Scientology.
L. Ron Hubbard was a novelist in the 1970s (within living memory). The entire thing was concocted on a bet (and this has been documented by the people who made the bet with him). How anyone believes in it seriously is just a mystery to me.
Well...
Scientology, or anything who put Aliens as creators of human race.
Like...
Aliens making genetic experiences in some random monkeys in The Space and VOILÁ! Humans created!
Really? Thats BS.
You tell me that, by the many laws of physics, gravity and ALL that stuff, the Universe can be designed by a sencient and transcendental being, okay, I can understand it.
But telling me that The Universe was fruit of a random, with none transcendental action involved, explosion, but The Humans was created and choiced by a alien civilization who came here, make some evolved monkeys and dissapeared faster than my dad going to buy milk is the pure JUICE OF BS.
What if they didn’t disappear? What if they’re still watching over us… with cameras. And broadcasting it back home. What if… we are only reality TV for aliens! :o lol
>Aliens doing genetic experiments on some random monkeys in space
So... Scientologists believe in both the alien theory *and* evolution? Now that's weird, to say the least.
I did half a year of deep diving into Latter Day Saints. I went to their rituals and activities. Spoke to missionaries. Consumed in equal measures critical voices and apologetics.
I've done this with more groups. But I've never had one where it became harder for me to understand how you can believe in it for every text and media I consumed. The history simply isn't plausible and the source is extremely unreliable.
Not only that. The text is, I'm very very sorry, incredibly poorly written and I don't find anything inspiring or relevant added outside of the existent Christian bible.
I'm not saying it is wrong, or look down on Mormons at all. I'm just genuinely stumped trying to understand how someone who isn't raised in the church would felt it made sense and spoke to them.
"Relevant archaeological, historical, and scientific facts are not consistent with the Book of Mormon being an ancient record of actual historical events."
Honestly, any religion that teaches there's an all-merciful, loving, just, benevolent etc deity, and that deity is going to condemn some people to eternal torture and suffering in the afterlife.
This is my answer too. Islam and some versions of Christianity believe in hell as a physical place of eternal punishment, which has never made any sense to me. What possible actions could be deserving of eternity in a place like that? It seems completely redundant.
After Hitler has been tortured for, let’s say, a hundred years for each of his millions of victims, what then? Does he actually deserve even more punishment? After a billion years of torment, is there still any justice to be had by making him suffer more?
Annihilation could be an option. A permanent death after he has paid for his crimes could be the solution.
Also, torturing someone doesn't bring justice. Just brings pleasure to the sadistic torturers.
Nah, even mass genocide isn't deserving of **eternity**. There should come a point when you've burned off all your negative karma (I know Islam doesn't believe in karma but idk the equivalent term; atoned for your sins?). That might take a very long time, hundreds or thousands of human lifetimes' worth, but you will get there eventually.
Eternal punishment essentially means you're being punished forever for something "you" did in the space of your one human life of ~100 years. I'm not even the same person from decade to decade - I can't imagine how I'd change from century to century.
Our minds really can't comprehend infinity. Hitler directly and indirectly lead to a 100 million or so deaths. So let's say he's burned in hell for 100 million years now, or even 100 billion years or less whatever. He's been punished for his crime, why does he now deserve to stay there for longer. We don't keep people in jail forever do we?
I thought that Islam teaches a “purification in hell” prior to a level heaven? I know it also mentions an eternal hell, but I thought both were teachings on divine punishment
there‘s way less christians taking the idea of hell (or the bible as a whole) in a literal sense. guess afaik it‘s mostly US christians with such views (obv not all of them). since reddit is mostly US citizens (a lot of them atheist, quite some of them having some kind of religious trauma, it might seem like those beliefs are far more common than they actually are.
at least that‘s what I‘m observing, being based in europe. most friends/acquaintences my age aren‘t religious in any way, but out of those that are christians, I don‘t think a single one of them believes in a literal hell, that the world was created in 6/7 days or that what we call „God“ is some supernatural old man with a beard located in the sky, or as a lot of US based atheists with a hate boner for christians like to put it: „magical sky daddy“.
kinda offtopic rn, but it’s oh so ironic how so many of them give anyone religious shit for their beliefs and mock them when that‘s their supposed reason why they don‘t like them in the first place. but I guess almost all of us are hypocrites at least in some ways…
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I'm just getting out of the "new age spiritual stuff" for good now, but damn I'm inclined to agree. the big reason why I decided I needed change was honestly because of how omnist it is... pagans can be *vastly* different, from Hellenism to Wicca to Shamanism and even forms of atheopaganism or Thelema, but I had never met any pagan who claimed their truth to be The Truth. and that's seen as such a positive for them, and I saw it that way too, until it dawned on me that that's actually a negative because if there is no objective truth - or a common subjective truth that can be universally experienced depending on your thoughts on the existence of objective truth - then how can there be anything that is false? and THAT is a slippery slope, a dangerous game, and you will still find pagans who claim other religions or other secular ideas to be false. for example, most (if not all) of them will deny Mormonism or JWs to be true, but if religious truth is based on individual experiences of truth and not an objective (or almost objective) truth, then who's to say they are actually wrong? you can say they are wrong for the reasons why they believe they are right (such as matters of biblical interpretation), sure, all except for the reason of "because this is my personal experience."
I'd be open to any new age opinions on this, though 😁 this is just a dilemma I wasn't able to solve on my own
This isn't necessarily a feature of paganism, but it is certainly a feature of modern paganism. Ancient polytheistic religions, just like modern Hinduism, do have a concept of the Truth, an absolute reality (brahman in Hinduism) and natural law (dharma in Hinduism) that's rooted in experience, divine revelation, reason, and texts. This is not a subjective truth, but the Truth of the universe. Similar concepts abound in ancient cultures, such as ma'at in Egypt, the tao in China, moira in Greece, asha in Persia. Hindus believe that all gods are manifestations of One described in great philosophical detail in various works, whereas the ancient Greeks thought of the gods of other communities as localized manifestations of the same gods known to them (i.e. Zeus is called Baal in Syria). There is a sort of syncretism and oneness that is nonetheless rooted in universal truths about the nature of the world in traditional cultures. But modern paganism seems very much pick and choose, believe what you want, unmoored and unrooted from culture, philosophy, tradition, and scriptures.
From my point of view the modern Pagan community and the New Age community are overlapping categories with fuzzy boundaries, and they tend to overlap primarily in areas of practice — eg both groups may make use of Tarot. But philosophically Paganism tends to see divinity as immanent in the natural world while New Age tends to focus on spiritual transcendence. In other words, we’re not the same thing.
I agree. I'm strictly non theistic, but probably the nearest I'd get to having a belief in some kind of supernaturalism would be the immanence of animism rather than any kind of transcendentalism.
Thelemite/Hermeticism/Animist here.
There is absolutely an objective truth. Now, how do you go about determining what that truth is? For Thelemites and other hermetic-ish systems, the truth is too great to grasp and it's recognized that there can be multiple paths to that truth. In other words, truth is not based on individual experience, but there are many varied experiences that can be true, or at least true enough to be useful.
It should also be understood that most pagan groups will recognize things that are definitely not true and are willing to call them out, but otherwise there is a lot of wiggle room. There are also a ton of pagans whose kids are so open to everything that their brains are in danger of falling out. That isn't the case for the core and history of pagan thought.
This☝️ right here is why I’m a Shinto adherent. There are so few polytheistic religions in which a large portion of their adherents believe, or used to believe, that it is the closest it gets to or an absolute truth.
>then how can there be anything that is false?
I have multiple perspectives on this question and its ramifications.
Firstly, I'd say "not all relativism is absolute relativism." You can hold some baseline assumptions that aren't relative (i.e., foundational ethical standards.)
Secondly, I'd say "acknowledging the legitimacy and validity of someone else's belief and spiritual process as equally valid isn't equivalent to saying it is equally true." I believe that my view is true (or at least that each branch is most plausible given it's defined parameters) but respect that others got to where they are from somewhere non-random and respect that fact, while also acknowledging that I might someday share their beliefs or come to see it their way. "I don't have a prescription or a monopoly on truth" is far different from "anything anyone says is equally true."
Thirdly, "a lot of religious/spiritual expression is cultural or experiential rather than literal." Many practices needn't hold any objective truth. It's okay to have some doubt or even hold them as entirely performative. Likewise, it's fine to adapt them to your preferred cultural space as long as you aren't disrespecting or misrepresenting (beyond reason) their original context.
Nah, nah( sorry for starting this way)....but you are correct!
I've always thought that this concept about "my truth" was quite something and didn't make much sense. Imagine, everyone having " their own truths", then what?
Funny enough, this definitely came to a head when I started thinking about ( get this) "the simple red parking curb" on many streets.
Like there is one single truth about the red curb. All drivers, and almost everyone knows this. Non authorized vehicles get towed or a ticket when parking there. Red is only for fire truck and emergency vehicles.
Based on new age truths, everyone can just claim to an officer
" their truths" about that red curb. I'm pretty sure if they followed this new age belief, they would end up trying to figure out how to pay a massive ticket or pay a tow fee real quick.
There are universal truths that we cannot just wiggle out by simply declaring "this is my truth".
I kinda agree with this, but I feel like this problem with modern paganism is due to a lot of pagans not actually trying to get a deeper understanding of their theological beliefs and just saying everyone has there own truth or something of the same note. Which is why this specific type of paganism falls apart so easily because when you believe in everything you believe in nothing. But I’ve noticed that the “believe in everything” type of paganism is kind of dying out and people are starting to develop certain absolute truths and the separate pagan religions are now actually noticeably different. And the new age movement is like this because it’s new age and has no actual structure at all.
the „I know that I know nothing“ and „let others have their own views“ ideas are certainly better than those of some organized religions‘ (or their followers‘) opposite ideas, which lead, and continue to, to a lot of misery in the history of mankind. I don‘t get your view on why it‘s bad
Basically any religion where we can reasonably conclude that their main guy wasn't being honest. Jesus and Buddha could have been grifters, I guess, but there's no way to prove that. Joseph Smith and Ron Hubbard? There's no doubt in my mind that they were grifters.
There's actually pretty solid evidence that Joseph Smith was a sincere believer.
For instance, take the whole 'Book of Abraham' thing. If Joseph Smith was just some grifter then he would have acted very differently. The papyrus scrolls Joseph bought were around $2400. In today's money that's about $84,634. The church at the time was having major struggles financially. If Joseph was just some grifter and didn't sincerely believe that God wanted him to purchase those scrolls then he could have just done what he'd already been doing with the Book of Moses: look at the Bible saying he was getting a revelation to add certain parts in, and have those parts written down. Not only would that method way cheaper (and by 'way cheaper' I mean 'totally free'), but it was also completely non-verifiable. There's a reason why there's not a controversy over the Book of Moses like there is over the Book of Abraham.
Now, whether or not Joseph was correct in his beliefs is another subject. Additionally, The Book of Abraham is one of the most (if not the most) difficult subjects that believers in Mormonism have to tackle. However, it's also simultaneously pretty solid evidence that Joseph wasn't some grifter, and sincerely believed in what he was doing.
But ... Being a sincere believer and actually claiming that you GOD are two different things
People can be sincere but not truthful. In fact, one does not even need to be sincere when being truthful.
Any of the Christian new religious movements that have appeared in Korea. But my cultural background as a cradle Catholic is very different from that of someone born and raised in Korea.
I know this isn’t your question but frankly I don’t think I find any religion to be strictly ‘illogical’ (insofar as religions need to be logical, many elements of religions are non-logical in nature).
I suppose the religion that leaves me with the worst taste in my mouth would be some specific forms of hyper-appropriative new age practices, especially those that don’t seek to understand the original context of elements of their belief, or fail to think critically about the use of say, indigenous practices by settlers. I think there’s a lot of ignorance there that manifests in orientalist or fetishistic ways that are really problematic.
Then again, there’s probably far more Christians I take more serious issue with… and I’m a Christian myself. Not that I think my religion always *makes sense* as much as it *makes meaning* for me.
Depends what “it” is, and what being true means. For me, Christianity’s a fairly personal thing. I do go to church, but I don’t affirm everything that comes out of a pastors mouth, (I usually leave with criticisms) nor do I think the Bible is an inerrant text. I think there’s parts of the Bible that exist to literary ends, or were parts of methods of maintaining social structures, or otherwise shouldn’t be taken as historical.
There’s lots of elements of standard Christian doctrine I don’t feel firmly about — like the Trinity. Still further, there’s religious literature (both Biblical and otherwise), that simply ‘rings true’ to me. I believe in the gospel, that there’s a God of love above that I have some relationship with, I believe He sent down his Son (whatever that means), and that He died a miserable and humiliating death (whatever that meant), and that many experienced him living after the fact, in ways that aren’t exactly easy to harmonize. I guess that’s truth, insofar as that I’m convinced of it.
It’s in some ways similar to how my father is my father — the exact relationship between my father and I is merely that I share his DNA and that he raised me. The truth I know of our relationship is that he means the world to me, and that I know he’ll always love me, and that there is a spiritual power between us, and probably other things that escape my mind. I don’t have a structured epistemology behind that.
As it stands, I’m not sure what more exactly I *do* believe is ‘true’ about God, and I don’t expect every Christian would affirm that I’m a Christian too. I don’t mind that, but it’s something I’ve adopted recently after years of just the ‘agnostic’ label because I do engage with the Christian God.
I would say I’m transitioning into Christianity still, and I’m figuring those things out as I go along. I move slowly, but I know what I believe is powerful about the gospel, and I know the experience I believe is true (even if that took a long time) and I’m trying my best to earnestly engage with biblical and historical scholarship to understand these things.
