/lit/ - Literature

>>17405484
The Bible is just silly myths. It is not real. Wasting your time.

probably when the flood starts

>>17405500
He's past the flood lol

>>17405484
Just read the New Testament anon.

>>17405484
I've been obsessed with the Bible lately. Because my vote was stolen.

>>17405484
My fav books are Ecclesiastes, Pslams, Proverbs, and The Gospels

I click with Ecclesiastes big time. Don't by shy to flip around to other books in the bible too

I think I need a break from Christianity. I really think it may be true but certain ideas are causing me a lot of stress but then when I want to stop I assume that's an affront to God and get more stressed out.

Maybe its the anxiety disorder acting up but holy fuck my head has been killing me and I get no sleep.

>>17405484
Just read the Gospels and the Sapiential Books.

>>17405694
You can take a break from theology and still pray. Prayer is the most important part of Christianity. I would know, I rarely pray and that's why I'm a poor example of a Christian.

>>17405510
I read the entire Bible cover to cover and I gained an odd appreciation for the New Testament when I read it that way

>>17405694
pray to the Lord and ask him for the truth. seek him(Jesus) out anon. you seem to be close

>>17405694
I have had similar experiences. Just pray about what troubles you and keep forging ahead. You have to be patient with God

>>17405694
Not getting the sleep you need does not sound like something God would be pleased with.

>>17405875
>>17405958
>>17405971
>>17405972
Appreciate it guys. Like I said I have anxiety issues so I'm probably getting that too mixed up with God and need to focus on my health as well. I'm a catechumen at my local orthodox church so I've been studying for the classes.

Where did all the christ larpers come from?

Go back

>When does the bible start to sink in?

Probably when you stop shitposting on social media sites full of fucking degenerates and heathens, you dumb Fuck.

>>17406081
/lit/'s quality has gone down in recent years. I blame the /pol/immigrants and /lefty/polfaggots

>>17405484
the stories are at best metaphors and life lessons. Its not literal.

>>17406114
>haha a bear killing lots of people that's so wacky dude just a metaphor

>u-uh I mean y-yeah I gu-guess I believe Jesus coming from the dead was meant to be literal... s-o what?

>>17405484
>>17405694
>Retards and nutjobs
The state of the LARP
You should all go back to /pol/ and scream about niggers, it's your level and you leave us to talk about actual /lit/

>>17406194
>oh you believe in God? (literally over 50% of people in the world do)

YOU ARE A NAZI POLTARD RACIST

>>17406194
I'll pray for you.

>>17406045
Just keep at it. Life is constantly pushing. You’re on the right path anon. Its analogous to exercise. There will always be pain but you will become stronger and more resilient as a result of pushing

>>17406194
I'm a christian?

>>17405484
smoking and reading bible is self harm. but go on, stupid faggots must suffer.

>>17406095
This.

>>17406194
Seething

>>17406045
I have similar problems anon. I find it helps to take a step back and see that you probably won’t offend Him by resting your brain a little. Especially if you need to for your health.

>>17406045
Well if it makes you feel better, ultimately whether or not you serve him isn't actually up to you because at any point he could decide that you aren't doing well enough and if you could still enter heaven after that, you'd be more powerful than God. Given that that's not the case, you can sleep soundly with the knowledge that your eternity is really at the mercy of an unknowable being and you can't actually change it anyway

>>17406478
what

Which Christian authors interpret the bible as loose and figurative rather than literal events?

>>17405694
>being part of a cult of self loathing is mentally unhealthy
Holy shit who could’ve guessed

>>17407437
None, because then they would cease to be Christians

>>17407450
dont you mean to say Catholics?

>>17407466
you have no idea, shut up before someone that does decides to school you

>>17407449
No I stopped being a nihilist.

Does the bible really date humanity to be 3000 years old or is that just a meme atheists made up?

>>17405694
Christianity is the only thing that can calm me down, more specifically reading the Bible, devotional texts and mystics.

