r/PhilosophyofReligion

The rigid exclusivism championed by many religions and sects—the claim that an all-powerful and all-knowing God demands adherence to a specific set of beliefs to gain salvation and avoid damnation—is irreconcilable with the fractured religious landscape we actually observe. If a supreme being possessed both the infinite power to make His absolute truth unmistakable and the infinite knowledge to foresee how human psychology, geography, culture, and history largely determine belief - through no fault of the individual, He would not leave the eternal destiny of billions dependent on the accident of birth and in-group biases. It contradicts the very nature of a beneficent, omnipotent, and just Creator. The chaotic diversity of human faith proves that either God does not demand universal dogmatic uniformity, or more plausibly, that what we observe in the world around us is entirely the work of humans and not gods.

What are your thoughts on the relationship between philosophy and faith? Do you think it complements faith nicely? What do you make of the story of Abraham and Isaac --Abraham doing an irrational thing in the eyes of society and man (almost killing son) but doing it out of faith? When there are scenarios where faith and reason are in tension, how have you reconciled them?

Also, how you respond to folks who say they are acting in faith over reason when they are doing something crazy in the name of God --similar to Abraham?

Caution for readers (lwk don't wanna get canceled or something lol)

Do I kind of had a philosophical break through and if someone has said this before I had no Idea so if they did idk ignore this I guess. Also for sensitive viewers this involves wild takes on religion and peoples way of life so if you wish to not see this click away.

Real note:

So today I was working and the text immediately below this is copy paste from MY OWN notebook app. (So I am the original writer of the text below)

If God is not one singular being. And "he" is everywhere all at once and is raceless genderless and lacks belonging to one singular species. Then God isn't "something or "someone" (side note) If there are no difining features or descriptives as to "his" physical existence but he still "exists" then "God" is the very essence of nothing he is nothing and can be nothing. (This has now turned into a main note considering that this has debunked my other theory.). But if he is in us/everyone and everything then he is a presence but if he's nothing then he is the presence of nothing.therefore "God" is nothing but if our understanding of nothing is correct "God" isn't possible??? But if we can describe something as nothing it is something because we can describe it. therefore God exists. But since the proof surrounding any of the other religions (finishing the note by hand without copy paste from here) can't actually be verified we are left with nothing as our "god" but if nothing aka "God" is the force that made planets, time, universes, galaxies etc. then God at least philosophically is reality and therefore not a god we pray or worship but the actual force that creates us. God is reality and reality is God. (End of note) So yeah that's my thought and for now if anyone has key points or details that I am missing then let me know I will try to check this post as often as I can. Also if anyone does agree with me then I am open to people reaching out and helping me figure this shit out on redit because I am not trying to claim anything or say my way is the right way I am just younger and trying to figure shit out so really any help or wisdom helps. Thanks if you read this far.

Hey all, put together some thoughts and ideas lately, possibly proof of god - here's the theory (combination of inferential and deductive reasoning):

1. Certain conditions have enabled life to evolve within known existence
2. Over time, these natural processes have led to the evolution of people and living beings
3. Most people are inherently good, for example through their capacity to feel and experience love
4. This inherent goodness can enable people to make positive changes in themselves and their environments
5. Goodness does not have a fixed or intrinsic nature, except being good, and so amounts to pure goodness
6. Pure goodness doesn't have a biological basis, and can be found in almost everything, from books and music to ideas and fields of study
7. So it follows that goodness is metaphysical in nature, including the goodness within all people
8. Similarly to goodness, love can be metaphysical in nature - although there may be biological explanations for interpersonal love, there are no explanations for love of things like music, art or ideas
9. Metaphysical love and goodness may enable us to make positive changes over time, and these qualities are universal phenomena
10. These universal qualities may constitute the necessary conditions for utopia, and even paradise on earth someday
11. By connecting with our inherent goodness to make positive changes in ourselves and our environments, we can each contribute to make the world a better place indefinitely
12. And so the necessary conditions are in place for utopia on earth, universally - and this could potentially lead to a utopian paradise someday
13. Without any plausible alternative explanations for the origins of metaphysical goodness and our potential for positive change:

we can conclude, there is a god.

