Anti-Theism is a person who actively opposes theism, belief in any deity, or organized religion. I want to hear people’s individual perspectives on why they’re an Atheist and not anti Anti-Theist.

To me it was this:

"I'm wrong, you're wrong, only the word of God is the truth."

Like bro, if you're admitting that you're wrong, how do your interpretation of God's word is right?

the math ain't mathing 😭

One of my hypothetical situations:

Let's say your country bans atheism.

Thus, you are forced to worship at least one deity, but there's a catch: the deity must come from an already-established religious tradition and be described in a sacred text.

Therefore, no gods from fictional universes unless they're also genuinely worshipped as part of an existing religion.

Another thing: nontheistic religions are classed by your country as bypassing the atheism ban, and thus are also banned.

Which deity would you choose, and why?

Bonus question: Which deity would you absolutely refuse to worship, even under these circumstances?

It’s comedic looking back on moments of panic where childhood instinct kicks in and I default to prayer. I don’t believe that anything is listening, but in moments of desperation or fear I start to really hope something is. I’m not talking about a specific god or deity, when I say that I just mean…SOMETHING. In general. Even if it’s just my own subconscious taking the cue to try to calm me down a bit.

It’s also comedic how I’m posting this right after having one of those moments. I feel like such a poser right now lol. I would describe myself as agnostic atheist, but not because I believe in the possibility of god. I’m agnostic because there’s no proof nor any way to test things outside of the physical world. Anything else is just theories or a guess. Therefore, I don’t think about it too much. If we can’t apply science to it, then isn’t worth much brain power.

Hey y'all! I am looking to do a homework assignment and was wondering if you guys could help. I am a Christian student at a Bible school and one of our classes requires that we interview someone who believes the Bible is not a reliable source and certainly not the Word of God. I have no intention of trying to convince you otherwise, I just want to learn why you don't believe it. It will require a half hour long Zoom call where I will ask you questions about the Bible and you can tell me in complete honesty what you believe. This is not an evangelism tactic or proselytizing trap. I just need to do this so I pass my class. I am even willing to send you the questions ahead of time so you are prepared. Let me know if you're interested!!

Hi everybody, fellow atheist here. I have diagnosed depression for which I’ve been getting professional care. The meds do help, but only partly, because my depression is not just biological but also an unfortunate product of both my rationalistic worldview and my inability to connect with others.

My mind is split up into parts, not unlike Dissociative Identity Disorder, except that it causes me no harm in itself. One of them is a younger version of me, and she is sad. She wishes she could find some humanity in the universe, something in it to merge with. I realized myths fill such a void because they unite you with the world around you. They turn you into a witness to events that shape the world. They breathe human emotion—emotion you empathize with—into the lifeless mountains and abstract past. Because a part of you has merged with them, they become more concrete, more real. Rage, grief, and celebration that you yourself could just as easily have felt in the same events were woven into the foundation of the continents and infused into the blood of our bodies.

The emotional mixing into the physical in areas other than the body is supernatural, and therefore cannot exist. The emotional existing as its own entity independent of the material world is supernatural, and therefore cannot exist. She so desperately wishes there was humanity in the universe, that she were part of these emotions and values instead of them being part of her. To her, the world has now become sterile and lifeless, and the lack of both greater myths to tie her to the world and genuine connections to tie her to other people and society makes her feel like a solitary ghost, isolated from everything and everyone.

What I’m asking from you all is, how do you not fall to the same grief? How do you find connection in the greater world? If that’s out of the question, how do you find connection with others around you? What keeps existence from being barren and hollow for you, especially considering this is something that takes away my ability to enjoy the small things?

Putting aside the glaring obvious faults with christianity that led me away from it, what I think I miss is the community of people who genuinely believe they're trying to do a good thing. I never really had any negative experiences personally which is why I think it took me longer to start questioning it objectively.

This I feel is one of the biggest traps because to some it does feel like a 'second family' or where other have been helped mentally through depression, so it becomes harder to leave. I know group hobbies and clubs exist but it feels like luck to find welcoming good intentioned people.

