Books About How Smart People Can Unironically Be Religious

[Anonymous No.19279044]

Are there any books on the puzzling phenomena of great men being, though otherwise very intelligent, sincerely religious and extremely pious?
I mean the obvious examples are Pascal, Newton, Leibniz, and Euler but they at least had the excuse of being born before Darwin BTFO fundamentalists; and although Darwin himself insisted that it was still possible to be both religious and to believe in his scientific theory, by then it was clear that no scientist could ever again sincerely believe in the bible, and that any pretense to piety on the part of an intellectual was really just a massive LARP.
Still, there are modern examples of (seemingly sincerely) religious scientists and this fascinates me as a professional scientist (I have a Ph.D. in sociology) and as an armature historian of science.
I really want to know, is it just the severe neuroticism/autism they suffered from that makes them so religious? That at least explains a case like Godel, who was legit crazy, but does it make sense for every such case?
To be clear, I'm asking about smart people in general, even though I was inspired to ask this question because of my interest in science, so people in the arts like Bach, Mozart, Blake, and Tolkien definitely count too.
Also please, no supernatural explanations; I'm not interested in hearing fairy-stories, I want to learn, so recommend some good books (perhaps some personal essays by people like this if you know of any). Thanks a lot :)

[Anonymous No.19279058]

I don’t understand. What is so puzzling about this phenomenon?

[Anonymous No.19279061]

>>19279044
>otherwise

[Anonymous No.19279067]

>>19279044
>sociology
You know what, not even gonna bother. Good day sir, and God bless you.

[Anonymous No.19279068]

>>19279044
>please, no supernatural explanations; I'm not interested in hearing fairy-stories

so you want religion explained to you without talking about things that religion affirms? you may as well ask someone to explain physics without using mathematics.

[Anonymous No.19279074]

>>19279044
Newton was as nutty as Godel and Euler wasn't exactly a free thinker. Pascal and Leibniz were probably genuinely religious. Religion isn't really a rational position and it doesn't take a genius to see how subjective it is. Believing or not believing is mainly a matter of personality.

[Anonymous No.19279091]

>>19279044
>Darwin
He posed a theory that contradicted a single , rather minor, element of Christianity that was important to fundamentalists by the very nature of them being fundamentalist. That doesn’t seem like a full scale refutation of religion.

I think a more important figure in the line of your questioning should be Hume.
Also, good bait.

[Anonymous No.19279110]

>>19279044
Goedel was highly religious.
>as a professional scientist (I have a Ph.D. in sociology)
Top kek

[Anonymous No.19279165]

>>19279044
Religion Explained by Pascal Boyer.

Religion is just a cognitive evolutionary bias towards discerning agency behind phenomena. If I hear a tree snap and act as if a lion did it, I might save myself from being eaten even if it's likely just the breeze.

[Anonymous No.19279226]

