/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.20676159]

>Not so many centuries ago, everyone automatically believed in God. It didn't mean much.

>Today, automatically, no one believes in God, but it's purely a mob phenomenon.

>It's not because there are powerful scientific arguments, you know. It's Peter's denial, that's all it is.

[Anonymous No.20676174]

>>20676159
>everyone
not really

[Anonymous No.20676181]

>>20676159
>normies are normies no matter what
>contrarians are a bunch of schizos interspersed amongst geniuses
lather, rinse, repeat ad infinitum

[Anonymous No.20676187]

>>20676159
>>It's not because there are powerful scientific arguments, you know. It's Peter's denial, that's all it is.
Wrong, it is because of science. Evolutionary theory, Big Bang theory, archeological findings, all these were never properly addressed by the church. They just retreated into "it's all a metaphor!". Well what's a metaphor? Genesis? Adam and Eve? The resurrection? The Bible? Christianity? The chuch has done a terrible job at clarifying how we should interpret the bible, so protestants went and "interpted it by themselves" and we all know where that led.

[Anonymous No.20676196]

are normies capable of true belief?

[Anonymous No.20676251]

>>20676159
philosophically refined people don't have much difference in their belief. the mob still believes in fanciful superstition as they always did.

[Anonymous No.20676365]

>>20676187
It is because of science, but not because of any of the things you mentioned. The big bang theory was created by a priest after all.
The actual science that makes Christianity hard to swallow is textual criticism.

[Anonymous No.20676377]

>>20676365
Low IQ post

[Anonymous No.20676440]

>>20676377
>Can't even articulate his arguments
Retard spotted.

[Anonymous No.20676466]

>>20676365
>You're wrong. Irrelevant trivia everyone knows already. This non-science is the science to blame. I am very intelligent

[Anonymous No.20676479]

>>20676466
I'm sorry I injured your brainlet pride.

[Anonymous No.20676491]

>>20676479
Another low IQ post

[Anonymous No.20676518]

>>20676187
Big Bang was a metaphor too, you know

[Anonymous No.20676524]

>>20676187
what if god created the big bang and then created the weird fish thingies that later became apes and then humans

[Anonymous No.20676528]

>>20676518
>>20676524
It was literally accused of being a Christian theory for claiming that creation came ex nihilo.

[Anonymous No.20676562]

>>20676196
Good question. I have yet to come across a normie capable of understanding Pilate; "Truths?"

[Anonymous No.20676583]

>>20676159
>no one believes in God
Athiests still remain a minority in most countries outside of China.
And acting like there aren't at least quite convincing arguments opposing God's existence could purely be accepted if you ignored the last 300 years of western philosophy.

[Anonymous No.20676592]

>>20676583
Fake chart. Majority in France are religious (40% catholic, 20% other religions). I can only assume the rest of the data is wrong as well.

[Anonymous No.20676600]

>>20676187
The Christian worldview denies these theories entirely. They are a logical impossibility. There is nothing to address.

[Anonymous No.20676604]

>christians like it when kids get taught to believe the religion of their parents
>christians do not like it when kids get taught to believe the lack of religion of their parents
Actually you know what that's not even right, most atheist parents don't even teach their kids to be atheists. They just naturally come to that conclusion when a specific religion isn't indoctrinated in every aspect of they early life. Even for the agnostic the idea that despite humanity's history having millions of gods the god of the religion that Rome happened to pick up is the true one.
>peter's denial
The sheer arrogance of this lmao, I don't believe in Amaterasu and that's not because of science either.

[Anonymous No.20676609]

>>20676583
There’s not a single convincing argument against God’s existence. Not one.

[Anonymous No.20676610]

>>20676604
Is that your fantasy? That atheism is the natural state of children?

[Anonymous No.20676619]

>>20676609
It's quite literally the opposite. Here's every argument between a believer and an atheist.
>GOD EXISTS FAGGOT!!!
>oh yeah? prove it
>W-WHAT?! UH...T-THE PROOF IS ALL AROUND YOU! Y-YOU JUST CAN'T SEE IT...Y-YEAH
>yeah but that's not actually proof though
>TIPS FEDORA HAHAHAHA TIPS FEDORA FUCK OFF FEDORALORD FEDORA FEDORA FEDORA
Rince and repeat ad nauseum for the rest of human existence.

[Anonymous No.20676623]

>>20676610
No because humans naturally develop mythologies. However in the modern world when not presented with a specific religious tradition as a child and having access to wide knowledge of other religions no more convincing than any others then it's easy to default into a lack of belief as you grow older. Other than people that find religion in later life it's entirely cultural rather than spiritual.

[Anonymous No.20676627]

>>20676619
This is headcanon. There’s no argument or trace of reality here. This is a fedora reply.

[Anonymous No.20676630]

>>20676623
That’s bullshit and you know it dude. Kids develop a confused belief, but belief nonetheless. Even atheists start to ascribe God-like attributes to science or the cosmos. Atheism is not a default at all.

[Anonymous No.20676632]

>>20676604
> Christians like it when kids have the religion of their parents
Like Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam…?

Wtf were you getting at with this dumb comment?

[Anonymous No.20676649]

>>20676630
An atheism lite form of agnosticism then. I'm talking more about the cultural aspects of believing in actual religions. Rather than saying atheism perhaps I should have gone with the idea that they just don't really think about it when not beholden to religious teachings.

