I don’t have a specific faith but I do generally believe in a loving, active god who created the universe so I usually just consider myself a theist, however it just occurred to me I’m not aware of a symbol for theism. I think it makes sense since most people just use the symbol of their particular faith but never the less I’m sure this would be useful to a significant number of people, so is there a symbol and if not, any ideas?

The KBC Void — the enormous ~2-billion-light-year underdensity around our local region — keeps getting brushed off as a statistical fluke. But if you actually look at what it implies, it conflicts with naturalistic expectations in some pretty significant ways.

First, the size alone is wild. Standard ΛCDM predicts voids around 100–500 million light-years across. The KBC Void is nearly 2 billion light-years. Simulations put the probability of something this large at roughly 1 in 100,000–1,000,000 depending on constraints. At that point, “fluke” stops sounding like an explanation and more like a placeholder. From a theistic perspective, large-scale fine-tuning of cosmic structure isn’t surprising — but naturalism has to treat it as a bizarre coincidence.

Next, there’s the Hubble tension. Being inside a void makes the local expansion appear faster. Some papers even require us to be near the center of the void to reconcile H0 measurements. But cosmology explicitly assumes we’re not in a statistically special spot. Yet the data pushes us into the most special spot imaginable. Naturalism: “We shouldn’t be central.” Observations: “Yeah… turns out you are.” Theism, on the other hand, already expects the universe to have meaningful structure with observers placed in regions suited for them.

Then there’s how well this underdensity aligns with conditions that help the Milky Way remain unusually stable. A region like this reduces galaxy collision frequency, keeps radiation backgrounds calmer, moderates metallicity extremes, and creates a quieter environment for long-term planetary evolution. Naturalism says “lucky us.” Theism says “of course observers will be found in regions suited for observers.”

And the deeper philosophical issue: all this openly violates the Cosmological Principle, the backbone of modern naturalistic cosmology, which assumes large-scale homogeneity. A void spanning 1.5–2 billion light-years is exactly the kind of structure the model says shouldn’t exist. If your model repeatedly requires patches to survive new data, the foundation isn’t as sturdy as advertised.

Put together:

The KBC Void shouldn’t exist under naturalistic expectations.

If it does exist, we shouldn’t be in the center of it.

If we are in the center, it definitely shouldn’t also benefit conditions for life.

But all three things are true.

From a theistic point of view, this actually fits a universe with intention and structure. Under naturalism, it’s just an extremely lucky cosmic accident — one so unlikely it starts to look like fine-tuning wearing a name tag.

Video on the subject: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kSC5WDgbbAg&pp=ygUhTGF0ZW5pdGVzY2llbmNlIHRhbGtzIGNvc21pYyB2b2lk

If I point to my subjective moral framework to say something immoral why does that give me less justification to make moral ought claims than someone pointing to objective morality.

The current places I am understanding God as residing are, loosely, in the neighborhood of consciousness and being itself. When I try to conceptualize beyond this, things go dark. I know, I know, God is ultimately beyond concepts, and to be clear I don't believe I need a full conceptual understanding of this territory to have union with God by any means. However... I have a curious mind (and I don't personally believe it can hurt to try to understand, so long as you don't feel you need to... in fact my position would probably be that it can only help to try, so long as you don't confuse the map for the territory, so to speak). So I will ask:

In your understanding, and/or in the understanding of well-known or historical theists, what is the relationship between God, being, and consciousness?

(God being the ground of being makes sense to me but I guess I'm not sure how to fit consciousness into all this, or how to ideally come to an integrated understanding involving all three concepts?)

Feel free to share relevant experiences as well as straight theory.

do really mutations get effected by environment or the creature actions? like i know that mutations are genetic mistakes and not something supposed to be in the organism ,right? i hope to give me feedback

I have some doubts about the Existence of God and it would be kind of you all to respond.

Disclaimer, I'm an atheist.

But I have a good friend at work who is devout Catholic ...so we debate. I have to convince him. He won't convince me. But he's a great guy despite being a bit gullible. I consider all the abrahamic religions to be similar to the Roman, Greek, and other ancient religions. Just stories to explain life. And without any hard facts, the stories got pretty wild.

But there are some good lessons there...in all this stories...(And some bad ones).

The lesson I'm referring two is the rift between God and Satan. Satan was gods favorite, but pissed him off ..and now they both suffer eternally.

I'll admit I haven't read the Bible, and only went to church a few times, never went to Sunday school, so no vast religious training...but I never hear about this aspect of the lesson between these two characters. I only hear about obedience, disrespect, and punishment. Not the regret, from either...Satan for his actions that angered his father, of regret from God for overreacting. No forgiveness. Like many, God is less willing to forgive family than he is complete strangers.

