/lit/ - Literature

>>19058829

>>19058829
>Has physicalist atheism basing itself upon the conception that religion is a memetic disease ever been refuted
Yes, brainlet, read a book

>>19058832

>>19058833
Name three books

How could it be refuted? Religions operate by faith in something unseen and undetectable. If one could prove their religion then faith would not be the operative principle. I don't have faith that gravity attracts matter to the earth at 9.8 meters per second squared, I have knowledge of it, it has been proven to me and can be proven again on demand using replicable tests. What tests are there for God? Or for the immortal soul? Absolutely none. So religiocucks can always and forever do nothing but seethe and cling to their imagined ideal while atheists dunk on them using material facts.

>>19058829

>>19058829
>Richard Swinburne, in his book The Existence of God, put forward an argument for mind-body dualism based upon personal identity.
>He states that the brain is composed of two hemispheres and a cord linking the two and that, as modern science has shown, either of these can be removed without the person losing any memories or mental capacities.
>He then cites a thought-experiment for the reader, asking what would happen if each of the two hemispheres of one person were placed inside two different people
> Either, Swinburne claims, one of the two is me or neither is- and there is no way of telling which, as each will have similar memories and mental capacities to the other.
>In fact, Swinburne claims, even if one's mental capacities and memories are far more similar to the original person than the others' are, they still may not be him.
>rom here, he deduces that even if we know what has happened to every single atom inside a person's brain, we still do not know what has happened to 'them' as an identity.
>From here it follows that a part of our mind, or our soul, is immaterial, and, as a consequence, that mind-body dualism is true.

>>19058832
>The atheism and its devil's scientific pretensions delusion

>>19058860
>I have knowledge of it
No you don't. You have faith that the inductive tendencies of experience will continue to appear as they have appeared to you before.

>>19058906
I have knowledge based on evidence as opposed to faith which is based on no evidence. And for this reason my knowledge could clearly and easily be refuted, while faith cannot be either refuted or substantiated, and is therefore of no value for knowing anything.

>>19058833
Religion is literally a meme. Born into a Hindu culture? You adopt the dominant meme, Hinduism. Islamic culture? You become a Muslim. And, of course, Christianity. The adoption of a religion is virtually never a reasoned and dispassionate assessment of what the truth is, it's directly the opposite of that, the embrace of whatever the dominant meme around you is. It is the ultimate non-thinking man's meme. Anyone who claims to be a thinking theist is invariably the highest level pseud.

>>19058871
>That question mark
They doubt the premise of their own book?

>>19058914
You have no knowledge based on evidence. You have particular perceptions of images and colors which have no necessary or provable connection to each other. The belief that there is a connection between phenomena, that gravity is something that really exists and not just a figment of your imagination, is exactly as much faith as belief in God is.
>my knowledge could clearly and easily be refuted
Your knowledge is already refuted because it is not knowledge. This is why science is always falsifiable, because it is never based in truth or fact.

>>19058915
>Anyone who claims to be a thinking theist is invariably the highest level pseud
Not really pseuds when they don't even pretend to be intelligent

>>19058920
You're retreating to idealism, a land where nothing can be refuted or substantiated and no predictions can be made about anything. Meanwhile I refer to evidence supporting my knowledge of gravity which I can then use to make predictions about future phenomena that turn out to be accurate. Cope.

>>19058902
>Because we have a colloquial social construct of a personal identity, by definition a thing we project onto an extremely complex structure like a human brain, then that means an entire plane of immaterial, divine, mysterious "something" exists
Holy shit, do people actually take this piffle seriously?

The philosophy that Dawkins engages with is so misinterpreted in his book that he's not even worth arguing against.

>>19058829
Yes

>>19058906
At any point in time you can reference the very structure and orientation of your own existence and infer an exterior world and a continuum of time from it. Don't start with your petty and weak presuppositionalism, it's not going to fly to defend your weird, unfounded, and unsubstantiated beliefs or to try and place those beliefs on the same plane as those beliefs grounded in materialism.

>>19058920
By that logic, any religious texts, traditions, gospel are similarly figments of imagination and falsifiable.

>>19058928
You're right, claiming you know the correct series of facts about God, the creation of the universe, and the ultimate purpose of human existence is probably the dumbest thing a person could do.

>>19058941
That is perhaps the dumbest, weakest and most laughable argument I have ever seen for theism and against atheism. It's beyond absurd and demonstrates not only a complete lack of understanding of the topic he is discussing, but an outright abdication of any thinking at all in favor of pure, unadulterated, blind faith. What an utter embarrassment.

>>19058929
I'm not retreating, this is simple fact (or better said: skepticism) and you can't justify your position in the face of it.
>>19058946
>At any point in time you can reference the very structure and orientation of your own existence and infer an exterior world and a continuum of time from it.
How?

>>19058941
He thinks he can trust his thinking to be true — because he thinks up a belief in God within his thinking? That's just circular. I hope this is a transcript of him speaking extemporaneously because if he actually thought this through and wrote it down that's just embarrassing.

>>19058955
Correct, and that's what makes them faith along with science.

>>19058975
>I'm not retreating, this is simple fact (or better said: skepticism) and you can't justify your position in the face of it.
I already have. And please don't taint the name of skepticism by associating it with your idealism. If you were truly skeptical you would certainly doubt this imagined noumenal-phenomenal distinction that you pose to retreat from any need to hold falsifiable beliefs.

>>19058906
That's how sensible people operate. The difference from religion is that "faith". If something contrary to expectations appears, that "faith" isn't forcibly maintained.

>>19058975
Your conscious state is oriented outside of the area of your own consciousness and towards outside stimuli. You can infer from this the existence of outside stimuli. Therefore, the basis for a materialist worldview where external material exists isn't an arbitrarily adopted basis, it is one inferred from evidence right from the start and not simply "presupposed". Every aspect of religion or the belief in God is solely based on presupposition with no evidence of any kind whatsoever.

>>19058990
No, you haven't. You've just said your belief in necessary connections is valid but belief in God as a necessary connection isn't. If you can show me, irrefutably and deductively, why gravity and mass are necessarily connected (without referring to experimental, falsifiable, and therefore erroneous, evidence), then I will concede my position. But you can't, and you won't, because gravity and its connection to mass is basically an empty theory which could be thrown off at any minute by new experimental findings, such as the detection of a new property of matter, which is not matter itself but is almost always connected to matter and thus is responsible for either the gravitational force or Einsteinian warping of space-time. But please, show me how mass and gravity must deductively relate to each other.

>>19058997
>If something contrary to expectations appears, that "faith" isn't forcibly maintained.
The faith in necessary connections is always maintained. The specific connections aren't.
>>19059002
>Your conscious state is oriented outside of the area of your own consciousnes
I don't see how. Everything is my consciousness, the only question is to what degree my will is able to affect things within consciousness. Ergo, there is no "outside" consciousness that I can be deductively certain of. There is only what I can will and what I can't will.

>>19058829
Been coming here a long time, OP. And I ain’t ever seen this book get anywhere near refuted.
It’s a mic-drop

>>19059006
Bro, just stop eating food. There is no possible way to know that you require to stay alive. All evidence that you need food is just an illusion created in your mind and we cannot infer anything about reality from that, like uncle Kant tells us.

>>19059011
Food tends to work for me so I'm happy to believe in it. Although I do believe it's theoretically possible to live without need of food, that's not the case in my experience.

>>19058931
Identity is not a social construct. You need to use your brain a bit to understand these arguments.

I've don't understand how it's possible to comply rule out the possibility that a god exist. People can point out flaws and contradictions in whatever theist systems that they want but it doesn't prove anything. What if there is a god and all the theist systems haven't even come close to accurately representing him? If you try and say the existence of god is impossible within the realm of physics that operates under the assumption that we have everything in the universe solved. The possibilities are incomprehensible yet people act like it's possible to know the truth. I believe that the truth regarding this problem will be forever unobtainable.

>>19059132
>all the theist systems haven't even come close to accurately representing him
That's literally what it means to be atheist.

>>19059132
At some point the term has to take on some kind of definition. If one gets sufficiently abstract with their meaning of god such that it could be "the force that initiated the big bang" or "the existence of fundamental forces," without any intelligence or intentionality implied, then we are really not talking about the same kind of god as appears in any of abrahamic religions, nor the hindu, nor the greek, or most minor aboriginal ones that I've ever heard of. These tend to all involve a constructive intelligence, and often an outright character taking part in the drama, which all turn out to be all-too-human, just projections of ourselves onto the world.

>>19058829
it's refuted by the experience of my atheism and every atheist I know. Richard Dawkins is divorced and depressed. Every atheist I know has depression. Atheism causes depression. Depression is bad. Atheism being 'correct' is irrelevant because it's an indwelling on the pointlessness at a particular schematic level. The more you focus on the pointless of existence in that schematic level of understanding, the more depressed and irrelevant you are. And for these reasons, I'm out.

>>19058974
It's the opposite of absurd. It's quite literally the logical conclusion of your own line of belief. Simply because you've decided not to venture past the first few yards on that road of thought doesn't change how it ends. Lewis and others understand that lack of a god ultimately means a rejection of all objective value. Even the absurdists and nihilists agree this is the case. Lewis simply demonstrates the ridiculousness of this line of thought. You cannot both attack Lewis' statement and defend objective knowledge or reason. The fact that you haven't recognized puts your 105 IQ on full display

>>19058829
I unironically liked The Ancestor's Tale. Any of his atheism/liberal humanism shit is absolute garbage though.

>>19059192
It is as if you are writing to us from the year 1870, oblivious to all developments on this line of thinking from the last 150 years.

>>19059132
>People can point out flaws and contradictions in whatever theist systems that they want but it doesn't prove anything.
Contradictions are an infallible form of proof, so no. For instance the problem of evil is an a priori contradiction; if it's correct, God cannot exist. You might benefit from reading Critique of Pure Reason, for the purposes on understanding the difference between a priori and a posteriori claims.

Yes

>>19059011
>Kant says everything is an illusion

>>19059236
not my fault you havent read cpr

>>19059210
You haven't mentioned a single philosophical argument in the 10+ posts you've written. The closest you've gotten is claiming that objective value is real because you've observed a pattern in nature.

>>19058829
>God almost certainly does not exist
There refuted.

>>19059152
no it's called negative theology and has been a part of the tradition of every major religion.

>>19059240
>t. someone who hasn't read Kant

>>19059253
yes that's quite clear anon

>>19058860
>I don't have faith that gravity attracts matter to the earth at 9.8 meters per second squared, I have knowledge of it, it has been proven to me
Fucking stupid bitch. Newton's law of gravitation is just an approximation for large-scaled objects on Earth. If we took it as an absolute law, then we would never have quantum mechanics or relativity, both of which account for the observed limitations of Newtonian mechanics.