The moment I start reading philosophy on the other hand I get extremely anxious. Philosophy is fun when you read it while not thinking too much, just to see what someone said. The moment you start thinking about logical inconsistencies, the incompatibility of different philosophies, the lack of any finality or answers it becomes anxious. Then you try to solve this by rising above it to a different layer, to but even in meta-philosophy there is no answer. It's like wherever you look, philosophy is this cripple, you can't arrive at a position. You become more and more meta-analytical, then you say what if they are all correct in some sense, you start thinking of philosophies themselves as a sort of modalities, but then you realize you just kicked the problem up another notch and the thing repeats itself. Philosophy is only fun if you read it superficially, in reality it has no solution, not only no solution but you must not even speak of it. Silence can be the only response. I cannot write a line of philosophy anymore, because I believe to actually write philosophy you need to have a sort of naive optimism that what you are saying is really either true or worthwhile. But a mature philosopher in 21st century knows this is not possible anymore. I think philosophy can only be done now as a profession in an academic setting, you go to work and espouse what you are paying paid for. The authentic question of "what does it all mean?" I think is not possible anymore, it leads to a nervous breakdown. I think this was my mistake, I approached philosophy from the perspective of, OK let's find some positions I could believe in. Then after a while I realized all positions were deficient and worthwhile at the same time. Then I knew that perhaps I have to say this thing itself, in a metaphilosophical sense, but then this same problem repeats itself in metaphilosophical stances. Then one must simply remain quiet or suffer from a groundless nervous breakdown, I can't pretend that I go to work and am paid for promoting my school's version of philosophy, because I approach it with a radical responsibility for truth and so I am confronted with only two possibilities: nervous breakdown or not saying anything at all.

>>17408807
So then, you go to theology and exegesis. You take the Bible and you study and meditate and write what it could all mean. But then even exegetical problems aside in that you need to know Hebrew/Aramaic or Greek, to get the authentic meaning of the text and have to be read up on all hermeneutical principles and know the historical perspective in detail, not just of Israel in general but all kinds of details relating to cultural, social, military etc. factors relevant to the text, there is still the problem of whether what you are saying squares with the tradition and dogma. The alternative is that you are simply contributing just another version of protestantism and possibly being even heretical unknowingly since all heresies arise from the misinterpretation of the text. And here you are confronted with the same philosophical problem as earlier. If all interpretations are somehow valid, what does that actually say? That in itself is problematic if you believe that the Holy Spirit leads the Church and makes sure she does not espouse theological and doctrinal errors, at least not for long. So beyond the hermeneutical and exegetical problems you need to be read up on your Church Fathers, theology, doctrine and councils and their documents. But then there still looms the problem even if we all agree that there is Truth as absolute unchanging Truth of God, then is this truth always to be espoused in the same way or is it to be espoused in new ways (despite it being the same) through the ages? And here again, there is no clear solution, which each position having its pluses and minuses. And these are not small questions, they can lead to grave consequences for the soul and the society if espoused in one or another way, it is a domino effect. So anybody who tries to be honest, he is confronted with all these hermeneutical, exegetical and philosophical problems that are impossible to solve again. The proliferation of documentation, information, experts in various niches etc. is such that whatever you say, you are bound to transgress or commit an error in something. As soon as you say anything, philosophically, or in any other sense, you are immediately attacked by the immense load of deconstruction and negativity, not from people, but from the historical moment itself. As soon as you say something, you are in principle already wrong. Of course, I don't believe that it is impossible to say something that will be considered great, important, popular or become well-read, I think it is impossible to say something true or particularly worthwhile anymore. Theory is dead, there can only be something practical and simple still possible such as devotional texts, advices etc. I don't think it is a coincidence that we have not had a great man, a great artist, a great philosopher, a great scientist etc. in the classical sense for multiple decades now, because the spaces of possibility are becoming so narrow that they are almost gone.

