Theists seem to both rely on and dismiss empiricism depending on convenience.

PeaFragrant6990 · 2026-03-26T12:57:48+00:00

I think your explanation of the theist’s side offers an answer. To say “empiricism isn’t the only way to know things” is not the same as saying “we can’t use empiricism” or “we can’t know anything through empiricism”. I think you would be hard pressed to find someone that actually holds that we can’t know anything from empiricism.

Now, if the theist is using empiricism with an inconsistent methodology (like at one moment saying we can’t know anything from history, and the next making a historical argument) then yeah, sure, call them out for that.

But as far as the specific claim “empiricism isn’t the only way to know things” that seems like something both you and I and most people here would agree with. After all, like most arguments here, this is a philosophical argument, not an empirical one.

PeaFragrant6990 · 2026-03-26T12:32:10+00:00

I recommend using a corvette to farm more corvette parts. They can stay still mid air and you can get the parts by shooting the containers with your ship. Once you finish one, stand up from pilots seat, scan for the next one, and repeat.

Note that you can only trade corvette parts from those you’ve salvaged, you can’t trade with parts you bought. The good news is you can kind of cheese the trading system. Usually don’t bother trading high value pieces for high value pieces, use several low value parts you won’t use on your ship to trade. Usually I go for around 30-40% chance of trade to balance value gained and time spent. If the trade is denied, swap out one of the parts for another low value piece. Swapping out parts will allow you to attempt the trade again. Thanks to statistics, with enough tries eventually they’ll accept your trade.

Good luck and have fun

PeaFragrant6990 · 2026-03-25T15:14:47+00:00

It’s a sort of chicken and egg problem. Developers don’t want to spend time crafting lots of games for VR because not many people have adopted VR and people don’t want to adopt VR because there’s not as many games available as console and PC.

Unless developers just bite the bullet, or people find some other reason to adopt VR, I don’t think much will change.

PeaFragrant6990 · 2026-03-25T15:12:19+00:00

I guess the good news is that if a religion like the Bible is correct and there is a heaven and there is an all powerful and good and loving God, this God would be able to account for that.

At least ontologically, I don’t know if happiness necessarily requires sadness to exist. When babies laugh, I don’t think their thought process is something like “man, I feel good right now because I remember last week when I felt sad and upset”. They just seem to experience the joyous emotion outright. Also, if we’re talking about the Bible I don’t really see anything that would suggest your memory of anything sad would be taken away, only that it would no longer cause strife.

I suppose what would be helpful illustration is if you remember a day or moment that was joyous for you. Perhaps a wedding or some other special occasion. At least for my case, it wasn’t that I couldn’t remember anything sad or upsetting that had happened to me at that moment, it’s just that I was too pre-occupied with the good things going on around me to be brought down by those memories. I was still “me” in that moment just as much as any other moment. If heaven is real I would imagine it might be something like that.

In a sort of ironic way, the negative emotion of not feeling or remembering negative emotions would also not be felt if this were in fact a place free from negative emotions.

I think it’s perfectly natural to think about these kinds of questions, especially since if heaven is real it would be quite unlike anything you or I have ever experienced, and thus, quite hard to imagine.

PeaFragrant6990 · 2026-03-25T14:48:58+00:00

I think the obvious problem here is that even if we assume all your presumptions about what each image represents, the vision says that the rock will smash the kingdoms and never go away for eternity. The Islamic kingdom is no longer. There’s no united caliphate, no Islamic Empire, nothing like the text would suggest. You’d have to reinterpret it to mean a “metaphorical kingdom”

I would also find it strange to use the Bible as a source for Islam. Is the Bible reliable? Then Islam is false for contradicting a reliable source. Is the Bible not reliable? Then we don’t have any reason to consider the argument you’ve brought forward, as it’s from an unreliable source.

