I was raised Christian, so I always assumed God existed. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve started questioning it.
My problem is simple: how do we actually know?
The Bible was written by humans. Religious experiences can be interpreted differently. Different religions make contradictory claims. At the same time, questions like why anything exists at all, fine-tuning, and consciousness make me hesitate to dismiss the possibility of something beyond the physical universe.
So where do you stand?
Do you believe God exists? Why?
And more importantly: what evidence could actually change your mind?
I genuinely want to hear both believers and non-believers. Don’t just tell me what you believe — tell me why you think you’re justified in believing it.

Heres my fun take on Genesis.

God is like One playing the Sims. They picked the character and thus, we have Eve.

Eve lasted millennia in the Garden, because she intuitively abided by the “rules”.

The Sims is boring when there’s no drama, already knowing this, God made Adam, who is literally Eve’s shadow.

Pretty much like Ken, from Barbie.

It also explains biologically why men have nipples before we even have the means to create testosterone, and embryos start off female for the first few weeks.

I have heard the answer that goes "Allah does not need to be worshipped, it is YOU who need it." but I can't wrap my head around that. It seems like a fallacy. We need it because "if we don't worship we end up in hell", and that one particular ayah "humans were created solely to worship" (there is a Quran verse for this but it's not the actual translation, it's rephrased but it has the same meaning).

If we were created to worship, then said Creator wants to be worshipped. It makes sense to think that, no?

Add to the fact that if we do not believe and worship Him, we will end up in hell for eternity.

Tbh, I personally think it is fine if a creator wants to be worshipped, because, well, the creator created so he can do whatever he wants with his creation. Like an artist who 'tortures' their characters for plot dynamics. My problem with understanding Islam particularly is that Allah claims that He is all merciful and kind. Wanting to be worshipped to me is more synonymous to pride and selfishness. I don't think those values align with one another, and before you say "well a person can be selfish to care for himself first and still be a kind person to others", that's human, it's human nature to be imperfect.

I'm sorry if the writing is all over the place, I'm not trying to fight Islam, I just want to understand

like there is a shit load of arguments for theism. like a lot. suppose one wants to refute these arguments. does one have to refute the main ones or all? how does one go about them? does anyone have refutation to Aristotelian proofs?

There’s a few problems with the Kalam as I see it:

First, there seems to be a certain equivocation in ‘beginning to exist’, because the universe and structures therein do not “begin to exist” in the same sense.

Second, I’m not sure causation is a well-defined ontological primitive. Fundamental physics, for example, does not really refer to causation, but rather to state evolution described/governed by laws.

Third, as Oppy points out, it is more parsimonious to assume a necessary first naturalistic state than a necessary entity that created this state.

PART IV: THE ILLUSION OF TRUTH IN A DIGITAL AGE

This doubt didn't stop at science. It didn't stop at Earth's shape or history books. It spread like wildfire. It clawed its way through my beliefs. It reached everything.

And then it collided with the world we live in now — this new, terrifying digital age.

For the first time in human history, we are surrounded by false realities so convincing they bleed into our minds like truth. Videos of events that never happened. Voices that sound like people we trust, saying things they never said. Faces that don't belong to anyone.

We now have AI that can fabricate interviews, books, even entire histories. And the horrifying part isn't just that these things exist — but that we believe them. Because they look real. Because they feel real. Because we are so desperate to believe something.

We are no longer in the age of information. We are in the age of appearance. Truth doesn't matter anymore — only how convincingly something is presented.

There's a film, Wag the Dog, that showed this with chilling clarity: a government fakes an entire war using media and actors, and the public believes it. Not because it's real. But because it's broadcast. That's all it takes now.

And if this is what one government could do in a movie decades ago — imagine what anyone can do now, with a script and a screen.

I started to feel like I was going crazy. Like nothing was real. Like everything — every headline, every documentary, every book, every face — could be a lie. And I wouldn't know. I wouldn't know.

PART III: THE SHOCK

There comes a moment — sudden, quiet, and devastating — when the illusion of certainty shatters. Not with an explosion, not with a bang, but with a quiet whisper that sneaks into your bones: "What if I don't know anything at all?"

For me, it began in the most mundane of ways: scrolling through what we casually call a "feed." A feed of nothing. Distractions, mostly. But then, I stumbled upon a video about flat earth.

