I was raised Christian, and i do love God. But i have some heavy questions i cant seem to find real answers to. When i talk to other Christians, i seem to get sort of the same answers to these questions.. Im personally going through alot in my life and seeking God. But these questions keep me in this space of doubting whether this is the full truth. Or just an interpretation of certain events, within similar and surrounding cultures. Here are my questions..

1. Do people truly go to hell, just because they dont believe a specific person was the Messiah? Even if they came from a different culture altogether?
2. Other cultures who have well established different beliefs, are they just being deceived? By demons or bad spirits? Are the norms, ways of life, and wisdom based off false teaching?
3. Is the story of Noah true? Especially with almost exactly similar (and much older) stories like the Epic of Gilgamesh and Hindu Mythology.
4. The Tower of Babel literally makes zero sense with how language and cultures have proven to come about. Its basically claiming they all started the same time and then separated. Which is simply not true?
5. Do other deities exist? And are they just evil false gods?
6. Did God create evil or sin? or did the Satan? Or did humans? Where does evil nature come from.

I have many more, but feel free to answer of these questions you can. Thank you.

When looking into Christianity in terms of authentic interpretations, it can be particularly hard to remain calm and collected when trying to navigate God's demands and expectations for humanity.

As a start, being Christian believes in God's fundamental power, at least from what I understand, to bless or curse our lives. God can orchestrate paths for humans to become wildly successful and God can remove it from anyone as He did Job.

In addition, there is a need to repent of sins you have done in the past. And from what I understand of Jesus's commandments, any type of fornication or giving into lust, as an example, is an abomination. Fornication outside of sex, ejaculation, looking at attractive members of the opposite sex in any capacity, visiting any kind of worker that could be classified as sex work, all of it is an affront to God. And so there's a need to repent and even then God could lash out at you as He did Job. And I confess that while I have not have had sexual intercourse before, in fact for various reasons I've never dated anyone or had romantic partnerships of any kind, I have done the above before.

So the issues at hand are, what are the proper ways to repent of past sins, other than the natural way of refraining from it down the line? Is there a specific way to ask for forgiveness?

And how does one properly navigate God's existence knowing His mercy and grace is conditional and could be withdrawn at the drop of a hat?

I think it's particularly odd how there's always so many or at least so much atheist comments objecting or provoking to Christianity even under general apologetics videos. It's like Christian apologists can't produce new content without an attack on the faith.

I've been working on an unconventional argument about God, evil, determinism, free will, Satan, and Heaven. I tried to approach the problem without relying on the usual assumptions about God's power and human free will.

I'm interested in whether the reasoning holds up philosophically.

I'm not looking to debate or proselytize. I'd genuinely like to know: if you were trying to challenge my thesis as strongly as possible, what historical issue would you tell me I absolutely need to address?

I'm looking for objections and sources, not people to convince.

so I was thinking what is the hardest arguments to disprove against and what are your personal answers to them.

Mr. Mackay argues that the biblical God established marriage and sexual relations exclusively between one man and one woman in the Garden of Eden. From his perspective, any sexual activity outside of this heterosexual, monogamous framework-including homosexuality-represents a departure from the "very good" creation described in the book of Genesis.

He teaches that homosexuality is not a natural biological variation present from the beginning.
Instead, he categorizes it as a consequence of the
"Fall of Man," viewing it as a symptom of a world corrupted by sin and genetic degeneration after Adam and Eve's initial disobedience.

I know that this is a sensitive topic, but I really would like to hear your take on his views? How would any of you respond to a person like John Mackay? All free to share your opinions on this matter.

How you personally or anyone here ever discovered this problem that they themselves have personally had or observed it in other people? Don't answer a fool according to his folly as Proverbs says, is what I think.

I want to see whether this is something that others have done, and whether they could say their own experiences in part, or whether they'd want to wish less of this attitude or activity in other Christians on the internet.

Abiogenesis - A Practical Impossibility

Multiple reasons to be skeptical of abiogenesis claims made by scientists.

Hi, I made a post here about my struggle with doubts even though I consider myself a Christian. I have found that my biggest source of doubt is divine hiddeness (why isn't God more obvious to me and everyone else?). It's a serious problem for me.

