/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.10793828]

Are there reasons (not social or psychological) to believe in beliefs within abrahamic religions that are not just philosophical theism?
Even if you agree with the cosmological argument and all that stuff, why does it suddenly make sense to believe in revealed religions and all their other seemingly unjustified beliefs?
I don't get why for example christians act as if philosophy proved their whole religion although I guess the obsession most antireligious people have with disproving philosophical theism is even weirder. (why not just see philosophical theism as a good philosophical theory yet still think that religions themselves are bullshit built around some sound philosophical concepts?)

[Anonymous No.10793893]

Well, I'm not religious (anymore), but if you accept aristotelian ontology and classical theism, then go on to accept at least some Thomism, then look into the history of church doctrine etc., it becomes attractive to consider Catholicism because it's most friendly to an intellectual understanding of God. Then there's scholastic polemicists like Feser which are interesting if you ignore some of the problems (failure to adequately address Kantian criticisms of this kind of metaphysics, and overall the questionable historiography in presenting every post-scholastic as being hopelessly lost and misguided)...
Personally I can't really swallow it anymore in view of contemporary metaphysical rivals like process ontology and phenomenology, but scholasticism presents a serious intellectual current and it's worth going deeper into it - if nothing else it gives you a much better background to read the moderns.

[Anonymous No.10793932]

>>10793828
Look into the Summa Contra Gentiles. It's four volumes of Aquinas trying to do what you're asking.

[Anonymous No.10793959]

Of course there is. Christianity is centered around a very unique historical claim that a man calling himself God died and resurrected. There is evidence for this claim and there are competing explanations which can be weighed against each other. Nobody is pretending that philosophy alone proves Christianity right, we only claim that the God we find through philosophy looks an awful lot like the one revealed through revelation.

[Anonymous No.10794176]

>>10793893
>(failure to adequately address Kantian criticisms of this kind of metaphysics

Is there really anything to address? Kant didn't understand the distinction between essence and existence which essential to understanding Thomistic metaphysics. His criticism are based on a strawman and Feser goes over this in his beginners guide to Aquinas.

[Anonymous No.10794250]

>>10794176
The claim that Feser defeats the Kantian challenge to traditional metaphysics in such a short work is pretty ridiculous. It is a serious challenge that contemporary metaphysicists are still responding to. IIRC Feser just defends one of Thomas' Five Proofs there, and I don't doubt that he is very good at those and putting them in the most plausible form, but the foundations of the whole Aristotelian paradigm is what is being questioned here, not specific concepts.

[Anonymous No.10794274]

>>10794250

If Kant's criticisms are in fact nonstarters then it wouldn't take much to defeat them. All you would have to do is explain why and he did that by pointing out the metaphysics that Kant is criticizing aren't the metaphysics of Aquinas or Aristotle. The essence/existence distinction is foundational and if you get that wrong the entire house falls down.

[Anonymous No.10794293]

>>10794274
What exactly did Kant get wrong about it?

[Anonymous No.10794303]

>>10794293

He conflated essence and existence.

[Anonymous No.10794318]

>>10794303
Uh, no? He says explicitly in CoPR that substance as a permanent thing in time is distinct from any particular matter

[Anonymous No.10794329]

>>10794318

It's irrelevant. He believed Aquinas thought essence and existence were the same thing. Don't you understand? He was criticizing a strawman.

[Anonymous No.10794342]

>>10793828
A guy with a funny hat said so, as did the other guys with funny hats who preceded him

[Anonymous No.10794347]

>>10794329
Isn't it one of the scholastic arguments that the essence of God implies existence, and only in this case?

[Anonymous No.10794356]

>>10794347

No it's not.

[Anonymous No.10794365]

>>10794356
The ontological argument isn't scholastic?

[Anonymous No.10794367]

>>10794365

Essence implying existence is Cartesian

[Anonymous No.10794392]

It is literally millennia of wisdom. To think we have all the answers and that it is not possible for science to be incorrect is more of a leap of faith than believing in the Abrahamic God. That's why you see Muslims on here, friend. Not because they are Arab sympathizers, but because the possibility of a God that has intervened through societies' path is very likely.

Just don't read Richard Dawkins, thanks.

[Anonymous No.10794403]

>>10794392
>Appeal to authority
wew
>Appeal to "ancient wisdom"
w e w
>Science is in any opposite to faith
WEW
>Muslims
W E W

[Anonymous No.10794408]

>>10794367
The original formulation takes the same path, though it doesn't use the same phraseology.

In any event the argument from the first cause is equally invalid for the reason that it proceeds from the pure idea of causality to an ostensible natural use of causality.

[Anonymous No.10794411]

>>10794347
Arithmetic teaches us that from all numbers comes unity, and unity is the first perfect number. All other prime numbers resolve themselves into unity, and unity is the first number that is both prime and incomposite, and perfect. All other numbers proceed from it, and every number has it as a factor.

So you can see through the parallels of perfect numbers, the perfection of God himself, and through prime numbers, the indivisible nature of the creator, all things proceeding from him, but nothing creating unity, because unity is an essentially non-composite idea.

[Anonymous No.10794415]

>>10794403
I'll bet you think you're clever, kid. You're also most likely under the age of twenty.

[Anonymous No.10794418]

>>10793828
>muh raisins
Fuck off, Platonist.
>>10793893
Scholasticism is fucking bunk in light of process theology and phenomenology. Hell, it was bunk before that too. It was bunk before Thomas. It was bunk before Aristotle.

[Anonymous No.10794442]

>>10794411
That's a nice analogy, but it doesn't prove anything apart from the necessity of the conception of quantity regarding its own abstraction. It's not possible to reason from the unconditional necessity of a judgment to the unconditional necessity of the thing being judged. It does not follow from the necessary idea that the angles of a triangle sum to 180 degrees that a triangle necessarily exists.

[Anonymous No.10794517]

>>10794442
>It does not follow from the necessary idea that the angles of a triangle sum to 180 degrees that a triangle necessarily exists.

So that is obviously not what I'm doing here. There are very little parallels from geometry to arithmetic, but I can make very many from arithmetic to geometry.

I will say this: to show you what I mean, just a cursory glance at Euclid's Book VII will tell you everything there is to know. There is no division after unity. From unity all other magnitudes are derived. The statement you responded to, is a great argument for the parallels of unity and God, and the only supporting evidence I have that this is the case, is that these traits are implicit in the very system we've discovered.

Trust me, it's a solid argument. It's the one all Pythagorean mathematicians make to support the idea of a divine being. Mathematics can make you religious for this very reason.

