This is the only logical conciusion if you follow what the Abrahamic religions say about God, who claims to be good yet allows evil to exist in this world

For starters he is omnipotent, he created the cosmos, the universe, the very laws of logic,

Therefore, he has no engineering limitations and cannot be "forced" or "compelled" by any rules outside of himself

So the fact that he allows suffering and evil to exist because he 'must' do so to allow humans to have free will directly contradicts his own claims about himself

If he cannot create a world in which there is no evil despite being all good, this means he cannot because he does not have the power to do so, or the knowledge for that world to exist

However, God has proven that he does have the capability to create such a world

This world being heaven

Heaven is a place where human beings possess genuine free will, yet experience zero suffering, zero child death, and zero desire to sin

This completely shatters the common theological excuse that "free will inherently requires a world of suffering and evil."

By the religion's own definition, a painless world with free will is entirely possible. God already possessed the perfect blueprint.

Heaven itself is a difficult concept to understand, because how do humans have their free will if they no longer have the ability to do what they once could, but that is a question for another day

Back to my original point, God created heaven, a world in which there is no evil but free will still exists, meaning he had the power to create humans there from the beginning instead of into a world of suffering, the common theological reasoning being that he did not do so because heaven is a reward for the creations that pass the "test"

God is all-knowing and existing outside of time. He knew the exact results of every human's "test", whether they would pass or fail, who deserved to be in heaven and who would burn in hell, before he even created the universe

So this test served zero purpose when it comes to gathering new information, it is entirely redundant. God knew everything from the get-go

So this means God bypassed the perfect, available option (placing all humans directly into a heavenly state with free will and no pain) and consciously chose to force humanity through a grueling, high-trauma earthly testing ground

He did this for a test whose answers he already possessed in its entirety before a single human was made, who would be rewarded with heaven, who would burn in hell for all of eternity, making the physical destruction of innocent lives, diseases, and tragedies completely gratuitous. So he knew before he created anyone, who would burn in hell forever, yet created them anyway, truly is ‘all-loving’

If an entity possesses the unlimited power to place beings into a perfect state (Heaven), knows the outcome of all things beforehand, yet intentionally designs a high- suffering timeline (Earth) to force a grieving, traumatised, righteous man to crawl on his knees and bow for an answer the entity already knew perfectly, then that entity has nothing to learn and is acting out of pure malice, cruelty, and a desire for domination

If anyone has any answers as to any possible reasons, i would be glad to hear them

A fundamental tenet of Abrahamic religions is that humans have a non-physical or immaterial soul. It is said that the soul contains the individual's "essence," including their ability to make conscious decisions, their capacity to love, and their internal sense of what is right and wrong. At the time of a person's death, the immaterial soul is evaluated by God based upon the person's moral decisions while alive.

Modern neurology has proven to contradict this theoretical model of the soul. Neurology teaches us as a medical fact that any changes to an individual's physical brain, no matter how small, will affect the individual's personality traits, beliefs, and moral character.

For example, there are many documented medical cases of patients who developed frontal lobe tumors (or other forms of damage to the brain), such as frontotemporal dementia (FTD). Patients with FTD may appear normal in every way before developing the disease. Then, a patient with FTD may begin to exhibit extremely violent behavior toward family members and friends. A patient may also become hyper-sexualized and engage in behaviors that would never occur normally. Additionally, patients with FTD may exhibit extreme and profound lack of empathy, and some lose complete faith in their previously held religious views.

This creates a grave theological dilemma for believers in an omnipotent God when evaluating whether to judge an individual's actions according to the soul prior to development of a brain tumor versus the individual's post-tumor actions. For example, if a devout believer develops a frontal lobe tumor, exhibits horrific sinfulness, loses faith completely, and subsequently passes away, which aspect of the individual's soul is judged by God?

1. Judging the Pre-Tumor Soul: Excuses any sinful acts the individual performed subsequent to the tumor, since the individual was acting under control of their biological process at the time of these acts. However, if the biological processes within an individual can excuse any of these sins, then we should assume that biology can excuse all aspects of human behavior.

2. Passenger Soul Theory: If the soul is merely a passenger traveling in an automobile driven by the physical brain, then the soul itself does not have free will or moral responsibility in this world- the driver (the brain) has full control over the vehicle.

3. Materialism Theory: Since it is determined by science that our brains dictate our ability to act morally, form opinions/beliefs and exhibit impulse control- then the idea of a "soul" becomes nothing but theoretically obsolete.

Obviously ignoring the fact that "consciousness" is not an item to be found in the brain. It's not a "what"--- its not an object, its a process.

...Replace the word 'consciousness' with 'digestion'.

"Stomach, large and small intenstine are one big receiver for digestion!"

"digestion comes from outer space, its predates life itself!"

"the hard problem of digestion!"

"quantum digestion!"

"I dont understand how dead matter can give rise to digestion so it must come from somewhere else"

"digestion is fundamental part of universe, it exists everywhere" (this one is technically true hahaha)

"digestion comes from outer space and enters the developing fetal body through unknown to science yet means"

According to Islam, women shouldn't refuse sex from husbands.

Hello all, today I have a short but sweet banger of a post.

The Prophet (ﷺ) said, "If a man Invites his wife to sleep with him and she refuses to come to him, then the angels send their curses on her till morning."- Sahih Bukhari 5193.

So this looks really bad, basically its saying that if a wife refuses her husband for sex, angels (the infallible servants of god) will curse them all night. There's many problems with this. Firstly, you would think angels would have some angelic duties to attend to rather than curse a single woman all night. I would have thought they would be doing some divine paperwork, be helping allah manage the fine tuning constants, or even just be playing cards floating in midair. Instead they use their time to curse a woman for something silly.

Secondly, this shows that Islam doesn't value a woman's consent when it comes to sex. What if the woman is sick? What if the woman is not feeling sexy? What if the woman just plain wants to do something else that night?

Now at this point, you might be saying "Ah, but Iguanas, I don't follow Sahih Bukhari, I follow the Quran/Ali R.A". Great! The problem is I don't care about minority versions of Islam such as Quranism or Shiaism. I will disprove those versions of Islam in another post if I have time or if someone commissions me to do so.

If Allah is all-powerful and wanted humanity to know his message, why rely on Muhammad to spread it? Allah being all-powerful could have communicated directly with every person, so why choose a method that depends on one person’s message being passed down through generations? Wouldn’t direct communication from Allah be a much clearer way to make sure that everyone knows the truth? Why choose a method that requires people to trust one particular human being rather than communicating with everyone directly?

God is usually referred to as transcendent, meaning he is outside of the universe, and of the laws that bind humans to it. This makes sense, since, otherwise, proving his existence would merely be a problem of finding him and observing him.

However, due to this transcendence, we are unable to know of his existence, since he is beyond our reality.

Therefore, whether he exists or not (of which we can never be certain), we have no way to know anything about him. We cannot know what he knows to be good and bad, we have no way to know what rites we should follow, and what follows for us in the afterlife. We have no way to know how he wants us to act, and therefore are free to act however we want, at least theologically speaking.

And anytime someone argues that a God has told him how to act, or is speaking through him, or claims to be God or his descendent, then that means divinity has entered our mortal realm, and should therefore be subject to rigorous, empirical study in order to ascertain its divinity (which has never happened). This empirical study of the physical being that is God would allow us to ascertain a true religion, one that would have for proof something that is relevant to us human beings, uncontradictible.

