Is there a God?

[Insaanistan]

Ah yes, someone claiming to represent a group doing or believing something represents the whole group’s values. If you’d like, I can provide Qur’ân verses and Hadiths that go against all those things.

Folks can do the same for the bible, friendo. That’s one reason why I say they’re crap at dictating what’s’moral’.

It goes both ways, so it might as well be none.

You could literally say the same thing about so many laws.

[Godular]

sorry wat

Yup.


(Quran 24:45) “Allah has created every animal out of water . Of them [is a category which] walks upon its belly, [another which] walks upon two legs, and [a third which] walks upon four. Allah creates what He wills. Allah is Able to do everything [He wants].”

(Quran 64:3) “He designed you then made your design better.”

(Quran 40:64) “He formed you then made your forms better.”

(Quran 71:14) “God created you in diverse stages.”

Evolution is supported by the Qur’ân.

Sounds like intelligent design. Not buying.

[Godular]

Folks can do the same for the bible, friendo. That’s one reason why I say they’re crap at dictating what’s’moral’.

It goes both ways, so it might as well be none.

You could literally say the same thing about so many laws.

That does not really counter my argument.

[Insaanistan]

Yup.


(Quran 24:45) “Allah has created every animal out of water . Of them [is a category which] walks upon its belly, [another which] walks upon two legs, and [a third which] walks upon four. Allah creates what He wills. Allah is Able to do everything [He wants].”

(Quran 64:3) “He designed you then made your design better.”

(Quran 40:64) “He formed you then made your forms better.”

(Quran 71:14) “God created you in diverse stages.”

Evolution is supported by the Qur’ân.

Sounds like intelligent design. Not buying.

Not even Verse 14 Chapter 71? Alright dude. That’s your belief.

[Insaanistan]

You could literally say the same thing about so many laws.

That does not really counter my argument.

So are you an anarchist?

[Godular]

That does not really counter my argument.

So are you an anarchist?

That is not relevant to my argument. So far, you’re reinforcing my argument that neither Islam nor Christianity really offer anything different.

[Kowani]

sorry wat

Yup.


(Quran 24:45) “Allah has created every animal out of water . Of them [is a category which] walks upon its belly, [another which] walks upon two legs, and [a third which] walks upon four. Allah creates what He wills. Allah is Able to do everything [He wants].”

(Quran 64:3) “He designed you then made your design better.”

(Quran 40:64) “He formed you then made your forms better.”

(Quran 71:14) “God created you in diverse stages.”

Evolution is supported by the Qur’ân.

...Ignoring all the inaccuracies there, that's still intelligent design.

[Insaanistan]

Yup.


(Quran 24:45) “Allah has created every animal out of water . Of them [is a category which] walks upon its belly, [another which] walks upon two legs, and [a third which] walks upon four. Allah creates what He wills. Allah is Able to do everything [He wants].”

(Quran 64:3) “He designed you then made your design better.”

(Quran 40:64) “He formed you then made your forms better.”

(Quran 71:14) “God created you in diverse stages.”

Evolution is supported by the Qur’ân.

...Ignoring all the inaccuracies there, that's still intelligent design.

Which inaccuracies?

[The Emerald Legion]

.... The fuck kind of High School do you teach at that teaches Philosophy?

Umm... public?

.... Huh. I wish my High School had had Philosophy classes.

[Neanderthaland]

Umm... public?

.... Huh. I wish my High School had had Philosophy classes.

Move to Minnesota, I guess. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Kowani]

...Ignoring all the inaccuracies there, that's still intelligent design.

Which inaccuracies?

So...insects, arachnids, and arthropods (not to mention most sea life) doesn't fall into any of those categories.

Now, the phrase ""god created you in diverse stages"...yeah that's not how evolution works.
One would also wonder how a perfect God could ever improve on his own design. There is no "perfection squared."'

[Insaanistan]

Which inaccuracies?

So...insects, arachnids, and arthropods (not to mention most sea life) doesn't fall into any of those categories.

Now, the phrase ""god created you in diverse stages"...yeah that's not how evolution works.
One would also wonder how a perfect God could ever improve on his own design. There is no "perfection squared."'

Firstly, languages evolve, and languages are different. If you call an ant and animal, and Arab who speaks only Arabic would probably look at you funny. The Qur’ân says that whenever a message was sent to a people, it was in terms they’d understand. Even a couple centuries ago, stating that an insect was an animal would cause a person confusion.

As for the stages thing... pretty sure that’s exactly how evolution works.

Third, for the same reason the Qur’ân is different from the Injil and the Zabur and the Tawrat. All books were created perfect, but all save for the Qur’ân were changed. Man was perfect for whatever situation he was in, and once that situation was coming to pass, God would change the design. Humans in Africa have dark skin? Perfect for us. Once we move into other places that are colder? God changes it, because that’s perfect for that environment.

[Godular]

So...insects, arachnids, and arthropods (not to mention most sea life) doesn't fall into any of those categories.

Now, the phrase ""god created you in diverse stages"...yeah that's not how evolution works.
One would also wonder how a perfect God could ever improve on his own design. There is no "perfection squared."'

Firstly, languages evolve, and languages are different. If you call an ant and animal, and Arab who speaks only Arabic would probably look at you funny. The Qur’ân says that whenever a message was sent to a people, it was in terms they’d understand. Even a couple centuries ago, stating that an insect was an animal would cause a person confusion.

As for the stages thing... pretty sure that’s exactly how evolution works.

Except it is not. I for one would take issue with the idea of a common ancestor getting functionally thrown out the window.

[The Emerald Legion]

.... Huh. I wish my High School had had Philosophy classes.

Move to Minnesota, I guess. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Pfff. I'm well out of High School age. I'm almost 30.

[Kowani]

Firstly, languages evolve, and languages are different. If you call an ant and animal, and Arab who speaks only Arabic would probably look at you funny. The Qur’ân says that whenever a message was sent to a people, it was in terms they’d understand. Even a couple centuries ago, stating that an insect was an animal would cause a person confusion.

And yet even with this handwave, there is no culture in which sea life is considered separate from animals.

As for the stages thing... pretty sure that’s exactly how evolution works.

...It's not.

Third, for the same reason the Qur’ân is different from the Injil and the Zabur and the Tawrat. All books were created perfect, but all save for the Qur’ân were changed.

That's not...what? Allah didn't change all the preceding books. According to him, however, he did change humanity.

Man was perfect for whatever situation he was in, and once that situation was coming to pass, God would change the design. Humans in Africa have dark skin? Perfect for us. Once we move into other places that are colder? God changes it, because that’s perfect for that environment.

...Wait, no. We know the mechanism by which groups adapt to local climates. The ones with beneficial mutations reproduce more than those that don't. No God needed.

[Insaanistan]

And yet even with this handwave, there is no culture in which sea life is considered separate from animals.

...It's not.

That's not...what? Allah didn't change all the preceding books. According to him, however, he did change humanity.

...Wait, no. We know the mechanism by which groups adapt to local climates. The ones with beneficial mutations reproduce more than those that don't. No God needed.

(Quran 76:28) “We created them [Mankind] and strengthened their forms. And when we please. We will substitute the likes of them by a change.”

(Quran 4:133) “If it were His will, He could destroy you, o mankind, and create another race; for He hath power this to do.”
(Quran 35:16) “If He wills, He can do away with you and bring forth a new creation.”

