/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.6543121]

What does /lit/ think of William Lane Craig? I realize his divine command theory of morality is retarded, since dct was BTFO by Leibniz, but what of his apologetics for the historicity of the gospels? Is there any theologian who does a better job here than he does?

http://www.amazon.com/Assessing-Testament-Historicity-Resurrection-Christianity/dp/0889466165

[Anonymous No.6543124]

I bet he has a fuckable daughter

[Anonymous No.6543256]

>>6543121
His competition are morons and he does a good job debating them.
Also his lectures on problem of evil are solid.
I mean he is pretty pleb, but isn't terrible.

[Anonymous No.6544091]

Well-trained sophist and professional debater. Not a serious philosopher. Rhetoric a house of cards that will only convince those who want to be.

[Anonymous No.6544109]

>>6543124
I've always thought this about American Evangelical pastors ever since I saw Footloose. Is it a job requirement in those churches, do you think?

[Anonymous No.6544120]

>>6544109
It's because the only kind of people who become protestant ministers in the United States were popular and athletic kids in high school. They've been socially trained up to that point to push their way into being leaders, and if you put those kids in religious surroundings one will end up the pastor. Then their offspring become the kind of attractive kid they were in high school, and the cycle continues.

[Anonymous No.6544123]

>>6543256
>>6544091
These. He's actually a formal debater and takes on shit debaters, which makes him look better than he really is. Heard something about Dawkins not wanting to share a stage with him because he's an advocate of genocide

[Anonymous No.6544125]

What about John Lennox?

[Anonymous No.6544126]

His apolegetics for the existence of God is nothing but Kalam/Aquinas recycled, and has been criticized endlessly, most prominently by Descartes, Hume and Kant.

Anyway, apolegetics is all the same, regardless of who does it. Instead of starting with a question and looking for a fitting answer, it's starting with an answer and looking for a fitting question

[Anonymous No.6544133]

>>6544120
And the atheists on 4chan became this way because they could never relate to Pastor Chad of the First Baptist Church of East Tulsa, and resent the fact his daughters slept with half the youth group but wouldn't look twice at them...

[Anonymous No.6544139]

>>6544123
He supported the idea that God has the right to take life as He seems fit, because he is the fucking creator of the universe. Dawkins just used that as an excuse not to debate him, because he know he has no chance of winning.

[Anonymous No.6544144]

>>6544133
That's fair.

[Anonymous No.6544146]

>>6544139
That's teleological suspension of the ethical 101

[Anonymous No.6544154]

>>6544123
Shelly Kagan and physicist Sean Carroll were both better than him

[Anonymous No.6544168]

>>6544154
Kagan was in his element so that's understandable. Also that was a nice debate, too bad he doesn't do them more often with people who aren't retards.

[Anonymous No.6544181]

>>6543121
Probably gayer than a lake of pink fish.

[Anonymous No.6544192]

>>6543121
>Religion
>Christianity (Evangelicalism)

He's shit.

[Anonymous No.6544268]

>>6544126

This is a good way to put it. Apologetic stuff is basically an elaborate attempt to justify an assumption. All of the arguments are ad hoc.

[Anonymous No.6544277]

>>6544268
Which of course doesn't make them less valid.

[Anonymous No.6544287]

>>6544268
That's the nature of the genre of apologetics - its for believers, to justify the legitimacy of their belief in contexts in which those beliefs are at being undermined. It's kind of an open secret of the genre. Non-believers aren't expected to find apologetics convincing any more than, say, non-Star Trek fans are expected to find Star Trek fan fiction compelling.

[Anonymous No.6545462]

>>6544123
Have you actually read his books on the topic? I linked to one I'm talking about these rather than his debates

>>6544126
He engages quite a bit with Hume in "The Historical Argument for the Resurrection of Jesus"

[Anonymous No.6545492]

I've heard his radio shows and seen him debating, he is superb. Never read his books.

[Anonymous No.6545504]

>>6545492
Some of his books are very academic. For instance, the one I linked in the OP examines the Gospels in Greek. Still thinking about getting something by him, though, but it will have to be more pop.

[Anonymous No.6545511]

>>6544287
It's perhaps true for some apologetics, but Christian thinkers in the past have tried to use some twisted form of it to convince atheists (I'm thinking of Pascal and Kierkegaard here).