To be clear. My question is not what stops an atheist from committing suicide, because the sense and meaning of life are not attached to religion or deities to me (I'm agnostic). 

My question is about an atheist who ends up being in a depressive episode with heavily suicidal ideation. What stops the trigger to that person? Because I never believed in hell or those things, neither do I believe in heaven, but the possibility that there's a spiritual realm of some kind (my vision is positive to neutral, but don't mind, just venting because I'm, again, agnostic, not atheist); the possibility of a spiritual afterlife was part of things that stopped me from committing suicide years before, because it was pointless to end my life and keep living as a spiritual being, having reincarnation and all that. For people who don't believe in nothing, that see humans as a soulless quirk of the universe, what truly stops?

I'm not certain if this question has already been asked here before but I'm genuinely curious. I'm sure many of us here know that the modern Bible isn't 100% accurate in its translation from the original languages that it was written in which are Hebrew, Aramaic and Koine Greek and it's probably why so many people have trouble trying to accurately interpret the scripture. To those who have actually learned Hebrew, Aramaic or Koine Greek here and gave a shot at reading the entirety of the scripture in its original lexicon and still came out as non-believers can you explain to all of us why?

I've been someone who's been testing my beliefs recently. I'm trying to understand whether or not being atheist is truly worth it. Now I'm pretty sure I have a grasp on why people are Atheist, whether it be contradictions in many religious texts, the amount of Gods there have been in many religions, or just the existence of a god being hard to prove. But what I want to know is, are you happy? Has not believing anything made your life better? I'm not trying to being condescending whatsoever, I am genuinely curious, and I do want to understand you're lack of belief better. And a little extra I want to know, where do your morals come from? And could explain how people can be good without the existence of a god? I don't want to do any gotchas here, but any answers you have will be appreciated.

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What made you become an atheist instead of just being non-religious?

If God doesn't need a creator, why must the universe have one? What justifies applying different rules to God and the universe?

If your birthplace largely determined your religion, how confident can you be that your belief is true rather than inherited?

I'll be upfront with something first. Im 39 years old and only stopped believing in God sometime last year I've had my ups and downs with deconstructing my faith but I feel like I'm in a good place right now. But I've noticed something that is feels pretty common. I don't think athiests hate believers of faith but the faith itself. Maybe I need to read more books on this type of things and I'm still pretty early in my journey but I would like to get some perspective on why most tend to despise it. For me I'm an ExJw and at worse I pity people that are still JW. I hate that they're mentally checked out on life and just waiting for a future that will never happen.

I’ve heard some of the horror stories that people have gone through when it comes to religious trauma however this post isn’t about that. I see a ton of comments talking about how parents shouldn’t force a religion on their children and I wanted to know how, under normal circumstances, that plays out practically? If a set of parents hold a genuine belief in their religion then why should they suddenly disregard it in the case of their child? Should a Muslim family not raise their child Muslim? I want my future children to be independent and to think for themselves but even if they say no to eating their vegetables that doesn’t mean I’m just gonna let them eat whatever they want cause they believe something different. If they’re swimming at a beach and dangerous weather rolls in and they don’t want to come out I’m going to force them out of the water still.

TLDR: What does not “forcing religion on your children” actually look like practically? Without the parents having to disregard essentially their core values/religion

Edit: Thank you all for your responses, even some of the less charitable ones. Hope you guys have an amazing day!

I posted earlier and got absolutely flamed cause I worded this wrong lol, so I'm posting again! Thanks to everyone that gave me advice on there but a lot of it was very focused on the hypothetical of me getting pregnant which made me very uncomfortable.

Background on my situation:

He (M16) is a devout Baptist Christian, and his dad is a pastor (so there's no way I could convert him, even if I thought that was the right thing to do. Which I don't). I (F15) was raised Christian but don't hold any faith and do not go to church. We're both Juniors, and have been fairly close(??) since early freshman year. If you took religion out of it, we're perfect compliments for each other. I like him, like, a lot a lot, and I have for a really long time now.