[Anonymous No.20676657]

>>20676649
They are though. They do. This is a fantasy you’ve invented in your head.

[Anonymous No.20676658]

>>20676600
>The Christian worldview denies these theories entirely.
It doesn't at all

[Anonymous No.20676818]

>>20676609
A philosophical, deistic God, perhaps not. But the abrahamic God absolutely, like all other religions. There are historical, scientific, linguistic, and even logical inconsistencies which make it hard to completely accept these revelations as divinely attributed. Since the copernican revolution, there have been multiple scientific discoveries that go completely against that which is written in the holy book (the book that cannot be wrong.) The possibility of a God that created the universe will forever be impossible to completely refute, but that which is written in scripture is man-made, no matter how beautiful and truthful it is.
>inb4 onions reddit

[Anonymous No.20676861]

>>20676187
>were never properly addressed by the church
The church leaders were plebs raised in the same confused situation as the rest of the plebs. There were scholarly traditions within the church that addressed all this long before the crisis but when any hint of answers are actually presented retards like this sperg >>20676600 and go on heavy attacks with the support of the entire western propaganda machine. Only 20th century burger Protestantism is allowed to call itself "Christianity" because it's completely neutered, no chance of it ever becoming a threat to anything.

[Anonymous No.20676869]

>>20676818
You say nothing first century Christians didn't understand better than you. You didn't even try to begin to argue against the existence of the Christian God. The mind of a brainwashed atheist will never put together a single coherent thought in his life. It's not possible.

[Anonymous No.20676880]

>>20676869
Fine, erudite esoteric scholar. Find me a good theosophical argument that reconciles darwinian evolution with christian creationism. Or at least post me to a christian who completely disproved darwin using a rigourous scientific method.

[Anonymous No.20676908]

>>20676880
There's no conflict. No reconciliation needed. You're just a completely braindead golem. Any insight you have been feed on any subject is based on resentful propaganda.
How did a Catholic priest develop the idea of the Big Bang within a Christian context? Before Darwin the established model within the Catholic church was that animals evolved. Darwin added the mechanism of natural selection, nothing fundamentally changed. You just pretend it does and refuse to even consider any possibility that doesn't fit the propaganda theater you believe is your moral duty to maintain. No hint of actual curiosity about the truth.

[Anonymous No.20676910]

>>20676818
Cite some of the inconsistencies then.

[Anonymous No.20676917]

>>20676610
atheism is the natural religion of pederasts if you're talking about how this relates to children

[Anonymous No.20676919]

>>20676880
> show me a Christian who refutes the scientific worldview by accepting the scientific worldview
Atheists always do this. It’s crazy they don’t see the issue with it.

[Anonymous No.20676950]

>>20676187
>Evolutionary theory, Big Bang theory, archeological findings
None of these contradict Christianity

Evolution is just how God created life
Big Bang is just Genesis
archaeological findings? I assume you meant paleontology, like dinosaur bones. Yeah those animals are mentioned in the Bible too (behemoth, dragons, etc)

Science in all ages walked hand in hand with Christianity and only affirmed it, never contradicted. Redditors who worship Neil Deadass Tyson are not scientists, though. They just have their own secular religion, atheism.

[Anonymous No.20676953]

>>20676908
>>20676908
>>20676908
>Before Darwin the established model within the Catholic church was that animals evolved. Darwin added the mechanism of natural selection, nothing fundamentally changed.
Either an insane strawman on Darwin's theory or you simply did not properly understand it. he didn't "simply add the mechanism of natural selection, he posited that, like all animals, humans are animals and have evolved alongside all other living organisms in fundamentally the same way, which completely went against the christian cannon at the time. The chasm between man's image at that of animals had been, I agree, already heavily studied and questionned by christian scholars, but it doesn't change the fact that if you take what is written in the old testament literally, it would be quite hard to hold both positions without heading into deism.

[Anonymous No.20677026]

>>20676953
You just vomit out propaganda premises and think that should be enough to convince anyone. It shows how atheists actually think, that is not at all. This kind of garbage was enough to convince you which means you don't think.
>if you take what is written in the old testament literally
Why would I? What kind of brain damage could possibly compel me to undermine any possibility of understanding an ancient text with mindless assumptions like that based on nothing? The idea of reading something "literally" doesn't even mean anything. The only reason the idea exists is to discredit Christianity and it's the only context which the idea is applied.
There are many guides that give you insight into how they read the Bible from as early as the first century. Propagandists like you call them "apologists". Implying the early martyrs and contributors to the Bible didn't really understand Christianity, only you guys, the ones that created a political movement out of rejecting it do.

[Anonymous No.20677081]

>>20677026
If you do not take the Bible literally, then obviously it's completely irrefutable. You cannot disprove poetry, prose, fiction. The most beautiful poem is true and nobody can contradict that which is written in it. If you want to venture into irrationalism, that's fine, the argument for or against God can still be made. But if you want to apply rational human thinking, empiricism, and the scientific method there's no further point. Everyone believes anything they want, all religions are true, all faith is irrefutable. There's no point going further than that.

