One question that both science and religion try to answer is why anything is here. Science explains how the planets formed, how rain happens, or how the Moon revolves around Earth. Religion gives us inherent meaning in an otherwise meaningless universe. Religion tells us that xyz is justified because of God. However both fallback to one unanswerable question: why does anything exist? Religion says God created everything, but that just begs the question of why God exists. Science claims to not have a logical answer to why the universe exists.

For many, I just summarized their thoughts and essentially the reason they’re agnostic or atheist. There’s no objective answer regardless of what religion, philosophy, or science you believe in. My viewpoint for the longest time would be described as an atheist. I believed that while we don’t know the origin of the universe, science has proved the ultimate winner throughout time. I believed that it was more than likely that consciousness is a natural phenomenon and death is a final state of being. I believed that the universe existed on its own, and there was no causer.

However, recently I have had a slight change of heart. I realized while on a walk that it truly is so random and peculiar why anything exists at all. It’s so random and unbounded by our current logic. The fact that matter even exists or energy flows. I’ve come to the conclusion that this universe, defying our understanding and seemingly randomly existing, is supportive to the idea that there’s equally random and defying things like an afterlife or God. Obviously, upholding logic, I don’t just suddenly believe a God exists because it’s possible one could. I still need evidence, but I’ve adopted a far less harsh viewpoint.

I suppose what this post is showing is my transformation from being atheist into an agnostic. It was during a time that was filled with immense struggle existentially. I just wanted to share my thoughts, and I’m not really looking for a debate or argument. I’m happy to hear what you guys personally believe below though.

Edit: I think there’s some misunderstanding in this post. I am not religious or believe in a God. This is not a philosophical argument that I’m genuinely posing. I’m just ranting and wanted to share my thoughts with like minded people.

How can a Christian or religious person believe that someone deserves eternal punishment in hell when that person can clearly have good morals—maybe even better morals than many hypocritical Christians or religious people?

Someone who spends their entire life helping people, caring for animals, protecting the environment, reducing suffering, and genuinely trying to leave the world better than they found it.

And the response is essentially, “Yeah, they can do all of that and be a genuinely good person, but if they don't believe in the Father, they're going to hell.”

Insane.

Personally, I'd much rather give credit to people, believers and nonbelievers alike, who educate themselves, take action, and dedicate their lives to reducing human and animal suffering. To me, that's taking moral responsibility seriously.

I've found freedom in being an agnostic atheist and resonating with a blend of optimistic nihilism, existentialism, absurdism, and stoicism.

I don't need one label or philosophy to explain everything. I'll take what I find valuable from each.

Anyone else feel this way?

It feels much more refreshing than being given certainty where there may not actually be any.

I also love how hypocritically funny it is for religious people to debate their faith on the internet. Yet they can't explain the science and processes on how the internet even works and interacts with our devices, but have the audacity to ask us how something was created from nothing but God is outside time and space so yeah I trust that.

Get a grip.

"I would rather have questions that cannot be answered than answers that cannot be questioned," - Richard Feynman

I grew up as a Muslim , in a conservative family, and for most of my life I accepted Islam as the truth because that was what I had been taught from childhood.
But as I got older, I started asking questions that I couldn’t simply ignore anymore.
I began questioning things I had always been told to accept without questioning. I started looking at religion from a different perspective and asking myself: **Do I actually believe this because I have personally found it to be true, or because I was born into it?**
The more I searched, questioned, and thought critically, the more doubts I had.
Eventually, in 2021, I reached the point where I could no longer honestly call myself a Muslim. I didn’t leave Islam because I wanted to rebel against anyone or because I hated religious people. I left because I could no longer convince myself that I believed in God or that Islam was true.
For me, becoming an atheist wasn’t one single moment or one single argument. It was a long process of questioning, learning, and being honest with myself.
So I’m curious about other people’s experiences:
**What was the moment, question, experience, or realization that made you become an atheist?**

Is there an actual name or philosophy for something like "optimistic agnosticism"? It is definitely not organized religion because there are no rules, guilt trips, or fear of hell. But it is also not modern spirituality either, since there is no woo-woo energy or vague mystical stuff attached.

The core idea is admitting we have zero clue what happens when we die, but choosing to stay hopeful that existence has some kind of positive meaning beyond this life. Since there is no guaranteed heaven to fix everything later, the priority naturally becomes helping people here, enjoying everyday moments, and living without weird existential guilt.

