/lit/ - Literature

Not really. It's only helped to refine them. Since I was in elementary school, I had the idea that there was an inner force to my being which could not be communicated but was the only truthful thing, which permeated everything I experienced, and that I could not truly communicate with anything outside of this inner thing, but that I could come to understand other things through the manner of referential reasoning. At this point, I don't interpret it as a "thing" though, but as a polarizing flow, as a crystallization of a small part of an eternal vibration used merely for communication purposes.

It's made me convert from Protestant beliefs to Catholic beliefs. I was already baptized Catholic, though, even though my parents are Protestant.

>>10504581
Whitman seemed to make me something of a hermeticist.

>>10504581
Yes, I was atheist but now agnostic, I don't think it's possible to flat out reject any kind of God. But my reading about the Bible and Christianity has convinced me it's not true.

I was an agnostic and became a theist. Because of my love of Tolkien I became interested in his Catholicism so when I started reading the bible I really immersed myself in Catholic philosophy and historical criticism to supplement my study. I don't know if the historical evidence for Jesus is enough to justify the belief that he is in fact God but if I do end up converting I would definitely be a Catholic.

>>10504581
It made me change from a christian into an atheist and then from an atheist into a spinozian>>10504980

>>10505021
Didn't mean to quote anyone

>>10504980
.....so you a daoist.
>>10505014
>justify belief
Anon, your mentality's completely wrong. Down to the last thing.
>>10505021
>spinozism
Anon no. No.

I'm probably gonna get a lot of heat for this, but as I've matured and aged I've come to believe in some sort of God/Gods.
When I was an edgy teenager I didn't really believe in such, and I thought religion was one big meme. However, I do not believe Jesus Christ, Muhammad or any other kind of religious leader had anything significant to do with the higher power, and that they were merely passionate humans rambling on and on about their beliefs. It's fun to read about religion, and all the resemblances that occur in each religion. My rational mind tells me that existence couldn't have been random, but triggered by something. That something has to be what we call God, perhaps. It's really hard to process and discuss this subject because I don't think we're really capable of it.

Reading Dostoyevsky makes me reconsider Christianity, but I don't think I could become Christian again.
I also hate this fucking Catholicism meme that's being pushed on here. Bunch of poser fags.

I grew up agnostic and didn't really think God's existence was relevant but being British, Christianity is embedded in our culture.

I first got into Buddhism through meditation and studied it deeply but was always drawn more to Zen/Chan sects than the Indian ones.

Have since realised that Buddhism is really about trying to escape life and felt more attuned to Taoism. Have several books on it and refined my feelings towards them.

Recently read Carl Jung's autobiography and accompanied by live events have started to move towards a loosely Christian God perspective though I still follow and believe in the principles of Taoism - arguably though that is more of a philosophy than a religion.

>>10505035
>Anon no. No.
The only kind God worth talking about is that of Spinoza and that of Feuerbach

>>10505061
From what I've read of Taoism it seems very compatible with Christianity, especially early Christina mysticism.

>>10505061
Taoists believe in a God though

>>10504581
No, but music certainly did
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spaEV6jCosQ

>>10505035
>.....so you a daoist.
There's some philosophical crossover, but I don't subscribe to any daoist or their principles explicitly, so no.

so... how long until being atheist becomes cool again?
will the pendulum eventually stop swinging and we'll reach a neutral balance?

>>10504581
Yes, I went from being a Christian, to an atheistic-agnostic, to a more Christian-agnostic/cultural Christian due to reading several texts.

Yes, from atheist to agnostic, from agnostic to deist, from deist to false catholic, from false catholic to false traditionalist catholic, from false traditionalist catholic to true catholic.

>>10505381
>from deist to false catholic, from false catholic to false traditionalist catholic, from false traditionalist catholic to true catholic

please explain

>>10505372

Atheism was never cool. It only seemed popular on the internet because they were obnoxious enough to discourage people from being open about their beliefs.

>>10505372
As soon as atheism stops attracting autistic losers with unwarranted intellectual vanity and combativeness masking feelings of inferiority and weakness. So never.

>>10505407
What passes as catholicism since John XXIII is not catholicism, but a new religion. A false traditionalist is someone who claims to hold the traditional catholic viewpoints but belive these people are valid popes, or even people who agree they are anti-popes, but do not believe in the salvation dogma.

>>10505041
>I also hate this fucking Catholicism meme that's being pushed on here
Why?

>>10505424
But losers are now becoming "christian" and shitposting about degeneracy.

>>10505432
Being a schismatic doesn't make you more catholic.

>>10505424
>autistic losers with unwarranted intellectual vanity
This describes pretty well a good portion of the Catholics I've met on this board.

>>10505443
A schismatic is someone who refuses communion with valid authority, but the Church has already dogmatically defined that heretics are outside of the Church and cannot retain their offices, which they lose without any declaration.

By the way, post-conciliar antipopes reject Vatican I, since they believe eastern "orthodox" schismatics to be inside the Church, which means they believe it is not necessary to submit to the chair of St. Peter. They also have signed agreements rejecting the conversion of each other, doing the same to protestants, etc.

>>10505459
>A schismatic is someone who refuses communion with valid authority
A schismatic is also someone who re-defines what counts as a valid authority, such as yourself, by denying the validity of the papacy itself.

>>10505432
You are an absolute tosser

>>10504581
Depends what you mean by religious beliefs. Just like everything can be interpreted politically, everything can be interpreted "religiously". And I do. Perennial philosophy ftw

Real atheists hate the world; real Christians love the world.

LARP atheists claim to love the world; LARP Christians hate the world.

Prove me wrong, protip you cant :)

>>10505252
sounds like a dying goose. The drums sound nice though

>>10505486
I'm not redefining anything, subjection to the Roman Pontiff is absoltely necessary for salvation. But the Church has, as I've said, already defined that heretics lose their offices without any declaration, and should be rejected by lay people even if all the cardinals approve of him. A heretic is someone who denies certain dogma or dogmas, and every anti-pope since John XXIII have done so, publicly and repeatedly.

Not changed, but given the tools for them to change. Reading brought words to phenomena that was otherwise ephemeral and unspoken, and I'm thankful for that. But real spiritual change has to come from the intuitive/experiental. There must be a visceral actionable movement for real spiritual change to occur, and that's something that can never be found in books.

>>10505040
Great answer! ^_^

>>10504581
watching the young pope and a few religious movies made me stop being an atheist.

>>10505501
And what are you, a LARP stoic?

>>10505526
>and I'm thankful for that
Thankful? Youre just writing words--
And then (you) go on..
What (you) are is a didactic anti-didact, or confused.
But (you) do write well on the spot (theoretically) and that's something.

100% yes. Was fedora, am now very interested in joining the Catholic Church.

>>10505675
What part of Catholicism appeals to you?

>>10504581
Well when I've always been a christian my whole life, but while exploring a ton of different philosophies in various works of fiction it became inevitable that I would have to confront literally every aspect of my own ideals and why I believed them. Long story shot, I basically realized that as long as I called myself a christian I would have to follow christianity's rule lest I violate my axioms and I be an idiotic hypocrite

I've realized that everything in the West goes back to Catholicism, which goes back to Jesus

I started going to church, reading the Bible and the catechism

>>10504581
yes and no
it depends

Yes. I firmly believe in God now and am experimenting with Christianity, though I have no clue whether it is the correct religion. It seems very unique in all the world religions though. Its not a comfort thing like Buddhism is

>>10505731
the choirboys

lol just kidding, in srsness tho id say the structure. In todays political environment there's too much 'I got this, just give me 20 mins on google, Bush did da 9/11' shit. The acceptance of educated authority (a priesthood) is so appealing to me,

>>10505795
There's a book you might like called the The Death of Expertise by Tom Nichols, its all about this modern tendency to ignore established knowledge because "i got google i can know everything myself"

>>10505795
ooooh. That's a good reason, and I not even a catholic.

>>10505061
>Have since realised that Buddhism is really about trying to escape life
Vitalists, when will they learn!

>>10504581
Reading helped strip me of them.

>>10505436
Because people are just in it for fashion. Same as with political ideologies. They just pick and choose whatever is niche and contrarian.

Reminder that organized religion is like organized crime.

>The persecution of witches came down to a battle for the ‘market share’ of post-Reformation Christians, according to a paper by two economists
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jan/07/witchcraft-economics-reformation-catholic-protestant-market-share

>>10505896
>according to a paper by two economists
I told you, man.

I told you about usury!

>>10505793
I'm a christian myself but how is buddhism a comfort thing

>>10505896

Religion of some form is necessary for social order. Kant understood this.