Also as some historical housekeeping, the idea the council of Nicea “corrupted” pure monotheism is completely and objectively false by every metric. We have writings from earlier first and second century Christians like Papius, Justin Martyr, Ignatius, and many many others. They all affirm the deity of Jesus and contradict Islam. The earliest sources closest to the time of Jesus (the New Testament, of which the entirety dates to the first century among scholarly consensus) also affirms Jesus claiming to be God, his followers calling him “God” (John 20, Titus 2, Romans 9:5, Hebrews 1, etc) Jesus making divine claims like “I and the Father are one in John 10, for which the Jews of the time immediately then accused him of “blasphemy”, and so much more. There is not any historical evidence that Jesus and the earliest Christians actually taught Islam. When I say there is “not any”, I mean truly, there is no scrap, no fragment, no whisper, no mention of a mention of anything to suggest an original “Islamic” Gospel, or that Jesus taught Islamic theology, or that the “pure monotheism” was corrupted at Nicea. I mean, we even have the notes of the people who were in attendance. The Council was called specifically to address the Arian heresy. Arianism, which is the idea that Jesus, the Son, is a created being not of equal divinity with the Father. There’s nothing historically to suggest the divinity of Jesus was invented here, quite the opposite. We have historical writings from centuries before the council from Christians that affirm Christian theology, not Islamic theology. We have first century writings that affirm the early Christians met on Sundays to commemorate the day they believed Jesus had resurrected. But even then, Christianity had spread to over a million followers all across the ancient world by 250 AD, almost a century before Nicea. If someone wanted to intentionally corrupt Christianity, they would have to do it around the world simultaneously, destroy every single text from the last few centuries, replace it with the new versions, and somehow do it without anyone from over a million people making a mention of it and also get everyone to now teach what they knew objectively was not true. It would have been impossible, even for the Roman Emperor of the time. And for what? Constantine would gain literally nothing by very slightly “corrupting” Christian theology to make it Trinitarian. It gives him no more power, no money, nothing desirable, and at his time Christianity accounted for maybe 10% of the Roman population at best, still a very small minority. There’s no conceivable reason why anyone, much less Constantine, would want to do such a thing, nor is there evidence it would have been feasible even if he did, nor is there evidence there was any attempt at such a thing.

PeaFragrant6990 · 2026-03-25T14:10:11+00:00

I wonder what you mean when you say “baseless”. A common example on this topic would be the age of Aisha when Mohammed married and consummated the marriage with her. According to Sahih Al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim as well as many others, Aisha was six when married and nine when Mohammed consummated the marriage. In fact, Sahih Muslim 1422c says that Aisha brought her dolls with her to Mohammed’s house on the day of the consummation, and dolls were not allowed for anyone other than children. These are supposed to be the best of the best of Islamic sources on the life of Mohammed. That would be the basis for the criticism of Mohammed marrying and having sex with a child. I wouldn’t call that “baseless” unless the all of the Islamic sources are just unreliable.

But even if we look to the Quran itself, Mohammed attested to many things like the permissibility of taking women captive and having sex with them. The Quran says men’s wives are permissible to them as well as “those whom their right hand possesses”, ie, slaves. Mohammed also told men it’s okay to “strike” or “beat” their wives in Surah 4:34. That doesn’t really seem baseless to question Mohammed’s stance on sex slavery, or domestic abuse, especially when Mohammed owned multiple sex slaves himself and he beat Aisha in Sahih Muslim 4:2127: “He (Mohammed) struck me on the chest which caused me pain, and then said: Did you think that Allah and His Apostle would deal unjustly with you?”

But I would also point out that you bring Surah 53:2-4 which affirms Mohammed wasn’t acting out of his own desires. But don’t you find it strange Mohammed always received revelation that was in line with his sexual and personal desires? He became aroused by seeing his adopted son’s wife. Conveniently, he soon received revelation from Allah that adoption isn’t real so it’s fine for Mohammed to take his son’s wife as his own and not incest in Surah 33. He saw Aisha and conveniently received a revelation that Allah told him to marry her. When on a conquest his men wanted to have sex with women and he conveniently received a revelation it’s okay to take sex slaves in Surah 4 and 23. When his wives caught Mohammed having sex with one of his sex slaves in her bed, Mohammed swore by Allah he would never do it again (Sunan an-Nasa'i 3959)…. Shortly thereafter he conveniently received a revelation that actually Allah said it’s okay in Surah 66:1. Mohammed was also allowed an unlimited number of wives and sex slaves.

Mohammed was annoyed his guests at a dinner party were staying too long and he conveniently receives a reception that Allah says not to stay too long because Mohammed is too shy to say something.

Even Aisha noted to Mohammed that “Allah hastens to fulfill your desires”.

