/lit/ - Literature

It's the second lowest IQ mainstream religious branch right after Islam. You can do better.

>>18712071
Go orthodox, your church mates will be richer :^).

>>18712078
What religion should I convert to then?

>>18712071
Don't willingly put yourself into a spiritual prison.

>>18712100
Ok, what school of Buddhism should I convert to? Theravada? Tibetan? Zen?

>>18712089
I'd recommend a thorough, methodical study of all spiritual philosophies instead of settling for the most accessible dogma.

>>18712071
As a former trad Catholic who finds the mendacity of Catholics and of Christianity in general intolerable, unironically read Pope Benedict XVI's writings, both as Cardinal and as Pope. He has a very judicious intellect.

>>18712114
Meant for -> >>18712090

>>18712114
What are some spiritual philosophies you’d recommend I study?

>>18712100
I'm not going to tell you, you get to decide for yourself.

>>18712130
Research as many as possible, then commit to the one you find most relatable. Personally, I find gnosticism to be the closest to my own understanding of spirituality.

Seven storey mountain by Merton

>>18712071
yeah read up on the SSPX and how the Catholic Church hasn't been the same since Pope Pius X

>>18712227
why would you even stay religious if sedevacantism is true

>>18712107
You don't convert, you just start doing it. Anyways, look and see what's around you (ignore "transcendental meditation" or "mindfulness schools"), and go check it out. If you choose Vajrayana, make sure to look really well into the Lama's background, however.

Which really is how you're actually supposed to engage with Catholicism. You don't LARP about Sedevacantism or whatever, you just go to Church and ask the Bishop what you're supposed to do, and then do it.

The Lamb's Supper: Mass as Heaven on Earth by Scott Hahn
The Everlasting Man by G.K Chesterton also maybe Orthodoxy and Heretics
Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church
The full catechism is fine but better with context and explanation otherwise you can easily pull the wrong reading from some things. Also you don't really need to quibble over every last rule or theological concept early on anyways
The Didache Study Bible
Talk to a Priest in Real Life by Anonymous
These are good as introductory material and will help you understand things faster, especially the first as your first major step should be attending Mass at least once a week. There is nothing wrong with reading the mainstay classics but you should prioritize developing a regular prayer life and observation of the sacraments and reading the bible above everything else because this is really the core of the religion in practice.
I would not recommend starting off with Aquinas or Augustine unless you're really inclined, and especially for Aquinas look up some introductory material because his volume of work is huge. Really there are higher priorities for a convert than diving straight into those tomes even if they are amazing works.

Read Pope Francis writings.

>>18712100
according to Buddhists, Jesus was a Bodhisattva.

>>18712071
>but I’m not interested in being a TradCath LARPER.
but anon, there's literally no other way to be a Christian today! Just impulse buy a Bible and look at it every now and then, thinking you'll actually start reading it one day, then feeling shame for being so pathetic and wasting money on something you are clearly not interested in, then not being able to ask for forgiveness because you don't really believe, then forcing yourself to read it and you can't find a meaning in this guy coming into some woman, then coming into her again and then begating new people who also act completely alien to your XXI century mind, like you cannot even remotely relate to what the fuck is going on, and all the rest of the canon is built on this or is in direct contradiction with this but you have to believe regardless because it's not a matter of finding a logic so you almost feel like you believe and you're like yes yes yes I think I am starting to feel it but actually no you were just LARPing, you don't believe in anything, modernity has completely obliterated your ability to believe in Christ, justice, love and anything else. It's like trying to convince a Macbook to feel genuine love, it cannot, it can only process advanced calculations, that's it that is you now, there's no God not because there's no God but because you are incapable of conceiving anything like that within you so just like every other facet of your fake life of fake gestures and fake smiles and fake takes and fake display and fake posts you also fake this belief and all that results is that you're simply fetishizing bibles and christianity like a tranny fetishizes collector's editions and pronouns, there's literally nothing else to do.

>>18712071
The classics are not immediately intelligible to us moderns. Start with Leo Strauss and Alasdair MacIntyre, and then go from there. I haven't read his works specifically intended for Christians, but MacIntyre has a bunch of books detailing the history of the Catholic Church and answering questions that moderns tend to have about religion.

>>18712116
>the mendacity of Catholics and of Christianity in general
Can you say more?

>>18712386
So everyone should just embrace nihilism?

>>18712413
It's taking me a lot of effort to say no

>>18712422
So then what’s the answer?

>>18712405
Not that this is especially unique to Catholics, but maybe it is less tolerable in a religion that supposedly worships the True (and puts a dramatic life or death, heaven or hell emphasis on ones relationship to it): in my experience religious people have a rather cavalier attitude toward truth. Not all of them, of course. But they will justify any kind of sophistry if it results in the right conclusion, and castigate any type of inquiry, no matter how justified, if it results in the wrong one. Supposedly studies show that religious people have (on average) a preference for intuitive over analytical thinking. This accords with my own experience, both of my own time as a religious convert, and with my conversations with other religious people. I don't want anyone to misinterpret me, there are many extremely intelligent and thoughtful religious people (and the great medieval theologians were all fastidiously logical). But I think religious people tend to hobble their own rationality. I think it's just a side effect of dogmatism. If wrong belief results in damnation, you can't risk straying from orthodoxy. You will build up fortifications in your mind against non-religious conclusions.

>>18712427
if were the hypothetical pathetic cathlarper in my post, if I were that desperate, I'd tell you I wouldn't know, but I would also be terrified to admit that I actually do know the answer, it's just an answer I don't want to admit I know, you know? it's not like truth matters, or reality matters right, like, obviously we cannot believe in truth or logic since these things are not valuable today, they're just a couple more words to be rewritten, so I cannot say I believe in what is real, I cannot say I believe in what is true, but you gotta believe in something, right? nobody believes in nothing, right? then what is it?

Take the Don Quixote pill

>>18712071
Ratzinger

>>18712460
I know what you mean. MacIntyre discusses this issue in two places: Against the Self-Images of the Age, and The Religious Significance of Atheism. This is literally the result of defeat. They have been deprived of the original rational resources that their predecessors used and have been driven into irrationalism. Also, unless they're willing to embrace beliefs that would make them pariahs in this society, there is no way for them to avoid contorted logic.

>>18712071
>being a TradCath LARPER
Wtf does this even mean? You sound like a retard, what are you paranoid you’ll commit to something that won’t let you diss plebs on 4channel?

Here is my Catholic story. Born Catholic and raised by liberal but devoted Catholics. In elementary school, I become the insufferable atheist for a year. In middle school, I get super radical, think Catholic jihadi. That fades away because I play video games a lot and see there are better things in life than dwelling on such negative things. Take psychedelics and do biblical studies in college, becoming a strange member of the Catholic Church who isn't really with it.

I keep the heresy to myself, mostly, at Catholic functions. I continue with the Church because it doesn't make sense to join a different one because of my skepticism for orthodox (all mainstream Christianity, not just the Orthodox Churches) doctrine. I like that the Catholic Church mostly has not been about rock and EDM for Jesus with circuses at Christmas. Instead, I prefer the traditions that many people find frightening. It's good to surround yourself with tradition, even if you don't believe. They provide real stability for those who are lost.

If I were you, I'd return to the Church, but I would not go all out. Go to church one week and then go the next. Maybe, don't go the week after that. It doesn't have to be all the time, especially if your local church is shit, in which case try to find a different one. Consider going to Catholic meetings and events, like Bible study. I've found it to be an excellent social outing.

>>18712610
Yes it's interesting. I just recently read an early essay by Macintyre called ''The Logical Status of Religious Belief". It's from the 1950s, when Macintyre was a fideist. It's quite fascinating. He argues that religious statements can't be justified, and argues that positivism is better for religion, since it preserves the integrity of religion as its own sphere of human activity, and shields it from the corrosive effects of rational inquiry. Later he repudiated the essay. I'll check out the books you recommended, because I'm interested in Macintyre's transition from Anglican fideism, to atheism, to Catholicism. I think it was JL Mackie who said that modern religious apologists are much less coherent than their forebears. And I think Robert Barron has talked about the failure of catechists to give rational justification to the laity's beliefs.

>>18712071
>my self help
>muh mental health
You're a faggot. You have no interest in God or truth.

>>18712100
Buddhism is SEAniggers and other savages

>>18712460
Shut the fuck up, you fucking faggot. People like you are never interested in honest inquiry, you just a way out of following difficult teachings so you flatter yourself as a free thinker when really are just a coward. The great dogmatists and scholastics of the church build the intellectual rigor of the West, and straying from them has only lead to confusion and stagnation. Doctors are aftaid to say that thete are two biological genders. We are told now that matyematics is subjective. All this to avoid being dogmatic. You aren't seeking the truth, you are hiding from it, and your cowardice shames your soul.

>>18712660
>The truth is scary so I console myself with drugs and vidya
Faggot coward.

>>18712651
It means he wants a spiritual feeling to alleviate the alienation of modernity, but is too muchbof an effeminate coward to commit to tye truth wherever it should lead him.

>>18712071
>I just want to work on myself and my mental health, and I think Catholicism might be able to help with that.
little do you know that you still are behaving under the same precepts which you were raised on. You don't desire truth; you don't even desire to work on "yourself." What you really want is some sort of outside significance to distract you from the emptiness this culture and religion has put into you. For you this seems to mean playing into the superiority aspect of Catholicism; not only does true Catholicism in the modern day work in the way it always has, of convincing it's converts that they are better than every other religion on the planet but, because modern Catholicism is so empty, it too convinces them that true converts are better than Catholics themselves!
I was raised Catholic too. EVERYONE around me identified as Catholic. I went to 4 different "Catholic" schools. I am not exaggerating when I say that among the people I got to know well enough I met about 3 different people in my entire life who were actual Catholics. The rest were just patsies. Those who defined Catholicism by the terms of Protestantism: hell doesn't exist, God accepts and does not punish, etc etc you know the rest.
If things didn't go right for me I easily can see myself mistaking my intellect for God and becoming immersed in my own superiority as refuge for the kind of emptiness I had within me. Like, you want to read Augustine. Imagine you go through with this and get to know Augustine well. Can you honestly say that you wouldn't enjoy holding this above others, even other Christians? Is your intellect not just some kind of safety net?
I went to therapy and eliminated guilt from my mind and do you know what i was left with? Anger. The guilt I had been working with my entire life was really just a form of anger at the total hypocrisy of everything. Every time I post like this anons get mad salty, but not a single one ever comes close to proving me wrong.

