/lit/ - Literature

SO
TWO SEPARATE TOPICS. GOT IT, CHIEF!

>>21947203

>>21947199
>I need a powerful man in the sky to watch me because…. I just do, okay?
>If I put my dick in a woman before marriage some man in the sky will get mad. Therefore I won’t have sex because another man said so.
>if someone rapes my daughter I’ll turn the other cheek and forgive him because the man in the sky said so!

Define social decline.

>>21947217
>sky man
>obsession with hedonism
Atheists are niggers.

>>21947281
If you wouldn’t have sex with a woman because another man ordered you not to, you’re a cuck. You can’t disprove this.

>>21947199
didnt realise that the amazing atheist was still around
surprised he didnt delete all his social media after that banana video got leaked

Well beck ofc

>>21947199
I’m frankly surprised the ‘sky fairy’ strawman exists so prominently among these types. The Greeks had moved on from the Olympian gods and were speculating on the ‘god’ roughly around Pythagoras. Yet the amazing banana guys pretend not to know the difference

That’s why you always start with the Greeks desu

>>21947342
Sky fairy is easy. They aren't stupid enough to start getting in the ring with your Spinozas, your Augustines, your Muhammads

>>21947342
>you always start with the Greeks
Without whom christcucks would be just another cult like Ashur intellectually speaking.

>>21947342
This is because "atheism" in the pop sense that you know it as and as expounded by the people you dislike was a response to evangelical / pentacostalist Christianity, which does not treat God the way a Hellenistic theologian would but as an astral busybody and lawman. So as obnoxious and silly as the pop-atheist arguments are, their opponents' arguments for their version of God are profoundly worse

>>21947217
Sex before marriage invariably leads to hypergammy, a decrease in the birth rate, and an overall breakdown of social trust. All the most enduring and successful societies practiced monogamy for this reason. If a man isn't given the real opportunity to have a wife and children, then sooner or later that man won't work and your social system will collapse. "Well and good," you might say, "better that the weak are bred out and the strong and beautiful survive." The problem with this sentement is that women dont choose the strong and the beautiful when given free sexual liscence - they choose men wth broad shoulders and pretty faces who nevertheless have an IQ of a gold fish and a host of personality disorders. We have seen this time and again.

At the level of the individual, if neither you nor your partner can exert enough discipline to wait for each other until marriage, then your marriage is likely to be a difficult one. The fact that Christianity therefore promotes monogamy is a point in its favour and does indeed indicate that it's claim to holding the one truth is not without credence.

words as labels versus words as descriptive

>>21947359
Not sure that is really a strike against Christianity. The Greeks were wise and Christianity just happened to drop right into place with the world view that had built.

>>21947367
Yes but most lay Christian’s never pretended to be smart Intellextuals. They just try to live their lives according to their tradition.

The atheist targeting a lay person who knows more about NFL and beer than logic and history isn’t really an honest or frankly an interesting thing to do.

>>21947342
>>21947367
When you're arguing against American evangelicals, the sky fairy objection suffices, although I don't think the average Catholic or Orthodox understands his doctrine of God too well either.

>>21947371
>host of personality disorders.
Ah yes, everyone [more] successful [than me] is a bad person; where have I heard this before? You are pretending to be Christian too right?

>>21947371
Sounds great, but Catholic church girls are notorious sluts. I’ve known plenty of them kek.

>>21947395
>but most lay Christian’s never pretended to be smart Intellextuals.
That's not an excuse to be religious. If you're a Christian, then you should have a reason for being a Christian because naturalism is more likely than Christianity. Otherwise, the atheist is right to criticize Christians for being irrational and superstitious.

>>21947395
>The atheist targeting a lay person
So our atheist should debate with priests instead?

>>21947400
>Ah yes, everyone [more] successful [than me] is a bad person
OK. If you think narcissism and bipolar disorder aren't legitimate concerns then I have a bridge to sell you.
>You are pretending to be Christian too right?
I believe that Jesus Christ is the Messiah and the king of the Jews, that He resurrected on the third day, that He is sitting at the right hand of the Father, that He will come again to judge the living and the dead, and that He is light from light, true God from true God.
>>21947405
Sorting the wheat from the chaff is going to be a part of any social experience in life.

>>21947408
Idk if he needs to debate anyone, I’m saying he should confront the best arguments the opposing view has instead of finding a church administrator In Tennessee and debating her. (Richard Dawkins and Bill Maher)

>>21947417
>If you think narcissism and bipolar disorder aren't legitimate concerns
Why do these conditions seem to cluster among those who are successful at leading organizations or commanding others? If the Lord is your shepherd, you should be furious that he views you as dumb docile sheep he is meant to control, and reject his histrionic and anti-social nonsense about abandoning everyone and everything to be his servant. But he gets a pass because other sociopaths (hierarchical priests) have co-signed his doctrines?

>>21947407
I think
1. Scientifc naturalism is the only source of truth
2. Claim one is not falsifiable
3. Scientifc naturalism is not the only source of truth

Is a sound argument and you’re a retard. Grow up or post elsewhere

>>21947426
Christian proselytizers don't confront the best atheist philosophers either. Christian proselytizers attack straw man arguments of atheism.

>>21947359
Without Christianity, platonism would be another occult LARP lost to time.

>>21947426
Evangelical and Pentacostalist Christians are the most numerous and outspoken. Anyone looking to do apologetics or proselytize for "atheism" will have to confront these, and would be wasting his time on an Aquinas, who shares the snake touchers' premises anyway but is more articulate.

>>21947443
All atheist arguments are either emotional appeals or excuses to coom.

>>21947444
>christianity replaces paganism
>we should be thankful christianity preserved pagan theology
if I were a more resentful person I'd be more upset about this but instead it is just an opportunity to laugh

>>21947441
>1. Scientifc naturalism is the only source of truth
I never said this. This is a straw man of my argument. I said that naturalism, given our scientific knowledge of the world, is a more likely explanation of our data than the Christianity. Do you really think that the Christian account of the Resurrection is more likely than the naturalist account, which follows our current scientific understanding of the world?
>>21947450
I see Christians are acceptable with straw man arguments as long as they aren't the target.

>>21947437
>Why do these conditions seem to cluster among those who are successful at leading organizations or commanding others?
They don't. You're thinking of sociopathy. Someone who genuinely suffers with a narcisstic personality disorder or from bipolar disorder isn't going to be able to function in an executive position for long.
>If the Lord is your shepherd, you should be furious that he views you as dumb docile sheep he is meant to control, and reject his histrionic and anti-social nonsense about abandoning everyone and everything to be his servant.
He informs us that we were wonderfully made in the image of the most high God and that paradise and immortality are our birthrights. You're taking the metaphor of the sheep out of context. He also commands His followers to be as harmless as doves but as wise as serpents.

That the world is governed by ruthless, cruel men should be of no surprise to those who understand the mistake Adam made in the garden. For my part, I believe in Christ's remedy for this and in His promise that God will ultimately restore what was taken from us by deception.

>>21947465
>Christian account of the Resurrection is more likely
If he is defending the Christian account probability's got nothing to do with it—it must be asserted as an article of faith. There are only Christian-produced sources for the event in question so it will never be considered proven to a non-believer, for whom a degree of skepticism toward these claims is inherent

>>21947475
>isn't going to be able to function in an executive position for long
Yes, I do believe they had your guy put to death for being a nuisance not long after he started his ministry

>>21947477
Christians should have a reason why they assert this as an article of faith. If the only argument for the Resurrection the Christian has is an appeal to faith, then the atheist wins the debate. An assertion of faith is not an argument.

Social decline started with christianity, the institutionalization of cuck mentality

>>21947491
Christ accomplished extraoridnary things, predicted the impossible only for the impossible to then occur, and fulfilled a series of monumental and far ranging biblical prophecies that were centuries in the making. Accepting the resurrection of such an individual, I would argue, is not so difficult.

>>21947501

>>21947501
Need to go back earlier. The decline of republican virtues in Rome, and the adoption of oriental despotism, makes the victory of Christianity a possibility.

>>21947463
Christianity purified platonism. By the time of Augustine, the platonic academies were teaching witchcraft.

>>21947517
None of this matters if you aren't already Jewish or Christian. For someone who does not consider your scripture inherently authoritative it makes no difference if chapter 912 references events from chapter 186

>>21947342
And yet the Greeks kept sacrificing roosters to Asklepios for good health. Most of them, anyway.
The intellectual edifice built on top of the sky fairy is impressive but it did start out as a sky fairy and in fact it remains something of a sky fairy for the large majority of believers. You can say that the ancient Yahweh monolatrists were grasping for a deeper ideal truth but from the outside that looks doubtful.
You should not pull out that term when arguing with Catholic theologians of course but the man on the street does have a sky fairy. It's worth addressing.

>>21947199
checked, also, read it as
> Books about atheism and social recline?
and I was just wtf?

>>21947517
As a naturalist, I find the naturalist accounts of miracles and prophecies more likely than the Christian account because our scientific knowledge of the data better interprets the former than the latter.

>>21947533
Study early Christianity. You had people speaking in tongues, carving sigils and protective wards, selling amulets, preaching that one could become immortal, participating in nocturnal rituals, witholding doctrines from outsiders, need I go on? Contemporary pagan writers I might add, interpreted Jesus as being similar to an Egyptian sorceror, much in the same way we today might roll our eyes at the claims made by an Indian guru or a Tibetan lama living outside of their home country and selling mystical services to our people

>>21947199
What the actual fuck did banana boy even mean by this?

>>21947291
should pedos feel this way too, if no then why not?

>>21947539
>For someone who does not consider your scripture inherently authoritative it makes no difference if chapter 912 references events from chapter 186
I think it matters historically that a minor desert tribe predicted that the whole world would embrace their particular God and that this would be done through the intercession of a humble, unseeming individual born in Bethlehem. This was first prophesied around the eighth century BC only for it to then actually happen in the first century AD. And this is but one example from history.

>>21947444
I never really thought about it but yeah, would Platonism really be any less out-there than Orphism or Mithraism? Is this just because the literature survived?

