Of course we can. Here's my Argument from transparency:

P1. If God (the maximally great being) exists, then God’s existence is plain to all whose mental faculties are functioning properly.* P2. But God’s existence is not plain to all whose mental faculties are functioning properly. C. Therefore, God does not exist.

The best example of what is plain to those whose mental faculties are functioning properly is the existence of the real world. If you do not know the existence of the real world, then how do you know that you and your doubts exist? If a maximally great being truly exists, his existence would be more obvious than the existence of the real world. But since this is not the case, those who do not already subscribe and submit to the dominant ideology of theism can only be justified to believe and conclude that God is really just a myth or a creation of human imagination, pretty much like the American superhero Superman.

P2 is true because there are many sane, intelligent, and perceptive people out there who do not perceive and believe that God exists. Without begging the question that a maximally great being exists, the alleged existence of such a being, who is also believed to be a person, cannot be reconciled with the fact that the alleged existence of such a being is not as transparent as the existence of the real world.

• I think St. Paul agrees with this premise. See the Bible, Romans 1:18-20 (NIV). “18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.”

The fundamental problem with “God” talks in philosophical or even ordinary discourse is to determine, find, and fix its referent. I consider this the fundamental problem or challenge when using, as opposed to simply mentioning, the name “God”.

It seems to me that generally when apologists offer and discuss arguments for what “God” is about they simply ignore the fundamental problem (TFP). They talk as if TFP can be simply ignored and can be settled by the standard definition, “God is the maximally great being” (TSDG), plus the uncritical assumption that true believers in God have direct experience of God. But TFP cannot be ignored and cannot be settled by TSDG and the uncritical supposition that there is such a thing as direct experience of God (DEG).

But there is no such thing as DEG. There is no such experience because there is no verifiable and non-conceptual experience of God qua God. If this is correct, then all arguments in which apologists use “God” to assert something about what that name is about, can only be valid but cannot be sound. Since there is no such thing as a verifiable non-conceptual experience of God qua God, there can be no such thing as DEG and thus the hope for fixing the reference of "God" is dismal indeed.

I'm looking to contemporary, academic readings on issues surrounding revelation, such as how can we determine that a revelation comes from god? or why should we wait for a revelation in the first place?

Contemporary academic readings only, no medieval or non-academic works. I've only found Richard Swinburne's "Revelation" that tackels this. Unfortunately, it dedicates only few pages for it.

Thanks.

Hello everyone, I apologise in advance for the unsual post but I have been talking eith orthodox christians for a while, they all tell me that christianity is the objectivly right religion, some use the Transcendental Argument for God, others argue it is historically and experimentaly demonstrable while islam and others are not. I am not the best at philosophy or theology or debating so I wanted to take this to an audience that might help me find what's true and what's not.

TL;DR: What would be your recommendations and suggestions for useful books on the philosophy of mind and consciousness to further expand my library?

I was watching a conversation recently about the philosophy of mind between Christian philosopher Jordan Hampton and Dr. Brian Cutter, professor of philosophy from the University of Notre Dame, and Dr. Cutter offered the following top five book recommendations of his on the subject:

• "The Conscious Mind", by David Chalmers, which argues against materialist views of consciousness and supports a dualist conception.

• Adam Pautz’s "Perception", which explores various philosophical theories of perception.

• C.D. Broad’s "The Mind and Its Place in Nature", which provides a broad overview of how the mind fits into nature.

• David Armstrong’s "A Materialist Theory of the Mind", which defends materialism through the lens of functionalism.

• Philip Goff’s "Consciousness and Fundamental Reality", which supports panpsychism, which posits that consciousness is present throughout the universe.

Dr. Cutter's recommendations seem to provide a solid foundation for exploring the philosophy of mind, offering a diverse range of views from dualism to materialism and panpsychism. However, some of these works do not directly engage with Christian perspectives on the subject.

In light of this, another book I've found interesting is "Who Are You Really?" by Dr. Joshua Rasmussen, a philosopher who examines the fundamental nature and ultimate origins of persons, approaching these questions from a more theistic viewpoint.