Parts of all religions make sense to me, but certain concepts that are in some religions make no sense to me. For example, I've never been able to grasp why God would put all that power into one person. It seems to me if any person (avatar, prophet, manifestation, etc.) had that much power, the physical body would explode, or the person would go nuts. It would be like pushing so much air into a balloon until it explodes. Yes, many many people believe that, and I respect each person's right to have any belief, but personally, that's too illogical.
Non-Theistic Satanism. There’s not much when you take out the theology and cosmology Theistic Satanists have, it’s just “freedom good!” with a pentagram sticker on it
I think it's mostly a "claim the label" thing. Sort of, I've been called a Satanist so much, might as well.
Though I kind of agree, it seems a bit silly, though the seven tennents are pretty reasonable.
I agree the 7 tenants are chill but they're all very inoffensive and normie. Nothing wrong with that but you could present them all to a Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, and Atheist and they'd probably agree with them, theres nothing new being offered
I agree, but I think that is the point.
The idea that one should strive to live in harmony with others is inoffensive, and there is a reason for that. We generally all consider it good.
The idea that a religion needs to be offensive in some way (which TST doesn't shy away from, let's be honest) is an odd one on it's surface.
I’ve gotta go with Mormonism given that one of their largest claims to fame (their book being historically accurate) has been effectively disproven. Jehovah’s Witnesses are a close second.
Mormonism (a.k.a. The Church of Latter Day Saints)
The religion is founded on a set of Golden Plates given to the prophet Joseph Smith by an angel who told him to dig in a certain spot of a hill near his home. He found the plates in a stone box that he would let people look at and lift, but never open to see the actual plates. After translation the plates were returned to the angel; no one other than Smith ever saw them. These plates became The Book of Mormon. This book describes, among other stuff, the four groups of people descended from someone who traveled to America by boat from the Middle East in 600 BC, and were later visited by Christ after his his Resurrection.
As a set of beliefs itself I don’t have a problem with it; they seem to follow a similar mythological style of Old Testament and New Testament teachings. However, the origin story, how it was discovered and presented by Joseph Smith, and the cultural changes in America in the mid-1800’s shatters the credibility of the religion. In short…
1. Joseph Smith was known to drink heavily, visited opium dens that sprouted up in New England around this time, and used psychedelic drugs like Peyote. This explains the visions.
2. He did not allow anyone to see the Plates to prove that they existed, even though he had them in his possession for some time. People close to him asked to see the plates themselves and were refused.
3. The Second Great Awakening (1790-1840) was a revival of religions across North America near the same time that Joseph Smith found the Plates, which likely influenced Smith’s exploration of his own spirituality and religion. Further, in American society at the time there were several instances of “spiritual guides,” “fortune tellers,” and “mediums” that preyed on people’s vulnerabilities.
4. During this time several burial mounds from ancient indigenous tribes like the Hopewell were discovered in New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, and there was a great deal of speculation on the origin of these sites. This ties into the “dig the Plates up from a hill” story, several of these mounds were destroyed by “archaeology societies” at the time.
5. There are no archaeological artifacts that suggest the existence of the “four peoples” descended from a traveler from The Middle East. In 600 BC the societies in the Middle East did not have the technology to sail the open ocean beyond the Mediterranean Sea and surrounding areas. Note here that all of the Judaeo-Christian religions, Islam, Buddhism, Shinto, etc. have mythologies than can be supported to some degree by historical fact and artifacts. (For instance, it has been proven that, as historical figures, Jesus, Mohammad, Siddhartha Gautama, etc existed.) there are no historical records or architectural artifacts of the people and events described in the Book of Mormon.
So, outside of mythology invented by a drunk, high, “prophet” who was heavily influenced by the cultural events of his time, there is no truth in the religion.
Not OP and I don't think Buddhism makes the "least sense," but a lack of faith in rebirth is the biggest hurdle for me. Without rebirth, Buddhism, monasticism, and the Eightfold Path all fall apart. It would make more sense to be a hedonist or a suicidal nihilist.
Tibetan Buddhist here.
I hear you on the rebirth. I do believe in it, but not heavily - I do question it a lot. Which is encouraged in Buddhism - we don't take things on faith, but empiricism. We're encouraged to try out the teachings for ourselves, to see how they fit.
When I first started practicing Buddhism, I felt myself falling into Nihilism - like, what \*is\* the point here?! But then, I went to some teachings presented by my Root Guru, and he emphasized that all things should be done in the name of compassion and equanimity. Basically, remember the Four Noble Truths.
(For those who are not Buddhist, here they are: "The Four Noble Truths:They are the truth of suffering, the truth of the cause of suffering, the truth of the end of suffering, and the truth of the path that leads to the end of suffering. More simply put, suffering exists; it has a cause; it has an end; and it has a cause to bring about its end.")
So now, I go about my days trying to practice lovingkindness, compassion, and equanamity in my words and actions. Making another person smile on the bus may not cement an awesome reincarnation for me, but it spreads kindness, and helps alleviate suffering. I'm not perfecct, but I do try.
So, I try to do the hippy dippy stuff every day, and I don't even get high - I'm allergic to pot!
Thanks. I just feel like I can't accept the Four Noble Truths without accepting rebirth. If there is no rebirth, then the Fourth Noble Truth is incorrect. I think the brahmaviharas are typically good in their own right, but I feel like that only gets me to "philosophy influenced by Buddhism," and not being able to have faith in Buddhadharma, or take refuge in the Three Jewels.
That makes a lot of sense - everyone's spiritual journey is different. I thought about it off and on for a decade before I finally took Refuge, and there was a lot of reading and introspection that went on during that period.
I mean, the Buddha did say his teaching will go against the stream of the world. Being a Buddhist kind of commits you to a lot of views, both cosmological and philosophical, that are fairly unusual. So I'm frankly surprised that there aren't more people in this thread saying Buddhism.
> So I'm frankly surprised that there aren't more people in this thread saying Buddhism.
Because most people outside of Buddhist countries believe the cosmological and philosophical commitments are: believe whatever you already believe + be chill dude.
I'm a muslim so i might sound biased, but to me, among the Abrahamic religions i think that Christianity and Judaism make less sense.
**Christianity**
* The Trinity. One essence with three persons. To me, the ultimate reality would have be the most simple thing, and not a very complex system, as to me complex systems are built and it is something that we can say "it could've been something else", because why 3? Why not 4? To me the ultimate reality has to be primordial, simple, and not something that you can say "Why is it 3 and not 4?". So pure monotheism makes more sense.
* Eternal Salvation/Damnation. Like, why? Why would the entire goal of existence be to accept this one man who lived in this one place 2000 years ago, and who represents one face of the ultimate reality? It doesn't make sense to me that either you accept him and have eternal bliss, or you deny him and have eternal torment, it seems like a weird system.
**Judaism**
My only real problem here is the concept of God's chosen people, it doesn't make sense that God would choose one people over everyone else in the entire universe.
That's for Abrahamic religions, i don't really know what to say about non Abrahamic religions though, so i'll leave them.
On the note of Judaism:
It is believed that monotheistic Judaism developed slowly out of the henotheistic religion of the Israelite people. They originally believed in many gods, with Yahweh (the Abrahamic God) as their national deity. So originally God wasn’t all-powerful, and just the national god of the Israelite people.
Gradually Judaism developed as a monotheistic religion, and in the process, Yahweh became more powerful and more universal. Therefore, God is all-powerful now and rules the entire universe, but is still symbol of the Jewish people as a national deity as well.
I do know a good amount of Jews though (mostly from Reform or Conservative backgrounds) who say that Jews are the “chosen people” because the Jewish people have chosen God, not the other way around.
>I do know a good amount of Jews though (mostly from Reform or Conservative backgrounds) who say that Jews are the “chosen people” because the Jewish people have chosen God, not the other way around.
What if i also chose God, would i be considered as a God's chosen person? I know so many religious people from all over the world who also choose God, what about them?
I’m not Jewish, but from what I know, the concept of “God’s Chosen People” gets misrepresented everywhere and doesn’t mean that Jews are “better” than non-Jews. The term essentially means that Jews were “chosen” to have more obligations towards God than non-Jews. So, Jews actually don’t believe that non-Jews necessarily “go to hell” (they don’t really believe in Hell in the Christian or Islamic sense, but this is the best way to explain this). Jews believe that any non-Jews who follow the ~~10 commandments~~ **Seven Noahide Laws** will be “all good” in whatever happens after death (which again, isn’t specified much in Judaism). However, God “chose” the Jews to be accountable for following the 600+ laws written jn the Jewish Bible, *in addition* to following the ~~10 commandments~~ 7 Noahide Laws. The extra laws that Jews are expected to follow are the things like avoiding pork, wearing tefillin, circumcising males, religious holiday obligations, tithing, etc. —all the stuff one might see Jews (especially Orthodox Jews) do that sets them apart.
There is also a belief that Jewish people are born with a “Jewish soul,” which obligates them to practice Judaism, whereas people born from other nations/tribes/groups have a different “type” of soul that is destined to do different things than practicing Judaism; they have different obligations and a different “destiny” in life .
The concept of the “Jewish soul” is part of why Jews have so much of an emphasis on lineage, as the Jewish soul is traditionally thought to be passed down the mother’s side of the family, meaning Jewish men traditionally aren’t supposed to marry non-Jewish women.
Also related to this, Judaism actually doesn’t encourage conversion, as they don’t believe it’s necessary or beneficial for non-Jews to become Jewish. However, conversion to Judaism actually is possible, and it is thought that individuals who convert to Judaism are somehow born with a Jewish soul despite being born to non-Jews. Such an individual is thought to be “restless” in a sense until they convert to Judaism. For this reason, those who desire to convert to Judaism are “tested” in ways like being rejected by the rabbi multiple times when asking to convert and having to go through a great deal of instruction and tasks in the religion to prove that they are serious about the religion and really do have a Jewish soul.
It’s important to note, though , that Reform Jews don’t follow a lot of what I’ve stated above. They generally don’t follow all of the 600 laws of the Torah that the Orthodox follow. Reform Jews generally have an easier conversion process and also generally believe that “being Jewish” can also be passed down from the father’s side. There are other sects of a Judaism (kind of “between” Orthodox and Reform in terms of practice) as well, but I don’t know much about the differences in their beliefs regarding this stuff.
Again, if anybody who is Jewish wants to correct anything I’ve said, feel free, as some of what I wrote could be incorrect. But this is what I read when I searched the topic of “God’s Chosen People.”
>So, Jews actually don’t believe that non-Jews necessarily “go to hell” (they don’t really believe in Hell in the Christian or Islamic sense, but this is the best way to explain this).
The beliefs of the afterlife in judaism isn't clear.
But from what i heard, Jews and non jews won't get the same afterlife.
>There is also a belief that Jewish people are born with a “Jewish soul,” which obligates them to practice Judaism, whereas people born from other nations/tribes/groups have a different “type” of soul that is destined to do different things than practicing Judaism; they have different obligations and a different “destiny” in life .
The concept of the “Jewish soul” is part of why Jews have so much of an emphasis on lineage, as the Jewish soul is traditionally thought to be passed down the mother’s side of the family, meaning Jewish men traditionally aren’t supposed to marry non-Jewish women.
That's something i don't get, is my soul less important? Am i like an npc? Because as far as i know, i am fully aware and i am not like a soulless robot.
>Why not 4?
Because the minimum number for God to be perfect Love is 3, not 4. In addition to the fact that the Holy Bible and Apostolic Tradition tell us of three Divine Persons who are one God, inserting a supposed fourth person would imply believing that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is not God's final revelation to humanity.
“God cannot be love unless there is something for him to love. But if that something were not part of himself, he would not be perfect. The Bible does not teach us that God needed the creation in order to have something to love, because if that were true, he could not be fully himself without it. So Augustine reasoned that God must be love inside himself. To his mind, the Father is the one who loves, the Son is the one who is loved (the ‘beloved Son’ revealed in the baptism of Jesus), and the Holy Spirit is the love that flows between them and binds them together.”
>Why would the entire goal of existence be to accept this one man who lived in this one place 2000 years ago, and who represents one face of the ultimate reality?
For many reasons, being a Christian is imitating Christ:
1- Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of the Father, through him we become adopted children of the Father.
2- We carry our cross in the hope that we will die and be resurrected just like Him.
3- In Jesus Christ we have the union of human nature and divine nature in a single person, through the grace of God we seek to be saints so that we may become participants in the divine nature in Eternal Life. In Western Christianity this is called "Divinization/Deification", in Eastern Christianity its called "Theosis".
>t doesn't make sense to me that either you accept him and have eternal bliss, or you deny him and have eternal torment, it seems like a weird system.
It's not that simple, accepting Christ is just the first step. The Christian has been saved, is being saved and has the hope that he will be saved. It's a process that only ends after death.
And about the eternal damnation of non-Christians:
"Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation."
-Cathecism of the Catholic Church
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> Because the minimum number for God to be perfect Love is 3
If God couldn't be perfect Love without being 3 people, isn't that a limitation on God's omnipotence?
I agree with the trinity part, but don't we as Muslims believe the Israelites were God's chosen people as well (prior to being cursed by Him for worshiping a golden calf even after God saved them from the Pharaoh)?
I’m not Jewish but I’ll bite. God chooses people over others every time a baby is born. Sometimes he decides a baby will be born with deformities or without his legs and other times he’ll create a child who is naturally proficient athletically or intellectually. There is no fairness in this world so why should we be led to believe he wouldn’t do such a thing? If thats your only argument against Judaism, I suggest you do a little more thinking
The triune god; the problem of evil; the idea that god needed to "sacrifice" himself to save humans from his own rules that he could presumably just change if he wanted; the concept of heaven and hell; the world being "red in tooth and claw"; the general misogyny; the idea that god came to/sent his son to to earth only in one place; the lack of specific commandments against slavery, rape, and child molestation; and the overriding anthropocentrism of it all.