[Anonymous No.10794541]

>>10794415
>I'll bet you think you're clever, kid.
You're the one that sounds like a typical philosophically untrained imbecile who thinks his musings about muuuuhhh old knowledge are in any way interesting or intelligent.
>You're also most likely under the age of twenty.
You're also most likely a twentysomething.

[Anonymous No.10794557]

>>10794517
We seek unity in our explanations because our mind is structured to experience things in such a manner - our systems of formalised thought (like Euclid) conform to our own mental structures of thinking, not innate features of the noumenal world. The world doesn't contain such things as essences or the property of existence.

[Anonymous No.10794575]

>>10794517
It's an analogy the validity of which rests implicitly on the idea that, because a unity is necessary for certain judgments, it necessarily exists. So this is is not a proper argument, but, like I said, it's a nice analogy to illustrate the idea of God.

[Anonymous No.10794634]

>>10794541
So what? You probably like anime or something too. Get the fuck out of here, kid.
>>10794557
Mathematics was discovered, not created. Next.
>>10794575
See above.

The core idea and tenet of these kinds of philosophies is that the system was DISCOVERED, and not created.

That it lied in wait for us to discover it, to the pleasure of God, instead of lying undiscovered.

[Anonymous No.10794667]

>>10794634
Yes, it was discovered to exist within our own mental processes. This is the entire point of a synthetical proposition. The forms already existed, they had to be fitted together to be made sensible, though the material for this construction already existed.

[Anonymous No.10794736]

>>10794667
Then the system of arithmetic does in fact conform to the structures of the external world.

For instance, barter and trade necessitates a system of arithmetic, whose origins can be found in the human body i.e. we have ten digits in two places, and how this base ten system shows us various sorts of properties which you cannot receive with any other numerical system, that are analogous to various spiritual qualities of mankind and civilization itself.

[Anonymous No.10794799]

>>10794736
Of course it does, but only to the extent that these structures are considered phenomena.

I don't see how this would prove the existence of God, though.

[Anonymous No.10794808]

>>10793959
>There is evidence for this claim
No there isnt, we just know its claimed.

[Anonymous No.10794886]

>>10794808

Yeah if you define evidence in such a way to exclude witness testimony then you're right. There's no evidence for Caesar crossing the Rubicon either.

[Anonymous No.10794937]

>>10794886
What kind of comparison is that? Crossing the Rubicon is within the conventional, physical realm of possibility. The historical testimony for Caesar may be suspect, as it is for a lot of the ancients, but useful to us as long as it represents something which might actually happen. The resurrection of Jesus Christ, however, is a claim of such supernatural unlikeliness, something purported to be the only instance of such an event ever happening, that it requires an extraordinary suspension of disbelief. Combined with the massive variety of the accounts of Jesus in the first century CE, to believe one specific account of it which largely survived due to institutional backing, is not exactly a persuasive historical argument.

[Anonymous No.10794986]

The point I'm making is that there's no evidence for most of history under your definition of evidence if you're consistent in excluding witness testimony.

If you want to talk about possibilities regarding the resurrection then lets do that. If you're evaluating a supernatural claim you have to allow for the possibility of a supernatural occurrence. Most historians agree that the early Christians genuinely believed they witnessed the resurrected Christ. From there only a few serious explanations for this belief have been put forward. They were all hallucinating, they were lying, or it actually happened as they believed. Hallucination is implausible because that's not how hallucinations work. The same hallucinations don't occur to groups of people at different times and places. They could have been lying but why would they have then died for what they knew to be a lie? There wasn't any monetary gain to be found as an early Christian. All they got was torture and exile for their trouble. This leaves the third option as the most plausible.

[Anonymous No.10794994]

>>10794986
meant for >>10794937

[Anonymous No.10795011]

>>10793828

>philosophical theism as a good philosophical theory

Nope.

[Anonymous No.10795034]

>>10793828
>Are there reasons (not social or psychological
no

scratch anyone enough no matter where they stand on this and you will reach something extremely personal that the individual satisfies through whatever their 'belief' system is

[Anonymous No.10795041]

>>10794937
>to believe one specific account of it which largely survived due to institutional backing, is not exactly a persuasive historical argument

"I do believe in Christianity, and my impression is that a system must be divine which has survived so much insane mismanagement." -G. K. Chesterton

[Anonymous No.10795042]

>>10793828
Of course the miracles of the bible. Just look at the resurrection all they needed to do was show the body and it would have killed it off.

[Anonymous No.10795081]

>>10795034
What do you mean by "extremely personal"? I'm against revenge for purely egoistic reasons, since it provides meager emotional benefits in exchange for potentially lasting physical harm. I think this belief can be generalized effectively, that is, I think it would apply to any other person than myself. Even if you're taking revenge for someone close to you being killed, the harms still outweigh the benefits. I don't think this is "extremely" personal, and I think it applies equally well to every individual

[Anonymous No.10795088]

>>10794799
Because God has created us, and this world? Thus he has created the arithmetical system, which is further justified by the evidence of the system itself.

I mean this kind of evidence is pretty damning when you start to think about how the parallels of religious existence perpetuate themselves in the very numerical system we have discovered.

[Anonymous No.10795152]

>>10795088
You're talking "the world" in a noumenal signification. The idea of God isn't necessary for arithmetic to correspond to the world if the world is phenomenal, because all experience would necessarily conform to the forms of space and time. On the other hand, that arithmetic corresponds to the world in itself, we have no way of knowing, because the idea of a mathematical object outside the bounds of experience would necessarily resist all attempts at quantification. We wouldn't even be able to say quantity applied to it, we could only guess. In this latter case the faith expressed in the idea "God wills it" is indeed the best possible explanation. Thankfully this latter case is not the actual one.

[Anonymous No.10795154]

>>10795081
>What do you mean by "extremely personal"?
personal experiences and the particular way they imprinted on the individual that at least in part contributed to making up the psychological needs/desires that the person looks for in religion.

even among people who are 'religious' or are otherwise regularly involved in some sort of community its very much a casual lifestyle choice with the extended community echoing the personality of the individual.

what does revenge have to do with the idea of some guy making a universe solely to witness the tension of humans making up their minds about him

[Anonymous No.10795175]

>>10795154
The question was
>Are there reasons (not social or psychological) to believe in beliefs within abrahamic religions that are not just philosophical theism?

