/lit/ - Literature

>>12618445
they think they reject god but the truth is they are products of catholicism wether they like it or not, everything we do and see is deeply caused by intrinsec christian values
saying "me is atheist" changes absolutely nothing since they keep acting according to christian moral.

Solipsism disproves God, but in turn God disproves solpsism.

>>12618445
there's nothing awful about it
also /lit/ - literature, take your religion shit to /his/

>>12618445
There's no way of knowing if there is or isn't a god

god debate belongs on >>>/x/

I couldn't even START believing in God if I wanted to. It's neither comfort nor misery. God is an abstract concept that belongs to someone else. The God that belongs to me is composed of distant superstitions, memories, and lies. A shallow puddle of a statistics class kind kind of faith. It just doesn't mean anything.

>>12618445
>comfort
this pleb believes in god for comfort, what a delusion you midwits live.

I used to cope with religion, tried to be a passionate Christian, had a ton of debates with a Muslim friend over our beliefs. The reason I walked away from God is because the same pricks who bullied me, attended church and Sunday school, yet ignored all Jesus's teachings. What's the point of being a Christian if other Christians torment you and act without compassion? It's all fake, an image thing.

Over time I've come to realize that the thing which truly brings me comfort is my belief in determinism. The manner in which that is expressed -- the decree of God, the logos, cause and effect -- is not particularly relevant.

>>12618654
>What's the point of being a Christian if other Christians torment you and act without compassion?
The point certainly isn't being treated well by others.

>>12618654
>"If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first."
imagine being this uneducated.

>>12618445
believing there is no God =/= not believing there is a God

>>12618865
I'm sure this distinction will be very important in hell.

it's a truth i accept with indifference because i was never raised to think anything else, it seems natural

would i even want a god? i'm not sure. i would live my life differently if there was a final judgement, i'm afraid to say.

Religion is a fabriciation of god by the demand of their needs
- Christians created a god to merely forgive their amoral acts.
- Atheist denied god because they fear the power of judment
Atheism: negation of the negation, which its just absurd
If you are hedonist you cant be catartic in the spiritual

>>12618876
>ooga booga hell is real

>>12618639
Pleb.

I'm a philosophical pantheist, it's pretty chill.

>>12618942
epoche'

>>12618445
>Hey, my understanding of existence is incomplete. And that’s okay. I’m okay with existence potentially having either no consistent, reliable rules and laws or perfectly consistent rules and laws.

>I’m not crying
>you are

>>12618638
>I couldn't even START believing in God if I wanted to
Not for long

>>12618646
Believing in an all-poweful, wrathful being who can send you to an eternal, unimaginable hell is comfort? The God who basically says living in comfort is sin and everyone will be judged for every sin committed? If anything, having no responsibility for your life after dying is more comforting.

>>12619242
Indeed. There's a reason for the term "fear of God."

>>12619242
>having no responsibility for your life after dying is more comforting.
Atheists in one sentence

>>12618852
Christianity, ever the slave religion.

>>12618904
>Christians created a god to merely forgive their amoral acts.
Probably true
>Atheist denied god because they fear the power of judment
Probably true for some, but for others objectively false
>Atheism: negation of the negation
Not necessarily; there's a distinction between agnosticism and Gnosticism to be had.

>>12618617
lol paganism has a greater influence than Christianity ever had. Remind me once again where Easter and Christmas originated from ...

>>12618654
>It's all fake, an image thing.
This. And especially true of /lit/ larpers.

It doesn't make any difference in my world.

>>12618617
>cultural Christianity is the same thing as genuine faith
Absolutely disgusting

>>12618617
Holy fuck why are there so many ESL posters on this board?

>>12618931
you bore me.

>>12618624
This.
It’s only awful for the agnostic theist who’s scared

>>12618445
Losing belief in a god would presumably be pretty rough, but I don’t feel much more about my lack of belief in a god than I do about my lack of belief in other things that I don’t and never have believed in.

Comfort isn't the right word, I guess it gives me a stronger sense of inspiration/pathos. Humanity struggling to find its own meaning in a cold, indifferent universe pulls at my heartstrings more than our path being set for us from on high.

