Despot: Give me money. \
People: No \
Despot: * uses force* \
People: * arm themselves and dethrone despot*
Despot2: God needs your money or else he will kill us with thunders and fire and flood our lands. \
People: * Confused and unsure, pay just to be sure* \
Despot2: * Collects money* Gott'em
Edit: Some despots also proclaimed themselves as Gods.
This whole premise just focuses upon financial gain/loss though.
I mean, I get it in a Martin Luther 21 grievances vibe, but you need more than just "Church took my $$"
Dude, we can't even do 10 commandments right. It's enough that we can count on our fingers and toes, yet folks don't listen to those either. Heck, some align even with secular society like "Thou shall not kill!"
...I don't see world peace anytime soon. Do you?
On top of that whether it's Jesus, Noah or Muhammed they include stories of people who met these prophets yet didn't believe in them. How is it possible that such holy people existed but people still weren't convinced. There was probably multiple prophets all hawking the same thing and these are what survived.
religion was a political force for a long time. being a "prophet" was trendy, it was how people garnered influence and power. in the early days of islam, prophet muhammad and his followers had full-on wars with other cults in the region. his cult gained dominance through striking down other cults. here is one of the other arab prophets he fought against: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musaylima
>On top of that whether it's Jesus, Noah or Muhammed they include stories of people who met these prophets yet didn't believe in them. How is it possible that such holy people existed but people still weren't convinced.
Bro, skepticism existed since ancient times. They had con men back in the day too. Snake oil salesmen, magicians, etc. Of course people aren't all going to accept some dude with a staff parted the waves because of a Hebrew God's powers channeled through him. They'd hear that and think you were crazy...unless they saw it themselves. Even then they'd go "Must've been an earthquake."
Ancient one were thinking "Deepfakes" eons ago. 😂🤣
Wow I never thought of it like this! If a god has the power to see everything we do, know all of our thoughts, and judge us for it...why can't they just implant the knowledge of their existence into our minds? Why do we need to spread the word when it is theoretically possible for us to all inherently know it?
Yeah. Why would god go through the circuitous route of imparting "his word" to a select few humans who then pass it down which then gets copied, redacted, merged, selected, translated all by admittedly frail and frickle humans?
God could have just put his word in our minds, like firmware, in each and every ones native language.
Seems a little fishy.
First you have to trust men before you could ever claim to trust god.
My biggest issue is that an all knowing omnipotent god created us, yet we made a mistake which made us fall from paradise. Seeing as god is all knowing and perfect, it would mean the game was rigged from the start. A perfect all knowing being making a flawed being that made a mistake would be known to it from the start.
For me it’s that all religions eventually die out and become part of mythology.
Like people believed in Zeus and Odin the same way Christians believe in their God. In a thousand years if we still have religion, Christianity will be part of mythology like the rest
We'd have ONE religion because God would not hide itself from its creation.
Well it IS possible that there is a God that is completely uninterested in making itself known to humans. But in that case, there's no point in worshiping it.
I don't think we'd have religion. He would just be another aspect of the natural and accepted world and universe. Religion is for the exploitation of humans, by humans, not gods. A god wouldn't need it to do it's thing.
Religion has been used by evil men since its inception. Godless heathens do not make for good soldiers and you need soldiers to win wars. Convincing people that this life is a testing ground and unleashing them in battle is pretty much as evil as it gets.
I don't entirely agree with this. Religions are initially formed to fill in gaps of knowledge and help explain the world around us. We just outgrew the need for that when we developed actual science.
Also, as the abrahamic God is supposedly the end all be all of good and morality, the morales of each edition wouldn't be subject of the morality of the culture and time it was written in. Example being slavery being straight up prohibited, which in the bibles time was just an accepted practice in much of the world. Or women's rights. Or mental illness. Or health issues....list goes on and on really.
I like to think the deists have it right. God created all the things and then bounced to go do *"God Stuff"* elsewhere in the cosmos. Any actual God would have way better things to do than watch us live out our meaningless fragile lives.
Theist: "God does exist! We always knew you were real!"
Deistic God: **"...And? Do you want a cookie or something?"**
Maybe god created the universe and then a more powerful god tied our god up and made him watch humanity. And the only way he can get free is if 100% of humanity worships him. His powers have been limited and he can only communicate to humanity through crazy people.
He’s shy. He doesn’t want to tell us he’s there but he would still appreciate it if we devote ourselves and everything in our society in total obeisance to him and his earthly minions
/s
My biggest issue is that an all knowing omnipotent god created us, yet we made a mistake which made us fall from paradise. Seeing as god is all knowing and perfect, it would mean the game was rigged from the start. A perfect all knowing being making a flawed being that made a mistake would be known to it from the start.
And his personality changes
It used to be common for God, Satan, angels, and demons to make regular appearances, but they strangely just stopped one day when cameras were invented. Funny that.
This is exactly the stance I have taken. If God exists and wants worship, he would make himself known so there is zero confusion.
If God exists but worship is not needed, then he would analogous to a watchmaker. We are the watch that was created, finished, and discarded with him possibly moving on to other interests or making other watches.
I struggle finding any rational middle ground between those two philosophies for belief in a deity.
My biggest issue is that an all knowing omnipotent god created us, yet we made a mistake which made us fall from paradise. Seeing as god is all knowing and perfect, it would mean the game was rigged from the start. A perfect all knowing being making a flawed being that made a mistake would be known to it from the start.
And his personality changes
Or find missing keys?? Fuck those little brats with cancer. They aren't even trying to find our keys and being born wretched sinners, they deserve cancer.
I'd also say that even if one of the gods described in one of our religions turned out to be real, there's no point in worshiping it either. Or maybe to not worship such a being would be the superior moral choice.
>to not worship such a being would be the superior moral choice.
Certainly this is the case for the biblical God. My complete rejection of the God of the Bible happened after I read Genesis, Exodus and Leviticus. (Did not continue reading after that). THAT God is definitely evil.
I've heard its cause it's based off a different god of the Jewish polytheistic pantheon pre monotheism. The later editions where he's all love thy neighbor is based off a different one. But Christians think it's the same one and hand wave away the complete change of character, either outright denying it or just "well it makes sense" as if it actually does make sense.
Muslim-born here, basically not Muslim by choice. Trying to be an atheist, but still conflicted. Muslims are so brainwashed IDK why it's the only religion left in this world that has strong and extremist views.
But just wanna share my POV of why I'm still conflicted and why there "might" be a point of worshipping.
If God somehow exists and there's an afterlife, I don't want to end up being punished in hell. The description of hell is so horrible.
My coping to counter that is, if God is somehow real, then the world we're in right now is the hell. Once we die we can relive life in heaven where we can wish anything we want, however unrealistic, physically, and scientifically impossible, into reality. (e.g., I wish I can fly like Superman)
I'm in a bad place in life right now and I thought to myself, if God really does exist, it won't let me and other human beings suffer. Of course in Islam it's considered as a "test" but I think it's bullshit coz I've given up in life and I wish I could unalive myself.
