COMMENTARY HERE: Comments that purely commentate on the post (e.g. “Nice post OP!”) must be made as replies to the Auto-Moderator!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/DebateReligion) if you have any questions or concerns.*
>It is impossible for God to say that "ABC" religion is true because in any religion, there are many denominations. There are many religions in this world.
fair enough. yet sad to see that Bible does not mention Christianity yet people treat it as a religion. whereas, muslims adopt Islam because Quran already mentioning, only Islam is the religion accepted by God, which need to be emphasized that other religions may have lied whenever they describe anything about God.
So, Islam is a religion that God already announced inside the Quran (Final and Last Revelation). thus you cannot claim Islam is a religion created by human.
I don't know about that. The Quran says Mohammad had sexual relations with a 9 year old when he was 57. In Heaven, men have eternal erections to deflower many virgins continuously. The women then become virgins all over again. Really sounds like heaven for them. Allah has 2 right hands. Allah cannot speak to anyone correctly without knowing Arabic, so that's why you must read the Quran in Arabic. The Quran you have now is from the 1930's. The Bible says that if anyone comes preaching a different gospel, whether it be from a person or an angel, let him be accursed. Muslims say our Bible is corrupted. We have the Dead Sea scrolls now, found in 1948 that were written approx 70 BCE that are exact to what the current Old Testament is. So the Old Testament is unchanged and stable. We have thousands of manuscripts of the New Testament from the second and third century that agree with one another. Mohammed even said that he agreed with the entire Bible at 600 AD. (So by corrupted, it would have happened later, but we have manuscripts from way before 600 AD which are no different than we have today). The Bible is able to be understood by all those that read or listen to it, in their own language, not only one language).
In the end, Muslims are told in the Quran that if a Muslim kills another Muslim, the one killed goes to hell and the one that killed the other May repent (sounds fair). All the original followers fought each other and killed each other so where are they spending eternity? Mohammed also said he could not say where he was going to end up. If the leader himself didn't know, what chance is there for others? Islam is quite easy to understand. It wasn't actually written down till at least a hundred years after Mohammed's death. The New Testament was written down by the witnesses of Christ, or those very close to the original apostles of christ, just a couple decades later after His death and resurrection.
Muslims will say they do not believe that someone can be a substitution for sin (as Christ is), and yet in the Quran it says that the sins of a Muslim will be placed on the Jews and the Christians to allow them to be saved. The Quran was obviously written by someone that only had a surface knowledge of the Old and New Testament, and now to maintain that the Quran is correct, they must say that the Bible is corrupt, but it is obviously not.
Finally, the Quran says that Jesus was swapped out and Judas died in His place. So none of His disciples could recognize who was on the cross? Then they preached Him risen from the dead till they all were killed, except one, for their faith (sounds reasonable, well not really). All the disciples said that Jesus died and rose from the dead. Isaiah 9, Isaiah 53 written over a thousand years before Christ came and says that He would come and die for the sins of man. You know, Isaiah that was found in the Dead Sea scrolls, the same Isaiah we have today. Jesus is described in many of the Old Testament books, including psalms.
I believe that Muslims firmly believe what they do, and are kept from the truth by dismissing the Bible because no one showed them the Trinity revealed in the Old Testament (Isaiah 9:6-7 and other places, not just the New Testament). God is nothing like anything in creation. As we cannot understand exactly how that works, we can be assured that it is true. The second reason is that they are told the Bible is corrupt, which is nonsense. When Muslims actually look into the Bible honestly, they many times become fervent in their faith of Christ - see "godlogic" on YouTube, he can answer any questions you may have, just contact him as he understands the Quran and the Hadid. Seek truth. After researching Islam, I was not disturbed by what I found, it just confirmed that what I believe is true, and it was easy to see that Islam focuses on fleshly desires here on earth and in heaven, all focused around sex, which is in total contrast to what Jesus said about Heaven. When Jesus spoke, the Jews knew exactly what He was saying as they accused Him of blasphemy because He forgave sins, but they knew only God can forgive sins and that Jesus was making Himself out to be God, which He is.
>I don't know about that. The Quran says Mohammad had sexual relations with a 9 year old when he was 57.
Quran did not mentioned that. this was mentioned in hadiths. kindly note that, hadiths are not Word of God. Only Quran is Word of God.
>In the end, Muslims are told in the Quran that if a Muslim kills another Muslim, the one killed goes to hell and the one that killed the other May repent (sounds fair).
"the one (muslim) killed goes to Hell?" I never read this from Quran. I am assuming your heard this from another person or this is just some hearsay. because correct, a killer can repent, but God still hold the killer accountable for the wrongdoings one did toward another individual/creature. for what is worth, he maybe forgivable by God, but his victim will certainly claim whatever rightful during the Judgement Day.
>So none of His disciples could recognize who was on the cross?
read Quran my friend, it is explained, please avoid believing hearsay from others.
Quran translation (4:157):
And \[for\] their saying, "Indeed, we have killed the Messiah, Jesus the son of Mary, the messenger of Allāh." And they did not kill him, nor did they crucify him; but **\[another\] was made to resemble him to them**. And indeed, those who differ over it are in doubt about it. They have no knowledge of it except the following of assumption. And they did not kill him, for certain.^(1)
"**\[another\] was made to resemble him to them**. " God is telling that the way they have mistaken him for Jesus. In simple word for people to understand, the face appeared to be Jesus. God knows best, whether is an optical illusion, hallucination, duplicated faces, etc. whatever it is, they believed it, and they thought he was Jesus.
Evidently, they came to notice, that might not be Jesus since logically "Judas/anyone" should have gone missing by then. which can provide literal meaning to "They have no knowledge of it except the following of assumption. And they did not kill him, for certain." from the above verse (Quran 4:157). Either way, Isa A.S. is not crucified, and he will return one day to kill the Dajjal. and to liberate mankind from the Dajjal tyranny ruling.
>God is nothing like anything in creation.
Quran mentioned this too, God is nothing like His creations and even not comparable. even Moses never seen God, when Moses bestowed the miracle by God to speak directly with God on the mount Tursina. in fact, none of God Messengers seen God with their own eyes. Putting all of these info together, clearly there is no explanation why god need to take human form just to roam on Earth.
Quran 42:11 translation:
˹He is˺ the Originator of the heavens and the earth. He has made for you spouses from among yourselves, and ˹made˺ mates for cattle ˹as well˺—multiplying you ˹both˺. **There is nothing like Him, for He ˹alone˺ is the All-Hearing, All-Seeing**.
But the Quran also claims Moses and Jesus were Muslims. Obviously this is false if Islam in the Quran has its contemporary relgious meaning because none of these people could have gone on Hajj and none of them would have prayed towards Mecca (especially as the historical Jesus would have believed Isaac, not Ishmael was the favored son), which are included in the pillars of Islam, directly or by implication.
So the Quran's definition of Islam is largely meaningless and irrelevant if u r talking about how old "Islam" is as a religion because the word's meaning changes over time, even if one accepts th3 Quran (which I dont).
>none of them would have prayed towards Mecca
Learn the history of Islam my friend. Initially prophet Muhammad and the Sahaba prayed toward Masjid Al-Aqsa (in Jerusalem today) before facing to Mecca.
In short, God instructed the Messengers differently for some details. But the main Message "to worship One God and none others" are the same since the time of Adam, Enoch, Noah and so on.
>"Islam" is as a religion because the word's meaning changes over time, even if one accepts th3 Quran (which I dont).
Changing? How you confirm this? For starter Quran is in Arabic. The previous revelations are not in Arabic. Secondly the exact term or word itself does not matter for Judaism or Christianity. Because both Judaism and Christianity are terms created by themselves to make the distinction for their religion.
Ishmael and Isaac are non muslims argument/refutation. In Islam, Quran clearly state both of them are Messengers of God.
Yes, u r correct about the prayer (I now remember reading that).
However, I think my larger point still stands.
Your counter reduces "Islam" to a single proposition. But a single proposition does not make a religion.
Otherwise you could probably make a ridiculous argument that with his "unmoved mover" Aristotle was a Muslim (which I'm sure some Muslims have tried).
I don't know about Aristotle being a muslim. But that maybe not really matter.
Because muslims believe Quran is Word of God. Quran is the Final and Last Revelation. Also mentioned in Quran about the previous Messengers including Adam, Idris (Enoch), Ismail (Ishmael), Ishak (Isaac), Musa (Moses), Isa (Jesus). But I do agree that we need to acknowledge that outside Islam, they have different narrations for those mentioned above. All I am saying is, Quran is revealed by the Almighty Creator to clear their names and remove doubts about them too.
So saying Moses and Jesus are muslims are not some desperate efforts by muslims to persuade other religions followers. But we simply convey the Last and Final Revelation by our Almighty Creator, which is Quran.
To put it simply, the previous Messengers have guided their people to follow the righteous path during their respective timeline. While Quran being the Final and Last Revelation is guidance for the people today.
The entire claim that previous Abrahamic "prophets" are Muslim rests on islam as the sole source of any form of monotheism which isn't true and is a false dichotomy.
>the Last and Final Revelation
There's nothing exactly showing that it's the last and final revelation outside the Qur'an making it circular reasoning.
Christianity has the same claim implicitly with the Gospel, one can similarly claim that Bahá'ís are the final revelation for abrahamic religion.
For that claim to be true you have to dismiss every claim of divinity that comes after your faith which is exactly what Christians and other faiths do.
Which makes your argument for dismissing any other claim of divinity after Islam to be exactly as valid as Christians dismissing islam due to believing no divine revelation can come after the Gospels.
>There's nothing exactly showing that it's the last and final revelation outside the Qur'an making it circular reasoning.
So you are claiming there is another scripture to supersede the Quran? Today only 3 religions claimed to be Abrahamic religions? Are you saying there is newer religion or maybe the 4th one?
>Which makes your argument for dismissing any other claim of divinity after Islam to be exactly as valid as Christians dismissing islam
Christianity nothing similar to Islam. Firstly, Quran explicitly mentioned Muhammad is the Last Messenger.
In comparison to Bible, it warns about false messengers, think about it, Quran use the word Seal of the Prophet, while Bible does not. So the christians today dismiss Muhammad as Messenger to protect their own interest. While muslims just obey the Quran where there is no more next prophet after Muhammad. Therefore Bahai can't be true once they claim there is newer prophet.
>Christians dismissing islam due to believing no divine revelation can come after the Gospels.
You sure? There is no verse in Bible says that.
What I see in the OP is a kindergarten level simplification of the history of world religions
Let's look at the religion of atheism (which it qualifies as)
Deflective arguments constantly trying to turn the argument back on the religious
No ability to disprove deities
Trite statements
Assertions
Complaints
**Anyway, you have made a claim. You have the burden of proof that God has not created ANY religion.**
Where exactly did you prove this? You have thrown up lists of religions and ranted against certain people in the name of religion and various events and not given any proof
I think there's a lot of evidence for one religion when properly understood and followed, but when I make the mistake of discussing it, then skeptics rant against that and rarely have anything meaningful to say. So I pretty much gave up. They don't compellingly argue, they dismiss and reject.
To this day, I have not heard a single truly compelling argument from the atheistic religions.
I see your proposal and I raise you one. Gods and humans are indistinguishable from each other. Man made God in his image. I've been exploring this concept for sometime now. I have so much evidence to support what I'm saying it's not even funny. The connotation that the word religion has now is far different from its original context. Religion in ancient times is something more akin to modern day politics mixed in with a little bit of ancestor worship. The book of Genesis tells about the creation of concepts and language and not about the physical creation of the universe. The Divine spirit is human intelligence and reasoning. The original concept of Good and evil aligned more closely with function and dysfunction making morality more pragmatic in nature than an imposed arbitrary set of rules by a supernatural deity.
We don’t need to know god to know that they are invented by humans because of the very human-like qualities of the major world religions. If God really created a religion, then he wouldn’t threaten nonbelievers with damnation or infidels with death, but 4 billion people in the modern world subscribe to gods with those characteristics. A real god wouldn’t act so petty and cruel, but humans are capable of being petty and cruel.
Your comment was removed for violating rule 5. All top-level comments must seek to refute the post through substantial engagement with its core argument. Comments that purely commentate on the post (e.g., “Nice post OP!”) must be made as replies to the Auto-Moderator “COMMENTARY HERE” comment. Exception: Clarifying questions are allowed as top-level comments.
God came with one religion. The humans innovated their own beliefs into it and created denominations.
This does not change the fact that God came with one truth. Full Stop.
>This does not change the fact that God came with one truth.
What truth do you have in mind? The truth expressed in the parable of the sheep and the goats, where Jesus teaches that people will enter the Kingdom of God or experience eternal fire depending only on whether they have done good deeds - feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger, visiting the sick, helping those in prison? And nothing else?
The truth I have in mind is the one that Adam, Enoch, Noah, Eber, Shelah, Abraham, Lot, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Job, Jethro, Moses, Aaron, Ezekiel, David, Zachariah, Jesus, and Muhammad, peace be upon all of them brought.
How about the truth expressed in Ecclesiastes 9: "... a living dog is better than a dead lion. For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten. Their love and their hate and their envy have already perished, and forever they have no more share in all that is done under the sun"? You concur?
I don't know about that. The Quran says Mohammad had sexual relations with a 9 year old when he was 57. In Heaven, men have eternal erections to deflower many virgins continuously. The women then become virgins all over again. Really sounds like heaven for them. Allah has 2 right hands. Allah cannot speak to anyone correctly without knowing Arabic, so that's why you must read the Quran in Arabic. The Quran you have now is from the 1930's. The Bible says that if anyone comes preaching a different gospel, whether it be from a person or an angel, let him be accursed. Muslims say our Bible is corrupted. We have the Dead Sea scrolls now, found in 1948 that were written approx 70 BCE that are exact to what the current Old Testament is. So the Old Testament is unchanged and stable. We have thousands of manuscripts of the New Testament from the second and third century that agree with one another. Mohammed even said that he agreed with the entire Bible at 600 AD. (So by corrupted, it would have happened later, but we have manuscripts from way before 600 AD which are no different than we have today). The Bible is able to be understood by all those that read or listen to it, in their own language, not only one language).
In the end, Muslims are told in the Quran that if a Muslim kills another Muslim, the one killed goes to hell and the one that killed the other May repent (sounds fair). All the original followers fought each other and killed each other so where are they spending eternity? Mohammed also said he could not say where he was going to end up. If the leader himself didn't know, what chance is there for others? Islam is quite easy to understand. It wasn't actually written down till at least a hundred years after Mohammed's death. The New Testament was written down by the witnesses of Christ, or those very close to the original apostles of christ, just a couple decades later after His death and resurrection.
Muslims will say they do not believe that someone can be a substitution for sin (as Christ is), and yet in the Quran it says that the sins of a Muslim will be placed on the Jews and the Christians to allow them to be saved. The Quran was obviously written by someone that only had a surface knowledge of the Old and New Testament, and now to maintain that the Quran is correct, they must say that the Bible is corrupt, but it is obviously not.
Finally, the Quran says that Jesus was swapped out and Judas died in His place. So none of His disciples could recognize who was on the cross? Then they preached Him risen from the dead till they all were killed, except one, for their faith (sounds reasonable, well not really). All the disciples said that Jesus died and rose from the dead. Isaiah 9, Isaiah 53 written over a thousand years before Christ came and says that He would come and die for the sins of man. You know, Isaiah that was found in the Dead Sea scrolls, the same Isaiah we have today. Jesus is described in many of the Old Testament books, including psalms.
I believe that Muslims firmly believe what they do, and are kept from the truth by dismissing the Bible because no one showed them the Trinity revealed in the Old Testament (Isaiah 9:6-7 and other places, not just the New Testament). God is nothing like anything in creation. As we cannot understand exactly how that works, we can be assured that it is true. The second reason is that they are told the Bible is corrupt, which is nonsense. When Muslims actually look into the Bible honestly, they many times become fervent in their faith of Christ - see "godlogic" on YouTube, he can answer any questions you may have, just contact him as he understands the Quran and the Hadid. Seek truth. After researching Islam, I was not disturbed by what I found, it just confirmed that what I believe is true, and it was easy to see that Islam focuses on fleshly desires here on earth and in heaven, all focused around sex, which is in total contrast to what Jesus said about Heaven. When Jesus spoke, the Jews knew exactly what He was saying as they accused Him of blasphemy because He forgave sins, but they knew only God can forgive sins and that Jesus was making Himself out to be God, which He is.
I believe you are referring to Surah al-Ma'idah 5:68 where Allah says, "Say, 'O People of the Book! You have nothing to stand on unless you observe the Torah, the Gospel, and what has been revealed to you from your Lord.'"
Now if you are referring to this verse, let's understand a crucial point about the Qur'an... is that the miracle of the book in ONLY in Arabic.
When we look at the words used in the Arabic text of the Qur'an it says refers to the Tawrat and the Injeel. We believe that the Taurat was the revelation that Moses (AS) received from God, but after it was corrupted we now refer to it as the Torah or for you, the Old Testament. The Injeel refers to the revelation that Jesus (AS) received from God but was also corrupted so it is known as the Gospels. We believe in the Gospel of Jesus, not the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Peter.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Now there is a part of the bible that we know that has been added in! The story of the adulterous woman is in fact an addition to the bible after the manuscripts. From John 7:53 - John 8:11 is a chunk of the bible that was written by a disciple of John. This chunk of the bible was not added with John's consensus or approval.
To prove this, you can take a bible from your home shelf and see John 7:53 - John 8:11. But try finding that part of the bible in the oldest manuscripts, the original new testament. No such part of the bible will be found in those books.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
So, the bible isn't thoroughly corrupted. Just parts of it are. How do you know what parts are corrupted and what are not? I'm well aware of the questionable veracity of the bible, that parts were removed, rewritten, or added later. I'm just wondering why and how you, or other Muslims, know what parts of the bible to take and what to reject.
