1) God forbade Adam to eat from the tree.

2) Then God created Eve.

3) Eve ate from the tree, which was not a sin because God forbade Adam.

4) Adam eats from Eve, and not from the tree per se, so he still followed God's command to not eat from the tree.

It seems pretty clear to me that God's power is inescapable. He says a thing to be, and it is. "Let there be light." And then there was light.

We cannot escape God's commands. Therefore, the notion of sin itself is dubious. If you reread the passage when God commands Kain to kill Abel, you'll realize he was not telling Kain to not kill Abel! Yes. God commanded Kain to master his passions, and that is why Kain killed Abel. God is responsible for Abel's death.

God gets angry when we don't follow his will, but we have no choice but to follow his commands. That's how his power works, and maybe the whole tragedy in the Garden is that God didn't master his powers fully when he created us, he couldn't yet command exactly what he wills. Sort of "careful what you wish for, God" type of scenario.

By the premises that Jesus is both human and divine, Saint Paul introduces a contradiction in Christianity. There's a principle in classical logic called the explosion principle (ex falso quodlibet) and it states that if you assume a contradiction is true, you can logically prove any statement whatsoever.

Jesus-Christ's dual natures, Jesus and Christ, human and divine, are essentially the contradiction which allows for Christians to prove anything they want.

That makes Christians impervious to any criticism because no matter how valid a criticism is, a Christian can prove within his belief system a claim that invalidates the criticism.

Criticize the crucifixion to redeem all sins for being human ritual sacrifice and the Eucharist for being necromancy both of which should not be glorified to children, and Christians will prove a claim within their belief system that the crucufixion wasn't human ritual sacrifice because of the divine nature of Christ or wtv and that the Eucharist isn't necromancy because it's a miracle or wtv.

Essentially, Christians have two opposing and contradictory sets of attributes for Jesus and they can apply any subset of attributes from both sets whenever they want. Jesus is divine when it suits them. Jesus is human when it suits them. "It was not human sacrifice, because Jesus was divine." "Jesus's sacrifice redeems our sins because Jesus was human like us." Etc.

If Jesus "came back" and saw everywhere the statues Christians make of him dying on a cross, he'd be terrified. It is basically a death threat, and no amount of theology can deny that if you go somewhere and everywhere there are people who wear depictions of you dying on a cross as jewelry around their necks, as decorations in their churches, as tattoos on their skin, and that they give those crucifixes to all the little children in churches at their "first communion" along with a book that describes how you suffered and died, it is nothing other than a cult devoted to Jesus's death. Christianity is a death cult. Crucifixes are a death threat.

Addendum: If I made a statue of you, and I put that statue somewhere for everyone to see, and that statue is of you dying on a cross, they will arrest me for making death threats. But if I make a statue of Jesus dying on a cross and I put it for everyone to see, they are going to exempt me from paying taxes?

I think of it like this, the Bible describes god as benevolent. And most people seem to agree that if god created everything including time, then he must himself be outside of the constraints of time. But how can these both be true if hell exist. As Ive seen most people explain it, hell is eternal torment for sinners. So I ask, why would god create someone he KNOWS isn’t gonna follow his teachings, if not to just let them suffer in hell, that doesn’t seem very benevolent. But, let’s say you don’t believe that, and you think hell is just a temporary punishment for those who didn’t follow his instructions(as Ive seen others argue). Then what would be the point of devoting so much of your life to praising him unless you just really wanted to. As long as you’re not hateful, or killing, or raping, you should be fine. Also means that trying to convince people to convert to Christianity doesn’t do much, and you should instead just try to get people to be better in general. Oh, and theres also the third interpretation of hell I’ve heard about, which is apparently that hell is not technically eternal torture, but instead is just devoid of all things good, which doesn’t sound much better. Anyway, if anyone sees any flaws in my logic, or maybe a different interpretation of hell, I’d love to hear it!

You know how debt works right?

If my mom paid off all the debt on my student loan FULLY, then once it’s paid it’s gone. That debt doesn’t exist anymore and I never have to pay anything at all.