(Quran 14:19) “If God wills he can remove you and put in your place a new creation.”

(Quran 47:38) “And if you turn away, He will replace you with another people; they will not be the likes of you.”

[Godular]

...Wait, no. We know the mechanism by which groups adapt to local climates. The ones with beneficial mutations reproduce more than those that don't. No God needed.

(Quran 76:28) “We created them [Mankind] and strengthened their forms. And when we please. We will substitute the likes of them by a change.”

(Quran 4:133) “If it were His will, He could destroy you, o mankind, and create another race; for He hath power this to do.”
(Quran 35:16) “If He wills, He can do away with you and bring forth a new creation.”

(Quran 14:19) “If God wills he can remove you and put in your place a new creation.”

(Quran 47:38) “And if you turn away, He will replace you with another people; they will not be the likes of you.”

Nope... not particularly assisting the matter.

[Hizban]

Once heard in a frat:

A- "Do you think there is a god?"

B- "I'm right here."

A- "What?"

B- "I look like one."

[Kowani]

...Wait, no. We know the mechanism by which groups adapt to local climates. The ones with beneficial mutations reproduce more than those that don't. No God needed.

(Quran 76:28) “We created them [Mankind] and strengthened their forms. And when we please. We will substitute the likes of them by a change.”

(Quran 4:133) “If it were His will, He could destroy you, o mankind, and create another race; for He hath power this to do.”
(Quran 35:16) “If He wills, He can do away with you and bring forth a new creation.”

(Quran 14:19) “If God wills he can remove you and put in your place a new creation.”

(Quran 47:38) “And if you turn away, He will replace you with another people; they will not be the likes of you.”

That doesn't help your point at all.


...How much about evolution do you know?

[Insaanistan]

(Quran 76:28) “We created them [Mankind] and strengthened their forms. And when we please. We will substitute the likes of them by a change.”

(Quran 4:133) “If it were His will, He could destroy you, o mankind, and create another race; for He hath power this to do.”
(Quran 35:16) “If He wills, He can do away with you and bring forth a new creation.”

(Quran 14:19) “If God wills he can remove you and put in your place a new creation.”

(Quran 47:38) “And if you turn away, He will replace you with another people; they will not be the likes of you.”

That doesn't help your point at all.


...How much about evolution do you know?

Evolution is the process in which as time goes on, organisms undergo change, be it subspecies in microevolution, or species, genera, families or phyla in macroevolution. The changes can be made artificially or naturally, but all in all, those with the desirable trait are the ones selected for that are able to pass along their genes to the next generation. While often called “the Theory of Evolution”, evolution itself is in the scientific community almost universally considered a law.

In case you didn’t realize, I love science.

[Godular]

Once heard in a frat:

A- "Do you think there is a god?"

B- "I'm right here."

A- "What?"

B- "I look like one."

I learned a hilarious response to my students asking me 'Do you believe in God?'

'Yeah! It's always important to believe in yourself!'

[Insaanistan]

Once heard in a frat:

A- "Do you think there is a god?"

B- "I'm right here."

A- "What?"

B- "I look like one."

I learned a hilarious response to my students asking me 'Do you believe in God?'

'Yeah! It's always important to believe in yourself!'

[Achidyemay]

Aw shit, I'm really late to this! If I repeat something that's already been said, let me know, but I did scan the thread and no one seems to think about this the way I do. It's especially disheartening to see the way the poll is situated, as if the presence of an omnipotent, all-knowing being is something that can't be proved by modern science.

I just want to start by laying out my personal situation and upbringing, then I want to state the axioms I will be following, and lastly I will lay out what each of the sections in the subsequent spoilers are.

I'm a practicing Roman Catholic, I believe in God as a Holy Trinity. I am in my last semester in college where I studied biochemistry and minored in philosophy, I understand evolution and the scientific process.

In this post and subsequent posts, I will try to live up to my signature and be funny, but I do mean to change. This is a serious and important discussion and should be treated with respect, sometimes...
Anyways, here are the axioms:

• There is such a thing as objective truth. If you believe that we can't all experience this, or if you are worried that your senses are too limited to experience all of reality, or if you think that your senses and brain will naturally occlude reality and substitute perception (I believe all of these), that's fine, you can still assume an objective truth is out there in the ether for my sake.
• There is such a thing as logic. Two contradictory statements can't both be true, but I will caution against assuming contradiction where none actually exists and where broader context could show both to be correct.
• There is such a thing as science. A process by which humans can understand themselves and their place in the universe. I will never argue that science is unsettled and therefore wrong, though I might mention this offhandedly.
• There is such a thing as religion. A process by which humans can understand their actions and their goals in the universe. I will never argue the existence and credibility of miracles, though I might mention them offhandedly.

I spoiled this post because I've been thinking about this question for a while now, gone on lots of long walks in the woods, listened to lots of philosophers and theologians, read some books, and now I think I have an abundance to say. By putting things into spoilers, you can just click on the section that you want to read and discuss. They're in a rough order, but each should be entirely independent of the others. For those who aren't Catholics, God is Real is about the universal figurehead and as such is about the universe and its anthropic nature, The Holy Spirit is Real is about the aspect of God that flows through each human being and is visible in its own ways, Jesus Christ is Real talks about the actual person who walked the earth and acted as a prophet of God (I take a multi-religious approach here that some may find interesting)

There's a joke that goes around biology circles, and it's a bad joke because it travels in biology circles, about a man hiking through a forest.

Dr. Harley had just finished grading his last paper of the season and was overjoyed to lace up his hiking shoes and grab his walking stick and whistle to his dog, who was equally excited. Together the two of them left the house, hopped in the car and drove to the nearby state park. Today, Dr. Harley decided to take the blue path, a long winding path that had good views of the town below and had the fridge. Walking merrily along, Dr. Harley took in the sound of the wind and the birds in the trees, took in the views of the town below. At last he arrived at mile marker three and the clearing with the fridge. The fridge was an older style, light blue affair with an icebox on top, it wasn't attached to electricity (indeed there wasn't any connection for miles), but was powered by a photovoltaic on top, and no one knew who put it there. A bit worn out, and knowing he still had another three miles back to the trail head, Dr. Harley stopped at the fridge and pulled out a drink. It was ice cold. As he drank he looked at the gently humming fridge and the picture of a house and family drawn in crayon on its door. He marveled at how the fridge maintained an internal temperature so cold in the warm sun, how it seemed to run so efficiently, how it always was stocked with cokes, and how when teens pushed it over it was able to right itself. He remembered fondly when it had just been a little mini-fridge. But then he shrugged, evolution produced such magnificent things and the missing second rack surely proved that this fridge wasn't intelligently designed.

I have better jokes about biology, I swear!
Okay, calling it a parable may be a bit heavy handed and so is the message: that here we have a structure that is observed to be doing everything a living thing does, but since it looks and acts like a fridge, we assume someone must have created it and put it there, but we don't make the same assumption about the trees and the grass and the animals and fungi in between, even though they maintain homeostasis and grow and divide and reproduce and do all of these interesting things. We grow up with these organisms around us so we don't think they're special, the same way someone wealthy would assume it's natural to have a nanny who picks up your toys.