Maybe Platonism was freely taught whereas Orphism was initiatory? As for Mithraism I'd always gotten the impression that it was basically something closer to ancient Freemasonry than it was to an actual religion.

>>21947571
Why do you think this prophetic supernatural account is more likely than the naturalist account?

>>21947571
>predicted that the whole world would embrace their particular God
Didn't happen, also there were Jewish minorities all over the Mediterranean already, so converting portions of these to Christianity and then coverting "Gentiles" was not an impossibility, considering how many of these people already believed that God had a son who was associated with wine, death and rebirth.

>>21947601
>Didn't happen
The whole world has embraced the God of the Jews through Christ.

>>21947591
Because people aren't in the habit of making such audacious predictions from their own senses successfully.

>>21947617
What about critical scholars who deny that the prophecies were fulfilled?

>>21947610
It has not. The world's two largest countries, India and China, are overwhelmingly heathen. Meanwhile, Islam is going to be the world's largest religion due to growth domestically in Muslim-majority countries and abroad. If you cannot even get basic and verifiable facts about the real world correct, why should I trust you on less veriable matters?

>>21947624
Read the prophets of the OT for yourself and see. They're nowhere near as esoteric as certain people like to make out. The critical scholars can only deny some of them, by the way. And even the ones you're then left with will give you real pause.

>>21947371
Lmao try harder to get laid, dumb freak

>>21947624
not him but
what about critical scholars that affirm the prophecies were fulfilled?
both of these are non-statements
bring up a specific prophecy so we can discuss it. but the truth is, prophecy is often so cryptic that it isn't really a big deal to say it ended up being fulfilled in a way that was unexpected. most Christian scholars make a stronger case for Christianity by appealing to the NT documents regarding Jesus post-death appearances

>>21947617
>people aren't in the habit of making such audacious predictions
They are, you just don't listen to them. Go outside more and you'll encounter more people raving on street corners. Some of this has moved to more electronic septic systems, such as Twitter and Tiktok

>>21947639
>It has not.
It was the world's first, and so far only, global religion. There was a point in the 19th century when every nation on earth was either Christian or subject in some capacity to a Christian nation. As it stands, no other religion can claim this. China is in fact converting at an alarming rate, particulalrly amongst the middle class. Islam may become the world's largest religion, but this is in the shadow of Christianity. Christianity was the first, and this shall always be so.

You talk about getting facts wrong, but even the most hardlineof atheists will admit that Christianity spread throughout the whole world and that it was the first religion to successfully do so.

>>21947665
>Go outside more and you'll encounter more people raving on street corners.
Why are you cutting out the operative part of my sentence. I said "succesfully."

>>21947405
Almost all girls are sluts. The catholic girls are just more memorable because of the blatant hypocrisy and a number of other factors.

>>21947650
Critical scholarship presupposes naturalism, which excludes prophecies. Prophecies are unlikely because naturalism is more likely than Christianity.

>>21947689
>Critical scholarship presupposes naturalism
then it isn't critical
why presuppose anything

>>21947689
Difference is, many of the OT prohecies have actually now been fulfilled outright.

>>21947670
Buddhism was some 500 years earlier than Christianity and had reach from Alexandria in Egypt to Alexandria in Afghanistan all the way to China, well in advance of the formal conversion of the Roman empire to Christianity. The poly/heno-theistic religions of developed societies in the BC era were also sufficiently similiar enough for the Greeks, and later the Romans, to co-locate their own deities among those of the peoples they subjugated or incorporated. So much for being the first religion to have legs. What you are ascribing to magical thinking with regard to the spread of Christianity owes to improvements in communication and to complex social and moral factors among the populations which decided to convert, to say nothing of geopolitical factors. But everything is magic anyway to someone who affirms doctrines as yours.

>>21947675
You would have been one of the Pharisees had you been alive at the time of Christ, oh ye of little faith and or tranq!

>>21947726
>Buddhism was some 500 years earlier than Christianity and had reach from Alexandria in Egypt to Alexandria in Afghanistan all the way to China,
Yeah, that isn't global.
>The poly/heno-theistic religions of developed societies in the BC era were also sufficiently similiar enough for the Greeks, and later the Romans, to co-locate their own deities among those of the peoples they subjugated or incorporated. So much for being the first religion to have legs.
Largely baseless assertion that also functions as a non sequitur. That the Hellenes may have been receptive to Christianity thanks to prior philosophies does nothing to change the fact that Christianity is the world's first global religion.
>What you are ascribing to magical thinking with regard to the spread of Christianity owes to improvements in communication and to complex social and moral factors among the populations which decided to convert, to say nothing of geopolitical factors.
Again, this is a complete non sequitur. That there were social and political factors involved in Christianity's spread does not change the fact that Christianity is the world's first global religion. God has always worked through man to fulfil His purpose.

>>21947550
What are you referring to here?

>>21947670
But you believe that Catholics are polytheists for rejecting the one true religion of Russian Orthodoxy.

>>21947756
>Christianity is the world's first global religion
I can see you don't care that other religions went extra-ethnic and spread globally prior to Christianity so I will drop the point as there is no need to repeat what is already known by intelligent people. More important I suppose is to understand this fixation on marketing copy, "world's first global religion." Why does this tagline matter, at all, to the truth value of what the "world's first global religion" is advocating for? Next I suppose you will want to sell me the world's finest watch because the package says it is the world's finest.

>>21947709
Yeah, any day now the Rebbe will reveal his physical form and assume his rightful role as high priest of the Third Temple and chairman of the Likud party. The red hefer is just around the corner!

>>21947788
His argument is that American Protestantism has the largest reach of any religion relative to the day. It's not about number of ethnicities, it's about sheer geographical spread of missionaries.

>>21947788
>I can see you don't care that other religions went extra-ethnic and spread globally prior to Christianity
You have yet to give one example of a religion that truly spread throughout the whole world prior to Christianity and are clearly arguing in bad faith.

>>21947805
But then it's not Catholicism or Russian Orthodoxy or whatever meme denomination he's shilling that is the "first global religion", it's Mormonism. Mormonism is the first religion to have missionaries in every single country, region, and province on Earth.

>>21947805
>American Protestantism has the largest reach of any religion relative to the day
If so, based on historical religious precedents, whether Buddhist, Christian, or Muslim, we should not be surprised that an economically prosperous society is able to export more than just trade goods and civil or military advisors, but also plenty of missionaries moving along the routes it dominates.

>>21947816
but christianity hasnt spread throughout the whole world

>>21947820
Mormons literally just do it as a checklist; they don't found any communities and the actual populations of where they go just seem them as well-meaning but kinda naive weirdos.

>>21947825
Right, which is why this argument that some kind of amorphous non-denominational "Christianity" is axiomatically the most virulent religion is stupid, because it ignores that the spread of the religion is dependent upon the quality of the people practicing it, and the quality of people practicing a religion is independent of the religion itself (going by sheer quality of person throughout time Anglo-Saxon polytheism is the "best religion"). It has to be measured relatively.

Which, as another anon already said, means that Mormonism (which the Russian Orthodox dude doesn't believe is included in "Christianity") wins and is the first global religion as it's the only one to hit the entire planet.

>>21947816
I did; you are a stupid fanatic and don't care when given contrary evidence to your sales pitch. If Christianity is "true" because "it is the first time lots of people in lots of countries believed a religion," then you are wrong about something here, and it is up to you if you want to be wrong about Christianity being true by merit of your evidence being obviously wrong, or pick a new argument with new evidence in favor of it being true. You still haven't explained why a lot of people believing something makes it true, but if that really is what you think, you are going to have to bow to Islam soon anyway, a fate the atheist isn't going to avoid either in the long run.

>>21947820
>Mormonism is the first religion to have missionaries in every single country, region, and province on Earth.
Christianity was the first to spread to every nation on earth. You can quibble all you like. You can argue around the point all you like, saying other religions spread across the middle east and the mediterranean... or that another religion was the first to enter into every home or whatever. But this simple fact in regard to Christianity's global spread will remain the case until the end of time.

>>21947834
>going by sheer quality of person throughout time Anglo-Saxon polytheism is the "best religion"
Based and volkerwanderung-pilled.

>>21947826
It has spread to every nation on earth.

>>21947832
So like every other kind of Christianity then.

>>21947838
>>21947849
But Russian Orthodoxy hasn't spread to every nation on Earth.

>>21947199
>social decline
Post-industrial revolution petty bourgeoisie society in the 19th-century started a continuous decadence that is apparent even nowadays. Look for books by Karl Joris Huysmans, Gustave Flaubert, Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Hegel, Karl Marx, etc.

>>21947838
I'm sorry anon, but Mormonism was the first to spread to every nation on earth. You can quibble all you like. You can argue around the point all you like, saying other religions spread across the middle east and the mediterranean... or that another religion was the first to enter into every home or whatever. But this simple fact in regard to Mormonism's global spread will remain the case until the end of time.

I know, I know, the Patriarch will be upset, but he'll just have to seethe and cope.

>>21947834
If you believe in an active God, then you believe that the earth ought to be a reflection of heaven. If you believe that the earth is being shaped in the image of heaven, then the world's first global faith becomes metaphysically significant. Your point about Mormonism is useless due to the fact that it only exists thanks to Christianity. My point was not simply that it was a global faith; my point was that it was the world's first global faith. Insofar as Christianity is concerned, I have no idea why you are continuing to assume I am Russian Orthodox or that I and all other Christians believe that other denominations don't believe in Christ.

>>21947836
>I did
Where?

>>21947865
>>21947857
See >>21947869

>>21947220
When women have sex with people that are not me.

>>21947869
> it only exists thanks to Christianity.
So then you're arguing that Judaism was the first global religion, as "Christianity" only exists in mimicry of Judaism.

>I am Russian Orthodox or that I and all other Christians believe that other denominations don't believe in Christ.
Well, you're making pretty arbitrary distinctions by saying that Mormons aren't Christian, so what denomination are you?

>>21947865
I'm sorry anon, but Finno-Korean Hypersolarianism was the first to spread to every nation on earth. You can quibble all you like. You can argue around the point all you like, saying other religions spread across the middle east and the mediterranean... or that another religion was the first to enter into every home or whatever. But this simple fact in regard to Finno-Korean Hypersolarianism's global spread will remain the case until the end of time.
I know, I know, the Elders will be upset, but they'll just have to seethe and cope.

