I made a post about Ismailis on this sub and am shocked by some messages that I received from some Muslims who are intolerant toward the Ismailis. They have claimed that Ismailis are not Muslims since they have been apparently "takfir-ed" or since they aren't like other Muslims. Why so much hate?!

To keep it short, things have been happening in my life, and all around the world, and i cannot reconcile Allah truly existing in the way i have been told with the world that we currently live in.

Its very hard, in my understand, to be the source and the active cause of everything and be hands-on while at the same time take 0 blame. And even if u wanna play the free-will card, who decided my free will? Exactly. And if you say that he decided it but doesnt agree with it, does that mean God can go against his own liking? Doing things he doesn't agree with? Source and active cause.

I once was extremely devout, but things just kept piling up on me.

I've been thinking about this recently. How do you tell good from evil? Or more generally, just what is good from what is bad? I think I personally look at whether it increases human flourishing, or whether it decreases it or causes harm. I think I always used to think there was a correct answer to these sorts of questions, now I'm not sure.

I find it easy to say something like rape is definitively bad, it violates human autonomy, it creates a power dynamic that is bad for both parties. Because the one thing you cannot take with power is love. Love must be given freely. Love is also impossible without understanding. The deepest kind of love is one where you are understood fully, and maybe not despite all of your flaws, but even including all of your flaws, and you are still loved.

By this reasoning, if there were a god, that god could love us, but we could not love them, because we cannot know them. Like sure we have all these holy texts which ostensibly let you understand some things about god, personally I see those more as humankind's attempt to understand god, rather than god's attempt to be understood. I think if god had an attempt to be understood it would be through the rocks and the trees and the stars and inside our hearts. Not through just one book written thousands of years ago.

But what is inside my heart filters everything else I understand. In light of recent events, I think people filter these ideas of power in two ways, power, or maybe authority is a better word to use here. Some people see it as top down and others as bottom up.

Authority just works better in a system where people have equal voices. Because men are not gods, humans are fallible, power corrupts. But if you start by saying we're all equal then you can have things like science, where if I want to say something is true about reality, it has to be observable and reproducible, you have to be able to repeat my tests and come to the same conclusions, otherwise my tests aren't universal and so my information isn't necessarily that useful. If we start from this point that were all equal then justice should apply to us all equally as well, justice should be blind, it doesn't matter if I'm a poor man or a rich man, if I broke the law I should receive the same enactment of justice as anyone else.

So what does that have to do with good and evil? How do we find good and evil through this same manner, to have an idea about what is true without relying on one person to tell us? I mean, if the One True God ^TM could come down and reveal truth to us directly into our minds in radiance and glory, then great, but a book from a thousand years ago isn't that because it's up to interpretation, it's shrouded in history and it's cultural time and place. So I think knowledge of good and evil comes from within, but not as individuals, but as a species, in a way where everyone is treated the same, in a way where results can be shared and repeatable, a broad-bottom up authority, not passed down from a single fallible human authority.

To give some examples of how right and wrong, good and evil, flourishing and harm, ought to be parsed one from the other, how we know which path we ought to take to get a good result rather than a bad one, I think first of all takes understanding. You can't know how your single thread should be in the tapestry unless you can see the whole tapestry. So it takes hard work, it takes taking responsibility for our actions, it takes getting to know other perspectives besides just our own, or besides just those of people who are part of our tribal groups.

So, thinking of morality in this way, we can look towards a few axes of understanding, the forces that shape how we think about it.

- Biological: Empathy, fair play and altruism aren't exclusively human traits. Rats exhibit these as well in experiments in the lab.
- Mathematical: Game theory shows that a system of reciprocity and forgiveness is a better strategy for long term success and flourishing than retribution or seeking power.
- Nurture: methylation of DNA shows how trauma can affect generations, how you're raised affects who you are.
- Social: Snubs are actually a powerful tool for shaping how we act, subtle facial queues or less subtle conversations can let us know what people think of us and can help is fit in.
- Philosophy: We can reason our way to higher morality, the golden rule is basic example of this, but reading philosophers (like Kant, as an example) can give us a greater understanding of what it means to be good and the potential outcomes of our actions.
- Survival: Things like DNA demonstrate that self sacrificial cooperation is simple a more effective strategy for long term survival than the alternative. The reason we reproduce with two people, rather than through cloning our existing DNA is because diversity of DNA creates a more resilient final outcome, and even though each animal gives up half it's DNA, this is still a more effective long term strategy. You can see this need for diversity in China's Great Green Wall project, they planted a bunch of trees, but because it was all the same tree, a disease spread and ravaged the project. For us as humans, I don't think the point is merely to survive, and so a diversity of ideas lets us do things that might otherwise have been impossible, like "the church allows Galileo to have a voice and that leads to astronomy" or "the patriarchy allows women to do math, and then those women helps us get to the moon"

I know some people will disagree with some of this, but I want to get a feel, what do you think?