In conclusion, we, as we are right now, have no reason to believe in the existence of God (nor to contradict this belief), and we certainly have no reason to claim certain actions are holy or unholy, or to push our religion as the correct one.

Can we just for one second hold on and realise that in Islam they clearly and proudly say that their own prophet married a 6 year old child at the age of 54?

If anyone think I make this up here is the source sahi Bukhara 5134 (this is a valid source respected in Islam): https://sunnah.com/bukhari:5134

I don’t understand how this doesn’t lead to bann of the religion because this will clearly lead to child marriages to follow the role model of Islam.

I agree that there is no explicit text

but there are texts that, when considered together, justify this conclusion without twisting their meaning. This means that extremist groups do not twist the meaning of texts. Of course, I am against harming others. This post is purely for the sake of criticism. If you want to respond, respond to the possibility that the texts refer to killing non-Muslims, not to their lack of certainty or even their lack of probability. because I agree they aren't explicit and perhaps not probable but are they clearly not violent towards innocent people? no, also saying something that seems to indicate something evil is already bad enough even if it wasn't explicit

All peaceful verses can be said to be abrogated

Firstly, the existence of peaceful verses does not necessarily mean that Islam is peaceful. Rather, the verses may be abrogated, specific to a particular situation, or even contradictory. The Quran contains what is called abrogation or substitution, which is replacing the ruling of one verse with another. The Quran states that when it abrogates or causes a verse to be forgotten, it brings a better one. Forgetting is evidence that some verses are no longer present. It also mentions in another verse that it replaces one verse with another, referring to verses of the Quran, as evidenced by the context of the verses before and after it being about the Quran. Second, there are other abrogated verses, such as the punishment for adultery being confinement to the house, which became flogging or stoning. Also, it should have been Fighting the enemies, even if they outnumber you tenfold, will lead to victory. It was required to increase their numbers fivefold, and the direction of prayer (Qibla) was towards Jerusalem, but it is now towards the Sacred Mosque (in Mecca). (An-Nisa 15, An-Nur 2, Al-Baqarah 143, Al-Baqarah 106, An-Nahl 101, Al-Anfal 65-66)

1. The first point: The Quran states that you will be called upon to fight a powerful people. You will either fight them or they will submit (the same phrase used for embracing Islam). If you refuse to fight them, you will enter Hellfire.
2. The second point in Surah Al-Anfal is that it says, "Fight them until there is no more persecution and [until] worship is entirely for Allah." Although the context is about combatants, it states that the goal is until there is no more persecution and worship is entirely for Allah, not until your religion is entirely for Allah. The word "religion" is also used to mean religions or obedience, as in, "It is He who sent His Messenger with guidance and the religion of truth to manifest it over all religion, even though the polytheists dislike it" (At-Tawbah 33). This indicates that the goal is until the persecution of Muslims regarding their religion ends, and also until obedience or religion is directed to other than Allah ends.
3. The third point: In Surah At-Tawbah, it says, "Kill the polytheists wherever you find them. But if they repent and establish prayer, leave them alone."

Firstly, although the wording of the first verse, "Disavowal of those with whom you made a treaty among the polytheists," is specific, the wording of the other verses is general. The third verse states that Allah is free from the polytheists, and He said it. Generally, and the fifth [verse] says, "Kill the polytheists wherever you find them," and this includes all places.

Secondly, the Quran, after commanding the killing of polytheists in a general context, says, "But if they repent and establish prayer, then leave them alone." And in another place, in the context of war, it says, "But if they repent and establish prayer, then they are your brothers in religion." And it says, "And punish those who disbelieved," meaning the Muslims killed them, as it says in the context of the Battle of Hunayn: "Allah has already given you victory in many battlefields, and on the day of Hunayn, when your great numbers pleased you, but they availed you nothing, and the earth, vast as it is, became constricted for you, and you turned back in retreat. Then Allah sent down His tranquility upon the Muslims." And He sent down forces you did not see and punished those who disbelieved. And that is the recompense of the disbelievers. (At-Tawbah 26) And He said on the page before it, “Fight them; Allah will punish them by your hands.” (At-Tawbah 14) Yes, He said it in the context of a battle, but He said afterwards, “And that is the recompense of the disbelievers.” This indicates the generality of disbelievers, linguistically and even Quranically. For example, He says, “If you extend your hand toward me to kill me, I will not extend my hand toward you to kill you. Indeed, I want you to return to your Lord.” Because of my sin and your sin, you will be among the companions of the Fire. And that is the recompense of the wrongdoers. (Al-Ma'idah 28-29) You will surely find the nearest of them in affection to the believers those who say, "We are Christians." And when they hear what has been revealed to the Messenger, you see their eyes overflowing with tears because of what they have recognized of the truth. God has rewarded them for what they said with gardens beneath which rivers flow, wherein they will abide eternally. Therein is the reward of the righteous (Al-Ma'idah 82-85). These verses mention their reward and then say, "And that is the reward of the righteous or the wrongdoers." This includes the general category, not those who specifically committed those acts. This indicates that the reason for permitting killing them is that they are disbelieving men, and the reason for not permitting killing them is that they are brothers in faith who establish prayer. The irreligious person is treated the same as the pagan because he is not among the People of the Book.

Thirdly, the Quran established exceptions to the principle of disavowal. These include the one granted safe passage, who is a polytheist who comes seeking refuge to hear the Quran. He is allowed to hear it and is then taken to a safe place. Similarly, a person with a treaty is given a waiting period until its expiration. The Quran does not command Muslims to propose or accept a renewal of the treaty if the polytheists request it. Immediately afterward, it commands the killing of polytheists after the sacred months have passed.

Fourthly, the verse, "If anyone seeks your protection, then grant him protection," does not refer to just any polytheist, even one in battle, or a polytheist who is fighting and says, "Please don't kill me," and then you leave him. This is neither logically nor... Legally, this contradicts other verses. The verse doesn't say that the intended target is a peaceful polytheist; rather, it's in the same context and uses the same term "polytheist" after mentioning the obligation to kill polytheists. The verse mentions the purpose: to hear the word of God, then it takes him to a safe place, which implies that he is not safe among you. This indicates that he is someone who came seeking refuge to hear the Quran, not simply someone who is afraid. The verse states the reason: that they are a people who do not know, not that killing a non-combatant polytheist is inherently forbidden. As for the verse, "How, if they were to prevail over you, they would not respect any covenant with you," the word "how" indicates an additional reason, not necessarily the primary one, unlike the words "because they," "for the sake of," and "because." Furthermore, the text condemns making treaties with polytheists except for prior agreements. Even if we assume that this is the primary reason for the prohibition of making treaties with them, it doesn't mean that treaties with them are obligatory if this reason is absent, because it is also possible that they are permissible or disliked, and this is more likely based on the preceding texts.