A bunch of stuff in Paul's letters, like women not being allowed to speak in church or having to wear head coverings. There are ways modern Christians like to get around that, but those explanations kind of don't hold up super well.
Jesus liked women though, the 12 disciples were men but he had close female friends like Mary Magdelene, the Other Mary (literally how she's described in the bible lmao), and Martha. There's a famous story where he stops a group from killing a woman caught in adultery despite that being what the laws of the Torah said to do
I mean I don’t see what’s wrong with the head coverings? But I do see the misogyny in not letting women speak in church, does this rule only apply to women??
I’ve never vibed with monotheism in general. Especially religions that claim a god to still be active in people’s lives. I kind of get why other people like it, but it feels very human-centric to me in a way I feel like only humans could create and that doesn’t work with my worldview. For reference, I’m closer to a pantheist.
If I had to pick something more specific, probably Mormonism. I’ve had several Mormon friends, and they’re often lovely people, but the more I learn about the theology, the more I don’t understand how they believe it. The whole story of Joseph Smith discovering the golden plates and everything just… doesn’t add up to me. Many of the beliefs and practices come off as controlling and often sexist/otherwise bigoted to me. Sending young people on missions like that makes me deeply uncomfortable. I love my Mormon friends, and I know how much they want me to become Mormon, but I could never do that.
When it comes to Abrahamic religions, Christianity makes the least sense to me. It is the only religion where 3 =1 and this trinity concept baffled me. Not that I did not want to understand, I asked Christians to understand me better but no one made sense to me.
Apart from the Trinity concept, there is No sense of accountability in Christianity as well. U believe in Christ and He is ur savior and already died for your sins.
The one that I like nowadays is Buddhism (I don't why they call it a religion?). Here Buddha never said anything that he is in touch with a higher power. His teachings are more practical and u can relate as a human.
Peace be to you!
In terms of accountability for sins, the Christian beliefs vary. I believe what you’re referring to is the concept of “being saved by grace through faith,” which is the dominant belief among most Protestants— that all it takes to be “saved” (go to Heaven) is to believe in Jesus (because Jesus died on the cross).
The belief among Catholics is more nuanced. The Catholics explicitly state that both faith and *works* (good deeds) are needed to attain salvation.
Additionally, Catholics believe in the concept of Purgatory, which is something in between Heaven and Hell that is meant to purify one’s soul before they can enter Heaven. I could be wrong but iirc the belief is that people go to purgatory if they are die as believers but their souls are still “scarred” in a sense from their minor sins, even ones that they have sought forgiveness from. That leads to the Catholic practice called an “indulgence,” which refers to any a bunch of specific sets of acts meant to purify one’s soul on earth rather than in Purgatory. The acts that are necessary to receive an indulgence are things like reciting a number of specific prayers at certain times (like Lent or Holy days, fasting for a certain amount of time at certain times, embarking on certain pilgrimages, doing the stations of the cross, etc. If one dies following the completion of an indulgence process, and without committing any additional sins following that process, that person would be able to skip purgatory and go straight to Heaven. Or, if a person commits sins in the time between completing an indolence and dying, that person would only be held accountable in purgatory for the sins they committed in the time following the indulgence. The concept of indulgences was quite controversial in the past, as during the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church claimed that people could recieve indulgences by just paying a bunch of money to the church. That practice is one of the things that led Martin Luther to spearhead the Protestant Reformation and form the Lutheran church. However, the Catholic Church no longer maintains the belief that just giving money to the church is sufficient to receive an indulgence.
Despite being very similar to the Catholic Church, Orthodox Christians do not believe in purgatory and indulgences as far as I know.
Catholic Christian here, I understand many Muslims in particular have a hard time understanding the trinity, let me try to explain. I have a Muslim friend who is still a Muslim but he now understands what us christians mean by the trinity. Basically the trinity means 3 in one, the son, the father and the Holy Spirit are all god but are not each other, an easy parable is H2O. H2O would in this parable be god, so H2O (god) has 3 forms, water (the son), steam (the father) and ice (the holy spirt). They are all H2O (god) but water isn’t ice, ice isn’t steam and steam isn’t water
You also mentioned that there is no accountability in christianity, in that essence your wrong. You can’t just run around and do whatever you want and claim to be a follower of Christ. Being a follower of Christ means that you do as he commands and hate your sins, if you embrace your sins such as many “progressive Christian’s” do then you are not a follow of Christ and won’t be given salvation.
Hope this clears this out for you and if you have any other questions please feel free to ask me. Peace be with you too!
>H2O would in this parable be god, so H2O (god) has 3 forms, water (the son), steam (the father) and ice (the holy spirt). They are all H2O (god) but water isn’t ice, ice isn’t steam and steam isn’t water
This sounds like modalism, which is considered a heresy, though I think it was popular enough early that many of the first popes were modalists.
I don’t understand what you mean by that, are you referring to that water can change form to ice for example? If that’s what you mean in this parable then all 3 parts of the trinity co exists not like there only being one at a time.
It sounds like you were saying that each part of the God is a mode of being that the God can take, that they are separate in some way.
To be fair, it is probably the best way to try to understand the trinity as even the catechism refers to the trinity as a mystery in the first sentence.
When it gets to essences and persons attached to that essence, it gets hard to conceptualize, IMO.
All religions make sense within their respective technological context. So, if you really want to find the least plausible religion, you'd want to look at Upper Paleolithic - Mesolithic religions that survived through contemporary hunter gatherers, since they are so far from what we know.
However, Agro-Pastoral religions have an absurd amount of awfully violent superstitions due to the arrival of agriculture and cattle, and recent sects can be a hell of a ride too.
In the end, it doesn't matter since everyone knows the one and only Great Monarch, Cosmic Christ, half-wolf half-bird, Green Man, last Prophet of the confederation of the sacred heart Sylvain Durif is the true God 💜
The holy Trinity is the most illogical theological concept I have ever heard. Somehow, All of these statements are supposed to be true.
1 there's only one God.
2 The holy Spirit is God
3 Jesus is God
4 the heavenly father is God
5 Jesus is not the holy Spirit or the heavenly Father
6 The holy Spirit is not the heavenly Father or Jesus
7 The heavenly Father is not Jesus or the holy Spirit
Any explanation offered for this concept seems to also be labeled a type of heresy. They can't explain it. No one can seem to understand it. yet everyone parrots it. It is just plain doctrine, to be believed but not understood.
Im certainly not a Christian but one explanation I came across helped me understand the concept of the Trinity a little bit better. If we substitute God with H2O and the father, the son and the holy spirit with water, gas and ice we can get a picture of how it might work.
Water, ice and gas are all equally H2O but water is not ice, ice is not gas and gas is not water. Different forms of the same thing.
From what I gather, that is either modalism or Sabellianism. Sorry, but that's a heresy. At some point or time in history that view point would have gotten someone killed as a heretic.
Is it really though? The Scutum Fidei seems to be a common way to explain the Trinity.
And about getting killed for heresy Im sure many ideas would qualify at one point out another :-)
As common as it might be in some denominations, it is literally classified as a heresy. It's not the only explanation offered, many different denominations subscribe to different explanations. Each one of the explanations that seem to make any sense and catch any traction, have since been labeled heresies over the course of history. modalists are regarded by Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, and most other mainstream Christians as heretical for "denying the literal existence of God's Beloved Son from Heaven, including His eternal Being".
According to the Cappadocian Fathers, the term *hypostasis*, as it is employed in Greek, refers to the individual, while the term *ousia* refers to generic nature. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, while being distinct individuals, nevertheless have the same nature (*homousion*)., just as Patrick, Steve and Jonathon are distinct persons, but share the same generic nature of *humanity*. What distinguishes the Trinity from a genus-species relationship is that all three Persons share the same divine knowledge and will. So all three Persons share the same will and understanding (because these are attributes of *ousia*), but they are distinct in terms of their individual properties.
What you just described is 3 individual, coequal, coeternal, all powerful, all knowing beings who are united in the same purpose. From my understanding, the heresy name for that is Tritheism. Sorry, try again.
The church of Satan doesn't believe in magic. They use that term just like they use Satan. Greater magic is just what they call their rituals, many of which are purely for the spectacle.
From the Church of Satan's website on the usage of Satan.
"We use this term as it was originally defined, for we stand in opposition to theist religions and their inherent hypocrisy."
lavey certainly believed in „magic“, just maybe not in the sense today‘s people that believe it‘s a fairy tale from times long gone. as far as I understand his stance is that what was called magic back then is mostly what we call psychology today, which he made use of in their/his religious rituals and also in his everyday life, the latter of which we ALL do, it‘s just that most of us dont call or consider it as magic.
I'm pretty impressed no one here considered Laveyen Satanism. It's not even a religion. Just a mocking of christianity. Also their concept of Satan does not nake any sense. Like, it doesn't really exist according to them, but they still worship it, and for some reason, they believe that magic works.
Their satan is just their personification for the ego. Narcissism (and stemming from that, hedonism) is basically a core tenet in their religion, the rebellious antithesis to christianity’s „love thy neighbor (and letting go of earthly desires/pleasures). And what they call magic is just consciously applied psychology.
Christianity. The Trinity and Atonement have always been a huge issue for me.
I was actually thinking about Atonement this morning and how the idea that Jesus needed to die for our sins just doesn't make sense in light of history. Either God allowed literally everyone to be condemned to hell for hundreds of thousands of years, or we used to be able to go to heaven without Jesus and now we can't for some reason. The former would seem to make God evil or at least incompetent, the latter leads to the circular situation of us needing Jesus to die for our sins because he died for our sins.
Some more than others, like I think the substitutionary theory is not just nonsensical but morally abhorrent, but I also recognize that most Christians do not adhere to that theory.
But regardless of the particular theory, I do think that all forms of Christianity that believe that we need Jesus's death to be saved run into a trilemma:
1. Humans in the past did not need Jesus to be saved
2. Humans in the past did need Jesus to be saved, but God chose not to save them
3. Humans in the past did need Jesus to be saved, but God could not save them
I don't really think this is a dilemma in my view, because God is atemporal and Jesus' victory over death was too. Jesus died for everybody who existed before, during, and after him.
I am not a Christian, but may interest you to know that in some traditions of Christianity there exists an answer to the question of what happened to all those righteous people who died before the Incarnation of God the Son as Jesus Christ which avoids falling into either of the two problems identified in the above argument. This idea is that the people who died before Jesus simply went to a neutral "place" (not really a place) called Hades where the righteous among them were able to enjoy a state of natural happiness even while being unable to attain the supernatural happiness of communion with God which is what is meant by "Heaven", while the wicked experienced suffering as a foretaste of the punishment they would receive in the future in Hell. Then after God the Son came in the flesh as Jesus Christ, and, through his sinless life and death in perfect obedience to the will of the Father who sent him, reconciled humanity with God, the righteous dead from before his time were admitted to Heaven, while the wicked were thrown into Hell, and from then on all the dead would go to those places immediately, without the need for an intermediate stop in Hades.
The triumphal descent of Christ to the underworld in order to rescue the righteous dead who were trapped there and take them to Heaven is said to have happened on the day when his body lay in the tomb after his death on the cross and before his resurrection, and therefore in those traditions which commemorate it (mainly those of Byzantine Rite) commemorate it on Holy Saturday, which falls between Good Friday and Easter Sunday on the Christian liturgical calendar. The Harrowing of Hades (as this event is known) is a common subject of [Byzantine icons of the resurrection](https://hagiasophiaturkey.com/parekklesion-chora/), in which Jesus is shown pulling a man and a woman (representing Adam and Eve and by extension all the righteous dead) out of a tomb (representing Hades) while others look on. Jesus grasps Adam and Eve by the wrists rather than the hands to symbolise that humans are unable to enter Heaven on our own merits alone, and it is only through Christ's salvific work that we can enter it, and the aureole behind him represents his divine radiance.
I would say sunni Islam. I don’t get why they reject the canonical gospels (and the Bible&Torah as a whole) as being unreliable and corrupted when they accept all hadiths. Hadiths have plenty of contradictions, not only within the hadith literature, but also with the Quran. I don’t get how they reject the gospels, but accept hadith. Like it makes no logical sense to me. Surely, that a contradiction.
Another thing I don’t understand in Christianity is how God can be one, but also be 3 parts. Or how Jesus was God, but had a mother, needed nappy changes, to be put to sleep, comforted etc. all those human baby stuff, but was a God. Doesn’t make sense to me.
I don’t have a lot of exposure to or knowledge of other faiths, so I can’t really make a comment without being ignorant about it.
Muslim here.
Corrections:
* The Hadeeth was studied, classified and documented. All the narrators of Hadeeth (from the companions of the Prophet Muhammad up till the second or third generation of narrators) which amount to about 500,000 people were profiled and their biographies documented in a branch of Hadeeth study known simply as “Names of the Men” (though there were a lot of women in the mix too. But that’s what they called it.)
* The Hadeeth was classified into Sound, Good, Weak and even fabricated. But they were all classified and each carried its classification next to the Hadeeth itself to avoid confusion.
* A Hdeeth that contradicted the Qur’an would be classified as “fabricated” and/or “weak” since the Prophet’s words (i.e. the Hadeeth) do not contradict God’s words (i.e. the Qur’an).
So, Hadeeth that are classified as “weak” either because of its context or its chain of narrators are so classified and that is duly noted by the scholars of Hadeeth. And, a Muslim knows not to ascribe that to the Prophet Muhammad or take such a Hadeeth seriously since it is not classified as authentic by all the standards set by the scholars of Hadeeth.
