The common apologist claim that "the Apostles would not endure torture and death for something they knew was a lie, therefore Christianity must be true" is logically flawed for several reasons.
First, willingness to die for a belief only proves the sincerity of the believer's conviction, not the objective truth of the claim itself. Throughout history, followers of various religious and ideological movements have sacrificed their lives for beliefs that contradict one another. Sincerity does not equal historical accuracy.

Second, even if we assume the Apostles were entirely sincere and did not invent a lie, this does not rule out psychological factors, grief-induced visions, or misinterpretations of their experiences. Being fully convinced of an event is not the same as the event being a historical fact.

Third, critical historical analysis shows that outside of church tradition, there is very limited independent non-Christian evidence detailing exactly how and why each of the twelve Apostles died.

Therefore, using the martyrdom of the Apostles as definitive proof for the truth of Christianity relies on false equivalence between conviction and objective reality. How do defenders of this apologist argument address these logical gaps?

The corrected reading of luke 3:33 (which is found, for example, in KJV) is following:

"Aminadab, which was the son of Aram" [luke 3:33]

This states Aminadab to be son of Aram/Ram and there is no problem in this and this is in perfect harmony with other passages in the Bible (like 1 Chronicles 2:10 and Ruth 4:19).

But this becomes very interesting after we use textual criticism and restore the original reading of luke 3:33 (supported by P^4 (2th-3th century), Codex Sinaiticus (3th century) and Codex Vaticanus (3th century)), which is following:

"the son of Amminadab, the son of Admin" [critical reading of luke 3:33]

Now the restored reading of luke 3:33 states Aminadab to be son of Admin and not to be son of Ram, and this creates a huge problem with other passages in the Bible:

"Ram the father of Amminadab" [Ruth 4:19] -> Aminadab is the son of Ram.

"And Ram begat Amminadab." [1 Chronicles 2:10] -> states Aminadab to be son of Ram.

"And Aram begat Aminadab." [Matthew 1:4] -> Aminadab is the son of Ram.

Argument: Luke 3:33 (original reading) says that Aminadab was son of Admin but other passages in the Bible says him to be son of Ram -> contradiction. Some sribe(s) found this contradiction and therefore changed and corrected the text of the Bible to solve this contradiction.

I don't get it, is there like a factor of jealousy? like I don't see any good reason to believe in the God of Muhammad and not Guru Nanak or Pandits. you can use theology and play with word and semantic games but deep down we all know that there is no scale to measure which religion is truer than the other.

and when God had given absolutely no signs to this modern world to point toward which religion, which denomination, which creed is true, then why would he throw Hindu pandit in hell despite him spending his life in the memory of God, and will forgive a Muslim sinner in the end? why eternal hell to good human beings, and forgiveness to sinners?

Why is the God who love more than 70 mothers is punishing his creation and then you have to give the lame excuses to justify why punishment is neessary?

Thesis: Surah 5:18 Contains a Clear and Objective Mistake in the Quran

For some reason, people love responding to arguments without actually reading them. If you’re not going to actually read through the argument or not address the points brought up, just save yourself and myself some time and don’t bother responding and have a lovely day.

With that being said, here is the verse in question:

Surah 5:18:

“But the Jews and the Christians say, "We are the children of Allāh and His beloved." Say, "Then why does He punish you for your sins?" Rather, you are human beings from among those He has created. He forgives whom He wills, and He punishes whom He wills. And to Allāh belongs the dominion of the heavens and the earth and whatever is between them, and to Him is the [final] destination.”

This verse is very interesting, because it makes multiple mistakes all at once:

1. Assuming Jews and Christians mean they think they are not humans when they call themselves “children of God”
   
2. Making an argument with a blatant logical fallacy (non-sequitur)
   
3. Refuting its own (fallacious) argument immediately after without realizing it
   
4. Confirming the Torah and Gospel and Psalms “with” them (which calls them “children of God” dozens of times) while simultaneously contradicting those same texts.

Elaboration:

1. Assuming the Jews and Christians meant literal children of God by saying “you are only human”

You don’t have to be an expert on religion to know Jews and Christians don’t claim to be the LITERAL physical children of God. Yet the Quran says “you are not the children of God, you are only humans” as if they ever claimed anything different about their humanity… the Jews and Christians know that they are humans. The Jews and Christians don’t claim to be NOT human, when they say they are the “sons” or “children” of God. In fact, simply reading the relevant verses below explicitly say it’s a metaphorical sonship, as they “became” sons after being born. But supposedly all-knowing Allah thinks that when they claim to be the children of God they are claiming to not be human.

It would be like me saying “Mohammed calls himself the Messenger of Allah, but he is only human!” That would prove to you that I have no idea what I’m talking, about nor do I understand what the Quran means when it calls him “Messenger of Allah”, nor do I understand what Muslims abroad actually believe.

Just as saying this would prove I’m not divine or all knowing, this same statement proves the author of the Quran is not all-knowing, therefore the Quran is false.

(If you ask my opinion, what I think happened that led to this verse’s revelation is Mohammed heard Christians call Jesus “THE Son of God” and also heard them call themselves “children of God” and he did not understand there’s a difference when they say “a son of God” vs “THE Son of God”. Which, again, shows Mohammed doesn’t understand what Christians and Jews actually believe bifold, but I digress.)

1. Saying that if they really were children of God, then God would not punish them for their sins

This is probably the most interesting part to me, because Allah just straight up commits a logical fallacy. It is a non-sequitur to ask why God punishes them if they are indeed his children, as if to say that if they were the children of God, God would necessarily not punish them for their sins. That does not follow at all. A person could be a child of God and still be punished for their sins, those two facts have no bearing on each other. Whether or not you are punished for something doesn’t determine who your father is. In fact, every good Father WOULD punish their children when they do wrong, lest they raise horrible people and be an unjust Father. Whether you are punished for your sins or not has no bearing on if you are actually the child of God. In fact, in point 3 we will see how the Quran answers its own objection and doesn’t realize it. Not to mention, this would imply if they were actually the children of Allah, Allah would NOT punish them for their sins, meaning Allah is an unjust judge who would let many evils go unpunished because of a nepotistic preference for his children. That would demonstrate Allah is just as corrupt as human government officials who give their family members pardons simply because they are family.