>>19279058
Intelligence, as an attribute, naturally inclines one towards skepticism and there exists a great deal of evidence today against a literal interpretation of the bible, so why are people still so religious? Descartes, et. al. coped by taking God as an axiom, and this was considered legitimate back in the day but even in philosophy a belief in God is not a popular position nowadays so how do theist cope?
>>19279091
Guys like Hume and Bertrand Russell are good but I was trying to underline the empirical challenges to religiosity rather than the theoretical challenges to it. The other Xtian cults can claim to be "cool" with science, and "not like those fundies" but deep down they know that every challenge to a literal interpretation of the bible hurts their cause just as much. Do you know how much mental gymnastics they have to engage in nowadays? it's actually really funny to see, no doubt the Xtians of old would be shocked to see the state of their churches today!
>Also, good bait.
Thanks?
>>19279074
> Newton was as nutty as Godel
Yes, one could say that I suppose but as I say, a sincere belief in religion wasn't that far-fetched back in the day, even with Hume.
>and Euler wasn't exactly a free thinker.
uhh...do you know what a free thinker is? that's exactly what I'm trying to say...or do you mean to say that he wasn't very philosophically minded despite his being exceptionally adept at mathematics; interesting take, maybe his dogmatism helped him in his mathematics, who knows? You're theory about religiosity being primarily influenced by personality is probably true and I'm sure cognitive dissonance can do the rest, even for geniuses, but surely it must be straining to hold two diametrically opposed belief systems at the same time, no?
>>19279068
>so you want religion explained to you without talking about things that religion affirms?
No. I want physical phenomena (society, psychology, etc.) to be explained scientifically. Do you have to believe in hinduism to learn about the rituals of the Hindus? This is so stupid. Have you just never heard of religious studies? Hint: it's not the same thing as theology!
>>19279067
>>19279110
Yikes, /lit/ is starting to sound a lot like /sci/! I know you guys are better to engage in this STEMlord purity bullshit, so don't.
>>19279165
Ah yes, I'm aware of this theory. Indeed it does explain our "primitive" inclination towards theism but of course, it doesn't explain how rational beings can be religious, which appears to me to be rooted more in fallacious reasoning and unchallenged erroneous beliefs mixed with cognitive-dissonance and bias, etc.
My difficulty is, however, that nowadays these beliefs are challenged all the time, and that it seems to take more effort to be religious than it does to not be since everyone else is basically areligious (even if they aren't free-thinkers) hence why modern people who choose to be religious are accused of LARPing.

[Anonymous No.19279257]

>>19279044
god is an abstract concept to them, not an specific concrete concept like you probably believe.

[Anonymous No.19279269]

Read The Religious/Intellectual Situation of the Present and the Preface to Spinoza's Critique of Religion, by Leo Strauss. How do you have a phd in sociology and come to 4chan with such a retarded question?

[Anonymous No.19279286]

>>19279044
Not religious but they had faith in God and most of them were considered heretic by religious authorities of their times.

If you want to read about Tolstoy's fear of Death and belief in God then read "THE OLDEST FEAR: APROPOS OF TOLSTOY" an essay by Cioran in The Fall Into Time. It is poetic but very insightful.

[Anonymous No.19279291]

kys faggot

[Anonymous No.19279307]

>>19279044
I wouldn't call Newton "extremely pious"; dude had all kinds of occult beliefs and thought that he was translating messages from Egyptian gods and shit.

But more on-topic I feel like a lot of it has to do with truly intelligent minds realizing that
>consciousness complicates the idea of the universe as "one" rather than many coexistent hierarchies
>trying to be part of just "everything" as an atheist believes makes it impossible to "step outside" and rationally view anything

>I'm not interested in hearing fairy-stories
Tolkien would tell you that this is the exact reason you aren't capable of understanding. He even wrote a lecture about this exact topic that's been published as a book.

[Anonymous No.19279667]

>>19279226
Kek this has to be bait

[Anonymous No.19279672]

>>19279044
>dumb person cant understand smart people
>still thinks he is smart for rejecting what smart people believe in
Pottery

[Anonymous No.19279693]

>>19279044
>this fascinates me as a professional scientist (I have a Ph.D. in sociology)

[Anonymous No.19279695]

if you understand this picture you understand why people used to declare themselves religious, the rest are insecure about them and believe in the divine

[Anonymous No.19279711]

>>19279044
Both the militant atheists and the creationist baptist are incapable of actually understanding the religious mindset, so to them Darwin deals a big blow to religion, because too them religion is about a literal description of how the world works.

[Anonymous No.19279712]

>>19279693
Except it isn't. The poster seems to sincerely lack self-awareness, and is probably a woman.

[Anonymous No.19279731]

>>19279226
You're not asking to explain physical phenomena though are you? You're asking to explain why people in the past held religious views, there's no way to explain that empirically. It's a high level philosophical question.

[Anonymous No.19279754]

>>19279226
>Descartes, et. al. coped by taking God as an axiom
Descartes had one axiom and it wasn't that. You haven't even read him and you're dismissing him as "coping". The utter arrogance in your posts is revolting.

