/lit/ - Literature

>>22549524

Bart Ehrman, Richard Carrier, Bertrand Russell

>No new atheist books, please. They are cringe.

This is a meme intended to turn people away from their arguments by Christians unable to answer them.

>>22549524
there are no convincing arguments

>>22549524
Brothers Karamazov ironically

>>22549524
>convincing arguments for atheism
lel

>>22549524

I hate to break it to you, pseud, but God obviously exists, since the universe exists. A creation implies a creator.

>>22549524
Brahmajāla Sutta
Mūlamadhyamakakārikā

>>22549543
>there are no convincing arguments

https://blacknonbelievers.org/jesus-failed-prophecy-about-his-return/

>>22551092

http://linktr.. ee/whynotjesus

>>22551581

This presupposes the universe is created

>>22549524
The Miracle of Theism by JL Mackie
Logic and Theism by JH Sobel
Arguing About Gods by Graham Oppy

These are the serious and rigorous ones. Almost anything else is either a meme, new-atheist garbage, or both.

>>22551704
Everything is created. Creation implies a creator.

>>22551731
Is the creator created?

>>22551742
The creator exists outside of his creation. We have as little of a chance of understanding our own creator as a computer program has of understanding a programmer.

>>22551581
of course that means supergod exists, since a god presuposes a higher more powerful god that creates it

>>22551731

No, everything isn't created. We understand the natural processes which create examples of complexity seen in nature, like snowflakes, canyons, mineral/crystals, etc. They do not form supernaturally, sculpted by an unseen artist

>>22551771
But that creator exists, if it exists it has to be created

>>22551771

Likewise then, God cannot be sure whether a Super God watches and judges him, so he should behave according to Super God's laws, just in case

>>22551819
I love super god, he is so much better than regular god. I wonder about Ultragod tho

>>22551831

Super God better be on his best behavior too then

>>22551814
We're not talking about natural processes talking place in the world but about the world itself.

>>22549524
There are no particular convincing arguments for atheism beyond the weakness of the evidence for gods existing.

>>22549524
I hate "new atheist" crap. Being the most cringe of any group was NOT a smart strategy.

>>22552219
dreamworks face

>>22549524
>What books have the most convincing arguments for atheism?
None are convincing

>>22549524

>>22549528
They don’t have to be wrong to be cringe.

>>22552308
King James specifically?

>>22551816
So you agree that creation can't exist without a creator.

>>22553626
Are you agreeing that the creator had to have a creator?

>>22553628
I don't see what the relevance is, given that you were trying to argue that there is no creator. Now you're arguing in the opposite direction. We can't conceive of our creator any more than a computer program can conceive of a programmer, and now you're discussing the equivalent of a computer program contemplating God. Your logic is asinine..which is no doubt related to you being an atheist.

>>22554048
Well, if a creator had to create your creator then your creator isn't omnipotent since it was derived from something else.

>>22554048
Anon, no one is arguing anything, we are refuting your argument by drawing it to its natural conclusion: If something exists, it must be created. Since God created this world, it would exist, and as such, would be created. Lets call this creator Super God. Since supergod exists, he of course, has to have a creator: Ultra God
Ultragod is not without a creator himself: Mega God, creation of Giga God, who himself is only existing thank to the magnimosity of God Max...
You get the point, So you either accept that god is just another layer, or you claim that logic is useless when dealing with the outside of creation, and if you do the second, then there is no need for a god at all: before this universe existed there were no logical reason for it not to exist, so it just appeared. God is not necesary for creation in a logicless state

>>22549528
Carrier's entire corpus is just unconvincing attempts at refuting Ehrman lol

>>22549524
Spinoza ethics and Schopenhauers fourfold root of the principle of sufficient reason.

>>22549524
Just read the Babycandian paradox

>>22554256
My creator is omnipotent to me, and given my level of existence, that's all that matters. I do not run in the circles of gods.
>>22554475
God exists outside of your logic. Logic is the beginning of understanding, not the end. Besides, my argument was that creation implies a creator, and it seems you agree with that.

>>22549528
Ehrman is retarded. Please don't recommend him. Time and time again he shows that he isn't willing to engage with the text honestly, and this is coming from someone who doesn't believe it's true. Your other two recommendations are far better, especially Bertrand Russel. All Ehrman is good for is convincing people who are already non-Christian to stay that way. He doesn't even provide genuine arguments against theism, only against Christianity, so all his followers end up basing their entirely personalities around simply "not being Christian" rather than actively searching out the truth, which is much more interesting than "welp, Christianity is bullshit." Like anybody needed convincing.

Yeah I would like this
I thought about reading Graham Oppy's book but I don't know anything about philosophy and it was too difficult

>>22549524
This "steelmanned" argument is the most convincing argument there is for the existence of God.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxYbA1pt8LA
https://vitrifyher.wordpress.com/2018/11/22/the-case-for-the-physical-existence-of-god/

>>22554475
>before this universe existed there were no logical reason for it not to exist, so it just appeared
So the universe can just appear out of nowhere without a cause, but God can't? And why can't God and the universe be one and the same? You act like they have to be different concepts. This isn't logic you're exhibiting here...it's ass-pulling.

>>22549524
Pic related crushes every single one.

NDEs are actually solid proof of life after death, because anyone can have them if they come close to and survive death. And they are so extremely real to those who have them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U00ibBGZp7o

As this NDEr described their NDE:

>"Now, what heaven looks like? 'OMG' doesn't even describe how beautiful this place is. Heaven is, there are no words. I mean, I could sit here and just not say anything and just cry, and that would be what heaven looks like. There are mountains of beauty, there are things in this realm, you can't even describe how beautiful this place is. There are colors you can't even imagine, there are sounds you can't even create. There are beauties upon this world that you think are beautiful here. Amplify it over there times a billion. There are, it's incredibly beautiful, there's no words to describe how beautiful this place is, it's incredibly gorgeous."

And importantly, even dogmatic skeptics have this reaction, because the NDE convinces everyone:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mysteries-consciousness/202204/does-afterlife-obviously-exist

So anyone would be convinced if they had an NDE, we already know this, no one's skepticism is unique.

>>22549524
Any history book covering the 20th century. WW1, WW2, the holocaust, the holodomor, the gulags, the famines in china, all the shit japan did in china, vietnam, nuclear cold war, etc, etc. If Jesus didn't make a reappearance sometime between 1900 and 2000 it's never gonna happen.

>>22554587
What im claiming is not that your explanation makes sense, what im claiming is that your explanation breaks from logic on the state before creation.
Lets use occams razor, if things outside or in a state that does not have logic, can and will exist, why does that suggest god and not a magical world that just appeared?
God is an extra step to your argument, and needs to be proved.
>>22554983
>This isnt logic you are exhibiting here, its ass pulling
exactly why its a refutation, not an argument. im not the one claiming that i know the beggining of existance, theists are.
>inb4 muh nig bang
The big bang is a theory for the first thing observable in our universe, only treated as the beggining of it because it is impossible for us to have knowledge before the bang, thanks to the properties of light. We do not know what lays at the beggining or the end, and you just fill those gaps with god

>>22549524
>No new atheist book
So trad larp is now includes atheism?

>>22552219
>Being the most cringe of any group was NOT a smart strategy.
seems nobody informed the 2020s christlarpers about this, after all they were sperm when the fedora meme was in full swing

>>22554475
>If something exists, it must be created
this is one of the dumbest "arguments" for "God" ever offered. It's as if you're saying
>god created everything
>therefore god exists
it doesn't even begin to respond to what's being asked of you

>>22555318
yes, wich is why we are refuting it lol. join my supergod religion please

Unironically Spinoza and Hegel.
And NO, acknowledging an absolute logos or substance is not a theistic commitment if you don’t worship this being as a deity. Both Spinoza and Hegel view the particular subject’s relationship to the absolute as that of contemplation/rumination, not worship.

>>22551581
>A creation implies a creator.
Nature is exactly the thing you use to contrast "creation" with "what isn't created"

>>22549524
1. The God Delusion
2. God is Not Great
3. Infidel
4. On the Nature of the Universe
5. The Golden Bough
6. The End of Faith
7. The Future of an Illusion
8. The Problems of Philosophy
9. God and the State
10. An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
11. Utilitarianism
12. The Age of Reason
13. The Doors of Perception
14. On Liberty
15. The Selfish Gene
16. The Art of Living (Epictetus)
17. Meditations (Marcus Aurelius)
18. Why I am Not a Christian
19. The Nicomachean Ethics
20. The Trial and Death of Socrates

>>22549524
None.