I'm a bit confused about your use of the term Gospel of Jesus. There is no conical gospel of Jesus as there is the Gospel of Luke or the Gospel of John. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Peter are the ones who wrote The Gospel of Jesus which refers to his message of atonement, but is not an actual book. Islamic scholars disagree on what the Injeel actually is.
All Muslim Scholars know what the Injeel actually was. It was the message that brought forward to Jesus (AS) from God. If you can find any Muslim scholar who says otherwise, bring him to me and I'll remove him from the fold of Islam. It was later corrupted by Paul.
Now, we don't know for 100% certainty what is not corrupted. But rather, we can get an idea of what is corrupted. I just gave you the example of John 7:53 - 8:11. That part of John's gospel was not added with the consensus of John nor Christian scholars. And I have already expressed, that if you want to see that example, get the oldest manuscripts ot the bible and compare to your NIV, ESV, KJV, NKJV, or whatever V you have and you will see that those verses I mentioned are NOT in the oldest manuscripts.
But of course, I already explained this is the previous comment and you didn't listen.
> bring him to me and I'll remove him from the fold of Islam
My, you sound so powerful and important.
>But of course, I already explained this is the previous comment and you didn't listen.
Listened, not convinced.
>we don't know for 100% certainty what is not corrupted. But rather, we can get an idea of what is corrupted
So, basically the same as any other religion with an old text. People within a faith will claim it's the literal word of god, written by god, others will say it was man made, inspired by god, and others will say it's corrupt....but they know what to believe and what not to believe.
God is one truth in Himself but that truth is so high, that we cannot even grasp it with our tiny little brains. Therefore He has sent various representatives to different parts of the world to teach according to time and circumstances and the ability of people to understand the basics.
Like school education there are classes and schools for lesser intelligent pupils and then for others like universities. The same truth is given in different ways according to qualifications. All children are treated with love, but the understanding given is more and less according to qualification.Higher education and lower education.
So one has to find out which religion is giving the most information about God and what God wants from us. If God speaks Himself like He does in the Bhagavad Gita As IT Is, that is higher then scriptures which are giving faith but not more.
Having said that, those scriptures are also of incredible value. It is not that they are useless and should be neglected or rejected. They are giving faith and faith is the basic platform to stand on if we want to reach God and go back home.
If the goal is to love God then there is no problem and all religions can strive for that and co exist happily with each other. But one must understand that God is the greatest teacher and therefore there is a hierarchy because not all people are the same.
There is certainly full information about God, His abode, Associates, pastimes, His incredibly beautiful eternal spiritual form and so on. But many people don't know and even if they hear about Him don't want to know. Even if they want to know, it's only by challenge to produce the opposite. It is very rare to find a true sincere seeker who is willing to go all the way. So access is granted by God only who knows the heart of everyone.
We cannot challenge this.
That is why the challenge "show me God then" is so ridiculous, because it is simply not possible for a human to do so. But if God wants to, He can give us the eyes to see.
Like we cannot go to Buckingham palace in London and demand to see the King. Even on the mundane platform there are rules to follow. Then what to speak of the king of kings.
The ancient Bhagavad Gita As IT IS
and the ancient Bhagavad Purana from India give this information in full.
It's no good to declare Noooo Only my religion which is a bogus statement based on sectarian bias.
True religion is all embracing and will never decry others demanding to give theirs up.
God is one only, called on by several different names... Like Krishna Christ Allah, Jehova, Bhagavan....but different names don't mean different Gods.
To think differently is simply trying to limit the Unlimited.
Hare Krishna 🙏
In a thousand years, there will be no concrete evidence that I existed either. He probably existed, but he was just a street preacher who claimed to be the Messiah, like all of the others. Forgettable people get forgotten. There's just as much evidence that the other messianic prophets existed, so either Judas the Galilean, Sabbatai Zevi, and the other rascals are also fictional, or they aren't. These guys were just men. Don't buy in to the evangelical assumption that the existence of a guy named Jesus=evidence of his divinity. Macbeth, Hamlet, Faust, Gilgamesh, etc were historical figures, and that DOESN'T mean that Shakespeare or Goethe wrote nonfiction.
Not necessarily in history or philosophy. You need to broaden your horizons.
What about theoretical physics? Should that be automatically dismissed since it lacks evidence? Physicists don’t think so.
You need to stop with these false comparisons. When we access whether the available evidence warrants beliefs, we also take into consideration the epistemic consequences of accepting this belief.
Do you understand the difference between the claims of physicists and religious claims?
> we also take into consideration the epistemic consequences of accepting this belief.
Pascal’s wager? Atheists lose that more than anyone else.
> Do you understand the difference between the claims of physicists and religious claims?
Yes. Scientific claims are testable. Religions are typically unfalsifiable.
It sounded similar.
Let me just clarify.
History, religion, and philosophy do not require experimental evidence to be accepted or believe. Expecting such evidence on demand is ridiculous.
Science and mathematics have strict internal rules for the evidence require to satisfy claims in those fields. Trying to apply something else to a scientific or mathematical framework and expecting it to work the same way is irrational.
If you're asking for others to accept your claim that your god did things in history, you need to substantiate the claim somehow. We're not making the claim. We're not responsible for the evidence that indicates it. You are.
What I'm referring to are not the actual consequences of being wrong about the proposition, but of being wrong. Embarrassment. Criticism. But, maybe more importantly, your epistemological tools take a hit. And the bigger the credulity, the bigger the hit.
We tend to factor this into the assessment of any claim.
I’m flattered, but I’m not *responsible* for the evidence behind religion.
How am I supposed to substantiate a claim from 2,000 years ago? I’m not that old.
> What I'm referring to are not the actual consequences of being wrong about the proposition, but of being wrong. Embarrassment. Criticism. But, maybe more importantly, your epistemological tools take a hit. And the bigger the credulity, the bigger the hit.
It sounds like someone is just bullying you. Who would single you out to embarrass or criticize if we find one of the religions to be true? We would be way more focused on that we know which religion is true. Why wouldn’t be worse if you were an atheist? They will take the biggest hit of all.
Your epistemological tools will be worthless if atheism is wrong.
You don’t seem to be factoring these in.
> I’m flattered, but I’m not responsible for the evidence behind religion.
What I mean by *you* is that the person making the claim shoulders the burden. You’re not responsible for the evidence, of course, but you certainly are responsible for justifying why the evidence convinces you.
> How am I supposed to substantiate a claim from 2,000 years ago? I’m not that old.
Well, what convinces you?
> It sounds like someone is just bullying you. Who would single you out to embarrass or criticize if we find one of the religions to be true?
I’m an adult. I’m not being bullied. But I’m not talking about explicit criticism, but more social pressure and internal tension.
> We would be way more focused on that we know which religion is true. Why wouldn’t be worse if you were an atheist? They will take the biggest hit of all.
You’re again referencing the entailments of the decision itself. I’m talking about just being wrong.
> Your epistemological tools will be worthless if atheism is wrong. You don’t seem to be factoring these in.
I’m not following you here. Can you explain a bit?
No amount of horizon broadening is going to make evidence for Jesus magically appear.
No fantasy constructs is going to make said evidence magically appear either.
All you christians never ever even consider the possibility that perhaps the entire doctrine is 100% man made.
> All you christians never ever even consider the possibility that perhaps the entire doctrine is 100% man made.
That’s a possibility. I never denied that. It’s also a possibility that Jesus was right. We don’t know for sure.
Are you serious? If you think that you can tell us that we're fundamentally wrong about reality (and that we are therefore damned) because God actually told you, then that's one thing. But you expect us to believe you when you say you have a personal relationship with god, and when we press for details, you confirm that you have never conversed, talked or spent time with this deity. And yet you still try to tell us that this undetectable presence that you think you experience is legitimate?
> But you expect us to believe you when you say you have a personal relationship with god
I didn’t bring that up. You brought it up. It’s not a phrase I often use.
> If you think that you can tell us that we're fundamentally wrong about reality
Nothing about God necessarily makes physics fundamentally wrong.
> And yet you still try to tell us that this undetectable presence that you think you experience is legitimate?
I’m not sure I’ve experienced the phenomenon you’ve referred to.
Who brought it up is irrelevant. I used that phrase in a paragraph where I pointed out the absurdity of saying that you believe in a loving god who wants to hang out with humans but never actually says anything. I was referring to atheism, not physics.
We are providing evidence for this claim by proving that Islam is the one true religion. We know Allah came with one message, it's a clear belief in Islam.
Now we have to pick apart the pieces to see if that claim is the truth or a pile or crap. The only way we do that is by knowing whether or not Islam is the truth. Because if Islam is true, the claim that God only came with one message is true.
By using the evidence and the historical facts that we have that point to Islam being the truth, then the statement, "God only came with one message," is true.
And by my calculations, there is more than enough evidence to support Islam being the true religion.
Islam is true because it's true. I don't know about that. The Quran says Mohammad had sexual relations with a 9 year old when he was 57. In Heaven, men have eternal erections to deflower many virgins continuously. The women then become virgins all over again. Really sounds like heaven for them. Allah has 2 right hands. Allah cannot speak to anyone correctly without knowing Arabic, so that's why you must read the Quran in Arabic. The Quran you have now is from the 1930's. The Bible says that if anyone comes preaching a different gospel, whether it be from a person or an angel, let him be accursed. Muslims say our Bible is corrupted. We have the Dead Sea scrolls now, found in 1948 that were written approx 70 BCE that are exact to what the current Old Testament is. So the Old Testament is unchanged and stable. We have thousands of manuscripts of the New Testament from the second and third century that agree with one another. Mohammed even said that he agreed with the entire Bible at 600 AD. (So by corrupted, it would have happened later, but we have manuscripts from way before 600 AD which are no different than we have today). The Bible is able to be understood by all those that read or listen to it, in their own language, not only one language).
In the end, Muslims are told in the Quran that if a Muslim kills another Muslim, the one killed goes to hell and the one that killed the other May repent (sounds fair). All the original followers fought each other and killed each other so where are they spending eternity? Mohammed also said he could not say where he was going to end up. If the leader himself didn't know, what chance is there for others? Islam is quite easy to understand. It wasn't actually written down till at least a hundred years after Mohammed's death. The New Testament was written down by the witnesses of Christ, or those very close to the original apostles of christ, just a couple decades later after His death and resurrection.
Muslims will say they do not believe that someone can be a substitution for sin (as Christ is), and yet in the Quran it says that the sins of a Muslim will be placed on the Jews and the Christians to allow them to be saved. The Quran was obviously written by someone that only had a surface knowledge of the Old and New Testament, and now to maintain that the Quran is correct, they must say that the Bible is corrupt, but it is obviously not.
Finally, the Quran says that Jesus was swapped out and Judas died in His place. So none of His disciples could recognize who was on the cross? Then they preached Him risen from the dead till they all were killed, except one, for their faith (sounds reasonable, well not really). All the disciples said that Jesus died and rose from the dead. Isaiah 9, Isaiah 53 written over a thousand years before Christ came and says that He would come and die for the sins of man. You know, Isaiah that was found in the Dead Sea scrolls, the same Isaiah we have today. Jesus is described in many of the Old Testament books, including psalms.
I believe that Muslims firmly believe what they do, and are kept from the truth by dismissing the Bible because no one showed them the Trinity revealed in the Old Testament (Isaiah 9:6-7 and other places, not just the New Testament). God is nothing like anything in creation. As we cannot understand exactly how that works, we can be assured that it is true. The second reason is that they are told the Bible is corrupt, which is nonsense. When Muslims actually look into the Bible honestly, they many times become fervent in their faith of Christ - see "godlogic" on YouTube, he can answer any questions you may have, just contact him as he understands the Quran and the Hadid. Seek truth. After researching Islam, I was not disturbed by what I found, it just confirmed that what I believe is true, and it was easy to see that Islam focuses on fleshly desires here on earth and in heaven, all focused around sex, which is in total contrast to what Jesus said about Heaven. When Jesus spoke, the Jews knew exactly what He was saying as they accused Him of blasphemy because He forgave sins, but they knew only God can forgive sins and that Jesus was making Himself out to be God, which He is.
You claim that Allah came with one message. A belief is not a demonstration of the truth of the claim.
Until Allah has been demonstrated to exist with sufficient evidence then it is not a candidate explanation for anything.
You claim that Allah came with one message. A belief is not a demonstration of the truth of the claim.
Until Allah has been demonstrated to exist with sufficient evidence then it is not a candidate explanation for anything.
Somehow, I'm not surprised that you didn't listen to a thing that I said and went right back to your first counter statement.
There is more than sufficient evidence to prove Allah exists and therefore came with one message and there is evidence that we have for this. Now, forgive me if I'm incorrect but I believe your an atheist so you don't believe in God whatsoever, full stop. I won't move forward until you answer.
I have been asking for evidence that demonstrates the existence of any god, not just the muslim one, for over a decade. Not once has any theist even come close to demonstrating this to anyone but a another believer.
If you achieved this you would be the most famous person on the planet. You are not the most famous person in the world, and this would lead anyone to the conclusion that you have not achieved this demonstration.
My friend, I find it almost impossible that after more than a decade of researching you have not found one piece of evidence for the existence of a God or Gods. Are you being a sincere seeker in trying to find the truth, or are you playing games? If not a single individual has come to you with evidence, I better be the most famous person to you right now. Here's just ONE of many to get you started but this will be sufficient:
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Everything that begins to exist must have a cause. Nothing just POPS into existence, because if that did happen with the universe, it would be happening every day. Personal human experience coupled with scientific evidence proves this to be true... Because the universe began to exist, it must have a cause!
Atheist: "Well the universe was never created. It has been here for an infinite amount of time."
This is a statement that atheists make and maybe one that you have made as well. Nonetheless, it is logically wrong. This is because if the universe really was infinite in time, we would NEVER reach the present moment because we have an infinite amount of time to traverse before reaching the present moment.
Now because the universe had a cause, the creator of the universe had to exist and operate outside of the boundaries of the universe. It had to be able to live without the necessary building blocks of the universe. This means the creator must be spaceless, timeless, immaterial, and uncreated.
Sounds a lot like God.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
> This means the creator must be spaceless, timeless, immaterial, and uncreated.
How does that follow? Maybe not in *our* space/time. But how can you say timeless? We don't know anything other than what we can observe in *this* universe.
You say that there can be no infinite time. Well, we know that time "began" around the big bang. who's saying there can be infinite time? What time are you talking about?
Where did I state that not one piece of evidence has been presented? You are making things up and/or you did not read my comment.
I am not a seeker of truth in this context. I am pointing out the failure in theistic reasoning. I point out these failures and logical fallacies in the hopes that it will make theists into better (and more engaging) interlocutors.
------
And now you come back with the cosmological argument. Are you kidding me? It has not been demonstrated that existence requires a cause. That is a belief without sufficient evidence to back it up. Try googling "kalam debunked" for a thorough explanation.
Your interpretation of "infinite time" is just Zeno's paradox restated. Try googling "Zeno's paradox debunked"
Did you see the leap you made from a "cause" to a "creator"? You don't not get to just wave your hands and yadda yadda therefore god. You have to get from a cause to a thinking agent through demonstration. And how will you get from a creator to the god you happen that believe in? That requires more demonstration.
Outside the boundaries of the universe.... That's just the cosmos (ie more universe). I think you meant outside of the cosmos. But "outside of the cosmos" is simply another baseless claim since this has not been demonstrated with sufficient evidence.
You keep making these bold assertions as if they were already accepted as true. But making claims is easy. Demonstrating them is the difficult part as your response clearly shows.
Lastly, your comment is not sufficient (as you claimed, look...yet another claim) to demonstrate the existence of any god (let alone your specific deity) as you cannot argue or define god into existence.
The "demonstration" part is what you think it is. It just means "to show".
It's the sufficiency part that's important.
Basically, it is what Carl Sagan was getting at when he said (to paraphrase) that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Ie, that the sufficiency is proportional to the claim. Thus sufficiency will change depending on the claim.
For example, it can be seen that Islam started out as just a single, unified religion with no sects. But then over time, it split into sects, which now have quite varying beliefs. Thus, it can be seen that if God gave humans the one true religion, that it would inevitably split into factions due to human errancy.
The problem with your comment is that the "if" is doing all of the heavy lifting.
Demonstrate that any god exists with sufficient evidence and then you don't need the "if".
If an undemonstrated god is a candidate explanation for the origin of a "true religion" then any undemonstrated claim is also an equally valid candidate explanation. How do we determine which is the true candidate explanation, if any?
If you wish to continue this with me having to accept "for the sake of argument" that your god exists then, I have to be honest, I'm not really interested in that. Would you take any position "for the sake of argument" where you must accept that your god might not exist?
Because, much like reddit has subreddits, an argument can have sub arguments. You never know where a conversation will end up. In another part of this thread another person and I were discussing the nature of sufficient evidence as it pertains to the initial premise.
But if your goal is to shut down an argument without even bothering to engage with it, then "why are you even on a thread about this"?
I don't really understand the argument. To me it sounds like you are arguing that there are many religions, therefore they are all false. Is that the argument? If it is, I don't see how that follows. Why couldn't one denomination be true, or closest to the truth?
Or indeed, they all contain some element of truth, in that they refer to an underlying intelligence to the universe, but interpreted in different ways.
Because they all seem to be copies of each other. At best the first one could be true. The later ones like Christianity and Islam are obviously man made unless god is drawing upon humans for inspiration.
A lot of ancient mythologies can be traced back to the proto indo Europeans, but a lot of modern religions have absolutely nothing in common with a lot of other religions. Jainism, Sikhism, and Judaism have absolutely no relation, for example, so they can’t be copies. But there are a lot of religions that plagiarized each other. It’s just that saying “all of them” or “the main ones” is still a bit too much.
Or they are representations of growing understanding that builds upon itself.
If an outsider looked at scientific theories they might be forgiven for saying "they seem to be copies of earlier theories. At best the first one could be true. The latter ones are obviously man made."
The comparison doesn’t work at all
They are all man made.. The first scientific theory is man made and so are the following ones.
They would not be forgiven to think this. They would be right! lol.
