/lit/ - Literature

>>14346873
Religion is a tradition to be precise. The early pagans during the tribal times did not use religion for control, they used it to express tradition before the agricultural revolution properly setup the idea of class.

>"Like so many other poor souls, all of them were retroactively refuted by Guenon and Parmenides."

>>14346873
They're right. That's all there is to know. /lit/ hivemind will jump on you because they've been instructed by the emergent current consensus. Keep in mind most il/lit/erates would agree with 99% of what these philosophers say but refiuse to admit it so they can LARP as trad caths or muslims.

>>14346880
This. Guenon and Evola are the only philosophers worth reading desu

lmao hitchens nigga posin likea camus
>>14346880
How so?

>>14346883
Augustine, Aquinas, Anselm, C. S. Lewis, Chesterton, William Lane Craig, Feser, Guénon and Evola would DESTROY these faggots in a 9v9. They'd have to retire and the ones with any intellectual integrity would convert to Catholicism. The rest would kill themselves or live the rest of their lives off the fedorabux they've accrued like the miserable, repugnant, pathetic parasitic worms they are.

>>14346873
Literally who?

>>14346873
>Stephen "Philosophy is dead" Hawkings

>>14346902
Cope. You're an atheist and you know it. Everyone you just mentioned would utterly despise you and want nothing to do with your kind. Off yourself

Genuinely funny that a bunch of anime image board Christlarpers are suggesting that outdated, ignorant historical figures would beat even one of these people in the argument for whether a magical sky daddy exists.

>>14346945
>magical sky daddy
Spotted the retard in a heartbeat.

>>14346873
>God no exist, science always correct, God say sodomy is bad & hates womyn. Religion is merely about da truf, not about how an established religion can foster healthy, social communities

>>14346902
of course they would, but that's because your frame is wrong.
the 9 mentioned in the op's image are a mixture of contemporary (!) comedians, philosophers, scientists. The people you listed are all philosophers from a large variety of epochs.
that's clearly not an even fight.

>>14346920
>Y-You're not really religious
>I can't prove it b-but I know it's true
This is the real cope. Believe what you want to avoid engaging with philosophical justifications for religion, dude, but it won't save you at the Last Judgment.

Don't @ me again, I can't take peabrains who just fling baseless accusations around seriously.

>>14346964
>>14346902
Evola and Guenon were both Perennialists who denounced Catholicism retard.

>>14346978
Guénon did believe in the Resurrection, though.

>>14346964
>>14346978
Coping atheisttard btfo'd, Become who you is, and that is an atheist.

>>14346945
when people say things like “flying spaghetti monster” just remember they’ve never made another person laugh in their life

>>14346983
You cant be an Atheist without being a Christian by the way

>>14346991
Or that they've never been loved by another soul.

>>14346996
Cope harder, rationalizing brainlet.

>>14346983
>NOOOOOOOO YOU CAN'T REALLY BE RELIGIOUS!!!!! THEN I WOULDN'T HAVE AN EXCUSE TO NOT ENGAGE WITH RELIGION ON 4CHAN!!!!!

>>14347018
Irony. You're so deep in atheshit cope and no one's buying it.

>>14346902
Augustine, Aquinas, Anselm, C. S. Lewis, Chesterton, William Lane Craig, Feser, Guénon and Evola
You forgot Dante.

>>14346996
do you mean you can't be an Atheist before* being a Christian?
if not, please expand

>>14346953
Yesssss. Because I'm the retard. I'm the retard because I don't believe in an apparently all-loving god with rosy cheeks sitting on clouds.

hitch is eight years dead tomorrow and still triggering you sad little fucks. bless his non existent soul

>>14347044
Not sure whether you're baiting or really think Christians believe that God has rosy cheeks and sits on a cloud. Because I was friends with a guy who actually thought Christians believed that God was in space and that space exploration had disproved Christianity.

>>14347024
Cope harder, self-loathing crypto-atheist.

>>14347061
Hitchens got BTFO by Craig and even begrudgingly admitted that the dude was an excellent scholar

>>14347066
>COPE COPE COPE COPE COPE YOU'RE ATHEIST AND THAT'S THAT

>>14347076
It must be devastating to be such a charlatan/imposter, no wonder you expend so much energy coping.