I think it's really important to investigate what we call "natural" early on. Natural assumes some sort of randomness, but it also assumes a rigidity; a makeup that is both in keeping with the characteristics of the thing as with how the thing interacts with the environment. Trees, for example, will send out leaves or branches in particular patterns, but if a limb is broken off, the tree will respond in the way that it will. This makes every tree unique (the environment it grew up in temporally and spatially will only ever be occupied by that tree), even if it were cloned. This applies equally to inorganic materials as well, and if you want to, you can simplify all the way down to the 118 elements. Each one will behave explicitly as it will, shaped by the environment and the fundamental laws and surrounding particles and forces modern physics still doesn't fully grasp. To wit, people call this "random". But it's not truly random, indeed, nothing truly random can be said to exist at all in the universe so long as it is natural. All natural things obey the laws of physics.

More importantly however, we live in a universe where we exist. The universe and physics and the atoms all conspired to come together to create us. It couldn't have happened any other way or it would have. Maybe one day we will create a time machine and hop back to the big bang, or, I hope, the LHC will help us more adequately understand the nature of the beginning of the universe. But I would say that changing anything in the past would be unnatural: a human action that disturbs the natural order of things. That's not to say impossible (though it may well be), but that we live in a universe right now where the entire trajectory of spacetime arcs, at least for a moment, through us. And we can look out, not just as sentient organisms, but as fully sapient creatures. We can recognize our consciousness and talk about it, a phenomena so few organisms will ever even approach. This is a beautiful and fascinating thing.

Everything I have said so far, most atheists would agree with, so I will tell an atheist's story.

Savannah and Jackie were on a date, walking through the park, when they came across an especially beautiful section. It was well secluded from the rest of the park with tall hedges, so they sat down on an immaculate and comfortable park bench. They talked for hours in that sweet-scented glen, until the sun set and the stars glimmered high above. At their feet, little yard lights began to twinkle.

That night proved to be so romantic that they frequented the place constantly. Savannah, who had done landscaping in the past, recognized the excellent care that had been taken with the hedges and the flower beds and would often wonder who the gardener was. She wondered so much, that she started taking lunch at the park bench, and then she started taking detours at odd hours to visit the section. She ran into many of the other park authorities, but none of them could tell her who worked on that section. But eventually she was forced to conclude that no one did work in that section, the man who worked there had been dead for 60 years!

I mean, that's not how it actually ends, but let's meme a little. The real ending has her giving up on trying to find someone who is doing the beautiful thing, and instead focuses on just enjoying the beautiful park for its beauty and utility. I sort of talked about the Anthropic Principle earlier, but I didn't name it. The Principle states that, no matter how random the universe seems to be, it is at least a universe that creates thinking, comprehending organisms that can affect change on their environment in a specific way. This means, ultimately, that each atom, and each force, and the vectors on those atoms were specific enough in their location, effect, etc. that they created humans. And also, all of the principles that come out of that were effective at creating humans; everything from evolution, to entropy, to hunger, to beauty also created humans.

The universe didn't have to exist, but it did, the speed of light didn't have to be c, but it is, the earth didn't have to coalesce around the sun, but it couldn't have happened any other way. This is my immaculate garden and here I am observing it. The thing about immaculate gardens is that they do have a gardener. The world is pleasing to me; I confess the natural things I perceive as beautiful are a genetic and memetic predisposition in the fleshy fleshy bits of my head, and I admit it doesn't prove the existence of God. God is bigger, and smaller, omnipotent and all-knowing, God is the one putting the atoms in place and pushing them around. He is a sculptor and the universe is His sculpture and when we analyze the little chip marks in our universe, we can tell what tool He used.

I've encountered people in the past, and there are some in this thread, who look at evolution and say that they have nothing to pray to. And I agree! When your waiter brings you food, you don't thank the plate. Evolution is a process that created humanity. It had to have created humanity, because if it didn't, we would see a different (maybe only slightly) process. Different atoms with different trajectory. But there seems to be some omnipotent force with the foresight to create humans, and this I take as evidence for God. When the sun sets and the sky turns red, that's an act of God, when the planets formed and Jupiter became the largest planet, that was an act of God, and when the amoeba became multicellular, that was an act of God. From dirt to people.

Hard to argue with the existence of humanity, but I've seen it done before, if you are inclined to to argue that we can't prove the existence of humanity outside of ourselves, I would point you to the first axiom. I won't leave you out, however, because even if your life and the people in it is some fabulous hallucination, that just means God created a fabulous simulation to populate your mind with.

“The world of things entered your infant mind. To populate that crystal cabinet. Within its walls the strangest partners met, And things turned thoughts did propagate their kind."

So why believe in God, why pray to God? Because He put you here on this planet, because He provides for you the opportunity to leave. He has given you a planet thanks to a tool called gravity. He has given you well functioning organs thanks to a tool called evolution. He has given you suffering and hardship thanks to a tool called entropy. Prayer is an excellent reminder that you are human, this means that you are small and cosmically insignificant, but also the sum total of all of the effects of the universe and the point of it all at the end of the day. You don't know what happened before your soul pulled that sperm and egg cell together and you won't know what happens after your soul leaves your body again. Further, there can be no harm in petitioning God or the saints to intercede in your life. Something a priest once told me, however, is that people new to prayer talk a lot, people who pray often listen. Inside everyone, even those who aren't faithful, lies the Holy Spirit, and He will tell you what your plan is.

Once heard in a frat:

A- "Do you think there is a god?"

B- "I'm right here."

A- "What?"

B- "I look like one."

This is the funniest shit, no cap. And it's funnier that it's true! At risk of sounding like a youth pastor, I digress.

The Holy Spirit (HS), for those who are unaware, is the oft cited third portion of the Trinity, co-substantial and co-equal. It's the part of God that reveals itself most easily to humanity and is what makes humanity special. This was actually the first section that I thought of and the other revelations stemmed from this one.

No one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now God's Spirit, who reveals God, makes known to us Christ, his Word, his living Utterance, but the Spirit does not speak of himself. The Spirit who "has spoken through the prophets" makes us hear the Father's Word, but we do not hear the Spirit himself. We know him only in the movement by which he reveals the Word to us and disposes us to welcome him in faith. The Spirit of truth who "unveils" Christ to us "will not speak on his own." Such properly divine self-effacement explains why "the world cannot receive [him], because it neither sees him nor knows him," while those who believe in Christ know the Spirit because he dwells with them.

The Catechism Lists some further responsibilities of the HS:

• The inspiration of the Scriptures and Traditions
• Assisting the Magisterium
• Bringing us into communion with Christ during the Sacraments
• Interceding during Prayer
• Revealing Himself in the work of missionaries and apostles
• Manifesting Holiness and salvation in the Saints

If you have a different interpretation/definition of the Holy Spirit, we can discuss your heresy later, for now, I will be using this definition. Parable time!

Two young missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints had been going door to door. They had been particularly successful that evening and were running low on fliers and gas. Stopping at a station to refuel, Luis, the blonde, started to muse on their last stop.
"I swear, I've never seen a woman so eager to accept Christ and his Word. At this rate, we will have this whole town converted by sundown!"
Jay, a thinner, dark haired kid two years Luis' junior, just smiled weakly and nodded at Luis. He stared out at the distant mountains and the purple and red creeping into the sky.
"Hey, do you think I could convert the gas station clerk?" Luis asked, putting the pump hose back in its holster.
Jay shrugged.
"I'm going to try it!" Luis said with a wink.
Jay followed him slowly into the building.
"Hellooo... Carver." Luis said, reading the cashier's name-tag. "Do you have a moment to talk about your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ?"
Carver looked at the youth, it had been a slow night at the station and no one was around, "certainly." He replied.
"Do you believe in God?"
"Absolutely, don't you see him?"
"See him?" Luis literally stepped back, wondering for the first time if it takes a certain mind to work a gas station counter on the town's edge.
"Look into my eyes and tell me you do not see the Lord." Carver answered.

