There is a genetic Adam and Eve but they did not exist together at the same time. Therefore the Catholic Church is wrong.

My central claim: Fallen World theodicy offers no criterion for what counts as a consequence of the fall, which makes it unfalsifiable, and which licenses absurd extensions. Even if I were a theist, I would still find it vacuous as it explains everything and nothing at once about how the world is in its current state.

Allow me to give the conclusion that I hope to support: A believer in the Fallen World theodicy can, and perhaps even must, believe that feces smells unpleasant only because sin entered the world. I say this because Fallen World theodicy is the oft used scapegoat to explain all natural suffering like cancer and tsunamis, but the implications of this claim must be grappled with, and would lead to the above conclusion for the believer in question.

Argument 1: Unevidenced and Unfalsifiable

Unless you don't believe in the scientific consensus of an old earth and evolution, the fact is that natural suffering and their causes have been in existence long before humans could ever walk the earth and do whatever it is that caused the fall. Attempts to account for this can go as far as to claim that the world was actually a paradise with no disease or natural disasters, but when humans introduced sin, then the world was retroactively changed by some temporal means to then be full of disease and suffering before humans came about. Of course, this is neither falsifiable nor evidenced in any way whatsoever. It is pure wild speculation at best.

Less popular is the suggestion that it's actually only humans that were immune to disease and natural suffering when they first came about, but when sin came, that's when this immunity vanished. Again, lacking evidence. There is no way to know this is true beyond mere speculation. It suggests that the earliest human ancestors, somewhere within the delineation between homo heidelbergensis and homo sapien, were just immune to disease and natural disasters for some period, and then this immunity ended somehow.

Argument 2: No Epistemic Limits

Christians who abide by the fallen world theodicy will sometimes claim that things like cancer or tsunamis or earthquakes were not meant to be part of our universe. They were not in the initial blueprints of God's design, they say, and they do so despite having no real confirmation of what the pre-Fallen world actually was like. Ideas about the pre-Fallen world are extrapolations at best.

The issue comes about when there is no real epistemic limit to what could ever actually be excused as part of a fallen world. It can be something as terrible as a tsunami that kills thousands, or as small as an itch on the nose. There is no identifiable or consistent mechanism that translates whatever state the universe was in prior to the fall of man to the state it's in now.

Before the fall of man, cancer didn't exist. After it, now it does. How? Did sin introduce carcinogens? What about earthquakes? Were there none before, and now there are? How? Did sin introduce tectonic shifts? Did those not exist before sin entered the world? We don't have any real explanation for how this occurs. All we have is a broad encompassing category of bad things, and they must all not have been bad or not have existed at all before the fall, regardless of how fundamentally different the causes are of each example. Sin just can just cause all manner of reality-bending that introduces suffering into the world, from cancer to plague to dengue fever to predation to parasites to sudden infant death syndrome, etc.

But because there's no epistemic limit to these speculations, we can include even minor inconveniences or limits to human ability, can we not?. Take my earlier example with feces: sure, it has its uses, but it smells unpleasant. Well, if we can just say anything about the Fallen World without needing to back it up, then we can claim that feces actually smelled delightful before the Fall. Hell, why not take it a step further, and say that outright eating feces was nutritious, but sin made it unpleasant and poisonous?

And why stop there? Maybe the unpleasant feeling when a person eats too much food is also a result of the fall. Maybe the fact that we are constrained by gravity is also a result of the fall. Maybe children physically and mentally matured quickly rather than undergo awkward transition periods into adulthood before the fall. Virtually any undesirable or inconvenient aspect of our world can be declared as a consequence of the fall after the fact. Who is the believer to say otherwise, when there is no epistemic standard to deny it with?

Conclusion:

The Fallen Word theodicy, the way it's used so often, recognizes a fact of our world: "There exists natural suffering not caused by human decisions." And in acknowledging this, it tries to answer the question: "How can this happen with a tri-omni god?"

It answers with statements without evidence, blanketly placing any and every kind of natural pain or inconvenience into one whole category, and putting it squarely on the shoulders of humans rather than on the all-knowing designer. It is a means of salvaging God's tri-omni properties by asking "How can we explain natural suffering to be NOT the fault of the all-knowing and all-powerful designer of the universe?" There is no limit to what it can excuse because Fallen World theodicy is clearly not meant to mechanistically explain the state of the world. I'd argue that its purpose is an ad hoc shift of the blame from God to man. This is why I say that the believer must accept the idea that bad smells are a result of the fall, because if they can simply make unevidenced statements as to the pre-fall state, then any claim is as good as any other as long as it falls under the category of naturally occurring unpleasantness. One can claim that God made humans could literally eat poop without a problem prior to the Fall, and the believer in the Fallen World couldn't possibly say otherwise, or else open the door to skepticism and a need for evidence for each claim.

Note: At the least, I can acknowledge that other arguments that explain the state of the world ("God puts these sources of natural suffering as a test", "Natural suffering leads to greater goods", "Natural suffering builds virtues", etc.) avoid the issues I stated to some extent. They at least show that these sources of natural suffering were purpose-built rather than a sudden accidental state inexplicably brought about by human beings.

If god had a creator and that creator wanted god to think he is uncreated, there would be no way for god to know it. The typical answer "god is eternal, therefore he cannot be created" does not really work. If god was created, his creator could very easily give god a false sense of being eternal. Think about it this way: according to Christianity or Islam, god can easily create a human that thinks anything. He could create someone that thinks he is uncreated and everlasting.

A being with infinite knowledge should understand this. It is not normal that an infinitely intelligent god could not understand that they could be fooled by an entity above it. If he cannot understand this, then something is blocking that thought. That "something" is god's creator.

When we talk about first cause (and this is something we don't all agree on), and then jump to the conclusions that God must be the first cause, this is a great leap of faith.

If we agree that there's a first cause, we still haven't established what the first cause is. You need more to attribute something like the self-sufficient, the absolute, the all loving, all-knowing, etc...

You need to go through a lot of arguments and proofs to prove that the first cause is God.