>>14347084
>no wonder you expend so much energy coping
You're the one trying to get the last word so you can pretend you've won without making argument.

>>14347044
>god with rosy cheeks sitting on clouds
You keep showing yourself as a blind retard.

>>14347091
Cope. I'm well aware that I haven't advanced a single argument, as I'm not concerned with theology. I merely despise LARPers. Simple as'.

>>14347093
>>14347063
I'm just fucking with you, but that's the funny part... You're still wrong. It's funny because you freaks actually believe that God is everywhere and that he's some sort of incomprehensible celestial without form. Either that or he's just a personal system of believes. So it's basically all anecdotal nonsense. That still doesn't make it any more logical. Also, you're not deep or cool for believing in Christianity. You're just mentally ill.

>>14347115
>can't see God
>throws shit at the ones who can see God
Based retard.

>>14347122
>who can see God
...I think I'm going to be sick. Prove it, you delusional freak.
>nature so good, so complex
>must be a god
>evidence? fuck off. It's in my heart.

>>14347135
>prove it

>>14347135
>god = daddy in the sky
>I DON'T BELIEVE IT!!!!!

>>14347139
You really can't win, can you? The game's set up. The onus is entirely on you to prove your magical theory of the all-loving, all-knowing celestial infinite at the centre of the cosmos who permeates everything (and somehow pays attention to rules like 'don't masturbate')....not the atheists.

>>14347144
>>14347139
I feel boundless sorrow for you two. That you need to feel superior by believing in some higher power. I feel sorry that you look down on others because we don't immediately understand your mental illness.

>>14347153
6/10 on the trolling mate, you're hitting too many cliches and catchphrases

>>14347165
And the Christians are hitting 100% of the cliches and catchphrases, too.
>you can't understand my god!
>lol brainlet, trying to understand god
>don't need no evidence
No answers to any questions, just ad hominem constantly. Sickening to be honest.

>>14346902
>WLC
Is a liar, a coward, and refuses to debate anyone who disagrees with him, so good luck getting him anywhere other than your little mental masturbation session.

>>14346873
Ok hylic

>>14347171
blind

>>14347072
>doing the gish gallop means you win
in your tiny mind maybe

>>14346873
>they’re instead of their

Don’t post on here again

>>14346902

Craig did in fact, destroy harris in a debate.

>Who is this that obscures my plans
> with words without knowledge?
>3 Brace yourself like a man;
> I will question you,
> and you shall answer me.
>
>4 “Where were you when I laid the earth’s >foundation?
> Tell me, if you understand.
>5 Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you >know!
> Who stretched a measuring line across it?
>6 On what were its footings set,
> or who laid its cornerstone
>
>The answer my gentlemen from the opposition is they haven't a clue. nor have i. Nor have anybody in this room, we havent the faintest idea

>What we are discussing here is a matter of opinion, and an opinion is a matter of choice

Who couldve known Christopher Hitchens brother could be so based?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnIH4gomOqc

>>14347306

People who accuse craig of the gish gallop reveal themselves to be either morons or dishonest. Such as you, who probably got this opinion from reddit posts

Hes used the same 5 arguments his entire career. The fact is that craig does not use the gish gallop and this is only a criticism you see in amateur circles, people who dont really know what they are talking about and think accusing someone of gish gallop is just the alternative short hand for 'outgroup WRONG and STUPID'. The next favourite cop out is to accuse him of being dishonest. Go on.

>>14346880
>refuted by Parmenides

Yes.

atheists have been btfo so hard in this thread it's not even funny... okay it kinda is lol

>>14346873
How come they're all Anglos? Do contemporary French, German, etc people even waste their time with this sort of anti-religion crap? Any names?