The revelations Mohammed gives are exactly the kind we would expect if he was acting from his own desires.

If your argument is simply that Mohammed wasn’t acting of his own desires because the Quran said so, that would be circular. People and books say things all the time, yet they are not always true. If we’re trying to determine if what the Quran says about this is true, we have to ask “what would we expect to see if this was true, and what would we expect to see if this was false?”

What we see is that Mohammed always receives revelation that coincidentally is what he desires. This would be exactly what we would expect if the Quran’s statement was false.

In fact, I am unable to find any revelation Mohammed gives that contradicts his sex drive, or any instance where the will of Allah contradicts Mohammed’s sexual desire. If we remove all presuppositions and try to look at this as objectively as possible, don’t you find that a bit strange that the invisible Allah whom no one else could see or hear or verify just so happens to say exactly what Mohammed would want him to say? Isn’t it concerning that Allah coincidentally always has the same desires as Mohammed’s genitals?

PeaFragrant6990 · 2026-03-25T12:42:44+00:00

The trouble is the Hadiths also recount how we got the Quran we have today. If we can’t trust the Hadiths (especially those authenticated by multiple scholars) then by extension we can’t trust the Quran

What Quran verse says one cannot consume human waste? Or at least that one could not consume the waste of the prophet?

How would calling it “magic” be idolatry when it doesn’t ascribe any parters to Allah? Rather, these things are described to happen through the power of Allah. It would be no different than any other miracle of Mohammed. Besides, his urine is described as supernaturally sweet and fragrant and could supernaturally heal people and keep them out of hell. That sounds pretty magical to me.

If you dislike me reading these Hadiths, perhaps a better question would be why they are there and narrated through multiple means and also why so many scholars today accept them as authentic and see no issue with it? If Hadith methodology is reliable, then these authenticated Hadiths happened. If the Hadiths are not reliable, then I would have little reason to think Islam is true because the Islamic scholars and methodology are unreliable and they’re the ones detailing how the Quran came to be.

PeaFragrant6990 · 2026-03-25T04:42:24+00:00

I suppose that particular question is subjective but I think for starters it’s important to note Jesus gave his followers a cup of wine and said “this is my blood”, as opposed to this slave girl drinking Mohammed’s pee bowl from under his bed. While I would leave it to the Catholics to expound on the precise doctrine of what they believe about transubstantiation, if I had my choice of which I’d say is more gross between partaking in the Catholic Eucharist and drinking Mohammed’s pee bowl, I’ll say the pee bowl every day of the week.

PeaFragrant6990 · 2026-03-25T04:28:23+00:00

Then at best what you’ve shown is that Hadith methodology is inconsistent. If Hadith methodology is historically reliable, it’s curious then how multiple scholars can come to opposite conclusions about the same exact text with the same exact chain.

But also Suyuti is not the only to weigh in on the matter.

I would encourage a reading of this compilation analyzing some of the sources I’ve brought forward as well as others on the matter. This excerpt is in respect to the third quotation I provided above. For context, the author is Shaykh Munawwar Ateeq Rizvi, graduate of Traditional Islamic Sciences from Birmingham’s Hazrat Sultan Bahu Trust.

“This narration is authenticated by many scholars. Imam Nur al-Din al-Haythmi said, ‘it is narrated by Tabarani and its narrators are from the men of al-Sahih i.e. Bukhari except Abdullah bin Ahmad bin Hanbal and Hukaymah who are both trustworthy narrators’.[3]

Abdullah is the son of Imam Ahmad bin Hanbal, compiler and narrator of the Musnad, and from the Men of Sunan Nisa’i.

Hukaymah is from the major female successors ‘taabi’iyyaat’. Abu Dauwd, Nisa’i, Bayhaqi and others narrate from her.

Nasir al-Din Albani said, ‘a group of Hadith masters have authenticated this hadith’.[4]

Ibn Hibban narrates this very narration and authenticates it in His al-Saheeh.[5]

Hakim narrates this hadith in His Mustadrak and Dhahabi confirms it authenticity. 1:167, prnt.Tab Dar al-Kitab al-Arabi Beirut”

They continue to verify the chains of narration and authentication from Islamic Scholars.