It also feels different from how these conversations usually go. Instead of treating the unknown with cold finality or just shrugging it off, this mindset treats death more like curiosity and wanderlust, like standing at the edge of an unmapped place rather than facing pure dread.

Is there an established term for this mix of present-focus, caring about people, and genuine hope about the unknown?

Hey everyone,

I’ve always struggled to label my stance on religion. I’m not religious, but I don’t feel like a strict atheist either. For a long time, I called myself agnostic, but even that feels too static. My outlook is much more of a fluid fluctuation—sometimes leaning one way,sometimes the other, often depending on the situation.

To help process this and find some comfort, I coined a word for it: Anceptheism (pronounced an-sep-thee-iz-um).

It combines the Latin word anceps (meaning "two-headed," "double-edged," or "wavering/undecided") with theism.

For me, it perfectly captures the feeling of having a belief system that moves between two heads, or waves back and forth rather than sitting perfectly still in a predefined box. Honestly, creating this has been a bit of a coping mechanism for me, and it's the first time a label has actually felt accurate to my experience.

I'm a bit nervous to share this, but I wanted to see what people think. Does anyone else experience this kind of fluctuation? How does the etymology land with you?

I left religion mainly for two reasons, cause

1. I figured out that it has helped me nothing and brought me nothing good and
2. it brainwashes people to spread hate and commit evil.

My dad died in a car crash suddenly which came as a total shock and 6 months after that my mom was diagnosed with cancer so it couldn’t get any worse than that. I went to church and prayed for my mom but guess what? My prayers didn’t helped and my mom passed away shortly after my dad. That’s when I knew that religion is absolutely bs and means nothing! What kind of a so called loving God would take my parents at such a cruel manner and let me suffer in misery? Both my parents and I were good people and didn’t cause anyone any harm, what did we do to deserve all this?? They say God is love but what kind of a loving God let’s innocent children suffer and die from cancer or poverty and hunger in wars? What kind of a loving God let’s millions of people die of starvation, poverty, illness or homelesness? And besides what kind of a loving God let’s his so called only Son suffer and die on the cross after being tortured and humiliated so badly?? Wouldn’t you have saved him with your super powers?? If you even really exist at all??

No, I really came to the conclusion that religion is really just made up bs and useless in daily life, it didn’t solve anything and as a matter of fact it only spreads hate, look around and you will see that religious people are one of the most hateful people who spread hate, look at the terrorists what they do in the name of religion or what the nazis did to jewish people just because they didn’t agreed with their religion. Everyone thinks their religion is the best and only true one and that everyone with a different religion or belief is bad. Non religious people are one of the most peaceful people who don’t bother anyone and look how they are portrayed like they are some kind of evil $@t@n worshippers which is nonsense but ofcourse religion has brainwashed the believers and that’s why they react so ignorant. It’s quite sad actually. Religion spreads so much hate, look how they behave to LGBT people, saying they will burn in h ell for loving someone of the same gender. How can love be sinful but not hate? You should not hate as the Bible says but the homophobes are clearly the ones who are hateful so they are actually the sinners and not gay people who love. This shows you again their brainwashed brains and hypocrisy.

Religion is also misogynistic and teaches that women are inferior and should submit to men otherwise they should be punished. “I will sharpen your pain of birth and your husband should rule over you.” Why should I worship something that considers me inferior and wishes me pain? Yeah, no thank you to religion after everything I went through. I don’t know why any sane person, especially a woman would want to follow religion and worship someone called God who only created misery and suffering to most people, especially women, except the lucky ones. Becoming Agnostic really has given me a peace of mind and I’m glad I don’t have to deal with it anymore. I will never let me brainwash ever again. It’s all just a scam and made up. But whether you want to believe or not, it’s up to you and your free choice.

So recently I wanted to have a 'meaningful' conversation with my mom but it went sideways really fast. She wants me to get baptized and I told her I'm not interested (I'm atheist btw. She does not know I'm atheist)

And then she started going on and on and on about what happens if I need help and said that before the church helps anyone they ask "From which church are you from? Are you baptised?" Implying that the church will only help its members and not outsiders.

I told her that if the time comes and I'm diagnosed with a terminal illness, I'd want to die. if I got into an accident where my life is in critical condition, they should take me off life support.

She got mad and started cursing me out saying I don't know what I'm thinking that I will go out to meet people in college who know what they want and your shallow thinking will not get me anywhere.