I gave the example that the understanding of the futility of vengeance can be arrived at without necessarily believing in an Abrahamic religion. By "beliefs" I think he means "any beliefs" rather than "all beliefs," the context of the post bears this out

[Anonymous No.10795196]

>>10795152
>The idea of God isn't necessary for arithmetic to correspond to the world if the world is phenomenal,
But that's exactly it. The idea that the world is phenomenal inherently goes against a constructed truth. In other words, the truth being that reality has been constructed by a divine hand, who intervenes, is now replaced with a world being a completely random, spiritual experience detached from a central creator. It's inherently chaotic and not attached to any divine notion of knowing for certain who has created this reality and world.

Meanwhile the arithmetical table, which you say asserts no kind of evidence of a material manifestation of a creator, affords many symmetrical ratios and ideas that are simply not present in any other base numbering system. I would not believe I would have to use Pythagoreanism to prove the existence of God but it has literally come to that. I stipulate that you could not find any other way to create a more perfect system than the numbering system we currently use, and that the discovery of this system in its entirety is evidence that God has created systems and ideas that are wholly 'Good' and symmetrical (i.e. Platonically beautiful) that we have yet to discover even down to today's year.

When you describe a phenomenon you are explicitly detaching this idea from a Divine creation, or any sort of divine command. This is obviously the fundamental problem I have. I could reference various religious sources like The Holy Bible or The Koran which state animals were put onto this earth FOR our use. FOR us to discover their application. That horses were put here for us to ride on, cows to be our feeders, etc. etc.

In other words, that at some point we would figure out the most perfect way to organize ourselves/society/our thoughts, but that these avenues had not been discovered until they finally were.

[Anonymous No.10795289]

>>10795196
Phenomena are not random. Phenomena are the only things that can be described with any level of certainty. For how would you understand something noumenal? You can't see it, you can't understand it, you can't know it. This is no form of knowledge which can possibly partake of it. That which is phenomenal, on the other hand, must necessarily conform to the laws of space and time, which imply identity, a conception of infinity, of quantity, of possibility, and so on.

But let's take the example of a base ten numerical system. Treating things as they are in themselves, we would never know for certain that we in fact have ten fingers, and ten toes. It would forever be possible that our poor human sense organs were construing things "objectively" rather than "formally." But on admitting the assumption that we will only be able to know things as they are perceived, and not as they are in themselves (absent space and time), we are able to say that we have ten fingers, and ten toes, and we are able to construct conceptions from objects in intuition using quantitative abstraction. Through this process we arrive at a base ten numerical system.

Further, your claim intervenes in his own reality makes it (this reality) even more chaotic. For in that case God could at any moment rescind one of his laws, and cause gravity not to exist, or to reverse, or cause light to travel at half of its speed, or violate physics in any number of ways. In this sense God is not an embodiment of order, but of chaos. I'll take Spinoza's God over this one any day of the week (provided God doesn't do away with days).

[Anonymous No.10795295]

>>10795289
**claim God intervenes

[Anonymous No.10795297]

>>10793893
How come you dont find that ontology and classical theism to be convincing? Was it just Kant?

[Anonymous No.10795351]

>>10795289
The rest of your post is more of the same, I will say that it is obvious that you've given no definition from how phenomena is derived ITSELF.

But this post stood out particularly.
>For in that case God could at any moment rescind one of his laws
This argument is particularly puerile and childish. Would your 'Spinozan' God have no human characteristics he might do something this absurd and inane, but luckily for me, my God has the highest virtue possible, the likes which are expounded in Laws and The Republic, the idea of which is central to most religious theories, that rather than approach life like it's a video game, or a role playing game, we try to approach it with the sense that God exists as a grand arbiter over all, and that there is nothing that can come between a perfect understanding of God and perfection itself. In other words, this little greentexted claim is wrong for two reasons

a) It is illogical. Taking away gravity from the created system would be like taking away grammar from a sentence, or taking away symmetry from a leaf. It just doesn't make any sense, what do you suppose him to do, recreate the system without gravity? But the system was perfect WITH gravity, ergo you are stipulating that God create an imperfect system
Q.E.D.

b) It is immoral and nonsensical, the opposite of God. Two of these separate traits, immorality and nonsensibility, develop coeval with chaos, which originates after the development of ideas, governments, institutions. Like a number line, the relative spacing of perfect numbers distances themselves out exponentially, and the amount of deficient and overcrowded numbers between each perfect increases. The parallels for this and reality are obvious. Far be it from God to introduce chaos into a system, when the perfection has proceeded from unity in a directly proportional way commensurate with numerical logic. The Good that can be observed in your human societies is evidence of God, as verified by Plato. The evil that you can see manifest itself, into notions of imperfection, is something else entirely. You are worshiping the deficient numbers, not the perfect ones. You have settled for the infinite multitude, as opposed to the exponentially more finite infinite series of perfect numbers proceeding from zero to infinity.

Your Spinozan God has no origin. No character. No directives. His primary purpose is a logical derivation from philosophical conjecture. He has held the weight of his religious mistake when he died: that God is not like us is a logical fallacy of the highest order.

[Anonymous No.10795418]

>>10795351
>I will say that it is obvious that you've given no definition from how phenomena is derived ITSELF.
What do you mean? Are you asking how we can know we sense what we sense?
>This argument is particularly puerile and childish.
Ok, I thought this was a discussion in good faith. Have I insulted you in some way? And, anyway, I know that God rescinding the law of gravity would be illogical. That's what's wrong with the idea that He intervenes in the system He created. If He were perfect eternally, so would be the system, and there would be no need to intervene at any time. So I don't understand where exactly he is supposed to intervene.

[Anonymous No.10795466]

>>10793893
If you don't like Thomism, consider becoming Orthodox.

[Anonymous No.10795472]

>>10795418
>Are you asking how we can know we sense what we sense?
Not quite. What I'm asking is how does this idea originate in the first place. Surely this phenomenon must be external? We aren't going full solipsism here are we? Surely our sense perceptions derive their validity from outside ourselves, correct? Your notion of there being no way to tell between ourselves and the outside reality is the very concept I am against, I'm afraid.

> If He were perfect eternally, so would be the system, and there would be no need to intervene at any time.
Again, why do we act evil sometimes if the system is perfect, etc. etc. This point you've just stated is tantamount to saying 'how does evil exist'. We know it exists because of various things, like God giving us freedom, or Satan, or any kind of fallen angel or human deviating from God's way. We know that God existing does not mean that inherently evil ceases to exist.