I have read online that the Gospel of Thomas was rejected from the New Testament because it does not place emphasis on Jesus’ death and resurrection, and that the view of Nicean Christianity is that it is through His death and resurrection that we are saved. I’m not completely against Paul but this idea comes from him, not the gospels or Jesus himself. Rather I’d argue that his death and resurrection serves as absolute proof that He is who He says is, and that His message is truth.

Jesus said to believe in Him (to believe in His ways and the knowledge that He’s giving to us), THAT is the key to salvation. Not once in the gospels did Jesus say he specifically came to die for our sins, this is an idea that developed later so why must a gospel contain this element to be considered divinely inspired? Is a collection of Jesus’ sayings not a Gospel—which literally translates to “good news”? Jesus’ mission was never to die for our sins, but it was his destiny to die because of them, as written by the prophet Isaiah.

With the issue of the Gospel being written too late, with no older manuscripts found I cannot go against that in good faith, but little bits of it suggest that it’s potentially from an earlier time. Specially, in saying 27, Jesus states that we must keep the Sabbath as a Sabbath—a day of rest and worship, and If this Gospel was a forgery written in the 2nd century, a time where Christians already switched to Sunday worship, why then would they make up a saying of Jesus preaching to keep the Sabbath (Saturday) as the holy day? Would this not suggest that this was written at a time where Christ’s followers still observed Saturday as the holy day? Which would be within the first 100 years after his crucifixion, when Christianity was still a Jewish sect?

And lastly, this gospel is seen as gnostic and for the life of me I cannot figure out why. Jesus of the canonical gospels very much so preached about self discovery and seeking knowledge of one’s self to find the kingdom, while also proclaiming his divinity and connection to the Father through the Holy Spirit, the Gospel of Thomas says the same thing. The only thing that makes this one different is that it’s not a narrative gospel, it’s purely a gospel compromised of Jesus’ sayings—most of which are already found in the New Testament in some way. The emphasis on Jesus’s death and resurrection was a later addition to the faith, His earliest followers saw it as a tragedy rather than the means to which we are saved.

Trying to understand Christianity here and among the hundreds of ridiculous/evil/plain stupid things in the story of Christianity, this is one of the ones don’t understand the most.

The way it’s been explained to me from many different sources and i guess interpretations—
God purposely created a flawed species, full well knowing that billions would eventually go to hell for exercising their free will in the image of their mind which was hardwired to be flawed and immoral, then is disappointed they did exactly what he knew would happen, therefore he sends them to eternal suffering.

??? Like Is that not just plain evil? The more I hear about god the more it feels like the bible could very well be Satan trying to trick humans. I mean why would a moral god order genocide.

According to the bible im going to hell because I have sinned and don’t accept Jesus as my savour but I’m not a bad person, how is that fair to me? My brain was hardwired and molded into a shape that desired to sin, I’m not saying it isn’t my fault but that’s just how the brain works and he knew that, so why did god make me and billions of others to be extremely flawed and guaranteed to not accept him?

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.

(1) Young Earth Creationist leaders like Ken Ham and Kent Hovind often liked to say, and still often probably do. That accepting an old earth makes a Christian more susceptible to disbelief.

(2) Just search examples and if you've maybe ever heard of anything from young earth creationists becoming old earth Christians, but abandoning young earth behind, and you'll see you won't realistically ever hear if at all, of an old earth in-line with mainstream scientific understanding causing significant faith issues.

(3) This is itself perhaps evidence that young earth creationism is a problem generally towards accepting or rejecting scientific claims, not religion itself or Christianity itself, in my opinion.

(4) If you think religion deconverting or convincing people to become atheists, is what you need to actively encourage or do, please do not attack it generally as it's very multi-faceted.

En cualquier lugar —incluso un cementerio o una casa vieja— ocurren ruidos o eventos aleatorios sin explicación inmediata. Si la persona no le da importancia y lo ignora, el evento muere ahí y no sucede nada absolutamente.

​Días después ocurre un segundo ruido o el crujido de un paso. Aquí es donde la persona comete el error crítico: en lugar de descartarlo, le presta atención. Esa fijación mental actúa como la primera gota de sangre en el agua, llamando la atención de entidades que antes no tenían un canal .

A medida que la persona se hipervigila y se enfoca en el fenómeno, la manifestación se agrava. El sonido ya no es un crujido sutil, sino el impacto claro de alguien corriendo en el pasillo. Las señales ya no se sienten como casualidades porque la entidad ha sido atraída deliberadamente por el foco de la persona.

​

Finalmente, el ruido y la presencia se vuelven tan intensos que resulta imposible ignorarlos. Al haber alimentado el fenómeno con atención y miedo constantes durante tanto tiempo, el individuo ha dejado pasar a la entidad, completando la transición de la mera obsesión mental a una apertura espiritual plena donde el depredador toma control.

Esta misma lógica explica por qué, tras ver películas como El Exorcista, tantas personas de repente creen estar poseídas o experimentan fenómenos extraños. No es que la película traiga un demonio adherido a la pantalla; es que la cinta funciona como un interruptor de atención. Siembra la idea en la cabeza del espectador, quien sale del cine con el radar hiperactivado, buscando sombras, analizando cada crujido de su casa y prestando atención a detalles que antes ignoraba por completo. Al enfocar su mente ahí, "echa la sangre al agua" y se hacercan los demonios como tiburones ambrientos sin nesecidad de estar ahi prebiamente.

Lo mismo ocurre con los cementerios. Las peores cosas o las sensaciones más aterradoras no ocurren por el cementerio en sí mismo como espacio físico, sino por la idea que tenemos del lugar. Si lo piensas bien, ¿a qué lugar no ha pisado la muerte a lo largo de los siglos? Prácticamente cualquier terreno del planeta ha sido pisado, habitado y dejado atrás por personas que ya no están; todo el mundo es, en el fondo, un cementerio. La única diferencia es que al cementerio oficial le ponemos la etiqueta del miedo, lo que obliga a nuestro cerebro a encender la alerta, prestar atención a cada detalle y, sin darnos cuenta, abrirle la puerta a la obsesión.