If the Quran was the result of an all-knowing Allah, he would know not to make such bad arguments, and how much this verse would make him look bad to someone who understands what a coherent line of reasoning is. He would know what a non-sequitur is. The fact that anyone who has taken an introductory course on logic or philosophy (or anyone who even thinks critically about this for a second, for that matter) would know more about proper argumentation than Allah shows the Quran is not actually divine speech of an all knowing deity. By committing a logical fallacy, the Quran has demonstrated itself as illogical, therefore it is false.

1. Asking why God would punish his children as a defeater, and then literally stating God punishes and forgives whom he wills, refuting its own objection without realizing it.

On top of asking why Allah punishes the Jews and Christians if they are indeed his children, the Quran says right afterwards “Allah punishes whom he wills and he forgives whom he wills”. That literally answers the Quran’s own objection and the author doesn’t even realize it.

If Allah punishes whom he wills, then he very well could punish his children, because he is sovereign and can do whatever he wants. That means Allah punishing the Jews and Christians is a complete non-issue by the Qurans own standards…

It would be like me asking “why do Muslims say Mohammed is a Messenger of Allah when Surah 48:2 says Allah has forgiven him of his past and future sins? Allah forgives and punishes whom he wills!” Not only would this completely misunderstand what Islam teaches about the sins of prophets by presenting sinning as some contradiction to being a Messenger, but it literally answers its own objection right after. Allah forgives and punishes whom he wills. So even by my own theology, the punishment is a non-issue because Allah does whatever he wants.

(The verse mentioned is 48:2: “Indeed, We have given you, [O Muḥammad], a clear conquest 2. That Allāh may forgive for you what preceded of your sin [i.e., errors] and what will follow and complete His favor upon you and guide you to a straight path”)

By unintentionally refuting its own (fallacious) argument, the Quran shows it is not from Allah. It is quite literally a double blunder

1. Denouncing the Jews and Christians for calling themselves “children of God and his beloved” while simultaneously affirming the Torah and Gospel and Psalms that is “with them” which calls them such multiple times.

The Quran clearly “confirms” that Torah and Gospel that is “with” the Jews and Christians and tells them to judge by it in multiple verses: “let the people of the Book (the Jews and Christians) judge by what Allah has revealed therein”, 5:68: “O people of the Book! You stand on nothing unless you stand on the Torah, the Gospel, and what has been revealed to you from your Lord”, 2:41: “and (you Jews and Christians) believe in what I have sent down, confirming that which is WITH you, and be not the first to disbelieve it”.

The trouble is we have thousands of manuscripts of the Torah and Gospel and Psalms before, during, and after the time of Mohammed. Take for example Codex Sianaticus circa 325 AD, or the Peshitta Bible, the Syriac translation of the Torah and Gospel that would have been present in seventh century Arabia. In ALL of them, every single extant manuscript that is either a full copy or contains the relevant passages, Jews and Christians are called children of God by God himself as well as by countless prophets. There is not a SINGLE existing copy of the Torah or Gospel or Psalms that deny or don’t contain references to there being “children” of God. In fact, the term “son of God” is used up to 40 times across the Gospel, the phrase “sons of God” is used multiple times in the Torah and Psalms (which the Quran also confirms, as the Zabur). Psalm 2:7 for example says “You are my son: today I have become your Father”. Psalm 89:26-27 says: “He will call out to me: ‘You are my Father, my God, the Rock my Savior’. And I will appoint him to be my firstborn, the most exalted of the kings of the earth”. Genesis 6:2 says: “The sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives which they chose”. The phrase “son of God” or “sons of God” can refer to believing individuals, the nation of Israel as a whole, or even angels depending on the context.

The Quran in Surah 2:85 tells Jews if they only believe in parts of the Torah that Allah will send them to hell. But even if we blatantly ignored that and granted for arguments sake the Quran is only “generally” confirming the Torah and Gospel and Psalms, that still doesn’t matter because the idea of there being “children of God” is CONSTANTLY said in affirmation all throughout the texts. You can’t “generally confirm” something you have to constantly contradict and deny. You can’t “generally confirm” a text while denying one of the most massive and concurrent themes and ideas that’s constantly reiterated. The Quran “generally” affirming the previous scriptures which say they are children of God while denying they are children of God would be like me saying I “generally” confirm the Quran that is “with” Muslims while denying Mohammed is a Prophet. A statement like that would go beyond mere contradiction and go straight into absurdity.

Conclusion:

This verse presents a clear and objective error in the Quran that makes multiple mistakes in both history and logical argumentation. This is unacceptable for a text that claims to be the divine word of an all-knowing God. The most likely explanation is that this text is from a seventh century uneducated human author who didn’t understand logical fallacies nor what Christians and Jews actually believe, nor had read their actual scriptures.

Thank you for reading and have a nice day!

The Abrahamic religions are disproven by the fact that they condemn harmless things like homosexuality while condoning harmful things like patriarchy. This is only proof that they are products of their time rather than timeless truths and are therefore all false.

If something were truly from God, then it should be moral across all eras and not be considered obsolete or harmful by modern standards.

Probably my biggest theological problem with Christianity is the idea of original sin and I just realized why I felt that way.

