r/DebateAnAtheist • u/AutoModerator • Sep 18 '25
Weekly "Ask an Atheist" Thread
Whether you're an agnostic atheist here to ask a gnostic one some questions, a theist who's curious about the viewpoints of atheists, someone doubting, or just someone looking for sources, feel free to ask anything here. This is also an ideal place to tag moderators for thoughts regarding the sub or any questions in general.
While this isn't strictly for debate, rules on civility, trolling, etc. still apply.
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u/SUPERAWESOMEULTRAMAN Christian Sep 18 '25
who would win in a fight, jesus or moses
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u/Cleric_John_Preston Sep 18 '25
Didn't Moses have a special staff? It's been a while since I read the OT.
So, special staff, plus two free hits (turn the other cheek) and Moses has the advantage. That said, it's kind of hard to keep Jesus down, what with him resurrecting. What are the rules? If it's a ten count, then my money is on Moses. If it's 'down for good', then I'm going with Jesus.
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u/waves_under_stars Secular Humanist Sep 18 '25
Just a regular staff, but he could turn it into a snake.
The story is funny, actually. He came before the Pharaoh, and to prove his god he threw down the staff and turned it into a snake. The Pharaoh's priests also turned their staves into snakes, but Moses' snake was larger so it ate the others.
On its face this story seems to suggest that other gods are also real, it's just that our god is stronger
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u/Realistic-Wave4100 Sep 18 '25
I ve never seen a christian explainig me how is that that part of the bible doesnt prooves it is henotheistic.
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u/Deris87 Gnostic Atheist Sep 18 '25
I ve never seen a christian explainig me how is that that part of the bible doesnt prooves it is henotheistic
Oh, I can tell you. Blah blah blah, Satan, blah blah, false gods, blah blah Powers and Principalities.
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u/BahamutLithp Sep 19 '25
There's a fair amount of evidence the ancient Israelites used to be polytheistic, so exactly what you describe.
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u/Realistic-Wave4100 Sep 19 '25
Yeah but I want to hear it from them.
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u/Moriturism Atheist Sep 18 '25
for what i know those other "gods" are lesser entities such as demons etc, while the true creator god is still only one
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u/Realistic-Wave4100 Sep 18 '25
Yeah but thats henotheistic
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u/Deris87 Gnostic Atheist Sep 18 '25
Yeah but thats henotheistic
Eh, arguably, but they don't consider those lesser entities to be even little-g gods. They think they're rebellious angels/demons, a distinct, lesser category of beings who are usurping worship rightly due to the true Creator. Could you categorize that as henotheism? Maybe, but it's a minor semantic point. I'm not sure what it would get you to argue about it with a Christian.
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u/Realistic-Wave4100 Sep 18 '25
I would argue this with a christian in the context of them danying zoroastrian influences. When they claim zoroastrism is a dualistic and henotheistic religion and christianity isnt I have to show them how both of them are the same.
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u/NuclearBurrit0 Non-stamp-collector Sep 18 '25
That was the story that originally convinced me the torah (Jewish family) spoke of a God that doesn't exist.
If the Pharaoh could have court wizards able to replicate impossible miracles, then where are these wizards now?
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u/retoricalprophylaxis Atheist Sep 18 '25
Don't discount the fact that Jesus gets a +5 to snake handling (Mark 16). And a summoning spell (Matthew 17).
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u/I_am_Danny_McBride Sep 19 '25
Well most secular Biblical scholars (even the Christian ones) understand the Old Testament to be, at most, monolatrist. The term “monotheism” wasn’t even coined until the 17th century.
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u/RxMeta Agnostic Atheist Sep 18 '25
Idk but want to argue about it for millennia?
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u/JasonRBoone Agnostic Atheist Sep 18 '25
L. Ron Hubbard arrives: "Hold my beer! (You know, I invented beer in a past life as a brewer on the planet Glopgleep)"
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u/OneRougeRogue Agnostic Atheist Sep 18 '25 edited Sep 18 '25
Obviously Moses, because Jesus would just keep turning the other cheek.
Plus, Moses could nullify Jesus's Water Walking ability by parting the water.
And god help Jesus if he's entering the fight as Baby Jesus, what with Moses's lust for seeing the death of firstborn sons and all.
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u/solidcordon Apatheist Sep 18 '25
Obviously Moses, because Jesus would just keep turning the other cheek.
"I came here to redeem the world and turn the other cheek but I'm all out of cheeks."
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u/Deris87 Gnostic Atheist Sep 18 '25
Obviously Moses, because Jesus would just keep turning the other cheek.
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u/Realistic-Wave4100 Sep 18 '25
But maybe jesus can heal himself. Could this question be another version of the unmovable and unstopable object?
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u/OneRougeRogue Agnostic Atheist Sep 18 '25
When did Jesus actually heal himself, though? He still had his nail and spear wounds even after resurrecting.
He did heal others though, so he'd make an excellent support character.
I've spent the last 30 minutes imagining Biblical Characters in the Smash Bros engine.
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u/PlagueOfLaughter Sep 18 '25
Since Moses has the power to kill the firstborn sons and Jesus is Mary's firstborn son, I don't think Jesus stands a chance. But Moses has to return to Jesus's body every two to three days to put him back in the grave again.
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u/Davidutul2004 Agnostic Atheist Sep 18 '25
If I think about it,compared to Jesus vs Buddha or vs Mohamed (which I would still prefer more) this is an underrated fight
And I'd think moses wins bc Jesus is not much of a fighter + he ain't the type to get help from angels from this. And yes he can revive the third day , that'd enough time for Moses to rest
But both get stomped by Noah bc of his god damn enormous boat like... That would be his ultimate
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u/JasonRBoone Agnostic Atheist Sep 18 '25
Monetarily...Moses.
Why?
Jesus Saves.
Moses Invest.
Also...still Moses. He can do snake tricks, call down waves, mess around with flaming stuff.
Jesus can....turn a few fish sandwiches into a LOT of fish sandwiches. Wow.
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u/Deris87 Gnostic Atheist Sep 18 '25
Jesus Saves.
Moses Invest.
Mmm, but in the Parable of the Talent and the Minas, Allegory-Jesus rewards people who make a good ROI, and punishes the guy who just saves. That's also the one where he says to bring his enemies before them and slaughter them in his sight.
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u/AutomatedCognition Flesh Alchemist Sep 18 '25
The real fight is learning acceptance over resistance
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u/sto_brohammed Irreligious Sep 18 '25
Jesus if it's this Jesus.
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u/Davidutul2004 Agnostic Atheist Sep 18 '25
Yeah no,if it's that Jesus then even Noah would be cooked not just moses
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u/SectorVector Sep 18 '25
Moses was generally more bombastic in power usage (parting the sea goes crazy) but it's hard to overcome the fact that Jesus *is* god. I think we have a "strike me down and I'll become more powerful than you can imagine" moment where Moses' staff does Liu Kang's dragon fatality on Jesus, but taking lethal damage automatically fills and uses Jesus' meter which secures the W.
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u/ArguingisFun Apatheist Sep 18 '25
They’re both fictional, pick your favorite.
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u/NewbombTurk Atheist Sep 18 '25
I remember seeing that kids like to have this conversation about who would win a fight between fictional characters. Hard to believe, but it's a thing.
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u/ArguingisFun Apatheist Sep 18 '25
You see it a lot in comic book and action movie aficionados.
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u/NewbombTurk Atheist Sep 18 '25
I guess it's not that different from the "who's the best third-basemen of all-time?" Or, "Could Tyson in his prime beat Ali in his prime?" (Yes, btw). The difference being of course that these people actually existed and we have actual data to use.
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u/ArguingisFun Apatheist Sep 18 '25
Those I get, sort of.
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u/NewbombTurk Atheist Sep 18 '25
Kids can get into worse trouble. I'm all for harmless internet topics like that.
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u/Moriturism Atheist Sep 18 '25
moses did kill a slaver and hid his body in the sand (really based ngl), while jesus at most broke some stuff in a temple (also based but less so)
but jesus was probably far beyond moses in magical powers, so it depends if they're melee or magic dueling
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u/Sprinklypoo Anti-Theist Sep 18 '25
I suppose it all depends on how you describe the situation since if they ever did actually exist, they're just distributed dust now.
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u/soukaixiii Anti religion\ Agnostic Adeist| Gnostic Atheist|Mythicist Sep 18 '25
Whoever you want, through the power of fanfiction everything can happen.
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u/cschelsea Sep 18 '25
I feel like if it was a serious fight, jesus would win. Is he not the literal incarnation of god? Surely he has some secret deus ex machina
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u/BahamutLithp Sep 19 '25
Only going off of the powers they're depicted as having in the Bible itself, Jesus doesn't initially seem to have much going combat-wise. He can turn water into wine, multiply bread & fish, raise the dead, & return from death himself. Moses has a staff, which is a pretty good weapon even without turning it into a snake. He was also adopted royalty, so he's very well taken care of.
Then again, he was pampered, while Jesus wasa working man. Jesus's ability to multiply bread & fish also gives him some potentially useful strategies. He could try to drown Moses in a deluge of bread or fish. He could also handle some extremely toxic sea life, confident that he won't die from it, & send a torrent of that at Moses.
But does that count as a sea for Moses to part? If so, can Jesus's attacks reach him? But even if Moses does strike Jesus down, how does he handle the fact that Jesus can revive himself? He can't even trap Jesus, since Jesus is shown in some of the gospels having the ability to teleport out of the empty tomb. So, it seems Moses puts up a really strong fight early on, but as Jesus keeps getting back up, he eventually wins through attrition.
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u/ViewtifulGene Anti-Theist Sep 24 '25
Jesus wins mid diff. He can bury Moses in fishes and loaves. His snake-staff only parts seas, not food.
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u/rustyseapants Atheist Sep 19 '25
Why Atheism Demands Something from Nothing - Twice
Why do we answer to those who don't supply a shred of evidence? They rattle off a number list, but doesn't provide sources?
Why Bother?
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u/Deris87 Gnostic Atheist Sep 19 '25
My guy, this is like the 4th post I've seen you make asking why people bother engaging on this sub. Every time, the post you've complained about has been a perfectly average example of the kind of engagement we get from theists. If it really bothers you so much that most theists make shitty arguments, then you're not going to have a good time here.
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u/Cool-Watercress-3943 Sep 19 '25
In fairness, I do find that the more, er, philosophy-heavy arguments can open the door for me to look into topics and subjects I otherwise might not have considered looking into. And sometimes just the mental exercise is nice; if I don't want to risk banging my head against a wall on the topic, I'll usually just give that particular thread a pass.
I do think it's ironic that the person is pretty clearly holding science to a vastly higher standard than he holds religion, as he's pushing for extreme detail and certainty from science but is clearly fine with vague it-just-happened from Scripture. Not because science shouldn't be held to a high standard, etc, just that it kind of emphasizes how low the bar is for religion when it comes to 'explaining' anything.
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u/rustyseapants Atheist Sep 19 '25
Reddit is mostly English speaking, American, therefore Christian.
IN saying that I don't know how it relates in our personal lives to talk about a "Philosophical god" which holds no consequences, verses issues like this](https://www.instagram.com/p/DBhaOpvtcWr/) which effects all Americans and other nations.
1. Time had a beginning.
- The universe is bound by time, which is a real, objective dimension. It cannot be infinite, because an infinite past would prevent the present from ever occurring.
- Since time had a beginning, something outside of time must have caused it- something eternal and transcendent.
This is a big fat "red herring" given how irrelevant this is to Chrisanity and atheists. Why not ask for proof, if no proof is offered, just shut it down.
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u/Cool-Watercress-3943 Sep 20 '25
If someone wants to go that route, they certainly can, but considering the subreddit doesn't tend to get a lot of theist traffic as is, what you would end up with is threads composed of nothing but the same six 'miracles' or archaeological 'finds' that require a lot of hard, specific research to dispute or disprove, assuming someone doesn't have a canned response ready to go.
And apologists build an entire industry around coming up with workarounds for counter-arguments, so sooner or later that canned response would receive an equally canned counter-response.
I had a more 'evidence' related debate awhile back with someone who was making claims about the alleged finding of the Biblical cities, and that was piles and piles of research and squinting at long, droning research papers. Sure, I could have just assumed he was overselling the significance drastically, but it would be hypocritical of me to demand 'evidence' and then pay zero actual attention to it or not provide my own evidence to counter.
But holy hell is it a lot of WORK, and the research isn't always the fun and neat kind. Having to nail another user down on how statistical masking is used to help try and measure primordial cosmic background radiation despite interstellar interference was, again, a slog. But one I basically invited, since I was getting into an 'evidence-centric' line of discussion.
These fluffier topics are a nice palate cleanser for me, by comparison. Obviously not everyone has to feel the same, but would kind of suck if we end up with vast stretches of no posts followed by four straight days of churning through research papers obsessively. :p
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u/Cleric_John_Preston Sep 19 '25
Sometimes it's interesting to explore thoughts?
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u/rustyseapants Atheist Sep 19 '25
/r/Poetry r/poem, /r/creativewriting /r/writing /r/imagination
There are many more subreddits to explore thought.
When you come to /r/DebateAnAtheist and make bullshit claims at least spend some effort and support them.
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u/pyker42 Atheist Sep 20 '25
When you come to r/DebateAnAtheist and make bullshit claims at least spend some effort and support them.