>>10505896
lol you could say that about any movement, ideology, or group

>>10505939
(you) being a christian isn't though

Im unironically a theosophist now AMA

>>10505519
The correct answer to this conundrum is the one that is the most obvious, which is that the institution you're trying to hold up is a sham and there was never any supreme papal authority as posited by Vatican I etc. Stop trying to put a square peg in a round hole and just admit you're wrong. The Orthodox were on the correct side of the Great Schism, and the Pope wasn't. It took a long time to clearly prove who that Catholics were the actual schismatics, but be glad it finally happened.

>>10505992
did you read how heretical Beasant, Leedbeater and Bailey were and that they stole Judge and Blavatsky’s teachings? if not, fuck off.

>>10505992
What led you to it?

Changed my view on God to be more probable but still don't believe.

>>10506026
>probable
How do you decide the probability of God or compare probabilities of different God ideas

>>10505890
I'm a born-again Christian who's unsure of what denomination would fit me best. I was born into the Catholic church, and love the actual churches. Though I also like how more open protestants are at discussing and arguing the scriptures. I also like eastern orthodox iconography, though I do not know that much about them.

>>10506023
Literally who
>>10506025
Blavatsky was the starting point but it was Rudolf Steiner's work as well as Scriabin's late mystical music that got me over the line.

>>10506034
you increase a number until it hits 1.0

If it doesn't make you believe in God more, then you aren't doing it right.

To be honest, we have some intellectuals today that are prominent believers in God but it has been a bad last hundred years for faith. This does not bode well and points towards cultural decadence. Maybe we can recover

>>10506045
There are seeds and signs everywhere that the next intellectual elite will be religiously minded

Yes
>used to be an atheist SJW (though with a belief in an afterlife of some time and a vague sort of idealism)
>now an Eastern Orthodox traditionalist

Absolutely, yes. I was loosely raised Christian, but from 10-14 I switched to the Catholic Church, and went with my Grandpa instead of going with my sisters. Fuck christiian church! They barely talk about the bible, change all the songs, and are generally fake-nice. 15-20 I was, no reading necessary, just an edgy atheist teen. However, the past couple years, after reading every religions holy book--except ironically enough the Bible in its entirety--I have come back to the belief in God, but, as influenced by Nietzsche, stop that belief there. I thank God for life and thats about it. Morality is thoroughly a spook. Any moral I follow is only due to utility or choice.

>>10506039
Go on.

>>10506044
I can maybe understand a 1 but how can you define anywhere between 0 and 1 with God.

>>10506071
Disgusting

>>10506036
If you end up lured towards Catholicism, I would advise that you investigate Eastern Orthodoxy so that you can understand the other side of the issue, because Catholics will certainly not tell you about it.

>>10506134
Thanks, anon

I tend to lean towards Platonism but still would not consider myself religious in the Christian/Muslim sense.

>>10505501
what am I if I love the world but I don’t feel like I fit into it?

>>10504986
You made a mistake.

>>10505501
(You)

>goes back to partying in Cancun without ever giving religion a second thought
>i love being me this world is great

>>10504581
Yes. Hermeticism.

>>10505501
John 12:25 He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.

>>10505444
"Met" a lot of people on this anonymous board, have you?

>>10506250
He is talking about loving your life more than loving God. Living selfishly

>>10505928
It excuses your rejection of the entirety of existence as a means of ending suffering. The entire end goal of Buddhism is a withdrawal from everything because you don't want to experience it.

>>10505813
Not the anon you're replying to, but it seems interesting. Why is it worth reading? I've googled up the synopsis but I want to know your opinions on it.

>>10506352
I havn't actually read it myself, but I did attend a lecture by its author on the subject of the book and it seems like he has a point. His basic idea is that people have become so narcissistic that they can't accept that someone else might know more than they do, and that this tendency is polluting the political discourse. It's on my to-read atm

Reading the Bible made me an atheist.

>>10506081
How so?

>>10506409

Why? The bible doesn't argue for or against the existence of God.

>>10504581
It made me less hostile to Christianity after growing up in a fundamentalist environment.

and the priest sat inside the darkness his pale face shining brightly where nothing else shined but for the moon which roamed the space around earth uncaringly smiling swiftly at the children of earth when he felt like it. The priest was tasting the night at the moment. He found the taste to be a taste of purpose, strangely enough. Yes, somehow the man found purpose in this dark and lonely night. His only companion were the trees who were enacting ritual dances with the wind swooshing carelessly round the priest and not evn seeing or sensing him though he did sense them and occassionally despite the dread of purpose flowing through his soul he smiled at his indifferent friends. Dread. Yes, it is dread i feel, though the priest with a bitter taste on his tongue, for it was an unpleasant surprise that finding your purpose would cause a feeling of dread, a feeling of running away (once more). Strange is the world thought the priest and eyed the stars who were deceivingly still but he wouldn't let himself be deceived and he smiled as he knew that stars were anything but still. There vibrations were as fast as lightning, speeding through empty space and bombarding our silly planet with no regards.
1.Truly, i am a priest
2. I can see it so clearly now.
3.There had been times when i considered myself to be a scholar
4.There had been times when i considered myself to be an adventurer of the soul
5.There had been times when i considered myself to be an aristocratic decadent
6.There had been times when i considered myself to be a self-pleasuring animal
7.There had been times when i considered myself to be a plain and boring consumerist,or whatever
8.There had been times when i considered myself to be a fake
9.There had been times when i considered myself to be an actor an imitation
10. There had been times when i considered myself to be a friend
11. There had been times when i considered myself to be an analyst or whatever
12. Reflecting upon the day which has passed me i must admit that i am a priest.
13. All of which i learn and all which i see is transformed into yet another battlefield of the soul

He was a priest without religion. A priest without religion is a lone wolf and as a lone wolf he roamed through the forest with a bitter pain in his heart. A bitter bitter pain in his heart for there were things he would rather be. This task seemed hopeless but one of the absolute truths of his will was that he was automatically carried back to the battlefield of the soul. He was a priest without a god, a priest of mankind so to say. And as such he did love mankind which had occured to him to be a strange thing. He could not help but laugh and love the people and their follies and hearing the tales of fairies and elves in britannia and ireland made his heart do backflips from joy, his heart jumped down from a 5-meter board screaming and laughing shrill laughs when he observed and heard the man of earth and that was a true pleasure of his existance, despit

>>10504581
I was an extremely devout protestant until I read Kant’s refutation of the cosmological and ontological arguments. I read it online, but I think it counts. Since then I’ve been a weird mythical theist or something it doesn’t really have a name.

duude some more alcohol for my heart now, some mor ealcohol for my heard iws what i need right now as to ease the pain of the tears which are rolling downwards ever downwards from my tears as i have no friends in this world and you may think what you may think as he drank the alcohol and you may think that this is nothing of importance but do you properly know th edread of lonelyness while sitting inside an empty room where he had moved in for it was cheap and so he could live from state support and eat cheap food from kebbab store preferbly döner but with no salad ann all 3 sauces for he like ssauces give me the alcohol he said but there was nobody there and he had been alone the whole day lying in his mattress having run out of money because he drank so much alcohol and he was actually still drunk despite of his felings and the tears were making backflips down his cheeks there was actually still alcohol to his left but he was looking to the right for hors now and had forgotten about the alcohol being too his left he got up then and walked into the kitchen and pissed into the sink and then drank water and forgot what he was actually looking for in the kitchen when he then remembered the had just wanted to drink as to not have such bad hangover because despite of the lots of alcohols he was not fond neither supportive of hangovers and he did not take them lightly for he was alone with a mattress and life is a dangerous game when one is alone with a mattress he stumbled back into his room and saw the alcohol but it just displeased him to see it he thought as there was some liberation in not having the alcohol not being able to have it because he ran out of money but wanting it craving it but not getting it and sobering down and thinking abot what to do sohe sato down on his bad and drank the alcohol and rememberd thed very first time hahd sex with a woman which was at age 16 and he had then convinced himself back inthose days that the girl around him had had love in her eyes when she figured out his naked nude figure of a man that he was but the images didn't last long there was nothing there he found there was no feeling left there was nothing left so he drank some more and laid down in his bed and there was a feeling in his upper body but it was nothing to be expressed through language he thought that maybe someone should kill me and he pictured a machine gun shooting down 4000.000 people with it's killing rounds praise the lord and pass the ammunition he whispered to nobody but himself, his mattress and his nude and naked room and perhaps he was thinking also of michael jackson who was an imaginary friend of his for he often dreamt of meeting michael jackson and saving him from his despair and having good times with michael jackson who seemed to him to be a totally okay and decent guy at heart and who was clearly a victim and as such entirely relatable to him and then he had attemped to sing a song form mcihael jackson but there was just emptyn

>>10506536
Was your faith based entirely on the ontological and cosmological arguments?
I don't understand why the disarmament of two arguments that don't even argue for an inherently christian God and aren't even directly supported by scripture would make you disregard christianity. Especially when you didn't even reject the idea of a theistic model, which is what the cosmological and ontological arguments were designed to support.