>>14347171
If are not bad willed (which you clearly seem to be) and you truly want to believe in God, you could read some of the Church Fathers, it will become obvious they are not making that stuff up just 100 years after Jesus' Crucifixion, and that fact that they were willing to die for Christ proves they truly believed it (for example, St. Justin Martyr, who was born on the year 100 and was martyred on the year 165)

>>14347768
Half of them are Jewish

>>14347771
>he thinks that lunatics wanting to die for the invisible nothing is proof that the invisible nothing exists

>>14347785
how retarded can you be

>>14347785
wow, are you stupid

>>14347768
It is a very anglo thing to do, a very analytic thing to do, to autistically navel gaze about the accuracy of the bible.

>>14347803
>>14347799
>how retarded
>are you stupid
Any actual arguement for why you think these things? Literally every single comment has just been ad hominem. Seriously. Look at this chat. You're embarrassing yourself. You're openly saying that unstable old men who wanted to kill themselves is somehow proof that a god exists.

ITT: Christians with their ears plugged. There's no getting past this. You cannot argue with the mentally ill. If you even so much as question, you're either an edgy fedora or a dumb fuck. You cannot question the validity of their obscenely tenuous beliefs.

>>14347831
What would be your rebuttal to my post, or even better the video?
>>14347630

>>14347831
>"You cannot argue with the mentally ill"
>Makes this post anyway
Lol, you're furious, aren't you? Cry me a river, little baby.

>>14347841
...Shit. I was actually sort of joking when I said you people were mentally ill, but now I see that you genuinely, truly, are sick in the mind. Your only argument that god exists is ... circular logic. You literally just point to a bible verse and say: 'SEE, HE DOES EXIST.' I actually wish you the best of luck in life. Please, seek help. I'm not joking. I'm worried. You really really do need help.

>>14347857
you really are brain damaged, huh

>>14347857
You misread faget, read the whole thing.

No one can know the ultimate reality of how the world came into being, neither can they know what happens after you die. So it basically comes down to preference.

>>14346873
Literally nothing Sam Harris has ever said makes sense to me.

>>14346873
Who is center bottom? I thought it was Piers Morgan. You can tell from his face that he's a Brit (not surprising, Ricky Gervais and Piers Morgan and a bunch of Brits look exactly like this). Tell me who it is.

>>14347864
Right. And scientists and atheists are the ones actually doing the seeking. You're just saying "well, no one can know so.... yeah...uhm... I chose to believe that god exists". You're resting on one book or taking a bunch of old dead lunatics over people in the modern world. You hold to nothing but the idea that some invisible force will give you justice.

