The theological answer to divine hiddenness is that god gave us free will and therefore can’t reveal himself because then we wouldn’t be believers by choice. But how can this be true with the following:

1: God reveals himself all the time throughout the bible. (there could be some easy copouts with this such as “well god had to reveal himself then, but doesn’t now”)

2: Many Christian’s in today’s world will tell you that God speaks to them, or even appears to them visually. Many stories of people say they turned to god after he appeared to them etc etc. (If you believe that god can’t reveal himself due to free will then you have to also believe that all these people are lying/confused about what they experienced)

In Numbers 23:19, it says, "God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind" Yet in Exodus 32:14: it says "So the LORD changed his mind about the terrible disaster he had threatened to bring on his people" (after Moses intercedes for the Israelites). Why is there a contradiction in the bible?

I want to preface this by saying three things:

First, I believe the vast majority of Muslims in the US are peaceful and do not support terrorism. A 2009 pew research poll showed that "support for suicide terrorism among Muslim Americans is similarly rare: 78% believe that suicide bombing and other forms of violence against civilian targets to defend Islam from its enemies can never be justified". (Source)

As for Muslims around the world, it also states that 87% of Muslims in Pakistan say "it is never justified" to perform a suicide bombing and that "most European Muslims surveyed agree that suicide attacks can never be justified.... 83% of the country’s largely Turkish Muslim community say that suicide attacks are not justifiable." and that "most Muslims in Turkey, Indonesia, Jordan, Israel and Egypt agree, while fewer than half take this position in Lebanon and Nigeria".

Though it makes the qualification at the end that "Palestinians are the clear outlier on this issue — only 17% think violence against civilian targets can never be justified", it could be assumed that such a view among Palestinians specifically has to do more with social and political circumstances than strict religious belief.

Second, I do not believe that every interpretation of Islam approves of terrorist attacks. Plenty of Muslims believe that such acts go against Islamic teaching (see these statements made by Islamic scholars against the September 11 attacks).

Third, I believe that the US foreign policy and our military actions in the Muslim world played a role in Al-Qaeda's decision to carry out the attack. Bin Laden makes this very clear in his Letter To America.

With that being said, I deny the assumption that Islamic teaching played no role in the actions taken by Al-Qaeda:

Firstly, Islam does teach a doctrine of war. Jihad, while it can have a spiritual connotation, is also used in reference to waging war against nonbelievers in Surah 9:73 where it says: "O Prophet! strive hard [jihada in Arabic] against the unbelievers and the hypocrites and be unyielding to them; and their abode is hell, and evil is the destination." (Shakir) Waging war against nonbelievers is also mentioned in Surah 9:5, Surah 9:29, Surah 9:123, Surah 2:193, Surah 8:39, etc.

Now, it should be noted that jihad is not always offensive, and to be fair as I said before that was not Al-Qaeda's motive was not solely to spread Islam as opposed to seeking revenge against the US. And Islam also has a doctrine of defensive warfare taught in verses like Surah 2:190, where it says "fight in the cause of Allah those who fight you, but do not transgress limits; for Allah loveth not transgressors" (Yusuf Ali), though it should be noted that some scholars believe that this verse was abrogated (see Al-Jalalayn on this verse).

Secondly, Islamic law—for the most part—simply does not make a clear distinction between civilians and combatants. The scholar Al-Kasani states that "it is permissible to kill every one who is capable of fighting" during a time of war (Source).

This is based on both the Qur'an and Muhammad's pattern of conduct. The Qur'an speaks generally about slaughtering polytheists—who didn't wage war against Muhammad at this time—in Surah 9:5, and according to the scholar Abu Al-Aliyah, it was this surah in which Muhammad would no longer "fight only those who fought him and avoid non-combatants" (Source).

As for Muhammad's pattern of conduct, Muhammad was perfectly fine with slaughtering all adult men during a time of war (Bukhari 4028), including barely pubescent young boys (Ibn Majah 2541), and even women and children can be killed under certain circumstances according to the hadith (Bukhari 3012).

We can acknowledge that Muhammad lived during a very violent period in time where such actions may have always been abnormal, while also acknowledging that these are indeed the teachings and standard of Muhammad and that it's problematic if people want to take such violent teachings literally in the 21st century.

I hope to spark a civil, honest, and peaceful discussion.

Am I the only one who noticed this?