[Anonymous No.6545521]

shitty philosopher and apologist for retarded evangelicals. Even Karen Armstrong's better than him

[ΟΥΤΙΣ No.6545525]

>>6545511
Pascal's "apologetics", if you can call them that aren't about convincing atheists that God is real. His wager is the most famous and perhaps the worst one, but they're about convincing atheists to go to commit to Christianity even if they don't believe in God.

I don't recall Kierkegaard writing any apologetics

[Anonymous No.6545534]

>>6545521
Has she written any apologetics about the historicity of the gospels?

[Anonymous No.6545554]

>>6544126

No it really isn't. Apologetic is just a genre of defending religious belief on rational grounds. Allot of the 20th Century Catholic Apologetics converted after they were convinced by the arguments of Aquinas and the like and then went on to defend the faith against new challenges. Also many of the questions " how do we account for causation in the world" that leads to proofs of God are so general that claiming that they could only be considered in light of wanting to prove God at the end is pretty silly.

I have limited exposure to WCL, I think that he is really off in his Kalam Cosmological argument when he claims that an infinitely backwards time ought to be counted as an actual infinite, since moments of time don't persist on a productive view of time- being able to count them just is'nt enough. He wants to say that this leads to the world needing to be created because you can't add on to an actual infinite, but we have no reason to let him get that far. Now if we have a four dimensional block universe then infinite past time could be an actual infinite since time is'nt produced and every moment is co existent, but actual infinities are only problematic on his account insofar as something is to be added to them, like in a productive view of time, which doesn't happen in a 4db universe. So I think his version of the Kalam argument fails ultimately.

[Anonymous No.6545562]

>>6545554
But....going prior far enough would precede 4d.

[Anonymous No.6545597]

>>6545534
no but her apologetics deals with all religions and faith

[Anonymous No.6545611]

>>6545597
I'm talking mainly about historical apologetics. I already know there has been stuff better than WLC on faith or the existence of God in general, it's been done since the early church fathers, and really since the new testament in a way.

[Anonymous No.6545758]

>>6545462
>expecting /lit/ to actually read and try to understand a theologically conservative christian

[Anonymous No.6545776]

>>6543121

Among pop/mainstream apologists, he's not the worst. But he's hardly the best either. People like Peter Kreeft and Scott Hahn are superior in almost every way.

[Anonymous No.6545782]

>>6544120

>MFW this describes my upbringing
>MFW this would have been my career and lifestyle choice if I didn't realize how fucking stupid protestantism is and convert to based Catholicism.

[Anonymous No.6545794]

>>6545776
>>6545782
Yes, we get it. You're a Catholic and you don't like the Protestant apologist.

[Anonymous No.6545996]

I know he's debated numerous people on the historicity, bart ehrman being one of them. There was another (a former Catholic priest if i recall correctly). Haven't watched either though

[Anonymous No.6546072]

>>6545525
His wager is a very small and rather unimportant part of his apologetics. It's only a mind trick that people fixate on.

>if you can call them that aren't about convincing atheists that God is real

Nothing can convince you that God is real except having an inner experience of a connection with God through Grace according to Pascal. But still his writings are meant to convince atheists to become as christian as humanely possible. His last work was intended to be titled "Apology of Christianity" for a reason.

[Anonymous No.6546227]

>>6543256
>Also his lectures on problem of evil are solid.

link?

[Anonymous No.6546266]

>>6544133
>tfw i fucked a pastor's daughter ... multiple times
>her dad was pretty fucked up
>she was pretty fucked up
>I'm pretty fucked up

We all had a grand party of a time, but some of our time was more spent in jail than other's.

[Anonymous No.6546361]

>>6543121

Craig is great. He shows us that the post-Scholastic philosophical tradition is rich enough to support robust Christian beliefs. I like his work on the philosophy of time, too. Smart guy, possibly the technically best debater I have ever seen.

His revival of the KCA I find persuasive, if not as conducive to Christian theology as Aquinas's five ways. His defences of DCT in debates could be better, but he certainly has refuted most of the common objections to it in one place or another.

He's pretty good on the gospel historicity front, though I'm not a qualified judge of that stuff as much as I am with the philosophical stuff.

