/lit/ - Literature

>>22812767
Check out Alvin Plantinga, Richard Swinburne, and William Alston.

>>22812767
this look like a good video, thank God
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0X95CT7ocg

>>22812767
Arguments for God existence
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAD-FxsuEyQ

>>22812767
Realism vs. Anti-realism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85FwpUTCZUo

>>22812767
Darwin believed in God

>>22812767
Christopher Langan is doing pretty good tho

>>22812767
>Explain
I think you can only feel Him. To try to know Him is to not believe in Him.

>>22812767
Question 1: "Some have said that atheists who deny God don't make it to heaven, etc. How do you explain, then, atheists who had NDEs of heaven?"

Answer 1: It could mean either of two things.
1. The atheist is merely confused about what he/she is, and is destined to see the light.

2. The atheist is clear on his/her atheism, but destined to repudiate it and make amends.

Question 2: "Would Chris Hitchens be in hell? I hope not, or else, what of Hitler! Shove Hitler in hell, I don't care, but save the Hitch. He was a good man, never murdered, etc. Why should he (in the Christian tradition) get eternal punishment?"

Answer 2: Yes, Hitchens could well be in hell, and is certainly in Hell if he didn't reach a last-minute accommodation with God.

Bear in mind that salvation would have been quite costly for Hitchens - he wasn't just an atheist, but an atheist who used fame, prominent associations, and a powerful media presence to turn others away from God.

God sees extreme negative value in those who turn others away from Him - He wants them gone, so to speak. Sever your own soul if you must, but you're adding immeasurably to your misery by compromising the souls of others.

>>22813137

>>22812767
The Church Fathers anon.

Otto Weininger

>>22812767
Reality exists.

Where does reality come from?

Something does not come from nothing.

>>22813441
Where did God came from then?
Ah, wait, he is eternal, the thing itself; but reality cannot be eternal because it can't, okay?

>>22813448
All evidence points to reality having a starting point.

>>22813459
And all evidence points to nothing existing before reality. You can't just pick and choose what parts of science you want to accept.

Pic related is quite good. I would also check out William Harmless' Mystics for a good overview of some important thinkers on this: Merton, Augustine, Bernard of Clairvaux, Bonaventure, Eckhart, Rumi, etc.

Light from Light if another good mystical anthology, and includes Origen and Saint John of the Cross, but it isn't as good as Harmless, who has a great way of weaving together excerpts.

Tilich is good too.

For one of the better summaries of German Idealism in general, and modern theology more broadly, Kantian Reason and Hegelian Spirit is a really good book, but it is also quite dry and abstract.

Saint Augustine's Confessions is a really good personal testimony. You could also to with Father Harmless' Saint Augustine in His Own Words for an abridged version that also has the highlights of De Trinitate, etc.

I think these are all on LibGen.

>>22813448
Contingency can't be eternal and without cause. God is being qua being, being without genus.

God is a true infinite, without limit. You can think of Gods necessity in terms of the way in which sheer indeterminate being collapses into nothing — Boehme and Hegel's route. Being is blown into existence by the principle of explosion, through the resolution of contradiction. Eriugena is instructive here. It is dialectical progression and necessity.


Saint Dennis' apophatic way is also instructive here.

>>22813480
Your attribution of contingency to the universe and necessity to God is arbitrary. You could just as easily define the universe as necessary like you're defining God as necessary.

>>22813480
God bless you

>>22813485
No it isn't. God is a logical necessity as that which is without limit. See Anslem and Gödel's proofs for example.

Claiming our world is a "brute fact" is to accept there no epistemic justification for your belief in its necessity. This is arbitrary. And it runs into problems, see the Fine Tuning Problem. Look up Penrose on the total volume in phase space that our universe's entropy makes up. The universe being capable of life is analogous to seeing a coin come up heads 2,000 times in a row and claiming "the coin must be fair, it's just coincidence."

>>22813501
>God is a logical necessity as that which is without limit.
Again that's your definition. It's arbitrary.
>Claiming our world is a "brute fact" is to accept there no epistemic justification for your belief in its necessity.
Brilliant. Now apply that same reasoning to God. Defining him as necessary or a brute fact is just as arbitrary.

>>22813501
>Anslem
Ancel is one of the worst things to be passed down history
>god is perfect
>a thing is made more perfect by existing, because i say so
>therefore god exists

>X is Y
>X is made more Y by existing
>therefore X exists
Substitute X and Y for something else. Pick X and Y to be things which makes X testable, and find that X doesn't exist.

Then watch how retards say NOOOOO YOU CANT ***JUST*** PICK X AND Y, IT ONLY WORKS FOR LE GODDERINOOOO BECAUSE I SAY SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

>>22813448
William Lane Craig has really mindbroken you people, most of ancient philosophy presupposed the eternity of the world yet still believed that there ought to be some explanation what caused the cosmos. Furthermore, your critique is incoherent, since any and all attempts to constructs an inoriginate necessary being that engenders all else necessarily conceive of and construct God in such a way so as to make His being begotten by something else. The world we inhabit is circumscribed, composite and complex; its multifariousness requires explanation, and numerous explanations can be provided. God on the other hand is such that His being consequent to something is utterly illogical: He is qualitatively infinite, timelessly eternal, perfectly simple, immutable, etc. God fully exhausts any causal chain, whereas proclaiming the universe itself as the start of the causal chain does not, as we can conceptualize a cause of it. "What created God?" is simply a midwitted question.

>>22813550
>God on the other hand is such that His being consequent to something is utterly illogical
Why? You can't just define him as such then claim you can't define the universe the same way and make God superfluous.
>"What created God?" is simply a midwitted question.
And asking what created the universe isn't?

>And all evidence points to nothing existing before reality.
So? My point doesn't extend pass what I posted. You strawmanned the religious by reducing their position to 'reality can't be eternal because it just can't, okay!', but many do believe reality is not eternal due to the evidence. At the same time they still believe in God despite the lack of physical evidence, and that is seen as no different or more illogical than believing in time or numbers, logic, etc. These two positions are not wholly incompatible.

>You can't just pick and choose what parts of science you want to accept.
Pick and choose what 'parts', exactly? Not all scientists agree with one another, and not all theories and studies are equally valid.

>>22813575
>Pick and choose what 'parts', exactly
You're picking the part about reality having a starting point and ignoring the same evidence that says nothing existed before reality.

>>22813595
Explain why believing in one thing with evidence, and another thing without evidence is incompatible.

>>22813595
Science can't prove nothing existed before reality, this is idiotic epistemology. The scientific method is about educing hypotheseis on the basis of repeatable observation within varying degrees of controllable environment through induction and subsequently subjecting them to scrutiny through falsification, which engenders post hoc rationalization that modify the initial hypothesis for the purpose of salvaging its explanatory and predictive power; it cannot provide any insight into any supernatural and transcendental forces since they by definition supervene the created order, and thus supernatural occurrances or miracles are suspensions of the natural order that cannot be subject to repeatable observation. God is the creator and fashioner of all laws in the cosmos, and it is through His omnipotence that they subsist; He can temporary annul if He so pleases. Science is circumscribed within the natural order and cannot exceed it. That is why we turn to other means for transcendental truths.

>>22813559
>And asking what created the universe isn't?
Indeed, it's a perfectly rational inquiry to make.

>You can't just define him as such then claim you can't define the universe the same way and make God superfluous.
God is never defined; He is merely delineated. He transcends all things so that we can never have access to Him. We merely describe the realities around Him, hopelessly attempt to circumscribe Him, but fail and fail each and every time. We call Him timeless and eternal since He transcends time; we call Him omnipresent since He is beyond space; we are composed, so He is composite; consequently, we call Him immutable since time and composition engender potentiality by being the metaphysical prerequisites for it, and He transcends both, being pure actuality; we call Him infinite since He is qualitatively eminently above all things in this world, circumscribable and finite; consequently, He is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenelovent: but all we gain from Him are notions, for we define Him in relation to ourselves through negation, whether privation or eminence, but we never define Him or comprehend Him, since by conceptualizing Him in contradistinction to ourselves, we fail to elucidate Him on His own terms. His essence is truly beyond us; it is far eminently above the attributes predicated of Him. The divine attributes or names are comprehensibly incomprehensible, for through empirical experience we have notions of infinity through finitude that allows us to comprehend our limitude; but the essence of God is incomprehensibly incomprehensible, since it is infinitely greater than infinite, behind it, above it, necessarily engendering it.

It is because the universe is circumscribable that we know God cannot be.

>>22813550
Yes, well that's all very nice and metaphysical. I feel a definition of god is necessary here. A creator entity, force, or Atman of some kind is cozy to ruminate on but there are several leaps of logic from vaguely defining God as "that which is beyond time and space, that which created spacetime and our universe, universal soul, etc" to YHWH creating man in his own image, incarnating himself as his own son and guiding our ethical conduct in this limited material reality and so on.

>>22813692
>Science can't prove nothing existed before reality, this is idiotic epistemology.
Then how the fuck can it prove reality had a beginning? The singularity that caused the big bang could have been just sitting around for eternity.

>>22813643
Nta

If only people who believed in God would admit this honestly that its not based on evidence or logic.

>>22813746
Not evidential, yes (that's the whole point of faith), but not illogical. In fact, the only thing keeping you from behaving like a complete lunatic is the fact that you ultimately believe and comport yourself in harmony with things that you have zero evidence for (i.e., the future).

>>22813735
>cont'd

>>22813692
Ok so now I read your second post too. Nicely written and compelling. Still, the concept of god must be further defined. The Abrahamic religions believe that god created man in his own image as written in Genesis. So while there may be a trove of theology and metaphysical thought from Christian mysticism, gnosticism (and surely from within the other faiths as well) I would say it's dishonest to claim your description of god as "the infinite and unknowable..." is an accurate representation of the god-idea in these religions. Your thought seem more in line with general Western agnostics or Vipasanna or Buddhist thought.

>>22813550
>qualitatively infinite, timelessly eternal, perfectly simple, immutable, fully exhausts any causal chain
>gets BTFOd by pagan deities and iron chariots
>has sex with virgins
>gets stumped by blood circles
You're not making a good case here.

>>22813799
>refute my meme tier understanding of literally everything
Nah.

>>22813510
>Again that's your definition. It's arbitrary.
you are wrong

>>22813735

>>22813820
>>22813847
You have to pick Jewish mythology or Hellenistic philosophy, so which is it?

>>22813692
Holy based

>>22813854
>Hellenistic philosophy,
I Can pick both

>>22813870

>>22813798
My metaphysics are derived from the patristic and Eastern Orthodox intellectual tradition, primarily the Cappadocian Fathers, Pseudo-Dionysius, St Maximus the Confessor, and St Gregory Palamas, who all distinguish between the essence of God that is synonymous to Him and the realities that are consequent to and derivative of said essence, which can be characterized as both extensions and aspects of it, ie. the divine names infinity, omnipotence, omnibenelovence, incompositeness, immutability, eternity, love, etc. It's not that we cannot know things about God, but that we can never know Him exhaustively, hence the distinction I make between His comprehensibly incomprehensible divine names and His incomprehensibly incomprehensible essence; we can never run out of things to discover or know about God. Each statement of negation carries concomitantly with itself a positive predication, but the essence of God is beyond negation, neither privation nor eminence being useful for explicating it, for it is eminently above eminence.