(feel free to re-read this a couple of times, understandable if it takes time to sink in)

Pretty exciting finding - should mention that I'm not referring to any specific faith or belief system here. I've recently been informed that the Abrahamic religions share a common lineage, with some important distinctions, and there's no need for conflict.

Hopefully everyone can respect each other's beliefs and strive for peace and harmony across the world, including harmony with nature and our fellow living beings.

Maybe we can learn to transcend our differences and focus on what unites us - our shared humanity - rather than what divides us. This would be the best way to move forward from here.

Thanks to Joanna Newsom's record Divers for inspiring me to think about love, time and goodness this way.

Thanks for reading, please share to Facebook too - peace and love. If you'd like to say a quick thank you my details are bsb: 032-119, acct 258822 :)

Keeping a low profile for the time being - but keep an eye out for V by 2030 !

Apologies if this isnt the right sub for these questions but its been bugging me all day. Does the creation of the first synthetic cell disprove deism or any gods? Let me know your thoughts lol

Religions define God as a perfect being. But, if you think about it God cannot be a complete being. Suppose a phone is lying on a table, and your friends tell you, "Pick up this phone." As soon as they tell you to pick up the phone, your brain registers that you have to pick it up. A desire then emerges in your mind that you need to lift the phone. You need to lift it because the phone is not in the state you want it to be. Your brain detects a lack: you want the phone to be in your hand, but it is not. So, you put in the effort, pick up the phone, and hold it in your hand. What happened here is that a desire emerged within you. You experienced a lack because of that desire, put in effort, and fulfilled that lack. So, in this case, we reach the conclusion that every action must have a motivation behind it. That motivation is desire, and desire implies a lack. Every desire points to a lack. Therefore, because God is supposed to be a complete being, He should not lack anything. Yet, He created the universe. Which means that the very existence of something instead of nothing proves that there is no God who is truly complete. Either there is no God, or God is not a complete being. Because by defination god should not lack anything .

Our existence is the best argument against the existence of god .

I’m an atheist, and recently I’ve been debating religion a lot with one of my close friends.

For context: he’s a very intelligent guy, studied at Oxford, but unfortunately, he genuinely believes Christianity is true. Since our debates kept going nowhere, he invited me to a church program for non-believers. Every Saturday for about 10 weeks, we had dinner together, discussed Christianity, listened to talks, and openly debated questions about God.

And honestly? I appreciated the experience. Most people there were kind, thoughtful, and sincere.

But after all of that, I still walked away completely unconvinced.

There were several questions that nobody, including the pastor, could really answer.

So I’m curious what Reddit thinks.

1. Why your God?

There have been thousands of gods throughout human history.

You already reject almost all of them.

You don’t believe in Zeus, Poseidon, Odin, Ra, or Apollo. Muslims reject Jesus as God. Hindus believe something entirely different.

So what exactly makes Christianity uniquely convincing beyond:

“I was born into it,”

or

“My holy book says it’s true”?

And be honest with yourself for a second,

If you were born in rural Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, or Iran, do you genuinely think you would still become Christian?

Or would you most likely believe Islam with the exact same confidence you currently believe Christianity?

Because if location changes your religion for most people on Earth, doesn’t that suggest belief is driven more by culture than truth?

If you answer that, you would still choose Christianity. If you believe that you should be able to find truth no matter other religions and your current environment, because Christianity is the truth, why can't people there see that truth? What do you think of the Middle East 93~94% population who believe in Islam? Do you think you are somewhat smarter than the average of 93~94% people there or even combined?

2. “Even geniuses believed in God”

One thing my friend kept telling me was:

“Many brilliant scientists believed in God.”

“The more science you learn, the closer you get to religion.”

“Even Einstein believed in God.”