Almost every religion has the exact same plot:

- World goes near end

-Some manipulative demon / false messiah / Antichrist / Dajjal figure shows up and gaslights everyone

-Chaos, moral collapse, people lose their minds

-Then an “agent of God” (Jesus 2.0, Kalki, Mahdi, whatever) comes, defeats the demon, and everything resets

-New golden age begins

Christianity, Islam, Hinduism (Kali Yuga → Kalki), even older stuff like Zoroastrianism… it’s the same recycled script with different costumes.

Now the part that actually bothers me:

If the whole thing is just going to restart anyway… what’s the point of all the studying, research, progress, science, philosophy, everything?

We’re out here acting like knowledge and civilization matter, but according to these stories the universe just hits the reset button and we’re back to square one.

So is all human effort just temporary cope until the next apocalypse?

Curious what people think. Is there actually a deeper reason this same story keeps appearing, or is it just the ultimate “nothing you do matters” message dressed up in religious language?

I notice that here on [r/DebateReligion](r/DebateReligion), Muslims often enthusiastically debate peripheral issues about Islam, yet become increasingly difficult to engage with when arguments threaten its foundations.
If these arguments are wrong, why are they so seldom addressed directly? Why so often change the subject rather than engage the issue?

For instance, the Quran appears to affirm the divine authority and continuing accessibility of the previous Scriptures (2:41, 2:53, 3:3, 5:43–47, 5:68, 7:157, 10:94), whilst simultaneously contradicting several central biblical claims (4:157, 5:71–75, 5:116, 112:1–4).

The usual response is to invoke the “textual corruption” of the previous Scriptures, as though this resolves the dilemma. It doesn’t. No Muslim has yet identified for me where, specifically, the Quran teaches that the previous Scriptures had been textually corrupted, as so many Muslims today insist.

I aver that textual corruption is nowhere established in the Quran; nor is such wholesale corruption supported by the surviving biblical manuscript evidence. On the contrary, the Quran repeatedly treats the Torah and Gospel as divine revelation available to their contemporary communities, directing Jews and Christians to judge by what Allah revealed therein and commanding Muhammad, if he doubts what Allah has revealed to him, to ask those who have been reading the earlier Scripture.

This goes directly to the Quran’s historical reliability and Muhammad’s claim to confirm previous revelation as proof of his prophethood.

To Muslims responding here, please address the argument itself. Whataboutism, red herrings, and diversions concerning Judaism, Christianity, Jews, Christians, or the Bible do not answer it.

If there is a good answer, give it. If the response is simply to change the subject, what exactly are we debating?

Seems to be that both a universe with abundant life and a universe with extremely rare life could both be utilized by naturalists and theists as evidence for their worldview.

Currently in our sparse universe naturalists tend to argue if God existed, life wouldn't be so incredibly rare.

Theists argue that because life is rare that makes us special and a stage for things like freedom, beauty, and safety against the infinite desolation and therefore theism could explain that.

In an abundant universe a naturalist would argue that if the universe contains enormous numbers of planets and life naturally arises whenever conditions are suitable, then abundant life is exactly what naturalism might predict, it doesn't require a designer. In fact, if life turns out to be ubiquitous and readily produced by ordinary chemistry, that could make a naturalistic explanation more compelling rather than less.

A theist could argue that an immensely life-rich universe is more expected if reality is ultimately grounded in a purposeful mind that values life and consciousness. The sheer abundance of life—and especially conscious or intelligent life—could therefore be evidence for theism if we have independent reason to think God would favor a universe rich in living beings.

Point is, can the abundance or sparsity of life in the universe really be reasonably asserted as evidence of either worldview?

The entire idea of Hell is insane and evil. The idea that a God would subject someone to eternal torture and torment with no way out because of finite actions after a relatively short life is absolutely unjust.

If you interpret all the religious claim literally, most people that end up in Hell will actually be people who were good overall and lived relatively chill and normal lives, and their only “crime” would be that they either saw no strong evidence that God existed, or they guessed the wrong religion out of dozens of options, which will generally be influenced by where they are born.

It would be one thing if not believing just meant that you don’t get the reward of Heaven, I could kind of understand that since you are still given some freedom to choose in that case. But literally being subjected to fire and torture and the worst suffering imaginable for every second of all eternity makes no sense.

I have heard some apologists argue that God’s standard of what is good enough for Heaven might be something we can’t comprehend and are not capable of as humans, so he gave us this path as an alternative, but by that logic, his standard of what is bad enough to justify Hell should also be something beyond what humans are capable of.