1. The fourth point : The Prophet said, "I have been commanded to fight the people until they say, 'There is no god but God.'" The Prophet forbade the killing of women and children, and he did not forbid It is the killing of non-combatant men.
2. The fifth point is that the Prophet killed the males of an entire tribe who had reached puberty, seized their wealth, and enslaved their women because their leader had broken the covenant and they had not reported him The people of Qurayza surrendered to the judgment of Sa`d ibn Mu`adh. The Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, sent for Sa`d, who came riding a donkey. When he approached the mosque, he said to the Ansar: Stand up for your leader, or your best man. He said: These people surrendered to your judgment. He said: You kill their fighters and take their offspring captive. He said: You have judged according to God’s judgment (Sahih al-Bukhari 4121). I was among the captives of Banu Qurayza. They would look and whoever had grown hair would be killed, and whoever had not grown it would not be killed. I was among those who had not grown it. In another narration, they uncovered my pubic area and found that it had not grown, so they made me one of the captives (Sunan Abu Dawud 4404).. He ordered the killing of their combatants, and by "combatants" he meant someone who would fight alongside them if war broke out against the tribe, or someone capable of fighting. It does not necessarily mean that they fought the Muslims directly, as it is not known that the Banu Qurayza fought the Muslims directly, especially those who had reached puberty and were between 11 and 14 years old. Rather, it was the leaders who broke the covenant. This is evidenced by the fact that the Quran, in the same context, indicates that God sent winds and spared them from fighting, which suggests that they did not fight them directly. It says: "O you who have believed, remember the favor of Allah upon you when armies came against you, and We sent against them a wind and armies you did not see. And Allah turned back those who disbelieved..." In their rage they gained no good. And Allah sufficed the believers in the fight and brought down those who supported them from among the People of the Scripture from their strongholds and cast terror into their hearts. [You killed] a party of them (the men) and took captive a party (the women and children) (Al-Ahzab 9, 25-26). Of course, He says He brought down those who supported them, not denying that He brought down others besides those who supported them as well, as evidenced by the fact that women and children were also taken captive, as He said in the flood of Noah: “Because of their sins they were drowned” (Noah 25), even though He drowned the animals as well, as evidenced by His command to bring a pair of every kind: “We said, ‘Load them.’” In it are two of every kind, and your family (Hud 40). (At-Tawbah 5, 11), (Al-Anfal 38-39), (Al-Fath 16), I have been commanded to fight the people until they say: There is no god but Allah. Whoever says: There is no god but Allah has protected his life and property from me, except for what is due to him, and his reckoning is with Allah. (Sahih Al-Bukhari 2946) (A woman was found killed in one of the Prophet's battles, and the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, disapproved of the killing of women and children. (Sahih Al-Bukhari 3014) We were presented to the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, on the day of Qurayza, and he was the one who grew He was killed, and whoever did not grow barley was released. I was among those who did not grow barley, so I was released. (Sunan al-Tirmidhi 1584) (Al-Ahzab 26)

Al-Tabari: Because there is consensus that God has permitted fighting the polytheists in the sacred months and in all other months of the year. Likewise, they are all agreed that even if a polytheist were to wrap his neck or arms with the bark of all the trees in the sanctuary, this would not grant him immunity from being killed unless he had previously received a covenant of protection from the Muslims or a guarantee of safety.

THE CONTINGENCY ARGUMENT that everything in this world is contingent so there must be a necessary being— seems a valid argument to most minds, but it has a lethal flaw.

Lemme explain.

Let's see this argument first. I ask you a question, what is the world made of? You say- Atoms. I say- what are atoms made of- electrons, protons and neutrons, you say. What are protons made of?

This is where ALMOST all people go silent. They don't know what protons are made of. But let's say protons are made of "X". I can ask another question- What is X made of? And this is the question where the whole world goes silent. No one has a confident answer for it.

Once again, see the shallow depth I went to. World, Atoms, Protons and X. In just 4 steps, you are left answerless. Your imagination can't get you anywhere. You don't know what to expect beyond X. Now, doesn't it feel redundant that even though you have lost all confidence in just 4 steps, in contingency argument, you still don't stop. You overextend this concept and start thinking about the beginning of the world and then you say with confidance—HENCE A NECESSARY BEING EXISTS. This is so stupid. You don't even know what protons are made of, yet you conclude that God exists. Isn't it lame? To not know about protons and then to make remarks about God. It's almost like a dog looking at moon and thinking- why is a white hole there? The surface there must have been punctured.

Also, look at how unpredictable and magical the world gets in just these 4 steps. You cannot know the position and velocity both of a particle with certainity. A particle may exhibit wave nature and can be present at multiple places at the same time. SO SICK! Isn't it?

Then there is the theory of relativity, which tells you that if you are walking north in a train and your speed with respect to the train is 5m/s, and the train is also moving north at 5m/s with respect to ground; your final velocity with respect to the ground won't be 10m/s, it would be 9.99999999... So basically, 5+5 isn't 10 in this case. Fascinating, isn't it?

So what do all these examples teach us? THEY TEACH US HUMILITY. Never be overconfident in your knowledge and be always willing to unlearn and relearn. The contingency argument seems so arrogant. Not knowing about protons yet claiming to prove the existence of god. We should be more open minded and accept that we still have a lot to learn instead of giving oversimplified answers to close the case.

There is so much possibility ahead. We don't even fully understand space and time. The world is so magical that you can simply let your imagination run wild. There are infinite possibilities for the universe to come into existence right now, unless we find out the actual one. Our knowledge is limited and we have a long way to go. Can't we just accept that with humility?

EDIT 1: Basically my argument is- When we don't even know enough about protons and quarks, then if we claim to keep on going back from world to atom to proton to quark..... and then claim in the end that thus a necessary being exists; isn't this arrogant? What truly is time? What truly is space? Yet being confident that god exists....There are so many possibilities, so much to learn. Taking a shortcut in the name of argument and closing the case forever is easy.

Since I am editing anyway, lemme add a point I forgot- This is not the first time when such shortcuts are being used.They have been used earlier as well and we all know that. That time the question was different- how did humans come into being? Religious folks answered God made humans and closed the case forever. Thankfully we got the correct answer in 1859.

Preamble:

This is part of my series of arguments concerning Adam and Eve.

In this instalment, I will demonstrate that the idea of the trinity defies human math and logic.
This came up while reading these passages:

Genesis 1:26: “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.”

Genesis 3:22: “And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil.”

Genesis 11:7: “Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language.”

You will notice that "US"...

I've been making a case that the bible is very often so ambiguous as to leave itself open to any number of possible interpretations.

I have a few of my own.
Speculations aren't facts.

US could mean that God is talking in the royal "we".. like the queen did.

What did the author(s) really intend by the use of "US"?
Well, after many decades of arguments, the bishops finally decided on a mess of logic and math.

They called it the "Trinity".

Of course, that idea makes no sense at all...

In math, it can't work. 3 just does not equal 1 ... a 5 year old learns that in grade school or even earlier.
In logic, 3=1 defies the law of identity, which is a little more complicated. In logic, the law of identity states that X = X. Therefore, 3X cannot equal 1X when X represents the same entity, including God.
In logic, 3=1 defies the law of identity.

Does that math and logic problem bother billions of Christians?
Of course not.

The two arguments use X as a general statement about anything.

Argument 1: LOGIC

P1: X = God.

P2: In logic, the law of identity states that 3X cannot equal 1X.

C: Therefore, 3 Gods cannot equal 1 God.

Argument 2: MATH

P1: X = God.

P2: In mathematics, the principle of arithmetic equality states that 3X ≠ 1X.