>>19059249
I decimated you early on and you never recovered

>>19059258
>Newton's law of gravitation is just an approximation for large-scaled objects on Earth
I fucked this up, I meant 9.81 m/s2, not Newton's law of gravitation. You get my point, though.

>>19059258
Anon, you are retarded

>>19058974
Let me rephrase it in my own words: you trust reason alone to tell you that reason is absolute. Is this not as weak as God telling you God is absolute?

>>19059265
That's not true though, the number depends on your location on the planet.

>>19059258
I know you think this is a substantive objection, but it's not because quantum mechanics is also experimentally substantiated and not a matter of faith. Please try to understand the point being debated before posting in future so that you dont look so stupid.

>>19059240
appearance =/= illusion. Illusion implies there is something untrue about what you are perceiving while appearance through sensibility is a mode of being, while not the in-itself of the things, through which it is possible in the first place to access things other than oneself and the only way of knowledge that is accessible to us, since intellectual intuition isn't possible for us. Kant's system is one of empirical realism. The world of appearances is the real world in the sense that "reality" can be said of anything.

>>19059281
Kants system is transcendental idealism, not realism. Please do not attempt to discuss this further, you dont have a basic grasp of the material

>>19059152
Doesn't that thought imply that the existence of god is possible? I usually would not classify those people as atheist but if your definition of an atheist is a lack of belief instead of disbelief that makes sense. I would usually call those people agnostic but maybe my definitions aren't strict enough.
>>19059161
Regardless of what level of sentience we are talking about I still think it's impossible to rule out existence. You could say god is the force that initiated the big bang or your could say that god is an omnipotent being that created the properties of our universe then initiated the big bang. A truly omnipotent being could easily do this in ways that will forever be incomprehensible to us.
>>19059215
I wasn't claiming that contradictions are not an infallible form of proof. My point was deconstruction of a singular theist system does not rule out all exist of god. I see lots of atheist critique christianity as if it disproves the existence of god when the idea of a god is much larger than just christianity. And like I said, I think it's possible that there could be a god that no theist system has come close to representing meaning that if you disproved all existing theist systems it still wouldn't mean anything.

>>19059275
Yeah, I pointed out it was an approximation, did I not?
>>19059277
What you experimentally observe is that one object falls to the ground, accelerating with approximately 9.8 m/s2. Then you observe this again with other objects. Now you start forming a law/relationship, and you put faith into it. Unfortunately, it is not *proven*, as you chose to put it. It is just continuously being observed until one day it's not. How is this proof?

>>19059274
I agree, we should rely on the unreasonable for our arguments and worldview, thanks for the contribution to the conversation!

>>19059313
>we have to accept either one unreasonable line of thinking or another!
no, thanks for your contribution

>>19059310
My knowledge is falsifiable. Your faith is not falsifiable. We can use what I know to make predictions. We cannot use your faith to do anything. It really is that simple. Keep retreating into idealism if it helps you cope with death though.

>>19059293
transcendental idealism + empirical realism (also see A375 in the 4th paralogism) keep in mind that the way of being of real objects outside of you is only inside perception, which makes them no less real for Kant, because there is no way of accessing them through anything else. Their being as things in themselves does not concern us, because only their relational being can be known.

>>19059319
>We can use what I know to make predictions
Yes, and that's about it. I'm not religious, I just find your attitude unscientific.
>We cannot use your faith to do anything
Here you demonstrate *your own* faith, that something must e.g. serve a material purpose (like improving our technology) to have any purpose. Is this statement falsifiable? If not, how can you put it forth so confidently? You just told me your knowledge is falsifiable.

>>19059329
Kant stresses again and again that the representation is not the noumenal object. It is illusive. Any correspondence between it and the noumenal object cannot be known. That is why he is not a realist. How you missed all this is beyond me. Guessing you're trying to recover ego at this point after being plainly caught out. Anyways it's all quite beside the point; idealism is simply a major retreat from reality and Kant was a retard for never questioning God even as he questioned everything his senses told him.

>>19059354
I feel I've contrasted knowledge and faith enough by this point that our readers must surely be tired of seeing the same obvious point stressed again and again. Whether you are playing dumb or genuinely do not get it has mostly ceased being an interesting question

>>19059293
Read his Prolegomena brainlet. Kant literally discusses whether he should call his philosophy critical realism or trancendental idealism because he can't decide. He explicitly states there will be tards like you who misinterpret idealism to mean something like Berkeley, and then explicitly refutes Berkeley's position so he isn't associated with his subjective idealism

>>19059359
The fact that he asserts a thing-in-itself, even though it can't be known, means he is an honest realist. If you can prove to me what the thing-in-itself is, then by all means. Kant's position is the only honest and decent one here, and no it does not reject the actual reality of the senses (because he does not reject a thing-in-itself, and says it is but can't be known).

>>19058829
>has the big book of straw men ever been refuted?
It refutes itself. Honestly I recommend it to everyone, it's the single best extant demonstration of the abysmal quality of popular atheist rhetoric.

>>19059274
No, because reason stemming from observation is consistent throughout humanity, with few outliers. Religion is something that changes massively from one region to the other, and any similarities between them are negligible at best, or are a product of real world / internal workings observations, none of which are derived from theology.

These ideas that consciousness is something special that somehow transcends our physical body, are completely incompatible with the idea of evolution, so if you believe one you have to let the other go.

>>19058903
came here to post this

>>19059366
Anyone with a brain will see how weak the scientific axioms are from this thread in terms of actual knowledge. Induction is not genuine knowledge, it is faith-based knowledge. Please come back to me with exactly one (1) scientific fact which is irrefutable and then your position on knowledge will be justified. Once again, predictive ability != fact or truth.

>>19059410
>Religion is something that changes massively from one region to the other, and any similarities between them are negligible at best
[citation needed]

believers can argue all day over the question of "God or No God" but they can't for the life of them defend their own chosen faith.

>>19059421
Yes, you're correct, science was never about finding the truth because any scientist will tell you there's no real way to know what is true and what isn't. Science is about making predictions, and it is much better at that than religion ever will be.

>>19059432
Read a book, or stop being intellectually dishonest.

>>19059445
>Read a book, or stop being intellectually dishonest.
I have read very many, and world religions are far more closely linked than you probably realize from only surface observations.
>any scientist will tell you there's no real way to know what is true and what isn't.
Correct but only with respect to scientific knowledge itself, and this is exactly why you should never trust someone who readily admits he's willing to peddle lies "for the sake of practicality" or "because it's helpful." The fact that a scientist believes that truth does not exist does not mean their entire field is predicated upon it, but it does mean that you should never trust their word.

>>19059421
Sure we have to employ some level of faith or unjustified assumptions in order lift science up from the ground and give it a kickstart because there is limit to what we can truly know. This is why we don't have scientific proofs instead we have evidence. This is not in any way favorable to religion though.

If we could prove the theory that life is pre-determined, meaning everything is already set in stone, would we be closer to a scientific or rather a religious answer to our existence and its meaning?

>>19059456
>I have read very many, and world religions are far more closely linked than you probably realize from only surface observations.
Yes, as I said, there are various similarities because they're all based on our observable world. You're one of those people who thinks "that car will hit", and when it does you think you've somehow predicted the future while conveniently forgetting about the 100s of time you had that thought and nothing happened. You're biased.

>Correct but only with respect to scientific knowledge itself
I don't even know what you mean by this. Truth is a meaningless concept because fundamentally we're at the mercy of our brain's capacity for parsing the world around us. Religion is the only "field" where people try to claim truths.

Atheism is a symptom of déracinement.

>>19059467
Won't make much difference since there's religious movements that believe in determinism or at least predestination. Demolishing platonism won't matter either.

>>19059472
>there are various similarities because they're all based on our observable world.
No, they're not. These are exactly where the differences in religion arise. From the observable world, which is always changing and disparate.
>You're one of those people who thinks "that car will hit", and when it does you think you've somehow predicted the future while conveniently forgetting about the 100s of time you had that thought and nothing happened. You're biased.
And you're one of the people who has never conducted any meaningful analysis and thinks it's all just hogwash because it looks different on the surface. You're biased too.
>I don't even know what you mean by this
Scientific knowledge is not truth != truth does not exist.
>Truth is a meaningless concept because fundamentally we're at the mercy of our brain's capacity for parsing the world around us
This is an unjustified assertion which cannot be scientifically verified, nor proven in any other manner. Therefore I reject it.

>>19059183
>Depression is bad
If i reject this in a sense that avoiding depression is not something you should value or at least it shouldn't supersede your pursuit of truth then your entire post crumbles.

>>19059508
Why would you not avoid something which, by definition, you want to avoid? If you don't want to avoid depression then it is no longer depression.

>>19059488
>No, they're not.
Let me break it down: based on our observable experience, it is predictable that religions share many similarities because humans also share many similarities.

>thinks it's all just hogwash
It's all hogwash precisely because I've though about it immensely. No, using observations to make predictions is not biased. Trusting a book which has been proven to not even be the work of an individual, and to have been censored and rewritten a thousand times over, is. Looking at different religions and taking the similarities to them to enforce your claims while ignoring the innumerable differences is biased.

>Scientific knowledge is not truth != truth does not exist.
I can't even understand how you got "truth does not exist" from what I wrote. Holy shit.

>This is an unjustified assertion which cannot be scientifically verified, nor proven in any other manner. Therefore I reject it.
Keep believing your brand of readily falsifiable assertions, then. It's wild to think there are people like you these days who still believe in creationism.

The real discussion is whether and what we should and what we shouldn't guide by reason or by faith. That religion relies on faith is obvious, however, given the complexity of the human experience, there are some situations in which it's better to be guided by mathematical truths and scientific evidence, and others in which it's better for oneself to be guided by faith and intuition. We don't really know how we know things; science is yet to answer the most important questions, but it all ultimately depends on where the collective intuition takes us because that's what's relevant in the real world, which is why sciencecucks and religioncucks keep writing these shitty books. Epistemology shits on everyone anyway.

