How can rational people believe in any religion?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Shouldn’t there only be one religion if religion is real?

I believe God presents himself to different people in different ways.

So there’s one God, but a multitude of religions and beliefs

Why does God allow people to fight and kill each other over different religious beliefs, if it is all one God?

Beats me!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’d go even farther than OP calling religion irrational and say that it’s narcissistic in this modern age. I can understand why humans needed it to answer questions about the world in historical times, but we now have greater scientific knowledge.

We know that humans have been around for a fraction of the 13 billion years the universe has existed. And 99% of species that have ever existed are extinct through multiple mass extinction events. How incredibly self centered to think this was all created especially for us.

And the only reason people even follow the mainstream religions we see today is because those specific cultures survived and won. People believe in Jesus because of conquests and colonial missions, not because it’s inherently more true. If the Roman Empire hadn't fallen, we could just as easily be worshiping Zeus.

Not only that but anthropologists can study societies and predict what kind of God they’ll come up with based on their environment and how they’re organized. Instead people think that they just happen to be so blessed to have been born into the “correct” religion, not fully grasping that people who believe in other religions are just as convinced they are worshipping the true God, and for the most part it’s just product of their environment.

If people were just using it for emotional support, community, etc. I would say it’s all harmless and not care about religion. But in the modern world, it’s still being used as a weapon. It’s a tool to strip women of reproductive rights, spread hate against gay and trans people, and justify wars that only end up lining the pockets of billionaires. It’s a mechanism to keep the masses doing the bidding of the people at the top.

It still boggles my mind how many people can’t see through organized religion. Even as a kid I thought it was all just a polite lie, something people did for tradition.

All of this has been on my mind a lot more now with the crazy rise of Christian nationalism.

And to think, that most of Trump supporters and most people in general think Trump himself isn’t atheist. Wow! That is according to pew in a recent survey they did.

[Anonymous]

Correction, according to pew most people think Trump IS an atheist.

[Anonymous]

So a person is trivialized as "believing in a magic man in the sky" by a person whose raison d'etre on DCUM can be trivialized as ragging on religion and humblebragging on the superior brainpower of atheists.

Kewl.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Correction, according to pew most people think Trump IS an atheist.

"Not too or not at all religious" doesn't mean atheist. That actually describes most believers.

Anyway, Trump has said many times over the years that he believes in god and heaven.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So a person is trivialized as "believing in a magic man in the sky" by a person whose raison d'etre on DCUM can be trivialized as ragging on religion and humblebragging on the superior brainpower of atheists.

Kewl.

It's rude to actually say that to a believer, but that is exactly what most non-believers think about believers. It just seems like a silly belief in 2026.

DP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So a person is trivialized as "believing in a magic man in the sky" by a person whose raison d'etre on DCUM can be trivialized as ragging on religion and humblebragging on the superior brainpower of atheists.

Kewl.

Yes. You got it exactly right.

It's rude to actually say that to a believer, but that is exactly what most non-believers think about believers. It just seems like a silly belief in 2026.

I do not believe it is rude at all. I have no respect for beliefs I find immoral or harmful, and religion, especially fundamentalist religious beliefs, are definitely those, along with racist beliefs, sexist beliefs, belief in homeopathy, flat earth beliefs, faeries, scientologists, cultists, and others. It does not deserve respect, and the proof is - and this is 100% true - religious people don't have any respect for the other beliefs listed, and would not show them any respect, and they are right to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Even just using Christianity, it doesn't make sense that God first appeared to the Jews many thousands of years after people existed and only to this one tribe of people, but then he brought a son down to earth but somehow didn't convince the jews despite this fulfilling his original plan they should have been on board with. And then somehow also influenced the Muslim world and the Muslims and Christians for most of the time after Jesus hated jews. And then his new religion splintered into hundreds of churches.. Its all so ridiculous. These religions are just myths from the time period and culture they came from. They have no flow from one century to the next.

At least get your facts straight before you call anything ridiculous. Jesus didn't hate Jews--he was a Jew and always saw himself as a Jew. Islam sees Jesus as a prophet and views itself as representing his true message (Christians disagree). So a fair amount of continuity. And Judaism and Islam have also split into many sects each.

