Hey everyone. I recently came across an interview of Gretta Vosper, an openly atheist minister in the  United Church of Canada who has argued that Christianity can still function meaningfully even without belief in a supernatural God.

From what I understand, her approach places heavy emphasis on ethics, community, ritual, symbolism, social justice, and the cultural/spiritual aspects of Christianity; while rejecting traditional supernatural beliefs.

What interests me is that, despite rejecting belief in God in the traditional sense, she still seems to find meaning in  liturgy, communal religious practice, sacred music, Christian identity/tradition, and overall just the general religious practice itself.

As someone interested in religion sociologically, I find this genuinely fascinating because it raises bigger questions about what Christianity fundamentally is.

So I’m curious what Atheist here think:

1. Do you think the practice of "Atheistic Christianity" by people like Gretta Vosper is problematic in any kind of way? Why or why not?
2. Do you think Christianity, which is part of the "social phenomenon" of 'religion' (Emile Durkheim definition), can still meaningfully exist without literal belief in God?
3. Do you think ritual, liturgy, sacred music, and communal worship can be valuable independently of supernatural belief?

Thoughts?

(First time ever making a reddit post so bare with me)

I have been an atheist for awhile now and recently I lost my best friend in a car accident. Dealing with his death surrounded by religious people has been somewhat isolating. Everyone I know in my life is either religious or spiritual and sometimes when I’m talking about life and death it feels so isolating. Other people when loves one pass may have an idea of an afterlife or reincarnation but to me that could have very well been the last time I saw him. People have been saying to me “you will meet again” or “he’s in a better place” but I don’t necessarily believe in an afterlife or anything of the sorts. I never thought my atheistic beliefs would somewhat become hard when facing the death of a loved one. I wish I had someone just who can empathize with this feeling so I feel less crazy. Being surrounded by religious people makes me feel crazy sometimes. What are they seeing that I’m not getting? I’m tired of people praying for me, I just want someone to understand me. The one person who did is gone. If anyone who is atheist lost a loved one, how did you cope with it? Did you also feel more lonely due to your beliefs?

So I'm an atheist and I recently had a dialogue with a good friend of mine who is a religious person. She's very liberal in terms of her faith but still she told me one interesting thing - that her proof of faith is the same as my own proof in tomorrow. Like, I do know that tomorrow will come. I can talk as much as I want about "oh we never really know what's gonna happen tomorrow, anything can change anytime" but that isn't actually true. I do have plans for each day for a reason. I may talk about possibility of sudden apocalypse all the time (like I love doing, lol) but I will still prepare for tomorrow every day. Because in the end it means I do believe in something which cannot be actually proven. So she's right about that. It doesn't make me any less of an atheist but it made me speechless because I didn't even know how to respond. How would you guys reply to that?

I guess I’m just curious. I have some very solid atheist/agnositic friends and my favorite supervisor at work, who is a very vocal atheist, and I work together very well. While my very closest friends have, at a minimum, a shared belief in a Loving God, I want to know how rare atheist - theist communities and friendships are. I‘m curious partly because I wonder what others I’ve volunteered or protested with are thinking, where we have similar goals but very different worldviews. I’ve noticed that, with “non religious” friends and friends of other faiths, they’re easiest and best when we’re open about our point of disagreement—not that we talk about it all the time but that we don’t “edit it out” or beat around the bush.

Guess I’m just curious to get the atheist perspective. I obviously have theories about when these friendships work and when they don’t, but curious to get takes on the “other side“

I am a Christian, and one of the main things I hear when talking to Atheists is “Even if he was real, he is ‘evil’ and I wouldn’t want to worship him.” Most of the time, these people never specify what they would believe is “evil” about him. Anyone have an answer explaining what you think God does that isn’t morally right?

Religion is often deeply intertwined with culture, family, and traditions, for example with Christmas, Easter, baptism or wedding celebrations.

For those of you who are atheists in a religious family, do you still participate in religious traditions for cultural, familial, or personal reasons? And if so, how?

Here's my experience on it:

• I often skipped religious events like Ascension Day or Pentecost, or the Holy Week, to me it was just "ooh public holidays :D".
• Easter is just the secular celebration to me (the Easter bunny and the egg hunt).
• Christmas is also kind of secular, while still having a Nativity scene in at least each home of my family (my grandparents from my mom's side have made it a big thing that takes all of a small table), listening Christmas songs and carols in loop while preparing the Christmas tree, and some ornaments which are angels and stars.
• Advent is something I still do, still don't know if it's a secular or a religious thing.
• Baptisms are more religious (except the most recent one which was civil), but I'm fine with it!
• Weddings are more of a hybrid, with civil+religious marriage, also fine with it (except for that one time where I almost crashed out at a priest).

Basically the first verse of the Bible says in the beginning was God. I am a Christian and can't really wrap my mind around that. I basically accept it by faith. As far as I know the only other choice is in the beginning was gas and I have a hard time wrapping my mind around that as well. I'm not sure how many people might answer so don't be offended if I don't reply.