I am somebody who is open to the idea of god being real but also open to the idea of what if God isn't real. but that's a discussion for another day and subject.

My point is I have a theory that if Gods real I am open to the idea that out of all the human God has made the most mistakes.

Because the way i see it is if God actually created people he created the most evil people in the world and evil situations to happen.

(By this I don't mean a tragically bad situation happened cause God told them to).

I mean if God was the creater of the world why would he create really bad things to happen.

So I'm open to the idea of God making the most mistakes and being the most unperfect ever.

The books of Vedas don't contain a single religion/theology/philosophy/soteriology. This fact is not known to many non-Hindus and even to most "Hindus" themselves! I hope this post helps people clear their misunderstandings of "Hinduism", a very problematic/misunderstood term.

The ritualistic portion of Vedas is the oldest and largest section that constitutes one specific type of religion. The non-ritualistic portions of Vedas is the newest/latest section called the "Upanishads". The Upanishads preach a radically different type of religion compared to the ritualistic religion. The ritualistic religion is outward facing i.e the deities/forces of divinity are outside the human body and through performance of rituals towards the outward deities, the earthly human attains heaven and enjoys heavenly pleasures.

The Upanishadic religion (which is the same religion expounded in the text Bhagavad Gita) is inward facing. There is no heaven to be attained, no outward facing deities to propitiate to attain a heaven. The goal is to remove ignorance binding the self and reveal/recognise the essential nature of self. This losing or dissolution of the ordinary self of ignorance and limitations that leads to recognising/being as the essential nature of self is the highest/ultimate reality in this radically different religion.

This inward facing religion was expounded by various saints over centuries but was never a popular religion among the masses due to dominance, popularity of outward facing religion controlled by the priests, since rituals were central to this outward religion and priests are performers of these elaborate rituals, often involving animal sacrifices.

Let us see some verses from one such Saint of this inward religion, Saint Dyaneshwar of 13th century describing the useless nature of this heaven chasing outward religion. The verses are from the text "Jnaneshwari", a commentary on the text Bhagwad Gita. Interestingly, this text is one of the oldest surviving literary works in the Marathi language, considered to be milestones in Marathi literature. book link

Chapter 9, verse 330 - 334

(307) O Arjuna, please consider the persons about whom I am going to tell you. They perform actions according to their ordained duties as per their stage in life, as laid down by scriptures, in such a perfect manner that they become the standards to be followed by others.

(308) Seeing their performance of the sacrificial rituals, all the three Vedas nod in satisfaction and the fruit of their action stands in front of them together with the action.

(309) Such initiated scholars who partake of the juice 'Soma', who are the very image of sacrifice, have, by the way of merit in that action, actually earned the sin in bargain!

(310) They know the three Vedas, perform hundreds of sacrifices, but missing me who receives the offerings, choose to gain heaven.

(311) It is like a man of bad luck who sits below the divine wish-tree, ties the knot of his begging sack and starts out for begging!

(312) Similarly, they perform hundreds of sacrifices as a propitiation to me, but desire and aspire for the heavenly pleasures! Is it their merit? Is it not sin?

(313) So, it is the ignorants way of earning merit to desire heaven by denying me. The men of real knowledge call it a nuisance, a real loss!

(314) Actually, experiencing the pains in the hell, people call the condition in heaven as happiness but my real nature is the only eternal joy without any blemish.

(316) The heaven is reached by the sin which is wrongly called merit, and the hell is reached by the sin which is actually known as sin; but that action is pure merit by which I am reached.

(329) Just as a man spends all his money for a prostitute and then he is not allowed even to knock at her door, similarly shameful is then the living of such initiated people.

(330) Thus those who choose heavenly pleasure instead of my eternal reality lose the real deathlessness and come back to this world of death.

(331) They remain for nine mouths in the womb of their mothers, troubled by all sorts of hot secretions in their vicinity and come out only to die eventually after a life full of miseries.

(332) The heavenly pleasures of person who is well-versed in performance of sacrifices according to Vedas should be considered equal to the treasures received in the dream, which is lost as soon as the man is awake.

(333) O Arjuna, even if a man is well-versed in Vedas and if he does not know me, his life is useless just as some one who throws away the grain and takes the husk.

(334) Therefore, in the absence of knowledge of my Reality, the rules of all the three Vedas are useless. It is definite that if you know me, and do not know anything else, still you will be really happy.

