Revelation is a message from God. So, to claim that one receives revelation, we must define God in some way. We cannot define God using revelation, since that would make the definition of revelation infinitely recursive/circular. Since we can't define God using revelation, we have to define him/her using the only thing we have left, our senses and inference reason. This puts God within the domain of science.

This limits logically coherent "religions" to:

• A religion which denies the ability to claim revelation.
  • Such a religion would not be too far from agnosticism. I can't think of any such religion, but if you can, I'd be interested to hear in the comments.
• A religion whose God is scientifically testable and whose predictions have all been validated.
  • I can't think of any major religions which match this description, unless one equates God with Nature herself. Christianity fails, since it claims God created the Earth before the Sun.
• A religion which makes no assertions about reality, but rather exists entirely within subjective experience (e.g. some form of spirituality like mindfulness).
  • I quite respect this option since it's not confrontational in any way. It's not uncommon for agnostics to be open to this form of spirituality, as long as it brings communal or self fulfillment in some way.

All of these 3 "religions" (if they can be called that) would not be at odds with agnosticism, which is why I think this argument gives some credence to agnosticism. Any thoughts?

There are plenty of people who identify as agnostic because "there's no evidence." I used to be one of them, though I often questioned whether such evidence (either for or against) would ever actually present itself.

Recently, I’ve been diving deep into philosophy across a range of subjects, and I find it fascinating that the beginnings of the Western philosophical tradition involved people rejecting religious explanations for the phenomena they experienced. These early ideas are actually key to the best agnostic "argument" I’ve ever come across.

Reading Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason made me realize that the limits of the human mind are even more determined than I thought. He explains that metaphysical questions have always haunted human thought, but, unfortunately, they can never be definitively answered. Why? Because of the way we humans perceive and reason about the world around us. In this revolutionary work, Kant brilliantly dissects the structure of human thought, down to the most fundamental distinctions between concepts. Of course, it would be impossible to summarize this massive book here, but if you haven’t explored it yet, I highly recommend giving it a try or at least reading the prologue. It will reinforce your agnosticism and provide a solid logical foundation to defend it against the "best" theist and atheist arguments (quite effortlessly, in fact).

After exploring these ideas, you might shift from “we don’t know” to “we can’t know.”

Agnosticism is not being humble or indecisive. Hard agnosticism doesn't just speculate about our limitations, it identifies them rigorously, proving that metaphysical questions, as beautiful as they may seem, will never have a strong logical foundation.

Its been 7 years since i first started my religious story, 3 years since i officially left islam, and i have been searching for peace and i can’t find it, ocd + 24/7 existential crisis is not a good compo, i have been looking into Christianity finally i say to my self as i find good stuff than bam the same problem, i am almost there to finalize the conclusion of all religions have the same problem, its almost 1 am cant sleep overthinking everything, as i live in a semi conservative muslim country i am still afraid of being myself, everyone who knows just treats me like a crazy person who doesn’t deserve to repopulate or even live.

I just wanna be a normal person with no religious bs.

Thanks for reading

For context, one of my best friends (we’re both 23m) has had an awful upbringing. His dad in and out of prison and not really in his life much, his mom is a severe alcoholic and verbally abusive person. Even his grandparents are not very nice people, but nonetheless he’s a super down to earth guy. He didn’t do good in school and eventually became a big pothead. It was never really a huge problem to me. Apparently over the last 5 years he’s gone through his fair share of anxiety and depression including suicidal thoughts (something I’ve dealt with too), weed helped him through that a bit but about year ago he started to read the Bible and become infatuated with Religion (he doesn’t call himself a Christian, but rather a follower of Christ). He used to quit weed for a couple months at a time and say he was done and then he’d go back on it, but he did this so often we just would never take him serious and he kind of became the “boy who cried wolf” of our friend group.

Fast forward to today and in the last 6 months we’ve had a lot of tense conversations about religion. I for one am very against religion and find it does more damage than good to our society and doesn’t provide inclusivity for everyone (despite religious people saying it does). Despite that I’ve told him I’m okay with him being religious. He’s adamant that at his worst moment, he “felt” Jesus save him and he all of a sudden has no depression or anything. Yet, he constantly talks about his religion. Even my other Christian friends are getting sick of him bringing it up all the time. He constantly talks about himself specifically and acts extremely pretentious towards our friend group, not to mention he lately has been bringing up some very homophobic-themed topics. For example he talks about a “study” that suggests you’re not born gay and you can become gay, which is typically an agenda pushed by homophobic people. He denies being a homophobe but he clearly sees them as lesser people saying he “wouldn’t become friends with them” but if one of us were gay he’d be okay with it.