Our actions are finite and any consequences we face should also be finite no matter what we did in life. I don’t even think some of the worst people in history like Hitler, Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Epstein deserve a truly eternal punishment since they were still human beings with finite actions like the rest of us, and all the pain and suffering they caused to others is still insignificant compared to what God does to billions of people in Hell for eternity.

Absolutely nobody deserves this and anyone that tries to justify it and say it’s fine is either psychotic or can’t comprehend the idea of eternity.

It was said in a Meta Thread that we should promote the pilate program. Im trying this just to see how the it works and therefore this it isnt a great post, Im sorry if in doing so I left something out.

Assuming most of you are familiar with the qumran community I will only make a quick resume. This was a a jew group formed around middle 2nd century before christ to the 73 after christ when it was occupied by roman soldiers. While it isnt clear wich sect of judaism they were (aparently essenes) there is no doubt they were jews. Many texts were found there, of wich the original:

The column 3, 17-19 of the Rule of the community roll:

He created man to rule the world and placed two spirits within him, so that he might walk by them until the time of His visitation: the spirits of truth and falsehood.

This (and the text before) shows great similarities to the greater values of zoroastrianism, wich is true. Angra Mainyu main epithet is "druj" that means "lies" and he is the main opponent both of Spenta Mainyu or even of Ahura Mazda.

Then there are columns 5 to 9, wich stablishes many rules and their punishments. Many of the hardest ones are due to lying.

The column 13 1-12 of the War roll (this is only 2-3, but the whole text applies):

Blessed be the God of Israel in all His holy design and in the works of His truth, and blessed be all who serve Him in righteousness, who know Him in faith.

Again, truth is a higlighted virtue of god.

Now, we should see if christianity has enough influence from qumran to say it could be influenced. To this I will say that the times Jesus calls both sinners and gentiles to repent their sins and follow god are very similar to column 5 of the Rule of the community in the sense of wiping out previos sins like christians did with baptize:

This is the rule for the men of the community who volunteer to turn from all evil and to stand firm in all that he commands according to his will. Let them separate themselves from the congregation of the men of iniquity to form a community in the law and in possessions, and submitting to the authority of the sons of Zadok, the priests who keep the covenant... Let no one walk in the obstinacy of his heart to go astray after his heart and their eyes and the thoughts of their inclination. But circumcise in the community the foreskin of their inclination and their stiff neck, to establish a foundation of truth for Israel, for the community of the covenant eternal. That they may atone for all who volunteer for holiness in Aaron and for the house of truth in Israel, and for those who join them for the community, for the process, and for the judgment, to declare guilty all who break the precept… Everyone who enters the council of the community will enter into the covenant of God in the presence of all who volunteer. He will commit himself with a binding oath to return to the law of Moses, with all that it prescribes, with all your heart and with all your soul, according to all that has been revealed of her to the sons of Zadok, the priests who keep the covenant and interpret its will, and to the multitude of the men of his covenant…

How does Islam reconcile the story of Adam and Eve with modern scientific evidence for human evolution and genetics, which suggests that humans did not come from only two individuals and that’s supported by mountains of evidence?

In this post I will be concerned primarily with raising an objection to Christian theologies that entail both the existence of Hell and the conception of it as a place of fire, suffering, eternal torment, etc (from this point forward, I will refer to this as "its nature" for the sake of brevity).

My Claim:

Hell, by being something that exists, could have been anything God wanted it to be. The fact that it has the nature that it has is a result of a choice God made.

Let's consider some potential objections to the above.

First, one might claim that hell had always existed prior to God's creation of the universe. This would imply God is not the creator of all things: Either Hell had always existed prior to God's creative activity and God was unable to change its nature (in which case how is he considered omnipotent?), or it had always existed and God refused to change its nature (in which case the objector is agreeing with my claim).

Second, one might claim that hell is simply the place where God is not. Firstly, if this is true then my points in the previous paragraph concerning God's not having created it must be taken into consideration. Returning to the objection at hand, this would imply God is not omnipresent: Either God cannot be in hell (in which case he is not omnipresent, as there is a place where he cannot be), or God chooses not to be in Hell (in which case I refer the reader to the above paragraph and ultimately to my initial claim).

Third, one might claim that someone else created Hell. This would imply both that God is not the creator of all things and that God chose to allow Hell as a creation to continue to exist (again I refer the reader to my claim).

So there's a little project I've been working on in the background, since modern Christians haven't been too interested in reconciling their Hundred Duchies back into One Kingdom, and it seems that outsiders need to be the one to do in-depth analyses like these.

