/lit/ - Literature

>>15096697
Because if they could they would become catholic.

>>15096697
Same reason they can't understand L Ron Hubbard

>>15096727
Aquinas 5 ways doesn't point to the Abrahamic god in particular

>>15096697
because they're literal chimps

>>15096748
Well, they remove all asian and polytheistic religions from the running. That does leave the abrahamic religions and like stoicism.

>>15096774
>That does leave the abrahamic religions and like stoicism.
Wrong.

>>15096748
The catholic god is the philosopher's god from the platonic and neoplatonist tradition.

>>15096780
what other religions are included in this?

>>15096697
I have the entire Summa in Latin.
it's absolutely the most based work ever written.

>>15096774
going from the prime mover to the anthropomorphic god of the bible is an enormous jump in logic

>>15096837
not even a little bit. read summa contra gentiles book 1.

>>15096697
Aquinas is aristotle but reddit

>>15096781
The catholic God is just one angry kike screeching at his fellow kikes

It's interesting how we had an influx of Christians at the same time we had an influx of Redditors.

The Summa Theologica is a mess. The sources he uses to back up his arguments are terrible.

>>15097442
>implying God is a terrible source

>>15097429
Reddit is just the surface. This board (and the rest of the site) had a noticeable political and religious shift in 2014 following /v/'s gamergate making the mainstream news. Once everyone knew about this "anti-feminist" website, we were flooded with absolute lowest-common-denominator posts, one side effect of which was /lit/ becoming 50% Bible posts.

>>15096787
All of them.

>>15097512
Wow Christianity debunked! Here, have an upboat my fellow 4channeler ;3

>>15097523
"upboat" is reddit terminology even though it makes fun of reddit
fuck off

>>15096774
>The Christian god can be three persons
>But polytheism debunked

>>15097543
Wow such knowledge teehee you sure recked that normie! ;) (Upboats your post)

>>15097567
Is this how Aquinas would write if he were born today

>>15096727
>>15096697

It's the other way round. It's only atheists who do understand him. To understand Aquinas is to reject him, and this formula applies to religion in general.

Those kind of argument is why philosophy is garbage, it may be based on reason, but the nature of it make it so that nearly every conclusion it makes cannot obtain consensus. Unlike in a scientific field, being a scholar that researched numerous works does not bring one closer to the truth, for they will always be other individuals who put as much taught and effort in the same pursuit, only to arrive at an other conclusion. This has been the cases for century, showing that we won't get closer to the answer

>>15097715
It's theology, not philosophy. Christian philosopher is an oxymoron.

Athiests are too blinded by their hedonism.

>>15096774
No they don't. A lot of Aquinas' logic is based on Greek philosophical arguments anyway, and they were polytheists.

>>15097886
>A lot of Aquinas' logic is based on Greek philosophical arguments anyway, and they were polytheists.
Nah. Plato, Aristotle, and the like all thought the normie polytheism was degenerate.

>>15097898
>Nah. Plato, Aristotle, and the like all thought the normie polytheism was degenerate.
Complete and utter nonsense.

I have never heard a single thomas aquinas argument that doesn't fall apart under the slightest skepticism. Of course, you're welcome to just call names as OP does, but your time would be better spent realizing that he was wrong.

>>15097914
denial isn't only a river in egypt, it seems.

>>15097938
>I have never heard a single thomas aquinas argument that doesn't fall apart under the slightest skepticism.
whoa bro. Just....whoa.

>>15097938
which ones have you heard?

>>15097566
It doesn't debunk polytheism, it merely affirms at least one grand God.

>>15097938
given that the Catholic Church has incorporated parts of his philosophy as dogma you could gain worldwide recognition with your simple yet devastating arguments

go for it anon

>>15098014
which is affirmed in Hinduism and Sihkism, ergo it doesn't rule out eastern religions

>>15098034
Give me one

>>15098046
I agree.

>>15096748
so what

>>15097126
t. guy incapable of reading Aquinas

>>15098422
He is easy as fuck to read, what are you on about?

>>15096803
based. BASED

Why does everyone bring up the first mover shit. Its lime you only know Aquinas from pop philosophy

The real question is why can’t Aquinas or his followers understand that proving the existence of an abstract creator/supreme being has nothing to do with proving the existence of Yahweh, which is the god he claims to worship. By dodging the question and arguing for what is essentially deism, Christians are not going to convince anyone to join their faith except naive people who can’t tell the difference between a First Mover and the Yahweh who genocided the Canaanites and claimed, against all evidence, to have flooded the earth.