First of all: did Einstein believe in God?

Technically, yes, but not in the Christian sense people usually imply.

Einstein explicitly said he believed in Spinoza’s God, essentially the laws and harmony of nature itself, not a personal God who answers prayers, judges morality, or sends people to heaven and hell.

And honestly, this reveals something that bothers me a lot:

Religious people often use anything as evidence for religion without checking whether it actually supports their claim.

Newton was Christian. Sure.

But does “a genius believed X” automatically make X true?

Newton was probably unbelievably intelligent, but no single human being stands above collective scientific systems and evidence itself.

Science is not built around authority.

It’s built around reproducibility, skepticism, peer criticism, and constantly proving yourself wrong.

So unless the scientific method itself suddenly starts pointing toward Christianity, saying:

“Some smart scientists believed in God”

It is incredibly weak evidence.

That’s selection bias.

Imagine you can name 10 famous scientists who believed in God.

Okay.

Now compare that to the total number of influential scientists throughout history — thousands upon thousands.

Even if we pretend that statistic means something meaningful, you’re still taking an extremely selective sample and building a giant conclusion from it.

And honestly, the irony is that the argument itself relies on the same kind of weak assumptions and emotional reasoning that religion criticizes in other belief systems.

So, honestly, this argument seems very weak and therefore has no meaning.

3. Contradictions and reliability of the Bible

The church program told me the Bible is reliable because there are around 25,000 manuscripts telling one coherent story.

Okay.

But how do Christians deal with contradictions between the Old and New Testament, or contradictions within the Bible itself?

And honestly, that’s not even the main issue for me. That was just a warm up question.

The real question is this.

The Church was one of the most powerful institutions in human history for centuries.

History is written by the winners. Always.

The Church wasn’t just a spiritual organization. It was deeply tied to politics, empires, social control, wars, and power.

And without a doubt, we KNOW, everyone knows corruption existed:

- indulgences,

- crusades,

- witch hunts,

- political manipulation,

- persecution in the name of religion.

Even Pope John Paul II publicly apologized for violence committed by the Church.

So how can you be completely certain the Bible was never edited, shaped, translated selectively, or interpreted in ways that benefited institutions and power structures over centuries?

I’m not saying everything in it is false or fictional.

But I genuinely don’t understand how people jump from:

“ancient religious text”

to

“absolute divine truth.”

If you find a note written by a boy who lived in the year 232, saying "There is a dragon in my bed", will you now believe in the existence of a dragon? I hope you won't!

4. “You feel God”

A lot of people at the church told me:

“You have to open your heart and experience God personally.”

But did you know that people from other religions say the exact same thing?

Ancient Greek priests claimed they heard Apollo.

People across religions report visions, voices, divine certainty, spiritual encounters, enlightenment, supernatural experiences.

So why are Christian experiences considered evidence, while everyone else’s experiences are dismissed?

And if your answer is:

“They’re mistaken.”

Then how do you know YOU aren’t mistaken too?

Wouldn’t it be more reasonable to consider that humans are psychologically wired to experience spiritual feelings based on what they were TAUGHT to believe?

If a child is raised from birth being told:

“You will feel God.”

“You will hear God.”

“This feeling is the Holy Spirit.”

then eventually experiencing those feelings doesn’t necessarily prove God exists.

It may just prove humans are deeply suggestible emotional creatures.

5. Faith over evidence?

One thing I kept hearing was:

“Faith does not come from evidence.”

But honestly, doesn’t that sound ridiculous?

Because once you stop requiring evidence before believing extraordinary claims, people can justify believing literally anything.

If I tell you there’s a dragon living in my garage, and then I say:

“You just need faith.”

“You need to open your heart.”

“You won’t understand unless you believe first.”

Would you accept that?

Or would you ask for evidence?

So how do you distinguish genuine faith from simply being emotionally convinced of something?

If you want to say the Bible, I don't think so. How about the Quran?

6. The problem of suffering

This is probably the biggest one for me.