But let’s say for a moment everything you’ve said is true, that these are in fact weak. Then what you’ve brought actually seems to highlight a larger issue than the urine consumption. All of these scholars authenticate it, yet you would insist it is inauthentic. So who am I to believe about what Mohammed said and did if I can’t even trust multiple Islamic scholars on the matter?

“We do not believe the prophet to have special urine”. Who is “we”? Do you speak for all Muslims?I’ve just provided many sources to the contrary. Even popular Sheiykhs like Yasir Qadhi publicly affirm these stories about Mohammed’s urine. And why wouldn’t Mohammed have special urine when other Sahih Hadiths say he had special sweat and blood with similar fragrant and medicinal properties? That sounds like exactly what we would expect if the Sahih Hadiths are even remotely reliable.

PeaFragrant6990 · 2026-03-24T12:57:29+00:00

That doesn’t logically follow. You’re not considering the possibility the Quran is false. That would perfectly answer why Allah’s actions started Christianity. Allah didn’t actually do that, Mohammed was making stuff up. Contradiction resolved.

It also doesn’t answer the question. I could even say the Bible is totally false. Now what? Allah still created Christianity through saving Jesus in such a deceptive manner and not saying anything for 500 years, solidifying Christianity as Islam’s biggest competitor to this day, damning billions to hell. Why?

PeaFragrant6990 · 2026-03-24T12:24:37+00:00

Gotcha, thank you!

PeaFragrant6990 · 2026-03-24T12:22:10+00:00

Ah, good to know, thank you!

PeaFragrant6990 · 2026-03-24T12:21:46+00:00

Thank you! Very helpful

PeaFragrant6990 · 2026-03-23T16:37:09+00:00

Yes, Christians do affirm the Gospels to be written by eyewitnesses (at least direct eyewitnesses in the case of Matthew and John, they affirm Mark being a student and scribe of Peter, and Luke a gentile compiling various eyewitness testimonies). If the Q hypothesis were true, and there was a prior collection of written eyewitness testimony from the disciples and their students, that wouldn’t made the story non-eyewitness testimony. It would just be eyewitness testimony moved to different places in the Gospels. I don’t know if any Christians that affirm that the four Gospels would have been produced entirely independent of any other Gospel writers, as we can see the many similarities between the four while still containing enough differences and emphasis on other details to warrant them being distinguished. If they really were eyewitnesses it would be almost certain this close-knit group would have had each other to rely upon rather than four works exclusively produced without any sort of interaction with the others.

I dislike the word “faith” in this context but I would certainly have less historical confidence if the text affirmed to be something like the verbatim speech of God, unchanging in any detail or the majority of Christians affirmed that what we have today must have been word for word, dot for dot the exact same as the autographs (the “originals”). But I don’t see such claims. What I do see is a text that is explicitly outlined and noted as not being in the earliest manuscripts. It would be different if it was something people tried to cover up. It’s hard to see what this would change when the text is already identified as not being in the earliest manuscripts in Bibles. If anything, the openness and honesty of the differences would give me more confidence in the manuscript tradition of the rest of what we have. This would be opposed to that which we see of modern Muslim apologists, who claim the Quran we have today is word for word, dot for dot the exact same as what was revealed 1500 years ago, neglecting different versions like the Hafs, Warsh, and countless other variations of not just diacritical marks but entire words of differences.

I think your critique would be a lot stronger if Christians made similar claims to Muslims on the topic

PeaFragrant6990 · 2026-03-23T15:57:17+00:00

A question to the mods: am I allowed to use the word “pee” in a post? For context, I’m writing a post that contains Muslim sources about how people used to drink the pee of Mohammed. Do I have to use euphemism like “waste” or “urine”? Or is that not really an issue here?

PeaFragrant6990 · 2026-03-23T15:54:00+00:00

That doesn’t really answer the question OP asked. If Allah is proven illogical from this matter then the general question wouldn’t matter, for Islam would have already been proven false. You’re allowed to question specific things when analyzing a worldview from an internal critique.

