/lit/ - Literature

>>20258334
embarrassing, even if you're atheistic you should find this book cringe. read actual philosophy
dunning-kruger is even worse when people like dawkins who are experts in one thing believe they're now experts of everything.

>>20258334
Atheism is only believing in one less God.

>>20258417
It's still infinitely better than some of the moron shit theists post on here, like this post: >>20257405

>>20258432
This post I mean: >>20256656

>>20258417
You are correct.
>>20258432
Imagine cherry-picking half-baked posts from retards on an anonymous web forum as if it's not a nonsequitur. (And not even doing it correctly the first time (>>20258437)). Dawkins is an ideologue and, like all ideologues, doesn't recognize his behavior projects the very thing he's attempting to criticize. He projects a hubristic pride in scientism while being completely disingenuous regarding the nuances of theology--choosing to go after low-hanging fruit and encouraging his followers to do the same. He's a hero for retards and an embarrassment for atheists who know better.

>>20258334
>Why does /lit/ hate this book so much?
It's the definition of cringe.

>it's because it very simply refutes the average /lit/izens neo-thomism
Thomism isn't that popular here, the average /lit/izens aren't thomists, and that book was embarrassing response to Aquinas.

>I've never heard any good arguments against it
>this book fucks up any metaphysical view that includes a magic all powerful supreme being.
Read Feser

>>20258334
Neothomism doesn’t beat positivism — positivism is surpassed by Marxism, which then decomposes along the lines of the Del Nocean heterogenesis of ends, vindicating Vico against the rationalists, leading to a rebirth of the classical metaphysics purified in the light of Rosminian Ontologism, allowing Catholic larpers to be unironic neothomists again, but then they have to deal with the creative impotence of that school, leading to a reevaluation of the metaphysics of encounter, at which point most people leave the board and start living actually Christian, fully human lives in the negative space of the affluent, technological society.

>>20258496
>Read Feser
You can't say Dawkins is cringe and then tell someone to read Feser. The guy is Ignatius Reilly irl. Rosary clutching christcuck

neoatheism yields no good fruit simple as, hew it down and cast it into the fire

>>20258528
>he doesnt clutch his rosary
NGMI

>>20258528
I don't see your arguments against Feser

>>20258334
Dawkins is an insufferable faggot but he's right about god being a laughably childish fantasy.

>>20258334
god will punish you for your lies

>>20258334
Because he doesn’t know how to philosophy.

>how to become an atheist

just read about world mythology and religions

you realize it's all just made up. you don't even need to read books by atheists

if christianity never existed all you faggots would be talking about zeus and all the greek gods are real

christianity replaced those gods and the belief in them died out

>>20258666

about how zeus*

>>20258485
Nice post, except you’re a seething christcuck retard who has no argument besides stupid name calling

>>20258666
>666 trips
nice try, satan

>>20258689
Go to bed son

>>20258558
Your argument against Dawkin's book was that it was cringe. Those who suggest reading Feser shouldn't throw stones.

Because larping as a christian is now edgy and contrarian.

>>20258334
Dividing people over religious lines is merely a tactic by the rich to prevent the working class from rising up and turning on their masters. Don't complain about your Amazon warehouse piss bottle, direct your hatred towards your co-worker that attends church.

>>20258678
>No! You can't point out I'm retarded and give reasons why Dawkins isn't taken seriously! Uh...all you did was name call! You're a chirstcuck!
Haha. Seethe, cope, and project faggot.

>>20258689
Imagine being worried about your grammar (>>20258671) when your take is Christian God = Zeus.
>>20258666
Keep reading Dawkins, retard.

>>20258716
>Dividing people over religious lines is merely a tactic by the rich to prevent the working class from rising up and turning on their masters
kek yeah retard the only thing keeping Muhammad and Cletus from coming together is religion,nevermind the natural tribalism instilled biologically inside people.

Read better books against christers

>>20258334
>refutes

>>20258678
>Nice post, except you’re a seething christcuck retard who has no argument besides stupid name calling

>>20258334
Never read it, never will, neither did you, and you never read Aquinas.

>>20258666
God (The Father) sent Christ so that we would stop believing in those fake gods. What you're saying does not disprove anything.

I'm just happy that Jehovah's Witness faggot stopped making threads.

>>20258334
I unironically have a positive view of Richard Dawkins even though I'm a Christian. It's hard to explain why. There's just something about how he seems completely unable to believe in or be moved by any sort of supernatural or shared "sacred" narrative whether that be revealed religion or post-WW2 sacral victimhood narratives.

Tradlarping is on the way out, no one really believes it anyway and it was an outgrowth of an e-Right which owes its existence to Dawkins in the first place,

>>20258558
>>20258496
Do you need to read the Qur'an to make an argument against Islam? Feser's bullshit is archaic as fuck
Thomists are always like this: "You need to learn my weirdass system of repurposed Aristotelian terms and this extra bit of (unnecessary) special language to even have a discussion". Breathing their own farts

1 simple criticism of Feser:
He defined perfection as that without privation, (privations being lacking something entailed in a things nature, not sure if I'm paraphrasing correctly here)
Using his own definitions, that would make a perfect circle... Perfect, in the same way God is perfect. Unless Feser think there is something entailed in the nature of a perfect circle, that it's lacking (replace the circle with an object that can be instantiated in the real world, if it bothers you)
Now, this may not seem like a big problem.
But this bullshit is part of 50 premise argument, and the book builds off it.

I've repeatedly told him about this, but he ignores me. That his privation theory is whack. . Seriously, fix it.
*actualizes a potential fart*

>>20258334
I utterly detest that the big atheism debate is so neurotic about Christianity. Atheists still have one foot in the Christian worldview and it blinds them from actual nuance on what "God" as a concept even is or possibly could be. Bent up over muh sky daddy fairy anthropomorphic conceptualization. Pathetic, atheists need to go outside and touch grass.

>>20259219
cope

>>20259266
go touch grass and reconsider your existence

>>20259277
Those are mutually exclusive and you sound like a fag (>>20259219).
>>20259266
He's right though. Just sounds like a fag.

>>20258666
he's real too you stupid animal

I haven't read it but from what I've heard Dawkins writes like a midwit. He's propped up by the establishment like any other pop culture figure and should not be taken seriously.

>>20259129
>Using his own definitions, that would make a perfect circle... Perfect
In so far as it lacks nothing to epitomize the essence of a circle yes. It would be perfect in circularity, but obviously not perfect in squareness of triangularness. It would be lacking nothing for its own nature.

>in the same way God is perfect
No. The circle is only perfect in relation to the property circularity. God is perfect in relation to everything. Massive difference. Quoting Aquinas is helpful here:

>Hence, the first active principle must needs be most actual, and therefore most perfect; for a thing is perfect in proportion to its state of actuality, because we call that perfect which lacks nothing of the mode of its perfection.

Note here the "mode of its perfection". A circle can be perfect but only in the mode of circularity, God is absolutely perfect in all ways. It's also important to keep in mind the principle of analogy here because you can only say God is "perfect" analogically, not univocally, so by that fact alone any created thing whether it be a circle, square or anything else cannot be perfect in the same way God is perfect since they are created things and God is simple and uncreated putting them on two completely different ontological planes.

>>20259331
Right, I think I'm misremembering
The point Feser attempts to make in the argument is not in regards to perfection, but in not having privations (as a does a circle)

>>20258334
I haven't read the book, but your thread inspired me to look up some quotes and excerpts from it.
And holy shit, this is r/atheism reddit tier cringe

>>20259331
>No. The circle is only perfect in relation to the property circularity. God is perfect in relation to everything.

This is gibberish. Is God perfect in relation to the property circularity? And squareness too? How the fuck can something be a perfect square and circle at the same time. This is the type of bullshit people make fun of Thomism for. The "logic" is totally arbitrary and depends on the person arguing and what position they want to support.