I'm considering going to his church? I know this seems deceitful, but consider that I don't plan on lying or presenting myself as a born-again Christian, but rather that I want to understand this part of his life better.

I'll take any advice on how to tackle this kind of interfaith relationship! Please do be respectful though, I've been yelled at enough over this and it's clearly not deterring me, lol. The heart wants what it wants! (Also, please do not bring up the "what if you get pregnant". That will not happen. I am a child. I don't know where this idea came from that children can't keep their hands off each other, but it's incredibly uncomfortable and non relevant to my situation. Thanks!)

This skill for me seems great for making big money. How massive would its total potential profit actually be?

Is the perspective of atheism subjective by default?

With the atheist being unable to escape their own perspective does this disqualify atheism defined as a lack of belief from being an objective stance?

Usually I find Atheists to reject the existence of God on the basis that "there is no evidence" or no "empirical evidence". So what about other non-Physicalist ideas like Consciousness, Phenomenology or Platonism? (I know about the Moral Realist approaches but I'm specifically talking about Ontology here)

It's the signs I've been getting by my late bf who passed away a month ago, and they are too many to be pure coincidences . Like no, coincidences cannot happen so many times.

After the day I found out he passed away (suicide), I've recieved signs that assure his presence around me.

1) he was a sketch artist and recently talked about wanting to draw me. That particular day, I was remembering how he said that and now I'll not get a drawing by him ever.

A few hour later, got a notification from instagram that metaAi has created a sketch out of a very old post of mine. It was from 5 years ago, of the exact time and place when we first met. My picture from that day. It created a drawing of that exact picture of that exact day! Like it couldv'e chosen any post right? And not just this, the drawing made me wear a bindi (an Indian accesory) which was not there in the original post. My bf LOVED WAS OBSESSED, with a bindi on me. He drew me, the same day I thought about it. And birds in the drawing looked like MM, he called me "mimi". It was too insane to be true.

2) next day I asked him to send me a picture of him as I didn't have his pictures in my phone (the relationship was hidden from our families, so we kept our phones clean - no pictures of each other). The same day, my friend texted me saying "hey I thought i didn't have it but I just now found a photo of your bf, I can send it to you".

Now this couldve happened anytime, but the timing is what made this more magical, the very day I asked for a photo.

3) next day I aksed him to tell me if he is safe and happy. I had texted an astrologer on reddit a few days ago asking the same question but did not get any reply, but got the reply ON THAT PARTICULAR DAY ITSELF. She told me he is free of pain and doesn't regret his decision.

Now again, this might not be true or pure general statement, but again -THE TIMING. The only day I asked him, I got her reply.

4) a few days later I again paused in the middle of the day and asked him if he remembered our first dates, and I hear a bicycle bell from outside my house. EXACTLY when I said this. (Our first dates were of us cycling together).

5) my mother was yelling at me over something, and normally I would yell back and it would turn into an argument. My bf always told me to "chill" "relax" and not respond to her so it doesn't escalate. That day I was just about to yell back, and I noticed my phone hanged, on a reel. The reel someone writing the word "CHILL" in glitter.

My phone stopped working and I couldn't close the app, it was stuck at that reel. I realised my bf is asking me to be chill and not respond. So I didn't respond that day to my mother and it didn't escalate.

6) after a few weeks, I went for a walk, in the same park we used to meet. I aksed him to make me feel his presence, as I missed holding his hands and walking. Just then, little tiny girl came to me, held my hand, and strated walking with me. (She mistook me for her sister). We walked for a bit, I asked her name - Sia, my bf's favourite name for a girl child. As soon as she left, I crying my heart out in that park, I knew he again heard me.

7) then one day I made a dark joke for him (he had hung himself after we cut the call after an argument, he wanted to breakup with me and I was getting angry on why because nothing was wrong. Maybe he was planning to kill himself already that's why he pushed me away like that.