>>18712763
You don't do credit to the traditions you claim to have inherited with that outburst. Ironically your post is a sign of the very same degradation of Christianity you lament. You appeal to the rigour of medieval thought without bothering to exhibit it: you want people to convert on the basis of an intellectual voyage you have been too lazy to embark on yourself. You operate on emotion. I would advise reading the History of Philosophy, by Thomist and Catholic priest FC Copleston, so that you can meaningfully engage with the schools of thought you disagree with -- in the same way you won't listen to the poor anti-theistic arguments of an atheist who knows not the slightest thing about Catholicism (and infers from its perceived negative effects on the world its falseness) no one is going to listen to a raving pseudo-Catholic who doesn't know a jot about the intellectual history of the West he supposedly reveres. If you really want to save people's souls, you have to put some work in. But you don't, you just want to get a rush out of insulting strangers on the internet, and religion has given you a particularly gratifying means of doing this.

>>18712854
Nigger, what's your point? Religion is bad because people don't follow it correctly? Go to therapy and let Dr. Jewstein fix everything?

>>18712879
I've read Copleston, you fag. The rebuke of dishonest sophists and sentimentalists is a righteous duty.

>>18712896
Yes which is why I'm replying to you

>>18712913
You write paragraphs of twaddle, beckon others to see some dodgy psychologist, and call me a sophist?

>>18712071
I'm an atheist.
> the obvious (the Bible
>the Bible
>the Bible
>the Bible

You mean the atheists book? HUH ? Did any of you really read this trash ? Like for real real read ? Here are some recommendations to read for you.

>I think Catholicism might be able to help with that.
HUH ? reading the bible will only bring you endless self torture since the entire christian religion is based on made up crap and pretending its what the bible says.

Have these bible parts to give you endless drama if you oppose abortion.

>>18712968
>Kill your children, goy! We need to make room for immigrants.

>>18712660
Most useful post here. Go to church and talk to other parishioners. If you're in a decent sized city, there should be at least one with young people. Volunteer for things that help the community. At some point, you may have a revelation that will give you real faith.

>>18712978
>>Kill your children, goy! We need to make room for immigrants.
That's what the bible says !

You know the line:
Don't blame us is its what the bible says !

Deuteronomy 21
>18 If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, 19 his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. 20 They shall say to the elders, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.” 21 Then all the men of his town are to stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid.

Don't blame us is its what the bible says !
>Kill your children, goy!
Do you not remember the father who god told to kill his own son ? And the father was totally going to do it. However then and angel and bla bla and Christians bullshit that god was like
>Its a prank bro ! Its a prank bro !

> to make room for immigrants.
Funny that you mention this !

Leviticus 19:34
>The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt; I am the Lord your God.


Deuteronomy 10:19
>So show your love for the alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.

Matthew 25:35
>For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in;

Hebrews 13:2
>Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it.

Deuteronomy 24:19-21
>“When you reap your harvest in your field and have forgotten a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it; it shall be for the alien, for the orphan, and for the widow, in order that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. When you beat your olive tree, you shall not go over the boughs again; it shall be for the alien, for the orphan, and for the widow. “When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you shall not go over it again; it shall be for the alien, for the orphan, and for the widow.

>>18712953
>beckon others to see some dodgy psychologist
What? You have me confused with someone else

>>18713050
Based. Christcucks seething, cross-eyed with cognitive dissonance.

>>18712071
>>18713030
>Just go the the cult mating
This is a terrible idea.You turn him into a degenerate since he is vulnerable and will fall for this old cult.

You realize the entire religion of Christianity is a free money scam? Right ?

Read Acts 4 and Acts 5 !

>>18713050
Yawn.
http://ccofal.org/TeaParty/Bible-immigration.phtml
https://www.ccofal.org/TeaParty/Bible-illegal-immigration.phtml
>>18713062
Trying too hard, Rabbi.

>>18712660
>That fades away because I play video games a lot and see there are better things in life than dwelling on such negative things. Take psychedelics
> Maybe, don't go the week after that
You're a degenerate dilettante, and a literal LARper.

>>18713073
>>18713062

>Based.
Thanks I hope all of you realize that Christianity is literally a free money scam.
You know the one thing jesus repeats OVER and OVER and OVER and OVER and OVER about selling everything you own and that rich people will not go to heaven? Turns out 40% of the NT is not some gigantic long act where jesus is ironic he literally want's you to sell everything you own. And of course give the money to the church AKA your christian cult leader Peter.

However after Christianity became the state religion of Rome Christians try to spin these passages and pretend like jesus is ironic there !

Yet the bible record shows these commandments !

All religions are scams read this or read the myth of Prometheus turns out the super old religions before this experimental money idea got popular did have the gods wanting you to give foods to the gods.

Only you giving food to the gods literally always ends up in the bellies of the clergy. Funny how that one works out !

Then once this money thing gets popular gods don't want you to bring free food to the clergy only GIVE MONEY to the clergy ! Funny how that one worked out.

Also bonus reading where the all powerful creator of the universe DEMANDS that you also bring wine and other good shit to eat for the clergy and not only observe the letter of the law. Totally the all powerful creator of the universe and not something these scammers made up and are doing for generations.

>>18713115
I love how you ignore the criticism I have presented and start shit postign and calling other rabbis.

>Trying too hard, Rabbi.
HUH?! You know jesus is a rabbi right?

Mark 9:5
>5 Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.”

John 1:37
>When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, “What do you want?” They said, “Rabbi” [ραββι] (which means Teacher), “where are you staying?”

Want to comment on your rabbi jesus ? Literally endless christian self contradiction !

Lets also read this bible story in comic book form !

>>18712880
No, religion isn't wrong because people don't follow it correctly. I never even implied religion is a bad thing. If people want to dedicate their lives to Catholicism that's fine, but it is telling that most don't do it correctly and i'm allowed to point out the hypocrisy.
Western Religion is a cope for emptiness and avoids having to encounter the true nature of the soul. Please reread i made this very clear

>>18713165
>hypocrisy
A really stupid meme made by the idiot jesus.
Lets read the story where he says this together.

>>18713163
Didnt rabbi just mean master/teacher in his time

>>18713165
>>18713169
Here is a fun bible passage you can bring up in bible study.
Peter is LITERALLY Satan !

Makes Christians have literally meltdowns.

>>18713165
>Western Religion is a cope for emptiness and avoids having to encounter the true nature of the soul
This true nature know only to you and a few other sophists, I suppose.

>>18713178
>Didnt rabbi just mean master/teacher in his time
Yes. And they did have synagogues and all the things that are today etc.

I find it funny that the christian spams rabbi all over the place.
Funny what he thinks while reading the bible.

It also suggests that jesus is a jewish rabbi.

>It's another anti-Christian shill pushing Jewish atheism episode
Jews are promoting atheism

https://hooktube.com/watch?v=j0LhabQJ_-w
https://hooktube.com/watch?v=4NQOnjswuFI

https://archive.is/mSIVH
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_atheism
http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/the-jewish-thinker/.premium-1.669381
http://www.shj.org/
http://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/secular-humanistic-judaism-rejecting-god/
http://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/must-a-jew-believe-in-god/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/23/atheist-jews-judaism-without-god_n_978418.html
http://thehumanist.com/magazine/september-october-2014/humanist-living/jewish-atheists-and-koufax-jews
https://secularpolicyinstitute.net/numbers-the-rise-of-jewish-atheists/
Is it a wonder most sjw's are atheist?
Even atheist sites admit most atheist are liberals and attack anyone that doesn't share their blue pilled ideas and opinions
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/01/13/why-are-atheists-overwhelmingly-left-wingers-in-which-i-out-myself-as-a-libertarian/

For example, Sam Harris, Chapman Cohen, David Silverman, Michael Newdow, Gregory Epstein, Sherman Wine, Bill Maher, Eric Kaufmann, and of course, Richard Dawkins's mother has a Jewish surname and was stated to have lived in the only Jewish suburb of the city she grew up in. But he hasn't explicitly named her religion.

But that's only a tiny part of the list. We could discuss the Jewish atheists who aren't pushing atheism so much as atheism-enabling political views like Marxism. For example Soklonikov, Trotsky, Deutscher, Lenin, Uritsky, Kamenev, Zinoviev and Sverdlov.

And what about atheist Jewish public entertainers that constantly run down Christianity? We can go ahead and recycle Bill Maher here and also include Jon Leibowitz, Stephen Fry, Woody Allen, Rob Reiner, Daniel Radcliffe, Larry David, David Silverman, and... I'm sure I'm close to the post cap, so rather than just name the rest of Hollywood.

>>18713181
Does this mean I will get to marry a succubus? wtf I love Christianity now

>be a based pagan xd!

>>18713181
Take your meds rabbi

>>18713202
Sadly this. I grew up an atheist, and still am because at this point it's impossible to go back, and I recognize I was pretty much bamboozled to further an agenda that was directly against my interests. Obviously right now it's too late to undo all my support toward "progress" and based humanism so I deserve to be fucked by trannies for the rest of my life.

>>18713200
>Does this mean I will get to marry a succubus?
No it means jesus spams
>YOU ARE SATAN
At people who he does not like or you can try to figure out the theological implications of this later if you think its serious.