>>20258666
If there wasn't any Christianity I'd probably be a Manichee tbqh

>>20258962

You're proving his point. Also:
>god (assuming that's a representation of god himself)
>male pattern baldness

>>20259886
>not noticing the anon seethed because I made fun of him for acting like a random argument on 4chan represented theism
>not caring anon ignored all points that were brought up because he was seething
>not seeing the hypocrisy and irony that his entire response was "you name called! christcuck!"
Also:
>filtered by what baldness represents in the painting
Retard.

>>20258334
>it's because it very simply refutes the average /lit/izens neo-thomism
I have no idea why you would add this part aside from your entire post being bait, Dawkins obviously skimmed a fucking wikipedia article on the five ways and has literally zero idea of what he's even talking about in trying to address even a Philosophy 101 student's interpretation of Thomism or Scholasticism, you could unironically have a more productive conversation about philosophy with a pigeon than with Richard Dawkins

because /lit/ is scared of the dark

one day most of u will grow up and realize this is it, this is all, and you've wasted it online

>>20258417
I feel the same sentimality
Like if your a atheist but spends your time DEBOOOONKING unimportant idiosyncrasies of random cults then I firmly believe you are a meta-theists , you will never be able to not believe and your hole thought process will be insincere debate lord tier confrontationalism

>>20258649
she is my god
i would worship her 24/7

>>20258496
>the average /lit/izens aren't thomists
I would argue that for the past couple years the demographic of /lit/ has shifted towards an aggressive fundamentalist christianity that infects every thread remotely related to spirituality or philosophy. This board was interesting just two years ago and now it's barely usable.

>>20258334
>Oh wait, I know, it's because it very simply refutes the average /lit/izens neo-thomism.
This has to be b8, because you know the book refutes nothing.
The reason it's hated is because it lowered the standards of discussion involving atheism, religion, and metaphysics. Dawkins, despite expending the effort for writing a whole book on the subject, could not have been asked to do some basic scholarly research. And I don't mean to "have read a book by Thomas Aquinas," I mean to have spent 50 minutes reading a philosophical primer.
And of course, there's nothing of Nietzsche or Schopenhauer here at all. And if there's some great thesis about how "science has displaced" such discussion, then how about a reason why?
All of such questions are not only pertinent research Dawkins doesn't do, they would all make for a more interesting book if he had.
The only figure I recall him treating with some appropriate detail is William Paley, who's not nearly as important as others in the discussion, and died in 1805. Real cutting edge, Dawkins.
The book is trash that stands next to shelves of self-help pulp and airport tomes. Readable mass-readership drek, ironically fit for the library of shallow spiritual pieces written by televangelists.

>>20260440
that's why she'd cuck you for me

>>20260505
>he actually read the book
Yikes

>>20258334
>refutes neo-thomism
I know you can't, but explain to me how this book does what you claim.

>>20260112

>balding can possibly represent anything in any way metaphysically good

You've pre-emptively shown yourself out of the building. Yes, I saw the circle-thingy which might stand for the Creation, his general design etc. Still a silly bald fellow, although his case is more profound than the graceless spud beneath him.

>>20259086

The Jehovah's Witnesses are unironically less deprave than Catholics on account of annihiliationism. If you believe that anyone goes to hell for ever and ever, you are depraved. A few years in an awful cult are fine as long as the UnElect cease to exist.

This is an actual quote from the book and it perfectly encapsulates internet atheism.

>I've forgotten the details, but I once piqued a gathering of theologians and philosophers by adapting the ontological argument to prove that pigs can fly. They felt the need to resort to Modal Logic to prove that I was wrong.

Dawkings tries to dunk on some experts using modal logic, but because he's ignorant he doesn't know that. They explain why he's retarded but he still finds a way to take that as a win.

>>20258666
>if things were different they would be different
Thanks Satan very intelligent

>>20260696
I can just imagine that autism in my head.
>...so you see since a REAL flying pig is better than an imaginary flying pig there must be a pig that can fly
>their face when

>>20258649
Koreans are so fuckingly ugly. This girl has a face of a dog. Every other eastern asian ethnicity has better women than these gooks.

>>20260635
>You've pre-emptively shown yourself out of the building.
kys please

>>20258430
This is probably one of the top 5 retarded things Atheists say, right there with ''what caused God''.

>>20261753
>everything has a cause
>but God can identify as uncaused
your brain on LGBThomism

OP, you've set your standard for everyone you don't like arbitrarily high, while holding no standards for yourself.
See >>20258678 and >>20259886 . You're just going to sit there, smugly and arrogantly saying whatever horseshit pops into your head, while insisting everyone else provide "arguments". There's not even a topic besides your vague hatred of christians, of course they're not presenting focused arguments. You're not either.

You'll persist in naivete at least until you fix this.

>>20261994
God loves all His creation

>>20261994
God is good and goodness itself. He literally says creation is "good" and "very good" on the first dang ol page. If he is wrathful, it is only ever because his creations have sinned. Sorry you were filtered by this.

>>20262136
>If he is wrathful, it is only ever because his creations have sinned
So if he exists as you claim he does, he is a scientist killing off lab rats to prove a point. Neat.

>>20262187
>he is a scientist killing off lab rats to prove a point.
No you infamous retard. Scientists work according to a hypothesis. God already knows everything. His wrath is instructive, exactly like a father's. Might be why they call him God the Father.

I swear you people aren't capable of thinking coherently. Can you visualize an apple in your mind?

>>20262002
>what is Sodom and Gomorrah
>what is the Flood

>>20262225
The flood was god taking his Mulligan. That is a universal rule.

>>20260289

>>20262209
>His wrath is instructive, exactly like a father's. Might be why they call him God the Father
So he is a paternalistic projection of the royal despots he is always associated with? A mere mechanism for behavior modification wielded against simple people? Seems... too human

>>20262236
Why did god genocide the Saurians?

>>20262442
>Saurians
>Existing
God bantered you hard brainlet

>>20262438
>projection
that's some high grade cope you got there

>>20262550
>i can think of something so it must be true
based and LGBT-pilled my fellow christsister

>>20258334
I remember being an edgy teenage atheist. I don't regret that phase since it was essential for me to entertaining new thoughts about reality. But eventually I realized atheism is retarded. And the whole movement was really just against religious dogmastism, the existence of God was inconsequential. But generally I support secularism in public institutions, as long as we're adhering to a set of principles that are conducive to a well functioning society.

>>20262572
t. soulless bugman who doesn't know why we should want a flourishing society

>>20262595
t. socially maladjusted cargo cultist who won't action his beliefs and join a benedictine monastery

>>20262611
>who won't action his beliefs and join a benedictine monastery
literally truly and actually studying for this right now

>>20262643
Wow, a non-larper. That's unusual.

>>20262643
you have to study to begome a monk?

>>20262670
yeah. they want people with four year degrees, no debt, good character, no vices, etc etc.

>>20258609
Which God? My money is on Vishnu, Shiva, and Brahma but I guess it could be some other Trinity

Any real comparative examination of religion is the biggest red pill possible. Once you realize how truly man made every religion is, you realize the one you were brought to believe in is no different. They are literally cultural constructs, fables and stories which are fictional.

>>20262691
Unironically, how old are you?
I see people on the internet play stupid and think it's some kind of burn all the time. I remember doing this as a kid but outgrew it.
For science, I need to know if you're a stupid adult or an edgy teen.

>>20262687
that’s pretty wild anon i was under the impression that monasteries have historically taken in literally anyone that is sincere and willing to follow the rule

>>20262715
Most brainlet take in the thread yet and that's a genuine fucking accomplishment

>>20262718
There are over one billion Hindus in the world. Why would you think they are any less likely to be correct than the one billion Christians? Or the one billion Muslims?

>>20262722
some do. but not the one i want into.