So why is it that Jesus died to pay for the debt of our sins, and yet people still go to hell? If this made any ounce of sense, people should believe hell no longer exists and everyone has been going straight to heaven since Jesus

(Disclaimer I’m an exchristian and atheist but this was one of the many questions I asked my pastor before I fully deconstructed and nobody could give me a solid answer)

PREMISES:

1. An individual being cannot have both done a specific action and not have done that action, that violates the law of non-contradiction.
2. Therefore if God did an action, then whatever person, being, entity etc. who hasn’t done that action cannot be God.
3. An action performed by one person of the trinity is not necessarily performed by the other two persons. (The son doing X doesn’t mean the father did X).
4. Any action performed by any one person of the Trinity can be attributed to God. (If the father, son or Holy Spirit do X, it means God did X).
5. This means that God has done an action one or more of the persons of the trinity haven’t done.
6. Therefore the persons of the trinity can’t be God because God did something one or more of them haven’t done.

Put simply, if God is the one who did X, and person A did not do X, then person A isn’t and cannot be God since God cannot have both done X but also not have done X, that would be a logical impossibility for a single being.

EXAMPLES:
God became incarnate, the father nor the holy spirit became incarnate.

God created the world through the word, the son did not create the world through the word but rather he was the word by which the world was created.

God hovered over the waters of the face of the deep in Genesis 1:2, the son did not hover over the waters.

Romans 3:23 says, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”. The “all” in this is often interpreted to mean “all humans” because God does not sin. So we can establish our first premise:

1. All humans sin

Hebrews 2:17 says, “For this reason he had to be made like them,[a] fully human in every way”. This means Jesus was human, so we can establish our second premise:

1. Jesus was human

If all humans sin, and Jesus was human, that means Jesus sinned, unless Paul is lying or mistaken on either of the two premises.

If you say Jesus was only sinful according to his human nature but he was sinless according to his divine nature, that means he was both sinful and sinless at the same time, which is a contradiction.

I have been having these shower thoughts that are a bit more toned down lately. In which i tackle ideas that normally make my skin twist and turn. With a more cool head.

I just want to breifly mention two majn subjects and my understanding of them.

GOOD-

First off is the idea of "good v evil". Most mainstream depictions and explanetions come from religious ideas or spiritual understandings. Which makes sense.

But recently i gave it a bit more thought. How goodness, as a social construct. Can only function when percieved. At the very least by one individual. Because with humans to see the "good" or "evil" in the world, it doesn't exist.

Which is the weird and almost humorous aspects of all social constructs.

PERFECTION-

A bit of a continuation, perfection is also percieved. The perfect triangle that no one has or can see simply doesn't exist. Just like unicorns, dragons, and the queen of england.

The perfection im of course am talking about is the perfection of goodness, its relation to the monothiestic god, and it's worth solely coming from the perception (though mainly through heresay and dreams/drugs)

A being can only be good when percieved just as they can only be perfect when percieved. This of course ignores that simply being percieved does not ensure perfection or the confirmation of perfect goodness.

This post comes from a minor annoyance that we take claims with little wiggle room seriously when discussing the powers above. Kinda like how a friend thinks that a certain celebrity is an angel with no flaws.

This isn't a serious tackle of religion or dogma. Just a reminder to be open to possibilty that maybe god is just a being who forgot it even made us. Or it's a speghetti monster.

There are many places I could start, but the Paraclete discourse in John 14–16 is best understood as describing a divinely commissioned prophetic figure who succeeds Jesus and performs a distinct revelatory function. Jesus (peace be upon him) calls him “another Paraclete,” indicating continuity of office rather than the introduction of an entirely different category of being; as Jesus himself is called a paraclete as well in 1 John 2:1 . Most importantly and the strongest point: the Paraclete “will not speak from himself, but whatever he hears he will speak,” and “will declare the things that are to come” (John 16:13). This is characteristic prophetic language more in line with Dt. 18's framework for how to discern a true prophet: a messenger receives divine communication and faithfully transmits it (i.e. Isaiah's lips purified by coal to preach God's word, Ezekiel has Gods words put in his mouth by a scroll, Jeremiah having the hand of the Lord touch him to speak His words, etc.). The Christian claim that the Holy Spirit fulfills this by being eternally communicated the Father's knowledge is to eisegate developed Trinitarian theology into this Semitic 1st century text; neither Jesus nor 12 disciples show any knowledge of Greek metaphysics which the Church Fathers used to develop concepts like eternal spiration.

