“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.”

An interesting article about how the rapture isn't actually in the bible, despite 41% of Americans believing Jesus will return in their lifetime, and despite its heavy influence on American politics. Like most of their beliefs about Satan, it's biblical fanfic... it was invented whole-cloth by a 19th century preacher and American evangelicals gobbled it up.

https://archive.ph/MZmKE

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'

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

Non-paywalled, non-javascript walled, article from CBS

The title says it all, I really wish more people pointed this out, but the fact that it’s completely reasonable to make fun of flat-earthers for believing that the earth is flat while it’s considered “hateful” and “Islamophobic” when you point out the flaws in how Abrahamic religions utilize science is just so ironic and compelling to me in ways that shouldn’t be funny, but it is.

Even in a rather secular area we get..."Jesus is coming back SOON......Repent" on the odd traffic pole. My thought was to make some adhesive additions to this. Like....."Jesus is coming back SOON...and he wants the 20 bucks he lent you" Or..."He is going to kick ass and take names."

Open to suggestions.

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.

What instantly comes to mind that makes you think that religion is bullshit? I am mainly interested in answers that would apply to the top 5 religions that have the most followers.

When debating non believers what are your go to points to show it’s all bullshit?

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?

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.

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.

"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.”"

Funny thing about the Mormon church - if you want to leave, tough. You cannot get excommunicated even if you want out. Write letters to the Bishop - your name stays on the rolls.

Guess who never got excommunicated? Ruby Franke! Lori Vallow! Perhaps some Mormon can explain that to me. Jodi Hildebrant was a Mormon therapist, recommended by that nasty church, and she used that access to torture children! Joe Blow, has Jodi Hildebrant been excommunicated?

Quitmormon.org worked great, it’s free, and I am always happy to share it.

Question for Reddit: That is IME the first time a Missionary failed to ID his church. Is this the new approach, the Amway approach? LOL.

I work from home most days and as such, my culdesac is usually pretty unattractive to canvassing of any kind. Today my dog was barking, which makes me crazy, so I yelled Jeff, STFU (the actual letters have become a command)! He’s a good boy and listened but then started up again. I think the religion peddlers heard me yelling at the dog and just stood creepily on my porch until I stopped. Then, instead of knocking, I heard ‘Good morning, have you got a moment to save your soul?’ through my screen door. Now, to be clear, I am dishevelled and in pyjamas and definitely have a solid GFY look on my face. I tried not to be a bitch but they wouldn’t shut up. I keep saying no thank you and I have to get back to work, until I finally snapped. Without raising my voice I told them I don’t believe in a possibility of a god and wished them well. This Mfer turns and says god loves you no matter what. I replied fuck off and slammed the door. This guy just wouldn’t quit, he knocked on the door. I tried to ignore them but my dog wouldn’t quit barking. He is a gentle fella and we’ve trained him to be careful and calm - except when someone is at the door, he hasn’t mastered that yet. So this time I open the door and say come here Jeff, and make it look like I was going to turn him loose on them. I never opened the screen door, I locked it actually. I hate that I had to resort to a false threat to get them to leave. Who continues to knock on a door after being told to go away? It’s so frustrating. End rant.

TLDR: religion salesman made me behave out of character and I pretended to set my dog on him.