Across histories and cultures and time and space and continents and the rest, humans have always shared one thing in common: humanity. That may seem like a bit of a cop-out, especially when you start to look at our early cradle-mates denisova and neanderthalensis. Weak statements can still be true, and this is a fine enough starting point. Human's are really good at working together, it's our defining feature. Neanderthals, for example, were likely more robust, more muscular, better suited to their environment, and yet humans interbred/out-competed them. Neanderthals weren't necessarily less intelligent and they had larger brains, they simply had smaller tribal sizes, greater interbreeding, and a smaller propensity for recognizing God. Humans, as God's chosen people, recognize their shared blessings and have larger communities as a result.

Many in this thread were quick to jump on the many many wars fought on behalf of religions, this is true and sad. I make no justification for war and I do not believe God wishes (or ever wished) for us to kill the heathens but to have us reveal Him to them. These wars were fought by polities for glory and riches and land, by people who were kept together by a shared religion and annealed against the enemy by their hatred of the other. If only each side had realized the pointlessness of glory and riches and land compared to the Kingdom of God and the importance of the life of their common man, then they could be united as easily as the crusaders et al. had been united with eachother.

Indeed, in more modern times, and I must assume this happened in ancient times as well, during moments of crisis and disaster, humans are pulled together and work together in a way that can only be described as miraculous. Neighbor helps neighbor, stranger lifts up stranger. It's an extremely hopeful sight. Indeed, our vast networks of cooperation make our species incredibly, evolutionarily fit. Our ability to share and pass on knowledge in the form of memes has in places stunted the process of evolution altogether. We are made in God's image, we can learn to wield God's tools, like a daughter slipping on her daddy's giant shoes. We may not be good at it at first, but we will learn.

Between being made in our Lord's image and the Holy Spirit and soul within us, we can do unnatural things. A natural thing is a predetermined thing acting in a predetermined way based on the atoms inside of it and the forces upon it. God and humans can do unnatural things, manipulating the environment to our benefit or destruction in a way fundamentally more esoteric than any animal (a server room to an ant hill), creating new systems from the forces of physics that do not exist in the natural world (economics, sociology, marketing), and using these tools in complex and nuanced ways towards our own ends (rights, ideologies, medicines). This is the stuff God does, but instead of it being just Him, now He is coupled with our own humanity. This is the importance of the Holy Spirit.

A brief theological point. When God came down from heaven and became man, Jesus was fully human, but He didn't have a human soul within Him. Also strange is how God made covenants with humans beforehand, and how the Holy Spirit seems to need to be spread like a fire through a population from the origin point of Jesus Christ. This doesn't disparage my point much, humans are special and unique because of our souls, we are special and unique because of our ability to create exceedingly complex and manipulative tools that are too high to be grasped effectively without understanding them first. God shit.

Many people disparage God as being evil or mean for putting suffering into the world, and I want to turn my attention to that using the story of Adam and Eve.

God finishes making the heavens and the earth, decides to make a totally handsome, ripped man in His image. Gives the man some sweet digs and a neato job of naming all of the animals on the planet. He runs around all naked, but gets lonely. God puts Adam to sleep and steals a rib, crafting a totally hot bombshell babe. God tells them they can eat whatever they want but don't eat the Fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. A slithery danger noodle tricks Eve to eat the Fruit, Adam gets in on that action, they learn what good and evil are, and God banishes them from the sweet digs with a bitchin' flaming sword.

Why He do that? He knew that they were going to eat the fruit, why did he make it so easy for them? How does this relate to proving the existence of the Holy Spirit?

God expelled us from the Garden of Eden because we knew what Good and Evil were, we stopped being animals and started being humans who could suss out problems in the world and recognize good things. The Garden of Eden was perfect, however. Our knowledge of good and evil was in-actionable within the Garden and I would argue that when we chose to eat the fruit, what we were really choosing was a life with pain and suffering in it, and also one with joy and true happiness.

This was a choice we had to make for ourselves. God doesn't want to see us suffer, He gave us a paradise, and He promises another paradise for those who do good (i.e. help decrease the suffering of the rest of His flock). The tree was easy to access because everything in the Garden of Eden was easy. There was no hardship. If God had placed the Tree on the opposite side of the planet surrounded by hurricanes and tornadoes eternal, then the fruit would be meaningless, because along the way Adam and Eve would learn suffering anyways.

This is important to the Existence of the Holy Spirit because it shows us our calling in life: to reduce Evil and promote Good. Societies that do so live longer, with happier, more fulfilled people, and as a reward for making the lives of those around us better, we can experience eternal Joy in Heaven. When we turn away from God, or otherwise promote Evil in the world, the amount of suffering increases. When we do the opposite, it decreases. All of the suffering in the world isn't God's fault, it's ours. He certainly could wave away all suffering, but in order for our actions (and inactions!) to have meaning, they have to have consequences.

Someone once said, "I can't believe in a just God in a world where children with cancer exist." and I think that this mode of thought is a mistake. The assumption is that the child did some terrible wrong thing, and for it, the child is being punished, but that's not true. What is happening is that everyone hasn't dedicated enough resources to ending childhood cancers, and so we have to live in a world where children die of cancer and the discomfort that causes. We are being punished for doing nothing when there is good we could be doing. If only we had done more, sooner, little Timmy might still be alive.

That empathy, and the discomfort it causes, is the Holy Spirit. That call to good is the Holy Spirit. Your ability to do something else is your soul.


Thankfully, Jesus laid out a really nice step by step guide for decreasing world suck!

I mean, not to start with the blatantly obvious, but Jesus Christ was definitely a real person. There's plenty of archaeological and historical proof of His existence even if the Bible wasn't codified until 300 years after His death. I will not speak about the validity of His miracles or the nature of His birth, axiom 4, but it is somewhat reassuring that there are multiple accounts of the same thing.

What I want to talk about are His tenants, the Christo-anarchist political movement, and the intersections between religions.

When Jesus gave his sermons He would often speak in parables and then preach the broader meaning. This is an excellent teaching tool . Miracles aside, he amassed followers "like fish in a net" and his students saw him as a real teacher. He spoke about beatitudes, lessons, responsibilities, things that would delight our souls and God above.

Many of Jesus's parables refer to simple everyday things, such as a woman baking bread (the parable of the Leaven), a man knocking on his neighbor's door at night (the parable of the Friend at Night), or the aftermath of a roadside mugging (the parable of the Good Samaritan); yet they deal with major religious themes, such as the growth of the Kingdom of God, the importance of prayer, and the meaning of love.