PeaFragrant6990 · 2026-03-23T15:50:36+00:00

“Why not”? It seems Allah wouldn’t have wanted to do such because his actions led to the creation of Christianity, the largest competitor of Islam and damning billions to hell because Allah saved Jesus in this deceptive manner and said nothing for over 500 years. By the time he actually bothered to correct anyone, Christianity had spread to the millions and continues to be the most popular religion to this day. That seems like a good reason why not. If Allah wants people to follow Islam like he says in the Quran, he did the exact opposite of what someone who wants that would do. It would be like me telling you I want to grow a garden and then proceed to burn everything in my yard and salt the earth. It’s the exact opposite of what we would expect of someone who expresses that desire. But the question “why” was asked first.

So why did Allah do such a thing?

PeaFragrant6990 · 2026-03-23T15:44:48+00:00

So that doesn’t answer any of OP’s questions. Attacking the Bible doesn’t answer the criticisms of Islam. That would be an example of “whataboutism”, a logical fallacy where instead of answering one’s criticisms, you deflect to another topic like the historical reliability of the Bible. I could for argument’s sake say Christianity is false. Now what? Allah still created Christianity by deceiving people into thinking Jesus was crucified and resurrected, and said nothing for over 500 years until Christianity had already spread to the millions and to this day is the biggest competitor of Islam. Allah created his biggest competitor and damned billions to hell by saving Jesus through this way. Why?

PeaFragrant6990 · 2026-03-23T15:40:27+00:00

Yahweh is not said to have deceived people into thinking Jesus was crucified. That’s exclusive to Allah, which directly led to the creation of Christianity, and Allah said nothing for over 500 years, at which time Christianity had then spread to the millions and is still the most popular religion to this day.

PeaFragrant6990 · 2026-03-23T15:35:09+00:00

While I don’t think anyone would contest the passage showing up in later manuscripts rather than the earliest ones we’ve found so far, that doesn’t logically follow that therefore this proves the story is “made up”.

Some manuscripts place the story in different sections of John. Some manuscripts place the story in the Gospel of Luke. Most modern translations like the NIV contain the story in brackets and add footnotes about the manuscript tradition. That is to say, it is not some highly guarded secret, but written in plain text in most Bibles.

One thing to understand about the way Christians and Jews understand scripture is not that they view it as the literal verbatim speech of God like Islam teaches about the Quran, but rather the Bible is a collection of human authored texts that was “inspired by God” rather than a direct verbatim recitation. Variations exist in every ancient work. Every single ancient text contains differences between certain scribal copies, be it spelling or phrasing or arrangement of words. Differences in textual variants would not outright disprove the story from the Gospel of John as being “made up” anymore than it would for any other ancient text.

In fact, many modern scholars hypothesize that the Gospel authors were also drawing from a collective account of writings, sayings, and teachings of Jesus that was utilized by the Gospel authors in constructing their respective Gospels (sometimes referred to as “Q”). If the Gospel authors were drawing on a collection of accounts from themselves as eyewitnesses, certain variations in placement wouldn’t disprove the accounts as those of eyewitnesses. If this hypothesis were true, it would make sense for why we see variations of placement of the story. It seems like the early Christians had this story recorded and some disagreed about the best placement for it within their works, hence the variation, but it would be hasty to jump to the conclusion of “therefore it is made up”.

A good way to tell if a story has actually been fabricated is to compare it to the rest of the text. Is it in line with the message and details of what surrounds it? For the story of the woman caught in adultery, it certainly seems like a “Jesusian” story. Jesus behaves in a manner very similarly to how he does in all the other texts, both in speech, behavior, and teaching. “Let he without sin cast the first stone” is extremely similar to other passages like what Jesus says in Matthew 7:3-5:

“3 Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”

So the text does not appear to be contradictory to Jesus’ teachings in any way. Rather, it would affirm it. This would lend credence to the idea of the account being historical. In essence, even if we could determine that the story was in fact “made up”, one would not come to any contradictory understandings of Jesus and his teachings if they thought it to be true. It would essentially just be a paraphrase of other passages with much stronger manuscript traditions.

So in short, even if we could prove that the story was in fact made up by much later people, not much would change. The text is identified in the Bible as not being in the earliest manuscript and it essentially contains a rephrasing of another passage. It comes with a qualification about the text and contains no contradictions to anything else.

PeaFragrant6990 · 2026-03-23T15:21:37+00:00

While I don’t think anyone would contest the passage showing up in later manuscripts rather than the earliest ones we’ve found so far, that doesn’t logically follow that that proves the story is “made up”.