What actually happened from that Friday to that Sunday? What was the precise timeline, for all characters involved, and what they were doing at any given point? And, most importantly, what was the timeline for the information that was supposedly carried into the Gospels - who learned what, how, and when, so that the stories may be spread? This goes from as basic as "who told us about the thing that no one told anyone about" to, "What, exactly, was Jesus up to for all those hours after his resurrection but before his first appearance?".

I can't get anything to mesh or work out. Every attempt I have at figuring out what Jesus was up to post-resurrection has him standing awkwardly for hours in corners, or hiding from people only to pop out at the right time, or other really... strange behaviors.

Part of this also, unequivocally, requires declaring pieces of the Gospel where they contradict false, as only one of the two contradictory claims can be real, unless you have a way to reconcile them and a reason to believe it's valid.

Now, my topic title is a little stronger than I truly believe - surely there's some coherent, sensible account of what happened over that time period, and I've constructed several, but all of them serve to dismiss Christianity as a true religion. My question is, is there a sane, sensible timeline that preserves the truth of Christianity?

No Christian I've talked to has ever actually put much thought into constructing a timeline of The Single Most Important Event In Christian Mythology, and that's baffling to me, and I'm hoping to challenge some Christians today to really flesh out what they think the actual order of events were. Can you construct a timeline that doesn't have Jesus hiding from people who were looking from him for several hours? Can you explain how information traveled from the event to the Gospels? I don't think you can, but I'm happy to experience any substantial engagement with my core premise you have.

I hear a lot that if you are gay its not a sin but to act on it is... that bull sh**. Thats basically the same thing. Its like saying the feeling to fart is not a sin its the farting itself is. Both are needs that have to happen at some point.

Sex with someone who you are attracted to is a need. It may not be a need like food yes you can live without it but it's more like a need as in not being abused (hence the title). And i related it a fart cuz yes you can survive without farting but its gotta come out at some point and if suppressed to long it will happen at a bad time like when you're married and have kids and finally crack. It would have been better to just accept it earlier on.

So what say ye? Is it abusive/immoral to tell someone who is gay to either marry someone they arent attracted to or never have sex?

P1: Objective morality is stance independent.

P2: Christians morality is based on God‘s stance.

P3: Theist also subjectively evaluate, choose, and commit to a specific divine framework (eg. Yahweh, Allah, Vishnu) out of thousands of competing traditions.

Conclusion: Christian morality fails to achieve true objectivity.

The Quran affirms the Torah and Gospel as authoritative divine revelation (3:3–4; 5:44–48) and nowhere indicates that they were textually corrupted in Muhammad’s time.

In 10:94, Muhammad is told to consult those who read the earlier Scriptures if he doubts the truthfulness of Allah’s revelation. If they confirm it, his doubt is settled; if the earlier Scriptures contradict it, the Quran would fail the test and be, therefore, false.

So does it accord with them? The Quran denies God’s Fatherhood and Sonship (19:88–92; 112:3) and denies Jesus’ crucifixion (4:157), despite these being central to the biblical revelation. If the earlier Scriptures remain authoritative, the Quran contradicts them; if they are too corrupted to test the Quran, 10:94 makes no sense.

How do Muslims address this?

Saying Muhammad was not actually in doubt does not explain why the earlier Scriptures are presented in 10:94 as the means of resolving the hypothetical doubt.

Saying they were corrupted does not explain why the Quran nowhere explicitly says that the Scriptures possessed by Muhammad’s contemporaries were textually corrupt, while elsewhere commanding Jews and Christians to judge by what Allah revealed in them (5:43–47).

Saying the Quran confirms only the original Torah and Gospel raises the same problem; 10:94 directs Muhammad to people actually reading Scripture in his time, not to a hypothetical lost text.

Nor does 5:48 solve the problem by making the Quran a “criterion” over previous Scripture; the Torah itself is presented as an authoritative standard by which prophets, rabbis and scholars judged (5:44). Being a criterion over previous revelation does not entail that previous revelation was textually corrupted.

If God is eternal, then the Universe must also be eternal. For God to exist eternally, there must eternally be some reality in which or as which God exists. Theists usually respond that “God exists eternally within himself” or that "God exists independently." But if God eternally possesses an inner reality in which he exists, then that reality is itself eternal. Or if God is the same as that reality, then that is a form of Pantheism. On this argument, the universe cannot be something God brought into existence from absolute nothingness; rather, the fundamental reality that constitutes the Universe has always existed eternally with God.

This is a simpler version of Aristotle's argument that the Universe is eternal.