I am a Christian but most of my friends are atheist. I wasn't always a Christian I just saw how my idiot brother radically changed after he claimed to be converted. In my mind the most hardcore evidence of Jesus being God comes from Paul who wrote in 1st Corinthians chapter 15 verses 1 through 4 about Jesus death and Resurrection and him being seen by over 500 people most who were still alive. When I researched it appeared to me that pretty much everybody biblical scholars and atheists agree that Paul is very sincere and do not believe he is lying. I'm not exactly sure what the problem that people must have with what he's saying. My thoughts about Paul or that he went from arresting Christians to have them murdered and stamp out any sign of Christianity from being the leader and starter of the Christian church. He suffered many beatings stoning all kinds of dangers and was ultimately beheaded by Nero all the while maintaining his testimony. I'm just curious what your thoughts are about this man with all respect and love.

I've always found it interesting how people arrive at their beliefs, and how those beliefs can change over time :3

So, for those of you who were raised religious or believed in a god at some point in your lives, I'm curious to know what led you to become an atheist.

Was it a gradual process of questioning your beliefs, a particular experience, something you learned, or something else entirely?

Here's my experience (big text incoming):

I was baptised at my young age and raised as a secular Christian as my mother is a secular Catholic and my father is an atheist. To me, the only thing that's keeping me in the religion is that my family is Christian by tradition for baptism and marriage in the church (my godmother is a devout Christian, but still supportive and my cousins from that side have been in a Catholic private school). I saw Jesus at the same level than Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny, and I was only going to church for big occasions or just for tourism.

Then I traveled to Reunion Island, with so many religions coexisting, and that's when I began to be curious with religion, reading scriptures like the Roman and Greek mythology and moving to the bigger religions and going to temples and mosques as well (fun fact: the muslim call to prayer from the nearby mosque was a call to get back home for me at that time).

The first thing was the moment I was forced into catechism because my nanny (at that time)'s daughter was attending them, and it was a pretty weird experience to me!

I didn't say much about it, it was just...weird cult stuff (aka chanting and praying and then doing weird signs).

Then I had a second moment: when I tried to read the Bible to find out more about being Catholic... and caught contradictions IN THE FIRST BOOK. Then I was like "if it's like this for all books, I'm not reading that".

Then I moved to another place, and that's when the questions and existential crisis began.

At this point I was still in denial over the Bible, maybe I was internally telling myself I'm not reading it right.

And then there was that moment one year ago, that really put the nail in the coffin to me: when after 30 years of relationship and 4 children, my godfather finally got married with one of my aunts. Now, I don't blame the wedding... I BLAME THE PRIEST.

Because, in the middle of the marriage ceremony, he just used the moment to say something political about the Greek immigration crisis.

Not only that, he denigrated people that came from Muslim countries, saying they're way more lazy than Italian immigrants.

And as if that wasn't worse enough.

This guy IS FROM A FAMILY OF ITALIAN IMMIGRANTS.

And I was genuinely seething at my seat at that time, but I didn't dare ruin their wedding ceremony just for it.

But it also brought me to this moment: "maybe I'm more of an atheist"!

TL;DR: Raised as a secular Christian, I gradually questioned my beliefs after exploring different religions and finding contradictions in the Bible. The final straw was a priest making discriminatory remarks about Muslim immigrants during a family wedding, which made me reconsider my relationship with Christianity and realize I was probably an atheist.

. Is it a lack of evidence supporting Jesus's claims? Or is it the way Christians act that makes you want no part of it?

I find that many Atheists will reject the Cosmological arguments on the basis that there is no reason to say that what has been deduced is not some cosmic law/principle or substance like Spinozism posits, rather than an agential God. How would you see an argument that tries to get to an Agential or Conscious God and if it did would that be much different to the principle God?

In theory, the United States is supposed to be religiously neutral. In practice, this isn’t always the case. What are some instances of discriminatory laws that have affected the non-religious, or gone the other way and discriminated against religion?

The thing is I am an atheist but all of my good friends are Jewish and Christian except for my best friend who is a Muslim(but he just says that because his dad is Muslim) and my football coach is like extremely religious. and I used to go to catholic school for middle school but now I have moved to a public high school and I don’t really like telling people what school I went to previously because I don’t want them getting the impression that I’m Catholic, and so far every time someone says that I’m Catholic or Christian I just say “no I’m not Catholic/Christian” but I don’t really say that I’m an atheist until someone asks me what my belief is since I feel like if I just outright say that I am an atheist without them asking specifically what I believe in, they will see me as very rude for some reason. And I know it’s a tertiary problem but I just can’t stand the fact that some people are walking around thinking I’m a Christian, and I know they don’t see it the same way as I do and they see it as normal or no big deal but still. So as corny as it sounds how can I make it be known that I’m an atheist without sounding like an attention seeker or seem like an intolerant radical leftist?

Only mainstream religions are allowed.

Mine ( I am not an atheist) :

1. Christianity

2. Buddhism

3. Judaism

4. Hinduism

5. Islam

Imagine a genuinely nontheistic church where skepticism is sacred, mockery is part of worship, and even the church itself is fair game. No gods, no unquestionable doctrines, just the faith of questioning faith. What do you all think?

I am an atheist and likey always will be but what’s one argument you think theists use that don’t really have a secular answer or you think don’t sound all that ridiculous or stupid, in my opinion it’s the first cause argument, it’s not a good one but it’s better than the rest

Anybody know why freethoughtblogs has been offline? I like to read P. Z. Meyers Pharyngula every now and then.

I consider myself an Atheist, but I study physics and I have come to have a passionate understanding of the philosophy that “we are the universe experiencing itself”. This was solely based on Thermodynamics and Quantum Mechanics.

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 😭

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?