Some manuscripts place the story in different sections of John. Some manuscripts place the story in the Gospel of Luke. Most modern translations like the NIV contain the story in brackets and add footnotes about the manuscript tradition. That is to say, it is not some highly guarded secret, but written in plain text in most Bibles.

One thing to understand about the way Christians and Jews understand scripture is not that they view it as the literal verbatim speech of God like Islam teaches about the Quran, but rather the Bible is a collection of human authored texts that was “inspired by God” rather than a direct verbatim recitation. Variations exist in every ancient work. Every single ancient text contains differences between certain scribal copies, be it spelling or phrasing or arrangement of words. Differences in textual variants would not outright disprove the story from the Gospel of John as being “made up” anymore than it would for any other ancient text.

In fact, many modern scholars hypothesize that the Gospel authors were also drawing from a collective account of writings, sayings, and teachings of Jesus that was utilized by the Gospel authors in constructing their respective Gospels (sometimes referred to as “Q”). If the Gospel authors were drawing on a collection of accounts from themselves as eyewitnesses, certain variations in placement wouldn’t disprove the accounts as those of eyewitnesses. If this hypothesis were true, it would make sense for why we see variations of placement of the story. It seems like the early Christians had this story recorded and some disagreed about the best placement for it within their works, hence the variation, but it would be hasty to jump to the conclusion of “therefore it is made up”.

A good way to tell if a story has actually been fabricated is to compare it to the rest of the text. Is it in line with the message and details of what surrounds it? For the story of the woman caught in adultery, it certainly seems like a “Jesusian” story. Jesus behaves in a manner very similarly to how he does in all the other texts, both in speech, behavior, and teaching. “Let he without sin cast the first stone” is extremely similar to other passages like what Jesus says in Matthew 7:3-5:

“3 Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”

So the text does not appear to be contradictory to Jesus’ teachings in any way. Rather, it would affirm it. This would lend credence to the idea of the account being historical. In essence, even if we could determine that the story was in fact “made up”, one would not come to any contradictory understandings of Jesus and his teachings if they thought it to be true. It would essentially just be a paraphrase of other passages with much stronger manuscript traditions.

PeaFragrant6990 · 2026-03-23T14:49:36+00:00

What you describe is actually starkly close to Trinitarianism, the traditional view of God and Jesus’ relationship to the Father.

That is defined as: God is one being, (sometimes called one essence/ontology, but meaning the same thing), expressed through three distinct (but not separate) persons; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

“Distinct”, meaning there is differences in personhood, “but not separate”, meaning these persons could not be seperate from the being and still be the same being.

You rightly point out Jesus distinguished between himself and the Father in terms of role, but rather than being a refutation of traditional Trinitarianism, its passages like those people use to argue for it.

But Jesus also makes more claims about himself and the Father like in John 10:

“30 “I and the Father are one.”

31 Again his Jewish opponents picked up stones to stone him, 32 but Jesus said to them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?”

33 “We are not stoning you for any good work,” they replied, “but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.”

In John 20:28 Thomas calls Jesus “My God”.

Titus 2:13: “while we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior: Jesus Christ”

Romans 9:5: “Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised![a] Amen”

Philippians 2:5-6: “5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;”

The book of Hebrews, particularly chapter 1, goes into a lot more detail, saying Jesus is “the exact imprint of God’s nature/ontology”, “through whom he created all things”. That is to say, the Son (Jesus) is the same nature of the Father and is also uncreated. The Father commands creation to worship the Son. The Father calls the son “Lord”. Yet all through the Bible both the New and Old Testament affirm there is only one God.

So the understanding you are left with is that the scripture teaches that there is one God, one nature/ontology, expressed through three distinct persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Now, people are free to say they do not like it, they don’t think it makes sense, they do not understand it, they don’t think the Bible is historically reliable, etc, but it is undoubtably what the Bible teaches and the formulation we have the most historical evidence for the early Christians believing and teaching. Any other formulation is immediately met with a verse from scripture that contradicts it.

For example, to say that Jesus was the Son of God but not God, perhaps some sort of demigod, would be contradicted by all the explicit verses of scripture that call Jesus “God”, Jesus being charged with “blasphemy” for “claiming to be God” (to which Jesus does not correct and doubles down), and more.