Taking the beatitudes as another example we get a rather interesting set of instructions for living a blessed life. Things like mourning loss, thirsting for righteousness, showing mercy, making peace: each of the beatitudes is a blessing as they make for nicer, more cooperative communities that decrease the amount of suffering. It's interesting how the beatitudes go about establishing order in an entirely different way than the Roman law of the time, or Hammurabi's code, or even the Old Testament and Old Covenant. State Laws general seek to deal with punishments and they believe that crime is better off being dissuaded. Jesus' teachings are more remedial, there is still love for the sinner, it's best to turn the other cheek, etc. And in doing so, you will be rewarded in this life and the next. Carrot compared to stick.

Back in the 19th century, reaching its zenith under the Quakers and persisting even into the writings of Leo Tolstoy, we have a response to Jesus' teachings in the "modern" world. Lessons of love for one another, community, prayer, industriousness, design, etc. were all baked into lifestyles of some groups at the time. I will label this pre-modern Christo-anarchism, and frankly it was the form that was most successful. Ancient Christo-anarchism was still war torn, and as soon as it became absorbed by the state, ceased to be a system of anarchist thought. Modern Christo-anarchism is mostly dead except for the Trad-Caths who would likely reject the anarchist label by conflating it with chaos. Which means there was a sweet spot in the 19th century.

If you've spent any time in Libertarian circles or around the bottom of the political compass, you've likely heard of the Non-Aggression Principle (NAP). The NAP, or tit-for-tat, is a friendly, retaliatory ethical framework that is generally the most robust and invasive ethical framework. The idea being that someone will cooperate as long as they don't get screwed over, they won't attack, but they will still defend. I bring up these 19th century Christians because I think they have best put Christ's teachings into practice, perhaps, throughout history. Working together, praying together, inventing new technologies to improve their lives, it's cool stuff. It was also, importantly, not based on the NAP, but it's more extreme cousin, the NRP. The Non-Resistance Principal says that one should always turn the other cheek, never defend your life, or your property, or your freedom; don't offer these things up freely, of course, these things are important, but don't engage in any violent act ever. Leo Tolstoy was really interested in this sort of thing and I am as well. I haven't finished reading his writings on the subject, so I'm going to stop here, but I think it's important to remember how different communities interpreted Christ's word and how they used that to justify their diverse goals.

Christ isn't the only figure to have His words twisted into forms they were never meant to take. The same can be said of Buddha, Confucius, Muhammad, Robespierre, basically anyone who said stuff and then people made a religion out of it. Frankly, if I were to engage in some light heresy, I would assert that all of these figures were prophets and canonize their teachings. Indeed, there have been several meetings over the years called Interfaith Dialogues, where commonalities between the world's major religions have been decided and I think there is enough overlap for me to broadly say that if someone follows a religion, then they are more likely to act in accordance with God's will. This isn't always the case, and this is a weak statement, which is why I'm comfortable making it. Areas where other religions deviate from God's will will face consequences, I don't need to worry.

I once heard a priest say something to the effect of, "don't worry about the mosque or the temple down the street, those people are praying to God."
I thought this was a beautiful message. I know I just attempted to syncretize all of religion, so know I want to step back and take a look at the good of specific churches. Where I grew up, a very rural community, there was not enough of a government presence to perform state functions. Instead of plow trucks, the church organized the service, after school youth centers were also organized by the church, back in the day, the church provided crop insurance and helped to start the town's credit union. Today, most foodbanks, health organizations, civil beautification projects, homeless shelters, community closets, resale shops etc. are patronized by the local church. These are communities full of people willing to donate their time and money because it's important to them that they do so. They recognize the calling of the Lord.

When people simply have taxes taken out, or there are laws, or there's a state service in place, people assume that the problem will be taken care of. If none of that happens, then people will actually check to make sure the problem is being taken care of. Local churches are better at engaging within communities, and parishioners are more likely to have large groups of friends into adulthood. It is hard for adults, particularly adult men, to find new friends later in life. There are no sports teams and city bars are too hopping to form friendships between regulars. But a church group, prayer service, Rotary Club, or some other community service organization is a great way to give back while meeting new people. Having a concrete positive effect in your immediate surroundings is also hugely, psychologically beneficial, especially as more and more people are engaged in jobs that they don't see the point of doing.

To this end, if you live in a region of the world were Catholicism doesn't have a church, you should still reach out to your community's local religious center and see if they have any ways that you can give back locally. These centers typically have their fingers on the pulse in ways that state-sponsored programs typically do not.

I'm curious to know what you guys think of this synthesis.

[Auze]

Yes, I am certain of that.

[Hizban]

Aw shit, I'm really late to this! If I repeat something that's already been said, let me know, but I did scan the thread and no one seems to think about this the way I do. It's especially disheartening to see the way the poll is situated, as if the presence of an omnipotent, all-knowing being is something that can't be proved by modern science.

I just want to start by laying out my personal situation and upbringing, then I want to state the axioms I will be following, and lastly I will lay out what each of the sections in the subsequent spoilers are.

I'm a practicing Roman Catholic, I believe in God as a Holy Trinity. I am in my last semester in college where I studied biochemistry and minored in philosophy, I understand evolution and the scientific process.

In this post and subsequent posts, I will try to live up to my signature and be funny, but I do mean to change. This is a serious and important discussion and should be treated with respect, sometimes...
Anyways, here are the axioms:

• There is such a thing as objective truth. If you believe that we can't all experience this, or if you are worried that your senses are too limited to experience all of reality, or if you think that your senses and brain will naturally occlude reality and substitute perception (I believe all of these), that's fine, you can still assume an objective truth is out there in the ether for my sake.
• There is such a thing as logic. Two contradictory statements can't both be true, but I will caution against assuming contradiction where none actually exists and where broader context could show both to be correct.
• There is such a thing as science. A process by which humans can understand themselves and their place in the universe. I will never argue that science is unsettled and therefore wrong, though I might mention this offhandedly.
• There is such a thing as religion. A process by which humans can understand their actions and their goals in the universe. I will never argue the existence and credibility of miracles, though I might mention them offhandedly.

I spoiled this post because I've been thinking about this question for a while now, gone on lots of long walks in the woods, listened to lots of philosophers and theologians, read some books, and now I think I have an abundance to say. By putting things into spoilers, you can just click on the section that you want to read and discuss. They're in a rough order, but each should be entirely independent of the others. For those who aren't Catholics, God is Real is about the universal figurehead and as such is about the universe and its anthropic nature, The Holy Spirit is Real is about the aspect of God that flows through each human being and is visible in its own ways, Jesus Christ is Real talks about the actual person who walked the earth and acted as a prophet of God (I take a multi-religious approach here that some may find interesting)

There's a joke that goes around biology circles, and it's a bad joke because it travels in biology circles, about a man hiking through a forest.

Dr. Harley had just finished grading his last paper of the season and was overjoyed to lace up his hiking shoes and grab his walking stick and whistle to his dog, who was equally excited. Together the two of them left the house, hopped in the car and drove to the nearby state park. Today, Dr. Harley decided to take the blue path, a long winding path that had good views of the town below and had the fridge. Walking merrily along, Dr. Harley took in the sound of the wind and the birds in the trees, took in the views of the town below. At last he arrived at mile marker three and the clearing with the fridge. The fridge was an older style, light blue affair with an icebox on top, it wasn't attached to electricity (indeed there wasn't any connection for miles), but was powered by a photovoltaic on top, and no one knew who put it there. A bit worn out, and knowing he still had another three miles back to the trail head, Dr. Harley stopped at the fridge and pulled out a drink. It was ice cold. As he drank he looked at the gently humming fridge and the picture of a house and family drawn in crayon on its door. He marveled at how the fridge maintained an internal temperature so cold in the warm sun, how it seemed to run so efficiently, how it always was stocked with cokes, and how when teens pushed it over it was able to right itself. He remembered fondly when it had just been a little mini-fridge. But then he shrugged, evolution produced such magnificent things and the missing second rack surely proved that this fridge wasn't intelligently designed.