It's like the cave analogy. Where The Good is the sun, and darkness is evil. Clearly there are some parallels between Good and Evil and God and Evil, to be sure. The absence of God's influenced manifestly exists because of the interference of evil humans, but once you've escaped the cave, you see the full light of day and are embraced in God's glory, where there is no absence of his light.

Of course, this is an analogy, I don't mean to say that the night is evil and the day is good, this is far too simplistic for our tastes, but I do mean to say that the source from where all good comes from and originates, is hard to contemplate directly or perceive, just as this discussion indicates.

Much like this, the Sun is rather hard to look at itself, and is the source of all our light and some of our power during the day. Clearly this is a parable, much like the arithmetical system, that originates from God's creation itself.

I have seen my fair share of atheists on here, which is why when this place started becoming religious I got very excited. Clearly there is some nihilistic, depressing strain of individuals who simply think just because they were not born attractive, or have a plethora of fortune or friends, that they shouldn't believe in God and that he is cruel. Simply accepting he exists, however, is enough for change to exert its influence in your life. One step might be to detach yourself from porn or anime. I constantly fight a battle everyday with myself between the forces of Good and Evil, much like how society seems to be functioning today. These are the sorts of battles Plato talks about in Book I of The Laws, when he says that the battles nations fight are much like the battles we fight in ourselves. He doesn't outright say this, he implies it when talking about the two types of warfare, then says the individual is constantly at battle with himself.

[Anonymous No.10795490]

>>10794634
>Mathematics was discovered, not created. Next.
Nope. Fuck off, Platonist.

[Anonymous No.10795500]

>>10795490
t. Zermelo

[Anonymous No.10795513]

>>10795472
Just because the laws that govern phenomena are subjectively derived, that doesn't mean the phenomena themselves are subjective. That's the difference between a judgement of perception and a judgment of experience. A perceptual judgment is simply something like, "this cake is sweet." It's completely subjective and doesn't necessarily conform to an objective standard. But if I say instead, "the addition of sugar to a food will make it taste sweeter, provided there is nothing in the food that will change the chemical makeup of the sugar, etc," or, "sugar has such and such a chemical composition," I have subsumed that perception under laws that can be universalized to accommodate the understand of every consciousness. This is how one arrives at a statement which has objective validity: a judgment of experience.

>This point you've just stated is tantamount to saying 'how does evil exist'.
That's not exactly what I meant. I am granting that what we call 'evil' can exist in a system perfected by God. I mean, I am granting that if the system is absolutely perfect, and could not be changed without subtracting from its perfection, then it seems as though there would be no instance in which God could reasonably intervene, because an intervention would imply a change, which would necessarily detract from the perfection of the system.

[Anonymous No.10795520]

>>10795490

Not that guy and he is correct. Do you see the onion in this comic? It, like you, is wrong. Prime numbers persist in being prime regardless of whether anyone is around to appreciate the fact, and likewise for all mathematical truth in general, which is part of the nature of reality and exterior to the subject.

[Anonymous No.10795521]

>>10795513
**"I am granting" should be "I am saying"

[Anonymous No.10795529]

>>10795520
Wrong.
>reality
Oh look, you're retarded.
Platonists need to be shot desu

[Anonymous No.10795583]

>>10794986
Are you just talking about the resurrection here?
Or all alleged miracles?Do i have to believe them all simply because they have been written down?We dont even know exactly who wrote those accounts and what sources they used or if they saw everything themselves.
>There wasn't any monetary gain to be found as an early Christian. All they got was torture and exile for their trouble.
They might still have firmly believed in the message of Jesus. Their troubles dont prove the resurrection.

[Anonymous No.10795621]

>>10795529

On the contrary, you are merely incapable of refuting what has been said. If you were able to rebut and interested in winning an argument on its own merits, you would do so. Instead, you gibber, feigning superior education.

You'll now pretend that the reasons for your behavior are: the futility of arguing with dumb people, and the existence of a particular philosophcal knowledge which the opponent clearly does not possess but has been free to learn about this entire time, and since he hasn't, he can be dismissed. Although both conceits are misguided, you still care enough to post with what read like sincere curses/invective. This puts the lie to you. Your next retreat, perhaps: "I'm not trying to win an argument (since it's pointless per some flavor of the above), I just want to remind you of your opposition." At this point you would abdicate the thing entirely and go on gibbering.

You can't have it both ways and expect to be taken seriously. Either you care enough, in principle, to actually make the argument (even if you would find it tedious at the moment—you /do/, or else you wouldn't have posted what you've posted already), or else you don't care at all in which case you wouldn't have posted already. You force yourself into a corner.

[Anonymous No.10795640]

>>10795351
Is that you pinky?

[Anonymous No.10795654]

>>10795621
m'lady i use m'logic to prove m'scology of m'cucks

Go back to pleddit you fucking assmunch. Holy shit you just need a good fucking kick to the balls you fucking retard.

[Anonymous No.10795665]

>>10795654

You still lose and that's what counts here. Do another one. Two and two make four and it wasn't invented.

[Anonymous No.10795669]

>>10795042
Curious if anyone has a reply to this?

[Anonymous No.10795681]

>>10795665
Yes it was, you superstitious retard. Don't care how le classy fedora you are, you're still a religious fool.

[Anonymous No.10795683]

>>10795669
it would've been easy for the apostles to do whatever they wanted with jesus' body.

[Anonymous No.10795698]

>>10795681

The pleasure of this exchange is that I just cut you off at every main turn so you aren't even trying the bits I mentioned. And now you're exposing yourself further. Keep going. You'll probably snap back to straight insults now but I just goaded a grain of substance out of you, despite yourself. Why you think as you do.

[Anonymous No.10795700]

the bible has no philosophy, its an ethical work of lore

[Anonymous No.10795704]

>>10795700
dumb

[Anonymous No.10795713]

>>10795683
So you think the Apostles upon discovering the body which disproved Jesus's words got together and dedicated the rest of their lives to spreading a lie and not only that a lie that got all of them bar one tortured and murdered?

Would you be willing to die and be tortured for something you knew to be a lie and that brought you zero material benefit?

[Anonymous No.10795751]

>>10795713
Although I enjoy the fact that God is real, we need more intelligent people to be debating the existence of God. Replies like this are not great for the intellectual movement forward in a progressive society that believes in God.
>>10795513
>This is how one arrives at a statement which has objective validity: a judgment of experience.
Would it be valid enough to say I actually have objective experiences validating God's existence. It's nothing that many would call material, but some might. For instance, if I experience an event that makes me and others believe in God, then this event has transmitted God's material-nature to me and the others around me. There is nothing negative or pessimistic about this entirely, but you have a negative, pessimistic view of the world as regarding sense perceptions as not being material, in and of themselves. In other words, as not defining reality as being physically influenced by spiritual wills, you fall victim to simply stating that the only things you can objectively state are those that already exist, and that is, by definition, the death of the spirit.