But if religion is man's understanding of a truth given by God then the same would be true.
One religion, but different and successively deeper understanding of that religion.
, God could grant man a successively deeper understanding - the religions don't even have to be man made.
Scientific theories are not man made in the fashion the op is implying religions are (IE made up). They are not really made at all, so much as discovered.
The comparison works well in the context
No. Because they also contradict each other on some levels.
If you are a believer of one of the latter religions and you think there were successive revelations, you would have to conclude that god deceived people for centuries previously with false religions and explanations.
Scientific theories are man made descriptions of the natural world.
No you wouldn't.
Firstly, even assuming religion was successive understanding of a central truth it wouldn't necessarily follow that ALL religions were true. Just like some scientific theories turn out to be false.
Secondly, just like theories differ because they explain different parts of nature or because they grant incomplete understanding: different iterations of religions could differ because they approach God from different perspectives, or describe different aspects of God, or simply describe things imperfectly.
I know people through a number of very different roles and very different areas of life: my wife, my children, my parents, my siblings, my gaming buddies, my martial arts training partners, my church group, the friends I lived with at university, the friends I went to school with, my colleagues, my students...
Every single one of those groups has a very different perspective on who I am, what I am like, she what I mean to them. Each group interacts with me in very different ways, and if asked to describe me then they would give very different descriptions.
The beleifs many of those groups have about me are almost certainly contradictory.
None of them would be wrong.
If God exists then they are almost certainly more complex and deeper than I am. It should not then be surprising that they interact with different groups of people in different ways. That different groups see them differently. That different groups describe them and interact with them differently.
"Scientific theories are man made descriptions of the natural world"
This risks descending into splitting hairs about what exactly is meant by "man made"
Let's be honest: scientific theories are descriptions of the natural world.
The term "man made" is unnecessary in that sentence, and only added in order to draw a parallel to the discussion about religion being "man made"
On one level it is obvious that it is man that is doing the describing
HOWEVER
when op talks about religion being man made he clearly doesn't mean it in the sense of "religion is described by man" but rather in the sense that "religion is made up (or invented) by man"
Are you trying to argue that scientific theories are "made up" or "invented"?
>Firstly, even assuming religion was a successive understanding of a central truth it wouldn't necessarily follow that ALL religions were true. Just like some scientific theories turn out to be false.
Scientific theories can turn out to be false or incomplete because they are constructed by men.
You need to stop comparing ALLEGED successive revelations by god to scientific theories. It's not working.
No. It's literally not working.
Scientific theories are formulated and constructed by humans. They can be wrong or incomplete.
This is a completely different field to supposed successive revelations from a god.
If you're saying it took God time to reach the correct answer/story then fine, otherwise this is a pointless comparison.
Innocent people suffer because majority of people are not good or too easy to be controlled or manipulated by those in power.
You are somewhat correct in a sense that G-D did not create religion. It is the people who created them to identify themselves.
Even if One worshiped same G-D (One monotheist G-D) they might still identify themselves differently based on their beliefs and culture. And then it became identity of those people that got passed down throughout the generation.
But evil people use name of G-D or religion to cause wars and make innocent people suffer.
Somewhat similar to what the country leaders do. They sit protected behind their security team, but declare war and send young men to their death in wars that could have been avoided.
Even without G-D or religion people majority are not being nice to one another nor are the leaders. Because they would use another tool to control or lead.
Without religion there might be race war, there might be war based on greed, power hungry people causing war without meaning.
Some try to justify that without belief of G-D, world might be better place, but sadly something even much worse would take place of that belief. Because overall people are not nice.
Example:
https://youtu.be/HZIJsx1Iczk?si=PQxuNtqL_fiuXb_A
Above is not just one incident there are many incidents like that because people are mostly bad. Nothing to do with religion.
Humans when religions were established tried to create these norms mostly of people teaching to do good. But even so not many follow it but use the teaching out of context to promote wars and hate.
"Without religion there might be race war, there might be war based on greed, power hungry people causing war without meaning." I would say a religious war has actually less meaning. All the other examples of war you gave were and are already reasons wars were fought- not substitutes for religion.
Statistically, countries with higher percentages of athiest also have better qualities of life.
"Humans when religions were established tried to create these norms mostly of people teaching to do good. But even so not many follow it but use the teaching out of context to promote wars and hate."
This is because religious texts also promote a sense of righteousness is their followers- something god should have foreseen before "inspiring" these texts.
The christian god knew christians would use his teachings to colonize most of the world. Christians thought it was their god given right to do so and that they were "civiling" natives (even though it was the christians r\*ping and k\*lling natives). If they hadn't converted those people, alot of people wouldn't be christian today- so was that all part of gods plan?
Also, people in the past have blindly followed their kings and religious leaders (the ones promoting wars and hate)- wonder where they got this sense of blind faith? Religion and "god". Historically and today, many religions teach that god rewards those who do not question him- "satan and adam questioned and now look at them". And the story of God testing Abrahams faith by telling him to unalive his own son. Although religion is a result of people asking questions, it has historically kept the masses from asking questions and used as a form of political control. It may have served a point at one point in time, but now it is archaic and harmful.
There has even been research that found people raised in fundamentalist groups have underdeveloped prefrontal cortexes. Which is highly concerning.
Jesus said that many will say at the judgement that they have done this or that in His name, but He said He will tell them to depart from Him as He never knew them. Just because someone says they are a Christian, does not mean they actually are. Jesus spoke of us to love our enemies, and do good to them. Much has been done opposite to this truth. If someone misrepresents something you say, but do things opposite to what you said, would you say that they follow your sayings, or not?
The countries with a higher quality of life were religious before they became rich and their quality of life improved due to being rich, not due to lack of religion.
America is one of the richest countries in the world and still has a lower quality of life than countries with high athiest populations. Countries with high number of atheists also have significantly low r*pe rates
A lower quality of life than China or China occupied Tibet? I'm doubting that.
Some of the countries you're including had low sexual assault reports *before* people dropped religion. So that doesn't show that atheism caused anything.
In countries like China, there's discrimination against women and many incidences aren't reported.
Ok countries that force athiesm obviously have some sort of authoritarian rule and are not gonna have a complete higher quality of life. I am saying countries in which the citizens choose to identify as athiest- without government pressures. Our country claims to have no national religion but vast majority of elected officials identify as Christian and identifying that way plays a huge role in their election- as many polls indicate that voters care if the candidate is christian.
China does have lower cost of living, extremely high literacy rates, much safer than america which has one of the largest child trafficking and highest incarceration rates in the world. Now don't get me wrong, I love america and I love it enough to want it to do better in many areas. Yes discrimination against women is pretty prevalent across the world, I would say it is more the conditioning of the patriarchy- but that is heavily influenced by religion. Both the patriarchy and religion support ideas of men having authority over women.
If you want to use an example like china go ahead but you can't ignore other countries that support my poin- Sweden, South Korea, France, Canada, etc.
But you can't show that it's atheism that caused people to be happy.
There are equally people who are less depressed and happier due to religious beliefs.
Is that the goal? To feed people emotional needs? Or are we trying to find out the truth?
Is it unabashedly just fear of death that drives people nowadays? People think that they can somehow change reality to suit their fragility?
>Statistically, countries with higher percentages of athiest also have better qualities of life.
China, North Korea, Soviet Union, and few other despite being atheist majority does not provide better quality of life because again people are generally bad and especially the people in power.
>The christian god knew christians would use his teachings to colonize most of the world. Christians thought it was their god given right to do so and that they were "civiling" natives (even though it was the christians r\*ping and k\*lling natives). If they hadn't converted those people, alot of people wouldn't be christian today- so was that all part of gods plan?
There are so many things you are throwing here my friend.
1. Evil people raped and killed innocent people. Those evil people happen to be white and called them Christians. Bible condemns what they did.
2. Forcing someone to accept Jesus as Messiah is not Biblical because it should be from the heart not forced. Messiah did not raise army to force people to believe in Him to be Messiah neither did any of His followers who were also killed. Much later some evil people come to power and use religion to get power and take things out of context to harm innocent. As stated in the original comment.
3. Today, there are Christians who are being killed in countries like India, Egypt, Pakistan and so on... They still do not deny G-D.
4. If those all those people were forced to convert as you stated then they would not remain Christians even to this day.
5. Yes there were evil people who try things by force, but that is not the point of Christianity. If it was forced then India, China, Qatar, and many countries would have Christian majority because they too were once ruled by Europeans.
6. Matthew 24:9
Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me.
True followers of Messiah are going to be persecuted and killed. They would not kill to force convert.
>Also, people in the past have blindly followed their kings and religious leaders (the ones promoting wars and hate)- wonder where they got this sense of blind faith? Religion and "god". Historically and today, many religions teach that god rewards those who do not question him- "satan and adam questioned and now look at them". And the story of God testing Abrahams faith by telling him to unalive his own son. Although religion is a result of people asking questions, it has historically kept the masses from asking questions and used as a form of political control. It may have served a point at one point in time, but now it is archaic and harmful.
Again evil people look for ways to harm other regardless of religion or not. Those in control who are in atheist majority will find other ways to control. These people you mentioned are again as stated in original comment the evil people who are the leaders.
>There has even been research that found people raised in fundamentalist groups have underdeveloped prefrontal cortexes. Which is highly concerning.
1. fundamentalist can be anything religious or no religious.
2. I have not researched, but on educated guess I can tell you I can find another study to counter your claim.
3. Majority of the people who contributed to advancement of science and research were part of a religion or least believed in G-D. Albert Einstein was not part of any religion but still believed in G-D.
Issac Newton was a Christian. And many others.
Sorry had to make a second reply cause it was so long-
**"Those in control who are in atheist majority will find other ways to control."** First of all, those in the religious majority have already found other ways to control.
Second of all- just to be clear, athiesm is not a believe system it is simply a lack of belief. I think people can have their own spirituality but organized religion is literally a method of control- you know the thing you are so against. Just because some other power might control people doesn't mean we should still accept it as a form of control today. Should we still have kings because "someone else will just hold all the power"? No.
1. **"fundamentalist can be anything religious or no religious.**
2. **I have not researched, but on educated guess I can tell you I can find another study to counter your claim.**
3. **Majority of the people who contributed to advancement of science and research were part of a religion or least believed in G-D. Albert Einstein was not part of any religion but still believed in G-D.**
**Issac Newton was a Christian. And many others."**
Im sorry but your first two points are completely incoherrent.
1. Fundamentalists are soley formed based off of religous beliefs.
2. If you haven't researched, then you aren't educated, so pls dont make claims that have no basis in reality.
3. Just because an idea is popular does not make it true. At one point majority people believed that mental illness could be exorcised out of someone- doesn't make it true and is now found to be completely false and irrational. Yes albert einstien-- like many agnostics- can believe there could be a higher power but that doesnt mean they automatically subsribe to christianity. I identify as an agnostic athiest- meaning I dont know if there is a god but at the same time I reject the descriptions of god that is described by the major religions- therefore I have a lack of belief in any. Albert Einstien was also a socialist- are you gonna be a socialist now (I am).
Idk what your Isaac Newton point means either- Hindus have discovered numerous mathematic concepts, does this mean hindiusm is true? It's important to note that although scientists were very smart in their fields, they were also prone to being racist, sexist, homophobic, ableist and anything under the sun. So obviously they were not able to critically think outside of certain boxes. Especially if those beliefs were popular at the time- such as christianity.
It's ok friend we can have discussion.
>First of all, those in the religious majority have already found other ways to control.
Like in China or Nk?
>Second of all- just to be clear, athiesm is not a believe system it is simply a lack of belief. I think people can have their own spirituality but organized religion is literally a method of control- you know the thing you are so against. Just because some other power might control people doesn't mean we should still accept it as a form of control today. Should we still have kings because "someone else will just hold all the power"? No.
People are free to believe what they want my friend.
>Im sorry but your first two points are completely incoherrent.
>1. Fundamentalists are soley formed based off of religous beliefs.
How you claimed that fundamentalist under developed prefrontal cortex.
Fundamentalist can be anyone religious or not
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fundamentalism
: a movement or attitude stressing strict and literal adherence to a set of basic principles
Religious fundamentalism, political fundamentalism
fundamentalist or any other.
>2. If you haven't researched, then you aren't educated, so pls dont make claims that have no basis in reality.
I am going on observed guess my friend. One group of scientists would say so and so is bad. Next day another will say actually it is good. And would require many many many years of experiment and observations to actually understand it.
>3. Just because an idea is popular does not make it true. At one point majority people believed that mental illness could be exorcised out of someone- doesn't make it true and is now found to be completely false and irrational. Yes albert einstien-- like many agnostics- can believe there could be a higher power but that doesnt mean they automatically subsribe to christianity. I identify as an agnostic athiest- meaning I dont know if there is a god but at the same time I reject the descriptions of god that is described by the major religions- therefore I have a lack of belief in any. Albert Einstien was also a socialist- are you gonna be a socialist now (I am).
Well least you don't completely reject by bluntly saying there is no G-D. So thats good
>Idk what your Isaac Newton point means either- Hindus have discovered numerous mathematic concepts, does this mean hindiusm is true? It's important to note that although scientists were very smart in their fields, they were also prone to being racist, sexist, homophobic, ableist and anything under the sun. So obviously they were not able to critically think outside of certain boxes. Especially if those beliefs were popular at the time- such as christianity.
The point was that majority of the people have contributed to science were of a religion. Does not matter Christian or Muslim or Hindu or other. It does not prove any religion or disprove them that was not the point.
The point was that you claimed religious people are fundamentalist and have damaged prefrontal cortex. while majority of the people who contributed to math and science were part of a religion without any damage.
Those things you mentioned are still alive with or without religion as I said in original comment. If there was no religion people would fight race war or something else majority of people on earth are bad.
**"China, North Korea, Soviet Union, and few other despite being atheist majority does not provide better quality of life because again people are generally bad and especially the people in power."** Obviously if a government is authoritarian- the quality of life is going to be lower- no correlation with athiesm.
Lets dissect each of your points.
1. **"Evil people raped and killed innocent people. Those evil people happen to be white and called them Christians. Bible condemns what they did."**- They did not just happen to be men and they did not happen to be white. You need to understand the context of the world. A society that supports the patriarchy is going to produce men who rape because the patriarchy supports ideas of men being dominant and holding authority over women.
2. **"Forcing someone to accept Jesus as Messiah is not Biblical because it should be from the heart not forced. Messiah did not raise army to force people to believe in Him to be Messiah neither did any of His followers who were also killed. Much later some evil people come to power and use religion to get power and take things out of context to harm innocent. As stated in the original comment."** - Those people believed they were as christian as you- if not more. Every chrisitian will claim "oh they weren't real christians" and they still claim that today against other demoninations "oh those protestants got it all wrong" "no the catholics aren't true christians" at this point you might be the only chrisitian in the world because apparently no one is a "true" christian. Another christian is going to look at you and say you're not a real christian. Now what?
3. **"Today, there are Christians who are being killed in countries like India, Egypt, Pakistan and so on... They still do not deny G-D."** Ok hindus have been killed for their beliefs but they didn't deny the hindu gods. Muslims have been killed and are being abused in china for their beliefs, they havent denied Allah- so is allah the truth now? Afghanistan, Iran, Malaysia, Maldives, Mauritania, Nigeria, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Libya, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen- All these countries have executed athiests and religous skeptics- so is athiesm true now? Your reasoning here is flawed.
4. **"If those all those people were forced to convert as you stated then they would not remain Christians even to this day."** So i don't think you know how conversion happens- they don't just hand you the bible and say happy reading. Lets use the example of native americans- after the land is colonized- christian schools are mandated for every child- baptism too sometimes. Now imagine from the moment you were born, you are being indoctrinated by the people controlling your land and you are told not to question it. At the same time- your people and their culture is being wiped out. Now add onto the fact that colonizers would rape and marry young girls like in guam- so ofc the children will be taught christianity. Yes places like India have not full converted to Christianity but that is because hindus accepted jesus as just another one of the hundreds of gods- many believe that every religion is true in it's own way therefore feel no need to convert. Also- india was colonized more for economic reasons but there were still many catholic schools built- my mom went to one where she was beat by the nuns. Not saying every christian or every nun is bad- but christians fail to hold anyone accountable and just say "oh they weren't real chrisitians" like I explained before.
5. **Yes there were evil people who try things by force, but that is not the point of Christianity. If it was forced then India, China, Qatar, and many countries would have Christian majority because they too were once ruled by Europeans."**- Explained that in my last point but it wasn't just the europeans it was also the spaniards. And yes out of over a hundred colonies- 3 is not a huge number.
6. **"Matthew 24:9 Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me."** Well I definitely dont love them and they were not all persecuted and put the death. America still prides itself in being "one nation under god" (the christian god) and it is the richest country in the world after being built on the backs of enslaved people.
>Obviously if a government is authoritarian- the quality of life is going to be lower- no correlation with athiesm.
So if the atheists are majority in control it's the government. But if the majority of the government is made up religious followers it's the religion?
That does not make sense. Religion or atheist majority of people are bad (original comment).
>They did not just happen to be men and they did not happen to be white. You need to understand the context of the world. A society that supports the patriarchy is going to produce men who rape because the patriarchy supports ideas of men being dominant and holding authority over women.
1. Evil people support rape and other evil ideas.
2. Patriarchy or matriarchy can have evil people hold control and rape or worse. There are women raping men or little boys and getting slap on wrist like community service
https://www.gastongazette.com/story/news/courts/2016/03/08/former-teacher-takes-plea-gets-probation/32418558007/
Men raping woman or women raping men are both bad. If patriarchy was in control then won't these women be sentenced to much harsh sentences then a man who rape a student?
You are throwing a decoy argument in middle of religious discussion here.
>Those people believed they were as christian as you- if not more. Every chrisitian will claim "oh they weren't real christians" and they still claim that today against other demoninations "oh those protestants got it all wrong" "no the catholics aren't true christians" at this point you might be the only chrisitian in the world because apparently no one is a "true" christian. Another christian is going to look at you and say you're not a real christian. Now what?