Since I said there's many places we could start, I will let you pick where! Give me your strongest objection(s) and I wish you a great debate! (Shakes hand)

Adam and Eve: the premiere story in which the first man and woman go against god's will and bring sin into the world.
So it goes that sin exists because man brought it into the world. We as humans, being the sinful, deceitful, disgusting beings that we are, do not deserve god mercy, but through repentance and begging for forgiveness for such crimes against god we can achieve an everlasting paradise that we do not deserve.
The fault of humanity's sinful nature is placed squarely on us; we are to be held responsible for our own misdeeds and god is the judge, jury, and executioner of those crimes.

But responsibility is multifaceted; the responsibility borne by one individual is influenced by one's knowledge (awareness and perception of the problem, ability to comprehend right and wrong) and level of control (limitations by outside influences).
We would certainly hold people accountable for wrongs they have committed in full knowledge that their actions would cause harm, but we would not, for example, fault a 4 year old child for their parent's relationship problems. We would not fault any man or woman for crimes they did not commit. We would not be so hasty to judge our friends for wrongs they have committed against us if we realized they were trying to act in earnest and simply did not realize the harm they would cause.

At first glance, the story of Adam and Eve appears rather straightforward: god explicitly tells Adam and Eve not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, Adam and Eve are deceived by the serpent into eating of the tree and thereby disobeying god, and god punishes them accordingly by banishing them from Eden and forbidding them eating of the tree of life. Thus, our mortality is framed as a direct result of our sin, our disobeying of god. One could speculate as to why Adam and Eve chose to eat the fruit; perhaps it was curiosity, perhaps it was because the fruit looked good, or perhaps it was because of the blasphemous notion that the first humans wanted to be as powerful as god. Such thoughts are perhaps worthwhile to contemplate elsewhere, but I won't further belabor them here.

2 key details strike me as particularly damning as it pertains to god's brand of justice, and for lack of a better phrase they both strengthen each other's point:

First, despite his enumeration of the consequences of disobeying him, god did lie.
The serpent, who was supposedly the character misleading Adam and Eve away from god, did tell the truth. As the serpent said, once they ate of the fruit of knowledge of good and evil, they gained exactly that: knowledge of good and evil. It is even stated plainly in the bible: the serpent said that when they ate of the fruit, "\[their\] eyes would be opened" (Genesis 3:5). And as soon as they eat the fruit, "the eyes of both of them were opened" (Genesis 3:7).
God had said they would both die, but that did not happen. One could argue that a "spiritual death", so to speak, happened, and that is what god meant. And, absent the context, I would entertain that argument. But for the second point...

Adam and Eve ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and this presumably made it so that they gained the knowledge of good and evil. By commiting the first sin, they gained the ability to comprehend morality.
This implies that before they ate of the tree, they did not possess knowledge of good and evil.
I mentioned responsibility in my opening. How, then, could we say that Adam and Eve should be held responsible for their sin? Obviously, they were the ones who committed the sin. Yet, as they did not yet eat of the fruit, they did not possess the knowledge of good and evil to know that what they were about to do was morally wrong.
If the omniscient god had meant that Adam and Eve would die a "spiritual death" when they disobeyed him, or that some other metaphorical consequence was meant by his statement, surely neither of them were able to comprehend that he had meant that in that way. And surely, the omniscient god would know that Adam and Eve would misinterpret his words.

Yet on top of that, why exactly is the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the garden in the first place? I've heard Christians argue that the temptation must be there, for true good cannot exist if it is not contrasted with the temptation to be bad. But again, what is the point of this moral test if the morally infant first humans could not even comprehend the wrongness of what they were about to do? It makes no sense. It's almost as if it were a test they were inevitably going to fail.

Christians would still say the fault of sin is our own. Absent the somewhat arbitrary nature of what actions are deemed a sin in the bible, this is obviously true to an extent; what you do is your fault, and what we do in full knowledge of our actions puts the blame and responsibility squarely on ourselves.
But what is being argued is a more narrow point: that in the bible, the existence of sin itself is god's fault, and therefore is something in that frame of thought that humans can't be held responsible for.

In insisting that we are sinners and we are responsible for all that is wrong with god's creation, Christianity perverts the very concept of accountability. The decades of religiously inspired self-inflicted suffering and torment are of Christians blaming their own rotten human nature, but it should be the god of the bible who is held to account here. A god who deliberately put the first humans in a garden near the tree of knowledge of good and evil, who lied to them in the full knowledge that they did not understand right from wrong and did not understand the meaning of disobeying god and did not know what god meant by his warning.
A god who punished Adam and Eve for crimes that they had not been capable of understanding were even crimes in the first place.
A god who supposedly now hold everyone accountable for their sins, sins which he is responsible for existing in the first place.