> there would be no instance in which God could reasonably intervene, because an intervention would imply a change, which would necessarily detract from the perfection of the system.
This point is actually very mundane and simplistic. If I create an ant farm and the ants end up trapping themselves in the sand due to a blockage of dead ants, then it would not be wrong for me to go ahead and pick them out of the ant colony with a coat hanger to clear up the ant colony, so they can start exploring again, would it? This is very gracious of me.

In order for me (God) to intervene in the ant hill (society), the blockage would not be able to be cleansed by the ants by any of their means.

[Anonymous No.10795769]

>>10795751
How would you have responded to the issues raised with

>>10795683
>>10795669

Whilst I agree with your general sentiment these more simple questions need answers as well and can often be more helpful to leading people to God than discussions over whether or not Kants criticism of Aquinas is invalid due to a misunderstanding of the substance/essence distinction. That said Im mainly in this thread just to follow that conversation between you and that Kant anon.

[Anonymous No.10795821]

>>10795751
Is it somehow secondary to discuss the historical evidence/arguments for Christianity? Like >>10795769 says, the historical side may be more convincing than the more philosophical discussion, and it's what I'm interested in.
Are there any anons that have anything to say about the historical evidence for Christ's Resurrection?

[Anonymous No.10795897]

>>10795751
But I do think that sense perceptions are of the material, i.e. of the external world. I try to be as sure as possible that I remember this. I'm not trying to be solipsistic, I think Kant definitively discredited "dogmatical" idealism, the idealism of Berkeley, by showing that the empirical consciousness of oneself in time apodictically demonstrates that something external to the self exists. I just don't see how you can reasonably treat something called material "of itself," because of itself it's impossible to say whether or not the forms of perception, which determine the matter of all things we call "material," apply to this something.
>as not defining reality as being physically influenced by spiritual wills
Is this in reference to what I said above, about God not being necessary for a cohesive idea of the empirical? I don't think that the only things that can be stated objectively are those that already exist, that's the use of synthesis. The progress of the human mind consists in understanding piled on top of understanding. The components that were needed to form the idea of addition (the idea of a homogeneous quantity, the idea of identity, and the idea of concatenation) "already existed" in the sense that they would have been necessary to arrive at the concept of addition. When someone synthetically unified these concepts, the idea of addition was "discovered."

As to the ant farm, I don't think the analogy is fair because you don't have perfect knowledge. All disasters that take place and affect humans must be in perfect harmony with God's plan, because if they weren't, this would imply that God lacks some level of power or perfection, i.e. that something took place against His will. The ant farm could very well collapse against your will, in which case you would be fully justified in clearing the obstruction.

[Anonymous No.10795979]

>>10795583

We weren't talking about scripture at all, just the resurrection. You're right that the early Christians being tortured and exiled doesn't prove the resurrection is true. However it does make it less likely that the apostles were lying about seeing the resurrected Jesus. That was my point.

I don't mind talking about scripture though. Alternative theories of authorship don't necessarily mean that they weren't written by the authors that they were traditionally held to be written by. A lack of signatures is why the gospels enjoy so much speculation but this is the case with most ancient manuscripts. For example we don't actually know if Tacitus wrote the Annals since he didn't put his name on it but tradition gives us good reason to ascribe authorship to him and the gospels are no different in that respect. The Ignatius study bible contains a good summary defense of traditional authorship and dating of the various books along with the alternatives if you're interested.

While it is fun to speculate on who the actual writers were it really doesn't matter. We can call the gospel accounts historically reliable because they were clearly written by different people at different times. They tell the same story and they don't conflict with each other in any real way. Even if you don't accept miracles that's still not a reason to discount the historical reliability. Other ancient historians like Josephys, Tacitus, Suetonius, and Herodotus also record miracles, and these writers represent our only knowledge of many historical episodes.

If the resurrection truly happened this would be a good reason to believe that Jesus is who he said he was, and when taken as just a reliable human document, the bible shows that Christ not only rose from the dead, but that he established a church built on the apostles and promised to protect them from teaching error. The successors of the apostles, or the popes and bishops who inherited the apostles spiritual authority, were then able to authoritatively declare the bible to be the word of god. And because the gospels clearly aren't mythical in nature since they follow the genre conventions typical of Roman biography, it would be rational to believe they actually happened as reported.

[Anonymous No.10795983]

>>10795897
>i.e. that something took place against His will.
Which is the definition of evil. In this sense, it reverts back to the question of how does evil exist, which was addressed in a previous post.

>I just don't see how you can reasonably treat something called material "of itself,"

With this and the following statement are developing the theory of what we call 'will'. There is only one being who expresses his will in complete material manifestation, i.e. God. Everything else is subject to meddling from evil or the lack of Good thereof. Whereas God's reality reflects his complete Will, it also reflects the absence of his will, i.e. evil. In this you could say we differ from God, because our will, due to the direct absence of God's will, suffers from being limited through evil. We cannot experience complete pleasure, because there exist pains. As a result, then, it is thought that moderation of pleasure to reduce overall pains is the most wise of routes with reality.

By sacrificing these pleasures, and avoiding pain, we become closest as we possibly can to self-actualization: the state of materially manifesting reality around us through the help of grounding our spirit in a Kierkegaardian 'positive third'. As opposed to being disposed to relegate our spirits to focusing on too much materialism, or 'airy spiritualism', we should be focusing on a synthesis, somewhat like you've described in your own post. At this point we are partially agreeing, of course you are taking the stance that the nature of reality is not evidence of God's will, but other people's? Or that experiencing reality simply just is a phenomenon of itself a benefactor of other's interpretations?

If it's the latter, it necessitates God's existence. If it's the former, it necessitates you experience God's existence.

[Anonymous No.10796020]

>>10795769
You're right, you can use the historical evidence to prove God's existence. But I'm in this thread trying to use REALITY to prove his existence. Have you read my replies? Pretty damning stuff desu.

I'm just glad we are of the same opinion. Of course, you saw the Koran referenced. I am indeed a Muslim. But I think Christians and Muslims are rather close to be quite honest with you. Especially on here. We usually adopt Neo-Platonism as an extension of God's existence which is always enjoyable.