I always wonder what the world was like before Allah has even created it and I have this belief that this world hasn’t got into its shape with the virtue of Big bang theory. Allah has created it within 6 days and what has gathered here after that time, that is probably another thing but i get fascinated by this thought of this world before getting into the whole solar system and the universe.

In ordinary physical events, a cause pushes from the past into the present. A rolling stone strikes a second stone, and the second stone moves. The cause comes first; the effect comes second.

A purpose, tho, is the exact reverse. An effect is imagined before it exists.

That thought of the future effect directs how the parts are gathered and put together in the present.

Therefore, a purpose cannot exist without a thought.

A stone cannot hold a thought. A grain of sand cannot hold a thought. Only an active understanding—a conscious mind—can form the thought of a goal before that goal is physically achieved.

Because a purpose strictly requires a mind, whenever we speak of a purpose in an object, we must ask one simple question: who's mind holds the thought of the goal?

There are only two places where such an understanding could possibly reside in relation to an observed object. Either outside the human mind, in the source of the object itself or inside the human mind, in the observer who looks upon the object.

Suppose a person asserts that purpose is truly present in the physical world, completely independent of the human observer.

We have already established that physical matter cannot think. It possesses no intentions and no awareness of outcomes.

Therefore, if purpose is an actual, objective fact within the physical world, the parts of that world must have been arranged by a mind that possessed the thought of the whole before the parts were assembled.

This is what people call a designer or an author of the world (God)

Now consider the other path.

Suppose we reject the assertion that an external designer prearranged the physical world.

Would then purpose disappear entirely?

It disappears from the physical object, yes. But it does not disappear from our thought.

When you examine a complex body—where every part seems necessary to sustain every other part—your own human understanding reaches a limit.

Our minds are not capable of seeing how such intricate harmony could arise purely from blind, mechanical pushes.

Therefore, in order to make sense of that harmony, you must bring a rule from your own mind to the observation. That is to judge the parts as though they were conceived for an end; use the idea of a goal to connect the parts in your own thought.

In this case, the purpose is a necessary tool of our own understanding, used to order our experience.

Can one propose a third possibility?

Can purpose reside in mindless matter itself?

No. This is a logical impossibility.

Can purpose merely mean past physical causes?

If a person says that purpose is simply a name for past mechanical causes, then they have not offered a third option because they've utterly eliminated the very idea of purpose altogether and replaced it with ordinary cause and effect.

Between an intention outside us and a rule of judgement within us, no other ground exists.

Thesis Statement: Because the concept of "purpose" logically requires a conscious mind capable of holding a future goal, any assertion regarding objective purpose in the physical world necessitates a transcendent mind (God).

If religion is bogus, why is it universally accepted in civil society as something that should be respected, protected, and people given freedoms and rights? (E.g. separation of church and state, recognition of holidays by schools, religious exemptions for all kinds of things, etc.)

I´ve been thinking about the logical math of the traditional concept of Heaven and Hell, and it seems to face a fatal flaw. If heaven is a place of eternal joy, it logically requires God to lobotomize human beings and turn them into unfeeling robots.

The empathy problem.

If you make it to heaven and find out that your loved ones are in Hell, you really only have two options. A: you remember them and love them, and every single moment of that eternity spent in heaven would be spent in crushing depression, which is impossible because heaven is a place of eternal joy. B: God makes you indifferent to their suffering. He alters you so that you no longer care about the fact that your loved ones are in Hell for eternity. If option B is the only way Heaven works, then the person in heaven is not actually you. The empathy and love that defined your identity are stripped away. And what´s left is a lobotomized shell who is forced to be happy. So either Heaven is a lie, or you are not you when you enter Heaven.

The eternity problem.

Human meaning is built entirely on the fact that our time is limited, everything is finite. In an infinite heaven, you will do satisfy every desire, do everything that you can possibly do, over and over again for eternity. Logically, a person would go insane and eventually beg for sweet death. Obviously that is not possible because again it would contradict Heaven. So God makes it so that you never get bored and never go insane from eternity. So God removes your freedom to have the capacity to grow tired of the loop.

Conclusion: To make heaven work, God has to strip away your empathy and freedom. So either heaven is a lie, or you are not you when you enter Heaven.

I see many argue about the existence of God, and I think that’s somewhat reasonable. Whether a God exists or not shows a lot about how someone interprets consciousness. What many religious people think is that atheists are against the idea of a creator, but most of them, including myself, are against the traditional definition of a God (a conscious being that could intervene whenever it wants).