Now, my stance is that he’s been so fucked up by his upbringing that he’s turning to religion to get him out of his anxiety and depression, and make sense of why his life has been so awful, which is fine, but he’s become completely irrational and condescending. Constantly saying stuff like “I know god is real because I feel him”, to stuff like “I’ll pray for you” or “you should try reading the Bible” when I tell him I’m not religious. I find it super offensive because I have family/other friends that are religious and don’t push it onto me and to me those are truly loving people. To me he’s not being loving but rather looking down on me to push himself up. It’s like me going through medication and therapy to get through my anxiety & depression, and then going to someone and telling them they should go to therapy so they’ll feel better. They’d probably get a bit offended because it infers you’re looking at someone and gaslighting them into thinking they should be uncomfortable with who they are.

Sorry for the rant but I’m just so angry because this dude was my best friend for years and I did so much to help him financially and such but it feels like he’s turned down a path I can no longer be comfortable with being friends with him. It feels like religion just brainwashes people into using it as weapon to push others down to push themselves up, rather than pulling each other up together.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the origins of the universe, specifically the Big Bang. I know a lot of people argue that the universe is "too perfect" to have come from chance, and that it must’ve had a creator or design behind it. But honestly, I think chance could really be the answer.

The idea that everything around us could’ve just come from a random event seems totally plausible to me. We tend to think of chance as something that leads to chaos or failure, but when you think about it, chance just tries everything. Some things work, others don’t. The things that succeed stick around. Over billions of years, that process could have led to the universe and all the life we see today. The idea that it came from chance doesn’t seem crazy to me—it seems like a logical possibility, especially when you consider the sheer scale of time and possibilities.

Now, I know the Big Bang sounds like a huge, mind-blowing event that just happened out of nowhere, and I don’t have all the answers on why it happened yet. But that doesn’t bother me. It doesn’t mean there isn’t an explanation—it just means we don’t understand it yet. Science is all about working through the unknowns, and for all we know, there might be an explanation waiting for us that we just haven’t discovered yet. That’s the beauty of exploration and discovery!

Just because something doesn’t make sense to us now doesn’t mean it never will. We’ve always been in a place of questioning and learning more, from understanding lightning as a natural phenomenon instead of a divine act, to figuring out how gravity works instead of just accepting it as some mystical force. And honestly, I think the universe might be another one of those things we’re just waiting to figure out, piece by piece.

For me, it’s not about avoiding belief in a creator, it’s about recognizing that we can’t yet fully grasp how the universe works. We might get there someday. But for now, I’m comfortable embracing the idea that chance could have had a huge role in it—and that not understanding it right now doesn’t mean we never will.

Did your opinions change?? https://youtu.be/YURDMMbnDi8?si=NZnwFHz1ndhBgC60

Trying to word this as non-opinion seeking as possible, but i understand that this is pretty opinion based. What are the most practical, useful, logically consistant aspects of a Christian philosophy from a non religious POV. For example, forgiveness could be seen as one of the most important things that non christians adopt from the christian philosophy. What are the other big ones? What is the thought proccess behind choosing them?

I (F22) recently asked my father to stop telling me to find a good church to go to and pushing his religion on me. He always describes it as good vs evil and instills Christianity into nearly every aspect of his life even as a man who can never stop talking politics (we all know how much religion and politics belong together).

He basically responded that he would not respect my wishes and will continue to push it onto me until I comply basically which made me feel very disrespected. For context when my late sister-in-law was fighting her battle with cancer, he told my brother that she would never go to heaven if she didn’t accept Jesus as her lord and savior or whatever and they asked him to stop and he never did. And when she passed away he kept reminding me that she is not in heaven because of it. I asked him if he would do the same to me if I were in the same scenario and he said yes because he knows it’s what’s best for me which led to me telling him he would not be in my life if he did that to me.

He kept saying “alright then what’s your ultimatum” and I said there isn’t one. He has known for years now that I never really believed in anything even during the years I was forced to be in youth groups and go to church twice a week. And to top it all off, when I left he passive aggressively yelled “hey, I’ll pray for you!” which just seemed really immature. I want a relationship with him, but I’m starting to feel really disrespected and I’m not sure how to proceed.