Es mi teoria porque me parece raro creer que estas cosas pasan casi al azar(es como pensar que los demonios tienen una ruleta para decidir quien poseer hoy).Y de hecho defiende la idea original de como es que ocurre la posesió

مسألة العدل الإلهي في الإسلام: الوحي وحرية الضمير وعدم المساواة الدينية

كيف يمكن التوفيق بين الاعتقاد الإسلامي بأن الله عليم بكل شيء، وقادر على كل شيء، ومتصف بالعدل المطلق، وبين الأحكام الدينية والقانونية التي تقضي بمعاملة الناس معاملة مختلفة تبعًا لدينهم ومعتقداتهم؟

وفقًا للعقيدة الإسلامية، أرسل الله أنبياء، منهم إبراهيم وموسى وعيسى، لإبلاغ البشر إرادته. وفي الوقت نفسه، يؤكد الإسلام أن القرآن هو الوحي الأخير، وأن محمدًا هو خاتم الأنبياء.

ومن هنا يبرز السؤال الأول: إذا كان الله يعلم مسبقًا طبيعة البشر والظروف المستقبلية والنتائج المحتملة لوحيه، فلماذا أُبلغت إرادته من خلال أنبياء مختلفين، بينما انتهى الأمر بالبشرية إلى وجود أديان متعددة يدّعي كل منها امتلاك الحقيقة، وكثيرًا ما تتعارض تعاليمها فيما بينها؟ ولماذا لم يكن بإمكان الله، وهو القادر على كل شيء، أن يبيّن إرادته بطريقة تتيح لكل إنسان فرصة عادلة وكافية للتعرّف على الحقيقة؟

وتزداد هذه المسألة تعقيدًا لأن الإنسان لا يختار ظروف ولادته. فقد ينشأ شخص في تقليد مسيحي أو يهودي، ويؤمن بالله بإخلاص، ويصلّي ويحاول أن يعيش حياة أخلاقية، معتقدًا أن دينه هو الدين الحق. ومع ذلك، لا يقرّ الإسلام بصحة جميع معتقدات هذين الدينين، ويدعو إلى قبول وحيه الأخير. فإلى أي مدى يكون من العدل محاسبة الإنسان على معتقداته الدينية، إذا كان الله يعلم البيئة التي وُلد فيها، والفرص التي أُتيحت له للبحث عن الحقيقة؟

أما السؤال الثاني فيتعلق بحكم محدد ورد في القرآن. ففي سورة التوبة، الآية 29، ذُكرت الجزية، وهي ضريبة كانت تُفرض، في إطار الفقه الإسلامي الكلاسيكي، على فئات محددة من غير المسلمين، ومنهم المسيحيون واليهود. وقد أتاح نظام الذمة التاريخي لهم الاحتفاظ بدينهم، لكنه منحهم وضعًا قانونيًا خاصًا ومختلفًا. وبذلك، أثّر الانتماء الديني في الالتزامات المالية والوضع القانوني للإنسان.

وهنا يبرز سؤال جوهري: لماذا ينبغي لشخص يمارس دينه بسلام ولا يرتكب أعمال عنف أن يتحمل عبئًا ماليًا خاصًا بسبب عدم اعتناقه الإسلام؟ وإذا كان الله، وفقًا للعقيدة الإسلامية، قد أرسل أيضًا عيسى وموسى، فلماذا كان ينبغي لأتباع الديانات المرتبطة بهذين النبيين أن يتمتعوا بوضع قانوني مختلف في ظل الحكم الإسلامي؟

إن تفسير الجزية بأنها كانت جزءًا من النظام الاجتماعي السائد في حقبة تاريخية معينة قد يساعد على فهم كيفية عمل هذا النظام، لكنه لا يثبت في حد ذاته عدالته الأخلاقية. وبالمثل، فإن القول إن المسلمين كانت عليهم التزامات مالية أخرى لا يزيل السؤال المتعلق بسبب تحديد فئات مختلفة من المدفوعات والأوضاع القانونية على أساس الانتماء الديني.

أما السؤال الثالث فيتعلق بحرية الضمير. فالقرآن، في سورة البقرة، الآية 256، ينص على أنه «لا إكراه في الدين»، بينما تتضمن سورة التوبة، الآية 29، أمرًا بقتال فئة معينة من أهل الكتاب إلى أن يدفعوا الجزية. وقد وضع الفقهاء المسلمون الكلاسيكيون تفسيرات وطرقًا للتوفيق بين هذين النصين، لكن يبقى السؤال: هل يعني عدم الإكراه مجرد السماح للإنسان بالاحتفاظ بدين آخر ضمن وضع قانوني محدد، أم أنه يقتضي المساواة الدينية والقانونية الكاملة؟

وأخيرًا، تبرز مسألة أخلاقية أوسع نطاقًا: إذا كان الله هو المصدر المطلق للعدل، فما المعيار الذي ينبغي الاستناد إليه لتقييم أحكامه؟ وهل يُعدّ نظامٌ تتفاوت فيه حقوق الأشخاص والتزاماتهم المالية بسبب دينهم، سواء أكان الدين الذي وُلدوا فيه أم الدين الذي اختاروه عن اقتناع، نظامًا عادلًا؟ وإذا كان الجواب هو أن العدل الإلهي يختلف عن التصور البشري للعدل، فكيف يمكن التحقق بصورة مستقلة من أن حكمًا معينًا عادل حقًا، بدلًا من اعتباره عادلًا لمجرد نسبته إلى الله؟

وخلاصة الاعتراض ليست أن وجود أديان متعددة يدحض، في حد ذاته، وجود الله، ولا أن كل مسلم يؤيد عدم المساواة. بل تتمثل في ضرورة تقديم تبرير يوضح كيف يمكن التوفيق بين القول بأن الله عليم بكل شيء، وقادر على كل شيء، ومتصف بالعدل المطلق، وبين تفاوت الظروف التي تتيح للناس البحث عن الحقيقة الدينية، والوضع القانوني الخاص لغير المسلمين، والأحكام التي تثير تساؤلات حول عالمية حرية الضمير.

