/lit/ - Literature

Why do you assume that evolution and God are mutually exclusive?

>>15289149
No, the "world" part is always the same. Evolution and all.

Let's say he doesn't exist: you'll still lie to yourself that he exists just because it makes you feel better? You won't ever reconsider your beliefs? You'll never think negatively of his existence just like you do of his non-existence?

>world with God
>is supposedly created and maintained by an entity that is both able and willing to end all evil
>world is still filled to the brim with evil

You’re right, that makes total sense

>Cain kills Abel, because fuck him
>cursed by God to "wonder forever" and be divinely protected from harm
>proceeds to found the city of Enoch
>while Abel and his children are fucking erased from existence, Cain populates the entire world and kickstarts civilization

what did God mean by this?

>>15289191
>suffering bad

>>15289140

"Consider the One God Universe: OGU. The spirit recoils in horror from such a deadly impasse. He is all-powerful and all-knowing. Because He can do everything, He can do nothing, since the act of doing demands opposition. He knows everything, so there is nothing for him to learn. He can't go anywhere, since He is already fucking everywhere, like cowshit in Calcutta.

The OGU is a pre-recorded universe of which He is the recorder. It's a flat, thermodynamic universe, since it has no friction by definition. So He invents friction and conflict, pain, fear, sickness, famine, war, old age and Death."
- Burroughs, "The Western Lands"

>>15289380
>God is perfect
>being perfect means God is imperfect

What is with this fucking retard argument? Perfect means PERFECT.

>>15289367
Clearly you’ve never experienced any real suffering in your life, or otherwise you wouldn’t have made such a dumb statement.

Furthermore, my point wasn’t that suffering is even bad, my point is that suffering shouldn’t be possible to begin with if your god is what you say he is

>If X existed things would be better. Therefore X exists.
Splendid reasoning.

>>15289367
If you're doing something that is generating suffering, it's a sign that something is very wrong. Suffering isn't bad, but it's also not desirable. Much of human development was based on feeding ourselves, sheltering ourselves, fighting off diseases and aiding our wounds.

>>15289367
Yes, that is the definition of suffering.

>>15289456
All of that, is just your projection. Nobody said those words in the thread.

Back then you could maybe make a case, now? The great men of the west in retrospect were essentially chosen by god/gods/cosmic law/whatever word you want to use to herald the next stage of humanity for an entire planet. Regardless of what you believe, that is the timeline we live. Championing god and virtue was the raddest thing anyone has ever done

>>15289448
Good and evil are prerequisites for free will. Free will obviously being the greatest gift.

>>15289622
> Free will obviously being the greatest gift.
Yes, you are FREE to OBEY. Or eternal damnation.

>>15289380
I'm not a theist but this shit makes no sense. Why on earth could you not dy anything judt because there's no opposition? And why would you be everywhere just because you know everything? Doesn't seem logical at all.

>>15289622
So is there free will in heaven?

>>15289622
That doesn’t explain why there are bad options to choose from to begin with

>>15289181
Why is believing in something to make you feel better a bad argument? Does the pleasure of being right is worthier than having a good life? We can deduce the existence of God through arguments such as Aquinas' five ways, but in the end it's still a matter of faith if you believe in him or not. But even if it was proved with no shadow of doubt he doesn't exist, I'd still choose to believe in him.

>>15289140
>He's never read Ecclesiastes
Pic only half-funny and half-related I'm not a Gnostic

>>15289892
Is that the only book you read of the Bible?

>>15289905
YES.

>>15289878
Faith doesn't make anything real. It's a pussy move to lie to yourself just to feel better.
"The only truly malignant evil is hope."
"We will feed the illusion that, by merely mastering some of your base impulses, you can aim for the world - that your failure with common affairs all but guarantees your success with the unattainable and the splendid."

>>15289878
If you don't care about the truth then believe whatever you want. If you don't care whether its true then why are you here trying to convince people to believe it is true?

>>15290555
You can't prove reality with empiricism, therefore the starting point is faith. You can't escape it.

>>15290563
My point is a matter of priorities.

