/lit/ - Literature

>>13006599
>I remember a pretty respectable theologian
Who? Was it David Bentley Hart? I remember him mentioning some in an interview, though I can't remember the names either.

>>13006599
>implying the agricultural revolution wasn't the single greatest mistake

>>13006599
I remember Feser complimenting this book.

>>13006621
Yeah it might have been Hart. He gave a list of books (pretty modern ones) that he considered to be "legitimate" polemics from an atheist perspective as opposed to the pop-crap of Dawkins, Hitchens, and that crowd.

>>13006648
it's a close second. Ellul opened my eyes and I can't go back to sleep.

/lit/ is a Catholic board.
Leave.

>>13006599
Christianity doesn't make arguments, it states truths that are supposed to only be truthful in the context of Christianity. It is also entirely optional to join, so it violates no rights

>>13006795
Christianity makes claims, provides no proof and threatens others with suffering for not accepting things for no reason. Back in the day christcucks had power and would physically hurt people for not going to church, now they just passive aggressively threaten us with pain after were dead.

>>13006669
don't group me in with you child molesting bunch

>>13006847
>Christianity makes claims, provides no proof and threatens others with suffering for not accepting things for no reason.
Precisely my point. Fighting it on that front would be pointless because in order for there to be a winner, rules must first be established. Both sides would be playing with different rules, no winners or losers to be had.
>Back in the day christcucks had power and would physically hurt people for not going to church, now they just passive aggressively threaten us with pain after were dead
Yeah, back in the day dumbass. You're upset because people are being passive aggressive towards you? Grow up

>>13006847
>Christianity provides no proof
Imagine being this fucking retarded.

>people are still trying to refute a belief and a state of mind

>>13006599
Start by observing all the sources Christianity came from in the first place - far from any singular doctrine, it's a hodgepodge of many different cultural ideologies - Sumerian mythology, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Neoplatonism and today uses the Big Bang and Evolution as part of its arguments despite these realities contradicting what's directly written in their scriptures (because empirical reality means more than scriptural descriptions of it, as they've now had to face the reality of) - all blended together as if it were a single system.

Then, look at the Bible and ask yourself to what extent it appears an indirect product of an omniscient, eternal, perfect and divine intelligence, and to what degree it appears moreso just another product of a specific culture and era in time. It condones the slavery which was normal back then, has very antiquated views towards women, makes false empirical claims on natural phenomena, and so on. Ask yourself whether such a text lives up to its claims about itself, or if it misses the mark, by however slight or severely.

Then, look at nature and ask yourself whether you believe the Christian God made it - nature, the carnival of carnage that it is, apparently created by the hand of an all-loving God that simultaneously only seems to incorporate human beings into its Divine Plan, as if the rest of the animals didn't even exist. How strange, hmm. Isn't God the creator of all creatures? Why is he only explainable in human terms, when he also made the dung beetle and the hippopotamus? In the design lies the Designer, and so it must be that from the nature of these creatures, we can infer the natir

Ask yourself when in history Genesis occurred. Is this a historical event? When did it take place? Many Christians fall back on the claim that Genesis is merely "allegorical", yet if it were so, the entire premise on which Christianity is hinged - namely, the Fall of Man and the subsequent Redemption by Christ - are both figurative, and have no reality to themselves beyond metaphor. Yet if these are not literal, neither can they have literal consequences. Either Genesis happened literally, and therefore Christ had to literally come down and save everyone and to this day you will literally be condemned to a terrible fate should you not honor Christ while your time in this world is still here, or that Genesis isn't actually real, and therefore there was no Fall, no Original Sin, no need for a later Savior, and therefore no need for Christianity, period.

>>13006930
address his point in detail then, come on, do it

>>13006599
What is heaven going to do with all the retarded sociopaths that converted to Christianity? How can it remain heaven when everyone who goes there was responsible for earth being hell.

>>13006867
>provides no proof and threatens others with suffering for not accepting things for no reason
Sounds a whole lot like somebody here has a guilty conscience and a whole lot of silly defensive mechanisms, bro.

See a therapist, think about your life choices. Things will be better once you stop shifting responsibility and blaming others for your conduct.

>>13006956
Paragraph 3: *infer the nature of the Creator. Sorry, my text bubble froze.

Classical theism is somewhat tenable - Christian theism is virtually impossible to. Deism is still highly viable (and very profound to think on, in my view), given the facts of the Cambrian Explosion and other details, but personally I lean to believing that higher-intelligence lifeforms, of extraterrestial and possibly extra-dimensional nature, are responsible for that. This said, I am myself a monist and a pantheist - I believe all of reality is a singularity of an infinite consciousness experiencing itself as an endless multiplicity of players, and that there's an afterlife and reincarnation/rebirth and so on - but I have not the slightest belief in the Abrahamic sense of a Deity. I can't fathom why someone would choose such a belief-system over the others which already exist out there, and are only becoming more relevant now given the discussions on consciousness taking place in today's scientific community.

Anyways regardless of whether your search leaves you a Christian or something other, I wish you the best in life and hope you have a nice night. Our metaphysical positions should not have the slightest bearing on how we treat eachother. :)

>>13006978
Don't call them the r-word, but yes. Many people who follow Christianity are highly selfish and opportunistic people, and do make life here worse for others by the closed-mindedness, ignorance and arrogance their religion has inculcated into them, which the rest of society must suffer from having to deal with.

>>13006989
What are you even talking about you impossible baboon
>I was quoting the person I was responding to fuckhead

>>13006599
Based Feser.

>>13007037
>1. change is a real feature of the world
>2. but change is the actualization of a potential
BRUH OHNONONOONOOO LOOK AT THE TOP OF HIS HEAD

>>13007048
>read 4% of a summary for one of five arguments
>make a shitpost

>>13007037
And these purely abstract arguments somehow also equate themselves to Yahweh of the Old Testament, isn't it? Dang, really infanticides my Canaanites...

I'm a Catholic convert at the age of 23.
All of philosophy talks about the "One", even before Christ. They talk about and debate the presence of his being for a millennia, even before they where monotheistic in religious activities, they where monists in the realm of philosophy...
Now to tldr their debates, the arguement boils down to semantics and becomes language games. Literally. This is why there is such a wide divide in our ability to debate about this topic, with two people ever actually agreeing on this, philosophically it's a paradox, an unsolvable question.

But once we bring religious activites in it, We see it's presence in a historical fashion, a place where we can get actual proof. We can actually date things back to when they where used during religious activites. That is why everything has a state date. This is why you can date a newborn child to it's birthdate, and you can date a 1000 year old mummie as well. We can historically date these artifacts back to when they where during Christ, and before him. If we understand it's culture we understand the items usage. Sorry to go on that tangent, but I had to.
And by the spreading of these items and their usage we can deduce how fast religious ideas spread, how quickly cultures spread and disappeared.
Then we turn our look to Christianity, and then specifically look at the Catholic Church. Prior to the 1054 Schism, it was bejoined with the Eastern Orthodox Church as one Church Body, who where also called the Catholic Church.

>>13007072
From the OP,
>Though I suppose theism in general would be fine.
And no, not neccessarily.

>>13006599
Unironically Nietzsche. It doesn't even matter if the mythos is "true" or not, Christianity is a cuck religion that venerates weakness and debasement.

>>13007094
Sorry, my comment wasn't to you, but was rhetorically responding to whomever wrote those arguments. I wasn't critiquing your mentioning it here, anon. Hope you don't think I was being snarky.

>>13007104
No problem.

>>13006599


>>13006956
This. Just look into the origins of Judaism, and by extension Christianity, see how it does not add up to produce the narratives which would indicate the validity of their theologies and metaphysics.


But you do get a lot of neo-scholastic type people who demand some sort of immanent critique of the thing, under the pretense that they would accept such a rebuttal. You could go about this any umber of ways. One that I like, is following the reason of God as a subject. How can he will, and how can he desire, that the inherent notion is that what is made good or evil is only by his decree, brings the question of what determines god to will it as such, to desire it in that way, when anything is possible, there needs to be a cause to it.The same dialectic between any finite subject and the world it lives in, with its internal construction forming desires and ejaculating them onto the world and by its mediation, would apply to God as he is an apparent willing subject, in his case this dialectic is absolute and absolutely abolishes the possibility of his retaining subjectivity *as* (the) objectivity. God is beyond good and evil by his power alone, being unconditioned, renders him indeterminate, making him quite literally, non-existent, otherwise we would have a being that negates its own reported qualities, that is, a God that depends on his creation for not only his being, but his will, that he is conditioned and determined by the world. Or we end with infinite regression, or to be more subtle we make a circularity out of god to fix him in place as first cause, making him unable to be transcendent, becoming immanent and thus not a subject but a process, like us, but in that way, according to his absolute and universal nature, this would cause him to be all causes, again showing God as subject to be impossible. Finite subjects are evidently possible as they arise from nature, but we do not have them separate from it, thus a subject of the attributions of God, with the former in mind, as to be found determinate, or existing, must be the absolute process of nature itself.

To put it briefly, the attributes of the Abrahamic God make it impossible for him to be a subject, yet he is presented as such; he negates himself into the world.


>>13006978
Psychopaths are another interesting point of critique. People unable to genuinely express and live by christian virtues, doomed from the start.

Robert M. Price is fun to read.

>>13006599
It kind of depends on which angle you want to argue against Christianity.

If you want to go the logic route, its pretty easy because the logical foundation of christianity is nonexistent. They have some logical arguments such as in >>13007037 that try to lay the foundation for god but these arguments for gods existence by way of pure reason were demolished by Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason. Theres a reason why no philosophers waste their time critiquing Ed Fesers pop books. So the logical foundations of christianity haven't been taken seriously for centuries.

That leaves the more continental approach, Nietzsche is obviously the big elephant in the room for critiquing Christianity but don't sleep on Bakunin(God and The State is peak anarchist philosophy with some great insights into christianity) and Fuererbach(The Essence of Christianity).

Unfortunately nobody becomes a Christian because of logic(seriously, find anybody who read the first cause arguments and became a believer) so those and the continental approaches will have limited use on swaying any christians to think about their faith.

The more useful approach then I think is to critique it from a historical perspective, so for instance reading anything by Bart Ehrman will shed light on the entirely human creation of the bible, how there are forged books in the canon, literal fanfiction that was added into certain books centuries later, contradictory sayings of jesus and realizations that there are certainly things that Jesus did not say(the I AM sayings are a great example). Casting doubt on the historicity of the biblical account is far more useful for regular christians and you'll really only have fundies that bite the bullet and try to argue the historicity of certain things.

