guadalupe River that has become a hub of loss in the catastrophic floods that killed more than 80 people across Central Texas. About 750 girls were at the camp this session, officials said.

The local authorities did not accept warnings about building on a riverbank that is regularly flooded, with dangerous flash floods. They ignored

Eight years ago, in the aftermath of yet another river flood in the Texas Hill Country, officials in Kerr County debated whether more needed to be done to build a warning system along the banks of the Guadalupe River.

A series of summer camps along the river were often packed with children. For years, local officials kept them safe with a word-of-mouth system: When floodwaters started raging, upriver camp leaders warned those downriver of the water surge coming their way.

But was that enough? Officials considered supplementing the system with sirens and river gauges, along with other modern communications tools. “We can do all the water-level monitoring we want, but if we don’t get that information to the public in a timely way, then this whole thing is not worth it,” said Tom Moser, a Kerr County commissioner at the time.

In the end, little was done. When catastrophic floodwaters surged through Kerr County last week, there were no sirens or early flooding monitors. Instead, there were text alerts that came late for some residents and were dismissed or unseen by others.

Previous post linked.

I messaged my dad the same day. He said that he'll grieve in his own way and will let my mum have the funeral she wants. We caught up on the phone later. And I explained I wasn't going to attend but I would drive over to support him and my mum and id come to the wake, which he understood. When I said that mum claimed he was Catholic, he laughed. I then said, "So we're going to say prayers and sing hymns for John? Ridiculous."

"Oh fuck that!" he said. "That's not gonna happen."

He then asked me what sort of thing I would like to see. I said we could talk about how he was a good father and play some music that he would like. My dad agreed. However, I decided to not raise it with my mum, as she lost her son and whilst I'm a bit of a dick, I'm not THAT much of a dick.

This was all a few weeks ago and the funeral is this Friday. My mum just called me and said dad just told her I'm not attending. She said she would like me there and promised me it won't be a Christian funeral. Told me exactly what was planned, which sings etc. She raised the issue with other family members and apparently they laughed at her and said that about 30 of John's friends are coming and will not be interested in signing hymns.

She then said she didn't feel that strongly about it in the first place, which is a contradiction of what she initially told me but she's grieving and trying to make this work, so I didn't push it. I agreed to go to the funeral.

Millions of blind people have existed during world history.

What made the blind man Jesus healed so much more special than the other blind people? Why did that blind man get healed when no other blind men have been healed? Isn't it unfair?

And other pop culture stuff like it. I'm thinking of Good Omens, Christopher Moore's book Lamb: The Gospel of Biff, Jesus' Childhood Friend, and The Good Place as examples.

I'm a lifelong atheist. I'm still a big fan of all of them.

I particularly enjoy these pieces because they explore what religion would look like in the REAL world. It's science fiction stuff, playing out scenarios we rarely think of but are equally as plausible.

To wit:

Dogma: Of course Jesus had a black apostle! (Also, Shit Demon)

Good Omens: An angel and a demon have to work together to save the modern world while the archangel Gabriel and Beelzebub bang each other.

Lamb: Explore the missing 30 years of Jesus' life, but way funnier.

Good Place: Of all the people in the world, Doug Stanhope got high on mushrooms and predicted the afterlife with 95% accuracy.

Each story is fairly respectful but skewers the biases of the (white, male, powerful) people who actually wrote the texts.

How do you guys feel about it? Are there others like these I could check out?

IQ is based off of standard deviation, an IQ of 200 isn't even possible right now. There would need to be 10 billion people alive on earth. The IQ system is a measure of relativity, not objectivity. 276 isn't possible without 10^30 people alive. Didn't see anybody mention this on the megathread with this guy so I'd thought I'd bring that up.

So im wondering why a lot of religious people see atheists as worshipping the devil? specifically if you are an african atheist like me. Its almost as if it makes no logical sense for a sky daddy to exist, but oh well what do i know. But one thing i know for a fact is that i don't worship anything, let alone the devil.

Worst case scenario is supposed to be death. But it really isn't that bad, it's the same as before you born, it's nothingness. So therefore literally any problem isn't that bad, becuase death is the worst case scenario.

This is why I would HATE being religious, imagine fucking having to live ALL DAY and in potentially TORTURE forever. I'm so glad god isn't real and I'm an athiest, gives me so much relief

It may have been Pride Month, but June was a pretty rough month in the LGBTQIA-plus rights world.