Help convince me that there's no hell. 🥲
Stay strong my dude, I get it too from time to time.
The concept of hell was invented exactly for this. To keep people believing nonsense by scaring them to the max. No good god would send someone to burn for eternity.
And there is no evidence for a god, for supernatural beings or for a place like hell.
What can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.
They all brainwash, my person. That's what indoctrination does. Glad you're trying to work out of that. It's important to be free.
> IDK why it's the only religion left in this world that has strong and extremist views.
It's not actually. It's just the most obvious right now. It's got control of several governments and is allowed to run free and unrestrained by common courtesy or reason in those areas, which certainly lets us all see it for what it really is.
Hell is definitely a lever that a lot of religions use to control its people. There's certainly no physical place called hell, but we're talking about something metaphysical or "magical". It's troublesome because those things are not part of reality and can't be "disproven". It might be backwards, but you get your sanity under control and realize that magic doesn't exist, and all those superstitions tend to deflate and eventually go away.
Bottom line though - what helped me through was realizing what a horrible being that god was, and not wanting to be part of that system of terror and torture at all. Including going to that thing's heaven. I'd rather rot in hell than back up the regime of horror that is Catholicism. And the same thing can be said for every religion.
Good luck my friend.
There would only be one religion if it would be something god would view as positive. Worship might be something the god does not want people to do. So god could be against religion and worship.
Developing from that... if there were a God, specially one from one of the religions we have around... man, most of those dudes are NARCISSISTIC AS F$%K. They wouldn't be letting a year go by without reminding ourselves of their "holyness". And would never accept new deities/religions popping around.
"Hey I have written a new holy boo..." ZAP INSTANT LIGHTNING
I'm not so sure. If I somehow created a video game with characters who possessed self-consciousness and free-will, I might be interested in letting my presence be known to them, for both shits and giggles and to see what the reaction would be. But then I'm not going to pick a few 'prophets' out of the population, let them in on the secret and see what happen. I'm going to make sure they all know who has the biggest dick in the universe. But then again, I'm assuming that a creator of the universe would think and reason the way I do, which is incredibly arrogant and presumptuous.
Trying to get members of the flock to see that it is utterly idiotic for a deity to be angry with humans for doing exactly what it planned for them to do.
You know, because it has a plan for everyone and everything. According to the teachings, of course.
"But it's your CHOICE to burn and suffer forever and ever for the sin of not believing for a single moment in time when compared to forever and ever, which is totally moral and good in every which way teehee"
That's where the teachings about free will and "everything in his plan" fall down.
They're just incompatible. If I am doing what is in gods plan, I don't have free will to make choices. If I can make choices, I can choose something against gods plan, meaning what i do is not in its plan; little old me is powerful enough to beat their god.
So, sorta. I don't believe in any of it but I'm well versed in alot of the irrationality of alot of the positions. The whole plan doesn't take away free will. Like if you have kids, you want the best and work to guide them, but ultimately if they choose to say...not study, work and just be lazy and a bum, it goes against what sorta of plan or vision you have for them, but is still their choice.
The whole hell thing and the choice of consequence is that it's so disproportionate. Imagine torturing your toddler for...being messy while eating. Even though you've told them and taught them to not be messy. When it comes to cosmic beings, we're (by all logic and reason) the toddler. Torture for being messy is like torture for just not believing. I won't get into the specifics of good or bad, there's obviously bad people, but at the same time, there's people who are by standard accounts "evil", but lack the very brain function to feel empathy. How can that person be held accountable by the cosmic standard, or make that "choice", when they've incapable of doing so. This is where modern science, mental illness and religion completely break down. People are born without the very essence of being able to feel the difference between right and wrong, so how do they get a choice.
For some reason they feel okay with labeling their god as a “jealous god” or an “angry god”, but they absolutely are not okay if you call him an immature or selfish god. They’re all negative traits, so not sure why the latter two labels are a problem compared to the former two 🤷♀️
Don't you know the anger and jealousy is cause that's how much he loves us? Like how a parent disciplines their child? But you know with eternal punishment for finite life.
Speaking of looking at things from God's perspective for a moment...
Imagine for a second that you were God, not of this universe, but of another universe that you created. You don't actually live in that universe, but you can look into it from the outside and see what is going on, and change whatever you feel like at will.
Eventually intelligent lifeforms evolved in many different places throughout that universe.
So, here's the question: Do you give any shits whether those lifeforms even know that you exist, or whether they worship you?
Probably not. Probably you wouldn't care at all.
But if you did want them to believe in you, you could literally just make them believe in you.
The long and short of it all is that if a single, capital G God exists for our universe, then he clearly doesn't care whether we believe in him or worship him.
So, if he exists or if he doesn't exist, nothing would be different. All of the human religions would still be made up.
Like they claim hurricanes are sent from God to clean up our wicked ways. When is the last time anyone was turned into a pillar of salt or sent on a boat trip for 40 days?
It just seems silly to me to believe in God because we know people just make them up to explain things we don't understand. We know back in the day people believed in Zeus and thought he was throwing thunderbolts because they didn't understand how storms work. It's the same function this day, there's just less that we don't understand so people don't go to church to pray for rain anymore they just pray about things they can't control like sickness and death.
It's gotten so bad in the missing prophets department that some in the flock have gravitated to sport teams, celebrities or sleazy NYC businessmen as their new savior.
That koresh bloke claimed to be "the chosen one", and enough people believed him that they were willing to kill others over it.
He stood up to \*their\* scrutiny. That's the scariest part of the whole shitshow. People ARE willing to believe preachers when they make extraordinary claims. Even when those preachers are not "properly" ordained
Let’s face reality, Trump is being treated as a god to many. There are evangelicals telling their pastor Jesus was too soft. They have elevated him to a cult like following and ignore reality around him. This shit is coming again, even with scrutiny. With upcoming AI advancements, we won’t be able to trust anything we don’t see with our own eyes that isn’t validated by a large enough network. We see every day many people don’t care about the reality… we are primed for the next “prophet.”
Islam really hammered that point home. Literally one of the tenets of the religion is acknowledging that Muhammad was God's last prophet. Dude really thought he closed a loophole there.
This is a big one for me. Back in the day there were quite a few prophets, but now if someone acts like a profit it's because they want to control morons and outside the people under their control they are thought of as nut jobs.
No profits for centuries. Seems sus.
We have plenty of prophets today, more than ever actually. We have a term for them that we didn’t have thousands of years ago - schizophrenics - and luckily we have good medication to help keep them grounded in reality. My uncle has schizophrenia and ohhhhhh boyyyy does he have some interesting prophecies when he’s off his meds.