>>19059529
>based on our observable experience, it is predictable that religions share many similarities because humans also share many similarities.
Again, this proves nothing. It is only an observation. We only have a sample size of one in terms of rational animals: Humans. So you cannot draw a single scientifically valid conclusion (even so far as science is valid in itself) from this study.
>It's all hogwash precisely because I've though about it immensely.
Think about it all you want. If you haven't actually studied the relevant fields you won't come to any meaningful or relevant conclusions. You will just be repeating the same mantra over and over again in your head: "religions are wrong, religions are all different, this is obviously wrong because I don't believe it." etc.
>I can't even understand how you got "truth does not exist" from what I wrote. Holy shit.
First you were claiming you possessed truth. I demonstrated why that was not the case. And then you stated that you can't possess truth and that science does not claim to possess truth. I rebutted by stating that in fact there is no reason to assume you cannot possess truth, but you are correct in stating that science cannot.
>Truth is a meaningless concept because fundamentally we're at the mercy of our brain's capacity for parsing the world around us
This, by the way, is equivalent to saying that truth does not exist. And I quoted it directly from your post.
>Keep believing your brand of readily falsifiable assertions
My assertions are not falsifiable. But I have not given you any of them here either, and nor will I because I know for a fact you will then start raging about how they can't be falsified and therefore that they're meaningless. It's a lesson in futility for me to even attempt to reason with you because anything you cannot physically see or touch is a priori "meaningless." Typical hylic bias.

>>19059520
What do you mean by definition?
I don't want to avoid depression cause I think truth is more valuable and depression is one of the many sacrifices I make in my pursuit of truth. That doesn't mean it ceases to be depression.

>>19059586
You haven't even discovered it yet, how can you know the truth is worth searching for? Maybe it sucks. Maybe it's cringe.

>>19059359
of course the representation is not identical to the noumenal object, but it still refers to it. What we know is the appearance given as an object to our sensibility. What you are talking about is transcendental realism + empirical idealism, which Kant differentiates from his transcendental idealism + empirical realism in the 4th paralogism of the A-edition and partly in the refutation of idealism in the B-edition.

>>19059359
and you are a retard who never read Kant which you proved by this statement
>Kant was a retard for never questioning God even as he questioned everything his senses told him.
Kant wrote an extensive refutation of all possible proves by theoretical reason for God in the CpR, laying the foundations for modern agnosticism.

>>19058974
>His argument is “LE ABSURD”… >Because it just is,okay!

Then refute it, Fedoracuck. And explain it in no less than a paragraph.

>>19059586
If you're seeking after truth then depression does not factor into the equation. Attainment of truth = enlightenment which would be the exact negation of actual depression, even if the truth is hard to stomach. It's impossible to be depressed after the attainment of your goal, unless your goal were not your goal and it was just random striving for no reason which led you into depression unwittingly.

>>19059576
>First you were claiming you possessed truth.
Where exactly? If I used that word, I meant "by observable study, it can be concluded that..." There is such a thing as truth in a logical sense, the truth I'm referring about is truth about our "physical universe". There are many universes where we know things to be true, the universe of mathematics, for instance. Through observation you can construct a (mental) model of the universe in which then truth does exist, because you're using the conclusions derived from the observations to use as axioms in that universe.

> this is obviously wrong because I don't believe it
Religious people always seem to have an issue with this. I don't choose to believe anything. I meditate on things, and through logic reach conclusions. There isn't much if any conscious input there at all. And more often than not, the only real thing I take for granted is evolution, because it is a fundamental force of the universe, and it seems to describe our observations perfectly.

>This, by the way, is equivalent to saying that truth does not exist.
No, no it isn't. Unless you're going by the definition of truth which is what you experience, in which case truth would exist, and you'd still not know the truth and think you did, and I'd still have a model better than yours at prediction.

>My assertions are not falsifiable.
Falsifiable through repeated observation is what I meant. Thought I'd clarify because you seem to have a problem grasping this. Religions all being one and the same is falsifiable beyond reasonable doubt, if you understand how the brain works.

>they can't be falsified and therefore that they're meaningless
Ah yes, the old "bro, just believe me."

>because anything you cannot physically see or touch is a priori "meaningless."
Sorry, you're talking to someone who's deeply in touch with their inner being. I just don't conflate what is clearly my mind's product with ghosts existing and being useful to solve problems within our "awake" frame of reference because I have the power to reason.

I also find it extremely disrespectful when people handwave the marvels of what our brain can do to the paranormal or god.

Creationists like you are dumb.

>>>/x/

>>19058829
Dawkins is writing about religion when he hasn’t read any theology. He is the ultimate pseud

>>19059642
That's is silly. What if someone was informed they had cancer or something? Will elaborate on this later on. Busy right now. Just giving this thread a bump.

>>19059632
I will, going from the axiom of evolution:

Even if we are a sort of "Song of iluvatar" type deal, evolution shows us that the element of the song are small units of something (energy, matter, whatever else may exist). This naturally means that we are made of those elements, therefore, when those elements disperse - say, through death - it's dust to dust; non-consciousness to non-consciousness.

And because I know some faggot will mention it, it doesn't matter if those elements are themselves conscious, because just because conscious things come together, that doesn't mean the consciousness of the being as a whole is made of the consciousness of the parts. This is a logical leap.

>>19059445
Please commit suicide if you think religion and science are in any way related. I shouldn’t need to explain this, but science is objective, as in it is the case that it’s results are independent of human opinion, and religion seeks to explain and explore the metaphysical, the spiritual, the philosophical, whereas natural sciences explain the physical, the observable. Science and religion are two necessary tools to making sense of the universe, and just because you’re caught up in the bad philosophy loop of thinking religion and science are in any way comparable just makes you a giant retard

>>19059659
>the truth I'm referring about is truth about our "physical universe"
Which does not exist. There is no truth in becoming or our physical universe. Only pure contingency and occasional pattern. Patterns, which come and go, are the closest the physical universe will come to truth.
> the only real thing I take for granted is evolution, because it is a fundamental force of the universe
No, it isn't. You already admitted you cannot have scientific truth, therefore you cannot make this claim. It is another scientific lie masqueraded as truth. I really do not like liars, especially when they are fully conscious that they are lying.
>No, no it isn't
Yes it is. Truth at the most basic level is knowledge which agrees with that which is. If you think "that which is" is a meaningless concept, then all truth falls away in its entirety, because nothing exists, not truth, not anything, not even becoming. To exist, according to you, has no meaning.
> Religions all being one and the same is falsifiable beyond reasonable doubt,
True, it's a good thing I never made this claim. The fact of the matter is that the core of all religion, of which the object is metaphysic (that which is) is one, which is unfalsifiable and beyond any doubt. Most human religions participate in this ideal in their core, but not all; as such the principle is only falsifiable in its physical manifestations, but even still the rule favors the truth of that which is more than physical. Just as most humans are born with the power of reason, a very few aren't, so most religions have at their core the object of metaphysic, yet there are a few which deviate from their higher purpose. This is the nature of phenomenal contingency, becoming.
>I also find it extremely disrespectful when people handwave the marvels of what our brain can do to the paranormal or god.
Why is it disrespectful? It's all random, there is nothing to respect if it is all random. I don't respect random patterns or behavior, I respect design, intelligence, wit and uprightness. In a word: I respect that which is and which wills, and not that which is never itself but always lies and deceives, even about itself. This is a perfectly valid, and even ideal, framework by which to respect or not.
>ou're talking to someone who's deeply in touch with their inner being.
It might be worth getting in touch with your outer being too. Too much subjectivity is not healthy and leads to delusion.

>>19059694
Truth is more valuable than the depression which might (or might not) result from it. You might also not have cancer, and you would feel elated by the truth of that. Again, depression or happiness does not factor into the will to truth.

>>19059192
The atoms in human brains create a system capable of learning and meshing with the rules found in nature. It's reliable in so far as the systems it produces, produce results verifiable against reality. There can be objective reality without God, what are you even saying?

>>19059731
>It's all random
I've randomly stopped reading because you have the mental capacity of a 5yo.

>>19059782
word of advice, close the thread before you start throwing tantrums
your type of rationalist got destroyed by Hume centuries ago

>>19059782
Random patterns are still random, my friend. Nice chat though.

>>19058829
>>19058915
I'm not an atheist (admittedly an agnostic midwit) and I don't understand the religious dynamic, I sincerely don't, what's wrong with suspending your judgment? People will tell you their religion is "logical" but at some point it requires faith of some kind, invariably. And concurrent religions make as much sense when you take them objectively. The buddhist system makes complete sense (inb4 guenonfag) if you take their claims to be true, and the christian system makes complete sense if you take their claims to be true, but both can't be true.
Seriously, what's wrong with choosing to remain skeptical if faith simply makes no sense to me? Sure I'll be damned according to those religions but I don't believe in them in the first place so it's a circular argument.

>>19059881
>I don't understand the religious dynamic
You're attempting to understand something they themselves don't understand. Why are you even bothering?

>>19059795
>>19059818
>>19059699
>>>/x/

>>19058928
Have you ever been on this board or /his/ for more than 2 seconds?

>>19059891
Because christians probably form the largest community on /lit/ or on this website in general, and they're all absolutely convinced that their beliefs are true. I want to understand why because to me it makes absolutely no sense and even though I tried I can't put myself in their shoes.

>>19059901
But you know why, the post you were linking explained why. Look up the history of Christianity if you want to learn why it's so prevalent, if that's your question. It's a really cool topic.

I'm not sure why atheists obsess so much over belief and truth, I always viewed religion as a way of life.

>>19059911
I know a bit about the history of christianity, could you explain?
I have the feeling that it's prevalent because it's the only religion that weaponizes what refutes it, for example by saying all experiences it doesn't agree with are demonic prelest, or by saying that the more people disagree with christianity, the better (in the eschatological sense). But is that really all there is to it? It's popular because it has a convenient answer for everything? Seems shoddy

>>19059917
Most of religions which stand today have some of that, it's the nature of memes. Christianity is pretty much an agglomerate of many religions, some really really old, and was massively boosted by the roman empire. Your religion is always one emperor away from becoming global.

>>19059951
>Most of religions which stand today have some of that
Why are christians the most outspoken about it? I never see buddhists invade other threads to evangelize about how you're gonna get samsara'd if you don't listen to them. I don't like saying this because it's reddit rhetoric but I really get a cult-like impression from hardline christians. Constant cognitive dissonance and so on.

>>19059891
>>>/g/

>>19060019
>Why are christians the most outspoken about it?
The meme evolves to spread itself. Christians are more outspoken about it because they were outspoken and it worked, therefore the christians you see are outspoken because it's in the religion itself to be outspoken about it and to try to convert others. Buddhism is about extending those who want to listen a hand, not forcing you to listen, so it is naturally less prevalent. Of course, there are a lot more factors to this, but this is the basis of why.

>>19059951
>and was massively boosted by the roman empire
Christianity spread despite the Roman Empire. Go back to history class.

>>19060019
>Why are christians the most outspoken about it?
Because these same people were atheists during it's peak. It all larping to own the libs or whatever bullshit. Any sincere Christian would have left this toxic degenerate shithole long ago. Preaching to other is their own guilty pleasure because they see their own past shadow in anyone who isn't a religiousnut.

>>19060050
Buddhism is the fourth largest religion on the planet. Again, quit spouting nonsense. You're a typical pseud.