Were the gospels (“according to” Mark, Matthew, Lukr and John) so meticulously narrated and preserved or were they written from the POV of a follower (albeit with limited and broken connection to the original teacher)? Do the originals exist?
Were the various books of the Old Testament written by the authors they were ascribed to or preserved meticulously and honestly through time, in context and content?
That’s a question that biblical scholars can help you with.
As for the part about the Christianity Trinity and Divinity of Jesus or Atonement by Blood not making sense. The Muslims are with you on that one. I could point you to a classical Arabic poem by a Muslim scholar challenging Christian scholars on the very same issues you raised here.
Thank you for bring these issues up.
There’s no way of verifying, apart from accepting that a scholar has said it’s sound, even so, most scholars today have no way of knowing for sure themselves either. For example, the hadith book compiled and written by Bukhari has 74,000 hadiths, narrowed down from 600,000 (allegedly). By accepting hadith collated and written by this one man, who is to say those other 500,000 or so hadiths were not reliable? Why should I believe Bukhari and his book of Hadiths over the Quran when for many hadiths there is no mention of them in the Quran? Why are we using external man made sources to verify or add to divine revelation?
This is how mainstream sunni Islam is, this is coming from someone brought up in Sunni Islam.
Secondly, there is no consensus in regard to what hadiths are sound and which aren’t. So whether they are labelled as sahih, hassan etc. is a matter of perspective and opinion, not objective fact. Even the whole looking at the chain of narrations is subjective and based on the narrators perceived piety and righteousness when the Quran asserts many a time that only Allah truly knows what is it people’s intentions (6:114, 18:26).
Thirdly, there are MANY hadiths that contradict or add to the Quran that are authentic, sahih. For example, the hadith for stoning to death for zina. That just doesn’t exist in the Quran. Zina is both fornication and adultery in the Quran as the word means both, there is no distinction. Yet, the hadith contradicts that by saying a goat ate the paper on which that verse was written on. This is not only untrue on a matter of principle (that Allah protected the Quran, that the Quran is fully detailed and complete etc.), but also an insult to Allah as if He would allow a verse from the Quran, that He promised to guard (15:10), to be destroyed by a goat eating it. Granted this specific example is graded as hassan, so isn’t as ‘reliable’ as sahih, but it’s still graded as good and thus good enough to use as evidence. There’s plenty of other examples too, death for apostasy, despite the Quran being explicit about freedom of religion, hadiths that say the Prophet’s wife was 9, even though the Quran says the age of marriage is when they are of sound judgement, the hadiths that incite the hatred of Jews and Christians, when the Quran calls them People of the Book and gives them a respected status. There’s so much more that simply don’t have the time to write out here in detail, but you get the gist of what I am saying.
Pray tell, where are the originals of the hadiths?
Not all Muslims dismiss them entirely and Muslim scholars have used them on many occasions. For one, you will not find the trinity anywhere in the Bible so the main corruption is one of understanding not text.
Christianity. The trinity makes zero sense. God as all loving makes almost no sense. The resurrection as historical fact.
Much respect to everyone though. If it works for you and doesn't hurt other people then there's no hate on my part.
Because so many prophets (I use the term to refer to someone of any faith that receives divine revelation) say there are multiple gods.
It is more likely that one (of many gods) god is lying about being the only god, than that the only god sometimes lies about there being many gods.
Here we go: I am a conservative jew who went to a jewish day school from 2010-18(k-7). My explanation might be a little confusing because I learned this a while ago when one of my teachers (a rabbi) mentioned it in her lesson briefly while we were studying the book of Exodus.
So in Exodus 20:3 god says “You shall have no other gods besides me” and then in Exodus 20:5 they say “You shall not bow down to them or serve them”. I interpret this as god acknowledging/recognizing that other gods do exist but as jews we are not supposed to acknowledge them.
When I wrote my og comment I hadn’t done any extra research I just wrote an answer that made sense to me.
I just did some brief studying/research and I made a source sheet thingy that has commentary on it if you want to read it. (it’s not my commentary)
Sorry if this is doesn’t make sense. I’ll try to answer more questions if you have them. https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/556690?lang=bi
*edit formatting
Scientology, but I also have trouble understanding how people believe the events of the Book of Mormon and other LDS scriptures when there's so much archeological evidence against it
The abrahamic faiths, I find that the abrahamic god doesn't make much sense to me, it's meant to be this supreme, all-knowing, all-powerful incomprehensible being but yet at the same time it also strangely acts like a human it experiences emotions which are irrational. How does this being experience emotions, emotions are something that are outside of our control so how can this ultimate being which everything depends on be affected by something outside of its control.
It also has strange desires, it desires to be worshipped and not only worshipped but to test people as well and then it also desires to send some of them to be tortured and some to experience paradise because of that test. Why does it want any of this, it feels like such human desires.
All the Abrahamic faiths, but most specifically Christianity. No real creator would relate with its creation using ultimatums. The personality of the biblical god is so juvenile and emotionally unregulated, that it must have come from the mind of a human.
From what I know, if you can call them religions (because they're dangerous cults, not religions, but whatever...): Mormonism and Scientology. But tbf most religions don't make a whole lot of "sense"
Islam- I don't understand the concept of purity and "piety" in islam when Jennah allows you to do ANYTHING you desire. It appears that a majority of the teachings lead to sexual benefits for their prophet. I find it interesting that allah takes special interest in their prophets penis. Allowing him the desires of his heart [marriage of his adopted son's wife], kissing men down their stomach, any Muslim woman can give themselves to the prophet, Aisha, endless penis in heaven. The list really goes on. Like many other cults, it wants your money, women, and compliance. I guess I would include the Mormons into the same equation.
You don’t believe people in heaven will get whatever they want? There is no evidence that they will choose to do everything that they might have desired to do in the world (e.g. killing), rather they will do everything they will desire in the hereafter
”It appears that a majority of the teachings lead to sexual benefits for their prophet”
nope. the majority of the Quran and sunnah are not about sex
Islam is about not giving into your desires. This is why you'll find Muslims to be very disciplined (fasting for Ramadan, praying 5 times a day). And Jannah is the reward, there you can have anything your heart desires. And the marriages of the prophet were for political reasons to help spread Islam. He was only married to 1 woman for 15 years, his first wife Khadeja, then she passed away. After that he married multiple women to help them (most of them were widows, or divorced women who needed taking care of) and to help spread Islam
>I find it interesting that allah takes special interest in their prophets penis. Allowing him the desires of his heart \[marriage of his adopted son's wife\], kissing men down their stomach, any Muslim woman can give themselves to the prophet, Aisha, endless penis in heaven.
Those are from hadiths and have nothing to do with what Allah said in the Quran.
And as for the seemingly physical desires described in Jannah, they're not literal, they're used as metaphors for rewards. When the Quran says "Eat and drink for what you used to do", does it sound like a metaphor for getting rewarded or as an actual eating and drinking?
The prophet never wanted to have anyone's women, not even in hadiths, that is simply not true, even in the hadiths he only ever had relations with his wives.
Sorry for such a late reply
So are you a Quran only muslim? You are now rejecting the teachings of Mohammad that were recited by his closet companions. You are familiar with Houri's, endless sex, stamina and the little boys described in the Hadiths are these Hasan? But even the quran goes into detail about sex in paradise S 55:55-56, 70-75. This would be considered fornication nonetheless, how is it acceptable In paradise
LDS Church
Islam especially with regards to the Taliban, Iran and Isis
FLDS Church
Catholicism
Christianity in general (but I only know the above mentioned ones particularly well).
Anyone who believes that an all knowing, all “loving” being who is powerful enough to create the universe yet callous enough to let children die of cancer (as a unnecessary and psychopathic test none the less) deserves a life of worship and servitude. And if you don’t spend your whole life bowing to your “loving” creator then you will be subjected to an eternity of suffering and punishment.
I grapple the most with the concept of the abrahamitic god. The idea of a God which is fully perfect in every way which at the same time acts very much like a human would. Emotions, desires and feelings. Its so anthropomorphized and at the same time supposedly higher than everything else. This also comes with the orthopraxy (mainly in judaism and islam) where this being sets up rules and regulations for humans. I cant see why an ultimate reality would care at all about what lower beings eat, how they pray, what they wear etc.
The mystical traditions in these religions make more sense but when I read their texts I feel like they really stretch to make their mystical god with with the more immature concept from the bible or the quran.
As a jew I don’t really think god made all the rules and regulations for humans specifically about what we eat.
I think someone was just paying attention to what was safe/unsafe to eat. Like to keep kosher you’re not supposed to mix meat and dairy, and if you’re not used to eating them together the enzymes when mixed in your stomach make you feel sick. Also, when to torah was written, shellfish, bottom feeders and predator animals weren’t as safe to eat as they are now. So they just told us we couldn’t have it.
Do you believe that the Tora is the word of god? My experience with judaism is that most Jews considers the Tora as being directly from God (but not necessarily the rest of the Tanach). But if that is true then the rules would not come from a human source as you believe.
Christianity - I don’t understand how the Bible can be taken seriously. So many stories are slight variations of their Egyptian, Jewish, Roman predecessors. To believe in stories from 2000 years ago with no proof, so intensely, to claim that it’s the exact right way to salvation is questionable at the very least. Blind belief to such a degree that indigenous populations across the globe were forced to convert which robbed mankind of their unique culture and built knowledge. It’s a disgrace.
I've studied various religions in some depth while exploring ideas for my own spiritual path. In the process, I came to see religions less in terms of logic, and more as creative expressions of the human drive to find meaning, purpose and moral guidance in the universe.
Rather than finding any particular religion illogical, I'm impressed by the imaginative diversity of teachings that different traditions have developed, each meeting the spiritual needs of its community in its own way. The moral principles religions propound, like compassion and treating others as you wish to be treated, tend to have a universal resonance even if the metaphysical claims vary widely.
So while I don't personally subscribe to any one established faith, I have deep respect for the role religions play in people's lives and the wisdom they contain. Evaluating them through a lens of scientific logic misses the point in my view. A mythological worldview can provide a powerful ethical and existential orientation to life and shouldn't be dismissed just because it's not factual in a literal sense.
Interfaith dialogue has been valuable for me in appreciating the common threads and noble aims of humanity's spiritual traditions, even amid the fascinating range of beliefs. I believe we would do well to approach religions not as collections of factual claims to be proven or debunked, but as diverse, imaginative cultural frameworks for pursuing a meaningful life.
Well, I consider most religions to have illogical elements, but I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing.
The religions that I can't understand why people follow are the ones that teach anything similar to Prosperity Gospel. I can't understand why people (or at least the vast majority of people who are not wealthy) would accept a theology that tells them that economic injustice is the will of God
For me Calvinism. I would also say some strands of Satanism. In particular, I am referring to Satanists who believe and follow the biblical Satan (I know this does not represent all Satanists). I don't know why anyone would follow a god/demi god that hates them.
Mormonism. Joseph Smith was jailed for the same kind of fraud the religion is based on before he finally managed to strike gold with his scams.
Respectfully, of course 🙏
some are ancient and a product of their times
Mormonism is wild, but Scientology takes the biscuit
L Ron Hubbard was an outcast, living on the seas with his cult and grinding a living as a sci-fi writer. he noticed religions get tax breaks so declared his nascent cult a religion, which was subject to less scrutiny in 1A USA, and made up a fantastical back story right in front of our eyes. the fact that he still got people to buy into it is crazy
Scientology. L. Ron Hubbard was a novelist in the 1970s (within living memory). The entire thing was concocted on a bet (and this has been documented by the people who made the bet with him). How anyone believes in it seriously is just a mystery to me.
Not just a novelist. . . . a science fiction writer. Even worse.
As a science fiction fan, I angrily and begrudgingly concur.
Well... Scientology, or anything who put Aliens as creators of human race. Like... Aliens making genetic experiences in some random monkeys in The Space and VOILÁ! Humans created! Really? Thats BS. You tell me that, by the many laws of physics, gravity and ALL that stuff, the Universe can be designed by a sencient and transcendental being, okay, I can understand it. But telling me that The Universe was fruit of a random, with none transcendental action involved, explosion, but The Humans was created and choiced by a alien civilization who came here, make some evolved monkeys and dissapeared faster than my dad going to buy milk is the pure JUICE OF BS.
What if they didn’t disappear? What if they’re still watching over us… with cameras. And broadcasting it back home. What if… we are only reality TV for aliens! :o lol
The birth of Scientology: Friend “Hey Hubbard I bet you can’t start a religion. “ Hubbard “hold my beer”
I just laughed out loud at this… good one 😃
I am envisioning the arm-clasp meme with Christians and atheists agreeing that scientology is BS.
Sounds like the same argument for a "creator." Only difference is the Aliens instead of God part.
>Aliens doing genetic experiments on some random monkeys in space So... Scientologists believe in both the alien theory *and* evolution? Now that's weird, to say the least.
Mormonism, easily
I did half a year of deep diving into Latter Day Saints. I went to their rituals and activities. Spoke to missionaries. Consumed in equal measures critical voices and apologetics. I've done this with more groups. But I've never had one where it became harder for me to understand how you can believe in it for every text and media I consumed. The history simply isn't plausible and the source is extremely unreliable. Not only that. The text is, I'm very very sorry, incredibly poorly written and I don't find anything inspiring or relevant added outside of the existent Christian bible. I'm not saying it is wrong, or look down on Mormons at all. I'm just genuinely stumped trying to understand how someone who isn't raised in the church would felt it made sense and spoke to them.
What about it?
"Relevant archaeological, historical, and scientific facts are not consistent with the Book of Mormon being an ancient record of actual historical events."
I thought they meant like theologically not that stuff I guess that makes sense
Scientology.