[Anonymous No.10796033]

>>10795520
Not him, could you elaborate on why mathematical platonism is true?

[Anonymous No.10796047]

>>10796033
I don't understand the question.

I mean, I'm not him but I'm intrigued. Explain what you mean by 'Mathematical Platonism'

[Anonymous No.10796117]

>>10796020
>Have you read my replies? Pretty damning stuff desu.
I have been following the discussion to the best of my ability as these philosophical proofs of God strike me as the foundation/precursor to looking at the historical questions.

That said Im too ignorant to really make a proper assessment of the discussion going on and am stuck on the seeing which ever response as newest being the more convincing one (although I still am wary about placing trust in purely metaphysical or deductive arguments).

That said if I can come even that little bit closer to tackling this problem beyond a normative lens Ill take it as a win.

[Anonymous No.10796136]

>>10796047
>>10796033
Nevermind let me approach this carefully.

I understand what you mean by Mathematical Platonism. Nicomachus has picked a rather good line out of the Timaeus to indicate a concept that Plato derived from mathematics.

"Thus Plato mentions the distinction between the natures of "the same" and "the other," and again, that between the essence which is indivisible and always the same and the one which is divided; and Philolaus says that existent things must all be either limitless or limited, or limited and limitless at the same time, by which it is generally agreed that he means that the universe is made up out of limited and limitless things at the same time, obviously after the image of number, for all number is composed of unity and the dyad, even and odd, and these in truth display equality and inequality, sameness and otherness, the bounded and the boundless, the defined and the undefined"

When you see people use Plato or Pythagorean arithmetic to justify God's existence, they might USE a quote like above. It never explicitly states that God is real. That would be because Plato was a Polytheist. But then why do people use Platonism to justify Monotheism? Because very often the Greek writers, like Nicomachus here, will reference 'Nature', capitalized, or Plato will make a reference to 'The Good'. It is extremely tempting to say that they are just divining the qualities of the God from which they were created, but had little knowledge as of yet.

In other words, this quote above screams Kierkegaardian spirituality. That in our finite imperfect selves, there is an essence of immortality. But these individuals were a millennium and a half apart. Doesn't matter Nicomachus, arithmetically, with the help of Philolaus and Plato, seems to have derived the same fundamental spiritual principles expounded by people who believe in a God, later on in society. BEFORE God was discovered! Clearly this should be evidence enough.

[Anonymous No.10796139]

>>10793828
yes obviously philosophical theism is just mental masturbation, if you really believed in God you would Act as if he was real at all times. it wouldn’t be a passing fancy

[Anonymous No.10796144]

>>10796117
>am stuck on the seeing which ever response as newest being the more convincing one
Don't do this. Please.

It's important to realize we are on a side here. This man is claiming you cannot derive God's existence from reality, I am on the opposing side. We are together on this. Stop being obsequious, start being more confident.

Faith is about love and virtue. That's what we are all about, anon. We have a war to win. We need you.

[Anonymous No.10796182]

>>10796144
>It's important to realize we are on a side here. This man is claiming you cannot derive God's existence from reality, I am on the opposing side. We are together on this. Stop being obsequious, start being more confident.

Learning to doubt my ability to know the truth was what broke me out of dogmatic atheism and lead me to agnosticism. Whilst there would no doubt be a lot of comfort in certain religions being true or not true I have to go where the truth is no matter how horrifying or pleasant.

Its taking a lot of work and change to transition away from historical arguments - which anyone can approach - to these philosophical ones which like historical arguments are often made murky by ideological agendas.

[Anonymous No.10796200]

>>10796182
Ah but see right here is evidence of doubt. You are doubting God exists.

The world is full of doubt friend. Doubt on all sides, there is far more doubt than faith, that is the nature of the world we live in, sadly. It's a struggle with oneself, as Plato would explain very early on in Book I of The Laws. You must struggle with yourself to have faith. If it isn't a struggle, it's not worth it.

[Anonymous No.10796328]

>>10796200
>You must struggle with yourself to have faith. If it isn't a struggle, it's not worth it.
Dont you ever feel envious of those with 100% certainty? Imagine not having that skeptical itch gnawing away internally.

[Anonymous No.10796375]

>>10796328
Does anyone actually have 100% certainty? How could you know if they did?

[Anonymous No.10796381]

>>10796375
>Does anyone actually have 100% certainty? How could you know if they did?
People who willingly martyr themselves and who dont have any need to read or engage with a matter beyond their current understanding.

[Anonymous No.10796393]

>>10796381
How could you know they hold no doubts though? Unless they had an experience with the divine that couldn't be doubted, there would be some doubt, and even if they did there might still be some lingering doubt. We can't prove it either way though

[Anonymous No.10796415]

>>10796393
When you have people who are willing to gladly certain death and torture for their beliefs (which could be prevented with a simple recanting) you have a person with what is effectively perfect certainty.

[Anonymous No.10796434]

>>10796415
In the story of Christ's crucifixion even Jesus shows some uncertainty, doesn't he? Correct me if I'm wrong, please. But again, we couldn't know if they had no doubts, because even if they died for their beliefs, it doesn't mean they had no doubts, it just means they put their faith in them. Even if you have an experience with the divine, you can still have faith that it was true and have doubts that it happened. Those things can exist together.

[Anonymous No.10796442]

>>10793828
learn to ask better questions, anon

[Anonymous No.10796450]

>>10796434
He references Psalm 22 which is ultimately about hope despite the initial appearance of doubt

[Anonymous No.10796502]

>>10795042
>>10795669
>if you can't find someone's body, it's safe to assume he came back to life and then ascended to heaven

[Anonymous No.10796519]

>>10796328
I do, but when I feel the itch I consider it as a failure on the part of my faith and spirit than anything else, really.

[Anonymous No.10796521]

>>10795698
WAAAAAH WHY WONT YOU PLAY BY MY RULES IM GONNA TELL MOMMY ON YOU WAAAAAAAH RULES R RULES YOU HAVE TO FOLLOW THEM WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
KILL
YOUR
SELF

[Anonymous No.10796644]

>>10796502
If Christ didn't rise then his body would be around for the authorities to cart around and disprove Jesus' divinity.

[Anonymous No.10796654]

>>10796502

The Jews and Romans were well aware of the 3 day resurrection prophecy which is why they sealed his body in the tomb and had it guarded. They wanted to be able to show the body after 3 days so they could finally put an end to the insurrection.

[Anonymous No.10796740]

>>10796654
Why were the followers of Jesus surprised the body was gone then?