>>19060019
>you're on a site primarily used by westerners, on a board which focuses primarily on western literature, philosophy and culture. no shit christianity is going to be the most prominent religion here
>God doesn't necessarily refer to the hebrew or christian god, it can be a synonym for Logos, or some other type of deistic or metaphysical belief
>a lot of people debating atheists on here are agnostics or atheists themselves who want to shit on the same terrible arguments coming out of "pop" atheism

>>19060050
Yeah, that makes sense. I still don't get how they seem to be absolutely convinced of the logical foundations of their faith and are actually capable of saying with a straight face that they're christian because it's the most logical (and not because they just have faith)
>>19060055
Buddhism does not evangelize save for Nichiren which is a minority sect

>>19060055
Yes, fourth largest, and the reason why is because it has the advantage of actually being understanding and resonating naturally with a lot of people. When I consider Buddhism less relevant I'm talking about the main 4 religions we have today, and like you said, of those 4, Buddhism is the smaller because it isn't predatory.

Like I said, there are a lot of factors for spread, not just the predatory tendencies.

>>19060019
Actual 'go to church', 'help thy neighbor' christians don't exist on this site, only larpers. Hanging out in such a degenerate place would be criticized and advised against by any real christian priest.

Can’t refute, don’t need to. God is with me

>>19060095
>Can't refute
Yes that much has been made obvious kek

>>19060095
>God is with me
Based. Bless you anon have a good day.

>>19060090
It's weird though because they seem to buy into this shit 100%. I don't feel much insincerity on their part, they really sound completely convinced that their beliefs are the truth.

>>19060102
>what is confirmation bias
you got a perfectly good answer here >>19060057 but you'd rather circlejerk with your redditor friends

>>19060088
>the reason why is because it has the advantage of actually being understanding and resonating naturally with a lot of people
This is directly at odds with your explanation of why Christianity is successful. If everything is successful, then your entire theory about religion and memetics is worthless.

>>19060132
Not him but Christianity is successful because proselityzing is a core tenet of the religion. Buddhism is successful because it makes sense as a whole.
I'm not a Buddhist nor am I interested in becoming one, before you accuse me of shilling.

>>19060132
No, not everything is successful, you shiteating brainlet. Read what I wrote. Different strategies work with varying degrees of success, many strategies don't, just like in biological evolution.

>>19060139
Thanks.

It is literally impossible to refute christianity, because everything can just be explained away by God being omnipotent and mysterious

People deny the divine currents and heavenly/demonic forces that exist in the world at their own peril. You live by the teachings of Christ and your life is improved, their is no refutation of this. There is no need to waste time debating the existence of God. He is a deity outside of our full perception.

Atheists simply deny that they know and can feel the divine realm in daily life.

>>19060160
Your religion falls apart with one single statement:
>I don't believe that happened
Everything below this post will be cope

>>19059881
There is nothing wrong with agnosticism, don't let /lit/ psyop you, it might be the most understandable position there is. Militant atheists can be annoying, but so can religious zealots. Many people feel the need to subscribe to a religion to deal with the harshness of life. If you don't need that, good on you, but it can be helpful to keep an open mind towards them in case you would need it somewhere down the line.

>>19060165
That’s fine, God still watches over you. Some of his flock are wayward

>>19060160
>You live by the teachings of Christ and your life is improved
Yes, who could've guessed that being more generous, less attached to worldly possessions, more mindful and so on would lead to improvement in one's life? It's not like there are various other religious leaders including Siddhartha or the teachings of the Gita who say the exact same thing either.

What's up with christers and being so smugly condescending all the time? Like this tool >>19060175
What kind of brain rot must a man go through to behave in such an insufferably self-righteous manner and not even notice he's being an obnoxious faggot?

>>19060178
Yes? I don’t deny other religions can do the same. We may all be interpreting the same divine force or energy

>>19060160
>Atheists simply deny that they know and can feel the divine realm in daily life.
*suspends judgment in your path*
nothing personnel, dogmatist

>>19060184
reminder that you will get no reddit gold in hell, only sulphur and the various demons poking you in the arse with tridents

>>19060188
You perennialists represent a tiny minority among christians, and your peers think you're heretics being misled by prelest and false teachings
Most christians are actually eternally seething retards with no capacity for self-reflection like this guy >>19060195

>>19060170
Agnosticism naturally becomes crypto-atheism in most cases. Agnostics are just non-militant atheists.

>>19060175
No thanks, I am Jewish and only Satan watches over me

>>19060184
I’ll pray for you, anon. Try not to curse so much

>>19060195
"Hell" only destroys your soul, revelation was accepted into the canon the latest as a misunderstanding

>>19060200
if only you'd known the unholy retribution your "clever" little comment would bring upon you, you would have held your fucking tongue
but you couldn't, you didn't, and you won't be saved even if you paid your life's savings in indulgences, you goddamn heathen
I will shit holy water all over you, and you will drown in it. You're fucking damned, redditor

>>19060213
Fuck off.
>>19060229
Extreme cringe

>>19060214
>These people base their entire lives on a 2000 year old collection of novellas.
Take a deep breath and let that sink in.

>>19060165
Well, you were right

>>19060232
B-but it was divinely inspired and uhh we have eyewitness testimonies and you can confirm it for yourself too you just have to pray... noooo stop laughing!

>>19060236
>you can confirm it for yourself too you just have to pray
I don't get why they even use this as an argument. You can psyop yourself into believing literally anything. Fuck, even the buddhists have a system for this that's more fleshed out than Christian prayer where they actually tell you at which point you'll have practiced enough that you'll start believing in the doctrine (stream entry). But in Christianity's case it's different because...?

>>19060184
>>19060192
>>19060200
>>19060214
>>19060231
>>19060232
>>19060233
>>19060236
t. newfags getting baited
how fucking clueless are you

>>19060242
>Merely pretending
I BTFO religious retards pro bono, my dude.

>>19060249
you btfo only yourself by taking seriously some anon talking about hellfire, demons poking your ass and reddit gold

>>19060150
>No, not everything is successful, you shiteating brainlet.
You said Christianity is successful because it is dogmatic, and Buddhism is successful because it isn't dogmatic ("understanding"). Your entire position is unfalsifiable garbage, desperately scrambling to show how religion is just "natural." The same arguments can be applied to absolutely everything in evolution and memetics. Literally everything **can** be explained in this way, that does not mean it must be explained in this way. All evolutionary explanations are just post hoc rationalizations of something you couldn't have otherwise predicted, every single time these explanations just become ways to cover your ears and believe there is nothing other than the basic quantitative tautology that is evolution.
> many strategies don't, just like in biological evolution.
All strategies can work in biological evolution. It's up to you to prove that the strategy is a strategy, and not something else, which you cannot do. This is the fundamental failing point of all evolutionary explanations.
>>19060139
>Not him but Christianity is successful because proselityzing is a core tenet of the religion. Buddhism is successful because it makes sense as a whole.
That's not what he said. Christianity makes sense as a whole too. The point is that Buddhism is supposed to be more "understanding" (his words) than Christianity, which is why it is successful. Previously he was trying to show that Christianity was popular because it was not understanding and dogmatic, and then he moves on to stating the exact opposite for Buddhism without any explanation whatsoever.

>>19058902
>as modern science has shown, either of these can be removed without the person losing any memories or mental capacities.

This sentence is just false. What modern science has proved is that this type of surgeries can only be performed to kids under the age of 3. Yet that might cure seizures and epilepsy that couldn't be controlled through medicine BUT there is a downside. Depending on which side of the brain you remove, then that side of the body will be weaker (leg, arm, eye). Do that to an adult and he probably won't be able to speak.
It only works to kids because their brain is plastic enough to adopt.

>>19059735
You already conceded that depression can result from truth. That's all I am saying. Depression might be a consequence of some revealed truth but truth is worth pursuing in spite of that. I don't understand what you're disagreeing with.

>>19060258
>Christianity makes sense as a whole too.
It really doesn't.

>>19059595
Truth is intrinsically valuable. My happiness does not factor into it. Even if the discovery of some truth directly leads to my demise I would say it's still worth it.

>>19060282
>Truth is intrinsically valuable
Why?

>>19060279
Buddhism denying the existence of the self, or of matter, hardly makes any more sense. Be honest here, retard, and quit pretending Buddhism is some beacon of rationality in contrast to Christianity.

>>19060298
>denying the existence of the self, or of matter
It doesn't.
Why does Christianity make sense?

>>19060289
He doesn't know, he just think that the World is False and always out there trying to deceive him. Some retards can't be cured, just stop talking to them and save your sanity.

>>19060306
The fuck are you talking about?

>>19060316
Didn't know you were that young.

Good to see ath*ist retards squirming with their outdated manchild circlejerk thought contained in one thread where they reapeat to themselves their justification for vice and debauchery that no one cares about.

No atheists we don't care that you are buying bad dragon dildos and you need to remove absolute in order to not feel shame or guilt, we care about ultimate truth so fuck off will you?

>>19058829
Read Kierkgaard.

Jesus is pretty cool and his morals will pacify your hopeless existence until salvation and if you're wrong who cares if he wasn't God because your afterlife will be atheistic nihilist crap anyway where nothing happens (BORING!).

>>19060289
Truth makes a non-derivative, positive contribution to a belief's overall value. You wouldn't be engaging in a conversation with me if you didn't value truth in and of itself.

>>19060258
>You said Christianity is successful because it is dogmatic, and Buddhism is successful because it isn't dogmatic ("understanding").
I didn't say buddhism is successful because it wasn't dogmatic:
>Yes, fourth largest, and the reason why is because it has the advantage of actually being understanding and resonating naturally with a lot of people. When I consider Buddhism less relevant I'm talking about the main 4 religions we have today, and like you said, of those 4, Buddhism is the smaller because it isn't predatory.
>and resonating naturally with a lot of people
And yes, the same quality can have different effects depending on the whole.
You may be clinically retarded.

>All strategies can work in biological evolution.
I forgot you are a creationist, therefore you don't actually believe in extinction. My bad.

>>19060305
Why does Buddhism make sense? All I'm saying is that Christianity is internally coherent, or at least as internally coherent as Buddhism.
>It doesn't.
Oh boy.

>>19060344
Why are you projecting your latent homosexuality onto people who simply don't buy that a rabbi rose from the dead 2000 years ago?

>>19060366
>latent
Either you're ill or not.

>>19060366
Yes believing that make you absolved? Free? Safe?

Much like evil christcuks who forced you to go to church when you were 9 right?

>>19060346
>believe it jesus because it will give you peace
But it doesn't give me peace because I think Christianity is the most contrived and boring shit ever invented. Almost all other religions are more interesting and more imaginative.