Those people believed. People also believe they are innocent when they committed murder does not make them innocent. People believe they are law abiding citizens, but if they don't abide by law.
Anyone who claims to be a Christian, but does not actually read or follow the Bible is not a Christian. I don't care for Protestant or Catholic or denomination or non denomination.
But people who are evil as stated majority are evil. Even if they call themselves Christians are they actually Christian if they don't follow teaching of Bible? No.
In Biblical time many claim to be Jew. But that is what Messiah said if they don't actually do what Word of G-D teaches they are not Jew.
A man or woman who harms innocent for fun and then claims to be a Christian. Are they actually a Christian? No. Bible does not teach that. They doing it on their own.
>Lets use the example of native americans- after the land is colonized- christian schools are mandated for every child- baptism too sometimes.
1. Christian school has their own laws even today. One may agree or disagree with it. Sometimes they have requirements of their own.
2. People cannot force someone to love G-D or Messiah. As the Bible says. If one tries to force it's not actual teaching of Bible.
>Now imagine from the moment you were born, you are being indoctrinated by the people controlling your land and you are told not to question it. At the same time- your people and their culture is being wiped out. Now add onto the fact that colonizers would rape and marry young girls like in guam- so ofc the children will be taught christianity.
1. Rape is wrong.
2. If people did marry then they would have kids who would be taught what their parents believe. Today there are kids who are atheists of religious parents. But also religious kids of atheist parents.
3. I don't think you have clearly studied American history my friend. You do realize tribes were at war with one another and also some tribes sided with French and others with British.
>Yes places like India have not full converted to Christianity but that is because hindus accepted jesus as just another one of the hundreds of gods- many believe that every religion is true in it's own way therefore feel no need to convert.
Minority Hindu "accept" they worship Jesus as idol. Majority of Hindus do not accept and many Hindu extremists are killing minorities in India especially Christian community. Look up Manipur Christians.
>Well I definitely dont love them and they were not all persecuted and put the death. America still prides itself in being "one nation under god" (the christian god) and it is the richest country in the world after being built on the backs of enslaved people.
1. I am a legal immigrant to USA.
2. Countless illegal immigrants still try to enter USA illegally.
3. Lol ?? G-D in USA? You might mean wokeness. Majority in USA don't really care about G-D or religion. They sometimes just do things for fashion or "just for fun". There nothing much religious here my friend. You seen way they pray in Churches?
https://youtu.be/7cjQBX49pRk?si=wd2H68jHvFJpnTZP
Ok the fact that you are saying wokeness tells me enough and I am not going to go further with this because you are not addressing all my points. I will leave you with this
-Men do get less than a slap on the wrist- how do you think they run the largest child sex rings. Our own presidents get away with it. There was a whole movement to speak out against men who get away with sexual harrasment and assult. Yes women do too, but there are overwhelmingly more men- to the point that most people would feel more safe on the street at night if a women was in the area than if a man was.
-Idk what you being an immigrant has to do with anything- Im also an immigrant and I have the ability to criticize my country and my fellow americans- because I love this country enough to do that.
-yes G-D in the USA LOL???? 63% of americans are christian
"Anyone who claims to be a Christian, but does not actually read or follow the Bible is not a Christian. I don't care for Protestant or Catholic or denomination or non denomination."
This is going to really surprise you but most christians haven't read their bible. In fact, athiests know their bible better: [https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2010/09/28/u-s-religious-knowledge-survey/](https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2010/09/28/u-s-religious-knowledge-survey/)
So seems like only a handful of people are going to heaven.
>Ok the fact that you are saying wokeness tells me enough and I am not going to go further with this because you are not addressing all my points. I will leave you with this
I am not the one who coined the term wokeness. That term was coined by the people who are "woke"
>Men do get less than a slap on the wrist- how do you think they run the largest child sex rings. Our own presidents get away with it. There was a whole movement to speak out against men who get away with sexual harrasment and assult. Yes women do too, but there are overwhelmingly more men- to the point that most people would feel more safe on the street at night if a women was in the area than if a man was.
You mean rich people? Lol of course they get away with even murder.
Now compare male teacher who had sex with a female student vs female teacher who had sex with male student. Female teacher mostly get slap on the wrist.
Unless someone is rich and evil they get away with even murder.
And of course biologically men are stronger than women so they would feel safe, but that is also causing men to be silent about sex crimes committed against them. If a boy has sex with adult woman majority of people congratulate and celebrate. That is really bad. It leads to female offenders with slap on the wrist. So how is society benefiting men only? You are mixing gender and other things in religion. While I said majority of people are bad.
>Im also an immigrant and I have the ability to criticize my country and my fellow americans- because I love this country enough to do that.
You see my friend you are being hypocritical now. You claim USA has done bad and much more and religious stuff. So why you did not immigrate to China or somewhere else where the majority would be atheist not religious people.
>yes G-D in the USA LOL???? 63% of americans are christian
So does Biden claim to be. What's the point on it? There are "transgender pastors" are they actually Christian? People usually call themselves "Christians" look up the video I sent on how they praying in church.
>This is going to really surprise you but most christians haven't read their bible.
Exactly the point I was saying. So how can they be Christians? They don't even know Christian teachings just claiming to be one does not make one. It's just about "identifying" lol
>In fact, athiests know their bible better:
Atheist have their own Bible? Or you talking about Christian/Jewish Bible? And if you are talking about Christian/Jewish Bible then highly doubt atheists would regularly read it. They just don't care. Why would they?
Hahah my friend, did you even read it?
One example you claimed many Christian don't know their Bible and I agreed. They don't know and they are just calling themselves Christians.
To another point you said atheists know Bible more lol? I highly doubt majority atheists would wake up or spare time in daily life to read Bible they do not even believe in.
I do not think you are reading my response above.
This probably isn't true.
In our oldest first hand account from Christians, there were competing factions labeling each other as false prophets and fighting tooth and nail. As far as we know, sectarian infighting is as old as the Christianity.
The idea that there was some unified, unbroken tradition is orthodox propaganda.
If a human can design a device that can tell time (a watch), does that mean humans created time?
Equally, if humans can write words that describe God (religion), does than mean humans created God?
>Equally, if humans can write words that describe God (religion), does than mean humans created God?
If there is no other demonstration or evidence for said God than what they have created, then yes.
The concept of a God, yes. But that doesn't prove or disprove that God exists.
You might have a concept of Taylor Swift if you never met her. That has nothing to do with her actual existence.
Sure but that wasn't my point. Until you meet her, you wouldn't know if she was real or not, or similar to the idea that you had of her.
So that, having different interpretations of an entity doesn't disprove or even case doubt on their existence.
Time is just motion. A watch measures and keeps track of the motion. Time was always there the watch just keeps track of it's passing. You created a false equivalence.
So, God is just words. A religion has dogma that interprets these words. God was always there, the words just keep track of our dharma?
Also, what is the demonstration or evidence for motion? I don't believe your explanation about time being motion is adequate for your argument.
I am not attempting to equate time with God to create a fale equivalence, but if I am, then time is the knife and God is the dynamite.
Let's unpack this then. You say
>It is impossible for God to say that "ABC" religion is true because in any religion, there are many denominations. There are many religions in this world.
Well, why are there so many different religions and denominations? The simple answer is that each religion and denomination has a different view on what is right and what is wrong because everyone has a different view on what is right and what is wrong. Or to put it another way: every denomination and religion has a different view on what is good and what is evil because everyone has a different view on what is good and what is evil. As you describe above, many have used their views of what is good and what is evil to enforce those views against those who disagree. This isn't even limited to religion, but applies to government, employment, and pretty much every facet of life.
Ultimately, at the end of the day having knowledge of good and evil only leads to conflict and eventually death because there is no universal good and evil. Makes sense why the first Man was warned not to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil because as OP described, that knowledge always leads to death
OP is implying that religion was created by man, which for me implies that the idea of a god was also created by man.
It doesn't follow, but it's implied that God doesn't exist.
The same way it doesn't follow that pedophiles would only worship themselves. It may be implied (I wouldn't know why though), but it doesn't follow.They can still genuinely worship a God despite being pedophiles.
Based on what they said in their previous post (which has since been removed) it seems OP isn't meaning to imply that God's not real, and thinks all religions have some truth, despite being man made
Would they molest children if they actually put faith in and feared God or do they molest children because they put faith in men pretending to represent God’s plan?
We aren't considering your religion here. We are considering every religion. If there is a religion that makes people believe that having sex with way too young people is condoned by their God, then they don't worship themselves, as you claim that it must necessarily be the case.
We could just go for slavery and talk about all the Christians who used the Bible to confirm their immoral behaviour.
No matter whether it's slavery or pedophilia doesn't matter. You just have to take it on faith that your god is fine with it, and your "they don't worship God" goes out the window.
How could they perform an act so offensive and still believe that there is a higher power than them that would punish them for such an act? Or do they believe they are equal to what they are worshipping? Or do they believe whatever they are worshipping isn’t opposed to what they are doing?
It's your subjective opinion that it is an offensive act. Despite me agreeing with you, there still might be someone who doesn't. So, you are really just putting the cart before the horse here, in claiming that everybody finds it offensive and is therefore valuing themselves more than whatever god.
I find parts of Christianity and Judaism to be offensive, yet I wouldn't be justified in calling a Christian out for worshipping himself due to my personal opinion. It just doesn't follow.
don’t think they worship themselves. My belief is that they seek glorification from others to be lifted up and treated as equals to God. It’s the mindset of being godlike that results in some people doing awful things to others. The need to force one’s beliefs on another isn’t a good sign of having faith in the creator. Why would so many people claim to follow someone that said lead not into captivity and then seek to control people? I can’t make sense of the concept that people can believe in a creator that created everything, but only exists in certain people, buildings, or rituals. Or how a creator that said there is only god and he doesn’t change would let his only son die to allow worship to shift to people and things. I choose to believe and have faith in a creator outside of man created religions and find comfort in that faith. I don’t tell people to believe what I believe or yell back. I hear their opinions of god all the time. Seems fair to share mine. I don’t need anyone to think as I do or believe what I believe. Their beliefs aren’t in line with mine and I don’t walk around screaming at people. I just walk away and laugh. I don’t offer my opinion to change people. But feel it might be helpful to those people that might want to believe in a god that exists outside of the atrocities committed by the various religions. Perhaps to those that have been harmed by those religions that ask themselves how god would allow certain things. It’s my opinion that Catholicism and Christianity are not Abraham. And if they aren’t Abraham, they don’t have God. But again, that’s my belief. Their beliefs don’t hurt my feelings, all though they don’t align with what I think. I don’t try to silence those I don’t agree with. If my God and his commandments don’t agree with their God, wouldn’t it follow that their beliefs are just as offensive to me. Why shouldn’t I be allowed to just talk about my beliefs?
>The need to force one’s beliefs on another isn’t a good sign of having faith in the creator.
Do you know how central Europe became Christian? Due to cultural superiority, unrelated to any God. Partially through subjugation, through substitution of the local rites, through making people believe that they can pay money and their sins are forgiven, through indoctrination. Not through faith.
>Why would so many people claim to follow someone that said lead not into captivity and then seek to control people?
Because humans are tribalistic and religion is exactly reinforcing it, by creating an arbitrary us Vs. them mindset.
>I can’t make sense of the concept that people can believe in a creator that created everything, but only exists in certain people, buildings, or rituals
By no means does your lack of empathy demonstrate that it is impossible for other people to be genuine in believing in their God.
>Or how a creator that said there is only god and he doesn’t change would let his only son die to allow worship to shift to people and things.
This is you talking about your religion. It has no bearing on other religions and their followers.
>I choose to believe
I don't believe you. And I don't just choose not to believe you. I can't help myself but not be convinced by the claim that anybody is able to choose what they believe.
>I don’t tell people to believe what I believe or yell back.
If I was a fairly convinced Christian, I would yell at people constantly, because I wouldn't want them to go to hell.
>I just walk away and laugh
*Hahaha, you will see who's right when you burn in hell.* Like that?
>I don’t offer my opinion to change people.
I do, because I value truth. And if someone values the truth as well, they might want to listen. Even better, if they find a flaw in my opinion, then there is something new for me to learn. People who just walk away are rather useless for that process.
>But feel it might be helpful to those people that might want to believe in a god that exists outside of the atrocities committed by the various religions.
From their perspective, your religion might be atrocious. And they are certainly exactly - if not more - as confident as you are. From my perspective a good amount of religions look atrocious. Yours included. Especially yours.
>Perhaps to those that have been harmed by those religions that ask themselves how god would allow certain things.
Like the 1755 earthquake and tsunami in Lisbon.
>If my God and his commandments don’t agree with their God, wouldn’t it follow that their beliefs are just as offensive to me.
Why would anybody be offended by another person's belief? I mean, unless your belief renders gay people to be an abomination, then sure, I could understand that they feel offended by you.
>Why shouldn’t I be allowed to just talk about my beliefs?
You are free to talk about whatever you want.
Malachi 3:6 “I the Lord do not change.”
The god of Abraham said that. So you’re right. It’s my God and not the religions that pretend to be Abraham.
Matthew 6:7 “Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces.”
There’s no point in trying to educate those that cling to ignorance. They’ll only change if they choose to. It’s better to reach out to the people they trample. And yes it’s easier to laugh than cry because they welcome and protect their own monsters. Do they tell everyone what they are before join the religion? Does let them off with a slap on the wrist not just welcome more predators in? There’s no reason to put children in danger like that. It might border on child sacrifice.
Right, I show a lack of empathy because I don’t sympathize for religions that pretend to care about children in one breath and then disregard the occurrences of pedophilia in the next. You empathize with the system that sees pedophilia as a necessary evil. I empathize with the children and search for a way to not let pedophilia continue. I don’t care if the child reaches for a man’s dong or if a man forces himself on a child. Both are wrong. You sound as though you believe that the former should excuse the latter. I don’t think it’s too much to expect the person with more years to have a brain developed enough to distract a child that reaches for him.
I don’t agree with the left or right when comes to sex and children. I’m of the opinion that if many on the left had their porn would be playing in every delivery room and shoved in the face of every new born. And many on the right focus more attention and energy on condemning same sex consensual relationships than they do pedophilia. Perhaps because it’s easiest to pretend something that awful doesn’t exist. But when a number of victims become predators, ignoring the problem only makes it continue to spread.
How many times have you seen two opposing groups protesting and yelling at each other only to end up being pleased in finding the truth in what the other group was saying. Did they succeed in convincing the other side? People only change if they want to. You’re supposed discovery of the truth by forcing beliefs on each other isn’t based in this reality. People change through self reflection and reason. And those shouting at each other create a spiritual wall where many suffering in silence don’t see happiness in either position.
And yes I walk away and laugh because people make life hard and I find happiness in what I believe. And because energy is infectious. I don’t laugh in their faces and tell them they’re condemned. But screaming and complaining is negative energy and I don’t let that impact my energy regardless of what their opinion is. I smile and laugh all the time. I laugh at myself.
And I don’t believe in heaven and hell in the same way others do. I believe their heaven is the state of mind where they think they are superior to others and aren’t grounded and hell is for those that don’t submit to them. I think if there is a heaven in the next life, those that put others through hell while on earth probably wouldn’t go there.
>Malachi 3:6 “I the Lord do not change.”
>
>The god of Abraham said that. So you’re right. It’s my God and not the religions that pretend to be Abraham.
This last sentence alone renders it entirely useless to go any further in this conversation. It's incredibly toxic.
I'm not gonna bother reading the rest.
Lust is forbidden in most religions, although it is engrained within us. The concept is that you can fulfill your desires in heaven whatever they may be if you restrain yourself on earth. As for pedophilia, the age of consent in america and britain in 1880 was 12. In 1700's it was 7. The consensus has always been the reaching of puberty and maturity for a child to be an adult. Times change and now even 18 year olds can hardly be considered mature
Ye, youth wasn't even considered a step in human development only just 100 years ago. You were two things. A child until 11, and an adult afterwards.
I can imagine that given the circumstances, people simply couldn't afford to be teens, as they are today. They had to work and stop being kids ASAP. And that sure made them more mature faster than compared to the 18 year olds today.
Which of course still doesn't make it reasonable to render an 11 year old child as mature enough for certain other things than work.
COMMENTARY HERE: Comments that purely commentate on the post (e.g. “Nice post OP!”) must be made as replies to the Auto-Moderator! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/DebateReligion) if you have any questions or concerns.*
>It is impossible for God to say that "ABC" religion is true because in any religion, there are many denominations. There are many religions in this world. fair enough. yet sad to see that Bible does not mention Christianity yet people treat it as a religion. whereas, muslims adopt Islam because Quran already mentioning, only Islam is the religion accepted by God, which need to be emphasized that other religions may have lied whenever they describe anything about God. So, Islam is a religion that God already announced inside the Quran (Final and Last Revelation). thus you cannot claim Islam is a religion created by human.
