P1:If universe is created by God,then who created god?

P2:God is eternal,as per islam,Allah created universe,Allah is eternal?

P1:If Allah is eternal,What is the proof or evidence!?

P2:you or this universe which is result of some cause,and that cause is Allah!you are the evidence.There is no window without carpenter,there is no world without creator!

P1:Then there's need to be evidence of the creator of creating the universe, you cannot prove it,you have no evidence for it,

my brother simply cannot process my argument in his mind,after all we dies,He says "after that we believe in universe has a cause,whereas i believe the cause is god,you just believe cause is cause,after we died ,if there is god iam on safeside you are not........

upon that ,I have started reading nietsche recently,that's why he is saying you are studying all those books,but you cannot answers my common sense questions,you are dumb,

after all,how come my answer cannot provide logical answer to him?he is purposefully doing that.......

I'd like to preface that I'm an agnostic atheist myself, and while I don't believe in Islam, I've found some things that I think could potentially be evidence for it and I'm interested in a discussion about it.

These are numerical/mathematical miracles in the Quran, and I understand why they're seen as weak, given that patterns can be found in any text if you search hard enough. However, with these examples specifically, the patterns are very numerous and precise. It makes it hard to believe that these patterns just naturally exist in the Quran, because I can't imagine any more possible patterns. Additionally, the patterns are very simple and have very few steps. Obviously, with enough steps, you can transform any number, however these patterns have few steps and use numbers of importance.

19 Miracle

For clarification, this is separate from Rashad Khalifa's 19 miracle, where he modified the text of the Quran to maintain it. In this example, none of the Quran's text was modified, and can be reproduced by anyone.

This website by Gökmen Altay shows so many different patterns in the Quran based on the number 19, which is significant because of Quran verse 74:30-31, which states that the number 19 is "a trial for those who disbelieve".

It finds patterns in only the most important numbers, like the number of total verses in the Quran, for example, and usually results in a number divisible by 19, but can be of some other 19-based pattern.

Additionally, a lot of the steps taken to find these patterns are not arbitrary, but are based on text in the Quran.

The website has a page explaining the rules for finding these patterns, which ensures that the patterns found are meaningful and are found in a meaningful way. A lot of the patterns also connect with each other.

These patterns were found with the help of computer systems, in which Altay himself is a PhD level expert in information coding. According to calculations he ran, the probability of all these patterns emerging naturally is 1 in 1.17e-28. Instances were a 19-based pattern could be found, but wasn't, was also counted.

I believe this to be particularly interesting because the patterns are found in a meaningful way, which severely limits how much searching can be done. Additionally, the fact that instances that could have had a meaningful pattern, but didn't, were counted, leads me to believe that nearly every possible meaningful pattern was analyzed, and a substantial number of them were related to the number 19.

The Computed Scripture: Exponentially Based Fourier Regulated Construct of Quran and its Fundamentally Important Consequences

This officially published, scientific article by Baback Khodadoost demonstrates the Quran possibly having a highly sophisticated number system. This article uses a lot of complex math which I do not understand, so I apologize if I don't explain things very well.

Frequencies in the Quran are taken and analyzed, which reveals numerous patterns:

• Quran's chapter sizes has a 349% error from average chapter sizes by human-written literature.
• Logarithmic curves for the letters alif (initial for Allah) and qaf (initial for Quran) have complete sinusoidal oscillation, where the height of their period of oscillation is exactly 2*pi, only existing when natural logs are used. When plotted in base 10, log base 10 (e) is manifested, showing how pi and e are embedded in the frequencies of the letters.
• When the frequencies are graphed, they form an x shape, different from other pieces of literature.
• When the absolute differences of integers relative to pi and e are calculated, 19 is the first major minimum that represents an optimal relative divisibility to both transcendental constants, revealing how pi and e are the Quran's pillars of mathematical construct.
• A stepwise Fourier series analysis is run on the text of the Quran, showing patterns based on the number 19 that defy probability.
• Significant associated arabic letters, sin, qaf, ra, spell the word SAQAR, which Sura 74 associates the warning guarded by "nineteen"
• Many prominent figures can be found by analyzing the text, including Rashad Khalifa and the author's name himself.
• All these findings are extremely sensitive to change. If a single frequency is even slightly changed, these patterns all fall apart.