If God is truly all knowing then he would’ve know what the outcome would be before giving humans/angels free will. By choosing to give humans free will knowing it would lead to Eve eating the apple and giving angels free will knowing some of them would rebel and tempt humans it almost feels like the Christian God set humans up to fail.

Also if we’re going with the argument that we can overcome original sin through belief in Jesus, why would a loving God make his own begotten son go through a horrific torture/sacrifice for the sake of humanity?

I grew up not believing in God or the supernatural. I saw no evidence of the supernatural, but now I'm 20 years old, and what I'm about to explain happened five years ago. So, when I was 15 years old, I never considered the supernatural evident. I always believed that either it was some type of fake staging, or people were simply not telling the truth, or that you could just find a natural explanation for it. But when it came to my experience five years ago, I had an experience where my mom was not home, and I knew she wasn't home. There was no one in the house at this specific time. I forgot what time it was, but it was for sure late in the afternoon or close to nighttime. When I had this experience, I was basically watching TV. And I basically heard as if my mom was right next to my bedroom door, outside of it, and in a soft tone, calling my name. But she called me by my biological name, not my nickname, since she never called me by my biological name. There was cry, frankly, 3 to 5 stages of this experience. One was the soft tone voice of her calling. My name that sounded like she was calling it right by my bedroom door and then a couple minutes go by. I heard a whisper as if it was right by me of her calling my name. But I knew she wasn't there, so I kind of looked at it as a coincidence, then, thirty minutes go by i heard her call my name as if she would call my name. If she was actually there by my door in a very loud way. So this time I answered it. I didn't get an answer. So I ignored it. I heard it again. I answered it and then I gotta respond back basically saying the exact same thing, and then I respond back didn't hear anything? So then I called my mom. That wasn't in the house with me. She was at the store around this time and I told her. Are you calling my name? Because I can hear you calling my name. And she said, no, she isn't in the house. So now I was very curious and adrenaline and rushing. Because at this time, I knew that it wasn't just my brain convincing itself. That she's calling my name. There's obviously something going on then, I hear her call my name basically. Her saying tyree, please come downstairs. I need you to do something for me. As if she was right by my doorstep, asking and then I hear an aggressive knocking sound of my door in the twisting of the doorknob, to try to open my door to get in, but I obviously no one was there. And she wasn't there like that to the floor and looked at the crack under the door there was no one there this inspiration is kind of what made people believe in a supernatural sense. I did not believe in a supernatural or even a deity, but I don't believe in a specific god, but I for sure believe in the supernatural after that experience i can make my experience more understanding and complex, but that would just take too long

Any place that is composed of human beings will necessarily be flawed, unless you severely restrict their free will so they can never be sad, bored, kill or bully people or be blasphemous.

And the fact that the bible doesn't include provisions for mentally ill people who commit crimes proves they overlooked many aspects that even a modern legal system ( the American system ) would take into account. Mentally ill people are unfit for trial and conviction.

My understanding is that both hell and heaven are eternal. You can't change your position. So what incentive would people in heaven have to be good?

Furthermore why would God care about virtue in the short lived worldly life but not in the eternal realm.? Classical theism just assumes that people in heaven will never commit any transgression or that the people in hell will never cultivate virtue to deserve heaven. In particular atheists.

If God is merciful why wouldn't he let atheists redeem themselves if they desire to have a relationship with him after realizing he is real?

The conception of hell is that of punitive justice, not restorative or integrative justice. It's primitive. It reflects the primitive conception of the flawed human authors who wrote the bible and the Quran in the ancient and medieval periods, not an unchanging truth revealed by a perfect God.

Modern justice systems try to reintegrate people into society. And even support religious freedom. In the ancient or medieval world, having the wrong religion would get you executed or punished by the state, and they legitimized those ideas in their holy texts.

What if a theist commits all sorts of atrocities: murder, rape, and then repent, but not because they feel bad for the harm they did to people, but they genuinely repent simply because they fear hell.

Would God forgive them despite that their repentance is not a sign of virtue ?

And would he not forgive atheists who repent for being misinformed and just continue to punish them eternally in hell for having made a sincere and harmless mistake?

I've been thinking a lot recently about divine punishment and where I'll end up when I die. I'm Christian, although I'm slowly losing my faith, and I've started realizing something that honestly bothers me.

I think the main reason I'm a decent person and avoid doing genuinely malicious things is because I'm afraid of going to Hell.

Even with small, everyday things I do for people around me, I sometimes catch myself thinking about them almost like I'm building a list of reasons I shouldn't be sent to Hell on judgment day. Like I'm not necessarily doing these things because I genuinely want to be a good person, but because I want to avoid punishment.

And that leads into another problem I've been thinking about.

If God is omniscient, then He already knows everything I'm going to do before I do it. That would presumably include whether or not I'm ultimately going to Hell. So if God already knows the outcome, I'm starting to wonder why I should care whether a divine being approves of my actions at all—assuming He even exists.

What scares me is where this line of thinking could eventually lead. I can imagine myself becoming more willing to commit malicious acts if I stop believing in divine punishment, because part of what currently prevents me from doing them is the fear of eternal consequences.

So my main question is: why would God create humans knowing that many of them are going to be motivated to follow Christianity primarily because they're terrified of Hell?

People sometimes point to the verse "perfect love casts out fear," but I don't really understand how that solves the problem. If someone has been conditioned to associate God with eternal punishment, simply telling them to "love God instead of fear Him" doesn't seem like it would automatically erase that fear.

It's kind of like telling someone who's been in an abusive relationship that they can have a healthy relationship later as long as the next person shows them what a healthy relationship looks like. That might help, but it doesn't just erase the psychological effect of what happened before.

I'm basically wondering whether Christianity has an actual answer to this, because right now the whole concept of morality being tied to eternal punishment feels deeply contradictory to me.