>>12619266
The idea that I could be granted eternal life in return for the relatively modest cost of living piously would be extremely comforting. Unfortunately, I have no evidence that is true.

I certainly felt that believing in God only made life harder when I went through my atheist phase. The idea that death is the actual end seemed preferable to an eternal afterlife

>>12618445
idrc

>>12622626
My problem was that everybody (that I was around) seemed to have a different idea of what gets you into heaven. My teenage self didn't see any reason to be too confident about his prospects.

>>12622680
Meant for >>12622652

>>12618445
I don't know how the possibility of going to hell can be comforting to anyone. I am comforted by the simplicity of my worldview, yes.

>>12618617

It's the other way round. Christian morality is a relatively good (not that good, but better than Islam, Hinduism etc) cultural reflection of already-present moral precepts which are natural to the human animal, particularly notions like the golden rule and cooperation (being nice to people).

I've never read a book-length work by a new atheist but I'm given to understand that some of them (Dawkins?) argue that morality comes from the state of affairs that humans find themselves in/evolved in. If they characterize the notion as I've just sketched it, then they're clearly correct.

>>12618445

Also, to answer the OP, yes, the notion that God as described in the major religions does not exist, is deeply comforting-unless something even worse exists (difficult to imagine) against which god might be some sort of check, or less-evil alternative. It is always better to be right than not, but this is thwarted by the normie human need for in-group belonging. Ironically, the stunted, less-developed brains of autistic people really do better enable them to accept the truth of the non-existence of god (strictly speaking, it is a canard that dumber people are wrong, something which has been tried over the past few years, though it is admittedly rhetorically effective).

It is more important to be right than to belong.

>>12618445
The comfort or anxiety afforded by an idea is not a factor in my adoption of it.

>>12620666
nice try Satan, now get behind me.

>>12618445
its more a prideful triumph over the perceived status quo
t. "agnostic"

>>12622773
Satan lives in the hearts of white people. They have sown discord and are the architects of mass oppression in both Africa, Australia and the Americas.

>>12622787

There's a lot of awful truths in this world, but there can be a beauty in it as well, from a certain frame of mind. It's how a man can appreciate the beauty of the wild even if the forest is full of terror and predatory animals.
If there is a goodness in man, is it more beautiful if it was placed there by a deity or if it's a miracle of chance? If morality exists because it was so dictated, or if it does because of an innate goodness in mankind even against the calculations of logical benefit?
Things being only the dictations of a higher order reduces the beauty and enchantment of life.

>>12622736

You are a human being and therefore this assertion is plainly untrue. You are not a hypermasculine ultra-rational robot.

>>12618617
fucking based

>>12623959
>hu-hu lies are based

>>12618445
Neither. It's just reality that the Judeo-Christian conception of God isn't "objective" in the slightest.

>>12618445
In my experience not believing in God didn't necessarily get rid of the fear of my own mortality but the feeling of certainty about what happened when I died made it much easier to come to a sort of peace about it. After having a couple quasi-religious experiences in my mid-20s the uncertainty brought fear of the possibility of both being judged for my earthly deeds and the thought I was just going to permanently cease existing. Atheism allows you to use nihilism as a coping method for a lot of burdens the same way piety allows you to use scripture for comfort.

>>12618445
That we die and end completely and forever is the worst thing in this universe

I don't "believe there's no god".
I just don't believe there's a god. It's passive, I have no belief in a god, but I have no decided belief there is none. I was never raised with any kind of religion.
Also, I don't call myself an atheist because that implies I made the choice myself. I can't recall any moment from my childhood where my parents talked about religion to me, or near me. It just wasn't relevant to our lives at all.

>>12618445
there is no hard evidence of there being a god or not a god but lots of evidence proving and disproving accusations of there being a god

aswell all religions tie together, it is all the same basic archetype and often the literal exact same charecters

the Karan, old testament, and new testament all have god mother mary and jesus. all the nations that are closer to "mother nature" and spiritual seem to believe in mutliple gods
india,hawaiians, any island people n stuff

i have a hard time seeing around these coincidences but not sure which is which and what to make of it

maybe ive gone full retard and none of this makes sense

>>12618445
False dichotomy. My meaning is endogenous, I don't need a god and there is no reason for me to ever start believing in one.
Not that I would strictly consider myself an atheist though. a transcendental magical entity is impossible to prove or disprove, so I don't take a stance on either side. Religions, however, are absolute bogus.