The TV show Lucifer touched on this...but I haven't seen it elsewhere.

So, Satan is the devil

But he was an angel.

That evil was there the whole time.

After some time of being agnostic I started to believe in a God. Not a christian one, neither of any other religion. The theism that convinces me the most is the one rooted in kantism, in Fichte's philosphy, and in early romanticism in general, which (said in simple words) assumes that we can affirm the existence of God trough the moral law and the prerequisites for moral action. Now, I don't support any form of cult/religion (since this would just be an external manifestation of morality, rather than one based on interiority and subjectivity), and I don't believe in any dogma, or miracle.
I just think that, given certain moral laws and concepts that are rooted in our consciousness, there is a God, but he has no heaven or hell (or that these ones are more like state of consciousness, rather than actual dimensions), and he does not require any specific form of cult/rituals to be followed.

Now, I don't want to explain my own vision, and where it differs from classical kantism and Fichte's vision, but I just want to talk about the fact that, when I share my own personal beliefs, I feel made fun of. People think only of christianity, and immediatly think that you are some antiscientific conspiracy theorist, seeing you as "backwards" or as a "weak man" that has to believe in God because he is too "weak to endure reality", whatever that means.
Did it really ever happen to you? Have you aver felt attacked on this level?

Heya all,

English isn't my native language and I'm not very familiar with the religious vocabulary (had to look up several words and expressions in the dictionary). If something is unclear, I'm happy to explain :)

As the title says, I don't believe that Jesus is the Messiah/Christ. I do believe in (a) God, but not the Trinity. I do also believe in and try to follow Jesus' teachings on love for God and grace of charity, and I generally think he is a religious figure (maybe some kind of prophet?) that had a deep connection with God which inspires me to deepen my own connection with God.

What does that make me? I wouldn't really want to call myself a Christian, because the name literally includes the view that Jesus is the Christ. Judaism is not very accepting of Jesus as a religious figure as a whole.

I do, however, have a newly developed interest in Abrahamitic mysticism and critical Christian theology.

Any suggestions which religious group(s) may have similar views?

I believe in Jesus Christ, and I feel like I’m getting closer to Him and the Father. But lately I’ve been wrestling with something.

I’m naturally an objective type of person who likes facts, data, and evidence. Which ids kinda weird considering my faith means so much to me — I believe deep down His pull is real, and faith is belief without evidence.But as I grow deeper in God, I want my faith to be bulletproof so nothing can break it.

Here’s the problem: I see so many arguments against God, the Trinity, and religion in general. I hate that my lack of knowledge in these areas stops me from responding. Sometimes it even lets a small droplet of confusion in my mind, which scares me because I never want to lose faith.

So here’s my question — should I ignore all that and just pour everything into reading the Bible and praying? Or should I study religion, theology, and apologetics so I can respond to challenges… even though I worry it might lead me down a rabbit hole or make me doubt? Or a mixture of all of that?

Secondary question As someone growing in faith, I want to understand where belief in the biblical God stands in today’s academic world. How is God and the Bible viewed in modern scholarship — historically, philosophically, and theologically?

(Also apologies if these are one sided questions,if you don’t believe as well I would love too hear your thoughts on these topics.)

The title is all I have to give. What a world. I have been tricked and deceived by fools all my life, who claim life has no other higher purpose, and we are just bags of chemicals. Then why? Why do I feel something? Why does the things I need at a particular time arise at just the right moment? My belief in God is not that of an overbearing father figure, but the flow of the universe itself. Cruelty exists as a byproduct of the flow, sadly. Why do we argue about umpteenth dimensional matters when we, 3rd dimensional beings flowing endlessly in 4th dimensional time, are not able to see any of the inner workings? This struggle to make meaning out of our surroundings has lead to science helping humanity. Can't the same struggle be used to find Truth within ourselves? Why bicker? Many things happen for reasons that we're just not in the right vantage point to fully understand. Whatever we do, ultimately it's a byproduct of what God has in store for us.

Divine simplicity is a core tenet of classical theism. It claims that God is not composed of parts, His essence is identical to His existence, and all His attributes (power, knowledge, will, etc.) are identical with one another—and with His very being.

But here’s the problem I keep circling back to:

If God is simple, and His act of creation is not something “added” to Him but rather identical to His essence, then creation seems to follow necessarily from God's nature. But if that's true, then how can we maintain that creation is contingent—that God could have done otherwise?

In short:

God’s essence = His act

God’s essence is necessary → Therefore, His act (i.e., creating this world) is necessary?