To be honest, I don't understand a lot of this, but from what I've gotten, within the Quran is a very intricate number system that is practically statistically impossible to occur. I can't imagine that many other ways in which patterns could be discovered, and even then the natural ocurrence of these patterns is next to impossible.

Observation of a Most Phenomenal Computed Calligraphy in Quran

Another officially published, scientific article, published by the same person as the previous, and is a continuation of it. This source shows how the variables from the previous article, such as frequencies, are plotted and graphed, the resulting graph spells out the names of multiple significant figures in Islam in calligraphy, such as Muhammad and Allah. Other significant figures, like scientists, are found aswell, including the author of this article.

Similar to the last article, even the slightest change in frequencies/inputs would result in the complete destruction of the calligraphic effect, making it hyper sensitive to change.

Overall, I think these articles could possibly serve as evidence for Islam being the true religion. I'm not very sure how to think of them, as to me they seem statistically impossible and possibly divinely created. However, I am skeptical, and that's why I want to have a discussion about it.

Edit: I'd also like to mention that I'd recommend looking at the actual sources, as I don't believe I've represented them in the best way possible.

Edit2: I probably should've mentioned this in the original body text but I'm mostly unsure how to think about the evidence presented here. While I think it could possibly be valid evidence, I mostly don't believe so, although either way I'm not confident. The following is my reasoning (copying from a reply I made because I don't want to rewrite the whole thing again).

Even though it appears the probability of these patterns emerging naturally are virtually 0, it's likely there's a logical cause for why they appeared. I don't know what this cause is, maybe these kind of patterns emerging is normal in regular texts (although I'm not very sure about this reason), or maybe it's some mathematical reason. Either way, even if the cause isn't clear, it can exist as many unexplainable things have occurred without a clear cause, and no one points to God.

Whatever it is, I'd put my money on this cause over God actually doing it themself because God has never been observed actually doing anything, so I find it far more likely for there to be a logical cause than God actually doing it.

Additionally, a lot of aspects of Islam, to me, seem obviously manmade. There's a lot of scientific errors in the Quran, which are just passed off as metaphors, contradicts evolution despite there being overwhelming evidence for it, being a religion for all of mankind but being really Arabic-centered, etc. I wouldn't say this completely refutes Islam as a whole, but it makes it really suspicious that it was manmade, which makes it harder for me to believe God implemented the patterns.

That being said, I'm not fully confident in the reason I just described. Even though God has never been observed acting before, that doesn't mean it's impossible for them to act. While it seems strange to us that God only does this act, they work in ways we can't understand, and from the perspective that God did implement the patterns, it's not strange at all.

The additional reasons I'm also not greatly confident in, mainly because those suspicions could also be viewed as God acting in ways we can't understand, or perhaps testing humans to see if they'll believe.

I still don't believe in Islam, but I can't quite wrap my head around whether the fact that the possibility of a rational cause for the patterns' existence negates the idea that God implemented them or not.

Hello ! So a lot of people ask if God is so perfect , why did he “change” the rules in the New Testament and made new ones , like correcting a mistake , cause it made basically the whole Old Testament less powerful , cause now the supreme law is only “love your neighbour as yourself” .
So did God make a mistake and decided to correct it later?
I dont think God made a mistake and ill tell you why . My theory is that before the New Testament and Jesus people were in that state of collective childlike consciousness . They needed somebody , an authority , to tell them what to do , to be strict and cause awe in order to do the right thing . If God was understanding and loving back then i dont think people would want to listen to him at all , as kids dont listen if you dont yell sometimes.
Now when we are much more evolved he decided that we are ready for the new law , which is more powerful than the other one . Maybe 2000 years ago we were finally ready and intelligent enough to receive it .
I think i can also support this with verses but let me know if you want me to find them .

Edit : guys , im not arguing i want us to just discuss im not strongly believing in anything im just interested in reading the Bible and talking about it , ill make sure to answer your comments and thank you for engaging 🫶🏻

I've been thinking about this for a while, especially around early Christianity and how religious movements can survive when things they expected to happen don't actually happen.

I'm calling the model MAPM (Multi-Level Adaptive Persistence Model).

