Children don't need religion to develop good morals. I'd argue that certain religions get in the way of that because they encourage you to do things because a deity approves and it will lead to you having a good afterlife or whatever. And I don't know about you but I find that to be self-serving.

Not to mention, the fact that religion can advocate for immoral things.

Let's just teach children to be good just because.

Happy Tears

Ex Muslims and ex Jews deserve our love and support as much as anyone else. 

Source

While reading this interview with a West Bank settler, it's important to remember her views do not represent those of all Israelis just like Israel does not represent all Jews. There has been sizeable protest in Tel Aviv against the genocide (quickly squashed under Netanyahu’s police force just like all other pro-palestinian sentiment) but it’s worth reading to get insight into the minds of average people who cheer on Palestinian deaths, and draw up a chair to watch hellfire rain down on innocents. This is the impact of years of settler-colonial propaganda - a complete dehumanisation of a scapegoat population.

It also has to be said that ALL colonialist countries are complicit in encouraging this kind of extremism, by facilitating and stoking the fires of islamophobia post-9/11. Israel is not an outlier - this kind of sentiment is festering EVERYWHERE and attempting to detach yourself and your country's identity from it is like burying your head in the sand.

If you stand on the side of Palestinians in this crisis, you have to be prepared to recognise the signs of islamophobia and fascism everywhere, and stand against them.

NON-EVANGALISTIC RELIGION LETS FUCKIN GOOO!!!!!

Happy Hannukah! 🕎

idk who needs this reminder but uh race is a social construct, ethnicity is not. we can use DNA to determine the ethnicity of someone post mortem, we cannot determine their race that way. using facial reconstruction techniques we can estimate what they may have looked like and compare that with definitions of race from their lifetime, but even that is shaky ground to walk on.

that being said: many ethnic groups do not rely on blood quantum and in fact many actively reject it (Indigenous peoples especially). ethnicity is not solely genetic. its culture, its language, its customs, its religion, its clothing. so when you see someone argue that the concept of a Jewish ethnicity is fake or propaganda, they are willfully ignoring the fact that Jewish culture in the diaspora is diverse and unique, and also makes diaspora Jews distinct from the populations of the countries they now live in. being Jewish significantly changes your experience of any given country because you blend your culture with your country’s. because of this, we have yiddish and ladino and other judeo-languages, we have diaspora groups, we have unique practices all over the world because of our unique ethnic background.

and still, if you sample DNA from a Jew in Romania and a Jew in England and a Jew in Ethiopia, their DNA will be considerably more similar than their own DNA compared to goyim from their home country. the ethno in ethnoreligion has meaning, and denying it minimizes Jewish identity at best.

I can genuinely say I have very little sympathy for tmes who get on the "kill all trans women" bandwagon so far that they make a public speech abt it and then write an op-ed abt how they're the victim in this situation. Sorry you had no support for your transition and all but I'm not going to coddle ex-hate group members just bc they're trans

By the way, since my blog is meant to be a safe space for ex religious people of all kinds, my asks and submissions are open. You can even send asks anonymously if you like. I want ex religious people to be heard, especially ones from religions that tend to be overlooked in favor of Christianity.

I think we all need to stop for a second and appreciate how incredibly exhilarating it is to leave a high-demand religion. Not to romanticize the experience-- I know first-hand how much fear, pain, loss, and exhaustion it entails-- but there comes a point when you emerge from the woods, stumbling past the treeline, and find yourself looking up in awe at the bright, blazing sun.

Have you ever felt this warmth before? Or been surrounded by so much open space?

Wishing my fellow Jewish people a g'mar chatima tova!

A good year to all. An easy fast, if you choose to keep it. A pleasant day if you don't.

A special shout out to any non religious Jews, especially if you are formally religious. This holiday is yours as well if you want it.

religious trauma where the best coping machanism you came up with was pretending religion didn't exist at all, which is a challenge on its own considering I'm living in a society that even law and order is based on religion.

I may be ten years late to this take but Schmidt is sincerely the best Jewish representation anywhere in the media

you know when people go "funny how ukraine got instant western support and palestine didn't, blegheugh" and the usual counter argument to this is that the support was actually 8 years late and before that the west was perfectly comfortable with mass human rights violations and torture camps because there was russian oil to buy and netrebko galas to attend.

and that's all true and relevant.

but what gets to me is that even if we agreed that russian violence in the donbas+crimea before feb 2022 was Not Big Enough to warrant attention, it's just so disingenuous to pretend as if ukraine got handed that juicy western support on a silver platter just for being very sad little guys, when in fact literally all help the us+europe is giving us is because our diplomats and officials work fucking hard for it, demand it, negotiate it, haggle for it; because our activists, public figures and experts use every platform available to argue for it, to reason with the west and explain our needs to it.

(the only "support" we didn't have to fight tooth and nail for was like, von der leyen tweets. which. if that's the help you're demanding for palestinians, then sure.)

if we are in any way privileged compared to palestinians, it's not our """whiteness""" that makes us so. it's that we have a government that represents us and can speak with other governments for us. it's that we have institutions that can speak with other institutions on our behalf.

and, yeah, we truly did luck out in this regard, and i'm grateful for it every day. has nothing to do with the west's supposed good will (lol) or affinity for us (lmao), though.

When did you ever bash atheists?? Am I hallucinating, or did this whole thing only start because some asshole said "no Jews at pride???" What on earth??

yeah apparently saying “trying to ban an entire ethnic group from pride bc you personally had a bad experience with someone from said group is bad actually” is bashing atheists.

finally was able to unmutual that one pretty antisemitic mutual‼️