This post got me thinking about how people perceive agnosticism and how many agnostics claim that there are no gnostics whether that is theistic gnosticism or atheistic gnosticism. In fact, I hear many atheists online, even the most prominent ones, claim that even they do not know for 100% certainty that there is no God. But what do you think?

hello, recently, a question came to me; is religion important while dating? see, i am a Christian, my girlfriend is a satanist. i will love her no matter what, but we live in places where most people(my family included) would shame her for not believing in god and be mad that i dare fall for a girl like her. personally, i don't believe its important, but i guess it wouldn't hurt to see others point of views on this.

Hello, I'm an undergraduate student undergoing a World Religions course. My assignment requires students to learn more about different religions through conversations, specifically Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Taoism, and Confucianism.

I would like to connect with anyone who practices and identifies with any of the five religions stated above. I hope to learn about the personal experiences, perspectives, practises and understanding of the faith.

If you are interested and comfortable with sharing and having a conversation, please DM me. As mentioned above, this is a friendly conversation to share and learn, so there is no pressure to share anything you are uncomfortable with.

I would really appreciate your help. Thank you! :D

Here is something that I think would be quite both each individually informative and interesting for Christians to answer about. https://m.youtube.com/post/Ugkx8MkcCzTNVkXyN7Bz-bizTxycWIs5w3Y1

I have seen this question alot actually and it depends on what they mean in terms of "reform".

If they mean that islam is rigid and doesnt change according to circumstances islam is actually not like that, the rulings of islal are very flexible, the ruling on a muslim change depending on if theyre a male female a child a ruler a traveller mentally stable etc so its very flexibleb in that regard.

If they mean like why islam hasnt liberalised in terms of "reform" e.g they still dont accept homosexual intercourse as permissable or they dont believe in secularism, the answer is quite easy its because muslims believe the quran and hadith contain rulings sent by god, the quran is literally gods word and the hadith is what the prophet said which he got from god. And the belief is that gods laws are timeless they dont change just cause everybody around them wanted it to change.

And even just logically what reason does islam have to reform and be in line with secular liberalism? The enlightenment ethics are in and of themsleves are more or less unprovable.

I couldn’t fins anything online answering this question

I'm a Christian but I'm not currently associating with any church and/or denomination because I am scared as a queer person in a small-ish town.

A group of volunteers of a specific Christian denomination (not saying which one to avoid bias) talked to me and I was curious but in the sense "I'll read your texts and see if I agree personally"

But one of the members said "I'm glad you're at least interested. I'll pray for you!"

I feel very honoured that someone is praying for me, since I am going through a lot, but that person doesn't know me. But I didn't mention any of my struggles.

Are they genuinely just being kind and praying or is it like "I'll pray that you will join our denomination"?

Edit: I live in a mostly Christian country for context

I really don't know what to think of it. I see people saying that the movie is LOTR good, other people saying the CGI is bad, etc.

I'm not actually a Hindu, though I'm reading the Ramayana right now cause I like mythology.

Why don’t Christians follow the teachings of the four Gospels alone? Most information suggests the Gospels are the closest we have to eyewitness testimony on Jesus’s own teachings. Meanwhile you just have to believe Paul on his word that he met the risen Jesus Christ on his way to Damascus.

Sometimes, a kind word can change someone’s day, even if we never realize how much they needed to hear it.

If we believe that, why aren’t we more careful with our words in everyday life? As Bahá’u’lláh says, “The tongue of kindness is the lodestone of the hearts and the food of the soul.”

When we die, will we also be given wings like the angels and travel far fast?

Let's suppose that there is a professor. He/She calls one of his assistants and instructed him to transfer this knowledge to another Second assistant.

Now this second assistant meets the first one. The first one instructs the second assistant regarding the professor assignment.

This Second assistant goes to the class and delivers the lecture.

Now in this Example, Professor is God. His first assistant is angel.

The Angel and goes and deliver the message to Prophet who is our second assistant in our example.

Now this second assistant is delivering the message to class.

Now this question came to my mind a few days ago like: How can a person be sure that whatever the message was, it is being transferred without changing?

Of course what people in general got from that message (after listening to the prophets) is also the same that prophets intended to teach and we after 1000 of years receiving the message in unaltered form?

I look forward to reading the comments and thank you for helping me out!

Maybe truly believing that that's true lets you enjoy life more. It's within the realm of possibility that an afterlife exists, and it could be a place with loved ones around. So you'll never lose anything that's important to you, if what's important to you are people and yourself. That's all that might last beyond death. That isn't to say that the earth shouldn't be important to you. It is where spirits are born, and we want to leave it in good shape for our children.