>>22549524
>new atheist
There's nothing new about it other than taking an active opposition of the betterment of still enfeebled minds.
I suppose you take "new atheists" to just be the ill informed and poor debate skilled atheists.

Thomas Paine. etc.

>>22554475
Why did God create us? Why did the Super God create God? why did the Ultra God create God?

>>22554475
>>22556108
And why did God create us instaed of another god?

>>22551771
You can sometimes tell a lot about a programmer by studying their computer programs. I can look at the code at work and make decent guesses about which of my coworkers wrote which parts. If the program could understand itself then it'd be halfway there

>>22553351
any English translation. The actual text of the Bible is absurd and anyone who hasn't read it and retains their faith that way is embarrassing.

>>22554602

Thank you for putting in the effort to write a thoughtful critique, and to share your insights, though I feel there are likely a few points where we still disagree. It would have been effortless just to regress to the mean and fling shit like all of the other street screamers. I appreciate a few posters still want to have meaningful conversations on this hellsite

>>22554587
Every Christian argument for God always includes a plea of ignorance.

>>22556311
>I appreciate a few posters still want to have meaningful conversations on this hellsite
go back to whatever subreddit you crawled out of

>>22556355

I mean you no harm and choose not to reciprocate your hostility. I hope you're having a safe and comfortable evening, perhaps enjoying some Steam games, reading a book book or petting your sleepy cat.

>>22556355

I mean you no harm and choose not to reciprocate your hostility. I hope you're having a safe and comfortable evening, perhaps enjoying some Steam games, reading a good book or petting your sleepy cat.

>>22556671
>reading a book book
based. your other posts, cringe
have a good one

>>22549524
As a theist, I'd say Deleuze's atheism is really good. Check out his books on Spinoza, Difference and Repitition, and Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Nietzsche's critique of Christianity is pretty good too. Don't waste your time with all that god delusion crap.

>>22555764
These are all garbage don't read them. There's nothing atheistic about Stoic or Aristotelian literature (prime mover etc), the rest of the list is new atheist garbage.

>>22554475
The rules of the world demand a creator / phenomena outside the world. We don't know anything about the rules that dictate that creator / phenomena.
"Atheists" tend to accept something like this as long as it's a "phenomena" and not a "creator". That's a semantic way to frame an argument about the nature of God not the existence of God.

>>22549524
I dunno, but both theism and atheism are faullty since they are aproaching the subject antropocentricaly and antropomorphicaly imo.

>>22549524
>No new atheist books,

Y tho? Theism and belief in fantasy creature God is btfo'ed by very basic arguments against it. No need to invoke complex sounding pseuded bs to pove something so simple.

Infact it is the theists who need to engage in pseudary considering how irrational their beliefs are. Its like watching a tranny arguing in favour of post modernism to justify its sexual degeneracy

>>22551581
Your brain is so tiny

>>22551731
If you mean by "creation" that somethong was brought into existance by something else then you trully cannot claim that everything is a creation.
We have no knowledge beyond our reallity which has clearly defined fundamental level.
Now you can say applle was brought into existance by this fundamental level or rather a hammer by a human being, but you cannot claim with same certainty that fundamental level was brought into existance or not (since we have no knowledge about anything beyond that and cant even claim there is anything beyond that).
As far we know, causality is aspect of our reallity and ascribing causality outside of it is plainly ignorant guessing.
That reallity was created because of something or nothing holds same ammount of logic. Same goes for claiming that reallity was created or that it wass allways.
If you tend to claim one of this options, present relevant arguments (which you cannot since you cannot exit reallity) or say that it is subjective belife which holds not argumentative power.

>>22549524
Biology, mathematics, physics books

>>22554866
>vorpal debate
That’s about a videogame strat

>>22551697
That's not convincing.

>>22551106
Denounced, time and time again by the simple fact that: God is beyond 'good and evil'.

>>22557615
A god "beyond good and evil" is much more plausible than the all-loving Christian god
Unfortunately he's also not worth worshipping

Instead of looking to dissuade yourself from God, why not try reading the New Testament?

>>22551972
Only this gets completely obliterated by pascal's wager

>>22555058
This is such a bad argument, there's no way you can actually be so convinced by this. Like, come on, anon

>>22557627
This is life-denying retard shit. If you mean the words then the gift of life isn't worth accepting and you should in fact kys.

>>22556720
Prime mover doesn't have to be a "God", that's the biggest misappropriation religious zealots make. Not to mention that is just one tiny piece of Aristotle's philosophy, the rest literally outlines discoverable ethics and values, discoverable by humans without reference to theology. Also, you skipped over half the list like The Golden Bough, God and the State, The Future of an Illusion, On the Nature of the Universe, etc. Let me guess, you haven't read any of these and just want to be a reviewer on titles alone?

>>22556724
>To exist we must be based in inexistance
Do you realize how many assertions you have to prove?

>>22558200
>To exist we must be based in inexistance
Who are you quoting?

>>22558139
>Prime mover doesn't have to be a "God"
Yes it does, that's God. Using the correct word relates your thinking to the actual history. You're the one adding baggage to the word to make sure it's always meaningless in your mind and you can never relate to any history.

>>22558358
"God" is the single word with the most baggage in human history, don't pretend I'M the one adding it.

>>22549524
>What books have the most convincing arguments for atheism?
The Holy Bible.

>>22558422
>The Holy Bible.

>>22558453
>Ask question
>Get answer
>Shitpost when answer isn't what you wanted to hear
Positively feminine.

>>22549528
An enemy that numbers time in millennia with a cultural basis that goes back to preliterate man and symbolism rooted in primordial hominids appears!
>[(You)--Choose your fighter]!
a) Richard Dawkins: rat-faced evolutionary biologist who popularized the word meme (secret weapon: Scientism; weakness: Kafka)
b) Sam Harris: midwit who solved the problem of induction (secret weapon: meditation; weakness: complex thought)
c) Christopher Hitchens: reformed commie/former fag with great talent for rhetoric (secret weapon: alcoholic snark (aka Hitchslap); weakness: Neoconservatism)
d) Daniel Dennett: Saturday morning philosopher (secret weapon: midwit empowerment (aka Reddit); weakness: phenomenology)
>(You): WEAPONIZED CONDESCENTION! ALL FOUR HORSEMEN, I CHOOSE (You)s!
*****[Fight!]*****
>(You) choose: YOU DON'T BELIEVE IN SANTA CLAUS, DO YOU?!
[Counter attack: nuance. Enemy isn't 4 and is unimpressed you don't believe in Santa. Attack is ineffective.]
>(You) choose: WHY DON'T YOU WORSHIP ZEUS?!
[Counter attack: nuance. Even myth is meaningful in a way not reducible to materialism. Attack is ineffective.]
>(You) choose: SCIENCE THOUGH!
[Counter attack: nuance. Enemy brings up the history of science and its complex relationship and continuing interplay with religion. Attack is ineffective.]
>(You) choose: FEDORA TIP!
[Counter attack: enemy is laughing.]
>(You) choose: NO YOU!
[Counter attack: enemy is laughing.]
>REEEEEEEEEEEEEE
>[(You) have fainted.]

>>22558485
Discrediting memes as an evolutionary unit has already outed you as a retard, whether you like the author or not. This thread is pointless because this shows you simply will never have the foundation to understand why you are wrong. For instance, you will never understand why morality is evolved and learned, and since you don't understand that, you simply aren't going to be able to move forward.

I look forward to reading your million "counter arguments" for the evolution (both genetic and memetic), of morals which have been pointed out time and time again, and which have holes that are simply in your blind spots because you are not very good at critical thought.

To be fair, if you actually read the Bible from cover to cover and still believe in the god of the Bible I don't expect much from you cognitively.

>>22558485
You cannot possibly believe in God save for some kind of irony's sake

>>22558485
>This is the man calling you Reddit for
not believing in sky daddy

>>22558404
You're contributing to the project of undermining understanding of history by piling baggage on concepts the mainstream finds inconvenient.
People can acknowledge something exists but have different ideas about the nature of it. Some people still believe the moon is a spirit that eats babies or whatever but you don't pile on that baggage when someone mentions the moon. In cases where you're not trying to undermine language you have no problem separating the actual thing from the cultural baggage.