[Anonymous No.20677087]

>>20676953
The issue is the disconnect from the harshness of reality that success brings, not Christianity itself except in the indirect way that its successes made people like you able to be lazy, spoiled and ignorant. In that context a basic reminder of our brutal past becomes a shock to the system you have no idea how to deal with.
>humans are animals
Even this is engaged with in early Christianity. The brutal animal instincts of St. Christopher end up still serving Christ. He ferries Christ, Christophers and through it becomes human.

[Anonymous No.20677100]

>>20677081
>then obviously it's completely irrefutable
It can still make claims you mindless shithead. There is no other text on the planet you demand can't make any claims unless it does it "literally".
Was my previous post literally about physical vomit?
You refuse to do any work to begin to try to understand the most cherished ancient text of your culture and the scholarship around it. Instead you regurgitate your pop media propaganda over and over as if you're competing in who can think the least and be the biggest propaganda golem.

[Anonymous No.20677152]

>>20677100
>It can still make claims
I never said it couldn't, if you understood that irrationalism is an actual philosophical heritage and not a mindless insult, maybe you wouldn't chimp out. All religions make claims. That's the fucking point isn't it. As much as i can enjoy Aristotle's metaphysics, I simply view it within an epistemological framework, like with Christianity, Jainism etc etc. Calling the modern scientific method shit pop propaganda all you like, it's still what is being used for the entirety of human advancement currently. Incuding by religious savants. It takes a bit more effort than ad hominem arguments to reject it.

[Anonymous No.20677161]

>>20676950
Adam and Eve were the first humans. You can't reconcile this with anthropology. Humans were simply created, you can't reconcile this with evolutionary theory. The big bang also implies a mechanistic universe, which is once again incompatible with Christianity. You can't just brush those aside.

[Anonymous No.20677171]

>>20676196
Definitely

[Anonymous No.20677251]

>>20677152
>irrationalism is an actual philosophical heritage
Not relevant to anything I'm talking about or the ideas of the people/church you lie to yourself you're criticizing when you repeat your propaganda horseshit. These are the people who emphasized reason and rationality so much that it was eventually passed to you and you spit in their face.
The scientific method is a tool to test some testable things. It rests on a million assumptions about reality including universality as a rule of thumb. In the past that rule of thumb would be framed as a theological claim but propagandists have managed to disconnect all our ideas today from ideas of the past to neuter them. So you have no power. You don't even understand the scientific method despite worshiping it as your highest god.
That you conflate your incoherent, irrational propaganda about Christianity with the scientific method is another example of how you're completely incapable of reason. There's no rationality there, your thoughts are rooted in unreasoned principles you take as granted, what used to be called religious dogma but a better description for how it works now is media brainwashing.
>It takes a bit more effort than ad hominem
Ad hominems are honest. You and everyone like you are retarded. You will never face that fact unless you're told in clear terms how fucked in the head you are. What do you think you've presented so far that's better than ad hominems? Is it better to pretend you are on the side of science, reason and well defined methods and then not use any methods, just mindless deference to pop propaganda?

[Anonymous No.20677333]

>>20676524
What proof do you have that it was the biblical God and not some other Being unknown to us?

[Anonymous No.20677340]

>>20677251
>These are the people who emphasized reason and rationality so much that it was eventually passed to you and you spit in their face
Pure rambling. I have the utmost respect for all erudite scholars and theologians who advanced knowledge and sciences (which also include polytheists, muslim, jewish, confucianists etc.) But when a logical argument is disproven thoroughly, you simply adapt to the new knowledge that bistows upon you. That's how the logos works.
>In the past that rule of thumb would be framed as a theological claim but propagandists have managed to disconnect all our ideas today from ideas of the past to neuter them.
Oh is that why? I thought the scientific revolution brought that forth. Notably by christian scholars who decided to prefer natural sciences to explain the natural world and religious studies to explain the spiritual world. If we still had to use the theological framework for conducting natural science we wouldn't have had such a spectacular explision of scientific breakthroughs. If you want to argue about if these breakthroughs are good or not, that's an entirely different question that doesn't deserve to be brought up here.

[Anonymous No.20677348]

Don't care. Praise the Lord.

[Anonymous No.20677383]

>>20676159
>everyone
not really

[Anonymous No.20677509]

>>20677340
>If we still had to use the theological framework for conducting natural science we wouldn't have had such a spectacular explision of scientific breakthroughs.
You still work within a theological framework you just market it as not theological. This creates an imagined rift between you and those "irrational theists" that has no basis in reality. It's all pure marketing and propaganda.
The assumption that the rules you observe locally hold universally isn't really based on reason. It's an assumption about the nature of reality on a higher level than anything physical. A claim that operates in the same realm as all those claims of theologians you dismiss with the only justification that they're unscientific, in other words that they don't fit your theological framework and unreasoned assumptions.
You can say the results the method gives provides a rational reason to believe the principle of universality but that logic also holds true for other theological claims like all sorts of Christian claims you dismiss. That it turns out it works is not a reason to apply the principle in the first place. You didn't know that until you used it.
That it "works" also just says the method gives some results. You may still be extremely limited in what kind of results you're getting. You may not be exploring the entirety of reality, just the parts of reality that conform to your methods. Using this logic the limits of your methods will entirely dictate your worldview.

