What do you believe?
Is there a GOD in the sky?
Is he guiding us and helping us?
Life is really hard. Why is that is a big entity is up there loving us?
Atheists have taken a lot of heat for what feels like shunning GOD.
What if they've been right all along?
Maybe let's take a listen and see what they really think.
Redditor __Jacob______ wanted to hear from the people who don't really believe all that "God" stuff. They asked:
"Atheists, what do you believe in?"
I'm waffling between G-O-D and nothing. So please give me some education.
911
Role Playing Reaction GIF by Hyper RPGGiphy"We need to look out for each other because help isn't coming."
cknipe
Peace Out
"More than 2 decades ago, a priest was giving a sermon in my church and he said 'our faith requires you to believe without question. Why call it faith if you have to ask questions?' I haven't returned to church. Not until my wedding day but you know what I mean."
asiangontear
Delusion
"When I was young I used to think that after death you would have access to a PC that you could see absolutely anything about your life. Stats, any question you had no matter how obscure, replays of moments, perspectives of others in relation to you. No matter what you wanted to know, if it was relatable to you, you could see it. I know it's silly, but as time goes on I just want it to be real, and I don't think I'd have any issue allowing myself to fall into that delusion."
eggwardpenisglands
I think nothing happens...
"Realistically, I think nothing happens. We literally experience nothing after death. Same thing that we experience before birth. We don't exist, so it's nothing. I think the tenant that we should follow while living is to try to be happy and healthy while minimizing the damage we do to each other."
"What I would LIKE to happen after death is whatever you believe in, exists. I think Christians should get to go to heaven if they truly believe in it, Hindus and Buddhists get reincarnated, and everyone else also gets to experience what they believe they will experience."
"'I would still experience Nothing. Maybe it's one of those things where at the moment of death their brain makes them experience what feels like an infinitely long moment in time where they experience their afterlife. I just think it would be neat for everybody."
Better_Meat_
Shrug
Happy GIFGiphy"Best advice I received from a dear senior on their way out. 'You win some, you lose some' shrug. Nothing divine, life is that simple and wonderful, accept it and move on."
Tune_Kindly
It all sounds pretty simple. Why are people so up in arms about Atheists?
Whatever
Bored Episode 15 GIF by The SimpsonsGiphy"I believe in a universe that doesn't care, and people that do."
imCIK
Cool with Empty
"Nothing. [Serious]."
rumblingtummy29
"I feel this way about death. When I was 5, my grandfather died and my cousin simple said, he is dead, that means you are gone forever. Everything ends up dying, even plants and animals. I'm now in my 40's and still have this simplistic view of life and death. People think I'm ambivalent to life and death but it's just what it is."
thepigfish82
puppet-masters...
"I think a lot of religious people struggle with the fact that we are all just swirling units of chaos. There is no grand plan or great orchestrator. I think that’s why people who are prone to religion are also susceptible to things like Q anon and the Cabal and all that. They REALLY want to believe that there is some almighty puppet-master who determines all of humanity’s fate."
Lngtmelrker
“we’re living in a society!”
"Just be a kind and empathetic person not because you’re worried about some cosmic justice, but because it’s the right thing to do. If there is some being that created us there’s no way they actually care about believing in it or adhering to some rules from over 2000 years ago."
"Also a big thing for me is that I find the idea that you need religion or the Bible in order to have morals and ethics pretty dumb. It’s pretty f**king clear that most evangelicals have neither. But my main thing is being a good person simply because, as George Costanza once said we’re living in a society!' If you’re only a good person in order to make it to heaven you probably aren’t actually a good and moral person."
conservative_genius
That's All
Circle Of Life Loop GIFGiphy"You're born. You live. You die. That's it. After you die you cease to exist, the same as before you were born."
serefina
Believe what you want. We're all here together. So let's focus there.