People often say:

“God answers prayers.”

Okay.

Sometimes good things happen.

Yes, amazing!

You recover from illness.

You get your dream job.

You find love.

You survive an accident.

And you thank God.

Yes, life is great, and God always has plans for you.

But then why do wars happen?

Why do children die praying for help?

Why do innocent people suffer horrific deaths while desperately begging God to save them?

Imagine a child praying while missiles are literally falling outside.

That child is probably praying harder for their life than you ever prayed for your career, relationship, or financial success.

And if your prayer for a promotion gets answered,

while that child dies anyway,

what exactly does that say about God?

And here’s the uncomfortable question.

If missiles were falling on YOUR house tomorrow, are you truly confident God would save you too?

Or would you suddenly realize prayer has never guaranteed protection at all?

How do Christians reconcile the idea of a loving, responsive God with the sheer scale of suffering and silence in the world?

I’m genuinely asking.

I spent weeks listening, debating respectfully, and trying to understand Christianity in good faith.

But I still haven’t heard answers that fully address these questions.

Disclaimer: This is my personal worldview. My intention is not to insult or disrespect any religion or anyone's beliefs. I'm looking for honest, evidence-based discussion and the strongest arguments against my position.

After many years of studying different religions, I reached a conclusion that I know many people will disagree with.

I believe there is one real Creator.

However, I believe all existing religions are human-made. I have not found any religion that objectively demonstrates it uniquely represents the Creator.

Every major religion claims:

• Our God is the true God.
• Our prophet is the true prophet.
• Our scripture is the true scripture.
• Everyone else is mistaken.

To me, if one universal Creator created all humanity, then guidance from that Creator should also be universal, recognizable, and not dependent on being born into a particular religion, country, language, or culture.

I believe the Creator exists, but I do not believe humanity has objectively discovered who the Creator truly is, why we were created, or what the Creator expects from us.

I also do not claim certainty about miracles, angels, jinn, Satan, heaven, or hell. They may exist, or they may not. I simply do not believe there is objective evidence that convinces me.

So my biggest questions are:

• If all existing religions are human-made, how should humanity live?
• Where do objective moral rules come from?
• If morality changes between cultures and societies, is there any universal moral standard?
• If there is one Creator, how can humanity objectively discover the Creator's true guidance without relying on religions that claim exclusive truth?

I'm not looking for followers or trying to start a new religion.

I'm looking for the strongest arguments against my position. If you think I'm wrong, please explain why, using reason and evidence rather than simply telling me to accept a particular religion.

I'm here to learn.

I don’t mean with verses, feelings, or “look at the trees” , that is not evidence just your beliefs talking.

I want demonstrable, provable evidence for the supernatural.

Something we can test, check, and separate from imagination, culture, fear, trauma, coincidence, or human psychology.

If God is real, show me evidence for God.

If Satan is real, show me evidence for Satan

Not bad things happen, therefore Satan, or not good things happen, therefore God.

Humans already do horrible things without demons, and humans already do beautiful things without gods. So where is the evidence?

I am not talking about the claim or the book making the claim or the interpretation of the claim:

I mean the evidence. This evidence has to be detectable

And before someone says “you can’t demand physical evidence for something beyond physics” that misses the point.

I am not asking to put God or Satan in a test tube, I am asking for any demonstrable effect in reality.

If God heals, answers prayers, speaks, protects, punishes, reveals truth, or performs miracles, those effects should show up somewhere.

If Satan tempts, possesses, deceives, attacks, or causes evil, those effects should be distinguishable from normal human behavior, trauma, mental illness, coincidence, or bad ideas.

If the supernatural interacts with the world, we should be able to detect the interaction, if it never interacts with the world in any detectable way, then it looks exactly like it does not exist.

So God and Satan don't exist, prove me wrong.

Edit:

Looks like posts like this ruffle feathers even in ex Christian spaces, which is insane.