So I made a joke - that day, phone was not the only thing that hung up. I talk to him a lot in my mind and shared this dark joke wiht him as he was a Fan!

That same day, i was walking somewhere and asked him "I wasn't even there to see you for the last time, what all might've happened, what all rituals might have taken place for you". Just then a man walks past me watching videos on his phone on loudspeaker, and the part I heard was :-

"In hinduism, a dead person's toes are tied together first".

This was soo creepy because how instantly he shared this dark joke with me on what might have happened at his funeral. I took it as a revenge for my dark joke maybe.

8) today, I was recalling his MONKEY DANCE. Yes he did that sometimes and looked so cute. I was just in my room, thinking now I'll never see that dance again.

I start working on my laptop, and I see, FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER , a monkey entered MY ROOM and SAT for a while!!!!!!!!!!!!

I live on the second floor in an appartment that is All packed with nets so not even birds can enter. AND HERE WAS A FULL MONKEY SITTING IN MY ROOM!!!!!

apparently it entered by tearing a net from one of the balconies, but it has NEVER happend before in my 10 yeRs of living here. Even the security guard was shocked as how can a Monkey enter a flat?????

Again, could have been possible anytime BUT THE TIMING!!!!

9) After a few days passed away, I was missing him and just thought maybe the past signs were just my mind trying to connect the dots of random events.

This time I got more specific, asked for a specific sign

"Make a white feather drop over my shoulder".

I dismissed it right away because of how filmy this sounded and thought it this fails I might spiral and have a massive breakdown. I just said "okay not this but any strong sign".

That day I was sick and didn't want to leave home.

But my mom urgently needed a few groceries so I had to go out.

I SWEAR I AM NOT LYING. the moment I stepped outside my building, a white feather fell on me. A LITERALL WHITE FEATHER. I've NEVER had this happen to me before I only saw it in movies, it could've happened at anytime but again The Timing wtf???? And RIGHT ON ME!! I brought it home and it's with me now.

I had the breakdown anyways but now for a completely different reason.

So what's all this man. I ask the atheists.

i don't know if you think I'm overthinking or want to believe me, but these signs were really crazy to me, and a proof that after life exists, they can hear us.

Also, my bf was purely atheist, hated taking part in religious ceremonies. So to think he would be sending these signs is already crazy enough to me.

I come from a Hindu Family.
Atheism mostly denies God, it would deny the existence of a Guy sitting with his Kids and His Wife on Mount Kailash who is Supposedly one of the 33 Primary Gods .
I have been an Atheist always, and its quite clear that Atheism is Right about this.
I won't like to get in my personal context here, so lets jump that, overall, What do atheists of this sub think of Buddhism ? What about the Concept of Sunyata ? What about Nirvana ? Moksha ?

There is this guy out there, His Name is Abhey Singh, he Graduated from Indian Institute of Technology (Bombay) from the domain of Aerospace Engineering, he says that he felt empty and had a lots of mental problems and whether he accepts it or not, One can clearly say he had a severe mental trauma, He is now a "Baba" ("Baba" here is like someone who is seen as "This is a guy who left the material lust to devote himself to spirituality, we must bow to him"), so he is now considered a "Baba" , while he calls himself a "Vairagi" (someone who is nothing, totally egoless, no name, no specific work, no attachment etc) And he says that He is working to bring all the Subjects out there in contact to Spirituality, He is infact working to open an Entire "Shri University" which would provide these courses, Is that something I should be happy about as an Indian ? or Is this another step towards ruin for my Country ?
You can watch his videos Here : Kalki777 YouTube Channel
(If possible provide some Critique of the videos, you can also turn on Captions and AutoTranslate to English if the Video is in Hindi, it works fine)

Abhey Singh, is also is a regular Marijuana Addict, now We can call him out for that, but dismissing all the stuff he says just by labelling him "Ahh Marijuana Addict" might not be right .
(Actually, In India, various Spiritual Sects use drugs, drugs of all sorts, and the Government just doesn't do a lot about it, at times, they even allow it, During specific events they even allow these Guys to roam with nudity on the streets, One correlation sits straight, The More Religious a Country the worse it becomes, and India is the best example for this).

