#theism

I don't credit Leviticus in arguments about faith because it's a book of a shit load of rules, many of which go directly Abrahamic ideas of agape

10 commandments are an example of what good religious teachings look like - clear, and not overarching in life. Well done Moses, I'm very proud

The gospels are also a good example - they teach through the figurehead's actions how the believer should act. Well done Joshua, I'm very proud

Like there’s no real way to prove whether or not a god exists. I believe there’s some god out there. It makes me happier. Some of my friends believe there’s no god. It makes them happier. We co-exist just fine. End of story.

No real point in arguing this so much, in my opinion, since I don’t think anyone’s opinion is really gonna change.

Again, it's hard to see how the naturalist/atheist can move from material. valueless, nonconscious processes to the production of valuable, rights-bearing human beings. From valuelessness, valuelessness comes. Matter doesn't have the capacity to produce value. Physics textbooks don't include goodness or even consciousness in their attempted definitions of matter.

By contrast, the God hypothesis doesn`t force us to make a huge leap from valuelessness to value. Rather, we begin with value (God's good character), and we end with value (divine image-bearing humans with moral responsibility and rights). A good God effectively bridges the chasm between is and ought. Value exists from the very beginning; it is rooted in a self-existent, good God. So, for all their criticisms of religion, New Atheists still lack the moral foundations to justify genuine moral criticism of theism, nor can atheism truly ground moral value or human dignity and worth.

Deities do not serve, as objects of worship in a personal or religious sense. They exist rather as embodiments of values, archetypes, and ideas that can inspire and encourage reflection. Their meaning is individual rather than commercial.

They are universal insofar as they represent shared human experiences and symbols, yet their imagery and interpretation may be adapted to personal needs and perspectives. As elements of culture, literature, and myth, they carry topoi and symbols that resonate within the social imagination and collective consciousness.

Do not regard deities as beings that exist materially or literally. They exist instead as representations of reality — attempts to describe the world through values, symbols, and human experience. They are a way of giving meaning to reality rather than objects of literal belief.

Art made using Desmos graphing calculator

this is a couple of variations of a religious symbol for a world building project I've been slowly constructing inspired by fear and hunger

The premise of the world (set around 16th-17th century [golden age of alchemy]) is that alchemy fucked up the natural order and now the world is deeply fucked. This means that a lot of the symbols I've made use alchemical symbols, for example the above has the symbol for gold/the sun

The symbol is for the Human god (yes it is meant to be capitalized like that), who is like a beacon of morality trying to guide humanity to a brighter and better future

As this is inspired by fear and hunger, humanity obviously didn't listen (gotta love bleak themes) and ritualistically sacrificed him

The center line in the symbol represents a stake, the diagonal arrow a spear, and the shorter horizontal a dagger. The droplet in one of the symbols represents blood or tears, they eye in the other represents omniscience. The chord(s) of the circle represent the Human god bypassing the natural limits of humanity (as in, he came into the world fully developed in mind, body and soul [the line that starts at the TOP of the circle], and was taken out of the world prematurely by deicide [the line that ends at the dagger's hilt])

He's sort of a Jesus figure, except humanity didn't gain salvation by sacrificing him.

He has a small-ish following with two separate major schools of thought around his worship, neither of which is right (again, bleak themes). One is that he is displeased by us killing him and that to make up for that we must sacrifice humans in repentance. This is wrong because he isn't displeased about anything, because he is substantially dead. He may be a god, but he was also human. And a dead god doesn't get an afterlife.

The other school is that he is proof that a human can be a god (which is true) and through his worship a human can ascend to godhood (which is false, the way to ascend to godhood is different). They also practice human sacrifice but that's more out of precedent than anything else.

All that to say, the Human god himself is a morally perfect being, but is following really is not (inspired by the Alll-mer/Sulphur dichotomy of fear and hunger)