>>20262725
You contributed absolutely nothing with your post, good job

>>20262727
No no, you don't understand. I don't care about your opinions.
What I'm fixated on is how you pretended to not understand someone and thought it was a dunk.
How old are you?

>>20262725
cope

>"What do you believe in?"
>"I believe in our Heavenly Father!"
>Heavenly Father
Christcucks try and say Dawkins is cringe but they then turn around and praise, word for word, a sky daddy. It's actually hilarious.

>>20258666
You dropped your fedora, faggot.

>>20262736
>I don't care about your opinions
Then why are you on a message board explicitly designed so you can read the opinions I post? You are a certified retard.

>>20258716
Lol

>>20262746
>You dropped your fedora, faggot.

>>20262751
Maybe I wasn't clear. I don't care about YOUR opinions. And thank you for verifying that you are underage.

>>20262643
Based

>>20258666
>if christianity never existed all you faggots would be talking about zeus and all the greek gods are real
wrong. I 100% would still be talking about YHWH.

>>20262743
>mocking HaShem
the antisemitism of reddit leftists on this board, oy

>"Skydaddy!"
>"Fedora!"
>"Skydaddy!"
>"Fedora!"
>"Skydaddy!"
>"Fedora!"
>"Skydaddy!"
>"Fedora!"
>"Skydaddy!"
>"Fedora!"
>repeat ad nauseum until bump limit
Yeah okay can we talk about literature please guys

>>20258334
>>20258417
First post put it best; its the go-to book for pseuds who just want to say "le god isn't real!" but can't hack it into philosophy.

>>20262826
I bring up The Golden Bough but invariably no one has ever read it because /lit/ is pseud central

>>20262770
It sounds like you're just here to read your own opinion, so you'll fit right in

>>20262802
This thread isn't at all related to literature LMAO

>>20262919
It was my hope that you would cringe at your reflection and improve.

Here's something to think about instead. Do you actually care about headcounting? I'm referring to
>1 billion hindus or 1 billion christians or whatever
Is the successful spread of an idea indicative of a good idea or not? What causes an idea to be adopted by an individual or good at spreading in general?

im tuning out and wont read your response but maybe think about it.

>>20262912
>The Golden Bough
To be quite honest family that book really only has value as a novelty piece, it's comically antiquated and erroneous in terms of actual cultural and religious scholarship (as the author himself admitted and predicted)

>>20262934
No matter how you slice it, there are billions of people as dedicated or more dedicated to their religious beliefs than you are and it is only possible for one small subset to be correct, if any are correct at all. Much more likely is that religion arises in cultures for strictly cultural utilitarian reasons and the claims within any one religion are completely arbitrary. But then again, you entered this thread only to read and confirm your own opinion, so you wouldn't have been able to understand what I'm saying regardless

>>20260635
>ignores the criticism of Dawkins
>still sperging about being filtered by the painting
Shut up fag.

>>20262550
in other words, dragons exist? good to know, retard

>>20261784
>MISSING: First cause, aliases "Prime Mover," "Monad," "Alpha," among others. Finder to receive eternal reward.

>>20263169
>everything has a cause
>first cause
One of these can't be true. If everything has a cause what caused God. If first causes exist the universe is the first cause no need for God

>>20258430
>>20261753
>>20261784
>>20263169
>>20263299
This is what happens when no one actually reads the shit they're trying to deboonk, jannies should just start deleting this off-topic low effort bait

>>20258334
i'm not gonna read this thread, but i hope somebody posted something like this:
Richard Dawkins was a gifted popular scientist and could have been another Sagan. His first few books should be required reading for high school biology. With this book, and his subsequent diversion into becoming the bizarro version of an intolerant bible thumper, he prematurely ended a great career of explaining cool science to laymen while occasionally innovating actual good ideas that advanced the field.

>>20263352
Bible thumpers tend to classify their belief as maximum and unwavering, whereas Dawkins has said that on a scale of 1 - 7, 1 being absolute belief in God and 7 being absolute belief there is no God, he would be a 6. People who oppose Dawkins simply love to misrepresent him though.

>>20263145
>>20262563
>atheists can't read
not surprised

>>20263477
Except the same criticism was given when Anselm first presented his proof

One of the earliest recorded objections to Anselm's argument was raised by one of Anselm's contemporaries, Gaunilo of Marmoutiers. He invited his reader to conceive an island "more excellent" than any other island. He suggested that, according to Anselm's proof, this island must necessarily exist, as an island that exists would be more excellent. Gaunilo's criticism does not explicitly demonstrate a flaw in Anselm's argument; rather, it argues that if Anselm's argument is sound, so are many other arguments of the same logical form, which cannot be accepted.

>>20263477
>>20263490
Yes and a gender more excellent than the one you have must exist too! This is the intellectual camp you've pitched a tent in

>>20263460
>Dawkins put belief on a scale of 1-7 and said he was only a 6! Do you not understand that this means he's a critical thinker! Stop opposing him!
You're retarded.

>>20262912
I'm an atheist who studies comparative religion (mainly in Late Antiquity). I assure you that you are an even bigger retard than the most zealous Thomist in this thread. The Golden Bough is so horribly outdated that I would lose my position at the university if I so much as cited it in an article.

>>20263533
I don't get how that's controversial
only people who have never looked into the God/No God debate should end up at the far end of such a scale
The fact that you know there is no real knockdown argument against theism. While someone who have never looked into it, may imagine such a thing exist
Or the other way around. You'd be retarded to assert absolute certainty, after hearing what other people have to say about it

>>20263591
Dawkins is an ideologue and the only reason he doesn't say '7' is to front the idea he's self-critical. Don't be dumb.

>>20263352
Agreed.
I remember reading Climbing Mount Improbable as a kid, and then watching his Royal Society Christmas Lectures. That was part of what got me interested in biology, and that shit was clearly the reason that he snagged himself the Public Understanding of Science Chair.
And then you read God Delusion, a book less sophisticated than what I had to write in A-level philosophy classes. It's all so depressing

>>20263533
>>20263633
You have entirely missed the fact that a central aspect of his "ideology" is the acknowledgment that as human beings, we are prone to being deceived and as such, no intelligent person should ever be 100% convinced of a proposition. Unfortunately a central tenet of most theism is the concept of faith which bridges this gap and cements a dogmatic stance. You can see this in how touchy religious folks get at the mere mention of a criticism of their sacred beliefs.

>>20263664
Typical fedora. You are aware that St. Paul himself said that God and Jesus are indiscernable from demons, right?

>>20263672
>You are aware that St. Paul himself said that God and Jesus are indiscernable from demons, right?
I'm not even him and I'm not even an atheist but saying that your deity is literally indistinguishable from a demon is never really a great argument to use in any scenario

>>20263672
This is the problem, if you walk into church, you're going to get a general consensus that faith is important and that doubts, while inevitable, are to be overcome, not valued as integral and something to hold onto and maintain. I don't know if you are just entirely disconnected from the average Christian, but if you were to say "God and Jesus are indiscernible from demons" they would almost definitely glare at you and consider you a heretic.

Religion is not true, but atheism is also not good for society. Religion should not be used as a worldview, but a unifying aesthetic to achieve political means, with each man afforded his personal faith.

>>20263710
>>20263763
Again, typical fucking fedora. This is why you have to have faith.

everyone hates this book. gaythiests keep saying queer shit like
>flying sphagetti monster
and lacking the self-awareness to realize how they sound. Dawkins is dumb and people who quote him as an authority are even dumber.

>>20263664
You missed the point that scientism is an ideology and Dawkins is an adherent of it. You danced around making the basic point that hard skepticism exists, confusing your low-level familiarity with this as if it represents some deep enlightenment on your part, instead of addressing Dawkins in particular. Then you ended your comment with a jab at the low-hanging fruit of religitards as if justified the overly reductive claim you made about the concept of faith.

Cut the condescension faggot. You don't sound like Hitchens, you sound like a faggot.