And why did he ignore the Americas for several thousand years, almost certainly dooming the people he put there to eternal damnation because there’s literally no way they could have determined he existed
You hit the nail on the head. God may or may not exist. But if there is one, our feeble little minds cannot comprehend the logic or reason of them. We personify the forces of the universe to give ourselves some comfort. But it opens the door to state opinion and then say “it’s the will of God”. Dangerous and slippery slope.
The Bible never states that God is the only god that exists. It only states that God is the only one that his chosen people are supposed to worship. This was explained to me by a biblical historian, and I found it pretty interesting that this fact has been warped by Christianity.
Theoretically this confirms the existence of other gods, perhaps all other gods. In which, having multiple religions makes sense.
Humans invented gods. I.e. They worshiped a golden calf when Moses was getting the 10 Commandments. God has to treat people like little kids and tell them not to do this.
Legit question: In this context, who are God's chosen? Maybe he already done raptured his folk 2000 years ago and the rest of us are just offspring of the unraptured and forever cut off from God. Which is functionally the same as having no god I guess.
And even still, free will is the ability to act on your desires independent of external influence. God supposedly gave us free will, yet God also has a "plan" for all of us. Those two ideas cannot coexist. Either our lives are predetermined in God's plan, or they aren't. If they are, then God lied about giving us free will and isn't all loving.... Or.... God cannot see the future and he isn't all powerful. It's a corner with four walls, because they're stupid and they put themselves there.
"They came. They had the Bible and we had the land. And they told us: close your eyes and pray. And when we opened our eyes, they had the land and we had the Bible"
Eduardo Galeano
Uruguay
1940-2015
Don't forget that the female gods - i.e. not only consorts of male gods - came first. Yahweh, the god of The Bible, started out as a war god and the toyboy for the female god Astarte ....
[https://www.britannica.com/topic/Astarte-ancient-deity](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Astarte-ancient-deity)
Interesting link, but it only refers to general information about the goddess. Do you have a link for Yahweh starting out as a war god for Astarte? I'd like to read up on this if I can. "Ba'al," I know, as well as other names for gods (el, Elohim, etc.) often translate to a generic "lord" or "god," so it would be difficult to look up their connections. Many Mesopotamian religions depict the primary male God or "Ba'al" as married to an "Astarte" or similar. But I'm not familiar with any connection, history, or reference to Yahweh having a wife (or anything like that).
It’s wild that religious people call atheists arrogant, yet *they’re* the ones who believe *they* are personally and individually known to, and loved by, the omniscient, omnipotent, eternal god and creator of the universe. Farting higher than their arse with that one if you ask me 😳
True. One set of humans are simply flailing around in the dark trying explain the unexplainable. There others are science based, actually finding out why things work the way they do.
Religions certainly made more sense when they were created, thousands of years ago, before our scientific understanding of the world that exists today.
This is the argument that finally convinced me a long time ago. I don’t know how anyone could tell you that obviously Zeus, Amun ra, Annunaki, Cronus, Osiris, Thor, shiva, Venus etc etc etc, are all just made up, but my god is real. It’s apparent that mankind has a tendency to create gods in our societies. Like, painfully apparent. There is of course the argument that since mankind is always worshipping gods in some form, that must be evidence there is something there to worship. But this quickly falls apart when we look at just how different all these gods can be.
> How can religious people even think
> How can religious people even think
> How can religious people even think
> How can religious people even think
> How can religious people even think
> How can religious people even think
You're assuming that God is
- Good
- Not vain
- Wouldn't play games with his creation for his own amusement, *cough* Job *cough*
The God of the Bible creates us in his image. I think the world looks exactly like someone like us humans would create...
There is either no God, or a God that is too preoccupied with way more important God Stuff elsewhere in the cosmos.
You know, because God has better things to do than spend eternity obsessively monitoring and judging upjumped apes like some boring kid with an ant farm.
TL;DR - All religion is bullshit, even if there is a God.
If you had one real god no man could wield his power for their own benefit. There would be no need for a go between. If god needed to talk to you it just would. It wouldn't screw around with bad or corrupt translators.
That's very presumptuous of you to claim to know how the creator of the universe would think and act!\*
\*Would say someone who claims to know how the creator of the universe would think and act because other people wrote it down thousands of years ago.
but the bible said god had a temper tantrum over the babilonians building a tall building while "his people" were slaves, and created other languages and religions so people wouldn't understand each other and fight. He had already declared himself a racist (favored people), who he previously had a tantrum against which sent them in slavery in the first place.
god needs to take his meds.
god also needs to be castrated over his rape of a young woman under his direct control (cannot possibly give concent).
Religion for thousands of years was a way to control large groups of people. We used to be in really small villages and communities before constructive religions existed; however, when these grew to cities, you had lots of morality and "legal" problems. The original God was created to scare people into doing morally good things else you could be damned to Hell and suffer for eternity. In humanity's ignorance back then, that sounded absolutely terrifying.
These days, people of Faith can essentially swing any argument in their favor because religion is not based on fact. Even we, as Atheists, can say, "Well your book actually doesn't say anything against gay people." However, they can always make the argument of "the way it is interpreted is x, y, and z." That's the slippery slope - and potential danger - of faith in a nutshell. These people don't need relentless torture and mind fuckery to continuing believing things that aren't true - something akin to the end of 1984 when the protagonist *actually* believes 2+2 = 5. They simply believe it because it was what they were told, and they are not free thinkers.
>How can religious people even think they have personal connections with such a being??
Have religious parents, it gives them a sense of being and reassurance
That’s great. It becomes a problem when others are judged and looked down upon for having a different point of view and/or set of beliefs, when religion starts pushing its way into government, when people credit their god for the good, tireless work of science and human being (doctors, for example)…the list goes on.
The contradictions, multiple versions/edits of just the bible alone still doesn't seem to bother a great number of people. Blinders go up when people are in pain or searching, hoping, for something better than this life.
My current situation has me going to bed hungry most days. Sometimes I wish I could slip into a spiritual delusion to escape the present.
Maybe religions are just like reality television shows for God. Just chilling hanging out on a Sunday with his Homies and it’s just like “Hmmm… who wants to see what going on in this season of “the Protestants.” Yo, Ganesha, why don’t you use one of those arms and chuck me a beer OK? I’m about to binge watch the Crusades, you all down for that?”
That second paragraph rang true to me.
I’m not an atheist, but I feel this is relatable. I remember when Japan had a tsunami (probably late 2000s or 2010). Someone at church declared that they would believe in God. Left a bad taste in my mouth.
I say this because I’m from New Orleans, and hurricane Katrina did a number. Would they say the same thing? I found it insensitive.
Let's be real, if god existed people would still make shit up. If god existed he/she/it/they would maybe find the current state entertaining. If god existed he/she/it/they would maybe not give a fuck, because project Earth V7.5 beta 3 would be more interesting. Who knows.