If you cannot question your own beliefs, you are not free, you are still protecting someone else’s wild imagination

I’ve been thinking about how we distinguish healthy faith from religion used as a form of power.

1. Healthy faith

You believe, and I love you.You don’t believe, and I still love you.

— Your human worth does not depend on agreeing with me.

2. Transactional religion

You believe, and you belong.You don’t believe, and you are excluded.

— Acceptance and protection become conditional on loyalty.

Religious communities naturally have beliefs and boundaries. The question is whether losing membership also means losing dignity, friendship, family, or the right to be treated as an equal human being.

3. Religion used as control

You believe, and you must sacrifice yourself for the group.You question it, leave it, or disagree—and you are treated as an enemy.

— Faith has been replaced by fear, obedience, and control.

This leads me to a broader question about equality.

We often speak of equality as if it means that people must be the same. But people are clearly different in belief, ability, character, wealth, culture, and contribution.

Perhaps equality is not sameness. Perhaps it is a relationship.

Imagine human beings as points on the surface of a sphere. The points are not identical: they occupy different places and face different directions. But every point has the same relationship to the center.

In that sense, equality does not mean that everyone is the same. It means that no person, priest, leader, institution, or state is the center—and no one is naturally entitled to stand above everyone else.

When a church, political movement, or government places itself at the center, agreement with the institution gradually becomes the measure of human worth. Loyal followers are protected, while doubters and dissenters are pushed outside the moral community.

That may give us a broader test of civilization:

A civilization should not be judged only by how it treats those who believe, belong, and obey, but by how it treats those who doubt, leave, disagree, or refuse to conform.

Do you think equality is better understood as sameness—or as an equal relationship to something beyond human power?

Can a religious community maintain strong beliefs and real boundaries without treating outsiders or dissenters as less worthy?

And what, if anything, should occupy the “center” that keeps every person equal?

My own thinking as a non religious believer is as follows

There are seemingly two reasons why god may create us
1.for him
2.for us

1.for him

My issue with this is that we are told that god is perfect and that he does not change. If god created us for himself, then we are filling a gap of his, a gap that means before us he was imperfect, which he must always be since he does not change.

2.for us

My issue with this is very simple,if our creation is designed for us then why would god not give us the best most perfect experience possible, and make us like him?

I do not believe our creation could be accidental by god as he is described due to the fact that he is all seeing and all powerful, as well as perfect, under which it seems unreasonable for him to have accidents.

I’ve been thinking about a few connected ideas and I’d really like to hear different perspectives.
We usually say that logic, mathematics, and natural laws are not invented by humans, but discovered. For example, 2+2=4 seems to be true regardless of whether humans exist or not. The same applies to physics and the structure of reality.
That raises a question for me:
If logic and order exist independently of us, where do they come from? Why is the universe so mathematically consistent instead of chaotic or random?

One interpretation I’ve been considering is that this could point toward a higher intelligence or source of reality — what many people would call God. In Christianity, the Bible describes God as the source of order, meaning, and creation, and connects Him with the idea of “Logos” (reason/word/order).
But I’ve also been thinking about something more mathematical:
In mathematics, there is always structure and hierarchy.

For example:
1 × 1 = 1
1 × 2 = 2
This made me wonder if this idea of “scaling order” or “higher levels” could somehow imply that there must be a highest foundation or highest source. And in my thinking, that “highest” would correspond to God — something beyond which nothing greater or more fundamental exists.
On the other hand, I also understand the counterarguments:
mathematics describes relationships, not beings
numbers are symbolic, not physical entities
maybe the universe doesn’t require a “highest cause” at all
or maybe our minds are just naturally wired to see hierarchy and patterns everywhere

So I’m genuinely curious:
Does the existence of logic and mathematical structure suggest a deeper intelligence or creator?
Or is it just a property of reality without deeper meaning?
And do ideas like “hierarchy in mathematics” actually tell us anything about existence, or are they just abstract systems we project meaning onto?
How do you interpret the idea of God as a “highest source” in relation to logic and order?