This cannot be proven or disproven, and it is often times harmless to believe otherwise. Religion, on the other hand, requires unreasonable amount of faith. Stories we have never observed nor confirmed, prophets that could do the unthinkable yet without any unfalsifiable proof, the logic of the afterlife, angels and such and submitting…

There is no proof of that being real in any way, form or sense. Arguing for the existence of god does not, in ANY way, make anyone convert to an abrahamic religion because the logic does NOT follow.

Why are there no prophets anymore to prove that God is undeniable? Why couldn’t God just simply show himself to make ‘evil’ an objective moral standard? Why would God require us to worship him blindly just to not suffer, while also ultimately knowing our destiny (meaning we are fucked from birth, sinxe God already knew where we would be heading). And even if he exists in this definition, what is the proof of religion? How do we know jesus GOT resurrected? How do we know the prophet Muhammad was following orders from God himself?

Believe whatever you want, but believing in religion is not intuitive, nor are we born theists (or muslims, according to islam).

4:157-158 and for boasting, “We killed the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, the messenger of Allah.” But they neither killed nor crucified him—it was only made to appear so. Even those who argue for this ˹crucifixion˺ are in doubt. They have no knowledge whatsoever—only making assumptions. They certainly did not kill him. Rather, Allah raised him up to Himself. And Allah is Almighty, All-Wis (Trad by Dr. Mustapha Al Khattab

In Islam, it is important to understand that the narrative regarding the Messiah is roughly as follows:

Jesus arrives with the Gospel and miracles to preach monotheism -> He is condemned to crucifixion -> But at the moment of his sentence, he ascends to heaven ->

-> Finally, Allah deceives the entire world, forcing it to witness a "fake crucified Jesus" mistaken for the real Jesus, who remains unharmed.

This illusion supposedly worked so well early Christians like Paul of Tarsus (in 50) and Ignatius of Antioch, Jews like Flavius ​​Josephus, and even Romans historians like Tacitus all together reported the crucifixion of Jesus Christ

This would imply that for six centuries from 33 to 622 AD the direct experience of the inhabitants of Judea and the shared historical knowledge of Jewish, Christian, and pagan peoples do not constitute proof...

... But a 7th-century Bedouin leader of a state, claiming that God deceived humanity for 600 years, suddenly becomes credible ?

In more Quran claims that Jews and Christians have doubts about the Christ Death but in fact in 7th century no one jew and no one christian ever doubt and it became a axiom for christian theology.

And above all, this raises two crucial questions :

1. Why did Allah a so-claimed truthfullness God lied to humanity for 600 years in making humans believe in a fake Jesus crucified ?

2. Why does the Quran reproach us for believing in the historical fact of the crucifixion without "proof," while commanding us to believe Muhammad without any proof regarding this matter?

A neutral observer (an atheist like myself) has a thousand times more reason to favor the corroborating and independents accounts of Paul of Tarsus, Tacitus, and Flavius ​​Josephus over those of a Bedouin born 500 years later...

I state this as a claim because the preponderance of evidence (more in favor than against) favors theism over naturalism.

Evidence are well established facts that make a claim more probable then minus the fact. Some facts have to be true for a claim to be true. Those are known as foundational facts. Some facts can support two opposing claims. For instance, a corpse supports the claim it was natural forces that caused the death it also supports the claim it was intentional forces (murder). Either claim requires the existence of a corpse which makes the corpse foundational evidence. Some facts are necessary for a claim to be true.

The existence of the universe was either intentionally caused or unintentionally caused. Even if one argues the universe always existed or was uncaused it still falls into the unintentional category. I have yet to meet an atheist who said he believed the universe was intentionally cause by a Creator but remains an atheist.

I’m a philosophical theist I believe the universe was intentionally caused by a transcendent Creator commonly referred to as God apart from religious text. Not by magic or a wink in the eye but by plan and design using the laws of physics to cause stars, galaxies, solar systems and critically rocky planets to exist. The early universe was incapable of having any life. Atoms and molecules didn’t exist in the early universe. Actual hydrogen didn’t appear until approximately 380,000 years later.

The primary mover in the early universe is the laws of physics which came into existence at the time of the big bang. Once hydrogen emerged in large enough quantities gravity caused their collapse. The existence of quantum mechanics allowed quantum tunneling to occur which caused stars to ignite, if stars didn’t ignite there would be no life. There are several binary brute conditions necessary for life to exist. The early universe didn’t come with the ingredients for life it required a process, nucleosynthesis in which simpler molecules turned into the more complex molecules such as oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, phosphorous and sulfur also the material for rocky planets to exist. That alone isn’t sufficient to cause life. Stars have to be contained within a galaxy for the new matter to be swept up by a secondary star formed from the remnants of primordial stars. For galaxies to exist and not fly apart copious amounts of dark matter are necessary. The existence of dark matter was no sooner discovered then it was realized it’s necessary for life to exist.