>>14346873
>>14346880
>>14346902
>>14346891
>>14346954
>>14347261
>>14347680
Reminder to ignore all pseudointellectual rhetoriticians and instead go and read the complete works of Homer, Pindar, Plato, Aristotle, Sophocles, Euripedes, Hesiod, Aristophones, Herodotus, Sappho, Plutarch, Ovid, Virgil, Lucretius, Arisoto, Horace, St. Augustine, Marcus Aurelius, Rabelais, Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Machiavelli, Luther, Cervantes, Chaucer, the Beowulf poet, Chretien de Troyes, Marie de France, Sterne, Burton, Browne, Wyatt, Sidney, Percy Shelley, Tennyson, Donne, Pope, Dryden, Bacon, Novalis, Schelling, Schlegel, Hegel, Pascal, Lichtenberg, Dickinson, Shakespeare, Ibsen, Dickens, Marlowe, Diderot, Jonson, Goethe, Bunyan, Gibbon, Addison, Smollett, Milton, Johnson, Boswell, Emerson, Quincey, Burke, Spinoza, Leibniz, Hume, Kant, Mary Shelley, Wollstonecraft, Racine, Baudelaire, Valery, Rimbaud, Verlaine, Moliere, Montaigne, Browning, Gray, Holderlin, Schiller, Shaw, Voltaire, Hugo, Balzac, Zola, Colette, Duras, Dumas, Stendhal, Nerval, Flaubert, Mallarme, Malraux, Chateaubriand, Artaud, Poe, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Blake, Byron, Keats, Arnold, Pater, Walter Scott, Swinburne, Rossetti, Carroll, William James, Henry James, Hawthorne, Twain, Melville, Dewey, Bergson, Whitehead, George Eliot, Williams, Frost, Cummings, Crane, Stevens, Whitman, Plath, Trakl, Rilke, Celan, Montale, Neruda, Lorca, Tagore, Manzoni, Peake, Murdoch, Wharton, Wilde, Leopardi, Faulkner, O'Connor, Passos, Nietzsche, Marx, Adorno, Bloch, Lukacs, Bakhtin, Hamsun, Pushkin, Gogol, Tolstoy, Turgenev, Chekhov, Andreyev, Bely, Bulgakov, Gonchorov, Camoes, Pessoa, Queiroz, Saramago, Paz, Borges, Bloy, Pirandello, Huysmans, Lautreamont, Schwob, Casares, Bolano, Cortazar, Lima, Donoso, de Assis, Carpentjier, Celine, Marquez, Unamuno, Gracq, Gide, Jarry, Camus, Conrad, Wells, Hardy, Salinger, Lawrence, Forster, Hrabal, Swift, Bronte, Woolf, Bachelard, Roussel, Beckett, Proust, Nabokov, Joyce, O'Brien, Yeats, Waugh, Heaney, Auden, Hofmannsthal, Mann, Musil, Broch, Zweig, Bachmann, Jelinek, Lessing, Laxness, Simenon,Svevo, Levi, Buzzati, Quasimodo, Llosa, Walser, Kafka, Babel, Schulz, Transtromer, Kertesz, Pavic, Andric, Grossmann,Sillanpää, Linna, Mahfouz, Boll, Grass, Canetti, Pavese, Robbe-Grillet, Blanchot, Perec, Calvino, Bernhard, Gass, Barth, Gaddis, Vollmann, Vidal, Hawkes, DeLillo, Pynchon, McElroy, Soseki, Murasaki, Shonagon, Kawabata, Mishima, Akutagawa, Tanizaki, Dazai, Oe, Xingjian, Yan, Kosztolanyi, Gombrowicz, Ishiguro, Eco, Coetzee, Auerbach, Benjamin, Barthes, Pasternak, Derrida, Deleuze, Bateson, Foucault, Lyotard, Mcluhan, Eichenbaum, Steiner, Munro, Carson, Handke, Theroux, Patrick White, Alfau, Marias, Enard, Claude Simon, Elizabeth Bishop, Markson, Lowry, Bellow, Dara.

>>14347878
How do you belive the Earth was formed and how old do you think it is?

>>14347884
Fucking hell. Are you actually asking me how old the earth is? I thought I might be talking with someone who has some knowledge, but you're one of those American flat earthers, right?

>>14347889
Calm down

>>14347878
What hinders a christian from pursuing knowledge? unless they are fundamentalists there is no problem.

You do know the church built the first universities right? Or that Einstein was religious?

>>14347894
But those are the few. Most Christians don't seek knowledge related to how the universe was made. They simply point to a single book and say "that's it all there, no point in doing anything else". Hell, you must've heard the stories about famous scientists who were so deluded that even they the made big discoveries and brought their own doubt into question, opted to discard their science--which they knew was correct--in order to blindly follow a few words written by bronze age people.

>>14347911
>Hell, you must've heard the stories about famous scientists who were so deluded that even they the made big discoveries and brought their own doubt into question, opted to discard their science--which they knew was correct--in order to blindly follow a few words written by bronze age people.

They were faggots, those exists of all beliefs lol

>>14347911
>Most Christians don't seek knowledge related to how the universe was made.
Why would we do that, if we already know how it was made, and even if we didn't why does it matter so much?

>>14347934
>if we already know how it was made,
Christ. The certainty is beyond cringe. A bunch of mud dwellers write that god created the earth in 7 days 6000 years ago and you honestly believe that.

>>14347934
Go back to your american evangelical church, faggot.

Only reformed protestant euros allowed here, and reformed catholics if they dont hate on gays and shrimp.

>>14347952
Only Traditional Catholics allowed here

>>14347869
It's Stephen Fry (who's a gay half-Jewish Brit)

>>14347987
you mean idolatry and pedofilia? no.

>>14347866
That's because you're low IQ. He's an intellectual coup de gras

>>14348004
How come the Stephen Fry/Piers Morgan/Ricky Gervais phenotype is so uniquely British? Others with similar eyes include Nigel Farage.