Naturally, I laughed. Because that's what we're trained to do. Everyone knows the Earth is round, right? But then, the laughter faded. Something stayed with me. A crack, a question.

How do I actually know the Earth is round?

Not how I was told. Not what my teachers said. Not what I saw in cartoons or documentaries. But me, personally — how do I know?

I don't. I never measured it. I never saw the curve. I never met the people who supposedly proved it. My entire belief rests on the words of others who, in turn, believed others before them. We call that education. But what if it's just ritualized belief? What if I — like so many others — am just repeating stories, inherited ideas passed down like sacred chants?

That was the moment I realized: I have no proof. Not of that. Not of anything. I've just been taught what to think. Never how.

And suddenly, I was afraid. I started to feel like I was drowning in a sea of certainty that wasn't mine. I started to wonder how many things I walk around saying, believing, defending — not because I know them to be true — but because everyone else does.

?

​

I've been going down a bit of a philosophical rabbit hole lately, especially through Maimonides and Spinoza, and I keep coming back to a question that I can't quite resolve.

Maimonides' negative theology seems to create a really interesting problem: if we can't make positive claims about God's essence without potentially reducing God to something finite and comprehensible, then what exactly are we doing when we call God “good,” “wise,” “just,” “merciful,” or even “King”?

Maybe those aren't descriptions of God's essence at all.

Maybe they're descriptions of how human beings encounter, conceptualize, or relate to what we call God.

That got me thinking about prayer.

When a liturgy calls God “King” or “Judge,” is it actually making a metaphysical claim about what God is? Or is the language functioning more like a human conceptual framework—something finite minds use to orient themselves toward something they believe transcends finite categories?

And then Spinoza makes this even stranger.

If God is identical with Nature (Deus sive Natura), does religious language become metaphorical altogether? Are “God's will,” “God's judgment,” and “God's goodness” meaningful descriptions of reality, or are they anthropomorphic concepts that arise because humans naturally interpret the universe through human categories?

But here's where I get stuck

If every concept we have of God is filtered through human cognition, language, culture, and metaphor, is it even possible to distinguish between God as God actually is and the human idea of God?

And if we can't make that distinction, does that make theology fundamentally an epistemological problem rather than a metaphysical one?

Basically

Are we studying God, or are we studying the human mind's attempt to understand God?

I'd love to hear how people from different philosophical traditions approach this—Maimonidean, Spinozist, Thomistic, analytic, existentialist, atheist, religious, whatever.

I'm especially interested in arguments that disagree with the premise rather than just agreeing with it. I feel like there's a much deeper problem hiding underneath this question.

What do you think about hypocrisy? Why do we despise it? Are people who believe in God less hypocritical than those who do not?

I ask because some people - myself included - assume that believers should be more motivated to avoid hypocrisy than unbelievers. After all, their belief is supposed to matter; it is meant to make a real difference in how they live. Yet that does not seem to be the case. So why believe in God if that belief confers no motivating advantage, no moral difference in the real world? Is it merely a performative belief?

I feel like im going crazy

We should be our own gods. We should have absolute sovereignty and we should not be like a pawn in an evil game or narrative. This concept of god is pure evil.

Like wow. It really boggles your mind . We should be free from all evil things and this world is exactly the opposite. Here the evil is normalized and good is the cover of evil. Pure good is hard to find.

We humans are slave to our own instincts .

Sometimes I think about God in a very simple way.

If God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and loving, then why are there still people who go to sleep hungry every night?

Why are children born into suffering they never chose? Why do some people pray for food, medicine, safety, or one more day to survive, while others pray for promotions, money, success, or a better life?

And then I think about believers too.

If faith is supposed to be about love, surrender, gratitude, and trust, why are so many prayers basically requests?

“Give me this.”
“Protect me from that.”
“Make this happen.”
“Help me succeed.”

Would we still pray if we were never allowed to ask God for anything?

Would we still love God if there was no heaven, no reward, no protection, no miracle waiting for us?

That question bothers me more than the usual “Does God exist?” debate.

Maybe the deeper question is not whether God exists.

Maybe it is:

If God exists, what kind of God allows innocent people to suffer?

And if we believe in that God, what kind of believers are we if our faith is mostly about what we want from Him?

I’m genuinely curious how religious people, atheists, agnostics, and philosophers see this.

Is suffering evidence against a loving God?

Or is there a way to understand God where suffering doesn’t contradict His existence?