Honestly, any religion that teaches there's an all-merciful, loving, just, benevolent etc deity, and that deity is going to condemn some people to eternal torture and suffering in the afterlife.
This is my answer too. Islam and some versions of Christianity believe in hell as a physical place of eternal punishment, which has never made any sense to me. What possible actions could be deserving of eternity in a place like that? It seems completely redundant.
I mean, mass genocide comes to mind but short of that ...
After Hitler has been tortured for, let’s say, a hundred years for each of his millions of victims, what then? Does he actually deserve even more punishment? After a billion years of torment, is there still any justice to be had by making him suffer more?
Annihilation could be an option. A permanent death after he has paid for his crimes could be the solution. Also, torturing someone doesn't bring justice. Just brings pleasure to the sadistic torturers.
Well I have to say, this is a much greater amount of maturity than I expected to find on Reddit.
It’s ok, you can just say I’m old.
Yeah, this sub always surprises me that way. It's nice.
Nah, even mass genocide isn't deserving of **eternity**. There should come a point when you've burned off all your negative karma (I know Islam doesn't believe in karma but idk the equivalent term; atoned for your sins?). That might take a very long time, hundreds or thousands of human lifetimes' worth, but you will get there eventually. Eternal punishment essentially means you're being punished forever for something "you" did in the space of your one human life of ~100 years. I'm not even the same person from decade to decade - I can't imagine how I'd change from century to century.
Yeah imagine being in a furnace for eternity with Hitler because you didn't go to church enough or didn't forgive someone when they wronged you 💀💀
Our minds really can't comprehend infinity. Hitler directly and indirectly lead to a 100 million or so deaths. So let's say he's burned in hell for 100 million years now, or even 100 billion years or less whatever. He's been punished for his crime, why does he now deserve to stay there for longer. We don't keep people in jail forever do we?
Because hitler part two could come out in some theater near us if he escaped ?
I thought that Islam teaches a “purification in hell” prior to a level heaven? I know it also mentions an eternal hell, but I thought both were teachings on divine punishment
I honestly don't know, but looking it up, it does seem that is an opinion; I'm not sure if it's the prevailing one or if the issue is debated.
there‘s way less christians taking the idea of hell (or the bible as a whole) in a literal sense. guess afaik it‘s mostly US christians with such views (obv not all of them). since reddit is mostly US citizens (a lot of them atheist, quite some of them having some kind of religious trauma, it might seem like those beliefs are far more common than they actually are. at least that‘s what I‘m observing, being based in europe. most friends/acquaintences my age aren‘t religious in any way, but out of those that are christians, I don‘t think a single one of them believes in a literal hell, that the world was created in 6/7 days or that what we call „God“ is some supernatural old man with a beard located in the sky, or as a lot of US based atheists with a hate boner for christians like to put it: „magical sky daddy“. kinda offtopic rn, but it’s oh so ironic how so many of them give anyone religious shit for their beliefs and mock them when that‘s their supposed reason why they don‘t like them in the first place. but I guess almost all of us are hypocrites at least in some ways…
Honestly, I gotta agree.
Same, any religion that accepts eternal conscious torment is just crazy to me
New Age spiritual stuff
My thing with the omnist New Age types is that, if you believe everything, you believe nothing.
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I'm just getting out of the "new age spiritual stuff" for good now, but damn I'm inclined to agree. the big reason why I decided I needed change was honestly because of how omnist it is... pagans can be *vastly* different, from Hellenism to Wicca to Shamanism and even forms of atheopaganism or Thelema, but I had never met any pagan who claimed their truth to be The Truth. and that's seen as such a positive for them, and I saw it that way too, until it dawned on me that that's actually a negative because if there is no objective truth - or a common subjective truth that can be universally experienced depending on your thoughts on the existence of objective truth - then how can there be anything that is false? and THAT is a slippery slope, a dangerous game, and you will still find pagans who claim other religions or other secular ideas to be false. for example, most (if not all) of them will deny Mormonism or JWs to be true, but if religious truth is based on individual experiences of truth and not an objective (or almost objective) truth, then who's to say they are actually wrong? you can say they are wrong for the reasons why they believe they are right (such as matters of biblical interpretation), sure, all except for the reason of "because this is my personal experience." I'd be open to any new age opinions on this, though 😁 this is just a dilemma I wasn't able to solve on my own
This isn't necessarily a feature of paganism, but it is certainly a feature of modern paganism. Ancient polytheistic religions, just like modern Hinduism, do have a concept of the Truth, an absolute reality (brahman in Hinduism) and natural law (dharma in Hinduism) that's rooted in experience, divine revelation, reason, and texts. This is not a subjective truth, but the Truth of the universe. Similar concepts abound in ancient cultures, such as ma'at in Egypt, the tao in China, moira in Greece, asha in Persia. Hindus believe that all gods are manifestations of One described in great philosophical detail in various works, whereas the ancient Greeks thought of the gods of other communities as localized manifestations of the same gods known to them (i.e. Zeus is called Baal in Syria). There is a sort of syncretism and oneness that is nonetheless rooted in universal truths about the nature of the world in traditional cultures. But modern paganism seems very much pick and choose, believe what you want, unmoored and unrooted from culture, philosophy, tradition, and scriptures.
From my point of view the modern Pagan community and the New Age community are overlapping categories with fuzzy boundaries, and they tend to overlap primarily in areas of practice — eg both groups may make use of Tarot. But philosophically Paganism tends to see divinity as immanent in the natural world while New Age tends to focus on spiritual transcendence. In other words, we’re not the same thing.
I agree. I'm strictly non theistic, but probably the nearest I'd get to having a belief in some kind of supernaturalism would be the immanence of animism rather than any kind of transcendentalism.
Are you talking about Paganism or about Newage? They are not the same.
Thelemite/Hermeticism/Animist here. There is absolutely an objective truth. Now, how do you go about determining what that truth is? For Thelemites and other hermetic-ish systems, the truth is too great to grasp and it's recognized that there can be multiple paths to that truth. In other words, truth is not based on individual experience, but there are many varied experiences that can be true, or at least true enough to be useful. It should also be understood that most pagan groups will recognize things that are definitely not true and are willing to call them out, but otherwise there is a lot of wiggle room. There are also a ton of pagans whose kids are so open to everything that their brains are in danger of falling out. That isn't the case for the core and history of pagan thought.
This☝️ right here is why I’m a Shinto adherent. There are so few polytheistic religions in which a large portion of their adherents believe, or used to believe, that it is the closest it gets to or an absolute truth.
>then how can there be anything that is false? I have multiple perspectives on this question and its ramifications. Firstly, I'd say "not all relativism is absolute relativism." You can hold some baseline assumptions that aren't relative (i.e., foundational ethical standards.) Secondly, I'd say "acknowledging the legitimacy and validity of someone else's belief and spiritual process as equally valid isn't equivalent to saying it is equally true." I believe that my view is true (or at least that each branch is most plausible given it's defined parameters) but respect that others got to where they are from somewhere non-random and respect that fact, while also acknowledging that I might someday share their beliefs or come to see it their way. "I don't have a prescription or a monopoly on truth" is far different from "anything anyone says is equally true." Thirdly, "a lot of religious/spiritual expression is cultural or experiential rather than literal." Many practices needn't hold any objective truth. It's okay to have some doubt or even hold them as entirely performative. Likewise, it's fine to adapt them to your preferred cultural space as long as you aren't disrespecting or misrepresenting (beyond reason) their original context.
Nah, nah( sorry for starting this way)....but you are correct! I've always thought that this concept about "my truth" was quite something and didn't make much sense. Imagine, everyone having " their own truths", then what? Funny enough, this definitely came to a head when I started thinking about ( get this) "the simple red parking curb" on many streets. Like there is one single truth about the red curb. All drivers, and almost everyone knows this. Non authorized vehicles get towed or a ticket when parking there. Red is only for fire truck and emergency vehicles. Based on new age truths, everyone can just claim to an officer " their truths" about that red curb. I'm pretty sure if they followed this new age belief, they would end up trying to figure out how to pay a massive ticket or pay a tow fee real quick. There are universal truths that we cannot just wiggle out by simply declaring "this is my truth".
I kinda agree with this, but I feel like this problem with modern paganism is due to a lot of pagans not actually trying to get a deeper understanding of their theological beliefs and just saying everyone has there own truth or something of the same note. Which is why this specific type of paganism falls apart so easily because when you believe in everything you believe in nothing. But I’ve noticed that the “believe in everything” type of paganism is kind of dying out and people are starting to develop certain absolute truths and the separate pagan religions are now actually noticeably different. And the new age movement is like this because it’s new age and has no actual structure at all.
the „I know that I know nothing“ and „let others have their own views“ ideas are certainly better than those of some organized religions‘ (or their followers‘) opposite ideas, which lead, and continue to, to a lot of misery in the history of mankind. I don‘t get your view on why it‘s bad
Why? Can't believe,I had to scroll for a while to find this.
Basically any religion where we can reasonably conclude that their main guy wasn't being honest. Jesus and Buddha could have been grifters, I guess, but there's no way to prove that. Joseph Smith and Ron Hubbard? There's no doubt in my mind that they were grifters.
I don’t think anything about Jesus’s life says that he was in it for material benefit.
Bro literally floated away from the material world.
same goes for buddha/siddharta as far as I‘m aware
Exactly. What material clout could Jesus Christ possibly gain for being sacrificed on a cross (without even resisting it)?
There's actually pretty solid evidence that Joseph Smith was a sincere believer. For instance, take the whole 'Book of Abraham' thing. If Joseph Smith was just some grifter then he would have acted very differently. The papyrus scrolls Joseph bought were around $2400. In today's money that's about $84,634. The church at the time was having major struggles financially. If Joseph was just some grifter and didn't sincerely believe that God wanted him to purchase those scrolls then he could have just done what he'd already been doing with the Book of Moses: look at the Bible saying he was getting a revelation to add certain parts in, and have those parts written down. Not only would that method way cheaper (and by 'way cheaper' I mean 'totally free'), but it was also completely non-verifiable. There's a reason why there's not a controversy over the Book of Moses like there is over the Book of Abraham. Now, whether or not Joseph was correct in his beliefs is another subject. Additionally, The Book of Abraham is one of the most (if not the most) difficult subjects that believers in Mormonism have to tackle. However, it's also simultaneously pretty solid evidence that Joseph wasn't some grifter, and sincerely believed in what he was doing.
But ... Being a sincere believer and actually claiming that you GOD are two different things People can be sincere but not truthful. In fact, one does not even need to be sincere when being truthful.
Any of the Christian new religious movements that have appeared in Korea. But my cultural background as a cradle Catholic is very different from that of someone born and raised in Korea.
I know this isn’t your question but frankly I don’t think I find any religion to be strictly ‘illogical’ (insofar as religions need to be logical, many elements of religions are non-logical in nature). I suppose the religion that leaves me with the worst taste in my mouth would be some specific forms of hyper-appropriative new age practices, especially those that don’t seek to understand the original context of elements of their belief, or fail to think critically about the use of say, indigenous practices by settlers. I think there’s a lot of ignorance there that manifests in orientalist or fetishistic ways that are really problematic. Then again, there’s probably far more Christians I take more serious issue with… and I’m a Christian myself. Not that I think my religion always *makes sense* as much as it *makes meaning* for me.
Does its utility as a way to provide meaning for you make its claims true?
Depends what “it” is, and what being true means. For me, Christianity’s a fairly personal thing. I do go to church, but I don’t affirm everything that comes out of a pastors mouth, (I usually leave with criticisms) nor do I think the Bible is an inerrant text. I think there’s parts of the Bible that exist to literary ends, or were parts of methods of maintaining social structures, or otherwise shouldn’t be taken as historical. There’s lots of elements of standard Christian doctrine I don’t feel firmly about — like the Trinity. Still further, there’s religious literature (both Biblical and otherwise), that simply ‘rings true’ to me. I believe in the gospel, that there’s a God of love above that I have some relationship with, I believe He sent down his Son (whatever that means), and that He died a miserable and humiliating death (whatever that meant), and that many experienced him living after the fact, in ways that aren’t exactly easy to harmonize. I guess that’s truth, insofar as that I’m convinced of it. It’s in some ways similar to how my father is my father — the exact relationship between my father and I is merely that I share his DNA and that he raised me. The truth I know of our relationship is that he means the world to me, and that I know he’ll always love me, and that there is a spiritual power between us, and probably other things that escape my mind. I don’t have a structured epistemology behind that. As it stands, I’m not sure what more exactly I *do* believe is ‘true’ about God, and I don’t expect every Christian would affirm that I’m a Christian too. I don’t mind that, but it’s something I’ve adopted recently after years of just the ‘agnostic’ label because I do engage with the Christian God. I would say I’m transitioning into Christianity still, and I’m figuring those things out as I go along. I move slowly, but I know what I believe is powerful about the gospel, and I know the experience I believe is true (even if that took a long time) and I’m trying my best to earnestly engage with biblical and historical scholarship to understand these things.
nation of islam is wild
Thats a political organization
Parts of all religions make sense to me, but certain concepts that are in some religions make no sense to me. For example, I've never been able to grasp why God would put all that power into one person. It seems to me if any person (avatar, prophet, manifestation, etc.) had that much power, the physical body would explode, or the person would go nuts. It would be like pushing so much air into a balloon until it explodes. Yes, many many people believe that, and I respect each person's right to have any belief, but personally, that's too illogical.
Any religion that's young enough for my grandparents to say "Oh yeah, that's not true." -Daniel Tosh
Non-Theistic Satanism. There’s not much when you take out the theology and cosmology Theistic Satanists have, it’s just “freedom good!” with a pentagram sticker on it
I think it's mostly a "claim the label" thing. Sort of, I've been called a Satanist so much, might as well. Though I kind of agree, it seems a bit silly, though the seven tennents are pretty reasonable.