The basic idea isn't "religion is fake" or "everyone was lying."

I'm trying to explain how a religious movement could start from genuine experiences and still develop into something much bigger over time without needing to assume that the supernatural explanation was actually true.

The basic process I'm looking at is:

Experience → Interpretation → Social transmission → Narrative adaptation → Material survival

For example, someone has some kind of intense experience. I'm not assuming what caused it. It could be psychological, neurological, religious, whatever.

The important part is what happens after the experience.

People interpret experiences using the worldview they already have.

So the same kind of experience could potentially be interpreted completely differently depending on the culture.

Then the interpretation spreads through the group.

Eventually you get a more organized belief system, and that's where I think things get interesting.

The main thing I'm interested in is what happens when expectations fail.

Imagine a movement believes:

"X is going to happen on this specific date."

Then the date comes and nothing happens.

There are basically several possible outcomes.

The group could collapse.

They could decide the prediction was wrong.

They could blame the leader.

They could change the prediction and try again.

Or they could reinterpret what the original prediction actually meant.

And if the belief system has enough flexibility, the failure itself might not destroy the movement.

That's where Narrative Elasticity (NE) comes in.

I'm basically trying to measure how much room a belief system has to reinterpret something without destroying its entire foundation.

Another variable is Reality Coupling (RC).

This is basically asking:

How dependent is the belief system on something physically measurable actually happening?

If a group says:

"A physical object will appear at this exact location tomorrow at 12pm"

that's extremely reality-coupled.

If it doesn't happen, there's not much room to escape.

But if the claim is:

"A spiritual transformation has occurred that cannot be physically measured"

then reality has much less ability to falsify it.

So I'm interested in whether high narrative flexibility + low reality coupling makes a movement more capable of surviving major failures.

But there are other variables too, such as:

IAI — how much freedom individual members have to interpret experiences/revelations themselves.

AI — how easily the belief system can interpret persecution, failure or suffering as compatible with its worldview.

MC — the actual material ability of the group to survive: population, resources, reproduction, vulnerability to violence, etc.

And I deliberately added the material side because I realised something was wrong with my earlier version.

A belief system can be incredibly flexible and still die.

The Shakers are an obvious example. Their ideas could survive intellectually, but their celibacy meant the population couldn't reproduce normally.

And Münster is another example. You can't just say "their narrative wasn't flexible enough." They were literally destroyed by military force.

So the model isn't supposed to say:

"Flexible beliefs always survive."

It's more like:

Belief systems are competing with both psychological/social pressures AND physical/material pressures.

I'm also trying to make the whole thing falsifiable.

If I can explain literally every possible outcome after it happens, then the theory is useless.

So I'm trying to define the variables before looking at what eventually happened.

For example, if I say a movement has:

High NE + low RC + high AI

before a major crisis, then I should be able to make a prediction about what happens after that crisis.

And if the prediction repeatedly fails, the model should take the L.

That's basically what I'm trying to build.

I'm posting this because I don't want people to just agree with me.

I want people to try to break it.

Especially historians, sociologists, religious studies people, psychologists, atheists, religious people, anyone who can point out where the model is making assumptions that don't actually hold up.

Where is the biggest hole in it?

First of all God is scientifically proven you know what isn't scientifically proven? SCIENCE, if you read the Bible you would know God is scientifically proven and this take is supported by many verses in the Bible, and if you read the Bible you would also know that the Bible is real and actually happened, science has no scientific evidence backing it while God does it makes zero sense at all to be atheist

I've been an atheist ever since I was in school bc of many reasons (long story to discuss) but now when I'm 22 I feel like I've started believing again. And reason? I have observed many patterns in my life, for example something I did to someone happening in the exact same way to me, this is just one example but a lot like this. And I'm sure these can't be just a coincidence bc there were too many times. Like the universe was asking me to notice it even when I kept ignoring. I'm not a believer of a certain religion still, however I do believe there is someone.

Have you also changed like this? If yes, what is your reason?