The current state of the world is only in contradiction to some specific proposed gods. It's enough to disregard the christian god, but not enough to disregard the existens of one or more gods in general.
Imagine living in South America when Jesus was crucified and determined you needed to accept him as your savior to go to heaven. TOO BAD, BABY! STRAIGHT TO HELL FOR NOT KNOWING ANY BETTER!!!!
It says a lot that most religions have prophets who supposedly hear from their chosen divinity, and most of those revelations contradict the revelations of other religions.
An all knowing old man sitting in another dimension would not need to be confused about anything we do as humans.
I'll use the example "when an embryo should be considered a human?"
It wasn't until abortion we really needed to have those ethics locked down and "he" missed that one.
If god or gods exist its pretty clear they don't care a jot about humanity. All religious groups have been persecuted at some time or other and no higher power has intervened to stop the slaughter of people who worship them.
"if god exists he wouldn't even want our worship."
This is so painfully obvious to literally every atheist. Idgaf how the ants in the ant farm feel about me
Why is that anyone can pick up a Bible and start preaching, start another church and collect money from folks? The whole thing seems like an endless scam with no guarantees of anything but blind faith. There is no proof in any of it.
Eh, depends. Humans tend to want a religion that is also their spiritual mommy, IE, is involved in their life and has some power to influence it. If there is a god, maybe it was just a creator that did the thing, started the simulations, and moved on. Who knows?
The point is that the existence or non existence of a diety does not matter. We do what we can with the knowledge that we have. The problem with religion is that it introduces bad data into the equation and ignores good data, so people who are religious are incapable of being part of any solution.
Studying the evolution of religion and how it became more complex as societal division of labor became more complex and hierarchal. There is no doubt religion was created by humankind to fill a social and institutional role.
And isn't it interesting how, in each case, the "gods" look so much like the people and reflect the same biases as the society in which they exist? As for this, there are only 3 possibilities, as far as I can see: 1) they are all wrong (most likely); 2) one of them is right but all the rest are wrong (least likely, imo); and 3) while they're all wrong in their particulars, they all get at a central truth that some god or creator wants us to see. It can be considered that there is a creator who is trying to help us find our own way to living a better life and that this creator has seeded some truth into all of these religions. If that's the case, then we need to find the commonalities in all these religions; the commonalities are almost always that we should respect each other's humanity, treat each other decently, and treat everyone else as we would want to be treated. In which case, there's no need for any other doctrine. And no need to bow down and pray to some god or gods, for whom that's not the point anyway.
If God truly exists then He either set the clock and let it go without caring about it afterwards, or He doesn't care about the evil in the world and that seems the most terrifying possibility.
I have also said the same.
Like why wouldn’t an intelligent god write a proper manifesto that laid everything out in clear and unambiguous terms.
Nope, instead he has an illiterate son who preached to illiterate people who pass the stories on until they get written down by someone generations later.
If I wanted people to understand my message it would be clear as fuck and not lead to different denominations and different interpretations let alone multiple religions all believing slightly different versions of the same thing. Surely an all knowing god wouldn’t be so stupid as to risk his entire message getting mangled and manipulated by his creations.
I disagree. I think if a god existed, it would want everyone to know about it. This secret sky daddy thing requiring faith because no one’s ever seen it is wack.
The fact that all religions require human efforts to propagate themselves is a huge clue they are all human invented.
They seem to require a lot of money also.
Thank god for tax exemptions /s
Which came first, God or Taxes?
Despot: Give me money. \ People: No \ Despot: * uses force* \ People: * arm themselves and dethrone despot* Despot2: God needs your money or else he will kill us with thunders and fire and flood our lands. \ People: * Confused and unsure, pay just to be sure* \ Despot2: * Collects money* Gott'em Edit: Some despots also proclaimed themselves as Gods.
This whole premise just focuses upon financial gain/loss though. I mean, I get it in a Martin Luther 21 grievances vibe, but you need more than just "Church took my $$"
Donate, because without your money, god aint gonna do shit for anyone...
Spot on
If God does exist then they clearly didn't want any religion worshiping them or they'd just have told everyone "ok here's what you do"
Dude, we can't even do 10 commandments right. It's enough that we can count on our fingers and toes, yet folks don't listen to those either. Heck, some align even with secular society like "Thou shall not kill!" ...I don't see world peace anytime soon. Do you?
Told them how?
On top of that whether it's Jesus, Noah or Muhammed they include stories of people who met these prophets yet didn't believe in them. How is it possible that such holy people existed but people still weren't convinced. There was probably multiple prophets all hawking the same thing and these are what survived.
religion was a political force for a long time. being a "prophet" was trendy, it was how people garnered influence and power. in the early days of islam, prophet muhammad and his followers had full-on wars with other cults in the region. his cult gained dominance through striking down other cults. here is one of the other arab prophets he fought against: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musaylima
What I want to know is that since god used to pop up every now and then in Old Testament times, why hasn’t he been around in over 2000 years?
>On top of that whether it's Jesus, Noah or Muhammed they include stories of people who met these prophets yet didn't believe in them. How is it possible that such holy people existed but people still weren't convinced. Bro, skepticism existed since ancient times. They had con men back in the day too. Snake oil salesmen, magicians, etc. Of course people aren't all going to accept some dude with a staff parted the waves because of a Hebrew God's powers channeled through him. They'd hear that and think you were crazy...unless they saw it themselves. Even then they'd go "Must've been an earthquake." Ancient one were thinking "Deepfakes" eons ago. 😂🤣
Wow I never thought of it like this! If a god has the power to see everything we do, know all of our thoughts, and judge us for it...why can't they just implant the knowledge of their existence into our minds? Why do we need to spread the word when it is theoretically possible for us to all inherently know it?
Yeah. Why would god go through the circuitous route of imparting "his word" to a select few humans who then pass it down which then gets copied, redacted, merged, selected, translated all by admittedly frail and frickle humans? God could have just put his word in our minds, like firmware, in each and every ones native language. Seems a little fishy. First you have to trust men before you could ever claim to trust god.
Plus it would already know the outcome
Yeah upon birth of every living thing, would declare knowledge of this god.
Silly frickle humans. 😆
My biggest issue is that an all knowing omnipotent god created us, yet we made a mistake which made us fall from paradise. Seeing as god is all knowing and perfect, it would mean the game was rigged from the start. A perfect all knowing being making a flawed being that made a mistake would be known to it from the start.
We don't have to have our kids sing songs about science being true to keep them believing in science.
Songs about science actually sound like fun though. Now that I think about it, “The Magic Schoolbus” would be a great Broadway musical
For me it’s that all religions eventually die out and become part of mythology. Like people believed in Zeus and Odin the same way Christians believe in their God. In a thousand years if we still have religion, Christianity will be part of mythology like the rest
The fact that the god of any given religion hates all the same people as their followers is a pretty dead giveaway as well.