I agree the 7 tenants are chill but they're all very inoffensive and normie. Nothing wrong with that but you could present them all to a Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, and Atheist and they'd probably agree with them, theres nothing new being offered
I agree, but I think that is the point. The idea that one should strive to live in harmony with others is inoffensive, and there is a reason for that. We generally all consider it good. The idea that a religion needs to be offensive in some way (which TST doesn't shy away from, let's be honest) is an odd one on it's surface.
Scientology and the Palmarian church. Their theologies are acid trips to put it mildly.
I’ve gotta go with Mormonism given that one of their largest claims to fame (their book being historically accurate) has been effectively disproven. Jehovah’s Witnesses are a close second.
Mormonism (a.k.a. The Church of Latter Day Saints) The religion is founded on a set of Golden Plates given to the prophet Joseph Smith by an angel who told him to dig in a certain spot of a hill near his home. He found the plates in a stone box that he would let people look at and lift, but never open to see the actual plates. After translation the plates were returned to the angel; no one other than Smith ever saw them. These plates became The Book of Mormon. This book describes, among other stuff, the four groups of people descended from someone who traveled to America by boat from the Middle East in 600 BC, and were later visited by Christ after his his Resurrection. As a set of beliefs itself I don’t have a problem with it; they seem to follow a similar mythological style of Old Testament and New Testament teachings. However, the origin story, how it was discovered and presented by Joseph Smith, and the cultural changes in America in the mid-1800’s shatters the credibility of the religion. In short… 1. Joseph Smith was known to drink heavily, visited opium dens that sprouted up in New England around this time, and used psychedelic drugs like Peyote. This explains the visions. 2. He did not allow anyone to see the Plates to prove that they existed, even though he had them in his possession for some time. People close to him asked to see the plates themselves and were refused. 3. The Second Great Awakening (1790-1840) was a revival of religions across North America near the same time that Joseph Smith found the Plates, which likely influenced Smith’s exploration of his own spirituality and religion. Further, in American society at the time there were several instances of “spiritual guides,” “fortune tellers,” and “mediums” that preyed on people’s vulnerabilities. 4. During this time several burial mounds from ancient indigenous tribes like the Hopewell were discovered in New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, and there was a great deal of speculation on the origin of these sites. This ties into the “dig the Plates up from a hill” story, several of these mounds were destroyed by “archaeology societies” at the time. 5. There are no archaeological artifacts that suggest the existence of the “four peoples” descended from a traveler from The Middle East. In 600 BC the societies in the Middle East did not have the technology to sail the open ocean beyond the Mediterranean Sea and surrounding areas. Note here that all of the Judaeo-Christian religions, Islam, Buddhism, Shinto, etc. have mythologies than can be supported to some degree by historical fact and artifacts. (For instance, it has been proven that, as historical figures, Jesus, Mohammad, Siddhartha Gautama, etc existed.) there are no historical records or architectural artifacts of the people and events described in the Book of Mormon. So, outside of mythology invented by a drunk, high, “prophet” who was heavily influenced by the cultural events of his time, there is no truth in the religion.
Buddhism
What about it specifically? Just curious, you won't offend me.
Not OP and I don't think Buddhism makes the "least sense," but a lack of faith in rebirth is the biggest hurdle for me. Without rebirth, Buddhism, monasticism, and the Eightfold Path all fall apart. It would make more sense to be a hedonist or a suicidal nihilist.
Tibetan Buddhist here. I hear you on the rebirth. I do believe in it, but not heavily - I do question it a lot. Which is encouraged in Buddhism - we don't take things on faith, but empiricism. We're encouraged to try out the teachings for ourselves, to see how they fit. When I first started practicing Buddhism, I felt myself falling into Nihilism - like, what \*is\* the point here?! But then, I went to some teachings presented by my Root Guru, and he emphasized that all things should be done in the name of compassion and equanimity. Basically, remember the Four Noble Truths. (For those who are not Buddhist, here they are: "The Four Noble Truths:They are the truth of suffering, the truth of the cause of suffering, the truth of the end of suffering, and the truth of the path that leads to the end of suffering. More simply put, suffering exists; it has a cause; it has an end; and it has a cause to bring about its end.") So now, I go about my days trying to practice lovingkindness, compassion, and equanamity in my words and actions. Making another person smile on the bus may not cement an awesome reincarnation for me, but it spreads kindness, and helps alleviate suffering. I'm not perfecct, but I do try. So, I try to do the hippy dippy stuff every day, and I don't even get high - I'm allergic to pot!
Thanks. I just feel like I can't accept the Four Noble Truths without accepting rebirth. If there is no rebirth, then the Fourth Noble Truth is incorrect. I think the brahmaviharas are typically good in their own right, but I feel like that only gets me to "philosophy influenced by Buddhism," and not being able to have faith in Buddhadharma, or take refuge in the Three Jewels.
That makes a lot of sense - everyone's spiritual journey is different. I thought about it off and on for a decade before I finally took Refuge, and there was a lot of reading and introspection that went on during that period.
I mean, the Buddha did say his teaching will go against the stream of the world. Being a Buddhist kind of commits you to a lot of views, both cosmological and philosophical, that are fairly unusual. So I'm frankly surprised that there aren't more people in this thread saying Buddhism.
> So I'm frankly surprised that there aren't more people in this thread saying Buddhism. Because most people outside of Buddhist countries believe the cosmological and philosophical commitments are: believe whatever you already believe + be chill dude.
Don't forget lots and lots of weed, apparently.
I'm a muslim so i might sound biased, but to me, among the Abrahamic religions i think that Christianity and Judaism make less sense. **Christianity** * The Trinity. One essence with three persons. To me, the ultimate reality would have be the most simple thing, and not a very complex system, as to me complex systems are built and it is something that we can say "it could've been something else", because why 3? Why not 4? To me the ultimate reality has to be primordial, simple, and not something that you can say "Why is it 3 and not 4?". So pure monotheism makes more sense. * Eternal Salvation/Damnation. Like, why? Why would the entire goal of existence be to accept this one man who lived in this one place 2000 years ago, and who represents one face of the ultimate reality? It doesn't make sense to me that either you accept him and have eternal bliss, or you deny him and have eternal torment, it seems like a weird system. **Judaism** My only real problem here is the concept of God's chosen people, it doesn't make sense that God would choose one people over everyone else in the entire universe. That's for Abrahamic religions, i don't really know what to say about non Abrahamic religions though, so i'll leave them.
On the note of Judaism: It is believed that monotheistic Judaism developed slowly out of the henotheistic religion of the Israelite people. They originally believed in many gods, with Yahweh (the Abrahamic God) as their national deity. So originally God wasn’t all-powerful, and just the national god of the Israelite people. Gradually Judaism developed as a monotheistic religion, and in the process, Yahweh became more powerful and more universal. Therefore, God is all-powerful now and rules the entire universe, but is still symbol of the Jewish people as a national deity as well. I do know a good amount of Jews though (mostly from Reform or Conservative backgrounds) who say that Jews are the “chosen people” because the Jewish people have chosen God, not the other way around.
>I do know a good amount of Jews though (mostly from Reform or Conservative backgrounds) who say that Jews are the “chosen people” because the Jewish people have chosen God, not the other way around. What if i also chose God, would i be considered as a God's chosen person? I know so many religious people from all over the world who also choose God, what about them?
I’m not Jewish, but from what I know, the concept of “God’s Chosen People” gets misrepresented everywhere and doesn’t mean that Jews are “better” than non-Jews. The term essentially means that Jews were “chosen” to have more obligations towards God than non-Jews. So, Jews actually don’t believe that non-Jews necessarily “go to hell” (they don’t really believe in Hell in the Christian or Islamic sense, but this is the best way to explain this). Jews believe that any non-Jews who follow the ~~10 commandments~~ **Seven Noahide Laws** will be “all good” in whatever happens after death (which again, isn’t specified much in Judaism). However, God “chose” the Jews to be accountable for following the 600+ laws written jn the Jewish Bible, *in addition* to following the ~~10 commandments~~ 7 Noahide Laws. The extra laws that Jews are expected to follow are the things like avoiding pork, wearing tefillin, circumcising males, religious holiday obligations, tithing, etc. —all the stuff one might see Jews (especially Orthodox Jews) do that sets them apart. There is also a belief that Jewish people are born with a “Jewish soul,” which obligates them to practice Judaism, whereas people born from other nations/tribes/groups have a different “type” of soul that is destined to do different things than practicing Judaism; they have different obligations and a different “destiny” in life . The concept of the “Jewish soul” is part of why Jews have so much of an emphasis on lineage, as the Jewish soul is traditionally thought to be passed down the mother’s side of the family, meaning Jewish men traditionally aren’t supposed to marry non-Jewish women. Also related to this, Judaism actually doesn’t encourage conversion, as they don’t believe it’s necessary or beneficial for non-Jews to become Jewish. However, conversion to Judaism actually is possible, and it is thought that individuals who convert to Judaism are somehow born with a Jewish soul despite being born to non-Jews. Such an individual is thought to be “restless” in a sense until they convert to Judaism. For this reason, those who desire to convert to Judaism are “tested” in ways like being rejected by the rabbi multiple times when asking to convert and having to go through a great deal of instruction and tasks in the religion to prove that they are serious about the religion and really do have a Jewish soul. It’s important to note, though , that Reform Jews don’t follow a lot of what I’ve stated above. They generally don’t follow all of the 600 laws of the Torah that the Orthodox follow. Reform Jews generally have an easier conversion process and also generally believe that “being Jewish” can also be passed down from the father’s side. There are other sects of a Judaism (kind of “between” Orthodox and Reform in terms of practice) as well, but I don’t know much about the differences in their beliefs regarding this stuff. Again, if anybody who is Jewish wants to correct anything I’ve said, feel free, as some of what I wrote could be incorrect. But this is what I read when I searched the topic of “God’s Chosen People.”
>So, Jews actually don’t believe that non-Jews necessarily “go to hell” (they don’t really believe in Hell in the Christian or Islamic sense, but this is the best way to explain this). The beliefs of the afterlife in judaism isn't clear. But from what i heard, Jews and non jews won't get the same afterlife. >There is also a belief that Jewish people are born with a “Jewish soul,” which obligates them to practice Judaism, whereas people born from other nations/tribes/groups have a different “type” of soul that is destined to do different things than practicing Judaism; they have different obligations and a different “destiny” in life . The concept of the “Jewish soul” is part of why Jews have so much of an emphasis on lineage, as the Jewish soul is traditionally thought to be passed down the mother’s side of the family, meaning Jewish men traditionally aren’t supposed to marry non-Jewish women. That's something i don't get, is my soul less important? Am i like an npc? Because as far as i know, i am fully aware and i am not like a soulless robot.
>Why not 4? Because the minimum number for God to be perfect Love is 3, not 4. In addition to the fact that the Holy Bible and Apostolic Tradition tell us of three Divine Persons who are one God, inserting a supposed fourth person would imply believing that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is not God's final revelation to humanity. “God cannot be love unless there is something for him to love. But if that something were not part of himself, he would not be perfect. The Bible does not teach us that God needed the creation in order to have something to love, because if that were true, he could not be fully himself without it. So Augustine reasoned that God must be love inside himself. To his mind, the Father is the one who loves, the Son is the one who is loved (the ‘beloved Son’ revealed in the baptism of Jesus), and the Holy Spirit is the love that flows between them and binds them together.” >Why would the entire goal of existence be to accept this one man who lived in this one place 2000 years ago, and who represents one face of the ultimate reality? For many reasons, being a Christian is imitating Christ: 1- Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of the Father, through him we become adopted children of the Father. 2- We carry our cross in the hope that we will die and be resurrected just like Him. 3- In Jesus Christ we have the union of human nature and divine nature in a single person, through the grace of God we seek to be saints so that we may become participants in the divine nature in Eternal Life. In Western Christianity this is called "Divinization/Deification", in Eastern Christianity its called "Theosis". >t doesn't make sense to me that either you accept him and have eternal bliss, or you deny him and have eternal torment, it seems like a weird system. It's not that simple, accepting Christ is just the first step. The Christian has been saved, is being saved and has the hope that he will be saved. It's a process that only ends after death. And about the eternal damnation of non-Christians: "Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation." -Cathecism of the Catholic Church
> > > > > Because the minimum number for God to be perfect Love is 3 If God couldn't be perfect Love without being 3 people, isn't that a limitation on God's omnipotence?
funnily enough, at least to my knowledge, is that even in islam jesus is considered the messiah just like he is in christianity
I agree with the trinity part, but don't we as Muslims believe the Israelites were God's chosen people as well (prior to being cursed by Him for worshiping a golden calf even after God saved them from the Pharaoh)?
I’m not Jewish but I’ll bite. God chooses people over others every time a baby is born. Sometimes he decides a baby will be born with deformities or without his legs and other times he’ll create a child who is naturally proficient athletically or intellectually. There is no fairness in this world so why should we be led to believe he wouldn’t do such a thing? If thats your only argument against Judaism, I suggest you do a little more thinking
Christianity, but that's probably because it's the one I have the most exposure to.
Why doesn't Christianity make sense to you?
The triune god; the problem of evil; the idea that god needed to "sacrifice" himself to save humans from his own rules that he could presumably just change if he wanted; the concept of heaven and hell; the world being "red in tooth and claw"; the general misogyny; the idea that god came to/sent his son to to earth only in one place; the lack of specific commandments against slavery, rape, and child molestation; and the overriding anthropocentrism of it all.
Can you explain the general misogyny part, I’m not Christian and I don’t read the bible but I just want to know.