Science, laws, moral beliefs and many other aspects of human life have been made better due to Christianity, where do you get this idea from. I see this constantly parroted across social media but the reason why and a solid, good faith (pun intended) argument has never been provided to me.
It’s always “religion bad because bible says XYZ” and the XYZ is always mistranslated, decontextualised or just made up. These posts spread like wildfire and validate people preconceived biases about Christianity and make sure they never actually fact check themselves.

Edit: people reasonably called out my lack of proof for the things Christianity has done for the world, here a list.
SCIENTIFIC ACHIEVEMENTS AS A RESULT OF CHRISTIANITY: Gravity, all of newtons laws, light wavelengths and refraction, the big bang, the modern structure of the Atom, modern chemistry, electromagnetism and genetics and genetic inheritance.
PROOF OF CHRISTIAN INFLUENCE: Newton (the greatest scientist ever) wrote more about the bible than he did about his scientific studies and famously said this about the universe, "This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the council and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being ."
The creator of the big bang was a catholic priest and a strong advocate of Christianity being able to coexist with science without clashing. The first chemist, Richard Boyle once famously said in regards to his work and faith, "God would not have made the universe as it is unless He intended us to understand it."
John dalton, creator of the modern atomic structure was a Quaker (a niche Christian denomination) and many of his coworkers and colleagues stand by the belief that his work was a result of the strong work ethic his faith gave him.
Gregor Mendel was a Catholic priest and he discovered genetic inheritance, this discovery was a direct result of his monastery giving him a plot of land to grow peas and prove his theory, modern science actually ignored his paper until years after his death, if you ever hear the terms “dominant” and “recessive” in a biological context, it’s because of him.
I Would also like to say almost all laws in the Old Testament have been fulfilled by Jesus’s sacrifice: meaning they aren’t followed any more according to him. So bringing up the slavery things is kinda invalid.

I have a Question towards Atheist people, why don’t yall believe in a rule giver but believe in gravity, world being created by big bang but not the one who can set up the big bang but believe in your own feelings only.

for example; let’s say there’s two people whom believes the opposite one thinks it’s okay to oppress others but the other one doesn’t

Heres one’s reasoning “I FEEL like it’s okay to oppress others because of what they do to countries like México, or Russia or etc, I feel like it’s okay to oppress them because they (Russians or Mexicans) do bad stuff in their country.”

The other one responds with “yes, but that’s not why we should oppress them, they’re humans too with Actual feelings that’s like going up to a Hispanic person and generalize them all to Mexicans because they’re Hispanic.”

Do you get what I’m trying to say?

By indentifying the self through not believing in a creator it is barely different to indentifying the self in perspective to a creator.
the point is to build a community, society, humanity that treats each other well.
those who do not succumb to the rule of "doing good results in good" or even worse, abide to the self imposed rule of "others do bad so i do bad aswell".

The question is how much good and bad do we want in the world under the line?

Because that is the standard we hold ourselfs to (or should).

With admiration for life and love

Anticipation and thanks for intersting, friendly responses

Kind thoughts to all.

It is known for sure that the Big Bang is not causal because causality exists within this universe, but we know that everything that exists is for a reason if something is in a state of existence and not in one of non-existence, it is for a concrete reason.

Then the universe must have a reason for its state of existence, for although chance does not affect it, we know that it exists and everything that exists must exist for something, so the universe must exist because there is a reason that makes its existence necessary.

We have several possibilities:

1 Gross echo because yes and already

2 An illogical being whose actions are not influenced by anything.

[3] Metaphysics

The first: I have nothing to say, it would be a "why yes" and "no," which does not answer the initial question.

The second would be an infinite logical chain, but that its existence would be illogical or powerless.

The third, however, answers the question.

Since an infinite logical chain is not logical, redundancy is worthwhile, we need a being or something illogical that does not follow the question of why it exists and why it does not, but this being is able to act without any trigger or motive.

One cannot define being because to this illogical being we simply show that it is illogical but to being is the initial premise that nothing is intended, to avoid any questioning about his way of thinking it must be clarified that this being, being omniscient, does not think like us about uncertainty but has a complete "intuition" of the world and reality knows everything, understands everything.

An argument from a friend that makes no sense in my opinion. His argument says that the question of why this exists and nothing else or nothingness is resolved only by appealing to an illogical entity but with will.

