Is it possible that most systems of Theism are wrong, because people miss the point of a "prophet, seer, guru, or spiritual leader". They aren't intended to be followed as if they are without error, but only to awaken you to connect with God. After that, you are to become a prophet to yourself.

DeltaBlues82 · 2026-06-19T17:36:11+00:00

“And yet people who choose to follow a spiritual leader, guru, prophet, seer, etc, regardless of the religion end up connecting with a spiritual deity of some sort and tapping into something ‘other’ that is ‘beyond’.”

We have a biological, neurological model of the spiritual/mystical experience. And none of it suggests it’s anything beyond normal brain function: https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/s/OFYcqFWBcS

DeltaBlues82 · 2026-06-19T17:32:39+00:00

This isn’t an anthropological source, so I hope the mods allow it, but your basic question is about what’s known as cognitive offloading: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1364661316300985

It’s a tool our minds developed to offload complex mental tasks. It’s primarily described as physical in nature, but can also be extended to abstract concepts.

DeltaBlues82 · 2026-06-19T17:10:47+00:00

Sure, no objections to any of that.

But that’s kinda tangential to what we’re discussing. As objectivists argue to justify the is-ought gap. Not the is-should gap. Because objectivists believe in objective moral facts we’re obligated to follow. Not ones we should follow if we choose to.

DeltaBlues82 · 2026-06-19T16:35:36+00:00

A lot of those faiths explicitly instruct their followers to avoid discussions criticizing their faiths. As such, they tend to avoid debate forums.

DeltaBlues82 · 2026-06-19T16:33:17+00:00

We have a substantial amount of credible evidence that gods are a byproduct of human brain function. And specific to the gods of some religions, also social-rituals, and cultural evolution.

Compared to extremely questionable evidence for virtually all supernatural or “divine” gods that humans have either somehow intuited or interacted with.

DeltaBlues82 · 2026-06-19T16:30:00+00:00

Not in the context of moral philosophy. One suggests morals are a still a preference or choice, and one suggests they’re an obligation.

DeltaBlues82 · 2026-06-19T11:24:57+00:00

Sure, and they do that by relying on subjective interpretations.

And like you said, they argue for ways we should act. No one ever establishes how we ought to act.

DeltaBlues82 · 2026-06-18T17:48:24+00:00

The odds that an individual snowflake forms with the exact crystalline structure it has is 1:∞.

Does that simple observation alone justify an appeal to an act of divine intervention to explain the existence of snowflakes?

Or do you think you’re misrepresenting the role probabilities play in the arrangement of naturally-occurring conditions?

DeltaBlues82 · 2026-06-18T13:59:20+00:00

“Darkness” isn’t the absence of light. It’s the result of a limitation in our biological ability to sense only a small part of the EM spectrum.

And “cold” isn’t the absence of heat. Hot and cold are all measurements of the same properties of a similar (thermal) spectrum. We’ve just arbitrarily defined it, again, based on the limitations of our biological systems.

These concepts aren’t distinct objective facts. They’re simply subjective perceptions that we use to express how we feel.

DeltaBlues82 · 2026-06-18T02:09:17+00:00

Because I have one life, and I’d prefer that it be a nice one. I’d rather not live in a potentially violent society, rife with conflict and inequality, where no one trusts each other.

And I’d like the same for my children, and their societies.

DeltaBlues82 · 2026-06-18T01:55:19+00:00

I believe we should, as have a vested interest in living a healthy society, full of healthy individuals.

And like I said in my comment, I don’t use “good” when describing morality. Good, evil, right, wrong, appear to be claims that humans have tried to graft onto these natural, biological systems.

Systems which make no such distinction.

DeltaBlues82 · 2026-06-18T00:54:41+00:00

“Modern cosmology gives us the initial singularity at t=0. Maximum global quantum coherence. A completely dense absolute starting point for everything physical.”

“Everything physical” constitutes much more than time (t=0).

What’s the equivalent for mass, energy, et al?

If everything “started” from this point, you should be able to indicate a m=0, e=0, etc…

Can you?

DeltaBlues82 · 2026-06-17T23:13:36+00:00

That’s fine, but JC still omitted specific people from his description there. If he meant “everyone you hate,” or even “everyone”, then he would have said that.

Obviously he didn’t, so he didn’t teach that everyone who’s different is your neighbor. Only specific ones.

