/lit/ - Literature

>>22165204
Emerson

if you're looking for a reason, go ahead and stop. there is no rational argument for god. either accept it on faith or quit lying to yourself and find your own meaning in life.

>>22165218
>accept it on faith
How do I do that? I agree that faith is irrational and I’m okay with that. Buts it’s not like I can say “Ok, I believe in God now” and just believe it.

>>22165204
pray sincerely for faith even if you don not yet fully believe

>>22165226
Just imagine it's real and have conversations with him, eventually you will start to actually believe in it.

>>22165204
Why do you want to believe in God?

Ethics - Spinoza

>>22165239
I read Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling. I understood almost none of it, but I want to become a knight of faith.

>>22165315
So you are seeking an aesthetic to larp as. Anyway this is not 12th century and knights don't exist. You can't even commit violence for whatever ideology you believe in

>>22165218
god is geometry you dumb papist

>>22165327
>this is not 12th century and knights don't exist
It's pretty clear you haven't read F&T. A knight of faith is someone who's surrendered themselves completely to god and his will, simple as.

>>22165315
Read the bible. Pray on it. Go to mass/church.
There's also Mere Christianity by CS Lewis, which is baby's first apologetics. Pretty good though, but you might be underwhelmed if you've read F&T already.

>>22165342
Is he foldable?

>>22165204
Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

"This counsel, however, do I counsel to kings and churches, and to all that is weak with age or virtue—let yourselves be o’erthrown! That ye may again come to life, and that virtue—may come to you!—”"

>>22165342
based pythagorean

>>22165342
What the anon you’re responding to said sounds more Lutheran than papist. Catholicism holds that faith is rational. I think they might even consider fideism to be heretical, but I’m not certain on that. Reliance on faith and mystery is very Lutheran.

>>2216522
It’s when you know and understand that the universe is mysterious beyond belief, and that your human brain will never have all the answers. That you were programmed to live inside the theater and therefore you can never peer outside or exist somewhere else. So you close your eyes and clasp your hands and give yourself up completely to a higher power that you deem must or should be there.

>>22165204
Encounter God yourself, in the person of Jesus Christ, in one of the four Gospels, of which I recommend John's, an ineffably beautiful account from a firsthand witness of the early Church. Do also ask God to help you. God Bless!

>>22165204
The Parmenides of Plato.

>>22165204
Anna Karenina.

>>22165204
Just smoke DMT, bro.
Or go to mass at a nice Catholic cathedral and just follow again, copying everybody and really soaking in the atmosphere.

>>22165204
Revolutionary Demonology (2023)
Spinal Catastrophism: A Secret History (2019)
Fanged Noumena (2011)
Ccru Writings 1997-2003

>>22165204
what about The Bible?

>>22165204
Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid

>>22165503
The only good answer in this thread, but OP will wish he never read these books.

>>22165226
Roll up! Roll up! Take your pick or spin the wheel! Will you burn in hell for picking the wrong God? Will you get the 1 in a million right answer and get eternal paradise? Will absolutely nothing happen for you once you die? Pick a card, any card!

>>22165327
We just pulled out of Afghanistan. Give it a couple years.

Why tf would u want to believe in God? Which god? The Christian one? The one who killed millions of people and will sentence you to an eternity in hell for busting a nut?

>>22165770
What a graph, lmao
>Optimizing religion, not based on how much you agree with, but from statistical analysis of outcome

>>22165541
Eh, that one's fun. Not sure I'd recommend it from a religious aspect, although I can understand how that may lead someone there.

If mountains of pop-sci and indirect self-reference are your thing, then sure.

>>22165824
I want the cool one that will personally give me a high-five every time I bust a nut

>>22165204
Imagine a thread dies so that all the other threads after him would live eternal life.
Protip: you cant

>>22165204
Honestly, delving into the hard problem of consciousness and arguments against materialism kinda convinced me of God's existence. I'm still agnostic at the end of the day but I lean towards believing.

I like Nietzsche. More better than bible.
Might be too dense if you didn't get Kierkegaard, tho.

>>22165342
>God is a decahedron
Really?