she stumbled forward in the rain trying to grasp the bars through which she could find hold in the world as the heat waves were rushing up and down her body. the drugs were kicking in nicely now it was a very good feeling and she was waving her head in unity with the flow of being left and right left and right like waves of the ocean rising and receeding and the world turning in an ellipsis through the universe and the clouds circling the planet meaninglessly that was the unity of being which he felt now as she was stumbling alone in a nigh ttoo cold for her outfit but she had no home that was to be assured she then reached the house of Gabriel in the forest where Gabriel stood and she sat down not looking at him but the floor of the earth which was filled with needles and dirt was rising up and down and then she looked up and saw the door which she knew and she realized that she knew that door and there was a light in the cabin which made her smile and sort of melt from excessive happyness and make her laugh and also cry so much that she hid her eyes behind her hands while crying in slow motion from intense happyness for knowing the door and knowing what was behind this door and the person it belonged to, feeling a deep and great gratefulness out of a sudden for knowing this particular Gabriel and having found his shack in the woods where he was shooting himself up with drugs away from any other people but she knew him and they liked each other even though they weren't having sex anymore simply because their drugs had killed their libido so to say aside from their libidual drive to do more drugs and some other things not worht mentioning until suddenly gabriel walked out of of the shack and screamed a woo of joy and shouted to her: I FUCKING KNEW YOU WERE OUT HERE I FUCKING KNEW IT I WAS FEELING IT I DIDN'T HEAR YOU I FELT IT moving towards her and taking her tear-ridden face into his hands pressing her cheeks against the bones and whispering in her hear in such a shrill voice that it was barely audible I FUCKING KNEW YOU WERE OUT HERE DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS he repeated it until his voice was nothing but a shreiking whisper of joy and then he erupted laughing and ran off into the forest and she was overwhelmed but not stressed and crawled into the shack which was heated by a fire in the fireplace and she sat in front of it and felt the flames making love to her so heavenly that she was moaning from pleasure and moaning some more moaning inside the shack until Gabriel returned and she looked at him staring in the door having a seirous and stern face and she laughed hysterically saying that he looked like a video game character and repeating it in a slur to which he said will you stop it now. Will you stop it I don't look like a video game character. no no you look like somebody who rides on horses she screamed from laughter to which he slammed the door shut and went outside and she sprawled herself out on the floor and had visions of red hor

>>10506536
>>10506589
Please answer me on your reasoning here

>>10506260
Your views Buddhism are reductionist and wrong.

>>10506605
this did make me feel the god in me die a little

>>10504581
William Blake single-handedly cured by "internet atheist" phase. Preserve us from single vision and Newtons Sleep.

>>10506638
why

>>10506664
idk. vidya helped. namaste motherfucker

cool kids like us believe in god said the kids murming prayers at the sky following the expression while the drones were circling in on them. True believers we are, we are the truest said Lil Marko doing a injutsu praising god and kneeling down and doing a backflip and then raising his hand in a sky forming a fist shouting KING GOD KING GOD KING GOD. whjich the others repeated and the drones receeded. Well done brothers said the Derwish and lead them back to their houses and congratulated the parents of the kids and said wlel done parents to which the parents responded smiling friendly because they didn't know what else to do saying Also well done, derwish and clicklly closed the door as to end the scene which didn't bother the derwish as he understood people so he strolled through the city back to his sleeping place under a bridge and ate some chicken mcnuggets and reflected upon the shariah and laughed silently to himself thinking: There is no I. when suddenly elves were dancing and celebrating on he river and putting his eyes on them he grew terribly sick and one of the elves looking like a beautiful child but only as large as the derwishs penis flew up to the derwish and greeted the dervish casually and said: You have become sick? to which the derwish nodded ruefully and added: Yes, i think that is true what you say. And the elves was smirking and said bring me food then you will become heatlyh again ok? the derwish went away while saying yes to the elf and got some food at a local liquour store rewe and got it to the river but the elves disappeared and the trial was no clearly to find the elves but the elv said no, you're wrong we were 10 more metres to the right over here and waves his hand and the derwish said oh i thought you were gone and i would have to search for you to give you the food so that this was the real trial and the food only a pretense for my true journey to find heatlh againi thought he said and the elves laughed shortly but only as for symbolical reason and said: no, we were here all the time, i was waiting for you. i was trying to be quick said the derwish trying to express that he took the request seriously and the elf said: yeah i didn't wait too long i didn't mean to imply that you left me waiting too long it's just that i wasn't doing anything else while waiting for you said the elf to the derwish and the elf looked at the water bored not knowing what to say and the derwish said oh ok i'll give you the food then and he walked with his legs to the elf and said here you have it's bavaclan. And the elf mustered it and thought "why bavaclan, why in the name of god bavaclan which i do not like" but he didn't want to bother the derwish more and just said: oh that's ok, bavaklan is ok but he was not very convincing so the derwish said: Do you not like bavaclan? It's a speciality from my homecountry i thought maybe you wouldn't know it and... well i can get something else but the elf shook the head and said: no don't bother

>>10506696
Go away Cormac, you're drunk.

the woman was sitting inside her chair staring at the sun outside and said: its such a wonderful sunny day today go out an dplay with your friends tommy while reading the prisma. tommy said but i don't wanna go outside i want to play video games and the mother said: i respect all kinds of activities i don't think that playing outside is inherently superior as an activity to playing inside but since it's such a warm and nice day outside you ought to leave the house and move oyur body a bit which will do you good and make you feel better it's something not too visile because you are detached from your body you are only ego at this point a machine solving solutions inside your video games having only minimal physical output by moving buttons on your controller but outside there is a more wholesome exertion of your being as your physical qualities, the qualiities outside of your consciousness, become expressed through movement and not just your thumgs and other fingers so the boy said ok mom and left the house and ran in circles inside the garden trying to count and get faster with every time trying to beat his record time of 3,1 seconds for one circle but the best he was able to do was to get 3,4 today and he was rigoorous in not cheating and whenever he felt doubt whether he ad actually run the circle appropriately he discarded the time he had counted inside his head but then his mother opened the window and shouted that's enough tommy you exerted your body enough now come back in again and tommy ran one more circle, a 4,5 and in resignation followed his mommys orders and shouted: ok mom and went inside. His mother watched him getting inside and eyed him very carefully and said: you have exerted yourself quite a bit there do you now feel the physical qualities of your being more than you did before? Yeah he said and pointed to his lungs and hearts which had been exerted through the running and said: I do feel my lungs and hearts very heavily and also the feeling of my skin or rather of my physical presence is more pronounced now. And the mother said: Well done. Now take a bath as to wash yourself clean you will realize the importance of the cleasning ritual which now that you body has been exerted allows you to return to a clear state of ego but tommy was questioning this asking her: But so then the point of my physical exercises, of getting in touch of my body is to sort of neutralize it for the ego-drivne activities of my mind? he asked feeling as if his mother had just exposed a weakness to which his mother laughed and said: You stupid little child. you children are all so stupid. And then she explained in a pedagogic way: We are civilized europeans and while it is true that the physical properties of our existance should not be underestimated, we are civilized, enlightened beings, if we realize this aspect of our european identity, which means that our potentialities of thinking and understanding the world reign supreme over the uncivilized fac

Yes. reading helped me discover the Church, and within it, also helped me to re-discover my love of Christ and His saints. Because of this, I left non-denominational protestantism for Eastern Orthodoxy.

vanity is the key word to enter the secret of existance so it was whispered in the secret societies of the city of leipzig. Vanity. Vanity. Vanity. The Tip of the tongue taking a stroll down the bla bla bla Va-Ni-Ty. And if yu close your eyes you will find that there is one thing which overrides all other sensation aside form seeing of course which is why you closed your eyes, and that is the terrifying stink of "mother" earth. Mother earth is nothing but a rotten carcass, a stinking grave of endless organisms, dieing day after day. When will you face the truth that our existance is nothing but vanity, a presumptious affair which will end in death? The moral imperative of realizing that the truth was nothing akin to empathy, love and all of these other life-affirming things, no, the end truth of being was death, the truth of birth was death the truth of longing was death, the truth of all striving, of all organic motion and quivering was death, or so it was whispered amongst the secret societies of leipzig who even in the most sinister of times seemingly contradicted their words with great bouts of empathy and impressive skills of demon fighting. There was occassionally some try hard guy who would shout at the world: You are just corporate maggots feeding on the rotten carcass of love! but he was punished with embarrassing silence and never dared to open his mouth again and factually cut his tongue of and stuck himself with sciccors bleeding and moaning from terror and pain but being guided by a secret power and stabbing himself further and further with the scissor into the flabby meat of his stomach into his throat into his eye sockets letting go of a boneshattering scream as he did so and as the glass hull of the eyes broke upen with little resistance and the souls of the eyes flying out of them and dancing wildly into the night humming whilde doing so and keeping stabbing himself further and further until he was dutch cheese except there was no emptyness in his holes but blood and innards pouring outside but he wasn't screaming anymore and it didn't take too long for him to die. When the parents stumbled into the room of the boy who had spoken wrong they screamed screaming OUR BOY WAS MURDERED but he was not but they didn't acknowledge this ever in their existance despite it being clearly the truth and in the father grew a firm hatred of the secret societies and their hideous whispers in the city of Leipzig and clenching his fist like arthur and music from berserk playing in his soul as he imagined the grimacing fury and rage which supposedly was inside him and through the imaginary expression of this he felt propelled to turn it into a reality as if the image of himself feeling this way was a binding contract to which he was forced to oblige kind of like how you become obliged to be aroused whne you find yourself as a man in a sexual situation and have to construct all kinds of utilitary fantasies and images and enact physicalities to maintai