[Anonymous No.6546403]

>>6543121
There was some popular atheist blogger who kept trailing WLC claiming he studied under him and was always trying to formally debate him but never got it. Come to think of it the whole Internet apologetics vs atheist debates were as petty and stupid as anything else, I remember being pretty big into the stuff a while ago but stopped caring.

[Anonymous No.6547286]

>>6546227
It's ok YT, just search for it.

[Anonymous No.6547298]

>>6545554

>to defend the faith against new challenges.

That's not how reason works. In reason you don't defend your ideas, you challenge them to see if they stick

[ΟΥΤΙΣ No.6547315]

>>6543121
He's a total charlatan that's very convincing in debate but his views never passed the Middle Ages. He hand waves away Hume and Kant, reduces real causality to logical relations (a literal logical realist) and so on.

Lawrence Krauss actually fairly well beat him in debate, Lawrence Krauss, the idiot, because he actually understands physics (which /lit/ tends to disregard) in the face of WLC who cites second hand material that he clearly memorized and has no concept of.

Then you see WLC argue against Shelly Kagan and you realize that just because Craig is an expert in the field of logic, doesn't mean he knows a single thing about other fields of philosophy, being blown out nearly entirely in that debate

The bottom line is, confirmation bias always controls people's opinion, for every debate on YouTube titled "WLC humiliates Lawrence Krauss" there's another titles "Lawrence Krauss demolishes WLC"

Still, I'm not the one giving the cosmological argument in 2015. Top lel

[ΟΥΤΙΣ No.6547319]

>>6543121
>apologetics for the historicity of the gospels?

Literally all he does is insist "top scholars" don't disagree with the bible, this confirming Jesus is God and all that shit.

[Anonymous No.6547321]

>>6547315
Have I ever told you that you are the cancer that were once arrowfag, ebola kid and butterfly?

[ΟΥΤΙΣ No.6547322]

>>6543256
Watch him debate Shelly kagan. He's basically humiliated

[Anonymous No.6547324]

>>6543121

Bad philosopher, good debater.

[ΟΥΤΙΣ No.6547348]

>>6544125
Don't ever trust philosophers of logic (WLC) or mathematicians (Lennox) when talking about anything real.

I mean, Craig's whole argument is that it seems "probable" to him that the unmoved mover is the Christian god. Nice, and it seems probable to me that his conclusion is not exactly objective

[ΟΥΤΙΣ No.6547351]

>>6544126
That's why Feuerbach rightly says that theology is pathology. It's just a pathological obsession with finding the same conclusion

[ΟΥΤΙΣ No.6547353]

>>6547321
It would be cool if you talked about my ideas, instead.

[Anonymous No.6547358]

>>6547348
>not exactly objective
Protip, everything that was ever the slightest bit important to a human being is by definition 'subjective'.

[ΟΥΤΙΣ No.6547362]

>>6547319
Not really, I don't think you've actually read his apoletics on that. He gives a bunch of other stuff like pointing out that the disciples of Jesus were willing to be martyrs, which would be weird if they were all lying, and gives a bunch of other shit like that. His case is still weak because, after all, we're talking about accounts that different with each other and he's trying to defend them as all 100% accurate. But he does as well as he can will what he has, he's worth reading for the novelty of someone actually putting in serious, scholarly effort into the thing.

[ΟΥΤΙΣ No.6547368]

>>6547358
Yes, I use objective for lack of a better word, but I mean he didn't come to that conclusion by an in-depth, serious investigation of the possibilities, but by his pathological need for the Christian god to exist.

[ΟΥΤΙΣ No.6547371]

>>6547362
With the endless amount of content to read, you seriously call that worth reading?

[Anonymous No.6547375]

>>6547353
If you stopped being retarded I would gladly. But I doubt that is going to happen.

[ΟΥΤΙΣ No.6547377]

>>6547351
Except theological conclusions vary tremendously, hence why there are so many sects and denominations. Hell, there's even the "secular theology" movement, which is pretty much atheist.

[ΟΥΤΙΣ No.6547381]

>>6547371
Yes, so long as you are very interested in the topic.

[Anonymous No.6547388]

>>6547315
This.