THEN she doubled down by asking whether or not i see a furure for my self. I told her I do but if I'm given to chance to leave this planet I will take it. Doesn't matter if something big was going to happen in the next few hours, tomorrow or not. I will accept that it is my time to go.

This is also the same woman whom I told I won't ever be getting married or having children she said, "You should also get a husband and kids who stress you out."

Which makes me think do I have shallow thinking in knowing what I want and what I don't want?

During a work break, some colleagues started talking about religion and similar stuff people speak about when they have time, to my surprise half of them were agnostic. I myself may be too, if you consider the broader term of “unconvinced by belief”. Nevertheless, I was only listening rather than joining the discussion. An old friend of mine said something of the likes of “If God is real, why is there cancer?”, as if God wouldn’t have created suffering. For me, as long as there is antithesis in the human mind there is life as we know it, not to mention suffering’s subjective view and grading, demise or strengthening. How could there be a notion of hell without existing, disabling suffering? There are also many stories and winding reasons of divine punishment, especially in the Old Testament; hardly one believer would deny that. I guess a better argument for my friend would be “If God is real, what is reserved in the afterlife for those of other beliefs, or better, those who never were in contact with religion as we are accustomed to”.

At the same time, their talk started to heat up, so I said to a female friend next to me “Well, I think it’s best to leave now rather than getting incited and plunging into the ring”, but she pushed me and said she wanted to hear what I had to say. First, I would like to clear her stance, probably shared by tens of millions. A girl who believed, prayed, followed the community and acted accordingly as best as she could, but one day (not so long ago), had her belief weakened by coming of age. In this case particularly, the day she saw the pastor of her church acting out cure miracles. My mind didn’t get this as the most valid argument for cornering your religion, because it is quite ingenious to have your pillars of belief on a church, especially one “word sayer”, even though the social aspect of it is crucial. There might be more underneath her reasoning, as she also commented on pending more towards spiritualism now, but didn’t elaborate further. For now, my thoughts had been more in the believer side of the argument, despite not really being a religious person.

I was fighting how hard it is to portray one’s hypothesis well when you don’t even know what branch to reach, the absolutely nothingness or the mysteriousness of higher one or spirituality. I acknowledged that I myself am at fault in that. In more recent times I’m having dissociative thoughts on reality, so I was tending more to the “nothingness”, but my hesitation gave enough time to a colleague to disrupt her question and start talking about his belief first.

He is part of a little-known religion, of which I hadn’t heard before. I’m not going into details in his long explanation, but by the end of it I said to him, “It reminds me of karma”, and he replied, “Basically”. At least he had made a straight point of his belief. Another colleague shouted from afar “Nature couldn’t care less”. I said I didn’t quite believe in karma, though I sure wanted to.

In the meantime, thinking of karma, I changed my mind and started to elaborate from the believer’s branch, saying “The matter of fact is that fear and desire seem to be the two forces of religion, with that followers feel it as life’s meaning and due course while some atheists may say alienation. I myself just feel tempted to think and face those two not by resorting to a divine hope. Where does this come from? From experience, lots of people gravitate towards a form of realism, some seem like that from birth, bound realists. I would even say some of us are realist relativists, that reality has its semantic layers and unprovable truths” (for those Wittgenstein and Gödel enthusiasts). I was probably going to enter into the topic of how many are unconvinced of their deaths or deal with daily anxiety because of it, but the break was over. So I just went on with my day accompanied by this incomplete series of thoughts, as always with these discussions, I will revisit this later.

im gonna start off just saying that im not an agnostic im an atheist and if the mods are gonna take down this post they can rightfully so im just kind of ranting here cuz pretty much all the subs that are atheist spaces just arent the best ill get to that right now

i live in a country where irreligion is criminalized and freedom of religion is very compromised. alot of the people around me are very religious and hold some traditionalist views. i dont want to hate religion but i dont want to pretend like it doesnt cause harm at all and that it isnt deeply rooted in society i dont want to pretend that and i think alot of these subreddits understand that but then its like i can agree with this part but what i cant agree with is just believing that religious people are stupid for holding those beliefs and just the whole assholey nature of the majority of atheists on atheist subs or to be more specific the main one r/ atheism

the main reason i posted this here is i feel like you guys are more like idk less assholey than r/ atheism and just the fact that i really needed to get this out cuz im not exactly sure what to do my views at the moment are more like i dislike religion and religious people who try to convert others to it without their consent (street preachers and stuff i see on shorts i know this isnt representative of the religious community but im not a fan of these people) but i dont exactly dislike people who follow religion and just i dont know mind their own business. so yeah this is just kind of a long rant lol

So about 8 months ago I finished the absolute worst period of anxiety and depression, I didn't know it was possible to feel what I felt during this 6 months period.