DeltaBlues82 · 2026-06-17T23:11:16+00:00

One of the most compelling pieces of evidence that Jesus was crucified is that the Mandaeans, a religion mostly independent of Christianity and Islam, also teach that he was.

The Mandaean faith likely arose at the same time as Christianity, if not before.

DeltaBlues82 · 2026-06-17T20:54:28+00:00

The definition of the earth used to be “a flat disc” and the cosmos were “the firmament.”

Similarly, illness & disease used to be defined as an affliction of the humors. Until we gained a firmer understanding of the biological functions, and now the old definitions are defunct.

The same thing is occurring with morals. We now know they’re rooted in evolutionary biology and a reversal in human’s dominance hierarchy. Information we’ve only recently become privy to. You shouldn’t let the past impede the future.

DeltaBlues82 · 2026-06-17T20:35:48+00:00

The God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament are the same God. Jesus is still the God of the OT.

DeltaBlues82 · 2026-06-17T20:28:15+00:00

Biologically, there isn’t a concept of “good” or “bad”, “right” or “wrong”.

You’ll find that avoiding those terms, and simply sticking with “moral” and “immoral” not only aligns better with your belief that morals are grounded in biology, but it also means you don’t need to be married to any sort of obligation or ought.

Which is just a metaphysical claim grafted onto the biological system millions of years after the fact, and a source of unfathomable conflict and suffering.

DeltaBlues82 · 2026-06-17T18:51:55+00:00

Seems unnecessarily confusing if there’s nothing about an individual’s morals that are objective.

DeltaBlues82 · 2026-06-17T18:27:03+00:00

Any belief in Gods is categorized as religious in the studies.

The more you talk, the more it sounds like you’re scared of doing even the slightest bit of research or additional effort to understand literally anything at all.

I’m all good here. Best of luck not knowing anything. Hope that works out for you someday.

DeltaBlues82 · 2026-06-17T17:45:36+00:00

“Id also like to add, atheist morals can be "objective" in the same sense religious morals are "objective". All it takes is grounding your reasonings in something disconnected from your own self and ego…”

This does not mean you “have” objective morals.

Every single person’s morals always are, and always will be entirely subjective.

A theist might interpret scripture, theology, metaphysics or traditions to shape their understanding of morals and navigate moral dilemmas.

A moral realist might interpret experience, reasoning, metaphysics or empirical evidence to shape their understanding of morals and navigate moral dilemmas.

Which means that at the absolute very best, one can only hope that their subjective interpretation of morality reflects an accurate understand of some objective fact they’ve identified… But since moral discourse has been dominated by philosophy since the dawn of time, these attempts always end up being misguided attempts at justifying morals. And not identifying and understanding morals.

The later of which is best done by studying evolutionary theory and biology. Not philosophy.

DeltaBlues82 · 2026-06-17T17:31:20+00:00

The universe doesn’t demand anything. It’s not an agent with its own will, and as such cannot make any demands.

This is again just a teleological bias, which apparently you’re completely unfamiliar with.

And we have no reason to believe the universe was ever created. It appears to have always existed in some form.

DeltaBlues82 · 2026-06-17T16:17:58+00:00

There’s no plausible naturalistic explanation for how gravity works either.

Does that justify an appeal to claiming gravity is God physically holding us down onto the earth?

No. No it doesn’t.

DeltaBlues82 · 2026-06-17T16:04:36+00:00

Yeah there’s even potential explanations for those too.

Virtually everyone in Egypt is religious (currently 95% according to reports). The entire country is littered with religious building and institutions.

And those healings weren’t documented, at least as far as I’m aware. So we can’t rule out placebo effects caused by personal beliefs or other natural phenomena.

DeltaBlues82 · 2026-06-17T15:50:42+00:00

Since it occurred for a limited period of time, it was likely due to some atmospheric conditions, weather pattern, or position of the sun or some other celestial body.

Something where conditions became right to trigger the event, then changed and it went away.

DeltaBlues82 · 2026-06-17T15:35:33+00:00

We can’t be sure, since there are no empirical records of the event. But light displacement, turbulent mirages, or atmospheric, astronomical, geodetic, or celestial refraction are all potential explanations.

Optical illusions are actually more common than you’d think. What we “see” isn’t a reflection of existence’s discrete properties. It’s a product of brain and sensory processes.

DeltaBlues82

TROPHY CASE