>wtf
The point is that the bible has no real message there are stupid stories and bible characters doing stupid things nothing more.

Remember Peter the first Pope AKA SATAN (imagine Catholics derive their authority form SATAN AKA Peter AKA Satan the first Pope) denied jesus 3 times did lots of different stupid shit.

These are dumb stories of primitive jews being jack asses.

How about this commandment ?!
I can already heare it
>JESUIS IS IRONIC THERE
Christianity was always whatever your pastor made up it to be.

Also most Christians have no fucken idea about their own bible this is how these idiots behave:
https://youtu.be/XY2lGPWuaXo?t=319

>>18713202
What I find odd about these sorts of images is how attached their creators are to Christianity despite espousing practically no Christian values. Like lionising:
>A pure racist, white Christian empire that enslaved and conquered everything in its way.
>Has been the #1 reason why the Jews have almost been eradicated twice throughout history
What? lol. Neither the Catholic Church nor the Church of England have ever sanctioned these sorts of beliefs. It's terribly decadent.

>>18713202
Meanwhile in reality.
Atheism stops LGBT.
Christienaity creates LGBT.

>>18713250

>>18713236
I'm not a Christian so I don't know who you're arguing to, but I'll remind you that modern science is literally just as retarded as your favorite religion you're dabbing on, it's official that we have 64 genders and men who cut their dicks off are officially women or you will get arrested
you are literally being told to go by the truth according to schizophrenics and other deranged narcissists, how is this any different than believing in any other dumb hypocritical, inconsistent religion that at least guarantees a degree of social harmony? the truth is that every human thought is easy to dismantle, every single thing made with care and effort is easy to take a shit on and laugh about, what is difficult is finding something that works better, it's true for politics, it's true for it's true for art, it's true for religion, you fail to understand this and you're stuck at the level where you're content doing this stupid sophomoric shit that leads nowhere

>>18713250
>Atheism stops LGBT.

>>18713252
Nice fan fiction. I'm sure your globohomo history book says that.

The point is that the bible is full of stupid stories did any of you think about any of this shit ?!

Jesus Christ the cućk baby !

>>18713250
>the USSR was about atheism
I could probably make a similar infographic that shows the correlation between washing machines and prostate cancer

>>18713258
Expalin the USSR then.
Oh look you can not.
>muh cultural Christians
These are cultural Christians they are with everything jesus says and most of them are agnostic filth who pretend to be atheists. Only now in 2021 they stopped and removed the atheist name.

>>18713254
>I'm not a Christian so I don't know who you're arguing to, but I'll remind you that modern science is literally just as retarded as your favorite religion you're dabbing on, it's official that we have 64 genders and men who cut their dicks off are officially women or you will get arrested
So its exactly like in the old days. Find real atheists find Emeroldianism.

>>18713278
>>18713254
Once again find real atheists right wing atheists not your western agnostics who pretend to be atheists.

>religion thread devolves into low IQ infographic battle

>>18712726
Seanigs bow to islam though

>>18713276
>I could probably make a similar infographic that shows the correlation between washing machines and prostate cancer
Your logic retardation is next level, you realize logic contradicts itself and is useless right?

>Noo the people who are atheists say they are atheists and literally ban LGBT does not prove a single thing !
>Its like correlation between washing machines and prostate cancer
LOL !

>>18713289
>atheism today

>>18712071
This is a nice little book that brought me back. My doctor gave it to me.

>>18713293
>>18712071
I recommend you give a look at Awkward Moments (not found in your average) Children's Bible (its a picture book for adults)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kpa5NahHMow

Some of the selection are crap other are good.
This picture uses their pictures.

For a more in depth look read the skeptics annotated bible
https://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/

>>18713310
>>18713309
Yea your shit propaganda books will not fix the absurdities in the bible !

Try arguing that god did not lie in genesis !

>>18712071
>I’m not interested in being a TradCath LARPER. I just want to work on myself and my mental health, and I think Catholicism might be able to help with that.

Anon, if you're going to start going to Mass, and receiving Communion, you've gotta believe.

So as a first step, I'd suggest reading the Scott Hahn book, Reasons to Believe: How to Understand, Explain and Defend the Catholic Faith
>https://www.amazon.com/Reasons-Believe-Understand-Explain-Catholic/dp/023252713X/ref=monarch_sidesheet

It's well-written, but a concise, easy read, that explains the evidence for and logic of the Catholic position. [NOTE: >>18712660 should also read this book!]

The Catholic Church is the one true Church, established by Jesus Christ when He walked the earth. Its historical bona fides speak for themselves. Don't get sidetracked by the claims made by other religions or philosophies.

That said, the suggested authors/titles in these posts should be helpful:
>>18712116
>>18712181
>>18712326
>>18712597

Beyond that, wrt to any further recommendations, it's not clear where your tastes or interests lie. You might find some useful interesting titles here:
>>>/lit/thread/S18199553#p18203584

>>18713327
>The Catholic Church is the one true Church, established by Jesus Christ when He walked the earth. Its historical bona fides speak for themselves. Don't get sidetracked by the claims made by other religions or philosophies.
source?

>>18712071
>>18713327
>and I think Catholicism might be able to help with that.

Do you seriously think going to a pedophile in a box to tell you your sins will help you in any way?

Trust me you only get worse and useless with all the guilt.

>>18713324
>calls my book propaganda
>posts a stupid graphic
Thanks, autist. But if you are on that side, I'll be on the other.

>>18713327
>The Catholic Church is the one true Church
Read the bible your first pope is literally Satan ! See >>18713181

>>18712071
>I just want to work on myself and my mental health, and I think Catholicism might be able to help with that.
The only reason to join the Catholic Church (or any branch of Christianity, for that matter) is to encounter Christ. Mental health, a desire for a more structured life, agreement with the church's moral principles, a taste for its aesthetics, a belief in its transformative power over culture, disgust with modern degeneracy - these are all entirely secondary to an honest yearning for an encounter with God.
As far as books go, I noticed you didn't include the Catechism in your list of obvious books. If you're really, truly clueless about Catholicism, grab a copy, or read it online.

>>18713317
>For a more in depth look read the skeptics annotated bible
It's like I'm back in High School
http://www.berenddeboer.net/sab/

>>18713342
>>posts a stupid graphic
Its a flow chart idiot. The conclusion can not be avoided.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flowchart

>>18713367
>http://www.berenddeboer.net/sab/
Oh look its the cope form the Christians !

>>18713379
>posts a wikipedia anything
thanks, autist.

>>18713388
Do you also don't understand what a compiler is?
And will you get angry when I link you to wikipedia to explain what a compiler is ?

Serious question ?

>>18713335
>source?
The evidence from scripture and history is laid out in concise form here:
>https://www.catholic.com/tract/pillar-of-fire-pillar-of-truth

>>18713362
>the Catechism

The Catechism of the Catholic Church is *excellent*.

>>18712071
This board is over-centered on philosophy. You must enrich your emotions with the works of Catholic fiction writers.
Brideshead Revisited
The End of the Affair
A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories
A Canticle for Leibowitz
Silence
Beloved
Boxers & Saints (graphic novel, yes I know read it anyway)

>>18712486
Demoralized schizo, take a break from the net for a bit and go out on a walk.

>>18713393
If you think I'm angry then I have invaded your brain
>talks about compilers
thanks, autist.

seriously though, you will burn in hell. Change your ways.

>>18713408
>seriously though, you will burn in hell
Daily reminder that literally every christian burns in hell.
So says Islam.

Do you have any idea how stupid you are ?
prove your religion is the right one !

>talks about compilers
Yes its a technical thing that you can not know. Also do you think the leftists at Wikipedia did inject their SJW propaganda in that article ? Or what?

>>18713420
>prove your religion is the right one !
islam isn't a religion. It is a governmental system.

>>18713437
>islam isn't a religion. It is a governmental system.
Cry some more ! You will still burn in hell so says Allah and Islam in the Quran !

>>18713183
Unironically, yes. The nature of reality is suffering and most people will avoid it at all costs.
"Sophistry" is such a vague term that it can be applied to much anything that disagrees with your world view. If what I am practicing is sophistry, you'll have to explain to me how all the evidence I've presented of how Christians behave somehow proves they're not. People want safety, superiority, and freedom from doubt and fear (other forms of safety really). Christianity provides them with these things. On the basis of these few truths we can understand the nature of modern Catholicism. Decadence to an extreme has turned them squishy and weak.
But my points are very clearly about the hypocrisy of the followers, not the religion itself. If you believe in these things as actually defined by the tradition than that's another conversation.
But, while were here, I do not possess an adequate understanding of the nature of the soul, that is the very nature of the soul. Only through accepting not comprehending do I begin to comprehend.
Catholicism touches on this point (Augustine: 'If you understood him, it would not be God.') but then contradicts itself by establishing a system which claims to have very legitimate truths on the nature of God. But through reason I can assume that a vengeful God which crafted mankind to be so incredibly conditional makes very little sense. And taking this a step further and examining what I understand as the nature of humanity it makes perfect sense that the qualities of humanity I touched on earlier (safety, superiority, freedom) had dramatic influence on the construction of Christianity. Is this me claiming to know God? Sort of but not really. It is really the smallest assumption which i think releases me from the need to assume and hold certainty as a virtue. Really just occams razor.
I'm not a post-modern shill who thinks everything can be cruelly reduced to the will to power and science. But it is very difficult to dismiss how some of the findings in psychology make Christianity shaky at best. The wet monkey experiment shows us not only how conditional we are, but how violent we can be as well. We are prone to many things. And the findings of our conditional and violent nature are actually pretty (not exactly so please no one attack me on this point) in accord with Eastern traditions. That is, the true nature of reality is empty and ideas are constructed by the, largely primitive.
I don't argue with people about religion really because I only realized these truths through meditation. Only then was I able to see for myself the chaotic nature of impulses which directed my life beforehand.