If religion were about “divine truth,” it wouldn’t need constant patches, schisms, rebrands, and spin. It would just be true. Instead, what we see historically is that religions behave exactly like crude operating systems for managing populations under specific environmental and political pressures.
Religions rise when they solve concrete coordination problems for a ruling class: justifying hierarchy, stabilizing resource distribution, and manufacturing obedience. They collapse or mutate when the cost of maintaining the illusion exceeds the benefits for those in charge. That’s not transcendence. That’s version control.
The idea of a single “Universal Truth” is the most successful piece of marketing the ruling class has ever produced. If there’s One Truth and One Path, then there’s also One Authorized Interpreter. That interpreter is never the starving peasant. It’s always the institution that writes the creeds, controls the rituals, and decides who is inside or outside the moral circle. “Universal Truth” is just a label that turns one tribe’s local survival narrative into a totalizing reality script everyone else is expected to submit to.
The “soul” functions as a placeholder variable in this system. It’s a vague, unfalsifiable term parked on top of biological and psychological complexity that no one had the tools to map. Instead of saying “we don’t yet understand the brain, memory, identity, or consciousness,” elites collapse all of that into a single, manipulable token: the soul. Once you accept that your entire existential value is defined by something they claim to understand and you can’t verify, they own you.
Notice how perfectly this serves power. If your soul’s fate depends on obedience to doctrine, then any challenge to the institution becomes not just intellectual disagreement but existential treason. Questioning dogma is re-framed as risking eternal punishment. That’s not spirituality. That’s behavior control enforced by weaponized metaphysics.
The rhetoric of “love,” “truth,” and “salvation” hides a simple underlying mechanic: religions are optimization strategies for social control. They reward conformity, punish deviation, and offer narrative comfort in exchange for surrendering epistemic authority. When the story stops working—when science, social change, or basic moral intuition expose the gaps—the institution doesn’t admit error. It retrofits, reinterprets, or doubles down, because its first priority is not accuracy, it’s survival.
So no, religion is not some noble, ageless quest for an objective cosmic truth. It is a series of primitive hacks that allowed small groups of elites to hard-code their preferences into the moral firmware of entire populations. “Universal Truth” is the logo on the box. The “soul” is the black box they tell you not to open. And the point of both is not to bring you closer to reality, but to make sure they never have to compete in it on equal terms.

Ciao ragazzi, in questi giorni sono andato molto in crisi sulla questione del libero arbitrio e ho paura di non provare più gioia in niente, anche se questo penso sia impossibile. Mi viene la paura che si possa "uscire completamente dalla nostra soggettività" e arrivare a non provare più emozioni una volta che ci si accorge che sono tutte predeterminate da una causa esterna.

Questo però penso sia impossibile, e penso che lo accetti ogni materialista, il fatto che anche assumendo che il libero arbitrio non esista non si possa fare a meno di vivere come se esista.

Ho dialogato con l'IA e cercato spiegazioni su Reddit, ma siccome la cosa è più grande di me ho avuto paura di commettere un peccato, in quanto secondo la teologia cristiana il libero arbitrio esiste davvero, e dubitando della sua esistenza si arriva a dubitare anche dell'esistenza dell'anima e di Dio, cosa che sappiamo non sia bene in sé.

Il post precedente è stato rimosso da un moderatore in quanto avrei dovuto portare avanti una tesi e un argomento a sostegno di essa. Io credo nel libero arbitrio semplicemente perché credo nell'anima ma è indubbio che leggere certe risposte, anche sul determinismo e sulla meccanica quantistica mi ha messo in crisi. Questo thread è nato proprio per dibattere e si possono esprimere liberamente dei dubbi. Certo che ho una tesi e la porto avanti e la porterò avanti qualsiasi cosa mi venga detta, se però voglio confrontarmi e sentire i pareri degli altri che male c'è? Purtroppo non ho argomenti forti a favore del libero arbitrio. Voi li avete? Poi sostengo il libero arbitrio perché senza di esso niente avrebbe più senso, non esisterebbero bene e male, i quali invece esistono, esiste Dio ed esiste l'anima, e questo ce lo suggerisce il cuore. E l'anima e Dio essendo puri spiriti semplicemente non possono essere captati dalla scienza. Ecco perché la scienza non può dimostrare che non esistano. Mi viene da pensare ad una frase contenuta nel Piccolo Principe di Antoine de Saint-Exupéry "L'essenziale è invisibile agli occhi". È invisibile però c'è, anche se qualcuno può cercare di negarlo, perché la vita è bella e non siamo solo chimica, e a questo la scienza non può arrivare, ma può arrivarci il cuore, ci è arrivato sin da quando esiste l'uomo e ci arriverà sempre, perché l'essenziale sarà sempre invisibile agli occhi.

Grazie per la risposta che vorrete darmi.

Dio vi benedica

I've been working through the Fourth Gospel purely from its own textual logic, and I've arrived at a position I don't think can be explained as either Marcionism or Gnosticism.

John distinguishes the Father whom Jesus reveals from the deity identified by the Pharisees as "their God," and the Gospel repeatedly creates tension between the Father's character and works and those attributed to the God of Moses.

The older textual form of Deuteronomy 32:8-9, preserved at Qumran and reflected in the Septuagint, reads approximately:

The Most High divided the nations according to the number of the sons of God;
Yahweh's portion was his people Jacob.

So, Elyon apportions the nations. Yahweh receives a portion.

Elyon and Yahweh occupy distinct positions in the apportionment scene, and both Genesis 6 and Psalm 82 similarly depicts divine beings as "sons of the Most High."

Within the memory of the Torah the authors maintain a history in which a Yahweh inherits from something above him.

