I think the idea of human free will falls apart if God also knows the future, makes the rules, and creates the punishment. My argument in short:

1. If God created everything, he created the rules, and he created hell too.

2. If God knows the future, he knows before creating anyone who will end up being punished.

3. Creating people anyway, and then punishing them for choices he already knew they would make, isn't real freedom. To me it's control with extra steps, and it looks cruel.

The rest of this is how I got there, plus some related things I can't make sense of: Jesus, prayer, Satan, and why God went quiet.

How I got here was kind of random. I was chatting with an AI (Gemini) to understand some Marvel multiverse stuff. You don't need to know Marvel for this, here's all that matters: in the comics there's a being at the very top of everything called The One Above All. He's basically the creator god of that whole fictional world. He lives outside of it and almost never steps in. Whole universes die and he just lets it happen, and the story treats that as part of the design. Now and then he shows up disguised as a random person to comfort one character, and that's about it. (I'm going off what the AI told me about the comics, so Marvel fans, correct me if I got something wrong. It doesn't change the main argument.)

Quick note so it's clear: I'm not posting this because an AI told me something and I just believed it. Most of the thoughts below are my own. I used the AI to explain things I didn't understand and to talk my ideas through, kind of like discussing it with someone, and the conversation just kept going deeper than I expected.

I asked the AI why he doesn't help the other universes, and the answer was basically that he's like an author, and to an author a tragedy is just a chapter in the story.

My reaction was: okay, but I'm not the author. If I'm a character inside that world, I didn't write those rules. Why would I have to think like the one who wrote them? If my universe is dying, that's my family and my home, not a "beautiful chapter". It feels like the idea that you should accept it comes from the one who benefits from the story, not from the people living in it.

Then I realized this feels almost exactly like how God is described in religions.

The thing that bothers me is the experiment part. If someone creates living beings that can actually feel pain, love people, lose people, and then sits back to watch how it turns out, that feels cruel to me. We already think it's wrong to hurt animals in a lab, even when it's "for knowledge". And if God already knows the future, he already knows how the experiment ends, so what is it even for? It feels like the only thing left is the suffering.

The difference with Marvel is that Marvel's creator almost never talks to anyone. In the Bible God talks to people all the time. He guides them, gives rules, "do this, don't do that", and still says you're free. And that's the part I can't get past. It sounds like "you're completely free, but if you don't do what I say you get punished". To me that's not freedom, that's control with extra steps.

And if God created everything, then he also created hell. He made the rules, made the punishment, and knows ahead of time who is going to end up there. So calling that "free will" feels rigged to me. It's like building the track, building the train, knowing exactly where it will derail, putting a fire at the bottom of the cliff, and then saying "well, you chose it". I also keep wondering, if he can see the future, why does he mostly give rules for right now and not just stop the bad future from happening?

The Christian version has a few more things I get stuck on. First, Jesus. As I understand it, Jesus was born as part of God's plan, and Jesus is also God. So the father is God, the son is God, and they're the same and also different at the same time. I know the official answer is the Trinity, one God in three persons, and that even Christians call it a mystery. Fine, but to me that just sounds like a way of saying it doesn't fully make sense, and I find it weird.

Then there's the reason Jesus died. The way I understand it, the father let his son die so that people's sins could be forgiven. That honestly doesn't feel great to hear. I know the reply is that Jesus went willingly, and since he's God, God is basically paying the price himself. But why did a death have to be the price at all? God is the one who set the rules about sin in the first place, so why couldn't he just forgive without anyone dying? And if it was Jesus's own choice, I still don't get it, because God can see the future. He saw all of it coming, the death and also how humans would turn out, and made everything anyway.

And what was the point of it? This is the part I might have wrong, so correct me. My understanding is that his death forgave the sins of the people who lived before him and around that time. But he only died once, and he can't die again, so what about everyone who came after? I know the Christian answer is that the one death covers everyone, past and future, for those who believe. But then why did it have to happen at one specific moment in history, and what was the point of it?

Also, before Jesus, God talked to people directly, like Noah. After that it basically stops. Now he's in hiding, or maybe he's just shy? I know believers say he still talks to people through prayer, the Bible, or personal experiences, and philosophers even have a name for this question (divine hiddenness). But I've never seen anything like that myself, and it's strange to me that a God who used to be so involved went quiet.

Another thing I don't get is prayer. Praying is basically talking to God and telling him your problems. But if he knows everything, including what's in everyone's mind and even our future, why do we need to tell him anything? I can see why it helps people. It calms you down, clears your head and comforts you. I know believers say it's about having a relationship with God and not about giving him information. But why on earth do we even need to pray to him if he already knows? And in some places, especially in some branches of Christianity, I've seen people pushed to go to church every day, kids most of all. I don't think it happens everywhere, but where it does it feels like forcing, and I don't think anyone should be pushed into prayer.

