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https://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/ Channel: @reddit2telegram Bot: @reddit2telegram_bot
NC Republicans Propose Letting Anyone Use Deadly Force Against Women Who Have Abortions Under New Bill.
https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/north-carolina-bill-abortion-murder-1798733
https://redd.it/1tnc7qt
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Pope Leo asks for forgiveness for Catholic church's role in slave trade
https://www.irishstar.com/news/world-news/pope-leo-asks-forgiveness-catholic-37202450
https://redd.it/1tn9n4s
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Why isn't it talked about more that Jesus is just a representation of the sun and his 12 disciples the constellations. Its basically just astrology with extra steps.
Just like every other religion that has existed people looked up made patterns outta shapes they saw in the stars and recognized that the sun was the reason life is possible.
Ugh I'm such a Paul.
https://redd.it/1tn3awa
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Rockwall County TX places illegal Ten Commandments monument at courthouse lawn
https://www.cbsnews.com/texas/news/rockwall-county-ten-commandments-monument-courthouse-unveiling/
https://redd.it/1tmvpm1
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Opinions on calling peoples titles they no longer prefer?
I’ve been seeing a push for Latter-day Saints followers to no longer be called Mormon over the last few yrs and wanted to know how yall feel abt the idea of rejecting that push.
Personally, I think it’s an attempt to rebrand and distance themselves from their history (and current, more insidious actions and propaganda) in practicing racism/white nationalism, sexism, and homophobia. Most of them don’t mind being called Mormon, but it’s now seen as “more formal and respectful” to call them Latter-day Saints followers. They also often introduce themselves by “the church of Jesus Christ” or something similar when going doorstep to doorstep or doing missions so as to bypass the immediate defensiveness and shut down that’s been a cultural response to the things they’re associated with, historically. I don’t want to be a part of that rebrand, but I’m open to other perspectives on the topic. Do you think this cultural shift is part of a greater plan for the church, or natural changes?
Edit: I understand that is can seem useful or simple to compare this issue to the topic of deadnaming or disrespecting trans people but I want to ask yall to do so if you must with care and attention to the possibility of presenting the two issues as on a similar playing field. This is an almost $300 billion dollar empire with strong ties to Republican authoritarianism, conversion therapy, harmful right wing think tanks and much more. This is not generally comparable to an oppressed individual just trying to live their life without being the target of political violence. Mormons are not subject to oppression or an innate need to change their social presentation or identity, they simple desire an escape from accountability. “Mormon” is not a deadname.
https://redd.it/1tmmh1y
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‘Jesus Was a Politician’: Trump Inauguration Pastor Says the Church Should Lead the State.
https://www.mediaite.com/politics/jesus-was-a-politician-trump-inauguration-pastor-says-the-church-should-lead-the-state/
https://redd.it/1tmpbfk
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Pentagon account, quoting from Hegseth’s speech to West Point cadets: "Diversity Is Our Strength Is The Dumbest Phrase In Military History, We're One Nation Under God".
https://www.joemygod.com/2026/05/pentagon-diversity-is-our-strength-is-the-dumbest-phrase-in-military-history-were-one-nation-under-god/
https://redd.it/1tmne7q
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Religious leaders, lawmakers push for $1 billion to secure houses of worship
https://www.npr.org/2026/05/24/nx-s1-5815007/religious-leaders-lawmakers-push-for-1-billion-to-secure-houses-of-worship
https://redd.it/1tmheuh
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Exclusive Brethren pet ban order sparks fears of global cull in sect, The Plymouth Brethren Christian Church
https://www.theage.com.au/national/my-church-or-the-dog-brethren-orders-members-to-purge-pets-sparking-fears-of-global-cull-20260511-p5zvrp.html
https://redd.it/1tmbn3f
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The three Abrahamic religions are one continuous franchise that keeps rebooting and insisting the previous installment was the fake one
Quick thesis: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam aren't three separate revelations. They're one stream of Near Eastern religious material with three imperially enforced cutoff points, each declaring the prior version corrupted and itself the definitive cut. It's less "three faiths" and more a franchise that keeps rebooting the timeline and telling you the last movie doesn't count.
**The continuity, briefly:**
Yahweh doesn't start as the cosmic monotheist CEO. The earliest layers of the Hebrew Bible are henotheistic. Yahweh is one god among many, with a specific portfolio: storm, war, mountains. Deuteronomy 32:8 to 9 has a higher god, Elyon, dividing the nations among the gods and assigning Israel to Yahweh as his allotment. Psalm 82 has God standing in the divine council, among the gods. This is in the text. It's just theologically inconvenient, so it gets read past.