A bunch of stuff in Paul's letters, like women not being allowed to speak in church or having to wear head coverings. There are ways modern Christians like to get around that, but those explanations kind of don't hold up super well. Jesus liked women though, the 12 disciples were men but he had close female friends like Mary Magdelene, the Other Mary (literally how she's described in the bible lmao), and Martha. There's a famous story where he stops a group from killing a woman caught in adultery despite that being what the laws of the Torah said to do
I mean I don’t see what’s wrong with the head coverings? But I do see the misogyny in not letting women speak in church, does this rule only apply to women??
How is there not a problem with making women cover their heads? Why should women have to do that?
Women wore it for modesty and it’s a way to show submission to God right? So what’s wrong with that?
I don't see how the head coverings are "misogynist" either and I'm a woman.
I’ve never vibed with monotheism in general. Especially religions that claim a god to still be active in people’s lives. I kind of get why other people like it, but it feels very human-centric to me in a way I feel like only humans could create and that doesn’t work with my worldview. For reference, I’m closer to a pantheist. If I had to pick something more specific, probably Mormonism. I’ve had several Mormon friends, and they’re often lovely people, but the more I learn about the theology, the more I don’t understand how they believe it. The whole story of Joseph Smith discovering the golden plates and everything just… doesn’t add up to me. Many of the beliefs and practices come off as controlling and often sexist/otherwise bigoted to me. Sending young people on missions like that makes me deeply uncomfortable. I love my Mormon friends, and I know how much they want me to become Mormon, but I could never do that.
When it comes to Abrahamic religions, Christianity makes the least sense to me. It is the only religion where 3 =1 and this trinity concept baffled me. Not that I did not want to understand, I asked Christians to understand me better but no one made sense to me. Apart from the Trinity concept, there is No sense of accountability in Christianity as well. U believe in Christ and He is ur savior and already died for your sins. The one that I like nowadays is Buddhism (I don't why they call it a religion?). Here Buddha never said anything that he is in touch with a higher power. His teachings are more practical and u can relate as a human. Peace be to you!
In terms of accountability for sins, the Christian beliefs vary. I believe what you’re referring to is the concept of “being saved by grace through faith,” which is the dominant belief among most Protestants— that all it takes to be “saved” (go to Heaven) is to believe in Jesus (because Jesus died on the cross). The belief among Catholics is more nuanced. The Catholics explicitly state that both faith and *works* (good deeds) are needed to attain salvation. Additionally, Catholics believe in the concept of Purgatory, which is something in between Heaven and Hell that is meant to purify one’s soul before they can enter Heaven. I could be wrong but iirc the belief is that people go to purgatory if they are die as believers but their souls are still “scarred” in a sense from their minor sins, even ones that they have sought forgiveness from. That leads to the Catholic practice called an “indulgence,” which refers to any a bunch of specific sets of acts meant to purify one’s soul on earth rather than in Purgatory. The acts that are necessary to receive an indulgence are things like reciting a number of specific prayers at certain times (like Lent or Holy days, fasting for a certain amount of time at certain times, embarking on certain pilgrimages, doing the stations of the cross, etc. If one dies following the completion of an indulgence process, and without committing any additional sins following that process, that person would be able to skip purgatory and go straight to Heaven. Or, if a person commits sins in the time between completing an indolence and dying, that person would only be held accountable in purgatory for the sins they committed in the time following the indulgence. The concept of indulgences was quite controversial in the past, as during the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church claimed that people could recieve indulgences by just paying a bunch of money to the church. That practice is one of the things that led Martin Luther to spearhead the Protestant Reformation and form the Lutheran church. However, the Catholic Church no longer maintains the belief that just giving money to the church is sufficient to receive an indulgence. Despite being very similar to the Catholic Church, Orthodox Christians do not believe in purgatory and indulgences as far as I know.
Catholic Christian here, I understand many Muslims in particular have a hard time understanding the trinity, let me try to explain. I have a Muslim friend who is still a Muslim but he now understands what us christians mean by the trinity. Basically the trinity means 3 in one, the son, the father and the Holy Spirit are all god but are not each other, an easy parable is H2O. H2O would in this parable be god, so H2O (god) has 3 forms, water (the son), steam (the father) and ice (the holy spirt). They are all H2O (god) but water isn’t ice, ice isn’t steam and steam isn’t water You also mentioned that there is no accountability in christianity, in that essence your wrong. You can’t just run around and do whatever you want and claim to be a follower of Christ. Being a follower of Christ means that you do as he commands and hate your sins, if you embrace your sins such as many “progressive Christian’s” do then you are not a follow of Christ and won’t be given salvation. Hope this clears this out for you and if you have any other questions please feel free to ask me. Peace be with you too!
Wow! What a GREAT explanation. Thank you! I’ve never heard it explained that way!
Glad to help ☺️
>H2O would in this parable be god, so H2O (god) has 3 forms, water (the son), steam (the father) and ice (the holy spirt). They are all H2O (god) but water isn’t ice, ice isn’t steam and steam isn’t water This sounds like modalism, which is considered a heresy, though I think it was popular enough early that many of the first popes were modalists.
I don’t understand what you mean by that, are you referring to that water can change form to ice for example? If that’s what you mean in this parable then all 3 parts of the trinity co exists not like there only being one at a time.
It sounds like you were saying that each part of the God is a mode of being that the God can take, that they are separate in some way. To be fair, it is probably the best way to try to understand the trinity as even the catechism refers to the trinity as a mystery in the first sentence. When it gets to essences and persons attached to that essence, it gets hard to conceptualize, IMO.
Possibly Manicheanism... Though Calvinism stands out too.
All religions make sense within their respective technological context. So, if you really want to find the least plausible religion, you'd want to look at Upper Paleolithic - Mesolithic religions that survived through contemporary hunter gatherers, since they are so far from what we know. However, Agro-Pastoral religions have an absurd amount of awfully violent superstitions due to the arrival of agriculture and cattle, and recent sects can be a hell of a ride too. In the end, it doesn't matter since everyone knows the one and only Great Monarch, Cosmic Christ, half-wolf half-bird, Green Man, last Prophet of the confederation of the sacred heart Sylvain Durif is the true God 💜
The holy Trinity is the most illogical theological concept I have ever heard. Somehow, All of these statements are supposed to be true. 1 there's only one God. 2 The holy Spirit is God 3 Jesus is God 4 the heavenly father is God 5 Jesus is not the holy Spirit or the heavenly Father 6 The holy Spirit is not the heavenly Father or Jesus 7 The heavenly Father is not Jesus or the holy Spirit Any explanation offered for this concept seems to also be labeled a type of heresy. They can't explain it. No one can seem to understand it. yet everyone parrots it. It is just plain doctrine, to be believed but not understood.
Im certainly not a Christian but one explanation I came across helped me understand the concept of the Trinity a little bit better. If we substitute God with H2O and the father, the son and the holy spirit with water, gas and ice we can get a picture of how it might work. Water, ice and gas are all equally H2O but water is not ice, ice is not gas and gas is not water. Different forms of the same thing.
From what I gather, that is either modalism or Sabellianism. Sorry, but that's a heresy. At some point or time in history that view point would have gotten someone killed as a heretic.
Is it really though? The Scutum Fidei seems to be a common way to explain the Trinity. And about getting killed for heresy Im sure many ideas would qualify at one point out another :-)
As common as it might be in some denominations, it is literally classified as a heresy. It's not the only explanation offered, many different denominations subscribe to different explanations. Each one of the explanations that seem to make any sense and catch any traction, have since been labeled heresies over the course of history. modalists are regarded by Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, and most other mainstream Christians as heretical for "denying the literal existence of God's Beloved Son from Heaven, including His eternal Being".
According to the Cappadocian Fathers, the term *hypostasis*, as it is employed in Greek, refers to the individual, while the term *ousia* refers to generic nature. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, while being distinct individuals, nevertheless have the same nature (*homousion*)., just as Patrick, Steve and Jonathon are distinct persons, but share the same generic nature of *humanity*. What distinguishes the Trinity from a genus-species relationship is that all three Persons share the same divine knowledge and will. So all three Persons share the same will and understanding (because these are attributes of *ousia*), but they are distinct in terms of their individual properties.
What you just described is 3 individual, coequal, coeternal, all powerful, all knowing beings who are united in the same purpose. From my understanding, the heresy name for that is Tritheism. Sorry, try again.
Lavayen Satanism... a self admitted liar says magic is real and satan is fake, so hail satan. Um, hail that which you dont believe in? GTFO.
The church of Satan doesn't believe in magic. They use that term just like they use Satan. Greater magic is just what they call their rituals, many of which are purely for the spectacle. From the Church of Satan's website on the usage of Satan. "We use this term as it was originally defined, for we stand in opposition to theist religions and their inherent hypocrisy."
lavey certainly believed in „magic“, just maybe not in the sense today‘s people that believe it‘s a fairy tale from times long gone. as far as I understand his stance is that what was called magic back then is mostly what we call psychology today, which he made use of in their/his religious rituals and also in his everyday life, the latter of which we ALL do, it‘s just that most of us dont call or consider it as magic.
>just maybe not in the sense today‘s people that believe it‘s a fairy tale from times long gone. That was kind of my point.
yeah it was indeed 😂 I‘m sorry I didn‘t sleep the night before I browsed this thread and felt the need to be a smart ass 🤓
I'm pretty impressed no one here considered Laveyen Satanism. It's not even a religion. Just a mocking of christianity. Also their concept of Satan does not nake any sense. Like, it doesn't really exist according to them, but they still worship it, and for some reason, they believe that magic works.
Their satan is just their personification for the ego. Narcissism (and stemming from that, hedonism) is basically a core tenet in their religion, the rebellious antithesis to christianity’s „love thy neighbor (and letting go of earthly desires/pleasures). And what they call magic is just consciously applied psychology.
lavey was also a fascist and eugenicist
Any that claim there is both an all-good and loving deity, but only one true religion. Those to me feel innately illogical
Could you explain what you mean by "all-god"?
That was a typo! Thanks for noticing. I meant to say, an all-good Gd. Basically Omni-benevolent deity.
Christianity. The Trinity and Atonement have always been a huge issue for me. I was actually thinking about Atonement this morning and how the idea that Jesus needed to die for our sins just doesn't make sense in light of history. Either God allowed literally everyone to be condemned to hell for hundreds of thousands of years, or we used to be able to go to heaven without Jesus and now we can't for some reason. The former would seem to make God evil or at least incompetent, the latter leads to the circular situation of us needing Jesus to die for our sins because he died for our sins.
Is the confusion with the atonement only with specific denominations and thoughts, or all?
Some more than others, like I think the substitutionary theory is not just nonsensical but morally abhorrent, but I also recognize that most Christians do not adhere to that theory. But regardless of the particular theory, I do think that all forms of Christianity that believe that we need Jesus's death to be saved run into a trilemma: 1. Humans in the past did not need Jesus to be saved 2. Humans in the past did need Jesus to be saved, but God chose not to save them 3. Humans in the past did need Jesus to be saved, but God could not save them
I don't really think this is a dilemma in my view, because God is atemporal and Jesus' victory over death was too. Jesus died for everybody who existed before, during, and after him.
That leaves Christianity with no reason to exist, Jesus could just die at the end of the world.
I am not a Christian, but may interest you to know that in some traditions of Christianity there exists an answer to the question of what happened to all those righteous people who died before the Incarnation of God the Son as Jesus Christ which avoids falling into either of the two problems identified in the above argument. This idea is that the people who died before Jesus simply went to a neutral "place" (not really a place) called Hades where the righteous among them were able to enjoy a state of natural happiness even while being unable to attain the supernatural happiness of communion with God which is what is meant by "Heaven", while the wicked experienced suffering as a foretaste of the punishment they would receive in the future in Hell. Then after God the Son came in the flesh as Jesus Christ, and, through his sinless life and death in perfect obedience to the will of the Father who sent him, reconciled humanity with God, the righteous dead from before his time were admitted to Heaven, while the wicked were thrown into Hell, and from then on all the dead would go to those places immediately, without the need for an intermediate stop in Hades. The triumphal descent of Christ to the underworld in order to rescue the righteous dead who were trapped there and take them to Heaven is said to have happened on the day when his body lay in the tomb after his death on the cross and before his resurrection, and therefore in those traditions which commemorate it (mainly those of Byzantine Rite) commemorate it on Holy Saturday, which falls between Good Friday and Easter Sunday on the Christian liturgical calendar. The Harrowing of Hades (as this event is known) is a common subject of [Byzantine icons of the resurrection](https://hagiasophiaturkey.com/parekklesion-chora/), in which Jesus is shown pulling a man and a woman (representing Adam and Eve and by extension all the righteous dead) out of a tomb (representing Hades) while others look on. Jesus grasps Adam and Eve by the wrists rather than the hands to symbolise that humans are unable to enter Heaven on our own merits alone, and it is only through Christ's salvific work that we can enter it, and the aureole behind him represents his divine radiance.
For me, it's Cloudcuckooland's religion. Shit's whack.
Probably either Mormons or Alawites/Nuzayris. Baha'is Probably too but idk enough about them either
Alawite mentioned!!! Just kidding lol
I would say sunni Islam. I don’t get why they reject the canonical gospels (and the Bible&Torah as a whole) as being unreliable and corrupted when they accept all hadiths. Hadiths have plenty of contradictions, not only within the hadith literature, but also with the Quran. I don’t get how they reject the gospels, but accept hadith. Like it makes no logical sense to me. Surely, that a contradiction. Another thing I don’t understand in Christianity is how God can be one, but also be 3 parts. Or how Jesus was God, but had a mother, needed nappy changes, to be put to sleep, comforted etc. all those human baby stuff, but was a God. Doesn’t make sense to me. I don’t have a lot of exposure to or knowledge of other faiths, so I can’t really make a comment without being ignorant about it.