[Anonymous No.19279759]

>>19279044
OP is questioning his intelligence because he isn't a theist like the great men of our world.
Look at him and laugh.

[Anonymous No.19279763]

>>19279044
Anon, not trying to be unkind, but are you genuinely autistic? You seem autistic to me.
To answer you, it's not a phenomena.
It's a phenomena that today people are NOT religious. If you want to find answers, don't ask here, read the scholastics instead.

[Anonymous No.19279832]

>>19279711
> God exists
> God mad the world and life and me and you
> God does stuff too
> None of this is a description of how the world works, you're just being too literal!!1!
This is the kind of thinking I'm talking about btw.
>>19279693
Oh, fuck off! I thought /lit/ was one of the few places that realized how narrow and useless the definitions of science that people like Popper made up were. I will not let this thread devolve into some circle-jerk about whether or not Sociology (the most /lit/ of the sciences btw), or any of the other so-called "soft-sciences" for that matter, qualify as "real sciences" or not.
>>19279712
I am very self-aware, and btw I'm not a woman but why would it matter if I was?
>>19279731
I'm asking how people who are so intelligent can believe in religion? This is a question of psychology and, to a lesser extent yes, philosophy; so far I've only been able to guess that it has something to do with fallacious reasoning and cognitive dissonance, and other psychological phenomena like that (as well as, perhaps, mental illnesses sometimes linked with brilliance and creativity such as autism or schizophrenia). It's not really a silly question and we don't need "god" to answer it do we?
>>19279269
I'll look into it but this is not exactly my area of study so you must excuse my ignorance; of course, I am aware of Leo Strauss and other socio-political thinkers (and other Jewish thinkers as well) but I haven't read these two articles (why would I have?) and I don't think it's so retarded a question anyway. His will probably be a more Jewish perspective however, which may be fine for you but I'm looking for a more universal perspective.

[Anonymous No.19279849]

>>19279759
The midwit struggling to come to terms with why greater minds have faith is truly hilarious.

>>19279832
>so far I've only been able to guess that it has something to do with fallacious reasoning and cognitive dissonance
Top
Fucking
Lmfao

[Anonymous No.19279850]

>>19279832
>This is the kind of thinking I'm talking about btw.
That's called cognitive dissonance. No one you mentioned by name thought that.

You seem to be incapable of perceiving anything but materialism and possibly historicism as a "universal perspective". Strauss's jewishness certainly doesn't preclude such a "perspective", any more than your maleness or europeanness/whatever the fuck you are does. No, I'm not a jew nor do I have a problem with sociology as such. It just happens to attract people like you.

[Anonymous No.19279851]

>>19279754
I'm saying Descartes never really threw god out with the rest of reality for all his posturing; none of the enlightenment theist did even as they pretended to be ultra-rational. Descartes wasn't a "real" skeptic, despite being the first, because god was always in his heart, you idiot.
>>19279759
Nope. I'm pretty secure as regards my intellect and guess what, dying doesn't scare me neither :)
>>19279763
>read the scholastics instead.
and you accuse me of autism? I'm not trying to be abelist but scholasticism is autism built to justify schizophrenia. How is this not obvious to you?

[Anonymous No.19279856]

>>19279851
>scholasticism is autism built to justify schizophrenia
Hahaha, maybe go to Reddit, they will praise you.

[Anonymous No.19279868]

>>19279693
wanted to post exactly this

[Anonymous No.19279871]

>>19279851
>and you accuse me of autism? I'm not trying to be abelist but scholasticism is autism built to justify schizophrenia. How is this not obvious to you
Holy based

[Anonymous No.19279934]

>>19279851
>scholasticism is autism built to justify schizophrenia.