[Anonymous No.10796772]

>>10796740

Why wouldn't they be surprised? A body disappeared.

[Anonymous No.10796777]

>>10796740
Because even their faith was challenged by his death

[Anonymous No.10796788]

>>10796772
They would have expected that to happen if they believed in the prophecy.

[Anonymous No.10796794]

>>10796788

Is there some reason they couldn't expect it to happen and be surprised when actually it did?

[Anonymous No.10796799]

>>10796788
Scientologists believe that hubbard "dropped his body" to continue his research and will one day return - hence all ideal orgs have a special office set aside for him. That doesnt mean they would not shit bricks if he actually did return

[Anonymous No.10796926]

>>10795640
No, but I like his post. I don't really argue here anymore and I need more Kantian and spinozist background anyway.

[Anonymous No.10796933]

>>10794365
No, not really if by scholasticim we take the dominant line of argumentation derived from Aquinas, carried on by Cajetan and Suarez to Garrigou-Lagrange, Anscombe and MacIntyre and today Feser and Pruss. If by scholasticim we take all of medieval philosophy in terms of style and vocabulary and not the particular subschools and systems then yes.

[Anonymous No.10796976]

>>10796926
Smart idea,you might be interested to hear that the anon there is arguing from an Islamic perspective.

Also some fun - an ex scholastic who went Orthodox providing a rare example of someone providing criticism after having actually read Aquinas's works.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3hprH0oc_I

[Anonymous No.10796980]

>>10796976
Jay Dyer is actually a fucking idiot and I can't stand him. He is with lying about having read Aquinas or he's a total fucking tool. He gets even the most basic concepts wrong and every time someone links him I'm shocked by the amount of stupid shit his filthy mouth spew.
Last time he was saying how Aquinas is deistic and rationalistic because he denies immanence, which is the opposite of the truth and no person who knows anything about Aquinas would say that in good faith. Bertnard fucking Russell had a better understanding of Aquinas and 'who caused God' makes for a better objection to Aquinas than anything this cretin says.

[Anonymous No.10796997]

>>10796980
Yeah I got a bit of strange vibe when I looked at the book he published on Hollywood.

>He gets even the most basic concepts wrong and every time someone links him I'm shocked by the amount of stupid shit his filthy mouth spew.
It does seem strange then, I wonder if he got a bad missreading because he just skimmed it for "gotcha" type quotes.

[Anonymous No.10797006]

>>10796997
It's bizarre that this person is taken seriously by so many people when he cannot grasp even the most basic concepts of Aquinas and people believe that he used to be a hardcore thomist.

[Anonymous No.10797008]

>>10793959
>basing your metaphysics on an uncertain historical event

[Anonymous No.10797015]

>>10797008
The Catholic metaphysics are not based in this historical event because metaphysics is not theology. Theology deals with things superadded to reason while metaphysics generally does not, although once the more basic things are covered it may touch upon it. The Catholic faith of course is, but those are two different things.

[Anonymous No.10797020]

>>10796980
Who caused God is a good objection though. How does Aquinas' explaination of the matter differ from Aristotle's?

[Anonymous No.10797026]

>>10796521

Nice, you're clearly the superior intellectual

This was interesting read thanks /lit/

[Anonymous No.10797045]

>>10797020
It's a completely retarded objection based in the fundamental misunderstanding of the distinction of act, potency and what pure actuality is. The prime mover cannot be moved and all movement is sustained and directed by him making the objection completely pointless. The causation is not linear, but hierarchical.
As for how it differs (and again it's not a valid objection for Aristotle either), since Aquinas gives 9 proofs for God in various places and his most distinguished one being from essence and existence in De Ente et Essentia it varies.
Feser is often recommended as introductory material for this, but I would also recommend Brian Davies and fr. Joseph White, they have excellent lectures on SoundCloud and YouTube.

[Anonymous No.10797051]

>>10797045
>The prime mover cannot be moved and all movement is sustained and directed by him making the objection completely pointless.
This is what Aristotle says as well. The prime mover moves by attraction, or something like that (it's been years since I've read him). Thanks for clearing that up.

[Anonymous No.10797052]

>>10797026
REEEEE FUCKING NIGGER WHY WONT YOU PLAY MY GAMES YOU FUCKING NIGGER REEEE

[Anonymous No.10797432]

>>10796976
Daily reminder that the essence/energies distinction which Dyer the """ex-hardcore thomist" (who takes Aquinas philosophy to lead to Enlightenment atheism)"" leads to polytheism.

[Anonymous No.10797435]

>>10796442
Why is that a bad question?

[Anonymous No.10797452]

>>10794886
No. What you have is a claim of eyewitness testimony.

[Anonymous No.10797731]

>>10795821
I suggest you look up the minimal facts argument, it basically states that given the facts accepted by even skeptical historians (jesus died, empty tomb, etc) the best explanation is resurrection

[Anonymous No.10797774]

>>10797731
I have, but I'd like to hear if anyone has anything else I haven't heard of or has some good objections.

[Anonymous No.10797782]

>>10797015
Christology is steeped in metaphysics dude

[Anonymous No.10797915]

>>10797045
>The prime mover cannot be moved and all movement is sustained and directed by him making the objection completely pointless. The causation is not linear, but hierarchical.
>'ayo god just exists and shiieet, damn'
Absolute state of theists.

[Anonymous No.10797922]

>>10797915
https://www.reddit.com

[Anonymous No.10798004]

>>10797452

Do you not believe that people claimed to witness the resurrected Christ?

[Anonymous No.10798079]

>Numbers were discovered because God.

Please anons, take it back to church.

[Alan Whats No.10798211]

>>10795152
>God wills it
Let me share some thoughts with you and then I'll be on my way trying to pick up a bunch of pieces of which I never knew I had ownership.

If the nature of the universe has conspired to produce my life, it must be that nature wills life, it must be better to live than to die.
Following this it must be better to act in favor of life, and in favor of love and happiness, than to act in favor of the opposite sentiments. It must be better to cast aside bitter ignorance and start experiencing the world as an entire being, not as a scattered mess of pieces. So this has to do with, basically, having to convince myself each second that somehow life can be meaningful.

If I'm not going to ACTUALLY kill myself I should probably stop doing it indirectly by poisoning myself with my choices and actions, and primarily my thoughts.

I believe my problems have their origins not in the external world of circumstance, but in my own mind. I've been operating under the wrong set of assumptions about my life and about the world, under a terrifying set of assumptions, and it's led me to hate myself and to hate life, poison my mind etc. I wish I could express how debilitating and miserable that is, how isolating.