When we say that man is the image of God, what we mean is that God is a pure activity that we seek to imitate. That activity can be described as thought, though that does not fully exhaust what it entails. In God, the distinction between property and activity is non-existant; we logically distinguish between the attributes that define a thing's nature, and the activities that are consequent to said nature that fully and truly communicate it, so that we may more properly explicate God, but in God they are identical. God is as Aristotle says Thought Thinking of Itself, though that scarcely conveys the entirety of it. God eternally perpends Himself and His grandeur; He eternally contemplates the infinite upon infinite worlds He can create, among other things. The content and nature of His thought are ineffably indescribable, even if we can describe aspects of it. God's being perfectly simple necessarily implies that He has but one activity: His contemplating Himself. He cannot have another. All activities He conducts are but extensions of that one prime activity: God creates the world for the purpose of contemplating Himself. It is a monument to His being all powerful, all knowing, all loving, and so forth. He creates intelligent creatures so that they may experience a most perfect and sublime bliss in imitating by eternally perpending His inexhaustible transcendental being; the beauty in creation lies in the freely willed effort of limited creatures to exhaustively apprehend and exalt God as He does Himself, despite their being incapable of doing so. Man as God's image merely imitates Him, he never captures His being.

>>22813884
God bless

>>22813448
I think you may be conflating eternity and perpetuity, which are two very different concepts.

karen armstrong

>>22812767
Spinoza. Just make sure you're familiar with Aristotle first.

>>22813781
>In fact, the only thing keeping you from behaving like a complete lunatic is the fact that you ultimately believe and comport yourself in harmony with things that you have zero evidence for (i.e., the future).

I agree with this. People need to believe in something to function. So the popularity of atheism (compared to the past) is not really about people suddenly realising the fact that God is a made up concept but about religion losing its functionality as a useful belief system in a post agragarian society.

The city dwellers would be a lot less atheistic if they were still governed by a king who derived his powers from a divine providence. And their moral values on life were still dictated by God via institutions like the church telling them what to do. He is not acting like a complete lunatic but religion got nothing to do with it.

So yes, science btfoing religion is altogether not that important but it does play a role.

>>22813735
Well of course, but a Christian would deny that we can gain knowledge of the perfect and divine through pure rationality, with no empirical experience of our own; the Platonists and Peripatetics of centuries past produced many intellectually edifying and compelling systems of metaphysics and metaethics, but often they are but pure speculation. Christianity offers us direct Revelation from the higher realms; the knowledge attained through Scripture is superior to that from natural revelation, ie. the knowledge we get from observation of the created world, the first and greatest theophany of all alongside the Incarnation, for both are activities proper solely to God.

We may distinguish two criteria through which we can apprehend the nature of God's activities: whether or not they are proper solely to God, and whether or not they reveal exhaustively the nature of God. As previously mentioned in >>22813884, the essential activity of God's perpending Himself is inaccessible to us; it shall forever remain a mystery. But that is His internal activity, within God Himself; its extensions, the external activities that are consequent to and derivative of it yet only contingently so, the ones that relate to creation, are the ones through which we come to know God. They cannot and never do reveal God fully to us. God's creating the world is what leads us to contemplate the cause of all that is, as well as begin to conceptualize His attributes; His theophanies ammend and elaborate upon said knowledge. But many of His activities God can conduct through His intermediaries. He can contingently imbue them with aspects and exiguous amounts of His power (as with Moses parting the sea), but He can never contingently confer onto a creature the fullness of the breadth and expanse of His power, for His power is proper to His essence, His nature. There are certain activities that He can conduct, even if they do not fully communicate the extent of His essence: such are the creation of the world and the Incarnation, a most salubrious munificence from God. Only God can exist outside of time and possesses the omnipotence, omniscience and omnibenelovence prerequisite to engender it, but that does not communicate His essence; with His life, death and resurrection, Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God, the most perfect image of God the Father Almighty, His Word and Wisdom Who in the beginning was with Him and through Whom all things were made and in Whom me live, allowed human nature to participate in His divine nature, bequeathed to Him by His Father, by imitating to its most metaphysically possible extent its attributes: for in imitating His simplicity and eternity, we become immortal and indestructible, and in imitating His infinity, we strive eternally to reach Him. Only God can make others gods. He became man so that we might become gods, sons of the Most High.

>>22812767
Kierkegaard

>>22814025
Not OP but I have been wanting to read Kierkegaard for awhile now. Is Fear and Trembling a good starting point, anon?

Nobody in the modern day can

>>22813735
>>22814020
Thus, God's act of creation and His act of healing human nature are the only two acts that are fully proper to God but do not communicate His essence; no wonder since the latter is an extension of the former. It is what proves that the Son and the Spirit are God: for it is in the latter and through the former that we may know God the Father by becoming gods in imitation of His glory.

>>22813897
>>22813857
Christ is risen, brother.

>>22813799
>>gets BTFOd by pagan deities and iron chariots
>muh New Atheist memes from 2006
You're illiterate

>>22813740
It can utilize probability to make reasonable conjectures, but if the singularity was eternal you'd still need to explain what caused it burst suddenly, making it likely that it came into being the moment it fissiparated into the universe.

>>22814041
Start with the Fear onto Death. Don't read it just to complete it. Read it carefully, and if you cant properly summarize what he says after you finished it, reread it until you can.

Idk if you'd consider them "intellectuals", but Chesterton and Lewis are intelligent and articulate and have written a lot about faith and the popular arguments around it. They are writing for a general audience, but so is God.

>>22814025
Well, yes. Although he is not concerned with explaining God so much as how one must live in faith in God. And he is a truly great writer, but can also be dense.

>>22814067
For those interested in what Chesterton has to say on Christianity there is a collection called the 'Spiritual Classics Collection' that includes Heretics, Orthodoxy, and The Everlasting Man. Good stuff.

>>22813740
>>22814050
Regardless of whether you are religious or not I'd recommend gaining at least a rudmientary understanding of special and general relativity and many dimensions. In daily life we consider ourselves experiencing time linearly but spacetime is one inseperable structure. "What happened before x" is a midwit question to ask both about god and the observable universe because spacetime didn't exist before spacetime (time didn't exist before time) - or to put it more temporally accurate: spacetime without spacetime exists not.

Frithjof Schuon.

>>22814059
OK thank you. I will do my best.

>>22814067
>Lewis

Based. The Screwtape Letters is fantastic.

The philosophical arguments for a creator are good but I can't get over The Bible with it's talking donkeys, snakes, 800 year men, and all the obvious fictions.... No one has explained them to me in a convincing way.

>>22814374
If God is real then miracles are possible.

>>22814381
Yeah and you can say the same thing about Hinduism and an elephant with 9 arms or Islam and Muhammad flying to heaven on a winged horse. Jesus wasn't born in caveman times he was born 400 years after the Greeks. We know there weren't 800 year old men.

>>22814374
>The philosophical arguments for a creator are good

No they are aren't. They are fabrications just as anti-truth as the 800 year old men. And the distinction is superfluous anyway since these arguments are a posteriori not a priori to christianity itself.

>>22812767
Imam Ali in Nahj Al-Balagha

>Praise be to Allah. He is such that senses cannot perceive Him, place cannot contain Him, eyes cannot see Him and veils cannot cover Him. He proves His eternity by the coming into existence of His creation, and (also) by originating His creation (He proves) His existence, and by their (mutual) similarity He proves that there is nothing similar to Him.
>He provides evidence through the creation of things of His being from ever, through their marks of incapability of His power, and through their powerlessness against death of His eternity.
>He is One, but not by counting. He is everlasting without any limit. He is existent without any support.
>He who assigns to Him (different) conditions does not believe in His Oneness, nor does he who likens Him grasp His reality.
>Everything that is known through itself has been created, and everything that exists by virtue of other things is the effect (of a cause).
>Times do not keep company with Him, and implements do not help Him. His Being precedes times. His Existence precedes non-existence and His eternity precedes beginning.
>The word 1 "mundhu" (i.e. since) disproves their eternity, the word "qad" (that denotes nearness of time of occurrence), disproves their being from ever and the word "lawla" (if it were not) keep them remote from perfection.
>Stillness and motion do not occur in Him, and how can that thing occur in Him which He has Himself made to occur, and how can a thing revert to Him which He first created, and how can a thing appear in Him which He first brought to appearance. If it had not been so, His Self would have become subject to diversity, His Being would have become divisible (into parts), and His reality would have been prevented from being deemed Eternal.
>If there was a front to Him there would have been a rear also for Him. He would need completing only if shortage befell Him. In that case signs of the created would appear in Him, and He would become a sign (leading to other objects) instead of signs leading to Him. Through the might of His abstention (from affectedness) He is far above being affected by things which affect others.
>He is that which does not change or vanish. The process of setting does not behove Him. He has not begotten any one lest He be regarded as having been born. He has not been begotten otherwise He would be contained within limits.
>It cannot be said that He has a limit or extremity, or end or termination; nor do things control Him so as to raise Him or lower Him, nor does anything carry Him so as to bend Him or keep Him erect. He is not inside things or outside them. He conveys news, but not with the tongue or voice. He listens, but not with the holes of the ears or the organs of hearing. He says, but does not utter words.

>>22814402
>>22812767
>His speech is an act of His creation. His like never existed before this. If it had been eternal it would have been a second god.
>It cannot be said that He came into being after He had not been in existence because in that case the attributes of the created things would be assigned to Him and there would remain no difference between them and Him, and He would have no distinction over them. Thus, the Creator and the created would become equal and the initiator and the initiated would be on the same level. He created (the whole of) creation without any example made by someone else, and He did not secure the assistance of any one out of His creation for creating it.
>Surely, after the extinction of the world, Allah the Glorified will remain alone with nothing else beside Him. He will be, after its extinction, as He was before its production: without time or place or moment or period.

>>22814390
Explain how something can come from nothing

>>22814405
I'm sorry but your "explaination" is meaningless if it is a fictional fabrication. Also nothing implies and absence of God

>>22814386
>and you can say the same thing about Hinduism and an elephant with 9 arms or Islam and Muhammad flying to heaven on a winged horse
And? The statement still stands. Your contention seems to have more to do with accepting the 'impossible' than anything relating to comparative religion. However, it is in the very nature of miracles to seem ridiculous, and so if you dismiss them on that basis alone then no religion will ever be sufficient as they all grapple with the miraculous in one form or another. Logic can only bring you so far.

>>22812767
Blaise Pascal - Pensees, guy was a turbo genius like there has never been and might never be again.

Descartes
Spinoza
Leibniz

>>22814423
>fictional fabrication.
How can you prove it's fictional? It's supernatural but so is every other explanation on how something can come from nothing
> Also nothing implies and absence of God
How so? It's logical. The only thing that could create something from nothing and the big bang would have to be spaceless, timeless, and immaterial. What else could this but a God?

>>22814453
This mindsets means you would believe literally everything and anything without evidence. I'm not a child. I can't believe in fantasy like that.

>>22814508
>This mindsets means you would believe literally everything and anything without evidence
But that doesn't follow. As a result of the belief in a God a person can believe in the possibility of miracles, but that doesn't mean their default position becomes 'believe in everything and anything ever affirmed revolving the subject no matter what.' That line of logic makes little sense no matter what field you apply it to. Now, it is possible that by having this worldview one can come to a false belief despite having the right intentions, but so is the opposite, and in either case the nature of truth remains unchanged. As far as I can tell there are no worldviews (even the truest one) that we can't botch with our wants and fears.

