/lit/ - Literature

>>14694776

>OP admits being a dismissive, ignorant midwit
what's that like my man

>>14694794
thank you for your cohesive and well put together response to my question. I really feel like I have been completely owned am an now revising all my positions.

>>14694793
TAG is the best argument but unfortunately the form of the argument is so unusual that most people either don't understand it or don't find it forceful.

>>14694803
>I have been completely owned am an now revising all my positions.
I should hope you are at the very least revising the idea that belief in God indicates participation in a retarded meme. Be less dismissive next time, or ask an actually thoughtful question, or fucking read the sticky before asking to be spoonfed after insulting the people who would be doing the feeding.

Google "philosophy of religion arguments for the existence of God", it'll be better than anything you'll find in this thread. The meme is just christLARPers who want to paint anyone who isn't part of their religion as midwits, even though they could probably only cough up the ontological and cosmological argument, if that. The popular discourse from both sides of the aisle is shit, but actual philosophy of religion is pretty interesting.

>>14694810
Would you mind linking or recommending any comprehensive works that you think do this argument justice?

>>14694823
this.

And as for sticky I was referring specifically to this:
>refrain from starting new threads for questions that can be answered by a search engine.

>>14694833
Almost all questions can be answered by search engines. The point of an internet forum is to engage in discussion, but unfortunately you don't seem interested in defending your position.

>actual good arguments for the existence of god.
midwit: this doesn't look like anything to me

The hard problem of consciousness is a great argument for God. The Indian belief in God is centered on consciousness.

>>14694829
Van Til's Apologetic by Greg Bahnsen

>>14694856
How did you personally reach your belief in God? Could you recommend a book that influenced you deeply?

>>14694776
All beliefs (including things such as mathematics and science) are presuppositions by the human mind.

The only thing that can be said with absolute certainty is "There is something" because if there was "nothing" than none of this could be transpiring. The things that are transpiring could be completely different than what we perceive them to be, but they are transpiring nonetheless.

Going forward humans make certain assertions based on their life experience, and whether their experiences are repeatable and testable. These things then become things humans describe as "true". One of the fundamental axioms of logic in human systems is that there is cause and effect (A causes B). If this is believed then something must have caused the universe. This thing could be described as God or "The Creator". However the further you move away from something described as "merely the thing that created the universe" and as an agent that has intention with said creation, the more incredulous in becomes, until you get the point that God is seen as an anthropomorphic being with absolute qualities (omniscient, omnipresence, omnipotence) which clearly cannot be the case if any forms of human logic can be believed.

>>14694843
There's nothing to defend against, OP hasn't asked anything. He simply implied he wants good arguments for proof of God. He isn't even informed enough on the topic to form a question, why should I spend my time answering him if he's going to misunderstand it and (unbelievably) argue against it? He's a smug idiot whose opening admission was that he rejects things out of hand.

Summa Theologiae by St. Thomas Aquinas

>>14694856
>average religious people engaging with """big brain theologians""" in any way
what an absurd delusion

>>14694891
Not him, but for me it was Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, the Bhagavad Gita and this speech by Dostoevsky:

https://pages.uoregon.edu/kimball/DstF.Puw.lct.htm#DstF.Puw.lct

>>14694900
OP here and I 100% agree with your argument and logic. The basis of my confusion is how anyone would go from that logical deduction to forming any sort of religious doctrine that could be used as the basis for action.
Also would you personally describe yourself as religious? And would you say your acceptance of this "Creator" has influenced your personal philosophical system in any way?

>>14694919
>go from that logical deduction to forming any sort of religious doctrine that could be used as the basis for action.
Because it's God.

You're forgetting that once the premise that God exists has been accepted, one's worldview shifts dramatically. The supernatural is real. God has expressed himself throughout history in myth, in sacred truth, in religious impulse. It was ordained this way. It doesn't make sense to believe in the God that anon is talking about and NOT see mankind as separate from nature as a consequence. This is part of why pretty much any non-nature religion connects man to the divine somehow. Even if only by form, or communication, or the notion of mind.

>>14694891
>>14694903

>>14694776
Because you gotta have faith :)

>>14694919
Human beings have a series of wants and needs. Some people have a craving for power that is greater than their peers, so they twist facts in order to control others. Some use this craving for power for good and some for bad.

In my view, there is a God, but analysis of its attributes range from near-impossible to impossible. What can be said is that if there is a creator God then it either does not care about suffering or even worse, the suffering of beings in this universe is what it is after for some unknown goal it has. This is why innocent newborns are snuffed out and die of disease, this is why the cruel and evil sometimes live to ripe old age and die peacefully, while the meek are trampled underfoot.