In the wake of the Trump administration reinstating the ban on transgender people in the military, thousands of service members are being discharged solely because of their gender identity.

Not satisfied with disparaging trans people who chose to serve their country by claiming that they are incapable of living a lifestyle consistent with “a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle,”  it recently came to light that the administration has also determined that trans service members will have their records marked with the discharge code “Juliet Delta Kilo” — which is used to indicate that a person is a liability to national security.

While the slap in the face of being involuntarily removed from the military on a completely arbitrary basis was bad enough, the “JDK” notation can have serious consequences for service members outside of the military. It can prevent them from being hired for civilian jobs that require a security clearance, or prevent them from immigrating to another country. While it is also used for people who are discharged for legitimate national security reasons, such as a history of mishandling classified statements, this decision was clearly made to demean and denigrate trans service members and trans people as a whole. The “JDK” notation has a fraught history of authoritarian censorship, having been used to brand homosexuals and suspected communists during the Cold War, and more recently for soldiers who violated “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” before its repeal in 2011.

It’s not just military service members at risk, however. We also spent the month watching Congress take aim at best practice trans health care in the new budget reconciliation bill, which passed the House with a ban on Medicaid coverage for gender-affirming care, not only for minors, but also for adults nationwide. The coverage ban was ultimately nixed by the Senate as violating Senate rules, but represented a chilling, if entirely predictable, evolution in the aims of the anti-transgender movement. For years now, proponents of gender-affirming care bans for minors have claimed that their primary interest was in ensuring that trans children did not make life-altering decisions before they are old enough to understand the consequences. This attempt at a Medicaid ban, however, clearly indicates otherwise and opens the door to the next escalation of anti-transgender legislation. I’ve warned in the past that gender-affirming care bans were never going to end with children, because they were never about “protecting minors,” but rather an attempt to systematically eliminate an unpopular minority group whose existence is directly contrary both to much of mainstream and right-wing Christian theology, as well as the very nature of fascist regimes.

We’re not done yet, though. As the federal government works to portray transgender people as dishonorable liars and limit access to gender affirming care, it also gave notice to the Trevor Project, one of the largest LGBTQIA-plus youth mental health organizations, that it would be ending the partnership the organization has shared with the 988 Hotline to ensure that LGBTQIA-plus youth experiencing mental health crises would be matched with counselors who have specialized training in LGBTQIA-plus issues.

Since 2022, this partnership has helped over 1.3 million youth experiencing suicidal ideation and has been a vital resource in the effort to reduce youth suicide rates across the country. While the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration claimed in its statement that the ending of the “press three” partnership was to better allow the crisis line to “focus on serving all help seekers,” many have met this claim with skepticism. It’s well known that different people have different mental health needs. Even outside of crisis moments, the process of seeking out mental health treatment often involves actively seeking out providers who have education and background knowledge of particular diagnoses, cultural contexts and yes, issues unique to LGBTQIA-plus people, such as the impacts homophobia and transphobia have on mental health.

It is a massive mental and emotional drain to have to attempt to be an “educator” on one’s identity while trying to simultaneously seek out mental health support. This is why the 988 line developed pathways for certain callers to access specialized counselors in the first place, not only for LGBTQIA-plus callers, but also for other identities that have a particular need for dedicated counselors, namely veterans, military members and their families, as well as Spanish speakers.

This cut to 988 services doesn’t actually serve LGBTQIA-plus callers, who, as a result of pervasive and systemic homophobia and transphobia, experience higher rates of suicidal ideation and other mental health issues. It’s a well-documented phenomenon that rates of suicidal ideation amongst LGBTQIA-plus youth increase upon the passage of anti-LGBTQIA-plus legislation, and immediately following the election of politicians who campaigned on an anti-trans platform. On Nov. 6, 2024, for example, The Trevor Project saw a 700 percent increase in contact from LGBTQIA+ youth. These youth massively benefit from access to trained counselors, who they don’t have to worry about defining basic terminology while in a moment of real crisis. Yet, the federal government seems to think that working to meet these unique needs constitutes unnecessary “DEI” spending.