I have better jokes about biology, I swear!
Okay, calling it a parable may be a bit heavy handed and so is the message: that here we have a structure that is observed to be doing everything a living thing does, but since it looks and acts like a fridge, we assume someone must have created it and put it there, but we don't make the same assumption about the trees and the grass and the animals and fungi in between, even though they maintain homeostasis and grow and divide and reproduce and do all of these interesting things. We grow up with these organisms around us so we don't think they're special, the same way someone wealthy would assume it's natural to have a nanny who picks up your toys.

I think it's really important to investigate what we call "natural" early on. Natural assumes some sort of randomness, but it also assumes a rigidity; a makeup that is both in keeping with the characteristics of the thing as with how the thing interacts with the environment. Trees, for example, will send out leaves or branches in particular patterns, but if a limb is broken off, the tree will respond in the way that it will. This makes every tree unique (the environment it grew up in temporally and spatially will only ever be occupied by that tree), even if it were cloned. This applies equally to inorganic materials as well, and if you want to, you can simplify all the way down to the 118 elements. Each one will behave explicitly as it will, shaped by the environment and the fundamental laws and surrounding particles and forces modern physics still doesn't fully grasp. To wit, people call this "random". But it's not truly random, indeed, nothing truly random can be said to exist at all in the universe so long as it is natural. All natural things obey the laws of physics.

More importantly however, we live in a universe where we exist. The universe and physics and the atoms all conspired to come together to create us. It couldn't have happened any other way or it would have. Maybe one day we will create a time machine and hop back to the big bang, or, I hope, the LHC will help us more adequately understand the nature of the beginning of the universe. But I would say that changing anything in the past would be unnatural: a human action that disturbs the natural order of things. That's not to say impossible (though it may well be), but that we live in a universe right now where the entire trajectory of spacetime arcs, at least for a moment, through us. And we can look out, not just as sentient organisms, but as fully sapient creatures. We can recognize our consciousness and talk about it, a phenomena so few organisms will ever even approach. This is a beautiful and fascinating thing.

Everything I have said so far, most atheists would agree with, so I will tell an atheist's story.

Savannah and Jackie were on a date, walking through the park, when they came across an especially beautiful section. It was well secluded from the rest of the park with tall hedges, so they sat down on an immaculate and comfortable park bench. They talked for hours in that sweet-scented glen, until the sun set and the stars glimmered high above. At their feet, little yard lights began to twinkle.

That night proved to be so romantic that they frequented the place constantly. Savannah, who had done landscaping in the past, recognized the excellent care that had been taken with the hedges and the flower beds and would often wonder who the gardener was. She wondered so much, that she started taking lunch at the park bench, and then she started taking detours at odd hours to visit the section. She ran into many of the other park authorities, but none of them could tell her who worked on that section. But eventually she was forced to conclude that no one did work in that section, the man who worked there had been dead for 60 years!

I mean, that's not how it actually ends, but let's meme a little. The real ending has her giving up on trying to find someone who is doing the beautiful thing, and instead focuses on just enjoying the beautiful park for its beauty and utility. I sort of talked about the Anthropic Principle earlier, but I didn't name it. The Principle states that, no matter how random the universe seems to be, it is at least a universe that creates thinking, comprehending organisms that can affect change on their environment in a specific way. This means, ultimately, that each atom, and each force, and the vectors on those atoms were specific enough in their location, effect, etc. that they created humans. And also, all of the principles that come out of that were effective at creating humans; everything from evolution, to entropy, to hunger, to beauty also created humans.

The universe didn't have to exist, but it did, the speed of light didn't have to be c, but it is, the earth didn't have to coalesce around the sun, but it couldn't have happened any other way. This is my immaculate garden and here I am observing it. The thing about immaculate gardens is that they do have a gardener. The world is pleasing to me; I confess the natural things I perceive as beautiful are a genetic and memetic predisposition in the fleshy fleshy bits of my head, and I admit it doesn't prove the existence of God. God is bigger, and smaller, omnipotent and all-knowing, God is the one putting the atoms in place and pushing them around. He is a sculptor and the universe is His sculpture and when we analyze the little chip marks in our universe, we can tell what tool He used.

I've encountered people in the past, and there are some in this thread, who look at evolution and say that they have nothing to pray to. And I agree! When your waiter brings you food, you don't thank the plate. Evolution is a process that created humanity. It had to have created humanity, because if it didn't, we would see a different (maybe only slightly) process. Different atoms with different trajectory. But there seems to be some omnipotent force with the foresight to create humans, and this I take as evidence for God. When the sun sets and the sky turns red, that's an act of God, when the planets formed and Jupiter became the largest planet, that was an act of God, and when the amoeba became multicellular, that was an act of God. From dirt to people.

Hard to argue with the existence of humanity, but I've seen it done before, if you are inclined to to argue that we can't prove the existence of humanity outside of ourselves, I would point you to the first axiom. I won't leave you out, however, because even if your life and the people in it is some fabulous hallucination, that just means God created a fabulous simulation to populate your mind with.

“The world of things entered your infant mind. To populate that crystal cabinet. Within its walls the strangest partners met, And things turned thoughts did propagate their kind."

So why believe in God, why pray to God? Because He put you here on this planet, because He provides for you the opportunity to leave. He has given you a planet thanks to a tool called gravity. He has given you well functioning organs thanks to a tool called evolution. He has given you suffering and hardship thanks to a tool called entropy. Prayer is an excellent reminder that you are human, this means that you are small and cosmically insignificant, but also the sum total of all of the effects of the universe and the point of it all at the end of the day. You don't know what happened before your soul pulled that sperm and egg cell together and you won't know what happens after your soul leaves your body again. Further, there can be no harm in petitioning God or the saints to intercede in your life. Something a priest once told me, however, is that people new to prayer talk a lot, people who pray often listen. Inside everyone, even those who aren't faithful, lies the Holy Spirit, and He will tell you what your plan is.

Once heard in a frat:

A- "Do you think there is a god?"

B- "I'm right here."

A- "What?"

B- "I look like one."

This is the funniest shit, no cap. And it's funnier that it's true! At risk of sounding like a youth pastor, I digress.

The Holy Spirit (HS), for those who are unaware, is the oft cited third portion of the Trinity, co-substantial and co-equal. It's the part of God that reveals itself most easily to humanity and is what makes humanity special. This was actually the first section that I thought of and the other revelations stemmed from this one.

No one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now God's Spirit, who reveals God, makes known to us Christ, his Word, his living Utterance, but the Spirit does not speak of himself. The Spirit who "has spoken through the prophets" makes us hear the Father's Word, but we do not hear the Spirit himself. We know him only in the movement by which he reveals the Word to us and disposes us to welcome him in faith. The Spirit of truth who "unveils" Christ to us "will not speak on his own." Such properly divine self-effacement explains why "the world cannot receive [him], because it neither sees him nor knows him," while those who believe in Christ know the Spirit because he dwells with them.