>>21947854
No because Christians have centuries of hard-hitting philosophical and theological thought whereas Mormons m.o. is "being nice" and breeding like an invasive species.

>other kind of Christianity
Mormonism isn't Christianity.

>>21947640
>And even the ones you're then left with will give you real pause.
Qrd? I could use a real pause.

>>21947886
But Mormons are Christians.

>>21947882
>So then you're arguing that Judaism was the first global religion
No because Judaism doesn't believe in proselytising.

>>21947894
Neither does Christianity.

>>21947871
I thought you were an expert exegete. I gave you an example and you declined it as "not global." What do you even mean by "global" at this point? I am sure it is particular enough to defend your claim, but even so, something being "global" by itself would not prove anything about its truth value.

>>21947896
Christianity believes in preaching to convert, yes.

>>21947910
No it doesn't.

>>21947882
>Judaism was the first global religion
Wrong. Zoroastrianism was the first monotheistic religion, although Greek polytheism is way cooler then monotheistic bullshit.

>>21947890
If you don't believe in the Nicene Creed you aren't Christian.

Mormons are about as Christian as Muslims; they just call themselves "CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST" to better market themselves within an American Protestant milieu.

>>21947902
What example did you give? Buddhism? Yeah, Asia and Middle East don't account for the whole world so the appellation of global doesn't really fit.

>>21947913
obvious troll.

>>21947896
Yes it does

>>21947918
So then Christianity isn't the first global religion as not all Christians follow the Nicene Creed.

>>21947371
Explained all without the use of religion. Almost as if deffering to it at all undermines any validity. Furthermore, religious notions of muh soul and muh furgiveness and muh don't judge completely negitates the structure it should provide in the first place. Just accept materialism and propose actual consequences and punishments for engaging in these behaviors instead of saying muh God says so.

>>21947443
>dude god doesn’t want us to masturbate guess he’s not real

>>21947920
If you are referring to some prophecy about it spreading to the world known to the prophet in question, then it was already beaten by an older Old World religion. For your version to work, the prophecy has to be about Spain, Portugal, Britain, France, and the United States, countries that didn't exist yet, spreading a religion that wasn't founded yet, to places that weren't known yet. And I am sure your prophecy is not specific to this degree and that the speaker of it had in mind Persians and Babylonians and Egyptians and whoever else the neighboring peoples who has conquered the Israelites were, because prophecy is a form of ressentiment—I will not achieve this triumph over my opponent but someone else someday will, which is the exact message of Pauline Christianity.

>>21947465
Funny, I have a doctorate and I think you’re probably wrong and also ignored the argument

>>21947203
FPBP

Books about Christianity and social decline?

>Much of what survived the vandalism throughout Western Christendom did so either because of pagan care or Christian ignorance. The Capitoline Venus, a Roman copy of Praxiteles" Aphrodite of Cnidos, was hidden apparently to avoid its destruction by Christians. It was found, walled up, in the seventeenth century.

>>21947980
books (You) may like, at the very least

>>21947548
Idk that the average Christian has a sky fairy though I agree they beleive in a sort of karmic god that exists to grant their wishes and give them free life and don’t think about Christian faith very seriously.

But I havnt seen much from the nu-atheist movement that has escaped the same tier of thinking.

Really atheism is just a religion for the middle class to celebrate masturbation and Talmudic values.


I respect Orphic cults more desu

>>21947980
https://www.badnewsaboutchristianity.com/gi0_vandalism.htm#classical
>unironically quoting from an edgy 2000s atheist blog
What's your next source, the intensive research done for Religulous and Zeitgeist?

>>21947887
It was said the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem, and He was. It was said the Messiah would be a humble man, of little account, and He was. It was said He would preach peace to the nations, breaking the battle bow, and He did. It was said He would intercede for the transgressions of many, and He did. It was said He would be mocked and brutalised, and He was. It was said He would be given up as a sin offering, and He was. It was said we would be healed by His wounds, and we are through the Eucharist. It was said He would pay back what He Himself did not steal, and He did. It was said He would be served by every nation, and He is. It was said He would be praised in every language, and He is. It was said He would be acclaimed as a Lord sitting next to the Lord in heaven to judge the nations, and He is. It was said He would be a high priest in the order of Melchizedek rather than Aaron, that He would preach a new covenant, written on men's hearts rather than on stone, and He is and has. It was said He would nevertheless act as a stumbling block for the Jews for a time, and He has.

All of the above prophecies were first written down in the Old Testament, hundreds of years prior to Christ's birth. They were not written following His ministry yet somehow He fulfilled them all. Go and read the prophets for yourself if you doubt any of what I have referenced above.

This is to say nothing of the prophecies that are hotly contested, such as the prophecy that the Messiah's hands and feet would be pierced or that God would not allow His body to see corruption.

>>21947610
The lore is Semitic but the philosophy is Greek and the ritual is Roman

>>21947963
Stop avoiding the question or else keep silent. Which religion prior to Christianity spread throughout the entire world? Go on.

>>21947988
>>21947988
>>21947988

>>21947993
>16 years later Zeitgeist is still BTFOing LARPers
lmfao keep seething dagon worshiper

>>21948001
But Christianity hasn't spread throughout the entire world unless Mormons are Christians, so by definition asking what religion did something before something that has not yet happened is nonsensical.

>>21947993
>Argumentum ad hominem
Logical fallacy is the basis of christcuckery

>>21947371
>Christianity gets one thing right, which you even admit all successful societies implement
As another anon said, you have made an argument based on human behavior and the consequences. This is perfectly good and should be encouraged. If you were to appeal to God, as if the supposed word of a divine being would be all that was needed to cause a course of action to be good, you'd have no sound footing. In other words, religious appeals are meaningless and superfluous.

Monogamy, as a matter of human well being and the functioning of society seems to be the most desirable arrangement. The next step however, is to determine how best to preserve individual free choice, which is equally, if not more desirable, while ensuring monogamy is the status quo.

Also, appeals to Christianity as a kind of bulwark against society sliding into detrimental practices is ludicrous, seeing as the most religious parts of the the USA for example have the highest rates of teen, out of wedlock pregnancies. Not to mention it is countries which are majority Christian which are having these issues to begin with. If you want religion to preserve conservative ways of living, you might as well favor Islam, since those countries are strict on forcing people to conform to prescribed life styles and any deviation is harshly punished.

>>21948013
>But Christianity hasn't spread throughout the entire world
It has spread to every nation and Mormonism only exists as a proselytizing religion thanks to Christianity. This pedantry of yours does you no favours, and I will remind you it is on full display.

>>21948018
More importantly, Christians are the foremost defenders of the people who are inflicting social decline upon Christian nations and happily provide the funding for it.

>>21947371
>The problem with this sentement is that women dont choose the strong and the beautiful when given free sexual liscence - they choose men wth broad shoulders and pretty faces who nevertheless have an IQ of a gold fish

https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1007117/the-curious-case-of-chinas-feminist-eugenicists
"What if there was a program allowing the government to go around collecting sperm from good-looking, smart, healthy men — celebrities, scientists, athletes, etc. — and put it in a bank where any woman could access it?"

"in some corners of the Chinese internet, radical, self-proclaimed feminists are serious about what they call zigong daode — “uterine morality” — and they’re not willing to accept anything but the very best genetic material."

>>21948024
But there are countries that don't have your amorphous non-denominational "Christianity".

>>21948018
>Monogamy, as a matter of human well being and the functioning of society seems to be the most desirable arrangement.
Without God, this statement is utterly meaningless since there is no objective standard. You implicitly rely on God even as you attack Him.

>>21948001
>spread throughout the entire world
If this is what you literally mean by global then sure it would be Christianity. But this does not prove Christianity is true, nor does it change the fact that other religions spread prior, as far as they could, using the technology available, with the support of what states they could convert. Christianity made its way to the edge of Europe which became a springboard to reach other places. Buddhism got cut off by hostile states and religious shifts in India otherwise we wouldn't be having this discussion about Christianity, because if Greeks in India could become Buddhist, the same Greeks in the Mediterranean could have instead of becoming Christian.

>>21948033
>Without God
Which one?

>>21948004
>the fedoras who were dumb enough to fall for fucking Zeitgeist are now the ones who use the "larper" epithet
how unsurprising

>>21948032
Now there are, yes. But this was not the case historically.

>>21948033
There can be an objective standard for morals without a God. All that there needs to be is an objective universe which is independent of human minds. Strictly speaking, there only actually needs to be human minds and reliable expectations that certain conditions will bring about desirable outcomes and other conditions bring about undesirable outcomes, since this is the very foundation of morals to begin with. I should say, any morals worth caring about.

>>21948043
>If this is what you literally mean by global then sure it would be Christianity. But this does not prove Christianity is true
I never said that it did. I said it was nevertheless significant. See >>21947869

>>21948033
>You implicitly rely on God
Define what you mean by "God". If your definition is merely "an objective thing", then you are smuggling in linguistic baggage of a "Being" with the word "God" when that was not what was implicitly references at all.

>>21948033
The reality we all inhabit sets the objective standard. We can but approximate objective reality due to our senses' limitations, but it nevertheless sets the framework of cause and effect upon which we can construct our value systems. There's no need for magical thinking or superstition in this matter.

>>21948055
At best you could claim that intelligent, healthy people will have instincts and knowledge concerning nature and their place within it that are largely objective. There would be nothing, however, that would truly encourage people to adhere to such standards, given that they were simply a quirk of the natural world. Yes. We may all get a rumbling in our tummies at the idea of murdering another human being. Good luck getting people to consistently acquiesce to such rumblings in a world devoid of God.

>>21948061
>>21948066
See >>21948083

>>21948059
>I said it was nevertheless significant.
Meaningless non-commitment. There's nothing there—you like to argue and pretending to be Christian is always a great way to start arguments

>>21948018
>Monogamy, as a matter of human well being and the functioning of society seems to be the most desirable arrangement.
Based on a particular environmental and societal factors.