Whether we believe this evil creator god to be a quirk of physics like entropy, or to be an agent beyond our comprehension who plays a hand in this world, I would say that such beliefs have influenced me towards religion, both from a rational point of mind and my own very bizarre experiences.

My acceptance of these ideas has led me to form a sort of philosophical framework around this god that espouses compassion and consent over power, and in doing so I have developed a deep need to test exactly what "god" is, whether it is a being that can be communed with, or if it is simply fate.

I apologize if my answer is not direct enough, if you need more information, feel free to ask.

>>14694776
God isn't real

>>14694949
>t." " "believer" " " who thinks he wants to know God but despises mankind too much to trust any of their writings, even if they potentially were moved by the Holy Spirit

>>14694963
prove it fagot

>>14694971
I dont need to prove a negative, you have to prove a positive.


I also can't prove unicorns don't exist.

>>14694970
Trust but verify.

>>14694984
You're doing neither. I recommend you go back and start with the Greeks, then read the Catholic catechism as a remedial exercise.

>>14694938
How does deducing a relation outside causality lead to the assumption that that relation has any bearing on the current world of causal phenomenon that we now find ourselves in?
>>14694949
I'm going to assume that you subscribe to the logical argument of >>14694900 (let me know if that's incorrect). How do you go from deducing an initial cause, to ascribing motivations to what you have decided to name that cause. Motivation would seem to require cause and effect in an of itself, which would break down the essence of what God was initially defined as. Also I am unsure as to the connection between your multiple points, and would love more elaboration on your belief system generally.

Also, thank you to both of you for actually trying to edify me on your beliefs :)

>>14695003
That's a big assumption.

Tell me what I have missed.

>>14694981

>>14695010
>outside causality
mmmm, you're gonna have to prove that one chief. read Aristotle and Aquinas.

>>14695015
You do the same. You missed the fact you aren't "trust"ing at all. You have gotten the idea that God exists, but haven't actually listed what that idea is founded on just that it's a philosophical premise you are willing to accept. This is good. The way you frame your argument betrays a great deal of cynicism regarding mankind. This is very bad. We understand the sacred by works of man: in revelation, intellectual arguments, and comparative mythology. It's all relevant, but if I understand you correctly you aren't interested in any of that because your fedora is on too tight.

>>14695048
Instead of redirecting, please try to use your independent thought, and give me your best attempt at a refutation of that point

>>14695010
I am actually both >>14694949 and >>14694900.
Deducing initial cause is just a deduction based off of cause and effect. The universe exists, so it must have had a cause (whether this is a big bang or living agent is another matter).

It is best to start with the most central neutral start point for everything. We both agree that we are living, and I'm assuming be both agree that suffering is both real and unwanted for both of us. From this we can go down a long list of reasons why life guarantees this suffering through things as vast and undeniable as entropy, or as trivial and situational as boredom.

Since this suffering is guaranteed for all beings, the question becomes one of creation. If we know these things are gauranteed then why do we create more beings? The answer is that it lessens the suffering of the creator; I.E. parents find enjoyment and purpose through their children, so despite knowing they will endure the same suffering they endured in their life, they do it anyways. This is both a problem because it creates more suffering, but also because a person cannot gain consent from the uncreated child. However this plays well into why this universe exists from a religious perspective. In my view the idea of a secular creation to the universe does not make sense, considering that nothingness is the most stable state of being (objects in motion tend to stay in motion, objects at rest tend to stay at rest). So if nothingness existed prior to the universe, there was nothing to disturb this state, therefore there must have been something to disturb it.


I suppose I'm getting off track with this post so I will give you the basic premise of my religion;

There are only two types of entities/people/groups/organizations/etc

Those who see suffering as necessary and justified, and those who see suffering as unnecessary and unjustified.

Further since the idea of suffering can be ascertained through neutrality (if you simply stop consuming/achieving and instead lay in a bed without excreting, drinking, eating, entertaining yourself, you will suffer pain, this is the natural state of existing) and this suffering is generally gauranteed, creators commit the ultimate sin by perpetuating this existence for their own benefit. If the dimensions/worlds/realms/beings beyond our comprehension share in our perspective/reality in any significant way whatsoever, then they also mimic these tendencies and desires, for if they did not have these tendencies and desires, then this universe would not exist. Therefore we are created to suffer for the benefit of a being we cannot comprehend.

