/lit/ - Literature

>>20338866
He's less wrong than some, but he's not right. Religious belief should be despised in general. We can understand those who were indoctrinated from a young age, and can forgive them some, but for someone to convert later in life means they're actually fucking retarded.

>>20338882
Shoo shoo fedora

Anyways, Johnston is a charlatan because he thought physical objects were real (they're obviously not, as the most fundamental particle is energy, and energy isn't visible)

>>20338866
Those who choose religion as adults should always be distrusted. When you are an adult, you should put away childish things, not seek them out and embrace them.

>>20338866
Very based opinion.

4chan LARPers treat religion like clothes. Some sense of respect before religion by fact of its history and tradition never enters their mind. It's only what passing religion is MINE.

>>20338866
>>20338882
>>20338978
>>20338985
What going to hell does to mfs

Converts broke pagan Rome and they'll break pagan America too.

>>20339006
When I'll burn in hell for eternity I'll look back and think proudly about how many chuds I BTFO on 4channel. I'll have a lot of time to do it lol.

>>20339037
You wouldn't be able to think because your soul/mind is independent of your body.

>>20339033
Both were destroyed by pagans

>>20339043
?

>>20339045
For good reason. Both deserved to be destroyed.

>>20339006
What religion does to mfs

>>20339061

False, that's only true of Rome and not of the United States, which are not the exactly comparable entities that you and other stupids take them for.

>>20338866

As for the OP, it's just a bit of whining between women about how people find this-or-that cult, or change between them. In the given passage Johnson provides no satisfactory reason why this-or-that cult is really better than the other, he merely complains of the changing process itself for personal reasons. Worse, the OP's given language doesn't do much in the direction of the spicy prompt. The OP's basic idea (that a traitor/person changing teams can't be trusted) is sound on the surface level, but it precludes change in general and also the basic mandate in various false religions to win converts, i.e. to cause a change to occur.

Johnson's claim that "the heathens had nothing to give up" is also patently false. They had an entire sociological lifeworld (if not a singular god) to give up, read any history of native colonization on this.

>>20339094
>False, that's only true of Rome and not of the United States

America is the Great Satan, it deserves to cease to exist.

>>20339094
What makes the US better than Rome? Please don't talk about diversity and GDP.

>>20339101

The rest of of the world is darkness, Rome (Whoops!, I mean) America is the light. I really mean this, and I am right. One of several tragedies is that the rest of the species is benighted in various ways (Islam, drug wars, and so forth).

>>20339107

Simply put, Modernity. Simple material abundance and being at a physical remove from Eurasia, to start. Then there's the protestant work ethic background informing the whole thing. Hate hate hate hate hate hate, meanwhile several thousand brown turds are successfully clambering to get in here and ruin the whole thing. Oh, how terrible. Oh, how intelligent you are for hating what used to be America.

>>20339107
Depends what you view as "better". Personally I think we should bring back throwing people to the lions for the amusement of a crowd

>>20339121
So capitallism and diversity gotcha

>>20339129

No! Only capitalism! I made it perfectly clear that diversity is bad! You replied to my post in bad faith and misread it, shame on you!

>>20339153
This is very cringe

>>20339166

No, what is cringe is disliking either the United States of America or capitalism.

>>20338967
>>20339006
The London Times reports Professor Dawkins was at home and in his garden when his neighbor Bob walked over and asked him “What if you’re wrong about there being no God?”

The author of The Selfish Gene stood up and brushed off some dirt and replied, “You know Bob, in my decades of academia and advocacy for secular causes no one ever asked me that question. Thank you. I’m now going to retire to my sitting room and reflect on the matter.”

It took far longer than one simple sit in the sitting room to square his reasons for being an atheist with the implied promise of burning in eternal hellfire housed in the question What if you’re wrong? After all, couldn’t he just pretend to believe? And after a while wouldn’t he actually believe? Many prominent used car salesman promoted the Fake it ’til you make it theory?

After a restless night in bed and looking at the ceiling Professor Dawkins reflected on his sinful life. Neighbor Bob’s words were on repeat in his mind What if you’re wrong?

It must have been all the sin in his heart that prevented him from asking that question himself. He could discuss several theories on why altruism and compassion evolved in humans but never had he considered the implications about the possibility of his being wrong about Jesus.

What if he was wrong? If he were wrong, he’d be tortured forever in hell. If he was going to be honest with himself being tortured forever didn’t sound nice. He had several health concerns and felt sure they would flare up if he were in a lake of fire. His allergies would kick up like the devil.