[Anonymous No.19279952]

>>19279044
whats wrong with you atheist nazis . Just accept that opinion other than yours might exist

[Anonymous No.19279958]

It's really a tough call to decide whether OP is baiting or is a sincere redditor

[Anonymous No.19279978]

>>19279044

What do you mean by religious ? Following the Church's dogma or having faith in God ? Kierkegaard for example wrote that every person should strive to reach a religious state, a personal relationship with God without appeal to dogmas and he said that this is possible by focusing on your inner existence instead of metaphysical questions.

>it was still possible to be both religious and to believe in his scientific theory.

I'm not sure if you think that science and religion are mutually exclusive. You can easily imagine that God created the universe and this universe self-developed through physical laws, etc. Science is studying the universe itself, but this doesn't exclude the existence of God. This explanation works if you believe in a transncendental God.

You can also believe God to be immanent and thus one with Nature or the universe itself (like Spinoza). If you adopt this view, science is about knowing God in a sense (though God itself cannot be an object of scientific study).

If you'd be smart yourself you'd realise that there's no possible scientific explanation for a very fundamental question: why is reality existing ? Why is there something instead of nothing ?

Science will always study things through observations and thus will NEVER be able to explain why the universe exists instead of not existing.

So any smart person is actually a believer in God, but not because he believes in some religious story, but because it's biologically impossible for humans to explain why reality exists instead of not existing. And if you say "uhh.. yeah we don't YET...", then I'll have you know that humans are biologically limited beings, yet they have this false belief that everything can be explained or accessible to our biological framework (meaning way of interpreting reality - your brain perceives things in a specific way because it developed in this way).

[Anonymous No.19280126]

>>19279044
Reddit: the thread

[Anonymous No.19280138]

>>19279044
Read Emanuel Swedenborg

[Anonymous No.19280153]

>>19279978
>because it's biologically impossible for humans to explain why reality exists instead of not existing
>God created the universe bro
Why are Christians like this? Total lack of any self-awareness

[Anonymous No.19280179]

>>19280153

I'm not even Christian, I'm talking while making abstraction of any religious dogma. A pure rational analysis will lead you to realise that humans will never have the ability to find something which explains WHY reality exists instead of not existing. Even if you reach an explanation of how the universe came to be, you still won't have the answer of why that process is happening instead of not happening. It's something akin to a meta-metaphysical question.

[Anonymous No.19280183]

>>19279044
In the past, most of the big brains who were avowedly religious were so for conformist/social status reasons. Same way every public figure now is a leftist.

[Anonymous No.19280194]

>>19280179
So believing in God doesn't explain why reality exists instead of not existing? Doesn't that invalidate your reason for smart people believing in God?

[Anonymous No.19280316]

>>19280194

It does. I'm making a case that through scientific analysis only it's impossible to explain WHY reality exists instead of not existing. So, naturally, there must be an external cause, the closest thing there might be to what we think of as "God". What the nature of this external cause is, we don't know or if it has any cause itself. My proposal is that it's something like consciousness, but on a much larger scale. Descartes for example in his analysis to find something of which he can be certain that exists reaches the conclusion "cogito ergo sum". Basically in his examples he says that even if all reality is an illusion, he can be certain of the fact that he's a thinking being or something that posseses self-awareness. He said that you can even envision consciousness without the necessity of a body. I think Descartes here touched a very important point. I think God might be precisely this: a "pure consciousness" (consciousness without ties to any material conditions). I reached this conclusion by myself and later found confirmation in Descartes partially. I'm not even appealing to all the sophisticated analysis that others philosophers do, it's just rational analysis without any claim to certain pre-existing positions.

