/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.6818471]

What about the current religions/god/gods makes them more plausible or relevant than say, the old Greek or Norse gods?

[Anonymous No.6818491]

Logic

[Anonymous No.6818493]

[Anonymous No.6818494]

>>6818491
What do you mean?

Logical how?

[Anonymous No.6818496]

ancient greeks, ancient nords believed you could literally, physically enter an underworld, talk to the gods in person, bring people back from it

we know from geology that no physical underworld exists on this planet, and for this reason alone modern religions are more "plausible". as in at least they still enjoy the benefit of the doubt

[Anonymous No.6818498]

>>6818471
pagan gods are akin to aliens

Classical theism conceives of God as Being Itself, Pure Actuality, etc

[Anonymous No.6818501]

>>6818471
Simply a matter of the number of adherents.

[Anonymous No.6818508]

>>6818496
>we know from geology that no physical underworld exists on this planet

What the fuck do you think Hell is?

It's just a more modern interpretation of an "underworld".

[Anonymous No.6818512]

>>6818498
Nooo, they were essentially nature given human form, emotions etc.

[Anonymous No.6818518]

>>6818512
they were beings with abnormal powers

if zeus or thor appeared we wouldnt worship them, we would treat them as aliens

[Anonymous No.6818524]

>>6818494
Read it up online. Platinga in particular.

[Anonymous No.6818567]

>>6818471

>what makes them more plausible/relevant
a personal relationship with christ

>>6818501
>ayy lmao

[Anonymous No.6818582]

>>6818471
>>6818471
Just be a Deist and don't worry about it champ

[Anonymous No.6818586]

>>6818567
>a personal relationship with christ

Yeah, because you can totally have a personal relationship with someone you've never met.

Hell, I just finished reading some of Ovid's stuff, he and I are total bros.

>This is what Christians actually believe

[Thomas No.6818600]

There weren't statues of God looking like a person.

[Thomas No.6818610]

>>6818582
Deist is probably the most illogical form of belief in God. Aristotle didn't believe God created everything, he thought the universe was always there, but he considered the idea of a single sustainer to be logical. Deists reject the sustainer and say God is just a creator, when Aquinas himself said the idea of God creating everything was something that had to be taken purely on faith because it wasn't logically demonstrable. Hume reiterated that by showing there is absolutely zero logic to assuming a creator.

[Anonymous No.6818611]

>>6818600
There could have been, but jews and christians and muslims got all so pissy about "muh idoltry"

[Thomas No.6818617]

>>6818611
Point being God was not conceived of as basically a superhuman, like pagan gods were.

[Anonymous No.6818622]

>>6818610
>Aristotle didn't believe God created everything, he thought the universe was always there

Why isn't this more of a thing? I've always felt as if the universe probably has always been and never really had a starting/ending point.

Sure as shit wasn't created for the human species specifically.

[Anonymous No.6818628]

GO
BACK
TO
>>>/x/

[Thomas No.6818631]

>>6818622
It is a thing, it's called eternal recurrence. I don't think Nietzsche would have considered the distinction between factual or thought experiment there to be important.

[Anonymous No.6818635]

>>6818617
>God was not conceived of as basically a superhuman

Are you retarded? of course he was. The whole "god is the totality of existence" is an absurdly recent thing.

[Anonymous No.6818636]

>>6818610
So what do you recommend

[Anonymous No.6818650]

>>6818636
orthodox christianity, of course

[Anonymous No.6818653]

>>6818631
I don't mean an ouroboros kind of thing. I mean the universe has always been in existence and that us as a species are a recent, finite event.

Not that we repeat the same shit over and over. That's fucking stupid.

[Anonymous No.6818706]

>>6818635

I would suggest you study Catholic Theology. God as being itself goes back at least as far as Augustine.

[Anonymous No.6818712]

>>6818471
Christianity and Buddhism are built around the recorded events of people within historical time.

[Anonymous No.6818724]

>>6818706
it goes at least as far as Judaism

[Anonymous No.6819089]

>>6818471
Dood look the thing God is flying in on is shaped like a brain. I smell what you're cooking Mikey Angelo.

[Anonymous No.6819093]

>>6818508
hell is created after the second coming

[Anonymous No.6819097]

Nothing, people just fall for the naive rationalism and naive interventionism they have provided since Aristotle

Basically, the Abrahamic god is the god for suckers

[Anonymous No.6819154]

First, you sweep away all of the pagan gods by making a theological distinction between the omnipotent, self-moving, self-sufficient Creator who made the world out of nothing, and mere entities of power that were created by Him or merely "emanated" from a pantheistic "All" or "Void". A lot of the pagan gods were simply men of power and influence who came to be worshipped after their deaths.