The strict one god monotheism shows up later, crystallizing around the Babylonian exile in the 6th century BCE, which is conveniently exactly when the Judeans are marinating in Persian Zoroastrianism and pick up the cosmic dualism, the final judgment, the resurrection of the dead, and an adversary figure who graduates from prosecutor working for God (the satan in Job) into Satan, capital S, the opposition. None of that load bearing cosmology is in the early material. It's imported set dressing that everyone now treats as original architecture.
Then Christianity reboots: same God, new covenant, previous installment declared incomplete. Then Islam reboots again: same God, final seal, both previous installments declared corrupted (tahrif). Each sequel cannibalizes the prior canon and reframes itself as the original authority. Standard franchise behavior.
**Why this feels like a conspiracy theory when it isn't:**
Eastern traditions don't trigger the same "wait, that can't be right" reflex, and not because the scholarship is better. Hinduism, Buddhism, and Daoism openly contain their own layering. Hinduism will happily tell you the Upanishads developed the Vedic material. No crisis. But the Abrahamic religions each claim direct unmediated revelation at a fixed moment, which means any visible genealogy is an existential threat rather than an expected development. The history looks wild only because it's contradicting an enforced silence.
**The war god bit (handle with care):**
The fun part, and the spiciest claim, is that Yahweh's deep origins plausibly trace to a southern warrior storm deity. The Kenite/Midianite hypothesis puts Yahweh's homeland in Edom, Teman, Seir, and several old poetic passages (Judges 5, Habakkuk 3, Deuteronomy 33) have Yahweh literally marching up from the south like a regional storm warrior before the franchise promotes him to Lord of the Universe. So the eternal omnipotent monotheist God arguably has, in his backstory, a job in regional weather and smiting. Make of that what you will.
I'm not claiming all three religions are the same war god with three names. That overstates it, and someone in the comments will correctly call it out. The honest version is better anyway: not one renamed deity, but one continuous tradition that kept editing its own past and threatening anyone who noticed.
**TL;DR:** Three revelations, or one franchise with three reboots, each retconning the last and importing Persian cosmology while claiming it came straight from the source? The genealogy is in the texts. The traditions just need you not to read them in order.
https://redd.it/1tm7ywv
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White House shooting: 21-year-old Nasire Best, who identified himself as Jesus Christ, shot dead.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/white-house-shooting-21-year-old-naseer-best-who-identifies-himself-as-jesus-christ-shot-dead/articleshow/131287947.cms
https://redd.it/1tm5mxm
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despite what everyone said, jesus was actually a horrible person and that the modern image of jesus is so incredible whitewashed
1. eternal torture for not believing in him
matthew 25:41:
“depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”
so the supposedly loving teacher is threatening with eternal punishment. not temporary correction. eternal fire. that’s basically infinite torture for finite mistakes.
then gospel of mark 16:16 states:
“whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.”
the rule basically becomes: believe or be condemned eternally.
2. luke 14:26:
“if anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, even their own life, such a person cannot be my disciple.”
3. matthew 10:34:
“do not think that i came to bring peace on earth. i did not come to bring peace, but a sword.”
4. calling a desperate gentile woman a dog
matthew 15:26, a non-jewish woman asks jesus to heal her daughter. he answers:
“it is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs."
5. jesus openly says he hides the truth from people
matthew 13:10–15, the disciples ask why he teaches using confusing parables. his answer: “the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them.” he then quotes isaiah describing people who will hear but not understand and see but not perceive. so the teaching style prevents other people from understanding. if salvation supposedly depends on understanding and believing the message, deliberately obscuring that message guarantees that some people never get there. why intentionally make the most important message in the universe cryptic and confusing?
6. killing a fig tree for not having fruit
mark 11:12–14, jesus walks up to a fig tree looking for food. the text states it wasn’t the season for figs. the tree obviously has no fruit, and jesus curses it so it withers and dies. the story reads like punishing a plant for doing exactly what plants do outside their season.
7. destroying someone’s herd of pigs
mark 5:1–13, jesus casts demons out of a man and sends them into a herd of pigs. the pigs immediately run into the sea and drown. that herd belonged to someone. hundreds of animals die instantly, wiping out someone’s property and livelihood.
8. matthew 11: he declares that some towns rejecting him will face worse punishment than sodom. that’s basically collective punishment for communities that didn’t buy into his preaching.
*edit: everyone loves the story where jesus stops a stoning and says “let him who is without sin cast the first stone.” it’s one of the most famous moral teachings in christianity. problem is, the passage appears in gospel of john 7:53–8:11, and the earliest manuscripts of john don’t contain it. the story shows up centuries later in different places in different manuscripts. in other words, scribes probably inserted it after the fact. so the line people quote most often to prove jesus’ compassion might not even belong to the original gospel text.
https://redd.it/1tm0pe5
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In 1915 there was a court case which led to people of Middle Easterners being considered White in the USA and eligible for citizenship. The case called “Dow v. United States” involved George Dow who was Lebanese and argued that if he wasn’t White neither was Jesus, as they both came from the Levant
https://pres-outlook.org/2024/02/passing-in-the-church/
https://redd.it/1tlsvq5
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Santa and the Tooth Fairy never partook in the modern day crusade of shame on children
https://streamable.com/m65uan
https://redd.it/1tltb3k
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Friend fell down a far right religious pipeline
I’ve (17f) had a friend(also 17f) since freshman year of high school.