If you live in a fucking Tibet mountains, and your land requires too much work to plow and too scarce for division - you go polyandry.
If you live in a Brazilian jungle and child-rearing is important - you go polyandry (multiple paternity beliefs)
If you attach too much importance to patrilineal descent, where more descendants equal more servants and status under extended household - you go polygamy.
If you live in an urban environment with little free space (like ancient Sumerians, for example) - you go nuclear family and monogamy.
etc.

>as if the supposed word of a divine being
>you'd have no sound footing.
>The next step however, is to determine how best to preserve individual free choice,
You cannot preserve what doesn't exist
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Wegner#The_illusion_of_conscious_will

>>21947199
He self-publishes furry gay/cuck/rape fetish comics now.

>>21948083
It is possible for people to apprehend that a future state for their own consciousness will be either better or worse based on their actions today. Are you appealing to the idea that most people can't adhere to discipline in determining what is best for themselves? Is this not simply an appeal to authoritarianism and an assault on the freedom of self determination and of free will itself?

>>21948089
>>21948083
Moving goalposts. First you say morals can't be established without god, now you say that no one would follow them. Admit you were wrong about the first part before we move on.

>>21948033
>2k23
>Kant died 219 years ago
>Plato died 2370 years ago
>retards still insist that there can't be secular objective morality without providing any argument
It is profoundly easy to be a metaethical realist without religion. I have no idea how this meme ever got any traction when Plato shat on it already in Euthyphro.

>>21948105
All interesting points, but I was using modern, first world societies as the basis for my statement, so Brazilian jungle tribes are an odd subject to bring up.

Even without the concept of "free will" per se, liberty for all citizens still appears to be the best mode of society to avoid tyranny by centralized power, don't you agree?

>>21948125
explain how then
I bet you wont

>>21948113
A god wouldn't allow this.

>>21948083
>Yes. We may all get a rumbling in our tummies at the idea of murdering another human being. Good luck getting people to consistently acquiesce to such rumblings in a world devoid of God.
Very true, Scandinavian populations are the most secular on earth, and as we all know, they live in a Hobbesian murderdome.

>>21947465
>I said that naturalism, given our scientific knowledge of the world, is a more likely explanation of our data than the Christianity.
That's a stupid argument. Christianity (metaphorical/metonymic) doesn't use the same language as scientific claims (demotic/descriptive) and biblical typology is completely different than such when it comes to conceptualizations of causality.

>>21948128
You're the one making the claim that God is necessary for it (still without argument), so rightfully, you're the one who has explaining to do.
Apart from Euthyphro, already mentioned, which problematizes your position, Kant's second critique provides a comprehensive and consistent account of secular morality, and for a more modern summary, you could look to something like Russ Shafer-Landau.

>>21948125
The metonymic shift in language informed the Bible. The development of Christianity was heavily influenced by Plato and it goes beyond a shallow undergrad take based on one dialogue.

>>21948106
>Meaningless non-commitment.
It's hardly meaningless given the fact that I showed precisely why it has meaning. Nor was this my only argument for Christianity.
>you're not a real Christian
You know you've got the atheist in a corner when he starts pulling the no true Scotsman fallacy. If you really believed Christianity was wrong, the idea of me not being a true Christian would never have entered into your head. Your unconscious is trying to defend something it implicitly regards as valuable from someone you view as an opponent, even if you can't yet admit that value to yourself.

>>21948132
"Two men enter, one man leaves" - Danish proverb

>>21948145
that was my only post in this thread, I made no claim
just fucking explain since its "profoundly easy" and stop appealing to authority

>>21948115
>Are you appealing to the idea that most people can't adhere to discipline in determining what is best for themselves?
I am saying stomach rumblings and emotional upset aren't enough by themselves to defend and maintain a universal, moral standard.

>>21948118
>First you say morals can't be established without god, now you say that no one would follow them.
I am saying that any *objective* moral standard established in the absence of God wouldn't be muscular and therefore wouldn't really exist.

>>21948155
That anon has everything figured out but somehow can't think for himself, kek.

>>21948125
See >>21948083

>>21948150
>If you really believed Christianity was wrong, the idea of me not being a true Christian would never have entered into your head
No no you absolute moron, it is your own rulebook. I couldn't care less if the Lord will know his own. That is your problem. If you can't come up with any plain and honest arguments for your doctrines and are downgrading from something being proof to merely being significant then that is your crisis of faith. You could just admit fideism and I would respect that you have nothing to tell me I can't look up myself, instead you are larping as an apologist and tripping over yourself into various problems a better heresiologist from a more believing era would have avoided.

>>21948155
>how do i into secular ethics
>kant makes a compelling case for it
>noooo stop appealing to authority
Jesus fucking Christ.

>>21948168
Exactly how muscular would it need to be?

>>21948132
Scandinavians don't rape one another because they're afraid of the Law.
>why would they even have a Law if they couldn't adhere to an objective standard
External pressure.

>>21948160
>to defend and maintain a universal, moral standard
You seriously can't comprehend that human beings could be virtuous and reasonable without some divine being in the clouds mandating a moral code? This is why Nietzsche calls it "slave morality", you can't help but appeal to a master who rules over you. Sad.

a lot of people say that atheism directly causes the moral depravity and materialism of the West, most recently especially after Christianity declined in America and these new ideological currents are more popular. but if that's true, then why aren't atheist countries like China or Japan nightmare realms? why don't they have trannies and drug addicts running around everywhere like the West? if atheism is a sign if decline then why has East Asia only ascended

>>21948186
Break a deal, spin the wheel!

>>21948148
And nonetheless the Euthyphro dilemma remains a catastrophic problem for the claim we are discussing, metonymic shifts are completely irrelevant to the question of whether secular ethics are feasible. Your insults are idle.

>>21948174
Yes, you are making a Mackie-style argument from queerness about it being metaphysically """weird"" that moral facts should be action-motivating, but it is not compelling at all.

>There would be nothing, however, that would truly encourage people to adhere to such standards
Make a compelling case for it instead of just repeating the claim.

>>21948183
I am asking you to explain the case so we can discuss it, particularly because you said it is "profoundly easy"
I have a feeling you're acting out exactly what I predicted and refusing to elaborate because you know you're full of shit

>>21948202
China just kills you and harvests your organs if you're too socially deviant.

>>21948180
>I think such and such is significant metaphysically.
>NOOO YOU CAN'T JUST SAY THAT IF YOU'RE CHRISTIAN
>MY ARBITRARY STANDARD SAYS SO
lol you lost this debate fifteen minutes ago

>>21948191
>You seriously can't comprehend that human beings could be virtuous and reasonable without some divine being in the clouds mandating a moral code?
Way to ignore everything I have posted up to this point. My argument is that humans absolutely could adhere to an objective, moral standard on the basis of their instincts and reason alone - it simply wouldn't be very robust or long lived.

>>21948215
Your sky rabbi is going to roast you alive if you are wrong about what he wants you to say, just saying. Philosoohy was condemned by Paul as prideful, you should concede there are mysteries of your faith if you cannot explicate them

>>21948209
I did not say it is profoundly easy to explain. It is profoundly easy to be because most of the arguments against secular ethics are inert, including the typical Mackie-style arguments from queerness, which have already been presented (whether the author of the posts knows it or not). There are no overarching or catastrophic metaphysical problems with the position. Hence, why it is profoundly easy to BE a metaethical realist without religion (which is what I wrote).
That you misread this and now want me to tutor you, that's on you.

>>21948208
>Make a compelling case for it instead of just repeating the claim.
That's a negative statement on my part. If you want to say that there is something which would cause such adherence then the burden of proof is on you.

>>21948235
word salad nonsense
whats your moral standard from a atheist perspective

>>21948226
>My argument is that humans absolutely could adhere to an objective, moral standard on the basis of their instincts and reason alone
Excellent, since you originally said that could only be done with an implicit appeal to "God", but I will show due appreciation to you for conceding this point.

>>21947199

Normies are naturally foolish and animalistic. Stories allow people to pick up wise habits and mitigate ugliness and waste

>>21948230
So you've now moved from plain ad hominem to outright gaslighting, and you think I'm the one who should concede? Sort yourself out. You're obviously flustered because you know I am right.
>Paul didn't like philosophers
Gross oversimplification and at no point have I engaged in philosophy anway. The idea that God is active in the world and expresses His will through it is a basic priniple of scripture.

>>21948208
The metonymic shift is directly related to the emergence of Plato's writing style as well as how the Bible conceptualizes ethical narratives, alongside it roots in ancient language structure, and I remain unimpressed by the undergrad take on Euthyphro you're using as a standin for the independant thought the other anon has asked you to provide.

>>21947199
banana man still exists i thought he died years ago

>>21948248
Again, this is pure pedantry on your part. As I have stated, such an *object standard* wouldn't really exist in the first place because it would dissolve as soon as it formed.

>>21948251
I just finished Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics and he basically says the majority of people won't understand the value of being virtuous in and of itself, and thus must be encouraged with a carrot and punished with the stick to be virtuous. He also touches on whether it is by nature, teaching, or habit that one becomes virtuous and he almost discusses free will versus determinism but just kind of moves on without going into it.

>>21948252
*principle

>>21948259
He's alive and well. Must be the potassium mega-doses he gets regularly.

>>21948252
>The idea that God is active in the world and expresses His will through it is a basic priniple of scripture
And your position is that the global spread of Christianity is "significant" but not proof of this activity? Seems like you are denying Him, no?

>>21948260
You contradict yourself. If a thing is objective, it can be discovered; it is a thing independent of a single mind and thus available to all. If you allow that reason can discover the best mode for society (virtues, for example), then they exist for as long as they apply to the human mode of being. You need to separate whether virtues in relation to human action exist - exist without divine support, and the matter of how men can adhere to them or not.

>>21948273
Can't blame him for being healthy. It absorbs better that way.

>>21948276
The idea that a Christian can't use the term "significant" when talking about aspects of his religion and must only refer to proof is an idea you'll find nowhere outside of this thread. Just accept that you lost, buddy.

Do you think any of these fedoratippers can differentiate between civilization structures vis a vis mythology relating to earth mother v. sky father (hint: it has something to do with religious cosmologies and the life-death cycle as it relates to successive v. static creation) or do they really just want us to be impressed they figured out Santa isn't real?