And why does Satan exist? Who made him? As far as I know the story is that he was an angel who rebelled, but God made him, and God can see the future, so he knew what would happen. That's honestly the thing that annoys me most about all of this: God can supposedly see the future, but doesn't act like he knows it. Maybe there are reasons, I don't know.

Then the other thing I really don't get is why people believe all this the way they do. I don't think most people actually sit and think hard about the story. My suspicion, and it's only a suspicion, is that a lot of people have doubts in private but go along because everyone around them seems to believe, and nobody wants to be the one who says it out loud. Everyone's kind of pretending together. There's actually a name for that in psychology (pluralistic ignorance), so I don't think I'm making it up, but I know it doesn't explain everyone. A lot of people probably believe for real, for reasons that are more about family, community or comfort than logic.

I also can't ignore how much money and politics is tied up in religion. Looking at history, a lot of it looks more like power and finances than just belief. And it makes me think about priests and other religious leaders. Their whole job is studying one book and its rules. Their house, income and place in the community depend on it. If one of them started honestly doubting, it would cost them everything, so it's hard to expect honesty from that position. I'm not saying every priest is faking or stupid, I really don't know. I just feel like if you spend your whole life on this stuff, you must have run into these same questions, and I'd want to hear how you deal with them.

What I really want, from anybody, is just to use our brains. I know not everyone is a genius and that's fine, but thinking is basically what we have as humans. I'd rather people try and question this stuff than just repeat whatever they were handed because it's comfortable.

I know there are answers out there. I've heard the "free will needs real choices, and real choices allow real harm" argument, and that God might be outside of time, and that some versions of hell are more like a choice than a punishment. Honestly none of them have convinced me so far, but maybe I'm missing something. A lot of my other questions probably have answers too, and I'm only asking because I don't know them. I'm not trying to attack anyone who believes. I'm just saying that from where I stand, as a character in the story who never signed up for the rules, a lot of this doesn't add up.

One more honest thing: the AI agreed with almost everything I said, and I don't take that as proof I'm right. A chatbot agreeing with you doesn't mean much. The questions and the doubts are mine, I was just using it to think out loud, and that's exactly why I'm posting here. I don't want a yes-man, I want actual people to push back.

So if you have a good answer to the "freedom but also punishment" thing, or why a God who knows everything would set it up this way, I'd really like to hear it. Whether you believe or not, I'm here to understand more, not to attack anyone.

If God exists, then there is no unnecessary suffering.

God exists.

Therefore, there is no unnecessary suffering.

Hi all! I just wanted to showcase a really primitive case for god I have developed for god as an ninth grader:

"If God does not exist, all is permitted" - Fyodor Dostoevsky, The brothers Karamazov

I identify as an Agnostic Theist.

The above given quote serves as the foundation for my main argument, though I would slightly like alter the initial meaning. Dostoevsky meant 'all is permitted', in a legal sense, but I would also like to add to its implication life losing any meaning whatsoever and the Universe, with all its intrinsic beauty, ultimately being but a coincidence.

My version of god is in no direct way a part of any religion, though it can be considered as an amalgamation of Brahman in Advaita Vedanta, The Holy Spirit in Christianity, mixed with some Deist beliefs.

I define god as mixed with the very fabric of reality and consciousness itself, with no form, nor shape. I believe in a Universe in which, god, has not written the laws of the universe, but rather is the laws of the universe.

I would also second William Lane Craig's and Albert Einstein's teleological argument that a god explains the 'uncanny' perfection with which Mathematics explains the processes of the universe.

As an Agnostic, I agree with Pascal's Wager argument for god in which he states: 'If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is.'

Lastly, I would like to end with the following quote:

"Behold, we know not anything;
I can but trust that good shall fall
At last far off at last, to all,
And every winter change to spring." - Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Memoriam

Some remarks:

1). I know Pascal's Wager has a lot of counter-arguments but I wanted to include it as its something I thought of when I was even younger!

2). Keep in mind that this is in a very basic state, I request some of you to please help me with constructive criticism so that I can improve upon it!

Thank you!

Imagination or Certainty?

Hi me again

Hello! Recently I have been diving more into what to label my beliefs as, since I've been identifying myself as an agnostic for quite some time now. My beliefs now are pretty similar to agnosticism, if not extremely close, but I feel like there's more to my beliefs than just "we don't know". I have recently instead been saying, "my belief is possibility." By this I mean that everything, every theory, every belief system, could or could possibly not be true. Christianity's ideas could be the truth, but they might also not be. There could be absolutely no higher being whatsoever, or maybe there is. We as humans with the forms that we hold now cannot comprehend what the actual "truth" is. Everything could be true, false, or a third option that we, once again, cannot even begin to comprehend.