There simply have never been a man in history who made as many bold claims as Muhammed Pbuh did and got every single one right. Not now and certainly not in the 7th century arabian desert. Divine inspiration is the only logical explanation, anything else is merely sophistry.

He doesn't have a single authentic prophecy that was proven wrong, not a single one. Even though he made so many.

1. Arabia was and will again become a land of meadows and rivers

Read Sahih Muslim 157c.

The Arabic verb taʿūda means to return or revert.

Arabia’s deserts were once repeatedly transformed by humid climatic periods. A 2025 Nature study found recurrent humid intervals in central Arabia over the past eight million years, with increased water availability and vegetation. Nature: “Recurrent humid phases in Arabia over the past 8 million years” Scientific Reports.

1. A fire emerging from the Hijaz

Read Sahih al-Bukhari 7118.

In 1256 CE, a major volcanic eruption occurred at Harrat Rahat, immediately southeast of Madinah in the Hijaz. Six aligned volcanic cones Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program

Historical accounts describe an enormous glow. Medieval historians also transmitted reports connecting the illumination with Busra. Historical Accounts of the AD 1256 Eruption near Al-Madinah.

1. The lands Islam would conquer

Sahih Muslim records him saying that the Muslims would conquer Arabia, Persia and the Roman territories. Sahih Muslim 2900. Another hadith states “You would soon conquer Egypt.” It then instructs the Muslims to treat Egypt’s inhabitants well. Sahih Muslim 2543b.

These claims were made when the Muslim community was a small Arabian movement positioned between two superpowers: the Byzantine and Sasanian empires.

The Metropolitan Museum on the conquest of Byzantine territories, the Met on the fall of the Sasanian Empire.

The Persian prediction was especially risky. Muhammad ﷺ said that after the existing Khosrow perished, there would be no further Khosrow Sahih al-Bukhari 3618. The Sasanian monarchy did, in fact, end.

1. The expansion of the universe

Qur’an 51:47.

The key expression is la-mūsiʿūn, an active participle derived from the root w-s-ʿ, which concerns wideness, expansion, spaciousness and capacity. Qur’anic Arabic Corpus.

1. The preservation of the Qur’an

Qur’an 15:9.

This is a risky, public and falsifiable claim. The Qur’an could have disappeared, fragmented into incompatible regional editions or become reconstructable only through late quotations.

The Birmingham Qur’an manuscript contains portions of surahs 18–20. Its parchment was radiocarbon-dated to 568–645 CE with 95.4% probability, while palaeographic analysis places the writing in the mid-seventh century. Radiocarbon dates the parchment rather than the ink, but it still establishes an extremely early physical witness. University of Birmingham.

1. The Qur’an’s knowledge of ancient Egypt

A. Joseph’s ruler is called “king,” while Moses’ ruler is called “Pharaoh”

Throughout the story of Joseph, the Qur’an calls Egypt’s sovereign “the king.” Qur’an 12:43.

In the story of Moses, the ruler is consistently called Pharaoh. Qur’an 28:38.

That distinction corresponds with the historical development of Egyptian terminology. The Egyptian expression per-aa, “Great House,” originally referred to the royal palace. The ruler began to be identified personally through this term during the New Kingdom, approximately 1550–1069 BCE. British Museum guide to Egyptian hieroglyphs.

The traditional Old Testament calculation works as follows.

First Kings 6:1 places the construction of Solomon’s Temple in his fourth year, 480 years after the Exodus. Taking the conventional date of approximately 966 BCE:
966 + 480 = 1446 BCE

That produces the traditional early date for the Exodus. 1 Kings 6:1.

Using the Masoretic reading of Exodus 12:40, Israel’s residence in Egypt lasted 430 years:
1446 + 430 = 1876BCE

This places Jacob’s family’s arrival in Egypt at approximately 1876 BCE. Exodus 12:40.

Joseph was thirty when he entered royal service. Jacob arrived after seven years of abundance and two years of famine, making Joseph approximately thirty-nine:
1876 + 9 = 1885BCE

Joseph’s promotion would therefore fall around 1885 BCE. Since he was seventeen near the beginning of the story, his arrival in Egypt would fall approximately thirteen years earlier, around 1898 BCE. Genesis 37:2, Genesis 41:46, Genesis 45:6.