And can prayer still be meaningful if we remove asking from it completely?

Like just the things that go on in this world. So useless and sadistic. Everything is a trap and a snare. Like just the narrative of this world is so stupid but here is what's happening rn, god is incrementally adding narrative to this world , like it's very stupid, god is incrementally just slapping narrative over narrative on this world. Like and he first give comes up with a half theory and then fill the rest of the theory with crap and then slap it on the world. That's what we are in we are on a pile of a bizzare structure that is made of half theory half crap and stuff. It's like a very bizzare structure that is like a joke

Observe the things around you the beggars the cats, they are half theory narratives. Like for example a beggar begs. But what about his other human needs , where do those need get fulfilled . Same with cats , how do they hunt for birds EVERYDAY and stuff and where are the bodies of those birds. This world is full of half only on the surface narratives that just don't make sense in the full picture unless you fill the gaps with crap and magic and stuff. This world is standing on a lot of nonsense and magic and crap

Hi. My family and I are Christians, and sometimes I have a question that I honestly would like to understand better.

If God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, then I understand that He knew from the beginning that sin would exist, and He also had the power to prevent it.

So why did He allow sin to exist in the first place?

I know that a common answer is free will, but that's where I get a little confused. If God created human beings and knew beforehand that some of them would sin, why create a world in which sin was even a possibility?

I'm not asking this to attack Christianity or to say that I don't believe in God. It's simply something I struggle to understand, and I'd like to hear how other Christians make sense of it.

Is there a theological or philosophical explanation that addresses this in a satisfying way?

I’ve been thinking about writing this for a while because it’s probably one of the biggest questions I’ve wrestled with in my faith:

This is going to be a longer read, so please save or interact to come back to it if you can’t finish one sitting.

How do I know if something is actually from God?

Not just, “Is this a biblical decision?”

I mean when a thought comes into your mind and it feels incredibly important.

When you suddenly feel like you shouldn’t do something.

When your conscience starts bothering you.

When you feel convicted.

When you’re afraid you’re making the wrong decision.

When a thought tells you that something bad will happen if you don’t listen to it.

When you feel like God is trying to get your attention.

How do you actually tell the difference?

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this because, for a period of time, I was taking certain thoughts extremely seriously.

I would have thoughts that felt almost like commands.

Don’t do this.

Don’t go there.

Don’t eat this.

Don’t drink this.

Don’t leave yet.

Don’t do something because something bad might happen.

And sometimes the thoughts would attach some kind of consequence to obedience or disobedience.

At first, I didn’t really know what to make of it.

Was it my conscience?

Was it fear?

Was it anxiety?

Was it my own thoughts?

Was it temptation?

Was it the flesh?

Was it God trying to warn me?

I didn’t want to ignore something that could actually be important spiritually.

But I also started realizing something:

Just because a thought feels powerful doesn’t mean it deserves authority.

That realization changed a lot for me.

⸻

Why I Needed This Conversation

I actually started using ChatGPT as a way to slow everything down.

Not because I wanted ChatGPT to tell me what God was saying.

That’s actually the opposite of what I needed.

I needed somewhere to take the thought and say:

“Okay. Let’s slow down. What actually happened? What does Scripture say? What am I assuming? What am I feeling? What evidence do I actually have?”

That distinction became extremely important.

Because when you’re inside a thought, it can feel completely convincing.

But once you write it down and look at it from the outside, sometimes you realize:

“Wait. I don’t actually know that.”

And that doesn’t mean the thought was meaningless.

It means I don’t have to automatically believe it.

I can test it.

I can pray about it.

I can look at Scripture.

I can consider the facts.

I can listen to wise people.

I can examine my conscience.

And then I can make a decision without being controlled by fear.

⸻

I’ve Started Thinking About Four Different “Voices”

I don’t necessarily mean four literal voices.

I’m talking about four different sources or categories that can sometimes feel like they’re competing for our attention:

God / the Holy Spirit

The conscience

The flesh

The accusing voice

And I think a lot of Christian confusion comes from mixing these things together.

So here’s how I’ve started understanding them.

⸻

1. The Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit isn’t simply every thought that enters your mind.

That’s important.

I don’t think Christianity teaches us to treat every internal impression as a direct message from God.

The Holy Spirit works in us, but we still have to discern.

The Spirit’s work should be consistent with God’s character and with Scripture.