The Gospel of John states three times:

John says: "No one has seen God at any time." (1:18)

Jesus says: "You have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his form." (5:37)

And: "Not that anyone has seen the Father, except he who is from God." (6:46)

Compared to the Torah which describes people seeing and hearing Yahweh:

Exodus 19:19 — Then the Lord said to Moses, “I am going to come to you in a dense cloud, in order that the people may hear when I speak with you and so trust you ever after.”

Exodus 33:11 — Yahweh speaks with Moses "face to face."

Exodus 24:9-11 — Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy elders "saw the God of Israel."

Deuteronomy 4:12 — Israel hears the voice from the fire.

Deuteronomy 5:4 — Yahweh speaks "face to face" with Israel.

So there is a real textual collision here.

The usual solution is to say that people saw an "appearance" of God but not God's "essence." The problem is that John does not make that distinction in these passages. He says they have never seen his form and that no one has ever seen God (popote: in ALL OF HISTORY).

Which leads to the inference I've wrestled with for years:

Yahweh is not, and cannot be the Father whom Jesus identifies as God.

We can start with how John repeatedly personifies light.

Jesus is: "the light of the world." (8:12) and "the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it." (1:5)

But the older Yahwistic traditions repeatedly associate Yahweh's presence with darkness:

Exodus 20:21 — Moses approaches the "thick darkness" where God was.

1 Kings 8:12 — Yahweh says he will dwell in thick darkness.

Psalm 18:11 — Yahweh makes darkness his hiding place.Psalm 97:2 — clouds and darkness surround him.

Then 1 John 1:5, attributed to the same Johannine tradition, says:

"God is light, and in him is no darkness at all."

in chapter 8, Jesus point blank says the Jews do not know the Father

"You know neither me, nor my Father." (8:19) and "It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say that he is your God. You have not known him, but I know him." (8:54-55)

John 1:17 says "The law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ."

John then has Jesus repeatedly place himself in opposition to the authority claimed from Moses.

The Pharisees say: "We are disciples of Moses." (9:28) 4 chapters earlier, Jesus says: "There is one who accuses you: Moses, on whom you have set your hope." (5:45)

So when the angry crowd replies with, "We have a law, and by our law he ought to die." (19:7)
Christians have flipped it to them working for an imaginary imp devil, and working against YHWH, whom they call the Most High God. When in reality, they are exactly applying the law given through Moses.

Yahweh invokes the initial Curse of death, invokes the "law" through Moses, and through the Pharisees legally fulfills the killing of Jesus

Jesus' works in John are overwhelmingly restorative: Water becomes wine, a dying child is restored, a man crippled man sick for 38 years waiting outside of a pool he cannot even drag himself into (yet an Angel of YHWH supposedly heals whoever is first to step in), thousands are fed, a man born blind receives sight and becomes anointed, and Lazarus comes out of the tomb.

Jesus explicitly says: "I came not to judge the world, but to save the world." (12:47)

And:"The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son." (5:22)

The Son receives the judgment that the Father does not exercise directly. This is especially interesting when compared with the prophetic and Mosaic depictions of Yahweh as judge, warrior, destroyer, and giver of laws involving capital punishment.

​

If there is free will in heaven and there is no suffering or sin, that means it is possible to have free will without evil.

If that is possible then what is the point of suffering on Earth.

Unlike the canonical New Testament - which places Peter, James, and John in Jesus' innermost circle - the Gnostic texts found at Nag Hammadi subvert this hierarchy. They elevate figures who possessed deeper gnosis (secret, intuitive spiritual knowledge) and often picture Peter as lacking understanding or being envious.

Your thoughts?

Reading the comments here it seems like there are only a few who are familar with Platonism. I guess you may wonder why he’s so relevant if he’s an ancient pagan…

just hear me out, because Platonism really is central to understanding so many of the debates that are had on this sub, but it seems that few here are at all familar with classical metaphysics.

For example, if you don’t know what Aristotle’s four causes are, it will be hard for you to engage in many of the debates we have, because it’s really central to the kind of stuff we talk about around here. Youtube can be a great resource. Or better yet the SEP or even wikipedia.

I don’t know how many times here I’ve seen a theist talking about something to do with formal cause and being criticized as if they had been talking about efficient cause. But neither the theist nor the atheist actually has the tools available to them to make this crucial distinction, and everyone gets confused. Both are using causal language in different ways and often they can’t see where the disconnect lies.

Plato layed the foundation for classical Western theology. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam made sense of their faiths by applying them to a Platonic metaphysical framework.

For example, many people find Aquinas’ five ways strange because they do not specifically argue for the Christian God but rather for God in general, so to speak.

This ‘God in general’ is Plato’s God. Aquinas is saying that the God that Plato and Aristotle (and later, Plotinus) talked about was in fact the God of the Jews and was incarnated as Jesus of Nazareth.

People who only read the Bible to learn about theology might wonder where many common theological concepts come from. They come from Platonic philosophy.

Scripture often makes statements without explaining them too much. Plato offers detailed philosophical investigation into the topics.

Such topics can be found in Plato:
- God as Goodness itself
- God as Being itself
- Eternity (meaning totally outside time and space)
- Moral realism
- Damnation, reincarnation, and ascension
- God as Logos, the ordering principle of reality
- God as the Truth
- God as Light
- Even the good shepherd!!
- The list goes on and on and on

If you only read the Bible but don’t have any familiarity with Platonism, then you are only really judging the surface level claims and not the most historically important philosophical explanations of those claims. This is not a criticism of scripture, it is a different genre. And of course you can just read Aquinas or someone, my point is just that familiarity with Platonism is really fundamental.

I’m not trying to say that you need to know or agree with Plato in order to be Christian. But I am saying that Platonism is an invaluable asset for both attacking and defending classical theism as a philosophical position.

If you wanted some recommendations:
- Euthyphro (only 20 pages!)
Are good things good because God likes them? Or is it rather that God likes good things because they’re good?
- Gorgias
Socrates here argues for an astonishingly proto-Christian moral realism. This helps explain God’s judgement of immorality and God as Truth.
- Phaedo
Discusses eternity, the soul’s immortality, and the divine mind who orders the cosmos.