[Anonymous No.20678680]

Let us assume for a moment that the Adam and Eve story is not to be understood literally. What would be the result? Would Christianity remain essentially the same with a non-literal understanding of the story of Adam and Eve? No. In fact, it would have serious implications for virtually every tenet and doctrine of the Christian faith. If Adam was not a real man, then sin did not enter the world through one man as Romans 5:12 states. How, then, did sin enter the world? Further, if the New Testament is wrong about how sin entered the world, what else is it wrong about? If Romans 5:12 is wrong, how do we know that the entirety of Romans 5:8–15 is not wrong? If the story of Adam and Eve is not to be taken literally—if they did not really exist—then there was no one to rebel, there was no fall into sin. Satan, the great deceiver, would like nothing better than for people to believe that the Bible should not be taken literally and that the story of the fall of man is a myth. Why? Because once we start denying parts of the Bible, we lose our trust in the Bible. Why should we believe anything God’s Word says if we cannot trust everything that it says?

Jesus taught that God created one man and one woman (Mark 10:6) and mentions Abel, a son of Adam and Eve in Luke 11:51. Was Jesus wrong in His beliefs? Or did Jesus know there were no literal Adam and Eve and He was simply accommodating His teaching to the beliefs of the people (i.e., lying)? If Jesus is wrong in His beliefs, He is not God. If Jesus is intentionally deceiving people, He is sinning and therefore cannot be the Savior (1 Peter 1:19).

That is why this is such a serious issue. To deny the literalness of Adam and Eve is to place oneself in opposition to Jesus and the apostle Paul. If one has the audacity to claim he is right and Jesus and Paul are wrong, then Jesus is a sinner, not God and not the Savior; the apostle Paul is a false prophet; and the Bible is not inspired, inerrant, or trustworthy.

The Bible clearly presents Adam and Eve as literal people who existed in a literal Garden of Eden. They literally rebelled against God, they literally believed Satan’s lie, and they were literally cast out of the Garden (Genesis 3:24). They had literal children, all of whom inherited the sin nature, and that nature was passed down to succeeding generations to this very day. Fortunately, God promised a literal Savior to redeem us from that sin nature (Genesis 3:15). That Savior is Jesus Christ, called the “last Adam” (1 Corinthians 15:45), who died on a literal cross and literally rose again. Those who believe in Christ will have literal salvation and spend eternity in a literal heaven.

[Anonymous No.20678685]

>>20678680
Christians who deny the story of Adam and Eve essentially deny their own faith. Rejecting the literal interpretation of the Bible’s historical narratives is a slippery slope. If Adam and Eve did not exist, then were Cain and Abel not real? Did Seth exist, and did he father a godly line that led all the way to Abraham and eventually to Jesus Himself? Where in Luke’s genealogy (Luke 3:23–38) do the names stop referring to literal people and start referring to mythical characters? To dismiss Adam and Eve as non-literal is to deny the accuracy of Luke’s gospel, cast aspersions on Moses’ record, and remove the foundation of the rest of the Bible.

God’s Word claims to be true (Psalm 119:160). Jesus Christ declared God’s Word to be truth (John 17:17). All of God’s Word is God-breathed (2 Timothy 3:16-17). These declarations include the biblical account of Adam and Eve.

[Anonymous No.20678688]

>>20676159
This is what happens when one does not read Ellul...

[Anonymous No.20678732]

>>20677161
>Adam and Eve were the first humans. You can't reconcile this with anthropology
Mitochondrial eve. There is literally one specimen considered to be the first homo sapien.
>Humans were simply created, you can't reconcile this with evolutionary theory.
Individual organisms do not evolve. Evolution takes place across consecutive generations. You're arguing against evolution -- that the first protoplasm can't evolve when it was first created because things created just can't evolve!
>The big bang also implies a mechanistic universe, which is once again incompatible with Christianity.
Why is it incompatible?

[Anonymous No.20678780]

>>20678732
>Mitochondrial eve. There is literally one specimen considered to be the first homo sapien.
So Adam and Eve were some ancient Australopithecine with a completely different skeleton and much smaller skulls than us?
>Individual organisms do not evolve. Evolution takes place across consecutive generations. You're arguing against evolution -- that the first protoplasm can't evolve when it was first created because things created just can't evolve!
What are you talking about? Evolutionary theory argues that we and chimpanzees have a common ancestor, and humans evolved through millions of years of adaptations. Christianity denies any common ancestors: God created humans directly.
>Why is it incompatible?
Because a mechanistic universe leaves no place for free will, soul, and telos. We are just particles in motion since the Big Bang and humans are reduced to automata.

[Anonymous No.20678895]

>>20678680
There's no possible way to interpret the texts coherently "literally" and none of the great scholars do when they're justifying their positions. All your arguments about the foundations of Christian thought crumbling apply exactly in the opposite way you claim. If Adam and Eve were physical people eating magic fruit somewhere in a physical garden the text is complete horseshit with no relationship to anything that comes later.
Why do they keep mentioning literal fruit? Why would Israel bear fruit? Is a central issue of the Bible making the nation of Israel a net fruit exporter?
>be fruitful and multiply
>Thanks God I will plant lots of fruit trees and do multiplication problems. I'm such a good boy.