>I'm not a child. I can't believe in fantasy like that.
Mama mia.

>>22812767
Most people aren't familiar with the Biblical conceptual vocabulary so when they use words like "God" it has no meaning. The Bible Project teaches how to read the Bible within the framework the scholars at the time worked in which emerged out of earlier poetic traditions and inherited elements of poetry like wanting to structure narratives in a kind of rhyming pattern.

>>22814679
Miracles I can understand. Hundreds of 800 year old men? Surely there would be some writings or records of these people. 800 years is a long time.

>>22814501

>It's supernatural but so is every other explanation on how something can come from nothing

Where do you get the idea that something came from nothing?

>The only thing that could create something from nothing and the big bang would have to be spaceless, timeless, and immaterial. What else could this but a God?

This kind of language holds the hidden presupposition that the world was created. Hence begging the question

>>22814404
>>22814402
This seems indistinguishable from the position of the Classical Theist Tradition

>>22814779
>Where do you get the idea that something came from nothing?
That's what the big bang niggas say. You know something different?

>>22814779
The causation of the universe has to be explained, as does its complexity. Most of the Hellenistic intellectual tradition presumed some kind of role in the fashioning of the universe by a demiurgical figure, even if they presupposed the ultimate source of everything was an impersonal subsistence, though even in Neoplatonism there are tensions in that account, as Plotinus is compelled to describe the One as conducting the activity of hypernoesis to explain its productive power, despite assailing Aristotle for not having gone as far as he had in securing divine simplicity by rejecting the distinction between the perceiver and the perceived or the ponderer and the pondered that arises from taking the Prime Mover to be Thought Thinking of Itself.

>>22814098
I'm not sure where I implied otherwise

>>22814820
>That's what the big bang niggas say.

Big Bang cosmology, in my limited understanding, does not presume that there was "nothing" prior to the event. There was a singularity at the beginning of time and that's as far as our knowledge goes. Some models predict a universe in a state of collapse prior to singularity but that's just speculation for now. So we can't be sure that there was "nothing" at any point

>>22812860
>>22812864
>>22812866
None of these mention God.

>>22813692
>God is never defined; he is merely delineated. He transcends all things so that we can never have access to him.
>God is beyond logic... but I have a personal relationship with him
>inb4 I didnt say he is beyond logic
That is true, you said he is not defined, which is even worse.

>>22814050
Stop using words that literally don't exist you hilarious Christranny pseud

>>22814853
Sure but what else could it be? Every theory so far has been supernatural. Something that doesn't exist in nature.

>>22814935
What else could what be?

>>22814750
>Hundreds of 800 year old men? Surely there would be some writings or records of these people
And there probably were, but they were most likely all destroyed in the flood. As I understand it Noah and his family were the very last ones to ever live that long (200-800+), and since there were no chroniclers left most things from that point on were passed down through the oral tradition. It is not until Moses that you get some of the books in the old testament, and those stories were told to him from the family tree of Abraham who got it from the family tree of Noah.

I think that's the gist of it, but Christianity is not at all my wheelhouse so if another anon knows more pls chime in.

>>22814965
How old do you think the earth is?

>>22814974
I have no fucking idea, what do you think?

>>22814979
Something in the billion I'm not much of a rock guy

>>22814878
Maybe if you weren't an utter intellectual mediocrity with an embarrassingly narrow intellectual horizon, you would have been capable of comprehending my lucubration; alas, it appears you're too much of a conceited neophyte and philosophical illiterate to meaningfully engage with metaphysical subjects.

>>22814884
Someone didn't know the terms fissiparous and fissiparation, huh?

>>22814374
>The philosophical arguments for a creator are good
The philosophical arguments for a creator are only convincing because they are artfully crafted to fill the gaps in our understanding and exploit our ignorance. Once these gaps are filled, these narratives transform into absurd tales, serving only historical purposes. See the anon in this thread writing paragraphs on how God embodies the whole fabric of existence, without ever bothering to explain how, but exploring the vagueness of our knowledge when it concerns the universe or its origin.

>>22815133
>Once these gaps are filled

and how would we fill this gaps?

Almost all of the philosphers in the history of Western Philosophy have had some belief in divinity. You can really look just about anywhere

>>22812958
He's such a pseud

>>22813137
The better answer is that NDEs dont mean anything given that the person is not dead.

>>22815285
Where are the really good ones?

>>22813468
No it doesn't

>>22815289
he is doing fine

>>22815295
Thats a matter of taste

>>22814750
There are records of them. It's called the Bible.

>>22815310
well it's not about taste, there is really good ones i found and there is not very good ones

>>22815319
And you're saying that the Aphrodite worshipers who created and codified the Bible for the Jews are trustworthy?

>>22815347
this is lies and blasphemy retard

>>22815133
Your absurd progressivist conviction in the inevitability of scientific progress and the concomitant technological efflorescence of humanity is utterly unfounded and unjustifiable; given sociopolitical turmoil and the decline of genotypic intelligence across the world, there is absolutely no assurance of further accretions in natural knowledge, yet alone their applications. On a purely materialistic model, the probability of intelligent life's apperance yet alone its attaining advanced technological abilities
through chance alone is already close to nil, making future scientific advancements all the more unlikely.

>>22812767
guenon (pbuh)

>>22815347
Non sequitur. You said that if there were people who actually lived 800 years that there should be records of them. Well there are records of them. The Bible is a written record. Whoever compiled the records is irrelevant to the fact that it is a record.

>>22812767
In recent years you have Alistair McGrath (molecular biologist), Alvin Plantinga, William Lane Craig and Peter Kreeft (philosophers), John Lennox (mathematician), Francis Collins (physician-geneticist), N.T. Wright (Bishop-academic).

In terms of apologetics and Christian intellectual history Bishop Robert Barron (Word on Fire) and Gavin Ortlund (Truth Unites) do a lot of good work on YouTube.

Historically you have Church Fathers like Polycarp, Ignatius, and Justin Martyr and, later, Augustine. Personally, I like C.S. Lewis for his ability to bring together literature, history, and theology in an easily understood way.

>>22812767

>>22813448

>but reality cannot be eternal because it can't, okay?
So reality is God then? Retarded but ok

No one believes in God

>>22815663
i believe in God, and the holy spirit

>>22815672
Then give me money, as Jesus commands you

>>22815663
Fedora: tipped

>>22815675
Well, Jesus didn't command me to ally with evil forces, also i follow the father not practically Jesus

>>22815663
you mislead people and try to play with bible, you are either a retard or evil, so i will steal from you and attack you, lmao

retards should not post, and evil people should get punished

>>22815686
>also i follow the father not practically Jesus
Seriously bro

>>22815685
not an argument
>>22815686
Jesus said nothing about evil or good in those verses. He simply said to give to he who asks. Pretty simple. Do you love money more than Jesus?

>>22815691
yes, father told me to punish evil, jesus is just a manifestation of the father will

Psalm 141:4 Incline not my heart to any evil thing, to practice wicked works with men that work iniquity: and let me not eat of their dainties.

>>22815699

>>22815699
you are idiot

>>22815700
Jesus is God bro

>>22815704
I’ve already been sent $10 by one of your fellow Christians. I guess he is an idiot as well lol

>>22815711

>>22815711
>>22815711
he is ok, you are an idiot, keep going and at some point all your money will be lost fool

>>22815719
You’re the one who’s disobeying your god. It says right there very plainly. Give to he who asks

>>22815357
We're reaching Vaush levels of pseudointellectual schizobabble

>>22815723
you are a fool, i can't even comprehend your level of retardation

be quite, peasent

>>22815727
please interpret those verses then. Matthew 5:42

>>22815731
2 Corinthians 6:14 In-Context

14 Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?

>>22815739
38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’39 But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. 40 And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. 41 If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. 42 Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

>>22815745
وَقَاتِلُوا فِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ الَّذِينَ يُقَاتِلُونَكُمْ وَلَا تَعْتَدُوا ۚ إِنَّ اللَّهَ لَا يُحِبُّ الْمُعْتَدِينَ (190)

{إِنَّا أَوْحَيْنَا إِلَيْكَ كَمَا أَوْحَيْنَا إِلَى نُوحٍ وَالنَّبِيِّينَ مِن بَعْدِهِ وَأَوْحَيْنَا إِلَى إِبْرَاهِيمَ وَإِسْمَاعِيلَ وَإِسْحَاقَ وَيَعْقُوبَ وَالأَسْبَاطِ وَعِيسَى وَأَيُّوبَ وَيُونُسَ وَهَارُونَ وَسُلَيْمَانَ وَآتَيْنَا دَاوُودَ زَبُوراً }النساء163

>>22815751
>>22815752
mindfucked you so hard you started writing in scribbles. Sad.

>>22815764
people like you should be killed, you spread evil

God have mercy upon the likes of you

>>22815777
Resist not evil :)

>>22815780
كسمك

>>22815725
Wow. How enlightening. You really got me there buddy. Really dismantled my points.

>>22815800
where are your points? i see nothing

>>22815133
>they are artfully crafted to fill the gaps in our understanding and exploit our ignorance.

Even the supposed gaps in knowledge are artificial so to speak. As an example consider the question, "who created everything"? Which presupposes that the world is created as if its a piece of pottery whose presence signifies the existence of a potter somewhere around. I'm sure this kind of analogous logic made sense to superstitious bronze age people even though it doesn't work since the potter cannot create something out of nothing. But that is exactly what God does in his act of creation.

>>22812767
check out avicenna (ibn sina) and his proof of the truthful

>>22815834
"who created everything?"

God
any more questions? no, it's not the big bang it's a cause not effect

God will

>>22812767
You know what budding is right? Like duplication, but with all the whimsy of existence, genetics, and life. Take this very serious and it may help you. Read and do at the same time, patiently. If you don't, this post is worthless.

Try to imagine you bud once. Can you say which one is you? Logic says, since it's your imagination, you can choose which one is directly you right? And the other is still you, only you can't experience it like a compound eye; its just another body. Right?

Now imagine budding again. Whether you see three or four bodies, there are now more to choose one from.

Keep budding. Imagine budding as many times as you can. Do it until you can't actually imagine the individual bodies. The question that's important here is:

Where did you sit? Was it always you just imagining new but empty selves? Did you try to occupy as many different ones as you could until you couldn't and you regressed to yourself? Did you just pick any body at random each time you bud as a representation of yourself? Did you follow a certain pattern? Did you just read this and do nothing but sit in your head?

The point is: the self is always known. God is the apex of one's imagination. Be wary of how you interpret that. Relating god to imagination does not imply the concept of god is solely imaginary. It merely questions the extent of its influence

>>22816095
>Did you follow a certain pattern?
i selected the strongest me

it is mostly a waste of time to attempt to explain the unexplainable, especially to newborns. Your times are better spent growing before leaping to such endgame topics. I'll never understand this worlds insistence on jumping to the end of the story, or pausing at its beginning. It is your job to fill the middle and you yet linger wastefully, neglecting your other roles of more immediacy

>>22816135
God idea but you have to learn more about God because wasting time on other stuff is useless life is literally meaningless we are trying to fill the gaps

>>22812767
David Bentley Hart
John Milibank
Pope Benedict

>>22816117
Too obviously ironic. How often can a concept be discussed in a lifetime before plateauing? But the important question remains, whether the plateau formed from erosion or demolition?

>>22813550
>The world we inhabit is circumcised
Nah man that's just America and the Middle East.