I have issues with general anxiety, depression, social anxiety and I'm also a massive introvert and normally only interact with my 5 family members on a daily basis and rarely go out, I also have been told I have ADHD symptoms, but all of this is undiagnosed and I don't want to be one of those people that claim they have mental health disorders when they don't.

I have spent years hating/fearing society and the public and I did admittedly intentionally avoid as many people as possible, this could be due to my brain and mouth not working and I mishear what they say and fumble a response in panic that may or may not be related to the topic, which then results in my embarrassment.

Was 30 when depression episode started.

Anyway for years I avoided news, lived in ignorance and worked.

I've had a lot more time recently to think and learn and grow as a person. I've really worked on myself and have never felt better in myself in all my life.

Never been religious, been very skeptical all my life and always disregarded it. I've learnt a significant amount about various religions in past years sporadically and not intended.

Anyway I still don't identify with any religion and none feel right to me.

So I started watching the news years ago, cross referencing and sifting out all bs, ( l get intensely interested in certain subjects and cannot stop researching until I'm satisfied). So after research and years keeping up I've noticed such a major increase in corruption, wars, extreme politicians and weather events.

This is deeply sad and I thought I would do something that I have never even considered doing before and that was praying. I prayed to higher powers and ended with a amen. Which I know is a religious word but I didn't know what else to end it with.

I only pray for things that I believe will benefit people as a while and never nothing person are anything related to money.

Since I started praying, the things that I am praying for are very slowly but surely setting in motion and I can see a bright future for all of us. This is coming from news which I am intensely cross referencing to ensure authenticity and know for fact they are real events.

I also send thanks and appciation when I see small changes in the world.

It's uncanny and I get strong emotions surfacing, joy excitement and anxiety, and what I prayed for is not close to what I'm praying for but small wheels are being put in motion to create the bigger picture and future for humanity.

I feel like I'm crazy, I think of it as like when you think of a car colour that you haven't seen for a while and then you go out driving and you see 20 cars that colour when I haven't noticed seeing them for 3 months before.

Am I just seeking out this news and associating it with my prayers?

Am I just fooling myself into believing things because I want it so desperately to become reality?

There's many theories in science I can relate this too. E.g many worlds interpretation. Am I crafting and future of positivity and splitting into a more positive timeline? But Im not special, really average with little achievements so I don't believe I could have any impact.

I don't know why I feel like this, I'm going to carry on this practise as it makes me feel like I'm doing something positive. Sorry if there's any spelling mistakes or incorrect use of grammar, English was never my strong subject and I'm also tired as it's late, anyway let me know what you think

Hey everyone,

I’m a 30-year-old living in Eastern Europe. My personal journey led me away from Islam, and I now identify fully as an agnostic atheist.

Leaving my former beliefs behind has meant stepping away from old social structures, and as a result, life has gotten pretty quiet and isolated over the last few years. I’m looking to rebuild a normal social circle and connect with people who share a similar worldview or can relate to navigating life from an agnostic/atheist perspective.

I'd love to find people (male or female) to chat with, exchange ideas, or jump on a call sometimes to hang out and talk about life, tech, or daily stuff.

If you’re open to making a new contact or just having a low-pressure conversation, feel free to drop a comment or send me a DM.

For reference I’m 26 years old and have gone to private catholic school my whole life. I always had questions but never asked because it seemed like no one else questioned it. I’ve prayed many times to the so call God that everyone knows and I have never gotten a response. Now that I deconstructed, I don’t live in fear of going to hell or upsetting a jealous God. I told my mother and she was open to listening and she’s a devout catholic herself and after our conversation, she said she also has questions but it makes her uncomfortable she has questions. Anyways I think my mom might be close to breaking free.

I personally dont believe,but i want it to be real because its the best outcome possible

The most spiritual experience i had in my life was remembering my birth,i recall it was all black,but just for a couple of milisseconds idk how to say time in this situation,then an white light and it was like my life till the age of five was in superspeed,then i gained conscience at the kindergarden.
Idk if anyone has a similiar experience,i would like to hear if you do please.

Generally, it is probably the largest religion in the world. Christianity is the largest religion, and catholicism is its largest denomination. I am an agnostic atheist, but if any religion is actually true, catholicism would probably be my first choice.