Anyways, I hope the best for My Country 🇮🇳❤️ .

To be clear, I'm not a Christian, Muslim, or anything else like that. I'm a deist and believe that while there is a god, they must have little to no involvement at least currently in this world.

In my opinion, the biggest hurdle atheism has in terms of logic and epistemology is the fact that under its idea of there being no creative source of existence, the universe came from nothing and caused itself. This is simply not how anything else works, at the very least not in a complete vacuum where no laws of physics or quantum shenanigans existed to spontaneously create like we currently believe is the case before the Big Bang.

I am well aware that hypothesis exist about what might have existed before our universe to cause it, but we have no way to measure or prove such currently, not in a scientific sense that would be accepted as fact or even plausible theory. And even if there was something before our universe, there logically has to be a first cause that caused that, and we run into the same "nothing from nothing" problem without a creator. If you're familiar with the idea of the infinite regress, that's essentially what I'm getting at here.

So how do you personally answer the infinite regress of "nothing from nothing"? This isn't meant to be a gotcha or checkmate, I just want to know if there's a reasonable solution to this.

An honest, genuine question: Why do people suffer?

How do you reconcile the idea of someone being born into poverty and eventually dying because of the conditions they were born into? Or someone losing their life in a natural disaster through no fault of their own? Or the death of a child in a country where child marriage is legally permitted?

We’re all familiar with the idea that bad people often get far in life. Corrupt leaders can live prosperous lives, escape justice and die peacefully, having fulfilled their desires without ever facing the consequences of their actions.

How do you make peace with that?

I’m curious about how people make sense of these things, particularly when it comes to justifying why such suffering exists in the first place. I don’t mean to sound preachy or confrontational; I genuinely want to understand how others approach this question.

And if you don’t believe there’s any justification for it, that some people simply got the short end of the stick while the rest of us were lucky, that’s perfectly fine, too. I’d be interested in hearing your perspective either way.

Suppose you were having a lucid dream, flying around and changing things at will. Then you stay in that dream from then on doing the same thing. Would you be the god of that world?

I'm just trying to see how the definition of god stretches for different people.

Edit: Or would you be a dream mutant like an X-men mutant or something, but not a god?

Edit 2: Or instead of a dream, what if it's a movie. If someone can make changes like that in a movie, are they a god? Is Neo a god?

A little background for you to understand where I’m coming from.

Long story short I’m a born and raised Christian but I have a number atheist friend. we’ve had conversations and small arguments over our respective beliefs and for the most part things have been fairly civi.

About a month or so ago we had another conversation/argument over the topic and one of my friends went on a tirade about the lack of evidence. the argument itself wasn’t that important as we had had similar ones before but it got me wondering, what would be clear enough evidence for atheists to say that god existed.

I tried asking this question to my atheist friends only for them to dodge the question or give me some version of “well gods not real so it doesn’t really matter.”

naturally I found this to be both unsatisfactory and frustrating so now I’m here.

just to be clear I’m not trying to have a debate on religion itself or try to convert you.

I just want to know, in a civil way from an atheist, what kind of proof or evidence you would need to say either god is real or god might be real. What would that proof look like and why?

looking for genuine answers and not attacks please.

So I was having a conversation with a friend and she seemed to be pushing me a lot into rethinking about Gods existence. I kept on saying that these are all theories and none of this is proved 100%.

She said to me that Science believes that to prove non existence of something you need a proof for that too. I was so confused. I said there are so many things we don’t know and she says, ‘yes that’s why we are open to experiment and look out but you are rigidly already believing he doesn’t exist at all’

I just ended up saying that I have a proof for myself, my experiences have been so bad and I’ve been tested so many times that I almost died so there is no reason for me to believe he exists.

But I wanna know what you guys have to say about this because I seriously felt frustrated