>>17408871
Most of what our talent does now is either being paid to espouse a particular view, or is employed in highly specific niches. Now, the only thing that is truly a new truth is something like what kind of wood was being used on 15th century Venetian galleys. Our progress consists in this kind of specifications or in highly powerful defenses or reformulations of some particular school of thought already known. But essentially there is nothing new and how could there be anything knew if even "essences" were deconstructed? The entire space as such, the living space of ideas, is growing asymptotically smaller and now we are only looking at the fine-grain details between a 0.0001 and 0.0002 and that on the same axis. The professionalization of inquiry is incompatible with great thought and we already know too much, we enlightened skepticists and we already have too much documentation, too much date and too much knowledge to look at anything from any angle except from a perspective of deconstructive skepticism. Because everything that one says, has already been said, refuted, re-established and exhausted to the 0.0001 number. Not only that, all such things have been connected to other things that seemed radically different but turned out to provide a synthesis that really was not so different, so our analysis has not only been downwards into depth but also across the spectrum in total circumference. Then we rose above to a meta-analysis, a top-down look of this process itself and repeated it on the meta-scale. Then we abandoned all of this, to speak of it in yet another way and repeated the process there. Then we brought speech and thought itself into question and repeated the meta-analysis there. The meta-analysis has been done everywhere and there really aren't any empty spaces anymore. You can either go to work as an academic, do whatever your funding says you should do, do your 8 or whatever the amount of hours, go back home to eat pasta and watch TV and repeat the process the next day. You are either a defender or a re-formulator of a particular strand or you are a specialist diving into the minute details of a minute niche. I envy those who can still be naively optimistic about their formulations. I don't see anything other than silence or anxiety, because i cannot go back to naive optimism. The happiest scientists are naive materialists and I think this goes for every field. The happiest philosohpers are naive about philosophy, the happiest politicians are naive about their politics, the happiest reovlutionaires are naive about their own revolution. But if you wake up in the morning sit on the bench for a minute and really ask yourself the naive question of "what is this all about?" and you spend years studying it you realize the naive position is impossible, it is either silence or anxiety. There is a missing link in the intellectual exercise.

>>17408871
I think that with the amount of heresy in current Christianity today, God would forgive you for any blunders you make interpreting the bible yourself.

>>17408807>>17408871
>>17408943
do u have keybase or discord or something I need help

>>17408943
So I think naive optimism is the inverse of naive questioning. The naive questioning, of what can I really say, leads to anxiety. The more you try to stay truthful, the more obvious the intellectual exercise seems to be in its failure to deliver the fruits of truth. Only someone "happy" to do intellectual inquiry for its own purpose can be happy about where it leads. The true curiousity and the truly naive questioning of being open to truth renders intellectualism as insufficient. One needs a commitment not to truth as such but to the intellectual exercise as such in order to be happy with the results of intellectualism. To put this into the perspective of philosophy, to be a happy philosopher one needs to think of himself as a philosopher primarily as an activity, as a persona, as a way of being in the world, rather than as a philosopher in the naive authentic sense of taking philosophy truly simply as a term of someone who is a lover of wisdom or truth. If we take the latter sense as being authentic philosophy, then all authentic philosophers as lovers of wisdom and truth are bound to be unhappy with philosophy itself, because it fails to ultimately produce the fruits one thirsts for. But if one is a philosopher as an activity, as image, as persona, as a way of being, as profession, then one can be happy. One can arrive "at work", hang his coat, go to his desk, do his 8 hours, take his coat and head back home and sleep like a baby at the end of the day. This "lack", insufficiency, never occurs to himself and if it does pop up, he is pretty good at cutting it down before it can grow into a naive, authentic questioning: what if all of this is wrong, what if I am missing something crucial, what if I am crippled? For this reason, I think I am lead to a threefold position: I must be quiet most of the time, I must read the Bible like a child and meditate and do a lot of quiet waiting. Whatever that can be produced, must be devotional, fairly simple and intelligible in nature, or mystical insofar that it is written, but the object of the Bible isn't the text per-se or a production of material glory for God. The object of the Bible is being as such, the statement of God doesn't reside in text, aesthetics, ethics, or metaphysics, these are second layer accounts of the statement that resides in the life itself of Christ. Christ left no texts, no philosophy, no politics and no second layer artefacts, the statement of Christ is his life itself, the life is the message, but really more than a message. This is a rather painful discovery for anyone who thinks himself as a philosopher, theologian, artist etc. because the call of God is not, as a priority, in the production of secondary material, of partial analysis of Truth through limited designators, the call of God is from life to life as such, from being to being. This means that the call is immediate not to speech, art, doctrine, instruction etc. but to life and being itself.

