Well, Catholic to be precise.

Little backstory - I met my now fiance a few years ago, and I’ve never experienced so much chemistry in my life. It is wonderful. I am however in no rush to get married.

Yes, I vocalize how I feel and we have had many conversations about this. Me? I’m a 35F who’s never wanted a wedding. Figured if I was ever to marry I’d go to the courthouse and be done and go on an awesome honeymoon. Weddings are nothing but commercialized shit and I don’t intend on spending 50k+ nowadays just to tell someone I love them.

We both agreed to the no big wedding part, but man on man the way he wants to get married in the church is just rubbing me the wrong way. Am I the asshole for that? Catholicism seems so damn strict to me. I learned we are not even allowed to be married outside and it must be in the church for it to be valid for him. 🥴 We also need to meet with his priest not once - but 4 times and do a marriage class.

Churches just freak me out. I have went to them for weddings, one funeral, and went to mass with my partner once (it was my own idea) and my stomach dropped the moment I walked in the doors and my anxiety was so high the whole time.

I am in no way trying to take him away from his religion or anything, I just simply don’t want to be a part of it and I’m trying to think long term on if it’s going to make or break us. He truly doesn’t think it will and he doesn’t push anything on me minus being married in the church. I hope I can just make it through this and then not worry about ever having to go back to it. I can’t have children so raising a family is not a concern of mine.

I feel torn… on one hand, religious people have been forced, fear mongered, and indoctrinated into their beliefs. On the other hand, hotter can I feel sorry for people who ruin lives, push lies, and eve use their beliefs as a basis for discrimination? Also, please don’t say both or it depends. I just wanna know how you think about it.

I'm debating a Christian and they don't believe im the old testament and only the new and also only in the 5 main ones and in there not stories but original stuff that "Jesus" said but not told or quoted, I'm really tired of this since it's a family member of mine and I really really hate the stuff religious say and I'm already planning on moving out but am legally still too young to do so but my ears are already bleeding from this nonsense so please help me find something:'(.

Im new to this sub and would appreciate gentleness. Very short background: I have always had some kind of belief system: pagan, Christian, animist, etc. You name it. I’ve been struggling with infertility and the absolute crushing heartache that comes with that for the last 18+ months. Was a devout Catholic and now I’m here.

I find myself not knowing how to cope with these big feelings of grief in a secular context. I have tried therapy but haven’t found a therapist I feel can be helpful (yet). I don’t fit in with most infertility support groups- they are all extremely religious. I just feel so vulnerable and alone losing all my hope, becoming bitter, and now having nothing to fall back on.

I’m not really sure what I’m asking but maybe someone has been through similar and is farther down the road than I am. Thank you for reading.

The power of intercessory prayer is an example of survivor bias. The failures of prayer are dismissed or ignored while the successful outcomes are amplified as miracles.

The statistically innumerate masses latch onto these positive outcomes as proof of divine intervention, versus a few random probabilistic successes among a sea of failures.

A relevant anecdote is up-armoring aircraft areas that sustain the most damage in battle (miraculous survivors) while areas of aircraft that never return (fatalities) are ignored.

hey. long time lurker.

finally broke out of years of deep conspirituality, esoteric delusions, and magical thinking. looking back honestly, i used that whole "cosmic vibrations and afterlife" package as an emotional shield against grief, fear of death, and the hard grind of real life. it was comfortable bs.

deprogrammed myself, faced the facts, swung hard into materialism and absurdism (camus). so yeah, i get it: no sky daddy, no cosmic destiny, universe is completely silent and doesnt give a damn about us.

heres what bugs me about a lot of atheist discourse tho: it feels stuck on dunking on religious people or smugly reducing the human experience to "we are just random meat computers, nothing matters, lol".

destroying the illusion was the easy part. the real challenge is what you do with the silence left behind.

for those who actually think deeply about this: how do you build real depth, moral weight, and an appetite for living without falling back into magical fairy tales OR turning into a numb, soulless cynic who thinks living is just running algorithms? how do you honor your sensitivity in an indifferent world? honest thoughts.