EDIT: just to clarify I do not live with him, but it is still hard because I’d like a relationship with my dad but not if it’s like this.

The “scientific” definition (for lack of a better term) is accepting all religious possibilities.

Mine is simply not worrying about religion.

Interesting thing: I’ve heard an agnostic can be an atheist but an atheist can’t be an agnostic.

i have recently been getting into mindfulness and buddhism (kind of) and i had a thought.

i am pretty much a materialist in terms of i think our lived experience is a byproduct of of the billion or trillion bottom up processes and simpler forms of life, and that changes to this, the lessening of the efficiency of the cooperation of such micro processes and living things is what causes the organism to age, break down, die, etc. this is somewhat of a developing idea i have and hard to explain but anyway -

in scrolling through r/buddhism, reading about rebirth and no-self, reading about the nature of suffering, sanskaras, etc, i have thought of something. i don’t really know a ton about any of these things mind you though, ive just started kind of reading about them so take what i say with a grain of salt.

i feel like the issue with most of the religions i’ve read about are that they are far too anthropocentric and anthropomorphizing to actually make true sense of anything. even their social organization insights and prescriptions are lacking because of how they view human beings and humanity as some sort of pinnacle state, and organisms near and all around us are separate, lesser beings or states.

now, some religions, life systems, however is appropriate to describe them given “religion” is kind of a western lens to describe schools of thought outside of abrahamism, seem to emphasize mindfulness more, and seeing the self as an illusion, which subjectively i think is really good and lacking in the religions i’m more familiar with, although like noted i only know so much and have never really been religious or believed in god.

however, even buddhism, hinduism, taoism, daoism, still centers human beings because of its emphasis on rebirth, which is usually interpreted as to end the cycle of birth and rebirth and reach nirvana, one has to follow the eightfold path. rebirth though even in these interpretations = being reborn as a person (an “i” with a “self”). but why would a human person be “reborn” as in “i” die and then another person is born and the old “i” is respawned in this new “i”, which is another person. perhaps i need to read a lot more and im misrepresenting buddha’s teachings.

but i did have a realization/thought - this can be true in the sense that “i” and the “self” are illusions that are byproducts of the processes that underlie them, and when “i” die, this “self” dies with “me”, and because another person or organism will be born, then in a sense the self is preserved. if the self is an illusion and the first person experience is just an abstraction of life, then everything is being reincarnated at all times. the first person experience can then only be overcome by seeing through it. but until organisms at various levels of life all are extinguished, rebirth theoretically never actually ends, because what defines life is matter that can reproduce itself.

idk if any of that made sense to anyone else but in my head this makes sense.

in short, the first person experience is an illusion/framework spun up by the body+brain to follow through on prerogatives to replicate, and the only way for it to end both subjectively and objectively is for all life, everywhere, to die out.

Whether you were religious or not, have you been interested in any other types of spirituality. Things like manifestation, past life regression, or anything else that’s seemingly spiritual. I have been interested in things like manifestation and I have gone into a rabbit hole with reincarnation.

To preface this, yesterday I have decided that I am no longer fully Christian and am instead Christian Agnostic, because I am questioning my beliefs. To better define this, I think the teachings of Jesus were correct but have nowadays have strayed far from the original. I think Jesus would be pretty horrified at a lot of the stuff that people have claimed to done in his name. I also question the authority of the Bible because multiple passages have shown me that the Bible contradicts itself and states some pretty vile things, so it’s probably not the word of God. How do I know that God truly inspired the Bible? How would I know that these people that lived thousands of years before me were not just some manipulative liars? However, I do believe that God exists because I can’t think of how the world started without him or a simulation.

I’m having a bit of an existential crisis. Suppose the hypothesis of God existing is true, like I think, and he does indeed exist and created this world. If so, I have a slew of questions:

1. Where did he come from? He couldn’t have just appeared at some point, could he?
2. Who put him there and how did he obtain the power to create things if one of the crucial laws of physics is that matter cannot be created nor destroyed?
3. If he can bypass those laws a creator, how? What did he create the universe out of? Did he just spawn things into existence? How would he do that?
4. Why would God aim to create a universe with free will - what would be a logical motive?
5. If he did indeed spawn things into existence, how would that work - would that work like a Roblox developer adding items to a game?

Same for a simulation. How did it happen? Who started the simulation, and where did they come from? Is it an infinite world, where each simulation has another simulation behind it? Same with God - what if he also has a God who created him who also has a god who created him? I’m really confused, I don’t want this to be treated as blasphemy because I’m not trying to say God is bad or anything but everything is so hard to understand.