>>20258334
OP I'm begging you to put down the Dawkins and pick up "The Miracle of Theism" by JL Mackie

>>20262715
The enlightenment narrative of scientific progress and objective truth is a mythos in itself. You haven't escaped constructed metanarratives by accepting the story of comparative religion, you've just traded the old one for a new one. There is no objective truth, everything is just stories we tell ourselves about the reality we experience.

>>20258334
Mitchel Heisman read it for me
He died for my illiteracy sins
Bless that Jew

>>20262715
This is why Buddhism is the best. It's deliberately mindfully man made.

>>20261994
If you look at the peasants who eat this shit up and then at your meme you will see your epic hilarious caricature OWN/BURN lands you in a bleak horizon of men who look and act exactly like this and worship a God exactly like this.

>>20258334
It is mostly because Dorkins is so horribly repulsive. Skin crawl inducing, heeby jeeby giving icky "man".
There is a consensus among more advanced thinkers that Dorkbrain, is actually a character played very well by a sweet, and nice guy... superb actor.
The purpose is maybe, somewhat akin to the surface level, abrasive nature of 4chan in general.
It may be a hunny pot for pseudo intelligence to accrete around.
Like a containment thread works, sort of.

>>20264513
>scientific progress is a myth
He posted on the internet

>>20265171
The idea of "progress" is an enlightenment myth because to progress there needs to be some kind of measurement, or objective you're moving towards. Without an objective you're not "progressing" you're simply changing and nobody can say whether it's for the better or worse. Is modernity more "progressed" than 50 years ago with all the trannies and homos running around? Of course not.

>>20263894
Faith is not a virtue, it's a failing

>>20264447
What precisely do you mean by "Scientism"? And what would the opposing view to "Scientism" be? Voodoo? You are sounding about as retarded as Jung, and you should probably be a little more appreciative of the power of the scientific method and it's mechanisms for combating personal bias/confirmation bias, something that religion and spirituality actually lean into, which is a sure way to deceive yourself.

>>20264513
Keep telling yourself that. Meanwhile science continues to uncover truth about the universe through reliable, predictive power. Even adopting your terminology, certain "stories" contribute to being better aligned with reality and better able to predict future outcomes than other "stories". Science is the best and really only game in town which is why secular states with godless constitutions are miles ahead of theocracies.

>>20265132
Buddhism is, in fact, based

>>20265211
>progress is an enlightenment myth
He posted on the internet from a house with electricity and running water

>>20265211
Science works by building models of reality with the goal of better understanding the rules of reality and being able to use those models (which are refined over time through the collection of data) to be able to better predict the future. Having an epileptic fit in a cave in the Middle East does absolutely nothing to improve knowledge of the truth of reality. Scientific experimentation does.

>>20258608
Honestly, what's so bad about him? He's pretty hilarious in the interviews I've seen of him

>>20258696
Feser presents well thought out philosophical arguments, all Dawkins does is present strawmen and then attempt to discredit them with inherently falsifiable scientific data.

>>20265364
Religious people are incredibly touchy about their delusions, thus the hate for Dawkins. You are correct though, Dawkins is pretty funny and witty in general.

>>20262209
>No you infamous retard.
You’re using big words you don’t know the meaning of to sound smart. Literal 10 year old.

>>20265386
>Feser presents well thought out philosophical arguments
Wait, you're serious? Let me laugh even harder.

>>20265349
And yet many of your "Priests" in academia will argue seriously that women can have penises. Intriguing.

>>20259219
You should read the dozen or so pages of the god delusion. He talks about the various forms of a belief in god like (1) a personal theistic God, like that of Christianity, (2) a deistic god, like that of Ben Franklin, and (3) a "pantheistic", poetic god, as Einstein referred when he said "he does not play dice".

He makes arguments against 1 and 2, and explains how 3 is merely flowery language, not actual evidence of Einstein's belief in god.

>>20259129
>You need to learn my weirdass system of repurposed Aristotelian terms and this extra bit of (unnecessary) special language to even have a discussion"
All meaningful discussions tend to develop their own lexicon, just as scientific research has its own lexicon and phraseology. If you're not willing to apply your mind, then don't pretend you can refute it.
>>20259631
Not at all. It's the same distinction as between substance and essence in Aristotle's original works, ie the difference between a perfect circle and circularity respectively. Again, not willing to apply your mind to something does not give you the right to call it gibberish.
>Is God perfect in relation to the property circularity?
Yes, God is neither circular nor square though, he merely provides the essence for the possibility of those essences themselves (essence = existence). You are becoming perplexed over an error as trivial as the fact that a single line of magnitude 1 can be both the diameter of a circle and the length of the sides of a square, because it provides the essence for both in different ways (although this is not a perfect example).

>>20265412
He doesn't understand any of the three positions though. He got completely destroyed by David Bentley Hart

>The God Delusion was, if anything, even more of a nursery entertainment: puerile rants, laboriously obvious jokes, winsomely preposterous conceptual confusions, a few dashes of naïve but honest indignation, attempts at philosophical reasoning so maladroit as to be touching in their guileless silliness. And I think it fair to say that nothing Dawkins has written for public consumption has lacked this element of beguiling absurdity—the delightful atmosphere of playtime on a long golden summer afternoon, alive with small figures shouting happily in shrill little voices and stumbling about in their parents’ clothing, acting out scenes from what they imagine to be the daily lives of adults. But the bewitching effect has also always been diluted by his unfortunate failure to embody his ideas in a form suitable to their triviality.


>With Outgrowing God: A Beginner’s Guide, all of that has changed. The warm, languid sunlight of those idyllic revels positively spills across its pages. At last, Dawkins has found an authorial voice entirely adequate to his theme. And it is charming. Yes, of course, the confused and chaotic quality of his arguments remains a constant, and the basic conceptual mistakes have not altered appreciably since the earliest days of his polemics; but here it all comes across as the delightful babble of a toddler. “Do you believe in God?” he asks on the first page, tugging at your sleeve, eager to inform you of all the interesting things he has learned about religion this week. “Which god? Thousands of gods have been worshipped throughout the world, throughout history.” Do tell. And, in fact, tell he does, breathlessly emptying out his whole little hoard of knowledge about the local deities of ancient peoples. The sheer earnest impishness of his manner is almost enough to make you ignore his continued inability—despite decades of attempts by more refined logicians to explain his error to him—to distinguish between the mythic and devotional stories that peoples tell about their gods and the ontological and modal claims that the great monotheistic traditions of the “axial age” and after have made about God, or to grasp the qualitative conceptual gulf that separates them.

>>20265411
As opposed to literal priests who for centuries have been cutting off babies' penis skin as if it's a great moral imperative? Also, dissent is not a bug, it's a feature of science and soon the reasonable and objective side will win out and this non-sense about transgenderism will be a footnote in history of the absurdities of the time.

>>20264079
What is stupid about the flying spaghetti monster argument? Genuinely curious

>>20263490
>so are many other arguments of the same logical form, which cannot be accepted.
Why not? Gaunilo's argument is correct as well.

>>20265439
>As opposed to literal priests who for centuries have been cutting off babies' penis skin as if it's a great moral imperative?
I'm not a Jew and I'm afraid circumcision is, hilariously, an idiosyncratic American Protestant practice that has been banned by other Christian denominations for most of history. I'm sorry, your nation has been kiked from the start.

>>20265447
Because it’s common to suspect the existence of a creator of the universe and the belief in God is well documented whereas the spaghetti monster is absurd and arbitrary so they are not comparable.

>>20265406
Any arguments or just a pretense of confidence?

>>20265439
>Also, dissent is not a bug, it's a feature of science and soon the reasonable and objective side will win out
The head of the American Atheists is a tranny.

>>20265433
I don't see anything more than a big ad hominem here. Does David Bentley Hart grapple with his arguments anywhere?