>>14347952
Sodomy is a sin
Catholics have never had a problem with shrimp, following Jewish dietary laws is a cringe Protestant meme

>>14348009
I have been refuted

>>14348023
>how come brits look british?

>>14348033
And by "cringe Protestant meme" I mean it's something cringy (probably American) Protestants do

>>14348039
It's not Australian, Canadian, American, though.

>>14348033
>>14348043
Jesus never talked about gays, he hung out with prostitutes and sinners, so i doubt he cared much.

Just accept gays, love is sacred.

>>14346873
Which religions? The plagiarized ones that come from the Jews? Yes, the orig Aryan ones? No

http://esotericawakening.com/what-is-reality-the-holofractal-universe

@14348061
Not falling for this shitty bait, bite me

>>14346873
>thoughts on these guys
From left to right, top to bottom
Dumb
I liked zoo lander but he hasn’t made anything good for years
Dumb
Dead Nia
His contributions to physics are severely overrated
Dumb
His magic was pretty good, I heard he’s a serial rapist and murderer though
I liked his sketch show with Hugh Laurie in the 80s and 90s
Terrible comedian

>>14346902
Replace CS Lewis with Pascal and Guenon with Spinoza
Guenon is cringe and CS Lewis wrote children’s books

>>14346902
pathetic delusion

>>14346873
I really enjoyed them when i was 13 and mad at my parents for making me go to church.
Not as fond of them 10 years later though, they really don't have anything interesting to say.

>>14346873
>problem of evil
>shrill assertion of ultra Darwinism and materialism
>eliminative materialist theory of mind

There I saved you hours of reading terrible books. Read Bentley hart or Nagel or Berlinski to see these pseudo destroyed

I find them utterly dull. And not just because of atheism, because I have enjoyed plenty of older atheist writers. It is because an atheist, a modern one, represents the defeat of mankind, the full materialisation and impotent literalisation of all culture, experience and meaning. The ability to only see superficial language, to only see what is presented and not to see that the words compose a system in of themselves which argue certain truths and obscure others. They can only criticise things on the most literal terms, which makes their arguments intellectually void and hopelessly dull. The profound meaning beyond scripture, beyond representation and in experience and as that writing as ancillary to experience- is lost. Because their own experience is so commercialised, so materialised, that they cannot conceive of any reality beyond the words, any experience which inspired them. They have literalism which extends from the proud page they mock into the banality and sad slavery of their entire existence. It is hilarious to see their saccarine, forced sentimentality, barely in touch which real expression, sincere emotion... because they simply can’t reach it tangibly. All of society is eroding into this.

>>14348548
Sorry you seem to have found yourself in a reddit thread, you should visit one of the threads for actual intellectual discussion. This one is for retards who watch youtube debates

>>14348548
Based sonicposter

>>14348548
Beautifully put.

>>14346902
Lol CS Lewis destroying anyone. Maybe the most brainlet writer of all time.

>>14346945
True

>>14346980
If someone is dumb enough to believe that their entire body of work should be discounted

>>14347144
What’s going on in this picture?

>>14347880
No contact McCarthy?

>>14347880
Lol Salinger

>>14346873
They're a sham too though...

Do they expose the religions of political correctness, 'equalism' and so on? No, they participate in them. So do they really oppose 'religious thinking' (which is the base issue, not any particular religion)?

Do they acknowledge the utility that religion provides to people that aren't mentally equipped to process unvarnished reality in a healthy way (which I'm betting is most people)? Not really... Dawkins is apparently coming around on this issue, and Harris sometimes advocates for an intellectual quasi-spirituality, but in general they ignore the positive utility of religion and don't offer anything pragmatic to replace it.

I agree with these guys on many things, but their intellectual honesty leaves much to be desired. At best they remain silent on important issues to preserve their status, at worst they actively perpetuate illogical double-standards and the religious thought of neoliberalism.

>>14347880
Some real shitty taste here

>>14348665
>positive utility of religion and don't offer anything pragmatic to replace it.