Whatever your background, we get that you hate Christianity specifically, lol. You look sort of ridiculous yourself.

But he would have been successful with the Jews if it was actually God's plan to send his son to save them. Like Moses. It makes no sense that God sent his only son as a Jew and most of that race and religion didn't follow him. As the other commenter said, you missed the point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Correction, according to pew most people think Trump IS an atheist.

"Not too or not at all religious" doesn't mean atheist. That actually describes most believers.

Anyway, Trump has said many times over the years that he believes in god and heaven.

The reason religions put belief above other attributes is that at least as of now, it isn't provable whether someone believes or not. So anyone can believe and feel righteous with no easy way to prove they aren't a believer and follower. Maybe technology will change that and soon we will be able to test people's beliefs neurologically. But for now, many people say they believe in God and then do exactly the opposite of what that God tells humans to do. It's low hanging fruit to believe something. You don't actually have to do anything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So a person is trivialized as "believing in a magic man in the sky" by a person whose raison d'etre on DCUM can be trivialized as ragging on religion and humblebragging on the superior brainpower of atheists.

Kewl.

Yes. You got it exactly right.

It's rude to actually say that to a believer, but that is exactly what most non-believers think about believers. It just seems like a silly belief in 2026.

I do not believe it is rude at all. I have no respect for beliefs I find immoral or harmful, and religion, especially fundamentalist religious beliefs, are definitely those, along with racist beliefs, sexist beliefs, belief in homeopathy, flat earth beliefs, faeries, scientologists, cultists, and others. It does not deserve respect, and the proof is - and this is 100% true - religious people don't have any respect for the other beliefs listed, and would not show them any respect, and they are right to.

+1 million

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

How, specifically, does your god differ from a magic man in the sky? If your explanation is apt I promise I will never use that phrase again.

Interesting how the people who object to the term can't, or won't answer this question.

"Magic man in the sky" is (as PP admitted) pejorative and derisive. It is a caricature of what religious people believe, not an accurate description of the religious conception of God. It's not a good faith engagement with the complexity of belief about the nature of God. It's not an argument against God so much as an over-simplification so that the idea can be dismissed out of hand.

To give you a cursory answer to your ridiculous question:

God isn't a "magic man in the sky." God is not gendered and doesn't have a body. Anthropomorphizing God can help us conceptualize a Divine being beyond our language and earthly experience, but that doesn't mean that God literally has arms or that referring to God as "He" denotes a literal maleness. The Bible uses different pronouns for God depending on the context; most often male, but sometimes female when referring to God's mercy or nurturing nature. Not having a body also means that God doesn't have a specific place of residence (God is everywhere, not literally in the sky).

Doesn’t the bible always refer to god as “he”?

Doesn’t the bible say man was made in god’s own image?

Doesn’t the bible constantly refer to him being in “the heavens”?

Doesn’t the bible say god is all powerful?

Sounds exactly like a magic man in the sky.

1. No, the Bible does not always refer to God as "He" as I already noted above. Also, as I already explained, the use of gendered pronouns for God does NOT mean that God has a gender. Gendered pronouns can convey attributes of God (strength, nurturing, etc). It's metaphor.

2. The Bible says mankind/humanity was made in God's image. Both man and woman were made in God's image. It's not about physical similarities (because, as I said before, God has no boost). It's about mankind's capacity for creativity, stewardship, etc.

3. "The heavens" is not literally the sky.

4. "All powerful" doesn't mean "magic."

1) Educate me and tell me where god's gender is not he. And before you tell me to "google it", I did:

Yes, the Bible consistently uses masculine pronouns ("He," "Him") and titles ("Father," "King") to refer to God, though it explicitly states God is a Spirit without human sexual characteristics. While masculine language is dominant (e.g., Theos in Greek), female metaphors—such as a mother comforting a child or a mother hen (Isaiah 66:13, Matthew 23:37)—appear occasionally to describe His love, explains GotQuestions.org.

2. This is your interpretation, and it is fine but absolutely requires acceptance of non-standard meanings for the terms "image" and "likeness". So how would a rationalization to have it mean whatever you wanted differ?