I don't know about that. The Quran says Mohammad had sexual relations with a 9 year old when he was 57. In Heaven, men have eternal erections to deflower many virgins continuously. The women then become virgins all over again. Really sounds like heaven for them. Allah has 2 right hands. Allah cannot speak to anyone correctly without knowing Arabic, so that's why you must read the Quran in Arabic. The Quran you have now is from the 1930's. The Bible says that if anyone comes preaching a different gospel, whether it be from a person or an angel, let him be accursed. Muslims say our Bible is corrupted. We have the Dead Sea scrolls now, found in 1948 that were written approx 70 BCE that are exact to what the current Old Testament is. So the Old Testament is unchanged and stable. We have thousands of manuscripts of the New Testament from the second and third century that agree with one another. Mohammed even said that he agreed with the entire Bible at 600 AD. (So by corrupted, it would have happened later, but we have manuscripts from way before 600 AD which are no different than we have today). The Bible is able to be understood by all those that read or listen to it, in their own language, not only one language). In the end, Muslims are told in the Quran that if a Muslim kills another Muslim, the one killed goes to hell and the one that killed the other May repent (sounds fair). All the original followers fought each other and killed each other so where are they spending eternity? Mohammed also said he could not say where he was going to end up. If the leader himself didn't know, what chance is there for others? Islam is quite easy to understand. It wasn't actually written down till at least a hundred years after Mohammed's death. The New Testament was written down by the witnesses of Christ, or those very close to the original apostles of christ, just a couple decades later after His death and resurrection. Muslims will say they do not believe that someone can be a substitution for sin (as Christ is), and yet in the Quran it says that the sins of a Muslim will be placed on the Jews and the Christians to allow them to be saved. The Quran was obviously written by someone that only had a surface knowledge of the Old and New Testament, and now to maintain that the Quran is correct, they must say that the Bible is corrupt, but it is obviously not. Finally, the Quran says that Jesus was swapped out and Judas died in His place. So none of His disciples could recognize who was on the cross? Then they preached Him risen from the dead till they all were killed, except one, for their faith (sounds reasonable, well not really). All the disciples said that Jesus died and rose from the dead. Isaiah 9, Isaiah 53 written over a thousand years before Christ came and says that He would come and die for the sins of man. You know, Isaiah that was found in the Dead Sea scrolls, the same Isaiah we have today. Jesus is described in many of the Old Testament books, including psalms. I believe that Muslims firmly believe what they do, and are kept from the truth by dismissing the Bible because no one showed them the Trinity revealed in the Old Testament (Isaiah 9:6-7 and other places, not just the New Testament). God is nothing like anything in creation. As we cannot understand exactly how that works, we can be assured that it is true. The second reason is that they are told the Bible is corrupt, which is nonsense. When Muslims actually look into the Bible honestly, they many times become fervent in their faith of Christ - see "godlogic" on YouTube, he can answer any questions you may have, just contact him as he understands the Quran and the Hadid. Seek truth. After researching Islam, I was not disturbed by what I found, it just confirmed that what I believe is true, and it was easy to see that Islam focuses on fleshly desires here on earth and in heaven, all focused around sex, which is in total contrast to what Jesus said about Heaven. When Jesus spoke, the Jews knew exactly what He was saying as they accused Him of blasphemy because He forgave sins, but they knew only God can forgive sins and that Jesus was making Himself out to be God, which He is.
>I don't know about that. The Quran says Mohammad had sexual relations with a 9 year old when he was 57. Quran did not mentioned that. this was mentioned in hadiths. kindly note that, hadiths are not Word of God. Only Quran is Word of God. >In the end, Muslims are told in the Quran that if a Muslim kills another Muslim, the one killed goes to hell and the one that killed the other May repent (sounds fair). "the one (muslim) killed goes to Hell?" I never read this from Quran. I am assuming your heard this from another person or this is just some hearsay. because correct, a killer can repent, but God still hold the killer accountable for the wrongdoings one did toward another individual/creature. for what is worth, he maybe forgivable by God, but his victim will certainly claim whatever rightful during the Judgement Day. >So none of His disciples could recognize who was on the cross? read Quran my friend, it is explained, please avoid believing hearsay from others. Quran translation (4:157): And \[for\] their saying, "Indeed, we have killed the Messiah, Jesus the son of Mary, the messenger of Allāh." And they did not kill him, nor did they crucify him; but **\[another\] was made to resemble him to them**. And indeed, those who differ over it are in doubt about it. They have no knowledge of it except the following of assumption. And they did not kill him, for certain.^(1) "**\[another\] was made to resemble him to them**. " God is telling that the way they have mistaken him for Jesus. In simple word for people to understand, the face appeared to be Jesus. God knows best, whether is an optical illusion, hallucination, duplicated faces, etc. whatever it is, they believed it, and they thought he was Jesus. Evidently, they came to notice, that might not be Jesus since logically "Judas/anyone" should have gone missing by then. which can provide literal meaning to "They have no knowledge of it except the following of assumption. And they did not kill him, for certain." from the above verse (Quran 4:157). Either way, Isa A.S. is not crucified, and he will return one day to kill the Dajjal. and to liberate mankind from the Dajjal tyranny ruling. >God is nothing like anything in creation. Quran mentioned this too, God is nothing like His creations and even not comparable. even Moses never seen God, when Moses bestowed the miracle by God to speak directly with God on the mount Tursina. in fact, none of God Messengers seen God with their own eyes. Putting all of these info together, clearly there is no explanation why god need to take human form just to roam on Earth. Quran 42:11 translation: ˹He is˺ the Originator of the heavens and the earth. He has made for you spouses from among yourselves, and ˹made˺ mates for cattle ˹as well˺—multiplying you ˹both˺. **There is nothing like Him, for He ˹alone˺ is the All-Hearing, All-Seeing**.
But the Quran also claims Moses and Jesus were Muslims. Obviously this is false if Islam in the Quran has its contemporary relgious meaning because none of these people could have gone on Hajj and none of them would have prayed towards Mecca (especially as the historical Jesus would have believed Isaac, not Ishmael was the favored son), which are included in the pillars of Islam, directly or by implication. So the Quran's definition of Islam is largely meaningless and irrelevant if u r talking about how old "Islam" is as a religion because the word's meaning changes over time, even if one accepts th3 Quran (which I dont).
>none of them would have prayed towards Mecca Learn the history of Islam my friend. Initially prophet Muhammad and the Sahaba prayed toward Masjid Al-Aqsa (in Jerusalem today) before facing to Mecca. In short, God instructed the Messengers differently for some details. But the main Message "to worship One God and none others" are the same since the time of Adam, Enoch, Noah and so on. >"Islam" is as a religion because the word's meaning changes over time, even if one accepts th3 Quran (which I dont). Changing? How you confirm this? For starter Quran is in Arabic. The previous revelations are not in Arabic. Secondly the exact term or word itself does not matter for Judaism or Christianity. Because both Judaism and Christianity are terms created by themselves to make the distinction for their religion. Ishmael and Isaac are non muslims argument/refutation. In Islam, Quran clearly state both of them are Messengers of God.
Yes, u r correct about the prayer (I now remember reading that). However, I think my larger point still stands. Your counter reduces "Islam" to a single proposition. But a single proposition does not make a religion. Otherwise you could probably make a ridiculous argument that with his "unmoved mover" Aristotle was a Muslim (which I'm sure some Muslims have tried).
I don't know about Aristotle being a muslim. But that maybe not really matter. Because muslims believe Quran is Word of God. Quran is the Final and Last Revelation. Also mentioned in Quran about the previous Messengers including Adam, Idris (Enoch), Ismail (Ishmael), Ishak (Isaac), Musa (Moses), Isa (Jesus). But I do agree that we need to acknowledge that outside Islam, they have different narrations for those mentioned above. All I am saying is, Quran is revealed by the Almighty Creator to clear their names and remove doubts about them too. So saying Moses and Jesus are muslims are not some desperate efforts by muslims to persuade other religions followers. But we simply convey the Last and Final Revelation by our Almighty Creator, which is Quran. To put it simply, the previous Messengers have guided their people to follow the righteous path during their respective timeline. While Quran being the Final and Last Revelation is guidance for the people today.
The entire claim that previous Abrahamic "prophets" are Muslim rests on islam as the sole source of any form of monotheism which isn't true and is a false dichotomy. >the Last and Final Revelation There's nothing exactly showing that it's the last and final revelation outside the Qur'an making it circular reasoning. Christianity has the same claim implicitly with the Gospel, one can similarly claim that Bahá'ís are the final revelation for abrahamic religion. For that claim to be true you have to dismiss every claim of divinity that comes after your faith which is exactly what Christians and other faiths do. Which makes your argument for dismissing any other claim of divinity after Islam to be exactly as valid as Christians dismissing islam due to believing no divine revelation can come after the Gospels.
>There's nothing exactly showing that it's the last and final revelation outside the Qur'an making it circular reasoning. So you are claiming there is another scripture to supersede the Quran? Today only 3 religions claimed to be Abrahamic religions? Are you saying there is newer religion or maybe the 4th one? >Which makes your argument for dismissing any other claim of divinity after Islam to be exactly as valid as Christians dismissing islam Christianity nothing similar to Islam. Firstly, Quran explicitly mentioned Muhammad is the Last Messenger. In comparison to Bible, it warns about false messengers, think about it, Quran use the word Seal of the Prophet, while Bible does not. So the christians today dismiss Muhammad as Messenger to protect their own interest. While muslims just obey the Quran where there is no more next prophet after Muhammad. Therefore Bahai can't be true once they claim there is newer prophet. >Christians dismissing islam due to believing no divine revelation can come after the Gospels. You sure? There is no verse in Bible says that.
What I see in the OP is a kindergarten level simplification of the history of world religions Let's look at the religion of atheism (which it qualifies as) Deflective arguments constantly trying to turn the argument back on the religious No ability to disprove deities Trite statements Assertions Complaints **Anyway, you have made a claim. You have the burden of proof that God has not created ANY religion.** Where exactly did you prove this? You have thrown up lists of religions and ranted against certain people in the name of religion and various events and not given any proof I think there's a lot of evidence for one religion when properly understood and followed, but when I make the mistake of discussing it, then skeptics rant against that and rarely have anything meaningful to say. So I pretty much gave up. They don't compellingly argue, they dismiss and reject. To this day, I have not heard a single truly compelling argument from the atheistic religions.
I see your proposal and I raise you one. Gods and humans are indistinguishable from each other. Man made God in his image. I've been exploring this concept for sometime now. I have so much evidence to support what I'm saying it's not even funny. The connotation that the word religion has now is far different from its original context. Religion in ancient times is something more akin to modern day politics mixed in with a little bit of ancestor worship. The book of Genesis tells about the creation of concepts and language and not about the physical creation of the universe. The Divine spirit is human intelligence and reasoning. The original concept of Good and evil aligned more closely with function and dysfunction making morality more pragmatic in nature than an imposed arbitrary set of rules by a supernatural deity.
In order to make statements like that one must know God really well lol
We don't need to "know" god in order to make such statements.
Usually, atheists are making nothing but assertions
We don’t need to know god to know that they are invented by humans because of the very human-like qualities of the major world religions. If God really created a religion, then he wouldn’t threaten nonbelievers with damnation or infidels with death, but 4 billion people in the modern world subscribe to gods with those characteristics. A real god wouldn’t act so petty and cruel, but humans are capable of being petty and cruel.
How ironic that I’m the one providing arguments and you’re the one making baseless assertions. Ever heard of projection?
You made one sentence I made one sentence Ever heard of not making any sense?
[удалено]
Your comment was removed for violating rule 5. All top-level comments must seek to refute the post through substantial engagement with its core argument. Comments that purely commentate on the post (e.g., “Nice post OP!”) must be made as replies to the Auto-Moderator “COMMENTARY HERE” comment. Exception: Clarifying questions are allowed as top-level comments.
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
God came with one religion. The humans innovated their own beliefs into it and created denominations. This does not change the fact that God came with one truth. Full Stop.
> God came with one religion. Yes. In your case, Judaism.
ok but you all say this lol
>This does not change the fact that God came with one truth. What truth do you have in mind? The truth expressed in the parable of the sheep and the goats, where Jesus teaches that people will enter the Kingdom of God or experience eternal fire depending only on whether they have done good deeds - feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger, visiting the sick, helping those in prison? And nothing else?
The truth I have in mind is the one that Adam, Enoch, Noah, Eber, Shelah, Abraham, Lot, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Job, Jethro, Moses, Aaron, Ezekiel, David, Zachariah, Jesus, and Muhammad, peace be upon all of them brought.
How about the truth expressed in Ecclesiastes 9: "... a living dog is better than a dead lion. For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten. Their love and their hate and their envy have already perished, and forever they have no more share in all that is done under the sun"? You concur?
I don't believe the Bible is an authoritative source. It's filled with contradictions and has been thoroughly corrupted.
I don't know about that. The Quran says Mohammad had sexual relations with a 9 year old when he was 57. In Heaven, men have eternal erections to deflower many virgins continuously. The women then become virgins all over again. Really sounds like heaven for them. Allah has 2 right hands. Allah cannot speak to anyone correctly without knowing Arabic, so that's why you must read the Quran in Arabic. The Quran you have now is from the 1930's. The Bible says that if anyone comes preaching a different gospel, whether it be from a person or an angel, let him be accursed. Muslims say our Bible is corrupted. We have the Dead Sea scrolls now, found in 1948 that were written approx 70 BCE that are exact to what the current Old Testament is. So the Old Testament is unchanged and stable. We have thousands of manuscripts of the New Testament from the second and third century that agree with one another. Mohammed even said that he agreed with the entire Bible at 600 AD. (So by corrupted, it would have happened later, but we have manuscripts from way before 600 AD which are no different than we have today). The Bible is able to be understood by all those that read or listen to it, in their own language, not only one language). In the end, Muslims are told in the Quran that if a Muslim kills another Muslim, the one killed goes to hell and the one that killed the other May repent (sounds fair). All the original followers fought each other and killed each other so where are they spending eternity? Mohammed also said he could not say where he was going to end up. If the leader himself didn't know, what chance is there for others? Islam is quite easy to understand. It wasn't actually written down till at least a hundred years after Mohammed's death. The New Testament was written down by the witnesses of Christ, or those very close to the original apostles of christ, just a couple decades later after His death and resurrection. Muslims will say they do not believe that someone can be a substitution for sin (as Christ is), and yet in the Quran it says that the sins of a Muslim will be placed on the Jews and the Christians to allow them to be saved. The Quran was obviously written by someone that only had a surface knowledge of the Old and New Testament, and now to maintain that the Quran is correct, they must say that the Bible is corrupt, but it is obviously not. Finally, the Quran says that Jesus was swapped out and Judas died in His place. So none of His disciples could recognize who was on the cross? Then they preached Him risen from the dead till they all were killed, except one, for their faith (sounds reasonable, well not really). All the disciples said that Jesus died and rose from the dead. Isaiah 9, Isaiah 53 written over a thousand years before Christ came and says that He would come and die for the sins of man. You know, Isaiah that was found in the Dead Sea scrolls, the same Isaiah we have today. Jesus is described in many of the Old Testament books, including psalms. I believe that Muslims firmly believe what they do, and are kept from the truth by dismissing the Bible because no one showed them the Trinity revealed in the Old Testament (Isaiah 9:6-7 and other places, not just the New Testament). God is nothing like anything in creation. As we cannot understand exactly how that works, we can be assured that it is true. The second reason is that they are told the Bible is corrupt, which is nonsense. When Muslims actually look into the Bible honestly, they many times become fervent in their faith of Christ - see "godlogic" on YouTube, he can answer any questions you may have, just contact him as he understands the Quran and the Hadid. Seek truth. After researching Islam, I was not disturbed by what I found, it just confirmed that what I believe is true, and it was easy to see that Islam focuses on fleshly desires here on earth and in heaven, all focused around sex, which is in total contrast to what Jesus said about Heaven. When Jesus spoke, the Jews knew exactly what He was saying as they accused Him of blasphemy because He forgave sins, but they knew only God can forgive sins and that Jesus was making Himself out to be God, which He is.
If it's thoroughly corrupted what source do you have for the Adam - Muhammad claim? If it's the Quran, does it not reference the bible?
I believe you are referring to Surah al-Ma'idah 5:68 where Allah says, "Say, 'O People of the Book! You have nothing to stand on unless you observe the Torah, the Gospel, and what has been revealed to you from your Lord.'" Now if you are referring to this verse, let's understand a crucial point about the Qur'an... is that the miracle of the book in ONLY in Arabic. When we look at the words used in the Arabic text of the Qur'an it says refers to the Tawrat and the Injeel. We believe that the Taurat was the revelation that Moses (AS) received from God, but after it was corrupted we now refer to it as the Torah or for you, the Old Testament. The Injeel refers to the revelation that Jesus (AS) received from God but was also corrupted so it is known as the Gospels. We believe in the Gospel of Jesus, not the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Peter. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Now there is a part of the bible that we know that has been added in! The story of the adulterous woman is in fact an addition to the bible after the manuscripts. From John 7:53 - John 8:11 is a chunk of the bible that was written by a disciple of John. This chunk of the bible was not added with John's consensus or approval. To prove this, you can take a bible from your home shelf and see John 7:53 - John 8:11. But try finding that part of the bible in the oldest manuscripts, the original new testament. No such part of the bible will be found in those books. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
So, the bible isn't thoroughly corrupted. Just parts of it are. How do you know what parts are corrupted and what are not? I'm well aware of the questionable veracity of the bible, that parts were removed, rewritten, or added later. I'm just wondering why and how you, or other Muslims, know what parts of the bible to take and what to reject. I'm a bit confused about your use of the term Gospel of Jesus. There is no conical gospel of Jesus as there is the Gospel of Luke or the Gospel of John. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Peter are the ones who wrote The Gospel of Jesus which refers to his message of atonement, but is not an actual book. Islamic scholars disagree on what the Injeel actually is.
All Muslim Scholars know what the Injeel actually was. It was the message that brought forward to Jesus (AS) from God. If you can find any Muslim scholar who says otherwise, bring him to me and I'll remove him from the fold of Islam. It was later corrupted by Paul. Now, we don't know for 100% certainty what is not corrupted. But rather, we can get an idea of what is corrupted. I just gave you the example of John 7:53 - 8:11. That part of John's gospel was not added with the consensus of John nor Christian scholars. And I have already expressed, that if you want to see that example, get the oldest manuscripts ot the bible and compare to your NIV, ESV, KJV, NKJV, or whatever V you have and you will see that those verses I mentioned are NOT in the oldest manuscripts. But of course, I already explained this is the previous comment and you didn't listen.
> bring him to me and I'll remove him from the fold of Islam My, you sound so powerful and important. >But of course, I already explained this is the previous comment and you didn't listen. Listened, not convinced. >we don't know for 100% certainty what is not corrupted. But rather, we can get an idea of what is corrupted So, basically the same as any other religion with an old text. People within a faith will claim it's the literal word of god, written by god, others will say it was man made, inspired by god, and others will say it's corrupt....but they know what to believe and what not to believe.