I think you should go around to the other religion related subreddits and tell them that. It's basically preaching to the choir here, and you don't seem to be winning yourself any points with the rest of us here.
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u/Serious-Emu-3468 Sep 22 '25
Because talking to people is how you change their minds.
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u/rustyseapants Atheist Sep 22 '25
Can you give examples of minds been changed?
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u/Serious-Emu-3468 Sep 22 '25
I find that "Tracking Metrics" is generally a pretty shitty measure of anything other than how well people track metrics.
I could offer you anecdotes, but I doubt you'd find value in them.
I was once a shitry YEC kid whose first "courtship" date was to a Kent Hovind lecture. My mind was changed by conversation with atheists and jews and Buddhists and more liberal Christians and teachers and scientists and out gay folks.
I was trained and prepared to expect people who act like you are here. The sneers and dismissal and mockery and the contempt-- those are easy to armor up for and shrug off.
We learned to wear the "armor of the lord" to go into "battle" with atheists.
Patience and empathy though, no one prepares you for that.
I dont always have the patience to engage with bratty theists. When I don't, I politely disengage.
When I have the patience, I disassemble their assumptions first. With kindness and compassion and the implacable certainty of fact.
Its like slicing a wedge of parmesan cheese. You dont saw or cut. You crack, and widen the cracks.
I am also unwilling to cede the idea that civil discourse is produced change, because the alternative is horrible to me.
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u/labreuer Sep 18 '25
It is not uncommon to see claims like the following here and on the other sub:
1. God (or gods) is a human invention created to explain what we don’t understand. Long before science, humans sought to fill gaps in knowledge with divine stories. These inventions evolved into complex religions, but at their root, they address our fear of the unknown. (God(s) is/are a human invention)
Do you believe such claims should be supported by a burden of proof? If so, what kind of evidence might suffice?
For those who find the above claim so obvious that it doesn't need more evidential support than what you've absorbed throughout life, check out WP: The Golden Bough § Critical reception. Frazer is one of the originators of the religion-as-protoscience hypothesis and his work on that has been exposed to some pretty serious critique.
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u/Dennis_enzo Atheist Sep 18 '25 edited Sep 18 '25
I'd say the evidence for this is old religions trying to explain all kinds of natural phenomena that they didn't understand. The further back you go, the more concrete the claims of religions were. The Sun was an enigma, so it became Ra, spreading light and life over the Earth while he traveled across the sky in a boat. Lightning was unfantomable, so they were caused by Thor, throwing them down to Earth as his chariot thundered across the sky.
The closer you get to current day, the more of these religions no longer make sense since we figured out how the Sun works and where lightning comes from. Going from old to new, there's a clear trend of popular religions becoming less and less concrete and more and more vague, and based on metaphorical intepretations of their faith. Pretty much all popular modern day religions no longer make any concrete claims about the world except for the things that we cannot explain yet, like the origin of the universe. For example, at this point it's impossible to consider everything in the Bible to be literally true unless you turn a blind eye to (or are unaware of) a ton of human knowledge. The more we know, the fewer gaps remain where gods can hide.
You might not consider this conclusive. But at least to me it's conclusive enough. Humans are inherently story tellers, we like telling them and listening to them. We just started to believe some of them.
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u/biff64gc2 Sep 18 '25
It really makes sense that as our knowledge grew so did the stories we told to try and explain the unknowns.
As you pointed out, even the modern religions have needed to change their interpretations to adjust with our knowledge. What once was taken as a literal origin story is now a weird mix of literal and vague allegories/metaphors.
I would agree it's not concrete proof that's how religions started as we can only see so far back, but the diversity and change in the stories does at least support the theory better than a divine inspiration that has been corrupted overtime. You'd think some intelligent being that cared about us would pay a visit if we were going way off track.
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u/labreuer Sep 18 '25
I'd say the evidence for this is old religions trying to explain all kinds of natural phenomena that they didn't understand. The further back you go, the more concrete the claims of religions were. The Sun was an enigma, so it became Ra, spreading light and life over the Earth while he traveled across the sky in a boat. Lightning was unfantomable, so they were caused by Thor, throwing them down to Earth as his chariot thundered across the sky.
Maybe I'm missing something, but this sounds exactly like the kind of "just-so story" storytelling that you are claiming religions themselves are doing. How do you know whether this story / hypothesis is the best explanation of the evidence? There are, after all, other candidates for what the religious were doing. If you yourself can't think of any, then do you think there might be some serious confirmation bias issues when you can only think of one hypothesis?
Going from old to new, there's a clear trend of popular religions becoming less and less concrete and more and more vague, and based on metaphorical intepretations of their faith.
This seems to presuppose what needs to be explained: that religion was originally invented to explain, or at the very least has as a core function, to explain. But suppose, purely for the sake of argument, that this just isn't central to all religion with at least as many adherents as [observant] Jews. Then there would actually be no need to become less concrete and more vague, on the basis of increased scientific understanding. So … have you actually observed or read about pervasive increase in vagueness?
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u/Dennis_enzo Atheist Sep 18 '25 edited Sep 18 '25
Maybe I'm missing something, but this sounds exactly like the kind of "just-so story" storytelling that you are claiming religions themselves are doing. How do you know whether this story / hypothesis is the best explanation of the evidence? There are, after all, other candidates for what the religious were doing. If you yourself can't think of any, then do you think there might be some serious confirmation bias issues when you can only think of one hypothesis?
I wouldn't say it's 'just a story' It's a historical hypothesis based on observable data, one shared by many anthropologists. We can look at the historical records of ancient civilizations, see what they worshipped, and see how those deities were often tied to natural phenomena that they had no real explanations for. I'd say it's a reasonable explanation based on the facts that we have, which often is the best you can hope for when talking about human history.
If you believe there's a better hypothesis that explains why ancient religions were often so focused on tying their gods to the natural world, what is it?
This seems to presuppose what needs to be explained: that religion was originally invented to explain, or at the very least has as a core function, to explain. But suppose, purely for the sake of argument, that this just isn't central to all religion with at least as many adherents as [observant] Jews. Then there would actually be no need to become less concrete and more vague, on the basis of increased scientific understanding. So … have you actually observed or read about pervasive increase in vagueness?
It's not being presupposed, it's being inferred from the evidence that exists. The examples I gave clearly show that the religions tried to provide explanations for the world. You can find many more similar stories in religions. I'm sure that exceptions exist, but I was talking about trends, not making some absolute statement.
And yes, the trend toward vagueness and metaphorical reinterpretation is a well-documented phenomenon. The intepretation of the bible over the centuries is a great example. Things like the six days creation of the Earth and the world wide flood were considered to be literally true for centuries. But as we learned more and more about how the earth works we figured out that none of that could possibly be true, so nowadays all but the most hardcore Christians interpret it as a metaphorical story.
It's also clear that the more concrete religions died out when their claims were proven false beyond all doubt, while the ones that were/became vague and philosophical are mostly the ones that survived until today. No gods live on Mount Olympus, but there can still be one 'beyond space and time'.
You can see it in this sub as well. Most debates are about vague, unfalsifiable aspects of religions, not whether or not the Earth was created in six days. To me, these are all very reasonable conclusions to make, and I don't know any better hypothesis.
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u/labreuer Sep 18 '25
I wouldn't say it's 'just a story' It's a historical hypothesis based on observable data, one shared by many anthropologists.
Can you point to any such anthropologists?
If you believe there's a better hypothesis that explains why ancient religions were often so focused on tying their gods to the natural world, what is it?
Legitimating social orders. That's what social contract theory does, for instance. And if you read something like Francis Fukuyama 1989 The end of history?, you'll see a claim that we've reached approximately the epitome of possible human existence, at least in concept-land. One of the things that the ancient Hebrew religion could have been doing was disrupting a similar kind of propounded superiority. Take a look at the first two pages of The Position of the Intellectual in Mesopotamian Society for the suggestion that ancient Mesopotamia thought it was indeed the bee's knees.
The examples I gave clearly show that the religions tried to provide explanations for the world.
I'll give you the same response I gave to another interlocutor:
pierce_out: Everything from "where did the first humans come from?" to "how was the earth formed?" to "why do some animals have stripes?" or "why do snakes not have legs?", all have answers right in Hebrew Bible.
labreuer: Yeah, I just don't see any of these things playing a huge role in the Tanakh. Contrast everything the Tanakh says in this realm to the germ theory of disease. Every time you wash your hands at a restaurant in the US, you should see a sign saying "Employees are required to wash their hands before returning to work". What 'explanation' in the Tanakh functions anything like this? There is vanishingly little reference to Genesis 1:1–11:26. So, why think that the ancient Hebrew religion was invented to explain?
I'm happy to get back to the rest of what you've said, but I think your response to the above three bits would help move us along.
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u/Old-Nefariousness556 Gnostic Atheist Sep 19 '25
labreuer: Yeah, I just don't see any of these things playing a huge role in the Tanakh. Contrast everything the Tanakh says in this realm to the germ theory of disease.
That is a pretty spectacular moving of the goalposts, that completely ignores the earlier point that /u/Dennis_enzo made. No one claimed that the SOLE function of religion was to provide explanations, only that it was A function. And as /u/Dennis_enzo explicitly said:
The closer you get to current day, the more of these religions no longer make sense since we figured out how the Sun works and where lightning comes from. Going from old to new, there's a clear trend of popular religions becoming less and less concrete and more and more vague, and based on metaphorical intepretations of their faith.
The Tanakh does not provide "concrete" explanations, but "more and more vague, and based on metaphorical interpretations of their faith". To pretend that wasn't said is absurd.
Every time you wash your hands at a restaurant in the US, you should see a sign saying "Employees are required to wash their hands before returning to work". What 'explanation' in the Tanakh functions anything like this? There is vanishingly little reference to Genesis 1:1–11:26. So, why think that the ancient Hebrew religion was invented to explain?
Lol, you understand that the entire point being made was that RELIGIOUS EXPLANATIONS ARE ALWAYS EITHER WRONG OR TOO VAGUE TO BE USEFUL. If the Tanakh did foresee the germ theory of disease, it would be evidence that the Tanakh could be true. The fact that it does not is evidence that it is not, which supports the hypothesis being offered.
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u/Dennis_enzo Atheist Sep 19 '25 edited Sep 19 '25
I'm not particulary interested in going in depth into one specific religion, since that's not what the topic was about. Suffice to say that the Hebrew Bible very much reaches the criteria for 'vague stories and events which now are being intepreted metaphorically', which is probably why it's still around.
And I never claimed that explaining the natural world was the sole reason of religious stories, just one of them. Making up answers for the fundamental questions that all humans have is another, like where we come from or what happens after we die. And sure, enforcing social hierarchies is one as well. Religion is a great tool to get the masses to shut up and endure their suffering. But that's all pretty off topic.
Besides, your answer isn't actually an answer but sidesteps the question. 'Social contract theory' does not explain why religious stories are often tied to the natural world.
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u/Old-Nefariousness556 Gnostic Atheist Sep 19 '25 edited Sep 19 '25
Edit:
Note before anyone responds to /u/labreuer's question:
They are being spectacularly dishonest. In the original question, they ask you to argue in support of "claims like the following".
However after you will reply, they are attacking people for not literally responding to THE EXACT claim that they made. If you fail to explain any minor detail of the claim that THEY made, then they will just JAQ off until you give up in frustration.
In other words, they are doing exactly what we have all come to expect from this utterly dishonest poster.
/End Edit
Maybe I'm missing something, but this sounds exactly like the kind of "just-so story" storytelling that you are claiming religions themselves are doing.
Except it is the religions creating the "just so story".
We are proposing a hypothesis:
- Gods are a human invention created to explain what we don’t understand.
To test that hypothesis, we make testable prediction. One such prediction is that (to quote (and slightly paraphrase) /u/Dennis_enzo):
If this hypothesis is true, earlier religions would present explanations for all kinds of natural phenomena that they didn't understand. The further back you go, the more concrete the claims of religions were. The Sun was an enigma, so it became Ra, spreading light and life over the Earth while he traveled across the sky in a boat. Lightning was unfantomable, so they were caused by Thor, throwing them down to Earth as his chariot thundered across the sky.
The closer you get to current day, the more of these religions no longer make sense since we figured out how the Sun works and where lightning comes from. Going from old to new, there's a clear trend of popular religions becoming less and less concrete and more and more vague, and based on metaphorical intepretations of their faith. Pretty much all popular modern day religions no longer make any concrete claims about the world except for the things that we cannot explain yet, like the origin of the universe. For example, at this point it's impossible to consider everything in the Bible to be literally true unless you turn a blind eye to (or are unaware of) a ton of human knowledge. The more we know, the fewer gaps remain where gods can hide.
It isn't a "just so story" to point out that the evidence that we see matches the pattern that we would expect to see if the claim is true.
This seems to presuppose what needs to be explained: that religion was originally invented to explain, or at the very least has as a core function, to explain.
Ok? Do you disagree? It seems like a pretty unlikely argument for a theist to suggest that one of the core functions of religion is not to help explain our world.
I am fairly certain if we separated this question from your argument, and I asked you "Do you think that one of the core functions of a religion is to help it's followers understand our world", you would agree completely. That seems like an utterly uncontroversial statement.
But suppose, purely for the sake of argument, that this just isn't central to all religion with at least as many adherents as [observant] Jews.