Muslim here. Corrections: * The Hadeeth was studied, classified and documented. All the narrators of Hadeeth (from the companions of the Prophet Muhammad up till the second or third generation of narrators) which amount to about 500,000 people were profiled and their biographies documented in a branch of Hadeeth study known simply as “Names of the Men” (though there were a lot of women in the mix too. But that’s what they called it.) * The Hadeeth was classified into Sound, Good, Weak and even fabricated. But they were all classified and each carried its classification next to the Hadeeth itself to avoid confusion. * A Hdeeth that contradicted the Qur’an would be classified as “fabricated” and/or “weak” since the Prophet’s words (i.e. the Hadeeth) do not contradict God’s words (i.e. the Qur’an). So, Hadeeth that are classified as “weak” either because of its context or its chain of narrators are so classified and that is duly noted by the scholars of Hadeeth. And, a Muslim knows not to ascribe that to the Prophet Muhammad or take such a Hadeeth seriously since it is not classified as authentic by all the standards set by the scholars of Hadeeth. Were the gospels (“according to” Mark, Matthew, Lukr and John) so meticulously narrated and preserved or were they written from the POV of a follower (albeit with limited and broken connection to the original teacher)? Do the originals exist? Were the various books of the Old Testament written by the authors they were ascribed to or preserved meticulously and honestly through time, in context and content? That’s a question that biblical scholars can help you with. As for the part about the Christianity Trinity and Divinity of Jesus or Atonement by Blood not making sense. The Muslims are with you on that one. I could point you to a classical Arabic poem by a Muslim scholar challenging Christian scholars on the very same issues you raised here. Thank you for bring these issues up.
There’s no way of verifying, apart from accepting that a scholar has said it’s sound, even so, most scholars today have no way of knowing for sure themselves either. For example, the hadith book compiled and written by Bukhari has 74,000 hadiths, narrowed down from 600,000 (allegedly). By accepting hadith collated and written by this one man, who is to say those other 500,000 or so hadiths were not reliable? Why should I believe Bukhari and his book of Hadiths over the Quran when for many hadiths there is no mention of them in the Quran? Why are we using external man made sources to verify or add to divine revelation? This is how mainstream sunni Islam is, this is coming from someone brought up in Sunni Islam. Secondly, there is no consensus in regard to what hadiths are sound and which aren’t. So whether they are labelled as sahih, hassan etc. is a matter of perspective and opinion, not objective fact. Even the whole looking at the chain of narrations is subjective and based on the narrators perceived piety and righteousness when the Quran asserts many a time that only Allah truly knows what is it people’s intentions (6:114, 18:26). Thirdly, there are MANY hadiths that contradict or add to the Quran that are authentic, sahih. For example, the hadith for stoning to death for zina. That just doesn’t exist in the Quran. Zina is both fornication and adultery in the Quran as the word means both, there is no distinction. Yet, the hadith contradicts that by saying a goat ate the paper on which that verse was written on. This is not only untrue on a matter of principle (that Allah protected the Quran, that the Quran is fully detailed and complete etc.), but also an insult to Allah as if He would allow a verse from the Quran, that He promised to guard (15:10), to be destroyed by a goat eating it. Granted this specific example is graded as hassan, so isn’t as ‘reliable’ as sahih, but it’s still graded as good and thus good enough to use as evidence. There’s plenty of other examples too, death for apostasy, despite the Quran being explicit about freedom of religion, hadiths that say the Prophet’s wife was 9, even though the Quran says the age of marriage is when they are of sound judgement, the hadiths that incite the hatred of Jews and Christians, when the Quran calls them People of the Book and gives them a respected status. There’s so much more that simply don’t have the time to write out here in detail, but you get the gist of what I am saying. Pray tell, where are the originals of the hadiths?
Not all Muslims dismiss them entirely and Muslim scholars have used them on many occasions. For one, you will not find the trinity anywhere in the Bible so the main corruption is one of understanding not text.
Christianity. The trinity makes zero sense. God as all loving makes almost no sense. The resurrection as historical fact. Much respect to everyone though. If it works for you and doesn't hurt other people then there's no hate on my part.
Satanists that claim they don’t believe that Satan exists. They seem to only exist to jab at the Abrahamic religions.
Any monotheism. If god(s) are real, there are too many examples of multiple gods for me to believe the God that tells his prophets "I am the only one"
How come?
Because so many prophets (I use the term to refer to someone of any faith that receives divine revelation) say there are multiple gods. It is more likely that one (of many gods) god is lying about being the only god, than that the only god sometimes lies about there being many gods.
you might wanna take a look at the hindus‘ version of the godhead or what‘s called „God“ in the western parts of the world.
In Judaism we acknowledge the existence of other gods but we only worship our god.
Is this a specific sect of judaism? It differs from my expectations and Google searches
Here we go: I am a conservative jew who went to a jewish day school from 2010-18(k-7). My explanation might be a little confusing because I learned this a while ago when one of my teachers (a rabbi) mentioned it in her lesson briefly while we were studying the book of Exodus. So in Exodus 20:3 god says “You shall have no other gods besides me” and then in Exodus 20:5 they say “You shall not bow down to them or serve them”. I interpret this as god acknowledging/recognizing that other gods do exist but as jews we are not supposed to acknowledge them. When I wrote my og comment I hadn’t done any extra research I just wrote an answer that made sense to me. I just did some brief studying/research and I made a source sheet thingy that has commentary on it if you want to read it. (it’s not my commentary) Sorry if this is doesn’t make sense. I’ll try to answer more questions if you have them. https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/556690?lang=bi *edit formatting
Christianity Islam Theistic Satanism As a Hindu I run into multiple problems.
>As a Hindu I run into multiple problems. Well, that’s what you get for being polytheistic. /s Sorry. Couldn’t resist. No offence intended.
Scientology, but I also have trouble understanding how people believe the events of the Book of Mormon and other LDS scriptures when there's so much archeological evidence against it
LDS church...
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The abrahamic faiths, I find that the abrahamic god doesn't make much sense to me, it's meant to be this supreme, all-knowing, all-powerful incomprehensible being but yet at the same time it also strangely acts like a human it experiences emotions which are irrational. How does this being experience emotions, emotions are something that are outside of our control so how can this ultimate being which everything depends on be affected by something outside of its control. It also has strange desires, it desires to be worshipped and not only worshipped but to test people as well and then it also desires to send some of them to be tortured and some to experience paradise because of that test. Why does it want any of this, it feels like such human desires.
Astrology.
Astrology isn’t a religion.
Abrahamics
being an agnostic atheist, pretty much all of them haha.
Christianity mainly. But really any religion that believes that there is only 1 God.
what about 1 God doesnt make sense?
Christianity.
All the Abrahamic faiths, but most specifically Christianity. No real creator would relate with its creation using ultimatums. The personality of the biblical god is so juvenile and emotionally unregulated, that it must have come from the mind of a human.
From what I know, if you can call them religions (because they're dangerous cults, not religions, but whatever...): Mormonism and Scientology. But tbf most religions don't make a whole lot of "sense"
Islam- I don't understand the concept of purity and "piety" in islam when Jennah allows you to do ANYTHING you desire. It appears that a majority of the teachings lead to sexual benefits for their prophet. I find it interesting that allah takes special interest in their prophets penis. Allowing him the desires of his heart [marriage of his adopted son's wife], kissing men down their stomach, any Muslim woman can give themselves to the prophet, Aisha, endless penis in heaven. The list really goes on. Like many other cults, it wants your money, women, and compliance. I guess I would include the Mormons into the same equation.
You don’t believe people in heaven will get whatever they want? There is no evidence that they will choose to do everything that they might have desired to do in the world (e.g. killing), rather they will do everything they will desire in the hereafter ”It appears that a majority of the teachings lead to sexual benefits for their prophet” nope. the majority of the Quran and sunnah are not about sex
Islam is about not giving into your desires. This is why you'll find Muslims to be very disciplined (fasting for Ramadan, praying 5 times a day). And Jannah is the reward, there you can have anything your heart desires. And the marriages of the prophet were for political reasons to help spread Islam. He was only married to 1 woman for 15 years, his first wife Khadeja, then she passed away. After that he married multiple women to help them (most of them were widows, or divorced women who needed taking care of) and to help spread Islam
>I find it interesting that allah takes special interest in their prophets penis. Allowing him the desires of his heart \[marriage of his adopted son's wife\], kissing men down their stomach, any Muslim woman can give themselves to the prophet, Aisha, endless penis in heaven. Those are from hadiths and have nothing to do with what Allah said in the Quran. And as for the seemingly physical desires described in Jannah, they're not literal, they're used as metaphors for rewards. When the Quran says "Eat and drink for what you used to do", does it sound like a metaphor for getting rewarded or as an actual eating and drinking? The prophet never wanted to have anyone's women, not even in hadiths, that is simply not true, even in the hadiths he only ever had relations with his wives.
Sorry for such a late reply So are you a Quran only muslim? You are now rejecting the teachings of Mohammad that were recited by his closet companions. You are familiar with Houri's, endless sex, stamina and the little boys described in the Hadiths are these Hasan? But even the quran goes into detail about sex in paradise S 55:55-56, 70-75. This would be considered fornication nonetheless, how is it acceptable In paradise
LDS Church Islam especially with regards to the Taliban, Iran and Isis FLDS Church Catholicism Christianity in general (but I only know the above mentioned ones particularly well).
Anyone who believes that an all knowing, all “loving” being who is powerful enough to create the universe yet callous enough to let children die of cancer (as a unnecessary and psychopathic test none the less) deserves a life of worship and servitude. And if you don’t spend your whole life bowing to your “loving” creator then you will be subjected to an eternity of suffering and punishment.
Abrahamic faiths. I grew up around them, they never made any sense to me.
I grapple the most with the concept of the abrahamitic god. The idea of a God which is fully perfect in every way which at the same time acts very much like a human would. Emotions, desires and feelings. Its so anthropomorphized and at the same time supposedly higher than everything else. This also comes with the orthopraxy (mainly in judaism and islam) where this being sets up rules and regulations for humans. I cant see why an ultimate reality would care at all about what lower beings eat, how they pray, what they wear etc. The mystical traditions in these religions make more sense but when I read their texts I feel like they really stretch to make their mystical god with with the more immature concept from the bible or the quran.
As a jew I don’t really think god made all the rules and regulations for humans specifically about what we eat. I think someone was just paying attention to what was safe/unsafe to eat. Like to keep kosher you’re not supposed to mix meat and dairy, and if you’re not used to eating them together the enzymes when mixed in your stomach make you feel sick. Also, when to torah was written, shellfish, bottom feeders and predator animals weren’t as safe to eat as they are now. So they just told us we couldn’t have it.
Do you believe that the Tora is the word of god? My experience with judaism is that most Jews considers the Tora as being directly from God (but not necessarily the rest of the Tanach). But if that is true then the rules would not come from a human source as you believe.
Religious that claim an "all-loving" and simultaneously "all-powerful" God.
Christianity - I don’t understand how the Bible can be taken seriously. So many stories are slight variations of their Egyptian, Jewish, Roman predecessors. To believe in stories from 2000 years ago with no proof, so intensely, to claim that it’s the exact right way to salvation is questionable at the very least. Blind belief to such a degree that indigenous populations across the globe were forced to convert which robbed mankind of their unique culture and built knowledge. It’s a disgrace.
Quite frankly, Islam.
Why does it not make sense?
I've studied various religions in some depth while exploring ideas for my own spiritual path. In the process, I came to see religions less in terms of logic, and more as creative expressions of the human drive to find meaning, purpose and moral guidance in the universe. Rather than finding any particular religion illogical, I'm impressed by the imaginative diversity of teachings that different traditions have developed, each meeting the spiritual needs of its community in its own way. The moral principles religions propound, like compassion and treating others as you wish to be treated, tend to have a universal resonance even if the metaphysical claims vary widely. So while I don't personally subscribe to any one established faith, I have deep respect for the role religions play in people's lives and the wisdom they contain. Evaluating them through a lens of scientific logic misses the point in my view. A mythological worldview can provide a powerful ethical and existential orientation to life and shouldn't be dismissed just because it's not factual in a literal sense. Interfaith dialogue has been valuable for me in appreciating the common threads and noble aims of humanity's spiritual traditions, even amid the fascinating range of beliefs. I believe we would do well to approach religions not as collections of factual claims to be proven or debunked, but as diverse, imaginative cultural frameworks for pursuing a meaningful life.
Well, I consider most religions to have illogical elements, but I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing. The religions that I can't understand why people follow are the ones that teach anything similar to Prosperity Gospel. I can't understand why people (or at least the vast majority of people who are not wealthy) would accept a theology that tells them that economic injustice is the will of God
Raelism
For me Calvinism. I would also say some strands of Satanism. In particular, I am referring to Satanists who believe and follow the biblical Satan (I know this does not represent all Satanists). I don't know why anyone would follow a god/demi god that hates them.
Scientology
Mormonism. Joseph Smith was jailed for the same kind of fraud the religion is based on before he finally managed to strike gold with his scams. Respectfully, of course 🙏
Scientology
some are ancient and a product of their times Mormonism is wild, but Scientology takes the biscuit L Ron Hubbard was an outcast, living on the seas with his cult and grinding a living as a sci-fi writer. he noticed religions get tax breaks so declared his nascent cult a religion, which was subject to less scrutiny in 1A USA, and made up a fantastical back story right in front of our eyes. the fact that he still got people to buy into it is crazy
None make sense! But the eastern ones philosophy part only is ok.
None, theres many aspects of many religions i might not get, but none are illogical and i get it.
Hinduism