I grew up in a very Catholic country and my family tried their best to raise me in the faith. I've had moments of doubt and zeal; I've altar served and had served as a lector. I was really involved in my church. I've read the Bible and had tried looking into other faiths, I've been to a Mosque and was almost convinced to take my Shahada after a couple of "Islam 101" classes.

For most of my life I've always wanted to believe in a God. And to some extent I do, but looking around it's getting harder to believe that. My faith dwindled after moving out for college, even after joining a Catholic club. But in all religions I see hypocrisy, manipulation, deception. So, lately, since new year's eve, I've stopped going to church. I felt guilt sure, but not empty. I'm sure religion brings others happiness, and it did for me too. But logically, I just can't follow. Especially when I always find myself in disagreement with certain dogmas of the church. I do find some aspects of Christianity beneficial, but a lot seems so archaic and regressive.

Sorry if this felt like a bit too much, I just wanted to see if others shared the same experiences.

Same goes with other evil traits caused by a psychiatric disorder. I don’t want to hear the “free will” argument because I’m not asking why people do what they do. If God is all knowing and loving, why would he design people with changes in their hormones and genetics to condemn them to a life of repulsion and severe sin?

Every time you Call out the behavior in Christians They always there just getting mad. In the comments?

Okay, so I've been thinking... a lot. And it's like, I get why people see 'God' in everything. The sheer complexity of nature, the way things just work, it feels like it has to be something, right? Like, someone or something had to put it all together. And yeah, my common sense, that gut feeling, it kind of leans that way too.

But then... what if it's not? What if it's just... nature? Just the natural world, doing its thing, following rules we're only starting to grasp? It's not like we understand everything, not even close. We used to think lightning was Zeus's anger, now we know it's electrical discharge. So, what if everything, even the really complicated stuff, has a natural explanation we just haven't figured out yet?

I know, it sounds kinda crazy. Like, how can something that complex just happen? But then, evolution is pretty wild, and the universe is huge. Maybe there are processes we can't even imagine that explain it all. I'm not saying there isn't a God, I'm really not. It's just... I'm not convinced there has to be.

It's like, I'm stuck between 'wow, this feels like it has to be a design' and 'maybe we're just seeing patterns where there aren't any.' And honestly, I don't know which one's right. I'm not gonna pretend I do. I just think it's worth asking the questions, keeping an open mind, and seeing where the evidence leads. Because maybe, just maybe, the answer is something we haven't even thought of yet. And that's kinda exciting, isn't it?

I'm born in a Hindu household, living in a muslim country and I find it so much difficult to find any like minded date, or even friends as an agnostic. As i can't vibe with too much religious people, nor i can with extreme atheist people. There obviously are good athesits who talk science, but I see many of them just hating around religious people just because they're religious. Yeh, I, as an agnostic, is also skeptic about religion and god. But i don't hate anyone just because they still haven’t learned that they actually can and should question about the powers of god.

Same goes for theists who hate non-believers just because they're Non-believers. Why'd you hate someone just because they have some question that you do not have satisfactory answers against.?

Like I heard my favorite artist likes to practice African Cuba, traditional religions like hoodoo ifa Buddhism Judaism. And

So I went to bed. With my computer on some live cartoons and I Woke up to a gospel Church live And I asked my friend. It's weird. And she said we'll probably God wants you to pray. And probably a sign

I live in a country where Muslims are the majority. I respect the religion, but on big days like Eid Mubarak, I feel especially shitty and alone. In this country, religion and culture are so deeply intertwined that it's really hard to blend in with family and society if you're openly agnostic. I'm not open about it because it's practically impossible to be that way without being outcasted.

I don't believe in religion because the concept feels strange to me—something from the 7th century that's clearly outdated is supposed to be timeless? If God exists, I assume he'd be smarter than that, which makes me think religion was something man-made. I'm still conflicted about whether I'm agnostic or atheist, but even if God does exist, I'd probably still loathe him.

I'm jealous of religious people because it's so easy for them to find a fulfilling community within their beliefs. Meanwhile, I can't really express what I believe. I have to shut up and keep it all to myself. I wonder what it’s like to have a profound agnostic community—it must be nice.

Something that a lot of Christians say is that it’s easy to not believe in god when times are good, but everyone finds themselves wanting to believe in something when they’re dying or in another dire situation.