[Anonymous No.20678912]

>>20678688
I don’t get it though. He really thought Protestantism and “Christian anarchism” were tenable? I can totally sympathize being against the subversion of the Catholic church, and other churches, but no church at all?

[Anonymous No.20678913]

>>20676377
>>20676491
not that anon but these do nothing for anyone and make you look like a retarded nigger.

[Anonymous No.20678919]

>>20676619
fedora reply

[Anonymous No.20678940]

>>20678780
>God don't real because free will don't real
jfc

[Anonymous No.20678946]

>>20678780
You need to read more. That's not what the modern synthesis argues (see salvation and macromutation). You're confusing Darwinian adaptation with natural selection, they're not synonyms.
>mechanistic universe
I don't know if you're aware, but predestination has always been, and still is, a thing.

[Anonymous No.20678962]

>>20676159
Good job, OP. Another thread filled with angry teenagers arguing the existence of God. Marvelous.

[Anonymous No.20678972]

>>20678940
>>20678946
Let me know when you have an argument.

[Anonymous No.20678982]

>>20678912
He's a Protestant by way of Karl Barth, he's not a Lutheran or Calvinist or anything like that. The theology he develops is mostly his own, and he rejects institutional religion.
https://sci-hub.hkvisa.net/10.1207/s15328415jmr0503_2

[Anonymous No.20678995]

>>20678972
You are aware that they are not obligated to argue anything, right? Being Christian means accepting revelation. If something is not presented by revelation, it's being our knowledge; if you don't accept revelation, it's up to you.
It's a simple concept, can't you grasp it? Truth is in God; you can't demand it from humans if it is not stated in The Bible via revelation.

[Anonymous No.20679001]

>>20678995
We are talking about whether science and Christianity are compatible or not. No one asked you about anything else.

[Anonymous No.20679004]

>>20678995
beyond*

[Anonymous No.20679052]

>>20679001
I already stated what you needed to know; if you are unable to grasp the christian concept of Truth and the inutility, from a Christand standpoint, of such discussions, I am sorry. Not going to waste any more of my time.

[Anonymous No.20679192]

>>20676196
They are capable in true belief of group thinking. Maybe we all partake the same process to derive truth but not in the masses of people around us.

[Anonymous No.20679206]

>>20677333
no proof, but I don't really care because if there exists a being capable of creating an universe then all bets are off
see what I like the possibility of more questions rather than of definite answers

[Anonymous No.20679227]

>>20678962
The larpers are going to larp.

[Anonymous No.20679282]

>>20678982
Which sounds ridiculous to me. If you have no church, it’s all just up to subjective interpretation.

[Anonymous No.20679446]

>>20676950
>Science in all ages walked hand in hand with Christianity and only affirmed it
Darwin and Galileo are on the phone, retard

[Anonymous No.20679492]

>>20677161
>Adam and Eve were the first humans. You can't reconcile this with anthropology. Humans were simply created, you can't reconcile this with evolutionary theory
This can all be reconciled if you accept evolution as working in the reverse direction.

[Anonymous No.20679503]

>>20679446
>Galileo
Deeply Christian

[Anonymous No.20679750]

>>20679282
>Ellul’s religious perspective is not a call to stubborn persistence in a noncongenial climate. His concern with religion cannot be rejected as an attempt to resurrect outmoded history. He realized fully that organized Christianity has failed since the Enlightenment to be an integrating force in social life. Institutions in themselves cannot be retrieved and reinvigorated, he suggested, as history never repeats the circumstances for which they once supplied a resolution. The Constantinian model of Christendom—that is, a preoccupation with institutional religion—received little attention from Ellul because he considered this formulation obsolete. As Augustine did before him, Ellul distinguished between organizational form and organismic reality, basing his intellectual work on the latter. For him, the predicament of modern ecclesiastical institutions does not preclude immersing one’s viewpoint in the religious as a way of invigorating scholarship on important issues of social solidarity. Ellul affirmed the religious impulse for maintaining vitality in the human spirit and empowering moral sensitivity in an age where means have triumphed. Without a final standard of authentic choice (which theology and religious studies seek to supply), human existence is condemned to essential arbitrariness, that is, to meaninglessness. Answers to life’s discordances are clear, Ellul (1969a) declared, “only with those who accept a transcendental, an absolute value which determines all the rest” (p. 146). Ellul anticipated chaos when the “Good Life” has no settled views; selfhood disintegrates without a supreme court of moral appeal. He was emphatic that our concern with human fulfillment and community must include strict attention to the religious—those concentrations of moral authority that can finally adjudicate among colliding values and, in doing so, create a sense of appreciation for whatever serves to strengthen society and culture. Across human history, religion has focused attention precisely on those symbols of faith, ultimacy, ends, and grounding, which alone can extricate us from our technicized existence. But Ellul did not simply appeal to the religious in general; he believed strongly that cultural worth-whileness originates with human beings themselves. For life to be infused with meaning, a revolution of transformed people is necessary, and a genuine revolution of human beings has a revelational dimension. It must derive outside technicized culture and move us in an opposite direction.