>>22815965
Huh?

>>22813692
>The scientific method is about educing hypotheseis on the basis of repeatable observation within varying degrees of controllable environment through induction and subsequently subjecting them to scrutiny through falsification, which engenders post hoc rationalization that modify the initial hypothesis for the purpose of salvaging its explanatory and predictive power
That's a hyper-specific and purely hypothetical model of scientific method.

> it cannot provide any insight into any supernatural and transcendental forces since they by definition supervene the created order, and thus supernatural occurrances or miracles are suspensions of the natural order that cannot be subject to repeatable observation
This point simply agrees with the anon's statement that the existence and nature of transcendent phenomena cannot be understood through rational means, but in a very roundabout way. One anon made a argument for the existence of God from pure logic, another anon called his bullshit, you attacked him, and now that you don't have any argument you are just saying "yes that is correct but overall it does not matter because you are wrong" and being a cunt about it.

>but all we gain from Him are notions, for we define Him in relation to ourselves through negation, whether privation or eminence, but we never define Him or comprehend Him, since by conceptualizing Him in contradistinction to ourselves, we fail to elucidate Him on His own terms. His essence is truly beyond us; it is far eminently above the attributes predicated of Him. The divine attributes or names are comprehensibly incomprehensible, for through empirical experience we have notions of infinity through finitude that allows us to comprehend our limitude; but the essence of God is incomprehensibly incomprehensible, since it is infinitely greater than infinite, behind it, above it, necessarily engendering it
>It is because the universe is circumscribable that we know God cannot be.
Now that popular religious theosophy has successfully commited an agnosticism to try and not appear entirey retarded, we just can't help but wonder when if it going to try and internalize atheism in an attempt to stay relevant.

>>22816095
>Relating god to imagination does not imply the concept of god is solely imaginary.
Why tho?

>>22815739
>For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common?
Uh, the original sin, since even the righteous are not clean from it? God's love, since it's universal?

>>22816366
Dissect for me the baseline concept of imagination as it applies to your existence? Then, if needed, repeat as it applies to the universe. If needed, please remember you are not separate from the universe as a whole.

>>22816374
>Dissect for me the baseline concept of imagination as it applies to your existence?
Alright, it's a system for modeling hypothetical phenomena from concepts and associations that I am already familiar with using my brain and it's ability to combine known concepts and associations in various new or familiar ways.

>Then, if needed, repeat as it applies to the universe
A number of such independent systems as outlined above, used by every being posessing a similar brain or equivalent means of cognition?

>If needed, please remember you are not separate from the universe as a whole.
Duh.

But how does that answer my question?

>>22812767
The funny thing about rejection of empirical evidence as a source of knowledge about God is that even Bible does not operate from that position. Moses was literally splitting Oceans into half and even Jesus knew to perform a few magic tricks inorder to convince us plebians that he speaks for the Big man.

>>22816388
empirical evidence is useless, all what matters is the big man

>>22816368
the righteous man should handle the sin of his ancestors responsibly

>>22812767
The prophets. Read scripture. Also read any Christian literature you can find on any specific subject you'd like. You can figure shit questions you want an answer for if you don't want to buy books. Tony Evans, Joel Osteen, Jon MacArthur, all of them get certain things right and other things wrong but if you learn from all of them you'll figure it out. And also the holy spirit is our teacher so you can just ask God yourself to tell you about him and he will. Ask God a question and he will give you the knowledge you want.

>>22816538
How do you ask God?

>>22816607
Do you not believe that God can hear your own thoughts? You can talk to him anytime you want and he will hear you. Just think it.

>>22812767
>intellectuals who believe in God
There are none. Not even muslim philosophers. For any religious person an intellectual man's "God" is heresy.

>>22816623
Oh thanks God bless you, Just wanted to know your point of view, i talk with God everyday

>>22816638
there is a lot, ibn sina is pretty Good
Take a look, he is decent

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3hyKj60N4k

>>22816362
>That's a hyper-specific and purely hypothetical model of scientific method.
It's the ideal and the more scientists stray from it the less reliable their findings due to its being less rigourous.

>This point simply agrees with the anon's statement that the existence and nature of transcendent phenomena cannot be understood through rational means, but in a very roundabout way.
Not rational but rather mundane means; God does not entail epistemic irrationality, but the arational as the consummation of the rational; the mystical as the apex of the logical, which has been fully exhausted.

>One anon made a argument for the existence of God from pure logic, another anon called his bullshit, you attacked him, and now that you don't have any argument you are just saying "yes that is correct but overall it does not matter because you are wrong"
Lol anon how retarded do you have to be to think that cosmological arguments are at odds with apophatic theology?

>Now that popular religious theosophy has successfully commited an agnosticism to try and not appear entirey retarded
Negative theology has been part of the Platonic intellectual tradition since the dialogue Parmenides. The fact that you think that it is a recent invention engendered by the intellectual profundity of tendentious assaults by mendacious mediocrities such as Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins is exposing your conceited ignorance of philisophy.

>>22816388
Oh wow man! Somebody should have gone back and St Gregory of Nyssa before he wrote his Life of Moses! It should would have blown his mind and utterly dismantled his explication of his mystical theology of the eternal assent to God.

>>22816671
>Oh wow man! Somebody should have gone back and St Gregory of Nyssa before he wrote his Life of Moses! It should would have blown his mind and utterly dismantled his explication of his mystical theology of the eternal assent to God.

Am I supposed to decipher this ESL gibberish

>>22817067
I suppose it is not shocking at all that an unimaginative and intellectually narrow mediocrity such as yourself would readily jump at any excuse irrespective of its exiguousness and tentativeness to obviate addressing the arguments of your otherwise erudite interlocutor.

>>22817067
hes saying "St Gregory of Nyssa" wrote a book called "Life of Moses" and that it refutes the point you have made

pretty low tier esl, dont know how you couold miss it

>>22817184
>I suppose it is not shocking at all that an unimaginative

I'm sorry bro but your vague poetic statements that you've been spewing in this thread as if they are some hidden truth are not imaginative at all. Yes they are vague enough to be utterly meaningless and expose the cowardice and moral failure of your soul in your ineptitude to stay true to your irrational beliefs and face fire head on. Thus leading to your inability to make a single meaningful reply to anything that anyone else posts. But imaginative is not a quality one would ascribe to them. Any village hick can believe in a deity and vague platitudes are better left to AI quote generators

>>22817193
>that it refutes the point you have made

Ah so he is still not willing to say anything meaningful straight up. Got it.

>>22817225
low tier bait

>>22817218
>Thus leading to your inability to make a single meaningful reply to anything that anyone else posts.
Point to just a single statement that I failed to substantively refute in one of my replies.

Your initial post was entirely predicated on an inability to comprehend a sliver of what I had articulated in my prior posts; you seemingly wholly missed the point of my explicating the distinction between God's internal essential activity that is identical with His Being and the external activities that are contingently willed by Him as excrescences that are extensions of His one internal activity, unnecessary and arbitrily chosen from our narrow perspective but nonetheless meaningful (as God could have chosen to not conduct them as a freely willing agent, but they cannot contravene His one activity of eternal self-contemplation, merely extend it: think of it as a marathon runner choosing to do one extra lap, an activity that is not contrary to his prior activity but is not necessary as such due to its already having been completed); the former is incomprehensible, inaccessible, ineffable, eminently transcendental, whereas the latter is something we can perceive and apprehend, attaining true and meaningful yet inexhaustive knowledge of God, which though splendorous and incandescent is but an infinitesmal of the comprehensive totality of His Being. In >>22814020, I quite literally defend Christianity as superior to Hellenistic speculation due to direct empirical interactions with God. That is not contradictory with dismissing the idea that a discipline founded on methodological naturalism can disprove the supernatural. The extent to which you completely misread and misapprehended all I had said is astonishing.

As for St Gregory of Nyssa, he propounded most sagaciously and inspiredly the doctrine of epektasis, of eternal moving repose in God, our eternally imitating God's own transcendental and ineffable act of self-contemplation; man's telos is God, something he can never attain, but he nonetheless continues to strive towards Him, sipping from an infinite well of water, each gulp satisfying his thirst yet further igniting a most passionate desire for more from the reservoir that is God's glory which he can never exhaust. Upon man's resurrection in the regenerated flesh so thoroughly repaired by God's most salubrious munificence, there shall be no contradiction between man's passions, urges, and his reason, for both shall be united in seeking after God. God shall walk among men and be most thoroughly exalted by those who know Him but not truly Him, those who live in His comprehensibly incomprehensible infinite glory but do not see the incomprehensibly incomprehensible essence that is greater than infinite an infinite amount of times, transcending ever our notions of infinity, beyond which we cannot comprehend. All shall be like Moses, eternally ascending on Mount Sinai, never getting to see God's face (Exodus 33:20) but basking in His glory.

>>22816379
I see you neglected to mention imaginations role in creation, and just how wide the array of creation is as it applies to all facets of one and all's life and existence.

>>22817395
I don't know the fuck you're rambling about in first para because someone else not me was having that discussion with you. I am not stupid enough to engage in this bullshit when the very premise its based on i.e. God is entirely made up.


>As for St Gregory of Nyssa, he propounded most sagaciously and inspiredly the doctrine of epektasis, of eternal moving repose in God, our eternally imitating God's own transcendental and ineffable act of self-contemplation; man's telos is God, something he can never attain, but he nonetheless continues to strive towards Him, sipping from an infinite well of water, each gulp satisfying his thirst yet further igniting a most passionate desire for more from the reservoir that is God's glory which he can never exhaust. Upon man's resurrection in the regenerated flesh so thoroughly repaired by God's most salubrious munificence, there shall be no contradiction between man's passions, urges, and his reason, for both shall be united in seeking after God. God shall walk among men and be most thoroughly exalted by those who know Him but not truly Him, those who live in His comprehensibly incomprehensible infinite glory but do not see the incomprehensibly incomprehensible essence that is greater than infinite an infinite amount of times, transcending ever our notions of infinity, beyond which we cannot comprehend. All shall be like Moses, eternally ascending on Mount Sinai, never getting to see God's face (Exodus 33:20) but basking in His glory.

I'm sure that this has something to do with my post here >>22816388 and not one of the highly imaginative ways in which absolutely nothing meaningful was said.

>those who live in His comprehensibly incomprehensible infinite glory but do not see the incomprehensibly incomprehensible essence that is greater than infinite an infinite amount of times,

Thanks for the kekfuel tho

>>22814404
>>22814402
/thread

>>22813550
>what caused the cosmos
This is a fool's errand. By "the cosmos" you likely mean space and time, yes? What is a cause? A phenomenon that precedes it's effect. In short, it denotes a temporal relationship. Therefore, a cause of time beginning would need to precede the existence of time, it would need to be in the time before time existed, an incoherent proposition. You literally cannot "conceptualize a cause of it" because that conceptualization necessarily requires you to imagine the thing you are trying to find the cause for to exist already for a cause to be possible.

>>22817632
>Therefore, a cause of time beginning would need to precede the existence of time, it would need to be in the time before time existed, an incoherent proposition

Oh that's not really a problem. You can simply hand wave it away by claiming something absurd like that God is timeless? See? Problemo solvo. When you've made up your mind that God necessarily exists then you can literally ascribe any attribute to him to solve contradictions that arise. Of course the problem here is that since God is timeless therefore God exists outside the laws of causation. And hence cannot cause anything since the concept of being a cause cannot be applied here

>>22812767
Meister Eckhart

>>22817632
You're assuming all causes are necessarily temporal which is not true

>>22817418
I thought this said that anon failed to mention immigrants' role in creation and thought some insane DEI officer posted here

Of course God exists. How else could you even speak about Him?

