/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.15055760]

Do you believe in God? If so, how? Through a religion or in your own spiritual way? What books or experience led you to this conclusion?

[Anonymous No.15055802]

>>15055760

Knowledge of God is impossible. Nor is the knowledge of Atheism possible.

Read the entirety of Western philosophy and a mix of Indian thoughts and you will reach to this conclusion.

[Anonymous No.15055809]

I started believing after reading St. Augustine's confessions because i wanted to think my life wasn't a tragedy but the obligation to attend church and be part of a community hinders me from being a real christian

[Anonymous No.15055830]

>>15055802
Everybody is agnostic.

[Anonymous No.15055896]

>>15055760
I do believe in God, however I recognize my limitations and do not see myself destroying temples and "idols" in the near future.
If you want to erase any doubt that God appeared to all, not just Jews, read Amos 9:7

[Anonymous No.15055912]

>>15055830
Midwits are agnostic. They are soft theists and soft atheists. Brainlets and geniuses are strict atheists or true believers.

[Anonymous No.15055963]

>>15055760
>>15055760
>Do you believe in God?
Yes, I do. I wasn't born religious, either.

>Through a religion or in your own spiritual way?
Zoroastrianism

>What books or experience led you to this conclusion?
Studying into things, and matching it up with my beliefs from experiences and what I considered rational versus not irrational, as well as minor preferences - for example, I can rationally understand the views of, say, a Demiurge, but I don't believe that because I don't feel it's necessary.
I'm happy here, though.

[Anonymous No.15056031]

>>15055760
>Do you believe in God?
Sort of, God is not a man in the sky though
>If so, how? Through a religion or in your own spiritual way?
A mix of Platonism, Kabbalah, and Calvinism
>What books or experience led you to this conclusion?
The dialogues of Plato, Sefer Yetzirah+The Essential Kabbalah, Calvin's commentaries

[Anonymous No.15056041]

>>15056031
oh and forgot to add: the Bible of course
Job, Ecclesiastes, and Romans if I had to narrow down a few specific biblical texts though
also I feel it important to note, I was raised agnostic and didn't touch a Bible in my life until 2 years ago

[Anonymous No.15056054]

>>15055912
but isn't it a mere correlation?

[Anonymous No.15056056]

>>15055760
I believe in God literally as a being that started the big bang, upholds reality (all the possible universes) and judges intelligent entities and punishes them or rewards them after their test is over (the tests are different in different universes and on different planets).
I reached this conclusion after many years of studying math and physics (my degree is pure math), philosophy, and practicing meditation and Astral projection and doing different hallucinogenic drugs

[Anonymous No.15056061]

>>15055760
>Do you believe in God?
yes
>Through a religion or in your own spiritual way
Catholic Christianity
>What books or experience led you to this conclusion?
I always saw God as self-evident but Rosary meditations really led me to experience God in a tangible way.

[Anonymous No.15056082]

>>15055963
>Zoroatrianism
This isn't midwittery, it's just you acting like a fag
Go back to study persian larper

[Anonymous No.15056095]

>>15055760
>Do you believe in God?
Yes
>If so, how? Through a religion or in your own spiritual way?
Through rationality and logic with Platonism and pantheism
>What books or experience led you to this conclusion?
Books: Complete Plato (specifically the dialogues about the trial and death of Socrates), Ethica
Experiences: I was meditating once contemplating monism and the physical laws that dictate reality, it helped give me a better perception of how all aspects of reality are necessarily connected with one another and stem from the same source.

[Anonymous No.15056150]

>>15056082
>it's just you acting like a fag
Nah

>Go back to study persian
Maybe in time

[Anonymous No.15056292]

>>15055802
aht, knowledge of a specific god is impossible, knowledge of no god is simple and obvious to anyone that isn't LARPing under a classicist ideal of virtue.

[Anonymous No.15056303]

>>15055760
You have to experience it for yourself. You have to LARP before you experience it though. Anyone who disagrees hasn’t experienced it

[Anonymous No.15056334]

>>15055760
>Do you believe in God?
Yes
>If so, how? Through a religion or in your own spiritual way?
First through Catholicism, which I abandoned for atheism. I then regained God through the writings of Carl Jung.
>What books or experience led you to this conclusion?
Books: Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious, Aion, the Bible, basically any other religious text I've encountered
Experiences: Meditation, dream analysis, free association, walking around the woods like a pagan LARPer

[OuPi No.15056349]

>>15055760
>Through a religion or in your own spiritual way?
Not incompatible. Just take a look at a Dominican nun and a Jesuit priest, for example. Sure, they might have a certain amount of ideas and practices that are common, but they are very different from each other. Catholic spirituality in particular was even more diverse during other ages, like before VCII or before Trent.

Same goes to Islam. An Afgan imam and an American convert barely have many things in common.

What about Buddhism? It barely has any fixed rules, yet there are dozens of variants and sub-variants.

[Anonymous No.15056357]

"Because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened." - St Paul, Romans 1:19-21 NKJV

"Then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious; for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD.

Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you: God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. And He has made from one [blood] every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’" Acts 17:24-28

[Anonymous No.15056370]

>>15056292
*tip*

[Anonymous No.15056375]

We know God by the imprint he made in us, in our hearts and our rational minds. We see his design and glory in creation, in ourselves and how everything is dependent on his power. Without his power nothing would be sustained, nothing would come into existence, no motion would even start, no thought would ever arise and no life would manifest.
We know God by scripture which is given to us by revelation to fill in the space that our minds and senses can't articulate and discover on their own.
We know God deep within ourselves, and we know our own sin, but we suppress this knowledge and run from it.
Ultimately we know God through Christ, without Christ we are groping in the dark.

[Anonymous No.15056382]

>>15056370

[Anonymous No.15056389]

>>15056375
>>15056357

[Anonymous No.15056436]

>>15056375
You can’t know God rationally... you have to ‘experience God’ to know for real, otherwise I believe are just empty words and LARPing

[Anonymous No.15056439]

>>15055760
A man asked Mr. K whether there is a God. Mr. K, said: " I advise you to consider whether, depending on the answer, your behaviour would change. If it would not change, then we can drop the question. If it would change, then I can at least be of help to the extent that I can say, you have already decided: you need a God."

[Anonymous No.15056472]

>>15056436
experience is one aspect of the equation, but by itself it can be deceiving; rationality, revelation and experience when working together in harmony give us the clearer image of who God is.

[Anonymous No.15056681]

>>15055760
in nonduality , through insight never was into spirituality before spontaneous mystical experience. Reading Shankara to deepen it


>>15056472
if your experience is deceiving then u havent experienced simple as that , true insight carries great certainty