Then, once you have this theological distinction down, you are left with either the Pantheistic God of the Hindus, Brahmins, Gnostics, Neoplatonists, and so on, from which all things "emanate" by necessity (God has no say in the matter, he can't help but emanate lesser beings) and the Creator God who created the world ex nihilo (out of nothing) and everything in it ex nihilo, as a free act of benevolence (he had a say in the matter, he didn't need to create other beings).

The pantheists distribute divinity across many beings, for they truly believe that many beings are actually of the same substance as the All, God, Brahman. This is why Hinduism has (literally) millions of named God's, billions of you take into account that they think of humans and animals as being gods. Indeed in this kind of Pantheism, there is no ESSENTIAL difference between you and a bit of fabric or a brick wall, because it all emanated from the same source. The Gnostics have a peculiar version of this where everything emanates from the divine source EXCEPT matter, which was made by some idiot of a divinity called the Demiurge. But they still regard every human spirit as emanating from the All, and therefore belonging to the divine essence and needing to return to it.

[Anonymous No.6819155]

>>6819154

In the Creator God, NOTHING is divine except God Himself. Nothing of His creation shares substantially in His divinity. So the point of worshipping the Creator God is to enter into communion with Him so that your spirit may be wholly satisfied in love of Him; yet, both you and He retain your own unique identities - you are two separate beings loving one and other. Whereas the point of devoting oneself to the Pantheist God is to be subsumed into it, becoming one with its essence, so that you are indistinguishable from it. In other words, the Creator God cleanses, heals, sanctified, and loves you, clothing your individual personality in grace, whereas the Pantheist God absorbs and dissolves you.

Modern thought is pantheistic. It's belief in progress and evolution are pantheistic. It is not surprising that Pantheism has been so popular even up to the present day. It is the easiest path to divinity, which allows one to forget oneself and any guilt one might have by being dissolved in the ocean of the divinity.

William James:
"The theological machinery that spoke so livingly to our ancestors, with its finite age of the world, its creation out of nothing, its juridical morality and eschatology, its relish for rewards and punishments, its treatment of God as an external contriver, an 'intelligent and moral governor,' sounds as odd to most of us as if it were some outlandish religion. The vaster vistas which scientific evolutionism has opened, and the rising tide of social democratic ideals, have changed the type of our imagination, and the older monarchical theism is obsolete or obsolescent. The place of the divine in the world must be more organic and intimate. An external creator and his institutions may still be verbally confessed at church and in formulas that linger by their mere inertia, but the life is out of them, we avoid dwelling on them, the sincere heart of us is elsewhere. . . . The only opinions quite worthy of arresting our attention will fall within the general scope of what may roughly be called the pantheistic field of vision, the vision of God as the indwelling divine."

[Anonymous No.6819668]

>>6818524
Platinga is pretty based.

[Anonymous No.6820391]

>>6818724
I am who I am in particular, but it's also related to platonist thought where being and essence meet in god.

[Anonymous No.6820517]

It's easier to worship and convince others to worship one god than several gods.

[Anonymous No.6820523]

The Judeo-Christian God is so vague as a concept, it is easy to keep him around. The things he supposedly does get smaller all the time as people understand the universe better, but he still exists in peoples minds as "like a totally abstract powerful entity-thing" or some rubbish.

[Anonymous No.6820530]

>>6820523
Christians believe that if God decided he didn't want the universe around any more, it would immediately cease to exist. I don't see how that's him getting smaller.

[Anonymous No.6820548]

>>6818635
Aristotle's Unmoved Mover is an "absurdly recent thing".

kek

[Anonymous No.6820550]

>>6820523
Let me see if I understand your insipid and inane point.

P: The more we know about the activities of a being, the fewer that being's activities become.

Is that your point?

[Anonymous No.6820560]

>>6820550
If he exists, he's a cock, and Satan's a hero.
How can you respect Yahweh after reading about Job and Abraham?
Viva la revolucion.

[Anonymous No.6820585]

>>6818471
Hellenistic Gods were not taken literally or even realistically by the ancient Romans and Greeks. The most famous fabulist of Rome, Ovidus Naso, knew himself as a writer of literature and poetry, not of religion. Christianity is written by adamant belief, in all of its apologetic and rhetoric, Hellenistic paganism was/is not.

[Anonymous No.6820588]

>>6818471
>time before time
vs
>5BC-AD33

[Anonymous No.6820609]

>>6820560
If He exists, and He does, or you would not, your current attitude will be dealt with most permanently.

[Anonymous No.6820636]

>>6820609
Christfags proving yet again that their torturer-god is just a proxy for their sadism.

One god among many, and a shit god at that. Fuck Yahweh.

[Anonymous No.6820640]

>>6818631
>>6818622
It's the current understanding of the universe.

Everything explodes out from a single point, expands, proceeds to contract, reaches a single point again, explodes outwards, and the cycle continues.

There is no end and no beginning. No creator as there never was a creation. There is only existence.