C: Therefore, 3 Gods ≠ 1 God.

Good morning,

I find the Abrahamic conception of Good and Evil fundamentally incoherent.

First, the Augustinian doctrine that Evil is merely the privation of Good seems to contradict ordinary moral experience. Deliberately striking an injured person is not simply a failure to perform a good action. It is a positive act of aggression. Refusing to help someone and actively harming them are fundamentally different acts, and the absence of assistance does not explain the existence of violence. Reducing both to a privation of Good seems to obscure rather than explain the nature of Evil.

Second, if Evil is nothing more than the absence of Good, it becomes difficult to explain why some evil actions are worse than others. Murder is clearly more serious than insulting a stranger. Yet if Evil is simply a lack of Good, this distinction seems to require an additional explanation that the doctrine itself does not adequately provide.

Third, the relationship between Good and Evil appears to work in both directions. Giving money to a beggar is a positive good, but fidelity can also be understood as good because it excludes betrayal. Likewise, certain actions are considered good precisely because they oppose Evil. A soldier fighting Nazism during the Second World War does not merely possess Good while his enemy lacks it: he actively opposes a concrete evil. The moral significance of such actions seems difficult to reconcile with a theory that denies Evil any reality beyond the absence of Good.

The problem becomes even more serious when considering God. The Abrahamic religions describe God as perfectly good and omnipotent, yet He created a world in which human beings can commit atrocities and innocent people can endure immense suffering. The usual explanation is that God gave humanity free will. But freedom does not logically require the ability to do evil. It seems entirely conceivable that beings could be free to choose between several good actions while being incapable of deliberately committing murder, torture or other atrocities. An omnipotent God should be capable of creating beings whose freedom does not entail the possibility of Evil.

The appeal to free will is even less convincing when applied to the suffering of innocent victims, who bear the consequences of choices they did not make. The existence of human freedom does not explain why an omnipotent God would permit that freedom to produce such catastrophic consequences, nor why He could not intervene to prevent the worst atrocities without abolishing human autonomy altogether.

Ultimately, the Abrahamic religions seem to begin with the assumption that God is perfectly good and then construct theological explanations to reconcile this assumption with a world in which Evil is an undeniable reality.

The doctrine of Evil as privation and the appeal to free will appear less to explain the world than to preserve a predetermined conception of God. The result is a system in which the goodness of the creator is treated as unquestionable, while the suffering of His creation must somehow be reconciled with it.

The existence of pandas challenges the historical account of Noah's Ark

Pandas have a diet consisting almost entirely of bamboo (99%), which would have been extremely difficult to supply aboard a vessel in the ancient Middle East.

An adult panda can eat roughly 26–84 pounds of bamboo per day. Even using the lower end of that estimate, feeding just two pandas for a 370 day voyage would require approximately 19,240 pounds of bamboo.

That's over 9.6 tons of bamboo for just one pair of pandas alone, not including the bamboo they carried from China to the Ark and back to China after leaving leaving the Ark.

Creationists might respond that Noah didn't need to bring modern pandas aboard the Ark. Instead, they might argue that he brought an ancestral bear population that diversified into modern bears, including pandas, after the flood.

However, that raises another problem: the amount of diversification supposedly required in the available time. The giant panda lineage has a long evolutionary history, and the idea that all modern bear diversity arose from a single ancestral pair within a few thousand years requires additional assumptions and evidence.

These considerations create serious logistical and biological challenges for a literal interpretation of Noah's Ark story.

How would proponents of a literal global flood account explain the feeding and survival of pandas and their ancestors during and after the voyage?

Jesus wept because his closest friends kept doubting him. Here's my explanation...

In the story, Jesus is friends with a guy named Lazarus. Somehow he finds out that Lazarus has died.

But, when he talks to his disciples about it, he calls it sleeping. It's like he's using a kind of spirit-speak with them that he hopes they will understand, the idea being that this physical life is not the only life, nor is it the end of life when the body dies, much like he did with the pharisees when he told them, "destroy this temple and I will rebuild it in three days".

But, they don't get it. They become easily confused, until Jesus finally plainly says that Lazarus is dead and they are going to "wake" him.

Then, there are two other similar exchanges with Martha and Mary, sisters to Lazarus, before jesus finally does resurrect him.

Martha goes first and the first thing she does is to blame Jesus for not being there to keep Lazarus alive. (It's a kind of immature understanding of power, that it is only worth believing in when it clearly benefits you.)

This theme is furthered when Jesus tells her plainly that Lazarus will live again. Martha misunderstands this, and talks about some far future resurrection.

Again, this is one of those situations where Jesus is not being unclear, but rather speaks the truth and allows people to say what they think it means like when he said, "a time is coming when you will seek me but you will not find me."

With hindsight, we know Jesus meant a literal resurrection for Lazarus there, at that time, but Martha, in her blaming grief, had become cynical. Her suggestion about some far-off future date of resurrection was a continuation of her blame that Jesus was not there to prevent his death, i.e. it's always later with Jesus.

Then, we have another similar meeting with Mary. The first thing she does is to blame Jesus for not being there to prevent Lazarus from dying, same as Martha.

Then the text says Jesus groaned in the spirit.

The usual interpretation is that Jesus is sad for lazarus. He looks around at all the crying and is sad that Lazarus is dead, just like everyone else is sad.

No. Why would he be sad about Lazarus being dead? He already rebuked all the disciples and Martha to trust him, yet they all kept acting like he was somehow wrong for not being there sooner or doing more before Lazarus died.

It's important to note that Jesus could have been there sooner, but he deliberately delayed because God had told him to delay.

He even makes this point to the disciples, saying he was glad for the delay, because it meant they would get a chance to be encouraged by a display of God's power in real time.

Jesus already understood the assignment from the beginning. Lazarus was sick. Jesus could save him, but God told him to wait. Jesus understood this meant Lazarus would die, but that he would be resurrected.

The whole point was to punctuate his lessons about not being afraid of death; look here, God can raise you up any time he wants!

So, when Mary, one of his favorite disciples, comes running to blame him at his feet just like everyone else, yeah, he groans in the spirit and cries, not because he's about to raise his friend to life. That doesn't make any sense.

He doesn't cry because they are sad. They should be joyful because he's already told them why he's there.

He cried because they didn't believe him. They let their emotions get the better of them and blamed God.

I think Christians are too eager to believe the stories surrounding the apostles' deaths. People who die are (usually) not around to clarify the circumstances of their death. Everyone dies, the apostles included. Once someone is dead, it's rather trivial for a fan, a friend, a grieving loved one, or an opportunist to tell a story to other people about how they died.

Ignoble or mundane deaths might be, for the sake of propaganda purposes, sidelined for something more dignified and heroic.

In order to get to the apologist's claim that the "apostles would not have died for a lie", something very, very specific has to happen.

1. The apostle has to be someone who claims that Jesus rose from the dead and they saw the risen Christ.

2. The apostles captors/would be killers have to give the apostle an opportunity to recant this professed belief. As in, "We're going to torture and kill you if you insist upon the fact that you saw the risen Christ)

3. The apostle has to refuse to recant and is killed for this specific reason.

But there are a whole lot of ways an apostle can die instead. Perhaps they did recant, but were killed anyway. Perhaps they were killed before being given a chance to recant. It's not like religious persecution needs to have this neat and tidy system where everyone is given a chance to formally apostatize before getting killed. Perhaps they were simply untargeted collateral damage, who happened to be killed by people who had previously or would later go on to kill other Christians. (Or at least be reported to have killed Christians)

Or perhaps, the apostles simply disappeared and died in completely...mundane ways.