>>22817443
If you're so intent on being an arrogant, supercilious and cantankerous buffoon wholly bereft of any intellectual humility or curiosity, if you're going to vitiate each and every discussion of the divine that you encounter with scurrilous animadversions and repetitive fulminations, without exhibiting any willingness to properly imbibe and masticate upon the ideas propounded by your interlocutors or even tergiversate on any given stance were the argumentation adduced compelling and sophisticated, then I suggest you simply do stay away from these sorts of colloquys, because you are an emotionally immature and intellectually stunted twat. If you're going to merely asseverate the non-existence of God as an epistemological axiom without adumbrating a perfunctory justification for you educing such a stance, then you have nothing worthwhile to contribute and are just a waste of time. Now sod off.

>Thanks for the kekfuel tho
No, clearly this subject is a bit too abstruse for someone of your limited intellectual capacities. You're better off being insufflated with profound knowledge of the middle school science sort propounded by Hank Green.

>>22817672
>Of course the problem here is that since God is timeless therefore God exists outside the laws of causation. And hence cannot cause anything since the concept of being a cause cannot be applied here
How is the concept of atemporal, eternal causation logically inconsistent?

I'm currently reading Faith and Reason by John Paul II. It's a nice little intro to philosophy and how it encompasses the mystery of God and revelation

>>22817740
If temporal causation is unnecessary, then you may as well say that the beginning of time caused itself. See how incoherent you become when you try to change the definition of words?

>>22818512
Causation has no temporal implications on its own. The idea that causal chains necessarily imply temporal distinction is unsupported by anything. Nor does your argument demonstrate how a finite, circumscribable metaphysical entity can possess aseity.

>>22818584
>Causation has no temporal implications on its own. The idea that causal chains necessarily imply temporal distinction is unsupported by anything.
When you spend too much time with theological cope you become disconnected from reality. There is no circumstances when causation DOES NOT imply a temporal relationship. It's fundamental to the word and our understanding of it.

>>22813137
this is silly because it assumes the place people go during NDE's is also their final destination. While true NDE's are absolutely a real thing and a real experience, I have never heard of a verified NDE (one that is backed up by medical records) where the person understood exactly where they were and what was going on to a certainty.

>>22818629
>There is no circumstances when causation DOES NOT imply a temporal relationship.
All you're doing is adducing the common experience of causation, which is an infantile argument because we're temporal creatures who cannot not think in terms of temporal matters. You must actually demonstrate the logical inconsistency in presuming atemporal, eternal causation, as opposed to avering your position insistantly and with indignation.

>>22818512
That doesnt follow at all and temporality was never implicit to causality. Prominent philosophers have addressed this, ranging from Aristotle to Hume

>>22812767
Plato believed in the gods.

>>22819165
Plato believed in DEEZE NUTS

>>22812767
Alexander Pruss is an interesting cat. phds in math & phil

>>22818677
because they will never tell you or share on the internet

>>22812767

>>22813897
this is beautiful, God bless you, i was listening to track 2 and it perfectly coincided with this photo as i scrolled down

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsrNxfsMtgA

>>22818724
You have to literally invent an entire arbitrary reality just to make sense of "atemporal, eternal causation" and even after doing so you still admit it contradicts logic as we know it. Amazing.

>>22818960
All causation that we are aware of is temporal. You have to invent, out of whole cloth, an entirely arbitrary reality where causality does not imply a temporal relationship. I decline to accept this type of schizo philosophy.

>>22819349
>All causation that we are aware of
Who's we? This obviously the first time you're hearing of this so clearly it's not something you've ever looked into. It's integral to plenty of ontologies. I even gave you as varied philosophers as Aristotle and Hume.

>>22819375
>It's integral to plenty of ontologies. I even gave you as varied philosophers as Aristotle and Hume.
Nta but showing up in someones made up philosophy doesn't count. All causation that we are aware of in physical reality is temporal.

>>22819383
Who's we?

>>22819388
>Who's we?
The human race. If you have an example of atemporal causation that doesn't amount to trust me bro bring it out.

>>22819383
>>22819392
The flaw in your reasoning is that it begs the question. Your presumption that all causality is only that of material interaction inside time to conclude that all causality must be inside time. Every coherent philosophy has an ontology. That means every coherent philosophy addresses what causes a thing to be what it is. The universe appears to be contingent. This means the universe does not cause itself nor does it define itself nor does it perpetuate its own existence. Without a coherent ontology the view of causality you propose could validly suggest the universe could just stop existing. That which exists of necessity would be immutable. Something immutable cannot be temporal, otherwise is age and therefore change. The created universe subsists on Being in itself, and this subsistence is an atemporal cause. It is possible that the universe has existed eternally on this basis, and yet the cause would still be atemporal. You think causality is like a line with start to finish, dominoes knocking into each other. Causality is also hierarchical. The created things subsist on the uncreated things for their being. So the correct terminology isn't only before and after (which to suggest is implicit in causality is question begging) but also anterior and posterior.
If you want to insist that causality can be coherent only with view to temporality then you must accept that there is an infinite regress of causes which is just incoherent.

>>22819453
>The universe appears to be contingent
Says who? This is another part you're just asserting like it's an obvious fact.

>Without a coherent ontology the view of causality you propose could validly suggest the universe could just stop existing
The universe is necessary. Problem solved.

>That which exists of necessity would be immutable. Something immutable cannot be temporal, otherwise is age and therefore change.
So a necessary God can not have changed from not creating the universe to creating the universe.

>Causality is also hierarchical.
Says who? It must be nice to be able to just make shit up and then be convinced it is true. You're never wrong in your own mind.

>>22819383
>You have to invent, out of whole cloth, an entirely arbitrary reality
It's not arbitrary, it's the realm of pure logic as expressed in both temporal causal relationships and purely logical relationships like we can represent in brains and computers.
>All causation that we are aware of in physical reality is temporal.
If physical reality is defined as temporal but then the claim is circular. According to Feynman in QED the physical world is full of events with causal chains not following our arrow of time. An event in our future can cause a reaction in the past.
>>22819469
>says who
Basic logic. The most basic logic there is. Any logical description is contingent and hierarchal, if x then y.
God is beyond time, there's no temporal event separating a before and after so God never changes. The logical causality aka the rules/Law were always contained immutably within God.

>>22819479
>Basic logic. The most basic logic there is. Any logical description is contingent and hierarchal, if x then y.
Ah so now you're conflating causation with logical implication. I still don't know what you're talking about with hierarchical but I also know that logical implication can often be reversed. For example Playfair's axiom implies Euclid's parallel postulate
and vice versa. There is no hierarchy of logical implication. And since you've moved into the domain of logical deduction you're confronted even more with just taking the universe's existence as an axiom.

>>22819469
The universe appears contingent because it's in a state of flux. It is constantly changing therefore subject to forces beyond itself and therefore not necessary. If something is changing then there is a force prior to it causing it to change, and that has to be traced back to an origin point.
God did not change with the creation of the universe as no change occured in God by creating the universe. Nothing changed in God essentially by that act and since God stands outside of time God could not have changed by relation to time.
I didn't just make anything up. I explained to you an ontology. You're the one saying change is only linear and just assuming it has to be true without evidence.

>>22819491
>Nothing changed in God essentially by that act and since God stands outside of time God could not have changed by relation to time.
So just say nothing is changing in the universe ESSENTIALLY. If a God outside time can interact with the universe just say the universe is outside time and still interacts with itself. All the special privileges you give to God I can easily turn around and give to the universe.
>I didn't just make anything up. I explained to you an ontology.
A made up ontology. Someones philosophy is not evidence.
>You're the one saying change is only linear and just assuming it has to be true without evidence.
All of the evidence of change we have is temporal. You're the one coming up with some imaginary atemporal change without evidence.

>>22819489
Depends on the example. If x then y is not the same statement/description as if y then x.
Any model rests on axioms not within that model and any description approaching a logically coherent model has the same limitations as the formal one, just hidden behind confusion. Any description of the world will always rest on axioms not contained in the description. Any "natural" model must rest on "supernatural" axioms.
>just taking the universe's existence as an axiom
I'm already doing that but then I'm separating what is describable about the universe from what is not. The world as we know it with the consistent arrow of time apparently emerged 14 billion years ago. All that is contained within a larger system beyond time that's still describable and beyond that there's the unknowable fundamental source of everything, pretty much as imagined by the guys that first thought of formal logic.

>>22819497
>All of the evidence of change we have is temporal.
This is a completely insane statement by a religious zealot that can't even conceive of anything but his well conditioned religious dogma. The physicists don't even agree with you but because it suits your religious dogma you just demand it's true.

>>22819489
An example of heirarchical causality would be the Earth holding your house, your house holding your desk, your desk holding your computer. You have a complete causal chain. And yet, the anterior cause is simultaneous with the final effect, that being your computer. Yes, this causal chain happens in time, but it demonstrates that there doesn't need to be a temporal passing to define the causal chain as cause and effect are concurrent. With regards to God's relationship to the world and how God causes the world to exist atemporally, He provides the baseline. That's called the principle of divine conservation

>>22819501
>Any model rests on axioms not within that model
Axioms are very much a part of the model. You can't have any type of logical deduction without starting axioms.
>Any "natural" model must rest on "supernatural" axioms.
No clue what you're talking about here. Do you think Euclid's axioms are supernatural?>>22819501
>I'm already doing that but then I'm separating what is describable about the universe from what is not.
So if you're taking the universe's existence as an axiom what are we even talking about then? There would be no need for God.

>>22819503
>This is a completely insane statement by a religious zealot that can't even conceive of anything but his well conditioned religious dogma
>>22819392
>If you have an example of atemporal causation that doesn't amount to trust me bro bring it out.

>>22819505
>Axioms are very much a part of the model.
Why do you just say things? You could pause and read a bit about these subjects, try even a little bit to understand anything being said.
>>22819507
Logical causation is not something anybody in this thread just made up and I gave you physical examples. Look up QED and feynman diagrams.

>>22819497
>So just say nothing is changing in the universe ESSENTIALLY
>. If a God outside time can interact with the universe just say the universe is outside time and still interacts with itself
Yeah you can say those things but they would be absurd. None of these traits are special privileges given to God just because, they're logical deductions about the nature of reality. The universe can't said to not change essentially because a change in being is an essential change. Like I said earlier, what causes a thing to be what it is? There was a change in essence when the acorn turned into a tree and hence an observable change of nature. Given that things change they are therefore contingent and cannot be necessary.
To say the universe interacts with itself outside of time is also absurd as it would entail a split of the universe from itself making itself another thing. You're acting like we deny these traits to the universe arbitrarily when they're all empirical observations. God isnt the assumption we build premises to defend. God is the conclusion of the argument. That thing which is not contingent is that thing I call God.
>Someones philosophy is not evidence.
A deductive argument is evidence. You havent engaged with the argument.

>>22819504
>An example of heirarchical causality would be the Earth holding your house, your house holding your desk, your desk holding your computer.
And this is a totally arbitrary and subjective definition. You can trace a line of physical force from one object to the the other that prevents your computer from falling to the gravitational center of the entire system but there is no hierarchy there besides your mind saying big thing more important. "Hierarchical" causality is not a thing.