>>13006930
>Uhh yeah like a dozen illiterate women and manual laborers like 2000 years ago claimed a guy came back from the dead so therefore he's god incarnate.

Makes perfect sense.

>>13006989
>Projecting this much

>>13006862
Public school teachers molest at higher rates. Only as bad as it is in the Church because they relaxed seminary candidate standards which enabled fags to slip through. Fags have the highest child molestation rate of any demographic.

>>13007365
>Literally defending child molestation

The absolute state of Christ cucks

>>13007365
>Public school teachers molest at higher rates
And also have access to children at much higher rates.

But this is all standard catholic apologetics. The issue isn't just that you're church is full of child rapists, its that the institution protects them and allows it to continue.

>>13006956
>Ask yourself when in history Genesis occurred. Is this a historical event?
Yes, take down Genesis and the whole house of cards comes crashing down.

>>13006956
based
>>13007001
cringe

>>13006935
OP said no Dawkins' tier arguments cunt. If you're looking at pure historicity, we have more (and temporally closer) information on Christ than we do on Alexander the Great, or most other figures of antiquity. The majority of biblical scholars place the earliest gospel records at within 5 years of the crucifixion, and from the apostles themselves. Actually read the arguments of Christians before you start blowing the Hitchens corpse and fingering Dawkins asshole

>>13009165
>If you're looking at pure historicity, we have more (and temporally closer) information on Christ than we do on Alexander the Great, or most other figures of antiquity
Other than the gospel, we have absolutely nothing about Jesus in third-party sources, other than what some historians report about Christians by hearsay, and that's decades after his death.
>The majority of biblical scholars place the earliest gospel records at within 5 years of the crucifixion, and from the apostles themselves
Lies, the earliest is Mark, commonly thought to be written around 70 A.D.

>>13009202
So other than the multiple sources I presented (which for the standards of ancient history is considered *more* than enough to determine historical reliability of an event), you want more sources.... This is an interesting game of Kick the Can Down The Road you're playing.

Second, this is what I mean when I say that you're an idiot. I'm talking about source material. Yes, Gospel of Mark written plus or minus 70AD: but where did he get the information from? Based on the historical method of "redaction criticism" biblical scholars (many of whom are atheist, including Bart Ehrman who is the most prolific), scholars unanimously agree there is a Source Q which Mark transcribed (we know this based on analysis of writing style, similar passages in other gospels, other historical critical methods), and this source (and others) are placed within 5 years of crucifixion, and from the earliest apostles.

So start reading actual scholarship before you scan Wikipedia for 5 minutes and pretend to be Sam Harris

>>13006599
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/tippling/2019/01/06/deconstructing-aquinas-fifth-way-the-first-fallacies/

>>13006599
The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant
By Crossan.
Postmodern Theology can be used as rigorous refutation of any form of deify, so it really can be used as against christianity.

>>13006599
Ivan karamazov

>tfw told my mother that I don't believe in God and she slapped me and sobbed for hours
Worst feel. Sorry moms.

>>13009365
Your mom sound like a mental midget and a cuck to ideology.

The Antichrist, Nietzsche.

>>13009365
Force her to read Nietschze.

>>13009365
Dumb mom lol

J.L. Mackie presented the logical problem of evil, though most philosophers acknowledged that Platinga disproved it. You could also into the evidential problem of evil, which is where the philosophical battle has turned.

>>13009394
>>13009423
>>13009429
She is a slave to her ideology but I still love her and don't like hurting her feelings in such a profound way. She asked me why I stopped believing and I just explained the argument from evil because it's simple. She couldn't wrap her head around the idea that an omnipotent God has the power to create us with free will and simultaneously prevent us from doing evil.

>>13006599
>Having any idea about circular reasoning or confirmed biases.

>Paying any attention at all to ockham's razor.

>Being an adult.


You don't need an argument against something for which there was never any evidence at all. You are uncertain about the nature of the universe and your place in it. Just be honest about this like a big boy and move on and stop polluting the well of human thought.

>>13009247
I have all the seasons of doctor who on DVD. Is that source material for the existence of the Doctor?

>>13009365
Religious people never bothered to scrutinize their ideas and behavior. That would lead to a healthy capacity for skepticism and an unwillingness to believe unfalsifiable presuppositions. Religious people are retarded. If they weren't retarded, they wouldn't be religious.

>>13006930
Make an argument.

>>13006956
>>13007340
>>13009470
Yes.

>>13006599
Against what part of christianity? There was never even a good argument for it unless you point out that a central doctrine holds a society together if they all cooperate, no matter how retarded the doctrine itself is that they all cooperate on.

>>13006599
Possibly the best argument against Christianity specifically is contradictions between Christian beliefs and the Bible. It's good because it means Christianity fails on its own terms, since the Bible is meant to be an authoritative source of doctrine, so a blatant contradiction would show that Christianity is self-contradictory.

I would say the best example of this is Ezekiel chapters 40-48. Ezekiel lived during the exile, and those chapters are a vision of the restored Jerusalem after a return from exile. The vision includes a new line of Davidic kings who participate in an active sacrificial cult, overseen by the Levites in the rebuilt Temple. If you know your Christian theology, it should be obvious why this is totally antithetical to Christianity on numerous counts. One example: the book of Hebrews says the sacrificial cult has been abolished due to the priesthood being taken on by Jesus, an immortal, divine, Davidic king (the priesthood of Melchizedek). This is impossible according to Ezekiel's vision as the restored Davidic lineage will include princes who will pass on material inheritances to their sons, and because the restored the priesthood will be the Levites, not a Davidic king. This is one of the few Bible issues that I have not seen a decent argument against, they are hand-waves such as arguing that the vision is a metaphor for the church; which is not true because the new temple is described in physical terms with specific dimensions, similarly to the description of Solomon's temple, which was definitely a literal, physical temple.

>>13007365
>other institution tolerate child rapists
>therefore it's not a big deal if my authoritative moral institution also tolerates it
>btw it's the homo's fault and we can't be held responsible for screening priests candidates

>>13009574
That argument also admits that the church is a human institution like any other, there is nothing separating their conduct from that of the sinful world.

>>13009589
Then why should I follow the morals it puts out? Btw if a teacher fucks a kid, the teacher is fired and goes to jail. They don't get transferred to another school.

>>13009165
>The majority of biblical scholars place the earliest gospel records at within 5 years of the crucifixion and from the apostles themselves

That is literally 100% untrue. Pauls letters aren't even that early, and theres NO evidence other then >"muh tradition says so" for the gospels being written by actual apostles. How bout you actually go read some biblical scholars. Or for starters read the fucking wikipedia page.

>>13006599
If you're looking for theistic/deistic arguments familiarise yourself with WLC. He's an unoriginal thinker but he compiles all the arguments for the existence of god and tries to defend them. He's even published peer-reviewed philosophical papers on the existence of god.

If you want something more scholarly you should read Aquinas.

>>13009394
>>13009423
not making your mom cry should be more important than any meme about god or ideology or anything

>>13010001
Only by freeing herself from her slave mentality can she achieve true satisfaction. Any tears and hardships along the way are worth it.

>>13009444
>platinga disproved it
If you accept certain premises or his logic system.

>>13010010
good meme

>>13010010

>>13010001
No, that's the religious influence talking. The truth stays whatever it is independently of your preferences, views, beliefs, or feelies. Welcome your mom to adulthood and hold her to the same standard you would hold any other retarded cumdumpster that solves her problems by hitting.

>>13010001
I agree to an extent. I didn't really want to have the conversation with her but she persisted in asking questions about my beliefs and I couldn't continue to lie about it.
>>13010010
I don't think this is true. For a lot of people the comfort of a religious ideology allows them to avoid confronting the idea that life does not have a purpose given to it by an all powerful creator. I guess this may be a "slave mentality", but for some this security gives them the avenue to live a fulfilling life. I know my mother is fulfilled by it, even if she now believes that I will burn in hell for eternity because I don't agree.

>>13010010

>>13010061
The problem isn't "slave morality". It's that she lacks adult-level critical thinking and problem solving and communication skills and it's holding back your life and your relationship with her. It's smothering any intellectual or emotional growth. It's making impossible any constructive or analytical dialogue. It's slowing down our entire fucking species. And people like you let it happen because some retard might feel bad feelings for a second before potentially growing and moving on?

>>13010093
>making your hypothetical mother feel like shit unnecessarily because of your autistic arrogant obsession with truth and intellectual "growth"

A strong case has been built by a myriad of historians and textual critics concerning the historicity and reliability of the Bible. Scholars working on this subject have put forward a very convincing interpretation of the events surrounding Christ and the subsequent undertakings of his contemporary followers. Opinions range widely on this subject, from scholars like Bart Ehrman and the Jesus Seminar who hold that Christ was a historical figure and failed messiah who was turned into god by his followers later on in the development of Christianity, to extreme views held by those like Richard Carrier and Robert Price who assert that Jesus was a mythical figure who never actually existed. I recommend Ehrman's book How Jesus Became God (he also has a lecture by the same name on YouTube) for an introduction to this.

Perhaps the historical case is not the most convincing, but I believe it is the most interesting.

>>13010060
Just to be clear the slap was not a painful one and this is one the very few times I've been physically punished by my mother, the other times being when I was spanked as a child for doing something wrong.
>>13010093
Slowing down our species pffff. Who let the retarded reddit atheists in? Idiots hold back our species. Many religious people are idiots, but many atheists are as well. It certainly is possible to have constructive dialogue with my mother, and after she calmed down we had a constructive talk about religion. You must have had really poor experiences with religious people to think you can't have emotional growth with differing believes. It's still frustrating to me that she doesn't respect my beliefs, but I don't feel like she doesn't love me because of it.

>>13010161
>Feel like shit.

And? That's part of life. At least i'm not hitting every time I feel bad feelies. I use my words like a big boy and that dumb cum dumpster can do the same.

"Truth" and "growth" don't require "autistic obsession". They just require being a critically thinking adult. Religion is poison for our species and you're the kind of weak pathetic child allowing it because feelies.

>>13006599
>I'm looking for the best arguments against Christianity.
why? whats the point?

>>13010165
>Richard Carrier
>Jesus Seminar
Lol.

Ehrman ok tho.

>>13010978
What's wrong with the Jesus Seminar?

>>13006599
>I'm looking for the best arguments against Christianity. Though I suppose theism in general would be fine.
Catholic here, here's my favourite argument against the divinely inspired dogma:

>4 gospels
>4 different sets of Christ's "last words"
No idea how anyone can argue the Bible is the word of God after that.