>>15289228
Cain obviously repented?
His sin was trying to bargain with God, wanting to buy favour with sacrifices (not unlike how the Greeks did it), and God punished him for it, but when he begged for mercy God made so people wouldn't murder him. Like, God was angry with him but didn't actually hate him. He was basically God's direct grandson after all.

>>15291107
He isn't walking around anymore, so clearly he isn't cursed anymore

>>15291114
>He isn't walking around anymore, so clearly he isn't cursed anymore
as far as you know

>>15289140
When you frame it that way it sounds like God's existence changes nothing. Life is still absurd, hellish and savage, except God exists.

>>15291135
>Life is still absurd, hellish and savage
And the best part is, I don't mind that part at all. I like it. Imagine how insufferable everything would be otherwise, it would be like being permanently infantilized in a kindergarten.

>>15289685
Well, I guess the quote is trying to say:
- God is perfect
- Perfect being doesn't need anything
- God has no need to create the world
- God creates the world needlessly

>>15289367
>nooooooo! It's a good thing that you got raped as a child! Trust me, your mind is so healthy because of it. nooooooo! suffering good.

>>15291456
It certainly felt good for the rapist. Why is your "well being" more important than his? It's just sex.

>>15291470
It probably even didn't, I don't imagine a rapist looking back at something like that with fondness you fucking creep

>>15291483
You're the one who brought up rape, pervert.

>>15289140
>>I believe in god because it is useful

>>15291881
Why not? Noble lies and all that

>>15289878
>We can deduce the existence of God through arguments such as Aquinas' five ways

>>15289191
I have watched a child blow up in a terrorist attack, have been shot once myself, and witnessed several murders as a child. If there is a god I'm gonna call him a faggot to his face when I get the chance.

>>15292051
well then, enjoy burning in hell with the other sodomites

>>15289367
>suffering with god is good
>suffering without god is bad

>>15289140
based

>>15292280

>World with god: Everything makes sense, it is good, redeemed, etc.
First off i'd contest that everything makes sense, but if thinking the world exists with god is good, redeeming etc, then thats a reason against belief, that it so nicely fits into your worldview and what you want. The belief that you have to grapple with is much more likely to be the true belief.

>>15289169
>>15289149
You should be more open to the idea that evolution is simply an incorrect interpretation of findings of bones, etc.

Most fossils were discovered after Lamarck posited his theories, for instance.

>>15292347
Which is exactly what evil wants you to do.

Chaos, ie non-reason, is essentially the spirit of Satan. Satan wants you to struggle to improve yourself and then look over there and see someone doing something way better than you who looks just like you doing nothing like what you're doing.

Satan wants you to work hard all your life to provide a living for yourself and rear a family and then have to become a slave to your children, living for nothing essentially.

This world is full of evil, and if you want to improve it at all, if you want to even hope of getting a chance at bringing this world closer to God again, then faith is the answer, because there is no substitute for reason.

>>15292374
>of course I want to live a hedonistic life without any fulfillment coming with improving oneself

>>15289878
>we can deduce the existence of god through arguments such as Aquinas' Five ways
Holy shit will you fucking retards give this up already, its been 300 fucking years since Kant blew the fuck out of those arguments and ended Thomism as a serious branch of philosophy.

Notice how serious philosophers are still taught? People still discuss Plato, people still discuss Aristotle, people still discuss Hegel, Kant, Heidegger, Nietzsche, etc. Notice how nobody gives a FUCK about Aquinas besides you 12 year old catholic reactionaries? Even the catholic church doesn't bother talking about him anymore and its because the entire intellectual endevaor sought by Aquinas has been fucked by Kant repeatedly.

>>15292374
>all that nonsense you just posted
Literally why should I believe anything about what you just wrote, ranging from how non-reason is essentially the spirit of satan, to how if I want to improve the world I need to have faith?

>>15289228
Why not? Sounds pretty meaningful to me, and if I was god and wanted my creations to act in a certain way I would act in a way that creates a meaningful chain of causation for them to look back upon and ponder why things are they way they are

>>15289476
Then not everything bad and painful is “suffering”, surely?