>>22819511
>Why do you just say things? You could pause and read a bit about these subjects, try even a little bit to understand anything being said.
Because I'm right. Axioms are the basic starting point of a logical deduction. You claiming they are outside the model is dumb

>Logical causation is not something anybody in this thread just made up
https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/79198/whats-the-relationship-between-physical-and-logical-causation
>I have always presumed that logical causation - such as logical rules like the formation of a valid syllogism, or the law of the excluded middle - operate independently of physical causation.
>There is no causation in logic.
It's common for uninformed people to conflate causality and logical implication. Doesn't make it right though.

>>22819515
The argument is neither arbitrary nor subjective. It's fine if you disagree with the argument but those terms arent accurate representations.
>trace line of physical forces
This just restated my argument but instead of saying floor and desk you said forces. The forces are concurrent and simultaneous and form a hierarchical causal chain. It's not the passage of time which defines the causal chain

>>22819521
>uninformed people
It's very ironic that you keep saying everyone else is refering to a made up philosophy when you just ass pulled another philosophy, which is funnily far more contentious than any other one posted itt

>>22819505
>Do you think Euclid's axioms are supernatural?
You can't logically derive the conclusion that points exist using the model built on the axiom that points exist. You would just be repeating your premise. "Because I assume x is 1 therefore x is 1".
The assumption that points exist isn't representative of physical reality but a simplified version of it constructed using the rules of logic.
When it comes to physics the same applies, any model will always rest on axiomatic fundamentals like fundamental forces.
>So if you're taking the universe's existence as an axiom what are we even talking about then? There would be no need for God.
Depends on your definitions, which in your mind seem to shift depending on convenience. The world that emerged from the big bang is not the "universe" as in the totality of everything and the system beyond time that contains the big bang is not the totality either. Nothing we can describe can logically ever be the totality, partly simply because it's not accounting for the logic we're appealing to in order to build the description. Our logic demands an irreducible phenomena outside time and space that contains all things we can conceive of including logic itself.
This phenomena matches all the classical theist ideas of "God". If you disagree about historical claims about properties God has like sentience that's a different subject.

>>22819514
>Yeah you can say those things but they would be absurd.
As absurd as atemporal causality and an unchanging God reacting to events on earth

>There was a change in essence when the acorn turned into a tree and hence an observable change of nature.
Just like there was a change in his essence when God decided to create universe.

>You're acting like we deny these traits to the universe arbitrarily when they're all empirical observations.
Just like the empirical observation that there is no atemporal causality.

>>22819532
>You can't logically derive the conclusion that points exist using the model built on the axiom that points exist.
Rofl yes you can absolutely logically derive that. If the axiom is points exist then the derivation is simple. By the previous axiom points exist. You seriously don't understand how logical deduction works

>Our logic demands an irreducible phenomena outside time and space that contains all things we can conceive of including logic itself.
No it doesn't. If you're taking the universe's existence as an axiom then that's it. Nothing else needed.

>>22819525
>when you just ass pulled another philosophy
What philosophy is that? Basic logic? Causation is not logical implication. Shit if causation was logical implication then Hume's problem of induction would be solved by logical deduction.

>>22819521
You're actively trying to avoid understanding anything said to you, to defend your religious dogma.
>Axioms are the basic starting point of a logical deduction
>starting point
You're describing a causal relationship. The deduction arises from the axiom. The model rests on the axioms. X leads to Y which is not the same thing as Y leads to X or a statement about non causal relationship like the non-answer in that thread you focused on while ignoring actual answers.
>this circle has circumference Pi because its diameter is 1
This is a false but logical statement claiming a causal relationship where there isn't in fact one.

>>22819533
Well we're finally at the part of the conversation where you flat out ignore the arguments and just keep repeating the same non-arguments. It's typical in conversations with nu-atheists given that nu-atheism is always babbys first philosophy, which this evidently is because these subjects me and the other anon are trying to explain to you is literally philosophy 101. Keep at it I guess. I started philosophy as an atheist and was later convinced by philosophy to convert to Christianity. I'm sure you can do the same. I've got finals tomorrow morning. Have a nice night

>>22819541
>You're describing a causal relationship
No I'm not because again since you have so much trouble understanding CAUSATION IS NOT LOGICAL IMPLICATION.

>>22819538
>Rofl yes you can absolutely logically derive that.
Again you work as hard as you possibly can to sabotage any chance of understanding anything said.
"Because I assume x is 1 therefore x is 1" adds nothing, there's no logic there that supports the claim.
>No it doesn't. If you're taking the universe's existence as an axiom then that's it. Nothing else needed.
Depends if you want to attempt to account for the phenomena in the universe or not. Is your entire worldview really just "don't think, ever and sperg at anyone that tries"?.

>>22819543
This from the guy who insists atemporal causality is real along with "hierarchical" causality and also conflates causation with logical implication. Better hope it's not a philosophy final tomorrow because if it is you gonna fail bro.

>>22819548
>"Because I assume x is 1 therefore x is 1" adds nothing, there's no logic there that supports the claim.
That is exactly how logical deduction works. Axioms are unsupported. And yes just reaffirming the an axiom is logical deduction of the most trivial sort.
>Is your entire worldview really just "don't think, ever and sperg at anyone that tries"?.
Says the guy who jumps to all kind of hoops trying to avoid answering the question what created God? I bet taking God as an axiom would be magically exempt from account for the phenomena in your words.

>>22819553
A point has no part, thoughts on this

>>22819547
>a relationship between different propositions where the second proposition is a logical consequence of the first.
What's your point? What do you think this semantic autism accomplish? If everyone in the thread only talked about logical "consequential" relationships instead of causal ones would that somehow help you?
>>22819550
You don't even believe in simple logical structures or physics? Le atheism has really gone this far?
>>22819553
>That is exactly how logical deduction works.
Why do you just say things? That's not deduction, it's just restating the axiom.
>Axioms are unsupported.
This just reveals you really "think" in mindless appeals to dogma. This is the opposite of reason.
>what created God
I very explicitly described my worldview until the end of where human knowledge can account for anything. You completely ignore everything said and jerk off about your petty internet memes. Why do you do this? Why not sincerely try to understand things and other perspectives?

>>22819553
Van you say anything about a point has no part? The first definition the start of it all coming from 0 dimension.

>>22819567
>If everyone in the thread only talked about logical "consequential" relationships instead of causal ones would that somehow help you?
Have you already forgotten what started this? You were trying to use logical implication to prop up your claim of atemporal causation existing. If you're admitting now that causation is not logical implication you're back to having to come up with some evidence for atemporal causation.

>You don't even believe in simple logical structures or physics?
"Hierarchical" logic and atemporal causation aren't things in logic or physics

>This just reveals you really "think" in mindless appeals to dogma. This is the opposite of reason.
It means I understand how logical deduction works. Axioms are unsupported. If you can prove an axiom it's not an axiom.

>I very explicitly described my worldview until the end of where human knowledge can account for anything
So you stop asking questions at what created God yet you accuse me of not thinking and sperging at anyone who tries.

>>22812767
Well you can rule out anyone who uses the Bible or Koran as a starting point.

>>22819565
>>22819572
Definition of Euclid. Don't know that it's even necessary besides for teaching purposes as a visual example.

>>22817837
>you don't believe in my magical skydaddy, an idea bereft of logic or evidence
>therefore you are retarded

How can one man say so much yet so little. I mean trying to use heavy words to appear erudite is probably a requirement if the position you are arguing for is clearly absurd and has no answers for any criticism thrown its way. Its a common grifter tactic except in this case he is fooling no one but himself.

>How is the concept of atemporal, eternal causation logically inconsistent

This has already been addressed by the other guy. But of course the real issue is not if causation can be atemporal or not. The elephant in the room is that this retarded little argument is all it takes for a man to render his belief in an all powerful all knowing mind and live his life, (re)organise his mind and emotions in light of it. Clearly showcasing a lack of critical thinking skills and profound intellectual gullibility.

I suspect one of the three options here

1. A shut in neet with zero irl experience of the world
2. An internet larper who'll adopt a new personality and idea in a heartbeat when his gullible mind is easily convinced by some other equally vacuous line of reasoning
3. A lifelong christian who just wants to re-affirm his beliefs and will grasp at any straw, no matter how thin and flimsy, to hang on to it (this probably applies to 1 and 2 as well)

>>22819588
A line is length without breadth whose extremities are points. Thoughts on this

>>22819597
Again a definition of Euclid. If you're really interested David Hilbert came up with a more rigorous foundation for Euclidean geometry. It has more than five axioms since there are several things Euclid assumed without explicitly stating.

>>22819603
I don't care, just answer the questions

Answer the questions, answer what you think and it will probably contradict what you have previously said, but you probably know this so you just say some shit adjacent to my questions

>>22819617
>Answer the questions, answer what you think and it will probably contradict what you have previously said, but you probably know this so you just say some shit adjacent to my questions
Huh? I already said they're both definition of Euclid. I haven't looked too far into it but I do know that Euclid assumed several things he didn't explicitly state which is why Hilbert came up with his axioms for Euclidean geometry.

>>22814884
kek

>>22819620
Are you just repeating your Google search

>>22819624
I haven't really looked at Euclidean geometry since high school and I read about Hilbert's different axiomatization of Euclidean geometry in college. Didn't study it in class though since Euclidean geometry is not really covered in a college course.

>>22819628
Don't care, just answer the questions directly

>>22819641
I already answered them twice. For the third time those are the definitions of point and line taken from Euclid.

Whatever, you can't even answer yes or no but instead beat around the Google search question with a long winded response not even on point

>>22819651
>Whatever, you can't even answer yes or no but instead beat around the Google search question with a long winded response not even on point
Yes or no to what question?
>A point has no part, thoughts on this
Is your original question. How is that a yes or no question? My thoughts on it are that is the definition of point from Euclid.

>>22817837
If God is atemporal, he wouldn't enter time at the first moment to create it and then "see what happens", if he is atemporal, he is outside of time, he would have created the entirety of all time and space all at that moment, or at least it would appear so to him since he is outside of time. This argument unintentionally removes free will and uncertainty, does it not?

>>22819653
Thoughts on this cat... cat is cat

Whatever

>>22812767
Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus by Brown

>>22812767
Jordan B. Peterson

>>22819993
Nice answer

Not a single one. God does not exist.

>>22820085
fool

>>22820085
fool

>>22819993
lmao

>>22820091
>>22820097
Foolmind

>>22815357

nigga your prose is hella purple and that's coming from me. I understand the words you're using but part of convincing persuasive arguments is to be able to convey points clearly and concisely. You want your listener to understand what you're saying at face value, not for 50% of their RAM to be occupied deciphering what you're saying. "concomitant technological efflorescence" come on bro outta here with your loquaciousness

>>22815357

"Your silly progressivist faith in scientific advancements and the technological developments that come with them are baseless. With all the social and political issues going on and the decline of intelligence in our gene pools, we can't be sure of any kind of advancements in our understanding of the world or said advancements being useful. If you only believe in science, the idea of intelligent life developing advanced technology by chance is very low so making more advancements in the future is even more unlikely."

>>22812770
>Swinburne
Swinburne is determinedly AGAINST God. I'm not sure how you could think otherwise. It makes me wonder about all of your recommendations...

>>22812767
>C.S. Lewis
>John White
>Unironically, the authors of the Bible - foremost
>Andrew Murray

The Bible is God's revelation of Himself to mankind; in writing, at least.