>>19060352
You can assume truth is subjective. As nominalists usually do, though /lit/ doesn't like them because they're not trad and based enough.

>>19060306
Where did you get that retard?
It also has zero bearing on whether I'm correct or not. You got a nice story there but it's completely irrelevant.

>>19060365
All religions are internally coherent.

>>19060364
>I didn't say buddhism is successful because it wasn't dogmatic:
You quoted words yourself which say literally just this. "It has the advantage of being understanding (synonymous with non-dogmatic). "Resonating" is just more subjective gloss which applies to Christianity as well as any other religion, and is not unique to Buddhism.
>And yes, the same quality can have different effects depending on the whole.
Exactly, which again nullifies your entire point. If you can't determine the whole (which you can't, because evolution is entirely post hoc) then your "explanation" is absolutely meaningless.
>I forgot you are a creationist, therefore you don't actually believe in extinction. My bad.
I do believe in extinction. I don't believe in theories which you cannot prove. If I were to say that religion exists because God wills it, you would be unable to prove me wrong. This is just the same as you saying religions exist because evolution makes it happen. I cannot prove you wrong, but you also cannot prove that it is necessarily the case, just as I cannot prove that God necessarily wills religion into existence either. You have absolutely no argument as to why I should accept your explanation apart from "common sense."

>>19060375
Just meditate and think about Jesus.

Block the evil thoughts. Ignore the influencing machine.

>>19060385
Exactly. So my point stands and Buddhism and Christianity do not differ in that respect.

>>19060374
Your post makes no sense, what are you trying to say?
I've gone to church once in my life for a wedding, not counting visiting cathedrals in other countries, so your appeal to "muh rebellion" doesn't do much, I don't care about Christianity one way or the other, it's just another false doctrine to me.

>>19060389
I meditate already, I just don't think about Jesus because he's not special to me and I don't care about his story.
>b-but it works
Yes it does, see >>19060241. Your prayer giving you "results" is meaningless, definitely not an argument for anything, and can be dismissed as delusion.

>>19060365
If you knew anything about anything you'd know Buddhism is much more focused on your internal state than in believing shit external to yourself. Yes, there's a lot of that too, but most of Buddhist teachings can be used for inner development if you don't believe in gods / anything metaphysical, while Christianity is all based on sucking god's dick.

Buddhism is an infinitely more useful religion for someone trying to learn themselves.

>>19060398
What's the difference between delusion and "reality"?

>>19059261
Where?

>>19060386
>You quoted words yourself which say literally just this.
>A AND B is the same as A

>Exactly, which again nullifies your entire point.
No it doesn't, unless you're a retard.

You are an actual creationist... I was just memeing, but god damnit.

Just KYS.

>>19060383
Fucking monkey, where i got that? Maybe i got that from the one sentence you achieved to plagiarise without sounding like the retard you usually are. Simply i described what lies underneath your seething thought proccess.
Now calling it irrelevant that only shows the irrelevancy of your initial sentence, if you were not a dumb fuck you wouldn't be getting dumb answers in return. But honestly what is with retards of your kind thinking that you are capable of truth and praise it so much? You live in denial of your stupidity yet daring to claim that you can appreciate truth. I wish i could erase your existence fucking kid.

>>19060381
I don't even need to defend this point. I can agree to the assertion that valuing the pursuit of truth is subjective and it basically just appeals to my own personal biases . Similarly putting value in happiness or reduction of suffering is completely dependent on one's subjective preferences, and that was really my initial point. "Depression is bad" is not a statement of fact and therefore can be rejected.

>>19060401
"Reality" is something that is mostly agreed upon thanks to empiricism, but I agree with what you're implying because I'm not a realist. Either way, Christianity is useless to me, it's really time Christians learned that some people simply do not feel compelled to care about their religion one way or the other, and dismiss it because of that.

>>19060392
>Your post makes no sense, what are you trying to say?
You are also very stupid huh? No wonder lack of absolute logos is necessity for you to present yourself as intelligent. Sad fate really, should have been aborted, then you would not suffer like this doomed and born to exist as a Christian hylic.

>I've gone to church once in my life for a wedding, not counting visiting cathedrals in other countries, so your appeal to "muh rebellion" doesn't do much, I don't care about Christianity one way or the other, it's just another false doctrine to me.
In fact that's even worse, you are judging something you havent interacted with. LMAO even better you are mentally blocked in philosophy and metaphysics because you want to actively avoid it due to some personally sunk cost or what ever. Cursed fate, to be you is hell on earth. You don't really need anything else to suffer.

>>19060411
Go be a retard somewhere else

>>19060425
R-O-P-E

>>19058832
based, just finished it

>>19060420
>buzzwords and seething
kek
>In fact that's even worse
Sure, christniggers always have a good answer for everything. Went to church and didn't like it? "REEEEE YOU'RE JUST REBELLING"; never went to church and not interested? "REEEE YOU DIDN'T ENGAGE WITH IT"
I don't need to eat shit to know it's not my thing, dumbfuck, and I would bet money that I've read more of the bible than you've ever had.
As for metaphysics, sure, I had a phase like that, and grew out of it. Thankfully I was never retarded enough to have a serious christian phase though.

You are absolutely SEETHING in rage because fewer and fewer people buy into your nonsense religion. Cope harder while people continue to simply not think about you lol

>>19060399
>but most of Buddhist teachings can be used for inner development
So can Christian teachings, or Hindu teachings, or Tao. The fact that teachings can be taken out of context and used in a particular way does not mean you can equate that with the religion itself.
>while Christianity is all based on sucking god's dick.
You have to suck the Buddha's dick if you want the highest enlightenment, he says that there is no enlightenment higher than his. That's why it's called the "lion's roar in all four directions." Many of the important suttas begin with that title, or at least referencing the lion's roar.

>>19060482
Not him, but Buddhist practices can be divorced from the metaphysical claims and appeals to faith, while Christian practices cannot. You can practice satipatthana for hours every day and not give the slightest fuck about the Buddha or anything he taught. Can you pray the rosary without being a Christian? Sure, but that'd be retarded

>>19060482
>So can Christian teachings
Kek. Christianity is based on having everything told to you. Sheep. You don't know shit about Buddhism.
>You have to suck the Buddha's dick if you want the highest enlightenment
Good think I wasn't talking about the "highest enlightenment, huh?

>>19060482
>You have to suck the Buddha's dick if you want the highest enlightenment
I'm not even a buddhist and only ever read a few suttas and even I know what pratyekabuddhayana is

>this thread
How do atheists actually take this book seriously? I read it in my teens. Even if you had the most elementary knowledge of theology you’d see it’s chock full of strawmen and inaccuracies

>>19060410
Please present an argument or stop posting.
>>A AND B is the same as A
A and not A cannot be posited at the same time of the same thing if you want the statement to mean anything. That was the point. Follow along. This is getting really tiresome.
>You are an actual creationist
No, I just don't buy the theory of evolution as an explanation of all things. That does not make me a creationist. Please stop lumping everything into your two baskets of "evolutionist" or "creationist." I've already admitted that evolution is trivially true in principle, the point is it is meaningless with respect to actual reality because it presupposes a whole which is not already determined by evolution itself.

>>19060465
You are under such torture, it's amusing watching you squeal.

Yea what ever, it's not like I have to suffer being you for a microsecond of existence, while that's only existence you have.

>>19060512
You don't need this book to disregard christianity anyway, anyone who reads atheist literature is a midwit. Anything that relies on faith to be true can simply be dismissed as is.

>>19060518
No need to project your hatred of life upon me bugman, I'm feeling alright
Your anger betrays fear

>>19060526
Hahahahahah from self defeatism, to cope and into eternal cycle.

You know it's really unfair that you can escape it if you accept Christ? If I was God, i'd make it impossible for your like, ironically you are doing that to yourself.

>>19060519
You get into trouble with this cause science is also, at a foundational level, on shaky grounds. I think it's better to say you personally reject religion because it does not correspond to some axiomatic presuppositions we make about the universe like causality for example whereas science does.

>>19060531
Seethe more, my angry, terrified brainwashed friend

>>19060518
>>19060531
>I'm too brainless to find happiness and meaning in my life without religion, so you must be too
You tire me.

>>19060539
I'm pretty sure he's baiting, nobody would throw such a tantrum over someone just saying "I don't care about your religion"

>>19060539
>>19060534
Yes I am idiot and stupid, and wille bigot and retard and what ever you trow at me, yet you are blocked mentally worse then actual 75 IQ, and by your own volition. That is actual hell. Good, you deserve it.

>>19060533
>science is also, at a foundational level, on shaky grounds.
This is the most wat I've read all day. Thing about science is that if you find something wrong with it you can just ignore it. Science isn't a religion, it's just a convenient way to refer to repeated observations leading to future conclusions.

>>19058853
the quran
the bible
the jewish quran

checkmate atheist

>>19060504
>Good think I wasn't talking about the "highest enlightenmen
Well then you're not talking about Buddhism.
>pratyekabuddhayana
This is only for a Buddha, and the point still applies that there is no higher enlightenment than one.
>while Christian practices cannot.
Yes they can. There are small groups of people who atheistically use the teachings of Jesus, and not only that but most common moral principles are still inherited from Christianity, even if they aren't directly acknowledged.

>>19060533
Everything is on shaky grounds if you want to go that route.
I personally reject religion because I see no reason to believe in any of it. I mean it's pretty simple, someone tells me "X happened Y years ago, I can't prove it to you but you can prove it to yourself" and my reaction is simply to disregard it. Why wouldn't I?
No religion makes truth claims that are verifiable. All of them rely on "personal experience" to be ascertained. Personal experience is unreliable, even worse, it can be molded according to whichever framework you choose to put yourself into. As far as I can tell, religions are just various ways to cope with uncertainty, and I've found mine already, so I don't need another.

>>19060511
>>19060491
meant to (you) >>19060559

>>19060544
>Yes I am idiot and stupid, and wille bigot and retard and what ever you trow at me, yet you are blocked mentally worse then actual 75 IQ, and by your own volition. That is actual hell. Good, you deserve it.

what's there to refute? It's a pop science book, not some super rigorous paper so you can find holes in a bunch of the arguments and it's impossible to 'disprove' gods. the core points that the gods humans have worshipped are fictitious and that religions can get away with obvious bullshit specifically because they're religions still hold up, most of the actual content of the book is a product of its time.

>>19060560
Stop trying to force other people down your route, then. Stop arguing against religion. Most people need that support, and people like you who are desperate to earn a reputation as an enlightened atheist by showing how it is "nonsensical" just make life worse for the vast majority who need real, and not pretend, existential supports.