Spending an eternity being in an golden city constantly worshiping god? That sounds weirdly dystopian like 1984 but big brother calls himself jesus

That sounds sad with not much agency and having barely any independence or even a bit of power unlike on earth

And another thing is it's infinite, it's bound to become boring after a thousand years or maybe even in a hundred, you can't decide to reset or reincarnate

And another thing is it's all glorifying god, I don't think your ever able to do fun not so glorifying god things

And it's also just really God's view of what would be a utopia, people can't personalize it to be what they would see as utopia, god decides that which is unfair, it's like going to an ice cream shop but on the menu everything besides strawberry is scribbled, and the reason is the ice cream man says "you'll like strawberry more than mint chocolate chip or chocolate or vanilla or anything else", some people like strawberry but some people don't

And also, happiness exists cause there's sadness, I dunno how to say it like I am wise but, without sadness, happiness isn't as glorious

So The heaven most of you believe sounds almost as depressing as being in hell

Edit: forgot to summerize it, imo as an agnostic, for heaven to be truly fun it shouldn't just be glorifying god and be more of like personalized utopias for one or more people and if you ever get bored you can reincarnate or reset

What the world calls Christianity today is not the path of Christ. It is the ghost of the Roman Empire wrapped in a cross—a culture that claims to have killed the man, yet turned their murder weapon into his ultimate symbol. The story of Christ must be read like any mythic scripture of antiquity: a map of archetypes, the collective conscious, and the collective unconscious. The Romans recognized the existential threat this inner message posed to their authority, so they co-opted the narrative and redistributed it to the masses as an instrument of state control. The real tragedy of modern religion is that it copied the Roman playbook. Instead of offering the inner, spiritual transformation Jesus actually taught, institutions adopted Rome’s hunger for power, money, and compliance. Rome did not perish; it merely survived every time an institution turned the Divine into a business, replaced inner awakening with blind obedience, and built a modern empire beneath the shadow of a cross

I grew up in a Muslim family and although I am not Muslim anymore I definitely believe in God. I don’t understand how people can say that Christianity and Islam brought rights to the underprivileged at their time with such pride while being misogynistic and homophobic. I used to believe the “love the sinner hate the sin” mindset but that is some bs. You either want someone to be free in their life or you don’t. How can one person believe their way of living or their sexuality is better than any other? No human is better than anyone. I also don’t understand how keeping women in the house and modest helps society progress now. These religions are not as progressive as they once were and if you believe them still you cannot be progressive.

Or rather, he knew billions wouldn’t and doesn’t care? Im not really sure what to call it but
the strong points of my argument are this:

1: The bible sucks: The bible not only is wildly inconsistent, full of mistakes and things that just don’t add up, but it literally showcases all of the incomprehensibly evil things god has done. If anything, it should be demotivating people to have faith in him.

2: Lack of evidence: He knew that humans would eventually start to listen to reason and facts (at least some of us anyway) and therefore, leaving the bible as the only evidence of his existence is ineffective for people who think without bias.

3: Intended human diversity: He knew that humans in other parts of the world would worship other gods/no god and has done nothing at all to even challenge their beliefs, rather he just sends them to hell (welcome to religion brother💀)

4: The problem with “free will”: He created a species with free will over themselves and their mind, and considering all of the previous mentioned points, it’s quite obvious that many wouldn’t follow his religion, and he was fully aware of all of this. He knew billions wouldn’t have faith, yet he did nothing to change that.

TLDR/recap: God knew billions wouldn’t have faith in him due to lack of evidence and himself being immoral in immeasurable ways. He has done nothing to change this.

As a result, billions upon billions will now suffer in hell for eternity, all because he didn’t give enough reason to devote your life to him, aside from blind faith and a promise of heaven.

Note: I am talking about the majority that believe lgbt is a sin, I know not all sects of Abrahamic Religions believe that

So, I don't believe that lgbt is a sin for you guys, why?

Well one why would god be petty enough to care about your gender or sexual preferences if he has bigger god things to do?

Secondly: most scriptures of you guys were made by ancient people, ancient people said things different than us and most of these are sort of like literal translations so some verses saying lgbt is bad is likely mis readings

Thirdly: ancient people weren't smart, even if these verses do mean it literally, ancient people weren't smart. They literally believed disease came from bad air

Fourthly: if god doesn't want different sexualities then why would he make gay people and etc? It's clearly mentioned multiple times god made you in his image so why would he make a gay person be gay in his image if gayness is bad?

Fifthly: sexuality and gender dysmorphia and etc aren't exactly things one can make magically change or disappear, that's sorta impossible unless you get a lobotomy but lobotomy is definitely a sin

Sixth: even if you use the strawman argument (Which is already debunkable using my older reasons) that being gay or something like that won't let you make babies, there's already millions of babies being born a year, 10% of the population not being able to make babies won't affect it. And plus there are ways to make babies without sex, I am pretty sure there was a woman who was born cause a sperm and egg was put in a petri dish, If that's possible then having sex isn't the only way to have kids

And yeah, but this is heavily leaning to Christianity and a bit of islam so I am not sure if this is that true for Muslims or Jews and etc

The idea that without evil, you cannot have free will is highly flawed, and I’m going to present some arguments showing that we can still have free will without evil.

To have free will, you need the ability to choose between good and neutral options. Even without evil, you could still choose to do good or choose not to do good. You could feed the poor or choose not to feed the poor, donate to charity or choose not to donate to charity.

Therefore, we can still have free will without evil. Our goodness would still be meaningful because we wouldn’t be doing good simply because we were programmed to do so. We would be doing good even though we could choose not to. That would be genuine and meaningful goodness.

So my topic is can the text of Bible be trusted or not and can we say it to be inerrant and infallible. My argument is that the Bible has textual changes that change the meaning of the text. For example, in septuaginta's (old testament that new testament's writers used) 1 samuel 17:4 told originally Goliath's height to be 4 cubits and a span (Supported by Vaticanus, Origen [hexapla], Hippolytus, Josephus and 4Q51 [qumran scrolls]) but afterwards it was changed to 6 cubits and a span -> the later reading is wrong and it changes how tall Goliath really was. So my question is: how can the Bible be anymore fully trusted and infallible while its text has had readings that were wrong/erroneous and changed/corrupted?