Really appreciate it if anyone could fill out this survey! It is anonymous and through a google form that you do not need to sign in for. It asks about how religions function in society. All opinions are respected.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc8utqh8eEafTwNl3b3FJHXSjKnX4jRKRTdN0Iv80KOmqLJOg/viewform?usp=sf_link

Really appreciate it if anyone could fill out this survey! It is anonymous and through a google form that you do not need to sign in for. It asks about how religions function in society.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc8utqh8eEafTwNl3b3FJHXSjKnX4jRKRTdN0Iv80KOmqLJOg/viewform?usp=sf_link

Saw a really interesting video about the perspective of an atheist on the lds faith and doctrine. Answering things like the problem of evil.

I’m curious what yalls opinion on this video are. If there is any merits in this perspective or cross over. Or even if you noticed something similar in other faiths.

Atheist philosopher surprised by mormonism

Hello, recently I have become aware of the fact that, even though I consider mysel to be an atheist, I am still under the "unconcious" control of Christian indoctrination. I have never been a Christian or anything like that, I've never believed in any god, but I still find myself thinking about going to hell, or imagining something like heaven etc.
Are there any books, articles or videos on this topic? Is it actually possible to "break free" from this? I know that in the psychoanalytic sense (Lacan specifically) god is equivalent to the Other, which we can never truly break free from, and if we did, it would actually be worse than before.
Thank you for different views on this problem.

I have a question about the metaphysics of atheism as it is defined by the standard definition of philosophy of religion. As I understand it, metaphysical atheism (the proposition that God does not exist) is a “term of art,” a domain specific technical term in philosophy of religion, useful for debating the existence of God. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy says the standard metaphysical definition:

has the virtue of making atheism a direct answer to one of the most important metaphysical questions in philosophy of religion, namely, “Does God exist?” There are only two possible direct answers to this question: “yes”, which is theism, and “no”, which is atheism in the metaphysical sense.... It is useful for philosophers to have a good name for this important metaphysical position, and “atheism” works beautifully for that purpose. [plato.stanford.edu]

It is not clear to me how simply answering ‘no’ to this question is, on its own, a metaphysical position. It seems more like a placeholder. The philosopher that takes the ‘no’ stance will need to import something else (naturalism, materialism, empiricism…?) into their position before we can know anything at all about their actual metaphysics.

So my question is, does philosophy of religion hold that answering ‘no’ to the question is, on its own, a metaphysical position? Or, is it that philosophers of religion presume, for the sake of doing philosophy, that the metaphysics of atheism are equivalent to the actual metaphysical positions (naturalism, materialism, etc.) that would be part of an alternative to the proposition of theism? Or, is there another way to account for the metaphysics of metaphysical atheism?

https://lastreviotheory.medium.com/god-in-the-gaps-beyond-agnosticism-0d25d0450d4f

This article challenges the traditional question of God’s existence, suggesting that it is inherently flawed and rooted in a language game produced by the symbolic order. By positioning God as a “signifier without a signified”—a master-signifier—the article examines how God can be understood through the failures and gaps within language, moments where the symbolic order collapses and the subject encounters the Lacanian Real. Drawing distinctions between Kant’s concept of the “thing-in-itself” and Hegel’s “absolute,” the article argues that God’s existence resembles the latter: inherently inaccessible yet in front of our very eyes. Finally, it refutes agnosticism, contending that the existence of God is not unknowable but is, instead, hidden in plain sight.