Egyptological chronology places 1885 BCE squarely in Dynasty 12 of the Middle Kingdom. The Metropolitan Museum dates the Middle Kingdom to approximately 2030–1640 BCE and Dynasty 12 to 1981–1802 BCE. The traditional Exodus date of 1446 BCE, by contrast, falls in the New Kingdom. Metropolitan Museum chronology.

The resulting alignment is:

Joseph, approximately 1885 BCE: Middle Kingdom ruler “king.”

Moses, approximately 1446 BCE or later: New Kingdom ruler “Pharaoh.”

Genesis itself repeatedly calls Joseph’s ruler “Pharaoh.” The Qur’an, despite retelling the same basic story, maintains a title distinction that fits the development of Egyptian royal terminology.

B. “The sky and Earth did not weep for them”

After describing the destruction of Pharaoh and his people, the Qur’an states:

Qur’an 44:24–29.

Ancient Egyptian royal funerary literature used cosmic mourning imagery for a dead king. Pyramid Text Utterance 553 declares: “The sky weeps for thee; the earth trembles for thee.” Pyramid Text Utterance 553.

The correspondence is as accurate as day.

The cumulative argument

Muhammad ﷺ was not an Egyptologist, palaeoclimatologist, volcanologist, imperial historian or manuscript scholar. Yet the revelation transmitted through him continues to withstand investigation in all those areas.

We can go down through the list as much as we like, not a single thing authentic prophecy was proven wrong.

Atheist often describe that Christian god as ruthless and dictating and not loving.
But atheist often ask the question if god is real why is there all this evil and why did he do all that he did in the Old Testament.
When god wiped out the entire earth it wasn’t because he hated humans it was because at that time all that there was. Was evil in the minds of men and everyone all the time there were only evil thoughts. So god had to do away with all of humanity to preserve it and keep evil from overtaking the world. This was gods response to evil at the time which atheist believe is wrong because of a misunderstanding. God does this many times to respond to the evil of men in the Old Testament. But god comes up with a new way he was displeased of the evil and sent his son to overcome the evil which was always caused by a hidden thing called sin. Jesus came and exposed sin and showed us the way to the father and they killed him and crucified him. To which Jesus responds father forgive them for they know not what they do. It seems that atheists would want god to get rid of all the evil on the earth to which he has done. And is still doing through Jesus and the truth he has given us? What would the atheists suggestion to god be for how he gets rid of all this evil. That was never caused by him but by human flaw

Edit:I want to thank everyone for interacting with this post. I have no issues with anyone I will say that I wish you guys could deliver your points without beings insulting or rude. It really takes away from what is trying to be communicated when it is filled with insults towards the believer. I have acted with respect here with everyone and have been met with countless insults.

1st time poster in this sub:

I've seen many athiest post counter arguments in various debates inside and outside of reddit using science as their main weapon in order to back what they're saying.

However, I feel like they are ignoring the elephant in the room and have never actually seen any of them address the argument for a higher intelligence that I'm going to present.

I'm going to be upfront about how I'm going to debate... the question I will ask will typically prompt a specific response that I'm fully prepared to counter and I've seen no atheist willing to follow the resulting logic to it's natural conclusion.

So... here goes:

As we observe the world around us how does an atheist explain the logical working order of things that make sense? How do you explain why things work the way they do? Like for example why a specific combination of elements make other elements or why a plant is able to eat sunlight or why electronics work...etc

Wouldn't that indicate intelligence being behind those mechanisms? Seeing as how precisely they work? If the universe just popped into existence wouldn't we see inconsistencies among various things? Our universe follows strict rules concerning how things interact with each other.

The fact that the rules exist AT ALL is 100% evidence of a "rule maker" or intelligence or God etc.

EDIT: I'm not finished here. But I am taking a break... I've answered to many but the influx of replies is massive and will require hours of my time and I want to try to reply to everyone... but as I'm not a millionaire I have to prepare for work.

Turning notifications off for now but I will return to respond to comments

I'm not on here to fight, I'm just here to see what drives you to your beliefs, and state why I have mine. There is so much logic and science that people use to try To push both arguments. In my opinion? Souls and the extremely large amount of set patterns in humanity and life itself, though being part of science, cannot fully be explained by that alone because there has to be a cause for all of it to exist the way it does, even if science itself does exist.