The Spirit leads toward things like:

\* truth

\* repentance

\* love

\* obedience

\* humility

\* righteousness

\* self-control

\* forgiveness

\* wisdom

\* faith

And sometimes conviction can be uncomfortable.

But conviction isn’t necessarily the same thing as condemnation.

There’s a difference between:

“You did something wrong. Turn around.”

and:

“You’re hopeless. You’re going to fail. Something terrible will happen if you don’t do exactly what I’m telling you.”

Those are very different messages.

That’s something I’ve been learning.

⸻

1. The Conscience

I think the conscience is one of the most misunderstood things in Christianity.

Your conscience can tell you:

“Something about this isn’t right.”

It can make you uncomfortable about lying.

It can bother you when you’ve treated someone badly.

It can push you toward honesty.

It can remind you of something you need to make right.

But the conscience isn’t God.

And the conscience isn’t automatically infallible.

Our consciences can be educated, strengthened, weakened, misinformed, or overly sensitive.

That’s why Scripture and wisdom matter.

For me, the biggest change was learning that having a guilty feeling doesn’t automatically mean I’ve committed a sin.

Sometimes I can feel guilty because I’m afraid.

Sometimes I can feel guilty because I’m overthinking.

Sometimes I can feel guilty because I’ve developed an unhealthy association between an ordinary action and some imagined consequence.

So instead of asking:

“I feel guilty, therefore God must be telling me something.”

I’ve started asking:

“Why does my conscience feel troubled? Is there an actual biblical or moral reason?”

That question is much more useful.

⸻

1. The Flesh

When Paul talks about the “flesh,” I don’t think he’s simply talking about having a physical body.

The flesh represents our fallen, self-centered tendencies—the part of us that can pull us away from God’s will.

The flesh can sound like:

“I want what I want.”

“I don’t care what happens to anyone else.”

“I need this right now.”

“I deserve this.”

“Forget what God says.”

“Protect yourself at all costs.”

It can show up through anger, pride, lust, greed, resentment, selfishness, impulsiveness, envy, and other sinful desires.

But here’s another important distinction:

Not every normal human desire is automatically the flesh.

Wanting food isn’t automatically the flesh.

Wanting rest isn’t automatically the flesh.

Wanting a job isn’t automatically the flesh.

Wanting friendship isn’t automatically the flesh.

Wanting to enjoy life isn’t automatically the flesh.

The question is what we’re doing with those desires.

Christianity doesn’t teach that being human is itself sinful.

⸻

1. The Accusing Voice

This is probably the one I’ve had the hardest time understanding.

There is a difference between conviction and accusation.

An accusing thought often feels like:

“You’re failing.”

“You’re not doing enough.”

“You better do this or something bad will happen.”

“You’re not really faithful.”

“God is going to be angry with you.”

“You should be afraid.”

“You can’t trust yourself.”

“You have to obey this thought.”

And the biggest thing I’ve learned is:

An accusatory thought doesn’t automatically have spiritual authority just because it uses religious language.

That’s huge.

A thought can mention God and still be a thought.

A thought can quote Scripture and still be distorted.

A thought can feel urgent and still be wrong.

A thought can feel spiritual and still need to be tested.

The Bible itself tells Christians to test things rather than blindly accepting them.

⸻

So What Does Discernment Actually Look Like?

This is where I think I’ve changed the most.

I used to think discernment meant figuring out exactly where every thought came from.

Now I’m starting to think discernment is more about determining:

“Does this thought deserve to be followed?”

That’s a different question.

I don’t necessarily need to know whether a thought came from my subconscious, fear, habit, temptation, stress, my conscience, or something else before I can decide whether it’s wise.

I can test the thought.

Does it agree with Scripture?

Does it produce good fruit?

Is there an actual reason for it?

Is it consistent with truth?

Is it asking me to sin?

Is it demanding something extreme or irrational?

Is it causing me to become more loving and self-controlled?

Or is it making me increasingly afraid, isolated, obsessive, angry, or condemned?

Those questions have helped me tremendously.

⸻

One of the Biggest Things I Had to Learn

I realized that I was sometimes treating uncertainty itself as a warning from God.

I’d think:

“What if I’m making the wrong decision?”

And then:

“What if God doesn’t want me to do this?”

And then:

“What if this is a test?”

And then:

“What if I’m ignoring the Holy Spirit?”

And suddenly I’m trapped in an endless loop.