Long story short, a person whom I considered my best friend (Muslim) and I had a major fight (not regarding religion). I was born into a Hindu household and considered myself agnostic since I was 16 (I’m now 24). In the last conversation we had, he told me he wasn’t supposed to trust non mahram women and so didn’t want to speak to me anymore. While I respected his decision and didn’t argue with him about his beliefs, I felt extremely hurt and broken. I thought to myself, how could someone have such strong conviction in faith while I really didn’t. I set out to learn a bit about Islam and other monotheistic religions. I came across various debates between Atheists and theists, Muslims and Christians etc. Watched and read some of the scriptures. Learnt a lot about philosophy, teleology, ontological arguments etc. I came to the conclusion that religion is most probably man made and the revelations are of humans and not of divine origin. But this left me feeling empty. If I don’t have a soul, if there is no God to return to, if there is no objective meaning to life, why am I here? And secondly, should I find it immoral to have children? (Antinatalism) Then I came across even stranger concepts such as how do you even know that you are conscious? What is consciousness? I felt immense despair. I thought, maybe my rationality is limited and cannot comprehend the truth. And all the arguments of religious folk sort of just boiled down to say “you have to believe. He will guide you if you have a sincere heart” or something on those lines. I have cried every night, begging god to help me know the path. I don’t even know which religion is supposed to be the “right” one. Then I came across philosophers like Ibn Sina, Ibn Rushd, non dualists like Shankaracharya and even Ramanuja, new age mysticism etc. I just don’t know what to do. I am so confused. The problem of infinite regression doesn’t sit right with me. I am inclined to believe that there was perhaps a first cause. So am I a deist? I feel like I’ve thought of things too much. Maybe I should have not thought so much. I would have been blissfully ignorant. I feel lost but I haven’t given up hope. I pray (not to anyone specific by name) so that I may be shown the right path but right now I don’t know what to do. I need help. My mind is stuck. I don’t see the point to living but I don’t want to die. I don’t know what to do.

I was thinking last days quite a lot about world, religion and culture and I wanted to ask you whats your thoughts about the actual situation? I'm ateist/agnostic type of person just because the stories about jews, Jesus or Allah don't seem realistic to me but I'm not trying to convince you I'm right etc. I just realized that the religion is really important tool and it allows to "control(?)" society and without it we have this weird situation in christian democtratics countries (usa, eu, au etc) that these millions of people actually doesn't belive in anything and because of that I find that people starts to believe in political parties (republicans vs democrats), they believe in zodiac signs or tarot cards (and other online voodoo witches), even youtubers or others influencers (andrew tate/taylor swift?). My point is, I feel like our civilization needs some RULES.
I'm not saying I'm 100% RIGHT, I'm just curious if you can relate to my opinion and I would like to know if you think the same I do.
And if you agree.. the last question (the hardest one): How to repair that? Or maybe we don't have to repair that? I believe that the most popular religions this day naturally evolved through centuries and they managed to survive because of their rules and approach to life philosophy and I think that proofs the point they were really usefull for our civilization. But today I see that christianity is falling down and islam is showing its strenght and domination (at least in democratics countries, idk what about asia/africa).
What do you think?

I created alot of arguments for the existence of God (I didn’t post them on Reddit) so I need to know if my arguments are better than the existing arguments because I searched a lot and the answer is the traditional arguments

The obsession with control and the fear of the unknown (ultimately the fear of death) pushes certain individuals to think of themselves as God, which is called the God complex, and which leads to perfectionism and hypercontrol. This phenomenon can lead to depression, anxiety or burnout. Isn't transhumanism one of the avatars of this God complex, among those who would like to be as perfect as robots (the robot being the imitation of the competent, tireless and infallible human)? Leaving the God complex involves accepting one's vulnerability and imperfections, and perhaps also accepting our ignorance as well as the fleeting fragility of life. But also to move away from the obsession with control, when all of society urges us to do so and even demands it. A real topical question.

The God complex is the rationalization of obsessive neurosis which is the pathology most valued by the system, instead of being considered an illness. This feeling of infantile omnipotence associated with perfectionism is characteristic of this relentlessness at work in a feeling that our actions have infinite importance, which is absolutely typical of obsessive neurosis, the God complex being a way of naming its morbid rationalization.

Just as in the Melanesian warrior tribes, megalomania is considered normal because associated with the self-pride that social norms prescribe to warriors, Western society considers obsessive neurosis to be normal, so that this God complex has become the official tacit doctrine of the international banking system that no one has the courage to name as such in the media.