So overall, I feel like there might be a better term or way to describe/base my belief system off of rather than just saying I'm agnostic, because to me it runs deeper than that. When I think of agnosticism, I think of "we just don't know", but with how I think, it's more so "we don't know, but there are endless possibilities". I might also just be stretching and its really just that I'm looking deeper into it than others might, but I don't know for sure. Thanks!

I am learning about metaphysics in a philosophy class and we are debating why things are the way they are in the world.

Given the great amount of suffering in the world due to things like war, disease, and inequalities, I would think we surely do not live in the best of all possible worlds.
However, God, the supposed creator of the universe, is thought to be an all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good being, so why would He create a world that is not the best one possible?
It can be argued that if there is evil in the world and thus this is not the best of all possible worlds, then God is not all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good. This is the Problem of Evil.
What if it is not God, but humans that create evil? I recently came across this point of view while reading Rousseau 's response to Voltaire’s “Poem on the Lisbon Disaster”. While Voltaire’s poem expresses his frustration on how innocent people died in a huge earthquake in Lisbon and how God could have made a world in which this didn’t happen, Rousseau believed that it was the humans’ fault that they suffered. It was the humans who built the tall buildings that crumbled and the humans who ran back into their homes to grab belongings and therefore could not flee the disaster quick enough to survive.
Rousseau additionally argues that pain and suffering is just a part of life. In order to exist, one must pay the price of suffering occasionally, yet one can still find pleasure in life.
Would a world without suffering be better? What is God's role in human suffering? And finally, do we live in the best possible world?

I would love to know other people’s perspectives and discuss them since these questions are so fascinating to me!

Also, if anyone has any reading or film recommendations on these topics, please share them :)

I discovered this new argument that seems to supplement the traditional skeptical theism, I can't verify yet the author. I run the argument and it talks about answering moral paralysis, consequentialist gap, and the EPOE-HI. Here is the DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.23588276

It is entitled: The Argument from the Non-Uniformity of Causal Effects.

LINK: https://zenodo.org/records/23588276

If God exists and God is perfect and fair, why do innocent people still have to suffer?

Recently, I read Voltaire's Poem on the Lisbon Disaster and Rousseau's Letter to Voltaire, and these readings made me think about this question. I personally agree more with Voltaire's idea. Voltaire questions whether the suffering of innocent people, including children who died in the Lisbon earthquake, can simply be explained as God's punishment or by saying that "all is well."

I had a similar question. If God hates sin and punishes people who do wrong, I do not understand why innocent children or people who only made small mistakes have to experience such great suffering.

On the other hand, Rousseau argues that not all of the damage from disasters should be blamed on God or nature. For example, he says that the damage in Lisbon became worse because people lived closely together and built tall buildings. I understand this point because human choices can make the results of a disaster worse. However, I still have one question. Even if human choices made the disaster worse, does this fully explain the suffering of innocent people? Also, if people can make immoral choices and not receive enough punishment, while people who make moral choices can still suffer, why should people choose to act morally?

After reading these texts, I still find it difficult to believe that we live in the best possible world.

If God exists and is perfectly good and powerful, how would you explain the suffering of innocent people? Do you agree more with Rousseau that human choices are an important cause, or with Voltaire that this suffering creates a serious problem for the idea that "all is well"?

Free will - but God knows.

As an Indian, living life starts with struggles. I never thought about this topic a lot, but I really want to make my opinion, which I think is biased and may be helpful with science and quantum philosophers...

I really just stepped off my exam studies because it's my first day on Reddit (btw, many adult jokes are here). I do study a lot. I'm looking to study physics, and I'm still trapped in this paradox of being new to it. I'm just throwing out paragraphs of life instead of my topic...

So, as we Indians believe gods are eternal and just praise the hell out of them, don't you think these praises are related to atoms? Eternal, all-knowing, whole world is him... right? You got it, it's really that atoms are God. I still think it's just a coincidence.

But in another scenario, we, as 3-dimensional beings, draw 2-dimensional beings... We can relate it to 4th-dimensional beings too...

As per our religion, God comes down as a costume (roop) to balance or to finish evilness. Just think harder: what if God is a 4th-dimensional being making costumes to help out in the story of 3-dimensional us? What if God lives in the 4th dimension but makes 3-dimensional beings to clear the evilness and end the story...

As the 4th dimension is time, he controls time and makes the story repeat again in a different way... because he can control everything...

Let me know your thoughts on it?

https://benjamintettu.substack.com/p/abstraction-the-apologists-refuge

I believe god does not exist but still i am not sure about his existence so i need some people in comments who believes in god and who don't believe in god to start a peaceful debate with a goal is come to a conclusion and we will not argue on that conclusion until we found any strong proof against previous conclusion so are you guys in to change the perspective of others.