If God is this consciousness but on a larger scale, there's still a lot more questions to be answered, but that's already probably outside the scope of what humans can possibly understand. I think Kant in a sense thought of this when he claimed that talking about metaphysical objects is pointless. He said that since we as humans don't have the capacity as human beings to perceive something like God, all we can do is speculate about it. Yet this doesn't mean something like God might not exist, only that we cannot be certain since it's impossible through scientific methods to prove the existence of God (because God is not something like a rock which you can pinpoint somewhere in reality). Science in this way is always limited and reduced to knowing only the material and humanity as a whole becomes ignorant through blind belief in science (paradoxically) because they think that science is the answer to everything. In this point, science does break with "religion", thought I wouldn't refer to it as religion because there's a lot of stereotypes associated with the word. But the very fact that we can conclude through rational analysis that the reality itself happened is impossible to explain even if you talk about quantum mechanics or anything like that.

The scientific consensus is that quantum mechanics is the "layer" where we can find answers like how the universe came to be. Just recently (like a week ago) there was a scientific article published which seeks to explain how the whole universe might be one huge quantum fluctuation or that it has its origins in a quantum level of reality where concepts like time and space as we know them break down (as we know them from relativity theory).

[Anonymous No.19280328]

Religion offers meanings that Rationality doesn't. That's why.

[Anonymous No.19280329]

>>19280316
And the point I'm making is that you can't claim that humanity can't find an answer to why the universe exists and then turn around and give an answer to why the universe exists without looking like a retard that lacks any type of self-awareness. You've undercut your own argument while attacking someone else's

[Anonymous No.19280344]

>>19280316
>>19280194


2/2

But this whole talk is just begging the question. Sure, the quantum "layer" exists. Even if we explain the existence of the universe through quantum mechanics, the question still remains and I'm adapting it to this particular case: Why do the processes or laws by which this quantum layer works exist instead of not existing ? The question "why does something exist instead of not existing ?" doesn't stop just at material things, but goes to the laws or processes themselves that might determine the birth of the universe.

Of course, another person will ask: Ok, let's assume there's an external force that created the conditions of posibility through which the universe happened, but how did this external force come to be ? We have infinite regression in the chain of causality.

Here my theory is that this "pure consciousness" as I've called it doesn't need material conditions to exist because it's not material. It can exist outside of time and space. I'm not even sure if I should call it consciousness because I don't think it's consciousness as we individuals experience it exactly. The nature of such an external force just cannot be explained through anything science observes because it's transcendental.

Of course at this point I'm unable to go even further and explain if this "consciousness" is eternal or not or if it has a cause and so on because we, as humans, cannot imagine or think anything outside of the universe. Every single thing that we experience is explained through our faculties (as Kant lays them out for example). Humans cannot interpret reality without appeal to a sense of time and space and outside of pyhsical laws. It's an in-built limitation of HUMANITY and probably of any organic being in the universe. Speculative thinking is the only realm where you can "surpass" this limitation in a sense because in speculation you don't need to be validated by experience, so you can theorize about things like "why is there something instead of nothing ?". This very question is aporistic, impossible to answer because we, as humans, are limited. We, as limitations, try to answer something which transcends limitations. We're forever bound by our biological framework to not surpass a certain ceiling of knowledge and this is what most people don't realize, especially nowadays after they have been dazzled by the succeses of science in the past decades.

Does this mean science is useless ? No. Science's purpose could as well become one in which we try to improve the experience of living as much as possible (by quality and extension of life). Unfortunately humans will never accept their limitations until they hit the wall effectively (until they progress with science to a point where it cannot progress anymore).

[Anonymous No.19280361]

>>19280329

I was typing a second post. Read it and maybe it answers your comment.

I'm not giving a definitive answer. I'm claiming that with the limited framework we have as humans, there's no way to explain why reality exists without appeal to something like "God" (bear in mind by God I don't mean God in the narrow senses of different religions, but in a very broad sense, it could be anything and nothing alike to humans).

This relates to OP's inquiry about how can smart people believe in God ? I literally explained the process itself. Smart people believe in God (of course I'm not making a case for ALL smart people) because it's impossible to explain the most fundamental question that exists: "WHY does something exist instead of not existing" without appeal to something which we cannot comprehend and we never will (and I showed in the other posts why science is not adequate to answer this question).