But now that I see it laid out before me I don't have doubts that the affirmation and acceptance of life is something I want to support. That life is OK and that not everybody wants to hurt me, I don't have to be afraid of others. I don't have to manipulate people, distrust people, hide myself from them. I don't have to TAKE from people, to commoditize them. I don't have to be like that. I CAN be the opposite if I can just stop this endless paralyzing loop in my head for a single second.

I get it, the poking fun at my lack of understanding/awareness is just to help me get to this point of acceptance that...Things don't happen in reality as they do in my mind. I've been thinking about it for so long. All the similarities and patterns that lock my mind up so tight that not even I could get in until just a short time ago.

I wish I got snapped out of it a little sooner. I have some scary problems right now. And nothing clicked until a few hours ago really. The few hours of sleep were good but I fear I'll never have any better.

I hope, over the next period of time, that I change, and turn to reality. Because I've been caught way way back for way too long. You know what I mean?

[Anonymous No.10798258]

>>10797915
Would you like me to point you in the direction of reading more on the subject? As you probably assumed, one post on 4chan is not exactly here to do justice to the argument.

[Anonymous No.10798413]

>>10795983
>Which is the definition of evil.
Spinoza's response would be that good and evil are merely modes of human thought, that only apply to things as they relate to human beings, and not to things as they are "formally," i.e. as they relate exactly to the "Divine nature."
>the following statement are developing the theory of what we call 'will'.
How are you using "will"? I am with Schopenhauer in the belief that the body is the will objectified. In this sense ever subject with a body manifests their will in a "completely material" way, in the sense that the body itself (as a body, generally speaking) is made of nothing but material.

About the "nature of reality," I will try to make my position as clear as possible. I will never know things as they are, only as they appear to me. But I couldn't know things as they are without being something other than myself, anyway, so the only reasonable option is to take them as they appear to me, as objects to the subject, as phenomena. My existence in time proves the existence of exterior objects, not as they are, but as they relate to me, and these objects in turn by their very existence allow me to differentiate my physical self (my body) from the other objects.
>Or that experiencing reality simply just is a phenomenon of itself a benefactor of other's interpretations?
I think I am reading this correctly, are you asking whether or not I think reality is defined by intersubjective consensus? If so, I say it is not. The concept which best generalizes the relationship of any given consciousness to a determined object or phenomenon is not necessarily the concept which most consciousnesses hold to be true. The conflicts between Heliocentrism and Geocentrism, flat Earth ideas and round Earth ideas, etc., are historical situations in which the intersubjective consensus was decidedly not on the side of truth. But, conversely, the only way to add to the general idea of truth is to first arrive at an intersubjective agreement (in some cases "across time") with people who do know what is true, and to expand that truth. Further, reality is not truth. If reality is the totality of existence, including all that is subjective and all that is objective, it can by definition never be fully described in detail. But truths bring certain portions of reality into accordance with the general rule of consciousness.

[Anonymous No.10798428]

>>10793828
okay okay slow down nigger. you know how i know that you dont know what you're talking about (like remotely lol)? because you pose your question like you just hopped off babies first william lane craig vs. sam harris binge or some shit. "philosophical theism?" like are you fucking kidding me as if every form of theism doesn't adhere to some philosophical system. lurk more in your interest, then more on the board. JEEZUZ CHRIST.

[Anonymous No.10798467]

>>10798211
Yea, man, I get you. Even Schopenhauer was against suicide, though for an arguably weaker reason than most. I sympathize with people who, as my granddad would say, "check out early." Even if I think about doing it, I know that at this point there's no way I could go through with it. Life really could get better.

I too want to be completely life affirming, but honestly I keep getting sucked back into 4chan because everyone so often I get into a lengthy and instructive discussion. I'm going to drive around the country for three months without access to the internet so I'm not tempted to keep wasting my life in simulated existence.
>I have some scary problems right now.
Don't we all?

[Anonymous No.10798481]

>>10798467
>everyone so often
fuckin parapraxes man

[Anonymous No.10798539]

>>10797915
>the universe just exists and shieeet, damn

[Anonymous No.10798543]

>>10796136
Holy shit you are fucking retarded

[Anonymous No.10798547]

>>10795490
>>10795520

Mathematics is a Symbol-based construct. Remove Symbol and you cannot know or speak of a single Mathematical idea. The degree to which a pair of objects described by Mathematics actually lends itself to objective operations analogous to Mathematical ones that the Symbol "2" lends itself is almost negative. Moreover, the world Mathematics describes precludes Mathematics from being anything other than a Symbol-based construct.

Number and Geometry is mostly used as metaphor by "The Greeks". Thinking of Mathematics/Numerology in an Ontological sense - God put the Universe into motion with his perfect 3:2 voice, we're all just 1s and 0s, something something computer code - is missing the point.

[Anonymous No.10798583]

>>10798547
Fuck off, Platonist subhuman.

[Anonymous No.10798624]

>>10798583
>replies to an argument against "platonic" mathematics
>Fuck off, Platonist subhuman.

[Anonymous No.10799098]

>>10798547
What if the symbol accurately represents reality though? Mathematics, as far as I or anyone else can tell, is accurate.

[Anonymous No.10799109]

>>10799098

How can you tell?

[Anonymous No.10799169]

>>10794392
The quran claims that Alexander the great was Muslim

You're dumb

[Anonymous No.10799940]

>>10797008

They're not though. Christian philosophy and revelation are distinct.

[Anonymous No.10799950]

>>10798547
>Thinking of Mathematics/Numerology in an Ontological sense - God put the Universe into motion with his perfect 3:2 voice, we're all just 1s and 0s, something something computer code - is missing the point.

Absolutely ridiculous. There is only one way you can apply Pythagorean arithmetic in an Ontological sense: that is by conceding that unity is evidence of something which has no part, and from it, all shapes, solids, etc. are divined.

[Anonymous No.10799956]

>>10798543
Great contribution, real smart individual right here.

[Anonymous No.10800537]

>>10798543

Fuckin REKT

[Anonymous No.10800569]

>>10799098
it doesn't

[Anonymous No.10800652]

>>10800569
How do you know it doesn't?

[Anonymous No.10802141]

>>10798428
There is a difference between what theologians would call natural theology (The God you can argue about with philosophical arguments) and religious beliefs about for example Jesus, christian notions about God, sin and all that stuff.

[Anonymous No.10802144]

Bump