>>21948281
It isn't so much a contradiction as it is you missing the point. To talk about standards that have no longevity is meaningless, and their very dissolution in this respect is evidence of their non reality.

>>21948286
Lost what? What argument did you prove? This is why they used to have you executed you know

>>21948303
Shalom.

>>21948310
the language your "king" speaks?

>>21948318
Yes.
>A Hebrew greeting, based on the root for "completeness". Literally meaning "peace", shalom is used for both hello and goodbye.

>>21948127
>modern, first world societies
Modern societies are not eternal and are by no means Fukuyama's End of History.

Slight alterations to environment, and the filters of natural/cultural selections change. What had previously benefited you, now might horribly backfire, and vice versa. Praise the powers of randomness and complexity.

>Brazilian jungle tribes are an odd subject to bring up
There is a reason why anthropologists keep infiltrating some tribes. The same reason why sociobiologists keep extrapolating ant colonies behavior onto human societies.
One can comprehend one's own society only in contrast with the alien other.

>liberty for all citizens still appears to be the best mode of society to avoid tyranny
Liberty, like God, is an overloaded term. Romans understood 'libertas' as possessing 'virtus', that is self-moderation, which you would have interpreted as being subjected to society's arbitrary fancy whim (akin to belief in God).
Tyranny, like God, is an overloaded term. Greeks understood 'tyranny' (as opposed to monarchy) as being a ruler who rules without any kind of divinely-imposed law.

All the political terms are theological ones, i.e. they don't mean shit. Either you speak in a language of gods, freedoms and folk psychology, or you speak in a language of brain functioning, environmentally bounded rationality and eugenics.

>>21948323
I don't know what you're speaking in Brooklyn or up in Rockland County but I speak English.

>>21948297
If all knowledge of biology were destroyed, and man was set back to the stone age, given enough time, textbooks of almost the exact condition of those today would eventually be recreated. This is because the facts of biology are there to be discovered, and observation of the facts would lead to the same conclusions we have today. The same is true of moral virtues. I am speaking of that fact that how a society should be composed to obtain desirable outcomes is a matter of the physical world, the relations of one man to another. Thus, the "longevity" of an objective moral standard is not in question, it's existence is simply a function of human beings living together. You seem to constantly be referring to whether the great majority of any population will follow the virtues or not, whether they will make sacrifices to immediate pleasure to secure future pleasure, whether they will gladly make small sacrifices to provide great benefit to their neighbor. These are vastly difference topics which you insist on conflating.

>>21948210
give a real response

>>21948331
>Greeks understood 'tyranny' (as opposed to monarchy) as being a ruler who rules without any kind of divinely-imposed law.
I refer to Aristotle's definition of tyranny as stated in Nicomachean ethics where in a tyrant is a corrupted king who has turned against virtue and treats his subjects badly.
>Liberty, like God, is an overloaded term
Allow me to quote Hume: "Liberty and Necessity are consistent; as in the water, that has not only liberty but a necessity of descending by the channel; so likewise in the actions which men voluntarily do: which, because they proceed from their will, proceed from liberty, and yet, because every act of man's will, and every desire, and inclination proceed from some cause, and that from another cause, in a continual chain (whose first link is in the hand of God the first of all causes) they proceed from necessity. So that to him that could see the connection of those causes, the necessity of all men's voluntary actions, would appear manifest."

One can speak of an individual's "liberty" even in the case of absolute predetermination of cause and effect governing his every action. This is more akin to a reference of eliminating political restrictions on his action than of free will. So allow me to ask, do you agree that "liberty" (the absence of political force in one's personal life) is desirable generally? If this is too general, then in relation to modern Western, first world countries, is it not foolish to tread upon these social liberties in service of enforcing some desirable end (whether it be monogamy or otherwise)?

>>21948364
>you cannot conflate discussions of objectivity with adherence to that objectivity
I disagree. If the discussion is to have any value, then we must recognise these two phenomena are fundamentally linked in all cases.

>>21948367
But pithy responses are much more fun. Anyway, if you examine the quality of life of the average Chinese citizen, it's hardly enviable. I'd take Western countries over run by trannies and junkies but where you actually have self determination and freedom over those authoritarian and oppressive hell holes. Let me ask you this, would you want to work in a factory making pennies an hour and which has literal safety nets outside the windows to prevent suicides?

>>21948383
How would you know which code should be adhered to unless you first acknowledge that one has more legitimate basis than another? You can't use "effectiveness of adherence" as a criteria for the actual value of the code you're speaking of, because then the most barbaric codes would assume merit simply because cannibalistic tribes adhere to it fully.

>>21947217
Evangelicucks are fucking dumb

>>21948202
And how are China and Japan not materialistic nightmare realms?

>>21948390
>How would you know which code should be adhered to unless you first acknowledge that one has more legitimate basis than another?
I don't believe in a secular basis. If you're asking about objectivity in isolation, as I've said, I think human beings have shared instincts and a shared capacity for reasoning, and these together give rise to a negative set that might be regarded as objective and universal - don't steal, don't murder, don't rape, don't lie - being about the sum of it. But this isn't truly objective in that such a set would never survive of itself alone within the social format. Given that such a set could never survive by itself, it is rather like an element that combusts when exposed to oxygen. It exists, but to predicate anything on it in an environment inimical to it is folly.

Atheists tend to think that the above, abstract set of objective foibles is enough. That, because these exist, world peace in the absence of God must somehow be attainable. But experience and history has shown there's very little to ensure the great mass of people will adhere to such foibles even if they do all share them.

>>21948422
*have

>>21948422
Should have used the term scruples rather than foibles.

>>21948422
>world peace in the absence of God must somehow be attainable
World peace is unobtainable precisely because so many cultures have a different conception of God. And even in this post, you appeal to peace as a worthy aim, you, at every turn, borrow secular appeals to living pleasantly, whereas an actual "God" mandated morality has that particular "God's Will" as it's necessary aim. The whole point is that religions introduce a poisoning aim, to sacrifice the well being of human beings in service of an imagined "Divine Good" as imagined to be in line with "God's Will". Human flourishing is a matter which can be apprehended with reason, thus no divine appeal is required. Your only addition is that you think that "God" is a useful enforcement mechanism, which is ultimately a utilitarian argument, yet you seem to think this also makes the fact that the whole point of the exercise (attaining secular goals strictly related to human well being) is therefore converted to the realm of religion. Moral virtues are discoverable objectively, yet you say their enforcement requires God, therefore their existence is predicated on God. It's a non-sequitur. Either they exist independent of God and thus God may be a useful tool for their implementation, or they exist only as a result of God. You seem to want to have it both ways. As a further exploration, if Allah or the Hindu Gods were shown to be better avenues to enforcing socially desirable outcomes, would you then be convinced to follow those codes as mandated by those deities?

>>21948202
china has literal concentration camps? forced eugenics?

what on earth are you talking about?

>>21948496
>Moral virtues are discoverable objectively
Yes.
>yet you say their enforcement requires God
Their flourishing requires God, yes.
>yet you say their enforcement requires God, therefore their existence is predicated on God
The fullness of their existence is therefore predicated on God, yes.

>The whole point is that religions introduce a poisoning aim, to sacrifice the well being of human beings in service of an imagined "Divine Good" as imagined to be in line with "God's Will".
How might we say this is poisoning if basically every religion affirms the four objective scruples I outlined? Because morality develops and moves beyond these four negatives? Well what makes you think men don't give different, subjective responses to these obective scruples and thereby poisons what was initially objective? As soon as our morality begins to develop any sort of complexity, it moves beyond the objective and the atheist dream of universal ethic outside of God dies once again. Getting rid of religion doesn't remedy this problem; it only makes it worse.

>>21948377
>I refer to Aristotle's definition of tyranny
And Xenophon in 'Memorabilia' had a different opinion, equating tyranny with democracy.

"Alc. It would seem to follow that if a tyrant, without persuading the citizens, drives them by enactment to do certain things—that is lawlessness?
Per. You are right; and I retract the statement that measures passed by a tyrant without persuasion of the citizens are law.
Alc. And what of measures passed by a minority, not by persuasion of the majority, but in the exercise of its power only? Are we, or are we not, to apply the term violence to these?
Per. I think that anything which any one forces another to do without persuasion, whether by enactment or not, is violence rather than law.
Alc. It would seem that everything which the majority, in the exercise of its power over the possessors of wealth, and without persuading them, chooses to enact, is of the nature of violence rather than of law?"

Political terms are overloaded.


>because they proceed from their will, proceed from liberty
Which has already been debunked >>21948105. Human will is an illusion, therefore liberty is of the same nature as God. An illusion

>One can speak of an individual's "liberty" even in the case of absolute predetermination
One can speak of a god being one's own son/father.
>do you agree that "liberty" (the absence of political force in one's personal life) is desirable generally?
Do you agree that the absence of sin (whatever the hell that is) is desirable generally?

>proceed from some cause, in a continual chain
That exact cause, however, is unmeasurable. So, the only way this appeal to causality and determinism works, is to refute the myth that you can just miraculously willpower yourself to counter pesky manipulations of insidious scientists. You are but a cyborg-part of an (undead) superorganism, not an individual.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_pattern
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choice_architecture

>>21948202
>why aren't atheist countries like China or Japan nightmare realms?
China is a nightmare realm and Japan's conceptualization of religion is fairly divorced from that of the West (if you speak to one of them they'll tell you they aren't religious during a pilgrimage to a shrine while purifying themselves with sacred water before entry, kek). If you want to see what seperation from cultural tradition does look at Japan during WWII and Maoism.

Dumbest post ITT >>21948202

>>21948526
You act as though there is only one religion, only one God. Religion does not offer any solutions since each sect asserts their own conclusions are absolute mandates from God and this perversion of how to arrive at conclusions regarding morality can only corrupt them.

Once again, it's hard to escape the fact that you believe man is fundamentally a disobedient slave who has no nobility about him and must be threatened with the whip of his master to behave. It's one of the most dire pessimistic views of humanity you could adopt and also lends justification that, once viewing man as a slave, the path is set to continue to treat him as such which is unquestionably one of, if not the most harmful phenomenon among human beings. The true starting point of Goodness is the emancipation from this mindset which is stuck in a very primitive mode of operation.