Kurt Vonnegut turned me into an atheist when I was an edgy 14 year old

I still haven't recovered

>>10506881
try cat's cradle. might religion up your atheism a bit

>>10506634
Do you have anything that goes against what I said?
I've met plenty of "Buddhists" who love to claim that Buddhism is life affirming and great, but if you read any actual Buddhist writings, it all points toward a renunciation of existence as a means to end suffering.

oh fuck said the little alien standing on plains of grass everyone but me is asleep. Yeah my eyes are red i can feel it. They are tired from looking at the stars all night. yeah. said the alien with it's skinny grey lags and it's comical stomach which was ballooning as it seemed by air and not meat and it's fucking antenna which had an orifice of some sort and it's skinny arms and hands all of it gray except for pink dots on it's stomach and those fucking big sad eyes and it's miserable o-formed mouth, nah it was actually pretty cute standing sadly like it and feeling like a bigtime loser because it was still awake and knew how guilty it would feel the next day when everyone was long awake again and he was still getting out of bed at 6 PM that wasnt cool to him so seeing him there being sad was touching in some ways i suppose thought another alien staying on the grassy plains looking at the sad alien all night also with quite red eyes for staring at this little dudester throughout all of the night. Yeah he thought, he's kind of cute but iam scared of talking to him said the 2nd alien which looked like the first one but had some awkard red fuzz growing on the side of it's head which made him look kind of creepy and disgusting which was a cause for great sadness and some distinct and existentially-defining remoteness of life only because of this red fuzz but that's how life functions no? thought the first alien watching the second. Suddenly a drum beat kicked in and the first two aliens saw that the third alien had started playing the drums in the nights and was jamming with the moon, the moon playing the clarinet tonight. The Moon was the 4th alien, the tallest of them all but at the same time the most sentimental even more sentimental than the first one though not by much and in a different way and as he was playing his clarinet in conjunction with the drums he exchanged glances with the first alien which were expressions of sadness and also of deep understanding, There was some dread of being which all of the aliens shared, something perhaps was related to being stranded on this grassy on a foreign forest? and looking relatively ugly in comparison to 80% of species on planet earth atleast those that were known to mankind thought the 5th alien having dinner eating some bread with agliolyy and munching it with an inner stillness and clearheadedness which was rare to be found on these grassy plains especialy on this night when most of the aliens were acting out some rituals of melancholy and longing but he didn't care in the least, though the 6th alien and felt a bit of disdain at the lack of empathy of the 5th alien for he felt that this was a special occurence, once which wasn't too taken lightly and be respected. The 6th alien said down next to me, observed the 7th alien. "what are you doing" asked the 6th alien to the 7th alien who looked plainly at the other 6 aliens and responded while munching on his croissant: I am merely finishing this up.

>>10506409
this board is 18+

>>10506973
>it all points toward a renunciation of existence as a means to end suffering
If that were the case then Buddhists would simply kill themselves and others. This falls into desire for non-being, which was also rejected by the Buddha as a cause for suffering, just as desire for being is. Your stress on "life-affirmation" is such a desire for being, as opposed to the supposed non-being of death. It's the common ideology of our times to reject non-being and embrace being this or that. The more one is, the better. The more on can bear, the better. But of course, what our lives are or who exactly it is that dies is never put into question. At the same time all external realities are rejected as we're all supposed to be determined by empirical reality. This leads to utter confusion between our social customs and scientific thought (which technically doesn't affirm more than it can know, but will be used like that if it benefits).

What Buddhism is against is "bearing" at all. It is the most critical form of spirituality due to this attitude towards existence. If Buddhism come out as "anti-life" it's because the vast majority of humans lives is passed waiting for something, bartering for something or struggling for something. Most people dislike their actual lives and can only go through them by getting distracted or forming some persona or form with which to reject what they experience.

>if you read any actual Buddhist writings, it all points toward a renunciation of existence as a means to end suffering.
I'd like to know what you mean by existence.

Regardless, I'd like to know more what specific teachers, text, and so on you are referring to. Buddhism, despite having core values shared across, isn't a monolithic institution like Christianity. You have people the Vajrayana guys who will do all kinds of strange rituals (including things sex), the Zen guys who are famously perplexing in their responses, like rejecting satori, to name some of the most unorthodox. The Bodhisattva doctrine of the Mahayana is based on anyone who takes it on themselves (i.e. all monks) postponing Nirvana until all beings are saved, whatever kind of suffering is necessary. In Amidism salvation is basically instantaneous.

But you probably think Buddhists believe in "nothing" or something similar. Which isn't quite the case. "Nothing" as the core of experience is not a form of nihilism, a negative presence of some sort, which being actively lack in order to exist. To the contrary, that nothing is actually nothing. There's no essence to this world that isn't this world. Contemplating shunyata isn't forcing your vision to the black of your eyes, but opening yourself to a non-alienated perception of the world, where you aren't thinking about something else while looking. Therefore, you're thinking of "nothing".

>>10504581
yeah. when i was in college the internet convinced me to become an atheist. but then being an atheist became mainstream so my internet friends convinced me to return to my catholic faith (in which i was baptized and confirmed in hi skool btw). but then i was like naw being a proper catholic is too hard so now i'm just like a deist so i can believe in a god but also jerk off to trannies and not feel guilty.

>>10504986
dumb fuck

>>10505035
>>10505354
regarding daoism, how does one relate it to real life? you can't just sit around in nature all day (i know that's not what they mean, but i can't quite see the exact connection from theory to practice). they say it's "action through non-action" and that you must "place your will in harmony with the natural universe" but i can't pull that in my everyday life, notably work. a large takeaway i had was "don't set yourself up with all these crazy expectations in your personal life, or worry what will happen in the future, as that will just give you anxiety and get in your own way. try and let things be and see what happens." is that even accurate?

Read the Enchiridion of Epictetus along side the Dammapada.

>>10507525
Daoism is about quality instead of quantity, about something internal instead of something external. Even a person conscripted and forced to serve in the army can be a Daoist. There is the phrase (of course from Zen Buddhism, but Eastern philosophy/religion is highly interrelated, from Sufism to Hinduism to Buddhism), that "Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water." The person in tune with the Dao doesn't necessarily outwardly seem that different from a person who doesn't follow the Dao -- with the exception that you include people who aren't exceptionally violent, mentally unbalanced, addicted to hard drugs, etc. Anyway, the point is that two people can be doing the same things and living similar lifestyles, but one of them has a different mindset and accepts everything more easily, is happier, is gentler. This shouldn't necessarily be taken as dogmatic, but just an attempt to get you at one aspect of a potential truth.

Funny how most "converts" are just believers that went throught a phase and started to believed again.
I understand now why some people here try to push the narrative that atheism is only a phase, they just cant stop projecting

>>10507740
thanks anon, i appreciate it. good stuff

>>10504581
Yes. Reading helped me abandon religion.

i mean what is reading

https://discord gg/c37NwyB

>>10507740
any daosit book suggestions?

No.

I only ever come to God briefly when im scared or feeling regret.

I don't actually believe except when it suits me to and because I'm a coward.

I'd rather just be a straight up atheist because I don't believe a single thing from any holy books...but I'm still scared of it.

Maybe it comes with being an Irish Catholic.

>>10506426
>The bible doesn't argue for or against the existence of God.
Huh?

>>10508125
>Maybe it comes with being an Irish Catholic.
>knowing that tiny voice inside you saying "you should hate yourself" is really God speaking to you not a mental illness
Considering the alternatives, it's not half bad.

>>10507134
Good answer

One thing that has made me suspicious of Christian apologetics is that it doesn't engage with other religions. Tim Keller, for example, flippantly dismisses Buddhism because it doesn't have a personal God in the vein of Christianity, yet I'm supposed to give Christianity the benefit of the doubt over any other belief system.

>>10505731
The guy who responded to you was not me. What drew me to Catholicism was
-the fact that first of all it is not Protestant
-strong scholastic philosophical tradition
-papacy

>>10507740
> Eastern philosophy/religion is highly interrelated, from Sufism to Hinduism to Buddhism
This is orientalism of the highest degree. I don't think you can simplify the religious traditions of all of Asia like that.