>>12621402
Opinion disregarded. Eat a bag of dicks, faggot.

I've never believed in God so I don't see it as an issue, gives me more time and energy to figure out the real factors impacting my life.

>>12624623
>all the nations that are close to natur seem to believe there are multiple Gods
That is false. Most religions in history were polytheistic since they didn't want to go through the trouble of having religious differences and just assimilated each other's beliefs. Abrahamic beliefs are a very special case where resistance to outside religions is tied into the faith.

>>12625112
>the cult of saints and the virgin mary exist because of celt polytheism being integrated into christianism, then later the irish church re-evangelized europe.
Sure, the joos started out as a resistance/identity religion against persian invaders, but later forms integrated other religions like they all eventually do.

>>12625124
This is mainly only in Catholicism. Other sects and Islam are still very opposed to this sort of stuff excluding the odd offshoot cult.

who pantheist here

>>12618654
What exactly does this have to do with the non-existence of God?

>>12622696
You didn’t actually make an argument, you just stated a weak opinion.

>>12624608
You are a literate person with the means to study and investigate the question of God’s existence. Your decision to continue on “passively” not believing in God is not passive at all. You’ve deliberately chosen to ignore the question and continue on with the assumptions of your upbringing.

>>12624623
You clearly know nothing about any of those religions you just mentioned.

>>12625124
>veneration of saints is comparable to polytheism

>>12625819
>it's not

>>12625795
Not them, but a suspense of belief isn't ignoring the question, they're simply not answering "yes" or "no". Its not a binary question.

>>12625980
>I don't call myself an atheist because that implies I made the choice myself
My point is that he actually has made the choice himself

>>12618654
Being good is the good way to be. That others are cruel to you is irrelevant to this fact.

It would certainly be troubling to know that an intelligence had intentionally created the suffering of this world, so in that sense it is comforting yes. But I increasingly think that there is a natural human tendency towards faith. In my case I have faith in the higher state of poetic creation. The closest thing to a God that may be found in the world is the sensitive person in the act of creation.

>>12618639
Well put.

>>12625997
If we're being pedantic, I don't think genuine belief is a choice. For example, let's say someone genuinely wants to believe in Christianity, but in their heart they know their sentiments to be towards non-belief. They may try to convince themselves of it, but if they don't believe it they don't believe it, only your unconscious mind decides whether you genuinely believe something or not. So my point is that if this person does legitimately have a suspense of belief, they didn't "choose" to come to that conclusion, it was what came to them.

>>12618445
Second one
>>12618617
I only act according to christian moral when the law forces me to or when it happens to overlap with mine. Also >>12620666 so your post doesn't really have much to do with OP and is more of a random cringe inducing rant

>>12622696
>moral precepts which are natural to the human animal
Do you really believe this
>particularly notions like the golden rule and cooperation (being nice to people)
For fucks sake do you really, REALLY believe those are natural to the "human animal?"

>>12618445
Not believing in god is nice :3

>>12626359
I'm an agnostic and this made me yikes.
Bakunin sounds like a fucking pseud.

>>12618445
The second, then the first. It took some getting used to, but it's pretty liberating now that I don't use the Bible to measure whether or not I'm a good person, and am no longer under the constant threat of eternal punishment.

>>12625819
Only Christianity has the need for saints, as a substitute for the pantheon.

>>12626359
Oh no, it sounds like Bakunin believed in free will!

>>12626318
>only your unconscious mind decides
No

>>12625779

Of course I did (make an argument). You just want to gainsay the presence of an argument because you don't like the content of what's being argued, that the endurance of Christianity derives from a certain degree of consonance with the human condition, as opposed to the FP's reverse phrasing.

>>12626345

-Yes, there's such a thing as human nature, and it is a useful and legitimate concept with which to understand reality.

-I assume that you scoff at the better angels of our nature, because you take the omnipresence of our demons as a proof that the angels don't even exist. But this is clearly untrue, as both drives are in the same animal at the same time. It is characteristic of human beings that they have memory, moral imagination, and are social. This gives rise to the consideration "hm, if I fuck with that guy he's liable to fuck with me later", whence the golden rule. To the latter point: do you have friends?

