Religion is Valid From God's Perspective

Beginning in the name of God, He who is most merciful. May He show us the light and way of choosing between right and wrong.

Thanks to my opponent for accepting the challenge. In my opening statement I will try to point out necessity and validity of religion in short.

First let's see what religion is. I believe you prefer Merriam-Webster's definitions. So here are a few of them related to our discussion here.

b(1): the service and worship of God or the supernatural

(2): commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance

2: a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices

4: a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith

Here b(2) is a bit messy cause theyre already referring to religious before defining religion. I accept the other 3. According to #4, belief in God and not in other aspects also indicates towards a religion of its own just like atheism is a religion (faith) as well.

Now when I mentioned religion to be necessary I'm resorting to subjectivity while the debate is actually on validity which has to be resorting to facts. But I'm gonna cover both to help everyone understand my points.

As far as the necessity goes, I'd like to reflect on the functionalist perspective on religion inspired by Emile Durkheim's work on religion. Durkheim was not the most religious man and he actually pointed out the beneficiary aspects of religion in a society. For him, religion is what binds the people together in harmony in a particular society, promotes social control by enforcing moral codes and ethics and answers surrounding existential questions from an objective standpoint. So to ensure social cohesion, religion is one of the most powerful tools according to him irrespective of whichever the faith may be. He also figured that religion is a form of collective intelligence to solve problems together in a society. So, socially religion defends its believers from internal conflicts by being celebrated within and from external attacks. [1]

What about individually? Well, hundreds of statistics provide proof that people with belief in and devotion to God or an external force or control are less stressed and depressed than those who are disbelieving. The Legatum Prosperity Index shows that God and humans having well being have a positive relationship with each other as those following a religion are more satisfied with their lives than their counterparts. Psychologists have marked religion to be the best way to gain self-actualization which according to Kurt Goldstein is the full potential of a being and according to Abraham Maslow's hierarchy is the final level of psychological development in a person. Makes perfect sense. [1]

Now for validity, I claim that the universal God is one and at the same time it is only obvious that the system God wants us to abide by should be singular as well. Therefore, I believe in one God and so I don’t subscribe to multiple religions or systems or faiths; rather argue for one singular system. Now which one is it? Is it one of the existing religions or a new one or something I believe should be promoted in the society from my perspective? The answer depends on how my opponent takes the debate forward. As I mentioned in the description that only those having belief in God but not in a particular religion should accept my challenge, I'm assuming my opponent is either a liberal secularist or an agnostic. But I don’t know which faith he belongs to by birth and knowing whether he's a monotheist or a polytheist will also play a role for me to place my logic in that context.

So, here I rest my first argument on validity of religion by going through the necessity of it in the first place. To sum up my points-

1. Everyone is in a religion of faith whether he's officially acknowledging it or not.

2. Religion is necessary both from social and personal perspective.

3. Logically it makes sense of only one God invoking only one religion to be valid.

My next argument will be based on validity of religion from a factual and spiritual point of view (answering most of my opponents inquiries). Thank you.

Refereces:

I was very clear with my first argument that I will get down to the perspective of God on religion after my opponent presents his position on the case. But Con rather went aggressive and tried to condemn me for not clearly mentioning stuff. He has called me nonreligious and not capable of defining God- that's because I simply didn’t yet.

Now assuming that I might have already compromised the spirit of the debate because of missing my second argument, I still believe I'm not clear with what view my opponent holds of God. If he's an atheist, I didn’t ask for him here. If he's an agnostic which I think he's more leaning towards being, he's walking with me. Con really made me glad when he stated "which religion/which God". Yes, my friend, I've always wondered about the same thing. And perhaps I can guide you in, at least try to, if you’re open minded enough to accept my opinions as probabilities.

First, let's have a simple view of what God might be! Now, any classical approach to define God relies on scriptures and texts. Since it seems that you have certain disbelief in various scriptures- which is absolutely fine and I'm glad you do, we'll just follow our instinctive and subconscious mind. The shaman and the ancient aborigines considered their subconscious self to be their God. They would depend on their instincts and dream contents to figure out solutions to their problems. That's not the point. All I'm saying is when we think of God figuratively, its impossible to draw a picture but in nature, its almost basic to each and everyone to perceive a Godly being. A God has to be Almighty, Supernatural, All-knowing and a Visionary. However you may imagine Him to be now, without these particular qualities, no singular being should be considered a God at all. He has to be capable of doing anything beyond our mere perception. He has to be the maker of our existential and spiritual body. He plans and we act according to the blueprint and just on the second dimension, we are left with our free-will to fulfill the prophecy that is only exclusive to Him. That's a part of the vast concept of an ideal God. As far as I'm concerned, every scripture and every religion describes a God of these traits regardless of the distinct figurative appearances of different beings they promote.                           