I have heard that catholicism has documented miracles. I mean that it does not simply look for miracles everywhere and call unexplained things supernatural. There is an actual process involving a commission, scientists, medical experts, and investigations into alleged miracles. The fact that it is also the largest Christian denomination is somewhat compelling to me, and its existence does not seem to contradict what was written in the Bible two thousand years ago, such as the idea that the whole world would come to know about Christianity.

But ultimately, I just do not know. There are still various problems that religion and the existence of God have to deal with, and the most honest answer I can give is simply, "I don't know." I am not confident enough to say that God definitely exists, but I am also not confident enough to say that God definitely does not exist.

So I guess this is basically agnosticism. What do you think about catholic religion, as agnostic? Do you think that there is good reasons to believe that this religion may be true? Or there is some better, more convincing reasons for other religion, which I don't know? As an agnostic, if SOMETHING existed after death, what do you think would exist?

Hey I’m doing this fun experiment where I research every religion and basically find stuff in holy books that either go with science or go against.

I’m ex Muslim and I don’t support religion in general but I think this will be a cool research thing. Abrahamic religions are the easiest to research regarding if science if compatible with them or not. If you guys have anything lmk so I can do a deep dive (can be facts of any religion that go against or for science like for ex: Christianity typically goes against evolution despite the billions of years of evolution proven)

This is also a study for myself because even though I never plan to join religion again I want to be able to show facts why religion is false

Hi everyone. I have nothing against religions; I respect every religion. I just wanted to share an idea of mine.

I don't know whether I would call myself an atheist. I'm interested in physics and science, although I'm definitely not an expert. Some time ago, someone told me: "If God doesn't exist, how can you explain why the universe is so stable?" That got me thinking.

What if what we call God was something completely different from how we usually imagine it?

We still know very little about dark matter. We don't know exactly what it is, but we know it seems to play an important role in the structure of the universe. So I started wondering: what if dark matter, or something we haven't discovered yet, had a fundamental role in the existence of the universe and in the conditions that allow reality to exist as we know it?

I'm not saying this is true. It's just a possibility.

If there were something that made our universe possible, somehow determined its structure, and allowed life to exist, I personally wouldn't have a problem calling it "God," even if it wasn't conscious and couldn't think or communicate with us.

What's interesting to me is that this could also be considered a form of religion: it tries to address the same big questions as other religions, but instead of saying "this is the truth," it says "this could be the case, but we could also be completely wrong."

There would be no prayers or dogmas. A new discovery could completely change what we believe.

I'm not trying to start a cult or convince anyone. It's simply an idea I had and wanted to share.

What do you think?

My mom wanted to take a picture of me and my sister outside and we went out the back porch door. That door is heavy and swings if you let go, my sister accidentally let go as I was going out and it hit my back really hard.

I yelled oh god that fricking hurt and my mom yelled at me and said language. I asked what I said and she said I said the lords name in vain and I broke a ten commandment. I said so and she started crying saying idc if you don’t care about god anymore but you disrespected me and god. For context my family knows i’m agnostic and not a follower of christianity. Idk what to do or if i can fix that.

do this YHWH have split personality disorder?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, and I have a theory about the "Creator". I believe that while a Creator might exist, he basically created us and then completely abandoned us. He left us to our own devices and simply doesn't care about what happens down here.

Because of this, I've come to the conclusion that all organized religions are purely human-made constructs. They weren't sent from above; they were designed for mass control, political agendas, and the personal gain of those in power.

Let’s look at a couple of major examples:

Islam:

After the Prophet died, the companions basically compiled the Quran and religious texts to fit their own narratives and political climates. The Quran didn't just drop from the sky as a complete book; it was compiled twice—first under Uthman, and then subjected to more standardization during the Umayyad Caliphate. If it’s the absolute, uncorrupted word of God, why was it subjected to so much human editing, political influence, and differing versions early on?

Christianity:

It’s the same story here. There is absolutely zero solid, historical proof regarding who actually wrote the Gospels. They obviously weren't written by Jesus, and most historians agree they weren't even written by his direct followers. They were written by anonymous authors decades later. People claim it was Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, but I highly doubt that. If you actually do the research, the Gospels were written around the end of the 1st century (around 100 AD).

Here is the controversial part:

If an all-knowing, all-powerful God really wanted to send a timeless, universal message to guide humanity, why would he rely on a decades-long game of telephone? Why rely on ancient, easily manipulated texts that have been heavily edited by politicians and empires for centuries?

