For the pedants:

• Natural suffering, such as disease and natural disasters is part of the problem of evil. "The problem of evil" is just the popularized name for the argument. The argument is not, and never has been restricted to human-caused suffering. It refers to all suffering, whether natural or caused by humans. If you look at the Wikipedia article, you'll see this argument is also known as the problem of suffering
• I am defining free will to be the ability to make a choice based on your desires
• I am specifically addressing the free will argument against the problem of evil, both logical and evidential. I'm not making any claims about whether the problem has or hasn’t been debunked by non-free-will arguments.

A clear thesis: Human free will does not solve the contradiction between the existence of a tri-omni God and the existence of unnecessary suffering.

The Free Will defense that I'm claiming doesn't solve the problem: The fact that God is all-powerful and all-good would not preclude the existence of suffering in the world, because he had to give us free will in order to realize the good of moral virtue, and free will entails the possibility of evil. We assume the good of moral virtue outweighs the bad or human evil. so God is actually maximizing the Good by allowing evil.

Some effort at demonstrating the truth of the thesis:

Whether you’re a compatiblist or a libertarian, free will has no bearing on the problem of evil.

Firstly, even if free will did address the problem, it would only address human caused suffering. Free will doesn’t cause earthquakes and landslides.

More importantly, free will is just the ability to do what you want to do. It’s based on desire. People do bad things because they want to do bad things. God could have simply made it so that we don’t want to do bad things. We could keep the free will and just have no desire to sin. There is obviously no contradiction with this because that is how most Christians (at least most that I've seen on this sub) believe Heaven works. It also accurately describes your lack of desire for most sins, most of the time. You've probably never had the desire to blow up a hospital. You've probably never had the desire to r*pe a child. There are definitely examples of sin that you never have and never will desire to do, so there can be no contradiction with God making all sin undesirable.

To be gross for a second, I have never had a desire to eat poop. Does that mean I don’t have the free will to eat poop? Of course not. God could have made sin as repulsive to all humans as poop (or whatever you find disgusting) is to you. To be less gross, I had zero desire to rob a bank today, but I think we would all agree I had the free will do to it. You can’t blame suffering and evil on free will because free will is just the expression of a desire that God chose to give us, even though he didn’t have to.

Is this good proof that God exists? It seems to be based on historical evidence not only taken from the Bible but also taken from archeological & scientific findings throughout the millenia: https://biblesabbath.org/free-resources/how-do-we-know-god-exists/

Preamble:

I have been focusing on what I considered the "foundational story" of Christianity, and I came up with the "Fall" of mankind as it's often called.. the story of Adam and Eve in the garden.

It's not the first story.. there was the creation of the universe before the garden story.

I picked the one that I liked the best.. the one that deeply resonates with most Christians, because without the fall, there would be no need for the crucifixion of Jesus, or his resurrection.. which a lot of Christians tell me is the central story.. the foundational story.

Im going to switch to the crucifixion here..

Today, I'm focusing on Matthew 26:39

“O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.”

It's clear to me that Jesus would have willed to not be crucified... to not die... but that nevertheless, he chose obedience over his own free will.

He gave up his free will I guess "freely"... ?
Was he free ?

God only knows.
Again, the bible doesn't explain if Jesus had free will nor if his "Father" had any.

In fact, the bible never once mentions the term "free will".

Here is my argument:

P1. Jesus expresses a desire to avoid crucifixion (Matthew 26:39).

P2. Jesus voluntarily submits his will to the Father’s contrary will.

C. Therefore, Jesus chooses obedience over exercising his own free will.

✨The light is not proprietary; the kingdom is not arriving from outside; the works are not limited to one man.

Greater works are available to “whoever believes”

John 14:12

“Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.”

This is the clearest statement that the works themselves are not proprietary to Jesus the man. The capacity is transferable and even expandable.

Healing is attributed to the person’s own faith, not to Jesus as exclusive intermediary

Jesus repeatedly says variations of:
• “Your faith has healed you / made you well / saved you.”

(Mark 5:34; Matthew 9:22; Luke 8:48; Luke 17:19; Mark 10:52; Luke 18:42)

He does not say “My power has healed you” or “Because I am the unique Son.” He points the person back to the faith already present in them.

Only God is good...deflecting personal elevation.
Mark 10:18 / Luke 18:19

“Why do you call me good? No one is good...except God alone.”
When someone tries to place him in a special moral category, he immediately redirects the compliment upward and away from his own person.