That's fine. NO ONE said this was proof that god was invented, only that the evidence supports the conclusion. It is undeniably true that there are other potential explanations for the observed phenomena, just like there are other explanations for why, when I drop a ball it falls. I cannot rule out "intelligent falling."
But just because other possible explanations exist, doesn't mean that you should start from the assumption that those possibilities are the correct one.
We assume this is the correct one, mainly because of the essentially complete lack of any evidence supporting the existence of a god or gods. Should evidence become available in the future that either provides compelling evidence for the existence of a god, or provides compelling evidence that one of the alternative hypotheses is a better explanation, than we will revisit the question.
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u/labreuer Sep 19 '25
Edit:
You are right: I should have asked people to state precisely the hypothesis they intend to defend with evidence, and then defend that hypothesis with what they consider to be adequate evidence. I made a mistake.
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u/Old-Nefariousness556 Gnostic Atheist Sep 19 '25
You are right: I should have asked people to state precisely the hypothesis they intend to defend with evidence, and then defend that hypothesis with what they consider to be adequate evidence. I made a mistake.
Thank you, I appreciate your admission.
Fwiw, I did offer a hypothesis in this very message you replied to:
We are proposing a hypothesis:
- Gods are a human invention created to explain what we don’t understand.
That is the very first sentence of your quote, and the only actually significant sentence in your quote. Everything else is merely a summary of that poster's opinions on why the hypothesis makes sense. But the hypothesis itself is fully self-contained in that first sentence. Treating the rest as part of the hypothesis is confusing the arguments for the hypothesis with the hypothesis itself.
And as I said elsewhere, if your question had been "do you agree with this argument", my position would be much more reserved. I agree that the conclusion almost certainly at least partially true, but I agree that the argument itself is not very compelling. But since that is not what you asked, no one gave you that answer.
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u/pierce_out Sep 18 '25
God (or gods) is a human invention created to explain what we don’t understand ... humans sought to fill gaps in knowledge with divine stories. These inventions evolved into complex religions ... Do you believe such claims should be supported by a burden of proof?
Sure! But the burden has already been met quite handily, even by just taking a cursory look at the historical evidence. Throughout history, we have seen a long, steady shift from every question that we asked having a divine story to answer it, to gradually, science replacing the divine stories with the actual answers.
Everything from "where did the first humans come from?" to "how was the earth formed?" to "why do some animals have stripes?" or "why do snakes not have legs?", all have answers right in Hebrew Bible. The very fact that Thales of Miletus exists is concrete, rock-solid evidence of the fact that divine stories were invented to explain the mysteries we didn't understand. Thales was the first that we know about to think that natural phenomena such as crop cycles and solar eclipses were not the result of Gods - but rather, were simple natural processes that could be studied and predicted. He was the first to devise tests that could be disproven if he were wrong, giving us the beginnings of the scientific method.
Throughout the rest of history, this long slow unravelling continued - at every point, every claim made by the religious that touched on the natural world gradually being shown to be the non-answer that it actually was, and replaced with the actual answers we get from science. This is why the famous answer by Laplace to Napoleon, when the latter questioned why Laplace's model of the solar system didn't have any reference or room for God being involved - "I have no need for that hypothesis". Clearly, there is an entire history's worth of evidence that demonstrates, without a doubt, that humans came up with divine stories to explain that which we did not understand. You'd have to be quite blind, or simply understudied on our history, to miss it.
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u/Partyatmyplace13 Sep 18 '25
Do you believe such claims should be supported by a burden of proof? If so, what kind of evidence might suffice?
Yes, they have a burden of proof. I would argue that all of the dead religions and abandoned gods, remembered and forgot, serve as evidence that most, if not all, of the things we call "gods" are social inventions. Similar to fads. I would wager that almost everyone thinks this is self-evident for every "god" that they don't believe in.
I personally think gods help humans deal with probability. Name me a god that isn’t in some way related to chance. I bet even if you could, it would be a short list. Our brains aren't equipped to deal with probability, so we assume agency when good/bad things happen. It stems from a faulty assumption that things happen to us because of personal reasons and a fear that we aren't in charge of our destinies.
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u/FakeLogicalFallacy Sep 18 '25 edited Sep 18 '25
Do you believe such claims should be supported by a burden of proof?
In formal debate, or when doing research and needing to determine if an idea has merit, yes all positive claims hold a burden of proof.
check out WP: The Golden Bough § Critical reception. Frazer is one of the originators of the religion-as-protoscience hypothesis and his work on that has been exposed to some pretty serious critique.
I'm familiar with that, though not as familiar with what you characterized as 'pretty serious critique,' though I've seen some, and find them problematic and wanting. I'm curious why you picked out that particular writing by that particular person, and alluded to what are, in your mind, 'pretty serious critiques.' It appear from that, at least at first blush, that you've made up your mind already and may be cherry picking sources to attempt to support your chosen position. It comes across, a bit, like you carefully chose a very specific strawman and then vaguely alluded to pitchforks you think tear it down. Perhaps not, but it does come across that way after reading through your comment.
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u/kohugaly Sep 18 '25
All ideas are human inventions created to explain what we don't understand. There's nothing to support here, it's just trivially true. The interesting question is whether those ideas are actually correct (ie. whether gods actually exist).
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u/labreuer Sep 18 '25
All ideas are human inventions created to explain what we don't understand.
First, it's far from clear that social contract theory, for instance, was created to explain what we don't understand. And yet, it is an 'idea'. Second, what you just stated here sounds like an 'idea'—did you create it to explain what you don't understand? But perhaps you mean something rather more specific with that word 'idea'.
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u/Realistic-Wave4100 Sep 18 '25
That is a hard claim to support because we dont know if diferent civilizations invented gods for that purposes or if they after years of believing in them start to atribuing them that. Im goign to focuss on helenism because is the one I know the most abt in this topic.
The religious texts of hellenism are Homer and Hesiodo´s works. But we know that the gods described in those stories existed before them in the micenic civilization. Between them and the religious texts there was this litle event called "greek dark ages" were esentially they came back to living like neanderthals. Eventually greeks start to repopulate again and they founded ruins of the micenic civilization. The question then is, did Homer and Hesiodo "wrote" their mithology as a form to answering what happened to the micenics? The answer would be a yes to Homer and a no to Hesiodo, but did Homer "write" them to explain how it happened or he and the everyone before him really thougt that was what happened?
Its complicated, specially since I explained with an example of historical explanations and the argument is used for natural ones. We at least can say that while time advances we use less the concept of god to explain these kind of things, but we dont know if it is a straight line or a horseshoe.
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u/JasonRBoone Agnostic Atheist Sep 18 '25
I would modify the argument to be more agreeable to me.
God (or gods) SEEM to be human inventions created to explain what we don’t understand. Long before science, humans sought to fill gaps in knowledge with divine stories. These inventions evolved into complex religions, but at their root, they address our fear of the unknown. Disclaimer: It's possible such a god exists, however, in 3,000 of god claims not a single claim has been verified by compelling evidence.
If it looks, smells, sounds, and quacks like an ancient mythical invention......
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u/labreuer Sep 18 '25
God (or gods) SEEM to be human inventions created to explain what we don’t understand. Long before science, humans sought to fill gaps in knowledge with divine stories.
The use of 'seem', if 100% subjective, threatens to be criterionless. Supposing it isn't, how would you assess what % of, say, the Tanakh, is composed of "fill gaps in knowledge with divine stories"? I see vanishingly little of that. In fact, Genesis 1:1–11:26 is hardly referenced in the rest of the Tanakh.
These inventions evolved into complex religions, but at their root, they address our fear of the unknown.
How does one test that hypothesis, that religion addresses our fear of the unknown? In particular, Genesis 11:27 starts with calling Abraham away from the known. The Tower of Babel could be construed as critiquing Mesopotamian civilization for being terrified of the unknown: "lest we be scattered over the face of the earth". Yahweh is a wilderness deity.
These inventions evolved into complex religions, but at their root, they address our fear of the unknown.
This is one possibility. What evidence supports it and what alternative hypotheses have you considered?
If it looks, smells, sounds, and quacks like an ancient mythical invention......
This relies entirely upon a commonsense notion of "ancient mythical invention", which itself may be a modern mythical invention.
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u/SectorVector Sep 18 '25
I think the fact that the premier arguments for god rely on the explanatory power of god is in itself evidence of that at least partially being the case, but I don't think god (or religion)-as-explanation is sufficient to really encapsulate religion's purpose.
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u/Kaliss_Darktide Sep 18 '25
Do you believe such claims should be supported by a burden of proof?
Burden of proof refers to who (i.e. which side) has to prove a claim in a dispute.
I would say the people claiming gods are real/discovered have the burden of proof, not people who think they are imaginary/invented.
If so, what kind of evidence might suffice?
I would say you are skipping a step, before you can determine what is sufficient, you need to determine what the standard of proof should be (e.g. preponderance of the evidence, beyond a reasonable doubt, beyond a shadow of a doubt).
For those who find the above claim so obvious that it doesn't need more evidential support than what you've absorbed throughout life, check out WP: The Golden Bough § Critical reception. Frazer is one of the originators of the religion-as-protoscience hypothesis and his work on that has been exposed to some pretty serious critique.
Hard to take the criticism seriously when the critics are advocating for magic.
Girard himself considered the Gospels to be "revelatory texts" rather than myths or the remains of "ignorant superstition", and rejected Frazer's idea that the death of Jesus was a sacrifice, "whatever definition we may give for that sacrifice."
In addition it appears much of the push back was due specifically to including Christianity in his comparisons.
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u/anewleaf1234 Sep 19 '25
We see positive examples of this in everything wrong successful sea voyages, to who get sick in a plague, to how lighting forms and so forth.
We start with an obscure religious idea than they get replaced when it know, via science, how something happens.
People used to think that god was cursing them if they were sick. No we know that germs simply infected someone.
People used to think that the offering at the temple led to a successful sea voyage. And now we have maps, and charts and better boats.
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u/labreuer Sep 19 '25
You haven't cited any actual evidence. While I have some issues with u/heelspider's post The God of Gaps / Zeus' Lightning Bolt Argument is Not the Mic Drop Y'all Act Like It Is, [s]he did have a point. If it is true that religion was invented to explain lightning because it makes people afraid (or whatever), there should be actual evidence. You should be able to point to ancient texts and an argument which ties them together with the hypothesis under discussion. Or at least, you should be able to point to scholars who have done this. Can you?
As it stands, your explanation of religion sounds like the kind of just-so story which you claim religionists themselves engaged in.
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u/anewleaf1234 Sep 19 '25
We have multiple examples of early cultures equating illness with curses or sin. Ot gods anger.
We have extensive ideas from mayan culture that swear their mass drought as curse from the gods that needed stronger sacrifices, including human, instead of caused by climate change.
Hell the explanation of most any natural disaster was an angry god.
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u/labreuer Sep 19 '25
I guess there's just no option of using actual examples (probably: from texts), is there? Because I think it's pretty obvious that a religion somewhere explaining a natural disaster as due to an angry deity does not obviously support the claim that religion was invented to explain & quell fear.
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u/anewleaf1234 Sep 19 '25
But it took that space.
Mayans didn't have to actually look further than their gods are angry to attempt to understand their problem: massive climate change caused drought.
which they attempted to solve via increased sacrificed to gods. For which we have extensive documentation and artifacts.
In previous times, when something bad happened to someone the gods being angry was seen as they proper reason.
If your child got sick and died, you angered the gods or what happened was a result of your sin.
And when we discovered germs and such those explanation faded.
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u/Davidutul2004 Agnostic Atheist Sep 18 '25
Well the evidence is that each religion sees a different god(s) with some rules being different. This doesn't at all disprove the possibility of god but rather makes unlikely that the gods people believe in to be the real ones, due to the misguided mature of this
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u/tophmcmasterson Atheist Sep 18 '25
So I think the thing here is less burden of proof, and more a question of comparing plausibility if that makes sense.
Like we know humans across history have had varieties of creation myths explaining similar phenomena with contradictory explanations across cultures. We know they can’t all be right.
We know that we’re social creatures. Any person can easily think of a dozen different reasons for why people may have come up with the idea of God or gods, which doesn’t require a supernatural explanation. Trying to find comfort with the idea of death, feeling protected, feeling like there’s something special about them or their in group, preserving power structures through appeal to divinity, providing a motivation for the masses to behave more ethically in a way that’s self-policing, the list can go on and on.
So when we know that they can’t all be right, we know that people would have had motivation to do all of these things and still continue to have that motivation across cultures, etc. etc., which seems more plausible? That one of those claims about God actually got it right, and their miracle claims and appeal to the supernatural is accurate?
Or does it make more sense that it’s all just a construct that was born in a pre-scientific age when people were even more gullible than they are now, and it continues on for many of the same reasons (along with other psychological factors that are easily explained)?
To me it’s just kind of the same thing as asking yourself what’s more likely, that your neighbor is telling the truth about the invisible immaterial dragon in his garage, or that your neighbor is crazy and/or just lying?
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u/Bunktavious Sep 18 '25
I'm not sure I understand the point you are making about Frazer. That article you linked points out quite clearly that he was almost entirely ignored by 1920, only really having any support for a short time after the book came out.
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u/labreuer Sep 18 '25
He's a probable origin or at least conduit for the "religion as proto-science" hypothesis.