>>13006599
I’d probably lean on the specificity of christianity and Man’s ability to comprehend the necessary beliefs and actions if we’re to believe that nature reveals God. Additionally, why would a good God create a world which was so difficult to interpret and understand if He really wanted us to come to this one, specific conclusion?

>>13006956
Thread should have ended here, honestly.
>>13006599
If the above wasn't enough, you could look into anglo philosophy of religion, it's basically 60 years of "why classical theism (so a fortiory Christianity) makes absolutely no fucking sense". Some highlights:
William Rowe "The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism"
Paul Draper "Pain and Pleasure: An Evidential Problem for Theists"
JL Schellenberg "The Hiddenness Argument: Philosophy's New Challenge to Belief in God"
Jordan Sobel "Logic and Theism"
Sharon Street "If Everything Happens for a Reason, Then We Don’t Know What Reasons Are"
Jeremy Koons "Can God’s Goodness Save the Divine Command Theory from Euthyphro?"

>>13007355
It does make perfect sense. You just aren't very good with logic.

>>13010075
But what is real happiness? What is the living flower? Why can't he discuss the happiness of this ideal state except in the terms of religious allegory?

>>13006599
i think christianity is a very specific set of beliefs and practices as set forth by jesus in the gospels. however, there is no church that i know of on earth that embraces 100% of what jesus says in the gospel. thus, christianity is really a religion of one person. it is solely a single person's relationship with christ and the community aspect of it can really only bring about your spiritual downfall. jesus specifically states not to perform and good deeds in front of others, and to foster within oneself the kingdom of heaven through prayer and purity of heart and mind.

>>13011341
I personally don't feel like there's much dialogue between believing theists and non-believing non-theists in the first place, making everything pointless. The relevant sector online, for example, sees only a battleground between creationists/theists and evolutionists/atheists, with neither side even listening to the other. All those books you listed, regardless of how well-argued they might be, will never reach their intended audience, because nobody listens to eachother here.

>>13011504
How very 14 years old of you.

>>13009247
Looking through the works of various scholars, the Q Source is not universally agreed upon, given that some of them support Matthean priority. Most of all, this hypothetic Q has yet to be recovered.
I also can't find sources for the claim Q was necesarily written 5 years after Jesus's death.

>>13011374

>>13011603
Can you imagine a less reliable, less trustworthy group of people, who even if they had the motivation to conspire, would be completely incapable of adequately doing so? And who are they set against? The most learned, experienced, and powerful members of their society. How could they possibly come to any agreement? How could any coherent story of Jesus come into existence given it's starting point? Common human experience tells us that the roots of the bible should not exist. And yet the bible does exist. Where did it come from, if not where it is said to come from? Those who had the ability to conspire such a story had no motivation to tell this story. Those who are all but confirmed to have told us this story are almost certainly incapable of conspiring to do so. This becomes especially pronounced when you consider the unmatched literary craft of the bible. It shouldn't exist, and yet it does.

>>13011669
>This becomes especially pronounced when you consider the unmatched literary craft of the bible
Mark's grasp of Greek is completely terrible

>>13011582
what do you mean? how is that 14 year old thinking?

>>13011680
Poor in a matter of style, but given that you are not a fluent speaker of Ancient Greek, nor is anyone, do you not find it a touch absurd to criticize it in a formal sense? Do you not praise some literature for it's excellent use of vernacular? How is it that both Faulkner and Hemingway can be considered part of the Western canon of literature? Musn't it be, by your measuring of the gospels, that one of their styles is objectively inferior to the others? If the four gospels differ in style, how are you so certain that this is without function in the broader interpretation of the total work? Why are you so certain about it's lack of value and craft, when it has shaped civilization for thousands of years? How do you properly set your tastes? How do you calibrate your measure of values to objectively determine quality across such disparate works?

>>13011723
How are you such a precise arbiter of what Jesus did and did not mean? What in your experience leads you to be more credible than the nearly 100 generations that have come before you who have contemplated these same questions?

>>13011582
>>13010093
>>13007340
>>13007139
>>13006956
ITT: 14 year old reddit atheists accuse anonymous strangers on the internet of being 14 year olds, then complain that their Christian mothers are too stupid to understand their really cool slave morality terms they learned on from 5 minutes on Nietzche's wikipedia page.

>>13011762
Epic irony bro, guess I'll go get baptized

>>13011758
jesus spoke in parables but he explained what he meant. so the words are all right there readily understood in the gospel, and nothing he said is unclear. i think the confusion comes from people willfully twisting what he said, or leaving out parts, in order to appeal to audiences. but if you read the gospels, it's all very clear. there is also something supernatural about the text itself, and i think reading the gospel will have an affect on even the most jaded critic of christianity as a social religion. out of curiosity, have you read the gospel? did they affect you or change your life? and what are your thoughts on the subject?

>>13011784
Your whole life, people are going to find you intolerable to be around. You will never reach what you're aiming for in a career. Various problems will continue to pile up, and things which are normally only minor obstacles will be insurmountable for you. You will blame others. You will say that the problem with other people is that they are not rational, like your. If only other people could be as logical as you. I can only hope that at some point, some fleeting moment, some quickly passing sight or sound or touch will linger in your mind just long enough that you finally realize just how little you understand what it means to be human. Perhaps it will be at a funeral, perhaps it will be after another furious but inevitable break up, perhaps it will be in the smile of a stranger, or the struggling walk of an old, poor man trying to get on the bus, but for your sake I hope the moment comes when you realize all that can never be said, all that is left unsaid by others, all that is beyond expression, all that is more real, more precious, more permanent, more meaningful than any material. Perhaps it will strike you just enough that for you the negative is finally inverted, and the positive, unmediated image of reality burns in your mind forever.

>>13011831
It's very clear that you haven't spent much time with the gospels.

>>13011836
>that pathetic psychology analysis attempt

>>13011848
what do you mean? spent time with them? i mean, i've read them, some parts many many times. some passages are on my mind very often. i'd say almost all of what jesus is quoted as saying and doing is embedded in my memory permanently.

>>13011836
A cold reading only works on extremely insecure people. But I guess that's the type that'd be easy to convert to whatever religion tells them they're the most worthless.

>>13011860
It's not psychology. It's not a fate unique to you. It's metaphysics. So long as you grasp onto your hollow ideas of material reality, you will never find happiness or satisfaction. How could you ever possibly find the immaterial in the material?

>>13011933
see>>13011939

>>13011865
Spend less time with the words, and more time with the books.

>>13011762
I never accused anyone of anything. I left a fairly reasonable dissection of Christianity's flaws. You, however, returned a personal attack for no apparent reason, anon.

>>13011950
hmm, okay wise zen master... but i ain't buyin your persona. you're only fooling yourself.

>>13011939
A cold reading is not metaphysics, John Edwards.

>>13011954
So how do you know "what jesus is quoted as saying" is true/worth following? Why have you bothered?

>>13011978
well... it's a matter of faith, and my faith isn't really that strong or else i would've done what he said by now. i mean, i read a lot of stuff, and i kind of just follow my nose on what makes sense. i'm a fan of zen koans, the tao te ching, the 4 gospels, and the writings of tolstoy, dostoevsky, and salinger when they touch on religious themes. now it could just be that i am basically a nobody, a slave, and i want to ascribe some meaning to my life which really has none. and like, i pretty much believe this, to tell you the truth. but when i can sort of dig myself out of my misery, i can look to some of these teachings and they give me some hope, although, i think it is delusional most of the time... but there is something to it. i mean, these are highly personal texts, when you read them, they speak directly to your core. like when jesus talks about what the old law said and what he says is actually the right way, like how if you have evil thoughts, thats just as bad as doing evil things, like he says, even if you are angry with someone, you are in danger of the fires of hell, it meshes into the entire theme, of *really* purifying your inside because that's really what matters. see, the pharisees were like white washed tombs, because they looked good and everyone really thought they were clean but they had evil intent. now, this concept of living is really interesting to me and i found that other philosophies of self effacement also appeal to me. like, the ego is destructive to the spirit because it makes you care how other people perceive you at the expense of your honest understanding of how you feel, what you really are. for some reason, this stuff really interests me. i think it leads up to what jesus tells his disciples and those seeking the kingdom to do, which is to sell your possessions and give the money to the poor, and then "follow" him. money and possessions are like ego armor, and they are things you rely on in place of god. as jesus says, there is no reason to worry about what you eat or what you wear, because god loves you. the storing up of wealth is like an implicit rejection of that. i mean jesus also says that if you try to save your life you will lose eternal life. to me, this stuff is like so different from anything you read about day to day. i mean, it's REALLY radical and it's not exactly emphasized at any church. churches are all about life, success, wealth - this is what the people want to hear because it affirms the lives they are living. the struggle for more stuff. but jesus really didn't care for any of that. and, so yeah, this is just kind of what i think about a lot. it'd be great to hear from you what you think because i know my take on things is untempered but i really have no one to talk with about it. like i said i base my thinking on the literature and texts i mentioned above.

>>13011958
I'm disappointed in your level of reading comprehension. As much as what I described is certainly personal to you, it is also universal. When you don't eat, you starve. A plant with CO2 dies. A grape left in the sun shrivels. If you ignore the vital substance in your life, you will experience the symptoms of death. So long as you ignore what is immaterial, you will be perfectly incapable of finding what is immaterial. If an object at rest stays at rest, how did anything ever come into motion? There are many things which appear as paradoxes to you, or dilemmas, or conundrums, or mysteries, but all such words are simply a mask for a limited perspective. A gene is not the genetic material, but the behavior. The immaterial is the foundation of the material, which is essentially an illusion of what we call sense. Sensation itself, is of course, without material substance. Trying to locate it is like trying to continue dividing time into smaller and smaller slices looking for the instance of motion.

>>13011953
Well I don't know which post was yours, but none of them demonstrate an even rudimentary understanding of Christianity as a human institution and how it relates to what Christian thinkers actually mean when they refer to God. Whatever your attempt at rational dissection was the impact is reduced enormously because it appears to be grasping at water and not tying the subject down the way truthful evaluation of a thing does.

>>13011669
>it’s a Christian doesn’t know anything about the actual origin of his holy book episode

>>13012044
I was confirmed in the Episcopal Church when I was 13. I don't go anymore. This doesn't make me a miserable wretch who is just denying God's love. Please keep your cold readings, promises of spiritual enlightenment, and threats of misery to yourself. You're not a dosto character. You're not Chesterton's version of Sherlock Holmes.

