this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2026
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[–] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 19 hours ago

Anneliese Michel

Didn't think I'd use this link twice in one day.

[–] Mulligrubs@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

I can't even get through a page of this.

How long will these religions be tax free? What an abomination

[–] JTskulk@lemmy.world 39 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Christians: Atheists are killing our babies!

Also Christians: Your little ass don't need no doctor lmao

[–] YragNitram1956@feddit.uk 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

For thousands of years, humanity has asked the same question: Why are we here? Religion answered early, confidently, and critically without evidence. That confidence became its greatest strength. When answers arrive before questions are fully formed, they harden into tradition, authority, and eventually taboo. From an atheist perspective, religion is not mysterious; it is familiar. It follows well-documented psychological, sociological, and evolutionary patterns. Gods look like people. Moral codes mirror ancient survival needs. Sacred texts reflect the scientific ignorance of their era. This is not an insult it is an observation. If religions were divine revelations, why do they look exactly like human inventions? Religions make the most extreme claims imaginable: An invisible, omniscient being created the universe. This being intervenes in daily life. It listens to prayers. It cares deeply about sexual behaviour and dietary rules. It rewards belief and punishes doubt. Yet not a single one of these claims has been independently verified. Contrast this with science. Science makes modest claims, backed by evidence, revised when wrong. Religion does the opposite: maximal claims, minimal evidence, zero revision. Why is belief without evidence praised in religion but rejected everywhere else? Would you board a plane built on faith? Accept a diagnosis based on prayer? Trust a bridge designed by revelation. If faith is a virtue, why is it never used outside religion? Prayer is often defended as personal, harmless, and comforting. But when evaluated, prayer performs no better than chance. Large-scale studies, including the STEP Project found no measurable benefit of intercessory prayer and in some cases, those who knew they were being prayed for had worse outcomes, due to anxiety or pressure If prayer worked: Hospitals would replace ICUs with chapels. Insurance companies would track prayer frequency. Casinos would ban worshippers. Instead, prayer functions psychologically: it creates the feeling of control in an indifferent universe. Comforting? Yes. True? No. Religions claim ownership of morality, yet moral behaviour predates organized religion by tens of thousands of years. Empathy, cooperation, and fairness are evolutionary traits observed in social animals, primates, elephants, dolphins. Sacred texts routinely endorse slavery, genocide, misogyny, child marriage, collective punishment. Believers now reject these practices not because of scripture but despite it. If morality comes from God, why has moral progress required ignoring holy texts? Gods evolve because humans do. Early gods-controlled weather and fertility because humans could not. As science advanced, gods retreated. Lightning → electricity. Disease → germs Earth’s creation → cosmology. This pattern is called the God of the Gaps. Every gap filled by evidence is a god quietly evicted. Why do gods always explain what humans do not yet understand and never what they do? The defining feature of religion is not belief in gods; it is belief protected from questioning. Doubt is framed as sin. Scepticism as arrogance. Evidence as temptation. Any idea that cannot be questioned is not sacred it is fragile. Why would a true god fear honest inquiry? Atheism: Not a Belief, a Conclusion Atheism is not the claim “there is no god.” It is the conclusion that no god has met its burden of proof. This is the same standard used everywhere else in life. The universe does not owe us meaning. Reality does not bend to comfort. Truth does not care what we wish were true. And yet, despite no divine supervision, humans create meaning, ethics, art, love, and progress. If life has value only because a god grants it, what does that say about human worth? If your religion were false, how would you know? Why does faith require belief before evidence? Why do all religions resemble the cultures that invented them? If a god exists, why is it indistinguishable from a natural universe? Is truth defined by comfort or by reality? Religion was humanity’s first attempt to understand the universe. It was a starting point, not a destination. Clinging to ancient explanations in an age of evidence is not humility, it is fear of uncertainty. Atheism does not offer eternal rewards or cosmic surveillance. It offers something more demanding: responsibility. No gods watching. No divine safety net. Just humans accountable to each other. And that is why the idea is so threatening.

[–] SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 11 points 2 days ago

My hospital treats a lot of Mennonite children. Most of the problems are caused by parents refusing medical procedures for their kids and vaccines. It's tedious, but when it goes to shit, they run to the English and their technology. Also, huge problem with genetic diseases due to a tight gene pool and consanguinity - incest is a problem.

[–] expatriado@lemmy.world 26 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

i've seen kids be taken away for a lot less, i guess the parents were not on drugs and didn't beat the children, so didn't fit standard procedure

[–] Carrots@quokk.au 12 points 2 days ago

Idaho makes it tough to take kids away from “good Christians”

[–] melsaskca@lemmy.ca 5 points 2 days ago

Wouldn't the dead kids be evidence of fraud?

[–] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 17 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Bet they justify continued worship of that monster they call a god as some how teaching them something or another that requires 4 dead children to learn.

I'm just not sure what that lesson could possibly be. Except that maybe their god's a monster and their pastor has been lying to them.

[–] YragNitram1956@feddit.uk 2 points 8 hours ago

I am a reasonable man and am certain that the Christians's holy book is an absolute heap of disgusting, slavery condoning, male infant genital mutilation demanding, repellent, demented, vicious dark age mumbo jumbo. Christians should be told quite clearly that our citizens have the legal right to criticise, lampoon, ridicule and mock god and Jesus to their heart's content, in any way that they wish: that Christians have no special claim to protection from the rough and tumble of post-Enlightenment intellectual, political and social life. If they cannot live in a society in which this is the case, they should go somewhere else; they are, after all, spoilt for choice, at least in theory.

[–] peacepath@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)

With an heaven where their god has called back the kid early, there is probably nothing wrong that happend in their point of view... They may be genuinely happy for their kid!

As far as I know, faith is the only mental sickness volountarily induced into humans, by humans. And the only one we think doesn't need doctors nor treatment.

It may even be weird calling it a mental sickness, while that is how we call other a mental state that forces us to be delusional toward reality up to a point we can become dangerous to others and ourself while genuinely aiming for the best.

[–] YragNitram1956@feddit.uk 3 points 8 hours ago

The idea that faith is stupid stems from its definition as belief without empirical evidence, which is as illogical, irrational, or wilfully ignorant. Proponents argue faith is reasoned trust in a God or a higher power or acting on conviction despite uncertainty. Arguments against faith can cite lack of proof and potential harm from unquestioned belief. Faith is believing something without evidence, making it illogical or a willful delusion, a contrast to evidence-based reasoning. Faith is an unreliable path to truth, leading to belief in both true and false things, making it a poor guide for important decisions. Some such as Richard Dawkins, suggest faith's lack of justification can foster dangerous intolerance.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 4 points 2 days ago

parents were terrible, type 2 is very managable, but type 1 needs to be treated asap.

[–] Burn_The_Right@lemmy.today 2 points 2 days ago

It should be illegal for conservatives to have children.

[–] samus12345@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 days ago

They couldn't even bother to give them different headstones.

[–] hanrahan@slrpnk.net 1 points 2 days ago

lucky they didn't let the kids walk to school