>Everything comes from nothing
>Everything comes from some dude or whatever
Both seem equally absurd to me but Iean towards nothing

I think, therefore I'm

>Be god
>Create mankind in my own image
>Give them free will
>YOU WILL FOLLOW MY RULES TO A T OR ELSE IS ETERNAL DAMNATION FOR YOU
>trollface.jpg

>>22166106
>Be God
>Be omnipotent
>Make man in my image
>Punish them for falling victim to the traps I created for them
>Be Omniscient, and knew this would happen
Pranked

Job
The Science Delusion by Sheldrake
That comic where the aliens rip peoples heads off and torture them for eternity

>>22166106
>>22166117
>babies first atheism arguments refuted thousands years ago
>thinking that you are smarter than every civilization since the beginning of time because a few decades ago some guy noticed that birds look different

>>22166479
>>babies first atheism arguments refuted thousands years ago
How?
>Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
>Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
>Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
>Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

>>22165204
It wouldn't help you as much as buying a BCP and praying daily office every day.

>>22165204
Good
Orderly
Direction

The Borthers K

>>22165770
Epic post, fellow redditor

>>22166479
christcuck retard

The Bible
The Bible contains the Holy Spirit.
The more you read it the more you will feel it.
People who read it with devotion have many emotional experiences from it, and feelings of being purified, and they will not deny its power.

Another way is find some traditional prayers or repentences, or confessions. Doing a confession of some type you may be amazed at a flood of emotions.

Another path is the Koran.
Likewise the Koran is also the word of God and contains holy light that many feel from reading it.
At the very least minimum effort, go to youtube and download a 10hr recitation of the koran, and listening to it should make you feel a burning in your heart. This is what Muslims feel and the experience only grows deeper with more devotion.

Another powerful method is give charity to a church or religious institution you would like to receive spiritual blessings from. Give a few hundred bucks or what is appropriate to you. Then do not be surprised if you go through a massive conversion experience or change of heart a few months later. This method can be very powerful, but it is hard for those who are attached to money more than they have faith.

I remember going through an agnostic and atheist phase, and it was a time of darkness. The worst thing you can do is read materalist literature, rather than scripture.

Going down the near death experience rabbit hole on youtube can also be interesting.

>>22165347
So OP wants to surrender himself to God? Considering that he has trouble believing in God it is apparent that it is not God he is seeking but surrender.

If becoming a mindless NPC is truly your goal then join Islam.

>>22165218
So you mean Kierkegaard

Believing in god is easy but knowing the personality of god seems impossible? Without it god is irrelevant.

>>22165342
THE FRUITS OF VATICAN II

>>22166555
define evil

>>22165226
Faith is not irrational. One does not need faith to acknowledge the existence of the almighty creator (God), rather it is as simple as 1 + 1 = 2. In this sense, the existence of God is a logical fact.
There are however, a near infinite amount of things that we cannot possibly know about God without Him telling us. This is called 'revelation', and it is in these revelations (The Holy Trinity for example) that require faith on our part.

You can know that a man exists by simply looking at him, but if you wish to know the goings on within his mind, you can only trust his word, faith is similar.

>>22165204
Read Blaise Pascal's 'Pensées' and St. Thomas Aquinas' 'Compendium of Theology'.

>>22165204
>What books will convince me?
read the bible
or just go to >>>/qst/ and play the god quest there

57 posts and only one anon has outright just told OP to go to church. What in the world is wrong with you guys?

>>22165503
What are those fucking books fucking about?

>>22165204
I believe in my own personal God who is largely indifferent to my life but finds it amusing when I suffer.