Reading Dostoevsky and Tolstoy makes me want to be Christian, but subscirbers to the Nietzscheverein also have a point.
Probably means that none of them is completely right. It's still interesting to see people of magnitude of those Russian novelists come to conclusion that in the end it all comes down to Jesus, and to embracing the Christian life.

I was raised in an 'orthodox' Catholic family, and I definitely learned to despise some of the limitations it puts on a person; the pointless time-wasting drudgery of some of the traditions, that really quite often just end up stealing focus and precious time. As I'm leaning towards some sort of religious rebuttal right now, I still can nothing but consider the overview of Christian tradition to be beneficial, to enrich life rather than take away from it. I hate waking up to run to the Church early with my family during holidays, but it usually ends up to be a calming experience, and it is even interesting to ponder the readings or homily. The Old Testament is rubbish for specifics, but still indispensable if one wants to come closer to understanding the religion. I'd like to dive deeper into the hard Catholic doctrine that goes beyond what the average person thinks the religion is about, so I'd appreciate pointers, maybe what to read first.

To some extent reading literature helped me return to my Catholic faith, however, I was briefly interested in the various Protestant churches. After a long period of discernment through literature, reading articles on news in the various churches, I've come to accept the Catholic church mainly because it just feels the most right while I'm there in worship. For example, on visits to England I have always been disturbed by the extent to which the Anglicans have defaced the Catholic churches they appropriated after the Reformation. There are too many busts of irrelevant political figures and too few depictions of Christ. Admittedly it was cool seeing Shakespeare's bust in his parish church, but at the end of the day, aren't we meant to be there for Christ and not Lord and Lady So-and-so of Arseshire or some upstart crow?

I am also critical of the Vatican II Mass for similar reasons because I find the popular musical styles too distracting from the sacrifice we are meant to witness there. It would be nice to go to a place where we can be in the real presence of our Savior without the horrible distractions of the world. I don't necessarily think we need to recreate the former rite, but it would be ideal to have the priest face away from us and to have dignified hymns and dignified dress from the parishioners.

>>10508287
As a Catholic, I can honestly tell you that all Christianity is bullshit. I failed my dark night of the soul when my Grandpa died, never looked back.

>>10508306
Why remain Catholic then? Isn't that bullshitting oneself?

>>10508313
I don't know how you quit, exactly. It's not like I've been excommunicated, but I'm not practicing.

>>10504581
No. I developed all my views long before I picked up any books(outside of school).

>>10508306
What makes you think your grandfather's death is any more special than another old man dying? People die all the time, often quite gruesomely and miserably, especially saints. Your pathos is clouding your reason.

I hear your argument and have had similar experiences in my own life, but it does not stand up to reason. You might come around because you sound like you were more of a believer than I was, using such a stock phrase as "dark night of the soul." I returned to Catholicism after being utterly convinced for over a decade that there will be no Judgement Day. I have suffered my share of horrible loss and death, just as Christ did.

Personally what challenges my faith the most are some facts of history, how organized religion responds or fails to respond to advances in technology. I am undecided on the question of whether we are nurtured by our environment or have complete free will. Sexual sin has multiplied exponentially with the invasion of mass media in quotidian life and other grave sins have become far easier to commit with the advent of computing and the internet. Some of us who would have been able to resist certain temptations in earlier eras of history are being assaulted with temptations for which we are too weak to resist. Christians today are being assaulted with temptations of the flesh just as in the 16th century we were assaulted with seductive heresies. Why did our Lord let this fracturing of Christendom occur? Why does he allow some of us who are born with certain weaknesses be tested for them more in certain eras than others with the same weaknesses in earlier eras?

The battle between universalism. relativism, and determinism rages on for my soul.

>>10508360
I couldn't accept that existence had some kind of overarching moral law or objective, given the seeming indifference of everyday suffering and events.

>>10508383
furthermore, more idea of "god" shifted from an omnipotent being to an idealised moral concept, and "heaven" from a transcendental location to a state of moral living which could exist on Earth or in human society (hence phrases like bringing "the kingdom of heaven on Earth"). But I still don't think such ideals/objectives are possible or even something humanity should aspire for.

I became a polytheist after reading Sallustius' On the Gods and the Cosmos

>>10508107
pretty much this

reading any religious text has only enlightened me to the nonsense of belief.

I'm more or less an absurdist buddhist atheist.

>>10508313
>>10508317
He's right that one can be an Atheist and Catholic at the same time. Excommunication doesn't even eject one from the Church. It just refers to the status of one's soul. I doubt even Protestants believe one can truly renounce or declare one's soul independent of their church; they just charge the Christian with heresy. I don't think one can consider oneself any sort of Christian without believing one's soul is utterly dependent on Christ.

>>10508383
Have you ever read scripture, particularly the Book of Job? This same dilemma recurs throughout the Psalms as well. At least I recall in an introduction to the Psalms in the New American Bible that there are more "psalms of lamentation" than any other type of psalm such as psalms of praise. The faithful have always had the same concern that you've expressed.

I don't have any particular answers that will change your mind, but I can give personal testimony that an open mind and the book of Psalms was what cured 12 years or so of unrepentant atheism. I think your path will be easier than mine, to be honest, but you do have to make that journey by your own initiative.

>>10508426
Isn't Buddhism a religion? I'm pretty sure that reincarnation and karma are central to Buddhism, and both of those are beliefs. How do you reconcile your rationality with these concepts?

>>10504581
Reading helped me become an atheist, then a satanist, then an agnostic pagan.
>>10506409
This. Anyone who can read the Bible and still believe in it is mentally disabled. The thing is, most of the LARPers on this board have never read the Bible, nor do they know anything about it's history. If they did they wouldn't believe in Catholic inventions such as hell or the Zoroastrian concept of Dualism to begin with.
>>10508400
The idea of god in the days of yore was the idealized portrayal of great men our ancestors strove to emulate. What you speak of is the influence of the desert which as done nothing but kill, steal an destroy everything it has ever touched. Ever wonder why all the soil is fucked up now, making even things as late into Christian occupation as medieval agriculture techniques nigh impossible in many places? Blame centuries upon centuries of Christian agriculture. It takes the desert and makes the rest of the world a desert.
>>10508406
Anyone that knows anything about Christianity should know that it's already a polytheist idea.

>>10508442
>The idea of god in the days of yore was the idealized portrayal of great men our ancestors strove to emulate.
Not a christcuck but this is a retarded reductionist viewpoint. Please fuck off.

>>10508400
>a state of moral living which could exist on Earth
Christians have always believed in heaven being somewhere else beyond the plane of the living. Only Atheistic, secular movements have ever believed in establishing an earthly paradise. I don't know what you are on about.

There are ideal Christian societies, however, they are only societies ideal for the saving of souls. I believe the pragmatic governing style of Anglo-Saxon countries is particularly influenced by a Christian ethic having its origins in the common law of the recently converted barbarians of Britain. People such as the Franks, however, assimilated too many pagan habits hence the more despotic style of continental Europe. The Swiss, on the other hand, payed closer attention to their Christian missionaries rather than the old Roman ways, hence their love of Christian democracy.

>>10508437
buddhism is a philosophy imo

all buddhism teaches is that life is suffering, the world is continuously evaporating and nothing truly exists except your own perception of the world, which is malleable and subject to ways of achieving nirvana

I don't believe in the afterlife in the traditional sense, believing that your "self" continues after death is the ultimate indulgence.

my two pence.

all other

>>10508450
Maybe, but pointing it out is an autistic venture in of itself. Instead of paying into to your autistic screeching, I will stay here and continue to laugh at this circle-jerk of a board.

>>10508432
I am not an atheist, but it's comforting that you think I'm not a Catholic.

Fuck Job. I don't want anything to do with the god from the book of Job. I understand that existence without suffering is meaningless, but I completely reject the idea that some force is directing suffering merely to test my faith.
>>10508465
I had come to the heretical conclusion that the entire religion was supposed to be interpreted metaphorically.

>>10508468
Nah, I'm pretty sure reincarnation plays a huge role in Buddhism. I mean, isn't the whole point of doing all those meditation exercises to break free from the cycle of rebirths? That's a pretty huge part of Buddhism, and not something that can easily be done away with.

Westerners tend to simplify the tenets of different Eastern religions in order to make them palatable to their Enlightenment-influenced worldview, so I'd advise people to read a lot when it comes to those

>>10508491
I don't know how you've extracted your response from what I wrote. I was clarifying to that other poster that one can be a Catholic and an Atheist at the same time.

>Fuck Job. I don't want anything to do with the god from the book of Job.
Your rejection of God is still done in theological terms and implies you still have some belief that you are being tested in some way by Him. If God does not exist, then you do not need to reject Him.