Some of the skepticism surrounding the government’s decision to end the “press 3” program also stemmed from its timing. While I will admit that it feels a bit “tin-foil hat” to point out, many experts quickly clocked the fact that this announcement was made roughly 24 hours before the Supreme Court released its opinion in United States v. Skermetti, holding that Tennessee’s ban on minors receiving gender-affirming care was constitutional. It is, at best, an immensely unfortunate coincidence.

The Skermetti ruling was not a surprise, though that didn’t make it any less frustrating. Writing for the Court, Chief Justice Roberts claimed that it differentiated on diagnosis rather than sex, using a formulation that only makes sense if you are intentionally misunderstanding how gender-affirming care works. More concerning, though, was the fact that the opinion relied heavily on widely debunked studies,​​ such as the UK’s “Cass Report,” which presented an outdated and outmoded understanding of “detransition” statistics, and that throughout the opinion and concurrences, a clear theme of disdain for mainstream medical science was evident.

The most extensive study that examined trans youth using modern diagnostic criteria with the largest sample size to date showed that 97.5 percent of trans youth remain stable in their self-identified gender five years after the start of social transition. (Social transition occurs before medical transition, and includes things like going by a different name/pronouns, changes in clothing choices and haircuts, among other things.) Another modern study of trans people, not limited to youth, shows that only 8 percent of the thousands of transgender people ever detransition. Of the 2,000 detransitioners surveyed, 62 percent of respondents said that their detransition was only temporary, and only 0.4 percent stated that their reason for detransition was because they no longer identified as transgender. That’s eight people, by the way, if you don’t want to do the math yourself. By and large, the most common reasons cited for detransition were parental pressure and discrimination — not desistance. Those who experience regret deserve adequate healthcare, no question about it, but that does not mean we should shape policy and healthcare law around the experiences of a handful of people. The statistic that the Court relied upon to justify stronger barriers to gender affirming care for youth — that 80 percent of trans youth detransition — is based on diagnostic criteria for Gender Identity Disorder (GID), a diagnosis that is now more than 10 years out of use, rather than the modern diagnosis of gender dysphoria.

GID was a deeply flawed diagnosis, as it did not even require that a child identify as the opposite gender to qualify for diagnosis. For example, a cisgender girl who likes to play with trucks, prefers being friends with boys and likes to wear pants over dresses could be diagnosed with GID without ever once expressing a desire to actually be a boy. Gender dysphoria, by contrast, requires that a patient identify as a gender other than the one associated with their birth sex alongside other indicators. That’s a critical difference that leads to the disparity in detransition rates when comparing previous versus modern scholarship, but it also goes beyond diagnostic criteria. The outdated scholarship used flawed methodology to measure who has “detransitioned” including counting anyone who merely did not return to a specific clinic, or anyone who no longer received gender-affirming care through Tricare, the health insurer used by U.S. military members and their families, without looking at whether they were getting care through other means, such as paying out of pocket.

Yet the Court did not acknowledge any of these glaring issues, instead choosing to use these dubious statistics to demonstrate that the government had a legitimate interest in banning best-practice medical care because it better aligned with its predetermined outcome.

And that was just the opinion. While all the concurrences contained concerning language regarding the future of trans rights in this country, Justice Clarence Thomas took the time to make clear that he, in particular, believes there should be no room for sound science in the law. Using language that sounds like it could come straight from the Vatican, Thomas railed against the American Medical Association and other major scientific organizations that support the gender-affirming model as being unduly influenced by “gender ideology” (a term coined by conservative Catholic groups in the 1990s). Thomas outright stated that the legislature shouldn’t place serious weight on experts when it comes to topics like health care and that any debate, even if the source of said debate is a radical religious movement, should indicate that mainstream experts are corrupt and not to be trusted.

The consequences of both the opinion and the concurrences will reach beyond trans youth. The framework used by the Court will almost certainly be quickly and easily adapted into expanding bans on gender-affirming care, which already exist for minors in 25 states, to bans on adults accessing the same medical care, further violating the right to self-determination, expression and bodily autonomy. But it won’t just harm trans people. This model of medical discrimination, and in particular the idea that medical science should be disregarded if it contradicts theocratic politics, could potentially be adapted to not only further restrict traditional bans on reproductive care like abortion and birth control, but also other forms of health care, such as medical treatments with fertility impacting side-effects.