His nature of debating is pretty slimy as well. He always negotiates being the first speaker , then shotguns out the same bushel of arguments, and I'm pretty sure he formats the whole set under a specific algebraic equation. Any individual argument of his could take hours to dissect properly, but this plays less against the ability of his opponent but rather his time to both respond and present his own arguments, as well as the audience's familiarity with very very dense Academic theory. When the opponent isn't able to address every last point, you can see childish glee in Craig's face as he points out "Notice my opponent hasn't answer X/the rest of my arguments". Fucking obnoxious

[Anonymous No.6547397]

>>6547315
Erhman, Tabash, and Price kicked his ass as well.

[ΟΥΤΙΣ No.6547402]

>>6547377
Yeah? All that does is preclude the idea of god being a priori knowable or an object of intuition/idea

[ΟΥΤΙΣ No.6547418]

>>6547402
Are you suggesting that if non-empirical philosophy suffers from disagreement, then all topics that can only be explored through reason are unknowable?

[Anonymous No.6547432]

>mfw people act as if every philosopher doesn't set out to prove his assumptions like the theologian

"following the argument" is a dumb dream, nobody starts from a blank state

[ΟΥΤΙΣ No.6547440]

>>6547418
No, I'm suggesting that god isn't a notion that can be learned through reason alone.

>>6547432
>he hasn't read about Pyrrhonian skepticism

Once you do, and realize literally all beliefs are actually justifiable, because one can be forever skeptic to any end they want, when you realize this doesn't matter and you can talk about Christianity for how you phenomenologically experience it.

Christians are pathological, obsessed, and weird to me. That's how I experience them, and that's how I act. No amount of apologetics is interesting because you absolutely will maintain whatever conclusion you're arguing for.

[Anonymous No.6547441]

>>6547298

I never said the challenges couldn't come from believers themselves who would then go on to defend them as well. Most of the scholastics gave better arguments against Christianity then any atheist has, and they dealt with them quite well. Most of the Scholastic tradition was done in a situation when everyone believed anyways, still they would think of ways to that Christian doctrine could be refuted by reason and answered them.

>>6547315
I can't speak for if WLC does in fact hand wave those guys or not. But the Cosmological Argument criticisms by Hume and Kant haven't been left unanswered, nor are they some golden standard. Very good Philosophers like Alexander Pruss are supporters of the Cosmological argument. Just because some early moderns had issue with it doesn't make it a dead end. Philosophers like Anscombe especially beat down Hume.

Also, looking down further in the thread, why are you debating yourself ?

[Anonymous No.6547443]

>>6547440
I don't see how arguing for Christianity is any different than arguing for idealism, platonic forms and various schools of metaphysics. Christianity is basically a continuation of greek philosophy, and I find the separation between the two barely working, Protestants usually fail because they don't see this completely greek aspect

[Anonymous No.6547455]

>>6547432
Literally fucking what.

[Anonymous No.6547456]

>>6547432

This is the point. When the apologists work out what what neuroscientists have been discovering can translate to 'our brains are literally designed to operate on faith', oh boy the fun they'll have.

[ΟΥΤΙΣ No.6547461]

>>6547441
>I can't speak for if WLC does in fact hand wave those guys or not. But the Cosmological Argument criticisms by Hume and Kant haven't been left unanswered, nor are they some golden standard. Very good Philosophers like Alexander Pruss are supporters of the Cosmological argument. Just because some early moderns had issue with it doesn't make it a dead end. Philosophers like Anscombe especially beat down Hume.

Oh, I'm not saying necessarily that the cosmological argument fails, but one can't mention it without also mentioning the mountain of modern philosophy that works against it. WLC seems to brush this off as insignificant in debate.

The main problem with the cosmological argument is that it suggests nothing about the nature of the unmoved mover. Craig says it's "probably" the Christian god and defends his faith by divine revelation. That's where his apologetics makes me laugh.
>>6547443
>I don't see how arguing for Christianity is any different than arguing for idealism, platonic forms and various schools of metaphysics. Christianity is basically a continuation of greek philosophy, and I find the separation between the two barely working, Protestants usually fail because they don't see this completely greek aspect
I definitely think arguing for said metaphysics is not the same as arguing for the actual truth of a myth such as the resurrection. The metaphysics I can actively contemplate in reality, the myth I have to consider as only a historical possibility

[Anonymous No.6547462]

>>6547455

Simply put, we now know that thinking simply doesn't work the way the scientism-ists describe it. Atheists *are* people who want there not to be a god.