"You are gods”
John 10:34–36

Jesus answers the charge of blasphemy by quoting Psalm 82:6:

“Is it not written in your Law, ‘I have said you are “gods”’? If he called them ‘gods,’ to whom the word of God came...and Scripture cannot be set aside...what about the one whom the Father set apart…?”
He uses the scripture that already applies divine language to human beings who received the word of God. The implication is that the category is not closed.

The kingdom is already within / among you.
Luke 17:20–21

“The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed, nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is within you."

No future external arrival is required; the reality is already present and accessible.

You are the light of the world
Matthew 5:14–16

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden… let your light shine before others…”
He does not say “I am the light and you merely reflect me.” He declares that they are the light, and that the light must not be hidden under a bushel...the same image he used for himself.

Perfect as the Father is perfect
Matthew 5:48

“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
This is an open invitation to the same standard of completeness, not a standard reserved for one unique individual.

Mutual indwelling and shared glory
John 17:20–23 (from the long prayer)

“…that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us… The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one…”

Jesus explicitly prays that the same oneness and the same glory he shares with the Father be given to others.

"I can do nothing of myself”
John 5:19 & 5:30

“The Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing… I can do nothing on my own.”
He consistently disclaims independent personal power and attributes everything to the Source. This undercuts any reading that makes the historical Jesus a self-sufficient, exclusive channel.

Taken together, these statements form a consistent pattern: Jesus refuses to let people make an idol of his personality or his historical uniqueness. He keeps redirecting attention to the same Source that is available to anyone whose “eye is single,” whose faith is present, and who is willing to become empty enough for the light to shine through.

This is the same current that runs through the reading of the Sermon on the Mount...the light is not proprietary; the kingdom is not arriving from outside; the works are not limited to one man.

Paul says in Ephesians 5:11

“Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness; rather, expose them.”

Because we are born again as Christians, and should only walk in the light. Paul then gives instructions to husbands and wives on how to walk in the light as Christian’s, and how to not take part in the unfruitful works of darkness. He then instructs parents and children on how to walk in the light and how to avoid the unfruitful works of darkness.

In Ephesians 6:5-9 Paul then instructs slaves and masters on how to walk in the light, and how to avoid the unfruitful works of darkness. Paul wants Christian slave owners to take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness. Which means masters must stop threatening their slaves, and to treat their slaves with kindness, because they both serve the same master in heaven.

So according to Paul, a Christian can avoid unfruitful works of darkness, and walk in the light, while being a slave owner.

Which means that according to Paul, slavery as described in Ephesians 6:9 is compatible with Christianity.

This does not mean that all types of slavery are compatible with Christianity.

Any attempt they make to do so will fail, because any criteria they give will end up contradicting a council they accept or reject. 

Which is why EO today can’t even agree today on how many ecumenical councils there are  

An ecumenical council is one which is said to be infallible and binding on you as a requirement to believe what its conclusion is otherwise you are not a Christian anymore.  

Ultimately  they are just arbitrarily picking and choosing which councils to accept and reject. 

You cannot claim any of them have authority as infallible and binding if you cannot even tell us how you know to tell us what makes one council infallible but another council fallible. 

Hypothesis: There is a giant disconnect between an all-knowing (perfect) God and both Testaments of the Bible. Satan’s on going existence, God and Satan testing Job, free will and sending Jesus to be killed all falls apart under the guise of a perfect God.

Explanation: If the Bible were correct, everyone’s fate is already known by God. Your fate is known to God even before He created the universe. And if Christianity were correct, asking difficult questions about these things would be welcomed, not chided at. Questions are an opportunity to prove truth and should be celebrated, not attacked.

If Christianity were correct, Jesus offered no sacrifice as He can’t die and is a supernatural being. Because of this, there would be no need for a violent bloody murder since God needs nothing in order to save who He wants. God would be unlimited. Because God is 100% in control, Satan’s work is allowed by God because nothing can happen without God’s approval.

If Christianity were correct, you can’t surprise God. You can’t act in ways He didn’t know that you would. World events can’t sadden or upset God because He knew AND He allowed them. All throughout both testaments, God reacts to our negative behavior as if He didn’t know what we’d do. God appears surprised and often angry. This would all be impossible in light of a perfect God.

As we’ve gained in knowledge, we’ve grown to struggle with how God was being presented to us as children. As these theological glitches grew, the church kept piling on new apologetics - like free will and developing a personal relationship with God. These are all extra-biblical because adjustments had to be made.