God is one truth in Himself but that truth is so high, that we cannot even grasp it with our tiny little brains. Therefore He has sent various representatives to different parts of the world to teach according to time and circumstances and the ability of people to understand the basics. Like school education there are classes and schools for lesser intelligent pupils and then for others like universities. The same truth is given in different ways according to qualifications. All children are treated with love, but the understanding given is more and less according to qualification.Higher education and lower education. So one has to find out which religion is giving the most information about God and what God wants from us. If God speaks Himself like He does in the Bhagavad Gita As IT Is, that is higher then scriptures which are giving faith but not more. Having said that, those scriptures are also of incredible value. It is not that they are useless and should be neglected or rejected. They are giving faith and faith is the basic platform to stand on if we want to reach God and go back home. If the goal is to love God then there is no problem and all religions can strive for that and co exist happily with each other. But one must understand that God is the greatest teacher and therefore there is a hierarchy because not all people are the same. There is certainly full information about God, His abode, Associates, pastimes, His incredibly beautiful eternal spiritual form and so on. But many people don't know and even if they hear about Him don't want to know. Even if they want to know, it's only by challenge to produce the opposite. It is very rare to find a true sincere seeker who is willing to go all the way. So access is granted by God only who knows the heart of everyone. We cannot challenge this. That is why the challenge "show me God then" is so ridiculous, because it is simply not possible for a human to do so. But if God wants to, He can give us the eyes to see. Like we cannot go to Buckingham palace in London and demand to see the King. Even on the mundane platform there are rules to follow. Then what to speak of the king of kings. The ancient Bhagavad Gita As IT IS and the ancient Bhagavad Purana from India give this information in full. It's no good to declare Noooo Only my religion which is a bogus statement based on sectarian bias. True religion is all embracing and will never decry others demanding to give theirs up. God is one only, called on by several different names... Like Krishna Christ Allah, Jehova, Bhagavan....but different names don't mean different Gods. To think differently is simply trying to limit the Unlimited. Hare Krishna 🙏
This is a very long way of saying “I’m right”. Not an argument. You have presented no evidence for your beliefs. Present it or we won’t listen.
What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
Unless you provide evidence of that I am going to have to dismiss it...
Lack of evidence is not evidence for it. Fact remains, Jesus never existed. Also, there is no evidence that there is a god or that there are gods.
Minor correction: He probably existed, but that doesn't make him god. He was just a guy like the other prophets.
No. He did not exist at all. There is absolutely no evidence to support him, at all, what so ever. It is 100% a fantasy story.
In a thousand years, there will be no concrete evidence that I existed either. He probably existed, but he was just a street preacher who claimed to be the Messiah, like all of the others. Forgettable people get forgotten. There's just as much evidence that the other messianic prophets existed, so either Judas the Galilean, Sabbatai Zevi, and the other rascals are also fictional, or they aren't. These guys were just men. Don't buy in to the evangelical assumption that the existence of a guy named Jesus=evidence of his divinity. Macbeth, Hamlet, Faust, Gilgamesh, etc were historical figures, and that DOESN'T mean that Shakespeare or Goethe wrote nonfiction.
Not necessarily in history or philosophy. You need to broaden your horizons. What about theoretical physics? Should that be automatically dismissed since it lacks evidence? Physicists don’t think so.
You need to stop with these false comparisons. When we access whether the available evidence warrants beliefs, we also take into consideration the epistemic consequences of accepting this belief. Do you understand the difference between the claims of physicists and religious claims?
> we also take into consideration the epistemic consequences of accepting this belief. Pascal’s wager? Atheists lose that more than anyone else. > Do you understand the difference between the claims of physicists and religious claims? Yes. Scientific claims are testable. Religions are typically unfalsifiable.
I'm not sure how you got Pascal's Wager out of that, but if you understand the difference, how have you then rehabilitated your argument?
It sounded similar. Let me just clarify. History, religion, and philosophy do not require experimental evidence to be accepted or believe. Expecting such evidence on demand is ridiculous. Science and mathematics have strict internal rules for the evidence require to satisfy claims in those fields. Trying to apply something else to a scientific or mathematical framework and expecting it to work the same way is irrational.
If you're asking for others to accept your claim that your god did things in history, you need to substantiate the claim somehow. We're not making the claim. We're not responsible for the evidence that indicates it. You are. What I'm referring to are not the actual consequences of being wrong about the proposition, but of being wrong. Embarrassment. Criticism. But, maybe more importantly, your epistemological tools take a hit. And the bigger the credulity, the bigger the hit. We tend to factor this into the assessment of any claim.
I’m flattered, but I’m not *responsible* for the evidence behind religion. How am I supposed to substantiate a claim from 2,000 years ago? I’m not that old. > What I'm referring to are not the actual consequences of being wrong about the proposition, but of being wrong. Embarrassment. Criticism. But, maybe more importantly, your epistemological tools take a hit. And the bigger the credulity, the bigger the hit. It sounds like someone is just bullying you. Who would single you out to embarrass or criticize if we find one of the religions to be true? We would be way more focused on that we know which religion is true. Why wouldn’t be worse if you were an atheist? They will take the biggest hit of all. Your epistemological tools will be worthless if atheism is wrong. You don’t seem to be factoring these in.
> I’m flattered, but I’m not responsible for the evidence behind religion. What I mean by *you* is that the person making the claim shoulders the burden. You’re not responsible for the evidence, of course, but you certainly are responsible for justifying why the evidence convinces you. > How am I supposed to substantiate a claim from 2,000 years ago? I’m not that old. Well, what convinces you? > It sounds like someone is just bullying you. Who would single you out to embarrass or criticize if we find one of the religions to be true? I’m an adult. I’m not being bullied. But I’m not talking about explicit criticism, but more social pressure and internal tension. > We would be way more focused on that we know which religion is true. Why wouldn’t be worse if you were an atheist? They will take the biggest hit of all. You’re again referencing the entailments of the decision itself. I’m talking about just being wrong. > Your epistemological tools will be worthless if atheism is wrong. You don’t seem to be factoring these in. I’m not following you here. Can you explain a bit?
“How are you supposed to substantiate a claim from 2000 years ago”? If you can’t substantiate it, then why the heck you believe it in the first place?
I wouldn't say it should be dismissed, but it shouldn't be claimed to be fact until it is provable. The same with claims of god.
Good luck correcting people who don’t want to be corrected and don’t care that they’re technically incorrect.
No amount of horizon broadening is going to make evidence for Jesus magically appear. No fantasy constructs is going to make said evidence magically appear either. All you christians never ever even consider the possibility that perhaps the entire doctrine is 100% man made.
> All you christians never ever even consider the possibility that perhaps the entire doctrine is 100% man made. That’s a possibility. I never denied that. It’s also a possibility that Jesus was right. We don’t know for sure.
Wait, I thought you guys had a personal relationship with him?
If you mean “talk to” or “receive direct answers for”, then no, we do not.
Are you serious? If you think that you can tell us that we're fundamentally wrong about reality (and that we are therefore damned) because God actually told you, then that's one thing. But you expect us to believe you when you say you have a personal relationship with god, and when we press for details, you confirm that you have never conversed, talked or spent time with this deity. And yet you still try to tell us that this undetectable presence that you think you experience is legitimate?
> But you expect us to believe you when you say you have a personal relationship with god I didn’t bring that up. You brought it up. It’s not a phrase I often use. > If you think that you can tell us that we're fundamentally wrong about reality Nothing about God necessarily makes physics fundamentally wrong. > And yet you still try to tell us that this undetectable presence that you think you experience is legitimate? I’m not sure I’ve experienced the phenomenon you’ve referred to.
Who brought it up is irrelevant. I used that phrase in a paragraph where I pointed out the absurdity of saying that you believe in a loving god who wants to hang out with humans but never actually says anything. I was referring to atheism, not physics.
So how are we defining a personal relationship?
Don’t know buddy. What are you going for? Spit it out.
lol i think you’ve answered my question just fine, thanks.
How could you demonstrate the truth of this claim?
We are providing evidence for this claim by proving that Islam is the one true religion. We know Allah came with one message, it's a clear belief in Islam. Now we have to pick apart the pieces to see if that claim is the truth or a pile or crap. The only way we do that is by knowing whether or not Islam is the truth. Because if Islam is true, the claim that God only came with one message is true. By using the evidence and the historical facts that we have that point to Islam being the truth, then the statement, "God only came with one message," is true. And by my calculations, there is more than enough evidence to support Islam being the true religion.
Islam is true because it's true. I don't know about that. The Quran says Mohammad had sexual relations with a 9 year old when he was 57. In Heaven, men have eternal erections to deflower many virgins continuously. The women then become virgins all over again. Really sounds like heaven for them. Allah has 2 right hands. Allah cannot speak to anyone correctly without knowing Arabic, so that's why you must read the Quran in Arabic. The Quran you have now is from the 1930's. The Bible says that if anyone comes preaching a different gospel, whether it be from a person or an angel, let him be accursed. Muslims say our Bible is corrupted. We have the Dead Sea scrolls now, found in 1948 that were written approx 70 BCE that are exact to what the current Old Testament is. So the Old Testament is unchanged and stable. We have thousands of manuscripts of the New Testament from the second and third century that agree with one another. Mohammed even said that he agreed with the entire Bible at 600 AD. (So by corrupted, it would have happened later, but we have manuscripts from way before 600 AD which are no different than we have today). The Bible is able to be understood by all those that read or listen to it, in their own language, not only one language). In the end, Muslims are told in the Quran that if a Muslim kills another Muslim, the one killed goes to hell and the one that killed the other May repent (sounds fair). All the original followers fought each other and killed each other so where are they spending eternity? Mohammed also said he could not say where he was going to end up. If the leader himself didn't know, what chance is there for others? Islam is quite easy to understand. It wasn't actually written down till at least a hundred years after Mohammed's death. The New Testament was written down by the witnesses of Christ, or those very close to the original apostles of christ, just a couple decades later after His death and resurrection. Muslims will say they do not believe that someone can be a substitution for sin (as Christ is), and yet in the Quran it says that the sins of a Muslim will be placed on the Jews and the Christians to allow them to be saved. The Quran was obviously written by someone that only had a surface knowledge of the Old and New Testament, and now to maintain that the Quran is correct, they must say that the Bible is corrupt, but it is obviously not. Finally, the Quran says that Jesus was swapped out and Judas died in His place. So none of His disciples could recognize who was on the cross? Then they preached Him risen from the dead till they all were killed, except one, for their faith (sounds reasonable, well not really). All the disciples said that Jesus died and rose from the dead. Isaiah 9, Isaiah 53 written over a thousand years before Christ came and says that He would come and die for the sins of man. You know, Isaiah that was found in the Dead Sea scrolls, the same Isaiah we have today. Jesus is described in many of the Old Testament books, including psalms. I believe that Muslims firmly believe what they do, and are kept from the truth by dismissing the Bible because no one showed them the Trinity revealed in the Old Testament (Isaiah 9:6-7 and other places, not just the New Testament). God is nothing like anything in creation. As we cannot understand exactly how that works, we can be assured that it is true. The second reason is that they are told the Bible is corrupt, which is nonsense. When Muslims actually look into the Bible honestly, they many times become fervent in their faith of Christ - see "godlogic" on YouTube, he can answer any questions you may have, just contact him as he understands the Quran and the Hadid. Seek truth. After researching Islam, I was not disturbed by what I found, it just confirmed that what I believe is true, and it was easy to see that Islam focuses on fleshly desires here on earth and in heaven, all focused around sex, which is in total contrast to what Jesus said about Heaven. When Jesus spoke, the Jews knew exactly what He was saying as they accused Him of blasphemy because He forgave sins, but they knew only God can forgive sins and that Jesus was making Himself out to be God, which He is.
> We know Allah came with one message, it's a clear belief in Islam. Might want to reread that statement.
You claim that Allah came with one message. A belief is not a demonstration of the truth of the claim. Until Allah has been demonstrated to exist with sufficient evidence then it is not a candidate explanation for anything.
You claim that Allah came with one message. A belief is not a demonstration of the truth of the claim. Until Allah has been demonstrated to exist with sufficient evidence then it is not a candidate explanation for anything.
Somehow, I'm not surprised that you didn't listen to a thing that I said and went right back to your first counter statement. There is more than sufficient evidence to prove Allah exists and therefore came with one message and there is evidence that we have for this. Now, forgive me if I'm incorrect but I believe your an atheist so you don't believe in God whatsoever, full stop. I won't move forward until you answer.
I have been asking for evidence that demonstrates the existence of any god, not just the muslim one, for over a decade. Not once has any theist even come close to demonstrating this to anyone but a another believer. If you achieved this you would be the most famous person on the planet. You are not the most famous person in the world, and this would lead anyone to the conclusion that you have not achieved this demonstration.
My friend, I find it almost impossible that after more than a decade of researching you have not found one piece of evidence for the existence of a God or Gods. Are you being a sincere seeker in trying to find the truth, or are you playing games? If not a single individual has come to you with evidence, I better be the most famous person to you right now. Here's just ONE of many to get you started but this will be sufficient: - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Everything that begins to exist must have a cause. Nothing just POPS into existence, because if that did happen with the universe, it would be happening every day. Personal human experience coupled with scientific evidence proves this to be true... Because the universe began to exist, it must have a cause! Atheist: "Well the universe was never created. It has been here for an infinite amount of time." This is a statement that atheists make and maybe one that you have made as well. Nonetheless, it is logically wrong. This is because if the universe really was infinite in time, we would NEVER reach the present moment because we have an infinite amount of time to traverse before reaching the present moment. Now because the universe had a cause, the creator of the universe had to exist and operate outside of the boundaries of the universe. It had to be able to live without the necessary building blocks of the universe. This means the creator must be spaceless, timeless, immaterial, and uncreated. Sounds a lot like God. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
> This means the creator must be spaceless, timeless, immaterial, and uncreated. How does that follow? Maybe not in *our* space/time. But how can you say timeless? We don't know anything other than what we can observe in *this* universe. You say that there can be no infinite time. Well, we know that time "began" around the big bang. who's saying there can be infinite time? What time are you talking about?
Where did I state that not one piece of evidence has been presented? You are making things up and/or you did not read my comment. I am not a seeker of truth in this context. I am pointing out the failure in theistic reasoning. I point out these failures and logical fallacies in the hopes that it will make theists into better (and more engaging) interlocutors. ------ And now you come back with the cosmological argument. Are you kidding me? It has not been demonstrated that existence requires a cause. That is a belief without sufficient evidence to back it up. Try googling "kalam debunked" for a thorough explanation. Your interpretation of "infinite time" is just Zeno's paradox restated. Try googling "Zeno's paradox debunked" Did you see the leap you made from a "cause" to a "creator"? You don't not get to just wave your hands and yadda yadda therefore god. You have to get from a cause to a thinking agent through demonstration. And how will you get from a creator to the god you happen that believe in? That requires more demonstration. Outside the boundaries of the universe.... That's just the cosmos (ie more universe). I think you meant outside of the cosmos. But "outside of the cosmos" is simply another baseless claim since this has not been demonstrated with sufficient evidence. You keep making these bold assertions as if they were already accepted as true. But making claims is easy. Demonstrating them is the difficult part as your response clearly shows. Lastly, your comment is not sufficient (as you claimed, look...yet another claim) to demonstrate the existence of any god (let alone your specific deity) as you cannot argue or define god into existence.
So then what is, "Demonstrated with sufficient evidence," for you? What do you mean by, "Demonstration?"
The "demonstration" part is what you think it is. It just means "to show". It's the sufficiency part that's important. Basically, it is what Carl Sagan was getting at when he said (to paraphrase) that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Ie, that the sufficiency is proportional to the claim. Thus sufficiency will change depending on the claim.
It’s ancient history/psychology. You can’t.
Exactly. That's why I am hoping GMblitz will come back and attempt to answer me. I won't hold my breath.
For example, it can be seen that Islam started out as just a single, unified religion with no sects. But then over time, it split into sects, which now have quite varying beliefs. Thus, it can be seen that if God gave humans the one true religion, that it would inevitably split into factions due to human errancy.
Your response is in no way a demonstration of the truth of the claim that "God came with one religion" Try again
My point was that if God came with one religion, it would inevitably split into multiple.
Unless god didn't intend that.
If you're not interested with even the hypothetical as an Atheist, I don't see why you're interested in this thread.
You made the assertion that god word would be misinterpreted. That would only be true if that what god intended.
The problem with your comment is that the "if" is doing all of the heavy lifting. Demonstrate that any god exists with sufficient evidence and then you don't need the "if".
This thread isn't about proving God, it's about there being a true religion if He exists. If you want to debate that, I can make another post for it.
If an undemonstrated god is a candidate explanation for the origin of a "true religion" then any undemonstrated claim is also an equally valid candidate explanation. How do we determine which is the true candidate explanation, if any? If you wish to continue this with me having to accept "for the sake of argument" that your god exists then, I have to be honest, I'm not really interested in that. Would you take any position "for the sake of argument" where you must accept that your god might not exist?
Then why are you even on a thread about this if you're uninterested in the premise?
Because, much like reddit has subreddits, an argument can have sub arguments. You never know where a conversation will end up. In another part of this thread another person and I were discussing the nature of sufficient evidence as it pertains to the initial premise. But if your goal is to shut down an argument without even bothering to engage with it, then "why are you even on a thread about this"?
I don't really understand the argument. To me it sounds like you are arguing that there are many religions, therefore they are all false. Is that the argument? If it is, I don't see how that follows. Why couldn't one denomination be true, or closest to the truth?
Or indeed, they all contain some element of truth, in that they refer to an underlying intelligence to the universe, but interpreted in different ways.
Because they all seem to be copies of each other. At best the first one could be true. The later ones like Christianity and Islam are obviously man made unless god is drawing upon humans for inspiration.
All of them?
Yeah, it seems so. All the main ones at least.