>>17409060
This conclusion which I feel I can no longer escape, is of course rather painful. It means I cannot be a philosopher, I cannot be an artist, I cannot be a theologian, I will never be published, I will never be respected by public, I will never have a Wikipedia page, I will never contribute to the Church as a "great person" in any of the senses. But of course, I know this pain is the mark of truthfulness, since I cannot just head to work, hang my coat, do my 8 hours and then sleep like a baby. If I could, I might very well lead the kind of life that would make me those things everybody desires. But I can't, because I am naive in my pursuit of truth. I can't do that act that the world requires of me. And so my recompense is Christ alone. And this is the paradox of God I think, only in this sense can I even perhaps come remotely close (but not even close enough) to the concept of carrying my cross. And I've got nothing to show for it, except a call from Christ to join him. I will be that anonymous nobody who will always feel somewhat distinct, taken out of, from the world, but it is becoming clearer to me that the truth, the real truth, resides precisely in this paradox. And it is not a moment of "eureka", it is a moment that transcends a coherent emotional response, but I would not be too far off if I said that it is a depressing if not painful moment that is at the same time sweet in that it brings you perhaps 1% closer to the feeling of abandonment Christ must have felt by being abandoned and rejected by the world. In this respect, I have nothing at all to say to the world, I am merely lead back to far greater people than I am, the true great saints and only in this momentary illumination do I even begin to comprehend their work and their greatness in the eyes of God and anonymity in the eyes of the world. The greatness of God is not our greatness, there is nothing really to be done beyond what one can do in his immediate surroundings and circumstances and there is no respect whatsoever given by the world for these simple actions. This is why we have a distate for it, because in our eyes these are not great men or women. They hold no office, they are not published, they are not elaborate, they are anonymous, mundane and ignored, forgetful faces nobody remembers, except God. How can I go back to the worship of the offices, philosophies, worldly ambition? I cannot, once you see the truth, you cannot go back. But this position is not easy either, you are at once split between the world and the hand of Christ and you cannot remain in the middle, you cannot both look fondly on worldly ambitions and hope to walk behind Christ, it is one or the other and the middle position leaves you simply in anxiety of limbo. But this moment of illumination, when one does comprehend, not merely by intellect, but moreso by some spiritual faculty "things as they are" is very passable. The feeling of truth remains, but the sweetness is gone the next day.

christians are schizos

>>17409186
And this sweetness is gone because I am merely an infant in Christ, I have tasted perhaps an extremely small drop of the ocean, the great saints of the past have tasted fully. I am still perplexed by doubt and I recast the hatred of the world for Christ in the same way, that I start attacking my own thought as self-delusion, something psychological, something sociological, something material etc. the number of angles you can attack this from is numerous, in fact the entire world is ready with data, philosophies, science and everything else to enclose on this moment of illumination that seemed so sweet and destroy it utterly as a delusion. But thankfully, though I am merely a child in spiritual truth and make numerous mistakes and stumble and fall and act like an idiot, I am despite that, despite of all the other options and all the other paths available, convinced that this moment of illumination is the actual truth. The dilemma then is, do I return back to the world or do I take Christ's hand? I have to take Christ's hand to become mature, but I now know this will not be followed by any worldly happiness, in fact the paradox is things are going to get heavier and more difficult yet also sweeter. This is all written in the Bible of course, said by Jesus himself, but it of course has a different feeling when it is pratically applicable to your life rather than just as an abstract written notion. And only in this sense am I now starting to understand what greatness have the truly great saints achieved and still only as if through murky waters. When you read about a saint, you are reading just words, but their glory remains hidden to eyes that cannot see. And the world does not see it, I know this because I have only momentarily seen it and barely for a moment. And these are merely saints, what kind of glory then belongs to God himself? But these things are better left unsaid, they serve better as thoughts in your own head, for if you about it too much, the language takes precedence and language is always to be deconstructed and the entire event psychologized away. I presume that is part of the reason why Jesus spoke by parables.

>>17405484
Skip Leviticus or read a summary of it, you will lose pace if you read it

>>17406173
Both are metaphors!

>>17406081
Regardless of if you actually agree or care for the Bible it has had influence on much /lit/ so it is a necessary read

>>17409190
its a comfy kind of schizo

>>17405484
When Mary says "Whatsoever he shall say to you, do ye."

>>17405484
Bibile is boring af

>>17405875
This. The OT provides the context and the full story

>>17408807
>>17408871
>>17408943
>>17409060
>>17409186
>>17409237

>>17405497
>He reads fiction
HAHA IMAGINE READING SOMETHING THAT DIDN'T REALLY HAPPEN LOL. I ONLY READ PEER REVIEWED SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS.