Christians often try to solve the problem by claiming that we could recognize these textual changes by using textual criticism and therefore we could trust the text. However this doesn't work because there are readings that we just can't restore and we have no way to know which reading was original. For example, in luke 10:1 & 10:17 there are two textual variants (70 vs 72) and both readings have very strong evidences to support them -> we have no way to know which one of them was the original reading.

So my question is: How can we fully trust and say that the Bible is fully infallible and inerrant while throughout its history it has had readings that are incorrect/erroneous and its text has been changed the way that changes the meaning of text, but we have no way to reconstruct the whole text and recognize all the changed readings?

And answers like "we have thousands of manuscripts" and "most of the variants are insignificant (like "Jesus Christ" vs "Christ Jesus")" or "the core doctrine (like Jesus is God) hasn't been changed" explanations don't actually answer the question in any way.

I’ve been examining Islam from a historical-critical perspective, and I’m struggling with how much of the religion appears to be rooted in its specific Arabian context.

1. Linguistic and cultural context
   The Qur’an repeatedly emphasizes that it is an Arabic revelation (e.g., 12:2, 26:192–195, 42:7, 43:3). Its rhetoric, vocabulary, and imagery are rooted in Arabic, and it addresses a community with specific social, religious, and political concerns in seventh-century western Arabia.

2. Continuity with pre-Islamic Arabian religious practices
   Islam incorporates and reinterprets practices associated with Arabia, including pilgrimage to the Kaaba, circumambulation, the rites at Safa and Marwa, and the concept of sacred months. The Qur’an regulates these practices within a monotheistic framework rather than introducing an entirely new ritual system. How much of this continuity can be established historically, and what does it suggest about Islam’s origins?

3. The Qur’an’s relationship with the religious environment of late antiquity
   The Qur’an engages extensively with Jewish and Christian traditions, including narratives about Abraham, Moses, Mary, and Jesus, alongside debates about monotheism, prophecy, resurrection, and judgment. This suggests that Islam emerged within the broader religious world of late antiquity, adapting and responding to ideas already circulating in the region.

4. Historically situated laws and social institutions
   The Qur’an addresses polygyny (4:3), slavery and concubinage (4:24; 23:5–6), inheritance (4:11–12), retaliation (2:178), and other aspects of social life in its original community. Some rules reform existing institutions, while others regulate them. If these teachings constitute timeless divine guidance, how should we distinguish universal principles from provisions shaped by the assumptions and circumstances of seventh-century Arabian society?

5. The problem of universality
   I understand that a universal message could originate in a particular culture. Muslims can argue that God deliberately chose Arabic and Arabia as the vehicle for a message intended for all humanity. But historically, what evidence would distinguish that explanation from the hypothesis that Islam developed as a human religious movement within its particular cultural environment?
   The Qur’an’s claims to universality (e.g., 7:158 and 21:107) establish what the text claims about its own scope, but I’m interested in the question of how we independently assess that claim.

For Muslims who have seriously considered this issue, what convinced you that Islam’s historical and cultural specificity is compatible with its claim to universal divine revelation.

Christians already believe that God sometimes uses disease and natural (supernatural?) disasters to inflict suffering. (Floods, plagues, opening the earth, striking people with leprosy, tummy aches) When asked about natural evils/suffering in POE discussions, Christians ought to be fine with saying, "Yeah, God gave you bone cancer for a morally sufficient reason," instead of trying to blame physics, the fallen world, or Plantinga's mischievous weather demons.

Doesn't that mean God is causing gratuitous suffering? Idk, the global flood seemed pretty gratuitous, but a true Christian can simply appeal to divine judgment. Not sure what your baby did wrong to warrant a genetic defect? Doesn't matter, you don't need to! It was necessary for the best possible world. There's no need to worry about committing the "just world fallacy" since Christianity already assumes the world will ultimately be just.

Now, for a subset of Christians, this might be all very "uh, yeah, duh," but I'm more focused on Christians who prefer to distance God from instances of suffering.

If you can believe in blessings, you can believe in curses. And if you can't believe in divine curses, then maybe you should rethink your blessings. Maybe those aren't from God, either.

So I am an agnostic, but I don't believe it's possible based off from I know about Abrahamic people that the afterlife is binary being just heaven or Hell, why? It's heavily flawed cause it views people in a very black and white way saying all people is either good or bad and I find it ridiculous cause..

One: morally grey people. This is directly ignoring morally grey people cause some people are more morally grey than good or bad like me for example. To god I am pretty sure I would be morally grey and this ignores also, atheists, alot of bad people are bad cause they don't know god is real, you can't blame someone for being bad if they don't know their actions have meaning,

Secondly: disabilities, some people are bad because well there's some disabilities that make you aggressive, like I heard once about an autistic kid who hurt and hit his mother, it would be unfair to judge him for not being able to be fully good if he can't, and also in general disabilities slightly impact how someone behaves like for example I am level 1 autistic, it impacts how I am,

And that's why I believe it, I believe that hell and heaven could exist but I believe there should be some sort of purgatory also or a hellvean or both

If god is all loving and smarter than everyone, he should know nuance

Debate me or agree with me. I am up to seeing if my view makes sense or doesn't

EDIT: I am talking about Abrahamic people who believe in the binary afterlife, not Abrahamic people in general

Jews, Christians, and Muslims all believe there is only the one God and believing in any others is a major sin. It is explicitly stated many times in the Torah, Bible, and Quran to not associate others with God and to only worship Him alone.

However, there have been so many others religions throughout history, most of which have multiple Gods. It seems the narrative is that if the Abrahamic God exists, every other religion is false, but there is a middle area that is not considered.