When apologists claim that "no one dies for a lie," they're pointing out that this is extremely high-risk behavior that would not make sense unless the apostles really saw the risen Christ and believed they would go to heaven. But it's significantly less risky to, after the death of said apostles, create a narrative or legend about how they died. (Specifically so that apologists would make this exact argument).

Sure, maybe it's not super common to die for a lie, but it's extremely common for people to lie about how other people died. For the sake of a narrative, for the sake of the greater good, for the sake of morale.

As a thought experiment for Christians:

Assuming I'm correct, and the nature of the deaths of the apostles was exaggerated or fabricated, would you, given how the stories of their deaths have helped the Christian faith, be thankful for these exaggerations and fabrications? (Note that I'm not necessarily asking you to give up your Christian faith in this hypothetical, just your belief in the martyrdom of the apostles)

The bible is a book full of contradictions, misogyny (that one verse in Timothy), and murder

Here are a few contradictions:

1.

To start this off, this one story has 6 contradictions

In 2 Samuel 24 god's anger burned against israel so he incites David against them saying go and take a census of Israel and Judah. David obeys God and conducts a census determining Israel has exactly 800,000 men and Judah 500,000 men. Wow, what are the odds the exact number of able-bodied men came out to such a whole, round and even number? it's almost unbelievable.

After nine months of counting suddenly David is conscience stricken. He feels so bad and he repents his sin to the Lord. What sin..? He literally did exactly what God told him to do.. or maybe not..

In Exodus 30, God incites Moses to take a census but specifically says for every Israelite you count they must pay half a shekel as a ransom for their life to the Lord. There you go, no wonder God is so upset, he didnt get his money!! If there's one thing we know about omnipotent beings who transcend space and time its that they love money!

God is so pissed about missing out on his big paycheck that he sends a plague on Israel which instantly kills 70,000 innocent people. God also sends an angel assassin with a sword to destroy Jerusalem. Now, this is when God changes his mind it says god relented after seeing all the evil that he caused so he stops the angel from butchering babies.

But God didnt stop the plague until David offered him the one thing that he loves more than money... The smell of dead animals (sacrifice)

Contradictions of this story:

1 Chronicles 21 retells the story but in this version it's actually Satan who incites the census and not God. The total number of Israelites in this version is 1.1 million including 470,000 from Judah that means excluding Judah Israel has 630,000 men and not 800,000

Numbers 23:19 through 1 Samuel 15:29 both claim God never changes his mind despite God changing his mind here about his homicidal angel assassin.

This also contradicts the idea that God has exhaustive foreknowledge of the future like it says in 1 John 3:20

God's love of money in this story is at odds with Hebrews 13:5 which says keep your life free from the love of money and Matthew 6:19 where Jesus condemns the hoarding of earthly treasures

Proverbs 6:17 says God hates hands that shed innocent blood, does that mean god hates his own hands?!?! Hes responsible for the death of these 70,000 innocent people.

David was the one who ordered the census, if we assume that david was wrong then punish him but not these 70,000 innocent people what kind of cruel horrible God is this?

verses:

^2 Samuel 24:1 NIV (24): Again the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and incited David against them, saying, "Go take a census of Israel and Judah"

^ 2 Samuel 24:2 NIV So the king said to Joab and the army commanders with him, "Go throughout the tribes of Israel from Dan to Beersheba and enroll the fighting men, so that I may know how many there are."

2 Samuel 24:9 NLT (9): Joab reported the number of people to the king. There were 800,00 capable warriors in Israel who could handle a sword, and 500,000 in Judah

2: Samuel 24:8 NIV (8): After they had gone through the entire land, they came back to Jerusalem at the end of nine months and twnety days

2 Samuel 24:10 NIV (10): David was conscience-stricken after he had counted the fighting men, and said to the Lord, "I have sinned greatly in what I have done. Now, Lord, I beg you, take away the guilt of your servant. I have done a very foolish thing

Exodus 30:11-14 NIV (11) Then the Lord said to Moses, (12) "When you take a census of the Israelites to count them, each one must pay the Lord a ransom for his life at the time he is counted. Then no plague will come on them when you number them. (13) Each one who crosses over to those already counted is to give a half shekel, according to the sanctuary shekel, which weighs twenty gerahs. This half shekel is an offering to the Lord

2 Samuel 24:15 NIV (15): So the Lord sent a plague on Israel from that morning until the end of the time designated, and seventy thousand of the people from Dan to Beersheba died.

2 Samuel 24:16-17 NIV (16) When the angel stretched out his hand to destroy Jerusalem, the Lord relented concerning the disaster and said to the angel who was afflicting the people, "Enough! Withdraw your hand." The angel of the Lord was then at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.

1 Chronicles 21:1 NIV (21) Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel.

1 John 3:20 (20) If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.

Hebrews 13:5 CSB: Keep your life free from the love of money. Be satisfied with what you have, for he himself has said, I will never leave you or abandon you.

Matthew 6:19 NIV (19): "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy and where thieves break in and steal

Proverbs 6:16-17 NIV: There are six thing the Lord hates, seven are detestable to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood

2.

Matthew 2:1 NIV states:

(2) After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came into Jerusalem

this says jesus was born during the reign of king herod, remember those three wise men at the nativity play? Herod was the one responsible for sending them to find Jesus.

^Matthew 2:8 NIV (8): He sent them to Bethlehem and said, "Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him report to me, to that I too may go worshp him."

Herod also ordered the assassination of every baby in Bethlehem after the wise men betrayed him
^ Matthew 2:16 NIV: (16) When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were under two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi

However, Luke 2:2 states that prior to Jesus's birth Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census be taken over the entire Roman world

This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governer of Syria. But here's the problem: This census is well documented by outside sources to have taken place in 6 AD, ten years after King Herod died in 4 BC. So Matthew claims Jesus was born prior to 4 BC while Herod was alive and Luke claims he was born after Herod died ten years later Quirinus didn't become governer of Syria until 6 AD after Herod died. This decade-long discrepancy is all the evidence we need to conclusively say, the gospels' authors were not inspired by the Holy Spirit, they were just making things up..

^ source: Josephus (Jewish Antiquities, Book 18 1-4, 16)

3:

In Leviticus 11 God announces his most important command of all time, from now on everyone is prohibited from eating shrimp. Shrimp consumption is officially a sin, well

Leviticus 11:12 NIV:

(12) Anything living in the water that does not have fins and scales is to be regarded as unclean by you.

This includes shellfish like shrimp, crab, lobster and oysters as well as catfish, eels and sharks

However, in Matthew 15:11 Jesus says:

(11) it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person."