>>22812770
>Richard Swinburne
Woops, my mistake. I skimmed. I thought you meant Charles Algernon. Disregard my prior criticism and take my apologies, please.

>>22815663
Because of Proddies, he now have retards like that who mindlessly take some verse in an isolated, literal sense and use it against those same Proddies. Death to all Proddies.

>>22819347
>even after doing so you still admit it contradicts logic as we know it
I never did that and no it doesn't. All I'm saying is that we cannot perceive non-temporal causation because we exist within time and that whenever we describe such atemporal causation we utilize temporal analogies we can delineate what said atemporal causation entails but never exhaustively grasp the content of it. You have not shown at all that atemporal causation is logically impossible, you have merely appealed to mankind's limited faculties to comprehensively comprehend it.

>>22819533
> Just like the empirical observation that there is no atemporal causality.
It’s impossible to directly observe the absence of something that’s not perceptible to the organs you dumbass

>>22819538
>No it doesn't. If you're taking the universe's existence as an axiom then that's it. Nothing else needed.
>>22819505
>So if you're taking the universe's existence as an axiom what are we even talking about then?
Are you really that much of a sophomore that you're conflating logical axioms with epistemological conclusions about ontology?

>>22819596
On the basis of this post, I have to conclude you're one of the following:

1. A degenerate and dissipative sodomite whose indulgent and hedonistic lifestyle induces him to despise Christianity for objurgating his vile turpitude.
2. A mentally stunted manchild with loathing for his parents for taking him to church and who resents his evangelical background; likely a fool who supports flooding the West with trillions of niggers to own his parents or something.
3. A vain mediocre narcissist who abhors the idea of being inferior to something.

Actually, you're no doubt all three.

>>22812767
Little mention of Muslim theologians in this thread who are far more insightful and convincing than your average Christian thinker who nobody cares about anymore.

>>22819538
>No it doesn't. If you're taking the universe's existence as an axiom then that's it. Nothing else needed.
>>22819505
>So if you're taking the universe's existence as an axiom what are we even talking about then?
Are you really that much of a sophomore that you're conflating logical axioms with epistemological conclusions about ontology?

>>22819596
On the basis of this post, I have to conclude you're one of the following:

1. A degenerate and dissipative sodomite whose indulgent and hedonistic lifestyle induces him to despise Christianity for objurgating his vile turpitude.
2. A mentally stunted manchild with loathing for his parents for taking him to church and who resents his evangelical background; likely a fool who supports flooding the West with trillions of niggers to own his parents or something.
3. A vain mediocre narcissist who abhors the idea of being inferior to something.

Actually, you're no doubt all three.

>>22819657
Predestination is an exceedingly common Christian belief, and so is the compatibilist notion that predestination and free will are reconcilable, as free will requires solely the conviction that an agent was not compelled by extraneous factors to make choice A in lieu of B, and not as such the notion it was metaphysically possible for events to unfold differently. Note that metaphysically possible is different from logically possible; from the perspective of God, all creatures have made their choices within the paradigm of the world He created.

>>22821192
t. Abdul

I have a thought that I might make a seperate thread about but would like to put forth in this discussion too
The reasoning that the lack of physical evidence for God is evidence of his nonexistence, has two significant implications.
>Everything that exists, can be witnessed or somehow sensed (otherwise the existence of God cannot be put in question by the lack of physical evidence)
>We as humans can sense everything that exists, whether through our senses or some instrument (otherwise we could not judge whether there is no physical evidence for God, for there might be some that we have not sensed)
But these two implications themselves cannot be proven to be the case.
>1-You cannot prove that everything can be sensed. Even if it is the case that everything can be sensed, you can never know for sure if there is something you have not yet sensed. We as humans are unaware of that which is outside our knowing because we only have our own perspective, meaning that even if we knew every fact of the universe, we would be able to know whether we know every fact yet
>2- It cannot be proven that humans can sense everything for about the same reason. If there was indeed something we cannot witness through sense or instrument, we cannot prove it, because those senses and instruments are all we have to witness it with. Now that I'm typing this it seems to rely on or come out of the first assumption, that everything there is can be witnessed (A little beside the point, but this seems even more unlikely in the case of no God, because then we are solely hte product of evolution, which means we have only adapted to sense the things that have an effect on us)

Therefore the reasoning that the lack of physical evidence for God is evidence for his nonexistence, is faulty

>>22821393
>is faulty
*because the reasoning itself relies on something that cannot be physically proven

>>22821199
> A mentally stunted manchild with loathing for his parents for taking him to church and who resents his evangelical background;

Hahahahaha. I was never a christian you utter waste of human brain. And when I was religious I was more religious than my parents ever were. Likely more religious than your pathetic larping ass could ever be. But you were are and always will be a retarded skydaddy believer who literally puts his faith in fantasies because your own daddy did not pay attention to you (can imagine why) .

You know its not my place to kick down some poor idiot's cope for this tough life. And I wouldn't if not for the pretention that you literal magic big guy in the sky is based in evidence or logic.

With your poor and pathetic grasp at logic or argumentation, sheer gullibility and propensity to pick and choose when to apply critical thinking and when to throw it out of the window with zero self awareness.... One can conjure up even Gandalf and Sauron into reality. That's just how meaningless it is.

>>22821426
>With your poor and pathetic grasp at logic or argumentation
Your understanding of those can be boiled down to a very liberal usage of ad hominems. It's clear you're some mentally ill subhuman mystery meat shitskin defiling the English language with his verbiage that ought to be put down. Maybe you'll learn your place eventually and leave intellectually sophisticated matters to white Europeans.

>>22821426

>>22821605
>Your understanding of those can be boiled down to a very liberal usage of ad hominems.

That's what all fags like you deserve anyway. Its not like anything you believe in is based in reality so might as well make fun of it. All I did was point out that rejection is empiricism is ante-thetical to christian tradition but you had to jump in like the nigger scum that you are spreading your faggotry, acting like some ESL who just learnt english last month and wants to throw out as many big sounding words as he can while conveying the most mundane shit.

>intellectually sophisticated matters
>literal bronze age middle eastern desert tribal superstition
Lmfao kek. We both know that you lack the requisite IQ to pursue any intellectually demanding field but thanks for coming out as a /pol/fag though. Now we know you are not worth taking seriously (as if there was a doubt before)

>>22821644
>All I did was point out that rejection is empiricism is ante-thetical to christian tradition
You don't understand the Christian tradition at all, you're a dilettante who could not understand my explanation of said tradition and immediately had a meltdown because you obviously lack the requisite intelligence for comprehending anything beyond middle school science lessons. You were provided with several different essays explicating what can and cannot be known about God, and you proved yourself too much of a braindead nigger retard to discuss them in any depth. Man, fuck depth, you could not even enter the atmosphere yet alone penetrate the surface. You're a moron, you're a faggot, and you should feel bad for getting schooled like the mentally stunted disabled person with the intelligence of a 10 year old that you are. You can go back to doing volcano experiments now.

>>22821944
>different essays explicating what can and cannot be known about God
Is that like arguing whether Superman is stronger than the Hulk?

>>22821979
>arguing whether Superman is stronger than the Hulk
Is that like arguing whether or not you were a monkey or a slug 5000 years ago which gradually evolved and stuff?

>>22822017
>Is that like arguing whether or not you were a monkey or a slug 5000 years ago which gradually evolved and stuff?
Your nemesis empirical evidence rears it's ugly head again. There is tons for evolution. None for God.

>>22812767
None.

>>22822026

>>22822026
>he thinks given enough time shrews can become blue whales
lmfao

>>22813485
No you can't. People frame the universe as contingent on a first cause. To claim that the universe is simply because it is runs into several problems. For instance, let's say that God, as we understand him, is contingent on the universe. What is this universe contingent on? Another one? It's turtles all the way down until we eventually arrive at a first cause.
You can try to argue that this first cause was no necessarily divine, but others have already made pretty compelling arguments towards a conscience agent, at least in some sense.

>>22822176
>People frame the universe as contingent on a first cause
So frame the universe as necessary instead.
>To claim that the universe is simply because it is runs into several problems.
The same exact problems would apply to God.
>What is this universe contingent on?
I already said take the universe as necessary. You claimed you can't do that. Just assuming the universe is contingent is not a response

>I already said take the universe as necessary. You claimed you can't do that. Just assuming the universe is contingent is not a response

The problem is with taking the universe as a first cause. You are implying an infinite regression of universes, which is fine until you reach a beginning. We know that a universe is not eternal and is subject to change. Both of these imply causation, and that causation bleeds into the nature of everything within the larger system. You need something outside of a universe to be the cause, likely something with agency given that there would be no other effect on it. This points towards the divine being necessary far more than anything else.

>>22822221
>The problem is with taking the universe as a first cause. You are implying an infinite regression of universes, which is fine until you reach a beginning.
Huh? If the universe is the necessary first cause there is no infinite regress. The chain stops with the universe just like you want it to stop with God.
>You need something outside of a universe to be the cause, likely something with agency given that there would be no other effect on it.
So what caused this thing outside the universe? And if it doesn't need a cause why does the universe? Just arbitrarily declaring the universe contingent and the first cause necessary doesn't count.

>>22822236
This was already addressed. The world is complex and composite, as well as limited, finite and circumscribed. The universe's being the necessary existence is nonsensical since complexity derives from simplicity, and declaring that the cosmos simply is leaves its complexity unexplained. Why are the laws of physics the ones that reign as opposed to any other set of parsimonious, imbricated and mutually entailing of natural laws? Why does it feature the properties that we can observe of it? We can easily conceive of a qualitatively infinite and simple property that engenders the world we know, which in turn cannot be consequent to anything else by conceptualization. Proclaiming the cosmos the necessary existence is a braindead misuse of Ockham's razour, as it simply leaves more questions as opposed to offering a simpler explanation.

>>22812767
>>22816166
This is the answer for best contemporary authors and best options for an introduction, and these guys will direct you where you need to go once you've exhausted them as well. >>22813471 also has great recommendations, though I would discard Tillich, he has scathing critiques of fundamentalists but beyond that he's pretty lame, I'd replace him with Rudolf Otto, followed by Eliade.

https://youtu.be/xqY08gN_FCM?si=rVd5APhuSewQIHBs

>>22822311
>The universe's being the necessary existence is nonsensical since complexity derives from simplicity, and declaring that the cosmos simply is leaves its complexity unexplained.
So simplicity can be unexplained but complexity can't? Again an arbitrary assumption
>Why are the laws of physics the ones that reign as opposed to any other set of parsimonious, imbricated and mutually entailing of natural laws?
The same exact argument applies to God. Why was one specific God required to create the universe instead of another?
>We can easily conceive of a qualitatively infinite and simple property that engenders the world we know, which in turn cannot be consequent to anything else by conceptualization.
And I can easily conceive of a necessary universe with no cause. I can also conceive of your infinite property being consequent to something. Just being able to imagine something is not a proof of anything.

You have done nothing but arbitrarily assert shit with no logic or evidence behind your assertions. I assert the opposite. Both are equally worthless positions.

>>22822506
>So simplicity can be unexplained but complexity can't?
Correct. God's absolute simplicity entails there being nothing simpler and qualitatively eminent above God. Ergo, He cannot be explained.

>Why was one specific God required to create the universe instead of another?
The argument proving God's existence is a prerequisite for all subsequent discussions about His nature.