Aquinas’s “philosophy” does not deserve the name; it is not a committed search for truth from a neutral starting point: it is pure and downright chicanery, convincing to no one except retards. He starts with the assumption that God exists and has all the qualities Aquinas imparts to him, and all of the subsequent philosophising is done merely to confirm that belief. This is not the Socratic method; this is not philosophy.

Everyone who has taken a high school philosophy or religious studies class has heard the various arguments Christians have put forward to prove the existence of God. None of them prove the existence of Yahweh over the existence of Zeus.

>>15098517
Ultimately I agree with you, but this is an embarrassing post regardless

>>15097241
>>>/pol/
Please come back when you have a basic understanding of theology.

>>15098546
How so? I’m very socially sensitive and hate being embarrassing

>>15096697
i have a third arm that you can't see

>>15098576
It's just that I associate atheism with reddit and I don't like agreeing with reddit so it makes me cringe.

>>15098517
/thread

>either you agree with Aquinas or you don’t understand him

Christian “””””””””logic”””””””””” everyone

>>15098576
omg stop you autist

>>15098517
This is why so many modern Catholics are essentially just perennialists.

Aquinas was refuted by the Amazing Atheist on youtube.
If even a youtuber can refute him, it's not really much of a philosophical system to go by.

>>15096697
What atheists don't understand him? They may be out there but this just comes across as a weird strawman.

His work was pretty well thought through considering what was known at the time, but now, his Five Ways can practically work alongside the big bang theory. Any Christian knows he is a bad example, unless you are actually just a larper, which I'm pretty sure you are.

>>15098517
Basically this.

Most of his arguments, and pretty much any that hold water, are broad and don't support the existence of a specific God like some people try to say they do.

>>15098517
This is not true. The creative powers of God as opposed to a god are markedly different. God is being itself, expressed in the phrase "I am that I am" which is different than A god which is a natural force like any other.

>>15098793
I made a wise choice by skipping all the "philosophers" up to Spinoza after finishing the Romans.

>>15098793
Yet it's an excellent starting point for theology, to have a foundation that allows God and divinity. Ignoring it because it doesn't conform to a cultural standard seems... Odd.

>>15088347
Just substitute "god" for "the big bang".

>Motion necessitates a first mover
The big bang.
>Cause and effect necessitate a first cause
The big bang.
>Blablabla contingency, non contingent
The big bang.
>Blablabla perfection
This argument is fucking stupid, but if you really need you could claim the big bang holds all the potential for all the perfect things to exist, so it's the most perfect. (This is still stupid, however).
>Intelligent designer.
Hehehehehe. Again, dumb as fuck but if you must go with this, just imagine the big bang as containing all the sets of rules and instructions, for absolutely no reason. That's it.

"BUT WHO CREATED THE BIG BANG?"
Now just go the other way around. Substitute "the big bang" back for "god". You will start seeing how dumb you "cosmological theologians" sound.

>>15098576
>>How so?
>Yahweh who genocided the Canaanites and claimed, against all evidence, to have flooded the earth
>pure and downright chicanery
>Aquinas’s “philosophy”
>This is not the Socratic method; this is not philosophy.
These are some of the worst, most embarrassing parts.

>>15098666
Hail

>>15097517
no. It excludes every form of polytheism, transtheism, and pantheism.

>>15097886
nigga, the arguments aquinas uses are explicitly monotheistic. They establish that there could only be one God even in concept.

>>15096697
Dunno, but Aquinas is a crypto-pagan.
Prove me wrong, heathen.

>>15099016
Wrong.

>>15099030
>They establish that there could only be one God even in concept.
No they do not..

>>15099030
why can't it has a major god with other minor ones, like Yahew and his angels

>>15097587
aquinas believed in literal broomstick flyhing witches and shit like that
if he was alive today he'd have a blog where he ranted about UFOs and cryptozoological phenomena and shit like that
we would think he was a loony
wait. maybe david icke is the modern aquinas

>>15099127
huh i wrote and shit like that twice
well it's getting late

>thread asking why atheist can't understand Aquinas
>atheist respond by demonstrating a complete lack of understanding towards Aquinas
OP is playing 3D chess.

>>15099155
you're op but you're right tho. atheists are subhumans.

>>15098867
God is eternal. He always existed. Can you say the same for the Big Bang?

>>15098867
The big bang is the consequence of something. Whatever that something is we may call God.

>>15099193
The big bang is an event, but the singularity that it came from may very well fit that description.
>>15099228
then God is most likely devoid of sentience

>>15099243
God (not YAWEH) is sentience as it is everything within itself.