>>13012038
So if this is what Jesus means by his commandment to his disciples to sell what they have, what did he mean by the parable of the three servants--the one who is given only one talent of silver, the second who is given two talents, and a third is given five talents of silver? The servant with one talent buries it, and the master punishes him. The one with five goes out and multiplies the money, coming back with twice as much. Just after this parable too, a woman comes in to anoint Jesus with oil; the disciples chastise her and complain that she is wasting what could have been sold for a large sum to aid the poor; in turn, Jesus chastises the disciples, saying that she has done a good thing for him. What does this mean?

And when Jesus says he is the Son of Man, what does this mean? And what does it mean when he says "From now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the power and coming on the clouds of heaven"?

What do you actually know about the history of the church or the history of Christianity?

>>13012098
But that's not what I said at all. I am not threatening you with misery. Why are you interpreting my words as though they are only meant for you? If I said that when you jump up, you will fall back down, you would not take that personally. You can understand when something is a description of material reality, but you seem completely unable to comprehend any claim about immaterial reality. I am not predicting for you any unique future. Simply look around--do people who are satisfied engorge themselves? Do they habitually make themselves drunk? Do people who are happy and content enslave themselves to debt? Do people who are happy and satisfied spend their paycheck at the casino or buying lottery tickets? Do you believe anyone can ever be satisfied? Can anyone ever be happy? What does it look like? What purpose do these feelings serve? Where do they come from? Where do they reside? How did they come about? Does food make the hunger, or does hunger create the idea of food?

>>13012123
No seriously, I don't care what you have to say. If I wanted to be in the church again I'd go talk to my former priest. She was a lot better at this than you'll ever be. Firing off question after question is a terrible presentation. If you want to convert someone you can always go on a mission.

>>13012099
he doesn't say that commandment to his disciples but actually to the rich man who asks what he could do to attain the kingdom of heaven. first jesus says to keep the 10 commandments but the rich man says he did that but what can he do and jesus says to sell everything and give to the poor "if you wish to be perfect as my father in heaven is perfect"

but the parable of the talents has tempered my thinking a lot, because it always does seem to say that you should like, invest wisely, i guess? but i can't believe that jesus is saying to literally make money. after all, jesus says to give unto caesar what is caesars. the coins all have caesars (or george washingtons) face on them so they technically all belong to the government anyway. the parable of the talents i think falls into line with other parables in which jesus is the lord who is judging the sheep from the goats, the wheat from the chaff, the wise virgins from the foolish, and the seeds the took root from the ones that perished. talents refers to faith, like almost every other symbol, and if the faith is nourished it will grow but if it is hidden then it will wither. like the light under a basket or the salt of the earth.

as for the oil lady, jesus also talks like this when the pharisees condemn him and the disciples having a good time instead of being serious, to which jesus says that while the bridegroom is with them, everyone can not help but be joyous, but when he is taken away there will be plenty of time to be miserable. jesus takes exception with all of this because he is christ, he went to the desert and overcame his temptations, and he mastered the universe. he achieved enlightenment, basically. he could control the physical world and he was completely aligned with god. he knew the future, he knew men's hearts, he could cure ailments, and he could cast out demons. in the company of someone such as this, there should be celebration.

i don't think the point of telling the rich man to give the money away was that the money would help the poor. because that would contradict absolute faith in a loving god that provides for your earthly needs. it isn't that the rich man's money is needed by the poor, it's that the rich man's soul is attached to the money and in order to be perfect he has to forsake that attachment and put god first instead of money. the thing itself, the oil, the money, is nothing of value to jesus in a monetary sense - in that passage, the disciples are thinking like that the oil and therefore the money is wasted when it could've fed poor people, which is ludicrous when you consider that jesus makes food multiply. how could they be worried about such a thing? but this is the way that we think because we lack faith. jesus recognizes the woman's action for what it is, not for what it's worth and he goes on to say that it's in preparation for his burial (he knows the future)

i need to make a new post to continue because this one is too long

>>13012139
Why do you think I am trying to convert you right now? How could I possibly convince you to believe any particular dogma when you cannot even accept prerequisite ideas about the nature of reality.

>>13012140
So you think that Christ became aligned with God, but is not God? You think he should only be celebrated because he can do wondrous things, and for no other reason?

>>13012150
Well this is a literature board all about showing off how smart you are. If it's not me then your cold reading is attempting to convince everyone else in the thread that I am childish, you are wise. They should listen to you and not to me, despite me saying nothing much and you rambling about calculus and bio 101 shit. I invite everyone in this thread to go read a book, it'll be much more worthwhile than this thread.

>>13012169
You can keep repeating "cold reading" as much as you want, it doesn't get any cleverer or more meaningful. I'm significantly more disappointed by your lack of self-awareness than your lack of reading comprehension. Could you at least consider the possibility that debates/arguments/conversations can end in meaningful communication and are not simply verbal fencing matches?

>>13012099
the turn of phrase" son of man" is incredibly interesting to me lately, and i think it holds the key at least for a certain way of understanding the gospels for me. so i wikipediad the phrase because i wanted to know like how it is used throughout the gospel and how frequently. i recommend the wikipedia article for "son of man" as it's interesting to see.

now what i think is lost a lot is that jesus was a man. before he does anything noteworthy as a healer or the christ, he first overcomes the original temptation that all men carry in their hearts which is passed down from adam. the forty days in the desert when he fights satan is like pretty much the first part of any gospel and i think it happens right after his baptism or right before. but what i am insinuating here is that jesus is meant to be portrayed as anybody, and the real meaning and goal of jesus teaching is to illustrate that any human being has the potential to follow jesus, and be as perfect as jesus, and to essentially return to that pre-fall state which is what jesus achieved after he overcame his temptation in the desert. and this is why the early church fathers (who are extremely interesting) went out into the desert to fight their temptations. i think this gives the gospels much more practical meaning as a guideline and also an illustration of the goal of the kingdom of heaven.

your line of questioning is interesting because jesus is slippery when they ask him who he is, and i think again he does it on purpose because he's not trying to draw acclaim to himself, to his person, but rather to show readers and listeners that he is *just a man* like everyone else, which is crucial, because when you elevate jesus to godhood while he is still on earth - having been born of woman and as a son of a man - it makes it seem like what he did is unattainable. but why would he tell people how to live if he thought no one could do it? if jesus was sent by god to redeem mankind of original sin, and he came as a teacher, then it makes sense that his teaching will lead us to pre-fall eden (and this would be the kingdom of heaven) if followed as he taught. but to peter and to the pharisees, when they ask him if he is this or that, he just says "you have said so" because the people he is talking to don't get it, and they want to trap him or pin him down for their own sake.

the last quote you mention i think refers to jesus being at the right hand of god. he is the redeemer and the christ and his teaching is what leads all people back to god (no one gets to god except thru jesus), thus he is the first, after adam, to taste of the kingdom of heaven, paradise, eden, and after he is crucified he resides in heaven and shepherds souls back to heaven.

im not sure if im making any sense to you but it would be great to hear some of your thoughts either on what i'm saying or what you have discovered through reading/meditating on the gospels.

>>13012195
I'm not the one who started his posts calling people 14. Reevaluate how you post if you want worthwhile engagement. You remind me of this guy I knew who was obsessed with debates. Everyone thought he was a faggot.

>>13006956
That's actually Reddit bro

>>13012165
i think this kind of question is basically why the pharisees made sure jesus was crucified, and it's the kind of thinking that led to big wars and arguments and stuff and it goes right back to my original argument that christ speaks to people individually, because making it something that can be debated makes it easy for people to sort of engage it on a level that isnt sincere and is more political than anything. i mean, this is why there's all these different like "creeds" and different heresies throughout the church because people for some reason need other people's approval (even now we are illustrating this by talking, i think) but jesus makes it really clear like "those who have ears, let them hear" and it's not really about *proving* that you are right about jesus or whatever in the eyes of other men, it's really just something that is in your heart and it's a matter of faith. so to answer your question, i don't really understand your question but i see it as a sort of like temptation to vanity or something. if i were to try to answer it'd get into something like splitting hairs over translations of individual words and stuff which actually can be very elucidating i think if it's approached in a humble way like if you really want to learn more (ask and u shall receive, knock and it will be answered).

jesus was the son of man, he was the son of a man, and he was the son of god. he overcame temptation in the desert and was god walking on earth, probably as adam and eve were before the fall. the second question i don't know what you mean because i don't think i said that... but maybe i did say it. i don't know. jesus didn't really "just" do wondrous things, he was the master of all creation just as god is, except he was walking around on earth. i think jesus shouldn't exactly be celebrated (i really detest churches with full rock bands and all this happy dancing and cheering and singing like woohooo jesus!), but rather followed, his teaching and lifestyle, and i think it's a very serious and difficult thing to do but very important, because i think it has to do with eternal life not only of the soul but of the body too, because he says "there are those among you who will not taste of death until i come again in glory"

>>13007019
Unironically not true Christians. Look at how much time Jesus spent rebuking religious people VS sinners.

Just a few reminders lads.


The following are absolutely Apodictic and indubitable statements and there is absolutely no chance that they will in our lifetimes ever be refuted.


It is according to basic physics illogical to believe that the universe just popped into existence because energy and matter doesn’t just manifest and certainly not on the level of all of the energy/matter in the universe at once.
Thus the universe is not self-arising, but one may perhaps argue there’s an argument in quantum physics and the use of, say, the Poincaré recurrence theorem. But this implies reality is both a closed system and without beginning.

Yet we see nothing in nature which is without beginning.


Everything has a cause.

So either you believe in a potentially infinite prior universes which STILL has the problem of “where did the original matter come from ?”


Thus we have shown very simply that thing is without beginning, basic physics shows us nothing is eternal due to entropy and we can all agree it is illogical to assume something is self arising when the current science is considered.


Well what of God? The same arguments of the above can all be applied equally to God.


So what opinion is true, what option do we have? The true answer is we do not have an indubitable answer focus the origin of the universe and if we were to use Occam’s razor the deist argument is just as irrational (a divine figure always existing or self arising causing all things.) as a self arising universe (which is uncaused and has no root ) and a cyclical universe (which would still have a root in a beginning or would be again eternal and uncaused and thus not different from a definition of god)


Thus the root of all being is however you conceive it at the current time quite irrational. The only option a person has is opinion, faith and largely based on their personalities and social and personal needs and personal experience.