Everything they believe revolves around appealing to what ”the church says”.

But they cannot ever outline specific criteria for how one knows who is and is not part of “the church”.

They also cannot outline how specifically one determines what “the church” is saying when “the church” is not headed by any single earthly authority who can be identified to speak on its behalf.

The Ten Commandments do not apply to Christians.

Jews and Samaritans will generally tell you that the various laws in the Torah, including the Ten Commandments, exist strictly for them to hit themselves over the head with. The Goyim need not apply. Jews would be satisfied if non-Jews simply abided by the Noahide Laws.

It is noteworthy that the Ten Commandments, that the Lord wrote for Moses on the stone tablets on Mount Sinai, are actually quite different from what most Christians accept. Among them:

...“Keep the Festival of Unleavened Bread. As I have commanded you, eat unleavened bread for seven days in the month of Abib, because it was in that month that you left Egypt.

“Every first-born son and first-born male domestic animal belongs to me, but you are to buy back every first-born donkey by offering a lamb in its place. If you do not buy it back, break its neck. Buy back every first-born son.

“No one is to appear before me without an offering...

“You have six days in which to do your work, but do not work on the seventh day, not even during plowing time or harvest.

“Keep the Harvest Festival when you begin to harvest the first crop of your wheat, and keep the Festival of Shelters in the autumn when you gather your fruit.

“Three times a year all of your men must come to worship me, the Lord, the God of Israel. 24 After I have driven out the nations before you and extended your territory, no one will try to conquer your country during the three festivals.

“Do not offer bread made with yeast when you sacrifice an animal to me. Do not keep until the following morning any part of the animal killed at the Passover Festival.

“Each year bring to the house of the Lord the first grain that you harvest.

“Do not cook a young sheep or goat in its mother's milk.”

The Lord said to Moses, “Write these words down, because it is on the basis of these words that I am making a covenant with you and with Israel.” Moses stayed there with the Lord forty days and nights, eating and drinking nothing. He wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant—the Ten Commandments.

Christians generally ignore these Ten Commandments and revere another set found elsewhere. The Wikipedia includes a chart that shows how different denominations enumerate the Ten Commandments.

In several American states, recent controversies have been provoked by requiring public schools to post the Ten Commandments. They have gone with forms of the Ten Commandments that appear in the Protestant King James version of the Bible, in contrast to Roman Catholic, Lutheran, or Jewish formulations..

Alabama schools are using an abbreviated form for their posters

Regarding the poster’s Second Commandment, “You shall not make idols”: Protestants have been accusing Catholics of worshiping idols ever since the Reformation. Catholics do seem to ignore the bit about graven images. Placing that on a poster in a school could lead to bullying of Catholic children, particularly in areas where Catholics are a minority.

The fourth one: “Remember the Sabbath, to keep it holy,” is one that no Christians (that I know of) obey. The Sabbath runs from Sundown Friday to Sundown Saturday. Most Christians attend worship services on Sunday—the Day of the Sun God, Sol Invictus. Emperor Constantine I formally made Sunday (dies Solis Invicti) an official day of rest in 321 AD.

Observe the Sabbath and keep it holy. You have six days in which to do your work, but the seventh day is a day of rest dedicated to me. On that day no one is to work—neither you, your children, your slaves, your animals, nor the foreigners who live in your country. In six days I, the Lord, made the earth, the sky, the seas, and everything in them, but on the seventh day I rested. That is why I, the Lord, blessed the Sabbath and made it holy.

Saturday is the seventh day. Sunday is the first day of the week.

In the time of Moses, a poor fellow who was caught gathering firewood on the Sabbath was stoned to death. Jesus, rather brazenly, violated the Sabbath.

The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath.

The Next one is “Honor your father and mother.” Well, according to Luke 14

If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.

“You shall not commit adultery.” Indeed, Proverbs 6

A man can hire a prostitute for the price of a loaf of bread, but adultery will cost him all he has.

Jesus did come to the rescue of an adulteress.

The last one on the list is “You shall not covet.” Our economy depends upon coveting. People working at jobs they dislike, to buy stuff they don’t need, to impress people they hate. Some of the world’s most covetous people claim to be Christian, like Peter Thiel, and several well-known preachers. Oral Roberts was a notorious scoundrel with his faith seed offerings.