3. This one I am calling you on. They meant heavens, they meant the sky

Psalm 68:4: Explicitly calls God the "One who rides on the clouds"
Deuteronomy 33:26: "There is no one like the God of Jeshurun, who rides the heavens to help you, and in His excellency on the clouds."
Psalm 18:9: "He bowed the heavens also, and came down; dark clouds were under his feet."
Exodus 16:10: "And as Aaron spoke... they looked toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud."
Matthew 24:30: Jesus predicts that people "will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory."
The Tower of Babel: The people said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens" (Genesis 11:4). This indicates they believed a sufficiently tall building could physically enter God's space.
Jesus’ Ascension: After His resurrection, Jesus "was lifted up before their very eyes, and a cloud took him out of their sight" (Acts 1:9). Two angels then asked the disciples, "Why do you stand looking into heaven?".
A "Vaulted Dome": The Bible describes God as "The One who builds His upper chambers in the heavens and has founded His vaulted dome over the earth" (Amos 9:6).
Jesus Praying: When Jesus performed miracles or prayed, He often began by "looking up to heaven" (Mark 6:41; John 17:1).
A "High" God: Multiple verses emphasize God's literal height: "For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love..." (Psalm 103:11).
God Looking Down: "The Lord looks down from heaven on all mankind to see if there are any who understand" (Psalm 14:2).

I literally could fill pages with this. Again, if you want to claim it means other than what the words say, well, then that means it can be whatever you want, and therefore pretty meaningless as a guideline.

4. Would you like another bunch of quotes like above or would you just like to stop at "water into wine"?

Man. Sky. Magic.

He’s definitely something because you think about Him as much as people who believe He’s God do.

He is on your mind constantly and you feel you have to disparage Him and people who believe in Him.

It’s fine to disagree with Christianity and not believe in God, but you are choosing to characterize Christianity and God as the cartoon version. Nobody believes what you are insisting God/Christianity is.

When Christians here tell you what you say we believe in is not accurate, you don’t listen and just forge ahead with nonsense.

The Bible sometimes uses “heaven” and “above” language. “Heaven” can mean:
the sky, or the spiritual realm (God’s presence). People in ancient times used up/down language to describe things beyond normal experience.

What about clouds and imagery in the Bible?

You’ll see imagery like: God appearing in a cloud, or Jesus Christ “coming on the clouds.”

Those are generally understood as symbolic of glory, mystery, or divine presence. Not literally saying God lives inside clouds like a house.

God is beyond the physical universe. He’s not confined to any time or space.

You can personally think of God that way. But you can’t tell Christians what they actually believe. You are very wrong about Christians believing God lives in the sky above the clouds. That’s a depiction from movies and cartoons.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Correction, according to pew most people think Trump IS an atheist.

"Not too or not at all religious" doesn't mean atheist. That actually describes most believers.

Anyway, Trump has said many times over the years that he believes in god and heaven.

The reason religions put belief above other attributes is that at least as of now, it isn't provable whether someone believes or not. So anyone can believe and feel righteous with no easy way to prove they aren't a believer and follower. Maybe technology will change that and soon we will be able to test people's beliefs neurologically. But for now, many people say they believe in God and then do exactly the opposite of what that God tells humans to do. It's low hanging fruit to believe something. You don't actually have to do anything.

You can actually believe in god and still not do what god tells you to do.

Just like people believe that laws exist and still don’t follow them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Correction, according to pew most people think Trump IS an atheist.

"Not too or not at all religious" doesn't mean atheist. That actually describes most believers.

Anyway, Trump has said many times over the years that he believes in god and heaven.

The reason religions put belief above other attributes is that at least as of now, it isn't provable whether someone believes or not. So anyone can believe and feel righteous with no easy way to prove they aren't a believer and follower. Maybe technology will change that and soon we will be able to test people's beliefs neurologically. But for now, many people say they believe in God and then do exactly the opposite of what that God tells humans to do. It's low hanging fruit to believe something. You don't actually have to do anything.

Christian don’t believe they are personally righteous.




You don’t have the right to speak for Christians. Especially when you are wrong.