>>22558573
The word "God" literally only works to undermine understanding. In fact, if you dig enough, most people will openly say that when they refer to "God" they mean something beyond understanding. It's a useless word, a plug to be put into understanding, not to advance it, but to curtail it. "First Mover" at least refers to a concrete concept, an attribute of a phenomenon, but as soon as some brain dead idiot comes along and says it's "God" they are admitting their own ignorance while simultaneously projecting all their own psychological baggage into the form of "God" (usually that he is a person, and not only that but a father figure who cares about them). Now I ask you, who is undermining understanding, me who wants precise language with less baggage, or idiots who want to use one of the most baggage laden words in human history which is often defined as either undefinable or beyond understanding? It's pretty straight forward.

>>22558713
>they are admitting their own ignorance while simultaneously projecting all their own psychological baggage into the form of "God"
You're doing that, you even said most people aren't referencing any of that baggage. It's just you pretending any time anyone says the word "moon" they mean the great moon spirit of ubongo who is a bearded cloud man that punishes masturbation.

>>22558713
The word itself is a good example of how the metaphoric nature of language gets lost in English.
Lowercase goð is basically just old norse for lord, higher power of any kind with authority. Uppercase God like Lord is a constructed reference to the highest power. It's a finger pointing at the moon and your response is "that finger isn't the moon".

>>22558351
>The rules of the world demand a creator / phenomena outside the world
This statement can mean three things:
1.Causality exists outside of this world: since our world requires a act/phenomena of creation, that phenomena/act is causal in nature. As such, even if other variables could change, we can assume time (as the superposition of different states that precede one another) and at least one case of causal relationship.
If this is an exception or singularity, then communication with the creator is impossible or most likely irrelevant, as they would only be connected to our laws during the act of creation, and otherwise be outside of time, and not have a rate of change.
If the causality is just one of many ways that the rate of change occurs, communication with the creator would be irrelevant and schizophrenic (in the sense of constant jumping between states) and God would not be a consistent being but rather a fluid one that changes at random.
If causality is the law, then we must assume a initial state from which that world was created (supergod theory).

>>22559148
>Causality exists outside of this world
That doesn't follow. We only know the kind of things that are in the world all have causes. Presumably there's a stop to that and something beyond cause and effect takes over. The infinite regress thing is just applying rules we're comfortable with to something there's no reason to assume it applies to.
>then communication with the creator is impossible
Not part of the claim, we're going into cultural baggage territory but no that only follows if we assume causality as holy dogma and there's no reason to.
>If causality is the law, then we must assume a initial state from which that world was created
That's just God, the thing beyond causality. Splitting God the father into pieces as if he's a robot with parts does nothing for us.

>>22559176
Well the process of creation is clearly causal as per defined for needing a creator. What I'm getting at, is that at least during the moment of creation, we know of a causal even ocurring in the outside of the world, and if you argue that the act of creation is not causal, then it needs no creator

>>22559196
>in the outside of the world
I don't see the real distinction, it's a semantic one and we can decide what part is the "world" and which part isn't. I'm basically defining the parts that operate under the relatively familiar rules as the "world". That includes what we haven't found out about quantum mechanics or whatever since that's all intelligible and therefore under causal rules even if it's now statistical instead of direct.

>>22559176
>>22559196
>>22559148
2. Potentiality:
if the causal act was the first act that is consistent with logic, we can still assume a before state, meaning a change. Change is actualization of potentiality. From here we have 3 posibilities:
The actualization of potentiality only occurred by the creation. God is a static being as being empty in potential. ergo God is dead/inmobile.
The actualization of potential occurs often
but its not the only way things happen: God holds infinite potential/ creates potential/has the potential of potential. (Here is where most theists are)
Or Nothingness holds infinite creative potential (this is where Taoists and Buddhists stand)
>>22559227
I'm using the same distinction you are: the creation Is the first act that holds causality, and as such, causality is a possibility on the world outside ours

>>22559275
>creation Is the first act that holds causality
Containing the rules instead of being subject to them. Causality can stretch beyond what's intelligible but I tend to think as long as things are subject to the rules we can model those things, things are intelligible as far as causality reaches.
We can imagine the event that started strict temporal causality happening within the intelligible with the quantum statistical models. In a vacuum we get chaotic fluctuations in space and time so they have no distinct arrow of time, an effect can precede a cause from our perspective. One of these events was supposedly the Big Bang according to some dudes somewhere. The energy released caused a macro chain reaction which maintains an illusion of a direction in time.
All this is still within the intelligible, the rules that say what vacuum does are intelligible but what defined them? Eventually the best future models will break down and we have to just accept that there are rules, because of some unintelligible reason.

>>22551106
Man doesn't get to determine what is "evil".

>>22559275
>>22559148
3. Limitations
Our world has a rule of entropy. Because of it, our potentiality tends to 0 over time. This speaks to limits of creation, we will explore this idea:
This could simply be a limitation of the nature of creation by many reasons: osmosis or inertia. what we can know for sure is that the action can be intentional or unintentional. if its unintentional, it means it was either accidental from a different process, or created by a god that is unaware/unconscious.
If the limitation was purposeful, then our God either does not value eternal existance, will recharge our potentiality due to limitations on the nature of our world or malice, or have some limits on their creative ability, be it his or of the nature of the world outside of ours. He could also need the process to occur for a different goal, all of those give us information of the world outside ours: it has a certain type of logic or laws, or it is devoid of consciousness
In the end this exploration proves the following thing: We can tell a lot about the world outside ours, and that God is an idea indistinguishible from
Nothingness or malice in most scenarios, and so not worth considering

>>22558545
>sky daddy
reddit term

>>22559345
The problem with that is that if causality does not apply to the act of creation, the creator is unnecesary. can you really not understand that?

>>22559483
A thing that defined the fundamental rules is necessary because the rules don't allow for creating themselves. That thing does not need to obey any of your ideas of what the rules are.
>>22559393
This is all just assuming the ideas you're familiar with apply to things they definitely don't.
>because I resent the origin of everything it's not worth considering
Absolute garbage.

>>22559554
>because the rules don't allow for creating themselves
That's if the rules apply to the act of creation, not if they are merely contained by it.
If for example: The rules of a game are applied when the game starts, but starting the game is not included within the rules, and its an act outside of them. Therefore no one has to roll dice or any bullshit to start the game.
In this case, if causality is applied to the case of creation is different vs if they are merely applied once creation has occurred. One allows us a glance into the state before our world started and the rules that exist on it, due to the shared nature of the possibility of causality, the other one renders the question of a reason for existence utterly pointless. If causality is part of the act of creation, God is a possibility and we have an inkling of the nature of the existence outside of our reality. If it isn't, God is not necessary, and our universe could as well have created itself or even just be

>>22555038
A mechanism for how NDEs could work and how an afterlife could potentially exist:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65jdcvSOOjI

>>22559554
>because I resent the origin of everything it's not worth considering
No, it's because in most scenarios, it's either nothing, dead, illogical in their consciousness or directly malicious, meaning that interaction with such an entity would be completely pointless, unpredictable, or directly harmful. As such, the concept loses most if not all predictive value and cannot and should not be regarded as knowledge

>>22559045
>>22559112
I'm pointing out that most words have a very specific connotation, and even the more poetic or abstract connotations are well understood and shared by most speakers. "God" is far from this. "God" can mean literally anything or literally nothing. It can be extremely specific and codified, or it can be as vague and nebulous. It can mean supernatural, or simply the starting point of the natural. It's like you think you're pointing at the moon when you're not pointing anywhere at all.

>>22559386
Yes he does

>>22558422
>>22558473
You're so fucking edgy, bro. You must be so cool irl.

>>22558518
>>22558536
>>22558545
>atheists are titans of intellect
>[but expect you to be impressed they don't believe in Santa]
>atheists stand for free-thinking
>[but demand you adhere to Scientism]
>atheists are champions of reason
>[but have strong opinions about things of which they're uneducated]
>atheists are anti-dogmatic
>[but insist you interpret scripture only according to their ideas of it]
Atheism is an intelligence LARP that retards indoctrinate themselves into. Being an atheist is ridiculously easy; their main weakpoint is their unearned pride and if you poke at their (entirely self-perceived) intelligence they become reactive and break down. Reminder that the legacy of New Atheism is pic-related: homosexual rape/cuck furry fetish cartoons.