>>22165204
The Bible. Read the New Testament before the Old Testament. Fast and pray while you're at it.
To believe, believe on Christ, that he died on a cross for the remission of sin, was buried, and rose from the dead on the third day. The purpose of belief is to know and trust in Christ. That is, to have a relationship with Him. When you believe, you must receive Christ, acknowledge his death was for the remission of sin, that you, as a human naturally inclined towards sin, have sinned and come short of the glory of God, and that without Christ, you will be eternally separated from God. Repentance (which means changing your mind about sin, with the purpose of turning from sin), is therefore necessary for true belief.
Christ is not merely a get-out-of-hell free card, however, nor should be be treated as such. When one comes to Christ and has a relationship with Christ, he is to abide in Him, without which he could do nothing of his own accord, but that Christ be with Him. When one abides in Christ, he obeys His commandments (revealed in the Word) and loves Him. Without love, either for God or for neighbor, faith is ineffective.
Also understand that when one believes and receives, he receives the Holy Spirit as the downpayment and mechanism for his salvation. The Holy Spirit will guide you and take you on the life-long path of sanctification. Gradually, you will become more obedient, more receptive, and more desirous of the will of God in your life.

God bless you Anon

>>22165824
>The one who killed millions of people and will sentence you to an eternity in hell for busting a nut?

Sounds based as fuck, get smoked coomer retard.

>>22165204
This

>>22166555
people debated this exact shit thousands of years ago. people were having these arguments hundreds of years before Moses wrote Genesis. but teenage atheists think that they are somehow being transgressive and rebellious, when in fact they are way stupider than ancient nomadic sandniggers.

>Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
wrong retard. God gives you the right to commit evil out of respect and love for you. If He didn't allow you the choice to be evil then you would not be made in the image of God, you would be like an animal or a rock. Just because you suffer and get sad sometimes does not indicate that there is some fundamental flaw in reality.

let me preempt some of your other baby questions

>why do bad things happen :'(((
the universe is not made for you to avoid suffering.
>who made God?
cause and effect and time are fake constructs of the human mind. this can be proven by the fact that both theists and atheists are unable to give a truly reasonable solution to "the ultimate cause", because causes are the local phenomenon of 2D brains
>b-b-but why can't I have muh gay buttsex???
the rules exist for your benefit. God doesn't tell you to not be a fag because he thinks gays are icky. He is giving divine advice that being gay is terrible for you and terrible for your civilization. this checks out considering how no gay tranny civilizations survived to the modern era.
>why does God send people to hell?
God doesn't send people to hell, you choose to go to hell against His wishes. You have the right to make your own decisions and live with the consequences
>why did God create hell?
Hell is default reality. Whether or not you can say God "created" hell is semantically murky. God does not send you to hell, He SAVES you from the horrible base reality of the universe by bringing you into Him.
>why would I go to hell if I'm evil?
You can't be united with perfection if you are stained, this is the definition of holiness. Additionally, justice is an aspect of perfection, and if you are not punished for your evil deeds then God would not be just. It would be worse to have a universe without justice then a universe without hell. You just don't accept this because you have a selfish localized insect brain who can't comprehend that there is any greater purpose than your own happiness.
>but even with all this if God is so great and powerful and nice then He should know that humans are too stupid to not be evil so He should intervene so that we don't go to hell
this is literally the story of the New Testament. Christ absolves you of your evil regardless of what you do. In fact, it is a common interpretation that you don't even HAVE to believe in Christ to be cleansed and everyone goes to Heaven no matter what. so congrats you can believe universal justification if you are such a wet blanket about going to hell.

>>22165204
If you want to deflate scientism-athiesm then pic is good. It won't give you a God to sing and dance to but it will disarm pop-sci physics assumptions against theism.

>>22169604
>Robert J. Spitzer SJ (born May 16, 1952) is a Jesuit priest, philosopher, educator, author, speaker, and retired President of Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington.

Lol rofl

>>22165342
>folds paper and pokes hold in it

>>22169632
He's a doctorate who's been president of a university. Meanwhile 9/10 atheism books are "blablabla is a fat acceptance and polyamory activist. They/them has spoken at Skepticon and Satancon about the scientific need for queer polyamorous spaces and has also served as listicles intern at BuzzFeed."

>>22165204

linktr . ee/omegapoint

>>22169669

>>22169599
>If He didn't allow you the choice to be evil then you would not be made in the image of God, you would be like an animal or a rock.
This is a pretty good explanation of it. Nice one, anon.

>>22169599
>God allows evil because he loves you
>God tortures you for eternity because you want to be tortured

The mental gymnastics of apologetics never cease to amaze.