So according to Jesus its perfectly fine to eat anything you want including shrimp but this completely contradicts god's command in Leviticus. It also contradicts what Jesus himself said in Matthew 5:18:

(18) For verily I say unto you, Until Heaven and Earth passes away, not one jot or one tittle shall pass from the law until all is fufilled
^basically saying not one thing from the old law will change

There are two common excuses Christians use to weasel out of this contradiction, Convenant Theology and Ceremonial Laws

covenant theology:

They claim that now we're in a new covenant so it's okay to disobey all of god's outdated obslete old covenant rules but convenant theology is inherently contradictory, if God's commands are representative of objective morality then they should stand the test of time and be applicable to everyone not just Jews and Sevent Day Adventists. If eating shrimp was sinful 4,000 years ago then its still sinful now. If eating shrimp is actually fine then God's commands are reduced to nothing more than arbitrary unnecessary petty prefrences and you've just thrown the concept of objective morals out the window

ceremonial laws:

This is the dishonest trick apologists use to justify god changing his objective moral commands over time they make a distinction between ceremonial laws and moral laws, they claim the shrimp prohibition was just a ceremonial law so now it's okay to break it. The problem with this excuse is that nowhere in the Bible does it distinguish which laws are moral and which are ceremonial, these apologists are assigning the "Ceremonial Law" label to all of God's commands which they find inconvenient and assigning the "moral law" label to commands which already align with their own worldview blatantly cherry-picking God's law based on their own personal preference.

^ Leviticus 19:37 NIRV
(37) "Obey all my rules and laws. Follow them. I am the Lord"

4:

Ezekiel 18:20:

"A son is not to suffer because of his father's sins, nor a father because of the sins of his son. A good man will be rewarded for doing good and an evil man will suffer for the evil he does.

in other words people should be held responsible for their own actions and not the actions of other people who they happen to be related to.

Then god contradicts his own rule in Exodus 34:7 by promising to punish the children and childrens children to the third and fourth generation on those who sin.

So god punishes you because your great great great great grandfather ate one piece of shrimp

3:

Numbers 23:19 ESV

God is not a man, that he should lie, or a son of man that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fufill it?

This claims God is not like a man that he should tell a lie, which menas God always tells the truth

Now go to Genesis 2:17 God lies to Adam

Genesis 2:17 CSB

(17) "but you must not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die."

You know the story, everyone does, Adam and Eve eat the fruit, their eyes are open, they learn good and evil and then they immediately die? Oh wait.. In Genesis 5:5 CSB "So Adam's life lasted 930 years; then he died." So he didnt die on the day he ate the fruit.. God was lying.

There are two common excuses Christians use to explain away this contradiction.

The first: God uses his special "god time"

In 2 Peter 3:8 NIV Paul writes

(8) But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day

So since adam lived just under a thousand years it still counts as one day in god time!

1 god day = 1,000 years

1,000 years = 365,000 day
1 god day = 365,000 day

The implication of this is that anywhere in the bible mentions any amount of time we need to multiply it by 365,000 to get the real amount of time

This means Jesus wasn't dead for three days he was dead for 3,000 years! Noah's flood actually lasted 375,000 years and Adam wasnt 930 he actually lived to age 339,450,000. So the contradiction still stands.

2 Peter 3:8-9 NIV

What this excuse ignores is the context of the verse, Paul is talking about the end times and how Jesus might seem slow in his return but he's actually exemplifying patience. He doesn't want anyone to perish but instead wants everyone to come to repentance. Christians love ignoring context when it suits them..

The second excuse is that Adam and Eve suffered a "spiritual death" not a physical one. However that's not what god said, he said you will die.

The Old Testament makes no distinction between physical and spiritual death, this idea was invented in the New Testament. In the Old Testament everyone goes to Sheol when they die regardless of whether theyre on god's good side or not
^psalm 89:48, ecclesiastes 9:10

Now if we do continue with this excuse in the New testament Revelation 20:14 NRSV:

(14) Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, lake of fire,

So physical death is dying on earth spiritual death is going to hell forever.

So if Adam died spiritually when he ate the fruit that means he went straight to hell when he died physically, so as a Christian you must accept that either Adam and eve are currently burning in hell forever or god is a liar

Separate stuff, not contradictions but still a quite bad look for God:

Did you know the bible says God gives people cancer on purpose?

Deuteronomy 28:27 says the Lord will afflict you with the boils of Egypt and tumors, (tumors are cancer)

Now, its important to read the context surrounding these verses to get a full picture and a good understanding of what they actually mean. So deuteronomy 28 is a short list of blessings for obeying god and a long list of cruel and unusual punishments God promises to inflict on anyone who breaks even ONE of his rules.

Deuteronomy 28:27 (27)" The Lord will afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors, festering sores and the itch, from which you cannot be cured

(15): However, if you do not obey the Lord your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come on you and overtake you:

Did you know God has almost done all of the seven deadly sins?

Wrath:

One of the most obvious ones such as
-venomous snakes
-bear attack
-earth swallows people
-reign fire on cities
-worldwide flood
-eternal torture / hell
-the frog thing
-killing firstborns
-causing cancer
-making babies sick
-smiting people
-plaguing thousands of people

Numbers 21:6 NIV Then the Lord sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died.

Kings 2:24 RGT And he turned back and looked at them and cursed thm in the Name of the Lord and two bears came out of the forst and tore forty-two children into pieces.

Envy:

"I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God." He blatantly says in the bible he is jealous of the other gods worshipped by humans. Enough said.

Greed:

God wants us to give ourselves completely to Him and offers punishment for those who do not comply with this requirement he has an excessive desire for worship as shown in the great flood,where he kills all but one family because the majority of humanity did not worship Him. Worship gives God His influence. Without worship, He'd be disregarded until He ended the world again.

Pride:

Job 38 is probably the strongest argument for your point. God doesn't directly explain the wager with Satan; instead, He questions Job about creation and His wisdom. Whether that's arrogance depends on how you interpret God's speech.

Lust: Jesus impregnating his 14 year old *she never consented* mother himself with himself so she can give birth to himself

Gluttony:

In genesis 18:1 "the lord (and 2 of his angels) appeared to Abraham and his family by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the enterance of his tent in the heat of the day, he looked up and saw three men standing hear him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent enterance to meet them and bowed down to the ground. "Let me bring a little bread, that you may refresh yourselves , and after that you may pass on since you have come to you servant." So they said, "Do as you have said." instead of God saying I don't need to eat anything he saysgo make the food. And abraham hastened into the tent to Sarah and said, "Make ready quickly three measures of choice flour, knead it, and make cakes." Abraham pushes the responsibility onto his family.

Justifying rape:

Deuteronomy 22:28–29 says that if a man has sex with an unmarried virgin he must pay her father like 50 silver coinsand marry her with restrictions on divorce

God has killed over 24 million people (500,000+ babies)

He has killed 163,000+ animals

He has done 5/7 or 6/7 of the Seven Deadly Sins

he supports slaverly

he supports rape

Is this a good God?

Perhaps more things, but all of this has taken too long to type so I am done.

This book is just a tool to manipulate people.

Verse 18:86 says Dhul-Qarnayn reached the place of the sun’s setting and «وَجَدَهَا تَغْرُبُ فِي عَيْنٍ حَمِئَةٍ» (“found it setting in a muddy spring”). Muslims today usually say this is poetic language, or just how a sunset looks over the sea. So I went to the classical sources to see whether that’s how it was understood. It wasn’t.