So, what commandments are a Christian to follow? Jesus summarized it neatly:

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

You may ignore the Ten Commandments, the Old Testament laws, and even much of Paul’s musings, if they interfere in any way with loving thy neighbour as thyself.

James says:
21 Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. 23 And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,”[e] and he was called God’s friend. 24 You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone.

Paul says:
21 I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”

James points out how Abraham gained righteousness through the law, and that a person can be considered righteous by what they do and not just faith. But Paul says that if righteousness could be gained by the law, Christ would have died for nothing.

Even within a worldview that holds to biblical inerrancy, there's an important distinction between the belief that scripture is without error and the belief that one's interpretation of scripture is without error.

Biblical inerrancy doesn't make the person interpreting the Bible infallible. It simply means that, when an interpretation is mistaken, the error lies with the interpreter rather than the text.

From my point of view, the majority of religious claims arise due to the lack of the claimant's ability to accept "I don't know" as an answer.

What happens when we die? - We don't know. There's a lot of speculation and first hand accounts from people that were close to death, but no one has ever gotten a first hand account from an individual who is actually dead, nor does that seem to even be possible. Why is not knowing what happens after death (beyond the well documented physical and chemical processes that decompose the body) so abhorrent?

How did existence come to be? - We don't know. Our best explanation outlines the big bang, the expansion of the universe, and the formation of stars and planets, but going back beyond a certain point we don't know. Why is not knowing such a problem?

What would happen if we did know everything? Curiosity would die, the desire to explore and understand and experiment would be irrelevant. That sounds like a miserable and boring existence to me. I am thrilled that there's things we don't know, it gives me hope.

There are many ways to tackle my biggest hurdle with Christianity: why is it reliant on word of mouth.

One example I have is hyper specific: what happened to all the people, who did not and could not have heard of Jesus’ death and resurrection before it was evangelized?

For example: people in Africa, the Americas, etc. they clearly didn’t have the same concept of the Judeo god. I assume they were already banned to hell.

But AFTER the resurrection, they certainly didn’t have the ability to learn of it before it would reach them (impossible by word of mouth) and before they would get a chance to read the transcriptions later turned into text (impossible logistically for hundreds of years).

Simply put: if I were in Africa and somehow knew of the Judeo god, when Christ died and was resurrected, I would literally not know until someone told me or I got a copy of the transcripts of what had happened. Does that mean they all were destined to hell?

I know the current biblical standard is Romans which talks about all men knowing, but how is that a logistically possible?

Why would salvation be based on word of mouth accounts and doesn’t that certainly imply there are those who could
NOT have heard the word of god, especially after Jesus’ death and resurrection, but before it was even possible to share?

Wouldn’t that mean someone who died hours or days after Christ be banned to hell because they couldn’t have heard the news?

Now in current time, it’s hard to understand how your salvation is completely dependent on human evangelism. In some regions it’s logically impossible: what happens to them?

My husband is an atheist since almost one and a half hear. He says that Bible is invalid book and that the stories inside are written/inspired from Greek mythology, Sumeric writings etc. Also,he mentions that there are no proves about validity of the Bible, and that people like sheep believe in it. They forget to think.

That there are stories abd books even older than the Bible, that Theory of Evolution is true, as there are parts in our body that prove some features that belong to other animals as monkeys, dinosaurs ttc. That people living in different parts in the world got special skin tone and features as well depending sun exposure and climate in general.

How to win this debate with him? I know God exists but cannot give him a single proof.

Thesis: The biblical authorization of slavery is morally incompatible with the claim that these laws originated from an omniscient, omnipotent and perfectly just God.

I want to make my position clear from the beginning, since my post keeps getting removed as if we shouldn’t debate on a debate sub.

I’m not arguing that all Christians support slavery, nor am I denying that Christianity inspired abolitionists and movements for liberation. I’m questioning something more specific: the compatibility between certain biblical laws and the moral attributes traditionally assigned to God.

My argument rests on three premises:
The Bible contains laws that explicitly permit the ownership of human beings.

An omniscient and omnipotent God would know that slavery is unjust and possess the power to prohibit it without eliminating human free will.

A perfectly just God would not authorize an intrinsically unjust institution merely because it was socially accepted at the time.

If these premises are accepted, then the biblical authorization of slavery appears incompatible with the traditional Christian conception of God.