The existence of God does not solve the is-ought problem by the way.

>>21948526
>the atheist dream of universal ethic outside of God
Any "atheist" attempting to do this sort of platonism is a better Christian than he is an atheist, he just happens to be a heretical one.

>>21948549
>You act as though there is only one religion, only one God.
You're sort of throwing my assertion back at me and saying "no u" here. There are multiple religious systems, but, without God, beyond the four scruples, there are as many systems of morality as there are men. And atheism has no solution for this.
>Once again, it's hard to escape the fact that you believe man is fundamentally a disobedient slave who has no nobility about him and must be threatened with the whip of his master to behave.
You're putting words in my mouth. I believe that man was made in the image of God and is therefore destined to discover and delight in the fullness of virtue as God's co-worker. It is not a question of the stick. It is a question of God unfolding true goodness on earth and man aiding in that unfolding.

>>21948582
>there are as many systems of morality as there are men. And atheism has no solution for this.
We've been over this, in fact, you already conceded that reason can discover the best moral virtues to secure the best social outcomes. You seem to have massive cognitive dissonance on this subject, acknowledging things on the one hand and then stating contradictions on the other hand.
>I believe that man was made in the image of God and is therefore destined to discover and delight in the fullness of virtue as God's co-worker. It is not a question of the stick.
No, you explicitly said the concept of God was needed to force people to adhere to a code they wouldn't otherwise had adhered to. If you're just going to continue to contradict yourself, there is no real point to continue.

>>21948577
The is-ought problem has long been solved. Via the 'universal acid' of darwinism. Morality was concocted for group selection purposes, i.e. it is amoral in its very foundation.

>>21948577
It actually does. "If you have end X, then you should do Y". In a purely naturalistic framework, you do not have an end X given. So you have nothing to derive the Y you should do. On the other hand, given God, all human actions are aimed in one last analysis at coming close to Him and being in communion with him. Limitations of reason and the fallen human nature are obstacles to that and often drive us to do the opposite, but that is still the natural, built-in end of human behavior. But if we have the built-in end of "being closer to God", then we can derive the actions that we need to reach this end, as we have a standard of value to measure it, a standard that does not exist for atheism.

>>21948288
>religious cosmologies and the life-death cycle as it relates to successive v. static creation
This sounds like some really esoteric shit I need to be clued in on. Who do I have to read to get this

>>21948610
>we can derive the actions that we need to reach this end, as we have a standard of value to measure it, a standard that does not exist for atheism
You are confusing atheism with nihilism. Do you seriously believe people who reject your dogmatic metaphysical assertions have no values and goals of their own, with their own internal reasonings and justification for pursuing them?

>>21948602
>you already conceded that reason can discover the best moral virtues to secure the best social outcomes.
Not quite. I stated that reason could enable man to discover the four primitive scruples, but that this was insufficient as developments in morality would lead men to interpreting these scruples differently; and, at any rate, there was no guarantee of consistent adherence.
>No, you explicitly said the concept of God was needed to force people to adhere to a code they wouldn't otherwise had adhered to.
They would adhere to it, just not consistently or uniformly.

>>21948610
>In a purely naturalistic framework, you do not have an end X given
In a purely naturalistic framework, the telos is like the wing of a bird. No bird's dinosaur ancestor has ever planned for its progeny to fly. They only wanted to fuck.
The 'wings are for flying', however, is a marker through which we indirectly detect the causal mechanisms of nature performing the genocide of the unfit. So, in a sense, we do have an end X.

>>21947217
how very christian centric of you, almost like they are not your own thoughts but spoon fed to you through constant propaganda.
Now do judaism and islam, or is that considered racist islamophobic or antisemetic in your eyes?

>>21948610
>But if we have the built-in end of "being closer to God",

"The Gibsonian Cyberspace-mythos describes the electro-digital infosphere first integrating into a Godlike unitary being, a technorealized omniscient personality and later, when it changed, fragmenting into demons, modelled on the haitian Loa. What makes this account so anomalous in relation to teleological theology and light-side capitalist time is that Unity is placed in the middle, as a stage – or interlude – to be passed through. It is not that One becomes Many, expressing the monopolized divine-power of an original unity, but rather that a number or numerousness – finding no completion in the achievement of unity – moves on."

What did JK Rowling mean by this?

https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1650255790937194496

>>21948610
>given God
God is not a given. It's a proposition, usually founded on faith. This is the sleight of hand of religion, if the is-ought gap is ultimately bridged by faith, why not simply cut to the chase and designate peace and harmony as the selected goal rather than some imagined deity's will?

>>21948534
>Japan's conceptualization of religion is fairly divorced from that of the West
>purifying themselves with sacred water
"Sacred water" is like ghost stories or UFO-abduction. Alien anal probing is supernatural, but not religious.

>>21947217
If you don't do the last one then you're not heckin validating those stunning and brave mohametan immigrants enough to live in a secular society nowadays.

Atheism implies nominalism/relativism and a rejection of natural law. The Darwinian metaphysic essentially does away with teleology in nature; the penis becomes no longer an organ built and designed for reproduction, but merely a mutated deformity which over the course of history man has found it evolutionarily advantageous to use for the purposes of reproduction, but which in itself has no inherent purpose. Hence the sexual faculty is abstracted from its telos and man becomes free to pursue pure pleasure in whatever deranged form his appetite inclines him to: homosexuality, cross-dressing, fornication.
To be sure, the Darwinian metaphysic does imply that *over the long run* those social attitudes which discourage such behaviours will eventually prevail, since it is an empirical fact that traditional sexual morality leads to higher rates of reproduction. But for the atheist this is a matter of no importance, since Natural Selection is but a mechanism and not a moral principle to abide by. In fact to even call it a “mechanism” is misleading. Natural Selection does not select anything. It exerts no causal force upon the world. It merely states that those genes which will die out, will die out, and those which will not die out, will not die out. A mere truism totally free from ethical implications.
For the atheist, then, the question of morality is simply a question of his own self-interest and pleasure. Social co-operation is to be preferred simply because it is in the interest of each individual to live in a law-governed society; and feelings such as compassion are merely emotions instilled within us by the process of natural selection. Thence comes his one and only ethical principle— a principle so vacuous that even a worm abides by it — “do what you want as long as you don’t harm others”. And since the atheist is inevitably a nominalist or relativist, there is no man or woman, no objective telos baked into nature governing the duties of the particular sexes, no gender roles, and therefore no ontological reality of sex. Transgenderism is simply a logical consequence of this deranged worldview.

>>21950184
>man becomes free to pursue pure pleasure
or pursue genetical engineering. Cloning, designer babies, artificial uterus, etc.

>pure pleasure
Yet self-flagellating religious freaks are concerned not with a long-term positive feedback loop. They just make an autistic screech "Pleasure bad!".

>A mere truism
Norretranders T. - 'The User Illusion. Cutting Consciousness Down to Size' (1998):

"In Nature, Landauer writes about Bennett, Kuhn, and Lloyd-Pagels: “These definitions are, in a sense, tautologies. They all roughly say: that which is reached only through a difficult path is complex. Tautologies, however, are welcome if they replace nonsense. Darwin cleared the air by telling us that the survivors survive.”

>his own self-interest
All your altruistic actions are also egoistically selfish ones. In fact, when you do NOT pursue your own purposes, you are effectively saying: "I cannot find my own purpose. My life is worth shit." Which also means "Life per se is worth shit."

If person speaks in a language of selflessness, it is a sign we're dealing with a sick wretch.

>Social co-operation is to be preferred simply because
And for a religious zealot, any kind of activity is to be preferred because some transcendent thingamabob decreed so, all empirical correlates be damned, just believe a fucking book.

>>21950184
>Social co-operation is to be preferred simply because
Simply because you are hardwired not to want to die. And it is cheaper to be a part of a superorganism, in terms of thermodynamics and algorithmic entropy.

>feelings such as compassion are merely emotions instilled within us by the process of natural selection
Yes.

>Thence comes his one and only ethical principle— a principle so vacuous that even a worm abides by it — “do what you want as long as you don’t harm others”.
>one and only ethical principle
Nietzsche looks at you with profound befuddlement.

>>21947217
Based. At the very least they need to largely abandon their abrahamic bindings if they ever want god to be taken seriously again.

>>21950184
>feelings such as compassion are merely emotions instilled within us by the process of natural selection
A thought experiment:

1. You've just bought a new fashionable suit, worth $1000. Nearby a young girl is drowning in a pond, desperately screaming for help. If you won't interfere, she'll definitely die. You can swim and save her, but your suit would be ruined. Would you bother?
2. You're planning to buy a new fashionable suit worth $1000. Alternatively you could donate moneys for starving children in Africa. Would you allow someone on the opposite corner of the Earth to starve to death?
Death equals death, yes/no?

Conclusion:
Your morality is a product of group selection. You care about vivid nearby cases, not some abstract distinct ones. Because your tribespeople's lives are important for your mutual survival, while outgroup competitors' aren't.
Morality has emerged for group selection purposes, that is for intertribal competition, that is to fight off outsiders. There is nothing 'moral' in morality.

>>21950352
>>21950371
My point was to outline the ontological grounding of morality in the atheistic worldview. For the atheist there is no ground to morality other than a self-interested desire to escape harm. The atheist reasons that the most effective way to ensure his own security is to co-operate with other men. There is nothing wrong with rape or murder, except insofar as it represents a tactical blunder; since if I am caught after the act others will seek for retaliation. If my neighbours perceive me as harmless, they will defend me; if they perceive me as a threat, they will eliminate me. And I do not want to be eliminated.

The theistic grounding for morality is ontologically baked into reality itself. To pursue pleasure for the sake of it, to engage in, for example, homosexual sex, is not simply wrong because it is against the arbitrary decree of a divine lawmaker, but because it is *a contradiction with the very nature of sexuality and its real, inherent purpose*. This Aristotelian conception of natural law theory, adopted by the scholastics and implicit in the earliest Christian texts (Christ: He that sins is a slave to sin.), is a theory of morality which is not merely prescriptive but descriptive in essence. To act immorally is no less a contradiction than it would be for an apple tree to produce bananas. It is against nature itself.