>>13012218
>and be as perfect as jesus
That's heresy according to pretty much every Christian denomination out there. Congratulations I guess.

>>13012218
Your answer is precisely why you should never taken the interpretation of a work as vast and complicated as the bible in translation entirely upon yourself with the absurd idea that everyone before you has failed.

No one has simply overlooked that Jesus was man. It has been one of the central questions of Christianity for millennia. That Jesus is Man is a fundamental teaching of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. What's more, The Son of Man is not simply a description. It was a title in Jewish tradition, put forward by the prophets, given to a future redeemer. As much as it was a description that this person would be, in body, like Man, the phrasing referred to a very specific person in Jewish messianic prophesy. When Jesus says he is The Son of Man, he is not simply saying he was born of a Woman, but that he is the one the prophesies refer to. This is essential with the next part of the claim, and claims elsewhere, where Jesus describes himself as having traits only God has, as describing himself as equal with God, as having power only God could have. This is why the pharisees want to condemn Jesus to death. He has spoken the ultimate heresy according to their faith. While it may seem slippery and circumstantial to you, without this historical context, Jesus could not have spoken more clearly to the pharisees at this time. As God, Jesus came before Adam, and even speaks in this manner. While the pharisees are in one sense laying a trap for Jesus, they are more than willing to let him out of the trap. They give him multiple opportunities. They are quite clear in their line of questioning, and suggest to him what he must do to avoid punishment. It is only by saying what he does that they have no choice but to condemn him or to believe in him. And that is one of many important elements of this part of the story. Jesus calls himself God and the messiah. If you accept these accounts, and believe Jesus to be telling the truth, you must take as true that Jesus is God, is Man, is the redeemer of our Sins, and also that God, despite being the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, is also one eternal being. If you do not accept any of these things, then you must reject the rest of Jesus' teachings as either the words of a great and terrible deceiver, or else say that the accounts are not true, and therefore no word of what he says can be taken as true.

>>13006795
ok but there aren't any good reasons to join other then "muh fee-fees".

>>13012223
You may not have noticed, but I've actually had great engagement from the anon I said had immature ideas. The anon you first responded to, who linked several posts, seems to have disappeared. I'm the poster he was referring to. As far as I can tell, I've kept this thread alive.

>>13006956
>antiquated views towards women

Out of all the dumb bullshit in the bible, you had to complain about the one thing it got right?

>he thinks he isn’t ruled by fee fees

>>13007001
>I believe all of reality is a singularity of an infinite consciousness experiencing itself as an endless multiplicity of players

What a basic bitch you are.

>>13012288
it is clear to me that church doctrine really has nothing to bear on the words of jesus. i would even go so far as to say everything after John is dubious, let alone the histories of congregations and churches full of people. not saying they all had it wrong, but that the living word is living - and it lives in people's hearts, where the kingdom of heaven is. to debate the semantics is really to miss the point here i think and to devolve into basically petty political squabbles.

>>13012295
yes jesus also states plainly that he came to fulfill the prophets and law.

the wikipedia for son of man, "The use of the definite article in "the Son of man" in the Koine Greek of the Christian gospels is original, and before its use there, no records of its use in any of the surviving Greek documents of antiquity exist.[3] Geza Vermes has stated that the use of "the Son of man" in the Christian gospels is unrelated to Hebrew Torah usages.[5]" but desu this is more of like political pandering and i dont think it's necessarily true it just sort of is something to debate and doesn't really bring either of us to richer faith.

>>13012323
How old do you think he'll be when he realizes that logic is only a feeling?

>>13012288
also i mean jesus literally says this to the rich young ruler, "if you wish to be perfect as my father in heaven is perfect..." so it *is* possible to be as perfect as jesus and god.

>>13012333
Yes, but I've always taken it that to be as perfect as Jesus would imply not sinning at all in your life, not even once.
I don't think many people qualify.

>>13012333

Theosis, google it

>>13012066
A human institution? Where on Earth does Christianity consider itself such? Christianity is not a culture, or a costume. It is an ideology positing a precise view on reality's literal nature, which its followers are expected to believe in and live by. I addressed the shortcomings of it as such, in my post here >>13006956. If you want to discuss Christianity as a "cultural institution", made by and for humans, firstly that's a heresy according to Christian doctrine and secondly it's not relevant to this thread, which involves OP needing to "debunk" the Christian framework of the world as being literally true for reality. Such discussion belongs to a different thread.

>I can totally understand the document written in Greek after 20 translations
>what do you mean I have to consider the original languages ?

>>13012339
even jesus sinned - he disobeyed his mother and father. but he disobeyed his *biological* mother and father in order to obey his father in heaven, so idk. but uhh... so i don't think sinning disqualifies anyone from the kingdom of heaven. jesus makes it clear what attaining the kingdom of heaven requires thru his teaching in the gospels, and he also makes it clear that any person who hears his words and asks for that guidance is capable of attaining the kingdom of heaven but that many will hear and not put into action and will not attain the kingdom of heaven.

>>13012342
i googled it, now what? haha not to be flippant but what do you want to say?

>>13012354

Theosis is the process by which in the Christian tradition as according to Paul one sees the image of the father via Christ and thus is transmuted into the same image.

See 2 Corinthians 3:18 and >>13012348

>>13012339
also i mean, how could jesus be a son of man, or the son of man, or a man at all, if he had not been born with original sin? and how would have had temptation in the desert if he didnt know what the pleasures of those temptations are? so i think the text makes it clear that jesus had sinned before and knew what it meant to sin. because no one who is a man is without sin.

>>13012328
So you choose to believe that the words are unreliable. Why then do you believe any of it? And how could there be a more important question? How can you call it merely political? Whether Jesus is God or is not God, or whether his words can be taken as even circumstantially true completely changes the meaning of faith. It's very strange to me that you accept the third-hand descriptions of a non-representative selection of contemporary analysis of an incomplete historical record as authoritative over the tradition of the institution which preserved the very book being commented on by you, me, and them. If this is simply political pandering, what isn't? Does it really not seem important to you to determine whether or not God himself walked the earth and redeemed our sins? If you don't think Jesus was God, then does it not seem important to definitively and thoroughly unseat those political institutions which use his name and memory for temporal power? There are more Christians in the world than any other type of religious believer. Their unity, disunity, and daily practice effects the entire world. Frankly, your position on this matter seems perfectly situated to allow you the luxury of inaction and the privilege of self-gratification. Somehow you continue to engage in the same behavior you have always have, with apparently no compelling motivation to change (you claim distress, but clearly not enough distress to actually do anything), and yet you also seem to consider your personal opinion as more valid, more honest, more sincere, more true, and more important than anyone and only those who disagrees with your self-centered, but sadly far from unique opinion.

>>13012271
based retard

>>13012365
yes i think this is like another word for kingdom of heaven. via jesus we can attain it.

>>13012381

Can you show a logical, rational indubitable and fully empiric origin for the first matter which doesn’t break our entire conception of science?

>>13012379
i call it political because of what i see behind the words that you are saying. like i can read your intent, you know? and that's very important because the answer u get is based on the question u ask. you wouldnt treat jesus like a pharisee, trying to twist out of him some contradiction that u can then use to prove him wrong. you would ask him for help, as a supplicant, because that's what u need. so when people in fancy clothes get uppity about this sort of thing it is easy to see them for what they are when u have read the gospels. the kingdom of heaven, being not of this earth, is not of earthly concern, and in this way it reminds me of the opening line of the tao te ching - the tao that can be named is not the true tao.

i mean, your psychoanalysis of me is really good, and yeah in one respect i am a lazy dude who is just kind of a failure at life and stuff but i mean, that's kind of why i turn to this religion stuff because i have to believe in something greater in order to somehow give my shitty life meaning... i mean, i want to give up my vanity and follow jesus. it's just scary as fuck.

>>13012370
That is very specious reasoning. The really telling part of this, however, is
>i think the text makes clear
You began with your idea of Jesus' sin, and dismiss text and interpretations which contradict your idea of sin. You also wish to say that such disagreements are pointless semantics. Of course, it is only everyone else who is led astray by these pointless semantics. We are being political, but you are being sincere. Hopefully you can see the clear textual evidence in your words that shows how biased and tinged with opinion your interpretations are.

>>13006599

Errata:

The quote in the OP is made true when "greatest mistake" is replaced with "best move". The OP regrets the error in the initial publication.

Also, all flavors of the god of Abraham are either non-existent, or evil. And so should be rejected at all events.

>>13012410
>>13012370


You guys know Sin is just an archery term and thus just means imperfections in action/missing the mark right?

>>13011762
>quoted posts
>long form critiques of christianity from different perspectives and angles
>refutation post
>lol edgy redditors

Truly this is the intellectual capacity of Christians.

>>13012418

What philosophers do you like? Plato and Aristotle are foundational but also show up as key to much later philosophers like Heidegger.

>>13012379
also like i am not saying youre wrong about anything, right? it's just that you know you and i know me. i know where i'm at and you know where you're at. and all i'm really saying is that jesus is who helped me along so far and that what he teaches in the gospels is true, and also like straight to the point. and like it's just obvious that people fighting over it is silliness and u can see right thru it the moment it happens. and i'm also not advocating relativism because i think that if u can read or hear then when u hear what he said it will make sense, it's not like very complicated. so if someone makes it complicated for some personal gain, like to win arguments or gain followers, then immediately i know that that person is one of those who jesus talks about, who calls out "lord lord" but at the end of time will be cast out.

>>13012410
what do u mean? sin is sin. jesus goes out to the desert and overcomes temptation. how do u overcome that which does not plague u?

>>13012408
You think you are being congenial in your style, but you are dripping with arrogance. What does it even mean to say that clothes are fancy or not fancy? Such qualities are not material. It is not the nature of wool or cotton or hemp that makes something fancy. It is not a physical property of the embroidery or tailoring. When you say this world, what do you think you are saying? When you say the kingdom of heaven, what do you think you are saying? You say you want to give up your vanity, and yet all that you say shows otherwise. You have read the Bible not as a supplicant, not as a servant, not as one who follows. Instead, you have read it, and apparently many other texts with the intention of building yourself up. You quote them not as a believer, but as a demonstration of your own personal philosophy. Give up what you think you know, and start back at the beginning.

>>13012419
Get out of here Peterboy larper.