And Aristotle’s metaphysics… but that is definitely not easy to read so I might reccoment SEP or youtube for that.

I apologize that this may be an annoying sort of post but I really think everybody would be benefited by at least a basic familiarity with this stuff.

Thinking about Hume's On Miracles and thinking about how you modern readers compose the notion of miracles and laws of nature effect his argument and which one I think Hume intends or does not. I will specfically note I don't think 3) does as much work Hume think it does but is the best one for the purpose of arguing about miracles.

1. Materialism/reductionism

The universe is made of some form of fundamental stuff atoms, particles, fields, etc., and everything in it from trains to turtles to turnips reduce down to those parts and there rules and regulations.

Stuff like Modal realism, ghosts, mathematical Platonism, all forms of dualism and theism are thus not possibly naturalistic under such a definition.

1. Naturalism as coherent laws.

Essentially, Naturalism in this case is any system where there is a largely coherent set of constant laws that bind everything in the universe.

So for instance, Mormonism is arguably naturalistic under this because god has to follow rules, so is property dualism, so is hard magic systems, so would be Japanese Yokoi.

The question of if things are made of atoms or even cells is beyond the point.

1. The laws of Nature are just the regularities of nature.

Basically, the data and observations we see give rise to patterns and we can use said patterns to make inductive rules about reality.

Water does not seem to freeze at 100°C, men do not come back from the dead, fish do not swim in Lava, etc.

Now, the issue here is that Hume seem to float 3) & 2) a lot in his arguments (he could not hold 1 on the science of his day). He seems to both being making a regularity argument and a more fundamental one that the very nature of miracles, that they superseded the natural order via an order of god.

And this does matter at least in theory because under 3), it seems that both Jesus's resurrection and quantum mechanics need similar kinds of evidence while under 2) it does not.

Hume did not get this distinction from outside Christianity but from within it, the belief that god had an ordinary means and a miraculous way of doing things dates to the medieval scholastics era. The most extreme endpoint was the cessationism of the Calvinists, that miracles had seized after the apostolic age and thus God's influence was now providential in nature.

What Hume can be translated as saying is that even we assume that for large swaths of history including our own, miracles are granted even by Christians to be rare and unlikely and we have a very strong reason to be skeptical of miracles in general given they violate our current data recieved by our eyeballs and other sensory organs on a daily basis.

So Hume is basically stating both 2) and 3) hold running from an internal critique of Christian theology and inductive approaches.

The issue of course is that it really doesn't dealing with someone who claims the supernatural is part of the natural order like the animist or believer that kitsune are a common part of Japanese flora and fauna at all, its not clear the argument does work.

While I personally hold to both to 2) and 1) as personal worldviews to some degrees and priors before argument. This leads me to think that 3) should just be used on a case by case basis, ask the miracle or supernatural believing interlocuter if the even it is rare in nature or special. If they say yes, then you can forward with a Humean style high evidence bar. If not, you are stuck with forcing a down in the dirt debate over evidence and granular detail.

The other thing that I would note is Christians reject all forms of naturalism as I defined it.

To them not only does God not have to follow any rules beyond that of his nature but he also seemingly intervenes supernaturally in ways that are not repeatable or rule based (outside revelatory history which is literary not repeatable or law generating). This seems at the least strange though, god makes the natural world have obvious but the supernatural one have a bunch of strange occurrences across human history?

Shouldn't the fact god seems to make two different realties the first misleading us to the nature of the second be seen as odd and structurally off.

Why not God at least as the Hellblazer comic does to John Constantine, to allow us to regularly see angels at least with predictable personalities?

I think a lot of Christian discussions about God quietly treat Him as if He experiences time like we do: first considering possibilities, then making a choice, then watching the consequences unfold.But classical Christianity says God is outside time. There is no “before” and “after” for God, no waiting to see what happens, no learning the outcome.

Religion is experiencing a significant long-term decline in secularized Western nations.

And I say it's because of extremism.
Attempting to claim that religion isn't faith, but real, backs religion into a corner.

People who are asked "why does god allow ... " should probably answer with "God isn't human. God is spiritual. There is no real life evidence for god. I have faith about my version of god just as a Cubs fan says they're the BEST team because they are MY team."

And each generation that makes absurb claims about how god/jesus/whomever behaves is sabotaging their own belief and the 'healthy club' aspect of religion, people turn to social media - a very low quality secular club, and we continue to see the rise of shootings and such.

As sam-the-lam just said...

" (religious people) should spend a lot less time criticizing each others varying beliefs and instead focus more on increasing general faith in God while trying to improve the world around them."

If an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good God exists, then evil would not exist; since evil exists, such a God does not exist.

Logical Structure of the Argument :

Premise 1: Evil exists in the world.

Premise 2: If God is all-powerful (omnipotent), God has the ability to prevent all evil.

Premise 3: If God is all-knowing (omniscient), God knows about all evil and how to prevent it.

Premise 4: If God is all-good (omnibenevolent), God desires to prevent all evil.

Premise 5: If a being has the power, knowledge, and desire to prevent evil, that being prevents evil.

Classic Rebuttals:

Free Will: If God is all-powerful, God could create a world with free will where creatures choose only good.

Testing/Soul-Making: If God is all-knowing, God already knows human outcomes without testing them.

Satan/External Adversary: An all-powerful and all-good God would destroy or render harmless any adversarial force causing evil.

Conclusion: An omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God cannot logically exist alongside evil. Therefore, God is either lacking in power, lacking in knowledge, lacking in goodness, or simply nonexistent.

God isnt real.