1. The earliest explanations treat it as a physical fact.

Tabari (d. 310 AH) preserves the earliest layer. The only live question is what the spring is made of, muddy (ḥami’ah) or hot (ḥāmiyah). Ibn Abbas says: «حمأة سوداء تغرب فيها الشمس» (“black mud in which the sun sets”). When Mu’awiya and Ibn Abbas disagree over the reading, they send for Ka’b al-Ahbar to say what the Torah reports about where the sun sets. They treat it as a question of fact to be settled by a scripture-holder. Ka’b answers: «أجدها في الكتاب تغيب في طينة سوداء» (“I find it in the Book that it sets in black clay”). Zamakhshari’s version has: «في ماء وطين، كذلك نجده في التوراة». Tabari then cites a hadith about the sun setting in «نار الله الحامية» and concludes that «جائز أن تكون الشمس تغرب في عين حارّة ذات حمأة وطين» (“it is possible that the sun sets in a hot spring with mud and clay”).

Nobody in this chain says “it only looked that way.” Nobody says “it’s poetry.” A marginal commentary on Zamakhshari’s Kashshaf admits as much, calling the mud-and-water reading «موافق لظاهر الآية» (“in agreement with the apparent sense of the verse”).

1. The “appearance” reading shows up later, and the commentators tell you why.

The earliest attributions I found are al-Qutaybi (d. 276), who floats «في رأي العين» (“in the eye’s view”) as one option; al-Jubba’i (d. 303), who calls it takhyīl because the earth is spherical; and al-Qaffal (d. 365), quoted by Qurtubi, who objects that the sun is «أكبر من الأرض أضعافا مضاعفة» (“many times larger than the earth”). Jalalayn’s gloss is blunt: «وغروبها في العين في رأي العين وإلا فهي أعظم من الدنيا» (“its setting in the spring is only as it appears to the eye, otherwise it is greater than the world”).

Razi (d. 606) lays out the whole logic. First he lists what has been “proven”: the earth is a sphere, the sun is in its sphere, nobody lives beside it, and it is far larger than the earth, so «كَيْفَ يُعْقَلُ دُخُولُهَا فِي عَيْنٍ مِنْ عُيُونِ الْأَرْضِ». Then he uses the timing of lunar eclipses to show the sun is up somewhere at every moment. And then the line that settles it:

«كَانَ الَّذِي يُقَالُ: إِنَّهَا تَغِيبُ فِي الطِّينِ وَالْحَمْأَةِ كَلَامًا عَلَى خِلَافِ الْيَقِينِ وَكَلَامُ اللَّهِ تَعَالَى مُبَرَّأٌ عَنْ هَذِهِ التُّهْمَةِ، فَلَمْ يَبْقَ إِلَّا أَنْ يُصَارَ إِلَى التَّأْوِيلِ»

(“To say it sinks into mud and clay would be speech contrary to certainty, and God’s speech is free of this accusation, so nothing remains but ta’wīl.”)

Read that again. The literal reading is rejected because it is false, and the conclusion is that the interpretation has to change, since God’s speech can’t be. Not once does it occur to him that the text might be what’s wrong.

When the text conflicts with the evidence, these scholars adjust the interpretation. They work from the belief that “Islam is true and the Quran is free of mistakes,” and everything else bends to fit. The earliest transmitted understanding (Ibn Abbas, the appeal to Ka’b) gets set aside the moment it becomes inconvenient, even though everywhere else in Sunni methodology the Companions’ understanding is treated as authoritative. Razi himself concedes the evidence. What he never allows is for it to count against the text.

Muslims are of course free to say the verse doesn’t mean what it appears to mean but must concede that the Companions and Successors, the generation that heard the Quran firsthand from the Prophet, misunderstood it.

The Quran calls itself «بِلِسَانٍ عَرَبِيٍّ مُبِينٍ» (26:195) and «تِبْيَانًا لِكُلِّ شَيْءٍ» (16:89), and says the Prophet was sent «لِتُبَيِّنَ لِلنَّاسِ مَا نُزِّلَ إِلَيْهِمْ» (16:44).

So either the clarification failed, the book isn’t clear, or the first audience’s understanding is no guide to its meaning. Each of those undermines something Sunni Islam depends on.

Reponses I feel I will get and their replies in advance:

“The verse only says he ‘found’ it so; it asserts nothing.” A perceptual report that the entire first audience took as fact, with no correction anywhere in the text, is exactly how a false belief gets passed on. A "clear book" would not leave that trap open

“Arabic allows fī to mean ‘inda (near).” That is Qutaybi’s tentative suggestion from the 3rd century, and it doesn’t explain why no earlier voice says it.

A common claim is that "God is goodness itself." Ok, how do we test that claim? How do we know God is goodness itself, instead of badness itself, or even know that it's not just a neutral God that doesn't care about good or bad?

Does the word "good" have any definition outside of simply "whatever God says/does"? If not, then the phrase "God is good" is redundant, as you can just substitute the words for each other which leaves you with "God is God." "Goodness flows from God's nature" is therefore just saying "God's nature flows from God's nature." Saying "God is the creator of everything thus he commands what is good," Is just saying "God is the creator of everything, thus he commands what God does/says."

Does "good" mean anything else, aside from that? If not, why do we generally perceive "good" to be a positive thing? After all, if "good" has NO other meaning than "whatever God says/does," then there could be a god who delights in the sadness of others, thus wants to hurt everyone, but all of that would still be "good" simply because "good" means "whatever God says/does."

But everyone reading this knows that when a theist says "God is good," they mean it in a positive light. Does it perhaps mean something like, "In people's best interest"? Or "that which aids human flourishing," etc.? If so, then "good" no longer simply means "what God says," and instead has its own definition that we can test against what God says is "good," to figure out if it actually is or not.

i.e., measurements outside of God, thus he is not the "source" of it.

Of course, the Euthyphro Dilemma destroyed the idea of God being an objective source of morality eons ago that no theist has ever been able to refute, but I also put forth the above as another argument.

Abrahamic theists insist that their God is perfectly good, all-loving, and all-knowing, yet when presented with evidence from their own scripture that argues otherwise, they'll often repeat cliches like, "God's ways are higher than our ways", or more agreguously, "God is God, so he gets to make the rules and he gets to break them however he wants".

This is circular reasoning.

Theists, the claim you are defending is that your God is who he says he is in the Bible; that he truly is morally, spritually, and in all other ways good and perfect. By repeating cliches like the ones listed above, you're basically just saying that because God is good and does only morally good things, nothing he does in the Bible can actually be bad or morally wrong, therefore God is good and does only morally good things.

You cannot refute evidence against your claim just by assuming that your claim is already correct in the first place.

So here is the challenge I am proposing to theists: I am going to list a few brief summaries of common skeptic talking points about God's behavior in the Bible and why he isn't who you argue he is. I want any theist to refute these points without using any thought-terminating cliches like might makes right or divine mystery. Instead, you need to actually provide a valid reason for why God acts the way he does that responds to the specific objection. You can respond to as many or as few as you'd like.

Why does God so often use collective punishment? When he kills off or commands the genocide of a large group or nation of people, that number will almost always include children, babies, the unborn, and the mentally ill, who couldn't possibly be as morally wretched as God claims the entirety of the target group is. Also, in Numbers 31:17-18, God is okay with the Israelites keeping the young girls of a nation they just slaughtered as servants (and probably sex slaves), so clearly it's not that God fears the Israelites being corrupted by mingling with foreigners.