>>17406194
>larp
Imagine being such a faithlet you cannot conceive that some people actually believe in their own religions.

>>17408807
>>17408871
>>17408943
>>17409060
>>17409186
>>17409237
Jesus Christ...

>>17410032
unfortunately some people are very sick mentally and have schizophrenia, which explains the prevalence of religion in the age of science, reason, and logic

>>17408807
>>17408871
>>17408943
>>17409060
>>17409186
>>17409237
Holy...

>>17410111
There is nothing unscientific about religious belief. The recent trend of attempting to convince people otherwise is rooted in ideological and political motives as well as resentment. The truth is most of the intellectuals and scientists of the past were religious, some devout even.

>>17410165
Based.
God does not disprove science, and science does not disprove God.

>>17405484
Just ponder and pray on the book as you go, op. It'll help you have a clearer understanding, trust me.
You may also want to look at the Book of Mormon, it's an interesting take on the same concepts, and for the most part compliments the Bible quite well.

>>17410180
You can't disprove what is not proven

can't believe 4chan is still full of christian larpers
/pol/ really fucked this site for good

>>17410228
/pol/ is a pagan board. /lit/ is a Christian board.

>>17410219
Exactly

>>17410219
That's silly, can only disprove what is not proven. If it was truly proven you wouldn't be able to prove it wrong.
Also it's silly to think of "proofs" as mere empirical data. An object can exist regardless if you have empirical data of its existence or not. It might not be of interest to a scientist, but it doesn't mean you can say for certain that it does not exist.
Also theistic arguments are still taken seriously by modern philosophers. Even if most are non believers, they find them compelling enough to respond to them.

>>17407437
biblical literalism is a fairly recent development

>>17405484
The Bible is a liturgical document. It’s not a Hemingway novel or something.

>>17410464
It's a lot closer to Hemingway than you think, though. After all, God is the Author of life. No work of writing has a more profound subtext, and no work has a greater hypertext.

>>17409415
Yeah, the kind that sows disinformation leading to suppression.

>>17410568
>waah I can't suck dicks mommy

>>17410568
What does that even mean? It sounds paranoid.

>>17405497
The Bible is the Living Word of God written through His prophets and apostles

>>17406081
>Where did all the christ larpers come from?
from reading

test

>>17407574
Sick burn

>>17410583
Why does God care? Does sucking dicks pose a massive threat to him? Is breaking the anti-sucking dick law an existential threat to his existence?

>>17407574
I didn’t know nihilist had rituals where they repent of their sins against the nihilist god

>>17410118
That’s your brain on Abrahamic religion

>>17411110
It's not a threat to his existence, it's a threat to your existence. Natural law exists for your benefit. If you break it, you're just destroying yourself.

>>17411110
It's not a threat to his existence, it is a threat to your existence as anon pointed out.

>>17405484
>gradually, I began to hate them

>>17411147
So then why does God even care in the first place? If I die because of AIDS, it wouldn’t change his existence in the slightest. Him being concerned with me is like me being concerned with the political opinion of bacteria

>>17411110
The new testament isn't a legalist verdict on what is good or bad
Judaism and Islam are law based faiths where theology and law have an equal part
Christianity is not one of these, there is no law against sucking dick. Whether it is good or bad in the eyes of Christianity depends on what school of thought you're looking at

>>17411183
Because he made you and cares about you. He is perfectly aware of all that you do and think and knows what would be best for you.

>>17411196
>there is no law against sucking dick. Whether it is good or bad in the eyes of Christianity depends on what school of thought you're looking at

utterly heretical

>>17411196
No, dummy, you’ve missed my point. What does God gain from apparently protecting me?

I’m going to assume this, because homosexuality is often portrayed in terms of something threatening by frustrated people with no meaningful sexual experience

>>17411216
What does a mother or father gain from protecting their children? Why should we educate the young? Why do a good thing for anyone? Because it's good. That it is good is cause enough.

>>17411216
Asking why does God gain from protecting you is like asking what does a father get from protecting his dearly loved son.

>>17411210
>Because he made you and cares about you.
And yet he created the Garden of Eden with a tree of knowledge and a snake that can talk, knowing full well what would happen in advance.