>And I can easily conceive of a necessary universe with no cause.
Would it be in accordance with reason, though?

>I can also conceive of your infinite property being consequent to something.
Alright, please elucidate me about what could conceivable and in accordance with logic be ontologically prior to God.

>>22822776
>God's absolute simplicity entails there being nothing simpler and qualitatively eminent above God.
Again this is just something you're asserting here. Do you even understand the difference? You have given no reason why something simple can be unexplained while complex things can't

>The argument proving God's existence is a prerequisite for all subsequent discussions about His nature.
Rofl you dumb fucker. You're using aspects of his nature to prove his existence. If you have to prove his existence first you can't turn around and say his simplicity allows him to be a necessarily EXISTING first cause.

>Would it be in accordance with reason, though?
Absolutely. In the same way you think a God with no cause is in accordance with reason. You've opened the door to things not having causes.

>Alright, please elucidate me about what could conceivable and in accordance with logic be ontologically prior to God.
Barney the giant purple dinosaur that is ontologically prior to God. You have given no logical reason something can't be ontologically prior to God other just asserting that nothing can be ontologically prior to God

>>22822506
>>I can also conceive of your infinite property being consequent to something.
No you can not. If you are dealing with my "infinite property", in good faith, then you must concede that existence is contingent on said property. Therefore, nothing else can exist, no other cause or Gods to speak of. Moreover, by infinite here we mean it in the true sense of the word. This property, or rather agent, is a changeless standard of all that is. There can be, quite literally, nothing outside of this.

>And I can easily conceive of a necessary universe with no cause.
You sound like Hume. Just because you can imagine a rabbit without a cause doesn't mean cause and effect don't exist. On the contrary, your idea may very well result in a generation of philosophers laughing at your stupidity.

>>22822805
>Again this is just something you're asserting here. Do you even understand the difference? You have given no reason why something simple can be unexplained while complex things can't

LMAO are you a retard? Complex things are built on simpler things that we use to explain said complex things. The simpler things are built of even simpler things that we use to explain them. What happens when you reach the most simple? Please, enlighten me on how you will explain that.

>>22822826
>No you can not. If you are dealing with my "infinite property", in good faith, then you must concede that existence is contingent on said property.
Rofl so I have to accept your assertion. So by the same token you have to accept my assertion that my universe is necessary and can have no cause.

>Just because you can imagine a rabbit without a cause doesn't mean cause and effect don't exist
And just because you can imagine a necessary uncaused God doesn't mean he exists. You see why just asserting shit isn't a valid argument.

>>22822835
>Please, enlighten me on how you will explain that.
The way you've explained it is by saying something is uncaused. Which breaks the chain of reasoning and leads to the possibility of complex things being uncaused as well. Again you've given zero reason why complex things can't be uncaused and simple things can be. It's the same tired shit over and over. Everything has a cause
God doesn't have a cause
Therefore everything doesn't have to have a cause
You want to exempt God so badly but if you do you no longer can claim everything has to have a cause.

>>22822805
>You have given no reason why something simple can be unexplained while complex things can't
Yes it can actually, since God's being absolutely simple entails His also being eternal or timeless, omnipresent, pure actuality, immutable, omnipotent, omniscient, etc. How can something eternal, beyond alteration, qualitatively infinite, etc. possibly be caused by something different to it nature? (This post presuming that God generating His Son and His Spirit as extensions of His Being's being perfectly rational.)

>You're using aspects of his nature to prove his existence.
I am using properties of the cosmos to explain what the first cause must necessarily be and explaining why asserting that the cosmos is uncaused is not intellectually justifiable.

>In the same way you think a God with no cause is in accordance with reason.
God cannot be caused from what we know of Him through delineation.

>Barney the giant purple dinosaur that is ontologically prior to God.
What is it with New Atheists and your infantilisms? Sorry, but you can't actually logically prove that it is metaphysically possible for your childish construct there to create God.

All you're doing is proving that all atheists are simply conducting absurd mental gymnastics to avoid reaching the obvious conclusion.

>>22822910
>since God's being absolutely simple entails His also being eternal or timeless, omnipresent, pure actuality, immutable, omnipotent, omniscient, etc
Again a wild baseless assertion. You really don't understand the difference between an assertion and something back by evidence or logic do you?

>I am using properties of the cosmos to explain what the first cause must necessarily be
You've repeatedly invoked God's simplicity in asserting his existence. You do it in the part I quoted previous to this.

>God cannot be caused from what we know of Him through delineation.
Rofl. You're literally defining God into existence here. I delineate God as being imaginary. By your reasoning I win the argument.

>Sorry, but you can't actually logically prove that it is metaphysically possible for your childish construct there to create God.
And you can't metaphysically prove it is impossible. That's the whole point of this it's just you asserting God is uncaused versus me asserting Barney caused God. Belief in God is as infantile as believing in Barney

>All you're doing is proving that all atheists are simply conducting absurd mental gymnastics to avoid reaching the obvious conclusion.
Lol the projection is extreme.

>>22822925
>Again a wild baseless assertion.
It's an inference on the basis of creation. Try reading the posts that have already been made in this thread:
>>22813692
>>22813884
>>22814020
>>22814050
>>22817395

>And you can't metaphysically prove it is impossible.
Yes I can. Barney the Purple Dinosaur is a temporal, composite entity, who due to his being a bundle of qualitative and mereological properties on account of existing within time and space is subject to alteration and is ontological circumscribed, ie. finite. He cannot cause an entity that ontologically transcends all metaphysical preconditions for his own subsistence to come into being.

>>22822947
>It's an inference on the basis of creation. Try reading the posts that have already been made in this thread:
So now you're claiming you have empirical evidence of God? Well shit man break it out.

>Barney the Purple Dinosaur is a temporal, composite entity, who due to his being a bundle of qualitative and mereological properties on account of existing within time and space is subject to alteration and is ontological circumscribed, ie. finite.
Ah I see the problem you imagine that since you can see and interact with Barney you think he's a temporal, composite entity. A reasonable guess but as you yourself have argued interacting with the world doesn't mean something is a temporal, composite entity otherwise miracles and Jesus would make God a temporal, composite entity. The purple dinosaur Barney interacts with the universe in the same way you claim God does while being an atemporal, simple entity that created God.

>>22822975
>So now you're claiming you have empirical evidence of God?
How are you such an illiterate midwit that you've had the opportunity to read my posts 50 times over but still don't comprehend a thing I am saying? Here's your empirical evidence: the resurrection of Jesus, the Biblical theophanies, miracles on Mt Athos.

>The purple dinosaur Barney interacts with the universe in the same way you claim God does while being an atemporal, simple entity that created God.
So you're a roundabout Christian who call God the Father Almighty a purple dinosaur by the name of Barney, and the Son of God, Who is Word, Power and Wisdom of God, simply "God." Strange, but alright. So long as you admit Barney's aseity, you're not awful. But you should perhaps study the doctrine of inseparable operations more closely:
refuting the following:
>>22822410
>>22822415
>>22822417
>>22822424
>>22822425

>>22823048
>How are you such an illiterate midwit that you've had the opportunity to read my posts 50 times over but still don't comprehend a thing I am saying?
Because your post says
>It's an inference on the basis of creation
Making inferences on empirical evidence is science.

>Here's your empirical evidence: the resurrection of Jesus, the Biblical theophanies, miracles on Mt Athos.
Laughable. Mythology is full of people making up wild ass claims. Do you believe that Muhammed ascended into heaven and returned? Or that Menachem Mendel Schneerson who died in 1994 was the real jewish messiah? There is zero empirical evidence for God

>refuting the following:
Refuted thus. God doesn't exist

>>22821192
True

>>22823063

>>22821144
Explain how an atemporal entity could possibly interact with a temporal reality at a specific time. It makes zero sense unless the atemporal entity can sometimes decide to become temporal, but that would require it to be temporal at some times and atemporal at others, which is incoherent.

>>22821944
>You don't understand the Christian tradition at all, you're a dilettante who could not understand my explanation of said tradition

Lol the little faggot still has nothing meaningful to say about my post. Still insisting like a broken schizo in a psych ward that his completely tangential nonsense is relevant and his superiors here did not understand it because he used "le big words". Lmao, this is such cringe.

If one could see the world from someone else's eyes I would love to jump into your consciousness and experience first hand what being such a brainlet is like. One cannot even claim that you are the peak of Dunning-Kruger because even that requires an intellectual journey to take off. Which apparently never happened in your case.

>>22822017
>the God humping 70iq retard who accuses other people of "lacking intellectual depth" is also a fact denier

Like pottery

>>22823731
>Lol the little faggot still has nothing meaningful to say about my post. Still insisting like a broken schizo in a psych ward that his completely tangential nonsense is relevant and his superiors here did not understand it because he used "le big words". Lmao, this is such cringe.
>If one could see the world from someone else's eyes I would love to jump into your consciousness and experience first hand what being such a brainlet is like. One cannot even claim that you are the peak of Dunning-Kruger because even that requires an intellectual journey to take off. Which apparently never happened in your case.

>>22823115
>Explain how an atemporal entity could possibly interact with a temporal reality at a specific time.
The atemporal entity is the ontological foundation for temporal reality and subsistences within it, so it trivially easy for He, who perceives all time simultaneously (the closest manner in which we can articulate His perception of temporality), to interact with His creatures. His ability to create the temporal world entails His ability to ponder temporaly, for it is an inferior form of thought to His own Thought.

>>22823063
You're very yawn inducing.

>>22813480
Thank you for the effort post, fellow theist. Nice call out on Hegel and the principle of explosion re the necessity of God. Got any good readings from St Dennis? Despite being something of a lay theologian, I'm not familiar with him.

>>22812767
Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Augustine, Proclus, Avicenna, Aquinas, Godel

Any rigorous thinker is a theist. The atheist betrays his ignorance by his rejection of God

>>22813480
>>22824731

Wait, did you mean Dionysius? In that case, exceptional taste

>>22824743
Theism is the quintessential lack of intellectual rigor. "God" is basically just admitting you don't know but want to pretend you do know, even more so with the arrogance of the Christian theology where they claim a personal relationship with the answer to all mysteries. Once you insert "God" into a gap in your knowledge, you have capitulated, you have given up actually trying to find out what is going on there, it's the highest level of intellectual cowardice. Also, you yourself are an atheist because basically all asserted God claims conflict with other God claims, thus you must reject all but a tiny subset of God claims (or reject them all as they all stem from the same human weakness)

>>22813480
And does this "God" necessarily have a personhood or are you referencing the attributes of some abstract principle and dishonestly using colloquial language for social reasons?

>>22824912
Are you the same angry atheist I quoted Saint Thomas at like three weeks ago?

Kek how are you man

>>22824925
No? What part of Saint Thomas? And why did you not answer my question directly?

Also, strictly speaking, you have no grounds to say anything in regards to outside of our universe, since even our most basic laws of logic are rooted firmly in the physical universe. You use contingency as if it's a law that exists before the universe exists, even before God exists, since nothing can supposedly violate your conception of contingency. I don't see why this has to be accepted. Perhaps the ultimate principle of divinity is a spiral of mutually contingent eternal beings whose coupling conjurers forth our reality. If you open the door to wild speculation, you could come up with absolutely anything and have no more or less grounds to assert it than anyone else.

>>22824746
Some theologians do refer to Pseudo-Dionysius as Denys, yes. Andrew Louth does that.