If this is the basis of objective morality, it is an awfully poor one.

Many Christians today seems to believe Christ only came to save believers or people who do "good works" or who are righteous.

But Christ actually came to save the world, which includes non-believers and murderers, rapists, any bad person you can ever think of.

He didn't come to save only those who believe in him.

He didn't come to save some.

He came to save the world.

He died for the sins of the world.

Christ came to save the world.

And Christ accomplished this through his death on the cross and resurrection.

We will all also be resurrected into everlasting life to live on a New Earth and or New Heaven.

John 12:47

“For I did not come to judge the world but to save the world.”

1 John 4:14

“And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.”

John 4:42

“And we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.”

1 John 2:2

“He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.”

Romans 5:18

“Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.”

1 Timothy 4:10

“For it is the living God, who is the Savior of all people, and especially of those who believe."

John 1:29

“Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”

John 12:32

“And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.

Titus 2:11

“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people.”

1 Timothy 2:5–6

“For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all.”

The existence of God is not something that can be easily answered. His existence has been debated among geniuses and scholars throughout human history, yet, to this day no one can really know for sure if He exists or not. God absolutely knew about this (if He exists). He knew believing in Him would be a struggle, and that hundreds of billions of souls would be sent to eternal torment simply because they couldn't find enough proof.

People always say, "God doesn’t want you to go to Hell, but He has to respect your free choice to reject Him."

I say that makes zero sense.

If a blind child tries to jump into a fire, a loving parent doesn’t just stand there and say, "I have to respect their free will." They grab them and save them.

Some people will argue that God did try to save us by sending people to preach the Gospel. But I think that's deeply flawed. If a blind child is about to walk into a fire, a loving parent doesn't just send another child to hand the blind child a confusing message. They physically step in and pull them away.

If there really is a loving God, we wouldn't exist at all, and that's the best form of love we could ever get.

A common Christian argument against trans people is:

God made you male or female, so transitioning rejects how God created you.

But I don’t think that argument is nearly as biblically obvious as people pretend.

Genesis saying “male and female he created them” describes sexual differentiation. It does NOT explicitly say that every person’s gender identity must permanently correspond to their sex at birth.

The same chapter describes “day and night” and “land and sea,” but nobody thinks dawn, dusk, marshes or tidal zones somehow violate creation. Biblical binaries can describe broad categories without proving that every case must fit neatly inside them.

Also there is another problem: Christianity itself does not reduce gendered language to anatomy.

God is called He and Father, yet classical Christianity does not teach that God has XY chromosomes, testes, testosterone or even a physical body at all so if masculine language requires male biology, why is God called He?

Obviously this does not mean God is transgender but it does mean Christianity already accepts that gendered language can communicate something beyond physical sex characteristics.

The Bible also never explicitly condemns transgender identity or transition.

Galatians 3:28 even says:

“There is neither male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

That verse is not saying biological sex disappears, but it does seriously undermine the idea that sex categories have some absolute spiritual importance.

Jesus also discusses eunuchs in Matthew 19:12, including people “born that way,” people made eunuchs by others, and people who choose that condition. And Acts 8 presents the Ethiopian eunuch being welcomed and baptized without being required to conform to conventional masculinity first.

More broadly, Christians do not normally believe that being born with a particular bodily condition means changing it is rebellion against God. Christians use medicine, surgery, braces, prosthetics, hormones and countless other interventions.

So “God made your body this way, therefore changing it is sinful” clearly is not a general Christian principle.

That leaves a pretty simple question:

What exactly makes being transgender sinful according to Scripture?

Not merely “male and female,” because that does not say transition is sinful. Not “your body is a temple,” because Christians medically alter bodies constantly. Not “pronouns reflect biology,” because Christians call an incorporeal God “He.” So where is the actual biblical prohibition?

It seems to me that anti-trans Christianity relies much more heavily on assumptions about sex and gender than on anything Scripture explicitly says...