>>18713445
>largely primitive brain
i accidentally a word

>>18713444
checked.
Also, I'm not going to worship Muhammad's allah, no matter if I go to hell. That religion is for in closet gays and sadists. It had a nice time when it was accepting and cosmopolitan, but now, it is filled with people that talk like you do. So I think I would prefer hell if that allah is the god you worship. I'm not concerned, because I have faith in my religion. I knew you had hidden motives when you were posting such elementary graphics.

>>18713467
>the god you worship.
I'm an atheist.

>>18713470
so burn, then, get your flames off of me, lost one.

>>18713485
>>18713467
What schzo retard you are:
>Herp derp I rather burn in hell then worship Allah
What are retard you are
>Obey MY RELIGION OR YOU ARE GOING OT BURN IN HELL !

PROVE YOUR RELIGION IS THE RIGHT ONE !

>>18713493
I don't need to prove shit. I came here to post a book recommendation. You fedora wearing autist, you.

>>18713537
>I don't need to prove shit.
Classic
>I don't need to prove my crazy cult is the right religion
Classic

>fedora
Nice meme insult. Only why would I be wearing the christian hat ?

>>18713396
This is rather thin apologetics (that I think is mostly directed at Protestants). If I were to reconvert to Catholicism I would still be embarrassed to read this. The true religion ought to employ solid argument and reasoning, not unjustified conclusions and hasty generalisations. There are, of course, many Catholics who do in fact write intellectually rigorous material. I am only critiquing the content of the link, not the religion as a whole.
The claim that the Papacy is an unbroken line of succession from Peter is not verifiable and things are especially fuzzy in the first few centuries AD.
>The Catholic Church has existed for nearly 2,000 years, despite constant opposition from the world. This is testimony to the Church’s divine origin.
There is a Japanese construction company (Kongō Gumi) that has existed continuously since 578, with presumably much less material and sociopolitical backing than the Church. If longevity and persistence ensure veracity, Theravada Buddhism is truer than Catholicism by about 300 years.
>Although some Catholics dissent from officially-taught doctrines, the Church’s official teachers—the pope and the bishops united with him—have never changed any doctrine.
The Church and its Popes has rejected supersessionism since Vatican 2. It even discourages Catholics from proselytising to Jews. This seems to me like a dramatic break from previous doctrine.
>When they step off a busy street and into the aisles of an apparently empty Catholic church, they sense not a complete emptiness, but a presence. They sense that Someone resides inside, waiting to comfort them.
People get this sort of feeling in all kinds of places, and one of Christianity's virtues is its suspicion of sensation.
>They realize that the persistent opposition that confronts the Catholic Church—whether from non-believers or “Bible Christians” or even from people who insist on calling themselves Catholics—is a sign of the Church’s divine origin (John 15:18–21). And they come to suspect that the Catholic Church, of all things, is the wave of the future.
I have never liked the 'sign of contradiction' idea, even when I was a Catholic. By this metric, post-Temple Jews have a better claim to being the true religion than Christianity.

>>18713563
I have faith that Jesus did rise from the dead, that he was God Among Us, Emmanuel. The Anointed One, prophesized. I just don't want you to blaspheme in front of me, and turn this conversation even sourer. but with that, I'm out. I don't need your toxic viewpoint on the Anointed One. You are a fedora cringe, very cringe indeed. with your little graphics.

>>18712107
>>18712100
Idk to me sometimes the highest Buddhist metaphysics goes to is obsessing over “THINGS ARE MADE OF OTHER THINGS OMGJDKSKSKS” without proposing how things actually develop. Idk I know it’s more complex than that and I try to see Hegelian insights in Buddhism but to me Hegel for example took metaphysics to its true heights.

>>18713568
>The true religion ought to employ solid argument and reasoning, not unjustified conclusions and hasty generalisations
This is impossible. All religions are false and can only use sophistries or down right retardation.

>>18713324
Finally some vindication for snakes

>>18713583
>I have faith that Jesus did rise from the dead
Faith is not knowledge where there is knowledge there can be no faith and were there is faith there can be no knowledge.

>I have faith that Jesus did rise from the dead
This is absurd !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUCI3cMJCvU

>I just don't want you to blaspheme in front of me,
Why not ?
Did disrupt your narrative ? If your religion was not a pile of naked assertions you could withstand all criticism, you can not !

>You are a fedora cringe, very cringe indeed. with your little graphics.
Ah yes the christian only throws insults, everyone can do this:
>You christian are a fedora cringe, very cringe indeed.

>>18713611
Feel free to give me criticism about this info graphic.

>>18713445
So that's how it is. For all your bluster and posturing, you're just another myopic midwit.
>Catholicism touches on this point (Augustine: 'If you understood him, it would not be God.') but then contradicts itself by establishing a system which claims to have very legitimate truths on the nature of God
We cannot know the totality of God, but we can know what he has revealed to us about his nature. This is no contradiction.
>But through reason I can assume that a vengeful God which crafted mankind to be so incredibly conditional makes very little sense.
"Dude why did God make free will". Pedestrian.
>I don't argue with people about religion really because I only realized these truths through meditation.
And why should I rust your fragile sentiments over the doctors of the church?

>>18713568
>>18713612
>>18713679
Why don't you dumb bastards just say what you have to say instead of quoting and responding to individual sentences?

>>18712071
>am interested in some book recommendations
Nietzsche "Antichrist"

ITT: secular humanists fight over god's remains

>>18713679
>We cannot know the totality of God, but we can know what he has revealed to us about his nature. This is no contradiction.
Countless traditions have their own stories of what God "has revealed." Most ignore the true nature of man. You're defining "what has been revealed" as "what has been established by the church" so your logic is circular.
>"Dude why did God make free will". Pedestrian.
It's a story. We don't have free will. I am largely controlled by conditioning and if not by that by primitive impulses. The most sensible thing to assume is that free will at most exists only when this is taken into account. Even than it is ambiguous at best. "but then aren't you just following your lack of free will? Don't you take part in the same nature of man etc etc?" Easy answer, no. Long answer is it's much more complicated than simply "God gave us free will" and the more we understand ourselves the freer we can be.

>And why should I rust your fragile sentiments over the doctors of the church?
I literally do not care what you do with your life. I wish you peace but its more than likely that you are sitting on years of trauma which I am very unlikely to undo. I'm only here bc the question was proposed. If all of what I am saying is true than you would just get defensive and call me names (which you already have) and assume that I was the one without a proper understanding.

>>18713324
A true Hegelian would know that both the snake, God, Adam, Eve, and the garden in the story are all God

I converted to Catholicism in college, but my true beliefs are closer to something from Nietzsche/Heraclitus.

My moral sentiments are Christian ones, and I fully agree with the Church that the things it traditionally considered wrong, are in fact wrong, or at least not useful.

If any Christian branch is true, I think it's most likely to be Catholicism or Orthodoxy. I am Westerner, so to be Orthodox would be to LARP.

I go to a Latin Mass and do not receive communion. I just keep my true opinions on those things I don't necessarily believe to myself.

I still do my best to follow the laws of the Church.

>>18712071
Christianity has certainly helped with my mental health and I found Christ during one of the lowest points in my life, but I must stress that you should not convert out of desperation. Convert because it is true. Kierkegaard and C.S Lewis were the authors that helped me the most in my walk with Christ, but also don't discount scripture. It is the word of God and you are doing yourself a monumental disservice by not reading it. Additionally, don't feel like you have to immediately choose a denomination. There is no shame in simply being Christian for a while and finding a congregation whose theology you agree with.

What is a trad cath. What is a non trad cath. There is only the orthodox Catholic and usually that involves someone who is forced to reject the modern world.

>>18712673
What would a rational justification for Catholicism look like? They would have to argue against physicalism, which is pretty much in the water, and is the default view these days.

>>18713568
>The Church and its Popes has rejected supersessionism since Vatican 2. It even discourages Catholics from proselytising to Jews
Give me the citation in Lumen Gentium where it says this.

Lumen Gentium Chapter II
>17. As the Son was sent by the Father,(131) so He too sent the Apostles, saying: "Go, therefore, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And behold I am with you all days even to the consummation of the world".(132) The Church has received this solemn mandate of Christ to proclaim the saving truth from the apostles and must carry it out to the very ends of the earth.(133)

>which is pretty much in the water, and is the default view these days.
Nice appeal to consensus fallacy

>>18713847
>nietzschean catholic
How's your fashion statement working out for you?

Read this. I'm Catholic. Now What? It helped me figure out what to do in life as a Catholic.

>>18713568
>This is rather thin apologetics (that I think is mostly directed at Protestants). If I were to reconvert to Catholicism I would still be embarrassed to read this. The true religion ought to employ solid argument and reasoning, not unjustified conclusions and hasty generalisations. There are, of course, many Catholics who do in fact write intellectually rigorous material. I am only critiquing the content of the link, not the religion as a whole.

It does appear to be aimed at Protestants, but I think it makes a strong case, albeit a concise one. The arguments and reasoning are solid, in my opinion (although there are some weaker arguments which you note, such as the "feeling" in a Catholic Church (although many people do in fact feel this, and I have read conversion stories that turn, at least in part, on such experiences, see Robert Baram, ed. Spiritual Journeys). With that said, I'm not really invested in defending the essay, as such. It is what it is. You don't find it persuasive, fair enough.

I'm sure you know there are many books out there that go into the subject in much greater depth.* I'm not sure you would find any of these persuasive; there is always a counter-argument, after all (a point that Ratzinger touches on in the introduction to his Introduction to Christianity).