[Anonymous No.20679755]

>>20679750
>Societies, for Ellul, are not reordered by antipathy to institutions or by energetically exploiting means but through illumined consciousness from within. Only a decisive power, achieving fruition within us yet originating beyond us, can transform the contemporary environment. Anything less cannot penetrate today’s overwhelming la technique. Spiritual reality cannot be restored by material means. As a theologian in counterpoint, Ellul framed his concerns eschatologically. Only at history’s apocalyptic finale will ends be fully and openly realized. However, signs can appear now as first fruits of that ultimate eschatological event where ends reign supreme. Human beings, as a matter of fact, can receive, embody, and constitute the presence of the end within themselves.

[Anonymous No.20679790]

Science seems to say that we're just complex machines and that conciousness arises purely due to the physical structure of the brain.
How do you guys reconcile science with ideas such as the soul or god or free will?

[Anonymous No.20680130]

>>20676159
I agree I’ve noticed this as well. The normie gonna normie and today his face has Disney and Jewish ideas shoved in it all day. So what’s he belive? Jewish ideas s

[Anonymous No.20680150]

>>20676187
>The chuch has done a terrible job at clarifying how we should interpret the bible
actually the modern Catholic Church has perfectly reconciled modern science with the Christian doctrine. but really, it all goes back to St Augustine

[Anonymous No.20680172]

>>20676196
Are you? You're a normie, just a marginal one without prospects, which makes you cope by considering yourself some sort of outsider.

[Anonymous No.20680176]

>>20676174
FPWP

[Anonymous No.20680194]

>>20676609
>N-NO YOU HAVE TO PROVE MY MAGICAL JEWISH SKYWIZARD DOESNT EXIST
And then you wonder why people make fun of you.

[Anonymous No.20680346]

>>20676159
Nah I'm a Universalist and I feel totally at peace with my belief in God. He simply appears in different aspects or as multiple aspects. Maybe it's multiple gods which are a reflection of an all powerful being. Ultimately I don't have to understand everything to know that spontaneous generation is impossible thus there is a creator(s). Be honest if you are an atheist it's probably because the concept of a higher and power that good or evil, wise or foolish, fair or petty, has ultimate control over you and you may be anything from it's masterpiece and child to it's toy and banal curiosity or even a pest it made on accident terrifies you. We are not in control and we can only hope what is beyond us cares. I think it does but if I'm wrong oh well. I matter because I say I matter. My values matter because I say they do and will enforce them as needed. I will continue to research and study as it brings me joy. I love religion because it's a research path that will never conclude.

[Anonymous No.20680970]

>>20679790
We don't. You can't be a physicalist and a Christian. However science can't prove physicalism so it's not an issue.

[Anonymous No.20680976]

>>20680150
No it didn't, answer >>20678780 or post the official Catholic response to these questions

[Anonymous No.20680988]

>>20680346
Universalists are crypto-atheist

[Anonymous No.20681853]

>>20680988
No I'm not. The Catholic Church is soft Universalist at this point with the view that there is a line of truth. While Catholics believe (and I do too to an extent) that they have the whole truth most major religions have aspects of the truth. Why would God abandon whole swaths of the world and leave their salvation to stupid selfish other humans? That's retarded we're not trustworthy.

[Anonymous No.20682081]

>>20681853
>Why would God abandon whole swaths of the world and leave their salvation to stupid selfish other humans? That's retarded we're not trustworthy.
Oh ok then, you must know better than God. Oh wait, the "God" that you "believe" in is just something you yourself invented. You're an atheist, you just believe in yourself but you call it "God" to feel like you're special and totally not like every other atheist online.

[Anonymous No.20682317]

>>20680970
Physicalism is the position witht he least baseless assumptions needed.

[Anonymous No.20682333]

>>20676583
What the fuck is up with the distortion on that map, it literally hurts my eyes

[Anonymous No.20682342]

>>20680346
I used to think like this until I realized that if I’m right, I’m quite literally gambling with the single most important thing imaginable: my immortal soul.

[Anonymous No.20682350]

>>20680194
Like I said, there is no argument.

[Anonymous No.20682411]

>>20676619
*tips*

[Anonymous No.20682437]

>>20682081
>>20682342
You people don't really care about the truth your just wrapped up in something fundamentally meaningless like family tradition or culture. If you never stop to think how impossible it is for any one faith to have all the answers you'd agree with me. As is you hide behind ad hominem and clutch your little pearls. Threats of hell or accusations with no base don't bother me as I know that I am either right or it's all of little meaning regardless. There is no hell as the concept would lower God and reality to a state far lower and more primitive than our own world and that if true would make reality and all else little more than a joke.

[Anonymous No.20682518]

>>20678780
>mechanistic universe
Debatable even in secular circles dingus

[Anonymous No.20682543]

>>20682518
It's one of the most fundamental assumptions in science.
>inb4 quantum mechanics
It's about a paradigm: science assumes a mechanistic causal link that underlies all physical phenomena. Christians believe in miracles, prophecies, and an immanent God. Christians believe God guides people and pulls them towards something while science assumes that there's only a mechanistic push, not a pull.

[Anonymous No.20682597]

>>20676880
>Or at least post me to a christian who completely disproved darwin using a rigourous scientific method
Show me a single observable example of an animal that had a change of species. Scientists like to say that both man and monkey had the same ancestor, which means that at some point this very ancestor changed to 2 different species (sure, not 1 became 2, but some of them change to a different species and others to another different species), so sure we must have observable examples of change of species. Otherwise, evolution in the sense of change of species is pure blind faith and not sciences, for it doesn't follow the scientific method.