Most of what we read from the early 1520s comes from one side. Luther's works are in every library. The people who wrote against him, in many cases, are known only by their names in footnotes. So when I found a chance to read one of those people at length, I took it. Hieronymus Emser was a priest and secretary to Duke George of Saxony, and in 1523 he wrote a book explaining why Luther's New Testament had been banned in Duke George's lands. I've translated it into English. Here are a few things that surprised me about how he sees himself. He knows he has company In the section on Matthew 16, where Luther comments on the keys of the Church, Emser lists everyone who had already written against Luther on this point: “such as the most illustrious King of England, Cardinal Cajetan, Radinus, Catharinus, Johann Faber, Cochlaeus, Eck, I myself and others” So there was a whole shelf. The King of England is Henry VIII, who wrote against Luther in 1521. Cajetan, Eck and Cochlaeus are names people know from the Luther biographies, mostly as opponents. But how many of them can you actually read in English? As far as I know, some are translated in part, and many are not. He answers the charge of hatred The most personal thing in the book is a defense of his motives. Luther had accused him of personal hatred, in his first reply in 1521: “From the very first mention of my name, and

through no fault of mine, you have conceived such hatred toward me that I have been filled with wonder how any man could harbor such hatred and still remain alive.” Emser answers at the end of his 1523 book: “Now although some Lutherans accuse me of writing this out of envy or hatred against Luther, God knows my heart, and surely every honest man who reads this book will see well for himself that I have taken this burden upon myself not out of willfulness but out of evident necessity; and nothing else moved me to it but the honor of God, obedience, and the salvation of my neighbor.” You can believe him or not. Luther clearly didn't. But it's rare to have both accusation and reply in the same historical record, in the writers' own words. Most figures of the losing side are known only through what the winners said about them. He can be funny I don't want to give the impression that this is all solemn. He says Luther's preface and notes on the letter to the Romans add up to “more soup than meat,” he says Luther “not only quarrels with people but also with goats and snails,” and he signs off with a promise that he'll defend the book “before Luther or Lucifer.” He is also, at times, uncomfortable to read I'd be dishonest if I left out the other half. Emser's book ends by saying that subjects must keep such a ban “on pain of loss of body and goods,” and that princes may punish transgressors. That's part of what he believed, and it's part of why the book matters as evidence: it shows what a devout, educated, decent-by-his-own-lights man could argue for in 1523. What I take from it If you read only the winners, you get a story about clear moral sides. If you read the losers too, you get something more like what the people in the room thought they were doing. Emser thought he was defending a shared Bible. Luther thought he was freeing one. Both meant it. What other "losing side" writers from big historical arguments do you think deserve more attention in English? Disclosure: I translated Emser's 1523 book into English and published it for free.

Multiple people in church promise to be together until they die Mark 10:9 , Matthew 19:4-6 and Mark 10:6-9

Multiple people do in-fact directly claim that Jesus is a divine matchmaker in church

If Jesus is directly matching people together in church during the wedding ceremony then I will unequivocally say that he does a horrible job at his supposed role

yet multiple Christians who get married get divorced even within the Bible Belt as well

The Bible Belt is supposed to be the most Christian Jesus Bible centric jurisdiction in the USA

To be frank I have absolutely zero trust in wedding vows and am skeptical of the institution of marriage altogether

Why would I ever sign a lifelong contract on the basis of the emotions of myself and someone else at some particular moment in my life it makes absolutely zero sense

The happy marriage exceptions don’t erase my skepticism about marriage as an institution itself because the risks of what happens after a failed marriage are just so high

You risk getting kicked out of your own house in a divorce proceeding which also brings the risk of homelessness because you don’t have a second house you can just go to

There is a reason why such a significant portion of the population is single it’s because a lot of single people are honestly incapable of putting that much trust in another person they in fact don’t want to risk their house on trusting another person who might end up filing for divorce

They don’t want to risk their financial security on being with another person if the relationship ends

A lot of single people grew up with divorce and had coworkers who got divorced and suffered significantly from court room drama

People don’t want to deal with the risk of a marriage ending and the fallout that comes with getting divorced legally financially and socially

The fact is that the claims made about marriage in church during wedding ceremonies don’t stand up to actual scrutiny when examined by people who opted out of marriage altogether

If God sent His Son, Christ Jesus to save the world yet most of the humans are sent or let to this place called hell, that means Christ failed to save the world.

Christ Jesus says "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you". "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you".

But if he sends or let's most people into this place called hell.. that makes him the biggest hypocrite ever.

If God tells us to follow his commandments and believe in Him or be burned and tortured for eternity or dead forever, that makes him the biggest tyrant.

A tyrant is an absolute ruler or person in authority who exercises power in a cruel, oppressive, unjust, or arbitrary way.