The next day Professor Dawkins told the world, “I now believe in the Trinity. I’m certainly not saying that because of any possible allergic reaction to hellfire!”

>>20339190
Is that what passes as humor for atheists?

>>20338882

>>20339195
>>20339240
Well, what if I'm wrong, I mean — anybody could be wrong. We could all be wrong about the Flying Spaghetti Monster and the pink unicorn and the flying teapot. You happen to have been brought up, I would presume, in a Christian faith. You know what it's like to not believe in a particular faith because you're not a Muslim. You're not a Hindu. Why aren't you a Hindu? Because you happen to have been brought up in America, not in India. If you had been brought up in India, you'd be a Hindu. If you had been brought up in Denmark in the time of the Vikings, you'd be believing in Wotan and Thor. If you were brought up in classical Greece, you'd be believing in Zeus. If you were brought up in central Africa, you'd be believing in the great Juju up the mountain. There's no particular reason to pick on the Judeo-Christian god, in which by the sheerest accident you happen to have been brought up and ask me the question, "What if I'm wrong?"

>>20338866
Yes, if you don't want anyone to convert to your religion and actively want it to die out.

But everyone is a religious convert...

>>20338978
I’m choosing to believe this is just a really great troll.

>>20338866
What a seething sperg. Schopenhauer was right about him.

>>20338967
Is energy real or unreal? If energy is real, then why aren't physical objects real, since they are made out of real energy? I don't know if you're taking Berkeley's view that the existence of physical objects depend on being perceived, but Berkeley still maintained that mind-dependent objects were real.

>>20339767
Religion is the ultimate transference mechanism, and when the "god" in question is literally a heavenly father, it is directly infantilizing to you. It is a permanent state of being a helpless small child relying on the protection of the father and a wish to please him and gain his approval. I mean exactly what I say, it is a permanent state of childishness. It is pathetic. It is the annihilation of human dignity. It's just embarrassing.

>>20338866
I think it certainly raises questions about their character, depending on how much of their character depends on faith and morals. Sammy explains it just fine, what's not to get? For instance, I know a devout woman who converted from Protestantism to Catholicism to marry her husband. It raises the question which she prioritizes, her relationship with her husband or her immortal soul. In this particular case my understanding is that protestants don't believe that catholics cannot be saved, so maybe logically it's not quite as bad as a catholic who converts to protestantism for the sake of a relationship.

Also, can we please consider the details of the issue at hand? This isn't just "convert from one random thing to another random thing." Johnson was a pretty staunch High Church Anglican, and so of course he'd disapprove of someone converting to the Quakers. Do you guys know anything about the Quakers? They were the Pentecostals of their day. Absolutely batshit. Of course Johnson would disapprove of that.

>>20339769
I've read all of Schopey, yet don't recall him ever mentioning Johnson. What did he say of him? Presumably a throw away line about English bigotry, or what have you.

>>20341220
OP didn't post the context so he was trolling which is against the rules

>>20338866
>He then rose again into passion, and attacked the young proselyte in the severest terms of reproach, so that both the ladies seemed to be much shocked
Basée. I can relate. Where is it from?

>>20338866
Only insofar as they convert to Quakerism. A Christian should be Catholic or if they are unable to accept this a confessional Lutheran or an Eastern Orthodox.

But beware cause there is no salvation outside of the Church.

No
The Muslims have it right.
Religious converts have more zeal because they activily searched for God where as people born into it could easily just be going through the motions

>>20342601
>No salvation outside the church
>a Christian should be 1 of these 3 churches that aren't in communion with each other
This is pure larp you can't be intellectual honest and contradictory at the same time

>>20338866
>the New Testament, the most difficult book
>The heathens were easily converted, because they had nothing

What an idiot.

>>20342628
I'm Catholic and we experience the same thing. The converts have the most energy and passion. I love them for that reason, though some of the older (Boomer) Catholics don't like converts because they find them to not be "respectable."

>>20343284
How do you feel about asians coming to catholic church in order to learn spanish?

>>20343297
they are not going to church to learn Spanish but the language of God

>>20340079
Can you prove it though?

>>20343297
Not him but most people are very welcoming at mass. Especially the people that help out afterwards and set up the stalls for the food vendors. Best way to meet people and work on your Spanish would be grabbing some coffee or champurrado after the service.

>>20343297
Spiritual Filipinos

>>20338866
>JOHNSON: "Madam, she could not understand the New Testament, the most difficult book in the world, for which the study of a life is required."
This was retroactively proven to be cope be Kierkegaard.