Lol as if there is any positive utility of religion

>>14348665
>neoliberalism

Opinion discarded

There is only one writer amongst them.
IE: Hitch

>>14348548
You realize that you're using strict logic — a kind of literalization — to argue for the importance of romanticism. I agree that romanticism is pragmatically important, but it's silly to deride literalism (which is more important when attempting to apprehend truth).

Sure you've read all of their books. How was Penn's diet book?

>>14348252
But leave Evola? Yikes

>>14348679
Religious practice is correlated with more stable family units, higher birth rates, less crime, better health, better educational performance in some areas... Do some research.

>>14348686
The sentiment is mutual.

>>14346873
They are all wrong, it's very sad

>>14348793
I think you have misunderstood me. The writing and ideas they criticise are not independent. They are an expression of an experience, and without the experience they are superstitious dogma. You cannot express anything sincerely or intelligently while ignoring it perhaps not having the experience and ideas that compliment the writing, Plato made this clear

>>14349007
*because

>>14347072
WLC debates dishonestly. He admits the only reason he believes is that it was "revealed" to him, yet he tries to convince others by argument. It's hypocritical, because the obvious answer is just, "why doesn't god reveal himself to me the way he did to you?". This is the true failing of the religious, it's either faith based or evidence based, yet they try to have it both ways

>>14349070
What if God reveals himself to you through WLC's arguments?

>>14347721
most of /lit/ is a pseud religious circle jerk, not a single poster has said anything interesting about religion except to say "my favorite philosopher can beat up your favorite philosopher!". it's not funny. it's sad.

>>14347866
>telling on yourself like that
oof

>>14349090
That’s because you wilfully ignore decent posts to mentally validate yourself.

>>14348665
>Do they acknowledge the utility that religion
Dawkins is a literal evolutionary biologist, of course he recognizes from a anthropologist point of view the survival advantages conveyed to groups via collective magical beliefs. The point is that we have moved past a reliance on collective delusions for survival and should be relying on the higher aspects of the human experience, namely, reason, compassion, and empathy. Tribalism is deeply ingrained in human psychology, and part of that tribalism is a constant tenancy to conform one's beliefs to the rest of one's tribe. With the (evolutionarily speaking) recent advent of the reasoning facility of the brain, we should be utilizing that to examine and check our tendency to fall into belief for bad reasons

>>14348855
>less crime
objectively false, non-believers have the lowest crime rates
>better educational performance
again, objectively false. the higher you go up educational performance, the higher the likelihood that the person is non-religious

>>14349079
Then that is one pathetic god

>>14349099
point to one decent post in this whole thread. I'll wait

>>14347864
>if we don't and can't know something, you are free to insert whatever you "prefer" to exist in that gap
are you serious?

>>14348855
>Religious practice is correlated with more stable family units, higher birth rates, less crime, better health, better educational performance in some areas... Do some research

How sheltered are you? Take a look around the world at the most pious countries and see if what you say is accurate. I’ll give you high birth rates though.

Daily reminder it has been empirically proven religiosity stifles scientific innovation.

https://www.princeton.edu/~rbenabou/papers/Religion%20December%201g_snd.pdf
http://www.nber.org/papers/w21052.pdf

Daily reminder the overwhelming majority of leading scientists are atheists

https://www.nature.com/articles/28478
https://evolution-outreach.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1936-6434-6-33

Daily reminder most philosophers are atheists

https://philpapers.org/surveys/results.pl

Daily reminder religious people are less intelligent according to dozens of studies.

http://diyhpl.us/~nmz787/pdf/The_Relation_Between_Intelligence_and_Religiosity__A_Meta-Analysis_and_Some_Proposed_Explanations.pdf

Daily reminder religious people are less educated

https://www.economist.com/news/international/21623712-how-education-makes-people-less-religiousand-less-superstitious-too-falling-away

Religious people are literally a lesser breed of human

>>14349183
/thread

>>14346873

> they're books

> they're

The absolute state of /lit/

>>14349183
>http://diyhpl.us/~nmz787/pdf/The_Relation_Between_Intelligence_and_Religiosity__A_Meta-Analysis_and_Some_Proposed_Explanations.pdf
>based on IQ studies

>Religious people are literally a lesser breed of human
so it would follow that...