>>13012379
You might be the most based poster I have ever seen. C.S. Lewis-pilled for sure

>>13012404
fortunately for my purposes I don’t need an airtight argument of my own to point out when someone else’s is stupid

>>13012430
You have no idea where you're at. You can hardly go a sentence without saying "like." If that's sincere, that means you are uncertain, and the ideas are vague in your mind. If it is a choice of rhetoric, it is extremely condescending and counter-effective, demonstrating a lack of rhetorical skill. If it is a matter of habit, it reveals fear and insecurity. Whatever the intention, it lacks clarity and confuses your writing. What's more, you are absolutely arguing for relativism if there is not a firm and immovable objective center which grounds all perspective. If all this argument and disagreement is so obviously silly, then why does it happen? And why are you still arguing? Clearly, this is not a sincere belief, but a way for you to feel superior over others under the guise of humility. If it is obvious and simple, then how foolish or deranged must everyone else be that they cannot see like you? If it were not complicated, if all this does not matter, then why did Jesus come at all?

>>13012433
How many different translations of the Bible are there? Regardless of which one you believe is best, or if you think it matters, how can there be such disagreement if the meaning of words is as simple as you seem to think they are?

>>13012436
idk man, i think you're getting pretty personal with me here. remember what he said about getting a toothpick out of someones eye when u have a plank in ur eye? i mean ok, i'm arrogant - you're not? lol. it's not like i'm trying to say that i've been out in the desert for forty days and overcome my own temptations. i haven't. i'm still crawling with them, and it bugs me. i'm just saying that that's what jesus did, and he says to follow him. and yeah i definitely want to be like jesus, but i know my intention isnt really good. i want to have all that power because power is awesome to have. but it's crazy because to wield that power you have to have a pure heart. and i don't think it's wrong to seek out truth in other texts. even thomas aquinas said that truth must be recognized wherever it's found. like in the hare krishna book, the bhagavad gita, there's a story about a little boy who is christlike, and when he walks by the bathing women who are naked, they dont even think to cover themselves because his purity radiates from him. but when he walks by again while talking to another person, the women immediately feel ashamed and cover themselves up. you're right, i read a lot of texts but the goal is always the same. maybe it is tinged with wanting to "build myself up" and it's vain, but really, it's because i recognize the fundamental truth and calling of it. like i want to be pure that way. and my style, yes, i can see that you would be annoyed by it, and you're right, i am trying to write as honestly as possible and if i'm trying then i'm probably lying to myself. but at some point it's like, cmon man. this is really just how i type. and i am telling you, i am being as sincere as i possibly can.

>>13012422
>reddit spacing
Good try.

>>13012345
These are very specific descriptions of Christianity and miss the great breadth of nuance that actually exists and your remark that any consideration of the actually existing characteristics of the ideology or its constituents - whose actual practice of the religion define actual meaning in the world - constitutes heresy demonstrates a poor understanding of Christianity and a bizarre conception of religion and belief systems altogether. What conversation could possibly be had if you will only accept discussion of a single, literal interpretation of Christianity and of all its religious texts and all historical events associated with its from its origin to the present, as you describe a "precise view of reality's literal nature... its followers are expected to... live by." But I'm glad you're here to gatekeep what is and is not relevant to a topic as vague as "debunking Christianity." You feel you've found some contradiction between modern science's understanding of natural phenomenon and texts written by religious students 2000 years ago and that makes all the fundamentally true and constructive underpinnings of the religion are proven wrong? The fact that you're approaching this by attempting to drum up a large enough list of flaws that people will be convinced of your position demonstrates an error in understanding nature of the topic. I think a more realistic approach to religious systems recognizing that they are all being filtered through imperfect human beings and are colored by their imperfections does not discount the belief system as a whole or the ways Christianity has effectively worked toward the same fundamental truths that most belief systems attempt to uncover.

>>13012465
alright so you think if i went back and edited out all the "likes" from my writing then it'd be better? and if i started writing like i was writing an essay for a professor? and all this stuff? i'm just typing how i'd speak. fear and insecurity? uncertainty? i can just tell you personally that yes i experience these feelings regularly. stylistically or rhetorically weak? that's a matter of opinion. the firm and immovable objective which grounds my perspective is the text of matthew, mark, luke and john, and that's it. i'd say the argument and disagreement is something that is borne out of some personal hostility in each of us that sort of just emanates throughout this entire forum if you read it enough. i don't think the argument has any basis on what is written in the gospel or any interpretation of it. i think we're both trying to say that the other is just making up words to win an argument but really that shouldn't be the goal, although i admit like the rhetorical duel is pleasing to the ego and stuff. when i say stuff is simple i mean that the wording is simple, like the bible has always stood out as a book that is translated into the "common tongue" for everyone to read and to meditate on and i think the message is not lost on anyone who hears it. like i said originally i do not have strong enough faith to be tested and that's something i want to improve on, and i would really like to follow in jesus footsteps, to overcome my temptation and really be pure of heart. i think that's why jesus came, to give humans a chance to save their souls and save their lives, to know peace on earth, to know god, and stuff. i sort of have this theory about genesis, how like when adam ate the apple he gained this knowledge of right and wrong (that part isnt theory, its in the book) and this knowledge is like human being's awakening to conscious thought as well. like how we judge everything... it's because we know what it is to be wrong because we *are* embodiments of disobedience after we ate the apple. like it messed with our heads. so the whole entire reason that we suffer in this life is because we know and feel in our hearts that we are ashamed and wrong and stuff. and like, so this bothers me a lot. so that's why i am seeking answers and i think jesus speaks to this and i think that's why he came to show us a way in which we can return to that pre-apple way of living.

>>13012469
>(sic)remember what he said about getting a toothpick out of someones eye when you have a plank in ur eye?
How can you recognize the truth, when you can't even recognize yourself? The very core of your position is that everyone else has got it wrong. All the churches are wrong, and you are right. How do you not recognize that everything is a choice? How you type is a choice. How you read is a choice. Your interpretation is a choice. What you see is a choice. What you hear is a choice. Your ideas are a choice. Even your habits are a choice. Your personality is a choice. Your temperament is a choice. You are choosing a performance of wisdom over real wisdom. You are choosing a performance of sincerity over real sincerity. You are choosing a performance of faith over real faith. You are choosing a performance over the truth.

>>13012468
i don't think the translations are too important. no matter what the language is, the meaning is the same. i also don't think there is any real disagreement regarding meaning of words. i think it is clear to anyone who reads it. "those who have ears, let them hear"

>>13012489
right, everything you said is accurate which is why my very original post said that christianity is a religion of one, between us and our lord, and that when we try to talk about it, we get messed up. like jesus said, don't perform your works in front of crowds, dont pray at the head of the church so everyone can see, don't be all sad when you fast, don't go on blabbering when you pray like the pagans just say the lords prayer because he knows whats in your heart. just keep it between yourself and god. so yes, i think you're exactly right about that and about how our own vanity gets in the way of our relationship with god.

>>13012474
I'm not saying Christianity doesn't have value to itself, be it culturally, aesthetically, socially and spiritually - but Christianity makes clear of certain claims being literally true - primarily there being a God who created the Universe and our own species, along with our species being intrinsically sinful, and Christ as being the only figure who can redeem us from that state, with consequences for those who do not follow him while alive.

These are the points which I contested earlier, and which anyone who calls themselves a Christian is expected to believe in order to do so - there is no "interpretation" there, that is the foundational set of beliefs that define Christianity across all versions of it. If you personally have points that contest mine above, then feel free to leave them here. Again, we aren't debunking the cultural, social, aesthetic, moral, and spiritual truths of Christianity - but the literal reality of it which you will find all modern apologists to be arguing in favor of (think of the whole creationism versus evolutionism versus guided evolutionism debate which rages on in the sciences), and which OP asked for help in debunking.

>>13012490
Much of the finer meaning is lost when translating into English, a famous example would be Jesus's "It is finished", that in Greek employs a tense reserved for perfect eternal truths.

>>13006935
this is retarded - if heaven and hell, god and the devil exist, their existence is unparalleled in importance

>>13012487
What does it mean "to just win an argument"? Do you think nothing's at stake? Do you think losing this argument will have no ramifications for your life and beliefs? If you are truly open to losing, you are open to change. This is not "just an argument" to me. You are a real person with real thoughts who takes real actions which will have a real and objective impact on those around you, and those you interact with, and speak to. And on your writing--a writing problem is a thinking problem. If you are vague in your writing, it because you are vague in your thinking, or else it must be a stylistic choice. What kind of person chooses to be vague? Only the dishonest or the pedantic or the aloof. Lastly, the Bible is not something always in the "common tongue". Greek was the academic language of the time. The common tongue was Latin. What's more, how can you be grounded in a translation? Especially a translation of a recording of oral history? Translation is not objective. Translation is easily movable. After all, why do you even care what the gospels say? If no one had ever told you about them, would you have recognized them as true? So are you really grounded in the gospels, or are you grounded in the idea of the gospels that you've formed in reaction to other people's actions and opinions?

>>13012506
depends what you mean by finer. but i dont think anything essential is lost in translation. even in the passage you mention, the context is enough to signify that jesus is clearly referring to something big. i don't think that meaning is lost in english. plus, if it is, you have like 1000000 books of exegesis and translators notes to peruse if you like. many people had well paying careers doing this sort of stuff. do you know that story about the translation of the bible? the septuagint, i think? they were like 70 monks and they all did their own translation and they all came out exactly the same? i wonder if that was true. could be something specifically divine in the translation of the gospels that keeps them alive and from losing their essential force.

>>13012490
So someone who has their ears cut off cannot follow Jesus? Or is it figurative? How do you know? And if it is figurative, how do you who has ears and is hearing and who doesn't have ears? How do you know that you have the figurative ears to hear? Or am I going too far on the metaphor? If words are so objective and immutable, where do they come from? And why then are there different languages? And why are those languages so difficult to learn? And how can people be confused then when people speak? If there can be no disagreement in the meaning of words, how then can there be any disagreement? Wouldn't the truth be obvious if the words themselves were clear? And how can words simply be made up, or how can people be dishonest, or how can people be sarcastic, or how can people speak metaphorically or poetically or symbolically or in code? What even is a word?

>>13012502
What you just said has absolutely nothing to do with what I just said. I was criticizing you. I was calling you a pretender. I was calling you one who proclaims his holiness with loud words but not deeds.