It is true that the quest for possession and collecting, as well as the sometimes unhealthy obsession with cleanliness, are characteristic of obsessive personalities who are oriented towards order as opposed to chaos. However, we find radically opposite tendencies in the relationship to cleanliness and in the relationship to others among obsessive individuals, and we find either extremely deferential and obsequious individuals, who are in extreme perfectionism and lack hygiene, or people who are extremely arrogant and brittle with others, who are extremely clean and orderly while also being in a moribund perfectionism. The problem of the obsessive is to have a perfectionist mother who refuses her fecal gift (in the psychoanalytic sense), which means that she is an eternally unsatisfied, extremely demanding and perfectionist whom her child seeks in vain to satisfy, which makes him plunges into pathology if the father is not up to the task of individualizing himself and separating him from the mother, that is to say, cutting the umbilical cord from a symbolic point of view (therefore playing his role as a father symbolic). The obvious absence of the symbolic father in current society being correlated with the favoritism granted to the mother in the education of children, as well as deconstruction, now pushes certain psychologists and educators to consider that only the physical mother is necessary for the full and complete development of the human psyche. According to these intellectuals, the father would not necessarily be a physical person, but rather a fundamental psychological process in human beings, which is necessary for them to evolve, grow and become autonomous, certain psychological models being constructed so that children educated without their biological father can, according to these theories, build themselves in a harmonious way by taking as an example the adult males around them such as a grandfather, an uncle, a cousin, a film star whom they admire, and so on. However, better informed psychologists and educators know that the presence of the physical father is necessary for the good management of emotions, self-control, as well as the management of frustrations, which allow one to project oneself in the long term and to carry out studies successfully (as is evident in the scientific literature), the physical absence of the father sometimes also causing sadistic impulses which lead to delinquent or even criminal behavior, as is observed every day among the inhabitants of working-class suburbs. The absence of the father also favors obsessive neurosis for the lonely mothers who need to endorse both the role of the mother and the role of the father in education.

All of this emphasizes God complex presence in society. This absence of the father is concomitant with the absence of meaning in current society, as well as the renunciation of metaphysical and scientific realism, which has the consequence of trading in a rationalism of the truth-correspondency type (the truth being traditionally conceived as the fact of naming things correctly and putting the right words on the right objects, and is warranted by God who created the universe by naming its objects, as explained in Genesis), against a current and technical rationalism (we see the link with consumer society and the world of technology), in which truths are considered as instrumental, that is to say as coherent and temporary models supposed to allow correct predictions about the reality of phenomena, in the development of fallacious and instrumentalist epistemologies which deny Man's capacity to know. This comes from the Freudo-Marxist movements and other 1968 May intellectuals who wanted to give pride of place to relativism, and who consider that everyone has their own truth, and that each truth follows directly as a consequence of its own premises, and in particular of its own criteria and definitions of truth, which makes any assertion or proposition an opinion beyond any rational criticism, because to convince the other, we would have to make them admit our own premises, that are totally arbitrary, and from which our point mechanically follows. Relatvism is therefore the ideal hiding place for egalitarian sociologists who engage in permanent emotion by using egalitarian Christian ideals as well as the language of human rights (we see this in the taboo against a backdrop of permanent hysteria that constitutes Islamophobia or racism in general), in order to impose a way of life on current society.

However, contrary to popular belief which constantly pits them against each other in public debate, the belief, and Christianity in particular, is not at all incompatible with transhumanism. The subtle nuance is in the fact that the transhuman Man-God, through his consciousness of unus mundus (this is the ultimate reality and a generic transcultural concept of God introduced by Carl Gustav Jung), remains free to use his reason, and therefore to give it a form or a subjective interpretation (Allah, Brahma and the Christian God being such interpretations among others), through the development of one's own metaphysics or philosophy of life.

The central point is that the transhuman individual must not take himself to be a God himself, although he may then realize his divine nature, or the existence of his soul, as a part of the Whole and of God himself. Christianity allows this junction because it assumes that Man is in the image of God, and not God himself, which implies that his spiritual nature is identical to God, subject to a true spiritual awakening that will necessarily allow transhumanism through the resolution of the subjective/objective conflict which is at the foundation of all personal transformation, through the objectification of the subjective and the subjectification of the objective.

Ultimately, transhumanism is no more incompatible with Christianity than would be cell phone use, which also augments us. I even think that from a human and subjective point of view, we need to believe that beings superior to us exist or have existed, because this belief grants us the psychic resources allowing us to evolve spiritually.

Indeed, transhumanism does not put an end to mortality, even if it postpones the moment of death, because accidents remain possible, and it remains questionable whether the computer simulation of our own psyche, which cannot, however, reproduce the ineffable character linked to the unus mundus, can reproduce this divine spark of Man and be truly in our image, because it would not dispose, as Raphaël Enthoven also emphasizes in his recent debate on transhumanism, of the consciousness of the thing in itself or of the noumenal consciousness to which faith in God (which is the consequence of the soul) is linked, as well as the consciousness of the ineffable or of the unus mundus.