And, as I said, since atheists are perforce nominalists, the Transgenderism simply follows from their metaphysical presuppositions.

One can see then that the atheistic conception of morality gives no reason for the individual atheist to refrain from evil, since, as a mere self-interested calculation, an adventurous atheist fond of risk can simply decide that, for him, the pleasure of a killing spree is worth the potential consequences. If he has compassion, he will of course refrain from such action, but even for the psychopathic theist it is impossible on purely metaphysical, rather than emotional, grounds.

Now this debate on morality is interesting, but if we were to start from the beginning — the most fundamental metaphysical and epistemological assumptions of atheism — your worldview would simply fall apart.
>>21950421
Luxuries like $1000 suits are symptomatic of pride, which is a false belief in one’s own importance, and thus predicated on falsehood. Even if I were the richest man in the world, I would continue driving my Škoda and dressing modestly. Personally, I have never been tempted with luxuries.

>>21950593
>For the atheist there is no ground to morality other than a self-interested desire to escape harm.
There is a thing called 'rubber hand illusion'. A propensity to confuse oneself with another object. That's how group identification works. What makes humans strive to achieve something 'beyond' themselves is a 'hive switch' (in terms of Jonathan Haidt), not God.

>not simply wrong because it is against the arbitrary decree of a divine lawmaker, but because it is *a contradiction with the very nature
translation: a theist dares to presume to have access to the very nature of nature, and tells others that his opinion is akshually a divine decree.

>This Aristotelian conception of natural law theory
was naturalized by Darwin. Moreover, Darwin offers one IBE-argument (Inference to the Best Explanation), where Aristotle had two.

Panda's paws are notoriously shit (construction-wise), not because they all are defective instances of an ideal class, but vice versa: whatever the panda's paw as a class is, it is a statistical mean of all the current instances.
And it also merges with the conception of emergence of life. Animals did not just randomly appeared through a spontaneous generation, but stem from a "Tree of life"

What was an embarrassment for the Aristotelian conception, became strength for Darwin's.

>the Transgenderism simply follows
the transgenderism is when you postulate a magical schematic of femininity/masculinity, claim it essential and try to deconstruct biology for this schematic's preservation's sake. No one becomes an MtF simply because of nominalism, but because of cute dresses and female behavior stereotypes.

This is why tribal shamans decide to change their gender after drug trip revelations. Social constructs are essential for them, taxonomy is essential for them, while actual biology is not. If you do not fit in into one category, that means you have to be designated into another one.

>since, as a mere self-interested calculation
I repeat: if you claim disinterest as a virtue, you accuse life of being not worth living. The moment you speak of altruism as something obligatorily done in contradiction to one's own interest, you propose nihilism.

>an adventurous atheist fond of risk can simply decide that, for him, the pleasure of a killing spree is worth the potential consequences
Soldiers, executioners, black ops, etc. There are ways of constructively channeling those urges, instead of just ignoring biology and/or castrating oneself.

>for the psychopathic theist it is impossible on purely metaphysical, rather than emotional, grounds.
Just claim a god told you to.
"But of the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth:"

>>21949854
You're being a pedantic retard because you don't know what you're talking about.

>>21950754
I do not very much enjoy these point-by-point discussions I so often am dragged into on this website, because I believe that they have the habit of obscuring the important for the tangential; and by an aggregation of tangential attacks and the necessity of defending myself on each one, the attacker creates the false impression that my position is somehow in jeopardy. I will therefore respond to what I believe is the essence of your post.

You proffer a heap of psychological reasons, derived from your atheistic-materialist worldview, which purport to explain why human beings behave morally. In the context of this discussion, however, these are irrelevant. I from the beginning have been talking about the *ontology* of morality; and how fundamentally in the atheistic worldview morality is an arbitrary human creation, justified purely in terms of practicality. One must not confuse ontology (“what is a thing’s nature?”) with epistemology (“what can we know?”) or psychology (“why do people behave how they behave?”).

Since atheism fundamentally views morality as either an illusion or a practical rule justified in terms of self-interest, the atheist has no ontological grounding for morality. He is just like the Divine Command Theorist, who states that things are good or bad based on the arbitrary decree of a God. The only worldview in which morality is not arbitrary and has a real existence is the one which bakes it into the ontological nature of reality; which states that murder or homosexuality, for example, are just as wrong as the statement “2+2=5” or “this apple tree produces bananas”. It is most purely expressed in Aristotelian natural law theory, adopted and propagated by the Catholic Church.

Finally, my claim from the beginning has been that the atheistic worldview implies transgenderism because of its conception of morality as well as its nominalism. “Do what you want as long as it doesn’t aggress against others”, which is the only principle derivable from a purely practical conception of morality, combined with the view that “Man” and “Woman” are mere labels referring to nothing real, necessarily implies that transwomen are women.

The natural law theorist would say on the contrary that in our very bodies we are able to discern our responsibilities and duties. Not only does Man and Woman exist as Forms, irreformable by mutilation, they each have their own particular telos and hence gender roles in particular are necessary and just.

I want to ask you: what is your particular argument against transgenderism? And if you don’t have one, then don’t you agree with me?

>>21950914
>seethes about atheism
>believes in "god" for culture war purposes
lol lmao even

>>21950593
>since atheists are perforce nominalists, the Transgenderism simply follows from their metaphysical presuppositions
Transgenderism has far more to do with a sacred and transcendental mindset than it does with the mere rejection of theism. By sacrificing parts of his body, the neo-eunuch is elevated within society as someone set apart, who has been ennobled and allowed to ritually transgress "the rules" ordinary people are bound by. He bears the modern day version of the holy stigmata, the divine wounds which do not heal and serve as a marker of his ideological piety and faith to the idea of Woman as an eternal form superior to his own natural one. He is reborn—no, resurrected—into a greater order which the rest of us must respect or face trials of heresy, economic exclusion, and social ostracism. A truly committed atheist should be anti-clerical toward all these faiths, and not bow to an agenda whose values are those of slaves. Let those who wish to yearn for their rebirth into a new life do so, for they are all equals in nihilism and were indeed bred and born that way.

>>21948679
They're all similar.
Christianity: blood-cult, life is suffering, priests have free access to children, sky daddy is simultaneously LE ABSTRACT FIRST PRINCIPLE but also a literal dude. God is somehow omniscient but also needs to be personified in order to commune with humanity
Judaism: circumcision cult, believes they're le superior master race, God is bipolar and makes them wage holy war, most of them don't even believe in him.
Islam: Comically repressive, prophet is literally just some guy who had schizophrenia and was a pedophile, followers are 100% bloodthirsty, fight over the most retarded sectarian issues.

>>21950914
>the *ontology* of morality
Which has to be grounded in the neurobiology of your brain.
>One must not confuse ontology (“what is a thing’s nature?”) with epistemology (“what can we know?”) or psychology (“why do people behave how they behave?”).
One must show how one level correlates with another, elsewise you are producing "the Sun arises in the East" kind of explanations: it is an instrumentalization of a perspectival illusion - locally useful to orient oneself on the surface of the planet, but it is the Earth that does all the moving. Move into space, and it becomes completely useless.

>ontology (“what is a thing’s nature?”)
The absence of information is different from the information of absence. You do not have access to such answers. To speak of ontology (or rather the ontology of the ontology), one must deal with epistemology.
And just as your eye cannot see its seeing, you are not physically capable to cognize your cognizing. All your self-knowledge is heuristics. To speak of epistemology, one must switch to psychology.

>He is just like the Divine Command Theorist, who states that things are good or bad based on the arbitrary decree of a God.
These "good/bad" proclamations are filtered through natural selection. If they are not viable, you go extinct. And their viability depends on the external environment - the criteria of this filter change.
>arbitrary decree of a God
I suppose, you could equate this God (the source of the probabilistical correctness/wrongness) with Complexity Theory, an unaccountable changing of the boundary conditions of the dynamical process as it unfolds, - but "God" usually implies intentionality, while this thing would be too unsentient/lovecraftian and is tied to thermodynamics.

>Aristotelian natural law theory
Which - just like Aristotelian physics - has been proven not to be scientifically viable. If you dispute scientific methodology, then reject all scientific progress and return into a cave.

>Finally, my claim from the beginning has been that the atheistic worldview implies transgenderism
To which it has been replied, that it is the rigid ontology that implies transgenderism. And unless you claim, that tribals are crypto-atheists, it actually proves to be a widespread religious/cultural phenomena.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender_history#Traditional_Bantu_third_genders

>that “Man” and “Woman” are mere labels referring to nothing real
>necessarily implies that transwomen are women.
If they refer to nothing real, then you CANNOT claim that "computers are essentially for boys, dolls are for girls". And therefore, a man CANNOT claim to be a woman (magically changing his essence into a woman's) on the basis of wanting to wear a skirt.
Just because gender theorists spurt out 2 mutually-exclusive claims ("social constructs refer to nothing real" and "transwomen are women"), does not imply that one follows from another.

>>21950914
>“Do what you want as long as it doesn’t aggress against others”
No, that would be Kant's categorical imperative: do unto others as you wish to be done onto you.
And it had been reformulated by Nietzsche: if you are willing to disregard your own well-being, its absolutely okay to harm the others.

>>21951144
Their argument is that since nominalism is true, all of our categories are simply made up. Thus we can assign to the concept “womanhood” anything we wish. Also, not recognising trans women as women is a direct affront to their psychology, since (they claim) it makes them feel bad to the point of suicide in some cases. So we should just call them women.

I don’t see how you would respond to this. You don’t believe there is such a thing Womanhood; you believe it is merely a name. So society can change the concept however it wishes, for the good of everybody (in accordance with the atheistic practical moral of do what thou wilt but do not infringe against others).

I do believe in reason and science (not scientism; science being merely a minor subset of philosophy). But I do not believe in “The Academy” or the idea that scientific consensus offers anything other than a slight probability in favour of the idea agreed upon, necessarily weaker than a demonstrative argument to the contrary. Aristotelian physics (or metaphysics) has not been shown to be “unviable”. There are modern day physicists such as Carlo Rovelli and others (to give you your so-desired stamp of Authority) that believe Aristotelian physics and metaphysics is reconcilable with modern physics and is therefore a real scientific achievement.