>interpreted metaphorically
The Bible abounds in metaphorical language because Christ's kingdom is not of our world. Everything is just a signpost that represents something else we cannot experience yet because our souls are limited to our bodies' sensory perception.

You think you are special for rejecting God, but trust me, as a fellow Christian who has read much scripture, I can assure you that snowflakes will undergo much agony under the purifying flame.

>>10508532
I misunderstood.

For me, piety was the agonising, purifying flame itself. I don't want to live with so much self-denial. I don't think I'm special, and I don't think I've rejected "God", just Christianity.

>>10508532
>The Bible abounds in metaphorical language because Christ's kingdom is not of our world. Everything is just a signpost that represents something else we cannot experience yet because our souls are limited to our bodies' sensory perception.
>You think you are special for rejecting God, but trust me, as a fellow Christian who has read much scripture, I can assure you that snowflakes will undergo much agony under the purifying flame.
That sounds nice and all, but it's just poetic posturing. Job is obviously metaphorical, but it doesn't have an answer to suffering. Job and the lamentation psalms aren't especially deep or insightful, they're typical ancient near eastern wisdom texts.

>>10506034
Abstraction from the classical theist view of God.

>>10508584
Job DOES have an answer to suffering; it is righteous to persist in one's faith in God. We are able to see that it is a worthy pursuit to maintain faith in God rather than going "ah, oh well, mustn't bother with these things anymore."

As for your brushing away Biblical scripture as "typical near eastern wisdom texts," no, they actually are remarkable when you compare the culture of the Israelites to their horrible neighbors sacrificing babies and buying temple prostitutes.

>>10508838
>they actually are remarkable when you compare the culture of the Israelites to their horrible neighbors sacrificing babies and buying temple prostitutes.
Proto-Jewish culture is basically nothing but constant child sacrifice. Jewish culture is nothing but "fuck over your neighbor as hard as possible, and don't retaliate when you're getting fucked by your neighbor." I'm no white nationalist by any stretch of the imagination, but god damn do I hate fucking kikes. Not even kikes like kikes. Their whole existence revolves around business, even family matters. That shit is dehumanizing and I'm convinced that money truly is the root of all evil.

>>10508891
money is the root of all good, capitalism is responsible for every single standard of living increase since the 18th century

>>10508891
I don't care for Jews either but the Israelites sowed the seeds for Christ which is all right by me. I do think it is a great flaw of the Vatican to do all the backpedaling they did such as no longer blaming the Jews for Christ's death, however, I do think that the stock Jews and Christians are spiritually descended from was a fine race. Muslims, on the other hand, are obviously not descended from the Israelites, but are followers of a nasty, satanic heresy.

The Israelites, or the Hebrews, were not the same people as the Jews. The Jews are a people shaped by 2000 years of resentment and exile. Think about how different the English are today from the Anglo-Saxons, or even how different a New England Yankee is from an Anglo-Canadian from Ontario despite having so much in common from a cultural and historical perspective and only being separated by 100 miles or so.

Your characterization of the Israelites does not hold up under scrutiny if one reads the Bible and reads good literature comparing the Israelites and the other Near Eastern cultures. There are some ways that they are quite similar, but there is quite a remarkable departure. Certainly there were plenty of shitty Israelites as the Bible makes clear, however, it's worth noting that their society was able to produce such great leaders, warriors, chroniclers, poets, etc. The Israelites had some great institutions just as, say, America, Britain, or France have great institutions to filter out the rubbish.

>>10508193

I don't understand what the confusion is over. The bible doesn't argue for or against the existence of God so I don't see why reading the bible would making somebody an atheist. A person might read the bible and not like what they perceive to be the personality of God but that's not a reason to think he doesn't exist.

>>10508959
>money is the root of all good, capitalism is responsible for every single standard of living increase since the 18th century
I'm not arguing against capitalism. I'm arguing against semitism.
>>10508962
>Your characterization of the Israelites does not hold up under scrutiny if one reads the Bible and reads good literature
I've read the bible cover to cover. You worship a dead kike on a stick. Sugar coating it with fancy words will never change that fact.

>>10508971
Jesus wanted to reform Judaism though

>>10508959
The Bible isn't actually hostile to wealth, it's just LOVE of money that is evil. Wealth actually can be a tool for salvation if used wisely and not for frivolous luxury.

>>10508964
I'm not him, but this problem you describe is certainly something that doesn't dawn on a lot of people as they read the Bible.

They think, "Oh, God is terrible, he does all these terrible things therefore I am an atheist." However, just because you don't like something, doesn't mean you can just make believe it doesn't exist and it will all of the sudden go away.

Besides, the Israelites did not have the historical method since that was developed by the Greeks at a time when much of the scripture had yet to be written. From a Western perspective, a lot of the genocide and killing that occurs in the Pentateuch and the historical chronicles didn't actually happen. If it did not happen, then why did God inspire the writers of scripture to record what they did? I've often speculated that the triumph over Egypt in Exodus was meant to represent the power the Israelites' faith had to keep them unified against mighty empires that rose and fall.

Anyway, even if one approaches the Bible with a skeptical mind, it is just as interesting a course of study as any other one might pursue in university. One definitely profits more from reading the Bible than any of the 19th century Russians this board obsesses over.

>>10508993
>Jesus wanted to reform Judaism though
Jesus never existed for one, and two, Christianity was engineered as a mechanism for control by semetic interests. This is not to mention that even if you completely discard these facts, Judaism is a desert dogma for the desert people. It has no place in Europe, America, or elsewhere.

>>10504581
I don't practice any religion but I'm also not denying god's existance either.
What am I?

>>10509026
Agnostic

>>10509011
What is actually remarkable about Christianity is how it is actually an attempt to create a universal law. Even the Greeks had failed to do that despite Plato's (or Socrates') theories to create one. What the medieval philosophers (especially Aquinas) proved is that a logical, consistent system for a universal, moral law can be derived from Christianity. Christianity was NOT a conspiracy engineered by the Jews to create obedient goyim, because obviously plenty of pogroms and exiles have been inflicted on the Jews by Christian nations (arguably for the best, in my opinion, though not for the commonly cited reasons on places such as /pol/ or Stormfront).

Anyway, please read the story of Joseph Pearce's conversion experience from being a White Nationalist to a Roman Catholic. I can see that you're pretty far down the rabbit hole from this post >>10508971 but you'd be impressed by what, say, Nigerian Catholics have to say about immigration and traditional values. They sound a lot like white nationalists.

>>10504581
Yes.

>>10504581
It's caused me to sink further and further into godlessness.

>>10507134
This so greatly misunderstands my point and argues past what I was trying to say that there is no reason to have further discussion.
Buddhism is a cuck religion and you clearly have little to no understanding of it.

>this entire thread
>the collective history of the human race
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia
lol

>>10504581
Little bit. Used to be one of those new agey Alan Watts, all things flow through each other types. After reading some DH Lawrence and Thomas Wolfe that stuff seems stupid to me now.

>>10505041
New to the thread, but I'm an earnest member of the Catholic Church with a nuanced relationship with religion and philosophy. Care to have a non shit posting theological discussion?

I used to harbor agnostic sentiments around the age of 12ish but nowadays I basically only grant God's existence the barest of logical possibilities, same as unicorns etc. Problem of evil (the evidential formulation and naturalism being the better explanation for the data), metainduction from the failure of supernatural explanations over scientific ones, the problem of creation/non-God objects (why a perfect being would worsen the state of affairs by creating morally imperfect beings), Cantorian paradoxes concerning omniscience, problems between omniscience, free will and moral desert, divine hiddenness, the clusterfuck state of divine command theory, take your pick. The best gap theists have left to stick God in is consciousness and I take it to not be viable anymore in, say, 50-200 years.

>>10505519
You seem to be overlooking the fact that Pope's and the Cardinals have the authority to evolve and change dogma. The Catholic Church has been evolving and changing since it's inception. Catholicism has been a marriage of contemporary philosophy with Christian doctrine since st. Augustine first merged it with platist philosophy. It makes sense that it is changing a lot in the last 100 years

>>10509089
The only thing my post does is not turn Buddhism into the precise answer you are looking for and think you already have, but which you are struggling for because you still have doubts. You can cry "cuck" and "life-denying" all you want, but you have yet to say anything that indicates that you don't see your precious life as something other than a burden or that you are truly open to what life brings.

But do as you think better. If you want to stay in a corner, do it. You're not my responsibility.

>>10506078
One cannot define God.

>>10509553

What do you mean you can't define God? A Thomist would define God as the the ex nihilo creator of the universe and the sum of the following attributes: Omnipotence, omniscience, eternal, non-physical, perfect, immutable, and only one.