What if all of these Gods exist, and they have been in some sort of war over worship for thousands of years? They each split into multiple pantheons in the beginning and took their own respective regions to start from (Greece, Egypt, India, China, Middle East, etc), and many of those pantheons have fallen and lost their influence on humans, and there are laws/limits to how much they are allowed to directly show themselves to humans.

Maybe they are just higher beings above us and none of them actually created the universe or know how it all started, and are questioning their existence just like us.

The Abrahamic God could be one of these Gods, and amidst the war for worship between these pantheons, it came up with a new idea for how to gain worship all for itself by claiming to be the only God, and began by sending a message to Abraham.

Maybe it was part of a failed pantheon originally, we even have historical and archeological evidence that Yahweh was originally part of a pantheon before Judaism was created and turned him into their only God.

The Abrahamic God could exist, but that doesn’t mean others like the Hindu and Buddhist ones don’t.

Alternatively, maybe the God from Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are actually three different Gods each claiming to be the true creator, with the Jewish one coming first and choosing the Israelites as its people, and then Christian and Muslim ones both coming later and claiming to be the same one, with the Christian one taking a human form as Jesus and the Muslim one sending the Quran to Muhammad. Other Gods could also have tried to steal the monotheist/Abrahamic ideas with Sikhism, Baha’i faith, Mormonism, and Jehovah’s Witnesses.

People don’t seem to consider the possibility that higher beings do exist, but are not actually telling us the truth. That’s a middle area between theism and atheism.

Morality is obviously subjective based on what words mean:

1. Subjective: A value judgment dependent on a mind to make it; e.g., beauty, humor, disgust.

2. Objective: A fact about the world regardless of the existence of any minds to perceive it; i.e., plate tectonics, gravity, electricity

Morality obviously fits into the former category.

The ONLY reason we debate whether morality is objective or subjective, is because religion claimed it as being commanded by their god. If religion had instead said that humor is commanded by god, we'd be having the same exact debates over subjective vs objective humor, as follows (based on theists' typical arguments trying to defend objective morality):

"If there is no objective humor, then you can never say anything is truly funny."

"If humor isn't objective, then saying Bob is funnier than Pete isn't coherent; you can only say you prefer Bob's jokes to Pete's."

"If humor isn't objective, then you have no right to say which comedian should be featured in the local comedy night over any other comedian."

...and so on for beauty, disgust, taste in music, and everything else we call subjective.

Thus, anybody who says morality is objective, must therefore be saying there is no such thing as anything subjective, since the same exact arguments can be applied to any subjective value judgment.

This thread is mostly targeting atheists claiming morality just is subjective, but it also has some relevance to theists who think the only way for morality to be realist is via theism.

I'm not a moral realist. I don't find any particular realist moral system compelling enough to warrant confidence in its truth above the competing moral systems. However, I think that these positions are rational to hold. This is in stark contrast with the common notion around this sub that morality just is subjective. OK, here we go.

We have to start with definitions, even though I'm not sure what impact they really have on this particular thread.

Definitions

Morality: There are two senses in which morality is frequently used. The SEP makes it clear that these are starting definitions, not to be taken as the final word.

1. Descriptive - The moral system that a particular group follows.

2. Normative - A code of conduct that, given [full impartiality/relevant knowledge/perfect rationality], all rational agents would endorse.

(We're concerned with the latter here.)

Moral realism: Objective moral facts exist. Moral statements express true/false beliefs about those facts. At least one positive moral fact is true.

Moral anti-realism: The denial of at least one of the three above statements. These denials branch out into distinct metaethical views, but that's not important here.

Objective morality: Stance-independent moral facts and/or duties exist.

Subjective morality: All moral facts and/or duties (if any exist) are stance-dependent.

The sales pitch

I have a couple preliminary reasons that we should consider moral realism rational, which I am happy to spend more time on in the comments, but which I will only go over briefly here to save on space. We'll start with the obvious.

1. The consensus

(secular) Moral philosophers are mostly realists. It's not an overwhelming majority by any means, but because of the existing consensus, we have to ask: if morality just is subjective, why are so many moral philosophers confused about it? Why is the nature of morality a famously open question in philosophy if we can settle the debate by simply taking the definitions of morality and subjective and see that they are inescapably intertwined? I submit that the confidence people hold that "morality just is subjective" is undue the position. The fact that philosophers put more weight to realism than we do on this sub is enough reason to take pause when considering whether we are justified in outright rejecting realism.

I also think it's worth noting here that the denial of realism is the claim that the famously open question of morality's true nature is actually a closed question. To declare a famously open question closed requires much more effort than what has been expended in my experience by participants in this sub when this topic comes up. Your confidence in your ability to address the open question as closed should closely mirror your willingness to submit your ideas to peer review so that you can upend the philosophical discourse on the topic, by my estimation. I would say the same to someone who claims that evolution can't occur or that the universe is not billions of years old. Why are you talking to us? Get your bag.

I think it's hubris on the part of non-realists to declare realism false without even attempting to address even a single actual realist position, and it's that exact behavior I witness on this sub basically any time this topic comes up. Of course, consensus doesn't prove realism is true, but if we had an argument that could prove it was true, it wouldn't famously be the topic of an open question in philosophy, would it? But the flip side is also true: if the anti-realist could actually demonstrate that realism is false, it wouldn't be an open question either.

These next reasons are summaries of arguments made by moral philosophers.

2. Phenomenal conservatism

Phenomenal conservatism a la Michael Huemer, is the notion that an agent is rational (or justified) in believing that P is true if it strongly seems to them that P, in the absence of compelling defeaters. The argument often takes this form: the proposition that "it is wrong to torture babies for fun" is more immediately, obviously compelling to me than the notion that moral realism is false. This notion appears to be true in the same way "it seems to me that I am typing on a qwerty keyboard" or "it takes less time to cross a short line than a long line, all else equal" appears to be true.