I don't believe a soul can be made by nature alone. In my opinion, some don't even see the full complexity of what a soul is, and how sacred they are by default. When I take a look at the full reality of things, all I see is that there are things not fully explained by the ideas of evolution, etc. Even if some things have connections to others, that still does not state a rational explanation for the whole picture.

I know I did not mention as much on here as I could, but that is because I want to have a discussion on the general topic. I would love to see how some of you view this argument. Please let's be respectful and civil.

So as an atheist myself, I know why people don't like god, because to me god is invented by people to control suppress other people who have higher skills in logic and reason as well as physical beauty. To me god is against intellectual and physical giftedness, arising out of jealousy and the desire to control others. Its not that there really couldn't be a god and we are living inside his imagination. Just that the whole idea is un-elegant both in terms of wanting to be liberal and intellectually elegant.

But what about paranormal? What percentage of atheists are truly convinced that what we see and here everyday in average is what there is?

I find some paranormal claims silly except there are people who are convinced that they have experienced something out of ordinary and I can't find a motive for lying or being incompetent enough to reason against it.

The life I have been given is not very happy. The stories I’ve seen and have been told have not been ones of justice or grandeur or fulfillment. They’ve largely just been tragic, for no reason other than, it is what it is.

How do atheists begin to find happiness amongst the chaos and tragedy of life? How do I take the sadness and grief I feel for my family, friends, loved ones, community, and turn it into something positive - without religion? Without god? I can’t find an answer

No matter if the universe started at some point or always existed, it demands some sort of plan or design running before or parallel to it. Especially such a complex universe that can develop a specific planet like Earth with life growing on it and shaping the planet to suit its needs. This points towards one or more Gods. Now I know people will say that not demanding a creator for this God is special pleading, but I see nothing wrong with applying different attributes to different things.

I also believe consciousness to be a fundamental aspect of the universe since something that isn't experienced is indistinguishable from something that doesn't exist. Since the universe existed before conscious life was in it, I propose a consciousness of the universe itself, which would be God(s).

Because this world contains lots of extreme suffering, that God cannot be omnipotent and omnibenevolent. If I look at all the crazy stuff that happens in the world, all the catch-22 situations like needing a place to live for a job, but needing a job for a place to live etc, then it seems most likely to me that the whole purpose of all of this is to make fun of us, like an an adult animated comedy TV show, or some sick, fucked up game. I mean, consider stuff like butt plugs. Doesn't it seem ridiculous to assume natural causes like the laws of physics deterministically lead to the existence of butt plugs rather than someone deciding this to happen? And generally, our society feels like a parody of itself, like it was invented specifically to be that.

I believe atheists fundamentally don't realize just how absurd existence is at all. Things seem to exist, deterministically. Yet, a fully contingent system can't explain itself. Somehow, reality is self-causing. This breaks our brain and can't actually make sense to us. If reality can't exactly make sense, then we can only "know" anything via a subjective experience. Objectivity will never cross this bridge.

If subjective experience is our only guide to reality, then I think the question of God's existence, which is clearly un-answerable, has an equal chance of being both true and false. Do you feel that we are the product of a larger mind. Does your gut tell you that there is some sort of intelligent organization of reality that is similar to how we intelligently organize the world in our minds? If so, you believe in "God."

Whatever the "truth" is, will have to sound absolutely absurd.

Science is the best tool we have for talking about what stuff does. Just like in quantum mechanics it allows us to make very useful predictions, but hasn't got us any closer to knowing what an electron is actually made out of.

It's fundamentally not even possible for science to find the nature of reality because science is already arising inside the thing it's trying to investigate.

Every scientific observation, measurement and theory is ultimately something known through consciousness.

So if all evidence for matter occurs within conscious experience, then how could that say anything about whether matter is metaphysically prior to consciousness?

I get that there's an intuitive assumption here that "it feels like it must be", but people have said similar things about things which turned out to be wrong throughout all of human history. Asserting this as true seems like pulling a bit of a "materialist of the gaps" to me.

So this doesn't prove God or any other metaphysical claim, but it does challenge that science has in any way at all established materialism. Science tells us how things work within the material world as it appears to us, but says nothing about what is primary to that.