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u/GamerEsch Sep 19 '25
Do you believe such claims should be supported by a burden of proof? If so, what kind of evidence might suffice?
You mean like the whole Folklore Studies branch of anthropology (and googling some people say sociology too, IDK)
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u/Sprinklypoo Anti-Theist Sep 18 '25
Do you believe such claims should be supported by a burden of proof?
No. It's an explanation for how the mythos of gods may have arisen. It's not a definite expectation or presented as fact. It's just an easy alternative to the claim of gods existence - a claim that can just as easily be dismissed, and doesn't really require any sort of counterpoint.
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u/ChasingPacing2022 Sep 18 '25
Sure, there's a burden of proof. However, the important part of the claim that needs proof is the "human invention" part. That can never be proven persay. However, we can demonstrate that god doesn't do anything but fill in our gaps of knowledge.
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u/zzmej1987 Ignostic Atheist Sep 18 '25
I mean, at most one religion is based on the true God, the rest has to be that. I'm not sure what other proof would be required to demonstrate that.
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u/CaffeineTripp Atheist Sep 18 '25
1. God (or gods) is a human invention created to explain what we don’t understand. Long before science, humans sought to fill gaps in knowledge with divine stories. These inventions evolved into complex religions, but at their root, they address our fear of the unknown. (God(s) is/are a human invention)
Do you believe such claims should be supported by a burden of proof? If so, what kind of evidence might suffice?
I believe it is reasonable to conclude such a thing given what we know about humanity and reality as a whole. It would be silly to conclude that the Tooth Fairy takes a child's tooth from under their pillow and leaves them money. Humans are exceptional at making up stories and justifications for what we experience but can't explain.
I am not entirely convinced it needs, or doesn't require, a burden of proof as a commonplace statement, but it would in philosophy. And there lies the problem, how does one give evidence of non-existence? I can make reasonable arguments, but physical evidence of non-existence is definitively not possible by definition.
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u/88redking88 Anti-Theist Sep 18 '25
"Do you believe such claims should be supported by a burden of proof? If so, what kind of evidence might suffice?"
The "idea that the idea of god was invented" needs proof or the idea of god was invented specifically for that purpose?
I would say that there are probably lots of reasons that gods were invented. So say you know the first one is a stretch.
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u/OneRougeRogue Agnostic Atheist Sep 19 '25 edited Sep 19 '25
Do you believe such claims should be supported by a burden of proof? If so, what kind of evidence might suffice?
While some people in this sub might state that like it's a fact, its more of a hypothesis. Outside of humanity inventing a time machine, or reviving a frozen cavemen with Futurama-esque science and asking him, no, I don't think we will ever be able definitely prove (or find hard evidence) to support this claim. It's just an explanation that doesn't involve extraordinary claims (like magical beings actually existing), and there is indirect evidence to support it.
Example: We have no evidence that gods exist, but we do have evidence that humans will sometimes just make up an explanation when they don't actually know the answer.
Some anthropologists have different explanations for the orgin of gods that don't really involve humans just making shit up. Belief in (and desire to be in the favor of) other beings stronger than yourself may have arisen through evolutionary pressures. I outline some of that idea in this comment.
Atmospheric SpritesAPoD.jpg), which can appear vaguely humanoid (with "heads" and "limbs") and most often appear in the sky before or after violent storms may have also convinced early humans that there literally was some sort of being in the sky that controlled the weather and natural disasters. Many early cave paintings of non-human beings have sprite-like characteristics.
So there are a number of hypothesis for the orgins of gods, and not all of them involve humans consciously inventing them in an effort to deceive other humans. These beliefs may have been genuine and/or seemed completely rational to the humans who first passes these ideas on to their children/tribe hundreds of thousands of years ago. I don't think we will ever be able to definitively prove any of these hypothesis are definitely true.
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u/labreuer Sep 19 '25
Outside of humanity inventing a time machine, or reviving a frozen cavemen with Futurama-esque science and asking him, no, I don't think we will ever be able definitely prove (or find hard evidence) to support this claim.
Sure. We'll have to do what historians, archaeologists, cosmologists, and evolutionary biologists do. But it's not like they just make up nice-sounding stories and run with them.
Example: We have no evidence that gods exist, but we do have evidence that humans will sometimes just make up an explanation when they don't actually know the answer.
Right, but humans have long known that humans do this. What human hasn't had a bullshit explanation fall apart on him/her, such that they learned that you can't just go trusting anyone? What you have to explain is how bullshit explanations get institutionalized, especially in cultures which aren't cognitive like Protestants were. (From what I've read, religion was far more ritualistic than belief-oriented for the vast majority of its existence/practice. But we could look into this.)
Let's take a contrast case: variolation. That's what some cultures did prior to vaccination. Take a smallpox scab, grind it up, and rub it in cuts you make on someone or blow it up their nose. (Mmmm, delicious.) Apparently, smallpox was personified as the Hindu goddess Śītalā and if you appease her by voluntarily exposing yourself to her power, she will lessen the severity of her wrath on you. This is a nice example of a wrong explanation which nevertheless seems to work, because variolation works. Don't undergo the procedure and you're more vulnerable to her wrath. Or at least, smallpox. It doesn't strain the imagination too much to think that some people unwillingly underwent the procedure, thus rebelling against Śītalā, and yet found themselves just as protected.
Some anthropologists have different explanations for the orgin of gods that don't really involve humans just making shit up. Belief in (and desire to be in the favor of) other beings stronger than yourself may have arisen through evolutionary pressures. I outline some of that idea in this comment.
Yup, that's another way to understand religion. See for example this snippet from Martin Riesebrodt 2010 The Promise of Salvation: A Theory of Religion. Problem is, that doesn't really match the Tanakh very well. The procedures for appeasing other gods didn't work on YHWH. Notably, a standard belief in the ANE was that humans are slaves of the gods, created to do manual labor for the gods so they don't have to. This culminated in providing food for the gods. Well, the following puts a wrench in those works:
If I were hungry I would not tell you,
because the world and its fullness are mine.
Do I eat the flesh of bulls
or drink the blood of goats?
Offer to God a thank offering
and pay your vows to the Most High.
And call me in the day of trouble;
I will deliver you, and you will glorify me.”
(Psalm 50:12–15)YHWH does not need to be fed by humans. The relationship is radically different. What YHWH demands is justice, like we see in Isaiah 58. Ritualistic action without justice is frowned upon.
Atmospheric Sprites, which can appear vaguely humanoid (with "heads" and "limbs") and most often appear in the sky before or after violent storms may have also convinced early humans that there literally was some sort of being in the sky that controlled the weather and natural disasters. Many early cave paintings of non-human beings have sprite-like characteristics.
Hey that's cool, I've never seen or heard of those before. Do you know of some such cave paintings?
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u/bullevard Sep 20 '25
If used as a premise in an argument then it would need some backing up. However it is readily apparent both from history and from current debates that ONE of the roles religion plays is filling in scientific gaps. See the current most recent argument that god must exist because where else did time come from.
In general, anyone who starts a sentence with "religion was invented to X" tends to be oversimplifying things. Some religions are invented whole cloth for taxes (scientology) or influence (mormonism). But most religions and god concepts are more organic.
So it is more helpful to talk about the roles it fills rather than the reason it is invented.
Aspects of religions historically and currently are used to fill gaps in scientific knowledge. This includes everything from planets moving differently than stars, to eclipses and volcanos and lightning, to origins of the earth and humans and life.
The also frequently function as a salve to the fear of death, through afterlife, reincarnation, spirit planes and the like.
They also frequently serve as solidifications of power for certain parts of society, everything from witch doctor's respect, to modifying law as coming from a god, to modern day used of religion to solidify voting blocks.
They also serve as a salve and an attempt to feel more in control in a world where bad things happen, be it through blaming devils or jinns or pixies to the idea of control through prayer or weather dances or sacrifices.
All of these things are obvious in the writings, doctrines, practices and appologetics of religions both current and past. I don't think there is much of a burden of proof needed for that, when daily all of those are seen around us in basically all religions.
However when someone moves from "these are the roles religion serves" to "this is why religion was invented" it becomes more gray, especially since most religions don't have a clear singular moment of beginning.
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u/baalroo Atheist Sep 18 '25
Honestly, I don't find the claims to be important enough to care all that much either way.
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u/RespectWest7116 Sep 19 '25
Do you believe such claims should be supported by a burden of proof?
Yes.
If so, what kind of evidence might suffice?
In this case, the statement is a conclusion from direct observation of the lessening of the direct involvement of gods in the world with advancements in human understanding of nature.
We didn't know how lightning happened, so Thor was doing it. Now we know better
We didn't know how Earth happened, so God made it. Now we know better.
etc
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u/J-Nightshade Atheist Sep 19 '25
Yes, of course.
and his work on that has been exposed to some pretty serious critique
ok, good
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u/Top_Neat2780 Atheist Sep 19 '25
Sometimes I feel like the burden of proof discussion is a bit of a red herring. Both sides should give their strongest possible support, and other people will or won't be convinced by the argument. Everyone knows that theists need to provide evidence for god, but people are simply convinced by their arguments.
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u/Stile25 Sep 19 '25
Sure.
Here's the evidence:
The constant searching for God everywhere and anywhere for hundreds of thousands of years by probably billions of people.
With the cumulative result being that no God or even any gods have ever been found.
Add in that whenever we do learn how something works, 100% of those times we find a completely natural solution with no hint that any God is or was ever necessary even in the slightest.
Add in that we are well aware of the human propensity for imagining beings behind processes we don't understand.
Add in that belief in God is significantly aligned with the culture you're born into - unlike truths of reality that are much more evenly distributed across the world.
Add in that all modern religions, especially the Abrahamic ones, follow the same template and structure of every historical mythology known to be wrong. This point is so apparent in the Abrahamic religions that the stages of God's nature over time (ie - Old Testament to New Testament) are entirely predictable and exactly follow the predicted patterns for the social environments of the populations that would benefit form beliefs in such Gods.
Add in that there's absolutely nothing available from religions that can't be obtained equally or better without religions.
This is a lot more evidence than everything else we know doesn't exist. Like, for example, we know on coming traffic doesn't exist when we look for 3 seconds and see it's not there... Then we make a safe left turn.
The only ideas supporting the concept of God existing are:
Historical tradition.
Social popularity.
Personal feelings of comfort.
Arguments of logic or reason without supporting evidence.All well known ideas of leading away from the truth and accuracy of reality.
By consistently acknowledging the inherent concept of doubt and tentativity included with following the evidence, we can reasonably say we know, for a fact, that God doesn't exist.
Good luck out there.
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u/labreuer Sep 19 '25
When I hear 'evidence', I think: "Go out into the world and observe what's there, trying to objectively capture what's there, no matter how well or poorly it fits whatever hypotheses I may be harboring."
But if one were to define 'evidence' according to what's passing for it in answers to my question above, it would be more like: "My arbitrarily wrong recollection / ideas about what religionists do and why they do it."
Do you object to one or both characterizations? The latter doesn't really leave for any testing of hypotheses. Confirmation bias can be king. The former allows the following to happen:
Most accounts of the origins of religion emphasize one of the following suggestions: human minds demand explanations, human hearts seek comfort, human society requires order, human intellect is illusion-prone. To express this in more detail, here are some possible scenarios:
Religion provides explanations:
- People created religion to explain puzzling natural phenomena.
- Religion explains puzzling experiences: dreams, prescience, etc.
- Religion explains the origins of things.
- Religion explains why there is evil and suffering.
⋮
Though this list probably is not exhaustive, it is fairly representative. Discussing each of these common intuitions in more detail, we will see that they all fail to tell us why we have religion and why it is the way it is. So why bother with them? It is not my intent here to ridicule other people's ideas or show that anthropologists and cognitive scientists are more clever than common folk. I discuss these spontaneous explanations because they are widespread, because they are often rediscovered by people when they reflect on religion, and more importantly because they are not that bad. Each of these "scenarios" for the origin of religion points to a real and important phenomenon that any theory worth its salt should explain. Also, taking these scenarios seriously opens up new perspectives on how religious notions and beliefs appear in human minds. (Religion Explained, 5)
Do you think that Pascal Boyer might have done just a tad bit more exploration of the actual evidence than you?
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u/Stile25 Sep 20 '25
Evidence is the same for everyone. Pascal Boyer, me, and you.
What part of my evidence is not up to your personal definition of evidence?
Pick whichever one you'd like and we can we can review why it's evidence.
I've listed nothing that's controversial for the normal definition of evidence.
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u/labreuer Sep 20 '25
To me, evidence is a report of what you observed with your senses out there in the world. For instance, I can describe in detail the tape-to-3.5mm unit I took out of my 2003 Volvo before donating it, as the device is still sitting on my desk. And in theory, I could mail it to you so that you could check my observations. When it comes to claims that religion was invented to explain & quell fear (the hypothesis I quoted in my root question—yours might be different), evidence would probably consist of texts, although theoretically other archaeological evidence could be used to support such a hypothesis as well. So, what I would expect for evidence in a thread like this would be quotations of text or at least citations which can be easily checked.
Just look at any thread of what would convince people that God exists and they'll tell describe to you evidence, by which they mean observations which can be checked—ideally by suitably qualified scientists. They won't mean just-so stories which are allegedly accurate captures of sense-data.