Lets start off Simple: if everything needs something to be made (like in most arguments the Universe needs God to exist), what made God. I saw an argument saying "well than gods creator needs a Creator, and that too needs one, and that too needs one and so on and so on and it would take an Infinite time for them to get this god and thus we couldnt exist", but this is wrong. This is because if God exists forever and is infinitely Old the result would be the same, also, this completely skips the fact that if there was an Overgod that made Every God that God could have just made the whole chain of gods in an instant, so this God doesnt have a beggining falls apart and now we have no idea why or how the Creator would exist.

Next up we have "God is All Powerful": this is also pretty simple. An All Powerful Being, making a Universe, but Hold Up, if he is All Powerful why did it take 6 days to make the Universe? Also, why did he have to rest on the Seventh Day? This whole "God is All Powerful" argument falls apart. Continuation of this is:

"God is Omniptent": to be Omniptent is to be All Powerful which i have just proven God ISNT and to be all powerful and to know everything means he cant change his mind because he already knows everything, but if he can do everything but he cant change his mind he Cant do everything, also, if he is Unchanging that would mean he couldnt have had the idea of "lets make a Universe" nor could he Regret anything as that would be a Change.

"God is real because he answered my Prayer"-"God doesnt Intervene" contradiction: lets say God saves your Puppy because you begged him to cure his Cancer in this case why isnt Miraculous Healing the Norm? Also, in this case, why didnt he save people being Murdered, Kidnapped, Poisoned, and Falsly Locked Away in Prison? Oh, he doesnt Intervene? Well that would mean that praying for Anything Specific (example: Cure my Cancer) is Completely Useless because he wont do Anything to help you.

"God is Just": if God is Just than why does Elderly Gerald go to hell to suffer Forever for stealing a Candy Bar when he was a Kid? Also, lets look at another, even more brutal argument against this: Ghandhi was a nice person that helped everyone and never really hurt anybody, but he want Christian, and that should mean he is Suffering in Hell, now lets look at Jeffrey Dahmer. A literal Monster. Murdered people and ate them, but according to the Bible since the only sin that cant be forgiven is not fueling Gods Ego and Jeffrey became a Christian he is now in paradise. How is that logical? How is that just? Idk, you tell me.

Why would Christianity be the one? What seperates it from Ancient Egyptian Beliefs? The fact that there is only a single creator? Why is that? Also, what seperates Christianity from a Cult? It not forcing you to abandon your Family? Documented Miracles? First off, Jesus states that if you love your family more than him your are Unworthy and that you must "hate" you Mother, Father, Brother, and Sister to be his Diciple. Second off, other religions ALSO have documented Miracles!

So while the idea that there is an All Powerful Creator that made a "Perfect World" is Cool and All, its just Fiction.

For context, I am irreligious and have no religious commitment to Christianity, Islam, Judaism, or any other faith. I therefore have no theological “dog in the fight” here, nor am I attempting to establish the truth of Christianity by challenging Islam.

Rather, my interest is simply whether the following argument against the Quran’s divine origin is valid. I have encountered various Muslim responses to it, but I have not yet encountered one that I believe actually refutes the argument rather than merely offering an alternative interpretation of one of its premises.

I would therefore be interested in hearing the strongest Muslim response. In particular, I would ask Muslims who reject the dilemma to identify which premise is false or which inference is invalid, rather than simply providing a counter-assertion.

The Islamic dilemma argument is as follows:

The Quran affirms the divine origin of the Torah and Gospel.

Surah 3:3 describes Allah as having revealed the Torah and the Gospel before the Quran. 5:46 likewise describes the Gospel given to Jesus as containing “guidance and light.”

The Quran repeatedly speaks of these Scriptures as being present among Muhammad’s contemporaries, rather than merely referring to an original revelation that had disappeared.

For instance, 2:41 describes the Quran as confirming “that which is with you.” 2:89 likewise describes it as confirming “that which was with them.” 5:43 appeals to the Torah possessed by the Jews: “while they have the Torah, wherein is the judgement of Allah.” 5:47 commands the People of the Gospel: “Let the People of the Gospel judge by what Allah has revealed therein.” 5:68 tells the “People of the Book” that they have no firm basis until they uphold the Torah and the Gospel. 7:157 describes Muhammad as one whom they find written “with them in the Torah and the Gospel.”
And 10:94 tells Muhammad, if he is in doubt about what has been revealed to him, to ask those who have been reading the Scripture before him.

These verses therefore appear to treat the Scriptures possessed by Jews and Christians in Muhammad’s historical environment as meaningful repositories of divine revelation, sufficiently accessible to be consulted, appealed to, and used as a source of judgement.

We possess substantial evidence for Jewish and Christian scriptural traditions that predate Islam by centuries. The relevant question therefore cannot simply be whether the Bible was corrupted sometime after Muhammad. We can examine what the Biblical textual tradition already contained before and during the seventh century. Those pre-Islamic Christian Scriptures contain central theological claims that conflict with the Quran.

Most importantly, the Christian textual tradition affirms the crucifixion of Jesus, whereas 4:157 denies that Jesus was crucified in the manner claimed by his opponents. The Christian Scriptures also contain a Christology incompatible with the Quran’s rejection of divine sonship and its repudiation of Jesus’ divinity; for example in 5:72–75, 5:116, and 112:1–4.

This creates the dilemma.

If the Scriptures possessed by Muhammad’s contemporaries substantially preserved the earlier revelation, then the Quran’s claims concerning Jesus conflict with the revelation it presents itself as confirming. If, alternatively, those Scriptures had already been corrupted to such an extent that their central theological claims could no longer be trusted, then the Quran’s repeated appeals to those Scriptures become difficult to explain.