The Catechism Lists some further responsibilities of the HS:

• The inspiration of the Scriptures and Traditions
• Assisting the Magisterium
• Bringing us into communion with Christ during the Sacraments
• Interceding during Prayer
• Revealing Himself in the work of missionaries and apostles
• Manifesting Holiness and salvation in the Saints

If you have a different interpretation/definition of the Holy Spirit, we can discuss your heresy later, for now, I will be using this definition. Parable time!

Two young missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints had been going door to door. They had been particularly successful that evening and were running low on fliers and gas. Stopping at a station to refuel, Luis, the blonde, started to muse on their last stop.
"I swear, I've never seen a woman so eager to accept Christ and his Word. At this rate, we will have this whole town converted by sundown!"
Jay, a thinner, dark haired kid two years Luis' junior, just smiled weakly and nodded at Luis. He stared out at the distant mountains and the purple and red creeping into the sky.
"Hey, do you think I could convert the gas station clerk?" Luis asked, putting the pump hose back in its holster.
Jay shrugged.
"I'm going to try it!" Luis said with a wink.
Jay followed him slowly into the building.
"Hellooo... Carver." Luis said, reading the cashier's name-tag. "Do you have a moment to talk about your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ?"
Carver looked at the youth, it had been a slow night at the station and no one was around, "certainly." He replied.
"Do you believe in God?"
"Absolutely, don't you see him?"
"See him?" Luis literally stepped back, wondering for the first time if it takes a certain mind to work a gas station counter on the town's edge.
"Look into my eyes and tell me you do not see the Lord." Carver answered.

Across histories and cultures and time and space and continents and the rest, humans have always shared one thing in common: humanity. That may seem like a bit of a cop-out, especially when you start to look at our early cradle-mates denisova and neanderthalensis. Weak statements can still be true, and this is a fine enough starting point. Human's are really good at working together, it's our defining feature. Neanderthals, for example, were likely more robust, more muscular, better suited to their environment, and yet humans interbred/out-competed them. Neanderthals weren't necessarily less intelligent and they had larger brains, they simply had smaller tribal sizes, greater interbreeding, and a smaller propensity for recognizing God. Humans, as God's chosen people, recognize their shared blessings and have larger communities as a result.

Many in this thread were quick to jump on the many many wars fought on behalf of religions, this is true and sad. I make no justification for war and I do not believe God wishes (or ever wished) for us to kill the heathens but to have us reveal Him to them. These wars were fought by polities for glory and riches and land, by people who were kept together by a shared religion and annealed against the enemy by their hatred of the other. If only each side had realized the pointlessness of glory and riches and land compared to the Kingdom of God and the importance of the life of their common man, then they could be united as easily as the crusaders et al. had been united with eachother.

Indeed, in more modern times, and I must assume this happened in ancient times as well, during moments of crisis and disaster, humans are pulled together and work together in a way that can only be described as miraculous. Neighbor helps neighbor, stranger lifts up stranger. It's an extremely hopeful sight. Indeed, our vast networks of cooperation make our species incredibly, evolutionarily fit. Our ability to share and pass on knowledge in the form of memes has in places stunted the process of evolution altogether. We are made in God's image, we can learn to wield God's tools, like a daughter slipping on her daddy's giant shoes. We may not be good at it at first, but we will learn.

Between being made in our Lord's image and the Holy Spirit and soul within us, we can do unnatural things. A natural thing is a predetermined thing acting in a predetermined way based on the atoms inside of it and the forces upon it. God and humans can do unnatural things, manipulating the environment to our benefit or destruction in a way fundamentally more esoteric than any animal (a server room to an ant hill), creating new systems from the forces of physics that do not exist in the natural world (economics, sociology, marketing), and using these tools in complex and nuanced ways towards our own ends (rights, ideologies, medicines). This is the stuff God does, but instead of it being just Him, now He is coupled with our own humanity. This is the importance of the Holy Spirit.

A brief theological point. When God came down from heaven and became man, Jesus was fully human, but He didn't have a human soul within Him. Also strange is how God made covenants with humans beforehand, and how the Holy Spirit seems to need to be spread like a fire through a population from the origin point of Jesus Christ. This doesn't disparage my point much, humans are special and unique because of our souls, we are special and unique because of our ability to create exceedingly complex and manipulative tools that are too high to be grasped effectively without understanding them first. God shit.

Many people disparage God as being evil or mean for putting suffering into the world, and I want to turn my attention to that using the story of Adam and Eve.

God finishes making the heavens and the earth, decides to make a totally handsome, ripped man in His image. Gives the man some sweet digs and a neato job of naming all of the animals on the planet. He runs around all naked, but gets lonely. God puts Adam to sleep and steals a rib, crafting a totally hot bombshell babe. God tells them they can eat whatever they want but don't eat the Fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. A slithery danger noodle tricks Eve to eat the Fruit, Adam gets in on that action, they learn what good and evil are, and God banishes them from the sweet digs with a bitchin' flaming sword.

Why He do that? He knew that they were going to eat the fruit, why did he make it so easy for them? How does this relate to proving the existence of the Holy Spirit?

God expelled us from the Garden of Eden because we knew what Good and Evil were, we stopped being animals and started being humans who could suss out problems in the world and recognize good things. The Garden of Eden was perfect, however. Our knowledge of good and evil was in-actionable within the Garden and I would argue that when we chose to eat the fruit, what we were really choosing was a life with pain and suffering in it, and also one with joy and true happiness.

This was a choice we had to make for ourselves. God doesn't want to see us suffer, He gave us a paradise, and He promises another paradise for those who do good (i.e. help decrease the suffering of the rest of His flock). The tree was easy to access because everything in the Garden of Eden was easy. There was no hardship. If God had placed the Tree on the opposite side of the planet surrounded by hurricanes and tornadoes eternal, then the fruit would be meaningless, because along the way Adam and Eve would learn suffering anyways.

This is important to the Existence of the Holy Spirit because it shows us our calling in life: to reduce Evil and promote Good. Societies that do so live longer, with happier, more fulfilled people, and as a reward for making the lives of those around us better, we can experience eternal Joy in Heaven. When we turn away from God, or otherwise promote Evil in the world, the amount of suffering increases. When we do the opposite, it decreases. All of the suffering in the world isn't God's fault, it's ours. He certainly could wave away all suffering, but in order for our actions (and inactions!) to have meaning, they have to have consequences.

Someone once said, "I can't believe in a just God in a world where children with cancer exist." and I think that this mode of thought is a mistake. The assumption is that the child did some terrible wrong thing, and for it, the child is being punished, but that's not true. What is happening is that everyone hasn't dedicated enough resources to ending childhood cancers, and so we have to live in a world where children die of cancer and the discomfort that causes. We are being punished for doing nothing when there is good we could be doing. If only we had done more, sooner, little Timmy might still be alive.

That empathy, and the discomfort it causes, is the Holy Spirit. That call to good is the Holy Spirit. Your ability to do something else is your soul.


Thankfully, Jesus laid out a really nice step by step guide for decreasing world suck!

I mean, not to start with the blatantly obvious, but Jesus Christ was definitely a real person. There's plenty of archaeological and historical proof of His existence even if the Bible wasn't codified until 300 years after His death. I will not speak about the validity of His miracles or the nature of His birth, axiom 4, but it is somewhat reassuring that there are multiple accounts of the same thing.