*E.g., Ronald Knox, The Belief of Catholics
Karl Adam, The Spirit of Catholicism
Francis de Sales, The Catholic Controversy

>>18712071
>book recommendations
"The Thirst for Annihilation"

"In the massively preponderant aggregate the Christian religion has preached not just the contingency of death, but its impossibility. God, for instance—insofar as he is shackled to his credibility—is unable to die, despite his melodramatically vaunted omnipotence. This is an infacility that is protracted through the angels. Humans are at least permitted a ludicrous pretence at termination (Christ: God pretending to be a man pretending to die), but only the beasts are able to truly expire, perhaps because only they are left alone to do so.
The death of God that Nietzsche outlines is not without a partial anticipation. If humanity’s most morbid religion is initiated by an act of God, such an act is surely best described as a botched suicide attempt. It seems likely, as is so often the case, that this was a gesture, a plea for attention. The Judaeo-Christian portrait of God is a classic sketch of pathological insecurity. How desperate he is to be loved! So insufficient to himself, and so alone. How sickening to live for ever in this way. Unable to even dream of escaping the smell of oneself. No one hates God as much as God. No one hates anything as much. It is not difficult to imagine his excitement, attending the nihilistic ruin of his cult. The prospect of release at last! Freed of all responsibility to serve as the principle of beings! His emergent superfluity must have welled up in him with the power of sexual crisis, such that it had all suddenly not been. "

"It is thus a mark of considerable integrity that Aquinas—some 400 years earlier—insists upon the (limited) plausibility of the annihilationist case. He divides his argument into stages, first affirming God’s power to annihilate, and only then denying that this power is in fact exercised by a benevolent being (eternal damnation as the sentimentality of God) <...> "

>>18713847
>or at least not useful.
"Death, wastage, or expenditure is the only end, the only definitive terminus. ‘Utility’ cannot in reality be anything but the characterization of a function, having no sense short of an expenditure which escapes it utterly. This is ‘relative utility’. The order of Western history has as its most pertinent symptom the drift of utility away from this relative sense, towards a paradoxical absolute value. A creeping slave morality colonizes value, subordinating it to the definition ‘that which serves’. The ‘good’ becomes synonymous with utility; with means, mediation, instrumentality, and implicit dependence.
The real trajectory of loss is ‘immanence’, continuity, base matter, or flow. If the strictly regional resistance of everything that delays, impedes, or momentarily arrests the movement of dissolution is abstracted from the solar flow it is interpretable as transcendence. Such abstract resistance to loss is characterized by autonomy, homogeneity, and ideality, and is what Bataille summarizes as ‘(absolute) utility’.
The (inevitable) return of constricted energy to immanence is religion, whose core is sacrifice, generative of the sacred. Sacrifice is the movement of violent liberation from servility, the collapse of transcendence. Inhibiting the sacrificial relapse of isolated being is the broad utilitarianism inherent to humanity, correlated with a profane delimitation from ferocious nature that finds its formula in theology. In its profane aspect, religion is martialled under a conception of God; the final guarantor of persistent being, the submission of (ruinous) time to reason, and thus the ultimate principle of utility.
Cowering in the shadow of its gods, humanity is the project of a definitive abrogation of expenditure, and is thus an impossibility. The humanizing project has the form of an unsustainable law. Despite the fortifications of prohibition, the impossible corrodes humanity in eroticism;the eruption of irreducible excess, which is the base unity of sexuality and death. Eroticism gnaws us as the inevitable triumph of evil (utter loss)." (c) Nick Land

>ctrl+f rosary
>0/0 results

Honestly, OP, you don't need a book or a lecture, you need to pray. In particular, I'd recommend praying the Rosary every single day. That's what I do. I've been doing it for about five years now and it's absolutely transformed my life. My faith is now genuinely very strong and I feel like I have a legitimate relationship with God. You should pray more in general, but especially pray the Rosary. Mary is no joke, she will pull you towards Christ.

>>18713679
>>18713802
are (you) going to say anything? Whenever i bring these ideas forward on /lit/ whoever challenges me initially eventually disappears.

the american catholic church is completely fucked, don't bother

we've become /pol/

>>18713875
>and usually that involves someone who is forced to reject the modern world.

This is actually unironically true. The idea that Catholicism is "based and redpilled" gets mocked a lot, and it is pretty cringy, but I think the fact that it crops up, and that people come to have it, hints at something about Catholicism, and about Christianity in general, that is true. The modern world fundamentally rejects Christianity. At least in Europe and North America. It's arguably been rejecting it for 200 years or more. The modern world is actively atheistic and materialistic. To sincerely embrace Christianity--to actually believe that Jesus rose from the dead--is indeed to actively revolt against the modern world. And considering that revolting against the modern world is the entire idea behind being "redpilled," it's easy to see how the two came to be associated.

>>18714300
THERE IS NO AMERICAN CATHOLIC CHURH, ONLY THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES

>>18714371
I forgot my cum genius tripcode

>>18712071
>some book recommendations besides the obvious
>>18714279
>Honestly, OP, you don't need a book or a lecture, you need to pray.

Peter J. Carroll - Liber Null (1987)

"Altered states of consciousness are the key to magical powers. The particular state of mind required has a name in every tradition: No-mind. Stopping the internal dialogue, passing through the eye of the needle, ain or nothing, samadhi, or onepointedness.
<...>
Sleeplessness, fasting, and exhaustion are old monastic favorites. There should be a constant turning of the mind toward the object of the exercise during these practices. Pain, torture, and flagellation have been used by witches, monks, and fakirs to achieve results. Surrender to pain brings eventual ecstasy and the necessary one-pointedness. However, if the organism's resistance to pain is high, needless damage to the body may result before the threshold is crossed.
Dancing, drumming, and chanting require careful arranging and preparation to bring the participants to a climax. Lyrical exaltation through emotive poetry, incantation, song, prayer, or supplication can also be added. The whole is best controlled by some form of ritual. Over-breathing is sometimes used to supplement the effects of dancing or leaping.
<...>
In the inhibitory mode, the mind is progressively silenced until only a single object of concentration remains. In the excitatory mode, the mind is raised to a very high pitch of excitement while concentration on the objective is maintained. Strong stimulation eventually elicits a reflex inhibition and paralyzes all but the most central function — the object of concentration. Thus strong inhibition and strong excitation end up creating the same effect — the one-pointed consciousness, or gnosis."

>>18714294
>Countless traditions have their own stories of what God "has revealed."
We aren't just talking about stories, you nigger. We have marks of the true Church and Revelation to guide is, including miracles.
> We don't have free will.
Oh, you're a retard like Sam Harris. I get it.
And you finish with more projection.

>>18712968
>>18713050
>trying to create a false narrative over matters that were already discussed
Try this with reddit, faggot. You are at least 2000 years behind in theology if you believe you are discovering anything new or making a valid critic.

>>18713169
>>18713181
>>18713347
Nigger, The rock was Jesus and the foundation/rock of Christianity and especially catholicism is to recognize Jesus as the Son of God/TheMessiah/God
Go read Corinthians, talmudic heretic

>>18714575
>We have marks of the true Church and Revelation to guide is, including miracles.
Once again things prevalent within countless traditions. Believe it or not Catholicism is not the only religion with a relationship to miracles. But this brings me to another frustrating part of Christianity, assuming that everything belongs to it originally and that it is somehow independent from history. Catholics, for instance, will use the maxim "stealing is bad" and hoard it to themselves as if they invented the law and then point fingers at anyone who agrees but isn't Catholic and claim that they are unknowingly agreeing with the precepts of Catholicism.
And i don't deny that miracles are possible either. The Vedas has documentation of people literally gaining psychic powers with enough meditation.

>Oh, you're a retard like Sam Harris. I get it.
What are you talking about? I said the answer is complicated for various reasons, none of which you addressed. Reducing my argument to "we don't have free will" is bad faith.
I don't know much about Harris, but since he is a materialist i'm pretty sure i'd disagree with a lot of what he says. This would be obvious to anyone who read what i posted, yourself not included.

>And you finish with more projection.
you are so lacking in self-awareness it hurts.
Are you going to present any arguments to me? Do you have any basis for what you believe besides "that which is established and recognized by the Church"? Do you not see how circular "that which is authentic proof of God is what has been supported by the church" is? Tell me how it isn't. Do anything.
If anything you've proved my point of the lack of free will. You're seething so hard you can barely exercise your reason.
It is unquestionable that only one of us is acting in good faith. If your God is so all powerful why do you feel the need to so waste my time with childish games? It's insulting to your religion desu

>>18712071

>>18713907
Just an observation that the typical modern has a really hard time understanding religions on their own terms. It's unclear to me how better intellectuals could sway them, particularly if it's to get people to accept Catholicism as sole source of truth.

im retard, what aquila do you mean?

>>18714575
>>18714765
i'll take your silence as agreeing to everything i've said. another one btfo, too easy

>>18712071
Have you considered liberation theology and unifying with libertarian communists against your local US supported dictatorship?

>>18714765
>And i don't deny that miracles are possible either. The Vedas has documentation of people literally gaining psychic powers with enough meditation.

Is a man ever raised from the dead in the Vedas? Is that man also God?

>>18715307
gee I don't know. Google it or something. The hindus burned their bodies so that creates complications i would imagine.
But you keep doing the same thing. The value of what you are putting forth is affirmed by the other thing which you value. circular.

>>18715307
God takes on multiple avatars in Hinduism. Some Hindus consider Christ to be an avatar of Vishnu, who is one of the aspects of the hindu trinity, the Trimurti, that makes up Brahman (God).

>>18715323
Christianity's value is centered around a single person who either did or did not exist, and either was or was not what he claimed to be. It's circular because it keeps revolving around one man: Jesus of Nazareth. Is he real, or not? Is he who he claimed to be, or not? Did he rise from the dead, or not?

Every justification for Christianity revolves around the person of Jesus. It is a religion centered around its founder more than any other. Without Jesus, there is no justification for Christianity. Without the Incarnation and the Crucifixion and the Resurrection, Christianity is worthless.

>>18715307
>>18715323
>>18715349
Brahminical/Vedic religion considered bodily remains to be extremely and ritually unclean. The idea of having a resurrected body would be completely repulsive, and a vile thing to wish for.