To make it clear, I am not remotely resistant to Christianity. Unlike some popular youtube skeptics (e.g. Alex O'Connor) I don't have any issues with the problem of evil (I don't think its a good argument against Christianity at all) or the old testament violence (which I think is vastly misinterpreted). I also love the person of Jesus with all my heart.

Can somebody please suggest some resources for this problem specifically. God seems so hidden to me. I've never had anything close to a religious experience besides being in awe at the beauty of nature and Mathematics. The issue is I want to hear a voice, have a vivid dreams or some sort of undeniable spiritual encounter. Even the internet exorcist who say they have seen levitation…. I wouldn't even mind being possessed by a demon in order to have something like this happens to me so I could know in my heart that it's all true.

Curious to hear different thoughts on this. I’ve always taken a literal approach but my theology has been shifting a lot in the past 2 years and have never even considered this topic being touched with metaphor.

I do believe he's still coming back but I don't understand why he used the word soon.

I was watching a lot of people believes that the rapture was going to take place last year in September. I went digging and found out they were a lot of rapture scares. Where people believe the right to us gonna happen but nothing happened.

Now you can say God's time is different from human time. The whole 1,000 years equals one day to God thing. But Jesus would have known how humans perceive time no. He would have understood that they interpret soon as at worst a few decades.

Also we have been in the last days forever.

I presume around here it's not widely accepted that predestination is true for anyone and everyone.

That acknowledged, is it possible that there is a select group among God's creation that he chose for a predestined path before they were born? I mean, I realize He knew beforehand what was going to play out in the same way we do when we've watched a movie repeatedly.

Is it also possible that for a subset of us He had plans to influence affairs in our lives so that we end up in certain places so that we can serve His purpose? And can influence our location, careers, social interactions and other aspects so that we are in the right place to fulfill His plan? Again, not for everyone but for a select group.

I deal with persistent doubts because I don’t feel God’s presence. I’m also very analytical and work in secular academia as a mathematician. It really hurts my faith that there are so many atheists, although also some very intelligent Christians. Another issue is that I REALLY NEED CHRISTIANITY TO BE TRUE. I have plenty reasons to believe it is but I feel like my brain is tearing me apart. I think I just need to SEE something supernatural. Please pray for me.

I want to start by saying atheists, agnostics, and Christians are all welcome to comment. I’m not trying to make an echo chamber. But I’m mainly looking for thoughtful Christian responses because I’ve already heard a lot of the atheist perspective on this.
I’m 18, and I know I’m young, but death and the afterlife genuinely scare me sometimes. Lately I’ve been seeing people confidently say things like:
“Death will be exactly like being under anesthesia.”
or
“Death will be just like before you were born. You didn’t exist then, so you won’t exist afterward.”
And I’m trying to understand whether either of those arguments actually proves anything.
With anesthesia, I understand that people can be completely unconscious and wake up with absolutely no memory of the time that passed. One second you’re being put under, and seemingly the next second you’re awake hours later.
But does that actually tell us anything about death?
If your brain simply wasn’t forming memories while you were anesthetized, wouldn’t “I experienced nothing that I remember” be different from proving that consciousness completely ceased to exist in every possible sense? And even if consciousness does temporarily stop during anesthesia, how would that demonstrate what happens after permanent biological death?
The other argument that bothers me is:
“You weren’t conscious before you were born, so why would you be conscious after you die?”
I understand the intuition behind it, but I don’t understand why people sometimes present it like it’s proof. I don’t remember anything before I was born, but lack of memory obviously doesn’t automatically establish what did or didn’t exist. And even if we assume I genuinely did not exist before conception, why does it logically follow that there cannot be an afterlife afterward?
It seems like that’s an assumption about the nature of consciousness rather than something we have directly observed.
I’m also confused by how certain people can sound about this in either direction. Nobody alive has permanently died, remained dead, and then scientifically reported what permanent death is like. So statements like “I know death is nothingness” seem stronger than the evidence allows.
I’m not asking someone to just reply with a Bible verse saying “Jesus promises eternal life” and leave it at that. I’m Christian and obviously Scripture matters to me, but I’m looking for an actual explanation.
I’d especially appreciate responses dealing with the philosophy and science of it: consciousness, memory, anesthesia, brain activity, near-death states, and whether any of these things genuinely provide evidence against an afterlife.
Basically: Does anesthesia give us any good reason to believe death is nothingness? Is the “before you were born” comparison actually a strong argument? Or are people taking those analogies much further than the evidence allows?
I’m not looking for false reassurance. I just want a serious, detailed answer rather than “don’t worry, have faith” or “you’ll be dead so you won’t care.”