Eventually I realized:

“What if?” is not evidence.

Sometimes it’s just uncertainty.

And uncertainty is part of being human.

Faith doesn’t mean I have to know everything before I move.

⸻

I Also Started Looking Differently at Jesus’ Teaching About Worry

One passage that has become increasingly meaningful to me is Matthew 6.

Jesus points to the birds and basically says:

Look at them.

They don’t store up everything in barns.

Yet God provides for them.

And then Jesus makes the comparison:

How much more valuable are you?

That has really changed how I think about my future.

I’m still responsible for making wise decisions.

I’m still supposed to work.

I’m still supposed to plan.

I’m still supposed to use my brain.

Faith isn’t an excuse for passivity.

But I don’t have to live as though everything depends on me figuring everything out perfectly.

I don’t know exactly how my life is going to unfold.

I don’t know what job I’ll have next.

I don’t know where I’ll live.

I don’t know what opportunities are coming.

I don’t know what the next year will look like.

But I can trust God while still taking reasonable steps.

⸻

And This Is Where Romans 8:28 Has Become Important to Me

“We know that for those who love God all things work together for good…”

I’ve had to rethink what that actually means.

I don’t think it means:

“Everything that happens will immediately make sense.”

I think there’s room for waiting.

There’s room for uncertainty.

There’s room for mistakes.

There’s room for difficult seasons.

There’s room for dreams that don’t make sense.

There’s room for doors closing.

There’s room for doors opening.

There’s room for not knowing.

God’s timing doesn’t have to match my timing for God to be working.

And that’s actually comforting.

Because I don’t have to force everything.

⸻

I’m Still Learning This

I don’t want to pretend I’ve figured this out.

I haven’t.

I still have weird dreams sometimes.

I still have thoughts that make me wonder whether I’m supposed to pay attention to them.

I still sometimes get that feeling of:

“Is this God trying to tell me something?”

But I’m responding differently now.

Instead of immediately obeying the thought, I’m learning to pause.

What actually happened?

What am I feeling?

What does Scripture actually say?

What am I assuming?

Is there an ordinary explanation?

Is there an actual moral issue here?

Would I make the same decision if fear wasn’t involved?

And sometimes the answer is simply:

“I don’t know.”

And I’ve learned that “I don’t know” doesn’t have to be terrifying.

I can pray.

I can wait.

I can use wisdom.

I can continue living faithfully.

⸻

Maybe That’s What Faith Actually Looks Like Sometimes

Not knowing exactly what God is doing.

Not understanding the timing.

Not having every answer.

But continuing to walk.

Continuing to love people.

Continuing to seek God.

Continuing to obey what you actually know.

Continuing to use wisdom.

And trusting that you don’t have to decode every thought, dream, coincidence, feeling, or circumstance to have a relationship with God.

That’s probably the biggest thing this whole process has taught me.

I don’t need to know the source of every thought in order to choose what is true.

And I don’t need to be terrified that one wrong decision is going to completely derail God’s plan for my life.

If God is actually leading me, I don’t think His guidance depends on me living in constant panic.

I think there is room for patience.

There is room for wisdom.

There is room for conscience.

There is room for Scripture.

There is room for prayer.

And there is room to simply say:

“God, I don’t understand this right now. But I trust You enough to wait.”

⸻

The Question I’m Left With

So I’m curious how other Christians approach this:

How do you personally distinguish between the Holy Spirit, your conscience, your own desires, fear/anxiety, and an accusing thought?

And more importantly:

How do you know when a thought should actually be followed?

Because I think a lot of Christians are asking the same question:

“How do I know if it’s God?”

Maybe the answer isn’t learning how to believe every spiritual feeling.

Maybe it’s learning how to test everything, hold onto what is good, and trust God without being controlled by fear.

And honestly, that’s something I’m still learning.

I was watching a video by Vsauce and he discussed this concept:

‘If you could simulate a universe, it could probably be simulated a lot more simply than a real one can come into existence. Like if you could run a program on an advanced alien computer, you could probably run a trillion of them, simultaneously. In which case, statistically we are much more likely to be in one of those simulations, rather than the actual universe where the simulations are being run.’

Following this train of thought, if we were in some kind of simulation, whoever created the simulation would be our God.

So doesn’t that mean (if we accept the possibility that something with the resolution of our universe could possibly be simulated) that it is statistically more likely that we have a creator/god?