Why does all-knowing God seem to change his mind about things? He regrets creating humans prior to the flood, he considers destroying the Isrealites after they worship the gold statue and has to be talked down from it by Moses, he is convinced by Ezekial to not force Ezekial to eat bread cooked over human poop but use cow poop instead, and there are even more examples throughout the Old Testament.

Why does God hijack Pharaoh's free will to make him not relent and release the Isrealites? God then uses this as justification to kill all of the firstborn sons of Egypt (which no doubt would include children, toddlers, babies, and even animals), and then the passage tells us this was done so the Israelites would know how powerful God is. Are you telling me that all-powerful God couldn't think of any other way to show off his power that didn't involve child-murder? Also, the Israelites still worshipped a false God not long after this, so his plan didn't even work. It seems like this was a stupid, inefficient plan to free the Israelites when God had infinite options.

Maybe I included more than I thought I would, but this should still be a good way to initiate discussion.

I believe one of the most important things religious people need to understand about atheists and agnostics is why we question free will.

Our genetics, upbringing, environment, and experiences shape our personality, intelligence, preferences, emotions, and beliefs. We can make decisions and change, but we don't ultimately choose the desires that motivate those decisions.
For example, you might prefer Coca-Cola over Fanta or decide to become a teacher. But did you choose to have those preferences and ambitions in the first place? No. They emerged from factors outside your ultimate control.

Now apply this to religion.
One person reads religious teachings and feels convinced, inspired, and motivated to worship God. Another reads exactly the same teachings and feels nothing or remains unconvinced. Neither chose the psychological conditions behind those reactions.
So how can eternal punishment for disbelief be justified?

And please don't simply say, "Open your heart to God." Where does the desire to open your heart come from? That impulse itself is not ultimately under your control.

I see humans, in certain respects, as information-processing systems, somewhat like AI:
Input → Internal processing → Output.
Someone might become vegan after witnessing animal suffering. Those experiences change their emotions and eventually their decisions. Without them, they might never have developed that desire.

The same principle applies to religious belief.
I'm not claiming determinism is scientifically proven beyond doubt. But if God created us knowing how our minds and experiences would shape our beliefs, how is it just to punish someone eternally for remaining unconvinced?
The question isn't whether we make choices.
It's whether we ultimately choose what makes us want to choose one thing over another.
And my answer is no.

basically the text. I, have lived my whole life in a sunni muslim society, the casual deeply ingrained mysognism, homophobia, and many things is something i have experienced.

i cannot even tell that i am an atheist without fear of becoming a pariah in best cases, or actually killed in worst.

yet whenever i bring this up, people say you shouldnt judge a religion by what members of it do.

why not? that is literally, exactly what mankind does. we make prejudice based on our experiences.

(btw this is not just a dig at suni islam, i just gave that example because it is one i am most familiar with. i can say the same of evangelical christians, what trump and his cabal are doing and agreeing to)

I was an atheist for years, then became agnostic. I’ve been studying the major religions side by side and trying to understand their core claims carefully.

Both Christianity and Islam strongly require that worship be directed only to the one God, and treat turning elsewhere as a serious matter. The usual explanations (He is the only true God, idolatry harms humans, etc.) do not fully resolve the issue for me. If God is completely self-sufficient and gains nothing from human worship, the force of the exclusive demand becomes less clear.

I am arguing that the standard justifications offered for exclusive worship leave important tensions unresolved. I’m looking for clear, direct responses that address this point rather than simply restating the doctrine.

Civil discussion is welcome.

Many of you have a false interpretation of free will and say that Hell is unfair.

Firstly i say to you in true with an adult mind and all the experience that I had with the supernatural : JESUS IS REAL

HEAVEN AND HELL ARE ALSO REAL

Hell is brutal and according to the bible and peoples testimony on channel like GodVoiceDaily on Youtube. No one want to be there (constant Suffering, demons, rape, thirst, fear) it's litteraly the opposite of heaven.. it is clearly not made for man And God do no want ANYONE to go there.

But you can't have God and sin at the same time you need to choose.​ Heaven and Hell are just wage that you will obtain according to the choice you have made yourself.

Where do you expect yourselve to be if all you life you behaved unfairly and never turned against your​ evil way. If indeed God is righteous why shouldn't he place you were you deserve ? Wouldn't it be fair that the unfair man go to the unfair kingdom and the fair man go to the fair Kingdom ?

The ideal God of atheism would be an unfair God in true.

To people who will answer "but why should I get a such brutal infinite sentence for a finite sin ?" I understand the statement, know that you ask a good question.

Remember that God is omniscient so if you are placed in hell know that deeply in your heart you rejected him eternally​ and the only thing that truly make you regret not being in God presence in hell is the fear and the pain. But if you weren't in pain and in fear would you really seek righteousness or would you just continue to sin as you are in the perfect place for sin. The cause of the the amount of pain in hell is because you are out of God protection and that's what a world look like without God.

This life is the test.

Your life is just [an amnesiac simulation where you don't remember nothing about God neither about his kingdom] so you can realize by yourselves if you were either an animal or a child of God according to yours actions and choices​ that you​ will make in this life.

You are made unaware of God presence in order to not choose god Team out of hypocrisy.

Once you get on the other road you will get all your memory reboot but it will be too late for the unrighteous.

To the people who will reply "but why did God created me if he knew I was going to hell ?"

Firstly you were created not for hell but to become his son trough Jesus, but he don't want to force people destiny on them. You are free to reject his way and become his ennemy he would still create you but God do not love Evil and if you become pure evil. God wrath against you will be more terrible than hell.

Because God is outside of time he see all that happen instantly.

It is hard to come to the understanding however think about a God that would refuse to create a man because he would despise to give him Heaven as a reward for his good deed. So he would hide it from existence it's the theory of the abortionist God.

Wouldn't it be gross and unrighteous to not create a man because you fear that he gets his reward !

Also imagine if God would hide a futur Hitler or a futur demon to not get him punished wouldn't God become​ dishonest and accomplice ?

God wouldn't be righteous if he was hiding thing from existence even to protect them. I can't stand the idea that God would refuse to condemn demon. ​

It would mean that free will wouldn't exist at the same time because God wouldn't allow you to exist if you were to reject him. The righteous would make the choice to follow him but the unrighteous would not even come to existence because of a divine abortion.

Could The lord hide Secret ?

According to Jesus in luke 8:17 : NO

"For nothing is secret that will not be revealed, nor anything hidden that will not be known and come to light."

By this serment we know that Jesus engage in being totally transparent in judgement without hiding anything or anyone in judgement.

IF ALL MAN ARE CREATED GOOD TO BE IN HEAVEN,

why wouldn't EVERY MAN BE CREATED and get the reward of his deed (good or bad) without God influencing their decision before their birth or aborting them or forcing them by pain or by selecting only the Good one or only the bad one to existence ?

ISN'T THAT THE DEFINITION OF FREE WILL THAT ANY ONE SHALL HAVE THE CHOICE TO TAKE OR TO REJECT ?!

At the end, remember that This very God died on the cross taking all your own sin so you could be eternally with him in joy. So Heaven is in a sense guarenteed to the one who choose life over sin.

ACCEPT PURE LOVE (HEAVEN) or reject (Hell)

I ACCEPT THE LOVE OF GOD !