>>19060559
>Well then you're not talking about Buddhism.
I am, you shit for brains, I'm not talking about the whole of it. Like I said, there are parts which can be useful.
How retarded do you have to be to make these false equivalences all the time? This is getting really tiring. Teaches me for arguing with self proclaimed mush brains, I guess.

All you religious fucks have been doing the entire thread is either misunderstanding shit, or being intellectually dishonest to damage control.

>>19060580
>Stop arguing against religion.
How desperate can you get? You're literally asking me to stop stating my opinion because it hurts your feelings. No, fuck off.
I'm not trying to force anyone, actually I don't care what anyone does. You on the other hand, as all christians, are a proselyte who will go as far as to threaten people with eternal suffering if they don't join your team. Constantly shilling your bullshit, constantly invading threads where you're not welcome, just look at the catalog on here, it's like a termite infestation.
>real, and not pretend, existential supports.
I agree, which is why I didn't turn to religion.

>>19060546
This is what the pioneers of the scientific revolution like Descartes believed. There are epistemological limitations to what we can know for sure. Your grounds for reasoning can be doubted, your senses can be deceiving and so on.

>>19060580
There's a reason why I don't have a problem with Buddhists: they aren't a bunch of militant assholes who shove their beliefs down your throat at every opportunity. Kys.

>>19060560
I completely agree with you. Just trying to refine the statement.

>>19058829
It was unironically refuted by pic related. Thanks to this garment, atheism will never be taken seriously again within our lifetimes.

>>19060597
Yes, good thing science isn't about finding the truth, and instead is about finding accurate enough models of the universe which allow us to make predictions, huh?

>>19060584
>I am, you shit for brains,
No you're not. I'm not continuing with you any furtherm you're just flinging insults at this point without substantial argument.

>>19059210
>from the year 1870
You mean he's fluent in ancient greek and latin, had already read the bible, greeks and Shakespeare at 15, that he didn't merely get to learn algebra, basic grammar, no holocaust class and writing book reports on YA, like the rest of us?

>>19060559
Most moral principles are inherited from nature, fyi.

>>19060612
Yes, I am. Talking about part of something is still talking about that thing. I clearly stated:
>Buddhism is much more focused on your internal state than in believing shit external to yourself. Yes, there's a lot of that too, but most of Buddhist teachings can be used for inner development if you don't believe in gods / anything metaphysical
Please explain to me how this is hard to comprehend. I'm starting to feel like I'm the most autistic person on this planet, to be fair.

>>19060592
I'm not desperate, I'm stating, matter of fact, irrespective of whether or not God exists (ie, that argument is temporarily put to the side), that your beliefs are not worthy of propagation and actively do harm to the majority of people, it causes unrest and existential angst, which is partly responsible for the massive increase in mental illness lately. Your beliefs are not only unfounded and only personally relevant, they actively cause harm to the majority of people when you try to supplant the existing structures with them, however insidiously or even innocently you attempt to do this (arguing on 4chan is probably the least harmful place, but in general it is not confined here). This has nothing to do with my feelings, I do not personally need religion, this is about the general wellbeing of mankind.
>I'm not trying to force anyone, actually I don't care what anyone does.
This is an absolute lie, judging by how desperately you're trying to lampoon religion in this thread.
>I agree, which is why I didn't turn to religion.
Religion is the most fundamental existential support. Most people need it. Some don't.
>>19060601
That's the same reason I have a problem with your type.

>>19060634
>Most moral principles are inherited from nature
No they aren't. Unless you consider Christianity a part of nature, in which case moral principles are inherited from Christianity, which is exactly the same as nature. Europe had a very different set of moral principles before Christianity, which it "inherited from nature." But the moral principles it gained were inherited from Christianity.
>Please explain to me how this is hard to comprehend.
It's not hard to comprehend, it's just wrong. That is not Buddhism, it is meditation. meditation exists in almost every religion and mystic school. It has nothing to do with Buddhism in particular. You could even state is is just normal psychotherapy, because psychologists recommend meditation.

>>19058941
This is one of most stupid things I ever read.
>how can i trust my own thinking to be true?
By making experiments with it? If it can predict what will happen in reality, it is right. If Gregor Mendel could predict how the next pea would come out, he was right about genetics

>>19060637
>I'm not desperate, I'm stating, matter of fact, irrespective of whether or not God exists (ie, that argument is temporarily put to the side), that your beliefs are not worthy of propagation and actively do harm to the majority of people, it causes unrest and existential angst, which is partly responsible for the massive increase in mental illness lately.
Your "matter of fact" isn't a fact, and you're dumb. The decline of religion is not the reason why we have trannies running around everywhere. Confirmation bias.
Ironically, religion may very well why these people find it so hard to take in scientific and studied evidence of why their life style is harmful.

>>19060637
>Your beliefs are not only unfounded
kek that's rich. I'm not interested in arguing with you considering that despite your claim of having put your beliefs to the side, you're still clearly and extremely biased and none of what you're saying has any basis in anything.
And you can cover your ears as much as you want, the fact is that I do not "evangelize" my beliefs and am not a militant atheist considering I'm not even a hardline atheist to begin with. I shitpost on /lit/; as for the rest, I don't care, people do what they want. Some members of my family are devout orthodox, and I don't care, we get along, I don't force my opinion down their throats, they don't try to force theirs down mine (anymore). You have no leg to stand on.

>>19060608
Truth is what we were talking about

>>19060643
>No they aren't.
Yes. Yes they are.

>It's not hard to comprehend, it's just wrong. That is not Buddhism, it is meditation.
>Buddhist teachings
>Not Buddhism
Ok, so you're just being pedantic because you lost the argument and want an out. Gotcha.

Using this thread to ask: are there any actually good books on atheism, convincing ones? Not popsci stuff from people who've never read theology, but actually serious treatises.
This isn't a loaded question and I'm asking for honest recommendations, thanks. I want the atheist equivalents to things like the scholastic writings and whatnot.

>>19060671
What exactly are you looking for in a book about atheism? Atheism isn't really an ideology, as much as religious people want it to be. It isn't something you choose to be.

>>19060649
>Your "matter of fact" isn't a fact, and you're dumb
Ok, you too.
>Ironically, religion may very well why these people find it so hard to take in scientific and studied evidence of why their life style is harmful.
Science cannot tell people how to live. That is one of its fundamental failings. Transexuals would not exist if they had proper moral and existential guidance which was not incessantly challenged and questioned by people who love "scientific objectivity" so much.
>>19060658
>Ok, so you're just being pedantic because you lost the argument and want an out. Gotcha.
The fact that you don't understand basic differentiation is disheartening. You cannot call meditation Buddhist any more than you can call the act of eating human. Humans eat, but eating does not make one human. Buddhists meditate, but meditating does not make you Buddhist. How is this hard to comprehend?

>>19060680
I want a coherent exposition of atheist arguments. I'm not even religious by the way.

I am being completely unironic when I say that reading the gospels and looking into christian philosophy has made me into an atheist

>>19060671
Summa Atheologica, Bataille

>>19060710
So
>Guilty
>On Nietzsche
>Inner Experience
?
The latter seems to talk about mystical states. Wasn't Bataille a nihilist? I don't know much about him.

>>19060708
I wonder what the difference is between you and Isaac Newton

>>19060695
Just read books about sciences. Atheism is just something that happens.
>>19059699

>>19060723
He was smarter
Your point being? Smart people often believe in some stupid shit

>>19058941
Lewis always seems to argue very strongly against his own theistic beliefs by how retarded he sounds. A total embarrassment. And no, I'm not an atheist.

>>19060724
I think you can believe in continued existence after death even while being an atheist. Atheism is just belief in a lack of God.

>>19060680
>It isn't something you choose to be.
>>19060724
>Atheism is just something that happens.
>>>19059699
It's good that atheists have still have a bone of truth left in their bodies; they are willing to admit that they have no reason for their views, they are subtly influenced into them by forces they are not aware of. There is no actual disproof of God anywhere, yet they are still pulled into the orbit of nihilism by the mere dazzling display of scientific theories and hypotheses, all of which being sweet little lies (with a small dash of truth to make them plausible on the surface) designed to deceive.

>>19060738
There's no proof of God anywhere either lol
Cope and seethe

>>19060715
I don't know much about him either, you mentioned wanting to read someone who's well versed in theology and he is, also Summa Atheologica sounds very cool

>>19060748
Alright, thank you.

>>19060734
I wouldn't call it that. Atheism is simply not making decisions based on things which haven't been observed to (to them) a satisfactory degree. I for instance don't care if a god exists or not, because it's inconsequential within our frame of reference.

But if a god exists it's not your god, christfags. Seethe, kek.

>>19060762
>Atheism is simply not making decisions based on things which haven't been observed to (to them) a satisfactory degree.
Isn't that just a flavor of skepticism?
>it's inconsequential within our frame of reference.
Unless the concept of salvation is true, but yes.
>it's not your god, christfags.
If a God exists, how unlikely is it that he's described by any religion at all? Why would a specific group of people have access to this kind of information? It's retarded.

>>19060773
>Isn't that just a flavor of skepticism?
Call it whatever you want, I guess. Again, it's not like this grand company / group of people, it's just really a way of thinking about the world. Scepticism is a natural part of it, in that you don't just take people's words for granted, definitely.

>>19060708
I don't believe in christianity because it's an incredibly boring worldview and cosmology. If there is a god, surely he would be far more grand than the petty shit we see in the bible, not limit himself to creating only this world, and so on.

>>19060791
That's the same reason I don't believe in the big bang theory.

>>19060807
Same.
It's hard to find a cosmology that isn't boring as shit and thus obviously false honestly.

>>19058906
this mfer scottish

>>19060607
this. The amount of people who believe in gods and religions is still declining but so is the amount that identifies with the term 'atheist'. The cringe factor is potent and real.

>>19060906
So what is actually happening? More agnostics and apatheists?

>>19060907
pretty much. they're still atheists in the literal sense of being without religion ('a' = without, 'theism' = theology, religion, faith), but a lot of people associate the term with the Dawkins type brand of scientism, secular humanism and so on. So yea, more people saying they're agnostic, or 'I don't believe in god but atheism is a fallacy' kinda stuff.

>>19060261
Are both halves sentient afterward? If so, what happened to the original sentience? If not, how do you know the OG sentience did not end up in the half disconnected from the body?

>>19060928
How long until the fedora thing dies out though? It's already tired, nobody calls each other "fedoras" anymore, the *tips* meme is barely even used

William Lane Craig singlehandendly BTFO new atheism. Dawkins was too afraid to face him.

>>19061145
>kalem argument
*yawn*

>>19061193
Typical christian response
>actually he didn't make an argument since it was all strawmen

>>19061197
I'm an atheist. His book is crammed with fallacies and it's possibly the worst piece of atheist literature ever devised. Every single one of his 'refutations' of Aquinas consisted of describing something completely different from the actual argument in question, that nobody has ever said, and attacking that.