>>22559594
>Therefore no one has to roll dice or any bullshit to start the game.
And this analogy does not relate to the claims I made or the theist claims thought history, it's cope you came up with to avoid the point. The exact opposite is made explicit by all the theologians and philosophers. The thing that starts the game is not subject to the rules, it doesn't need any fucking dice. You made that up.
>>22559819
When the speaker starts talking as if the moon is something different you ask for clarifications. Our ideas of things are never the same, even when it comes to the moon. Even when everyone agrees about the attributes of the thing we can still be speaking from different perspectives. We can talk about it as the strange disc it appears as in the sky, as influence on the tides, as an actual physical place etc.
With "God" you're just making special exception for a term you want to undermine.

>>22559843
>Therevare more Christian furries than atheist furries
Will admit that it's impressive numbers for atheists per capita, I wish I didn't have to stand side by side w huge fags and retards

>>22559831
>(You)

>>22559910
>The exact opposite is made explicit by all the theologians and philosophers.
Not by process philosophy, which solves many problems of substance philosophy, such as the problem of the beginning of the universe. I'd invite you to start again with kierkegaard

I don't care if someone is spiritual or believes in an afterlife. The following should be read by Christians though
Psalms, Hermeneia commentary
The Hexateuch, Anchor or Hermeneia commentary
The genuine Pauline Epistles
Book of Revelation
Hume's Enquiry and On Miracles
Bart Ehrman's books
William Dever's and Israel Finkelstein's arguments over archaeology

>>22554602
t. Carrier acolyte. Ehrman is an encyclopedia and while he doesn't publish anything original anymore he is up to date with scholarship and is the only academic who has put in the effort to communicate modern research to the laypeople. Just because he believes in the historical Jesus and doesn't date Luke/Acts to the second century doesn't mean he isn't refuting the bible. By trying to uncover Jesus' actual theology and explain how his cult became the early church he actually wins theists over. Simply denying the gospels as a valid historical source won't convince anyone.

>>22559829
then morality is normative and God, being wholly other, is not beholden to our understanding
this is actually really simple. if you think that right and wrong can differ by geographic region / group, you must concede that God (as presented) must be considered the most extreme example of this. if you believe that right and wrong are objective and prescriptive, then you must have an absolute source of morality which means you're just an unpersuasive pseudo-christian

it's amazing that this meme has been debunked for literal centuries and midwit redditors still whip it out like some anime finishing move. even old internet "christian vs atheists" arguments moved past it pretty much instantly, only now that everyone has retreated back into their isolated retard bubbles has it made a resurgence.

>>22559947
What I described is based on rules, not substance or processes but the rules we rely on to make any claim of any sort and model these processes and substances.
>A thing that defined the fundamental rules is necessary because the rules don't allow for creating themselves. All formal models of anything are logical, they rest on logical causality as in if x then y. All of them need to be fed the value of x from outside the system.

>>22559946
Seen that one. Post more edgy skull memes to show us how edgy you are.

>>22556724
>The rules demand a creator
The rules of the world are only applicable within the world. They have been learned through inductive reasoning which limits their scope. We believe the universe started 13 billion years ago from a single point, but that shouldn't be confused with the universe coming into existence at that time. Contemporary physics breaks down, there is no way to infer what happened prior to shortly after the big bang. Its simply indeterminate. To suppose that it did just come into existence is operating outside of the laws of the known universe. Christians believe that too, Yahweh can only exist outside of the laws of the known universe. But then they insist that one law does exist: causality. There is no reason to suppose this though, coming out of nothing is just as plausible as coming out of something eternal.
>Atheists are making a semantic argument
"Atheists" tend to accept "phenomena" and not "creator" because phenomena isn't a loaded term, there is no reason to suppose agency or sentience to what, if anything, caused the universe. "Atheists" don't have an opinion on whether the universe is eternal or if it came from nothing or something, they just reject that it is a sentient entity that has strong opinions on what people should be doing on the grounds of extravagance.

>>22560037
You fail to realize there is a synthesis of objective and subjective, meaning that subjective sensations can be objectively negative. There are certain sensations which you will experience as undesirable. You don't make any decision or judgement, they enter your consciousness preloaded with the attribute of being undesirable. Avoiding and minimizing these sensations is the only possible reasonable basis for morality. Ethics are a system by which guidelines are established which can reasonably be expected to minimize such sensations. Morality must be utilitarian, otherwise it's just fiat and power, which is actually the negation of morality.

>>22560095
>(You)

>>22549524
Not that sigil, whatever it is. Too noisy. give it some straight lines or something, like something closed maybe. Like a halo, lol,

It just looks like a reaally long s to me, but a regular s is more of a denotion of being anti-religious, to me.

Atheism what about it you know it doesnt exist right?

>>22549524
The only book you need is the bible
>Genesis creation myth isn't anything like cosmology
>World is not 6000 years old
>No flood
>No evidence of 12 tribes
>No evidence of the exodus
>No evidence of conquest of canaan
>No evidence of Solomons temple
>First notable king was Hezekiah
>Many of the prophetic texts are forgeries
>Kings and Chronicles are chronologically incompatible
>Pauline epistles have different christology than synoptic gospels than gospel of john
>Late dating of the gospels
>Gospel contradictions - genealogy, judahs death, who witnessed the empty tomb, where did jesus go after bethlehem
>there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom
>Every single prophecy in Revelations

>>22551106
>“Once upon a time everyone lived happily ever after”

t. epicurious

a writer could do worse, to be honest.

And the bible paints God in a much worse light itself, so I dont know why have to go to ancient greeks who never even hear of Christ to disprove him.

But basically, if you want to know, you take Job, a perfect and honest and upright man, and what does he get for it? Played as a chip in a hand of poker. And even in that book God gives the answer to Epicurous, in his answer to Job, Where were you when I was laying the foundation of the world. You don’t know what it took to wrest creation from the void, so shut up, (lower your tone when you speak to me mortal, essentially)

And so why do that? Well because if God lets it happen to you, and still you don’t curse the lord to his face, well thats a way to hand the devil a defeat, isn’t it. So that’s why. And you are a pussy of a man if you don’t answer that call, frankly, in my opinion.

>>22551703
The bible says that some crazy shit happens before you are born, face on the deep and moves the waters etc.. (its sex guys, verse 2 of the bible is about sex [pro-pro tip, the bible is mostly about sex, and its mostly about incest sex.])

Anyway, and then You come out of your mom and like one eye lash moves and thats Let there be light!

Dont argue against the existence of god because of what the bible says. bible only ever proves god trust me on that. and anyway, people that read the bible have trouble with their faith. its hard to. elie e in god, and most people need more than a king james, and thr bible will never convince some people.

If you want to attack christianity put a mirror in their face. they only believe in god because whatever, and if they were poor and shitty they wouldnt.

like i dont know what to tell. there is no proof at the bottom of this. its just convincing.

>>22560142
>The rules of the world are only applicable within the world.
We even defined the world as the limits of the rules when this was expanded on in the thread.
I'm not talking about time, that's temporal causality, what happened before and after as opposed to logical causality which is describing things in models that can be replicated as trees of conditionals like in physical logic gates. Logical models and system need axioms not derived from those systems.
>But then they insist that one law does exist: causality.
Nope.
>"Atheists" don't have an opinion on whether the universe is eternal or if it came from nothing or something, they just reject that it is a sentient entity that has strong opinions on what people should be doing on the grounds of extravagance.
Repeating your meme lines over and over doesn't make them more real. Atheism is a fad with its own associated baggage. Sincere critics of theists don't repeat these meme lines, associate with the cultural fad or make shit up to attack, there's plenty to attack without needing to lie. Ideas about things beyond structured logic will always be fragile hints at something we can't understand and easy to attack. What's more interesting is thinking about stuff but that's counter to the tenets of the religion of atheism.