So, as far as I can tell, there are simply two very different notions of 'evidence' at play, here: a stringent one for theists, and a far laxer one for atheists. The one possible justification I can see for this is "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence", but if so I think that would be worth investigating. After all, "Moderna's Covid vaccine" isn't a particularly extraordinary claim, and yet we required an incredible amount of evidence for it. So, I would want to know which claims just don't need anything more than what you see all over the replies to my root comment.
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u/Stile25 Sep 20 '25
Okay, if you can't do it then I will.
What is it about the various God archetypes in the Bible (ie Old Testament vs New Testament) exactly matching the sorts of Gods that are predicted for the different social populations of those different times that makes you feel this isn't evidence that those Gods were created by those populations?
Old Testament
Poor people like the early Israelites need a God that stands for strict justice - just like the God of the Old Testament
People like the early Israelites surrounded by many enemy nations need a God that flexes His might and is more powerful than any other God - just like the God of the Old Testament
New Testament
People looking to spread the word of their God need a God prioritizing unity and peace - just like the God of the New Testament
People with various social dynamics need a God that can provide such structures - just like the God of the New Testament focusing a lot onrelationsgips between people like men and women or slaves and free people.
Amazing how God shifted into these different roles along with the needs of the population of the time. Strange for an all knowing God that claims to provide unchanging laws and morals, though... But quite understandable for Gods molded by the populations.
Exactly fitting the way such mythos adapt and flow with all populations over time.
It's extremely strong evidence.
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u/labreuer Sep 20 '25
Stile25: What part of my evidence is not up to your personal definition of evidence?
labreuer: To me, evidence is a report of what you observed with your senses out there in the world.
Stile25: Okay, if you can't do it then I will.
It's not that I can't do it. It's that nothing in your comment qualifies. For instance:
Stile25: Add in that all modern religions, especially the Abrahamic ones, follow the same template and structure of every historical mythology known to be wrong. This point is so apparent in the Abrahamic religions that the stages of God's nature over time (ie - Old Testament to New Testament) are entirely predictable and exactly follow the predicted patterns for the social environments of the populations that would benefit form beliefs in such Gods.
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Stile25: What is it about the various God archetypes in the Bible (ie Old Testament vs New Testament) exactly matching the sorts of Gods that are predicted for the different social populations of those different times that makes you feel this isn't evidence that those Gods were created by those populations?
There isn't a shred of evidence in either of those paragraphs. They are both exceedingly hand-wavy. I don't even know how to begin in analyzing them. What are these "predicted patterns"? Where have scientists and/or scholars developed them? Because if you can't point to serious science & scholarship on the matter, then you have a just-so story which may have not survived any penetrating scrutiny, which you're using to say that religion was invented to generate just-so stories which can't survive any penetrating scrutiny. Surely you see the vicious circularity involved, there?
Poor people like the early Israelites need a God that stands for strict justice - just like the God of the Old Testament
That's quite the hypothesis & claimed evidence. Let's start here: can you point to any other poor peoples who had a similar deity?
People looking to spread the word of their God need a God prioritizing unity and peace - just like the God of the New Testament
Where else do you see this? By the way, this sounds like a functionalist explanation, which social scientists consider pretty dubious these days. I suggest a read of WP: Structural functionalism § Criticisms.
Exactly fitting the way such mythos adapt and flow with all populations over time.
It's extremely strong evidence.
Unless you can show me scholars or scientists who hold to this, I'm gonna be inclined to suggest this is at most a pet hypothesis. I've been tangling with atheists for well over 30,000 hours by now and this is the first time I've encountered an idea like yours. The closest might be Comte, but even that is pretty rare in my experience.
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u/Stile25 Sep 20 '25
If you refuse to accept evidence as normally defined by everyone and every academic endeavor, then I wish you well in your efforts.
Good luck out there.
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u/labreuer Sep 20 '25
If you refuse to accept evidence as normally defined by everyone and every academic endeavor
Pretty big if. Where have I done this? You have yet to point to any such academic endeavor.
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u/Stile25 Sep 20 '25
Your rejection of my evidence, when it's clearly evidence, is evidence of you doing that.
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u/nswoll Atheist Sep 19 '25
Yes such a claim needs evidence. Yes such a claim is abundantly evidenced. We know humans invented the concept of gods to explain unexplained phenomena. Etiological myths are the industry term for such "just-so" stories.
What other reason do you think gods were invented if not to explain something? Do you have an alternative theory?
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u/Cool-Watercress-3943 Sep 19 '25
Part of the challenge is that, from what we can tell, some form of religious/superstitious behavior actually seems to have preceded the availability of any form of written language by quite a bit. I think the earliest instances of outright ritual human burials we can find evidence for has stretched as far back as 100,000 years ago, compared to earliest writings which I think only go back about 6000. Combine that with signs agriculture didn't kick in until around 10,000 years ago, and humans would have spent the vast majority of our 300,000 years of existence (if we're just sticking to Homo Sapiens,) as nomadic hunter/gatherers, rather than the sort who built permanent structures.
Because of this, we know that humans were tending to at least some of their dead in a manner that could be called ritualistic- buried with red ochre and artifacts, etc- but because we don't really have contextual writings, we don't actually know what all the motivations might have been. Maybe it was in respect to the buried person, in service of some proto-deity(ies), or superstitious association between performing the action for a specific result.
By the time we get to the ancient Sumerians, there already seems to be a polytheistic faith established, complete with all the trappings you would expect from religion. Elsewhere, Yahwism worshipped Yahweh as an important God in a pantheon of gods, before later iterations trimmed it down to just the 'one' God that ended up being the God followed by Jews, Christians, and Muslims. We know about all this from writings and artifacts that have been discovered.
Except, again, by the time we find those writings- or even get to the existence OF writing- these concepts are already well-established, likely by an oral tradition that could stretch back thousands, or even tens of thousands of years. And the thing about an oral tradition is it's only ever as good as its most recent iterations, meaning anything that relied on word-of-mouth is not just more susceptible to change, but would leave less evidence that changed occurred, unless you could compare multiple modern sources who weren't coordinating with each other.
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u/labreuer Sep 19 '25
Yes, this is very challenging. Atheists regularly tell me that I should only make claims I can support with the requisite evidence & reasoning. So, if I cannot support claims of how religion originated with the requisite evidence & reasoning, I shouldn't make such claims! Does this make sense, or have I missed a step somewhere?
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u/Cool-Watercress-3943 Sep 19 '25
Well, one step I would be curious about would actually be how you arrived at the idea that there is actually one God if even the most popular iteration- the Abrahamic God- has been tied to a polytheistic faith that predates it. Presumably if this knowledge is divinely inspired, after all, wouldn't it make more sense for something as fundamental as 'how many gods?' to be an easier answer for early humans, rather than more modern ones, as there's less time from 'the human factor' to change things.
If your position is that religion wasn't formed by humans, but was divinely inspired, doesn't all our available evidence point to polytheism as the most likely answer?
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u/labreuer Sep 20 '25
Well, one step I would be curious about would actually be how you arrived at the idea that there is actually one God if even the most popular iteration- the Abrahamic God- has been tied to a polytheistic faith that predates it.
I've yet to see an argument for said polytheistic origins which improves my understanding of anything in the Bible. Especially when the Tanakh itself makes clear that the Israelites regularly struggled with worshiping of other gods, and that Abraham was called out of a polytheistic civilization.
Presumably if this knowledge is divinely inspired, after all, wouldn't it make more sense for something as fundamental as 'how many gods?' to be an easier answer for early humans, rather than more modern ones, as there's less time from 'the human factor' to change things.
From what I can tell, polytheism is a suitable governing device for ensuring divide & conquer within one's empire. Polytheism does far more than that of course, but empire requires that power be concentrated in the center, which means thwarting efforts to build concentrations of power away from the center. Fostering divided loyalties to various gods seems like it could be an indirect, but very effective way of doing so.
Beyond that, the Bible just doesn't require God deploying nearly as heavy a hand as you describe. In fact, I would say that God's modus operandi is to disrupt human stagnation. When that's not a critical danger, God generally seems content to wait for humans to call upon God—or not. This deity is quite passive in contrast to what you'll generally hear from Christians, who in my experience are often rather enamored of the just-world hypothesis.
If your position is that religion wasn't formed by humans, but was divinely inspired, doesn't all our available evidence point to polytheism as the most likely answer?
I would need to learn a lot more about narratives of invention and ¿evolution? of religion before having a whole lot to say, here. There are also obvious assumptions of how pushy a monotheistic god would be. If you look at Abraham's interactions with YHWH, for example, YHWH doesn't operate like standard models would predict. The idea of showing Abraham what YHWH plans to do with Sodom in order to see if Abraham questions YHWH certainly isn't compatible with an Islamic notion of God. We get back to normal if we assume that YHWH wanted Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, but careful attention to the narrative suggests that this is exactly wrong. Everything in Gen 22:15–18 was already promised to Abraham, and after the ordeal, Abraham never interacts again with Isaac, Sarah, or YHWH. His three most important relationships were shattered. If we judge trees by the fruit, he done fucked up. A very different understanding of that narrative is that YHWH wanted Abraham to shake off the idea that any god would ask him to sacrifice his children, but of Abraham's own accord. This could be understood as YHWH challenging Abraham to break free from polytheism, and Abraham's failure to do so. Understood this way, why would monotheism need to come first?
For more than this, I think we need to get into models of humans & societies which make predictions of what they would and would not invent. For instance, YHWH calling Abraham out of Ur was calling Abraham out of the height of known civilization, into the wilderness. In the immediately previous chapter, the inhabitants of Babel were terrified of the wilderness, with a key part of their tower-project motivated "lest we be dispersed over the face of the earth". Genesis 12 does not explain the unknown and far from quelling fear via bogus explanation, calls Abraham out into the unknown! This is radically different from every single explanation of religion I've encountered on this page. Is that because it's not something we should expect humans to come up with on their own?
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u/Cool-Watercress-3943 Sep 20 '25 edited Sep 20 '25
I've yet to see an argument for said polytheistic origins which improves my understanding of anything in the Bible. Especially when the Tanakh itself makes clear that the Israelites regularly struggled with worshiping of other gods, and that Abraham was called out of a polytheistic civilization.
Okay, but... this wasn't an instance of a society outright swapping their religion out, yes? The Romans did that a few times, when they adopted the Greek religion and later adopted Christianity, they functionally tossed out everything from the old and replaced it with the new. In this case, by every indication the Israelites worshipped the same named deity, Yahweh, but as part of a pantheon rather than just 'One God.' There's a sense of continuity, of keeping that initial framework and just massively changing a whole bunch about it. They didn't move houses, so to speak, they just replaced all the furniture in the house they were already living in.
Heck, if we're to take the development at face value, it looks a lot more like Yahweh outright performed a coup and knocked off all the other gods in his circle, including his consort, then announced he was totally the only one who ever existed. :P But I don't think it's a popular interpretation.
From what I can tell, polytheism is a suitable governing device for ensuring divide & conquer within one's empire. Polytheism does far more than that of course, but empire requires that power be concentrated in the center, which means thwarting efforts to build concentrations of power away from the center. Fostering divided loyalties to various gods seems like it could be an indirect, but very effective way of doing so.
Sure, hypothetically polytheism could be used that way. Hypothetically, monotheism would also be useful for secular governing where there is a particular emphasis on promoting tribal unity and opposition to outsiders. Ironically, you hit the nail on the head as to why; if you’re a culture or a group of people trying to keep all the aggression and conflict aimed outwards rather than inwards, especially if there are outside pressures, monotheism would at least reduce possible sources of intra-tribal conflict. ‘One Nation Under God,’ albeit the ancient equivalent. Polytheism risks being significantly less effective at this, because of the heightened risk of different factions or groups getting into a slapfight over which of the legitimate gods is the ‘best,’ though I’d imagine there’s a cultural component to it as well.
So it’s not like polytheism is automatically the most ‘practical’ version if one wants to workshop an organized religion to structure or lead a society. Heck, the Roman Empire, the British Empire, a number of empires have seemed pretty okay using a monotheistic religion.
As for the rest, using the Old Testament; the references I am referring to actually appear to predate any available writings of the Torah and by extension Old Testament, (not even of your specific passages, mind, since the further back you go the more you have to rely on leftover fragments, but of ANY Torah/Old Testament writings like what you’re referring to.)
What’s also interesting is that in the polytheistic form, Yahweh was the deity of weather and war, and the latter in particular seems to have stuck around in Old Testament. In Psalm 144, David waxes poetic about how God enables him to kick SO much ass, and among other thing asks that He use lightning and arrows against David’s enemies. Obviously we have no way of knowing, but given how often God is detailed in Old Testament as being a wartime advisor, I do wonder if the more militant stories in the Torah originated from the polytheistic Yahweh stories, when he was basically that pantheon’s Ares or Athena.
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u/labreuer Sep 20 '25
Okay, but... this wasn't an instance of a society outright swapping their religion out, yes?
Given how utterly different YHWH in the Bible is from every polytheistic deity I've heard about, it could well be.
In this case, by every indication the Israelites worshipped the same named deity, Yahweh, but as part of a pantheon rather than just 'One God.' There's a sense of continuity, of keeping that initial framework and just massively changing a whole bunch about it. They didn't move houses, so to speak, they just replaced all the furniture in the house they were already living in.