My goal is to comprehend this being to my greatest possible ability, and if I cannot or will not do so, then to challenge it, to call forth its nature.

>>14695067
>i don't like what you said so i'll pretend you didn't say it
>also i won't have to prove my ignorance after you spoonfeed me
good argument anon

>>14695048
My response is that my trust is irrelevant.
Either something is accurate/correct or it is not.

I have made a statement regarding my view, and you have not refuted it, you merely say that I do not know enough. It is true that I do not know many things, but that is irrelevant to whether or not this particular assertion of mine is true or not.

Human evolution.
Derp. People are so slow.

>>14695075
> If the dimensions/worlds/realms/beings beyond our comprehension share in our perspective/reality in any significant way whatsoever, then they also mimic these tendencies and desires,

This where you go wrong. I wouldn't assume God's mind works like a human's, or that He has human desires. If anything, all the humans who have been divinely inspired tend to be against desire.

But yes, the root of religion is accepting that this world, even with its suffering, is a gift, a paradise. Do not walk away from Omelas.

>>14695075
Would you say that if the human mind could be simulated on a computer somehow, proving human consciousness and therefore suffering to be a empirical phenomenon, that you would be then unable to draw this analogy between yourself and this first creator?
And if you agree that proposition, how do you prove that consciousness isn't merely an empirical phenomenon?

>>14695095
still waiting on the argument instead of direction to books you probably haven't read

>>14695136
In terms of tendencies/desires I mean that
If God existed before the universe, then God must have had the desire/tendency to create because it was not complete/perfect. If God were complete/perfect then it would have no desire to create, because there would be nothing to create. Therefore God had the desire to create the universe. If God knew that suffering would be the result than it is probable that this suffering is what it had intended. If God did not know, but was able to witness the suffering, then God still desires the suffering to some extent, insofar as if God has the power to create the universe, is it not reasonable that God would have the power to destroy it if God say that the costs did not outweigh the consequences?

>>14695141
Not him, but a perfect simulation could easily be a p-zombie. We would have no way to verify it is conscious. If the hard problem of consciousness were somehow resolved, it would kill off spirituality yes.

>>14695141
I am actually a proponent of the idea that this universe is not actually base reality, and is in fact some sort of "simulation" or "dream". This is very likely. However even if it were the case that this world we experience is not "real" it does not refute the central point that we as beings experience suffering. For example if you felt you were being electrocuted, what difference to the person being electrocuted would it make if you simply told them "You are not really being electrocuted, you just believe that is the case?"

As for the analogy still holding true if God were not divine in a certain sense, simply a being of a higher existence (God is not the supreme, merely an office worker in a reality closer to base reality than ours.) It would still hold true in the sense that God itself would still be enslaved and suffer in this accord, and God itself would have a "God" it was beholden to, even if's just upper management. Ultimately this argument can dive past all realities to base reality. If the most base of realities is beyond our comprehension, the argument still stands that our suffering is real and should be recognized, for in nothingness there is peace, and this peace was rejected by the supreme. If this supreme rejected peace, then it put its own existence before the suffering of all beings, including itself.

We can go into heaven/hell/suicide/eternity if you'd like

>>14695165
> then God must have had the desire/tendency to create because it was not complete/perfect.

No. God's plan cannot be understood by transient, non-eternal minds like ours. Why creation exists as it does is not something humans can understand.

>>14694776
TAG is a terrible misuse of language. One can't just define anything into existence.

>>14695212
If you refute this central point of completeness, then literally most if not all of human knowledge becomes nonsense. Considering you still use this knowledge and logic to form your own religious arguments, its hypocritical at best, and nonsensical at worst. If something is 100% complete, there is no such things as 101% complete. Something is either complete or it is not, yes?

>>14694810
Simplest way to argue the existence of god is asking people to draw shapes, and then ask them to draw that shape without drawing it. This should give an easy basis to argue that since shapes are an everlasting form, it provides a fundamental basis for the existence of an omnipotent intellect which is required for all of existence.

>>14695255
I don't understand what you mean by "shapes being an everlasting form"

>>14694793
Can someone please explain this to me?