That’s the problem with guilt tripping people, it doesn’t actually work when the fuck ups are your own fault

>>17411234
>>17411236
He’s not my parent in any way shape or form. My parents actually made me, and put in time and effort to care for me, at their own peril. I have infinitely more respect for my parents than for some god who acts like sone deadbeat dad

>>17411253
God created you and your parents. You and anyone else exists because he is that which you subsist on. He has sent his son to die from crucifixion so that you can live in eternity and happiness.

>>17411253
How would you, or anything, exist without God? Your parents had no control over your making; it was a process of biology. They could not even decide the day on which you were conceived. God made you, and he sustains you still. He is present in every good thing that befalls you, and the hand of his discipline is in all of your suffering.

>>17411268
>God created you and your parents.
Even if he did, that wouldn’t give him the right to enslave me.
>He has sent his son to die from crucifixion so that you can live in eternity and happiness.
Again, more guilt tripping, all trying to instill a sense that I somehow owe God one, which I really don’t

>>17411276
>How would you, or anything, exist without God?
I already do. I’ve never noticed anything about God, other than sexually frustrated control freaks like you claiming to speak in his name, without him ever appearing from the sky, and explicitly and unambiguously endorsing you and people like you. Almost like none of this is about helping anyone but those already in this pyramid scheme

>>17411311
I don't see anything here but hubris and entitlement speaking.

>>17411311
God literally became a man and died for you. Your own conscience reveals him. How could you be angry with someone who doesn't exist?

>>17411290
You are not enslaved, you can do anything you want. That option is just there if you want it. If you don't, then you don't have to accept it.

>>17411331
You probably don’t even know what either of those terms mean
>>17411342
>Your own conscience reveals him.
Your heresy logic doesn’t work on me, sorry. Not everyone is consumed by guilt

>>17411347
>You are not enslaved, you can do anything you want. That option is just there if you want it.
And what happens if I don’t take it? Will God accept to agree to disagree? Because that’s how adults usually behave

>>17411360
Perhaps not everyone, but here you are arguing. If your conscience were not bothered, why would you even consider these things? Why would you be angry at God that doesn't exist, if your mind was not troubled at what he has said?

>>17405497
The Bible is the greatest, most influential book ever written. But nah, you right, it's just silly myths! Nothing it at all, haha!

Being an Atheist is peak midwit.

MANA IS NEETBUX FROM GOD

>>17411377
The Bible is not even great in the context of the ancient Middle East. Almost all of it is derived from earlier works and themes

>>17411371
God always accepts your choice.

>>17411382
What themes are those?

>>17411373
>If your conscience were not bothered, why would you even consider these things?
Because I absolutely despise the system of debt and guilt that you people perpetuate. It’s a system of infinite debt, which is presented as an equal exchange, when in reality the creditor has infinitely more power than debtor. Both of this makes your system of power little more than badly concealed slavery, which is further compounded by the fact that forgiveness is only given in exchange of showing preferable behavior. Anyone with even just a mild sense of morality should be able to recognize that this system of power is deeply repugnant, but then again that’s the difference between me and you. I have a moral rock bottom, whereas you’ll probably trade in anything to continue the integrity of your death cope, even the most basic forms of humanity like the idea that people shouldn’t receive infinite punishments for finite crimes

>>17411388
Why does he proscribe eternal torture for hurting his feefees then? This os stuff that even the most deranged psychopath doesn’t engage in

>>17411454
>Why does he proscribe eternal torture for hurting his feefees then?
He doesn't do that, he lets you go where you want to. I'm sure your eternal abode will mimic what you most enjoy in life.

>>17411131
sounds based af desu

>>17411624
Just read the prophets man, if you go too deep with God things get wild.

>>17405484
After the historical books. You got a long way to go. That's why nobody recommends reading it cover to cover

>>17411442
It is an infinite debt. There is no equality between man and God. How could there be? None of this is concealed. As to slavery, all of creation is inherently subject to the will of God. This truth even the Mohammedans get right. And those who reject God obey him against their will. You have confused a hatred for tyranny with a hatred of power. God is no tyrant, but he is all powerful and all good. But God literally became Man, was born an infant and died on the cross--he became powerless--so that our infinite debt could be paid by the infinite mercy of his blood.

You cannot change the reality that God is all powerful. It's not a system--it's the nature of existence itself. He made you. Of course he has power over you. He has given you everything you need to understand what is good, and yet you struggle against him and complain that your are miserable.