1. The Bible explicitly permits slavery
Leviticus 25:44–46
Allows the Israelites to acquire slaves from surrounding nations and pass them down to their children as inherited property.
This is not merely a historical description of slavery. It is a legal provision permitting the acquisition and hereditary ownership of human beings.
Exodus 21:20–21
Regulates the beating of slaves, distinguishing between immediate death and survival for a day or two, while explicitly referring to the slave as the master’s property.
Ephesians 6:5
Instructs slaves to obey their earthly masters.
1 Peter 2:18
Instructs servants to submit even to harsh masters.
These passages differ in historical context and literary purpose, but they establish that biblical texts do not simply condemn slavery as an institution.

2. Historical context explains human laws, but does not automatically justify divine laws
One common Christian response is that slavery was widespread in the ancient world and that biblical regulations were intended to limit existing abuses.
I understand this argument.
Historical context can explain why ancient societies developed laws regulating slavery.

However, it does not automatically explain why a perfectly just, omniscient and omnipotent God would authorize the ownership of human beings.
An ancient human legislator operates within the limitations of their society, knowledge and political power.
An omniscient and omnipotent God supposedly does not share those limitations.
If God knew slavery was unjust, He could have explicitly prohibited it.
And this brings me to the question of free will.

3. Prohibiting slavery does not eliminate free will
Another response is that God gradually guided humanity toward moral improvement because immediately eliminating slavery would have interfered with human freedom.
But there is a fundamental distinction between prohibiting an action and physically preventing people from committing it.
The Bible contains numerous commandments prohibiting particular behaviors.
Those commandments do not eliminate the human capacity to disobey.
Therefore, God could have prohibited slavery without removing humanity’s free will.
The argument that divine patience required permitting slavery needs to explain why a clear moral prohibition would have been inappropriate.

4. The moral development of humanity does not necessarily require divine intervention
I also question the assumption that humanity’s gradual rejection of slavery must reflect divine guidance.
Human beings are part of nature.
We are social animals whose institutions, moral systems and political structures have developed through cooperation, competition, struggles for survival and changing material circumstances.
Slavery can be understood as a human institution involving domination, coercion and the exploitation of labor.
Religious beliefs have historically been used both to justify such institutions and to challenge them.
The fact that Christianity motivated abolitionists is historically important.
But it does not establish that abolition required supernatural intervention.
Nor does it establish that human beings cannot develop moral principles independently of religious belief.
A naturalistic explanation of moral development does not prove that God does not exist. It simply shows that divine intervention is not the only possible explanation for changes in human moral understanding.

5. The moral standard problem
There is another difficulty.
Some Christians acknowledge that these biblical laws would be immoral if they appeared in another ancient legal code, while maintaining that they were nevertheless permitted by God as temporary accommodations.
But this raises a question about moral consistency.
If owning human beings as property is intrinsically wrong, why would its moral status change when the permission is attributed to God?
And if these laws are understood as imperfect human accommodations rather than expressions of God’s ideal morality, what criteria allow us to distinguish divine moral teaching from historically conditioned human legislation?
Appealing to Jesus as the ultimate revelation of God’s character is one possible theological response.
However, that interpretation still needs to account for biblical laws presented as having divine authority.

6. Anticipating the strongest objection
A Christian might argue that God temporarily permitted certain injustices to preserve human freedom, maintain social stability or guide humanity toward a greater eventual good.
I recognize that this is a more sophisticated position than simply denying the biblical passages.
However, it introduces an additional burden of justification.
Why would permitting hereditary ownership of human beings be necessary to achieve those goals?
Why would explicitly prohibiting slavery have prevented humanity from developing morally?
And why would an omnipotent God be unable to achieve the same moral development without authorizing such an institution?
Unless those questions can be answered, appealing to gradual moral progress does not fully resolve the tension.

Conclusion
My argument is not that Christianity has never contributed to moral progress.
It clearly has.
Nor am I claiming that every Christian interpretation of Scripture endorses slavery.

My argument is that the explicit biblical permission of slavery creates a serious moral problem for the claim that these laws originated from a perfectly just, omniscient and omnipotent God.

Historical context may explain why humans wrote such laws.
But explaining their human origins and justifying their supposed divine authority are two different tasks.
I welcome counterarguments addressing the premises of this thesis, particularly arguments explaining why a perfectly just and omnipotent God would authorize slavery rather than prohibit it.

Christians maintain that God is spirit and does not have a visible body. Yet in Exodus 33:20, God tells Moses, "You cannot see my face, for no one shall see me and live."