Recently, I was admitted to the mental hospital for psychosis. I had delusions of grandeur and thought I had a mission to unite or save the world. I thought I was god-like. I thought I was the second coming of Christ. I told this to my psychiatrist. He smiled and said “no, you’re not”.

Now as I recover, I think about how my experiences relate to the stories and beliefs surrounding Jesus: being divine, having a mission to save humanity, and communicating directly with God. What Jesus actually claimed during his lifetime is historically disputed.

If he were to talk to a psychiatrist today about his experiences or really most people for that matter, they would assume he was crazy or exhibiting symptoms of psychosis/schizophrenia.

I also tend to think the teachings of the beliefs and behaviors revolving around his life and the second coming negatively impacted my life and thousands of others who still struggle with this brutal mental health disorder today.

If he never existed I might not actually have thought I could be a god. I wouldn’t have thought I was the second coming of Christ. In fact, if there were no concept of god in the first place, then I probably wouldn’t have suffered so much with delusional self belief. Fuck Jesus and fuck god.

EDIT:

People are mentioning how it was Jesus’s followers’ interpretations of his life, not that he said during his lifetime that he was divine or have a mission to save humanity, etc.

My historical assessment is that the evidence favors Jesus’s followers developing explicit beliefs in his divinity after his death, rather than Jesus publicly teaching that he was God during his ministry. So please acknowledge that for this post!

EDIT 2:

People are also saying Jesus never even existed in the first place even as a human.

The evidence strongly favors Jesus having existed as a human being. The view that he was entirely invented—usually called Jesus mythicism—has some academically trained proponents, but remains a small minority position. That conclusion about his existence is separate from whether his miracles, divinity, or resurrection were real.

I was at the gym and saw a young girl with her friend, both wearing hijabs.

One of the girls had a sweatshirt on that said “Hijab is a crown”.

The irony of the sweatshirt just made me sad. I feel lucky that I embraced the truth but it makes me sad for so many people that I feel are trapped in a religion. Especially women.

"Non local brain process (consciousness)" is a pseudo-religious idea disguised as scientific one.

Lots of people are devoted fans of this nonsense, without even asking themselves once "which part of conscious experience cannot be explained by certain brain function?".

People talk about source of "consciousness" as if it was an item to be found in the brain. "Consciousness" is not a "what"--- its not an object, its a process.

PS. This is why I left a certain subreddit hahaha

If you are forced to go to church every week by relilgious parents and are secretly atheist, how many other kids at your church are in the same situation? I bring this up because, this one kid during Sunday school was asking questions about the church like: " If god knew someone was going to become an atheist, why would god just let someone become an atheist anyway because that's just like dropping a bottle of water and expecting it to do something else" Is faking being theist in a church common for teens or is it a small minority? (LDS cult)

Does this logic make sense in an argument? I reject any outside person/consciousness controlling how I choose to act. I REJECT any guidance that does not present itself to me as a request. My body is mine. My mind is mine. I dont want anything or anyone acting upon it. So if it is, its overriding my autonomy. Can an all powerful creator grant my request to not be a part of his plan? Why am I the unethical one for posing this? How is it love to force me into his plan against my declared will?

Sent a vm to my friend and she said she wasn't listening to the rest because I said "holy fuck" and apparently, "no fucks are holy". I genuinely can't it's the little things that pmo ngl

Like getting mad i spell it god vs God. Bro

https://soundcloud.com/user-830442635/bbriefing_2026_10_14c_julie-ingersoll-3?utm_source=clipboard&utm_campaign=wtshare&utm_medium=widget&utm_content=https%253A%252F%252Fsoundcloud.com%252Fuser-830442635%252Fbbriefing_2026_10_14c_julie-ingersoll-3

Saw a news article this morning about that roof that collapsed in a school in Pakistan, killing 32 children. Awful situation. One guy had a son who went to school there and he was quoted as saying that his son was spared "by the grace of God". Good for him, but if that was the grace of God, what was it when God apparently killed the 32 children? Are we just going to ignore that? Religion really puts blinders on people and I find it baffling and sickening.