>>20265468
https://www.atheists.org/2021/04/american-atheists-richard-dawkins-trans-people/

There will be no golden future for atheism. Only a slide into degeneracy and being ruled by a caste of eunuch cucklords who will determine if you're to be expunged from society for wrongthink.

>>20265472
He does but Dawkins arguments are so facile it's hard to have any substantial refutation of them other than simply pointing out he doesn't understand what he's talking about

https://churchlifejournal.nd.edu/articles/richard-dawkins-discovers-his-ideal-idiom-and-audience/

>>20265462
Well, I'd say it's reasonable to compare the FSM (let's call it) to the god of any particular religion. Sure, perhaps God started the universe, created life, etc., (and one can argue separately about whether that's actually a reasonable belief) but we have no evidence of these particularities of the god and religion you believe in.

>>20265476
Was it your intention to show how based Dawkins is? He knows the dangers of wokeness and says so. Also, even people like Ben Shapiro call passing trans women as "she" and "her" out of simply courtesy and convenience.

>>20265536
>He knows the dangers of wokeness and says so
Why'd he spend his life spreading it then? 99.99% of all woketards are atheists who latched on to progressivism as an ideological replacement for religion. They even tried to make it official with "Atheism Plus".

>>20265349
I'm not knocking science or anything, but pattern recognition isn't exactly the supreme summit of wisdom

You can know literally every physical fact about the universe and you'll be able to do pretty much fuck all with it if you don't know what to do with those facts

>>20265556
What you do with facts and the truth is subjective and up to you.

>>20265556
You're absolutely correct, and if we're still talking about Dawkins here, he would agree with you. Science can answer questions of fact: what and why (but only in the sense of cause and effect, not in the sense of agency or intention). Science, and evidence-based thinking in general, covers the knowledge part of wisdom, but it cannot answer the value judgment part of wisdom. What do we do with this knowledge? What is _right_? That is outside the realm of science.

What Dawkins commonly argues against however, is the inherently scientific claims of religion, such as there being a god, creation myths, etc. These are scientific claims, and like any other, should be evaluated on the basis of their evidence, like any other scientific claim.

>>20265316
>doesn't know what Scientism but takes the opportunity to tip his fedora
Checks out.

>>20265657
inb4 "I know what it means. I asked you to define it."

>>20265595
>What Dawkins commonly argues against however, is the inherently scientific claims of religion, such as there being a god, creation myths, etc. These are scientific claims,
I know of no scientist who tries to tackle issues of ontology. Science is a methodology that abstracts from reality but it would be a huge mistake to conflate a methodology working in abstraction to "this is how things actually are". Feel free to point me to any scientist who actually has anything to say about the underlying nature of reality itself but as far as I know it's largely ignored as an issue science can say nothing on and so it's simplified in a way that enables scientific inquiry while the question itself is left on the side.

Frankly while Dawkins might be knowledgable in his specialty he is way out of his depth when it comes to issues like these. I am 100% certain the man would get filtered by Kant, let alone Hegel or Heidegger. He can't even represent Aristotle well.

>>20265556
>pattern recognition
If you think the scientific method is synonymous with "pattern recognition" then you truly have no idea what you are talking about.

>>20265553
False on all counts and "Atheism Plus" was a massive flop that even other atheists hated

>>20265766
That's what empirical knowledge is, Hume admits it outright.

>>20265657
Since you didn't answer, I'll take that to mean you believe in some form of woowoo

>>20265774
Yes, but again, if you had any idea what you were talking about you would know that the scientific method includes such things as peer review and forming predictions before an event, not simply recognizing a pattern after the fact, which is to say that it cannot simply be classified as "pattern recognition"

>>20265770
Atheists swing harder left than any other demographic.

>>20265795
Oof, you can't even read your own chart which clearly shows black Protestants are the hardest left leaning

Richard Dawkins gives a view of the world that still comes from a christian worldview, his humanism is just "man is made in the image of god" filtered through modern liberal terminology, he doesn't really understand what it would mean to live outside the christian intellectual tradition.

>>20265792
>scientific method includes such things as peer review and forming predictions
Correct, but it doesn't change anything I just said. One can have others "examine" your work, one can even make predictions based on previous patterns, it all just comes down to pattern recognition, whether on a group level or individual.

>>20265810
They just want the gibmedats so they don't count, they don't care about policy as long as they get a lot of grift thrown their way. The Republicans are complete globalist cucks who are pretty left wing on social issues as it is so literally the only reason a white person would ever vote Democrat is because they buy in to SJW ideology

>>20265742
I'm not sure if Dawkins deals with ontology, I was only talking about claims like God having created the earth, God interfering in human lives, Jesus being resurrected, etc., which are events which could in principle be verified with evidence.

I think he would agree that fundamental questions of what _is_ matter, what _is_ space, are questions that we must make progress on, in terms of bringing our understanding more and more fundamental (e.g. things are made of atoms, oh wait those are made of subatomic particles, oh wait those are not fundamental either, etc)

>>20265817
If you think that if a person views another person as having consciousness and therefore is worthy of being valued is SOLELY a Christian worldview then you belong at the kiddie table. The special kid, kiddie table.

>>20265825
>If I purposely omit certain demographics, then atheists are the worst!
There's not much more to say here

>>20265823
I will assert it again, to say that the scientific method is only pattern recognition is to say something that is false. Peer review is a mechanism for offsetting a person's own bias in what patterns they see. It is an entirely different layer which serves a function that is otherwise lacking in simply "pattern recognition". You can't omit that and claim you haven't substantively changed the thing you are talking about. You have.

>>20265828
>God having created the earth, God interfering in human lives, Jesus being resurrected
These aren't issues that can be decided by science and the fact you think they are means you're conceptualizing God in the wrong was, as a powerful being within the natural order rather than being the underlying ground of being itself.

>I think he would agree that fundamental questions of what _is_ matter, what _is_ space, are questions that we must make progress on, in terms of bringing our understanding more and more fundamental
Doesn't this just automatically presume materialism in that what matter is must necessarily regress into some fundamental particle that everything is constructed of? What is reality is fundamentally IMMATERIAL. What if Science is a completely useless methodology for understanding reality as a whole since it relies so heavily on empirical verification?

It's a possibility, one you can't rule out. You might adhere to science purely for pragmatic reasons but that's no assurance its methodology can ever provide anything more than an abstracted description of what we perceive as the physical.

>>20265837
Blacks aren't voting D because they want to suck the tranny dick, atheists are. Not much more to say than that, come to your own conclusion about which demographic is worse.

>>20265828
Ummm, sorry sweaty, but if you want to talk about whether Jesus turned the actual water molecules into wine molecules then we have to talk about presuppositionalism and nothing else

>>20265848
>I, personally, know exactly why every demographic votes the way they do and am at liberty therefore to manipulate all the numbers to my favor
Your head is firmly up your own ass, isn't it?

>>20258334
>neo-thomism
>Atheism
all this talk of ism this and ism that
NIGGA I WILL KILL YOU WITH MY BARE HANDS

>>20265843
>I will assert it again
Assert it as much as you want, it's silly and obviously wrong. Prediction based on patterns is still just predicated upon how well you can recognize the previous patterns.
>Peer review is a mechanism for offsetting a person's own bias in what patterns they see.
Yes, higher level pattern recognition.

>>20265856
>T-There might be some redpilled atheist voters voting d-democrat, you don't know!
Oh? What's this suddenly the atheist has an aversion to objective data? Come on man. We all know who the atheists are voting for and we know why.

>>20265877
lol have you massaged the data like you did with the other chart?

>>20265886
>massaged the data
The source is right there at the bottom retard, you're just coping now. The woke mind virus is heavily correlated with atheism.

>>20265779
>woowoo
Imagine parroting Sam Harris on 4chan.