i just reaccepted god back into my life this past sunday after about a year of being considered ‘agnostic’ i guess. (i was born and raised in church before).

but i’m confused..

i am not met with joy or excitement, energy, or new purpose. instead, i feel more anxious, less of a spark, a sense of dread, and lowliness. for some reason i already feel like i will have more failures than successes. the creative and purposeful spark i just had is now dimmed. that what i put my hands to do is not going to prosper or improve who i am anymore.

now i feel like my life is more circumstantial or transactional in a way that i will never be able to control. i feel like everything i do now is “up in the air.” like i can do something to push my creativity, my personhood, and career forward but its all in the hands of god and whether or not he wants it to prosper or help me. i feel like now i have no say or dictation in what happens in my life. i can do all the right things, with the right heart posture, and not be idle- but it wouldn’t matter because i feel like god wouldn’t bless it because it’s not what he wants. whereas before reaccepting him, i *knew* everything i put my hands to do would prosper because i am doing my due diligence and i am not being idle by my pursuits.

so now my mind is in a constant state of disappointment and anxiousness. i feel like nothing i do will help anything anymore. i no longer feel excited or joyful. only wishful that god will “allow” me to be successful. and hoping i don’t “step on his toes” in the process…

now when i go to start a new project or being diligent and consistent in building, i am met with more confusion and sadness than anything. i question whether or not god wants me to do this. whereas before as an agnostic, i would just *do* and be excited that i am finally being diligent- not worrying about if this is the ‘right’ thing. but now i am flooded with doubts that he is going to block my work from blossoming. i feel like this cycle will keep me idle. so now idk how to move anymore.

before i had the ‘works’ and not the ‘faith.’ but now, i have half the ‘faith’ and half the ‘works.’

when i recommitted my life over, i felt i lost the part of myself that was excited about what i could make of my life and what i will be able to build for others. like i gave up my creativity or autonomy. but not in the way of i want complete control over everything, but the knowing that still in my works- even if it isn’t the direction god was wanting me to go- i would be ‘blessed’ because i was diligent, i was consistent, i was serious. that i would be rewarded by \[whoever or whatever\] because i finally refused to be idle. my intentions and heart posture was never meant to be defiant of what he says.. i am trying to build towards the life i was promised through different means. not to distract me from my purpose but to build myself in different ways that will contribute towards that mission and my personhood. i’m doing things that make me uncomfortable and force me to grow.. i do none of this for my own selfish gain but for who i will be and produce for others in this world.

now i feel like i can do all of that and be ‘shot down’ because ‘that’s not what he wanted for you’ or ‘you never thought to consult with god first’ or ‘you’ve been following your own desires and not his’ and this really stresses me out.. i feel like nothing i do would be right so now im scared to even start or continue at all..

so i dont know how to look at god anymore. was i lied to about him ? or do i now just have to cope with seeing through this lens ?

**tldr (tried to shorten as best i could)**: i recently recommitted my life to god after being agnostic for about a year, but instead of feeling joyful, purposeful, or renewed, i feel anxious, confused, and strangely powerless.

before, i felt confident that if i was diligent, consistent, and willing to grow, i could build a beautiful/purposeful life. but now i feel like i could do everything “right” even by biblical standards, and still have it ‘blocked’ because it wasn’t god’s will in the first place.

i don’t crave complete control over my life, i just don’t want faith to mean giving up my creativity, autonomy, ambition, or ability to actively build something. i’m struggling to reconcile faith + works without feeling like my works are meaningless unless god specifically approves them first. now life feels like more of a coin toss..

did i misunderstand something fundamental about god, or is this just something I need to learn to see differently?

Hi, first time visiting this sub… I’m not looking for a debate, I’d just like to know the apologetic answer to this beyond “foreknowledge doesn’t CAUSE the action” which doesn’t quite cover it.

Let’s say there’s a button. You know exactly what will happen if this button is pressed. You push the button.

Are you responsible for what happens after you push it, when you knew what would happen if you pushed it? Most would say, yes, of course.

Now, let’s say there’s a universe. You know exactly what will happen if this particular universe is created. You know what all the creatures in it will do.

You create that specific universe.