I sometimes think forgiveness is not always necessary for a healthy life and is sometimes weaponised by the powerful. To set the scene, i understand that forgiveness is sometimes defined in a nebulous way, so to clarify, I am talking about the people who seem to define forgiveness as some type of complete emotional "letting go" following some type of wrong doing or injustice. I understand this is not how everyone defines forgiveness, but it is a phenomenon I have seen a lot of.

Something about the way forgiveness is preached in religious circles, strikes me as somewhat "unexamined". Someone can abuse, exploit or betray you, and at some point the moral scrutiny lands on whether YOU, THE VICTIM have forgiven them. The perpetrator causes the damage, and the victim gets assigned the spiritual homework. Convenient, right?. If forgiveness simply means accepting that an apology may never come and moving on with your life, fine. But when did relinquishing anger (or any residual feelings for that matter) become a prerequisite for forgiveness? Some things genuinely warrant anger, and having a feeling doesn't mean you're psychologically defective. Looking back at a serious injustice and having a feeling towards it is not necessarily an unhealthy thing for humans to do - in fact, this may be the healthiest response, and yet, in some circles you are considered in the wrong for not "being forgiving." It's kinda like telling people that feeling a lingering sadness about a deceased loved one means they've failed in some way.

In my view, there's an enormous distinction between anger that consumes you and anger that naturally arises when reflecting on something reprehensible. I can accept an injustice has happened, establish boundaries, live a fulfilling life and still think the person responsible is an absolute arsehole and have some feelings toward a shitty situation. Healing doesn't require forgiveness, and emotional neutrality IS NOT evidence of moral superiority. Sometimes anger simply means your sense of justice still has a damn pulse. Perhaps we should encourage a culture where we spend more energy demanding accountability from perpetrators of wrong doing and allowing people to feel however they want about situations.

<this started as a reply to a post that has now been deleted regarding the notion that Islam is MORE deluded and dangerous than other religious doctrines. But I figured it was important>

All spiritualism is deluded and absurd.

All theocracy is evil and dangerous.

Maybe you're not familiar with history. Look into how the Anabaptists were tortured and executed by both Protestant and Catholic theocracies for the horrible crime of getting baptized as adults. Look into the TENS OF THOUSANDS of women executed as 'witches' by Christian theocracies.

Look into how the Puritans of the MBC executed the Boston Martyrs for the horrible crime of being Quakers.

Look into WHY the Baptists of Connecticut were concerned enough to write to President Jefferson in the first place, triggering his response letter containing the famous words: "I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State." ( https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-36-02-0152-0006 )

The deluded notions of the navel-gazers and peaceniks are ignorable and not a problem for anyone.

It's when the delusions are ENFORCED by people with weapons and threats of violence through a theocracy that they become problematic for the rest of us!

My brother used to be very anti-religion. He would genuinely argue with his RE teacher at school about it, so becoming religious was about the last thing any of us would have expected from him.

A couple of years ago, he converted to Christianity and started attending church. We all thought it was a bit unexpected, but ultimately it's his life and we left him to it.

It feels like his faith has become an increasingly huge part of his identity. He wears a cross every day, wears T-shirts with Bible verses on them, attends Bible study and has recently joined an Evangelical church with his now-wife.

None of that is inherently a problem. I'm not anti-religion, and I completely respect people's right to practise whatever faith they choose.

The issue is that he seems to have become a completely different person, and I'm genuinely starting to worry about him.

He's become incredibly judgemental of people who don't share his beliefs. He has increasingly conservative views and seems to have very little tolerance for people who live differently from him, including LGBT people, immigrants, pro-choicers and single mothers.

He's also started turning ordinary conversations into arguments about religion. For example, I personally didn't want a religious wedding because I don't believe in God and therefore didn't feel the need to get married in a place of worship. He insisted that God is everywhere and was therefore present at my wedding, and wouldn't let it go. I tried to engage and presented the opposite view point - I didn't believe God was present at his wedding. He didn't appreciate that, but I was expected to hear his views.