>>14694776
Easy. Everything in creation is contingent. It could have been otherwise. In order for it to have been otherwise, there must be something necessary. That necessity is G-d.
>>14694793
Similar vein of thought.
>>14694881
Thats why they worship idols funnily enough. A lot of what they perform is just the idolisation of consciousness.
>>14694891
Try the bible and the quran.
>>14694919
Considering, as above, that things could be different (contingency) but that they aren't, and that, considering this necessity that we thought expresses itself contingently as various religious or devotional practices, the question turns not on the formation of doctrine but the relationship of contingency to necessity. The necessity manifests religious practices. My approach is: what part(s) of the contingent expressions of religious practices can strengthen the bond between contingency and necessity, or creation and creator. To that end i study and compare all religious and mystical practices to gauge them against each other to see what is consistent and sensible as per the my relationship with the necessity. An example would be idol worship. It makes no sense to me to venerate or honor a piece of contingency as opposed to the creator, this coincides with the classical Abrahamist theology so I follow that tradition for the most part. I think the ancient yogic and Chinese systems have value but only to the degree that fit within the basic framework of the Abrahamist theology.

In so far as religion is the massification of cultism no. In so far as it means the union between contingency and necessity, creator and creation, then yes.

Just as a nitpick, the notion of a personal philosophic system is erroneous imo. Its not that you have your own system as a personal possession. You are a part of a unimaginably vast system of which philosophy plays a part. Your contingent expression of it has a lot less to do with how you act than your place in the system.

I also recommend that you detach yourself from empty materialist conceptions such as the ridiculously arbitrary iq measurements. Just as someone's height doesn't political position, someones iq reveals nothing about the quality of their relationships- especially with necessity.

>>14694776
Do you know for sure that you are going to Heaven if you were to die today anon?

If you are not 100% sure or you think you can get to Heaven because of your good deeds or you got baptized, or you are a good person, please read the pic related.

If the image is too blurry open in a new tab and remove the letter 'm' from the address. God bless.

>>14695282
It's a bad rendition of the transcendental argument.

>>14694810
What does TAG stand for here?

>>14694776
There are certain things about American evangelical Christianity that are kind of dumb, like young earth creationism, denial of evolution, and the evangelical eschatology on Revelation that resembles the Left Behind book series. But, without a doubt, Christianity is the thinking man’s religion. If you care enough to dive into it, you will find frighteningly intelligent and convincing arguments. The important thing is that Jesus Christ was God incarnate in human form, fully God and fully man, and that he died and rose again.

>>14695282
An axiom is something that cant be proven, but is taken to self-evidently be true, which can then be used to build a foundation for proper proofs.

I guess JP thinks accepting axioms equals accepting God?

>>14695383
see
>>14695352

>>14695336
Thanks for your reply. I am having trouble following your argument largely because of your use of the words contingent and necessity. Would you mind elaborating exactly how you apply these terms?

>>14695400
Huh? The axiom of contradiction can easily be proven.
>>14695352
Thank you. He worded it strangely. Or I'm just not getting it. Will read Stanford's article on Godel some other time that looks to explain it much better. I understand the TAG argument

>>14694776
Agree with what >>14694823 said. There are plenty of interesting books on the subject.

Also The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy and to a lesser extent Wikipedia are good resources.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/philosophy-religion/

https://www.iep.utm.edu/religion/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_religion

>>14695282
There are no brute facts, and all proof is theory-laden. "Proof" is not self-evident , it requires other concepts to cohere together with it for it to have any meaning. For example, 'proof' necessitates a theory of truth in which the proof is true, it requires a conception of the self which interprets and accepts the proof, it requires a coherent system of logic where the proof is consistent with itself and the world it assumes. Basically, you have two options: 1. Accept the reality of God which gives a coherent account of all the presuppositions needed for proof or 2. Spend the rest of your life in epistemic nihilism where you cannot make a single argument, rationalization, or any sense of your thoughts or sense data. TAG argues on the basis that argumentation itself assumes the existence of God, regardless of what you are arguing for.

>>14695016
Thank you this made me laugh. I know we're supposed to be arguing about god or whatever, but we both know this is a farce. I'm having a really really really bad night and that made me laugh. thank you so much.

>>14695278
A closed loop will always be a circle.

>>14695397
What are the arguments?

>>14694776
https://discord.gg/3UH89UV

>>14695278
I'm guessing he means shapes as a concept exist whether or not humanity has ever existed to "create" them. They aren't manmade concepts, basically, and had to be "created" before man.

>>14695397
I think its protostant autismo old testament fundamentalism.

>>14695903
Which isn't true

>>14695942
prove it

>>14694823

>>14695979
Prove it is

>>14694776
I was raised religious and have remained so unlike my siblings, all of whom have shrugged it off. Prayer is just my form of meditation, I suppose, and I do not believe that the human brain, human consciousness, unconsciousness, whatever, is the apical form of intelligence, of knowing in the Universe; therefore I believe in God. Also, I think intuition is what prompts one to believe moreso than intelligence. A rat's a relatively intelligent creature but I do not think even at peak ability it has the wherewithal to wrap its intelligence around a human brain. That's all I can come up with, a very general argument from analogy, and not a very good one as rat's do possess what humans seem to lack in general these days, i.e. earnestness.