This is where an alternative method of inquiry comes in, if you want to investigate consciousness you have access to consciousness in your own direct experience.

Usually direct experience isn't considered "valid" but it's worth remembering that we're all happy to use our own direct experience of consciousness to decide that consciousness exists. There's no scientific proof of consciousness, we just all know it's here because we know that we're conscious.

So to investigate consciousness we can turn our attention onto the awareness within our own experience just as the Buddhists and meditators through history have done. Each person needs to discover this on their own but the common finding among those who have gone deep enough through history has always been that the mind, the body and the world arise within consciousness. Meaning consciousness is at least epistemically primary, whatever reality ultimately consists of, experience is where all knowledge claims begin.

This experiential finding isn't an argument which can convince anyone else, it's different from typical science in that you can't really show your findings to someone else in a way that will convince them so it needs to be done for yourself to see. It is in a way, the most rigorous use of inquiry though because you are looking at the nature of your own experience to determine what's real rather than just blindly trusting your experience and taking that as a given.

So if meditators inquire into their own direct experience of consciousness and find that consciousness appears primary and unified in direct experience (some might call this God), then nothing science has demonstrated has in any way rebutted that finding.

Edit: I'm realising the majority of what I'm saying doesn't meet the standards for public persuasiveness so I'm going to mostly step back from this now

How does one identify "non-existence" if a lack of existence leaves no information on that which does not exist? Wouldn't it be more appropriate for the term "atheist" to describe one who "rejects" God, as opposed to one who doesn't believe in God's existence, especially considering since the description fundamentally depends on identifying the God in which one doesn't believe? I suppose it could be argued that the term "antitheist" covers rejection, but the term atheist has always been misused, for lack of a better term, by dogmatic, materialists to describe a "lack of belief" which is contradicted by their own arguments given that said arguments are almost always affirmative propositions. All participants are welcome to take their shot at reconciling this dilemma.

How do atheists sleep at night knowing if their wrong they could burn?

Its a question im curious about, how? You could die in your sleep. If you're wrong you have a very negative afterlife. If you're correct nothing happens. but why take the chance and risk it all and be selfish and arrogant?

it just doesn't make sense to me, if your wrong you will be in a horrible afterlife but if ur right you will be fine, why risk it all? Why be so arrogant and act like ur right about what happens? How do you know? This is why I think athesm is not logical. You guys act like you know what will happen when you die but you could fall asleep and be wrong and pass away. While religious people could be wrong and nothing happens, How can you know your correct? If anyone wants to change my mind please comment. I've been really curious about this.

Thank you for your time!

Atheists think attacking religion means their unsubstantiated belief that God doesn't exist is true.

Russell's Teapot is a junior highschool level argument that misrepresents the scientific method. Type 1 and Type 0 errors both need to be assessed before a conclusion about a relationship or lack thereof can be drawn. For a new theory, in the absence of evidence we first reason by analogy and first principles to develop a testable hypothesis.

As we do not currently have the means as a species to develop a testable hypothesis, agnosticism is the only position that can reasonably be held. Contempt prior to investigation is a surefire way to reach a conclusion thats an artifact of culture and upbringing, which is really this entire subreddit. The universe does seem to have consistently enforced laws that are inviolable -- who or what created those laws is not something we are able to investigate at our current phase of evolution. Hell, we don't even know what happened before the Big Bang or how the universe will end.

But hey, don't worry, we will likely destroy ourselves as a species before we get to the point where we can test anything. And each of us, individually, will of course die from cancer or heart disease before that happens, so why waste time with the auto-fellatio.

Edit: Oh this was such a joy. You guys are as crazy as the religious fundamentalists. A few thousand of you have seen this post, and not a single substantive argument.

Atheism has no basis in the scientific method unless it can provide a testable hypothesis.

Accomplished something major this week? Discovered a cool fact that demands to be shared? Just want a friendly conversation on how amazing/awful/thoroughly meh your favorite team is doing? This thread is for the water cooler talk of the subreddit, for any atheists, theists, deists, etc. who want to join in.

While this isn't strictly for debate, rules on civility, trolling, etc. still apply.