>>15097945
lol

>>15096697
Meanwhile... in the world not confined by 2000 yr old fairytales...

>>15098831
The phrase "I am that I am" reminds me of the ontological argument.

>no one has mentioned that Aquinas himself admits that the 5 ways only prove the existence of God and to know anything more about God (eg being a trinity) requires scripture
Is everyone going off of summaries theyve seen in youtube videos or exerpts of just the arguments themselves? Has no one in this thread actually read Aquinas?

>>15099698
I knew aquinas was a bible thumper without even reading a single word from his funny books, of course a dark age fat cucked monk wasn't going to allow others to choose their own theological beliefs.

I am starting to think that all internet Thomists are pretentious larpers, every time I argue with one of them I realize they don't know what they are talking about, they just read a feser blogpost one and they think they understand philosophy.

>>15099393
>meanwhile, in >>>/x/

>>15098831
>God is being itself, expressed in the phrase "I am that I am"
The same nomenclature is also found in the Upanishads

>>15099751
>I never read Aquinas
why are you on /lit/? Way to out yourself as a pseud. lmk what post are yours so I can hide them.

>>15098867
None of aquinas arguments presuppose the big bang. they all have to do with the present moment. the universe could still be eternal and his arguments would still be perfectly valid.

>>15099124
angels aren't Gods. They are in a totally different class from God because they are composites of act and potency, unlike God. They also have essences distinct from their act of existence.

>>15096697

>>15100185
/lit/ isn't a christcuck board. Fuck your babble apologist and your messiah roman rape baby, fuck your mongoloid jewish god too.

>>15096697
You're not talking about atheists. You're talking about Neo-Christianity, aka New Atheism, fools who follow corporations and commercial authors the same way Christians foolishly follow their churches. They don't understand Aquinas because they're just Christians minus the culture. They're uncultured on top of already being stupid.

>>15097126
This, and Aquinas thought so too.

>“I can write no more. All that I have written seems like reddit.”

>>15100438
Yes

>>15100438
Whats wrong with these arguments? psynometry is real

>>15097613
Explain.

>>15098867
Congrats, you just identified the big bang as god

>>15096697
Hypotheticals
>God does not exist
Eh whatever
>God exists
So? He is not I, so I have no obligation to listen to Him. He is not my Lord, as I am my Lord.

>>15096697
All he has to do is show him the baseball
>do christcucks really

>>15102390
>So?
He created you, your continued existence is predicate on his will. You are not self-sufficient but contingent on another being. You are less than even a serf.

>>15102399
Creating something does not make you the permanent owner of that thing, nor does raising it. I am no slave, no meat puppet, nor some "perpetual child". I am Me and there are none Higher.

>>15102416
Wrong and cringe but I assume you have to just switched to your Reddit platitudes to address a generality now instead of option 2 so w/e.

ITT
>The mind perceives exterior phenomena a certain way, therefore phenomena must exist that way
>I believe God has certain "perfect" characteristics therefore everything that has "imperfect" versions these characteristics must come from him
There's a reason Christians never make it past Descartes

>>15096770
and your not?

Causation in the universe presupposes Platonism and hylomorphism.

>>15102416

If God creates and sustains you, then considered apart from him, you are nothing. If you want to attain the mode of existence which is most properly your own, you will have to perfect that relation through which you exist- namely, your relationship to God. God is your Lord, since he is the first principle of your existence, and everything in your existence, whether you know it or not, is oriented toward him.

In prioritising yourself at God's expense, you miss out on knowing the highest good there is, as well as your own self-interest. In prioritising God above yourself, you get both friendship with God and your own self-interest into the bargain.

Christianity has long mastered this implication of contingent existence, "For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it."- Matt 16:25.

>>15102440
>>The mind perceives exterior phenomena a certain way, therefore phenomena must exist that way
Based Kantian

He was already debunked Rationality Rules
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUScILYNykc

>>15102694
This. Causation doesn't exist, it's Zeno's paradoxes all over again. Time is not a sequence of instances, one causing the other. Since there's no objective distinction between when one event begins and another ends.

>>15097490
It is. The worst in fact.

>>15096727
What does proving god philosophically have to do with believing in Jesus? Seems like you have to make a leap there from a universal truth to a very specific one.

>>15099016
It doesn't. The Five Ways only get us to a Prima Causa, or the Almighty. This concept is present in almost all religions

They strayed too far from the light

>>15096697
>Why can't atheists understand Aquinas?
The same reason 99,9% of the population will never understand him, because its fairly complex philosophy, you either get into Aquinas and understand him because you are A. very smart and well read and you understand complex things very easily or B. You are a catholic autist obsessed with the faith and dedicated to understanding it.