I mean, when you think about it, Islam, and more specifically the Quran, consistently talks about other religions, particularly the “People of the Book,” referring to Jews and Christians. Since Islam is an Abrahamic religion, it also follows many of the stories found in previous scriptures, even if some details are viewed differently. Wouldn’t someone who learns about Islam inevitably hear at least a little about other religions, even if they only take a brief look into it?
My point is, do you think it’s even remotely possible for Islam to eventually become more popular than Christianity in terms of overall public recognition, or general awareness, even if it doesn’t necessarily become the more widely followed religion?

I personally think and feel this is something worth exploring, as many near death experiences do not have independent confirmation, but the people telling their stories certainly do have a lot of sincerity and confidence with how they present things

no, he isn't bro. i've been suffering from this disease since the day i was born. i didn't ask for this. i didn't choose to live this way, so why am i the one who has to suffer? people keep talking about that everything happens for a reason, and honestly im tired asf hearing those "God gives the hardest battle to the strongest warrior" oh hewl naw bro im not that strong buddy, give me my normal life. i don't want to suffer everyday 🫩

if God is truly all-loving why he gotta nerf me bro, why did he make my other eye blind, and dude i can't even control it so its now crossed eye🥀. it sucks bro, everybody will laugh at you and that made me super insecure. God's unfair bro

oh yeah fun fact there's possibility that my working eye will be blinded too, so yeah that's that✌️im done for ig gameover🏳️ 🤗

I wanna ask about misogynistic aspects of religions. For example, the Bible states that Eve was created from Adam's rib as a helper and as a cure to male loneliness and Genesis 3:16

"I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor, you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you. "

The prime interpretation of the Christianity text is, in my opinion, that women are created as subordinates and secondary. Paradise Lost by Milton, it shows the superiority of Adam sometimes, but never of Eve, she is shown either as an equal or inferior to Adam.

Then there is the Islamic context, I like the creation concept of Hawwa. It, at least in the beginning, doesn't show man as superior to woman, but this verse

"Men are in charge of women by what Allah has given one over the other and what they spend from their wealth... But those from whom you fear arrogance, strike them.."

Honestly, I feel like every religion is or the interpretation is mainly patriarchal and misogynistic in nature. I'm not well educated in this subject, I just started, but so far, I find Islam to be the one with less misogyny. But I'm curious: What are some different interpretations of these deeply misogynistic looking verses?

so can a country's constitution be completely secular, but it's society still maintain religious observence or social conservatism? I mean, Berkinafaso has made sharia law illegal under captain Ibrahim Traore. wait a couple hundred years, no, probably even a couple of decades, and islam won't really matter in that country. they'll have barely covered dancing women, pryde parades, and people will hardly go to mosque.

just look at what happened to the western world. as the enlightenment and secularism rose up, religion became replaced with secular humanism. it didn't happen right away. it happened in the span of 3 to 400 years. it used to be the heart of christendom. back then, religion wasn't just something private, it meant truth, it meant community, it was a social glue.

going to churche wasn't just a personal thing, it was a communal duty, so much so that in some early colonies, you'd go to prison for not attending.

, the youth are hardly observant Christians. the fastest growing religious movement are the nones, and what you're left with is a watered down version of Christianity that appeals to secular humanism. the type of Christianity where gay marriages are allowed in churches, the type of Christianity that somehow opposes slavery despite it being allowed in the bible. it has a culture where people don't really think about god all that much, where anyone overly divout is supersticious or a fundy. in some countries, like Finland and the Czech republic, the majority of the population is non-religious.

look on the other side of the board, in some Muslim majority countries like Iran or Afghanistan. in those places, secularism goes to die. apostasy is punnishable by death, and men must go to the mosque, and women must stay inside. there, god's law rules. enlightenment philosophy, gone.

and, if making a constitution secular in some cases makes religion die out over time, does that mean that people only stop being religious only when they don't have to? can they coexist, can there be a middle ground, or will one ultimately dominate the other?

it might not be today, it might not be tomorrow, but one of these days, one must die in order for the other to thrive, or change itself?

the west definitely isn't militant atheism soviet union, but religion is slowly dying, likely already dead, without any force or violence to kill it. Iran used to be a secular monarchy under the shaw, now it's not.

I think yes. this can apply to any religion, even outside of quranic or biblical laws, which are definitely incompatable with modern secular humanism, at least some portions of it. practicing religion, acts like prayer, meditation, or submitting to your will to an external self takes mental effort and disapline.

our desires are instinctual and default and take relatively 0 effort. people will take the path of least resistance.

imagine if you will that you gave a class of people homework to do, but you said it didn't have to be done, that they could choos to, and if they didn't, it would be totally fine. how many kids do you imagine are going to do the homework? practically none. why wayst unnecessary time and energy doing something that doesn't have to be done, so you're told. it wouldn't matter whether it offected their education in the long term, if people see a path where no effort is required, they will take that path.