>>14346873
>Dawkins
Genuinely a good science writer and biologist. His gene centered views of evolution provoked healthy debate in biological circles. His forays into religious debates are adolescent.
>Harris
Smug, with an inflated sense of his own intelligence. There's nothing you can find in him that you can't find elsewhere in better quality.
>Dennett
One of today's better philosophers. Much of his good work is unnoticed and undiscussed in favor of some of his mistakes.
>Hitchens
Edgy, smug sparrowfart. A good journalist who held the powerful's feet over the fire, but his forays into atheism and religion were a waste of his talents.
>Hawkins
Smart physicist. Unremarkable outside of his technical field.
>Pinker
An articulate, well-informed psychologist who is right about some things. When discussing politics however his unflagging faith in reason paints him as naive in the extreme.

>???
Nonentity

>Steven Fry
Nonentity

>???
Nonentity

>>14346873
Of all those people only Stephen Fry is based, and not because of his philosophical views.

>>14349226
.... religious teaching should be abolished, especially to children, so that their educational development isn't retarded

>Dawkins
Did important work in his field, Selfish Gene and Extendes Phenotype good, but completely clueless outside of it. His vocal atheism is childish.
>Sam Harris
Never read him, don't know anything about him. Looks like a preening faggot.
>Dennett
The only philosopher in this picture. Broadly intelligent man. Bacteria to Bach and Back was nuanced, he came very close to grasping the necessary implication of his & his buddies' argument: that consciousness is an illusion. He pulled back from this conclusion either out of existential dread or a desire to sell more books and either way I don't blame him. Has the physiognomy of a wise old man and appears mostly trustworthy.
>Chris Hitchens
Intelligent fellow looking for an intellectual excuse for his extreme hedonism and onanistic level selfishness. A moral coward and lesser man than his brother, who died a meaningless death after living a meaningless life.
>Steven Hawkins
A bona fide genius presenting an extremely powerful archetype: that of the dying wizard or the fisher king. One got the sense that if he solved the mysteries he pursued all his life he would have been made whole. Displayed extraordinary spiritual and mental fortitude in facing mortal illness.
>Pinker
Like Dawkins, Language Instinct is an important book but outside of his discipline he is useless. His political ideology is extremely gay and makes him a good tool for his capitalist masters. He looks like a thing wearing a mask of human skin and a wig.
>Penn Jillette
I only know this guy as a stage magician, he looks like a fat clown. He should have died 10 years ago because he is not aging gracefully.
>Stephen Fry
Disgusting fat pedophile, should be hanged until dead and his body left for the carrion birds. A sick man whose physiognomy betrays the depraved depths of his black soul.
>Gervais
Funny man. Loved the show where his sad clown buddy had to go on mystery vacations. His militant atheism belongs to the very strange period of the early 2000s when liberals were terrified of a Christian theocratic takeover of some kind and is completely dead in the water today. I think he is starting to realize Muslims are everything he was afraid that 21st c. Christians were

>>14349238
>educational development
>IQ
Are you at all informed on IQ and its implications or are you just using it for this one particular argument of bashing religious people?

>>14349229
a pseud, the post

>>14349238
It’s insane how you people will say this yet ignore the same proof that black people have lower IQ

>>14349247
What implications are you referring to specifically?

>>14349249
Lmao yeah pseuds are the ones who actually read and form opinions, instead of the people who barely read and just spout the same reddit talking points from videos

>>14349269
pseuds are identified BY their opinions, and those opinions are like a caricature of what a pseud would believe. I half expect the person who posted it was purposely being as ridiculous as possible

>>14349281
>pseuds are identified BY their opinions,
No they're not you braindead faggot. They're identififed by being incapable of explaining their opinion. Mindlessly signalling fashionable taste is peak pseud behavior, simply having the right opinion means literally nothing. I can't believe how unaware you are

>>14349289
>They're identififed by being incapable of explaining their opinion
Ah, the poor misunderstood pseuds, if only they could explain what they think! Alas, we shall never know their enigmatic opinions!

>>14349226
Yes, yes, niggers, we get it.