         

Now, Con talks about the arsenal of God being limited to the feelings of humanity which is an absolute absurd point to bring up in the first place. He claims that since God is all-knowing and all-aware He has no access to certain emotional features that humans experience when there is a lack of knowledge or anything that doesn’t make sense. I don’t think it’s a decent argument even from an atheists standpoint. Imagine you have created a robot. Robots don’t have life. You are a lively being and the robot is an inanimate object. You know how it all goes for the robot, how it tackles obstacles on its ways, when it reboots its system upon encountering certain damages or failures. That's because you are it’s manufacturer. You dont have to be a robot yourself or put yourself in its shoes to figure such things out. Similarly, God is beyond our perception as I mentioned before. So it is only obvious that we are clocked by Him not He by us. He doesn’t need to be tested or manipulated by human standards to be considered valid or legal. He is our creator. The fact that He is beyond what we feel as mere creation simply outrules your argument easily and I should win this debate on this single note; I don’t need three. To clarify, its delusional to say that He doesn’t know what it means to have "less knowledge"; He doesn’t have to and that's what makes Him God.

Coming back to religion and faith, I should make myself clear again that I'm a monotheist; why? Because I have studied religions and history; not to the extent to call myself an expert but enough to restore my faith. Logically, it is only obvious that if there were multiple creators of multiple universes or beings or objects, none would be perfect in any way and rather destroy one another and that doesn’t fit into the mold of the definition of a God. God has to be perfect. The only way to make sense of a perfect God is when He is singular. On this basis I will attempt to respond to your other claim which actually is the relevant part of your opening statement. 

Since I believe in only one God, I tend to believe that there should have been one singular system of God. Now you can ask what is the need of a religious system? If God wanted, everyone would be perfect for Him anyway, right? My question to you would be why should He? If you didn’t have a free choice, you would be an angel who would worship him for millenials. God granted humans the gift of free will using which they have to make way for Him. That's the beauty of the system. You are given tools to pave your way to God and God only looks at your effort. Whether you choose to do that or not is up to you but you can't blame God for that. Then you can ask about the destiny- how is that God wants us to act upon His commandments knowing that some of us will not follow by the rules and end up in hellfire? Well, that begs for an elaborative discussion. But in short, it is God who knows everything. When we sin, its not because of Him we do so; we are at fault and He simply knows that and has known that for eternity. God having the ultimate knowledge of the unseen doesn’t take away our free will at all. Hope that makes sense.

So, now I believe I have made my point of validity of a single religion from God's perspective. In terms of the rebuttal to your claim which I said was the only relevant part of the argument, I've to rely on your honesty and critical thinking for this debate to be fruitful. As you claimed that, "A God Wouldn’t Have Allowed Too Many Religions (False) and Scriptures To Misguide People" I agree with you mostly, brother. You're right. There shouldn’t have been so many misleading approaches to find that one single God. There shouldn’t have been so many different followers of different faiths to prove the existence of a God. That's what I've been saying for the most part now. That we were supposed to have one singular approach to find one singular God. Then why so many religions on the face of the earth?- we'll have to return to the "Free-Will" concept again. Humans have been given that choice to make about God and His system and somehow with the passage of time they have either followed Him sincerely, or went astray or renovated the entire message to their own suiting and fantasies. Greeks/Roman ancient religions opted for mythological entries to romanticize them into popular faiths. Different cultures got blended into different religions with time and civilization. Humans practised their free will to optimize their faith according to their own self-appeases and God is not to be blamed for that. Simple.

                    

Now, it seems to me that if there were no variations or significant disagreements among the scriptures and texts and religions, you would have no problem with the setting, right? But that's not the case. There are systemic differences between the scriptures and protocols of religions and even within a particular faith (e.g: New Testament Gospels). So, I will agree with you that such contradictory inclusions might account for anyone being fed up with all these and to feel trapped and misled or confused. But if we focus on the other side of the coin, isn’t it possible too that the similarities among the scriptures might lead to something remarkable as well? Is it not possible that all the scriptures or even some of them might be the revelations from a single and same God but got interpolated by some particular human activities? That's the possibility I will leave you to ponder upon. Because while your argument of so many religions in one God's domain is taken care of by my "Humans have free will and God hasn’t wished for so many religions" bit, you can just rethink your points combining them with my rebuttals.                      

                          

Because of missing my second argument and having no potential opportunity to present any more rebuttal I tried to fit in answers to some potential questions my opponent might have in mind. Also, I tried to refine Con's misconception of me having no idea of God's perspective in the initial part. In the later part of the argument, I tried to present my responses to couple of points he brought up in his statement and attempted to rationally address them so that any nonreligious individual may connect. All in all, I believe I have presented an overall strong argument in favour of religion being valid from a God's perspective.    

I wanna thank my opponent again for engaging in the debate and making myself better and more loyal to my faith now. I will pray for you to find the one true path and join me in paradise in sha Allah. May God be pleased with me for the words I chose for Him and May He forgive me for any mistake I committed in spreading the message.