In contrast, the anti-realist positions rely on arguments that involve taking axioms that are less obviously true than the torturing babies "seeming", so a compelling defeater does not exist to dissuade the realist of the truth of the torturing babies seeming. The anti-realist has to provide an argument with premises more obviously true than that seeming. But arguments to that effect always or almost always rely on chains of contentious metaethical premises, and those kinds of arguments hold less epistemic weight than the direct appearance of a "seeming." (Think of how convoluted an argument would end up being that tried to convince you that you are not reading this thread with a phone/computer/tablet/smart fridge even though it "seems" like you are.) So, it makes more sense for the realist to maintain that it actually is wrong to torture babies for fun than to reject that seeming entirely in favor of an anti-realist position.

Now, an anti-realist might make (and has made) the argument that the "seeming" I've described above is just an evolutionary adaptation for social cooperation and survival, and that there's no reason to take these seemings as objective truth. Of course, the realist has responded to this kind of objection as well. Evolution didn't only shape the hardware that enables those seemings, it shaped all our hardware, including the hardware that gets us logical capacity/reasoning and mathematics. Just the fact that our faculties have evolved does not indicate that they can't track objective reality, or we would have to throw out the objectivity of math and logic as well.

Also, the realist would point out that our moral systems seem to do more than contribute to genetic fitness. We care for the elderly and the sick, we share resources outside of our immediate circles, we consider the impact our actions have on strangers, animals, and other groups that can't impact our genetic fitness. Our abstract reasoning about moral conundrums leads us to categorical moral principles, not to the satisfaction of our biological impulses. This suggests that our moral intuition is like our mathematical reasoning; it's evolved beyond the baseline capacity we would need to ensure our survival into something that allows us to build abstract mathematical and moral frameworks apprehending and encompassing objective truths. Of course, we don't know whether this is the case, but it's not an irrational position to hold, and that's the important thing for this thread.

3. Explanatory power

Secular moral realism offers a clean, intuitive account of how moral discourse functions. It seems like people can hold incorrect moral stances, and that a culture's morality can improve over time. And when we have moral disagreements, it seems like we are disagreeing about the truth of something, not about a preference. More robustly, the realist position has concrete, intuitive accounts of the following three facets of moral discourse that are absent in non-realist accounts:

• Moral errors - We treat people and cultures as if they can be objectively wrong, morally. When talking about chattel slavery, we don't say "those people had a different opinion than us", as if they merely had a different opinion. We declare those cultures morally inferior for practicing chattel slavery, as if they were really wrong to do so. We don't (earnestly) treat Chicagoans as objectively wrong to eat deep dish pizza instead of Neapolitan or treat our friends as inferior for preferring chocolate ice cream over vanilla. But if realism is false, chattel slavery is just another ice cream flavor.

• Moral progress - We identify some moral changes as improvement, not mere change. The abolition of slavery in the USA (the idealization of the current USA notwithstanding) is viewed as an improvement in the US position morally, not just a change over time. It seems like fully ridding a society of a practice like slavery is making genuine progress, not just changing that society's fashion choice. But if realism is false, a society is not better for abolishing the practice of slavery, it's just different.

• Moral disagreement - Debates about slavery (and other human rights debates) feel like and function like debates about objective facts. These disagreements function like disputes over empirical/logical truths, not like arguments about pizza toppings or fashion choices. But if realism is false, they just are pizza topping debates and fashion choice debates.

This view goes hand in hand with phenomenal conservatism. We need a compelling defeater for these features of moral discourse that is more intuitively plausible than their appearance, but the anti-realist will instead offer even less intuitive accounts which take the form of complex arguments in favor of rejecting the apparent nature of these features. So, the realist is rational to reject the anti-realist account and maintain that the apparent nature of the features is the actual nature of the features.

Pulling the rug out from under yourself

This is the most compelling point to me, so I saved it for last. This is Terence Cuneo's Companions in Guilt (CIG) argument. It's born at least in part out of Mackie's queerness argument. For reference, Mackie:

• P1. If objective moral duties exist, they must contain qualities of a "queer" nature to possess intrinsic oughtness
• P2. No stance-independent qualities possessing intrinsic oughtness ("queer") exist in the known universe
• C. Objective moral duties don't exist

There is plenty of debate about the truth of P1. It's not obvious that moral facts are actually queer. Some realists (ethical naturalists, for example) argue that moral oughts are grounded in natural facts like "water" is grounded in H2O; moral properties supervene on physical or social facts. But I'd rather talk about the CIG argument and its objection to P2.

• P1. If there are no moral facts (oughts), then there are no epistemic facts (oughts)
• P2. But there are epistemic facts (oughts)
• C. So, there are moral facts

If the CIG argument succeeds, P2 of Mackie's argument fails, and the argument is unsound. So we should ask ourselves, does it succeed? First, let's look at P1 of CIG. Is it true that if no moral facts exist, no epistemic facts exist? I think there is good reason to think it might be true. It seems to me like all the objections leveled against moral oughts equally attack epistemic oughts. We can see this by examining some common attacks on moral oughts. Moral oughts are categorical, moral oughts are evaluative not descriptive, moral oughts are a priori not a posteriori, etc. But are epistemic oughts relevantly different?

This is the argument I bring up most frequently on this topic here. The anti-realist making the "queerness" argument is also committed to rejecting epistemic oughts for the same reason. If moral oughts are "queer" specifically because they are categorical (stance-independent), so are epistemic oughts. "You ought not torture babies for fun" and "You ought to reject claims made on no evidence" are both categorical. One objection to this notion in the literature (Cowie's Disparity Objection) is that epistemic oughts are not categorical, they are hypothetical. For instance, epistemic oughts are intrinsically about truth-conduciveness (to hold true beliefs and avoid false beliefs), but moral oughts are supposed to be categorical. So, it's more like "If you want to hold true beliefs and avoid false beliefs, you ought to reject claims made on no evidence."

The danger of this objection is that restricting epistemic norms to hypothetical norms undoes the whole enterprise of rational evaluation of worldviews. By denying their categorical nature, the epistemic anti-realist can no longer motivate the claim that people who hold contradictory beliefs are irrational, for example. They are only irrational if they have a goal of holding exclusively non-contradictory beliefs. But we've all seen how these debates are treated around here: people who express contradictory beliefs are held to a categorical standard; it doesn't matter if the person doesn't care if their beliefs are contradictory, because they are irrational to hold them regardless of their goals. This behavior is identical to the one I described in the above section on explanatory power. We don't treat epistemic standards as hypothetical, we act as if people can have objectively incorrect epistemologies, and we call them irrational when they do. We aren't expressing an opinion about this, we are making a categorical statement. This is impossible on merely hypothetical epistemology.