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Gay Student Who Escaped Conversion Therapy In Kenya Awarded Prize For Bravery
Mahad Olad is a resident of Minnesota, an ex-Muslim, and a columnist for The Ithacan, Ithaca University's student newspaper. He has just been named the most recent winner of the Colin Higgins Foundation's Youth Courage Prize for his bravery when escaping gay conversion therapy in Kenya, an experience he has written about at length.
The prize includes a $10,000 grant, which Olad plans to put toward his education as well as "a visual media project dedicated to capturing the lives and experiences of LGBT+ Africans."
In the summer of 2017, junior Mahad Olad successfully escaped life-endangering gay conversion therapy in Kenya.… https://t.co/EVvbRB9P24— The Ithacan (@The Ithacan) 1535983248.0
Olad's bravery is remarkable. After his freshman year of college, his family took him to Kenya, telling him it was a vacation to see their family. Once he arrived, however, his mother informed him there would be no family vacation. Instead, there were several sheikhs at their hotel who planned to escort him to gay conversion therapy — the next day:
I knew that it wasn't really a choice. A few sheiks were at our hotel that night. They briefly spoke to me about how being gay and atheist is unequivocally against my Islamic upbringing and African heritage. I knew that when they came back to get me the following morning, I would be forced to go with them.
@ReasonOnFaith What a story!— (((Ken))) (@(((Ken)))) 1518107894.0
Kenyan gay conversion therapy camps are dangerous and secretive, not unlike those in the United States:
The leaders operate the camps around grim parts of Somalia and Kenya. They submit their captives to severe beatings, shackling, food deprivation and other cruel practices.
It usually involves a rigorous Islamic curriculum. Those who fail to cooperate, make adequate progress or try to escape could possibly be killed.
Conversion therapy, still legal in much of the U.S., is also practiced in other countries. Mahad Olad narrowly esca… https://t.co/WrQpf8Yc92— ESM (@ESM) 1518123391.0
Pretending to go along with his mother's plan, Olad went for a walk. He knew he needed help to escape back to the U.S.:
I knew I had to get out immediately. I was without access to money or even my passport, so I needed assistance. To buy myself some time, I told my mother that I was willing to go along with her plans. I told her I was going for a walk, and then I made a call to Ex-Muslims of North America (EXMNA), an organization that supports people who have chosen to leave Islam. They quickly put me in touch with Executive Director Muhammad Syed, based in Washington, D.C. Mr. Syed reached out to the United States Embassy in Kenya to see if they could help me escape. I was told that if I could take a cab to the embassy they could shelter me and help me figure out how I could get back to the U.S.
@ama_media @ThePaulHobbs I find it hard to believe that this is still a thing.— morgandyke 🇨🇦 🏳️🌈 (@morgandyke 🇨🇦 🏳️🌈) 1535993472.0
Once his family was asleep, Olad escaped to the U.S. embassy, where many organizations collaborated to bring him to safety:
In the middle of the night, when everyone was asleep, I escaped from the hotel and made it to the embassy. Thankfully, the consul general welcomed me into his home until we could formulate a plan. The next problem was that I had no place to go and no money to get back to the U.S. I couldn't go back home to Minnesota and Ithaca College was basically closed for the summer. The consul general reached out to the college to see if they could help. Luckily, they were able to find a place for me on campus and EXMNA was generous enough to pay for my airfare back to the U.S.
Gay 'conversion' therapy has been described by the UN as torture and condemned by leading medical groups as child a… https://t.co/VEOLttOhgr— Jason Ball (@Jason Ball) 1535955221.0
Olad is now trying to raise awareness of the dangerous practice of conversion therapy and its continued presence in Africa:
We don't have exact numbers of how many young people are forced to go to these camps but we know the numbers are growing.
Olad earned this recognition for his courage and dedication. The United Nations has condemned conversion therapy as an example of "torture and ill-treatment," though many countries, including the U.S., continue its practice.
H/T - Indy 100, The Ithacan