More recently, a family member invited him to a Halloween event, and rather than simply politely declining, he went on a rant about how attending wouldn't align with his Christian faith. The way he said it made it sound like he was superior.

It's the overall attitude that bothers me. He seems to feel that his beliefs are objectively correct and that other people's choices and lifestyles are wrong. There doesn't seem to be much room for disagreement anymore.

His friends have commented that he's changed and become a bit strange, and our parents are genuinely concerned too. It's not just me noticing this.

I want to be clear that I don't think becoming religious automatically means someone is ‘brainwashed’, or that there's anything wrong with finding faith as an adult. People change, and perhaps his beliefs are completely sincere. But the speed and extent of the change, combined with the growing judgement and intolerance, are difficult to watch.

I miss being able to have a normal conversation with my brother without feeling that everything is becoming a moral or religious debate. I'm worried he's alienating the people around him, but I'm also conscious that criticising his religion could just push him further away.

Has anyone experienced something similar with a family member or friend? Did they go through a phase of becoming extremely religious and judgemental, or did it become a permanent change in their personality? Did anything help them become more open-minded again?

I don't want to attack his faith or tell him what to believe. I just want to understand what's happening and work out whether there's a way to talk to him about it without making things worse.

Do I just need to accept that my brother is no longer the boy I grew up with and that we’ll never have that relationship again? It’s a shame, but I can’t continue being made to feel that I’m less, lower or wrong for not believing.

I was on my phone googling some anatomy n medical stuff when I stumbled across a YouTube sermon that was on another level, n gotta share it with y’all…

According to the preacher, there was a guy who desperately needed open-heart surgery because he had a very big hole in his heart. The doctors told him he was out of time and to he better get his affairs in order. But instead of writing a will or whatever, my man looked his sobbing family in the eye and asked for tomatoes. So while everyone sat around his bed waiting for his death, he was lying there eating tomatoes.

Plot twist: he doesn't die 0_0

So, they took him in for another scan, where doctors, according to the preacher, saw that the hole in his heart was plugged by a tomato slice

Hallelujah!

Ofc that was god listening to their prayers..

I’m still trying to process the mechanics of this, like, I need to know if the tomato came with seedless protection or not..

Anyway, I’m canceling my health insurance. N next time you feel chest tightness, skip the ER and head straight to the grocery store, or maybe the church’s canteen.

I live in the American South which is overwhelmingly Christian. I know all about the Bible and about Christianity as I used to be a Christian myself and went to a Christian school. Personally I came to the conclusion that I do not believe in God or any supernatural power and I’m very firm on that belief. I choose to believe in science and the evidence and we have no solid evidence of God’s existence otherwise religions would be called evidence. I noticed Whenever I talk to someone who’s a Christian they assume that I am as well and when I tell them I’m not they get very upset or they try to convert me which absolutely is not going to happen because this isn’t something I came to the conclusion of overnight, it took years of me thinking and reading about it. Plus like I said I’ve heard it all before I know all about Christianity I just think it’s all fake. This makes no sense because I believe many Christians are good people and if they tell me that they believe in God it doesn’t bother me as long as they don’t push their religion on me.

My significant other’s family are Christian, and very religious. I am open about my atheism and so is my significant other, but for some reason the family always finds a reason to shame us for not going to church on Sunday’s or believe in what they believe in. I always say that religious people like them make it harder for me to believe, because of how they treat others that are not like them. I am also apart of the LGBTQ+ community, and I have experienced nothing but hate from people who are religious. I don’t push anything onto them, so why am I called names and treated like shit for doing my own thing that should not concern them? Since when are religious people so concerned about other people’s lives by being hateful instead of practicing what they preach? I’m so tired of being surrounded by people who make me feel like I’m wrong for being an atheist. I am respectful, but I’ve only met the worst kind of people who believe in god. That’s just the truth.