>>13012524
the world is malleable by one with faith. as for writing = thinking, maybe.... it's an interesting point and reminds me of jesus' teaching that a mean speaks from an overflow of his heart. this would be accurate, as i do have uncertainty in my heart. if i was certain, i would be out on the road with nothing but a bible in my hand. as it stands, i am hesitating into the abyss. but i definitely am not *trying* to be vague. i don't think i'm being vague either and i would gladly attempt to clear anything up that is bothering you. i think an effort was made to keep the bible in a way that people could understand it. for instance, luke was a more learned man and his gospel is a little more posh but matthew and mark are more stylistically stark and easy to understand. john's is very different. but like i was thinking of the vulgate latin and such - this would be after mass production was a possibility. first of all, i imagine the bible was mainly handed down through scrolls, letters, word of mouth, between the early disciples and such, as we see in the books that come after the bible. although they were adding on to what jesus said even then. i must say that talking to you has really strengthened my faith, i think. a lot of the stuff that you want me to be concerned about though, i don't see as fruitful so i'm sorry but i can't go along. like when it comes to discussions of whether the translations are accurate, or like maybe some words got mixed or whatever, i would say i have utmost faith in the text and translation, in whatever language i'm reading it in. i have to thank all the people who have taken it upon themselves to be very strict about it and i am definitely open to learning new things about the language, especially the ancient greek. i remember specifically when i was in school growing up asking my teacher like, where is the "first" bible, like this stuff that happened so long ago... what is it? it did take me a long time to understand how it's a bunch of stories from a lot of different times. even the gospels were written way after... but my understanding is really that the message is so crystal clear and simple the way that jesus presented it, and it is so important and vital and impactful that it is carried and handed down with enough care so as to not lose it's force and essence. it's called the living word and i think that's accurate.

>>13012526
>depends what you mean by finer
But you said there is no real disagreement in the meaning of words. How then can you be confused by what he means? You have already said that the meaning of words does not differ. How can he have used a word you know in a way you do not readily understand?

>>13012549
okay, and i am saying that your reading of me is essentially my reading of myself and i think it is a really honest and hard reading of any of ourselves. and it's exactly what jesus is trying to illustrate when he interacts with the pharisees.
>>13012539
people who are deaf can still "hear" like, okay, you're clearly getting into like a semantic tangent. like if you learn a second language, you will find all sorts of stuff like this, where like the words are different, and their literal meanings are different, but the idea and concept is the same. so yeah, if you read it in braille, or read it in words, this is the same as hearing it. all your questions are really good though but you can't tell me you don't have the answer to all of those questions, right? like different languages are different codes but french people are talking about the exact same stuff as you and me. different languages are expressing the exact same ideas. so that even makes the "truth" easier to see - you will see the language as a "code" that makes the idea capable of being expressed - the idea is the truth that spans through the many differences of style and language. so you can say the same thing in many many many ways and you experience this all the time in practice. "there is nothing new under the sun" as ecclesiastes says

>>13012551
So you have chosen to retreat--to agree to disagree. No wonder that you find argument so fruitless. And you are not a good reader, and are poor at critical thinking. I did not say writing=thinking. I said a writing problem is a thinking problem, as in, problems with writing reflect flaws in thinking. It is very different and unrelated to Jesus' teaching about speaking from an overflow of the heart. Stop reading wikipedia, you don't know how to use it.

>>13012453

Go ahead, what’s incorrect. Where’s your proof for the origin of the first matter. Show it and claim your Nobel prize

>>13012557
haha well yeah. maybe his intent was to confuse? "much of the finer meaning" is i think purposely ambiguous. it is referring to something that he is about to explain, which he then does. but for me the gospel quote he uses is not unclear.

>>13012581
It's not a semantic tangent. It's the very essence of the debate. Here you are saying it is metaphorical. But how do you know it's metaphorical? You are choosing an interpretation, but you are not giving strong textual evidence for your interpretation. I'm absolutely shocked at your inability to understand rhetorical questions. I am not asking you questions as one who is uncertain. I am asking you these questions to encourage you to reflect further on your ideas which are clearly lacking.

>>13012602
>for me it is not unclear
How do you know that you are right and he is wrong? Are you thinking about what you are saying at all?

>>13012584
yeah yeah, you can attack me all you want. i'm not mad at you.

>>13012608
but you aren't my teacher, you just sort of assumed that attitude toward me and then unleashed some animosity on me for whatever reason.
>>13012614
when jesus utters his last words, given the context of the gospel, one can understand that he is referring to fulfilling the prophecies because he prophesizes his own death and also references himself as the lamb of sacrifice that the prophets were referring to WITHOUT knowing the specific grammar thing he mentioned about greek. right? anyway im not disagreeing with the reading or the greek grammar i found it interesting and helpful. desu yall are right and really from the get go i was trying to say that this sort of talk is sort of missing the point of christianity which from the get go i was saying is a religion of a person's relationship with jesus thru scripture. but like ppl can get really distracted with all this stuff because they want to be right in the eyes of other men.

>>13012618
I don't want you to be mad at me. I don't want you to be mad. I want you to self-reflect. I want you to stop vainly pouring over your posturing of saintly torment and instead take an honest and unadulterated look at the moments of your life which embarrass you. It is not so that you feel pain, but so that you can change.

>>13012584
>a writing problem is a thinking problem
thats what u said. dont u think that references jesus thing about overflow of the heart? like as a man thinks, he speaks. writing is like speaking. idk i just get the feeling you dont wanna hear me which is fine.

>>13012650
idk.. you're being pretty rude and condescending to me? i don't think you have my best interest in mind. i mean, you don't even know me. your characterization of me is interesting but you're not god heh.

>>13012539
When you start relying on this kind of weasely argumentation - trying to suggest that someone must reconcile the mutability of words in human languages with the immutability of the divine in order to justify their belief in Christianity - it just seems like bad faith pilpul. There is no physically existing medium by which to communicate any form of immutable, perfect notion because all things that physically exist are subject to change; but you're requiring physical evidence and physical arguments from Christians to uphold their position on the divine? I suppose I agree that it's equally hypocritical when a given Christian denomination declares their views to be immutable truth. But there's a point where expressing any idea is limited by the mutability of its medium of expression. This would include any form of science, and while our scientific models will eternally be only models of real natural laws and phenomena they can (in certain cases) be made arbitrarily close to true. If you go full subjectivity and start dismantling the fundamental meaning of language you can critique anything.

>>13012638
Except the matter of tenses is essential. The meaning is drastically different. And we fundamentally disagree that Christianity is a religion of a person's relationship with Jesus through scripture. That is false. It is beyond false. That has been the entire purpose of our conversation. You say we are missing the point of Christianity, but then you listen to nothing we say, give no evidence for your interpretation, and claim that all who disagree with you are deeply, inherently flawed in a way that you are not. You think you are wise, but you are ignorant.

>>13012652
No, not in the slightest.

>>13012656
Did your father never speak down to you? Did a teacher never chastise you? Does the father not care for his son? Does a teacher not care about his student? I do not have to be God to see through you.

>>13012664
>pilpul
I can't I've let myself be fooled by you this long. Get behind me Satan.

>>13012687
idk man, i don't buy your shtick. you're not my god, you're not my dad, and you don't know me any better than i know you.

>>13012671
well, just remember what he said about the stick in one eye and the plank in the other i guess. sorry you don't like me.

>>13012679
alright. but i am happy you talked to me and i appreciated the conversation. it helped me, desu, and made me think and feel some important things. same goes for everyone who participated (i'm not sure how many people i was talking to, maybe just one)

>>13009365
kill her before she kills you anon

>>13012696
>The Hebrew term pilpul (Hebrew: פלפול, from "pepper," loosely meaning "sharp analysis") refers to a method of studying the Talmud through intense textual analysis in attempts to either explain conceptual differences between various halakhic rulings or to reconcile any apparent contradictions presented from various readings of different texts. Pilpul has entered English as a colloquialism used by some to indicate extreme disputation or casuistic hairsplitting.
Sorry you sperg out because people use words that are also used by people you don't like.

>>13009928
Well, you're getting your morality dictated to you top down from a religious institution anyways whether it's the Catholic Church or the leftist University system/media empire. You're going to be worshiping some doctrine anyways, you might as well choose one that doesn't generally support drag queen story hours. Just because you don't necessarily know which altar your current moral convictions belong to (more than likely something to do with egalitarianism/progressivism considering you're in this leftist cesspit) doesn't mean you aren't fundamentally a subject of the civic religion your morality comes from.

You're right though, the Catholic Church should do a much better job at excommunication of child molesters and discrimination against homosexual men in clergy to reduce the incidences. I think in many they would be condemned for being homophobic if they did actually address the central issues in the church in terms of child molestation and actually were serious about its prevention, but I'm not exactly opposed to the idea of the church having a firm no pedos/no homos rule and strictly enforcing it.

>>13012139
>confirmed in the Episcopal church
>my woman priest
>now an r/atheism poster
writes itself really

Love how this devolved into a 200 post thread with christians claiming to know whats wrong with atheists yet none of them dealt with any of the issues of these posts
>>13006956
>>13007340
>>13009470
Why do christians pretend their tradition is intellectual in any meaningful sense?

>>13011746
Yes Hemingway was a hack

>>13007365
Considering how horrible torture prisons public schools are, I wouldn't love to make that comparison. Fixate on fixing yourself, let the rest of the world be a lawless favela.
It's the only way to make sure there is good in the world; by being it. You can't trust others.

>>13013427
>Why do christians pretend their tradition is intellectual in any meaningful sense?
Perhaps because it has a scholarly side, perhaps because it inherited and cultivated both Plato and Aristotle, perhaps because it serves Logos...
Take your pick.

>>13007098
>Christianity is a cuck religion that venerates weakness and debasement.
That says more about Nietzsche than about Christianity. You see what you expect to see when you look at the belief system.

>>13010037
For how important he considered Kierkegaard he could read him with a little bit more attention. Aesthetic Despair is there whether you subscribe to Christianity or not; in fact Christianity, along with other forms of religious, is an answer to it.

>>13012308
Muh fee-fees are just muh particles.

>>13013562
>it has a scholarly side
So do the kids who write long essays discussing the nature of the force in star wars.
>because it inherited and cultivated both plato and aristotle
The muslims had more to do with that but I can see why you would wish to co-opt their philosophy as if its an achievement for religion.

>It serves logos
Yeah that's definitely true and not at all your preconceived religious notions speaking.

>>13007340
The only that was btfo is kant himself by based Bolzano. Not even mentioning Husserl, Frege, Godel, etc.
Not even discussing other arguments on op's topic, but kant's retardation shouldn't be taken seriously with his inability to understand ontology and logic.

>>13006956
This thread is reddit.