[ΟΥΤΙΣ No.6547463]

>>6547456
Of course our brains operate on faith. That's been known by everyone who doesn't outright reject David Hume

[ΟΥΤΙΣ No.6547464]

>>6547443
Obviously a lot of early Christians didn't see it like this, or else Justinian wouldn't have banned the philosophical schools in Athens.

There's a major Greek element inherently in Christianity, yes, it's called Orphism. But a lot of the Greek philosophical aspects were added a while after the early Christians. Do you seriously think Christ's disciples knew about Greek philosophy? They probably couldn't even read or write. I doubt Paul knew much about Greek philosophy.

[ΟΥΤΙΣ No.6547466]

>>6547462
Most people are content with a god, just not a god that's also tied to cult-like practices and beliefs. The unmoved mover and the Christian god are not the same.

[ΟΥΤΙΣ No.6547469]

>>6547464
It would have been a part of the spirit of the age.

Just because someone didn't read a philosophical text, doesn't mean the thought within hasn't affected their actions. Most "science is awesome" type people rely a ton on David Hume's reasoning, whether or not they realize it.

[Anonymous No.6547470]

>>6547462
This is the biggest fucking example of non sequitur I've seen, congratulations.

[Anonymous No.6547471]

>>6547464
A huge part of early Christian thinkers are neoplatonist converts or otherwise heavily involved in greek concepts and ideas. Calling it pagan with derision doesn't mean anything, they were already Greeks whether they realized it or not.

[Anonymous No.6547473]

>>6547463

Hume didn't know it empirically in a way that atheist debaters couldn't deny or come up with some bloviating crap to get over, how we must 'rise above' these primitive tendencies. We now know from what's been observed that we can no more stop looking for a preferred outcome in such matters than we can tie our shoelaces without moving. All
Christians have to say is that we're 'designed' that way, and that's it - all reason is rationalization, for good. Doubt WLC would be comfortable with that but it's the next step in the cunning use of science in apologetics, surely.

[Anonymous No.6547476]

>>6547470

You wish it were, but it's not.

[ΟΥΤΙΣ No.6547478]

>>6547471
Yeah, but your argument against Protestants hurr durr they can't into the Greeks, fails to take into account that they don't take the tremendous fuckton of thinkers on as doctrine like the Catholic Church does. The Catholic Church sees all these thinkers are part of God's doctrine in Christianity, which protestants don't, so of course the protestant outlook is not going to see Christianity as so dependent on Greek thinkers, even where they see these thinkers as very worth studying and right on a number of things.

[Anonymous No.6547480]

>>6547466

That's only part of Craig's routine at these debates that I'd call weak. He needs to change tack to get from prime mover to Christianity, and the format doesn't allow the time for that without a bit gear screech.

[Anonymous No.6547482]

>>6547476
Complete lack of connection between your provided premises and conclusions has no connection to my wishes.

[Anonymous No.6547483]

>>6547473
I suppose, but I'm not really concerned with what Christian apologists are going to do, because like I said, once you look into hardcore skepticism you learn that literally anything is defensible.

[Anonymous No.6547485]

>>6547480
Well, maybe he doesn't have a cogent defense and that's why he glosses over it.

[Anonymous No.6547492]

>>6547482

But it does, because the connection is manifest. Anyone who thinks reason can be made to precede choice is self-deceiving. This is what science has discovered about how humans work. There was always going to be a point where actual scientists led the muh personal sovereignty science cheerleaders somewhere they couldn't follow. We're there now.

[Anonymous No.6547493]

>>6547483

You may have noticed this thread is about a Christian apologist, that's why I make the connection.

[Anonymous No.6547495]

>>6547485

Not in the language he uses from the start, no. You can't cut from the solar system to a human being without some establishing shots.