>>20258334
/lit/ likes to act all sophisticated for reading philosophy. But all they're truly doing is searching for a way to justify the importance of their own feelings. Richard Dawkins is not only a killer of god, but a killer of sentiment entirely. Making ones own feeling seem unimportant. That's why they hate him. They're ok with uprooting the idea of god, *only* if it preserves their ego in the process.

>>20265903
Sam Harris is based

>>20265910
>Richard Dawkins is not only a killer of god, but a killer of sentiment entirely.
>tips fedora so hard it falls off his head
kek, shut up pseud faggot.

>>20265916
The only based thing I've ever heard him say is when he theorized how problematic it would be if it were discovered Jews had a hoarding gene that caused them to be greedy.

Threads and discussions like these make me genuinely wonder if most people are honestly just fucking retarded and that most people we assume to be "smart" are probably just winging it and faking it until they make it

>>20265910
He's really not. He's talked a lot about "transcendental" experiences, and about how it is a mistake to overanalyze them from a physical standpoint. He uses the metaphor of software vs hardware.

>>20265927
>until they make it
That's a stretch.
>false dichotomy
Read de Chardin.

>>20265828
>What _is_ matter, what _is_ space,
Atomism and materialist substantialism were refuted 2400 years ago if not earlier, there is nothing science can do to change that. Matter can be said to "be" in a relative sense, in the way that the tyre of a car is one piece of matter for the car itself and exists as something, and not as matter, the same way that a subatomic particle is one piece of matter for an atom, and can only exist as something, and not as "matter." Even space is just a relation between things and can't be said to exist, except as a relation between things in a similar way as matter (we can see macroscopic physics moving towards this truth even if we ignore its logical necessity, as space is now considered part of a "fabric", or in other words a relationship between relativistic masses. Space is no longer viewed as self-subsistent as in atomism, it is "relative" with respect to relativistic masses, which can experience length dilation and contraction based on velocity, acceleration, and other components of relativistic mass).

>>20265910
Dawkins is a pseud, just like those silly evangelical priests who resort to naive and grotesque arguments to prove the existence of God.
The issue with Dawkins isn't even the question of the existence of god, this is an issue for people who actually seriously dwelve into the question, Dawkins doesn't.
He uses cheap and stereotypical arguments that do not have any definite argumental weight.
Let me give you an example, because Dawkins defenders in this thread have complained of the lack of concrete arguments against Dawkins.
In the opening of his book, Dawkins states that multiple gods have been worshipped throughout history, and that only one of them can be true, and if all the others are wrong, then this one surely must be too.
This is the beginning of the book. If you've ever written a book, the opening is very important, it is where you catch the reader's attention. Usually, you will try to write something that will prompt the reader to read further. Dawkins chose this as his book's opening, so it is reasonable to assume that, in Dawkins mind, this is a very strong argument.
There are two problems here, the first is that the different deity could very well be the cultural manifestations of the same superior being.
The second is that, in terms of probability, even if all the other gods were false, the traditional Christian god being false isn't more likely than him being the only one real.
For instance, you are the only sperm that inseminated the egg, all the others failed.
Yet here you are.
The systematic failure of others doesn't, by itself, make your failure more likely. What I am saying may seem obvious and trivial, because it is, it is very simple, surface level logic. And even that is misunderstood by Dawkins.
So again, the problem with Dawkins isn't that he is hurting my feeling as a Christian, he isn't.
He would, however, hurt my feelings if I was an atheist, because he makes atheists sound like drooling retards.

>>20265978
>In the opening of his book, Dawkins states that multiple gods have been worshipped throughout history, and that only one of them can be true, and if all the others are wrong, then this one surely must be too.
This is always odd to me, because it's the same argument so many classical philosophers use for the exact opposite purpose, like Cicero, for showing the probable existence of the Divine, because so many different cultures and civilizations (basically all of them) recognize the Divine as eminently real and all associate similar attributes to it and the meaning of piety, etc., that therefore it must be real and also the genitor of nature.
>The systematic failure of others doesn't, by itself, make your failure more likely.
It does, though, if success is singular and only one of many is allowed it. The more competitors of equal footing, the less likely it is for any given competitor to be successful before the result is definitively known. And from Dawkins's standpoint, the result is not definitively known, he is approaching the topic from the perspective of a relatively blank slate, so it's not right to speak of the "failure of others" before the result is even known.

shit thread

>>20262715
True but it makes the larpers seethe to no end
>>20262725
Absolute cope

>>20258334
Einstein said God exists, Einstein was smarter than this Dawkins "biology" fag, therefore God exists.

>>20266021
>a lot of people have said it for a long time so it must be true
I never got this "argument". People used to believe stupid and blatantly wrong shit for the majority of history.

>>20261784
>what is the Uncaused Cause
To this day it amazes me how many fedorafags are filtered by this argument to the point that you're reduced to playground taunts.

>>20266051
>Heh, just because a lot of people said god exists, doesn't mean it's real
>Hey conspiritard, all the experts are saying you should take the vaccine, what are you, a science denier? Wow, you should trust the science!!!

Entirety of book's reasoning essentially boils down to "everything I don't like is religion and everything I do is not". Buddhism and Spinozian cosmicism are clearly religions (possessing the key tenets or a religious belief system) but he likes Buddhism and cosmicism, so it's a "moral philosophy" and not "religion". On the other side of the spectrum, we have the Soviet bezbozhnik movement, with atheist organizations, atheist clubs and atheist think tanks fully controlled by the communist party but this doesn't meet his definition of atheists being "individualist freethinkers and rationalists", so he proves that the godless movement in the socialist states was a "religion" of "believing in communism". In short, "religion" in the "Delusion" is a blanket term without any inherent meaning, and you can't have a rational discussion if the words are devoid of meaning.
Besides, the title itself clearly implies that everyone disagreeing with the author is "delusional", so no discussion is possible in the first place.

>>20266048
Einstein was quite based, wasn't he?

>>20258649
kpop retard is a midwit clean your room

>>20266060
Einstein was not an atheist, he was a deist, which is why he specifically mentions the bible in that quote, since deism is against religious revelation books as an authority of anything.

>>20266054
Your immediate tantrum throwing and complete lack of argument are telling

>>20266051
>People used to believe stupid and blatantly wrong shit
When they did it was always multivariant and never agreed upon though, because falsity lends to dispute and argument. And also, all of the things which did appear to be true were unilaterally believed for good reasons, such as the Sun orbiting the Earth, because there were large amounts of observational and mathematical evidence indicating that would be the case.

>>20266088
>multivariant and never agreed upon
Much like religion

>>20262572

You fell out of truth. The edgy teenage atheists are, in point of fact, fully in the truth, though confusedly. The tragedy is that they "learn" and "mature" to become adults, and then adulthood (accepting convention) is mistaken for wisdom. This is one of the basic psychological errors animating pro-religious discourse on 4chan: young men who want to GROW OUT OF ADOLESCENCE/present themselves as being smart. Atheistic, scientific and religious discourses all provide certain means to that end.

Basically, taking on/defending religion is an intellectually lazy adoption of adulthood which 4chan users falsely identify themselves with because they find themselves wrongfully disgusted with their earlier, edgy atheist teenage selves. It's the other way round. The 14 year old is in the truth, and it takes a process of adult socialization into arbitrary nonsense to "forget" that.

>>20266080
I wasn't that anon you were responding to at all, I just thought your "just because lots of people say so, doesn't mean it is true" was such a reddit tier post, that it deserved a basedjak response.

>>20266139
>just because lots of people say so, doesn't mean it is true
"Just because lots of people say so means it's true" is even more retarded and you still don't have an argument.