[Anonymous No.20682628]

>>20682543
A mechanistic universe is one in which phenomena can be precisely observed and predicted, no? You claim that IF we were able to measure the movement of particles on infinitesimal scales and simulate their movement using a sufficiently powerful computer, we could predict anything. Correct?

This is literally impossible. The only difference between this belief and any other religion is that the former is objectively false. Mechanistic universe is hogwash. We can't even get the weather right in a week's time, and this will quite literally NEVER be the case.

[Anonymous No.20682637]

>>20682628
That being the case, we can't rule out those things you mentioned prior since they rely on an impossibility.

[Anonymous No.20682640]

>but [X holy book] doesn’t explain [Y natural phenomenon] as well as science does!
religions being wrong about the divine doesn’t mean there’s no divinity

people formed their ideas of the divine around the edges of their ability to explain nature. Can’t explain lightning? It’s God. Can’t explain rain? God. Now we’re at the point where science is running into its limitations and again there is room for divinity. The universe began with a Big Bang — but what kicked it off? What was there before? Why anything? The prime mover argument, if you will.

You could say we just don’t have the scientific understanding to tackle those things yet, just like ancient people didn’t have the basis to understand lightning. But it doesn’t quite hold, because we will reach a point where we are no longer able to do physics. We can’t talk about pre-existence because we can’t observe it. At that point, an explanation by divinity becomes just as valid as pseudoscientific hand waving (“the laws of physics were different” or something). Divinity may even be a “more natural” argument to make.

[Anonymous No.20682650]

>>20682640
Funny enough, after creating computers, man now thinks we live in a simulation.

[Anonymous No.20682691]

>>20682650
It’s especially funny because it just pushes the problem one layer up and then you’re back to handwaving. But it sounds
>sciencey!

[Anonymous No.20682765]

>>20682628
>This is literally impossible.
Whether it's practically impossible or not, it's the theoretical assumption that underlie modern science.

[Anonymous No.20682797]

>>20682765
You’re misunderstanding the difference. It’s not just that it’s “impractical” to calculate the exact path of a particle. It is physically not possible. However, this doesn’t mean we can’t be scientific about it — we just have to use statistical laws instead of analytical ones.

Reality being statistical at a fundamental level actually leaves room for divine intervention. If there’s no mechanical reason for a particle to pick heads or tails, you may as well say God did it. Or if God wanted a certain outcome, it could happen by subtle manipulation of the odds.

[Anonymous No.20682847]

>>20676649
Agnosticism isn't even remotely atheism you retard

[Anonymous No.20682873]

>>20682437
Only a fool would demand “all the answers”. You’re projecting.

[Anonymous No.20682888]

>>20682797
That's just God of the gaps and has nothing to do with the Christian view. Christians don't expect that God is bound by natural laws that can be modelled by statistics: He doesn't need to carefully move one particle not to disrupt your models. Whether you use analytical formulas or statistical approximation, in the mechanistic model you still expect that the universe simply follows consistent laws unperturbed. That's not the case for Christianity.

[Anonymous No.20682913]

Take a step back and see what religion really is as an abstract concept

1. A target for some neurological construct in your brain that is attuned towards higher meaning: God/Buddha
2. Set of behavioral heuristics to promote social stability: religious law
3. Carrot at the end of the stick to act as the impetus to follow those heuristics: Heaven/Nirvana

The stories and fables (e.g. bible) come afterwards to retroactively make sense of why we chose that particular set of heuristics, but really it was just due to the same old mutation and natural selection. The religions that exist today were filtered by memetic potential, ability to maintain a stable and cooperative society, and motivational power to build bigger things. But people forget over time and believe the stories precede the essence.

And from that more abstract viewpoint then science and technology have already supplanted christianity as the new age religion.

Higher Truth/Meaning: Science and the search for Theory of Everything, Search for strong AI, Search for the theory of abiogenesis, Search for extraterrestrials etc etc

Laws:
order 1 (metaphysical) : reality can be explained in reductive fashion, only things that exist are what can be observed, scientific induction and peer review is all you need
order 2 (social): diversity is our strength, all men, women, and nonbinaries are created equal
order 3 (practical, day to day): trans women are women, climate change is real, you need to take the vaccine

Carrot: latest iphone, marvel movie, consumerism in general

[Anonymous No.20682978]

>>20682873
Of course I won't get them. I'll never understand even a thousandth of them. That's the point. I can read and think about it forever. I want the endless quest. The goal in life I can never achieve. That way I can preoccupy myself happily with it forever. Pursuit of knowledge is my purpose.

[Anonymous No.20682984]

>>20682888
What I want to express is that miracles and statistics are equivalent. God can “break the rules” as hard as he wants and you can still chalk it up to “luck.” He could descend from the sky and tell you that he’s going to give your dog anti-gravity boots or whatever; even if you genuinely believe it, it still fits into a model of statistical fluctuation.

Maybe I’m getting a little arbitrary, because if your dog has anti-gravity boots that work consistently without an obvious mechanism… It’d be hard to say “I guess he’s just getting lucky with the path his feet are taking through space.” But it could be so. There’s no distinguishing between them.