>>22551106
I love atheist threads because there is always going to be, as long as the thread is allowed to continue, this retarded ass fucking midwittery posted. Thank you I had a shit day at work and needed a good laugh

If God does not exist then why build the apocryphae? I don’t WANT to have to go around the infinity of space and build dope ass apocryphal mega pyramids, and things and write my logos on the face of them, but like, I have to, because God. Got to get the message out, you know.

Really, atheists are just lame, they are just the lamest.

>>22560286
Conditionals are first order logic, raw boolean logic has none nor does it have causality. Logical causality is meaningless.

>>22560317
*propositional logic

>>22560307
Atheists are less restricted by dogma and don't have to worry about being punished for all eternity if they fuck up.

>>22560317
>raw boolean logic has none nor does it have causality
Why do people like you just say things?
AND OR NOT are all gates with conditional outputs. The output state depends on the input state, that's one state causing another, in the most abstract this is happening independently of any time element. When we describe the interactions of billiard balls we use a model built on logic, usually a mathematical model but we can also make statements derived from logic without appealing to math. If ball gets hit by other ball then it moves. Any description with any predictive power of any system will be built based on logical models that rest on logical causality, are subject to the incompleteness theorem and can be represented in computers using only the basic gates.

>>22560332
>Given a set of propositions, we can use logical inference rules to derive new propositions. For example, if we know that P ∧ Q is true, and we also know that P R, we can infer that Q R is also true.
Conclusions derived from axioms. A model with inputs and outputs.

>>22560336
>>22560336
Boolean logic is tautology. ~(x•~y) doesn't make any metaphysical claim about causality. A circuit diagram of logic gates is nust another way of representing a truth table. It iss evaluated instantaneously, no before or after. It is only when we replace x and y with propositions furnished from our empirical observations that we introduce things like causality into logic, and really only after quantifiers that we can say anything resembling English. You seem to think that because we can construct a model of cause and effect back to just before the big bang that something comes after, but thats not based on ~(x•~y), thats based on you furnishing empty variables. Which is based on your induction.

>>22560317
>Logical causality is meaningless.
This is the power of "atheism".
>>22560349
You can try glancing at these subjects before making retarded claims.
>It is only when we replace x and y
What is wrong with your brain?
>You seem to think that because we can construct a model of cause and effect back to just before the big bang that something comes after
I made it very explicit I'm not talking about time, so you just go ahead and pretend I'm talking about time. Trying to express your vapid conditioning with some veneer of knowledge about a subject you don't grasp the basics of.
Without logical cause and effect physicists could for example not model phenomena that do not follow traditional temporal cause and effect like the fluctuations in a vacuum mentioned earlier.

>>22560336
>>22560356
Input and output are a loaded term. Whatever values are applied to a logical expression are instaneously evaluated. Input and output are in the eye of the perceiver. The billiard example is confusing. "If ball gets hit ball moves" is paraphrasing a larger sentence with "at time t1" and "t2". It is a logical expression but it gets its causality from empiricism. Where is this "logical causality"? Is it in the evaluation of a logical expression? The structure of an if-then statement?

>>22560240
>You fail to realize there is a synthesis of objective and subjective
stopped reading there

>>22560401
>at time t1" and "t2"
In the billiard ball example and only if you want to include all that time stuff in your model. We can make completely abstract causal statements that are not dependent on time, even about the billiard balls but more practically about things that are beyond our arrow of time.
>The structure of an if-then statement
Structure appears to be a good word but it's still just a building metaphor.
>where is it
Our models are not reality, they're rough maps made by us. If we have the ultimate physics model that accounts for everything we experience to some degree there will still be something left because reality is not a model. We can only model up to the point where intelligibility breaks down and it has to because models need axioms external to the models. The "world" is the part of reality that's intelligible and outside that there's some phenomena that defined all the fundamental rules that are not emergent, including the rules we use to understand the limited parts of reality we can understand. This phenomena supplies the fundamental parts that everything else is derived from. The axioms the perfect physics model would have would be fundamental, there would be no way to reduce them to further intelligible parts.

>muh causality
>muh arguments

The absolute state of christcuck reasoning lmfao. You want to convince people that your sky daddy is real and that everyone should worship his "son" and completely shift their lifestyle and morality in that regard.

And THIS is what you have to offer? Some blithering and blabbering about muh "causality".

>>22560581
Cont.

There is more evidence for a fucking quark, a particle we cannot observe on principle than for bearded old guy lmao. And even then some scientists are not sure if quarks are real. What I don't understand is if these god believers are so utterly gullible that this "causality" bs is all it takes for them to take on a religion then why do they become so skeptic in other aspects of life

>>22549524
Mere Christianity made me an atheist.

>>22559939
just because someone says he is a christian doesnt mean he is.

>>22560070
>All of them need to be fed the value of x from outside the system.
Then the outside system that included and is where the act of creation was performed, allows for causality, and the rules exists before the act of creation: how can you feed X to a set of rules before the set of rules exists?
>Not of substance or processes
Rules are normative when it comes to describing substance, while they are descriptive when it comes to processes. The difference is that substance philosophy presupposes a defined and static substance (is) as the origin of the universe, while process philosophy argues for an event/ process (becomes) as the origin. Meaning only substance requires a being, while substance requires an event. We know the universe started, and that's enough of an answer for process philosophy: that's the event.

>>22560633
Indeed: You are not a christian

>>22560458
>abstract causal
A billiard ball is against the side of the table. The second hits it head-on. The second moves, the first does not. But prior to this I have placed the first against the side. This fills the truth tables to the statement "if the ball hits then the other ball moves" despite being acausal. If the statement is constrained I can come up with increasingly contrived scenarios.
>models
Calling logic a structure isn't a metaphor. It is barren of physical significance until significance is added. It is completely irrelevant if in a proposition time is added. The proposition comes from inductive reasoning. Newtons conservation laws come from inductive reasoning. That they apply well to logic gives deduction the veneer of something descriptive. But it is the opposite, logic is constrained by induction.
>perfect model
Maybe the show that causality is a local phenomenon. Who knows? Nobody. Pointless to speculate.

>>22557637
and pascal's wager is completely obliterated by every choice having an overwhelming chance of throwing you into hell anyway due to the sheer number of conflicting religions and subsects

>>22556724
>The rules of the world demand a creator / phenomena outside the world.
it doesn't, go study physics beyond the high school level

>>22560242
Seen that one before too. Come on, post more skulls to show everyone just how edgy you are.
>We all smile in the end >>22558422
So hardcore! I'll bet you own a lot of black clothes.

>>22557637
>>22561106
pascal's wager assumes you can wage lawfare against an omnipotent and jealous god who holds grudges and dishes out eternal punishments if you piss him off

>>22561361
I'm the skull guy. I just think skeletons are neat bro, you need to chill the fuck out. Why the fuck are you (you)ing me, it's literally not even my birthday.

>>22561106
The people who arrogantly say this are religiously illiterate. Read Schuon. Oh wait, you won't because you're afraid you'll change your mind. Ignorance is bliss.

>>22549524
Wikipedia article on Murder of Junko Furuta
Gore threads on >>>/gif/
Daily reports in hospitals, mental asylums and courts/jails
Wildlife documentaries on predators

These will prove to the existence of an evil God, at least.

The most convincing argument for atheism is evolution, which essentially implies that life starts simple, and becomes more complex over time.

This would imply that even if there was a god, this god would come at a later date, as the final product of evolution. Not the first. Thus, no matter if there will someday be a god or not, at this current moment, there is no god.

And if you wish to change the definition of god, then the current god is the smartest, strongest, most adaptable, and most fit living entity currently in existence, who is still mortal, still fallible, and simply one of us.

Furthermore, another dark truth to this reality is that those who pray for mercy, those that pray for survival, those that pray for life, are still doomed to die, and quite often their deaths are simply horrific and painful and leave many loose ends to their lives, as if their prayers go unanswered, as if to say: Not even one speck of proof that a god exists, exists. There is no proof at all, and instead, people worship nothing.


In this same sense, the worship of "nothing" can take place, for anarchy and atheism are surely linked. To worship an authority and build institutions to worship them, where you are tithed, taxed, and demanded to submit and obey, is indeed the nature of both church and state, and both do not feature an actual divine king or magic-wielding god.

Instead, they are composed of fallible mortal humans who do as humans do, and enjoy power and money.

>>22560240

I didn't stop reading, and so I think you have a good point. The synthesis of objective and subjective go in only ONE direction though, and it creates this phrase: Subjective objective.