[Anonymous No.19280391]

>>19280361
If your answer to why the universe happened is something which we cannot comprehend and never will have you haven't answered anything and have really just said I don't know. When you try to tack consciousness or religion onto that incomprehensible you're just being dishonest.

[Anonymous No.19280427]

>>19280391

Yes, I don't know (with certainty) and we as humans never will. The only reason why I even hold this theory is because science lacks and will forever lack the possibility to answer the question: "why does something exist instead of not existing ?".

That's the only reason why I reach the conclusion that God might exist. If there was a genuine way for science to explain something like that, I would have had faith in science. But I know it will never be able to answer that question because the question itself goes beyond material causes since the question is about how is material coming out immaterial (by immaterial meaning complete VOID. Not even quantum laws, etc). How can something material explain the transition from nothing to something ? Doing so would require observing this "treshold" or "transition" because it has no material causes since every material thing exists a posteriori to this treshold / transition.

And that's where I stop with my answer: something like "God" in a very broad sense made this transition possible from nothing to something. If God "exists" in this nothingness or complete void, then paradoxically it wouldn't be nothing, right ? That's why God has to be something that can exist in nothing while not destabilizing this "nothingness". It has to be something completely immaterial or not bound to literally ANYTHING whatever it might be.

What could the nature of something that can exist in nothingness be ? I don't know (and can't know exactly), but Descartes' exemplification with the consciousness which we can imagine as existing without material conditions (because it's just that, consciousness) gave me a hint that something like consciousness can exist in nothingness because "consciousness" itself is not "something", but an "effect" or "manifestation". We cannot pinpoint consciousness as existing anywhere in our body.

[Anonymous No.19280434]

>>19279044
professional scientist (I have a Ph.D. in sociology)
kek
Nice bait and all, but why all this effort for just some (you)s?

[Anonymous No.19280449]

>>19279044
There are literally no smart people that are not religious

[Anonymous No.19280453]

>>19280427
>How can something material explain the transition from nothing to something ?
Why do you think this is something that needs an explanation? Science has observed that things don't just pop into existence but you've put the question beyond science. So why are you using an observation about the material universe as a basis for your metaphysics?

[Anonymous No.19280463]

Easily the most autistic thread on /lit/ at the moment, very unreadable for we neurotypical people, and yet it's always there at the top of the Catalogue :\

[Anonymous No.19280497]

>>19279044
>by then it was clear that no scientist could ever again sincerely believe in the bible, and that any pretense to piety on the part of an intellectual was really just a massive LARP.

This somewhat dogmatic sounding inference is simply not the case.

You should read a few books by Stanley L. Jaki, an historian of science and rather pious Catholic priest who, I would think, any fair observer would consider "smart". In particular, his 'Savior of Science' and 'Uneasy Genius: The Life And Work Of Pierre Duhem', among other works,* address, I strongly suspect, many or most of the assumptions that likely undergird that inference.

I mention Jaki because his work is accessible, and I know that he is an engaging and delightful writer. But, too, consider that a lot goes on behind the scenes that contradicts your inference, but is not readily accessible or especially publicized. For example, the following remark is by a writer from Slate - Wm. Saletan, no friend of the Catholic Church - reporting on a bioethics conference at the Vatican:

>The first presenters, a couple of scientists, summarize the state of stem cell research. When they’re done, a soft-spoken young priest in the front row raises his hand. “In a case of aneuploidy, it may be possible to laser ablate one or two of the blastomeres,” he says. A priest in the back row asks about “aberrant silencing of the IGF and IGF2 receptor.” I can hardly believe what I’m hearing. Afterward, I ask the first priest, Father Tad Pacholczyk, where he learned this stuff. Turns out he’s got a Ph.D. in neuroscience from Yale, plus a research stint at Harvard Medical School and undergraduate degrees in biochemistry and molecular biology. Around the room, half the guys in collars are scientists. A couple of weeks ago, there was a conference here on the concept of brain death, which the Vatican is reconsidering in light of new findings.
https://slate.com/technology/2005/03/jews-vs-catholics-in-the-stem-cell-debate.html


*See, e.g., 'The Origin of Science and the Science of Its Origin'; 'Science and Creation: From Eternal Cycles to an Oscillating Universe'; 'God and the Cosmologists'; and 'Angels, Apes, and Men'.