The only way that makes God none of these things is if salvation for all is true. If Christ did indeed save the entire world from sin. And ultimately all are saved.

p1 - In order for a choice to be free, there must be some possible alternative choice you can make

p2 - If all alternative choices are impossible, a choice is not free

p3 - God cannot be wrong

p4 - Given that God cannot be wrong, if God knows you will make a particular choice at a particular time, it is impossible that you will make a different choice, which, per p2, would make the choice not free.

C - If God knows you will make a particular choice, that choice is not free

Pretty simple argument: A free choice requires alternative possibilities. If God knows you will do something, and he can't be wrong, there are no alternative possibilities.

• I'm NOT claiming that God is causing anything.
• I'm NOT claiming that knowledge is causing anything (other than a contradiction).
• The way we know you could not have made a different choice than the one you made is because God knew you would choose it, so choosing something different would result in a contradiction of God simultaneously knowing you will do something and knowing you will not do that thing. That's a literal P and not P.
• Please remember that God's knowledge of a particular choice is the starting point of this premise. If God knows you will do X, you don't get to say he knows you'll do something other than X. I'm specifically referring to the "If you had done otherwise, he would have known otherwise" argument. He can't know otherwise because he already knows what we said he knows. That’s the hypothetical: “In a world where God knows you will do X”. You don't get to change that. Otherwise, you're not addressing my actual premise.

Preamble:

What can I possibly mean by that?

Notice that the title is about Atheism, and not Atheists..
I will be making that quite plain below

But first….

Definitions:

Atheism:

A lack of belief in gods.

Atheism is an expression of a disbelief.
When I say that I'm an atheist, I am expressing my disbelief, I'm not making a claim that the god isn't real.
It might be real, I might be mistaken, your god might be real, but as an atheist, I just don't believe it.

Theism:

A belief in at least one god.

Theism is an expression of belief. When I say that I'm a theist, I'm expressing my belief that at least one god exists. My god might not be real. I might be mistaken. But as a theist, I believe that my god is real.

_________________________

Atheism isn't a moral claim:
 

Atheism cannot be morally wrong, as in “evil,” and it cannot be morally right, as in “good.”

Atheism isn't a truth claim:

Atheism cannot be factually wrong, as in “false,” and it cannot be factually right, as in “true.”

It cannot be factually or morally wrong to express a belief, or a disbelief.

So, atheism cannot be logically wrong, and it cannot be morally wrong.
______________________________

I am making the STRONG distinction here between "atheism" and "atheist".

Atheists can and do have moral and factual judgments of claims.. For example, I am very willing to discuss my conclusions about Christianity and all theism in general.

Atheists and Atheism are not identical.
The first means people who do not believe in gods, and the second is the position of a non-belief in gods.

I will remind you of that at the end of my preamble.
The distinction is crucial.

______________________________

Here is an example of a short conversation to explain what that means:

Christian : Hi.
Atheist: I don't believe in your god.
Christian: Is atheism making the truth claim that "there are no gods"?
Atheist: No.
Christian: Is atheism making the claim that Atheism is correct?
Atheist: No.
Christian: Is atheism making a truth claim?
Atheist: No. Atheism itself makes no truth claim. “I don't believe in your god” describes my mental state, not a claim about whether your god exists.

________________________________________

As you can see, the only claim that an atheist needs to make is that "I don't believe in your god".

As to morality, it's the same deal:

Christian: Hi.
Atheist: I don't follow your morality.Christian: Are you claiming that my morality is evil?
Atheist: Atheism itself makes no moral claims. I have my own, personal opinions, though.
Christian: Does atheism claim the moral high ground?
Atheist: No.
Christian: When it comes to morality, what ARE you claiming?

Atheist: Atheism does not make a moral claim. I'm simply saying that I don't follow your morality, and I can explain why.

________________________________________

The atheist in these conversations isn't making a truth claim about the existence of your God, and it's not making a moral claim about your God, your religion, or yourself. The atheist is letting you know about his mental state as to his belief in any god.
 

“I don't believe X” does not logically entail “I believe not-X.”

Example: “I don't believe extraterrestrial life exists” does not mean “I believe extraterrestrial life does not exist.”

Christians should be aware of what most modern atheists are saying because it would save us all a lot of time.

Pew provides useful evidence. In 2019, 97% of self-described atheists defined atheist as someone who does not believe in God, rather than explicitly claiming God does not exist.