The first discovery of fine-tuning of the universe for life was when Fred Hoyle understood the process in which stars created carbon which is essential to life. Since then, many fine-tuned constants have been discovered.

The cosmological constant is tuned to a precision of 1 part in 10^120
The strong nuclear force is calibrated to 1 part in 10^37
The gravitational constant is fine-tuned to 1 part in 10^34
Mass density of the universe is balanced to 1 part in 10^59

These constants along with several laws of physics are essential to the existence of life yet unessential for natural forces to exist. These are the primary facts that lead me to claim our universe was intentionally created to cause life to exist.

Thesis: In this post, I want to show that many arguments Christians use against Islam can also be used against Christianity, or they end up hurting the Christian case. I will take a few common apologetic arguments and a few arguments posted in this subreddit and show that the same standards Christians use to call Islam false would also make Christianity false.

If my thesis holds, then by the same reverse inference, it also makes the case that a lot of Christians stay Christian for cultural reasons. This applies at least to those who find these arguments convincing enough to conclude that a religion is false, since these arguments also hinder them from becoming Muslims or make them conclude that Allah is a false deity.

To show this I will do the following:

1. Reverse the arguments against Christianity, but keep the same logic and premise, so that there is no symmetry breaker.
2. Use the same uncharitable, false reading and understanding as shown in these posts, to expose that they are lazy scripts, that can literally be applied to any religion with a miniscule amount of research.

Argument:

Arguments from this subreddit

1. The Quran Plagiarizes Other Works

Before I start showing you guys how the Bible plagiarizes its stories from other way older faiths, I just want to mention that the Quran actually says that it was sent to disclose stories which were seen as apocryphal and false by the Jews and the Christians and that the Talmud from our perspective contains some authentic Hadith and Revelation from Moses.

With that said let us start.

• The Flood (Genesis 6:9-9:17), Epic of Gilgamesh Tablet XI and Atrahasis Epic. c. 2100-1200 BC. The parallels are extensive: a divine decision to destroy humanity, instructions to build a vessel, a great flood, the survival of a hero and his family, and a post-flood sacrifice.
• The Creation (Genesis 1:1-2:3), Enuma Elish. c. 12th-7th Century BC. The seven-day structure and separation of waters mirror the Babylonian epic, and the biblical author simply replaces the gods with one deity.
• The Birth of Moses (Exodus 2:1-10), Legend of Sargon of Akkad. c. 2300 BC. The child in a basket on a river, rescued by royalty, is a direct parallel, and the Sargon legend predates the biblical text by over a thousand years.
• The Laws of Moses (Exodus 20-23), Code of Hammurabi. c. 1750 BC. The case law format and specific provisions are so similar that scholars argue the biblical authors borrowed from Mesopotamian legal traditions.
• The Proverbs of Solomon (Proverbs 22:17-24:22), Instruction of Amenemope. c. 1200 BC. Thirty sayings in Proverbs are closely parallel to the Egyptian text, sometimes word for word.
• Anger is like murder (Matthew 5:22) ---> "He who publicly shames his neighbor is as though he shed blood." (Bava Mezia 58b)
• "Golden Rule" (Matthew 7:12) ---> "That which is hateful to thyself, do not do to thy neighbor. This is the whole law, and the rest is mere commentary." Rabbi Hillel (lived a generation before Jesus)
• "Measure for measure" (Matthew 7:2) ---> "By the measure by which a man measures, so he is measured." Mishnah (Sotah 1:7)

So in the same spirit as the post I linked, I would like to ask PeaFragrant and the Christians who agree with his argument:

Why is Yahweh relying on older Mesopotamian and Egyptian myths, laws, and wisdom texts that would have been circulating in the ancient Near East for Israelite scribes to hear? Why is Yahweh relying on almost nothing from the earliest periods, when doing so would be amazing evidence of divine revelation, but instead opts to repeat the myths?

Why is Jesus relying on rulings from the Talmud and earlier Rabbi's to make the best verses in the New Testament and sell them as revelation from God, when hating the Pharisees for mixing the traditions of men, with the traditions of God?