Voltaire viewed religious fanatism as one of the greatest threats to human freedom, reason, and social peace. His critique was directed less at religion itself than at intolerance, dogmatism, and the use of religion to justify persecution and violence.
His views can be summarized in several key ideas;
Fanaticism destroys reason.
Voltaire believed that fanatics allow blind faith to replace critical thinking.
He argued that when people believe they possess absolute religious truth, they become willing to commit cruelty in its name.
Fanaticism leads to violence.
He pointed to events such as the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre as evidence that religious extremism could produce mass murder and persecution.
In his view, history showed that intolerance often caused wars and suffering.
Tolerance is essential.
In Treatise on Tolerance, written after the wrongful execution of Jean Calas, Voltaire argued that people of different faiths should live peacefully together.
He maintained that governments should protect freedom of conscience rather than enforce religious conformity.

Religion should promote morality, not persecution.
Voltaire was a deist, believing in a creator but rejecting many doctrines and the authority of organized churches.
He thought religion should encourage ethical behavior instead of encouraging hatred toward those with different beliefs.
One of Voltaire’s most famous descriptions of fanaticism comes from Treatise on Tolerance:
“Fanaticism is to superstition what delirium is to fever.”
By this, he meant that superstition is already irrational, but fanaticism is an even more dangerous condition because it drives people to harmful action.

Voltaire’s criticism of religious fanaticism became a cornerstone of the Age of Enlightenment. His writings influenced later ideas about:
freedom of religion,
freedom of speech,
separation of religious authority from political power, and
the importance of tolerance in pluralistic societies.
In short, Voltaire argued that the greatest danger was not sincere religious belief but the certainty that one’s own religion justified oppressing or harming others. His remedy was reason, tolerance, and respect for freedom of conscience.

Either time belongs to the world or it does not.

If it does not, this is impossible, since the world is defined as the sum of all that exists.

Hence, time belongs to the world.

If time belongs to the world, then time is either eternal or began to exist.

But if time began to exist, this appears incoherent, because time itself constitutes succession and temporal priority; nothing can exist temporally prior to time in order to bring it into being. That would amount to explaining time through time itself.

Therefore, time is eternal.

And if time is eternal and is included within the world, then the world itself is eternal.

So I was arguing with a friend on whether god is real or not and he claimed that god must be real because of the laws of logic and he used this "Whatever begins to exist has a cause": This is a true logical and metaphysical principle. It applies only to things that have a starting point in time
—things that went from non-existence to existence (like the universe, stars, humans, and cell phones).” So as we know the universe did have a begging so it does need to follow that and now I’m starting to actually think that god exists because of this argument so can anyone maybe prove it wrong or else I might turn back into religion

“if god is logic, why dont we just serve that and call it a day”

Removed as insufficient initially, though I think it’s perfectly succinct. Rule 3. Verbosity it is…

Logos, as developed by the pre-Socratic, Heraclitus, is a chief component of both philosophy and religion.

In Christianity, Logos (Greek for "Word" or "Reason") is a title for Jesus Christ, identifying Him as the pre-existent, divine Second Person of the Trinity who became human (incarnate). It asserts that Christ is the rational logic, order, and ultimate truth holding the cosmos together.

Second-century apologist, and Saint Justin Martyr argued that pre-Christian philosophers like Socrates and Heraclitus—along with Old Testament figures like Abraham and Elijah—were effectively "Christians" before Jesus. Because Jesus is the eternal Logos (Divine Reason), anyone who lived according to reason accessed the unincarnate Christ.

Justin Martyr was canonized by the early Church without a formal papal decree, having received recognition as a saint immediately following his execution in Rome around 165 AD. In the primitive Christian era, individuals who died for the faith (martyrs) were universally acknowledged as saints by acclamation of the local Christian community

I’m not being flippant when I propose that we serve logic to serve God. I’m being parsimonious on a very critical question. Precedent and logic demand it.