>>10508063
>phas
Well most people in the western hemisphere were born "christian" to at least some extent so it makes sense the people who converted to christianity would be mostly people born into it

>>10508838
>Job DOES have an answer to suffering; it is righteous to persist in one's faith in God
That's the moral of the epilogue, which also includes Job's physical possessions being restored and getting a new family to replace his old one. It promises rewards here in the mortal world (similarly to Proverbs) in return for faith, which is obviously untrue: that's the whole problem of suffering. The moral of the poetic part is that God is unknowable and beyond human understanding, the answer is that there is no answer.

>As for your brushing away Biblical scripture as "typical near eastern wisdom texts," no, they actually are remarkable when you compare the culture of the Israelites to their horrible neighbors sacrificing babies and buying temple prostitutes.
You are the one dismissing ANE texts and using polemic. I'm not brushing away anything anything, Biblical wisdom texts arose within a cultural background that produced similarly impressive texts, why are you dismissing every other culture but the Israelite one? Is it because you've read the other ANE texts or is it because you're a Christian and just believe that your holy text is an exception? Job is remarkable in its own way, but there are many similarly remarkable wisdom texts from neighbouring regions in the same period or even earlier, such as the Babylonian Theodicy, Ludlul ben Nemeqi, and A Man and his God.

>>10509571
Yes but all of those definitions are imperfect. We're also equivocating on the word define a bit here. I used it in the sense of an absolute definition and you used it in the sense of a list of descriptors. While these can help is whittle our way to an absolute definition they shouldn't be considered the absolute parameters because Thomists have opponents even within their own Church. It is pretty arrogant to think that one person could have a perfect description of God, or that they have "defined" him. The human mind is limited by nature therefore no one human mind could ever conceptualize a limitless being. So even the Thomist definition of God admits it cannot define Him only describe some features of Him.

>>10509703

What do you think it means to define something?

>>10509723
What do you think it means? I defined the exact definition of define I was using in my post. Here's a screenshot in case you never got an A in English dummy. So as I said it is an oxymoron to say that a limitless God can be "defined" for it defies the meaning of the word "defined"

>>10506589
Prior to reading the argument I believed that the Bible’s religious credibility relied on the existence of God. Once I read the argument I realized that the only reasons I had to believe in a God were fallacious. At this moment I’m not a Christian, because I think it takes the same amount of faith to believe or disbelieve in a theology. My views on biological benefits of religion however force me to conclude that ancient religions are more beneficial so I choose to make my religious views congruent with Vedism

>>10509767

You have a very weird conception of what it means to define something so I'm trouble understanding what you're saying. Do you think it's possible to define what a chair is even though we can't realistically state how many atoms compose the wood that goes into it?

>>10504581
Revolt Against The Modern World
Fear and Trembling

>>10509800
You are an equivocating sophist who ignores the objective definition of a word. To compare the ability to pin down the exact properties of a man-made physical object to the nature of God is a foolish comparison. A chair comes from man so, of course we may define its nature as we wish because we created it. God does not come from man and therefore we cannot in any sense of earnestness claim that we know exactly what He is.

>>10509845
Man didn't create the wood that the chair is made of, how can we describe the wood if we didn't make it?

>>10508121
The Tao Te Ching is probably a good place to start.

>>10509852
I never said we couldn't describe of course we can describe anything including God, but this is not the same thing as defining. On the matter of wood, or you could say trees or really anything from nature these are not truly defined as per the definition of the word. Man has observed, described, and classified these things in great detail, but we still learn new things about them everyday and therefore have not found their limit yet. Would you say that a 13th century man, although knowing much about wood and it's various properties knows as much about wood as a modern biologist or engineer? No. This is because wood was not/is not defined then or now only described in great detail. I think common usage and slang of the word define is misleading you anon. Look back at the screenshot I posted. To have a clear ontological discussion we must use the objective, proper definitions of words. This is how Aquinas, the great champion of scholastism would've discussed.

>>10509553
>literally just defined him as undefinable

Yes
and The Brothers Karamazov

>>10509935
No I said man can't define Him. I think this says about as much about our nature as His. It's quite possible that Jesus or the Holy Spirit could perfectly define God but no such revelation was made and even if they did give it to man it's possible he was unable to take in such a truth or once he did was unable to perfectly translate the definition of God back to his fellow man either in oration or writing.

>>10508204
>-the fact that first of all it is not Protestant
>-strong scholastic philosophical tradition
>mfw
First guy's answer was better

>>10509061
>What is actually remarkable about Christianity is how it is actually an attempt to create a universal law.
Yes. Christianity is globalism. You don't have to say anything more, you have already proven that I am right.

>>10510056
>Implying globalism is necessarily bad
Lol /lit/ has really gone downhill and this thread proves it.

>>10510206
>>Implying globalism is necessarily bad
You've outed yourself you fucking commie.

>>10510230
Actually free market capitalism has been the leading champion of globalization in recent times. Care to further display your ignorance?

>>10510244
Free market capitalism hasn't existed in any country in nearly 100 years. Care to further display your ignorance?

Which audiobook of the bible should I hear?

>>10504581
Reading the bible changed my attitude about religion. Everyone wants to act as though its a get out of hell free card and an excuse to keep doing what we've been doing for the past several millennia. After I read the Bible I realized its like "you exist, do you have any idea how screwed you are if you don't follow this stuff to the letter?". People really don't treat life with the level of gravity it ought to be. everyone is basically on the conveyor belt to perdition.

>>10510254
Similarly neither has communism. What I was pointing out is that there is a collection of interests which prefer a freer tariffless/borderless arrangement of the world's economies for the purposes of trade and business. Not the purposes of raising the social welfare of the working class.

>>10510285
>le comunism has never been tried
Holy shit I never thought the ironing could get this hot. I'm laffin mate.

>>10510258
KJV is the only real Bible. Any narrator works.

>>10510285
Amen, I say to you that it is easier for a a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man to pass into heaven. But through me all things are possible.

>>10510316
Tagged the wrong guy meant
>>10510275

>>10510299
Well it hasn't really, but neither am I a proponent of it in theory or execution. The current neo-capitalist globalization model makes the most sense to me. Technological advancements are going to make the world smaller and more easily accessible to all people seems like people are trying to keep their sandcastles dry when they attempt to hold on to things like borders.

>>10508442
>Ever wonder why all the soil is fucked up now, making even things as late into Christian occupation as medieval agriculture techniques nigh impossible in many places? Blame centuries upon centuries of Christian agriculture. It takes the desert and makes the rest of the world a desert.
This is a new one

I've done a lot of religious reading, and all it's done is instilled a disbelief in religion. Once you really get into it, you really start recognizing the 'human factor' involved in creating all these religions. There's a very strong apocryphal aspect to religious traditions and their texts.
If find it hard to describe, but if you read a lot of academic texts on religion you really get a sense of the cultural, social and political influence that is exerted over religious traditions. Sometimes you can even pin point the particular individuals that instilled a noticeable change. Religion in a sense is then very inauthentic, which is problematic because it posits itself to be a something transcendental and revealing of certain fundamental truths about reality.

I think religion can still be very interesting nonetheless, but it doesn't really do anything dramatic for me.

>>10510299
You fucking tard. You say capitalism hasn't been around for over 100 years so it can't be called a force for globalism and then he responds that communism also hasn't been around for over 100 years if capitalism hasn't and then you get that out of his post?
Fucking retarded

>>10508442
>Agnostic pagan
>I like to ironically dance around a fire in the forest with my other numale friends.

>>10505501
Yeah I'm not sure how much Christians can claim to hate the world if they keep producing new people to be spiritually devoured by it.

>>10510368
Pretty much, there's always a cultural and political influences on where these beliefs come from. The church fathers wrote lengthy explanations about how God had revealed part of the truth to pagan philosophers, to justify why they used their work so much.

>>10504997
>I don't think it's possible to flat out reject any kind of God.
You can do it! Believe in yourself, and the alcohol will not dominate your life!

>>10504997
>reading about
So, you're still an illiterate retard.

>>10508442
DOOOOS VUUULT IM A NEOPAGAN KEKISTANI NIGGER KILLER FUCK KEKS

>>10510364
Nah, the soil is fucked.
I'm guessing he got "Christian agriculture" from Varg tho, it's referencing the desacralisation of nature and all that. The absolute mad man combined critique of Christianity with technological society.

>>10508584
>ob and the lamentation psalms aren't especially deep or insightful,
Wrong. Educate yourself American.

>>10508317
Hazel Motes is that you?

>>10508201
>television personalities
>apologetics
Fucking hell you are retarded.

>>10510433
It's an awful argument which ignores every other factor for the sole purpose of demonizing Christianity.
Blame Platonism, which Christianity rejects.

>>10510468
What about neo-platonism?

>>10510468
>>10510488
St. Augustine you filthy pseuds.
>

>>10510504
Why quote me when I was referring to St. Augustine's philosophy

>>10510528
Well I meant to say just pseud. Without the s and just explicitly expound on your point because I don't think the other anon is capable of catching on through rhetorical questions.