[Anonymous No.19280509]

>>19279832
>This is the kind of thinking I'm talking about btw.
You dont understand the religious mindset, real religious people do not life inside a history.

[Anonymous No.19280520]

>>19280453

>Science has observed that things don't just pop into existence but you've put the question beyond science

I mean you explained it yourself. Things don't just pop into existence. There is no process through which things pop into existence because if there would be one, things would continously pop into existence since Big Bang, no ? This means that reality popping into existence is a singular event and that it was triggered by an external force which created the conditions of possibility for this transition from a state of nothingness to a state of something.

>So why are you using an observation about the material universe as a basis for your metaphysics?

This question is redundant. What other observation can I use ? I live inside the universe. Since you asked this then you realized yourself that humans are inherently limited.

Can you pinpoint more exactly what observation you refer to ? The one that science has observed things don't pop into existence ? If this one, then this doesn't invalidate my explanation. It's an observation of what cannot be done, not of what can be done.

[Anonymous No.19280527]

>>19279226
> Guys like Hume and Bertrand Russell are good but I was trying to underline the empirical challenges to religiosity rather than the theoretical challenges
Hume was a massive empirical effect. Under what trend of rationalism was Darwin working under? The British were becoming increasingly non-religious at the time, just look at their policies in India, Utilitarianism was way in in gentlemanly fashion, not just a theory talked about by achedemics.

And Darwin’s theory wasn’t even the first time the idea of evolution in that sense was posed and highly discussed in the west, even in the church. it was under the context of modernism and utilitarianism and the reactionary third “great awakening” where it stirred somewhat of a hubbub.
I am sorry, but I have a hard time thinking you are a sociologist if you have such basic knowledge of sociology and the different aspects in society that informs trends.

And it’s not “just another chip”, since pretty much the beginning the more important and focuses on questions in religion has been more intrinsic. What is good, what is god, what is the relationship between me and god, etc. And by a literalists own admission, the only truth can be found in the holy text as an a priori assertion based on faith. And those who do not believe in complete literalism do not. People can believe In things, and believe in those things in different ways. I think focusing on Darwin is myopic because it was a conflict in only a particular part of the Christian community.>>19280153


Have you studied ontology much at all? As in meaning creation? It’s not to hard to understand a different stance can be the product of a different formation of meaning creation(something that smart people would be prone to exploring and thinking about)

[Anonymous No.19280549]

>>19279044
>Darwin
Imagine accepting the opinion of one man as an infallible dogma and even consider others to be unintelligent because they don't agree with that opinion. People like you really have nothing to do with intellectuality, just a bunch of pseuds who cover their sentimentalism under a rationalist cover.

[Anonymous No.19280558]

>>19280520
>I mean you explained it yourself. Things don't just pop into existence.
This is a empirical observation. You then ask based on that empirical observation how something came from nothing. But then you claim that question can't be answered by science even though it's based on a empirical observation.

[Anonymous No.19280563]

Read Kierkegaard.

[Anonymous No.19280567]

>>19280549
Darwin isn't a prophet it's not his word alone that makes evolution true. If Jesus made it all up Christianity is fake. Even if Darwin made it all up evolution has still been confirmed by scientific investigation since then.

[Anonymous No.19280569]

>>19280558

Do I really have to answer this ? The fact that something doesn't appear out of nothing is a fact that precedes scientific inquiry.

[Anonymous No.19280576]

>>19280527
>Have you studied ontology much at all?
Have you studied logical fallacies at all. Special pleading that no one besides you can find an explanation for something is not a good debate tactic.