But that's only one facet of the alleged queerness. What about how moral oughts are evaluative? Moral agents have to evaluate moral conundrums to determine whether an action is right/wrong, moral/immoral. But this is true of epistemic oughts as well. Take belief X. Is X justified or unjustified? Is Y inference warranted, or unwarranted? Does Z warrant belief or no? These are all evaluations just like the goodness/badness of D action, the rightness or wrongness of E practice, etc. Epistemic oughts are inescapably queer in this way as well. So, if moral realists can't have stance-independent facts, neither can epistemic realists, for the same reason. Alternatively, both can be stance-independent.

This argument against moral realism requires that the anti-realist must either provide a true symmetry breaker here, allow stance-independent moral facts in the same way as they allow epistemic ones, or maintain that both fields are stance-dependent. But on the first no conclusive symmetry breaker exists (you might think differently, let's see!), the second option leads to moral realism, and the third erodes any conclusion about the irrationality of moral realism into an argument that requires the realist to agree to the anti-realist epistemology before it can have any epistemic weight.

Closing thoughts

"But if you find all this compelling, shouldn't you be a realist?"

The point of this thread is to demonstrate that secular moral realism is a rational position to hold, not to show that realism is true. These arguments provide something of a rational basis to take realist positions seriously.

"But which realist framework is correct? No one has demonstrated such a thing."

There's a difference between agreeing that these arguments make a rational case for realism (i.e., it is false that morality just is subjective), and being a proponent of a particular formulation of moral realism. I'm very, very agnostic about famously open questions in philosophy, and I think it's a fine place to be epistemically. I agree with the sentiment often expressed around this sub that we don't know what moral realist position is true (if any), but that is not identical to the claim that moral realism is false, or the claim that it's irrational to be a realist.

"If realism is correct, the moral realist should be able to point to a single objective moral fact, and no realist has done so successfully."

I offered you a common realist "seeming" above: it is wrong to torture babies for fun. (Some) realists consider this a true, stance-independent fact. What's more, they consider anti-realist objections to this proposed fact as significantly more implausible/problematic than just accepting the seeming for what it is. What specific argument makes it more plausible that this seeming is just subjective preference? That a skeptic can repeatedly demand "proof" to demonstrate such a fact regardless of what's already been written about the topic in the literature is not a standard a realist must meet, and a realist is not irrational to maintain their "seeming" is true in response to the skeptic dissastisfaction.

And again, if a realist could conclusively prove such a thing, it would end the debate. But again, if the anti-realist could end the debate in academic philosophy by demonstrating such a thing, why talk to us instead of philosophers? If morality just is subjective, go get your bag.

Finally, I'd just like to make explicit the point that it's not possible to do all these positions real justice in the space of a reddit thread. Each thing I've said has been elaborated on more fully, and has been responded to, and those responses have responses, which have responses, etc. I did not fully capture all possible realist or anti-realist claims/objections here, nor could I in this space. My point is not to incorporate every possible thought on the subject, or I'd have to write a book.

Also, I'm not a philosopher, and I am not qualified to criticize or summarize the field of moral philosophy like (moral) philosophers are. I'm just annoyed that realism gets treated as obviously irrational around here, when no realist framework is ever seriously engaged with in the first place. This thread (I hope) provides a simple basis for the belief that secular moral realism has merit, and we can save the particulars of specific frameworks for a different time.

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I'm tired of the idea that Abrahamic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—deserve unquestioning respect simply because they're religions.

Why should beliefs be exempt from criticism when they contain teachings, laws, and historical traditions that have been used to justify some genuinely horrific things?

Let's talk about women. Across different interpretations and historical contexts, these religions have been used to justify male authority over women, restrict women's autonomy, control their sexuality, subordinate them in marriage, and treat them as people whose primary purpose is to serve men. Women's independence has too often been framed as a threat, while obedience to male authority has been praised as virtue.

Then there's slavery. Biblical texts contain laws regulating slavery, and certain passages have been used to defend the ownership of human beings. Christian societies used religious arguments to justify slavery and colonialism. Islamic legal traditions historically permitted slavery and concubinage, including the sexual exploitation of enslaved women. Jewish religious and legal texts also discuss slavery and regulate the treatment of enslaved people. These histories cannot simply be brushed aside by claiming that religion has always been about love and compassion.

And the problems don't end there. Religious authority has been invoked to justify persecution of religious minorities, suppression of dissent, restrictions on freedom of thought, hostility toward LGBTQ+ people, and the punishment of people who question or leave their faith. Religious texts have also been used to legitimize violence and rigid hierarchies that place obedience above individual freedom.

Of course, not every believer supports these practices. Many religious people oppose oppression, reinterpret their scriptures, and work toward equality. There are also major differences between these religions, their traditions, and the ways people practice them today. Acknowledging that matters, but it doesn't erase the historical record or make criticism less legitimate.

My point is simple: respect for people should never mean automatic respect for their beliefs.

People deserve dignity, freedom of conscience, and protection from discrimination. Ideas, institutions, scriptures, and traditions should have to withstand moral scrutiny like anything else. Calling something sacred shouldn't give it immunity from criticism.

If a belief system has been used to justify treating women as subordinate, permitting human ownership, or denying people basic freedoms, we should be able to confront those teachings directly without being accused of hatred simply for questioning religion.

I don't believe that being religious automatically makes someone a bad person. I do believe that no religion deserves unquestioning reverence, and no tradition should be protected from criticism merely because millions of people consider it holy.

Why should ancient religious authority outweigh human dignity, equality, and freedom in the modern world?

I'd genuinely like to hear how people reconcile these historical teachings and practices with the claim that these religions are inherently moral.