>>14349281
They’re identified by thinking they know everything without reading. Most pseuds will not read more than an hour a day. Opinions have nothing to do with it

>>14349300
You're a completely worthless poster and managed to misunderstand yet another very simple sentence. You're not smart, funny, or witty, you're pathetic.

>>14349319
you really cannot string together a decent insult, can you? try again

>>14346880
based

>>14349242
>A moral coward

How do you figure?

>>14349229
Sam Harris is great

>>14349537
You are not fooling anyone, Shlomo

>>14349139
>The point is that we have moved past a reliance on collective delusions for survival
No, we really haven't. We are still steeped in multifarious delusions, and a religious 'mode' of thinking underlies the current year crop of secular shibboleths. Your analysis is entirely superficial, and presupposes and equality of capacity which doesn't exist.

>>14349151
There are conflicting studies on the issue of religiosity and crime. It seems to depend heavily on who is being sampled... I suspect that findings of increased violent crime with religiosity are confounded by the inclusion of populations which are genetically more prone to both violent behaviour and strong religiosity. In other words, it isn't surprising that more secular countries have less crime, because those countries are typically populated with whites; this doesn't mean that secularity reduces crime.

As for educational performance, you're distorting things. For the medial region of educational performance — which is most relevant to the majority of the population — religious students peform slightly better in math and language. It is true that the tiny minority of the most intelligent and most educated people are more secular, but that doesn't disprove the potential educational utility of religion for the rest of the population.

>>14349175
What you're noticing has more to do with ethnicity than religion.

>>14349183
>Religious people are literally a lesser breed of human
This may be true, but the simple fact is that the majority of any population is a 'lesser breed' (and they breed more than you do). Ignoring potential vectors of stability for average people isn't a very high-IQ perspective (unless you're going to be proactive with eugenics or something).

>>14346880
Whoah.

>>14346883
>Gervais, Fry
>philosophers
Okay gaythiest

>>14348048
Numerous aussies look stereotypically british. In the US, the largest ethnicity is german, with british/irish being a bit less so, so no wonder americans look less stereotypically british

>>14349183
You mean to tell me that china is more intellectually prolific than the US? My ass.
>after controlling for GDP, etc.
This should not be controlled for- it's inextricably linked to intellectual prosperity.

>>14349183
Yet the people who came up with evolution and the Big Bang theory (which are two of the main atheist circlejerks) were Christian. Funny, isn't it?

>>14346873
>>14348282
Pretty much. They literally repeat arguments against religion used by Sade, Marx and atheistic people that lived between 1700s and 1800s, with a modern twist. Which is strange because, even as a Catholic, I still appreciate Nietzsche because he realized that religion is the foundation of morality and that one must get rid of that if you want to be truly atheistic and replace it with their own more Darwinistic morality. For some reason, these faggots can't figure that out or rather are too philosophical puerile to figure that out.

>>14348548
Yeah. That's a more well-put together version of what I was trying to say.

>>14348019

the man is widely regarded as a moron, by both atheists and theists.

Theres no way you could read "waking up" and not come to the conclusion that Harris is, at the very least, extremely confused, and more likely just a fool.

https://youtu.be/h6oIf1kz-Y4

>>14351039
>"I didn't expect it to be good"
>"within the first few seconds of flipping through it you can tell it's impossible to take seriously"
laughable how obvious his preformed bias is, and Harris is only regarded as a moron in your particular echo chamber

>>14349954
>What you're noticing has more to do with ethnicity than religion

T.brainlet

>>14347768
Because protestantism is proto-atheism

>>14346880
This thread isn't even about Whitehead, Guenonfag confirmed for spam bot

>>14346891
>Guenon and Evola are the only philosophers that I've read desu
Fixed for honesty

>>14349242
Nice. In his defense, Ricky Gervais at least gave us Karl Pilkington.

>>14350098
Darwin wasn't a christian lmao, and Lemaître wasn't the sole author of the Big Bang
Based retard

>>14350090
Peak brainlet
And GDP is correlated with lower religiosity anyways

>>14349139
>The point is that we have moved past a reliance on collective delusions for survival
lol