>>18712673
>Later he repudiated the essay
When, where, and how did he repudiate it? I've actually been concerned, when reading these older books and essays, that he may have repudiated some of the arguments that I have accepted from him.

>>18714371
wrong, the USCCB is a rogue institution, and American Catholics are seperated from the rest of the world by a vast schism in the cultural landscape of the church reflecting the broader political schism in America.

The anti-Vatican II Catholics threw their lot in with the Moral Majority, the priest raped children and the bishops covered it up, and the liberal catholics drank the rainbow-colored LGBT cool aid.

This thing flew off the rails fifty years ago and is now heading nowhere fast, like some kind of flaming circus, incapable of expressing the most basic form of unanimity on... anything at all

it's a shit show. don't go.

>>18712071
Catholic doctrine be like:
Racism evil
Homosexuality bad
So apparently engaging in a non reproductive relationship is worse than producing children with no heritage other than “much Church.” Sounds nonsensical to me.

>>18712071
>>18712100
>Don't willingly put yourself into a spiritual prison.
This I regret being confirmed deeply. I think I did it though in the end because I was one who pushed for it in the beginning and all my family did and I didn’t want to disappoint them after all that time, I even tired to get my faith back but could not. My morals and worldview is so contrary to catholic doctrine and the Bible that it seems pointless to pretend. I believe in cyclical time, not the end times. I’m past the point in my life of thinking I need to be some ideology, religion, etc. all I know is like objective beauty and I am anti system. You don’t need to do this anon, don’t force yourself into a box you’ll regret it. Ruler yourself free of all governments, religions, ideologies and forge your own.

>>18715718
Satanic hands type this post.

>>18715790
I have found Catholicism to be basically unhelpful and mute when it comes to trying to navigate an American life.

It has two choices: 1) be a big tent and lose the ability to speak with conviction about anything or 2) splinter, break, shatter, dissipate

I don't even know that this situation is the fault of Catholicism, or if it is the fault of America, modernity, capitalism... I don't know. I find it terribly regrettable. But I am convinced of its truth.

>>18715848
To be truly Catholic is to reject America at its core. I discovered this a few years ago, and I chose to reject the United States and embrace the Church instead. You can be a good Catholic or you can be a good American, but you can't be both.

>>18715872
I agree completely actually, and think this is one of the major misunderstandings in the American Catholic landscape

I was drawn to Christianity as an alternative to worldliness. In my mind, the Church is supposed to be a dramatic alternative to the world.

Unfortunately it is some kind of pitiful gelding; Dolan wines and dines with Clintons and Trumps. McCarrick touches seminarians and then hears confessions. The bishops practically come in cans, ready-made from bishop factories where they are programmed to repeat banalities about "The Source and Summit" and "The Blessed Mother" and "The Sacaraments" unaware that the very men and women they consider as a precious flock is in fact the modern, globalist equivalent of a Roman aristocracy, sucking up materials and wage-labor from factories across China, India and Vietnam while periodically bombing little nations to pieces.

The Bishops are all too happy to enter petty political controversies with the stupid excuse that they are somehow "defending life" by underwriting particular candidates.

The situation is dire. Christianity cannot exist within the mainstream of an empire, let alone the halls of the Neros (past or present) . That mistake originated somewhere in the 4th century.

The light, of course, never went out. Hence St. Francis, among others. But I don't know that Mother Church-- with its papacies, seminaries, ecumenical councils, bishops conferences and catechisms-- has ever been the torch bearer.

>>18715200
Guess again, faggot.
>>18714765
>Believe it or not Catholicism is not the only religion with a relationship to miracles
It's the only one whose miracles have stood up to scrutiny.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soCkftBBsBo
Nobody claims that nobody outside of the church ever condemned stealing. That's why the Church talks about natural law. The ultimate reason for the law can only be found in God.
You literally said we don't have free will. This is a common midwit argument.

>>18712100
>>18715782

Buddhism is literally a mind control strategy for bug people that the Jews tricked boomers to getting into in the 60's to alienate them from Christianity and make them easier to manage.

https://www.unz.com/article/jewish-crypsis-in-american-buddhism/

>Today, it is conservatively estimated that around 30 percent of non-Asian Buddhists in America are ethnically Jewish, and many of these are in leadership positions over the remaining 70%, composed mainly of Americans of European descent

>Writing in The Tablet, Michelle Goldberg concedes that American Buddhism is a essentially Jewish creation that is “unlike anything seen in traditional Buddhism.”

>It’s been claimed that Jews effectively created the modern “mindfulness” industry by stripping Buddhism of its mythological elements and radically increasing those elements of Buddhism that involve the cultivation of emotional passivity among adherents. In fact, American “JewBu” Buddhism is notable for its encouragement of tolerance and pluralism, as well as the neglect of one’s own individual interests.

>The promotion of a kind of psycho-therapeutic form of Neo-Buddhism among Whites could also be seen as an extension of the efforts of psychoanalysis and the Frankfurt School to treat putative cultural pathologies among Whites by addressing largely imagined repressions and anxieties.

what do you dudes think of "the pillar" outing that dude for using grindr literally every day?

>>18715679
In the preface to the second or third edition, I think (I haven't read it, since I only have a copy of the first). I think he said Antony Flew and someone else talked him out of fideism.

>>18715928
Yeah, but who else is there? The Orthodox are pawns of the Russian state. The Copts are irrelevant and dying off. The Anglicans are almost entirely dead. The Baptists have always been hollow hypocrites. The Lutherans are largely irrelevant too. The Pentecostals are incoherent and often kind of demonic.

Basically I think you have to stick with Catholicism or you have to admit that no Church has ever succeeded, which means that Jesus Himself failed. They all fail, but some of them seem to succeed in spite of failing constantly, and Catholicism does that more than most branches of Christianity.

>>18716134
I didn’t say anything about Buddhism, I was just replying to his point of being against joining a religion

>>18716134
Western buddhism is garbage. Read the source material and ignore American popularizers. Hence the chart's emphasis on the texts and not secondary or tertiary lit from people who read about Zen once and did a lot of pot.

>>18716329
Eastern Buddhism isn't mush better. Every buddhist nation is a third world hellhole.

>>18716284
Russians aren't the only orthodox and Copts have managed to survive 2000 years of getting shit on.

>>18716306
And your point was just as ridiculous, encouraging rootlessness.

>>18716284
>The Copts are irrelevant and dying off.
i live in a coptic neighbor and their birthrate is through the friggen roof. they also have a high rate of business formation and college completion.

>>18712354
There are retards in every religion

>>18716458
>encouraging rootlessness.
It’s not so much rootlessness more so o have come to trust no one but myself and my family. Some people say the church is the truth and to go against it is to be deceived by the devil and the system built on him, some say the church is run by the devil and his system to deceive away from the truth, and some say church and the very “truth” are the biggest trick in history pulled by an ancient predecessor of the system. Some say the pagans are the truth and the only thing that can break the system others that they worshipped demons, the same ones worshipped by the system today. With all these views into account and so much information out there, only thing I am certain of from experience and my logic is a vast conspiracy controls all religions and political groups or at least some to extent for more than 300 years or even longer, and all in different narratives are framed as being a piece of it or the person gist, and thus all I know is there is a vast evil group, that is all I am certain of however I am not certain of if any of the supposed “good” groups are indeed good, thus I object to my original state of unalliance, not being a Catholic, Protestant, Pagan, libertarian, nazis or whatever... I will always know to little to be certain, however with a unshaken opposition to the mysterious system, whatever it is made of and stands on.

>>18716452
Yeah Japan is just awful right? Monocausal retardation.

Literally go to church, meet other church goers, be part of your local catholic community. Do this and you'll be a better catholic than every single tradcath larper.

This applies for any larp.

>>18716049
>It's the only one whose miracles have stood up to scrutiny.
i would love to see something more substantial to back up this claim. Your video is interesting but, like i already said, this sort of thing is possible because what we consider possible is far from what truly is um...possible. Your video just agrees with this, which is something I said earlier. It fails to prove your point that Catholicism is the only one which has stood to scrutiny.
Look it only took me 3 minutes to find this:
https://rationalreligion.co.uk/9-scientific-miracles-of-the-quran/

People meditate and then fucking tell the future but their not Catholic (thinking emoji)

I actually feel bad for being so persistent with you :(


>Nobody claims that nobody outside of the church ever condemned stealing. That's why the Church talks about natural law. The ultimate reason for the law can only be found in God.

Catholics regularly try to gaslight me into believing that i secretly believe in their shitty God because I think murder is bad. If this isn't you good job

>You literally said we don't have free will. This is a common midwit argument.
Dude do you have austism? Are you actually retarded? I didn't say that. What I SAID was that the short answer was no and that the longer answer was there was neither a yes or no. I gave several reasons for this which you have failed to even mention. Calling me names without bringing anything else to the table is just embarrassing.

>>18716454
>Russians aren't the only orthodox

They are the most powerful of the branches of Orthodoxy, which is why they get to push the others around and make them mad. Fuck, Orthodoxy is currenlty IN SCHISM, with Moscow refusing to recognize Constantinople's authority. This is as bad as anything currently happening in the Catholic Church, yet it doesn't get reported on. Probably because, in addition to being coopted, Orthodoxy is honestly kind of irrelevant.

>>18712660
Imagine having liberal parents. Kek. My dad never went to church and he wasn't a liberal. All these words of yours, all I have to say is God don't real, simple as.

>>18712386
Oh my god..... you exactly described me anon!!

>>18712078
it's actually the opposite, Catholicism is the most intelligent religion ever

>>18716835
Yes and no.

Catholicism attracts very dumb people but also very smart people. What it filters out are midwits.

Have you ever noticed that every midwit under the sun has some take about how the Church is evil, about how it should sell all its artwork, about how it's bad and wrong?