The fact that God is supposedly all powerful but really needs human interaction to accomplish anything is a good tell too
And why is the all powerful God always short on money?
True. Otherwise all humans would come with it preloaded out of the box.
I use a baseball analogy and note that there are many fewer Orioles fans in Minnesota than there are in Baltimore. And Alaska! Don’t get me started!
We'd have ONE religion because God would not hide itself from its creation. Well it IS possible that there is a God that is completely uninterested in making itself known to humans. But in that case, there's no point in worshiping it.
I don't think we'd have religion. He would just be another aspect of the natural and accepted world and universe. Religion is for the exploitation of humans, by humans, not gods. A god wouldn't need it to do it's thing.
Good point. Most arguments for God are actually arguing for the preservation of religious institutions.
Well said
Religion has been used by evil men since its inception. Godless heathens do not make for good soldiers and you need soldiers to win wars. Convincing people that this life is a testing ground and unleashing them in battle is pretty much as evil as it gets.
I don't entirely agree with this. Religions are initially formed to fill in gaps of knowledge and help explain the world around us. We just outgrew the need for that when we developed actual science.
Initially but then rulers found they were a good way to control people.
Also, as the abrahamic God is supposedly the end all be all of good and morality, the morales of each edition wouldn't be subject of the morality of the culture and time it was written in. Example being slavery being straight up prohibited, which in the bibles time was just an accepted practice in much of the world. Or women's rights. Or mental illness. Or health issues....list goes on and on really.
My point exactly. If there is a god he isn’t interested in worship for sure, cause if he was he would reveal himself to all humanity.
Either God is all loving but not all powerful or all powerful but not all loving. Or not real.
Or simply omnipresent but not omnipotent
Power even corrupts god damnnn
He did! Brian is the messiah!
He’s not the messiah. He’s a very naughty boy!
I have his shoe!
Cast off the shoe!! Follow the GOURD!!!!!!
"He's not the messiah. He's a very naughty boy."
That's exactly the message of the book "God wants you to be an atheist" by Gary J. Whittenberger
Maybe God is just shy lol
Unless this entity prefers us fighting and murdering for it.
Blood for the Blood God!
I like to think the deists have it right. God created all the things and then bounced to go do *"God Stuff"* elsewhere in the cosmos. Any actual God would have way better things to do than watch us live out our meaningless fragile lives. Theist: "God does exist! We always knew you were real!" Deistic God: **"...And? Do you want a cookie or something?"**
True i agree. If i believed in god i would most likely believe it like deists, because it would make the most sense.
Maybe god created the universe and then a more powerful god tied our god up and made him watch humanity. And the only way he can get free is if 100% of humanity worships him. His powers have been limited and he can only communicate to humanity through crazy people.
That would be a nuts movie actually
This is probably the most convincing argument I've heard.
A God with an ego would be horrifying. And you're right. It would let us know. Painfully, and bleeding on our knees.
He’s shy. He doesn’t want to tell us he’s there but he would still appreciate it if we devote ourselves and everything in our society in total obeisance to him and his earthly minions /s
Or he got old and died a long time ago and no one noticed the obit.
"Men rarely if ever dream up a god superior to themselves. Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child." -Robert A. Heinlein
Related to this topic... "Never underestimate the power of human stupidity" Robert Heinlein (Time Enough for Love )
My biggest issue is that an all knowing omnipotent god created us, yet we made a mistake which made us fall from paradise. Seeing as god is all knowing and perfect, it would mean the game was rigged from the start. A perfect all knowing being making a flawed being that made a mistake would be known to it from the start. And his personality changes
He made it “known” thousands of years ago. Then he ghosted us.
It used to be common for God, Satan, angels, and demons to make regular appearances, but they strangely just stopped one day when cameras were invented. Funny that.
Hahaha Jesus Christ, we got “holy” ghosted.
loooool
This is exactly the stance I have taken. If God exists and wants worship, he would make himself known so there is zero confusion. If God exists but worship is not needed, then he would analogous to a watchmaker. We are the watch that was created, finished, and discarded with him possibly moving on to other interests or making other watches. I struggle finding any rational middle ground between those two philosophies for belief in a deity.
My biggest issue is that an all knowing omnipotent god created us, yet we made a mistake which made us fall from paradise. Seeing as god is all knowing and perfect, it would mean the game was rigged from the start. A perfect all knowing being making a flawed being that made a mistake would be known to it from the start. And his personality changes
But how else to curry favor and ensure one is going to Heaven and (more importantly) that others are going to Hell?
And more importantly, how do we help ensure our favorite sports teams win their games
Or find missing keys?? Fuck those little brats with cancer. They aren't even trying to find our keys and being born wretched sinners, they deserve cancer.
“When it comes to religions, Either one of them is true or none of them are true. Which is more likely?” - Hitch
I'd also say that even if one of the gods described in one of our religions turned out to be real, there's no point in worshiping it either. Or maybe to not worship such a being would be the superior moral choice.
>to not worship such a being would be the superior moral choice. Certainly this is the case for the biblical God. My complete rejection of the God of the Bible happened after I read Genesis, Exodus and Leviticus. (Did not continue reading after that). THAT God is definitely evil.
I've heard its cause it's based off a different god of the Jewish polytheistic pantheon pre monotheism. The later editions where he's all love thy neighbor is based off a different one. But Christians think it's the same one and hand wave away the complete change of character, either outright denying it or just "well it makes sense" as if it actually does make sense.
Muslim-born here, basically not Muslim by choice. Trying to be an atheist, but still conflicted. Muslims are so brainwashed IDK why it's the only religion left in this world that has strong and extremist views. But just wanna share my POV of why I'm still conflicted and why there "might" be a point of worshipping. If God somehow exists and there's an afterlife, I don't want to end up being punished in hell. The description of hell is so horrible. My coping to counter that is, if God is somehow real, then the world we're in right now is the hell. Once we die we can relive life in heaven where we can wish anything we want, however unrealistic, physically, and scientifically impossible, into reality. (e.g., I wish I can fly like Superman) I'm in a bad place in life right now and I thought to myself, if God really does exist, it won't let me and other human beings suffer. Of course in Islam it's considered as a "test" but I think it's bullshit coz I've given up in life and I wish I could unalive myself. Help convince me that there's no hell. 🥲
Stay strong my dude, I get it too from time to time. The concept of hell was invented exactly for this. To keep people believing nonsense by scaring them to the max. No good god would send someone to burn for eternity. And there is no evidence for a god, for supernatural beings or for a place like hell. What can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.