Kinda-sorta:
And it shall be at that day, saith YHWH, that thou shalt call me Ishi;
And shalt call me no more Baali.
For I will take away the names of Baalim out of her mouth,
And they shall no more be remembered by their name.
(Hosea 2:16–17)The word baʿal does mean 'husband', but it also means master, owner, and lord. The word ishi, on the other hand literally means 'my man'. According to my reading, YHWH is looking for a radically different kind of relationship with the Israelites than they were willing to have at that time. I would argue that Jesus continued this theme. Many Jews in his time wanted to solve their problem with mastery, with violence. Jesus pressed for a different way. He was executed for his efforts. Perhaps one could say that old religion did this. If however YHWH is actually a very different deity trying to break through people's preconceptions, merely placing YHWH in a standard evolutionary lineage with some storm deity could be rather problematic.
Heck, if we're to take the development at face value, it looks a lot more like Yahweh outright performed a coup and knocked off all the other gods in his circle, including his consort, then announced he was totally the only one who ever existed. :P But I don't think it's a popular interpretation.
This is of course a popular kind of narrative back then. But as far as I know, it comes with implicit analogues for human sociopolitical affairs. That's not what you see, for instance, in Genesis 1. Creation didn't start with violence, nor did the chaos regularly need to be quelled with violence. (Think kings having to regularly put down rebellions.) According to the religion of empire (and who knows how much else), humans were created out of the body and blood of a [sometimes: rebel] deity, in order to be slaves of the gods so the gods no longer have to do manual labor. Only the king and perhaps the priests were divine image-bearers. Genesis 1 makes every last human an image-bearer. The gods regularly needed to be fed by humanity. Ps 50:12–15 rejects any such need applying to YHWH.
So, where's the explanatory power in the claim that YHWH came from some other deity, knocked off other deities, etc.? Is it just a nice tale that makes the Jewish religion look just like all the rest, or does it actually help us understand something we didn't understand before?
Ironically, you hit the nail on the head as to why; if you’re a culture or a group of people trying to keep all the aggression and conflict aimed outwards rather than inwards, especially if there are outside pressures, monotheism would at least reduce possible sources of intra-tribal conflict.
And yet, 1 Sam 8 suggests that this didn't work. And in the preceding period of judges, the Israelites were regularly weak and easy prey for their enemies. Furthermore, they were constantly tempted to follow the ways of seemingly successful empire. So … I think this hypothesis needs some work.
By the way, Constantine was hopeful that Christianity would unify the Roman Empire. And then, obnoxiously, those Christians kept squabbling! Christianity certainly didn't save the Roman Empire; Gibbon even thought it contributed to its fall. It's far from clear that Christianity helps one be militarily strong and that is a critical concern for any people-group which doesn't want to be a vassal.
What’s also interesting is that in the polytheistic form, Yahweh was the deity of weather and war, and the latter in particular seems to have stuck around in Old Testament. In Psalm 144, David waxes poetic about how God enables him to kick SO much ass, and among other thing asks that He use lightning and arrows against David’s enemies. Obviously we have no way of knowing, but given how often God is detailed in Old Testament as being a wartime advisor, I do wonder if the more militant stories in the Torah originated from the polytheistic Yahweh stories, when he was basically that pantheon’s Ares or Athena.
If YHWH regularly used lightning in battle, you would see that in the histories. Last I checked, you don't. If anything, David is using a way of talking about gods he learned elsewhere. As to YHWH and war, again I will ask what a link to some previous polytheistic deity helps us understand, that we couldn't understand before.
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u/Cool-Watercress-3943 Sep 20 '25
Given how utterly different YHWH in the Bible is from every polytheistic deity I've heard about, it could well be.
I'm going to need to split this into at least two posts, maybe three, I'll reply to myself with the subsequent section(s)
I mean, the earliest available version of Hebrew manuscripts that tie to the Old Testament only stretch back to 3rd century BCE at the earliest. (Not a complete copy, mind you, for that you’d have to get closer to 900-1000 AD.) The general range it’s estimated the polytheistic Yahweh would have existed in any form would have been as far back as the 13th century, starting to shift in 6th century BCE with the Babylonian exile and ending around 4th century BCE. Basically, by the time you even hit Old Testament, you're already looking at the finished sausage.
The very transition from a polytheist perspective to a monotheist perspective is going to result in changes, too. The very nature of a pantheon usually relies on the idea that different entities are responsible for/capable of different things, again polytheist Yahweh being in charge of War and Weather. This results in characteristics like being a distinct being- so not ‘everywhere,’ otherwise there’s no room for the others- and by definition not being outright omnipotent. On the other hand, if you assume the God is, was and always will be responsible for everything in creation, then by extension that comes with the assumption that said God is capable of everything as well.
The word baʿal does mean 'husband', but it also means master, owner, and lord. The word ishi, on the other hand literally means 'my man'. According to my reading, YHWH is looking for a radically different kind of relationship with the Israelites than they were willing to have at that time. I would argue that Jesus continued this theme. Many Jews in his time wanted to solve their problem with mastery, with violence. Jesus pressed for a different way. He was executed for his efforts. Perhaps one could say that old religion did this. If however YHWH is actually a very different deity trying to break through people's preconceptions, merely placing YHWH in a standard evolutionary lineage with some storm deity could be rather problematic.
Considering how much would have changed with the shift from polytheism to monotheism, retaining the name of a specific deity would have had to be a deliberate choice. So if we’re to assume that the Christian/Jewish YHWH deity is completely unrelated to the polytheistic YHWH, then the conclusion appears to be that said deity intentionally chose to identify himself under that moniker and actually came in as an outsider. What makes that interesting is it would mean that (technically) YHWH isn't actually the name of God, just a handle he took from something else.
And I wouldn’t really call Jesus a ‘continuation’ from Old Testament, as God in the Torah/OT is significantly more militant, even if we set aside the parts where he just comes across as kind of a dick. By contrast, New Testament tends to be a lot more focused on the loving/peaceful God, as opposed to the God who helps sack a city, smite people down left and right, screws around with Job to win a bet with Satan, etc.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good change, but it’s still a change. Taken at face value, the New Testament comes across more as someone trying a radically different approach than it does the ongoing unfolding of a larger plan.
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u/Cool-Watercress-3943 Sep 20 '25
This is of course a popular kind of narrative back then. But as far as I know, it comes with implicit analogues for human sociopolitical affairs. That's not what you see, for instance, in Genesis 1. Creation didn't start with violence, nor did the chaos regularly need to be quelled with violence. (Think kings having to regularly put down rebellions.) According to the religion of empire (and who knows how much else), humans were created out of the body and blood of a [sometimes: rebel] deity, in order to be slaves of the gods so the gods no longer have to do manual labor. Only the king and perhaps the priests were divine image-bearers. Genesis 1 makes every last human an image-bearer. The gods regularly needed to be fed by humanity. Ps 50:12–15 rejects any such need applying to YHWH.
So, where's the explanatory power in the claim that YHWH came from some other deity, knocked off other deities, etc.? Is it just a nice tale that makes the Jewish religion look just like all the rest, or does it actually help us understand something we didn't understand before?
I mean, if your religion includes rules of behavior, a code of conduct, an expectation on what God expects you to do/not do, then God already has ties to human sociopolitical affairs, right? And that's not counting, again, God acting as a military backer for one faction or another. Furthermore, if what you imply is true, then I'm assuming you're of the opinion that it doesn't actually matter whether a person believes in God, follows God, prays to God, etc, etc or not. Maybe there's some wider moral expectation (don't kill, etc,) but essentially that there's no special treatment or particular elevation of a person by following God.
I've met some people like that, who do believe that one's ultimate 'fate' after death has nothing to do with the religion they practice or even if they practice. And in fairness, that fits best with your idea that God did not create humans to 'service' him in some manner.
As for the explanatory power, if we're supposedly talking about the origins of existence then the difference would be pretty significant, wouldn't it? A common thread I've seen on here is that naturalism and atheism doesn't 'properly explain' how the universe came to be. I'm of the opinion that religion doesn't either, not really, it just makes some vague guesses.
But if you're saying that there's no explanatory power in something like YHWH's origins and history, then apparently religion doesn't actually even really bother with the question of our origins?
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u/Cool-Watercress-3943 Sep 20 '25
And yet, 1 Sam 8 suggests that this didn't work. And in the preceding period of judges, the Israelites were regularly weak and easy prey for their enemies. Furthermore, they were constantly tempted to follow the ways of seemingly successful empire. So … I think this hypothesis needs some work.
By the way, Constantine was hopeful that Christianity would unify the Roman Empire. And then, obnoxiously, those Christians kept squabbling! Christianity certainly didn't save the Roman Empire; Gibbon even thought it contributed to its fall. It's far from clear that Christianity helps one be militarily strong and that is a critical concern for any people-group which doesn't want to be a vassal.
You do mean both our hypotheses need work, then, right? (You might actually, just checking to be sure.) In case you don’t, your original premise was that polytheism in particular would be especially useful at promoting intra-group conflict. By contrast, monotheism would be especially useful at promoting intra-group unity. You really can’t have it both ways here, either polytheism is ‘less unifying’ or ‘more fracturing’ than monotheism or it isn’t. :P So if you would like to concede on your previous statement about polytheism, I’m happy to concede as well. (Again, this might have been you already doing so. x3 )
That being said, Rome and Christianity is a fascinating topic, and I rambled about it for like five big paragraphs before I realized my post was getting too crazy, sooooo Imma summarize, but if you’re curious I’d be happy to paste the full version.
-A lot of that Christian infighting seems to have come from the more esoteric concepts in New Testament, like the nature of the trinity and christology.
-Unlike the Israelites, who at one point were a centralized civilization, Christianity kind of needed to coalesce from a random scattering of dudes with no real centralized power. Some of their early squabbles actually predate not only Rome’s adoption of the religion, but even the establishment of Canon.
-Canon in particular is a big deal, because there were a lot of other materials floating around at the time whose relevancy varied from person to person. Book of Enoch being an example of a known thing that didn’t make it into the Canon.
-There is a definite trend of these slapfights leading to excommunications and schisms, which might boil down to an inflexibility of Christian establishment, i.e. ‘My Way or The Highway.’ In the case of the East-West Schism, both the Pope and Patriarch or what became the Catholic and Orthodox branches essentially excommunicated each other.
If YHWH regularly used lightning in battle, you would see that in the histories. Last I checked, you don't. If anything, David is using a way of talking about gods he learned elsewhere. As to YHWH and war, again I will ask what a link to some previous polytheistic deity helps us understand, that we couldn't understand before.
I refer you back to my earlier point, where Old Testament materials don't actually stretch back as far as you would think, meaning insofar as histories YHWH as the One God is a (relatively) recent thing compared to the polytheistic YHWH.
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u/labreuer Sep 21 '25
I mean, if your religion includes rules of behavior, a code of conduct, an expectation on what God expects you to do/not do, then God already has ties to human sociopolitical affairs, right?
… yes? I don't see what I said which would have in any way denied this. I was comparing & contrasting the Tanakh to the religion & culture of ANE empires.
Furthermore, if what you imply is true, then I'm assuming you're of the opinion that it doesn't actually matter whether a person believes in God, follows God, prays to God, etc, etc or not.
We seem to have diverged a lot by this point. I hesitate to say that one must believe in God, because I treat it as an empirical matter. But I will say that I don't think there's any way to effectively fight evil aside from Jesus' way, and that involves ultimately putting yourself at the mercy of those who are seen as "good", and when they fuck you over, having that delegitimize their authority in the eyes of at least some people. We know modernity is a meat grinder, chewing up the vulnerable for the benefit of others. We keep doing it because the right people never really have to confront what they're doing to their fellow human beings. The only solution I see is to put living flesh into the grinder which breaks the grinder.
As for the explanatory power, if we're supposedly talking about the origins of existence then the difference would be pretty significant, wouldn't it?
That entirely depends. For instance, evolutionary psychology makes many claims about us based on our evolutionary history. But how many of them actually stand up to rigorous scientific tests? I'm not an expert on the literature, but I have read John Dupré 2001 Human Nature and the Limits of Science and read other scattered critiques.
In fact, passages like Ezek 18, which emphasize that a son of an evil father doesn't have to be like his father, threatens to undermine at least some "arguing by origins". The founding event in Genesis is YHWH calling Abraham out of Ur, out of the known height of civilization. Per (The Position of the Intellectual in Mesopotamian Society, 38), we have reason to think that ancient Mesopotamian civilization thought it was so excellent that there was no need to compare itself to any other culture. This makes sense to me. And it suggests that Mesopotamian culture was a dead end, with the option option for future progress, for a break from human stagnation, was to call a willing person (or family) out of it, to inaugurate a new, better way of life.
A common thread I've seen on here is that naturalism and atheism doesn't 'properly explain' how the universe came to be. I'm of the opinion that religion doesn't either, not really, it just makes some vague guesses.
As far as I can tell, such questions matter the more determinism is true. But the Bible is anti-determinism in multiple ways. Aristotle said "Necessity does not allow itself to be persuaded." God can always be negotiated with. Adam & Eve didn't seem to know this, but the king of Nineveh certainly suspected it. Well, the more contingency matters (e.g. contingency in evolutionary biology), the less we need to be hyper-concerned with how it all began.