Thus, the goals/desire/purpose any one entity has can be termed their "subjective objectives."

Only a god could be an "Objective subject."

But that would be illogical, unless god is the whole of reality throughout all time. But then we can just use the phrase "whole of reality throughout all time."

There's really no need to bring in supernatural gods, as if mythological characters named Zeus or Yahweh or Jesus or Thor or Vishnu were actually real, or realistic things we should expect to see when we die.

We need to be realistic here, and focus on our limits, just as any singular entity is defined by their limits. That is the nature of "entity." Defined by limits, and to have only subjective objectives.

Never a being that exists outside of limits and is the objective subject. A believer in something like that would really have to show me very clear, obvious proof. And that proof doesn't exist.


Oh yes indeed, the proof should be extremely clear and obvious, and be so incredible clear and simply, that instead of wasting time with convoluted arguments, they should skip straight to showing me their god directly, and with such absolute directness that I couldn't possibly deny it with just a smug look. No, it should be utterly profound.

Such a thing has never been seen.

>>22561443
There's some of that hardcore edginess for which we were all waiting. Blood too? Holy shit!

>>22562027
It's skeletons bro, they're always inherently a little edgy. Here's a cool castle instead. Look how cool it is!

>>22561849
Why don't you explain. Pascal's wager, assessing risk vs reward, clearly falls apart with multiple "infinitely bad" and "infinitely good" outcomes. If someone fixed it then its a new argument that deserves expositing.

>>22560307
What are you even saying? Different groups have been motivated by their "God" forever, the problem is they are all different gods and mutually exclusive gods! That means, by definition, people have been laboring on monuments to nonexistent gods basically everywhere throughout history. Now THAT would be a lame way to spend your life.

>>22560419
All action requires a synthesis of the subjective with the objective. You act based on your subjective decisions, but you act upon an objective world exterior to yourself. But I can see that reading is not your strong suit, which is probably why you fit in so well here on /lit/.

>>22549524
Cycles of Time

>>22562019
Yes, you have identified the problem people like Spinoza ran into. If you try to define "God" rigorously enough, you have to boil him down to "the universe that exists", and then the dogmatics rage against you for blaspheming or whatever. At the end of the day, no reasonable person can believe in the personal God, that falls much more inline with psychological projection which Freud treats on in The Future of an Illusion.

Tri-omni Christian god gets BTFO by Epicurus argument so skipping that one. As for other possible interpretations of god:
>Pantheism
God becoming synonym for the universe strips him of any majesty, moral implications or direct relevancy for human life in a practical sense. Either leads to cult of nature or an esoteric mystic of completely arbitrary interpretation.
>Amoral god/god beyond good and evil
By severing the connection between human sense of good and evil and the divine will, God becomes a completetly alien being that's impossible to grasp in any way that's not by his direct intervention/revelation. Everything you assume of such a god is just a guess and so any form of cult to him becomes completely arbitrary because the only way for an individual to have any meaningful connection to this "god" aside from direct revelation is blindly believing what other people from the past and present have affirmed to be revelations of such a god, often in contradiction with each other. If you have no direct revelation of such god, assume your personal moral compass is of no relevance to that being, and decide to have some healthy skepticism towards other people's revelations, you're left with a completely blank slate of a god that you're better of ignoring
>Paganism/Other gods that are antropomorphic but not necesarily good
If you accept this scenario Pascal's Wager essentially puts you in a lose-lose situation anyway. Believing in any type of god is a lottery ticket among many and even not participating in the lottery might get you a better prize than doing so.

>>22549524
If you're looking for logical arguments to debunk spiritual experiences and faith, you're probably a hylic so far removed from those concept that you fail to understand them, and the fact that logic does not apply to them. Not because they are inherently opposed to logic, but rather because they work beyond our logical material world. The same way the qualia is immaterial, but we know for certain that it exists, as we experience it everyday.
TL;Dr: You're not seeking truth, you're seeking confirmation.

>>22562206
>Btfo by Epicurus
Midwitt take

>>22561849
can Schuon explain why, if it turns out Christianity is wrong and Hinduism is correct, I won't go to Hindu Hell for choosing Christianity and going against Hindu teachings? or vice versa? I sure would like to read Schuon to find out, but apparently being smugly superior and, ironically, arrogant was more important to you than pointing out which _parts_ of Schuon to find this alleged truth in

>>22562288
Correct, verily.

>>22562060
Naw, that's not very cool. Looks like an AI image from a few months ago when things were still coming out as accidentally Escher (or Francis Bacon if you go by picture of people and not structures). Stick to the edgy skeletons.

>>22562295
Howso?

>>22562164
So what am I supposed to want to do? Be Harry Connick Jr.? Because if so you’ll make my mother very happy, but that super gay and in Hell, so that doesn’t work for me brotha.

So I give creative control to someone else, who I know is a hell of a lot doper than I am, and their not apocrypha per se, they are arks. Because humans don’t need boat arks anymore, our ark is the word.

And the word is the apocrypha. And the apocrypha must endure. Because, you know, the flood is coming.

>>22562371
>Harry Connick Jr.
You write like a beat LARPing idiot but that reference was funny.

>>22562343
>Is god able to prevent evil but not willing, the he is malevolent.
That's where the whole argument fails. Humans do not get to impose their concept/views of evil and morality to deities, humans do not get to determine if evil should exist. I think the Epicurus argument is so popular these days because every retard under the sun feels so special they think they can reason on the same level as god. You can't.
The absence of evil might not even be desirable.
If there is no evil there is no discernable good. If there are no oppressions, then heroes do not exist.
Also, suffering doesn't need evil to exist, a cancer isn't evil.
Have you ever felt deeply in love with a girl when you were younger, only to realise years later that she really wasn't that incredible? What if this earthly life isn't as important as you think it is. You deem evil and suffering to be intolerable, but it may be nothing significant.
The Epicurus argument is the argument of a man on earth, who is projecting his extremely limited understanding of the world to dictate how a deity should behave.

>>22562404
Literally addressed on my earlier post
>>22562206
>By severing the connection between human sense of good and evil and the divine will, God becomes a completetly alien being that's impossible to grasp in any way that's not by his direct intervention/revelation. Everything you assume of such a god is just a guess and so any form of cult to him becomes completely arbitrary because the only way for an individual to have any meaningful connection to this "god" aside from direct revelation is blindly believing what other people from the past and present have affirmed to be revelations of such a god, often in contradiction with each other. If you have no direct revelation of such god, assume your personal moral compass is of no relevance to that being, and decide to have some healthy skepticism towards other people's revelations, you're left with a completely blank slate of a god that you're better of ignoring
Epicurus BTFOs an omnibenevolent god, if you give up Omnibenevelonce as a quality of God, then you're giving up any sort of A priori understanding of god and your god loses any substance that would make us morally indebted to him

>>22562447
The fact that God permits evil to exist on earth doesn't at all contradicts the idea that he is benevolent.

>>22562453
How can you assert he is benevolent if you concede that humanity doesn't have a grasp on what is truly good in the eyes of god. All your argument stems from human ignorance of what He might consider good
>Humans do not get to impose their concept/views of evil and morality to deities
>Humans do not get to determine if evil should exist
>The absence of evil MIGHT not even be desirable.
All these statements stablish that God's concept of good is fundemantally different than our human concept of good, which is what people refer to as Omnnibenevolence in general. If you defend God is Good but not human good but Good in a way we cannot ever grasp, that's essentially the same as leaving us in the absolute darkness of what's truly good.

>>22562371
Are you having some kind of medical event?

>>22560261
>>there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom
This is Jesus talking about the Transfiguration which literally happens in the very next chapter.

>>22562404
You don't understand. Yog-Sosoth loves you. Yog-Sosoth is good. Does it look like his supplicants are put in positions of unfathomable agony for all eternity? Sure. But that is from your limited human reason and your faulty human conception of good and evil. Only Yog-Sosoth knows what is good. Submit to Yog-Sosoth.

>>22562814
And Judas hung himself, his body bloated and rotted while he hung, the rope snapped, and he fell and burst his guts out. Apologists have an answer for everything in the bible because they don't care about what is the most plausible scenario, they just want to show that their belief is not logically impossible. Same thing with the quote, transfiguration is a possible but not plausible interpretation. Biblical scholars think the kingdom refers to a literal kingdom. The full context of the quote is
>For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done. 28 Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”
Repayment happens on judgement day, not the transfiguration.