She was slightly religious (as in “i believe in god”) but very much feminist and anti inequality and stuff like that. Lately that’s changed
In the last couple of weeks she’s been talking about learning to not have opinions or speak up to attract a “dominant” “masculine” man. And how women need to know how to cook and clean.
She’s been parroting ERIKA KIRKS talking points… especially ones about women’s role and how women should start their own business that runs itself basically by the time the have kids (which I pointed out is incredibly unrealistic bc what kind of company doesn’t require you to do anything in it? Which she got very upset about)
She also talks about how billionaires really shouldn’t pay taxes and is in favor of the genocide in Palestine. She says things about how she’s better than other people because she wants to run her own business and be a trad wife (again completely contradicting ideas…)
Anyways. Ex friend now. It’s a shame. I miss who she used to be.
https://redd.it/1tloy0s
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This thought experiment says a lot about religion, knowledge and humans in general.
If all the textbooks on all branches of natural science disappeared today and all scientific knowledge was forgotten, the textbooks would all eventually come back saying the same basic things. If all the books of all the religions disappeared today and all religious knowledge was forgotten, religions would still come back but they'd all be totally different.
https://redd.it/1tn86uj
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Ex Christians. What finally made you lose your faith?
Because it's clear arguing doesn't work with christians. Maybe it's me but as far as I know i've never actually won an argument with one. You can't, they're endlessly flexible, they always have some sort of cop out for god, some excuse. You can bring up that he's genocidal, kills good people, children, pregnant women and just in general has a complete disregard for human life and they'll just justify it. They'll just say "well they were evil they deserved it" but then you point out natural disasters and suddenly they're quite happy to admit god does in fact kill good people and still be quite happy to follow him.
So what, what on "god's" green earth actually got you and made you change your mind?
https://redd.it/1tn2yte
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I grew up IFB & I've had enough of religion as a whole atp. How can I express myself after being suppressed for so long? It's really hard.
How can I just sin (do, dress, and say whatever I want) now that I'm leaving a cult? By sin ofc I mean things that DON'T harm anyone. I was raised IFB and I've had enough now. But I always feel watched and judged. How can I just comepletely "live in sin" comfortably now and not care? I can hardly socialise. I want to swear, dress however i want and experiment without guilt, listen to whatever music and watch whatever I want, talk about "ungodly" things and jokes, and make secular friends.
https://redd.it/1tn0hjj
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I hate how much Christians get aeay with stuff
Always out preaching about their religion when no one asks, out loud in public disturbing people. Like if a gay perosn did that but with gay roghts they'd be hate crimed. Or if a Muslim person preached about their religion.
Same with how most of them are homophobic, mysoginistic pedophiles but no one sees the correlation. Or the fact that they are responsible for a shit ton of bad stuff in history. Colonisation, misogyny spreading, homophobia being as big as it, slavery, witch hunts, preventing us from being more advanced ect. No one is legally allowed to criticise them
Even a YouTubers (jaiden animations) once made a joke about God after hundreds of Christians harassed and insulted her for her sexuality, but only she got hated on. No one gaf about those Christians harassing her.
The church also doesn't have to pay tax.
Priests rape so many kids per year that we have priest insurance and no one bats an eye, but if one trans person commits a shooting oer thousands of non trans people, suddenly trans people are the problem.
Christians constantly turn lgbtq songs into christan songs but i know for damn sure if the roles were reversed they'd be screaming and going nuts over it.
At least Islam gets criticized for its bad behaviour.
There soo much more but i would never stop writing if i continued
https://redd.it/1tmrugw
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How come when thousands of priests rape thousands of children each year people ignore it but if one transgender person shoots up a school per thousands of non-trans shooters, trans people are the problem?