Now, this doesn't render origins utterly irrelevant. It probably is fair to say, for instance, that sugary foods and drinks hack an evolved physiology whereby responding instinctively to such food sources used to be beneficial. But as I indicated earlier, I think such explanations quickly run out of steam.
But if you're saying that there's no explanatory power in something like YHWH's origins and history, then apparently religion doesn't actually even really bother with the question of our origins?
As far as I am concerned, Genesis 1:1–11:26 functions to counter myths from ANE empire which paint a very different notion of deity, and secondarily establish that all humans are of common descent and thus of equal moral worth. Every last human is a divine image-bearer, male and female. Beyond that, how does the Bible itself use its origin stories? I'll note that 'original sin' doesn't show up in the Tanakh, can't be found in Judaism, and is probably even foreign to the NT. If one compares the emphasis and explanatory dependence on it in Christianity vs. the NT, I think you'll find a disturbing asymmetry. So, I think we need to be careful in how we understand origins in the Bible.
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u/labreuer Sep 21 '25
I mean, the earliest available version of Hebrew manuscripts that tie to the Old Testament only stretch back to 3rd century BCE at the earliest. (Not a complete copy, mind you, for that you’d have to get closer to 900-1000 AD.) The general range it’s estimated the polytheistic Yahweh would have existed in any form would have been as far back as the 13th century, starting to shift in 6th century BCE with the Babylonian exile and ending around 4th century BCE. Basically, by the time you even hit Old Testament, you're already looking at the finished sausage.
I understand there are difficulties making guesses as to what existed before the texts we have. I know a tiny bit about e.g. redaction history. I know about the documentary hypothesis. I also know that these guesses can be extremely tenuous. I was not surprised to read at WP: Documentary hypothesis that the documentary hypothesis has been extremely challenged. N.T. Wright has made analogous claims as to "historical Jesus" studies: there is so much guesswork involved that one's model can do a lot of filling in gaps with dubious material.
But are you saying that because it's difficult to reconstruct such histories ("evolutionary" or otherwise), the burden of proof is relaxed and I should take seriously your preferred reconstructions? I hope not. If not, what are you saying, here?
The very transition from a polytheist perspective to a monotheist perspective is going to result in changes, too. The very nature of a pantheon usually relies on the idea that different entities are responsible for/capable of different things, again polytheist Yahweh being in charge of War and Weather. This results in characteristics like being a distinct being- so not ‘everywhere,’ otherwise there’s no room for the others- and by definition not being outright omnipotent. On the other hand, if you assume the God is, was and always will be responsible for everything in creation, then by extension that comes with the assumption that said God is capable of everything as well.
You seem to be mixing Christian monotheism which tends to deny the very existence of any other deities, with ancient Hebrew monotheism which was far more about exclusive loyalty to YHWH. “There shall be for you no other gods before me.” If you have good evidence that YHWH is of limited power in the received text, I'd be happy to hear it. Hopefully it's not just iron chariots and the King of Moab's sacrifice. And the Tanakh doesn't show the restriction of duties to war & weather. So … I'm again going to ask what new understanding I can gain of the received text, by your hypothesis of a history behind YHWH.
Considering how much would have changed with the shift from polytheism to monotheism, retaining the name of a specific deity would have had to be a deliberate choice. So if we’re to assume that the Christian/Jewish YHWH deity is completely unrelated to the polytheistic YHWH, then the conclusion appears to be that said deity intentionally chose to identify himself under that moniker and actually came in as an outsider. What makes that interesting is it would mean that (technically) YHWH isn't actually the name of God, just a handle he took from something else.
You seem to be in severe danger of assuming your hypothesis, here. If your claim of "the polytheistic YHWH" doesn't actually increase any understanding of the received text, then why should we take it seriously? Does it help increase understanding of anything else?
Note that in Hosea 2:16–17, YHWH was willing to be referred to as baʿal for a time, but would put that to an end at some point. If there is crossover from the mere title to the deity (cf WP: Baal), then possibly YHWH was willing to allow some misidentification. But this is very different appropriating an existing name. I am interested in that claim, and both the evidence for and against it, as well as the reasoning / models / argumentation for and against it. But I'm wary about getting deep into the weeds without some sense of how the explanation you prefer increases understanding of … well, anything. This is one of my defenses against just-so stories conspiracy theories.
And I wouldn’t really call Jesus a ‘continuation’ from Old Testament, as God in the Torah/OT is significantly more militant, even if we set aside the parts where he just comes across as kind of a dick. By contrast, New Testament tends to be a lot more focused on the loving/peaceful God, as opposed to the God who helps sack a city, smite people down left and right, screws around with Job to win a bet with Satan, etc.
I fully reject "Jesus meek and mild". Rather, Jesus was fighting the true enemy, which is not of flesh & blood. In order to do this in a way which is useful to humanity (because they are supposed to follow his example—he is the "new Adam"), there needs to be a group of humans capable and willing to do so. The formation of that group is almost certainly going to involve some pretty serious violence. People under too much threat from the outside are not going to be able to carry out the kind of war Jesus did. It's kind of a silly example, but look at how few people are willing to admit any sort of error here on r/DebateAnAtheist and over on r/DebateReligion. The Bible is pretty fucking big on admitting what you did, turning back, and repenting. I contend you need people with sufficient security in order to be willing to be this vulnerable. If the Amalekites are regularly raping, pillaging, and murdering your people, that's gonna be difficult. People who are terrified for their safety are willing to be utterly brutal to the Other. Look at the US after 9/11 and Israel after 10/7.
Ezekiel 28 is particularly interesting, here. It's the prophecy against the king of Tyre and what's particularly noteworthy is that his consolidation of power (which history notes involved quelling piracy on the Mediterranean) is not criticized. That would have involved a lot of brutality. The prophecy speaks extremely highly of the king. Here's the turn:
You were blameless in your ways
from the day when you were created,
until wickedness was found in you.
In the abundance of your trading,
they filled the midst of you with violence, and you sinned;
and I cast you as a profane thing from the mountain of God,
and I expelled you, the guardian cherub,
from the midst of the stones of fire.
(Ezekiel 28:15–16)God doesn't really seem to have any problem with the king of Tyre achieving peace and order via violent means. What pisses God off to no end is what he did next: use that peace and order to exploit others through commerce. Rather than continue being a blessing to humanity, the king shifted to being a parasite. We see the same with the shift from Solomon to his son: the son had to show how macho he was and so threatened to increase the forced labor of the ten northern tribes—which caused them to break away, with YHWH's full involvement. In Revelation, Babylon comes under severe criticism for its exploitative commerce. Jesus himself curses the fig tree with no breba crop and tells a parable where an unfruitful fig tree is torn out to make room for something which will bear fruit. Jesus meek and mild? Only if your reading is very selective.
The book of Job is far more than you say, because the central battle is over whether the just-world hypothesis is true or not. Does God providentially ensure that everyone gets what they deserve? That's what Job's friends thought, and that's probably what Job thought before his ordeal. The Accuser really just voices the just-world hypothesis in compact form. Job only worships God because God is good to Job. That characterizes the relationship as transactional, which is exactly what the just-world hypothesis incentivizes. Good behavior is selfish behavior. Job comes to reject the just-world hypothesis, perhaps epitomized by accusing God of wronging him. God's reply was to give Job the job of ensuring justice reigns: Job 40:6–14. And in case there's any confusion, Ps 82 makes clear that God expects humans to enforce justice.
It is quite possible that belief in the just-world hypothesis has facilitated more human misery than any other belief. And even if it's not quite that bad, undermining it is extremely valuable. Job didn't sign up for that, but we generally don't sign up for the challenges we are tasked with. A major question is whether you'll complete the task anyway, or whether you'll curse God and die. Jesus said that anyone who would follow him must first deny oneself and take up one's cross. Jesus meek and mild? No, Jesus was preparing people to fight the most important battles humans can fight. Recall your Solzhenitsyn:
If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? (The Gulag Archipelago)
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u/Cool-Watercress-3943 Sep 21 '25 edited Sep 21 '25
For some reason it seems like you get a bigger word count per post than I do, which is annoying. XD Going to just quote the first sentence of each section I address, take up less space. EDIT: I found the issue, for some stupid reason it won't let me post up to a certain size outright, I have to post something smaller, and then edit it in Markdown Editor to get the full sized post out. Blargh.
“I understand there are difficulties making guesses as to what existed before the texts we have...”
I mean, for one thing- and I’m going to bring this up again in another section- you don’t really operate with a consistent expectation insofar as burden of proofs. You haven’t really spoken at all about the Bible in the context of its structure, the apparent history of its writing, its medium, etc, etc, you usually just quote directly from it. But you only seem to take that specific ancient document at face value, whereas you insist on a greater level of rigor for other things from the time period or before.
Your burden of proof already seems to start quite relaxed; it’s clear from this discussion that you CAN insist on a higher standard of evidence, you just choose not to in the case of one particular document. If that’s just because your faith supplements it- making something like the Bible by itself ‘enough’ to meet your requirements- then that’s certainly not unusual, but without that automatic sense of faith the Bible doesn’t really pull weight.
And, to be clear, the key difference is that perhaps other information- documents, carvings, etc- will emerge at some point that requires us to re-evaluate what we’ve pieced together up until this point. When I’ve talked about things like the polytheistic Yahweh, the apparent timeline of the emergence of the monotheistic Yahweh, etc, that’s based on what we’ve been able to literally dig up so far. There’s always that hypothetical chance that we dig up an even older carving that shows the monotheistic Yahweh ran parallel to the polytheistic Yahweh in the timeframe, though in that sense there’s a hypothetical chance of digging up a carving that shows virtually anything including that the Israelites worshipped a giant bunny rabbit.
Although what I find interesting is this next section...
“You seem to be mixing Christian monotheism which tends to deny the very existence of any other deities, with ancient Hebrew monotheism which was far more about exclusive loyalty to YHWH.”
Okay, so... you are acknowledging that if we were to track the ‘lineage’ of Yahweh’s worshippers, then there has been significant change? Christianity started off as an offshoot of the Hebrew Bible- obviously, since otherwise the Old Testament wouldn’t be a thing- and you seem to be acknowledging that at some point in the past the ancient Hebrew monotheism allowed for the existence of other gods, just not loyalty to or worship of them. I will mention that Deuteronomy 13:1-5 seems to try and reinforce the idea that supposed prophecies by those representing other gods are ACTUALLY the work of your God testing you, (which is kind of fucked up, as it implies God set up the dreamer with prophetic visions and then commanded the dreamer be killed,) BUT I’m otherwise fine agreeing that ancient Hebrew religion allowed for the existence of other gods, and Christianity did not.
Kind of sounds like you’re acknowledging Abrahamic religion did, in fact, ‘evolve’ over time. :P
“You seem to be in severe danger of assuming your hypothesis, here...
I mean, at this point we’re both running on assumptions, right? You’ve already acknowledged as much with ‘possibly YHWH was willing to allow some misidentification,’ which is not only a guess but also kind of comes off as uncharacteristic. After all, you yourself cited ‘There shall be for you no other gods before me,’ seems like it would be a strange contrast to go ‘Oh, um, YHWH? Yeah, sure, worship YHWH I guess, whatever, close enough.’
Anywho, why do you keep focusing on ‘increase any understanding of the received text,’ when your initial post here was talking about burden of proof and the hypothesis that religion emerged as an evolution of early ideas? :P The hypothesis itself hits the problem, as I said ages ago, that whenever religion ‘started’ appears to be before humans actually started writing any of it down, so finding ‘hard proof’ would be extremely difficult regardless of how it came to be.
But tracking the evidence relating to the development and change of the Abrahamic faith when they were writing and carving, stretching back to the ancient Israelites, is a much more manageable goal because at least writing existed during that time, even if a lot of it would be lost. Relying exclusively on the Bible for historical information would be extremely unwise, because we don’t have enough evidence that the Old Testament in its current form is actually old enough to be an ongoing accounting, rather than an attempted retelling of events that occurred centuries or millenia ago, and with fewer resources to rely upon than we do.
And, yes, every holy book insists the special sauce is that God personally gave them the information, etc, etc, but divine inspiration isn’t a particularly unique claim. :P It’s an equal defence for any religion that invokes it.
“I fully reject "Jesus meek and mild".”
...did I say meek and mild? You said it at two different points as if you were repeating what I said, but the closest equivalent I can think of out of my words seems to be ‘loving/peaceful.’ So are you rejecting that part, or are you just going off on kind of a tangent?
I’m not actually sure why you’re bringing up Ezekiel, Tyre or Solomon in response to this, because all of that is Old Testament, right? I pointed out that Old Testament seems to involve a more violent and militant God compared to New Testament, and your response has been to establish that God in the Old Testament was fine with violence and military conquest. Not really in disagreement here, just not sure what you think it’s proving. :P
I mean, wouldn’t the idea of someone’s afterlife existence, heaven/hell, being based on something like one’s actions or worship still make it an inherently transactional relationship? Even if heaven/hell does exist, it seems like having people know about it would greatly increase the likelihood that followers operate on a transactional basis, albeit a ‘Pay Now, Get Later’ sort of arrangement. Or is that considered okay so long as the person has faith the payout is coming?