[Anonymous No.6820679]

>>6818524
Lmao
>here's a fallacious modal argument
>therefore Yahve

[Anonymous No.6820716]

>>6820640
taoism

[Anonymous No.6820720]

>>6820636
You say that now.

After you die, you will be begging for mercy, and will not find it.

Beg for mercy now, while you yet can.

[Anonymous No.6820729]

>>6820636
>mfw atheists believe this

[Anonymous No.6820733]

Reminder.

[Anonymous No.6820742]

>>6820720
Suck my dick. Civilizations thrived and prospered before your watered-down Jew god, and they'll do the same after. It's just a cult.

And anyway, how do you propose to succeed against Islam, which is your religion+balls? Christianity is moribund and on the wane. It's time for the next big thing.

[Anonymous No.6820758]

>>6818471
Dunno, but I still follow the old ways. People laugh at me when they find out so I'm hesitant to tell people. They assume anyone who does is some weird "oh look I can cast magickx spellz" type. Christian propaganda can do that, its pretty powerful stuff. Generally though it never comes up and I'm happier for it. When I'm alone I ask the gods for favor if need be, and during the equinoxes and solstices I make some meat and drink some beer, mead, or wine and offer part of it as a sacrifice for good favor in the coming season. Ultimately, it just feels more right to me, if that makes sense. More absolute, more real.

[Anonymous No.6820766]

>>6820742
As God is eternal, your statement, as all of your other statements, are nonsensical and false.

Jesus is about to kill so many muslims, even you might approve.

[Anonymous No.6820781]

>>6820733
...Aaaaanddd you were raised by Protestants. Kek.

[Anonymous No.6820811]

>>6820781
The exact same arguments apply to Eastern Orthodoxy, the Brown Orthodoxies, and Catholicism as well.

The only difference is the above have more bling. Coincidentally that is exactly why you like them. Not that I disagree that they aren't sick (Pic related) but reading a few wikipedia articles and basing your life around them seems kind of silly.

[Anonymous No.6820815]

>>6818471
Information. We know how certain things work and we don't need gods to oversee them anymore.

Does anyone still worship Vertumnus? No, because we understand seasons and don't need to substitute a deity for our lack of knowledge.

[Anonymous No.6820819]

>>6820550
Congratulations you didn't understand it!

God's role has moved from interventionist, to non-interventionist in modern theology, because we now understand what lightening is and what germs are, and no longer believe in miracles (apart from of course, brain dead Catholics)

Also fuck you.

[Thomas No.6820929]

>>6820811
>Orthodox and Catholics don't see paradox as integral to Christianity
>people who regularly attend church aren't more likely to lead social lives and be involved in their community
>Pope Benedict XVI, who did more to stop sexual abuse in the Church than pretty much anyone else, including working to get civil authorities involved, wasn't continually shat on by atheists just because he looks like Palpatine
>Orthodox and Catholics don't define concepts consistently
>something not being falsifiable can be proven inaccurate
>Christian historical and logical apologetics don't exist; Christians are the ones saying "you cannot know nuffin"
>WLC's arguments are bad because they offend you

mate....

[Anonymous No.6820945]

>>6820679
What fallacy?

[Anonymous No.6820967]

>>6820819
What is lightning?
What are germs?

[Anonymous No.6820971]

>>6820967
What is causation?

[Anonymous No.6820972]

>>6820733
Daily reminder that Christianity, the belief that Jesus is the Son of God, risen from the dead, is true.

Jesus is the Son of God, risen from the dead.

Maybe /lit/ needs to spend less time in shit books, and more time in the good book.

[Anonymous No.6820977]

>>6820971
Why does cause and effect exist?

If you agree that cause and effect exists, how is it you do not believe that the universe, an effect, did not require a cause?

If you believe the universe is an effect, and did require a cause, why are you satisfied with the answer "someday we'll know more"?

[Anonymous No.6820988]

>>6820977
Literally has nothing to do with the point I was making buddy.

Although on that note, referring to God as a first cause is clearly nonsensical because something would need to cause God.

[Anonymous No.6820992]

>>6820972
friendly reminder that christianity is a cuck religion. God (bull) impregnates Mary behind the back of Joseph (cuckold). Christianity = religion for turbocuck betas

[Anonymous No.6821023]

>>6820988
Really mate? Are you actually trying to argue that point which no one past the age of 14 should argue for?

[Anonymous No.6821029]

>>6820992
I will pray for you.

[Anonymous No.6821031]

>>6821023
Oh yeah, its not like any philosophers have cited Occams razor to explain why saying there is a God doesn't actually explain anything at all. Its all 14 year old's isn't it.

>something something fedora.

[Anonymous No.6821041]

>>6821031
Not sure if you realize it but occams razor is really useful only in economics because it's too complex. And you want it to be simple and effective, but not true.