[Anonymous No.6547496]

>>6547478
But my point is that not taking those thinkers into account makes their doctrines fall, they don't work in a vacuum. Catholicism is rationally defensible because it's a system that starts from firm grounds and everything is built upon it, including the authority of the Bible, and most importantly it is historically firm. Catholics have looked into the great pagan thinkers and seen in them the same idea of God that they themselves worship, and built upon those foundations instead of rejecting them. The dangerous, exclusivistic element comes to a head with the Reformation, with Pagan thinkers throwing Aristotle and reason itself as a source of truth. It's frankly shocking that Luther is this great hero when the man is one of the biggest opponents of actual philosophy, and the other Reformers share at least some of his sentiments.

In short, Protestantism is anti-intellectual, and that is why its fruits have been toxic, like you can plainly see in the US. Catholic thinkers have been interacting with every philosophical system out there, contributing to intellectual dialogue, while Protestants have been wrecking the whole enterprise for centuries.

[Anonymous No.6547497]

>>6547496
with Christians throwing out Aristotle and reason itself as a source of truth*

[Anonymous No.6547501]

>>6547461
I agree that is no good. I don't like lazy Philosophers on any side of a debate. Scotus and Aquinas both devoted a massive amount of space in their work to show that it was in fact the Christian God ( endowed with will, infinite, simple, ect) and at least Soctus does a pretty good job ( I haven`t made it that far in Aquinas yet), his arguments for why there must be one first cause instead of many are especially well done.

>>6547464
To be fair, at the very most it took a century for Christianity to adopt Greek Philosophy, we find allot of early church fathers like Justin Martyr doing so, and the ones we have extensive knowledge on almost always come from a long line of thought and inching towards such an interpretation. At that stage there were tons of different Christian sects anyways, many of which with radically heretical beliefs compared to any Christian sect at the time, by the time Christianity became what we know it as it has the Greek Philosophy embedded in it.

Also if you look through John, there is a very interesting set of passages that ammounts to Rome's temporal power being supported by God, and this power through Pontius Pilate having the truth of Jesus's crucifixion written in Hebrew, Greek and Latin. Suggesting that Christianity, by the biblical account we have at least is meant to fuse those three traditions, so I think even Protestants should be able to even get on board with the importance of Greek thought.

[ΟΥΤΙΣ No.6547522]

>>6547496
Dude, there's nothing rationally defensible about believing that the Gospels are factual. The great Greek thinkers who subscribed to Orphism didn't take the central myth as factual.

Luther's attack on reason was completely in regard to reason being required for baptism, it had to do with anabaptists. Ironically this is one point where he's way more in line with Catholics here than most American protestants are.

I don't see how you can call Protestantism anti-intellectual in a thread about a protestant intellectual whose better works expect you to be able to read Greek.

I do think you're right, that Aristotle is a very pagan influence, and consider the implications for that in the Valladolid debate the Church had on slavery back the 16th Century, and consider Zizek's distinction between the pagan and Christian worldview here
http://www.egs.edu/faculty/slavoj-zizek/articles/human-rights-and-its-discontents/

[Anonymous No.6547533]

>>6547496
>including the authority of the Bible
kek

[Anonymous No.6547536]

>>6547522
>The great Greek thinkers who subscribed to Orphism didn't take the central myth as factual.

Presenting it as myths understood in a modern sense is pretty wrong. They certainly wouldn't have understood myth as a "false story". Read Tolkien's central idea of myth for a modern take. Myths reflect the ultimate truths and point to God.

[ΟΥΤΙΣ No.6547552]

>>6547536
No, but I'm saying they didn't take it like Christians take the gospels.

[Anonymous No.6547562]

>>6547552
Different anon. Maybe the literature wasn't as sacred for the Greeksas the Bible is for Christians but if you're suggesting that the Greek sacred was less sacred than any other culture's sacred, then you should fuck off.
If that isn't your point then ignore this post.

[Anonymous No.6547572]

>>6547562
Well, Christianity's unique aspect is that it is fundamentally based on a historical event, so he probably means that.
That's the reason I find it fascinating compared to all other religions though. Christology is a cool subject whether you believe it or not.

[ΟΥΤΙΣ No.6547577]

>>6547562
My point is that Plato didn't think in the Orphic myths as literal, whereas the it is integral to the Christian faith to take the Gospels as literal, factual, and historical. One's personal belief in this matter is stressed, that's part of the Nicene Creed. I seriously doubt any of the ancient mysteries involved one stating one personally believed something was true as part of salvation. Sacred maybe, "true" in a sort of esoteric, spiritual sense, but not "true" in the way Christians take the Gospels. The distinction here is as broad as the difference between how Catholics/Mainline Protestants understand Genesis, vs. how creationists do.