God can and does judge the hearts of Christians.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Even just using Christianity, it doesn't make sense that God first appeared to the Jews many thousands of years after people existed and only to this one tribe of people, but then he brought a son down to earth but somehow didn't convince the jews despite this fulfilling his original plan they should have been on board with. And then somehow also influenced the Muslim world and the Muslims and Christians for most of the time after Jesus hated jews. And then his new religion splintered into hundreds of churches.. Its all so ridiculous. These religions are just myths from the time period and culture they came from. They have no flow from one century to the next.

At least get your facts straight before you call anything ridiculous. Jesus didn't hate Jews--he was a Jew and always saw himself as a Jew. Islam sees Jesus as a prophet and views itself as representing his true message (Christians disagree). So a fair amount of continuity. And Judaism and Islam have also split into many sects each.

Whatever your background, we get that you hate Christianity specifically, lol. You look sort of ridiculous yourself.

But he would have been successful with the Jews if it was actually God's plan to send his son to save them. Like Moses. It makes no sense that God sent his only son as a Jew and most of that race and religion didn't follow him. As the other commenter said, you missed the point.

You missed the point.

God condemned an entire generation of Jews to die in the desert outside Israel with Moses, as punishment for lack of faith. That's Jewish scripture.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is there perfect physics down to the stone and then subatomic particles? Why are their physical universes that follow patterns? Why are there tiny cells with amazing functions? Believing all this happened at random takes faith. Believing all this is knitted together by God takes faith. At least the later has the Bible as evidence and the places and events of the Bible are traced.

It does not take any faith whatsoever.

All of the physics things are explained by the big bang. If evidence is found of a better explanation, we'll switch to that one.

All of those biological things are explained by evolution, with the exception of abiogenesis, and there is mountains of evidence explaining how that might have happened.

Asking how it "happened" implies there was a before it happened. There is no evidence of that, and no reason to think there was. It's quite likely time began with the big bang so there was nothing for it to come from.

None of this is simple, but it is all easy to believe once you understand.

You know what is hard to believe? A magic man in the sky who existed forever outside of time but then decided to create time and everything in it on a nearly infinite scale but place his personal fishtank on the third stone from a sun in the corner of one of billions of galaxies. And he stays hidden except for a short while to a bunch of illiterate shepherds 2 millennia before mass media. And he allowed thousands of similar stories of gods to exist but those are all false and just his is true.

That is the definition of preposterous.

DP: What religion believes in a "magic man in the sky"?

Yours.

Yes, it is intended as a pejorative.

It isn't useful to be lazy and rude with straw man arguments (unless you are actually ignorant of theology and think the greatest theologians of our time really believe the space shuttle might pass by a man with a white beard sitting on a cloud, in which case maybe learn what something is before arguing about what it isn't.)

How, specifically, does your god differ from a magic man in the sky? If your explanation is apt I promise I will never use that phrase again.

All of these discussions can be fast forwarded to the point where science, math, philosphy and theology stop having answers and start have theories.

No, that is incorrect. When science stops having answers is where "we don't have the answer yet" begins. Not some stuff bronze age shepherds told each other. Not some stuff a 19th century con-man creates. Not some stuff a sci-fi writer makes up. None of that is necessary, warranted, or helpful. In fact it is all harmful.

The big bang theory is generally agreed to be that point, a theory first articulated by a Jesuit priest, so it is not anti-theological.

Dude, YOUR side is the one comparing the two. YOUR side is the one saying "There must have been something before the big bang so god". Science says nothing about any of it, and doesn't care to.

The discussions that start there are fascinating and worthy; none will claim to know the answers.

AYFKM?: Every preacher on the planet claims to know the answers.

Some will theorize that everthing came from nothing, others will theorize that based on everything we know, that is impossible, so there had to be something. Some will call that something God, others will reject a God theory and call it "Something-but-not-God."

Yeah say whatever you want, "theorize" whatever you want, but without evidence, it has zero value.

Another worthy question is even though we can't know, how should we live? And how should what we do know inform our living?

And for this you need a book that endorses slavery, genocide, mass murder, incest, and more?

When people talk about Christianity’s moral center, they usually point to Jesus Christ—teachings like loving your neighbor, caring for the poor, forgiveness, and nonviolence. Those are what most Christians see as the highest moral standard in the text.

The Bible doesn’t endorse everything it records. It is a mix of history, human failure, and a moral direction that’s clearer in Jesus’ teachings.