>>10504581
Reading and understanding Nietzsche actually softened my hardcore internet atheist outlook. Mostly because of the morality conundrum he lays out pretty beautifully. I used to think "Of course science can explain morality".

Not to mention, the modern phenomena of science and politics as make-shift god for your typical liberal. Truly degenerate

Despite understanding that even science bottoms out at faith, I'm still an atheist. See you guys in hell

>>10510504
Also, even before Augustine, Paul the Apostle. His ideas of a shadowy physical world and a transcendent spiritual world are strongly Platonist

>>10510745
Other 1st century jews were influenced by greek philosophy too, such as Philo of Alexandria and the author of 4 Maccabees.

>>10510504
Cancer, belongs nowhere in Christianity. Update your theology.
Kill the Greek!
>>10510745
>>10510757
Also cancer.

>>10511044
>Paul is Cancer

the fucking state of this place

>>10511161
/lit/ "christians" are hilarious, honestly.

>>10509915
>Would you say that a 13th century man, although knowing much about wood and it's various properties knows as much about wood as a modern biologist or engineer?
What kind of fucking stupid analogy is that? a 13th century man has probably the same definition of wood that anyone with 2 brain cells has. The solid part of a tree. That you don't know every single aspect of a thing does not mean that you can't define it. Discoveries are usually made while working within the framework of a definition. Why do religious people play such mental gymnastics to avoid hard questions?

>>10511327
That's some shallow water you're diving into. Are leaves not solid? Are roots not solid? Surely they are not liquid or air. I think you need to work on your definition some.

>>10504581
The more I learn, the more I believe

>>10508207
On the inner/esoteric level of teaching they all influenced each other and borrowed from each other. The outer religious forms of course were each separately born and developed in accordance with the localities and customs and mindsets of the various communities they grew up in.

>>10511461
You could say that about Greek/Latin stoicism and Buddhism too. Your take is generic and reductionist.

>>10511469
True. I see nothing wrong with saying stoicism seemed to be influenced by Buddhism too. I was just saying there was not much wrong with using a Zen koan in this case to illuminate one aspect of Daoism.

>>10511461
>>10511487
You didn't need all this jibber-jabber, y'know. Daoism influenced Zen directly. Chan arised as a reaction to how bloated the Mahayana schools in China got. The kind of quote you posted isn't similar but is derived from the very same Chinese tendency to sacralize the mundane that is found in Daoism and Ruism, and is influenced in its witty literary style by those doctrines.

Why are Westerners buying into this retarded ass bullshit by a bunch of chinks and gooks and shit? Don't you fags understand that shit is hardly universal? Like Budhists and Hindoos are pretty retarded if you get down to it beyond an ethnic level. The only major religions that are universal and I understand converts are for Islam and Christianity. But you really should be Christian or nothing, if you are Western, all this vague bull shit about dao and karma and other gay shit is just pathetic faggots who have to fill the biological and social void left by their abandonment of Christ. If you are gonna be a bitch nigger faggot and leave the religion of your ancestors you better contemplate it beyond a surface level understanding. I went to a museum of Dutch painters, and I saw pictures of Christ's suffering, of Christ teaching, people dedicating many years to their art so they may honor their God, and now bitch nigger faggots think they know better because of Dao Spinzos spastics. Many beautiful Church in europe and here we have dumb Americans rejecting God because their church was in a walmart building and their parents were stupid fundies. If you are a Westerner, you are Christian or you are nothing. I don't care if you are theodeist dipstick, you are just another arrogant boy who thinks he can use his feeble human mind to come up with a better explanation for God. Agnostic, maybe acceptable. But most likely also recipient of homosexual advances.

>>10511161
>haha you dont like this you are bad!!!
>>10511239
I've been Christian for 15 years you dumbfuck. Sorry for being a bit contrary to your experience with baptists.

>>10504581
I learned of neo-scholasticism and became a Catholic pretty much entirely by reading.

>>10511771
>being this buttblasted over other people's choices

>>10505372
Anon, you shouldn't believe things because they seem cool.

>>10505501
>Implying the world isn't at once terrible and beautiful.

Karamazov and The Master and Margarita, absolutely. I'm not a believer now, but it changed my atheistic perspectives for good

>>10511356
I meant it as "rock solid:", hard is a more appropiate word, but you knew what I meant. Pretty much anyone from the 13th century could define wood as well as anybody today. For the third time, you do not have to know EVERYTHING about something in order to define it. Stop dancing around the argument, the fucking screenshot that you posted states defining something also means to describe it. You can define god

>>10512469
>You can define god
no lol

>>10510399
>implying the experience of being destroyed isn't the greatest gift of all

>>10511900
You're a Christian of 15 years and think the apostle Paul is cancer?

>>10511771
I agree with you completely, anon, although this dilemma is hardly just an American phenomenon. I dislike the tendency of Europeans and Latin Americans to throw every ill of the world on America. After all,19th century British and German philologists and 20th century writers such as Aldous Huxley and Herman Hesse preceded Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac in having a disproportionate hard-on for the Orient.

I'm grateful that scripture inspired the Dutch, Flemish, and Italian masters. Penitent Magdalenes and Sts. Anthony and Jerome in the wilderness have had a profound effect on me, most of all the scenes from our Savior's life.

>>10509538
This is actually the heresy of modernism, as defined by Pius X.
A very explicit heresy at that, but not something you won't hear from various clergymen because currently we are living through something similar to the reformation or the Arian heresy.

As a kid I really loved reading greek, roman and other ancient myths (simplified and translated of course), and coming from a non-religious household I always found it strange that some people could dismiss so many myths while being completely convinced by others.
Growing up and reading the Old Testament only reinforced these notions. I was shocked by how batshit crazy, weird or boring some parts were. How some people can read the Bible cover to cover and think it was dictated by a supreme being is baffling handing down instructions to his creatures is baffling.

>>10509845
Words don't have objective definitions, this isn't sophism, it's language in general. Meaning changes often, unless you want to call everyone not adhering to the scholastic definition of substance a sophist for example. Using dictionaries for arguments is exceedingly stupid.

>>10507134
Happy to see a sane buddhist on this board

>>10512799
XDDDDDDDDDDD DAE HATE CHRISTKEKS?!!?!/1/1?/ XXDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD LE SAND NIGGER XDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD DAE LOVE EVROPE?!!!!!!!!?!!!!!!!!!!! XDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

only time I've had anything close to a religious experience was seeing a mountain range + lake for the first time with the sun gleaming in switzerland. Before that I've never understood the idea

>>10504581
I read The Recognitions and became a Calvinist, apparently.

>>10504581
Yes, reading the Gospels convinced me of their truth.

Reading the gospel affirmed my faith in Christ more. I was a confused person before I allowed Jesus Christ into my heart, bros. I was a heavy sinner, a fornicator and an occasional druggie. I drank alcohol when I would go out, get high and snort up a storm of coke when possible. I also masturbated frequently to porn when I got the chance. After accepting Jesus Christ, I quit everything wicked almost in an instant. I saw the error of my ways immediately. I deleted all porn from my computer and phone. Threw away all drug paraphernalia and quit every substance cold turkey. I felt a peace upon me that I never knew existed. Jesus Christ is the truth, bros. I implore you look look further into him and ask him for the truth. Pray that he helps you find it. I know some people won't be saved regardless of what anyone says but I were to just reach out one person, this post would be worth it. Yours in Christ. Amen!

>John 14:6. Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

>>10515642
Do you want a medal for finding a better adiction?

Christianity makes me uncomfortable in how devoid of social progress it is

Do fags go to hell?

Or are fags being married in churches the right thing?

Who's to say. I'd rather leave religion aside and keep deistic beliefs on a more esoteric, personal level.

Well, it depends on what the type of books it is, if is a religious book, or a book about the pope, corruption in the Vatican and shit, it shure has helped me to turn to Islam

>>10516838
All faggotry is degenerate. Why does social progress mean fags marrying? Sounds like regression for the saner portion of humanity.

>>10516843
What about Islam appeals to you?

>>10504581
Kierkegaard removed my fedora

>>10516825
Salvation of his immortal soul anon

>>10507134
Buddhist writings and concepts served to illuminate many Christian concepts for me.

Yes. I became an atheist after I read The God Delusion.

>>10505040
nice!

>>10509091
underrated post

>>10505501

"Do not love the world or the things in the world. The love of the Father is not in those who love the world." - I John 2:15, NRSV

Protip, edgelords have never read the Bible.

reading made me go from atheist to "spiritual" to christian to sun worshipper

>>10519909
My god is the sun. That fire in the sky that gives life to all. Right on brother.

Philip K Dick convinced me of its power

>>10519909
>>10519932
The sun is a Wondrous body. Like a magnificent father! If only I could so grossly incandescent!