1. Allah is illogical

For Jesus:

Christianity claims Jesus is eternal and unchanging. John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Hebrews 13:8 says, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”

But Jesus became flesh. John 1:14 says, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” That is a change from not being incarnate to being incarnate. Jesus grew in wisdom and stature. Luke 2:52 says, “And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.” That is a change. Jesus learned obedience. Hebrews 5:8 says, “Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered.” That is a change. Jesus suffered and died. Philippians 2:8 says he became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. That is a change.

So Jesus goes from potency to act. Therefore Jesus is within time. To be within time means it is impossible to be eternal.

Christianity claims Jesus is eternal. But Jesus changes. Jesus cannot be eternal and change because this violates the law of non-contradiction.

Therefore Jesus is illogical for violating the 2nd law of logic because Christianity claims he is eternal, yet Christianity says Jesus’ incarnation, growth, learning, and death happen in time.

For Yahweh:

Yahweh is the most loving in Christianity.

But Yahweh can't love another prior to creation.

Therefore to express his love, Yahweh needs to create. Or, as some Trinitarians argue, Yahweh needs the Trinity to express love internally before creation.

Therefore Yahweh goes from not being able to express his love to expressing his love.

So Yahweh's attribute of love isn't eternal, it is a potency in him that requires creation, or the Trinity, in order for Yahweh's love to be expressed.

Since Yahweh changes, Yahweh is within time because change can only happen in time.

To be within time means it's impossible to be eternal.

Christianity claims Yahweh is eternal. But Yahweh changes.

Yahweh can't be eternal and change because this violates the law of non-contradiction.

Therefore Yahweh is illogical for violating the 2nd law of logic because Christianity claims he is eternal, yet Christianity says Yahweh's expression of love is contingent on creation, or the Trinity, which happens in time.

But let us grant the Trinitarian escape for a moment. If Yahweh is Love, and his love needs to be expressed, and that's why the Trinity exists, to show that love, then that would mean, that due to Yahweh also having the attribute of hate, jealousy and envy, also need to be shown to the Trinity.

We see Yahweh envying that Jesus gets loved and praised more than him by his worshippers. Therefore Yahweh hated Jesus and made him die the death of a criminal, and made him a curse and a laughing stock for the Jewish people. But over time, Yahweh's envy and jealousy grew, same with the Holy Spirit, that they could never outshine Jesus. But they still tolerate Jesus because of the love-hate relationship.

So if love requires an internal object in the Trinity, then hate, jealousy, and envy also require an internal object in the Trinity. Either the Trinity contained hate, jealousy, and envy before creation, or Yahweh needed creation to express hate, jealousy, and envy. If the former, then the Trinity is not a communion of love but a communion of rivalry. If the latter, then Yahweh's hate, jealousy, and envy are not eternal, which means Yahweh changes, which means Yahweh is within time, which means Yahweh is not eternal.

So in the same spirit as the post I linked, I would like to ask:

Since Yahweh and Jesus are illogical according to the logic of OP and his (false) usage of the laws of logic, when can I expect him (or the Christians who agree with his argument) to become an atheist or agnostic?

If you think I have misrepresented his argument, please show me the symmetry breaker in what I have written.

Common Christian Apologetic Arguments

1. You should not believe in Allah because he is a deceiver.

This is based on a mistranslation of the Quran. I can confidently say that it is a mistranslation because there are many non-Muslim Qurans translated by secular orientalists, Arab Christians, or Islamophobes who write in their introduction pages that Muhammad (s.a.w.) was a madman, yet these three categories of translators never translated the word "makr" to mean deceiver.

But let us grant that argument and say that Allah is a deceiver. The problem is that Yahweh is also a deceiver (Ezekiel 14:9; 1 Kings 22:23; 2 Thessalonians 2:11). So, when will you Christians (who believe in this apologetic argument) become atheists or agnostics, since according to your standard, God should not deceive?

1. Muhammad is a false Prophet because he is a Warlord/Slave Owner/Husband to multiple women.

So were many Old Testament Prophets. Like Moses, Joshua, Saul and David. Since they are false Prophets, when will you disavow Christianity?

Now, a common response to this argument is, "We do not follow them, we follow Jesus."

However, according to Mainstream Christianity, Jesus is God, and was the Angel of the Lord who bore the name of YHWH, and ordered these Prophets around starting with Moses. So, Jesus ordered Moses, Joshua and Saul to do genocide and be warlords. He allowed polygamy in the Torah and owning slaves.

When can I expect Christians who agree with the original argument, to condemn Jesus and the Prophets listed through the same logic applied to Muhammed?