>>20266095
No, because the elements of religion is one of those things that has been universally agreed upon for most of history. That is Cicero's argument, with Celsus and most other classical philosophers. It's only an aberration in recent history which led to the opposite, which has already resolved itself, thereby showing the falsity of asserting singularity in the Biblical or Qur'anic sense.
>>20266109
Atheism is intellectually lazy. It requires no effort to maintain, like all skepticism. The reason for the change lies in a scorn of the inherent laziness of that position (even of "positions" themselves), to want challenge in every sense of the word and something to ascend to. Atheism is at best a descent, at worst it is just sitting in a pit with nothing to do except criticize others. People with spirit want to create, or at least preserve or strengthen that which is great and noble, everything worthy of being called divine.

>>20266155
>the elements of religion is one of those things that has been universally agreed upon
And? This shows nothing but an instinctual or intuitive yearning for the supernatural. I'm not even an atheist but this argument is weak as fuck

>>20266143
I'm never made an argument, I'm just pointing out the irony of science worshippers like you that use the same type of fallacies when it works in your favor.

>>20266182
>science worshippers
Not an atheist or physicalist. Try again, or better yet, stop seething at made up opponents, brainlet.

>>20266165
It's not an argument. The entire point is to show that Dawkins's use of the same example is also not an argument.

>>20266191
I don't care about dawkins

>>20266188
Oh the irony, if I was the one making up opponents and not you, then why is it you whining to me that I didn't make an argument when I was simply mocking you? Sounds like you are seething that I pointed out your own type of hypocrisies. I also never said you were an atheist or a physicalist, just simply a science worshipper.

>>20266076
Are there any good books on deism? Or maybe that would defeat the purpose.

>>20266193
That's what the argument was about, so why are you replying to me?

>>20266196
>a science worshipper.
Again: stop seething at made up opponents. I neither care about nor mentioned science in any of my posts. You are an obsessed, enraged little midwit desperate to save face by pretending your kneejerk reaction against my post was "ironic"

>>20266206
>Y-your the one making up opponents in your head
>I never cared about science (except for the part where I argue against religion)
>This is why I need to make myself feel superior hahahaha
Yeah dude, I think you are mad by being compared to a redditor, don't worry, when you grow up, it's a phase you will grow out of.

>>20266209
>arguing against religion means you worship science
lmao room temp IQ over here. Keep boiling in rage over things you made up in your head

>>20266211
You keep saying I am making up enemies in my head, but which one? That there are people who worship science? So you don't think people like exist? Strange, the only people that have a visceral hatred of religion to the point of arguing low hanging fruits are typically science lovers, seems to me that you are weaseling out of a position you normally believe in because you realize that what you believe in is highly embarrassing? Yeah, I think that basedjak really struck a nerve and now you are trying to gaslight everyone else, still doesn't change you argue like a cringy redditor lmao. But hey, you can cope all day by pretending you got one up on me.

>>20266226
Not gonna read your meltdown. Cry more

>>20266234
>Redditor projects his seething
Lmao. Keep crying science worshipper.

>>20266315
>no u
>complete with the "please believe I'm laughing at you and not boiling in rage" reaction pic
lol

>>20266365
>Guy gets mocked for being a redditor
>"N-no you are the one thats mad not me"
I don't even get why you are responding if you weren't mad at being called a redditor, I literally have no skin in the game in this argument other than laughing at reddit tier arguments.

>>20258558
He starts from Aristotelian matter/form distinction without making much of an argument for it. In "The Last Superstition" he basically introduces it as one way to think about change, and then just takes it for granted that that's how reality actually works.

>>20266371
Didn't read. Seethe

>>20262715
That's entirely true but it doesn't diminish the utility of religion for individuals and wider society. All religious people know deep down they have zero real hard proof for the existence of their God and it is just blind faith, but it doesn't actually matter whether or not any religious person's God is actually real, if the genuine faith in that God improves their life their faith is not misplaced. I think the reason people will get defensive when they have to explain why their God is real and why all the others are fake and gay is that religion as tool for a better life requires faith as fuel, if you have to critically examine and explain that faith it will diminish and the positive impact of religion on their life will lessen.

>>20266928
Religious people I know have varied things constituting their idea of proof. Also, Zoroastrianism (and then Christianity/Judaism) are the ones who coined "my God real your God fake", before that the situation was quite different.

>>20266928
>but it doesn't actually matter whether or not any religious person's God is actually real, if the genuine faith in that God improves their life their faith is not misplaced.
How do you see those who cling to faith in the most dire of situations?

>>20266928
What exactly is "real hard proof though"? Empirical evidence? I would say that is quite flimsy since you can not prove the super natural through the natural and what's to say that even if you were to provide such evidence, that people would still believe it? People can call faith a stupid argument all they want, but how many times do people not believe in something true outside of things like religion until they want to personally believe in it? Plenty of times actually, this whole covid shit in the last 2 years were full of normalfags and experts flat out refusing to acknowledge the truth until it was so evident it was hard to deny and even then people deny it (such as masks not really work or lockdowns not really preventing the spread of diseases). Funny enough, it's probably better for someone to have a dogma of a "sky daddy" than something empircal such as science since a dogma in a field of research that is constantly evolving is the very antithesis of having a scientific mind, whereas if someone were to be stubborn on something in matters that were metaphysical, it would be contained in religious matters and that's it.

>>20258334
Memetics is disproven by the most religious of every Catholic nation beccoming celebate and memes have survival value doesn't disprove them as true but describes them. Next.

>>20267025
Christianity exists because Jesus supposedly provided proof once, then Paul told everyone "just believe lmao"
Really, it worked because it was a new phenomenon that appealed to the non-intellectual masses of the time. And now you believe it because of the thread of legitimacy hulking over you, the churches, the childhood indoctrination, the thinly veiled threats of the Bible.

>>20267061
>Really, it worked because it was a new phenomenon that appealed to the non-intellectual masses of the time. And now you believe it because of the thread of legitimacy hulking over you, the churches, the childhood indoctrination, the thinly veiled threats of the Bible.
Genuinely read Augustine

>>20267072
I don't know anything he says that disproves the quote.

>>20267092
Augustine himself is the disprover - you don't approach those level of prose without being a purely free thinker.

>>20267072
>read this author to disprove yourself
>no I will not tell you the secret that disproves it
>you have to read it yourself to see I'm right

>>20267116
His prose and approach is the argument. He makes Schopenhauer look dimwitted

>>20267104
>>20267122
Not a display of intellectualism.

>>20267132
>intellectualism
Here we go again. IQ higher => argument gooder => more smart points ... => iPhone?

>>20267122
Cool argument bro try mine. Augustine believed in God so that makes him an idiot that I can disregard without reading.

>>20267146
Define God

@20267140
>point out incoherence
>get incoherent babbling in turn
Not worth my time.

>>20265424
>All meaningful discussions tend to develop their own lexicon, just as scientific research has its own lexicon and phraseology. If you're not willing to apply your mind, then don't pretend you can refute it.
It's just posturing from Feser, borrowing on old systems, to lend credibility/authority to his own. He is not using Aristotle's stuff 1:1, so he shouldn't pretend that he does.
He could describe his positions using clear language, but he chooses not to. Thomism without the pretence, without elitism it wouldn't work. It needs to obfuscate how much is just assertions about how reality really works.

Take Aristotelean physics: A cup resting on a book. resting on a table, resting on the ground, resting on the earth. That stuff.
Feser turns this into a metaphysical first principle. Despite to our current best understanding of reality, tells us that this is not how reality actually works.
It is more accurately described in terms of forces. The cup doesn't rest on the earth, it's pulled by gravity towards the book, but the atoms repel eachother, yadda-yadda. It also falls apart if you think of things in term of general relativity. An infinitely long paintbrush... It's other end would never move.
Yet, Feser uses this example to try and get at something else.
The fact that all the analogies he uses, does not work in reality when examined with scrutiny. It should be extremely troubling to him. But, he doesn't care. He just scoffed at this criticism "nerds being nit-pickers" something like that
Still, reality not behaving in terms of Aristotelean metaphysics... BIG PROBLEM when you attempt to use natural theology to figure out stuff from looking at how reality behaves.
This problem is insurmountable for him. So I can understand why he refuses to touch it. When he have to retreat into his position being one of "pure logic" he has to double-down when people point out this logic is literally invented, just made up, and reality isn't like that.