Some argue that God's "face" doesn't refer to a literal face. It refers to the fullness of God's glory. On this view, God is saying that humans cannot survive seeing His full divine essence. The problem with this explanation is that it still assumes there's something to "see." It still assumes that God's glory is something visible that humans cannot withstand.

This view also runs into the problems when we consider that God allowed Moses to see His back (Exo 33:23). If God's "face" refers to His glory, then what does His "back" refer to? Some suggest that it refers to the "afterglow" of God's glory retreating from Moses. But again, why would there be anything to see at all if God's glory has no visible essential features?

I argue that the only way to make sense of this is if God has some sort of bodily appearance. If God has no visible features at all, then Moses' request to see Him would've had a simple answer: "You cannot see my face because I have no face." Instead, God affirms that He has visible features that are fatal to humans.

I think most of us would agree that a universe with a God would be very different compared to a universe without one. As an atheist I can’t say with 100% certainty that God doesn’t exist no more than I can say with 100% certainty that the tooth fairy or the flying teapot doesn’t exist but in the same way as the tooth fairy and the flying teapot there isn’t a good argument for God’s existence.

Just to examine a few of the common arguments for God’s existence:

1. Everything is so beautiful and complex, there is no way it originated by chance.

This is not a new argument but it fails to understand how Darwinian natural selection works because it creates a very good simulacrum of design. Darwin demonstrated and science has shown how you can have the illusion of design as complex organisms arise from simpler organisms which adapt to their environments over millions of years.

1. People claim to have a personal experience with God.

The human experience is subjective, someone in Arkansas can say they know Jesus is there because they saw him or feel his presence while someone in Saudi Arabia can say they felt the presence of allah and Muhammad while someone in India can say they felt the presence of lord Krishna. Not to mention it’s very easy for the human brain to be tricked or hallucinate under the right conditions. Also we can establish that people have delusions about nonexistent things all the time. So this is an extremely poor argument for God’s existence.

1. Something can’t come from nothing. The universe must have a cause and God is the cause.

You run into a very big problem here because if we postulate that God is the first cause this assumes there was a time the universe didn’t exist but God did and you have to explain where the God came from.

1. Pascal’s wager. You’re better off believing there is a God because if you lose the bet you go to hell.

This is also a poor argument because you’re assuming which God it is. If you bet on Yahweh but it turns out to be Thor or Zeus then you have a problem. Even if it was Yahweh you could say that he would rather have believers who think for themselves instead of those who just blindly choose to believe something.

I’ve had people ask me if I know God doesn’t exist to which I say no and there isn’t any way for me to prove something doesn’t exist and the burden of proof is on a theist to provide good arguments or evidence that something does exist. So after reviewing what we know, it seems there isn’t any compelling argument for the existence of a God therefore I live my life as if it doesn’t exist.

Obviously the winner creates and writes history. And all the Bible says is just God being self masturbatory about how good he is. Except for all the murder and genocide and rape.

There is barely anything about the devil. But what we do know is that he led a revolt. He led Adam and Eve into wisdom and knowledge instead of ignorance and slavery. Lucifer the morning star the bringer of light revolted against a historically violent and malevolent and evil God.

Why all the hate against him? I'm thinking propaganda. None of it makes sense unless you plug God in as a narcissist. I can see an angel of God seeing the evil God has done to man and trying to do better for them, introduce them to knowledge and wisdom. God hated that, God wanted them to be dumb and devoted. Just animals in Eden. But we had souls, that wasn't right. You can't do that to beings with souls.

He led a revolt against God with his homies to protect humanity against the tyranny of his narcissistic tendencies, and was subsequently treated and painted as evil.

When in reality God is a narcissist who wants or needs devotion for his own self esteem

This is kind of a followup to my last post.

Even if one grants that salvation is needed, which in itself is a questionable concept, how salvation works is very poorly designed.

Christianity assumes that salvation is necessary because god must punish sins because he is just, and salvation is avoiding that punishment by believing in the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross and being forgiven.

I have multiple issues with this:

First, why can't god just forgive any sin without the need of a sacrifice if the sinner repents, like in Islam? Why is a blood sacrifice necessary at all? Is it not justice if nobody gets punished? Would that make god in Islam unjust since he punishes nobody who repents and doesn't need someone else to take the punishment for them?

Second, why is that how the sacrifice works? The crucifixion is the most inefficient sacrificial punishment ritual imaginable.