This is seen in particular by the fact that unus mundus would then be translated logically, in the logic of the predicates, by an ineffable feeling which is at the origin of our thoughts and would translate into the fact that A and not (A) is true (psychoanalysts would talk about life pulsion and death pulsion), this impossibility allowing the personal development of each being by pushing each individual, to rationalize sometimes A, sometimes not (A), and therefore develop one's thinking according to one's life experiences and philosophical development. The machine cannot simulate in a printed circuit the fact that A and not (A) is true, which our brain confusedly assimilates to a universal ineffable feeling. We all have paradoxes and contradictions in the funding of our personality, and for all of us, in a certain way, we believe that A and not (A) is true. Therefore psyche simulations cannot possess a soul nor be aware of the unus mundus.

We could therefore say that our own computer simulation would be a simulation "without a soul", and that our bodily disappearance would ultimately only augur the departure of our soul towards another world, whether it is a paradise or not, whether it is Christian or not. But no one noticed it.

Moreover, if we transcribe here the demonstration of Kurt Gödel when he tries to prove the existence of God, which his successors threw in the trash without understanding it, this means that unus mundus actually contains the field of possibilities, which contains the possibilities A and not(A), and which our brain translates by a diffuse and ineffable feeling, the progressive elucidation of which allows the thinker, sometimes to fix A, sometimes to fix not(A) in the development of his metaphysical doctrine or philosophical views, according to the events of his life which he will rationalize a posteriori. What I call unus mundus actually contains this field of possibilities, and even the impossible itself (certain thinkers like Derrida having associated thought with the impossible for this profound reason that it always starts from the principle that A and not (A) is true).

Indeed, Boolean logic which assumes exclusively two truth values, true and false, makes it possible to express all Peano arithmetic as well as ZFC, and is as such also subject to incompleteness theorems. The application of Gödel's theorem to this field of possibilities allows us to understand that there are propositions which are both true and undemonstrable, which therefore no logical development of human thought allows us to show, and corresponds to this which we call God. It is knowledge and not belief to say that there are an infinity of unprovable truths which are nevertheless true, and which are beyond us, although, as the constructivist approach in mathematics indicates, assuming that the infinity does not exist neverthless allows to approach it ever closer without ever reaching it.

As historical figures such as Nietzsche or Ramanujan himself intuitively felt, intuition provides access to these unprovable truths, which Hardy refused to understand and which Ramanujan could not explain. So he had a goddess who dictated equations to him in his sleep, most of which are still unproven, although they are true and contained in his notebooks, and will probably never be demonstrated for this reason. What needs to be proven is worth nothing, said Nietzsche. He didn't know how right he was. In a certain way, Gödel also proved that hard-working persons can never substitute to a real genius.

In mathematics, the hypothesis of the continuum is unprovable, purely intuitive, and is necessary for the construction of real numbers without which we would greatly lack the truths recognized today by mathematicians, and which allow us to set foot on the moon, to calculate the movement of the stars, the shift in the perihelion of Mercury, as well as introducing complex numbers, which are the basis of quantum physics, through exponential functions and this famous i which is itself an aberration resulting from a mathematical intuition according to which certain equations cannot be left unsolved when a square is negative.

Do you think transhumanism is compatible with Christianity and why? Is the God complex likely to favor AI in today's world? Each person having a paradox, a contradiction or a tipping point in their personality, which allows us to change, to develop personally, is this not a limit of transhumanism if the computer simulation of our personality must assume that A and not(A) is true?

If we assume that there is a higher power, an Omnipotent Omniscient Creator, that Created the world, why did they also make Evil and other bad things such as sickness, death pain and so on? Why not create a Perfect world? Why not make it so that its impossible for us to harm one another, impossible to get sick, and everyone has everything and a perfect life without any flaws? I never bought into the idea that "Evil needs to exist for good to exist" I think thats just cope so we dont have to face the painful reality of the fact that if the world was perfect, nobody would miss suffering even one bit. And why would anyone not want a world where harming others is impossible? Just sounds like they want to be able to cause harm.