>>20341294
>Samuel Johnson in 1776 commented, "Nothing odd will do long. Tristram Shandy did not last."[16][17] Schopenhauer privately rebutted Samuel Johnson, saying: "The man Sterne is worth 1,000 Pedants and commonplace-fellows like Dr. J."

>>20338866
Why does it read like a greentext story?

Let us not look (only at this), that men are offended: this very thing is itself a proof of the excellence of the doctrine--that many stimulate and counterfeit it: for it would not be so, if it were not good. And this I will now show, and make on all hands plain to you. Of perfumes, the fragrant spices are they which people adulterate and counterfeit; as, for instance, the amomum leaf. For because these are rare and of necessary use, therefore there come to be spurious imitations likewise. Nobody would care to counterfeit any common article. The pure life gets many a false pretender to it: no man would care to counterfeit the man of vicious life; no, but the man of monastic life.--What then shall we say to the heathen? There comes a heathen and says, "I wish to become a Christian, but I know not whom to join: there is much fighting and faction among you, much confusion: which doctrine am I to choose?" How shall we answer him? "Each of you" (says he) "asserts, I speak the truth.'" No doubt: this is in our favor. For if we told you to be persuaded by arguments, you might well be perplexed: but if we bid you believe the Scriptures, and these are simple and true, the decision is easy for you. If any agree with the Scriptures, he is the Christian; if any fight against them, he is far from this rule. "But which am I to believe, knowing as I do nothing at all of the Scriptures? The others also allege the same thing for themselves. What then if the other come, and say that the Scripture has this, and you that it has something different, and ye interpret the Scriptures diversely, dragging their sense (each his own way)?" And you then, I ask, have you no understanding, no judgment? "And how should I be able (to decide)," says he, "I who do not even know how to judge of your doctrines? I wish to become a learner, and you are making me forthwith a teacher."

>>20344397

However, this (talk of yours) is mere pretence and subterfuge. For answer me: how is it that if you would buy a cloak, though ignorant of the art of weaving, you do not speak such words as these--"I do not know how to buy; they cheat me"--but do all you can to learn, and so whatever else it be that you would buy: but here you speak these words? For at this rate, you will accept nothing at all. For let there be one that has no (religious) doctrine whatever: if he should say what you say about the Christians--"There is such a multitude of men, and they have different doctrines; this a heathen, that a Jew, the other a Christian: no need to accept any doctrine whatever, for they are at variance one with another; but I am a learner, and do not wish to be a judge" --but if you have yielded (so far as) to pronounce against (kataginoskein) one doctrine, this pretext no longer has place for you. For just as you were able to reject the spurious, so here also, having come, you shall be able to prove what is profitable. For he that has not pronounced against any doctrine at all, may easily say this: but he that has pronounced against any, though he have chosen none, by going on in the same way, will be able to see what he ought to do. Then let us not make pretexts and excuses, and all will be easy. For, to show you that all this is mere excuse, answer me this: Do you know what you ought to do, and what to leave undone? Then why do you not what you ought? Do that, and by right reason seek of God, and He will assuredly reveal it to thee. "God," it saith, "is no respecter of persons, but in every nation he that feareth Him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with Him." (ch. x. 34, 35.) It cannot be that he who hears without prejudice should not be persuaded.

From the Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on the Book of Acts
https://biblehub.com/commentaries/chrysostom/acts/15.htm

>>20344397
>>20344400
>>20338866
The Scriptures are not "the most difficult book in the world." The Scriptures are not just "a book," they are a means of grace, of the movement of the Holy Spirit, God, the Shepherd, speaking to His sheep.

2 Timothy 3:16: "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness."
John 10:27: "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me."

Refusing to accept this results in absurdities and abuses like the following, from the University of Paris, against Luther & Melanchthon: "Because the Scriptures are obscure, they must be interpreted by Masters, especially the Masters of Paris. Because the Fathers are obscure, they must be interpreted by the same Masters of Paris. Its decrees against Luther and Melanchthon are clear and can be comprehended by anyone."

Religions are just identities. Whether you're a Christian socialist, a wiccan lesbian, a TradCath screaming Deus Vult, and Televangelist, or a neo-Nazi pagan. Theology is worthless, no one has ever converted because of theology. They convert for money, trade, political or social power.

>>20338866
Maybe if they’re ignorant of their new religion as well as the religion they left like the lady he described, but often converts are knowledgeable and sometimes even more zealous about the religion than those born into it.

>>20345065
This is more often than not why states "convert," but I don't think this perspective is equally as fair to individual believers.