Meanwhile, on the one hand, you have poor, illiterate peasants praying to Mary and loving Jesus, and on the other hand, you have some of the most brilliant men in history, like Scotus and Aquinas and Newman, reverently worshipping Christ. Catholicism is the midwit meme as a religion. The very stupid and the very smart adore Jesus Christ through the Church. The midwits all get filitered out.

>>18716518
Japan is majority Shinto, baka

>>18716845
(You) on the left

>>18716284
>>18716599
>irrelevant
Go back to twitter, you zoomer piece of shit.

Take the Puritan-pill, let's build a city on a hill.

In the Gospel of Matthew 16:18, Jesus says: "And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."
Therefore, Jesus Christ entrusted the direction of the Church to St. Peter - and the direct apostolic leadership of St. Peter led to the creation of the Catholic Church - therefore making it the true Apostolic Church of Christ.
Keep in mind, the first usage of the the term "Catholic Church" (meaning "Universal Church") was by St. Ignatius of Antioch (a disciple of St. John the Apostle, who of course recognized the authority of St. Peter as the earthly leader of the Church), in the year 110AD - proving that the Apostles & their disciples (the Apostolic Fathers) considered themselves as members of the original, universal, and apostolic church of St. Peter.
And therefore, the church created by Jesus Christ, and led on Earth by St. Peter (the Catholic Church) was blessed by Christ, in that "the gates of hell shall not prevail against it"

The Catholic Church created the Bible as we know it today, and through the councils of the Early Apostolic Age, under St. Peter and the other disciples of Christ (eg. St. James the Just, St. Paul, St. John the Apostle, St. Mark the Evangelist, etc.) the Church Fathers determined which texts are canon.
Therefore, it is illogical to deny the authority of the Catholic Church, while quoting from the Bible that it created (the New Testament, Gospels, Pauline Epistles, etc.) with the guidance of Jesus' original disciples.

The Catholic Church has had to deal with corruption and human error since its very early history, but as we logically determined, Jesus was not wrong when he said "the gates of hell shall not prevail against it"
However, this does not mean that agents of Satan may not attempt to enter and compromise/divide the church - only that they will never succeed in destroying it
We can see an example of this attempted compromisation as early as between 70-140AD, which was documented in the First Epistle of Clement - members of the early Catholic Church in Corinth attempted to remove the Apostolically appointed bishops, for no moral reason:
(The letter was occasioned by a dispute in Corinth, which had led to the removal from office of several presbyters.
Since none of the presbyters were charged with moral offences, 1 Clement charges that their removal was high-handed and unjustifiable.
1 Clement offers valuable evidence about the state of the ministry in the early church. He calls on the Corinthians to repent and to reinstate the leaders that they had deposed.
He explains that the Apostles had appointed ”bishops and deacons”, that they had given instructions on how to perpetuate the ministry, and that Christians were to obey their superiors.
[...]

Read more: https://pastebin.com/kWkFAPHS

Become Protestant.
Start with the 17th century English Puritans.

>>18712968
>>18713050
>>18713073
>>18713128
>>18713163
>>18713169
>>18713181
>>18713236
>>18713250
>>18713252
>>18713264
>>18713278
>>18713563

Good job retard, made me more religious by showing how stupid counterarguments to the faith are.

>>18717769
>believe doctrines which are completely alien to the ancient faith! just because something was directly contradicted by the apostles and their successors for over 1500 years, doesn't mean it can't be true!
Listen, friend - I care for you, and so I will say that just because you have lots of books arranged in an Aspergers-like manner, does not mean you are correct. Look into the doctrines of the early church, what was believed by the apostles - and you will see that the Protestant doctrines are nowhere to be found within their writings.

Why follow a soteriology and philosophy completely alien to the apostles and their successors? Why not just stick to the beliefs of the earliest Christians, who knew the apostles?

churchfathers.org

>>18715144
>what aquila do you mean?
he probably meant Aquinas.

>>18716553
>i would love to see something more substantial to back up this claim.

Different anon here. This is an interesting article by Stanley Jaki, a Catholic priest-scientist, about a possible miracle at Lourdes witnessed by Nobel laureate Alexis Carrel.

https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=2866

If you like Jaki's approach, he wrote a number of excellent books, e.g., The Savior of Science.

>>18716553
>i would love to see something more substantial to back up this claim.
Jacalyn Duffin, PhD hematologist, former President of the American Association for the History of Medicine and Canadian Society for the History of Medicine, member of the Order of Canada, 2019 Canadian Medical Hall of Fame inductee - analyzes the cases of medical miracles documented by the Vatican as evidence for the canonization of saints. Importantly, she is not a Catholic, and yet her medical perspective as a highly credentialed physician will show you that there is a valid case to be made for acknowledging the existence of miracles in the Catholic church.

https://books.google.ca/books/about/Medical_Miracles.html?id=La7mCwAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y

>>18713403
I'm not a schizo, I just type fast without editing.

>>18718565
>>18718578
Both of you inbreds continually miss what I'm saying. Once again, I don't deny miracles are possible but that such things are found in a variety of cultures and religions. The dominance of Christianity correlates these things to itself, but in fact they have less to do with Christianity than simply faith itself. It is the power of these individuals faith in Christianity doing these things, not Christianity itself. Your inability to read this in my arguments speaks volumes about your religion. Even if we manage to move past this stage in the argument where were going to be led is having to conclude that at the end of the day miracles should not act as a substitute for true faith. You believe in this miracle of the Eucharist because it has been scientifically documented, but you believe in the resurrection which is only captured through witness testimonies and etc. And I'm not even denying that this didn't happen so lets not go there.

>>18712100
Bvddhist chad...I kneel

>>18716134
>>It’s been claimed that Jews effectively created the modern “mindfulness” industry by stripping Buddhism of its mythological elements and radically increasing those elements
Yeah no shit, so fake buddhism is fake buddhism? Major surprise

>>18716134
Lol I could see why Jews would try to infiltrate Buddhism. Afterall wouldn't actual Buddhism teach that the Shoah was just due to Karma?

>>18718565
>>18718578
>>18718738 (me)
you know what anons i apologize for being so rude. it is very difficult to resist the temptation to use this board as an outlet for what i'm not allowed in the public world. i truly do not believe anything you have provided me with discounts any of the arguments i purposed. and I admit it is difficult to prove. you can point me to as many scientifically documented Christian miracles as possible but the question will always remain as to what about the other religions. i'd like you to understand that meditation and eastern traditions do very strange things to you once embraced and practiced regularly, many of which things are miraculous. doing so has forced me, a former materialist. to embrace the power of faith and works. i find it difficult to accept that these miracles are wholly Christian and nothing else when I have first hand experienced many similar things not practicing Christianity. nonetheless, i respect your religion and apologize for slandering it.
i wish you peace.

>>18718924
>>18716134
>Christianity was made by the Jews
>Buddhism was seized by the Jews
>Jews also fostered atheism
Man... At this point I think they earned it all

>>18712078
Retarded prot. Go take your sola scriptura elsewhere.

>>18712089
Orthodox is cool but you ought to stay in the East where you belong.

>>18712100
Cringe.
>>18712354
Holy shitting cringe.

Just stick to Catholicism anon and read GK Chesterton’s Everlasting Man.

>b-but the pedo priests
Isolated cases committed by old, homo priests who got in during the 60s-70s when the CC decided to be more..ugh.. Liberal. Doesn’t make it excusable though.

Let’s not forget that certain journos have their wallets thickened by certain big corporations to report on every error that the Church or its clergy make in a rather synchronized order so that they can maliciously destroy its credibility.

>>18718942
tandem to this, the topic of miracles was a distraction from many of the points i initially made here >>18712854 and here >>18713445

>>18712968
>le redditora tipping is the best

Posting vague, cherry picked images like pic rel and making condescending comments like that makes you like a complete retard,Atheist anon.

You stir the inner Crusading Fanatic within me. I cannot wait to shove my blessed longsword down thy godless throat, apostate.

>>18719025
>I cannot wait to shove my blessed longsword down thy godless throat, apostate.
Cool threatening violence ageist me.
To bad you christian cockroaches then cry that you get exterminated.

No apologies for exterminating Christians not now not never !
Looks like we have to finish the work of Stalin !

>>18713563
>Being an Atheist makes you look normal

Look everyone, Atheistanon admitted it! Atheism is for normies now!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA The incredible self-ownage in this one!

>>18719025
>I cannot wait to shove my blessed longsword down thy goddess throat, apostate.
why am I such a ccoomer bros

>>18719040
>Slavs lose the war until Stalin reopens the Church
>Suddenly Slavs win.
Maybe God-Magic is unto something....

>>18719090
>>Slavs lose the war until Stalin reopens the Church
More lies from the degenerate.
All Christians will be exterminated this is non negotiable.

>>18718942
I forgive you. Consider that Christianity provides the path to have mystical experiences through contemplative prayer and hesychasm, yet also provides a coherent explanation for the events surrounding the death of Jesus of Nazareth. While Eastern religions can elicit the former (often in dangerous ways, as is pointed out by Swami Vivekananda in his Raja Yoga), they cannot provide a cogent explanation for the latter. If the miracle of transubstantiation is true, what would that mean for the testimony of Jesus Christ that "Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day". It would be rational to weigh out the cost/benefit ratio for if this statement is true, versus if it is false, especially when factoring in the potential validity of Jesus' resurrection as a divine stamp of approval on His words.

God bless you. Good luck.

>>18713324
Retard, they could live forever UNTIL they ate the fruit

>>18719197
>It would be rational to weigh out the cost/benefit ratio for if this statement is true, versus if it is false, especially when factoring in the potential validity of Jesus' resurrection as a divine stamp of approval on His words.
This sounds a lot like "it is more utilitarian to believe in this if i want to avoid the possibility of eternal damnation." Are you not implying that the benefit of your religion is indistinguishable from your discomfort and fear of it being true? How can you reconcile your disapproval of people being led by fear into cults and various other things from it being a firm basis for your religion? Is it not clear from history that people are led by fear to do very irrational things?