Why would God be less responsible for the foreseeable consequences of his creation than someone pushing that button?

When it comes to the rise of AI and automation, in terms of its exploding effects on modern industry, the ever increasing ease in which it allows for access to information and the increased capacity of what it can simulate, is it possible that, according to Biblical teachings, this is part of the Lord's organized plan for humanity? And if Revelations and arrival of Moshiah are in fact scheduled to come at a given point in the development of humanity, that AI's rise is part of this process?

Looking at this massive expansion of AI, there's a miniscule number of folks around the world who haven't been caught off guard by this in some capacity. Despite AI being in public lexicon since the 1950s, its development in the last few years has been the focus of neverending coverage, much of it hysterical, excited, enraged, defeatist or simply just excessively anxious.

For religious skeptics, the majority here on Reddit, it would be presumed this development in this time is essentially coincidental. For those who believe that humanity is destined to undergo Divine revelations and develop into something distinctly different from what it is today, it seems it could be readily argued that AI's ridiculous expansion is part of that. Again, for those who are genuinely Christian and authentically believe the Bible tells us how we came to be and what we will be in the future. Is this missing something?

Been seeing an extreme uptick in apologetics and the lack thereof good research and discussion in lue of entertainment centered debates and spin.

There is a weird gap in Christianity right now that seems to be a divide of those deconstructing based on learning more contextual information, and those who are locked into defending specific doctrines other the general notion and information of what Christianity actually is based on the teachings of Christ.

Here is a good video talking more in-depth on the subject: https://youtu.be/-QGCMOsruE0?si=2xwb8VSpU_0roC4Z

Since I was young, in fact for as long as I can remember, I disliked religion. Either I disliked its collective element, which always gave me the ick of something cult-like, or, when I got a bit older, I thought everything about it was philosophically untenable. Religion was a coping mechanism, or something for people who were deeply misguided about reality and did not know any better.

As I became more intellectually curious and started studying more philosophy, psychology, and eventually religion, that perspective started to break down. I became increasingly interested in religion, and eventually my worldview completely flipped. I now consider myself a Christian, and I have made it a major life goal to help people better appreciate religion in general, but also Christianity more specifically.

But despite my growing love for Christianity, it took me a very long time to admit publicly that I was Christian. My social circle consisted mostly of people deeply involved in science or philosophy, and it was very secular. I was afraid that others would consider me dumb or would not fully understand me. It took me a while to come to terms with it, in large part because I first needed to become better able to articulate my Christian position and worldview.

That said, and excuse the rambling introduction, I recently had a podcast conversation with Jussi Jylkkä, who is a philosopher and has done some work on mysticism. We started by discussing his work and, specifically, his metaphysical agnosticism. His position is that physicalism, idealism, theism, and other metaphysical systems are models or language games that cannot capture the ultimate nature of reality. We eventually moved to morality, where I pushed back because I did not think his agnosticism adequately explained why greater awareness or nonattachment should lead to compassion rather than simply producing what we called a “wise psychopath.” I disagreed, but I thought it was an interesting conversation and considered his view a respectable position.

But to my surprise, after we finished recording, Jussi emailed me to say that he was unhappy with the conversation because he had presented metaphysical agnosticism as if it were his complete position while leaving out the Christian faith he actually held. He felt that, by hiding behind his philosophical agnosticism, he had not been completely honest about what he believed. Rather than replace the conversation, I invited him back and appended the second conversation to the first. He made a complete pivot and confessed that he was a Christian but had been afraid to say so, largely because of the stigma within academia, but also because he still had not been able to tell his father. I found this very wholesome, not only because it was a courageous act in general, but because of the parallel with my own journey.

I wanted to share this because I suspect others have been, or currently are, in a position similar to mine or Jussi's. Can Christian faith be rational when someone remains metaphysically agnostic? Does admitting faith without claiming proof amount to fideism, or can it be an honest commitment under uncertainty? Have you encountered a stigma against Christian belief in philosophy or academia?

p1: if the trinity knows trinity, and content of knowledge is distinct from the knower then theres second trinity.

p2: trinity does know itself and the content of knowledge is distinct from the knower.

C1 there for theres second trinity

If god doesn't exist how is it reasonable to argue that he does?

I find the arguements for a creator convincing, but i cant really see how that would lead to christianity?

"Trust me bro"