>>22562985
>Biblical "scholars" take the position that makes it seem the bible least credible
>"Christians" take the position that makes it the bible seem the most credible
You blew the case wide open.

>>22563270
Scholars take the most credible explanation. Why would Jesus say "some of you will be alive" regarding an event that takes place 6 days later. The previous passage which is part of the same periscope talks about judgement day. Both Daniel and the gospel of thomas mention a literal kingdom on earth. Its less clear in the canonical gospels but the Kingdom of God is taken to be during the end times by people who try to reconstruct what Jesus' actual teachings were.

>>22562126
>>22562309
I expect you'll reject this notion with every fibre of your being, but please try and be open-minded enough to understand that the religions of the world are transcendentally unified. There is no 'right or wrong' religion, that is a weird delusion, there is only spirituality and an outward expression that comes with it, which is contingent on circumstances such as time period, location and culture. Again, read Schuon. Pic rel's a good place to start. It makes zero sence whatsoever that you should come to the conclusion that converting to one religion puts you at risk of going to the hell of another. It's bizarre and illogical, which is a common denominator among you lot. Not to be rude; I just call it l see it.

>>22560261
None of those things are convincing arguments for atheism. Like, absolutely none of those.

i propose a new refutal to pascal wager
>If you dont believe in (insert religion) AND the Ultrafaggot (a divine being but not a god, made of pure homosexuality) you will go to hell for eternal torture
>IT IS NOT ENOUGH TO BELIEVE IN (INSERT RELIGION HERE) IF YOU DONT BELIEVE IN ULTRAFAGGOT YOU WONT BE SAVED
>Now that you have accepted Ultrafaggot in your heart, i have a confession to make:
>It is not enough to believe in (Insert Religion here) and Ultrafaggot
>One must also believe in GIGASLUT
I call this the problem of infinite adition.

This thread made me realise that atheists have no concept of ethics and metaphysics. The closest thing to metaphysics for the atheist is a washed-out version of epistemology engineered to be as positivist as possible, with zero regard to any transcendent sort of property of reality.

>>22565370
>Atheists live in the real world
>I live in the ideal world
>Mine is superior because (x)
i hate other atheists as much as you do but you are positively retarded

>>22565381
All I'm saying is that they regard the world in a way where they don't take into account a potential 'higher' plain of being, demonstrating merely the empirical and analytical study of facts divorced from principles, a dispersion in an indefinite multitude of insignificant details, and the accumulation of unfounded and mutually destructive hypotheses and of fragmentary views leading to nothing other than those practical applications that constitute the sole real superiority of modern civilisation—a scarcely enviable superiority, moreover, which, by stifling every other preoccupation, has given the present civilisation the purely material character that makes it a veritable monstrosity.—It doesn't work the other way around, you can't studiously regard the absence of a thing. You think that having a narrower view of reality is better? You absolutely retarded nigger?

>>22565409
>You think that having a narrower view of reality is better?
I hope you broaden your views to include furry porn ideals into the mix, because if you do not, your point of view is incomplete and inferior. Lets add some pedophile ideals too.
Fucking retarded animal, you had a great criticism of modern day civilization and you ruined with a single line evidentiating a superiority complex thats based in absolute retardation

>>22549524
Asking for convincing arguments FOR atheism is kinda of approaching it from the wrong perspective. All an atheist is is someone who is not convinced that there is a god. You don't have to be convinced of anything else and you don't have to be convinced there is NO god, all you have to do is say "I'm not convinced that any religion is actually correct" and you're an atheist by definition. It's a negative position, not a positive one. You just have to show that religions are nonsense which has been done over and over again logically, philosophically, experimentally etc.

Can anyone demonstrate to you, convincingly, that there is a god/gods/some kind of supernatural? If no, then you're already an atheist.

In my opinion religions are so self-evidently ludicrous that I didn't need to be convinced by anything, but of course I understand the main arguments against the typical omniscient, omnipotent, omni-benevolent god archetype. For an in-depth evaluation into more sort of 'real-world' refutations of Christianity I'd recommend something like Why Won't God Heal Amputees? (https://whywontgodhealamputees.com/god-toc.htm).). It's written by a guy who obviously has no love for Christianity (whereas I'm more ambivalent, I just think it's incorrect) and he's got a very liberal-left progressive bias that runs through his writing (which I find annoying since I'm not a progressive or left-wing at all), but the foundational arguments he makes against the concepts being brought up are pretty watertight.

>>22565426
Go fuck yourself you illiterate fuckhead

>>22565409
>a scarcely enviable superiority
when are you moving to Kabul?

>>22565710
>I-im superior because "p"
>here is why "p" is retarded
>NOOOOOO SHUT UP YOU ARE DUUUUMB
i accept ur concession

>>22565409
Atheists are sooo dumb they don't take into account unobservable unevidenced higher planes of being. Specifically the higher plane of being I believe in. Its so easy to believe! All they would have to do is be told as a kid that if they didn't believe in this higher plane they would be punished. But no, they persist in their disbelief, citing modernist degeneracy like empiricism and reason.

>>22566137
>there are countless people with near death experiences who will tell you there is life after death
>there are children that tell you about who they were in their past life
>you can go to a known haunted location and interact with ghosts
>you can take DMT and see the spirit world right now
>you are forced to sleep and dream for half your life for a reason
>it is impossible for something to come from nothing if there is no spiritual component
>science can't solve the problem of consciousness
>tell a rational person this
>>>22566137
>Atheists are sooo dumb
Yes.

>>22566225
>it is impossible for something to come from nothing
agreed, christer creation ex nihilo is retarded

>>22566225
>you can take DMT and see the spirit world right now
opinion discarded

>>22557637
Pascal's wager presupposes that the criteria for getting a good afterlife is that you happen to hold beliefs about something that has no relation to the quality of your character or competence or any other trait that it actually makes sense to filter for. It only works for the most retarded religions.

>>22551106
The problem of evil on works for religions that make ridiculous absolutist claims about god. A god doesn't need to be omni-anything, it just needs to be first. If a sentient being creates the universe, it doesn't matter how it runs the place, it's still god.

>>22566225
>science CAN'T solve the problem of consciousness
Did you ask science that?
>there are children who can tell you about their past lives
The notoriously reliable children's testimony
>DMT
Dude weed lmao
>You have to sleep and dream for half your life
Those other arguments were not compelling but this one is very persuasive. Good job.
>Atheists are soo dumb
Lmao

>>22565313
How does this work? Does it have all the dogma, like so you can't eat pork and cows? Extreme syncretism isn't an answer to Pascal's wager if everybody just wins. Or do atheists still get condemned to hellfire+hades+reincarnated-as-an-anteater if they don't believe.

>>22565313
yeah this just looks like your and Schuon's answer to
>Pascal's Wager isn't a valid reason to start believing in a religion, because for every one you pick there's an infinitely large chance you'll go to the hell of _another_ religion anyway if _that_ turns out to be the correct one, because you believed in the wrong thing and didn't do that religion's practices
was
>I'll just mash up all the religions into my own religion that won't have that issue!
and the issue with that is that it doesn't actually fix the core concern, because those religions have contradictory spiritualities and practices and many will send you to their hell equivalent for either believing in the wrong thing (Christianity, Islam) or believing in the right thing, but wrong (again, Christianity). so if you throw your lot in with the Schuon smoothie, there's still the very real chance of, get this, Schuon's faith being _wrong_

this is the logical conclusion anyone who doesn't already agree with you would pull from the nature of extant religions and the nature of Pascal's Wager, and you haven't made a salient argument for why this would be an illogical conclusion to draw that isn't "read this 207-page book cover to cover and agree with me about it"

>>22567047
really, it's just
>w-well my OC, Omnigod, is actually ALL the gods, so believing in him counts as believing in ALL the gods at the same time!
>what do you mean some of those gods have proscribed that polytheism is a sin
>what do you mean these religions have different taboos and requirements

what arguments can _you_ give to support this idea and defend Pascal's Wager's validity with it? surely you can just quote relevant passages to justify them?