Most people are not A or B.

>>15098517
Its kinda sad, you either move towards natural theology or occultism or become some insane bible thumping zealot, a middle position is just dishonest.

>>15105024
>its fairly complex philosophy

>>15105059
It is, if you pretend otherwise then you have no idea what the intellectual capacity of the average person is, or more likely you arent actually smart yourself.

>>15105087
>It is, if you pretend otherwise then you have no idea what the intellectual capacity of the average person is, or more likely you arent actually smart yourself.

>>15105099
No argument, so its the second point, you arent actually smart yourself and have no way of juding if Aquinas if or is not "fairly complex theology"

Daily reminder it has been empirically proven religiosity stifles scientific innovation.

https://www.princeton.edu/~rbenabou/papers/Religion%20December%201g_snd.pdf
http://www.nber.org/papers/w21052.pdf

Daily reminder the overwhelming majority of leading scientists are atheists

https://www.nature.com/articles/28478
https://evolution-outreach.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1936-6434-6-33

Daily reminder most philosophers are atheists

https://philpapers.org/surveys/results.pl

Daily reminder religious people are less intelligent according to dozens of studies.

http://diyhpl.us/~nmz787/pdf/The_Relation_Between_Intelligence_and_Religiosity__A_Meta-Analysis_and_Some_Proposed_Explanations.pdf

Daily reminder religious people are less educated

https://www.economist.com/news/international/21623712-how-education-makes-people-less-religiousand-less-superstitious-too-falling-away

Religious people are literally a lesser breed of human

>>15105105
>No argument, so its the second point, you arent actually smart yourself and have no way of juding if Aquinas if or is not "fairly complex theology"

>>15105116
You prove yourself extra stupid, by pretending I am a Christian.

>>15100720
>cogito ergo reddit

>>15099228
Why are you so sure its a consequence of something?

>>15105087
>if you pretend otherwise then you have no idea what the intellectual capacity of the average person is
cope. everyone knows normies are retarded, this standard is dumb

>>15105111
>Daily reminder it has been empirically proven religiosity stifles scientific innovation.

That might be true, but the biggest threat towards scientific innovation is the left and not the christians.

Is the left a religion a kind of cult then?

>>15096781
>the catholic God is an impersonal and deterministic force as described in Neoplatonism
Christians need to stop pretending that their God is anything similar to that of Plato or especially Plotinus. Attachment to Neoplatonism is used as an ad-hoc justification for the Christian God using logic that is completely contradictory to the Christian idea of God. Christians are much more preferable to Atheists but pretending that their religion is based on platonic logic rather than faith is a continual embarrassment in its transparency.

>>15105155
>cope. everyone knows normies are retarded, this standard is dumb
Yes, so what is wrong about my argument exactly, also if you use the term normie unironically, then you might just be a normie yourself....

>>15105167
>so what is wrong about my argument exactly
>this standard is dumb

>>15105188
You see, no arguments what so ever, nothing but greentexts and you want to pretend you know which philosophy is smart and which is stupid.

>>15105129
>the order and connection of 4channel is the same as the order and connection of reddit

>>15105198
it’s no surprise that a person with such poor reading comprehension considers aquinas complex

>>15105223
>it’s no surprise that a person with such poor reading comprehension considers aquinas complex
No, its not my opinion that he is complex, its a fact that the majority of people find him complex.

Reality isnt subjective and based on your own opinions, thats what a stupid person would belief.

You have no idea what I am trying to say here.

>>15105159
irrelevant to this conversation.

>>15096774
>That does leave the abrahamic religions and like stoicism.
It also leaves Platonism, Neoplatonism, and (although it didn’t exist until centuries after Aquinas) Pantheism/Spinozism. Beliefs in deterministic impersonal Gods that are not compatible with Christianity.
>>15097886
The only people who think that Socrates, Plato, or Aristotle were polytheists are people who have not read Plato and Aristotle
>>15097914
You have no idea what you’re talking about, Socrates was even killed in part because of his monotheism. Christianity co-opting Platonism is a pathetic attempt to find logical basis for a Semitic cult, but Platonism is certainly monotheistic.

>>15105159
>Is the left a religion a kind of cult then?
I’m not him but yes it certainly is.

>>15096697
>I am uncertain and therefore there must be something outside my comprehension.
>Therefore jeebus.

The further you place yourself away from God the less rational you become.