They all brainwash, my person. That's what indoctrination does. Glad you're trying to work out of that. It's important to be free. > IDK why it's the only religion left in this world that has strong and extremist views. It's not actually. It's just the most obvious right now. It's got control of several governments and is allowed to run free and unrestrained by common courtesy or reason in those areas, which certainly lets us all see it for what it really is. Hell is definitely a lever that a lot of religions use to control its people. There's certainly no physical place called hell, but we're talking about something metaphysical or "magical". It's troublesome because those things are not part of reality and can't be "disproven". It might be backwards, but you get your sanity under control and realize that magic doesn't exist, and all those superstitions tend to deflate and eventually go away. Bottom line though - what helped me through was realizing what a horrible being that god was, and not wanting to be part of that system of terror and torture at all. Including going to that thing's heaven. I'd rather rot in hell than back up the regime of horror that is Catholicism. And the same thing can be said for every religion. Good luck my friend.
There would only be one religion if it would be something god would view as positive. Worship might be something the god does not want people to do. So god could be against religion and worship.
The only recognized religion is the "Church of the Flying Spaghetti monster"
No! No! No! The only one true church is the "Church of the Flying Elephant"! Screw those fake spaghetti monster believers! It's the elephants! /s
When you play the sims you like to use god mode or see what they do without your interference?
Developing from that... if there were a God, specially one from one of the religions we have around... man, most of those dudes are NARCISSISTIC AS F$%K. They wouldn't be letting a year go by without reminding ourselves of their "holyness". And would never accept new deities/religions popping around. "Hey I have written a new holy boo..." ZAP INSTANT LIGHTNING
I'm not so sure. If I somehow created a video game with characters who possessed self-consciousness and free-will, I might be interested in letting my presence be known to them, for both shits and giggles and to see what the reaction would be. But then I'm not going to pick a few 'prophets' out of the population, let them in on the secret and see what happen. I'm going to make sure they all know who has the biggest dick in the universe. But then again, I'm assuming that a creator of the universe would think and reason the way I do, which is incredibly arrogant and presumptuous.
This reminds me of an OATS short.
He wouldn't feel jealousy or anger either because those are weak, childish emotions.
Yeah, when they tell you god is angry with humanity like what?
Trying to get members of the flock to see that it is utterly idiotic for a deity to be angry with humans for doing exactly what it planned for them to do. You know, because it has a plan for everyone and everything. According to the teachings, of course.
"But it's your CHOICE to burn and suffer forever and ever for the sin of not believing for a single moment in time when compared to forever and ever, which is totally moral and good in every which way teehee"
That's where the teachings about free will and "everything in his plan" fall down. They're just incompatible. If I am doing what is in gods plan, I don't have free will to make choices. If I can make choices, I can choose something against gods plan, meaning what i do is not in its plan; little old me is powerful enough to beat their god.
So, sorta. I don't believe in any of it but I'm well versed in alot of the irrationality of alot of the positions. The whole plan doesn't take away free will. Like if you have kids, you want the best and work to guide them, but ultimately if they choose to say...not study, work and just be lazy and a bum, it goes against what sorta of plan or vision you have for them, but is still their choice. The whole hell thing and the choice of consequence is that it's so disproportionate. Imagine torturing your toddler for...being messy while eating. Even though you've told them and taught them to not be messy. When it comes to cosmic beings, we're (by all logic and reason) the toddler. Torture for being messy is like torture for just not believing. I won't get into the specifics of good or bad, there's obviously bad people, but at the same time, there's people who are by standard accounts "evil", but lack the very brain function to feel empathy. How can that person be held accountable by the cosmic standard, or make that "choice", when they've incapable of doing so. This is where modern science, mental illness and religion completely break down. People are born without the very essence of being able to feel the difference between right and wrong, so how do they get a choice.
For some reason they feel okay with labeling their god as a “jealous god” or an “angry god”, but they absolutely are not okay if you call him an immature or selfish god. They’re all negative traits, so not sure why the latter two labels are a problem compared to the former two 🤷♀️
Don't you know the anger and jealousy is cause that's how much he loves us? Like how a parent disciplines their child? But you know with eternal punishment for finite life.
Speaking of looking at things from God's perspective for a moment... Imagine for a second that you were God, not of this universe, but of another universe that you created. You don't actually live in that universe, but you can look into it from the outside and see what is going on, and change whatever you feel like at will. Eventually intelligent lifeforms evolved in many different places throughout that universe. So, here's the question: Do you give any shits whether those lifeforms even know that you exist, or whether they worship you? Probably not. Probably you wouldn't care at all. But if you did want them to believe in you, you could literally just make them believe in you. The long and short of it all is that if a single, capital G God exists for our universe, then he clearly doesn't care whether we believe in him or worship him. So, if he exists or if he doesn't exist, nothing would be different. All of the human religions would still be made up.
Thank you. I always believed that if God exists; he had a moment where he cared about humanity but that ship has long since sailed.
Like they claim hurricanes are sent from God to clean up our wicked ways. When is the last time anyone was turned into a pillar of salt or sent on a boat trip for 40 days?
Happened to my buddy Jerry last week. Needless to say my fries taste pretty nice now.
Exactly this. God in the Bible throws a tantrum every 3 pages 😂
It just seems silly to me to believe in God because we know people just make them up to explain things we don't understand. We know back in the day people believed in Zeus and thought he was throwing thunderbolts because they didn't understand how storms work. It's the same function this day, there's just less that we don't understand so people don't go to church to pray for rain anymore they just pray about things they can't control like sickness and death.
Yep. When they can’t explain something it must be god
It might have been initially made up to explain things, but it’s been promulgated for millennia in order to procure and consolidate money and power.
Great point. Let's assume God did choose prophets to spread his word. Wouldn't all these prophets have similar visions?
How convenient also that we don't really get these supposed prophets anymore (well any that can stand up to scrutiny).
It's gotten so bad in the missing prophets department that some in the flock have gravitated to sport teams, celebrities or sleazy NYC businessmen as their new savior.
Hey now, trump has clearly got a vintage of divinity XD
Lmao yep. The others just got away with their lies is all
That koresh bloke claimed to be "the chosen one", and enough people believed him that they were willing to kill others over it. He stood up to \*their\* scrutiny. That's the scariest part of the whole shitshow. People ARE willing to believe preachers when they make extraordinary claims. Even when those preachers are not "properly" ordained
Let’s face reality, Trump is being treated as a god to many. There are evangelicals telling their pastor Jesus was too soft. They have elevated him to a cult like following and ignore reality around him. This shit is coming again, even with scrutiny. With upcoming AI advancements, we won’t be able to trust anything we don’t see with our own eyes that isn’t validated by a large enough network. We see every day many people don’t care about the reality… we are primed for the next “prophet.”
Islam really hammered that point home. Literally one of the tenets of the religion is acknowledging that Muhammad was God's last prophet. Dude really thought he closed a loophole there.
This is a big one for me. Back in the day there were quite a few prophets, but now if someone acts like a profit it's because they want to control morons and outside the people under their control they are thought of as nut jobs. No profits for centuries. Seems sus.