>>20267163
You don't understand? I thought you were smart!!!

>>20267157
God is defined as something that doesn't exist. Bible thumpers BTFO. I'm 2-0 now when are you going to renounce Christ?

>>20265149
>David Bentley Fart attempts to write "no you"

>>20267179
try again

>>20267186
A definition is a definition bro. You just keep losing

>>20267179
>>20267186
Also it's interesting how you are on Christianity's term right now and don't realize it. God 's true name is He Who Exists by Aquinas and his answer to who he is "I am that I am." It's interesting because your response is predicted by our model where you are just an antithesis with nothing to offer yourself

>>20267202
>Also it's interesting how you are on Christianity's term right now and don't realize it.
Bible thumpers think God doesn't exist? lol

>>20267202
>God 's true name is He Who Exists by Aquinas and his answer to who he is "I am that I am."
Wow
That's worthless

>>20267213
No the framework you have of just disagree, disagree, no no no, is basically predicted in Christianity's model. You're not arguing for Buddha or Islam or even Zeus but just saying wrong wrong wrong. For example, you don't even have a definition of God but just take the Christian one and put a negative sign in front of it (similar to everything by Nietzsche)

>>20267224
Define existence

>>20267230
From what I understand of this schizophrenia is, you're using the idea that God exists because if you think of God you can realize "hey I'm thinking about God therefore he can exist" as your idea of God is supposed to trump everything else, and if he wasn't real he would be unimaginable. Correct?

>>20267246
Nah this is a valid argument in a sense and I appreciate you noticing the subtle trick. It's also genuinely that you can't say cars don't exist without having definitions for cars and existence. Atheists have definitions for neither (typically)

>>20267230
>No the framework you have of just disagree, disagree, no no no
But you're the one disagreeing with me. I keep telling you God doesn't exist and you keep saying no no no. Are you agreeing with me that God doesn't exist?

>>20267264
Kk I'll let you try again but this post is wrong

>>20267268
So you agree with me that God doesn't exist? Glad I could of finally got through to one of you retards

>>20267276
Dunning-Kruger sorry friend

>>20266155
>Cicero's argument
It think it's a really bad argument.
We got this data, that through Human history a bunch of cultures have independently developed concepts of god(s) and religions

So now the question is how to interpret hat data. You can do that buy supposing there is a real existing referent for the God idea, just that everyone got the specifics wrong, or maybe 1 group got it right, and those with flexibility to allow latch onto it.
OR
You can use current knowledge of human biology, psychology, anthropology, etc. That human minds got a huge bias to attach agents to causation. Lightning in the sky? Caused by an a big guy striking sparks (an agent), not a natural process.
Basically supposing that humans left to their own devices, are bound to invent ideas of God, or at least in that ballpark. This is hugely supported theory (hypothesis?)
There's a bunch of supportive arguments to be made. Such as early religious societies just being better, so you got survivorship bias doing work. You'll eventually just have structured religious cultures, because they outcompete the others.

Now we have to do a hypothesis evaluation. What existing data does my hypothesis of gods not being real, but invented for the reasons I just listed not account for? I think it accounts for all the data.
It requires nothing extra. No new ontology, no new unknown category of things (supernatural things). And keep in mind, even if supernatural things exist, that's still perfectly compatible with everything, it's just not *needed*.

What does Cicero's argument account for? Everything, I guess. After all, a God can do literally anything.
What does it need? The above data (almost every civilisation having gods) + Need to have the God exist.

My point: We don't know that the God exist. But we DO know how human minds work. So why would you ever pick Cicero's hypothesis over mine?

>>20267338
Another interpretation of what you said that I like is
>Humans become self aware that their actions cause consequences
>at some point notice actions not caused by them or animals, try to ascribe cause
>apply that there must be invisible man or awareness causing them by inferring that, due to their own self-awareness, whatever causes action must be self aware as well and therefore man-like
If a rock falls, either a man pushed it, a spirit pushed it, or a God caused an earthquake that pushed it. Or if it happens because a cliff holding the rock breaks, that's consequence of someone else's causation, just delayed.

>>20267282
The guy claiming the prose quality of Augustine proves God exists is invoking Dunning-Kruger.

>>20267282
>Dunning-Kruger

>>20267401
Yeah, totally. That's how humans think.
If a kid wear a certain shirt, and something good happens to him that day. Now it's suddenly his "lucky-shirt".
It's really easy mess up the reasoning of what caused that good thing to happen.

My point is that with our current best understanding of reality. We got good reason to think, it was not the shirt.
It's just how humans think. And that's the reason we got all these false beliefs. Not that luck-shirts are a real existing thing.

>>20267443
Everyone knows Underwear collect luck by saving your spirit semen from being collected by the demiurge's archons retards.

this is one of the worst tripfags I've seen since cumgenius but at least that spic was mildly amusing

>>20265795
>he thinks the way people voot in american political circus is important

>>20267430
>>20267431
STOP responding to tripfaggots

>>20262691
you dumbfuck retard "god" god is geometry and includes all those lesser beings

>>20262934
>Is the successful spread of an idea indicative of a good idea or not?
Not.

>>20267430
>>20267431
>>20267520
>>20267561
Hi hi

>>20267019
I'm unsure of what you mean by most dire of situations. But if it's something like a plane crashing and they say a prayer before they die, they'll probably have a more peaceful death than someone non religious. If it's an extended dire situation like a family member dies, they lose their job and fall into a depression, blind faith in God can give them the will to live and stop them from roping. But I can think that some instances where having blind faith that "God will solve this" could be lead to inaction and be detrimental.

>>20267025
I guess what I meant by "real hard proof" is that you couldn't ever logically reason your way to "only my religion is right". Imagine a religious person trying to convince an identical but non believing version of himself that his particular religion is the right one, he couldn't because all of the arguments for his religion are based in his own faith, because as you said you cannot prove the supernatural with the natural, so all that's left is blind faith and dogma as justification.

>>20258334
It's because these morons
>>20258417
>>20262826
who waste their time reading garbage philosophy can't stand that simple logic is enough to refute claims of a higher power instead of the useless semantic word games they spend their time reading. The reason why they push philosophy is because it actually gives theism a leg to stand on because the arguments have no leg in actual science and reality.

>>20258334
Funnily, this book actually pushed me towards religion for the first time.

>>20258334
I've never cared to read it because Dawkins is such a clown. I didn't know atheists still liked him

>>20261753
>what caused God
The bane of all theism. One simple logical question they can never find a real answer to

>>20269099

>>20264513
>There is no objective truth
This is the dumbest take.

>>20269191
cope

>>20265978
>There are two problems here, the first is that the different deity could very well be the cultural manifestations of the same superior being.
Except many Gods have nothing in common
>The second is that, in terms of probability, even if all the other gods were false, the traditional Christian god being false isn't more likely than him being the only one real.
That's not how probability works
The more Gods there are, the less likely one is to be true. If everything else is false, then it's likely the Christian one is false too. Cause if the probability of one religion being true is 1/1000, then it is far more likely to be false than true.

>>20266048
Einstein used God to refer to the universe, he did not believe in a personal or individual God.

>>20264513
>>20269196
No, he's right.
>There is no objective truth
It's a paradox, to make it a core belief in your world view is dumb. In order for that to be true, some objective truths would have to exist.

>>20269179
What happens if you replace "God-like" with another word?
:^)

>>20269258
No, just go the academic skeptic route. "There is no objective truth" is the only objective truth. There you go

>>20267180
Its more of a Crossed br00tal action comic oh shit moment than a
"HEH ONE MORE FOR THE CHURCH FELLAS PRAISE JEBUS"
Its tone policing yes.