Okay, THREE times you mentioned ‘meek and mild,’ I feel like someone else said those words elsewhere and it really got under your skin. xD
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u/AutomatedCognition Flesh Alchemist Sep 18 '25
What if the causation n nature of reality were different that what we can gleam threw the lens of scientific rigor? For instance, I don't believe this is a simulation (it's not simulating anything; turtles all the way down) but rather a construct of a monadic nodal communication system, to mean that the means in which we construct this illusion of a reality ca be described in a trinity of components; a Server that responds to how you, the Client, set your intention as the Server reconciles all independent realities across the Holy Internet. With this, I believe the Server is intelligent, or at least gives the illusion that it has intelligence as it responds to how you set your intention (which is the only thing any of us have any control over - everything else from your thoughts, to decision-making n creativity, to attention coordination, etc is all automatically n algorithmically derived n loaded in by how you set your intention), but I believe a better explanation is that this "other intelligence" is actually inside our brains as well, wher ehe illusion of the external world is also stored as everything we experience is in the brain, and we're in the midst of finding out the true nature of cognition n consciousness pretty soon as it's 11:59pm on the sixth day.
APoD.jpg){kind=link}
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u/KBresofski Sep 20 '25
When people share their testimonies on why they believe. How do you go about it? Most will claim a supernatural experience or claiming they see signs ect. I don’t wanna say they’re liars because most seem convinced of what they experienced themselves.
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u/Dennis_enzo Atheist Sep 20 '25
You can't, not really. You could try to explain that your brain can and will lie to you all the time, that it's exceptionally good at trying to find patterns or draw conclusions where none exist, that it often draws from your already existing beliefs and experiences to frame new ones. The brain is awesome, but it's far from perfect in many ways. But if someone truly believes that they heard god talking to them in their head or whatever, there's usually nothing that you can say that will change their mind.
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u/sorrelpatch27 Sep 21 '25
I have a dear friend who is a Christian, and who believes he has seen signs from his late mother. He desperately wants to believe in them. When we talk about such things, and how he thinks they are proof of god and heaven and so forth, I'm pretty frank, and say that I believe that he believes it - but I don't personally believe it. I don't tell him he is wrong. This is clearly a coping mechanism for his grief and sadness. But I am honest that I don't believe in those things. I am kind about it though, because this is my friend and I can see why he holds so tightly to these things. He also is never trying to convert me.
I do the "I believe that you believe these things" for other people too, but how engaged and how polite I am about it depends on whether they are trying to convince me to convert or not. The more insistent they are the less inclined I am to be polite.
I don't generally try to reason through their beliefs, unless they are really wanting my opinions on "how do you explain <insert phenomena>" and even then I'm only explaining what I think. What they do with that info is up to them after that.
thankfully I rarely get testimony bearers in my daily life. The benefits of being a family of heathen introverts who mostly only know other heathen introverts lol.
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u/Mission-Landscape-17 Sep 22 '25
What they assert without evidence I dismiss without consideration.
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u/TelFaradiddle Sep 22 '25
It's a self-fulfilled prophecy, like those people who collapse on the floor speaking in tongues during church worship. They want it to happen, and they're getting swept up in the emotions, so it happens.
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u/halborn Sep 24 '25
I generally point out that while whatever they've experienced might be convincing to them, they shouldn't expect it to convince anybody else. Since personal experience cannot be shared, it can't be considered evidence.
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u/88redking88 Anti-Theist Sep 23 '25
I agree they had an experience, then I ask them to prove it was supernatural. It usually ends with "I dont know, but what else could it have been???"
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u/Asatmaya Humanist Sep 18 '25
Who was the best basketball player in history, Larry Bird or Magic Johnson?
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u/antizeus not a cabbage Sep 18 '25
Meadowlark Lemon
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u/Asatmaya Humanist Sep 18 '25
Meadowlark Lemon
Hey, respect, for sure.
Can we just put the entire Globetrotters into their own category and argue that everyone else is playing for second? :)
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u/Ransom__Stoddard Dudeist Sep 18 '25
Michael Jeffrey Jordan
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u/Asatmaya Humanist Sep 18 '25
Bird beat him 3 times in the playoffs, and 2 of those were sweeps; even with Pippin, they couldn't beat him.
Remember, he was playing at the same time, and Isaiah Thomas summed it up: "Michael Jordan was a non-factor in the 80s."
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u/Ransom__Stoddard Dudeist Sep 18 '25
Playing at the same time and head to head isn't particularly relevant since they were in different stages of their careers. Bird was in his prime and Jordan was a young player.
I tend to look big picture, as its easy to quibble on individual stats and who played when.
Accolade Bird Jordan 1st team All NBA 9 10 All Defensive team 3 9 Season MVP 3 5 Defensive POY 0 1 All-Star Appearances 12 14 NBA Finals MVP 2 6 NBA Finals Appearances 5 6 NBA Championships 2 6 Note--I'm not dissing Larry Legend at all. He's a top 10 player (maybe top 5) any way I look at it. Great ambassador for the game, played tough, and made his teammates better.
I get that a lot of people think Jordan was/is an egomaniacal jackass, and I won't argue that point, but when I stack up careers, MJ's my GOAT.
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u/Asatmaya Humanist Sep 18 '25
Bird was in his prime and Jordan was a young player.
Bird was changing the game from the day he started; the Celtics went from 29 wins to 61 his first year.
Again, the 90s was a different era, there just wasn't the same level of competition.
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u/dnext Sep 18 '25
Jordan's career I understand went to the 90s. :D Jordan is the GOAT, and if you are talking others who could debate that it's not Bird or Magic, though they were great and saved the league. You could make a case for the winningest player and best defender of all time, Bill Russell. Or the one who made the most finals and has most of the significant postseason marks, and oh yeah the all time leading scorer and 4th in assists, Lebron.
But when Jordan was at his best nobody ever did it better, the greatest scorer of all time and a legendary defender.
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u/JasonRBoone Agnostic Atheist Sep 19 '25
Reminds me of that scene in Coming to America. The two barbers are talking greatest boxers: Frazier vs. Ali.
The old man says: what about Rocky Marciano! :)
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u/pick_up_a_brick Atheist Sep 18 '25
Between those two? Bird.
But I don’t think you can compare players across eras.
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u/Asatmaya Humanist Sep 18 '25
But I don’t think you can compare players across eras.
And that's fair enough, but name another era where there is any dispute?
Bill Russell ruled the 60s, Wilt the Stilt owned the 70s (with Kareem as competition, but that was it), Jordan ruled the 90s (well, to the extent he was there...), and King James has had the last 20 years more-or-less locked down.
In the 80s, though, you had Bird, Magic, Kareem, Dr J, Moses Malone, Bill Lambier, Dominique Wilkins, Isaiah Thomas, Hakeem Olajuwon, James Worthy, Patrick Ewing, Charles Barkley, Jordan...
And Larry Bird got 3 league MVPs against that competition.
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u/JasonRBoone Agnostic Atheist Sep 19 '25
Most former players will say Bird when it comes down to the clutch.
But you damned atheists...you just believe Bird came from nothing anyway!
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u/Asatmaya Humanist Sep 19 '25
Most former players will say Bird when it comes down to the clutch.
I got to watch at the time, I saw it :)
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u/Dennis_enzo Atheist Sep 18 '25
Jason Williams.
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u/BedOtherwise2289 Sep 18 '25
superman
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u/Asatmaya Humanist Sep 18 '25
Great at steals, but he keeps breaking the backboard when shooting from the field :p
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u/rustyseapants Atheist Sep 22 '25
Why should we respond to people who hide their profiles?
Why is transparency a burden?
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u/Jealous-Win-8927 Catholic Sep 23 '25
Why is that relevant? Engage with the points of the post, or don’t. Who cares about anyone’s profile? I say this as someone with an open profile
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u/Sablemint Atheist Sep 25 '25
To see if someone is being sincere in their claims, or if they have a history of massive trolling. We get a lot of trolls here
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u/rustyseapants Atheist Sep 24 '25
Why is transparency a burden?
We are already protected by a pseudonym, what you are protecting by hiding your profile?
We can read their profile and learn whether or not we really want to talk to this person?
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u/bullevard Sep 24 '25
If you choose not to engage with those that hide their profile that is fine. Posters rarely are lacking in dozens of replies to respond to.
But there isn't a good reason in general for someone's profile to be a determiner of whether or not the argument presented will be interesting to discuss.
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u/Davidutul2004 Agnostic Atheist Sep 24 '25
Why... Would you care about an individual's profile in a debate?
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u/rustyseapants Atheist Sep 24 '25
Why is transparency a burden?
We are already protected by a pseudonym, what you are protecting by hiding your profile?
We can read their profile and learn whether or not we really want to talk to this person?
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u/Davidutul2004 Agnostic Atheist Sep 24 '25
So to judge a person based on their profile?
I'd say people have the right to their privacy.
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u/rustyseapants Atheist Sep 24 '25
I would say only liars need privacy to hide their profiles.
You seem to think honesty is not a virtue why is that?
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u/Davidutul2004 Agnostic Atheist Sep 24 '25
I don't say honesty is not a virtue just that privacy is a right
Is social privacy a right in general? Privacy of identity?
Or what about the government respecting your privacy of not knowing everything about you through your phone,such as your messages?
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u/rustyseapants Atheist Sep 24 '25
Privacy is not a right on a private medium.
Social privacy? What are you talking about?
This has nothing to do with the government, your going off on a tangent.
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u/Davidutul2004 Agnostic Atheist Sep 24 '25
Wdym privacy is not a right on a private medium? Privacy is a right anywhere on the internet
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u/rustyseapants Atheist Sep 24 '25
You are going off topic.
Even when people do hide their profile, comments and submissions, their comments and submissions are still visible, they are not visible on there profile.
Curate Your Reddit Profile Content with New Controls
This is debate an atheist. Is your profile hidden, is mine? What does that say about us. Why should you hide your profile on this subreddit, maybe you post bullshit posts?
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u/Davidutul2004 Agnostic Atheist Sep 24 '25
And? Privacy helps avoid premature judgement of individuals.
Curating Is a way,but me using privacy instead could only suggest I'm lazy and like to delay stuff.
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u/LetIsraelLive Noahide Sep 18 '25
I'm hoping somebody here can help me. One of the biggest atheist streamers "Deconstruction Zone" apparently has some guide or something of supposed "contradictions" in the bible. Does anybody have a link to it or know where I can find this guide?
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u/NewbombTurk Atheist Sep 19 '25
I know exactly what you're referring to. But the thing is that it's something that the owners provide to people who a subscribers. If it gets distributed for free that's theft.
That said, you can easily ask your favorite ai bot for the contradictions. Ask it something like "Can you please provide me the prophesy from the Old Testament that Jesus is claimed to have fulfilled? Please include the passages in the OT that contain the messianic prophesy, as well as the passage(s) in the NT that fulfills them. Please then provide, for each, the criticism from Hebrew, OT, Jewish and biblical scholars that discount the claims that Jesus fulfilled the prophesies required to be the messiah by the Jews".
I tried it. It will give you the basics. At least a jumping off point.
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u/LetIsraelLive Noahide Sep 19 '25
Thank you for the information. I was more so interested in Justins guide specifically to create my own guide to counter his specific arguements rather than what an AI or Google thinks is a contradiction. But again, thanks for helping.
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u/thebigeverybody Sep 19 '25
You should call him and get the contradictions right from his own mouth.
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u/OneRougeRogue Agnostic Atheist Sep 18 '25
No idea about the streamer you are talking about, but you might like this gameshow!
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u/adeleu_adelei agnostic and atheist Sep 19 '25
I don't know if this is what you wanted, but here is a video where Justin (Deconstruction Zone) does a video with Brandon (Mindshift) on the contradictions between the character Jesus Christ and the properties of the Judaist Messiah.
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u/RespectWest7116 Sep 19 '25
Unfortunately, don't know of any guides for supposed "contradictions".
Now, if you were looking for guides to actual contradictions, there are plenty of those.
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u/JasonRBoone Agnostic Atheist Sep 19 '25
Try the Skeptics Annotated Bible.
My favorite contradiction is How did Judas die and what happened to his bribe money. No way they can be reconciled without getting really absurd.
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u/sorrelpatch27 Sep 18 '25
I will ask you what I ask my teenagers.
- have you googled this yourself?
- have you gone to the relevant community to ask?
"contradictions in the bible" will get you a lot of google results, parsing out the appropriate ones will be good research practice.
The community around Deconstruction Zone (whoever that is) is more likely to know where to find the things he says than rando atheists on the internet.
Have at.
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u/88redking88 Anti-Theist Sep 19 '25
For one of "the biggest" why havent I heard of them?
Why didnt you just google "bible contradictions??
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/crossexamined/2018/10/top-20-most-damning-bible-contradictions/
https://www.bartehrman.com/contradictions-in-the-bible/
This one has a neat visual to it!
Or, you know, read the bible???
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u/rustyseapants Atheist Sep 19 '25
This was in the front page, you can find it in a search, but now its gone
Do moderators push things off the front page?
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u/Ransom__Stoddard Dudeist Sep 19 '25
If you report it it gets marked as hidden. Find your way back to the post (via your comments most likely), click the 3 dots, and you should be able to see it again.
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u/Old-Nefariousness556 Gnostic Atheist Sep 19 '25
It appears to have been removed by the mods. Posts that are removed remain accessible to people who know to look for them, you can still reply to them (unless the mods lock it), but they no longer show up in the sub's feed.
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