Jesus died for three days and came back. Where's the sacrifice in that? He didn't lose anything. And after the sacrifice, we are still able to sin and go to hell. This defeats the entire purpose of the sacrifice, which was to make hell unnecessary. Jesus already paid the price for our salvation, so why do we need to repent and believe in him? Shouldn't every sin be continuously forgiven because punishment isn't necessary anymore?

My redesign of the sacrifice (if it is absolutely necessary itself) would be this:

Jesus gets sent to hell after his death and stays there for eternity in our stead. That way, every time someone sins, they are immediately forgiven since the punishment is already being carried out on Jesus in hell. Jesus bears the weight of every sin's punishment. Past, present, and future. Everyone goes to heaven and everyone is happy and eternally grateful for Jesus' sacrifice.

Now I know that you will say "But Jesus did pay the price of every sin past present and future!" - great! Then why do I go to hell if I sin? Isn't my punishment already paid for? Isn't my prison cell already occupied? Didn't someone's head roll already? Then why do I still get punished if I don't repent?

Also, my explanation of salvation above isn't even fully accurate. You do not only have to "accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour", but also dedicate your ENTIRE existence to being his slave.
I don't just have to be sorry, I have to become someone's servant for the rest of eternity and do nothing but tell him how much I love him and how oh-so-great he is.

Why can't I just say "I'm sorry for sinning, Jesus. Thank you for saving me." and then move on with my life until the party in heaven starts?

I don't want to go to church every Sunday and tell god how awesome he is and what a worthless piece of shit I am. I don't want to be his lapdog and grovel at his feet every day for being such an evil sinner.

No thanks. I've got better stuff to do, like having gay sex and not forgiving the people who bullied me my entire life.

Edit: an important question I forgot to include:

Why is salvation an opt-in and not an opt-out?

Why can't everyone be automatically saved and choose otherwise, instead of being automatically damned and required to choose salvation? That way, much fewer people would go to hell.

Here are 3 examples of Christian apologetics that artificially limit God’s power:

1 - The problem of evil - Evil and suffering exist in the world because God created humans with free will. In order to get rid of the bad stuff, you have to get rid of free will, or so the argument goes. But this is obviously not the case and, more subtly, it assumes free will is a good per se, without any real justification. Even if we grant the net good of free will, it simply isn’t the case that evil and suffering are necessary products of free will. How much will power do you have to exercise not to eat dog poop that you see on the side of the road? Probably zero. There is basically no chance that you will walk over to a piece of dog poop and eat it. Does this mean that you don’t have the free will to eat poop? Apologies for the crass subject matter, but God could have made sin as repugnant to us as dog poop (or whatever you find intolerably disgusting). He didn’t need to remove any free will to accomplish this.

Furthermore, this whole argument just assumes that free will is an end in itself. I think people imagine that if they didn’t have free will that they either wouldn’t have experiences anymore, or wouldn’t be able to appreciate them. I’m not sure why this is. The difference would be that we would only experience good things because people would only make good choices. Ice cream still tastes like ice cream; sex still feels amazing. The only difference is that you can’t do bad things, which I would think would be a good thing.

2 - The solution to salvation - I’ll spare you the whole “God sacrificing himself to himself to circumvent blah blah blah“ speech. Suffice to say that this is a wildly convoluted scheme that God has devised. There are plenty of times in the Bible when God just straight up forgives people just because they repented, no sacrifice required. Nobody had to die. Being the all-powerful agent he is, God could simply do this for everyone, every time. The whole “the wages of sin are death” thing was a rule he made up. It didn’t have to be the case that bloodshed is required for forgiveness. I’m very confident that the reader can and has forgiven people without requiring some kind of sacrifice in return. If you can do it, so can God.

But even if we grant the necessity of bloodshed and sacrifice for forgiveness. The problem of Hell is an invited, completely avoidable problem. God knows who will and won’t accept him. He is not obligated create the people that he knows in advance will not accept him, and presumably, he doesn’t actually want anyone to go to Hell. He could get the best of both worlds if he simply limits the people he creates to the ones he knows will go to Heaven. Hell is 100% superfluous.