>>22567071
oh, and different afterlives, can't forget those

>>22557653
Can't you enjoy life without worshipping a God beyond good and evil that you speculate to exist?

so basically Schuon's just doing this

>>22551731
Turtles! Turtles all the way way down! You're not as logical as you think you're being.

>>22560261
>>22565357
Christians are stuck in their dogma, if an atheist was to convert a Christian without attacking christianity it would amount to saying
>None of what you believe is true therefore there is no reason to believe in a God
This is obviously not persuasive which is why showing the faults in their dogma is the first step in conversion.

>>22567481
Too bad atheism is an intelligence LARP wherein ideologues spout the same simplistic bullshit to feel superior over people their strawmen.

>>22549524

>>22567560
>>22567607
>Religious
>This lack of piety
if religion good for the soul, why are religious people sadistic?

>>22556677
Nigger

>>22567560
*they* Turns out the atheists superior intelligence extends to spelling. But you caught us. We are just contrarians, feeding our inferiority complexes. The arguments for Christianity are insurmountable. The Bible, ghostwritten by God, is proof enough. But then there are also the gaps in human knowledge, which only God can fill. There is the objective morality that God made, beamed into my noggin to remind me not to rape and kill people. There is the argument from causality, that every cause needs an effect so therefore there is a cause that doesn't need an effect and that cause has strong opinions on suet. And then there is the miracle of Jesus appearing on a slice of toast.

>>22549524
On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin

>>22567666
>>22559843

>>22567607
>Out of context Bible verse
kek, because if only you had context you'd understand why God sent bears to murder youths for making some rude comments!

>>22559843
My favorite thing is asking a Christian whether they would prefer a person be a secular atheist or a fundamentalist Muslim. The answer never fails to amuse!

>>22560301
I love atheist threads because there are always butthurt christcucks seething at the undefeated Epicurus

>>22568810
>GOD IS MEAN!!!
See?

>>22570298
>God shouldn't sic bears on rude children
Why are atheists such pussies??

>>22570298
>Killing children is just a run of the mill example of someone being mean
This is your brain on Christian morality

>>22567607
Not God mean christians mean if God real why bad thing. More like "why god create world full of stuff he hates if all powerful" "why god keep changing his mind on stuff". The other 3 are valid why god lie about creation. Why God not show himself to anyone else if he wants everyone to know. Why god not shoe himself at all if he want everyone to know.

>>22560633
Just because someone says that are an atheist doesn't mean they are. Especially people who say Buddhist or pagan. If you think about it why say anything at all .

>>22567560
Ok what's you're argument then? Present it in its unstrawmanned form.
>why should I waste my time on explaining it to ontologically ignorant atheists. Pearls before swine
Why are you here then? Just to waste your life? To feel good about yourself for writing "atheist bad not really smart" on the computer.

>>22557595

It is to honest, non stubborn people.

>>22560283

Put down the crack pipe, ESL monkey.

>>22571990

Yeah, I'm a hardcore atheist, but (right below me this thread at the moment,) is "The Problem of Evil" thread, which I recognize as a purely Christian theology thread, and thus, it would be absolutely rude of me to go in there and start telling them they're all wrong wrong wrong about their entire religion.

Right now, the current concept introduced in this thread, which is yet to be answered, is "God killed innocent children for a petty crime."

This might seem like merely a story, yet, the true issue is the significance of this act. Killing children? That is not a joke. That is a serious crime that must have an extremely good reason. If the Bible was written to be absolutely fiction, then I would just ignore it, like how I might ignore that random wizard in Lord of the Rings, that guy who wasn't even in the movie. I can't even remember his name, but yet, I don't see any good reason to REALLY bother with questioning that, because it's just fiction and not a huge religion that a large percentage of my own society believe in and use to influence political choices and social norms.

When a myth like Passover exists, where there is either a holy angel carrying out the will of God, and killing all the first born Egyptian children exist, then if you remove the magic, remove the angel, we are dealing with a group of people who are going door to door in the night, sneaking inside, and killing children.

This is a celebrated holiday by real people in real life, as if this was actually an event that they either did, in the context of atheism being true, or believe was done by God.

No matter how this is defined, along with the bear attack summoned by God, we are dealing with child killing here.

We need to know for absolutely sure: Are these morals good? Are these stories true? How true are they? Bear attacks can happen for real, but what about Passover? How can that possibly happen for real, if God is not real?

Yet, if God is real, if GOD IS REAL.... then what is going on here? Could our first born children all die? Die before being born? What is opposition to "abortion" then? In the context that this Bible is what abortion oppositionists believe is more than mere fiction, but is actually a source of truth and morality? Abortion is not the topic here, but "child killing" is, and so to have this wicked sense of hypocrisy at hand here frightens me.

There are terrible shadows slithering around in the dark here, and within these gaps, I do not see a god. I see humans who believe in a malicious narrative, one that is either true, but evil, or much much much worse, due to the fact that belief in something untrue, and certainly evil, is so incredibly popular.

And let me say just three more terrifying words: Islam also exists.

>>22549524
short and to the point
https://existentialcomics.com/comic/70

>>22572008
>this hysterical, womanly wailing
You have to go back, you stupid faggot.

>>22572141
Good argument but doesnt address the trascendental question
>Souls, from outside the world, do not have to follow causality or other limitations to make a decision
but in practice, this just makes them a random number generator at best

>>22572947
>Killing children good to own the redditards
we have come full circle
>>22567623

>>22549524
Nietzsche, "Antichrist"

>>22572008
>Killing children? That is not a joke.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infanticide#Paleolithic_and_Neolithic

It's called 'birth control'.

>>22560301
>this fucking level of seething
go back

>>22567047
>>22566734
Are you dumb? Like, did you actually read what I wrote? Where the hell did you see 'extreme syncretism' mentioned anywhere in what I wrote?

>>22561892
No bro, you don't understand, it is all part of God's unknowable plan. Junko is in heaven right now and the people who raped and tortured her are going to hell for all eternity, so it's all good.
Who are you to question any of the decisions god makes on his creation anyway? You're just an ant, you know nothing. Just shut the fuck up and let god do as god does. And he is good, because he is god. Might makes right. Are you stronger than god?

That's what I got out of reading Job, and I think it's the best answer to the problem of evil Christianity can come up with.

>>22554602
Out of those three I only know Ehrman. Do you disagree with the overall characterization of Jesus as an apocalyptic preacher who believed he would soon rule over a kingdom on earth?

>>22573640

No, I think Jesus never intended to die, but that he was truly a cult-leader, and nothing more. But his own desire was that as a cult-leader, he would at least try to instill good morals into his believers.

Not that that matters. Any cult leader can say a bunch of wise parables. What meaning was there to Jesus curing the blind man, for example?

Did you read it? In the end, Jesus doesn't say, "To be blind is to not see. And to not see is to not know what is out there." No, he doesn't say something obvious and true, or something better than the shit I just made up there, he just says "FAITH! Faith is the best! Just believe in God. Yep, believe in God and be impressed by this miracle! I am God!"

That's all he ends up really truly saying.

A lot of Jesus'' morals and parables are like this. They don't teach kindness, wisdom, knowledge, or useful skills or hobbies. He teaches faith and obedience and belief that he's meant to be some sort of king.

He wants power. He wants people to submit to him. He'll tell a few wise stories to get his foot in the door, but by the end, he's talking about kingdoms and power and how he wants it all.

I think Jesus was a bad man, and for that I weep, because even as an atheist, I can only wish that Jesus, unlike his sadistic followers, was a good man.

>>22573776
Thanks for the laugh.

>>22573776
How does that contradict Ehrman?

>>22573852
Laugh, but its a reasonable interpretation. The basic premise of Jesus's main message being "believe in me or else" holds true for both Christian and atheist. The difference is that Christians think that circumstances were such that Jesus' message is true, that God cursed men so that if you think a bad thought you go to hell but if you believe you go to heaven. Whereas atheists reject that and think Jesus was trying to control his cult.

>>22573852
No respect for your enemies?
No love for them?

Just sadistic laughter? Hmm. What a strange man you are. At least I can say you're welcome. I hope the laughter was laughter that left your eyes shining with happiness and joy. Laughter that uplifted your spirits and brought you to a lovely mood.

Rather than cruel, mocking, sadistic laughter from an evil man.

>>22556769
Anything is tiny depending on perspective