>>17408753
It doesn't but I wouldn't be surprised if one American protestant sect just added up the age the descendants of Adam died at and concluded that corresponded to the age of the earth

>>17405484
Read John 1 the intro is fucking epic
>In the beginning it was logos
>And Logos was with God

>And Logos was God

>He was in the beginning with God
>And everything that was made was made by him
>And without him nothing that was made was made

>>17411391
These are just the ones from the top of my head:
>Creation
Many examples from across the world, the Enuma Elish comes to mind within the Middle Eastern context, but also the Zoroastrian Bundahishn
>the Garden of Eden
A retelling of a myth from Ugarit, see the excellent Adam, Eve and the Devil
>a global flood
Again, many versions exist, the Epic of Gilgamesh has one
>God or gods
Have been around for tens of thousands of years, as have been shrines, see Göbekli Tepe
>rituals to please the gods
From Mesopotamia, at this time, sin was considered the offense the gods felt for performing the rituals wrong
>existential questions about suffering, pessimism and death
Again Mesopotamia and Babylon, see the Epic of Gilgamesh (death anxiety), Poem of the Righteous Sufferer (themes of suffering) and the Dialogue of Pessimism (themes of pessimism and nihilism)
>life after death and a divine judgement
From Egypt, see the Egyptian Book of the Dead
>monotheism
Also from Egypt, see the reign of pharaoh Akhenaton
>religious themes of economics such as debt
From the temple complexes of Mesopotamia, they were the only ones with the administrative power and the religious themes
>sin as the result of bad behavior against others
Egypt, see the Books of Wisdom
>totalitarian realpolitik driven by divine threats
Reign of Esarhaddon, Assyrian empire
>the principle of lex talionis
Babylon, Code of Hammurabi, the Jews probably took theirs while in exile
>history as a battle between good and evil, where good always wins, and a final judgement where everyone is judged and the divine good reigns over the restored world forever
Persia, Zoroastrianism, these are the Gumezishn and the Wizarishn, again taken over by the Jews when king Cyrus freed them from Babylonian exile
>the jewish concept of the Messiah
Again Zoroastrianism, see the concept of the saoshyant
>Jesus’ end times prophecies
Influenced by Daniel, which was influenced by the Wizarishn
>Jesus’ death as sacrifice
In the Jewish context from the war between Antiochus and the Maccabees, self sacrifice had been a value for centuries, see Socrates
>Jesus’ resurrection
Taken from Daniel, again part of the Zoroastrian frashegird

We can even take this into Christian philosophy
>Plato’s idea of the world of Forms
Influenced by Zoroastrianism, see the difference between the menog (conceptual) world, which is created first by Ahura Mazda, serves as a prototype for the getig (corporeal) world, the Myth of Er in the Republic is pretty much a retelling of Zoroastrian cosmology
>the Greek obsession with paradise
From Persia, the word paradeisos comes from the Persian pairidaida
>Aristotle’s ideas of the world as a logical place, reasoning as an activity to gain access to the Ultimate, and virtuous action and universal justice leading to happiness
All influenced by the Zoroastrian concept of asha, or order, embodied by Ahura Mazda

>>17411650
>It is an infinite debt.
Which no one by definition has any moral obligation to respect, as it’s indistinguishable from slavery

>>17411707
>NOOO you can't just express yourself in terms of your cultural social context REEEEEEEEE

>>17411707
Forgot one
>Logos
Influenced by Heraclitus, who probably got his fire idea, once again, from Zoroastrianism

>>17411731
That would instantly falsify the idea that this was the result of divine revelation. It’s also pretty unthankful, since Abrahamic religion tends to wreck and annihilate the very religions without which it wouldn’t have come into being in the first place, but then again, that’s Abrahamic religion for you

>>17411715
You are anthropomorphizing God. It is nonsensical to talk about moral obligations in relation to God because he is not a member of a moral community. That you have infinite debt to him isn't a statement of personal relation or moral obligation, it is part of reality's code, since nothing can exist without God. It is tautological ie you can say that you have no obligation towards God, but you do, not as a relational factor, but as part of reality and your existence itself.

>>17411767
>That would instantly falsify the idea that this was the result of divine revelation.

No it wouldn't. The Bible is Divine Revelation but the words are written by humans.