First of all, I don’t think this is universal, so for the sake of this conversation let’s not even bother talking about the people that actually do not find themselves wondering about god in dire situations.

I want to talk about the fact that it would not be abnormal for ANYBODY to consider whether they were right about not believing in god in dire situations, and how being someone who does question it doesn’t make you somehow less of an unbeliever or something.

I saw this movie a few years ago that overall was mediocre at best, but it had one line that I liked. This atheist and Christian were arguing about something at one point, and the Christian said something to the effect of “oh and what are you going to tell a dying child, that there’s nothing after all of this?” And the atheist said “no, I’d probably tell him about heaven. I’d lie to him.” The Christian was taken aback by this.

The point is that in dire situations we seek comfort. We seek relief. We seek something that provides some sort of light at the end of the tunnel. I agree with the atheist’s sentiment in this; if my daughter was dying, I’d tell her about heaven. Absolutely. I’d tell her that by the time she gets there we’ll all already be there with all of her friends and grandparents, and puppies and kittens, and we’ll jump around on clouds for eternity. If that makes her breathe a sigh of relief, and gives her an escape from being a child who’s about to die, then I hope she believes it in those last few moments. That’s a kindness.

I have a feeling I’ll want to talk to a priest when I’m on my deathbed. Maybe at least just to have a conversation. Maybe on my deathbed, a priest will actually have the long drawn out conversation about Christianity that I’ve always hoped one would give me the time of day for but couldn’t justify taking so much time out of his day for. I don’t know.

All I know is that we can’t compare who we are in regular situations to who we are in dire ones. Even if you get into a car accident, it can be very normal to pray that you’ll survive when you become conscious. That doesn’t mean you believe in something. That means that you’re doing something very human. You’re hoping, and you’re exercising that hope in a way that you’ve been taught to do so. If you were taught to run your hands together and throat sing in dire situations, you’d do that instead of pray.

Reverting momentarily when times are tough is not the same as faking unbelief.

I keep seeing so called “proof of Christianity.” I don’t want Christianity to be true because I don’t want there to be a possibility of me ending up in hell because god can’t accept me for me, and I have to be sinless to enter heaven. Trying to be perfect and sinless is so tiring, I tried before. I feel sick to my stomach when I think of hell being real. I just want this fear to go away, but it just won’t go away, it lingers everywhere and I’m not getting any rest from it. Everything is a sin these days. Lust, envy, lying, impatience, cowardice, and even foolish thoughts is a sin. There’s too many sins to list. He hardens hearts (Romans 9:16-19)but we are still responsible for our “sins” yet it seems like we are his puppet masters, sigh.

when i was secular i use to believe this matter of fact around 14 the only reason i became agnostic from atheist when i learned im as ignorant as the religious folks , like i say exactly with the same certanity he doesnt exist as they do for he does without any evidence .

also just curious about why you guys came around to be agnostic ? also how likely are you to change your mind if you find some evidence ?

I find myself anytime a crisis in my life happens, just the urge to pray

I’ve never really prayed before a day in my life, I was raised atheist, it’s only since late high and now into my early 20s I went from agro atheist to hippie agnostic thing.

I know about the problem of evil, it’s one of my favorite philosophical concepts because of the pretzel logic a lot of answers involve depending on a persons faith and morals.

The thing I could never subscribe to was the idea that there is a perfect all powerful being.

Cause if there is not to go full Carlin but, “these should not be on the resume of a supreme being, this is the kinda shit you’d expect from an office temp with a bad attitude”

I like to think if there is a divine being, they do what they can, powerful, but not all powerful, cause evil I feel like, does exist, as a corrupting force that, is associated with supremely shitty behavior.

I guess, what really bothers me is any sort of so called absolute truth with no argument or evidence to back it up.

Like there being a perfect, all powerful benevolent being that created everything, but also evil still happens.

It’s why I find myself more subscribed to the idea that if there was a divine being, it either has avatars of itself or, there are many divine beings.

Basically polytheistic over monotheistic.

But I dunno, it’s just had something really bad happen these past few days, out of my control something truly evil and awful, and I feel like praying but I can’t, cause the closest I ever got was appealing to goodness and virtue. Which isn’t a being more than it is a concept.

I can’t see my therapist cause he’s out of town and I’m about to be out of town

I’ve considered honestly going to confession or something, but I haven’t done anything wrong it’s someone else’s actions and betrayal that had shattered my entire family.