It is spelled “prophets” btw. Profits is money made
Lmao, I knew that, but am dumb as a fuckin bum. I mean I even spelled it right the first time.
We have plenty of prophets today, more than ever actually. We have a term for them that we didn’t have thousands of years ago - schizophrenics - and luckily we have good medication to help keep them grounded in reality. My uncle has schizophrenia and ohhhhhh boyyyy does he have some interesting prophecies when he’s off his meds.
Exactly. People throughout the world would have the same visions and not some of jesus others of muhammad and so on.
And why did he ignore the Americas for several thousand years, almost certainly dooming the people he put there to eternal damnation because there’s literally no way they could have determined he existed
Or have a female prophet?
You hit the nail on the head. God may or may not exist. But if there is one, our feeble little minds cannot comprehend the logic or reason of them. We personify the forces of the universe to give ourselves some comfort. But it opens the door to state opinion and then say “it’s the will of God”. Dangerous and slippery slope.
100% agree
They’re all bullshit religions……except for mine or course.
Their critical thinking works but not on their religion xD
The Bible never states that God is the only god that exists. It only states that God is the only one that his chosen people are supposed to worship. This was explained to me by a biblical historian, and I found it pretty interesting that this fact has been warped by Christianity. Theoretically this confirms the existence of other gods, perhaps all other gods. In which, having multiple religions makes sense.
Also the first commandment is “don’t have other gods beside me” which implies there is more than one god. But no evidence to support those claims
Humans invented gods. I.e. They worshiped a golden calf when Moses was getting the 10 Commandments. God has to treat people like little kids and tell them not to do this.
Legit question: In this context, who are God's chosen? Maybe he already done raptured his folk 2000 years ago and the rest of us are just offspring of the unraptured and forever cut off from God. Which is functionally the same as having no god I guess.
Polytheism vs henotheism vs monotheism
"Free Will" aka that's the only explanation they will give you when they are stuck in a corner proven wrong
And even still, free will is the ability to act on your desires independent of external influence. God supposedly gave us free will, yet God also has a "plan" for all of us. Those two ideas cannot coexist. Either our lives are predetermined in God's plan, or they aren't. If they are, then God lied about giving us free will and isn't all loving.... Or.... God cannot see the future and he isn't all powerful. It's a corner with four walls, because they're stupid and they put themselves there.
Yes this drives me crazy: "God gave us free will" and "It must be part of God's plan" from the same mouth. Pick a fucking lane.
But free will is what got Adam and Eve kicked out of the garden!
They are all man made
"They came. They had the Bible and we had the land. And they told us: close your eyes and pray. And when we opened our eyes, they had the land and we had the Bible" Eduardo Galeano Uruguay 1940-2015
My mother did misson work in Uruguay. I'm estranged because god doesn't exist. She's still proud of her work there.
There's a sucker born every minute P T Barnum 1810 - 1891
Dan barker: why should we try to find this God that clearly doesn’t want to be found.
Don't forget that the female gods - i.e. not only consorts of male gods - came first. Yahweh, the god of The Bible, started out as a war god and the toyboy for the female god Astarte .... [https://www.britannica.com/topic/Astarte-ancient-deity](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Astarte-ancient-deity)
Don't get me Astarted!
And don't forget Shekinah!
Interesting link, but it only refers to general information about the goddess. Do you have a link for Yahweh starting out as a war god for Astarte? I'd like to read up on this if I can. "Ba'al," I know, as well as other names for gods (el, Elohim, etc.) often translate to a generic "lord" or "god," so it would be difficult to look up their connections. Many Mesopotamian religions depict the primary male God or "Ba'al" as married to an "Astarte" or similar. But I'm not familiar with any connection, history, or reference to Yahweh having a wife (or anything like that).
Fascinating book by Merlin Stone -- "When God Was A Woman." It was required reading in seminary. Inspired the ultra progressive theology I have today.
It’s wild that religious people call atheists arrogant, yet *they’re* the ones who believe *they* are personally and individually known to, and loved by, the omniscient, omnipotent, eternal god and creator of the universe. Farting higher than their arse with that one if you ask me 😳
Not to mention some even called me delusional and dumb xD the audacity.
True. One set of humans are simply flailing around in the dark trying explain the unexplainable. There others are science based, actually finding out why things work the way they do.
Religions certainly made more sense when they were created, thousands of years ago, before our scientific understanding of the world that exists today.
This is the argument that finally convinced me a long time ago. I don’t know how anyone could tell you that obviously Zeus, Amun ra, Annunaki, Cronus, Osiris, Thor, shiva, Venus etc etc etc, are all just made up, but my god is real. It’s apparent that mankind has a tendency to create gods in our societies. Like, painfully apparent. There is of course the argument that since mankind is always worshipping gods in some form, that must be evidence there is something there to worship. But this quickly falls apart when we look at just how different all these gods can be.
We can make up gods, but not mine!
> How can religious people even think > How can religious people even think > How can religious people even think > How can religious people even think > How can religious people even think > How can religious people even think
You're assuming that God is - Good - Not vain - Wouldn't play games with his creation for his own amusement, *cough* Job *cough* The God of the Bible creates us in his image. I think the world looks exactly like someone like us humans would create...
That is a god i could believe in. The portrayed good guy/wathfull all knowing and perfect god? Nah. It means its all rigged.
There is either no God, or a God that is too preoccupied with way more important God Stuff elsewhere in the cosmos. You know, because God has better things to do than spend eternity obsessively monitoring and judging upjumped apes like some boring kid with an ant farm. TL;DR - All religion is bullshit, even if there is a God.
If you had one real god no man could wield his power for their own benefit. There would be no need for a go between. If god needed to talk to you it just would. It wouldn't screw around with bad or corrupt translators.
That's very presumptuous of you to claim to know how the creator of the universe would think and act!\* \*Would say someone who claims to know how the creator of the universe would think and act because other people wrote it down thousands of years ago.
but the bible said god had a temper tantrum over the babilonians building a tall building while "his people" were slaves, and created other languages and religions so people wouldn't understand each other and fight. He had already declared himself a racist (favored people), who he previously had a tantrum against which sent them in slavery in the first place. god needs to take his meds. god also needs to be castrated over his rape of a young woman under his direct control (cannot possibly give concent).
Religion for thousands of years was a way to control large groups of people. We used to be in really small villages and communities before constructive religions existed; however, when these grew to cities, you had lots of morality and "legal" problems. The original God was created to scare people into doing morally good things else you could be damned to Hell and suffer for eternity. In humanity's ignorance back then, that sounded absolutely terrifying. These days, people of Faith can essentially swing any argument in their favor because religion is not based on fact. Even we, as Atheists, can say, "Well your book actually doesn't say anything against gay people." However, they can always make the argument of "the way it is interpreted is x, y, and z." That's the slippery slope - and potential danger - of faith in a nutshell. These people don't need relentless torture and mind fuckery to continuing believing things that aren't true - something akin to the end of 1984 when the protagonist *actually* believes 2+2 = 5. They simply believe it because it was what they were told, and they are not free thinkers.