>>17411707
The Magi were literally Zoroastrians who recognized the salvific figure of Christ and came to worship him.

>atheists: this disproves the Bible!!!!

>>17405484
What translation are you using?
It takes time for it to sink in just how many times the Hebrews can fuck up monumentally, be punished for their crimes and God still loves them and keeps his promises to them.
Contrary to my usual attitude, I think Scripture is one thing that doesn't need to be read in the traditional order, and there are some sections that I have always found difficult to make it through. The New Testament is much, much less so in that respect and I've read it in and out of order numerous times.

>>17405694
Forget about ideas and questions and doctrine and theology. You don't need to intellectualize these things to commune with God.

>>17411778
>You are anthropomorphizing God.
Pretty sure that something like Georg Cantor’s God wouldn’t be very interested in power or behavioral control. What does that tell you?

Do you think the Pythogorian mathematical harmony would care about stuff like me owing it one and needing to do everything it told me, and sending me to burn forever if I got the Pythagorian theorem wrong? Of course not. This also shows what Christianity is actually about: trying to control people’s lives by guilt tripping them. That’s the real reason why you don’t like the unbeliever. It’s not that you disagree with me, it’s that I don’t owe you anything, which means you can’t use anything as leverage to make me obey your retarded ideas of what people ought to believe.

This is also related to another common theme within fundies, namely death anxiety. You’re not just afraid of dying, you’re also afraid of your way of life being forgotten, so that you can’t even control anyone beyond the grave. That’s where most of these revenge fantasies cone from. You just can’t accept that you can’t control everything and everyone, and so you made up an entity that can and will punish anyone who threatens your immortality. Pretty pathetic if you ask me

>>17411783
And the Bible wouldn’t have existed without people having faith in Ahura Mazda, does that mean he exists as well
>>17411808
I find that pretty doubtful, since the Persians were at war with the Byzantine Empire. The Persians even stole the True Cross from the Holy Sepulchre, which seems like a pretty weird way to handle one of the most priced relics of someone you consider to be the savior of mankind

>>17408753
No way. There are some autistic Protestant book-worshippers who believe the world is 6000 years old due to interpretations of the Biblical genealogies and the total years of generations from Adam to Jesus. Obviously that requires an extremely literal interpretation of Genesis and an incredible trust in the accuracy of millennia-old Jewish genealogical data

>>17411851
So the Bible isn’t literally true, then? How is the difference between literal report and metaphor established?

>>17411826
Honestly your view of God is a bad caricature, I can't really say much more than that. You also sound incredibly young.

>>17411858
>How is the difference between literal report and metaphor established?

By the Holy Spirit working through the Church of Christ.

>>17411851
>>17411858
The reality is to be a Christian you HAVE to take genesis literally. The whole idea of Christ coming and sacrifice loses all meaning if death existed before the fall or man is evolved.

You might be able to rationalize it to some degree but eventually it will destroy the message as Christ himself speaks of Noah, talks of Moses as the writer of the Law etc. Genesis can't be whisked away without also forfeiting Christ and the entire bible.

>>17411869
>You also sound incredibly young.
I love how this is coming from someone who can’t tell the difference between preventing harmful behavior and promoting idealized behavior

Gospels.

bump

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/019027607X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_fabc_5M2XWKRR9DBYZ3JRPB20

Is this /lit/ approved

>>17405484
You should never start with the Old Testament

>>17412794
I think it's strange when you're no supposed to start at the beginning of a book

>>17412787
no

>>17411377
if it's so influential then why are so many christians uninfluenced by it? Celebrating pagan holidays (Christmas), condemning upside down crosses (a sign of respect towards Christ), etc...

>>17413396
How tf is Christmas uninfluenced?

>>17410219
God's existence is proven

>>17405694
>>17406045
In a way its unavoidable and supposed to happen, just don't beat yourself to death over it. Everyone who begins with God, first starts with the idea that they should try not to be a sinner, and trying to act in conformity with Christ's will. It's easier to just push through it, than try to explain what's wrong with this.

>>17405510
This is always the answer for new readers. Milk before meat, anons

>>17411869
>I can't argue with you but I'm still right I just choose not to show you how right I am because i would rather call you a child than help to save your eternal soul by offering substantial evidence, proving how seriously I really take my own beliefs