[Anonymous No.19280584]

>>19280569
>The fact that something doesn't appear out of nothing is a fact that precedes scientific inquiry.
No it's not. If you throw out empirical evidence and claim it can't effect metaphysics you throw it all out. Why can't something come from nothing? Give me an answer using metaphysics

[Anonymous No.19280593]

>>19280584

Because nothing is nothing, meaning that there are no conditions of possibility for anything to happen. This is more of a logical question than anything.

[Anonymous No.19280598]

>>19279226
>deep down they know that every challenge to a literal interpretation of the bible hurts their cause just as much
This is so wrong in many levels. Why are you assuming you know another person's belief? As you said before, "Darwin BTFO fundamentalists" and we still have religious people, so you can see that any challenge doesn't hurt them at all. Also, it's interesting that you are talking about religious people, but is clearly attacking only Christians, so you should wonder what is your problem with Christianity, not religious people.

[Anonymous No.19280714]

>>19280527
> Hume was a massive empirical effect. Under what trend of rationalism was Darwin working under? The British were becoming increasingly non-religious at the time, just look at their policies in India, Utilitarianism was way in in gentlemanly fashion, not just a theory talked about by achedemics.
ESL? I certainly hope so...
> And Darwin’s theory wasn’t even the first time the idea of evolution in that sense was posed and highly discussed in the west, even in the church. it was under the context of modernism and utilitarianism and the reactionary third “great awakening” where it stirred somewhat of a hubbub.
Yes, as an amateur historian of science most of this is so banal to me as to not even be worth mentioning; however, my point, again, is not about how Darwin proves all of religion wrong, or whatever, and it has nothing to do in particular with Darwin or even his theories; my point is that science continually contradicts religion, so that the bible's domain of truth shrinks more and more, to encompass increasingly, just proverbs, parables, stories, and special interpretations of text. Not to mention that everytime this happens, the religion has to reinterpret itself to survive--just like how the bible now chases after moral progress, even though it use to be it's master once upon a time. Maybe I used a bad example, but it's the best example I could think of. Perhaps I should have talked about the helio-centric vs the geo-centric model debate.
I am not >>19280153 btw.
>>19280549
One man...and the whole of the scientific establishment (though, of course, updated). Lemme guess: you don't believe in climate change, nor trust the vaxx neither huh? I'm not impressed.
>>19280563
Sure, I'll read him, although I remember reading some of his work as a college undergrad ("Either/Or" I think?) and I don't remember caring for it really. He doesn't rely on fantastical explanations however and I would consider him to be intelligent so it does fit my criteria. Really disappointed at the lack of recommendations, so I greatly appreciate you and this anon over here >>19280497
So far, this anon >>19279269 (from a Jewish perspective), this anon >>19280497 (from a Catholic perspective), and you (from a Lutheran perspective) have been the only ones to offer any literary work fitting my criteria (shocking from a board called /lit/). I would have preferred more scientific work but, at any rate, I really do appreciate that you as theists have made an effort to cast pearls before me, even as I've been so obstinate and offensive. Thank you all very much.

[Anonymous No.19280751]

>>19280714
Read Fear and Trembling. It's the one where he addresses the nature of faith and how it shouldn't be treated as something superficial.

[Anonymous No.19280767]

>as a professional scientist (I have a Ph.D. in sociology)

[Anonymous No.19280873]

>>19279044
i just want to say this is the best bait i've seen in years. truly great execution. (and i agree with you other than the fact that... the further you go back, the more pious people were anyway. even the founding fathers, who hated the church, were 100% deists.)

[Anonymous No.19280927]

>>19279832
kys

[Anonymous No.19281115]

Anon, has it occurred to you that maybe the smart people are correct and you are wrong?

[Anonymous No.19281193]

>>19280767
Now I want some Pistachios, thanks asshole.

[Anonymous No.19281217]

>>19281193
This, they are very expensive.