Like it's not just the Christians that ignore priests raping kids, even other atheists ignore this phenomena. Like the correlation is right there. And its not only about the priests, christians genuinely get away with so much, but thats a different reddit post.
https://redd.it/1tmro19
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Pete Hegseth has invited a megachurch pastor to speak at the Pentagon. Douglas Wilson has called for stripping women of the right to vote or even to hold public office.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/02/18/doug-wilson-pentagon-hegseth-christian-nationalist/
https://redd.it/1tmok5k
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“It’s not making millions and millions of dollars. I tell God every single day, I don’t need millions and millions of dollars. And maybe that’s why God took it all away from me,” SUCH LOSER MENTALITY
https://www.essentiallysports.com/ncaa-college-football-news-god-took-it-all-away-from-me-ex-fsu-qb-says-career-ending-injury-revealed-his-true-purpose-jordan-travis/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=es_reddit_general
https://redd.it/1tmh0xf
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I got a coworker flustered when I said their god is an alien
A coworker started talking about how their god created humans, etc. and I casually mentioned that it's weird to worship an alien. The coworker stopped talking and said, "Huh? God's not an alien." "Of course it is," I said, "it's not from earth so it's an alien to us. You worship an alien." Coworker shook their head back and forth vigorously and said, "No, no, that's not right." and proceeded to change the conversation waaay away from religion for the rest of the week.
https://redd.it/1tmh0w0
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how to cope with : the fact that there is no afterlife/cosmic safety net ? or the fact that humans are not that special ?
i recently dived into the rabbithole of evolution/atheism content on youtube ( channels like rationality rules , genetically modified skeptic , apostate aladdin , alex o conner and others ) and although i agree with everything said , i cant help but wanna get wasted ( even though i cant get alcohol anyway , being in a muslim country and all ) due to the sheer amount of existential-crises-induced panic attacks caused by me watching such content .
my worldview just got shattered to a million pieces . like are you telling me that when we die , we just cease to exist ! that our emotions are just chemistry doing its thing in our brains ! that there is no such thing as a soul ! that we are just some special apes not god's successor/caliph on this earth ! that islam is just a cult invented by some misogynistic conman in arabia who used gahanam to control his followers !
needless to say i am beyond mindblown rightnow !
https://redd.it/1tm6r2y
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Modesty culture in a Muslim family
Rant tbh
I'm 16(F) and the way I'm (and many other girls my age for sure) are policed around in a Muslim family is daunting and I'm sick of it. I live in a Muslim family and even though my parents aren't as strict as most Muslims parents are; the things they say to me on a daily are soo weird. The other day I was wearing a short sleeved, (*loose* shirt mind you) and my father was home. As soon as my mom saw what I was wearing she pulled me aside and lectured me about how I shouldn't wear such "revealing" shirts Infront of my father because he's a man and he might get "tempted". Like what?? He's my father?? Why should I be responsible for his feelings towards me and my body that he shouldn't even be having in the first place?? Even when male relatives visit, my mom makes me cover my chest with a scarf, or makes me change into something looser than what I'm already wearing, and only then am I able to go greet them or be in their vicinity. And it doesn't even stop at clothes, lately I'm not even able to keep my hair down Infront of my father because my mom says it's disrespectful for him to be looking at me like that.
Meanwhile my brother can roam around in nothing but shorts Infront of me and my mother and nobody bats an eye or criticises him.
I'm only 16 but I can't even fathom how rigid and annoying they'll get once I actually become an adult woman or when they find out I left this pedophilic joke of a religion
https://redd.it/1tlunvb
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i wonder why christians are so mean
i’m a 22 m and i have always wonder when you express or disclose that you are an atheist they are like disgusted by the fact you just can’t put your beliefs or time into some invisible man in the sky and some book that was made 1000 years ago and with multiple authors
https://redd.it/1tm1hav
@r_atheism
“The Myth of Christian Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom” by Candida Moss
From Chapter 2
“When we look at stories about early Christian martyrs from Jesus on, we can see that Christians borrowed the myths of earlier generations.”
Examples
The Deaths of Jesus and Socrates
In rewriting Mark’s version of Christ’s Passions, he changes Jesus from a condemned man seeking comfort from his disciples to a stoic and strong figure facing death with dignity, telling his disciples to go and pray.
This change in Jesus’s continence may have appealed to Greeks and Romans who knew of Socrates story; Luke was trying to win converts.
Martyrs Imitating Icons
The story of the death of Polycarp resembles the story of the passion of Christ, including a judge named Herod, a donkey on which he entered the city, and a gaping wound in his side.
https://redd.it/1tlxq21
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The Christian Right Is Winning the Ukraine War
https://jonathanlarsen.substack.com/p/the-christian-right-is-winning-the
https://redd.it/1tlrwkf
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Three Staffers, Including A Pastor, For Public Schools Bible Study Org 'LifeWise' Arrested On Child Sex, Rape, Voyeurism Charges In The Last Month.
https://www.joemygod.com/2026/05/three-staffers-for-public-schools-bible-study-org-arrested-on-child-sex-rape-voyeurism-charges/
https://redd.it/1tltvj4
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Stephen Colbert prompts accusations of heresy over afterlife view: 'We become Febreze'.
https://www.christianpost.com/news/stephen-colbert-prompts-accusations-of-heresy-over-afterlife-view.html
https://redd.it/1tlpja7
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