Anyway, thanks for the discussion. I’ll read your response if you have one but I won’t be responding again for the sake of my own time, energy, and sanity.

>>21951199
>since nominalism is true, all of our categories are simply made up
Yet biology is not.
Trying to deconstruct biology is akin to certain postmodernists' claiming that tuberculosis did not exist prior to the invention of the term in 1882.

>I don’t see how you would respond to this. You don’t believe there is such a thing Womanhood; you believe it is merely a name. So society can change the concept however it wishes
We can also theoretically assign any function to any object: a microscope is for scratching one's back. This is a general problem with functionalism - either one has a definite filtration criterion, or one can spawn infinities of explanations. Which is why biology is a hard science, and sociology is not so much.
But just because I am unwilling to re-assign a microscope into a back-scratcher, it does not follow that it has to have an essence of Microscopiness.

>You don’t believe there is such a thing Womanhood;
Classification of a woman as a woman is tied to her biological ability to reproduce. You cannot simply make up that. No ontological essences are needed, however: either you are empirically equipped with certain organs and chromosomes, or not. The rest is negotiable. A girl may like computers and dress like a tomboy, but she is still a woman.

The transgenders, however, are fetishistic concerning the behavioral stereotypes. They just want superficial mimicry: to menstruate with blood like women, etc.

>>21950914
>an arbitrary human creation
Secular ethics is not arbitrary, and religious mythology is a human creation too, like it or not.

>>21947199
>social decline
Newfags post twitter threads, how's that for social decline you black gorilla nigger?

>>21948113
Most convincing argument I've ever seen against the existence of a just God.

>>21950184
>the Darwinian metaphysic
You're not anywhere near as smart as you think you are. Your observations are trite, your arguments flawed. There is no such thing as "Darwinian metaphysics", there is just reality and what we can learn about it. Now, if you don't like reality, and flee it into a delusion, then I guess religion really would be your cup of tea.

In your analysis of atheists, you reduce man too far, as if, simply because the mechanics of evolution are blind, merely individuals living or dying based on genes interacting with environment, this somehow reduces the cognitive faculties of man. Once you have a mind capable of higher reasoning, you can have compassion, nobility, empathy, all arising from humanity's evolutionary of living in societies together, and not diminished by the understanding of how they arise at all.

As stated earlier in this thread, there are better and worse ways to live in society with other man. You seem awfully hung up on "telos", but the fact is our biological systems are set up to pursue certain things and desire certain things as a matter of our existence. These things include deeply meaningful things (the fact that they are relatively meaningful does not change the fact that we find them meaningful), such as family, community, honor, nobility, in short: virtue. None of these things are contingent on a "God" or any religious system at all.

If you think an accurate understanding of how the natural world exists and functions equate to a "deranged worldview", your only alternative is to cloak yourself in a delusion to hide from the truth of reality. Choose carefully.

>>21950914
>I do not very much enjoy these point-by-point discussions I so often am dragged into on this website, because I believe that they have the habit of obscuring the important for the tangential
>"I don't like having to defend my ludicrous and outrageous statements which are, in fact, indefensible"
Say no more.

>>21950914
>practical rule justified in terms of self-interest
Do you suppose that an individual's self interest is not also in seeing his fellow man do well? No man is an island, his self interest is served when his group does well in life, as a result, he works to advance his family, his community, and perhaps, in diminishing degrees, his country and his race. The things you seem to be downplaying, human solidarity, is not absent simply because all that operate are natural laws. There are virtues that can be discovered by reason, but contemplating what actions, what behaviors, lead to the most flourishing, well being, and ultimately desirable outcomes for a society. Thus, the selfish interest and the interest of the society converge, even more so the more people contribute to this synergistic relationship.

Let me put it this way, Aristotle wrote that the virtues can be discovered by way of reason. This is consistent with a natural, atheistic viewpoint. There are objectively better and worse ways to organize society, better and worse ways to behave in that society. Again, in a very real sense, our desires themselves are objective things because they arise from material causes in nature (our biology shaped by evolution). Thus, our desires, guided by reason, can attain the heights of morality and virtue, and it's only through the foregoing of reason that catastrophe can arise.

>>21950914
>The natural law theorist would say on the contrary that in our very bodies we are able to discern our responsibilities and duties. Not only does Man and Woman exist as Forms, irreformable by mutilation, they each have their own particular telos and hence gender roles in particular are necessary and just.
>I want to ask you: what is your particular argument against transgenderism? And if you don’t have one, then don’t you agree with me?
One can argue against transgenderism on strictly materialistic grounds regarding society and it's desired outcome. Simply ask this, will society help more people to attain happy, satisfying lives with an increase in transgender people or a decrease? I think reason will support the fact that people are better off, generally, not taking drastic surgical or hormonal actions to alter their bodies, and have better outcomes by trying to conform to their natural sex. Now, this leads to the most important question, how much pressure should be applied to people to conform to prescribed modes, or "forms" and how much should individual liberty be respected? The case could be made that it's better for there to be liberty, that people can cross dress if that is the exercise of their liberty, and that any authoritarian intervention would lead to a diminishing of the flourishing of society. These questions can be answered on naturalistic and materialistic grounds, no appeal to divine telos or "God" needed.

>>21951481
Aristotle is not consistent with atheism.

Reason is impossible under an atheistic worldview since for the atheist the mind is identical to the brain, a material object made out of atoms, and the process of reasoning is simply identical to the movements of these atoms in particular configurations — a view which obviously reduces to absurdity. The laws of logic, mathematics, and even our own sense-impressions are not objectively real but are merely reflections of the atomic-physical structure of the human brain; which inexplicably are transformed into the phenomenon of conscious experience when certain movements of particles occur. The sober human brain’s configuration of atoms is only arbitrarily preferred over the configuration of atoms of a human high on drugs, or a cat. Either that or “consciousness is an illusion” as the consistent atheists say while desperately trying to fit everything into their materialist box.

When I say atheist here I do not mean one who withholds belief in a particular religion, but one who subscribes to the Darwinist worldview: that the world popped into existence from nothing and by a series of unguided and random processes human life came about. To compare this to Aristotle is to betray your own ignorance, since it is precisely the inversion of Aristotle, for whom everything is guided by striving towards God.

>>21951709
>Reason is impossible under an atheistic worldview since for the atheist the mind is identical to the brain, a material object made out of atoms, and the process of reasoning is simply identical to the movements of these atoms in particular configurations — a view which obviously reduces to absurdity.
On the contrary. Just because we can understand the mechanics that give rise to the phenomenon does not, in anyway, diminish the phenomenon. If you are the previous anon, you seem to do this a lot. As if knowing that atoms are the core composition of a thing changes the end result. As if you need there to be some unknown magic property in something in order for "reason" or other macro phenomenon to actually exist. This is a fallacy known as the fallacy of personal incredulity. Reason, as we know it, absolutely can and does arise from the material thing known as a brain, which operates under material laws. The complexity is key, something you seem intend on downplaying.
>Aristotle, for whom everything is guided by striving towards God.
lol are you for real? Aristotle lived in ancient Greece where there was a whole pantheon of gods. He explicitly states that virtues can be arrived at by reason which tempers desire, you should read The Nicomachean Ethics.

Also, as a point of interest, are you denying "the Darwinist worldview"? Does natural selection and random gene combination and gene mutation not exist in the natural world?

>>21951752
You're right, but the other guy knows more about the subject than you

>>21947990
>Assmann

>>21947371
Based and true. Most of societial ills being with fornication.

>>21947952
That's a terrible argument. There can be practical considerations as well as metaphysical ones. One could very well say, because there's an ideal social order that's Divinely appointed breaking it will inevitably have bad social consequences.

>>21947199

the worst countries are religious countries

people in nordic countries are all atheists. east asians are all atheists(except for some koreans)

niggers are all religious and they commit violent crimes
religion doesn't seem to prevent them from being cunts

>>21953308

What's the obsession with this? If you visit Japan you find a lot of well put together, dressed formal and the hold them selves in a regal manner. They're freaking hot and they read lots too. Why do weebs like these weird child behavior women?

>>21947281
niggers are more likely to be religious than non-religious

you are more of a nigger than an atheist. atheism is very white

>>21953313

> Why do weebs like these weird child behavior women?

because they are cute and attractive

>>21953314

than an atheist is*

religion is for low iq niggers

https://youtu.be/uYE2Urp1n8s?t=11

>>21950914
>I from the beginning have been talking about the *ontology* of morality and how fundamentally in the atheistic worldview morality is an arbitrary human creation
You are misguided because you are stuck in a christian dualism between man and nature that does not appreciate the radicality of so-called darwinian metaphysics.
Immanent to this metahysics is the view that man is part of nature and a creation of nature. Since man has preferences and teleology, it follows that nature itself has it, as man is part of nature. The entire point of darwinian metaphysics is to deny the radical split between man and nature that you are using as a tool to criticize it.
Now you might think you've won because this is just about preferences, but it entails no problems to take the further step and say that nature has testified its preference for being over non-being and for life over inert matter via the very process of evolution. This provides all the building blocks needed to construct a metaethical realism that goes far beyond securing individual preferences without any need for theology, and the resultant metaethical realism is just as metaphysically tenable as whatever theological one you can cook up, but relies less on speculation.

>The natural law theorist would say on the contrary that in our very bodies we are able to discern our responsibilities and duties. Not only does Man and Woman exist as Forms, irreformable by mutilation, they each have their own particular telos and hence gender roles in particular are necessary and just.
God isn't needed for this either. You could just as well postulate "moral facts" as you could postulate "God", and thus remain in an atheist metaphysics, and there is no compelling reason why the latter should be preferred.

>>21953308
Nordic and East Asian countries are on their way to extinction.

>>21950914
>I must believe in God, otherwise I'm incapable of formulating a single argument against trannies
Aquinas is rolling in his grave.

>>21947199
>atheism
Which one? There's like million forms of atheism.