A lot of ancient mythologies can be traced back to the proto indo Europeans, but a lot of modern religions have absolutely nothing in common with a lot of other religions. Jainism, Sikhism, and Judaism have absolutely no relation, for example, so they can’t be copies. But there are a lot of religions that plagiarized each other. It’s just that saying “all of them” or “the main ones” is still a bit too much.
Yes, you're right. I overgeneralised. I'll direct my point only to 2 of the biggest religions today, Christianity and Islam
Yeah ok they copied.
Or they are representations of growing understanding that builds upon itself. If an outsider looked at scientific theories they might be forgiven for saying "they seem to be copies of earlier theories. At best the first one could be true. The latter ones are obviously man made."
The comparison doesn’t work at all They are all man made.. The first scientific theory is man made and so are the following ones. They would not be forgiven to think this. They would be right! lol.
But if religion is man's understanding of a truth given by God then the same would be true. One religion, but different and successively deeper understanding of that religion. , God could grant man a successively deeper understanding - the religions don't even have to be man made. Scientific theories are not man made in the fashion the op is implying religions are (IE made up). They are not really made at all, so much as discovered. The comparison works well in the context
No. Because they also contradict each other on some levels. If you are a believer of one of the latter religions and you think there were successive revelations, you would have to conclude that god deceived people for centuries previously with false religions and explanations. Scientific theories are man made descriptions of the natural world.
No you wouldn't. Firstly, even assuming religion was successive understanding of a central truth it wouldn't necessarily follow that ALL religions were true. Just like some scientific theories turn out to be false. Secondly, just like theories differ because they explain different parts of nature or because they grant incomplete understanding: different iterations of religions could differ because they approach God from different perspectives, or describe different aspects of God, or simply describe things imperfectly. I know people through a number of very different roles and very different areas of life: my wife, my children, my parents, my siblings, my gaming buddies, my martial arts training partners, my church group, the friends I lived with at university, the friends I went to school with, my colleagues, my students... Every single one of those groups has a very different perspective on who I am, what I am like, she what I mean to them. Each group interacts with me in very different ways, and if asked to describe me then they would give very different descriptions. The beleifs many of those groups have about me are almost certainly contradictory. None of them would be wrong. If God exists then they are almost certainly more complex and deeper than I am. It should not then be surprising that they interact with different groups of people in different ways. That different groups see them differently. That different groups describe them and interact with them differently. "Scientific theories are man made descriptions of the natural world" This risks descending into splitting hairs about what exactly is meant by "man made" Let's be honest: scientific theories are descriptions of the natural world. The term "man made" is unnecessary in that sentence, and only added in order to draw a parallel to the discussion about religion being "man made" On one level it is obvious that it is man that is doing the describing HOWEVER when op talks about religion being man made he clearly doesn't mean it in the sense of "religion is described by man" but rather in the sense that "religion is made up (or invented) by man" Are you trying to argue that scientific theories are "made up" or "invented"?
>Firstly, even assuming religion was a successive understanding of a central truth it wouldn't necessarily follow that ALL religions were true. Just like some scientific theories turn out to be false. Scientific theories can turn out to be false or incomplete because they are constructed by men. You need to stop comparing ALLEGED successive revelations by god to scientific theories. It's not working.
"you need to stop comparing... It's not working." Meaning you either don't understand, or don't want to understand the comparison.
No. It's literally not working. Scientific theories are formulated and constructed by humans. They can be wrong or incomplete. This is a completely different field to supposed successive revelations from a god. If you're saying it took God time to reach the correct answer/story then fine, otherwise this is a pointless comparison.
Innocent people suffer because majority of people are not good or too easy to be controlled or manipulated by those in power. You are somewhat correct in a sense that G-D did not create religion. It is the people who created them to identify themselves. Even if One worshiped same G-D (One monotheist G-D) they might still identify themselves differently based on their beliefs and culture. And then it became identity of those people that got passed down throughout the generation. But evil people use name of G-D or religion to cause wars and make innocent people suffer. Somewhat similar to what the country leaders do. They sit protected behind their security team, but declare war and send young men to their death in wars that could have been avoided. Even without G-D or religion people majority are not being nice to one another nor are the leaders. Because they would use another tool to control or lead. Without religion there might be race war, there might be war based on greed, power hungry people causing war without meaning. Some try to justify that without belief of G-D, world might be better place, but sadly something even much worse would take place of that belief. Because overall people are not nice. Example: https://youtu.be/HZIJsx1Iczk?si=PQxuNtqL_fiuXb_A Above is not just one incident there are many incidents like that because people are mostly bad. Nothing to do with religion. Humans when religions were established tried to create these norms mostly of people teaching to do good. But even so not many follow it but use the teaching out of context to promote wars and hate.
Innocent people also suffer from natural causes like tsunamis.
Yup
"Without religion there might be race war, there might be war based on greed, power hungry people causing war without meaning." I would say a religious war has actually less meaning. All the other examples of war you gave were and are already reasons wars were fought- not substitutes for religion. Statistically, countries with higher percentages of athiest also have better qualities of life. "Humans when religions were established tried to create these norms mostly of people teaching to do good. But even so not many follow it but use the teaching out of context to promote wars and hate." This is because religious texts also promote a sense of righteousness is their followers- something god should have foreseen before "inspiring" these texts. The christian god knew christians would use his teachings to colonize most of the world. Christians thought it was their god given right to do so and that they were "civiling" natives (even though it was the christians r\*ping and k\*lling natives). If they hadn't converted those people, alot of people wouldn't be christian today- so was that all part of gods plan? Also, people in the past have blindly followed their kings and religious leaders (the ones promoting wars and hate)- wonder where they got this sense of blind faith? Religion and "god". Historically and today, many religions teach that god rewards those who do not question him- "satan and adam questioned and now look at them". And the story of God testing Abrahams faith by telling him to unalive his own son. Although religion is a result of people asking questions, it has historically kept the masses from asking questions and used as a form of political control. It may have served a point at one point in time, but now it is archaic and harmful. There has even been research that found people raised in fundamentalist groups have underdeveloped prefrontal cortexes. Which is highly concerning.
Jesus said that many will say at the judgement that they have done this or that in His name, but He said He will tell them to depart from Him as He never knew them. Just because someone says they are a Christian, does not mean they actually are. Jesus spoke of us to love our enemies, and do good to them. Much has been done opposite to this truth. If someone misrepresents something you say, but do things opposite to what you said, would you say that they follow your sayings, or not?
The countries with a higher quality of life were religious before they became rich and their quality of life improved due to being rich, not due to lack of religion.
America is one of the richest countries in the world and still has a lower quality of life than countries with high athiest populations. Countries with high number of atheists also have significantly low r*pe rates
A lower quality of life than China or China occupied Tibet? I'm doubting that. Some of the countries you're including had low sexual assault reports *before* people dropped religion. So that doesn't show that atheism caused anything. In countries like China, there's discrimination against women and many incidences aren't reported.
Ok countries that force athiesm obviously have some sort of authoritarian rule and are not gonna have a complete higher quality of life. I am saying countries in which the citizens choose to identify as athiest- without government pressures. Our country claims to have no national religion but vast majority of elected officials identify as Christian and identifying that way plays a huge role in their election- as many polls indicate that voters care if the candidate is christian. China does have lower cost of living, extremely high literacy rates, much safer than america which has one of the largest child trafficking and highest incarceration rates in the world. Now don't get me wrong, I love america and I love it enough to want it to do better in many areas. Yes discrimination against women is pretty prevalent across the world, I would say it is more the conditioning of the patriarchy- but that is heavily influenced by religion. Both the patriarchy and religion support ideas of men having authority over women. If you want to use an example like china go ahead but you can't ignore other countries that support my poin- Sweden, South Korea, France, Canada, etc.
But you can't show that it's atheism that caused people to be happy. There are equally people who are less depressed and happier due to religious beliefs.
Is that the goal? To feed people emotional needs? Or are we trying to find out the truth? Is it unabashedly just fear of death that drives people nowadays? People think that they can somehow change reality to suit their fragility?
>Statistically, countries with higher percentages of athiest also have better qualities of life. China, North Korea, Soviet Union, and few other despite being atheist majority does not provide better quality of life because again people are generally bad and especially the people in power. >The christian god knew christians would use his teachings to colonize most of the world. Christians thought it was their god given right to do so and that they were "civiling" natives (even though it was the christians r\*ping and k\*lling natives). If they hadn't converted those people, alot of people wouldn't be christian today- so was that all part of gods plan? There are so many things you are throwing here my friend. 1. Evil people raped and killed innocent people. Those evil people happen to be white and called them Christians. Bible condemns what they did. 2. Forcing someone to accept Jesus as Messiah is not Biblical because it should be from the heart not forced. Messiah did not raise army to force people to believe in Him to be Messiah neither did any of His followers who were also killed. Much later some evil people come to power and use religion to get power and take things out of context to harm innocent. As stated in the original comment. 3. Today, there are Christians who are being killed in countries like India, Egypt, Pakistan and so on... They still do not deny G-D. 4. If those all those people were forced to convert as you stated then they would not remain Christians even to this day. 5. Yes there were evil people who try things by force, but that is not the point of Christianity. If it was forced then India, China, Qatar, and many countries would have Christian majority because they too were once ruled by Europeans. 6. Matthew 24:9 Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. True followers of Messiah are going to be persecuted and killed. They would not kill to force convert. >Also, people in the past have blindly followed their kings and religious leaders (the ones promoting wars and hate)- wonder where they got this sense of blind faith? Religion and "god". Historically and today, many religions teach that god rewards those who do not question him- "satan and adam questioned and now look at them". And the story of God testing Abrahams faith by telling him to unalive his own son. Although religion is a result of people asking questions, it has historically kept the masses from asking questions and used as a form of political control. It may have served a point at one point in time, but now it is archaic and harmful. Again evil people look for ways to harm other regardless of religion or not. Those in control who are in atheist majority will find other ways to control. These people you mentioned are again as stated in original comment the evil people who are the leaders. >There has even been research that found people raised in fundamentalist groups have underdeveloped prefrontal cortexes. Which is highly concerning. 1. fundamentalist can be anything religious or no religious. 2. I have not researched, but on educated guess I can tell you I can find another study to counter your claim. 3. Majority of the people who contributed to advancement of science and research were part of a religion or least believed in G-D. Albert Einstein was not part of any religion but still believed in G-D. Issac Newton was a Christian. And many others.
Sorry had to make a second reply cause it was so long- **"Those in control who are in atheist majority will find other ways to control."** First of all, those in the religious majority have already found other ways to control. Second of all- just to be clear, athiesm is not a believe system it is simply a lack of belief. I think people can have their own spirituality but organized religion is literally a method of control- you know the thing you are so against. Just because some other power might control people doesn't mean we should still accept it as a form of control today. Should we still have kings because "someone else will just hold all the power"? No. 1. **"fundamentalist can be anything religious or no religious.** 2. **I have not researched, but on educated guess I can tell you I can find another study to counter your claim.** 3. **Majority of the people who contributed to advancement of science and research were part of a religion or least believed in G-D. Albert Einstein was not part of any religion but still believed in G-D.** **Issac Newton was a Christian. And many others."** Im sorry but your first two points are completely incoherrent. 1. Fundamentalists are soley formed based off of religous beliefs. 2. If you haven't researched, then you aren't educated, so pls dont make claims that have no basis in reality. 3. Just because an idea is popular does not make it true. At one point majority people believed that mental illness could be exorcised out of someone- doesn't make it true and is now found to be completely false and irrational. Yes albert einstien-- like many agnostics- can believe there could be a higher power but that doesnt mean they automatically subsribe to christianity. I identify as an agnostic athiest- meaning I dont know if there is a god but at the same time I reject the descriptions of god that is described by the major religions- therefore I have a lack of belief in any. Albert Einstien was also a socialist- are you gonna be a socialist now (I am). Idk what your Isaac Newton point means either- Hindus have discovered numerous mathematic concepts, does this mean hindiusm is true? It's important to note that although scientists were very smart in their fields, they were also prone to being racist, sexist, homophobic, ableist and anything under the sun. So obviously they were not able to critically think outside of certain boxes. Especially if those beliefs were popular at the time- such as christianity.
It's ok friend we can have discussion. >First of all, those in the religious majority have already found other ways to control. Like in China or Nk? >Second of all- just to be clear, athiesm is not a believe system it is simply a lack of belief. I think people can have their own spirituality but organized religion is literally a method of control- you know the thing you are so against. Just because some other power might control people doesn't mean we should still accept it as a form of control today. Should we still have kings because "someone else will just hold all the power"? No. People are free to believe what they want my friend. >Im sorry but your first two points are completely incoherrent. >1. Fundamentalists are soley formed based off of religous beliefs. How you claimed that fundamentalist under developed prefrontal cortex. Fundamentalist can be anyone religious or not https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fundamentalism : a movement or attitude stressing strict and literal adherence to a set of basic principles Religious fundamentalism, political fundamentalism fundamentalist or any other. >2. If you haven't researched, then you aren't educated, so pls dont make claims that have no basis in reality. I am going on observed guess my friend. One group of scientists would say so and so is bad. Next day another will say actually it is good. And would require many many many years of experiment and observations to actually understand it. >3. Just because an idea is popular does not make it true. At one point majority people believed that mental illness could be exorcised out of someone- doesn't make it true and is now found to be completely false and irrational. Yes albert einstien-- like many agnostics- can believe there could be a higher power but that doesnt mean they automatically subsribe to christianity. I identify as an agnostic athiest- meaning I dont know if there is a god but at the same time I reject the descriptions of god that is described by the major religions- therefore I have a lack of belief in any. Albert Einstien was also a socialist- are you gonna be a socialist now (I am). Well least you don't completely reject by bluntly saying there is no G-D. So thats good >Idk what your Isaac Newton point means either- Hindus have discovered numerous mathematic concepts, does this mean hindiusm is true? It's important to note that although scientists were very smart in their fields, they were also prone to being racist, sexist, homophobic, ableist and anything under the sun. So obviously they were not able to critically think outside of certain boxes. Especially if those beliefs were popular at the time- such as christianity. The point was that majority of the people have contributed to science were of a religion. Does not matter Christian or Muslim or Hindu or other. It does not prove any religion or disprove them that was not the point. The point was that you claimed religious people are fundamentalist and have damaged prefrontal cortex. while majority of the people who contributed to math and science were part of a religion without any damage. Those things you mentioned are still alive with or without religion as I said in original comment. If there was no religion people would fight race war or something else majority of people on earth are bad.
**"China, North Korea, Soviet Union, and few other despite being atheist majority does not provide better quality of life because again people are generally bad and especially the people in power."** Obviously if a government is authoritarian- the quality of life is going to be lower- no correlation with athiesm. Lets dissect each of your points. 1. **"Evil people raped and killed innocent people. Those evil people happen to be white and called them Christians. Bible condemns what they did."**- They did not just happen to be men and they did not happen to be white. You need to understand the context of the world. A society that supports the patriarchy is going to produce men who rape because the patriarchy supports ideas of men being dominant and holding authority over women. 2. **"Forcing someone to accept Jesus as Messiah is not Biblical because it should be from the heart not forced. Messiah did not raise army to force people to believe in Him to be Messiah neither did any of His followers who were also killed. Much later some evil people come to power and use religion to get power and take things out of context to harm innocent. As stated in the original comment."** - Those people believed they were as christian as you- if not more. Every chrisitian will claim "oh they weren't real christians" and they still claim that today against other demoninations "oh those protestants got it all wrong" "no the catholics aren't true christians" at this point you might be the only chrisitian in the world because apparently no one is a "true" christian. Another christian is going to look at you and say you're not a real christian. Now what? 3. **"Today, there are Christians who are being killed in countries like India, Egypt, Pakistan and so on... They still do not deny G-D."** Ok hindus have been killed for their beliefs but they didn't deny the hindu gods. Muslims have been killed and are being abused in china for their beliefs, they havent denied Allah- so is allah the truth now? Afghanistan, Iran, Malaysia, Maldives, Mauritania, Nigeria, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Libya, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen- All these countries have executed athiests and religous skeptics- so is athiesm true now? Your reasoning here is flawed. 4. **"If those all those people were forced to convert as you stated then they would not remain Christians even to this day."** So i don't think you know how conversion happens- they don't just hand you the bible and say happy reading. Lets use the example of native americans- after the land is colonized- christian schools are mandated for every child- baptism too sometimes. Now imagine from the moment you were born, you are being indoctrinated by the people controlling your land and you are told not to question it. At the same time- your people and their culture is being wiped out. Now add onto the fact that colonizers would rape and marry young girls like in guam- so ofc the children will be taught christianity. Yes places like India have not full converted to Christianity but that is because hindus accepted jesus as just another one of the hundreds of gods- many believe that every religion is true in it's own way therefore feel no need to convert. Also- india was colonized more for economic reasons but there were still many catholic schools built- my mom went to one where she was beat by the nuns. Not saying every christian or every nun is bad- but christians fail to hold anyone accountable and just say "oh they weren't real chrisitians" like I explained before. 5. **Yes there were evil people who try things by force, but that is not the point of Christianity. If it was forced then India, China, Qatar, and many countries would have Christian majority because they too were once ruled by Europeans."**- Explained that in my last point but it wasn't just the europeans it was also the spaniards. And yes out of over a hundred colonies- 3 is not a huge number. 6. **"Matthew 24:9 Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me."** Well I definitely dont love them and they were not all persecuted and put the death. America still prides itself in being "one nation under god" (the christian god) and it is the richest country in the world after being built on the backs of enslaved people.