[Anonymous No.6547609]

>>6547572
>x is a cool subject whether you believe it or not
i really hate this fucking insincere above-it-all attitude for some reason, its worse than ardent fundamentalism or atheism

[Anonymous No.6547610]

>>6547577
Fair enough. You come off as such a prick every time you post that I thought I'd make sure you weren't making a truly ludicrous claim.
However, I think this isn't a noteworthy aspect of Greek life in relation to anything but the Abrahamic faiths. It's basically the way Hinduism or Buddhism is practiced in Vedic countries: traditions and stories that are just a part of the way culture is. The word 'religion' comes from a Latin word meaning 'to bind,' whereas the Greek word meant 'the sacred things.' They're wholly different words. Although religion has always been a tool of social domination, that domination has changed form over time.

[Anonymous No.6547615]

>>6547492
>Anyone who thinks reason can be made to precede choice is self-deceiving
What?

[Anonymous No.6547643]

>>6547609
I really hate your "there is no middle ground between two extremes" too

[Anonymous No.6547792]

>>6546266
I don't quite understand, friend. Are you saying that you repented of your abominable fornication and began a prison ministry?

[Anonymous No.6547807]

>>6547643
it's not about "middle ground." it's about you insulting the things you're tepidly involving yourself with. You're spitting in the face of actual, sincere engagement, with your "learning about x because its cool and nifty" and "read the bible like a modern work of art," "christianity is just really historically fascinating, yknow?"Just a complete lack of a real vested interest, because it's comfortable to play all possible angles and have no ballsack to speak of. lose the effete posturing and grow some real convictions with this religious stuff, like a normal human being. yeah i'm triggered.

[Anonymous No.6547811]

>>6547609
You are the absolute fucking worst. Heaven forbid we have an actual discussion about an important topic without having turning into pedantic, condescending, emotional little cuntwads.

[Anonymous No.6547817]

>>6547807
>yeah i'm triggered.
Back to >>>/tumblr/ with you.

[Anonymous No.6547819]

>>6547811
>pedantic, condescending, emotional little cuntwads.
you?

[Anonymous No.6547821]

>>6547807
Lol

Of course I study it because it's historically interesting. That's the best motivation there is, only a retard reads philosophy like he's going to commit unquestioningly to a system from a thousand years ago.

[Anonymous No.6547854]

>>6547821
yeah, its not like philosophy is concerned with anything universally relevant or anything. you've got a great life ahead of you.

[Anonymous No.6548122]

>>6547807

Intellectual engagement is real and sincere. It's just not partisan, or attempts not to be. In the world now, there are extremists who would like our freedom to do this to be destroyed. This century has been a catalog of their struggle to do this. Do you think that kind of rage is preferable to sane inquiry?

[Anonymous No.6548153]

>>6548122
How would you feel if I saw your desire for intellectual freedom as an historical artifact of the 21st century? "Feeling threatened by jihadists, Americans invented a concept of 'freedom' to cover national insecurities. Now, I don't want to be partisan--I'm not pro-destroying free inquiry OR pro-preserving free inquiry--but it certainly is fascinating to observe in an historical sense! What an interesting artistic fancy, that people should be free to pursue truth!"
Like it or not, normal people have sincere convictions about important universal issues, and philosophy is primarily, vitally, concerned with them. You can't opt out by declaring yourself "nonpartisan", unless you want to be a simpering shell of a person.

[Anonymous No.6548245]

>>6548153
Are you saying that intellectual engagement with old texts can't be real and sincere?

[Anonymous No.6548358]

>>6548153
>How would you feel if I saw your desire for intellectual freedom as an historical artifact

But... it is. Not of the 21st century, obviously.

[Anonymous No.6549113]

>>6546403
thunderfoot?
sounds very familiar

[Anonymous No.6549160]

>>6547492
you're saying that when people make arguments, their conclusion is already in mind.
what say you about receiving them? can minds be changed?
I don't really understand what you're getting at.

[Anonymous No.6549165]

>>6547792
>abominable fornication
tsk tsk