[Anonymous No.20683007]

>multiple phd's in theology, christian apology, philosophy of religion, and metaphysics
>well versed in logic
>calm, polite, reasonable, rational, and clearheaded
>khalam has been made pretty much airtight over several decades of refining

Is this guy the atheist's worst nightmare? Not saying he's right but every atheist I've seen who goes against him starts panics and starts resorting to fallacies and ad hominems at some point. Even Hitchens. Though hitchens didn't even bother trying and started going full polemic from the get go. The only exception might be Sean Carrol, though WLC really made the mistake of going against a physicist on his home turf.

[Anonymous No.20683028]

I think Westerners respond to and subscribe to power, be it a fundamentally religious power or a liberal secular power. There's a force of dogma and universalizing tendency in regard to power regardless.

[Anonymous No.20683050]

>>20682984
There's no point in using statistics if they don't model reality. If statistics say that something is so improbable that is virtually impossible but it keeps happening, then your model is wrong. If your statistics are consistently wrong, you can't model it. In practice, there's been debates about teleology for a long time and it's almost universally rejected in science. Animals don't evolve towards something, it's just natural selection that decides what survives. We don't have a human essence that tends to an ideal human form, we just react to our composition, etc. There's a distinction fundamental to the way of viewing reality. If I pray to God to help me, there's no mechanistic model that can justify me: they'll go on about how it may psychologically motivate me to etc. It's a very different eschatology too, it's intrinsic to modern scientific thinking. And like I said, there's no room for free will either unless you argue that statistical aberrations are free will. The thing is this is not what Christians believe. We believe we were made in the image of God, we live our lives striving to get closer to God, and that's the purpose of mankind. Purpose doesn't really even enter the mechanistic vocabulary because of how radically different the views are. If you want to argue that *some specific forms of Christianity* are compatible with it, then sure, you can make even Adam and Eve compatible (it was all a metaphor) etc. Christianity has a tradition though.

[Anonymous No.20683070]

>>20678680
>>20678685
Of course a good post like this gets ignored because it's impossible to argue against it without looking like an idiot.

[Anonymous No.20683071]

>>20683007
The more you study the more convoluted arguments, circular logic and general bullshit you can come up with to justify the unjustifiable.

Belief in a loving and just god is simply at stark odds with the nature of this world

[Anonymous No.20683124]

>>20683071
you can't even explain what it means to be just or why lol

[Anonymous No.20683133]

>>20682913
> accept these 3 unsubstantiated assumptions and you'll that it follows my assumptions are objectively correct
atheist philosophy

[Anonymous No.20683252]

>>20683050
>if something improbable keeps happening then the model is wrong
No, that’s a fallacy. There is no reason to believe you couldn’t flip heads up a trillion times in a row. Unlikely, but totally possible. If it happens, that doesn’t mean your model of coin flips being 50/50 is wrong.

>nothing mechanistic justifies prayer
Well, sure it does. If you believe in miracles then you believe there’s a being who can tip the statistical scales in your favor, who has access to all possible information. Why not call upon that being if you need help or guidance?

>worldview
The fact that mechanists tend to view the world a certain way doesn’t mean every mechanist must hold the same view. They are compatible, they just don’t tend to go together.

[Anonymous No.20683270]

>>20683071
>belief in a loving and just god is simply at stark odds with the nature of this world
God is loving, but not doting.
God is just, but not fair.
You need to stop thinking about God through your juvenile atheist lens.
> circular logic
God is a virtuous circle.

[Anonymous No.20683366]

>>20683252
>If it happens, that doesn’t mean your model of coin flips being 50/50 is wrong.
It means it's very likely wrong. If you don't care about posterior likelihood, why even use statistics?
>Well, sure it does. If you believe in miracles then you believe there’s a being who can tip the statistical scales in your favor, who has access to all possible information. Why not call upon that being if you need help or guidance?
The issue with this thinking is that it limits God as if He works with probabilities, but if you are willing to completely reject randomness and replace it with Divine Providence, then sure. I guess this is no longer a mechanistic view, but you're right that the mechanistic view fell out of favor among scientists too.

[Anonymous No.20683448]

>>20677333
Fulfilled prophecies.

[Anonymous No.20683537]

>>20683366
Not the same guy. I don't disagree that after a trillion flips the model is invalidated but that makes me wonder when specifically we should say it is. In practice we would just become suspicious and start trying to removing variables and all possibilities of the odds not being even. The model of the correctly working coin flip is still accurate, what's happening just isn't a working coin flip.
>Animals don't evolve towards something
Depends on what you mean. The "form" of the dog and the wing and eye evolved independently many times. The rules limit the potential forms so given certain goals you're trying to approach a certain form.
>Adam and Eve is a story about specific physical people.
Absolutely filtered.

[Anonymous No.20683592]

Maybe God hides sort of mechanisms that result in miracles behind statistical anomalies or whatever that can still be accounted for in human models but then it's not because God is required too or limited by any of those models. If God does this it's like some kind of courtesy to allow us our models. To not blow our minds too much or something.

[Anonymous No.20683620]

>>20682317
Its also the most hylic. Marxists literally worship the material world

[Anonymous No.20683641]

>>20682317
Physicalism starts from a baseless assumption, that matter exists, and fails to explain how matter becomes ideas. It starts from a baseless assumption and fails to explain the most basic aspects of reality.