What I want to talk about are His tenants, the Christo-anarchist political movement, and the intersections between religions.

When Jesus gave his sermons He would often speak in parables and then preach the broader meaning. This is an excellent teaching tool . Miracles aside, he amassed followers "like fish in a net" and his students saw him as a real teacher. He spoke about beatitudes, lessons, responsibilities, things that would delight our souls and God above.

Many of Jesus's parables refer to simple everyday things, such as a woman baking bread (the parable of the Leaven), a man knocking on his neighbor's door at night (the parable of the Friend at Night), or the aftermath of a roadside mugging (the parable of the Good Samaritan); yet they deal with major religious themes, such as the growth of the Kingdom of God, the importance of prayer, and the meaning of love.

Taking the beatitudes as another example we get a rather interesting set of instructions for living a blessed life. Things like mourning loss, thirsting for righteousness, showing mercy, making peace: each of the beatitudes is a blessing as they make for nicer, more cooperative communities that decrease the amount of suffering. It's interesting how the beatitudes go about establishing order in an entirely different way than the Roman law of the time, or Hammurabi's code, or even the Old Testament and Old Covenant. State Laws general seek to deal with punishments and they believe that crime is better off being dissuaded. Jesus' teachings are more remedial, there is still love for the sinner, it's best to turn the other cheek, etc. And in doing so, you will be rewarded in this life and the next. Carrot compared to stick.

Back in the 19th century, reaching its zenith under the Quakers and persisting even into the writings of Leo Tolstoy, we have a response to Jesus' teachings in the "modern" world. Lessons of love for one another, community, prayer, industriousness, design, etc. were all baked into lifestyles of some groups at the time. I will label this pre-modern Christo-anarchism, and frankly it was the form that was most successful. Ancient Christo-anarchism was still war torn, and as soon as it became absorbed by the state, ceased to be a system of anarchist thought. Modern Christo-anarchism is mostly dead except for the Trad-Caths who would likely reject the anarchist label by conflating it with chaos. Which means there was a sweet spot in the 19th century.

If you've spent any time in Libertarian circles or around the bottom of the political compass, you've likely heard of the Non-Aggression Principle (NAP). The NAP, or tit-for-tat, is a friendly, retaliatory ethical framework that is generally the most robust and invasive ethical framework. The idea being that someone will cooperate as long as they don't get screwed over, they won't attack, but they will still defend. I bring up these 19th century Christians because I think they have best put Christ's teachings into practice, perhaps, throughout history. Working together, praying together, inventing new technologies to improve their lives, it's cool stuff. It was also, importantly, not based on the NAP, but it's more extreme cousin, the NRP. The Non-Resistance Principal says that one should always turn the other cheek, never defend your life, or your property, or your freedom; don't offer these things up freely, of course, these things are important, but don't engage in any violent act ever. Leo Tolstoy was really interested in this sort of thing and I am as well. I haven't finished reading his writings on the subject, so I'm going to stop here, but I think it's important to remember how different communities interpreted Christ's word and how they used that to justify their diverse goals.

Christ isn't the only figure to have His words twisted into forms they were never meant to take. The same can be said of Buddha, Confucius, Muhammad, Robespierre, basically anyone who said stuff and then people made a religion out of it. Frankly, if I were to engage in some light heresy, I would assert that all of these figures were prophets and canonize their teachings. Indeed, there have been several meetings over the years called Interfaith Dialogues, where commonalities between the world's major religions have been decided and I think there is enough overlap for me to broadly say that if someone follows a religion, then they are more likely to act in accordance with God's will. This isn't always the case, and this is a weak statement, which is why I'm comfortable making it. Areas where other religions deviate from God's will will face consequences, I don't need to worry.

I once heard a priest say something to the effect of, "don't worry about the mosque or the temple down the street, those people are praying to God."
I thought this was a beautiful message. I know I just attempted to syncretize all of religion, so know I want to step back and take a look at the good of specific churches. Where I grew up, a very rural community, there was not enough of a government presence to perform state functions. Instead of plow trucks, the church organized the service, after school youth centers were also organized by the church, back in the day, the church provided crop insurance and helped to start the town's credit union. Today, most foodbanks, health organizations, civil beautification projects, homeless shelters, community closets, resale shops etc. are patronized by the local church. These are communities full of people willing to donate their time and money because it's important to them that they do so. They recognize the calling of the Lord.

When people simply have taxes taken out, or there are laws, or there's a state service in place, people assume that the problem will be taken care of. If none of that happens, then people will actually check to make sure the problem is being taken care of. Local churches are better at engaging within communities, and parishioners are more likely to have large groups of friends into adulthood. It is hard for adults, particularly adult men, to find new friends later in life. There are no sports teams and city bars are too hopping to form friendships between regulars. But a church group, prayer service, Rotary Club, or some other community service organization is a great way to give back while meeting new people. Having a concrete positive effect in your immediate surroundings is also hugely, psychologically beneficial, especially as more and more people are engaged in jobs that they don't see the point of doing.

To this end, if you live in a region of the world were Catholicism doesn't have a church, you should still reach out to your community's local religious center and see if they have any ways that you can give back locally. These centers typically have their fingers on the pulse in ways that state-sponsored programs typically do not.

I'm curious to know what you guys think of this synthesis.

As a theist, I hesitate to overtly disagree. But a few general observations about the kind of arguments offered above.

1. The arguments try to assert the logical case for accepting the existence of God / Jesus / Holy Spirit. There are a couple of problematic presuppositions to such arguments. For one, there is the presupposition that God requires logical prove. There are a few Biblical passages that suggest God is found in mystery rather than in logic. Yes, that even includes John's gospel, as the word 'logos' means both word and logic - and from that ambiguity springs an air of mystery. By asserting the case for God's existence via logic, one runs the risk of mischaracterising the way to "know" God.

2. The arguments presuppose a minimum as well as a maximum level of scientific knowledge. For instance, gravity is merely a noun for a certain scale of the Van der Waals force, which shows how all bodies in a vacuuum are attracted to larger bodies - the larger the body, the faster the attraction. Convincing people by means of a level of understanding they may well surpass within a year's time, could be Phyrric even in the rare cases that it proves a victory.

3. Syncretising all religion almost inevitably comes in two varieties. One where syncresis is a matter of "ecumene under duress" - where one religion is and remains so dominent that all others adjust to its practices; the other where every religion is demonstrated to have missed something worthwhile that has been retained/ cherished in other religions, and so one starts to regard even one's own religion as "relatively true but still deeply imperfect" - and coreligionists who are not ready to see things that way make one feel very lonely and / or threatened.

4. Wars for religion are - quintessentially - the same as wars against religion. They aim to make windows into other men's minds, and alter their beliefs. It could be argued that such wars spring from very strong beliuefs and / or from very strong resentment. I'm not sure that anyone should try to explain them away, or argue that actually, all these wars were really bad except for the ones fought on behalf of one specific religion. That's because GOD and RELIGION are not the same. Bonhoeffer has severed that equation with the same finality as Nietsche severed the one between religion and Institution - and for very much the same reason. It's no use arguing against a conclusion that has been so firmly drawn for centuries. (Unless you are the representative of a religion that doesn't dare to admit its own mistakes, or has too many vested interests in either the intitution or the intransigence of religion)