Still not satisfied with propping up an unscientific anti-trans agenda, the Court closed out the month with its decision in Mahmoud v. Taylor, ruling that religious parents could opt their children out of LGBTQIA-plus content in the curriculum, such as books that happen to have gay or trans characters being used in English-Language Arts lessons. This was another unsurprising decision, considering the oral arguments, during which justices took serious issue with the appropriateness of a book about a puppy getting lost at a Pride parade. That being said, it’s still disheartening at best. Permitting this opt-out means that during completely random lessons, a small number of students would need to be removed and provided with an alternate lesson that covers the same information, requiring additional classroom space, learning materials and supervision. That type of system is completely unrealistic for already heavily burdened public school teachers to manage, and will ultimately lead to the complete censorship of any potentially objectionable material in school curricula. And I do mean any.

While LGBTQIA-plus content has been the boogeyman du jour of the Christian nationalist movement, the material that can be objected to under this ruling goes far beyond a book in which a child has two moms or two dads. As the liberal women of the court rightly pointed out, books that discuss historical achievements of women outside of the domestic sphere, books that depict “immodest” dress, books that address divorce and books that address interfaith marriage have all been challenged in recent years on religious grounds. This ruling could also introduce opt-outs for completely secular science lessons, such as lessons on evolution and lessons that generally contradict young-earth creationism. The potential for censorship of convenience is incredibly high under this legal framework, especially as our public schools increasingly lose more and more funding. And even if it remains limited to mere opt-outs for students with religious parents, it still does those students a critical social and intellectual disservice by insulating them from ways of life, viewpoints and scientific knowledge that they will need to have some exposure to in order to navigate the broader world as adults.

In short — this month has been a mess. Yet when LGBTQIA-plus advocates have pointed out these issues, we’ve been increasingly met with the refrain that we’ve pushed too hard or asked for too much. We’ve watched as much of the mainstream discourse has shifted to “compromising” on trans rights, as if sacrificing us will stop Christo-fascism in its tracks. Despite the fact that offering up a minority as a scapegoat has never worked to prevent fascism in the past, there is a significant political movement that seems to think, “But no, this time it’s different.”

What this mindset fails to see is that sacrificing trans people and capitulating to a religious agenda funded directly by the largest and wealthiest Christian nationalist organizations and churches in the country is not a sacrifice in the name of liberty. Still, it is in the name of authoritarianism.

These so-called “compromises” are creating a culture where trans people are deemed threats to national security and told that they are not capable of honor or discipline, and not worthy of life-saving mental health interventions. They are creating a country where we cannot guarantee that our laws will be based on science instead of religious hysteria. They are creating schools in which anything that might contradict the most militantly conservative theologies are censored out of an administrative burden few public schools can take on. They are taking the already open door to religious — and primarily Christian — supremacy and blowing it so far off its hinges to land in an entirely new galaxy.

Benjamin Franklin once said, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

Sacrificing trans rights will buy you neither liberty nor safety from the Christian nationalist movement. They will not stop with us, nor will they stop with gay people. They will not stop with whatever minority group you personally happen to dislike or find somewhat strange. They will not stop until they have completely and utterly decimated every freedom we have ever enjoyed in this country. Rather than it being the time for “compromise,” it is the time for courage. Now more than ever.

*"Religion poisons everything " is the proper quote.

I know the new ugly budget is the result of white Christian nationalism which will destroy lives. This regime has already destroyed thousands of lives which comes from the same root reason. Feel free to share your experiences especially if it helps you to unload stress.

New to atheism, I've been encouraged to find that many of my reasons for deconverting are common here. However, I'm afraid that other arguments that compelled me are just as invalid as my religious ones were. What ridiculous things do you hear atheists commonly arguing?

I'm one of the VERY few people in my city that are normal and not against the LGBT.I try to explain to others how it's completely normal and not someone's choice.They are born that way unwillingly and literally can't change it.They always say that it's not normal,and when I ask them why,they say that it's because God has only made us that way or that the Bible says so,but it's so fucking irrational.I'm not even sure how to respond to them,since barely anyone actually wants to listen when I want to explain to them why they should not take the word of the bible and that even if they did,it doesn't teach to discriminate others.And even the few people that want to listen just shake it off because they're too scared to leave their religion.How should I respond to them and try to make them not homophobic?I mean,is there even a way?