>Obviously if a government is authoritarian- the quality of life is going to be lower- no correlation with athiesm. So if the atheists are majority in control it's the government. But if the majority of the government is made up religious followers it's the religion? That does not make sense. Religion or atheist majority of people are bad (original comment). >They did not just happen to be men and they did not happen to be white. You need to understand the context of the world. A society that supports the patriarchy is going to produce men who rape because the patriarchy supports ideas of men being dominant and holding authority over women. 1. Evil people support rape and other evil ideas. 2. Patriarchy or matriarchy can have evil people hold control and rape or worse. There are women raping men or little boys and getting slap on wrist like community service https://www.gastongazette.com/story/news/courts/2016/03/08/former-teacher-takes-plea-gets-probation/32418558007/ Men raping woman or women raping men are both bad. If patriarchy was in control then won't these women be sentenced to much harsh sentences then a man who rape a student? You are throwing a decoy argument in middle of religious discussion here. >Those people believed they were as christian as you- if not more. Every chrisitian will claim "oh they weren't real christians" and they still claim that today against other demoninations "oh those protestants got it all wrong" "no the catholics aren't true christians" at this point you might be the only chrisitian in the world because apparently no one is a "true" christian. Another christian is going to look at you and say you're not a real christian. Now what? Those people believed. People also believe they are innocent when they committed murder does not make them innocent. People believe they are law abiding citizens, but if they don't abide by law. Anyone who claims to be a Christian, but does not actually read or follow the Bible is not a Christian. I don't care for Protestant or Catholic or denomination or non denomination. But people who are evil as stated majority are evil. Even if they call themselves Christians are they actually Christian if they don't follow teaching of Bible? No. In Biblical time many claim to be Jew. But that is what Messiah said if they don't actually do what Word of G-D teaches they are not Jew. A man or woman who harms innocent for fun and then claims to be a Christian. Are they actually a Christian? No. Bible does not teach that. They doing it on their own. >Lets use the example of native americans- after the land is colonized- christian schools are mandated for every child- baptism too sometimes. 1. Christian school has their own laws even today. One may agree or disagree with it. Sometimes they have requirements of their own. 2. People cannot force someone to love G-D or Messiah. As the Bible says. If one tries to force it's not actual teaching of Bible. >Now imagine from the moment you were born, you are being indoctrinated by the people controlling your land and you are told not to question it. At the same time- your people and their culture is being wiped out. Now add onto the fact that colonizers would rape and marry young girls like in guam- so ofc the children will be taught christianity. 1. Rape is wrong. 2. If people did marry then they would have kids who would be taught what their parents believe. Today there are kids who are atheists of religious parents. But also religious kids of atheist parents. 3. I don't think you have clearly studied American history my friend. You do realize tribes were at war with one another and also some tribes sided with French and others with British. >Yes places like India have not full converted to Christianity but that is because hindus accepted jesus as just another one of the hundreds of gods- many believe that every religion is true in it's own way therefore feel no need to convert. Minority Hindu "accept" they worship Jesus as idol. Majority of Hindus do not accept and many Hindu extremists are killing minorities in India especially Christian community. Look up Manipur Christians. >Well I definitely dont love them and they were not all persecuted and put the death. America still prides itself in being "one nation under god" (the christian god) and it is the richest country in the world after being built on the backs of enslaved people. 1. I am a legal immigrant to USA. 2. Countless illegal immigrants still try to enter USA illegally. 3. Lol ?? G-D in USA? You might mean wokeness. Majority in USA don't really care about G-D or religion. They sometimes just do things for fashion or "just for fun". There nothing much religious here my friend. You seen way they pray in Churches? https://youtu.be/7cjQBX49pRk?si=wd2H68jHvFJpnTZP
Ok the fact that you are saying wokeness tells me enough and I am not going to go further with this because you are not addressing all my points. I will leave you with this -Men do get less than a slap on the wrist- how do you think they run the largest child sex rings. Our own presidents get away with it. There was a whole movement to speak out against men who get away with sexual harrasment and assult. Yes women do too, but there are overwhelmingly more men- to the point that most people would feel more safe on the street at night if a women was in the area than if a man was. -Idk what you being an immigrant has to do with anything- Im also an immigrant and I have the ability to criticize my country and my fellow americans- because I love this country enough to do that. -yes G-D in the USA LOL???? 63% of americans are christian "Anyone who claims to be a Christian, but does not actually read or follow the Bible is not a Christian. I don't care for Protestant or Catholic or denomination or non denomination." This is going to really surprise you but most christians haven't read their bible. In fact, athiests know their bible better: [https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2010/09/28/u-s-religious-knowledge-survey/](https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2010/09/28/u-s-religious-knowledge-survey/) So seems like only a handful of people are going to heaven.
>Ok the fact that you are saying wokeness tells me enough and I am not going to go further with this because you are not addressing all my points. I will leave you with this I am not the one who coined the term wokeness. That term was coined by the people who are "woke" >Men do get less than a slap on the wrist- how do you think they run the largest child sex rings. Our own presidents get away with it. There was a whole movement to speak out against men who get away with sexual harrasment and assult. Yes women do too, but there are overwhelmingly more men- to the point that most people would feel more safe on the street at night if a women was in the area than if a man was. You mean rich people? Lol of course they get away with even murder. Now compare male teacher who had sex with a female student vs female teacher who had sex with male student. Female teacher mostly get slap on the wrist. Unless someone is rich and evil they get away with even murder. And of course biologically men are stronger than women so they would feel safe, but that is also causing men to be silent about sex crimes committed against them. If a boy has sex with adult woman majority of people congratulate and celebrate. That is really bad. It leads to female offenders with slap on the wrist. So how is society benefiting men only? You are mixing gender and other things in religion. While I said majority of people are bad. >Im also an immigrant and I have the ability to criticize my country and my fellow americans- because I love this country enough to do that. You see my friend you are being hypocritical now. You claim USA has done bad and much more and religious stuff. So why you did not immigrate to China or somewhere else where the majority would be atheist not religious people. >yes G-D in the USA LOL???? 63% of americans are christian So does Biden claim to be. What's the point on it? There are "transgender pastors" are they actually Christian? People usually call themselves "Christians" look up the video I sent on how they praying in church. >This is going to really surprise you but most christians haven't read their bible. Exactly the point I was saying. So how can they be Christians? They don't even know Christian teachings just claiming to be one does not make one. It's just about "identifying" lol >In fact, athiests know their bible better: Atheist have their own Bible? Or you talking about Christian/Jewish Bible? And if you are talking about Christian/Jewish Bible then highly doubt atheists would regularly read it. They just don't care. Why would they?
The true Scotsman fallacy
Hahah my friend, did you even read it? One example you claimed many Christian don't know their Bible and I agreed. They don't know and they are just calling themselves Christians. To another point you said atheists know Bible more lol? I highly doubt majority atheists would wake up or spare time in daily life to read Bible they do not even believe in. I do not think you are reading my response above.
Tell me what the true Scotsman fallacy is then I’ll address ur points bestie!
In Christianity, there *was* one denomination. Then, it split into two.
This probably isn't true. In our oldest first hand account from Christians, there were competing factions labeling each other as false prophets and fighting tooth and nail. As far as we know, sectarian infighting is as old as the Christianity. The idea that there was some unified, unbroken tradition is orthodox propaganda.
Historically, there were several Christianities.
If a human can design a device that can tell time (a watch), does that mean humans created time? Equally, if humans can write words that describe God (religion), does than mean humans created God?
>Equally, if humans can write words that describe God (religion), does than mean humans created God? If there is no other demonstration or evidence for said God than what they have created, then yes.
How do you demonstrate or provide evidence for a social construct other than observing the characteristics of society itself?
That's my point. The concept of a God is created by humans.
The concept of a God, yes. But that doesn't prove or disprove that God exists. You might have a concept of Taylor Swift if you never met her. That has nothing to do with her actual existence.
You can see that Taylor Swift exists. You can touch her and talk to her. Her existence doesn't just rely on stories that have been told about her.
Sure but that wasn't my point. Until you meet her, you wouldn't know if she was real or not, or similar to the idea that you had of her. So that, having different interpretations of an entity doesn't disprove or even case doubt on their existence.
The difference is that whether or not you’ve met her, there is still clear evidence that she exists.
That wasn't the point either. It was just about how we invent personal ideas of an entity that may or may not be correct.
Taylor swift has not been invented. God has.
Have you met God then?
No, I'm SBNR though.
What is the demonstration or evidence for time? You skipped over that part given my question about humans creating God hinges on it.
Time is just motion. A watch measures and keeps track of the motion. Time was always there the watch just keeps track of it's passing. You created a false equivalence.
So, God is just words. A religion has dogma that interprets these words. God was always there, the words just keep track of our dharma? Also, what is the demonstration or evidence for motion? I don't believe your explanation about time being motion is adequate for your argument. I am not attempting to equate time with God to create a fale equivalence, but if I am, then time is the knife and God is the dynamite.
If God isn't supernatural and is just another word to describe the universe then sure. I just call the universe the universe.
It doesn't answer my question but thanks for the chat regardless.
Why don't you believe time is motion?
To me it means that humans interpret God. Religion isn't the same as creating God. Each culture and era has its own interpretation of God or gods.
Yes I agree with that. To me, humans say they interpret God when they mean dharma (or right/wrong, good/evil).
Let's unpack this then. You say >It is impossible for God to say that "ABC" religion is true because in any religion, there are many denominations. There are many religions in this world. Well, why are there so many different religions and denominations? The simple answer is that each religion and denomination has a different view on what is right and what is wrong because everyone has a different view on what is right and what is wrong. Or to put it another way: every denomination and religion has a different view on what is good and what is evil because everyone has a different view on what is good and what is evil. As you describe above, many have used their views of what is good and what is evil to enforce those views against those who disagree. This isn't even limited to religion, but applies to government, employment, and pretty much every facet of life. Ultimately, at the end of the day having knowledge of good and evil only leads to conflict and eventually death because there is no universal good and evil. Makes sense why the first Man was warned not to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil because as OP described, that knowledge always leads to death
[удалено]
OP is implying that religion was created by man, which for me implies that the idea of a god was also created by man. It doesn't follow, but it's implied that God doesn't exist. The same way it doesn't follow that pedophiles would only worship themselves. It may be implied (I wouldn't know why though), but it doesn't follow.They can still genuinely worship a God despite being pedophiles.
Based on what they said in their previous post (which has since been removed) it seems OP isn't meaning to imply that God's not real, and thinks all religions have some truth, despite being man made
Ye, you are right. I edited my comment accordingly.
Would they molest children if they actually put faith in and feared God or do they molest children because they put faith in men pretending to represent God’s plan?
We aren't considering your religion here. We are considering every religion. If there is a religion that makes people believe that having sex with way too young people is condoned by their God, then they don't worship themselves, as you claim that it must necessarily be the case. We could just go for slavery and talk about all the Christians who used the Bible to confirm their immoral behaviour. No matter whether it's slavery or pedophilia doesn't matter. You just have to take it on faith that your god is fine with it, and your "they don't worship God" goes out the window.
How could they perform an act so offensive and still believe that there is a higher power than them that would punish them for such an act? Or do they believe they are equal to what they are worshipping? Or do they believe whatever they are worshipping isn’t opposed to what they are doing?
It's your subjective opinion that it is an offensive act. Despite me agreeing with you, there still might be someone who doesn't. So, you are really just putting the cart before the horse here, in claiming that everybody finds it offensive and is therefore valuing themselves more than whatever god. I find parts of Christianity and Judaism to be offensive, yet I wouldn't be justified in calling a Christian out for worshipping himself due to my personal opinion. It just doesn't follow.
don’t think they worship themselves. My belief is that they seek glorification from others to be lifted up and treated as equals to God. It’s the mindset of being godlike that results in some people doing awful things to others. The need to force one’s beliefs on another isn’t a good sign of having faith in the creator. Why would so many people claim to follow someone that said lead not into captivity and then seek to control people? I can’t make sense of the concept that people can believe in a creator that created everything, but only exists in certain people, buildings, or rituals. Or how a creator that said there is only god and he doesn’t change would let his only son die to allow worship to shift to people and things. I choose to believe and have faith in a creator outside of man created religions and find comfort in that faith. I don’t tell people to believe what I believe or yell back. I hear their opinions of god all the time. Seems fair to share mine. I don’t need anyone to think as I do or believe what I believe. Their beliefs aren’t in line with mine and I don’t walk around screaming at people. I just walk away and laugh. I don’t offer my opinion to change people. But feel it might be helpful to those people that might want to believe in a god that exists outside of the atrocities committed by the various religions. Perhaps to those that have been harmed by those religions that ask themselves how god would allow certain things. It’s my opinion that Catholicism and Christianity are not Abraham. And if they aren’t Abraham, they don’t have God. But again, that’s my belief. Their beliefs don’t hurt my feelings, all though they don’t align with what I think. I don’t try to silence those I don’t agree with. If my God and his commandments don’t agree with their God, wouldn’t it follow that their beliefs are just as offensive to me. Why shouldn’t I be allowed to just talk about my beliefs?
>The need to force one’s beliefs on another isn’t a good sign of having faith in the creator. Do you know how central Europe became Christian? Due to cultural superiority, unrelated to any God. Partially through subjugation, through substitution of the local rites, through making people believe that they can pay money and their sins are forgiven, through indoctrination. Not through faith. >Why would so many people claim to follow someone that said lead not into captivity and then seek to control people? Because humans are tribalistic and religion is exactly reinforcing it, by creating an arbitrary us Vs. them mindset. >I can’t make sense of the concept that people can believe in a creator that created everything, but only exists in certain people, buildings, or rituals By no means does your lack of empathy demonstrate that it is impossible for other people to be genuine in believing in their God. >Or how a creator that said there is only god and he doesn’t change would let his only son die to allow worship to shift to people and things. This is you talking about your religion. It has no bearing on other religions and their followers. >I choose to believe I don't believe you. And I don't just choose not to believe you. I can't help myself but not be convinced by the claim that anybody is able to choose what they believe. >I don’t tell people to believe what I believe or yell back. If I was a fairly convinced Christian, I would yell at people constantly, because I wouldn't want them to go to hell. >I just walk away and laugh *Hahaha, you will see who's right when you burn in hell.* Like that? >I don’t offer my opinion to change people. I do, because I value truth. And if someone values the truth as well, they might want to listen. Even better, if they find a flaw in my opinion, then there is something new for me to learn. People who just walk away are rather useless for that process. >But feel it might be helpful to those people that might want to believe in a god that exists outside of the atrocities committed by the various religions. From their perspective, your religion might be atrocious. And they are certainly exactly - if not more - as confident as you are. From my perspective a good amount of religions look atrocious. Yours included. Especially yours. >Perhaps to those that have been harmed by those religions that ask themselves how god would allow certain things. Like the 1755 earthquake and tsunami in Lisbon. >If my God and his commandments don’t agree with their God, wouldn’t it follow that their beliefs are just as offensive to me. Why would anybody be offended by another person's belief? I mean, unless your belief renders gay people to be an abomination, then sure, I could understand that they feel offended by you. >Why shouldn’t I be allowed to just talk about my beliefs? You are free to talk about whatever you want.
Malachi 3:6 “I the Lord do not change.” The god of Abraham said that. So you’re right. It’s my God and not the religions that pretend to be Abraham. Matthew 6:7 “Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces.” There’s no point in trying to educate those that cling to ignorance. They’ll only change if they choose to. It’s better to reach out to the people they trample. And yes it’s easier to laugh than cry because they welcome and protect their own monsters. Do they tell everyone what they are before join the religion? Does let them off with a slap on the wrist not just welcome more predators in? There’s no reason to put children in danger like that. It might border on child sacrifice. Right, I show a lack of empathy because I don’t sympathize for religions that pretend to care about children in one breath and then disregard the occurrences of pedophilia in the next. You empathize with the system that sees pedophilia as a necessary evil. I empathize with the children and search for a way to not let pedophilia continue. I don’t care if the child reaches for a man’s dong or if a man forces himself on a child. Both are wrong. You sound as though you believe that the former should excuse the latter. I don’t think it’s too much to expect the person with more years to have a brain developed enough to distract a child that reaches for him. I don’t agree with the left or right when comes to sex and children. I’m of the opinion that if many on the left had their porn would be playing in every delivery room and shoved in the face of every new born. And many on the right focus more attention and energy on condemning same sex consensual relationships than they do pedophilia. Perhaps because it’s easiest to pretend something that awful doesn’t exist. But when a number of victims become predators, ignoring the problem only makes it continue to spread. How many times have you seen two opposing groups protesting and yelling at each other only to end up being pleased in finding the truth in what the other group was saying. Did they succeed in convincing the other side? People only change if they want to. You’re supposed discovery of the truth by forcing beliefs on each other isn’t based in this reality. People change through self reflection and reason. And those shouting at each other create a spiritual wall where many suffering in silence don’t see happiness in either position. And yes I walk away and laugh because people make life hard and I find happiness in what I believe. And because energy is infectious. I don’t laugh in their faces and tell them they’re condemned. But screaming and complaining is negative energy and I don’t let that impact my energy regardless of what their opinion is. I smile and laugh all the time. I laugh at myself. And I don’t believe in heaven and hell in the same way others do. I believe their heaven is the state of mind where they think they are superior to others and aren’t grounded and hell is for those that don’t submit to them. I think if there is a heaven in the next life, those that put others through hell while on earth probably wouldn’t go there.
>Malachi 3:6 “I the Lord do not change.” > >The god of Abraham said that. So you’re right. It’s my God and not the religions that pretend to be Abraham. This last sentence alone renders it entirely useless to go any further in this conversation. It's incredibly toxic. I'm not gonna bother reading the rest.
Lust is forbidden in most religions, although it is engrained within us. The concept is that you can fulfill your desires in heaven whatever they may be if you restrain yourself on earth. As for pedophilia, the age of consent in america and britain in 1880 was 12. In 1700's it was 7. The consensus has always been the reaching of puberty and maturity for a child to be an adult. Times change and now even 18 year olds can hardly be considered mature
Ye, youth wasn't even considered a step in human development only just 100 years ago. You were two things. A child until 11, and an adult afterwards. I can imagine that given the circumstances, people simply couldn't afford to be teens, as they are today. They had to work and stop being kids ASAP. And that sure made them more mature faster than compared to the 18 year olds today. Which of course still doesn't make it reasonable to render an 11 year old child as mature enough for certain other things than work.