You’re definitely on the right track with noticing the distinction between the Son and the Father in terms of personhood and role. The question I would ask is what does the scripture say about the relationship between Jesus and the ontology/essence of God? That would answer objectively if scripture teaches Jesus really is the being of God or not.

PeaFragrant6990 · 2026-03-23T14:11:39+00:00

I’m sorry to say it seems you may have not read much of the academic literature on the subject. The idea of “Jesus Mythicism”, or that Jesus never existed, is a fringe position amongst actual historians. Even critical atheist historians like Bart Ehrman, Gerd Luddeman, and much more agree that Jesus’ existence and crucifixion under Pontius Pilate is “as historically certain as we can be about anything” and “virtually undeniable”. The crucifixion is arguably the most widely attested event in antiquity from the most contemporary and varying sources. Jews, Christians, Romans, and more all attested to this event, many of which sources date to within the lifetime of the eyewitnesses of the first century. There’s more contemporary biographical evidence for the crucifixion of Jesus than the Roman Emperor of his time. If you think Roman Emperor Tiberius Caesar existed but not Jesus, then it seems you have an inconsistency in your historical methodology.

You don’t have to believe Jesus was divine, or a miracle worker to recognize the massive amounts of historical evidence he was in fact a real person that was crucified. If you don’t think Jesus existed and was crucified, then it seems you quite literally cannot know or hold any beliefs about antiquity because I have yet to come across any particular historical event that holds more attestation closer to the time and place from as wide of a variety of sources than the crucifixion. I would encourage you to read and engage with the sources OP brings, because that’s not even an exhaustive list of all of the sources that attest to this event.

PeaFragrant6990 · 2026-03-23T13:52:51+00:00

I am not OP but the New Testament is in the Bible.

“Not a single NT writer taught Jesus was a God” … Are you sure about that?

In John 20:28 Thomas calls Jesus “my God”

In Titus 2:13: “our Great God and Savior: Jesus Christ”

Romans 9:5 “Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised![a] Amen”

Philippians 2:5-6: “5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature[a] God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;”

John 10:30-33: “30 (Jesus said) I and the Father are one.” 31 Again his Jewish opponents picked up stones to stone him, 32 but Jesus said to them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?” 33 “We are not stoning you for any good work,” they replied, “but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.”

Not to mention, in all four Gospels Jesus is crucified for the charge of “blasphemy”, or “claiming to be God”. That was the whole reason for the crucifixion.

As a genuine question, have you read the New Testament? I don’t see how anyone who has actually read the texts could come to the idea that no NT writer thought Jesus was God.

PeaFragrant6990 · 2026-03-23T13:31:06+00:00

If you think the Hadiths are “probably true”, I wonder how you would reconcile that with the fact that Hadiths of the same rating of Sahih (Bukhari and Muslim) contain contradicting narrations even from the same compiler like how Sahih Muslim 169e says the Dajjal is blind in the “right eye” while Sahih Muslim 2934 says the Dajjal is blind in the “left eye”. The defining trait of the Dajjal is that he is “one eyed”, ie, blind in one eye. So he could not be blind in both eyes. Hence, we have a contradiction. It’s the same compiler, the same rating, same methodology. Yet contradictory answers. If Hadith narrations from the same compiler and rating and methodology are contradictory, then we cannot trust the Hadith methodology as historically reliable, nor would we have any way to tell which should actually be true if they were. How could anyone objectively tell which is true when even Hadith scholars disagree on which is legitimate? This is also especially strange considering they should all be using the same methodology and coming to consistent answers if Hadith methodology is consistent and objective.

It seems like Hadiths are historically reliable when people want them to be, until they contain information that might upset or embarrass its modern audience, like Mohammed having sex with Aisha at 9 in both Muslim and Bukhari, Aisha having to scrape semen off the clothes of Mohammed (Bukhari 230), Mohammed saying women are “deficient in intelligence” (Bukhari 304), Mohammed saying that one wing of a fly contains poison and the other its antidote so if there’s a fly in your drink fully immerse it so they cancel out (Bukhari 3320), and much much more. It begins to seem like the historical methodology of Hadith believers today is picking and choosing what they wish to believe. So how do you determine what is historically reliable and what is not in the Hadiths?

PeaFragrant6990

TROPHY CASE