I'm truly sad for you guys that you cannot believe in a force of good and the promise of afterlife. Without faith, your life is a shallow experience. And you know it.

>>13013615
>The muslims had more to do with that but I can see why you would wish to co-opt their philosophy as if its an achievement for religion.
How memed can you be?
There is a reason aristotelician and platonists to this day relate to ancient Christian aristotelician and platonists writers. There is also a small Muslim tradition on this point, with much fewer writers of lower influence and coming much later (and quite bizarre but I focus on objective characters) and largely independent. Why would you even bring them up?

>>13013615
>So do the kids who write long essays discussing the nature of the force in star wars
I'm not dissing Star Wars. Disney and Hollywood, however, are Freudian and not scholarly, nor intuitive. As opposed by the Jungian/Campbellian Star Wars of before. You shouldn't underestimate Star Wars just because it's popular, in fact, it was popular all over the planet, meaning that any spiritual practice could find it a helpful story. Not anymore, and I fully agree with official Vatican refutation of Force Awakens.
>The muslims had more to do with that
They haven't had anything to do with that for 800 years for now. I'm not dissing other intellectual traditions either. Plus, they don't exactly venerate Logos or tinitarian understanding of marriage. Though their love for divine traps means that they, too, are onto something.

Living within a subverted social experiment for rats is not fit for man. This is obvious to all men. However, the modern age breeds a distinct animal. Ugliness is evil. The modern age is not scholarly, it's not intellectual and it's not intuitive. It's just banal and evil.

I got distracted by the fedoras itt going for non-arguments so I forgot OP.
The best arguments against Christianity are gnostic/gnosticlike in character. Of course it is probably the greatest heresy but you already knew that.

>>13013704
They're only called heretics because the orthodox church won out in the end, they were there since the beginning

>>13007365
I am in disbelief that your first, knee jerk reaction, isn't to be against the child rapists within Catholocism but to actually defend it by saying others rape more children.

>>13012519
>if

>>13006669
Catholics dont read at all, that's why they're too dense to notice that their vanity focused idolatrous wealth scheme goes against so many teachings of Christ Jesus
Protestants are to thank for widespread literacy, they at least deemed it important unlike the centuries of illiterate catholic nonsense. It's a shame that so many who claim to be protestant Christians are likewise just usurping the name without following the teachings.

>>13014858
Protestantism begat liberalism, secularism and materialism tho.

>>13013633
I'm spiritual, not religious. If consciousness is not contingent on the body, then an afterlife follows by default. I believe I have lived before, and will live again, regardless of what my beliefs are. In your case, you better pray you chose the correct religion, else your life is a no more than an antechamber straight to damnation. And a force of good? Yes, I believe in such, but religion is certainly no such thing, and neither is the Abrahamic God. Oh wait, I forgot - you think that because Christianity plagiarized as much of Plato as they could, that "Good" and "God" are now synonymous terms. My mistake.

Also, as >>13013427 said, you don't leave any arguments here, just insults of people who don't follow your religion. Telling.

>>13006956
>this is the kind of arguments atheists have to offer

wew

>>13016226
Better than no argument, though. :^)

>>13016226
You forgot to call him a fedora and a sodomite

>>13006599
4chan.org is a website that only allow 18+ years old people, if you are underage, fedora and edgelord please leave son, this is a board of knowledge, not pseudo intelectual atheist snobs.

>>13007019
>the r-word

>>13016469
You guys really don't have arguments, huh. All your stock is in a stale insult.

>>13016469
4chan is a website infamous for child pornography, killers posting their victims, and people warning of shootings they will actually commit. /lit/ is infamous for harassing a woman (telling her they wanted to be a tampon baby) and has hosted writers like Tao Lin and celebrated post modernist writers. This is not like an 8ch subreddit where the mods will ban you for disagreements over religion. In fact, many posters here purposefully use childish insults towards Christianity because people like you are easy to troll. Maybe Reddit is more your speed, and btw Jesus was a gay Muslim prophet.

>>13016513
Holy shit the reddit stench emanates from this comment.

>>13016614
Yup, no arguments.

>>13007019
>Don't call them the r-word

Do you realize what website you're on, nigger?

>>13007019
>Don't call them the r-word,
Ohhh man I want to break my femur off in your ass so badly niggerrrrr.

>>13016614
Awful post. Even for /lit/ standards this is low.

>>13012687
mega cringe

>>13016614
What’s with this thing on 4Chan where idiots start chanting “REDDIT” as a stand-in for a genuinely funny ad hominem? Is the site rivalry really this shallow?

itt: sudras who cant into metaphysics

the fact some people are inclined to reject God can only mean two things:
1. they are victims of a blood curse
2. they are what the hindu caste system calls sudra

>>13017570
Rejecting Christianity doesn't mean rejecting the existence of a God.

>>13017575
Christ is God. repent or embrace hell

>>13017585
How can Christ be God if Christ asked God Why he forsake him?

>>13017588
do you accept the gospel as a valid testimony or not? stop cherrypicking verses from it. you are acting of ill faith

>i dont trust the gospel
>let me use a verse from it to puzzle a christian haha
you are either too dumb or obsessed by demons

>>13017600
>no no no stop asking questions!!!
I can see why this religion was a big hit with women and the poor

>>13017617
youve spoken like a true elitist teenager. ill pray for you though

>>13017600
>do you accept the gospel as a valid testimony or not?

That’s not relevant. What matters is; do you?

>stop cherrypicking verses from it.

Why shouldn’t I “cherrypick” the verses that contradict your personal view of Christianity? If you believe the Bible to be inerrant, you must explain how Jesus could ask God questions and still be God himself. If you don’t believe it’s inerannt, what source do you use for your theology, and how do you determine what’s correct and what isn’t?

>>13017616
That’s not a contradiction. You are dumb.

>>13017631
Alright, just don't burn me or try and force the teaching of your religion in public schools and it's all good.

>>13017635
you are acting of ill faith. you are not open to believe in it, you just want to puzzle a christian, like i said. nothing good will come out of it

>What matters is; do you?
yes

>>13017654
>you are acting of ill faith. you are not open to believe in it, you just want to puzzle a christian, like i said. nothing good will come out of it

Correct! I would never believe something just because an ancient book of dubious authorship says so. What would make me believe is empirical evidence of the existence of deities observed under controlled conditions.

>yes

Then how could Jesus ask God Why he has forsaken him if he himself is God?

>>13016160
Those things all begat more literature. I don't think you understand the point of this board

nisi credideritis non intelligetis

you are not willing to believe and you are in no position to test me. just go back to your state of God rejection and ignorance of Truth, for it's written:
>Don't give that which is holy to the dogs, neither throw. your pearls before the pigs, lest perhaps they trample. them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.

you are free to accept or reject God, you've chosen to reject Him. accept the consequences

>an ancient book of dubious authorship says so.
you know nothing about how the bible is structured or how the canon was formed

>>13017588
the general explanation is that he's quoting the first line of psalm 22

>>13017730
You can either accept the force and midichlorians or reject it. Accedpt the consequences

>ancient book of dubious authorship
>you know nothing
Ahh so are you saying that there are pauline epistles that aren't forged? Or that we know who wrote the gospels? Do you really want to contest the claim that the bible is of dubious authorship?

>>13017730
>you are not willing to believe and you are in no position to test me.

I’m perfectly willing to believe God exists if I see some demonstration of his existence. Something as simple as making my cup of noodles levitate would work, honestly.

>you are free to accept or reject God, you've chosen to reject Him.

No, I’ve chosen to not believe in him since no evidence has been presented that suggests his existence. I can’t reject him until I know he’s real. So please demonstrate him, or ask him to demonstrate himself. I’ll try right now.
GOD, PLEASE CREATE A HOVERING DISCO BALL IN MY LIVING ROOM SO I MAY BEHOLD IT WITHIN THE NEXT TWO MINUTES.

>accept the consequences

Looks like no consequences, since there’s no evidence he exists.

>you know nothing about how the bible is structured or how the canon was formed

Who wrote Matthew, who wrote Mark, who wrote Luke, and who wrote John, and how do you know?

>>13017737
Sounds very plausible, but nevertheless bizarre to do for God himself. “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?”

>>13017766
Don't forget 2 Peter for the dubious authorship.

>>13017766
>>13017822
Are no christians going to even try to respond to these posts and justify why their "holy" "divinely inspired" text has LITERAL forgeries in them? Are the extent of your retorts to atheists "lol fedora"?

Truly Christianity is the most cucked religion.

>>13018822
There is no resort here, aside from a vague appeal to tradition.

>>13006847
>Christianity makes claims, provides no proof and threatens others with suffering for not accepting things for no reason.
Now do liberal democracy.

>>13018846
>whataboutism
Ahh truly a good argument. Im sure you're parents would be proud.

>>13013633
Why do Christians always resort to condescending shit like this?
"Hah, nice argument bro, but you're not a Christian so you'll never lead a good life"

>>13009928
Same reason why you follow what the education system teaches. Members might be pieces of shit, but what they teach is different.
>>13009928
>Btw if a teacher fucks a kid, the teacher is fired and goes to jail. They don't get transferred to another school.
Only if they are caught by the public.

>>13017797
>but nevertheless bizarre to do for God himself
It does make sense when you look at the rest of Psalm 22 as like many other psalms it has a fair bit of similarities to Jesus' life as described in the gospels ("All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, He trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him.", "For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet.") and Jesus cites the OT many times throughout the gospels. I can understand it looking dubious though, but if we consider that the pharisees and various others at the time were most likely very well informed about the OT, you can argue they'd know the exact context from the smallest citation, and as a result he was able to sway those who weren't as rigid as the pharisees.

There's really no point in arguing against Chrisianity. Let people find their own spiritual paths man

>>13006599
There's literally no sound compilation of arguments for the supernatural existing or not existing and until we figure out a way to prove either beyond doubt it's ridiculous to believe in either atheism or theism.

>>13020457
This. At least we can all agree (I hope) that we should be virtuous in our lives. It benefits us in this life, and if there is some God or Kama, we shall benefit in the next.

>>13020457
Almost nothing can be proven without a doubt. Do you believe in anything? Do you really take the risk of being ridiculous? Or do you believe in nothing?

>>13020480
One can be a mitigated sceptic

>>13020480
You're right, I should have said reasonable doubt, that was my bad. If something has an incredibly strong inductive premise, I'll believe it, and I'll dismiss that induction is flawed until that flaw is actualised.

However, playing the part of someone who meant what they said exactly, I'd rather believe nothing than believe something to make myself feel false comfort.