>>14695148
>>14695111
Nothing I say will convince you. You have an extremely unscientific worldview, one that regards science as indisputable and any knowledge outside of it incredible. You are, as I said before and have confirmed repeatedly, ignorant and quick to dismiss things out of hand.

I'm heading to bed now because you're a troll. I want you to meditate on the idea that maybe you don't know everything, and that God is calling you to him. You'll understand eventually, when the time is right. Goodnight OP. You are not the only anon in my prayers tonight.

>>14696543
Prove it isn’t

>>14696779
Goodnight, anon. God bless.

>>14696779
So what your saying is that he needs... The Will to Believe?

>>14694776
The absence of God implies a corresponding presence. Therefore God exists.

>>14696845
Bedposting. Prayers said. I'm saying he needs to crack a book and exercise the theological virtues, and hope he receives by God's grace the gift of faith. Charity is one way to get started. Even if it's just being charitable in his
thoughts and words. Gn freal.

>>14696791
Gn anon.

>>14694776
The answer is obvious. You're an actual midwit.

>>14694793
This is so retarded on several levels. Just shows what a pretentious midwit Peterson actually is. I bet he never read one page of Gödel himself. Just the theme park version of him spouted by other midwits wanting to sound deep.

Gödel showed that certain formal systems with a finite set of axioms (those using higher order predicate logic like ZFC or Peano axioms) are incomplete and cannot proof their own consistency.
He ironically also proved that systems only employing first other logic can be shown to be complete and consistent (e. g. Hilbert axiomatization of Euclidean geometry).

This has nothing to do with the ontological nature of axioms or the concept of proof.
Of course you require axioms to proof something. That’s why -strictly speaking- proof should be confined to the fields of logic and mathematics.
In science you make falsifiable claims and confirm or refute them.

The idea that you can deductively proof something either about the nature of the external world (as classical metaphysicians did) or about the a priori requirements of cognition (as Kant did) is highly dubious and often relying on using some kind of strong human intuition about our evolved biological experience in our mesocosmic surroundings (human scale) (e. g. causation, modal attributes -contingency, necessity etc...-, anthropomorphic projection, nature of time and space etc...) which might or might not break down when applied to the universe as whole on a macroscopic (parsec scale) and microscopic (Planck scale, quantum) level.

Just read pic related for babby’s first introduction to arguments on the existence to God. I thought the book was pretty good for someone like me who was unaware of many of the arguments proposed throughout the ages. It also touches on intelligent design versus evolution to an extent.

>>14695216
Anselm did it centuries ago and atheists are still asshurt

>>14696851
I don’t understand

>>14695224
Yes, human knowledge and logic is incomplete and falls apart at certain boundaries (at the hard problem of consciousness for one). Doesn't make it completely useless, but they can only take you so far.

>>14694776
Upvote! Waiter! Being an upvote to this post at once!
*ahem*
WHERE? ...Are my manners! I too am a logical thinker! To epic science and LOGIC good sir!

>>14695336
>G-d
You realize that's not his real name, right?

>>14694776
Most halfway clever people stop arguing for the self-evident after about the age of 14.

If God is omnipotence & omniscience then God is nature. The laws of the universe are His laws.

Pantheism

>>14694776
existence itself is prove of God.
god is the all-encompassing being.
if something exists, then god exists, for god has to encompass it.
then ask yourself if something exists or not.

probably not valid though.

>>14694776
low iq need to believe and trust
high iq trust the low iq to believe

high iq know it's fake
That's the game , to controle the masses

>>14697182
He was BTFO by his contemporaries who couldn't seem to take a vacation to the maximally great and perfect getaway island

>>14695255
That's what Palto said.

>>14695255
You have a solid dozen problems here.
> argument relies on Theory of Forms, which itself is inconsistent/ nonsensical by Aristotle’s “Third Man”. Dubious at best.
> Theory of Forms does not necessitate creator, in fact forms are eternal and uncreated
> Even if created, no reason it should be a single creator
> “form” may well be “social construct”, on a continuum, read the Platonic dialogue on names (Phaedo?)
> if I draw futa fanart, is it divinely inspired?

>>14694776
https://discord.gg/B8z4G37