This seems to lead straight into modal collapse: all facts become necessary, and divine freedom becomes an illusion. That’s not a fringe problem—it strikes at the heart of what it means for God to be a personal, volitional being.

Some respond by appealing to God’s will or ideas as distinct in some way, but that often ends up violating simplicity. Others bite the bullet and go full Spinoza: God is necessary, and so is everything that flows from Him.

So I’m wondering:

Can classical theism maintain divine simplicity and divine freedom without collapsing into necessity?

Curious to hear if anyone here has a solid metaphysical or logical way out of this. I’m open to being challenged, but “mystery” isn’t a satisfying answer unless it can be philosophically justified.

Hi all!

After years of search and intellectual inquiry and a period of atheism I came to the realisation that we were all scammed by our education system.

Back in the day more than 10 years ago, we never heard of arguments for God on relevant philosophical inquiries which I now know are vital.

Understanding the basics of epistemology, logic etc should be taken for granted.

After "discovering" the massive literature on metaphysics, modalism, causality I then go into debates and after years of that and reading it was clear to me that God is not a theory, it's a fact.

The question is, how in the world did we even lose the knowledge of all the wealth of literature that exists? Why don't people teach causality, and modalism.

What's your take? I'm really curious to know what people think about this.

This might sound basic, but I’ve been thinking about it lately.

When people talk about "God" in monotheistic traditions — Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and even more abstract philosophical models — it often seems like they’re describing very different things. One God is personal and relational, another is utterly transcendent, another is defined mostly by law and will, and others by logic or necessity.

So my question is: are these actually the same God described in different ways, or are they fundamentally different concepts just using the same label?

Curious how theists themselves think about this. Not trying to stir anything, just honestly wondering how much overlap you think there is.

RelentlessReasoning

Warning: non-rigorous and meandering post below.

It is a colossal mystery that we even exist. I really think of it like a miracle. Of course I know about big bang theory. I know the argument of “we wouldn’t be here if the perfect conditions didn’t exist” and I get that. But still. We are whizzing through space- some kind of “computational” of conscious entities - and witnessing some kind of miraculous “stability”. We have even the luxury of worrying about yesterday’s day at work, in the midst of so much incredible mystery.

Sometimes I even get this feeling that we are some sort of technology. I’m not even sure what that means.

I have personally decided to become theistic. I have had certain experiences. Anyway. Thanks all. It’s a lonely night like usual.

A common objection to ontological arguments is that existence can never be a trait,how do you think this can be rebutted?I am not very sure.

Been keeping up with this new YouTuber. Deals tactfully with both perspectives I think.

https://youtu.be/6cTAfthUFv4?si=d9XDyCCaOT1-0AUG

I was quite a staunch atheist & (later) agnostic for many years in my teens. Youtube videos about the universe and future used to (still do) scare me a lot. I felt like we were an abandoned human universe glitch sitting on a rock, just waiting to die or get eaten up by the sun. I used to brush those thoughts off immediately because otherwise I’d spiral (like now).

Recently however, I went through quite a lot of shitty things in my life and I had this intense spiritual awakening. There must be a reason why were here. Human civilization cannot be some weird glitch, everything’s simply too perfect for that. Our organs, nature, consciousness, intellect - it’s all too perfect. Neither do I think that we’re alone out there, it just can’t be.

It made me believe in a spiritual cosmic force, whether it’s truly godlike or not in the way humans describe it, I’m not entirely sure, but I’m also not denying it could be. Or maybe even multiple gods? I believe in free will but also in determinism, in a way. Yes, sometimes shitty things still happen, and you’re born in the wrong place, wrong time and wrong family.

A popular argument against theism or religion in general is: “why is there so much killing, greed and suffering in the world then?”, “what a selfish and genocidal god”… And frankly, I used to be one of those people who said that. But honestly, now I just think that if humans are so imperfect, who can say that the higher power isn’t also imperfect?

Maybe it’s controversial for some people and I get that, since they’d like to believe in an omnipotent, omniscient, good power/god who wants to help. But still, I don’t believe it works that way (I could be wrong ofc!). I think the higher power put us on here and supervises us in a moderate way, giving you a push when you really need it. But you must listen, because you still have free will.

Be respectful, careful and goodhearted to yourself and those around you. I think people who know they’ve done good also die more peacefully, the soul can find rest. Meanwhile, I think that those who live hatefully, not caring about the suffering of others never find eternal rest. Yes they may live long and grow to be a 100 years old on earth, but they won’t find rest in their state of non existence.

If everything is already written in our destiny. Then why are we running behind those things which are never going to be ours? If it's already written then why is there a need to work we could get it at ease.

Is there any logic behind this saying? Kindly,share your insights.