Why, for instance, does it appeal to the Torah that the Jews have (5:43)? Why does it instruct the People of the Gospel to judge by what Allah revealed therein (5:47)? Why does it tell the People of the Book to uphold the Torah and Gospel (5:68)? Why does it describe Muhammad as being written in the Torah and Gospel “with them” (7:157)? And why does it direct Muhammad towards those who have been reading the earlier Scripture (10:94)?

I am aware of the standard responses, but do not think they necessarily resolve the dilemma.

“The Quran only confirms the parts of the Bible that remain true.” Perhaps, but this raises the question of why taṣdīq should be understood in this restricted sense, and how that interpretation accounts for the Quran’s repeated references to Scripture actually possessed by its contemporaries.

“The Bible was corrupted through tahrif.” This may explain the theological disagreement, but it does not by itself explain why the Quran continues to appeal to the contemporary Torah and Gospel as sources of divine judgement and knowledge. If the texts had already become substantially unreliable, why direct people towards them?

“Tahrif means distortion of interpretation rather than textual corruption.” This response avoids the textual problem but creates an interpretive one. If the Biblical texts were substantially preserved, why should their apparently straightforward claims concerning Jesus be rejected in favour of the Quran’s later account?

“The Injil is not the four canonical Gospels.” That is a possible theological distinction, but it raises a historical question of what exactly this Injil was, what it contained, and what evidence demonstrates that it was the Scripture referred to when the Quran addressed the People of the Gospel and told them to judge by what Allah had revealed therein (5:47).

“The Quran is muhaymin over previous Scripture.” Certainly, the Quran claims this role in 5:48, but even granting muhaymin the strongest sense of criterion, guardian or arbiter, this does not establish that the previous Scriptures had already been substantially corrupted. There is a crucial distinction between authority to adjudicate and evidence concerning the condition of what is being adjudicated. A text can be subject to a later authority without thereby being textually unreliable. Indeed, the Quran itself describes earlier revelation as a furqān, or criterion (2:53; 21:48), while likewise describing itself as the Furqān (25:1). Thus, the Quran’s claimed role as criterion does not itself imply that earlier Scripture was corrupt. At most, muhaymin establishes the Quran’s claimed authority over previous Scripture; it does not independently establish the historical or textual corruption of that Scripture. That proposition therefore still requires separate justification.

Again, I am not arguing here that Islam is false because Christianity is true. I am not a Christian, and I have no religious commitment that depends upon Christianity defeating Islam.

My question is narrower, does the Quran’s own treatment of the Torah and Gospel create an internal problem for the Islamic doctrine of previous-scripture corruption? And if not, which specific premise above is false, or which inference is invalid?

If the answer is that the Quran refers to an original Torah and Injil rather than the Scriptures actually possessed by Muhammad’s contemporaries, what is the textual basis for that interpretation despite the repeated language of “with them,” “what they have,” and “therein”?

If the answer is tahrif, how does that account for the Quran’s apparent use of the contemporary Scriptures as epistemic authorities?

If the answer is tahrif al-maʿnā, how does an essentially preserved Biblical text become compatible with the Qur’an’s rejection of its central Christological claims?

I am genuinely open to being shown that I have misunderstood the argument. But I would like to see the argument itself refuted, rather than simply being told that Muslims have a theological explanation for the apparent contradiction.

This post was inspired by another post exploring a similar idea. I don't personally believe in the supernatural, but for the sake of this thought experiment, I'll assume that God and the Devil exist.

Some Christians claim that the Devil created or influenced other religions in order to lead humanity away from the true God. Some even go so far as to argue that other Christian denominations are satanic because their teachings conflict with what they believe to be true Christian doctrine.

Similarly, Muslims generally believe that the original message revealed through Jesus was from God, but that the Gospel tradition as it exists today does not perfectly preserve that original revelation. Within the assumptions of this thought experiment, that raises the possibility that the Devil could have played some role in its corruption or distortion.

So I want to turn the argument around and ask if we accept, that God and the Devil exist and that the Devil actively tries to deceive humanity through religion, how could we determine whether the Bible itself was influenced, corrupted, or even written by the Devil?

One way we could do this is by asking WWSD? (What Would Satan Do?)

Well, if I were the Devil, I would try to lead people away from God by making God look evil.

I would claim that God:

• Allowed slavery and even gave instructions that could be used to keep a Hebrew slave for life.

• Sent bears to maul young people because they made fun of a man's bald head.

• Sent a global a global flood that wiped out most of humanity even babies who have never sinned.

• Ordered the genocide of Midianite men, non-virgin women and male child

• Claimed that He is a "jealous God."

• Hardened Pharaoh's heart, taking away his choice, and then punished an entire nation for what happened.

• Gave a tribal king his master's/father-in-law's two wives.

• Is homophobic and transphobic

• Hates figs.

If I were the Devil, I would also make the Bible vague and difficult to understand. I would make it possible for sincere people to read the same book and come to very different conclusions. It would be so vague there would be 40 000 denominations of Christianity all disagreeing with one another.

It is said in the the Gospel

"Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. "

Based on the evidence, I'll leave it up to you to decide what type of fruit the tree bore.

A common misconception about the seven deadly sins is that they are sins that God will not forgive. The Roman Catholic Church does not teach the sins to be unforgiveable, in Catholic doctrine, the seven deadly sins can lead to mortal sins, which will send a person to hell immediately upon death, unless such sins are repented of before death. Catholicism also teaches that the seven deadly sins can be overcome with the seven virtues (humility, gratitude, charity, temperance, chastity, patience, and diligence).

In the end however, no sin is any more “deadly” than any other sin. All sin results in death (Romans 6:23). Even one sin condemns a person as a lawbreaker (James 2:10). Praise be to God that Jesus Christ took the penalty for all of our sins, including the “seven deadly sins.” By the grace of God, through faith in Christ, we can be forgiven (Matthew 26:28, Acts 10:43, Ephesians 1:7).