>>22165204
The book in pic related WILL convince you that there is an afterlife, and that NDEs should be taken seriously.

And NDEs are more real than this world, in every way. For example, they are more consistent experiences, illustrated well by this quote:

>"For me, life is sort of like the haunted house. When you come in, you know it's just an experience. It's small, it's just one night, right? So it's just this one life. You're eternal, you have billions of lives, so knowing that you're going to come in just for one to have an experience, though it may be judged as tough, or difficult, or scary, you actually chose it because you knew it was just going to be an experience, you know it's no big deal. You understand on the other side that this part, life, is actually the dream, and you just wake up after. It's no different than one dream you had last night, out of a lifetime of dreams. This life that you're having right now is just one, it's just a blip."

So just like life is more consistent than our dreams (dreams last a few moments, life has been the same for decades), so too is the NDE reality more consistent than life (life has been the same for decades, the NDE reality has been the same for forever, for way more than trillions of years). Here this point is elaborated more on:

https://youtu.be/U00ibBGZp7o

And it is instantly evident to NDErs that heaven is real too, even atheists:

>"It's real to us when we're in it, but once I was there in heaven I realized that's more real, that felt more real, and it made much more sense to me than anything here. This is kind of nonsensical at times. In heaven, it's so clear, so real, so rational, so logical, but yet emotional and loving at the same time. Immediately I knew that was real and this was not. Immediately."

From https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mysteries-consciousness/202204/does-afterlife-obviously-exist

So heaven is undeniably real.

Then, read Jeffrey Long's book "God and the Afterlife". Then you will justifiably know that God exists. So, 2 books.

>>22165985
Retard. F&T is much more dense than Nietzsche. Neetzsch is literally babbys first philosophy.

>>22166089
:)

>>22165709
I got a random panic attack just by reading the google description of one of those. At this was before this thread. Maybe I should indeed stay far from those.

>>22165204
Do the book of Job.

>>22166089
It thinks, therefore I was

>>22166078
>a creator creating is absurd like something coming from nothing
based retard

I believe there is a greater power out there but that we can’t conceive of it with our limited understanding. Religion is our best shot at said understanding, and it gets some things right, but too much wrong.
I believe in God, just not the Jewish interpretation of God or a Jewish man being God
I don’t know where that puts me spiritually or philosophically, but it makes the most sense to me

>>22165541
Are you kidding me? Fuck you. What a shit suggestion

>>22165204
Learn about the different parts of the Bible, prophets, poetry, wisdom, the Old and New Testaments, the Torah, Gospels, acts, etc. Read Ecclesiastes it's not that long and goes over some philosophy. Mark is the shortest gospel, Luke is much more personal. Read into Islam and you will very soon realize it is infinitely retarded and filled with "rules for thee not for me" and clearly made by a warlord hedon. Read "The Orthodox Church" and look over the history of the churches and you'll clearly see the Orthodox and Catholic churches are the clear contenders for the true church, then you'll see the stuff the popes have been doing for the last 1,000 years caused Catholics to stray. Buy a prayer rope/prayer beads/rosary and consider buying the Jordanville prayer book later. That's all I have to ramble about Godspeed.

>>22165204
the Torah

>>22171416
It means you are a realativist. You believe in nothing and yet will believe anything

>>22172060
Relativist

>>22172060
I believe it doesn’t mean that
E.G. I don’t believe in Jewish folk tales and I don’t believe that science is the only player in the network that is life. There’s something more…THAT, I don’t know, and I don’t think anyone does

>>22170182
>what if I didn't read the post i'm replying to

>>22165204
recognize that sign is weakness. it destroys you and everything.

ultimately you have to make a leap of faith, which you already know. just start praying, i started saying the lords prayer every night before bed and some misc prayers, long before i was christian (altho i sorta believed in a vague something at that point).
Just go to a few orthodox churches and talk to the priests, prob nothing that'd help you more.
That said, crime & punishment was what started me down the road to faith, and its the same for a lot of people with dosto.
Godspeed anon, praying for you