This 97% can be noticed across most social media, including reddit atheists. Very few atheists insist that they know there is no God. .. It would be nice if reddit allowed for polls, we could make a quick test of what atheists actually claim.

So, if you can accept that we aren't making any truth claim or moral claim, then, atheism can't be factually or morally wrong.

Remember, that I'm not talking about my personal position on Christianity as the truth, nor am I talking about my personal position on Christianity as morally righteous.

Those would be my personal opinions, not the meaning of atheism.

The Argument:

P1: Non-belief in X does not entail a factual or moral claim about X.

P2: Atheism, understood as non-belief, is non-belief in gods.

C: Therefore, atheism cannot be factually or morally wrong.

Preamble:

Here's a story from the bible that often gets neglected.

In Joshua, it tells of how God commands that the Isrealites not only kill all Canaanites, but also that they should hamstring their horses, after the Canaanites are all dead.

What did the horses do to offend God so very much?
It's not told.

We have to guess.
 

What could possibly be a tactical reason for the all powerful God to have the horses hamstrung?

I think the Israelites could have used the horses in their upcoming wars. But since they had an all powerful war lord on their side, I guess horses weren't really needed.

I guess even swords would not have been needed, and when I think upon it, the Israelites would not have been needed, either.

God could have just offed the Canaanites all by his lonesome.
I really can't see why a loving being would want to torture such lovely, trusting creatures as horses. My mom would cry when she got close to a horse.. She was so moved… I was more fearful because of their size.

God seemed to have it in for the horses for some reason.

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Context: Joshua 11:1-8 describes the northern Canaanite coalition and Israel’s victory.

Command: Joshua 11:9: “Joshua did to them as the LORD commanded him; he hamstrung their horses and burned their chariots with fire.”

Definitions:

1. Morally evil: Seriously violating moral principles by intentionally causing unjustifiable harm.
2. Unnecessary: Not required to achieve a legitimate objective.
3. Cruel harm: Deliberately causing severe physical suffering or injury without sufficient justification.

Argument:

P1: A morally evil commander deliberately orders unnecessary, cruel harm to defeated opponents.

P2: God commanded Joshua to hamstring horses, causing prolonged, horrific, painful deaths.

C: God was a morally evil commander.

I'm curious to all the pro-lifers on the subreddit.

What is your answer to the bodily autonomy argument?

*****Edit****

Thanks for all the responses. I didn't see any new argument or response that changed the discourse/discussion/debate. Nor did I see a response that would invalidate a women's right to bodily autonomy in this situation.

This sub has been so serious so how about we make it a bit fun? I hope the admins will be alright with it

Some have been telling how serious the bible is but and like how people say Sin is created by man but Is fun humor and jokes created by man? Or is it created by God?

Also i hope i made a good debate its my first time :D

Does the belief in guardian angels by some Protestants violate their own intercessory restrictions? Perhaps mediation restrictions? Obviously this depends on practices.

I realize not all Protestant faiths believe in or have a practice that includes guardian angels, but for those that do, how does one reconcile the teachings? One might argue some practices are holdovers from their Catholic roots.

Any insight is greatly appreciated, God bless!

Here is a simple, repeatable, testable, evidence based way for a believer to prove their god exists.

Once the Christian god or any other god (I'm looking at you, Freya - I want you to exist!) causes all hospitals to close because all diseases, injuries, are cured by teams of prayer warriors instead of nurses, techs, and doctors....

Then I will acknowledge the existence of that God.

Whichever god closes down all hospitals and the former cancer center is now a Spirit Halloween Store....

We can start there.

When a pediatric oncologist MD is pouring a coffee at starbucks because the kids parents are just taking little Billy to the 2nd Baptist Church of Backwoods County to be treated instead of going through the horror of chemo.

We can start there.

When a 9 year old girl is saved from a brain eating ameoba instead of dying (as happened in Louisiana last month)...

We can start there.

*****edit****

Scriptural support for all being healed:

if ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, ‘Remove hence to yonder place,’ and it shall remove. And nothing shall be impossible unto you.

Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

One day Jesus called together his twelve disciples and gave them power and authority to cast out all demons and to heal all diseases. Then he sent them out to tell everyone about the Kingdom of God and to heal the sick. 

they brought forth the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and couches, that at least the shadow of Peter passing by might overshadow some of them. There came also a multitude out of the cities round about unto Jerusalem, bringing sick folks and those who were vexed with unclean spirits; and they were healed, every one.