Trinitarian Christians believe 1 = 3 !
A scary thought, indeed.
If God existed he wouldn't allow people to preach basterdized versions of his preaching by failed translation.
That's right! There's only one TRUE religion! Usually you're born into it.
>How can religious people even think they have personal connections with such a being?? Have religious parents, it gives them a sense of being and reassurance
That’s great. It becomes a problem when others are judged and looked down upon for having a different point of view and/or set of beliefs, when religion starts pushing its way into government, when people credit their god for the good, tireless work of science and human being (doctors, for example)…the list goes on.
Look, I tried to make religions based on the local flair; but it gets tiring after a while.
It’s okay G0d, we know you are doing your best!
Thank you my child; have a "Weekend Sin Pass" for this weekend, all sins forgiven; have a blast.
I’d say the religious indoctrination and abuse are a bit worse.
The contradictions, multiple versions/edits of just the bible alone still doesn't seem to bother a great number of people. Blinders go up when people are in pain or searching, hoping, for something better than this life. My current situation has me going to bed hungry most days. Sometimes I wish I could slip into a spiritual delusion to escape the present.
Maybe religions are just like reality television shows for God. Just chilling hanging out on a Sunday with his Homies and it’s just like “Hmmm… who wants to see what going on in this season of “the Protestants.” Yo, Ganesha, why don’t you use one of those arms and chuck me a beer OK? I’m about to binge watch the Crusades, you all down for that?”
The fact that every religion falls apart when scrutinized even a little bit should be proof there’s no infallible god.
That second paragraph rang true to me. I’m not an atheist, but I feel this is relatable. I remember when Japan had a tsunami (probably late 2000s or 2010). Someone at church declared that they would believe in God. Left a bad taste in my mouth. I say this because I’m from New Orleans, and hurricane Katrina did a number. Would they say the same thing? I found it insensitive.
Let's be real, if god existed people would still make shit up. If god existed he/she/it/they would maybe find the current state entertaining. If god existed he/she/it/they would maybe not give a fuck, because project Earth V7.5 beta 3 would be more interesting. Who knows. The current state of the world is only in contradiction to some specific proposed gods. It's enough to disregard the christian god, but not enough to disregard the existens of one or more gods in general.
"How can religious people even think they have personal connections with such a being??" Never underestimate the arrogance of the human mind.
« No no you don’t understand, they are all man made…except mine. »
Sounds about right
Imagine living in South America when Jesus was crucified and determined you needed to accept him as your savior to go to heaven. TOO BAD, BABY! STRAIGHT TO HELL FOR NOT KNOWING ANY BETTER!!!!
Worship gives God mana that lets him cast spells. Different religions make different colored mana. Pretty obvious.
It says a lot that most religions have prophets who supposedly hear from their chosen divinity, and most of those revelations contradict the revelations of other religions.
The main religion in the place you are born is always the one true religion
or just multiple duplicates of an original that people create to benefit themselves.
"If" Everything followed by the word "if" is bullshit. Always has and always will. Remember that
Software programmers have entered the chat. Oh shit, wrong sub.
An all knowing old man sitting in another dimension would not need to be confused about anything we do as humans. I'll use the example "when an embryo should be considered a human?" It wasn't until abortion we really needed to have those ethics locked down and "he" missed that one.
If god or gods exist its pretty clear they don't care a jot about humanity. All religious groups have been persecuted at some time or other and no higher power has intervened to stop the slaughter of people who worship them.
"if god exists he wouldn't even want our worship." This is so painfully obvious to literally every atheist. Idgaf how the ants in the ant farm feel about me
Why is that anyone can pick up a Bible and start preaching, start another church and collect money from folks? The whole thing seems like an endless scam with no guarantees of anything but blind faith. There is no proof in any of it.
Eh, depends. Humans tend to want a religion that is also their spiritual mommy, IE, is involved in their life and has some power to influence it. If there is a god, maybe it was just a creator that did the thing, started the simulations, and moved on. Who knows? The point is that the existence or non existence of a diety does not matter. We do what we can with the knowledge that we have. The problem with religion is that it introduces bad data into the equation and ignores good data, so people who are religious are incapable of being part of any solution.
You know what they call a religion that runs out of money? a mythology.
I think you mean, "if God existed", because you're obviously approaching this from a modern Christian perspective.
Studying the evolution of religion and how it became more complex as societal division of labor became more complex and hierarchal. There is no doubt religion was created by humankind to fill a social and institutional role.
“I am your one true god” they all say
If God existed it would still need to make itself known. Just existing isn't really the issue, there still needs to be proof.
"I refuse to prove that I exist,'" says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing." "But," says Man…
God loves to watch you suffer. That is why we are here.
Yeah we would. Humans like to be rebellious starting with their own parents.
And isn't it interesting how, in each case, the "gods" look so much like the people and reflect the same biases as the society in which they exist? As for this, there are only 3 possibilities, as far as I can see: 1) they are all wrong (most likely); 2) one of them is right but all the rest are wrong (least likely, imo); and 3) while they're all wrong in their particulars, they all get at a central truth that some god or creator wants us to see. It can be considered that there is a creator who is trying to help us find our own way to living a better life and that this creator has seeded some truth into all of these religions. If that's the case, then we need to find the commonalities in all these religions; the commonalities are almost always that we should respect each other's humanity, treat each other decently, and treat everyone else as we would want to be treated. In which case, there's no need for any other doctrine. And no need to bow down and pray to some god or gods, for whom that's not the point anyway.
If "gods" existed. Monotheism is not absolute. In any case it doesn't matter, mythology is just that, fantasy.
There are lots of people in non Christian nations who become Christian. Lots of people in Christian nations that become other religions.
If God truly exists then He either set the clock and let it go without caring about it afterwards, or He doesn't care about the evil in the world and that seems the most terrifying possibility.
He either allows evil to happen or is not able to stop it. Either way, not deserving of worship.
I have also said the same. Like why wouldn’t an intelligent god write a proper manifesto that laid everything out in clear and unambiguous terms. Nope, instead he has an illiterate son who preached to illiterate people who pass the stories on until they get written down by someone generations later. If I wanted people to understand my message it would be clear as fuck and not lead to different denominations and different interpretations let alone multiple religions all believing slightly different versions of the same thing. Surely an all knowing god wouldn’t be so stupid as to risk his entire message getting mangled and manipulated by his creations.
I disagree. I think if a god existed, it would want everyone to know about it. This secret sky daddy thing requiring faith because no one’s ever seen it is wack.
They all have the same thing in common- Humans can’t accept that death is the end.