>>12622696
>already-present moral precepts
No, Jesus' teachings were thoroughly revolutionary in the context of Ancient Israeli tradition, and especially in the context of the pagan morality of Ancient Rome. "Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth..." Christ's moral teachings are historically significant and not representative of the teachings of His time and place - hence his rejection and execution. Rome's eventual acceptance of Christianity's denigration of worldly glory, nationalist loyalties etc. are not reducible to your abstract concept of "human nature."
>being nice to people
Ridiculous summary of Christian morality.
>>12627197
>derives from a certain degree of consonance with the human condition
If you mean to say that "human nature" is the final arbiter in the validity of religious moral teachings then you have made an absolute non-point. Feel free to expand on your argument, though.

>>12627197
>hm, if I fuck with that guy he's liable to fuck with me later
Sorry, but this cheap evolutionary reductionism has no relation to the reasoning of the Golden Rule.

>>12618445
I guess I'm an atheist by definition but I don't really think of myself as one way or the other. It's mostly just that while there definitely could be a god, I am near certain it's nothing close to what any of our religions have come up with and I don't really give a shit what's right and what isn't. I believe the most uniquely human trait is our ability to create abstract concepts and structures that aren't 'really real' but have their own life the perseveres on the basis that we all generally agree on it and religion is another one of those things, even if you aren't a follower.The way I see it, humans have a very limited ceiling for perception and comprehension in the grand scheme of things and it's stupid to think you could ever comprehend what lay behind the curtain, god or not. It's a plato's cave, and if I ever did happen to find with any degree of certainty what the verdict was on the whole god thing, I'd still probably keep doing the same shit I do every day.

>>12625795
>You’ve deliberately chosen to ignore the question
I wouldn't say that.
I'd say the question doesn't interest me. I find natural history interesting, but have never felt the desire to read into any sort of spiritualism or mysticism.
But even if it did interest me, I doubt I'd ever believe any of it. How do you even pick one to believe? There's so many religions out there, what makes a grown man settle on a particular one? It's a very different situation to a child raised into it, this is an intelligent person making the conscious decision to believe in a whole new outlook on life. How do you pick?

>>12618445
There's a certain comfort in embracing the absurdity and inherent meaninglessness of life. We're given a blank canvas to work our own meaning onto, but there are plenty of terrible painters.

>>12621071
Those are mostly semiliterate native English speakers. You can thank America's public education system.

>>12626810
Care to elaborate? How can you genuinely believe something if your unconscious mind doesn't? Examples?

>>12622626
HAHA CRINGE

I HOPE THE FEDORA STORE DIDN’T SELL OUT ALREADY

PEOPLE WHO DON’T BELIEVE IN GOD ARE PHYSICALLY UNATTRACTIVE AND HAVE POOR SOCIAL SKILLS

>>12626359
But if God doesnt exist then physics control everything in the universe which makes it literally impossible for free will to be a thing.

>>12628930
Free will is also impossible with the existence of God.

>>12628960
It is to some degree. You could say his omniscience prevents him from doing that but if he can't do that he isn't omnipotent. With agnosticism/theism it is fair to assume God could break this paradox simply because he's omnipotent but with a purely scientific view you resign yourself to any such notion.

>>12622696
>Karma isn't the golden rule
You done goofed

>>12628794
Well the first step would be to separate philosophical theism from the historical, widely practiced Christianity. Luckily for you philosophers for thousands of years have been giving well reasoned arguments why you should believe in God in not say pantheism or why you should be a theist instead of a deist.

God isn't real but I wish he was.

>>12618617
Jordan Peterson tards have ruined this board

>>12626359
why do hard atheists and materialists have such sickly physiognomy

>>12628823
I don't think the "unconscious mind" has any "beliefs" - certainly not theological ones. If you mean to say that some kind of gut instinct is an important drive in our philosophical questioning and assumptions then I would agree, but to say that an almighty Freudian unconscious overpowers all philosophical reasoning of the conscious mind then you're talking unfalsifiable bullshit.

>>12628794
>i know literally nothing about this belief
>but i doubt i could ever accept it
okay