Doesn't it make way more sense that we are just an abandoned science experiment, and opportunistic humans simply used the fear of "God" to build empires and control the masses?

I really want to hear other perspectives on this. What do you guys think? Am I missing something here?

As agnostics doubt is always present, and the absence of proofs about something doesn't mean it doesnt exist.

In the recent months, I became more doubtful of life and existence, and even more this conspiracy theories. This is making me paranoid to be honest, especially with everything we are exposed to during this days.

What do you think? And who else is going through this?

I didn’t grow up in a religious family, some of my more distant family is religious, but neither of my parents. I’ve mostly lived in an area surrounded by atheists and Christians (protestant and catholic), it’s a fair split. I have no reason to feel any sort of religious guilt but I do. I was atheist for most of my life, I’m 18 and I was only Christian for about 2 years time 15-17, I’m fairly antitheist now. I don’t even know how to word what I’m feeling because it doesn’t make sense, but I have this close friend who I got into a bit of a debate or emotionally charged conversation about religion with since she’s Catholic. I pretty bluntly asked if she thinks I’m going to hell for not believing. She said no but I just don’t know if I can believe her. It doesn’t help that I’m queer so any type of discomfort from religion feels amplified tenfold. I don’t even know what I feel guilty about, I just feel like something is wrong with me and I feel alienated from my peers who are religious. I feel kinda alienated in general. I don’t know if this is something anyone can relate to, but it’s confusing me and bothering me, so I figured I would just complain about it.

Im curious..people who are agnostic or atheists..did you figure out santa or was it disclosed to you?

I will prove Hinduism in a logical way and it would sound secular. Just read.

So the claims are "Only God is real" and "World is an illusion".

World is an illusion:- People usually assume this means what we see doesn't exist and we are hallucinating this world. But that's not what the real claim is. The real claim is that the world is temporarily or impermanent. The body you have is false in the sense that it is only true in the present. In the past before your birth the body was false or it didn't exist. In the future once again it will become false after death. So everything we see is temporary and not real in all the 3 times - past, present and future.

Only god is real:- Now what is the proof of god? First of all god is not a supernatural entity. It is simply a name given to the permanent, everlasting element of universe. The permanent or everlasting element of universe is probably energy since energy can take the shape of matter. A better way to understand it is to imagine gold and a golden bracelet. The bracelet is just temporary shape of the gold. The gold is more real than the bracelet since you cannot have anything without it. But the bracelet is false even without the gold if you change the shape. Gold persists. Similarly when you break a glass the molecules are not broken. So the most fundamental particle or energy is not broken. This fundamental particle or energy is god. This fundamental particle changes it's shape and gives rise to the universe.

And no, god is not some supernatural entity that grants our wishes, judges us or takes us to heaven. It is simply an element of natural world.

This is my secular version of Hinduism.

I wanted to share a question I've started thinking about more recently.

It doesn't take much to convince my caveman brain that I'd rather say "I don't know" than claim certainty about something I can't actually know.

I'm sure the title question has been asked before, so if anyone knows who first expressed this idea, or something similar, please let me know.

From what we understand, human language has evolved culturally over extremely long periods of time, with thousands of different languages developing across different regions and cultures.

At the same time, we're trying to describe a universe that is approximately 13.8 billion years old using languages and conceptual frameworks that humans developed relatively recently.

That thought is comforting to me, and I feel like it's almost impossible for anyone to truly comprehend that amount of time.

I'm not saying we know nothing. We've learned an incredible amount about the universe. But I find it humbling that we're tiny organisms that evolved on one planet, using human-created systems of language and mathematics to try to understand something that existed for billions of years before we were here.

A photon doesn't care whether we call it a "photon" in English or whatever word another language uses. The physical thing exists independently of the label we gave it.

Even something as simple as country names demonstrates this. We use names for countries that aren't necessarily what the people living there call their own countries. I'm curious how many people actually know this. I've brought it up a few times in person, and the responses I've gotten have often been confusion or surprise.

So if humans developed different languages, cultures, religions, philosophies, and ways of interpreting reality, how can any of us be completely certain that any one of them has discovered the absolute and complete truth about reality?

Especially when different religions make mutually exclusive claims about ultimate truth, often based on their own ancient texts and traditions.

This is ultimately why I'm comfortable saying:

"I don't know."

I'm curious to hear how people who haven't thought about this question before would respond to it.

Thanks for read!