>>19061206
>it's possibly the worst piece of atheist literature ever devised.
What's the greatest? If you say ecclesiastes I will find you, come to your house and fuck you in the ass.

>>19061209
>What's the greatest?
I'm not sure. Maybe The Moral Landscape?

>If you say ecclesiastes I will find you, come to your house and fuck you in the ass.
What the fuck?

>>19061219
>Sam Harris

>>19061237
Alright, High King of Atheism, please tell me what an actually good book about atheism and secularism looks like, since you are the arbiter on such matters despite thinking TGD is good.

>>19061253
Ecclesiastes

I can't beleive there hasn't been a single basedjack posted in this thread. proof that god exists

>>19061366
>proof that god exists

>>19061373
satan's fool

>>19061381
>satan's fool

>>19058829
Can you faggots at least read intellectually respectable atheists?

>>19061398
There are none

Test

>>19058829
It's pretty easy to refute Atheism by bringing up scales of consciousness. To an amoeba, we are like Gods. Amoeba are incapable of perceiving our existence and yet we can clone them. We can create life. Therefore we are Gods. Dawkins like most fucking faggot Atheists have no argument against this.
>hurdurrr we can't perceive higher conscious beings so no exist XDDD
>even though we can look down the scale of consciousness from human to e.g. dog to ant to amoeba, etc etc etc
>BUT IT JUST STOPS AT HUMANS OKAY TRUST THE SCIENCE NAZI!!!!
I hope one day all Science(TM) fags are forced to fight to the death in gladiatorial games in Wembley Stadium.

>>19061163
Refute it, I’m waiting

>>19061423
>there exist lower beings so this means there exists a higher being without a shred of doubt
Fallacious reasoning. Also, if such a being existed, nothing indicates it would be unique (monotheism), let alone that it would be any of the gods revealed by the various religions.

>>19061425
>everything has a cause
>except the uncaused cause
lol

>>19061427
>Fallacious reasoning
How? You can observe clearly trends of consciousness of varying degrees. You can clearly state with a fact that, e.g.: Ants are incapable of perceiving human existence, and have no concept of humanity. They do not even know of human life, nor are they capable of seeing a human being even when a human being steps on their anthill. And yet we are told by Atheists (no such thing: e.g. most "atheists" are just LARPing hyper moralistic prebysterians) that there are no beings of higher consciousness than mankind because "we cannot perceive it" even though they can look at LE HECKIN SCIENCE(tm)!!!! and observe for themselves scales of consciousness.

>>19061450
I said there could be beings of higher consciousness but this is hardly an argument for theism, just an argument against anthropocentrism (if even that).

>>19061432
that's not what the first premise says, though. It says that "everything that begins to exist has a cause", not everything simpliciter.

>>19061462
>everything that comes into existence has a cause
>therefore god the uncaused cause
Putting aside the fact that everything that exists must have come into existence unless you choose to conveniently disregard causality, the argument doesn't exclude the possibility of an eternal cycle of existence without a god (as per buddhism)

>>19061458
>hardly an argument for theism
Why? You have no idea where the scale of consciousness ends at. Existence could have been created by a being of supreme consciousness (or, better put, a being with a greater consciousness than ours) .This is most likely the case given the trend we see in Nature by the way. The only argument you could make against this is that we are living in a simulated reality. In that case though it still doesn't change the question of consciousnes on observable scales and the reality that there is a limit to all consciousness and that human consciousness most certainly cannot perceive things greater than our own consciousness given the trend in Nature.

>>19061474
>Existence could have
It could have, but I have no particular reason to believe so. You're just making assumptions. Just because we are superior to amoeba doesn't somehow imply we were created by a supreme deity. The scale could stop at any point, it could be physically limited (likely), it could be infinite (unlikely). You're extrapolating.

>Reminder Atheist have no dog in the fight. The people who mock religion or the idea of God ("tee-hee" le flying spaghetti monster) are no Atheists; they hate God. They are the same ridiculous character as the Professor in that terrible movie God's Not Dead. This includes artists/entertainers like Tyler the Creator, Seth McFarlane, and Ricky Gervais.
>Reminder that Hitchens lost debates to Doug Wilson and John Lennox
>Reminder Sam Harris lost twice to WL Craig and also lost to Chris Hedges. Doug Murray also called him out a few times and made him look ridiculous because Sam knows little about Islam.
>Reminder that Anthony Flew, who is better than the New Atheists, became a Deist later in life.
>Reminder that three years before his death Darwin said "I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God. – I think that generally ... an agnostic would be the most correct description of my state of mind".
>Reminder Einstein said "Science without Religion is lame, Religion without Science is blind

>>19060159
Yes, it's based in faith instead of falsifiable knowledge. I explained this extensively in the first third of the thread while people tried to deny that any knowledge is even possible because of their fixations on misunderstood idealism

>>19061497
>agnostic
Wow, it's fucking nothing.
In any case, none of that even begins to suggest any religion is true. Only that dogmatic atheism isn't necessarily the best position to hold.

>>19061484
>making assumptions
Atheism, by default, is one large assumption. Atheism, by default, assumes that higher conscious powers do not exist based on nothing except feeling. We can clearly observe the scale of consciousness in nature, and only Atheist arrogance (a common pitfall to most "atheists") suggests that this doesn't exist beyond humanity.

>>19061509
Sure, if you want to call observation feeling. I see no reason to believe, so I don't.

>>19061509
The scale of consciousness thing is more of an argument for agnosticism than for deism, militant atheists are usually intellectually dishonest in that they refuse to assume there COULD be something
And to go from that to abrahamism is such a huge leap that I'm sure I don't need to explain why it's ridiculous

>>19061513
>observation
What observation? Atheists don't observe anything in nature. They make a baseless claim that consciousness does not exist beyond humanity. This is a great example of arrogance.

>>19061524
Not really. But I don't trust Atheists until they define clearly what they're talking about because most Atheists come from a Marxist background and therefore usually divert and change definitions at will to avoid being cornered in their own arrogance. So, you need to clearly define what you mean by "deism" first.

>>19061531
>Marxist
You're fucking unhinged, nobody brought up political garbage
Anyways deism is simply the belief in a god but not in revealed religion, i.e. a god outside of extant religious dogma

>>19061531
they make the claim that consciousness is tied to material

>>19058941
>I need to be able to 100% trust my rational faculties so I have to believe that they are given by God or else I can't trust that I'm perfect
This argument is always fucking hilarious. The human brain personified is a massive fuckup, but it just so happens that it's a more industrious fuckup than all the other fuckup brains out there. Basically the same tier as "well I think someone making something is more compelling than something existing spontaneously despite the fact that it implies the spontaneous existence of the maker as well"

>>19061509
You have your signs backwards, fren. Traditional atheism (i.e. commonly refereed to as agnosticism these days, you would find very few people who would not convert given compelling evidence) is the lack of assumption, or at least it's a very generic assumption. It's theism that relies on the specific assumption that a higher power or spiritual realm or both exist according to their worldview.

The suggestion isn't that consciousness doesn't exist beyond humanity, it's the suggestion that there's no real point worrying about consciousnesses beyond humanity without any sort of specific evidence to suggest them.

The theist argument is the same argument that suggests all sorts of other various speculations that theists are uncomfortable with being tied to. I suppose that you don't believe in Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster, yea? What about Thor or Kali? Maybe Aliens visiting earth or Reptilians?

If you answer no to all of these, when they COULD exist hypothetically, then why believe in Jesus and God? Is there some sort of genuine evidence you have? Or is it just that you find them more personally compelling?

>>19061497
>Individuals are fallible, therefore God
Lmao

How do atheists address the numerous (hundreds) eyewitness testimonies who said they saw Jesus rise from the dead? There have been no other recorded examples in history of such a vastly documented event with various different eyewitnesses being a fabrication.

>>19061584
>you would find very few people who would not convert given compelling evidence
If Jesus personally appeared before me and told me to repent I still wouldn't convert because this world might as well be a dream for all I know. I will suspend my judgment forever

>>19061600
That said, you have to acknowledge that based on what we know of most people, your response would not be typical. Most people would convert on the spot.

>>19061538
Considering human beings can be deities to, e.g. amoeba's (a skill that is growing btw with cloning to other forms of life) then how is it illogical to suggest that humans were not created by a being of higher consciousness when human beings themselves are engaging this same exact behavior. Given our level of consciousness, we are able to do this. Why do you actively deny that there exists beings of higher conscious power with even higher abilities at creation and construction when we can, once again, clearly see the lineage of consciousness in nature and observe it both casually and scientifically. How is it possible given the massive trend that, after human beings, no such consciousness exists and it simply ends because Atheists said so. I'm not telling you to get on your knees and pray, but I don't see how you can tell yourself that without serious cognitive dissonance kicking in.

>>19061611
Yeah I know I'm an outlier, maybe I'm a retard I don't know. I just don't trust anything in the world. Before some faggot comes with a gotcha like "what if I pointed a gun at you", I'm not an amorphous blob of skepticism, I still make assumptions, but everything regarding metaphysics and the supernatural is purely unknowable to me. I have no way to know, so even if what seemed to be evidence presented itself before me, I would still not accept it. After all, I have no frame of reference, nothing to compare it to.

>>19061584
>It's theism that relies on the specific assumption that a higher power or spiritual realm or both exist according to their worldview.
And yet your so called "Traditional atheism" (this is why I brought up Marxism because most atheism come from a Marxist background, e.g. it wasn't real communism! it's not real atheism! - whatever, you're both just hyper moralist prebysterians) relies on the assumption that observable trends in nature stop existing after humans because

>>19061584
>>Individuals are fallible, therefore God
Nah it's more like
>The arguments put forth by the "great Atheist thinkers" of our time are fallible

>>19058906
that's how I define knowledge, retard
I use it as shorthand for whatever you said, brevity and all that

>>19058915
Born into a secular culture? Boom, an atheist. Except historically that's not really what happened in the 20th century when communists tried to abolish religions but new atheist faggots don't know shit about history and think they're 2000iq geniuses for coming up with the same conclusions Democritus did thousands of years as of it's a brand new fucking idea.

Atheism is peak Reddit faggotry and brainlet shit.

>>19061592
Well? If it's admissible in court, why is it not admissible by atheists?

>>19061592
>How do atheists address violations to the material reality they've come to understand
They don't, they handwave it away under their own narcissistic delusions

>>19061620
Don't worry, fren, I'm retard tier too, see next response. In any case your reasoning is internally consistent from what I can tell even if it's strange to most people.