3 - God the imperfect communicator - I think even Christians will agree that there is widespread disagreement about a lot of things within Christianity. For sure, they will claim that the disagreements are not about important, foundational things (despite one of those things being salvation itself), but to quote Louise CK, “He could clear a lot of shit up with a 5 minute press conference”. The idea that the Bible, the interpretations of which are as numerous as the people who read it, is the perfect, ideal way to preserve God’s word is truly laughable. Supposedly, God needs to keep himself hidden for some inscrutable reason. Maybe it interferes with free will or removes the need for faith. But, he spoke directly to Israel (and a bunch of other people in the bible) in a way that was unmistakable. There is nothing preventing him from speaking to the entire world in a way that cannot be misunderstood (except maybe willful misunderstanding). There is just no need for honest confusion or misunderstanding about God's rules or message. God wants to be understood, and he has to ability to make that happen for everyone alive. The only way around this is to claim that it would conflict some other good that God desires. But this is not an obstacle to God. He can do all logically possible things, meaning that he can achieve that other good without sacrificing the understanding.

This thread is for all your questions about Christianity. Want to know what's up with the bread and wine? Curious what people think about modern worship music? Ask it here.

This also means that I should probably give my birthday money back because there's no point in spending it if there's no point on buying anything with it.

What am I going to buy with it? A DVD or Blu-ray that I want? Sure but again they can just make it illegal and therefore sinful to enjoy it so what's even the point? If that ever happens it will hit hard.

And if it does happen I will then be extremely conflicted on whether to just continue enjoying it or get rid of it just in case it is now sinful to enjoy it.

It could maybe even be argued that me spending the money is selfish do to me knowing that this could happen in the future, and if this does happen then I spent that money all for nothing pretty much and some could argue I straight up stole.

Yes They are the ones that gave it to me but that probably doesn't leave me without fault if anything I'm probably the one that is the most at fault because I easily could have just given the money back and could have been like "I don't need this."

This also applies to Christmas as there is no point in me getting literally anything including money.

Of course Christmas can still be celebrated but there's no point in me getting anything and maybe I should just tell my Mom and to tell everyone She knows to not get me anything for Christmas like anything at all.

Because again what's the point of buying something if they can be made illegal and therefore sinful.

This also means maybe I should not buy anything for myself ever again unless it is mandatory to live or survive.

Even something as simple as a plush would be pointless to buy because again they could make it illegal and therefore sinful and then I had just wasted money by spending my money on something that I should have known would one day probably be made illegal.

First of all, no one is really arguing against that. I agree if someone knew their religious leader was a liar/fraud, they probably aren’t gonna die for them. But that’s not the contention with Jesus. The real issue is two questions, one, do people die for things they THINK are true? Yes, all the time. And two, did the early martyrs even have a chance to recant their beliefs? Because if they didn’t, then they didn’t willingly die for their beliefs.

There have been many people who kill their families and/or themselves because (they say) God told them to do it. Did God actually do that? Did they die for a lie? Probably not, they probably truly thought this message was from God. Wouldn’t it be dumb to say ‘they wouldn’t die for a lie’ as if to prove God really made the request to commit suicide? I get that’s an individual experience, so let’s turn to Jim jones.

Followers of Jim jones witnessed him do supposed miracles all the time. We have signed affidavits and tons of first hand eye witness accounts saying Jim jones cured people’s cancer, healed the blind, gave a woman the ability to walk again where she ran and danced around the church (this is on video too). And some of these people were absolutely willing to die for Jim jones. The mass suicide wasn’t 100% forced on every person who was there. Some were willing to die for him because they had seen him do miracles. Now today we know Jim jones was a fraud, but at the time, people were willing to die for him because of what he did right in front of them. Those people weren’t willing to die for a lie, they were willing to die for what they thought was true. It’s incredibly common for cult leaders and religious leaders to have their followers THINK they are performing miracles right in front of them when they actually aren’t.

And lastly, the whole ‘no one dies for a lie’ only works if the person has a chance to recant and still chooses not to. You can’t say that happened in the case of the early martyrs because pretty much all the stories of how they died come from church tradition. If someone was a believer and eye witness to Jesus’s supposed resurrection and then they are just killed while walking down the street, that’s not dying for anything. That’s just someone killing you. And we don’t know the exact circumstances behind each martyr, so you can’t even claim these people really died for their belief.

The point is, people don’t die for a lie, that basically never happens as far as i know. But people THINK they are witnessing miracles all the time when in fact no miracles are taking place. And people are willing to die for what they THINK is true.

P.S. Funny enough we actually do have evidence that early Christian’s were given the opportunity to recant, but not until after 100AD, when the actual eye witnesses would’ve all been dead.