Hi everyone! I am a university student and I have a spiritual survey project. If you would like to participate, please respond to this post answering these questions:

1. Do you believe in God or a Higher Power? a. Why or why not? b. If you believe in a God, what do you think this Being is like?
2. Do you believe truth exists? a. If truth exists, do you think it can be known? b. Is there religious truth? If so, how do we find it?
3. Do you think there are moral facts? Or is morality relative to an individual or culture? a. If so, how do we know moral facts? b. If not, why do you think we have such deep-seated belief in morality?
4. Do you believe in intrinsic human value? In other words, are humans more valuable than rocks or animals a. Why or why not? b. If so, where does that value come from?
5. Do you believe in an afterlife? a. Why or why not? b. If so, what is it like? c. How do we know this afterlife is real?
6. Who do you think Jesus was? a. Why? b. Where have you gotten your information about Jesus?
7. What do you think about Christianity? a. Where did you get this impression? b. What is your experience with Christians?

BONUS QUESTION: If you could ask a Christian anything, what would it be?

What if there were multiple eternal deities that aren’t able to or are not willing to destroy each other, would this be possible? Is there anything in the cosmological argument that supports there only being one god instead of multiple? Are there any other arguments that make one god more reasonable?

Note: I made a similar post earlier today about God being omnipotent, if it is known that He is omnipotent than any other deity would be dependent on Him and this question wouldn’t really make any sense, I got good responses but I will need to take some time to really understand those responses, so I wanted to also make this post as well.

Excluding revelation, how do we know the extent of God’s powers? I will define omnipotence as the ability to do any logically possible task. So things like create a stone so heavy that he can’t lift doesn’t apply.

So, for example, God has created the universe, but where’s the proof that He can move a rock in my backyard? It’s logically possible since I can move the rock, but can God? How do we know? How do we know that his power isn’t just limited to the creation of the universe, but He cannot do anything within the universe, not because He chooses not to, but because he literally can’t?

I have been reading more about different philosophies and religion. When I read philosophies against religion, (i.e. Nietzsche), one of the main arguments I hear is that religion makes people weak and not able to think for themselves.

But is it strange that I am a Christian, and somewhat agree with some of the things that Nietzsche says? For instance, I do think people follow religion blindly (only spewing rhetoric that they have heard while growing up) but never really thinking for themselves why they have come to believe what they do.

When Pilate was about to crucify Jesus, he said to him, "So, are you the King of the Jews?" Jesus replied, "Is that your own idea? Or are you only saying what others have told you?"

To me, this verse lends to the idea that Jesus is an advocate for free thought and ideas. And not only that, but He is very much against following blindly and never coming to your own conclusions about things in life. So where do people get the idea that religion is so close-minded and restrictive to free thought?

Would it be possible (philosophically) if an uncreated being had a spiritual form/a body like unchangeable essence that was intrinsic to its nature?

whether directly or indirectly, what effects did Gödel incompleteness theorem and Russell's paradox had on philosophy of religion?

This may sound as a weird question, but since Gödel and Russell contributions had huge effects on logic, and Natural Theology (a key branch of philosophy of religion) rests mostly on logic, I'd assume there had been some effect.

What text would you recommend as an overview of the key themes, approaches and thinkers in the current state of the discipline? Is a reader/suggestive sampling of texts the way to go?

I want to start by making it absolutely clear that I am asking this in good faith— I hold respect for all religious perspectives so as long as they do not cause harm.

Over the past year or so I’ve really been digging into different Christian perspectives. Naturally I agree with some theological concepts and disagree with others, but I typically understand the general scriptural and/or contextual basis of most of them. There are a few exceptions though, and currently I genuinely am struggling grasp many of the concepts espoused by Calvinists/Reformed Christians.

How can the concept of predestination exist simultaneously with free will? If God chooses who receives salvation in advance, what is the point of creating the people who will not receive salvation? To me that implies that an all-loving God brings sentient beings into existence for the express purpose of future damnation. If life on this earth prepares some for salvation, does it also prepare some for damnation? If a person is predestined to heaven, are their sins somehow okay?

I have a lot of other questions, but I want to leave it there in the hopes that a shorter post will encourage more responses— I am so curious about all of this!