>>19061625
I don't deny "militant" atheism as by the same writ I don't deny that I don't fall under my own definition of a "traditional" atheist (for the record I think that the abrahamic gods are among the most fundamentally evil creations of the human canon and even if I had evidence of them I would not bow to them, I'd rather go to hell than be complicit with that)

I don't assume the stop, maybe there are higher consciousnesses? Even if I operate on the assumption that there are, which is not guaranteed, what evidence do you propose that states yours is more likely than any other?

>>19061626
Arguments put forth by theists are equally fallible, fren.

>>19061653
I want an answer from atheists

>>19061592
>>19061651
>>19061663
Still waiting

>>19061661
>abrahamic gods
I don't support those either but most of those gods were codified and turned explicitly to serve material functions.

>maybe there are higher consciousness
I don't see how there can be a maybe. Nature doesn't tend to operate with exceptions at this level (e.g. biological construction, function [reproduction for example]). The fact we can clearly observe scales of consciousness down to single cell amoeba's and, given current technological ability, are even able to create amoeba's seems pretty cut and dry that it is arrogant to suggest higher conscous beings don't exist. I don't think we will ever be able to perceive them either, unless technology can somehow allow for that. But who knows, maybe people were able to commune with them in the past in some lost art or method - that point I will give you is pure speculation but then I am steering the ship away from the original point here.

>what evidence do you propose
As I said, scientifically speaking, we can observe this trend in nature and it would be severely illogical to suggest that consciousness simply ends at humanity for no discernable reason, especially given that we aren't even able to acknowledge the full spectrum of dimensions yet. In addition, we simply won't be able to perceive such beings the same way an ant cannot, due to restrictions on brain, consciousness, etc. ever be able to perceive human existence.

>>19061592
How do protestant address the numeros eye withness testimony of people having vision of the virgin Mary?

>>19061732
Why don't you answer the question anon? I just want to know what you think.
These people saw Jesus come back, and maintained that they saw him even when threatened with torture and death.

>>19061592
>Some guy trying to promote a new religion says in a letter that 500 peoples saw his messiah
wow, incredible evidence

>>19061744
Individual testimonies; separate people, separate testimonies. Threat of torture and death, yet they stood by it.

>>19061684
>Nature doesn't tend to operate with exceptions at this level
I disagree, I feel that things are far more stratified than people care to realize and that things are more likely to operate in functional niches taking advantage of specific exceptions than people care to realize.

I'm suggesting these things don't exist because you're suggesting that they do exist. It's an open dialogue that people prefer to shut out.

>As I said, scientifically speaking, we can observe this trend in nature and it would be severely illogical to suggest that consciousness simply ends at humanity for no discernible reason
I disagree. Frankly I think that you just find the idea that consciousness continues compelling in the same way as I have a bias towards it ending. In the end it's unreasonable to assume that the universe will conform to our preconceived notions in the presence of the unknown.

>>19061758
That applies to every religion but only yours is real?

>>19061737
first off, the only testimony of somebody that saw the ressurected Jesus we have is Paul, the gospel were not written by the apostle.
second, we don't know the precise condition under which they were killed, if they even had the chance to save themselves by abondoning their belief. The best example we have of early Christian persecution was when Nero made them a scapegoat, hardly a situation where they would be given the opportunity to recant. Furthermore, most of the story about their gruesome death and torture are latter traditions.
We don't even know what happened to most of the apostle

>>19061758
This is what filters atheists. They have no answer to it that isn't a cope. Why would hundreds of people choose to be tortured and to die because of something they'd know to be false? Why would the apostles seek to convert people not for money or power (they got neither)?

>>19061792
It doesn't apply to every religion. The resurrection is a Christian thing that is documented through testimonies.
>>19061793
No, there are many more eyewitness testimonies of the resurrection.

>>19060385
>>19060365
>Christianity/All religions are internally coherent.

Problem of evil says: Hi
Free will Vs. God's omniscience says: Hi
+a bunch more internal contradictions that gave rise to different Christian denominations

>>19061807
>No, there are many more eyewitness testimonies of the resurrection.
eyewitness testimonies being mentionned in text written decades after the fact isn't the same as an eyewitness testimonies, the only one we have is Paul

>>19061826
So a compilation of eyewitness testimonies is invalid now? You're aware this means most of recorded history becomes invalid right?

>>19061830
I take all of ancient history with a massive grain of salt, some guy writting a text with the clear intention of converting people saying "and a bunch of people saw that miracle" doesn't convince me. Maybe you find the idea of an ancient author making up some eyewithness more improbable than somebody coming back from the dead, but I don't.

>>19061795
>have no answer to it that isn't a cope
Humans can lie/be wrong. Documents can be forged. Especially if it pertains to the guys that ran Europe 1000+ year.

Most historians treats Jesus (a person) as someone that existed.
No historians (my definition of historian, does not include quacks) treat the miracles as something that happened.
I don't know how agreeing with the experts of the field is cope. You are the one that is going against the stream.

>>19061938
>academia doesn't have a vested interest in keeping with the atheistic zeitgeist

>>19061830
>a compilation of eyewitness testimonies is invalid
It is when it wants you to accept an entirely new ontology
a court of law would never accept eye witness testimony pertaining to the supernatural/miracles
you are the retard that thinks 2000 year-old claims of eyewitness testimony, is somehow convincing evidence in favor of a new category of stuff we have never ever seen before

>>19061949
Now who's coping?
show evidence, that academia is brushing under the rug
or is it that you disagree with the conclusion?

>>19061795
That's a terrible argument, think about it for a single second. A lot of people died for a cause that failed to gain immediate power so its ideals must have been true? You could apply that to the Al Qaeda, the Confederacy, the Boxer rebellion, basically any failed movement.

>>19061795
>Why would hundreds of people choose to be tortured and to die because of something they'd know to be false?
Show me a single clear cut case where
1. Somebody said they saw the ressurected jesus
2. They were killed for that belief
3. They had an opportunity to recant

>>19062006
https://www.gty.org/library/sermons-library/80-406/testimonies-to-the-resurrection
https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2017/april/why-you-can-believe-in-the-resurrection
https://theconversation.com/the-case-for-christ-whats-the-evidence-for-the-resurrection-75530
There are plenty of sources, you just don't want to examine them.

>>19062045
>no response
As expected.

>>19062045
https://youtu.be/4NM3JUjv3FY
here is a christian apologist who wrote a book about the fate of the apostle with the intent of using it as proof for Jesus ressurection, being interviewed on a christian program, he himself says at the end that one of the main takeaway was not to overstate how good of an argument it is.
Also, the first article you link is arguing against your point, and says that the only mention of the eyewithness are Paul mentionning them. The second link has somebody argues that
>"You've got living history. You've got the people who were there to cross-check whatever message is being put out there. So, it's not as though these things could have been invented and no one would have challenged it. You've got this idea that 'there are witnesses; go investigate them.'"
a notion which I find dubious at best, we have countless example of people taking certain belief on faith throughout all of history, the mention about the 500 doesn't say anything about who or where they are, would be a hard claim to dispute for anybody in the first century.
As for the third link, it says
>You heard me read the mingling of four gospels and when you listened to it, you knew it was a seamless story, every part fitting with every other part.
which is one, a false statement, there are contradiction between the gospels, including in the finding of the body, and two, not that surprising they would fit considering how much of Luke and Matthew is copied word for word from Mark. The rest of the article continues to talk about the 4 gospel as independant sources which no serious modern scholar does
>>19062180
just took my time to read what you sent

>>19062187
>we have countless example of people taking certain belief on faith throughout all of history
What matters is what they went through, how many people throughout history were tortured and died for something they knew was a lie?
>there are contradiction between the gospels
Could you cite them?

>>19062208
>how many people throughout history were tortured and died for something they knew was a lie?
You have yet to show an clear case of
1. Somebody said they saw the ressurected jesus
2. They were killed for that belief
3. They had an opportunity to recant
>Could you cite them?
since you had no problem doing a lazy google search to find article you didn't read, so much so you posted one that argued against your point, I'll just redirect you to this
https://www.bc.edu/content/dam/files/research_sites/cjl/sites/partners/cbaa_seminar/Passion_Narratives.htm
Also keep in mind that Matthew and Luke were made in large part by copying Mark and that most scholar agree that John reflects latter developement
>Consequently, for the last 150 or so years scholars have had to choose. They have almost unanimously, and I think entirely correctly, concluded that the teaching of the historical Jesus is to be sought in the synoptic gospels and that John represents an advanced theological development
https://kupdf.net/download/e-p-sanders-the-historical-figure-of-jesusbokos-z1_59867289dc0d60b922300d1d_pdf at page 81 of the pdf

>>19062045
>>19062208
The testimonies aren't that great an argument, a better point to raise would be the many unexplained miracles and other seemingly supernatural events that only occur when Christianity is involved

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvA6mkXy11o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYjo2sie8t0

>>19062343
>posts an hour-long interview nobody will watch near the end of the thread
why

>>19062343
The first video has literally zero arguments, just a guy explaining how he went from atheism to deluding himself. At no point in the video does he make a single actual argument in favor of christianity, it's all vacuous statements. The most insighftul thing he says is that science does not describe everything, but that's not an argument in favor of christianity, at best it could be said to be in favor of theism.

>>19061592
Not just that, apparently all the graves in the area opened up and the dead were walking around everywhere. Huh, I guess maybe the fact that the only writings of these events were from decades later from 3rd or 4th hand accounts. I'm sure only the facts were relayed into the writings though.

FWIW if you are going to bother reading one of the big atheist books don't read this one. God Is Not Great is better as Hitchens is a much better writer and has a better grasp on the philosophical side of what he's arguing against. Dawkins is an evolutionary scientist who was slowly driven insane by having to go to america and argue with young earth creationists who insist evolution isn't real. He has some good books but this isn't one of them.

>>19061646
I think you'll find a huge percentage of atheists are the deconverted. Religion is essentially self-refuting and people actually have to work at deluding themselves to stick with it (doubt and crises of faith are extremely common because of how ridiculous the beliefs are). If you even have a passing knowledge of anthropology you'll realize the function religion plays in a society and the fact that the actual claims within the religion are completely arbitrary.

>>19061795
Buddhists in this past century have set themselves on fire for their beliefs. Muslims fly planes into buildings because they think Allah demands it. Of course Christians would die and be tortured for their beliefs too. It's a function of religion to make it's adherents treat their own bodies as the property of the religious structure, the funny thing is the mechanism works for literally any of the lasting religions.

>>19061795
>Why would hundreds of people choose to be tortured and to die because of something they'd know to be false?
>Why are there so many Muslims willing to be suicide bombers? It must mean Islam is true!
Why are there so many retarded users on this board?

>>19058829
No, it was rebuted instead.