>>18719197
>Consider that Christianity provides the path to have mystical experiences through contemplative prayer
>>18714400

>>18719197
>>18719329 (me)

My argument is solely this: experiencing the power of meditation I have realized that guilt and fear and etc are forms of self-harm and it is impossible for me to believe in a religion formed on the basis of these things because the implication is that meditating for my own being is a sin. Furthermore, it is impossible to believe in the basis of fear as a basis for belief when considering the true nature of man, fearful and greedy.
If you want to use cost/benefit analysis consider that meditation makes you more patient, humble, emphatic, and grateful. Why would God punish me for cultivating these virtues? This is what I meant when I said Christianity hoards these virtues to themselves. I admire your forgiveness but, from what you have told me, I can only assume you consider my patience and remorse as arising from some sinful aspect.

>>18717804
>books arranged in an Aspergers-like manner
How could you say something so uncharitable? Does this make you happy?

>>18717769
Graced and Breadpilled, I've been reading a biography of John Winthrop recently.
You have any recommendations for publications of 18th century Puritans?
I'd love to get some Jonathan Edwards sermons, a shame that the anthology which looks the best made seems to be out of print now.

>>18719398
The two volume set of Edwards that Banner of Truth publishes will probably be back in stock soon. It's too popular for them not to keep doing print runs. It has his most popular treatises. They are big folio volumes, double column.

Soli Deo Gloria has lots of Edwards monographs and small sermon anthologies. You can get them from heritagebooks.org

I'm not too big on the 18th century. I like Whitefield and Toplady a lot but they were Church of England men and not Puritans proper.

>>18719298
>they could live forever UNTIL they ate the fruit
Nowhere in the bible is this even hinted at.
Nice made up shit from your pastor I see !

>>18712071
Catholicism is the only way, you don't have to be a full blown tradcath to reap the benefits.

You don't learn how to be christian from books. Pray rosary, Jesus prayer and meditate on Passion of Christ, fast, read Bible specialy Paul's letters, go to holy mass every day.
Also read life of the saint, I recommend History of the Soul by saint Terese. Seven story mountain by Thomas Merthon and New seeds of contemplation by the same autor.
Catechism of pope Pio X is great way to learn basics, but Bible is the only book required for salvation.

>>18720010
>go to holy mass every day.
can I unironically skip this part? my church is about singing horrid, infantile songs and other incredibly fake acts and every single person in it becomes a full blown sociopath as soon as they walk out. if this is a central prerequisite to being a christian then I'll sincerely have to drop it right here and now because I can't take it

I converted after reading Ratzingers “introduction to christianity”. I highly recommend it anon.

>>18712071
as someone who was raised Catholic and was sent to Catholic school, it's pretty hilarious to see this tradcaths online talking about joining a religion they clearly have very little knowledge of even the basic tenets. They argue about if they Douey-Rheims is "based" or if mass should still be in latin so it's "trad", but they probably haven't even been confirmed or know what the cardinal virtues are

>>18720049
>as someone who was raised Catholic
same, the jist of it is that you give money to the Church and you literally get away with murder
I like Christianity sort of but the Catholic Church is disgustingly corrupt

>>18718801
>fake buddhism
There are no standards for what real buddhism is, that's why it's easy for glowniggers to use it to their advantage.

>>18720049
>as someone who was raised Catholic and was sent to Catholic school
Every Portuguese retard I knew went to Catholic school and they didn't understand the first thing about their own religion.

>>18720067
>the jist of it is that you give money to the Church and you literally get away with murder
You fags stop learning when you're 13, don't you?

>>18718738
>but that such things are found in a variety of cultures and religions.
And only Christian miracles have withstood scientific scrutiny. How about that?

>>18720024
Go to latin mass then if you have opportunity. And, one goes to mass because it is sacriface of Our Lord Jesus not becouse of fellow parishers. If your surroundings are bad, then better, you can practice patience and charity.

>>18718942
>Placing your own subjective experiences about documented evidence
Nigger what?

>>18716516
The fuck is this retard saying?

>>18719329
>"it is more utilitarian to believe in this if i want to avoid the possibility of eternal damnation."
Well, that is obviously true, but the key point is that it all hinges upon the resurrection - if Christ did not rise from the dead, our faith is in vain, so that subject should be the crux of your discernment.
>Are you not implying that the benefit of your religion is indistinguishable from your discomfort and fear of it being true?
No, it will also give you at least the same (or greater) benefits as other religions, specifically with regards to cultivating personal virtue, a safe pathway to mystical experience (especially when contrasted with Raja Yoga, or other methods which require a guru to be prudent in case of error), and a rational and coherent explanation of the events surrounding Jesus' death.
>How can you reconcile your disapproval of people being led by fear into cults and various other things from it being a firm basis for your religion?
Because the truth claims for Catholicism stand up to intense scrutiny, whereas the truth claims of cults are almost entirely designed to trick the downtrodden and mentally unwell members of society into giving money, labour, or sex to the higher-ups in the system. In Catholicism, nothing is required of you save your attention, and the poorest of the poor is welcomed, with no strings attached. No tithing or payment is necessary whatsoever.
>>18719390
>a religion formed on the basis of these things
The entire central narrative of Christianity is founded on God's love for us (John 3:16), but we do recognize that because of God's unimaginable transcendence, that it is prudent and "the beginning of all wisdom" to fear Him - but keeping in mind that fear here means a form of ultimate reverence and awe, rather than subjugation and terror of punishment.
>the implication is that meditating for my own being is a sin
Meditation is not a sin, but many systems which utilize meditation include the worship of pagan deities (like in Hinduism), a denial of the existence of the soul (like in some Hinduism, or Buddhism), or a denial of the existence of God (like in Buddhism). Not only do we encourage meditation (eg. hesychasm, visio divina, and contemplative prayer), but it is a central part of our religion.
>Why would God punish me for cultivating these virtues?
You would not be punished for cultivating those virtues, but you would hypothetically be punished for denying Jesus Christ and rejecting Him, assuming you are mentally well and mature enough to assess truth claims rationally (eg. you are capable of going on the spiritual and rational hero's journey of truth-discovery).
>I can only assume you consider my patience and remorse as arising from some sinful aspect.
Well, the initial post I considered as arising from some sinful aspect, but we are all sinners, so no harm done.

>>18719394
Sorry, but consider repenting of your heresy and becoming more acquainted with the ancient church's beliefs.

>>18720049
>>18720067
>Fags with an 8th grade understanding of religion think they know all there is to know about the Church
Everyone who talks about how they "were raised Catholic" to discredit the church is a huge normal fag trying to pass as an authority.

>>18716284
>The Orthodox are pawns of the Russian state
do you have a single fact to back that up

>>18715753
Who cares what a faggot thinks?

>>18716329
The very notion of laypeople reading ancient buddhist texts is part of the western buddhism phenomenon

>>18720049
>I know more than people taking an active interest in this subject as adults because I broached it passively as a child before I was distracted by television

>>18717616
Already been tried, the United States was the result lmao

Watch Richard Williamson videos before Youtube takes them all down.

>>18720263
The stereotypical western buddhist doesn't even bother with reading the material anymore.

>>18718738
>It is the power of these individuals faith in Christianity doing these things, not Christianity itself.
I can believe as hard as I want but my will power won't make a communion host turn into living heart tissue. This is God acting to give a sign.

>>18720025
As an outsider I thought this book was an awful ‘introduction’

>>18720024
Find a better parish.

Read this. It's the biography of a nuclear physicist who converted.
https://archive.org/details/pillaroffire0000ster/page/n9/mode/2up

>>18720304
OP asks for nontrad catholics and you recommend a guy so radtrad he got excommunicated

>>18720395
He was never excommunicated. I'm trying to give OP some substance to shake him out of his moralistic therapeutic deism.

>>18720401
He was excommunicated for his own illicit ordination as a bishop and again for his multiple illicit ordinations of other bishops, what are you talking about

>>18720186
>Sorry, but consider repenting of your heresy and becoming more acquainted with the ancient church's beliefs.
I can guarantee that 99% of the ECF writings you've read were translated by a Protestant. See Phillip Schaff. We're very well acquainted.

As far as that site you linked earlier all I have to say is anyone can quote mine the ECF. There opinions were extremely diverse and many of them even contradict themselves.

>>18720477
And yet every church father who wrote on the topic of baptismal regeneration acknowledges it to be a true and ancient apostolic belief. Does your theological system accept baptismal regeneration? It is universal among the church fathers who spoke on it.

>>18720450
None of his ordinations were illicit. The Novus Ordo clique just gave him an invalid excommunication because he threatened them.

>>18720484
>It is universal among the church fathers who spoke on it.
Good. Then it further demonstrates the clear difference which exists between the infallible writings of the New Testament and the inferior productions of sub-apostolic times, thereby substantiating the Biblical canon as the only rule of faith and life.

>>18720537
>thereby substantiating the Biblical canon as the only rule of faith and life.
Could you please explain to me why you trust the decisions of the papist bishops of the orthodox Catholic church at the Council of Rome 382 to give you a valid canon of the New Testament, while simultaneously rejecting the authority of the Catholic church they professed to belong to?

>>18720781
We don't believe the NT canon to be Scripture because some council or synod decreed so. We believe the NT canon because the books are the word of God.
See WCF chapter 1.4,5
t. orthodox presbyterian

>>18720959
This doesn't answer the question, but only deflects it. How do you know the books are the word of God, if they were only compiled into what you know as the New Testament after the Council of Rome 382, whereby papist orthodox Catholic bishops declared which writings were canon, and which were apocryphal and non-canon (eg. the "Gospel" of Thomas)?

>>18721042
>How do you know the books are the word of God
WCF 1.5
>And the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole (which is, to give all glory to God), the full discovery it makes of the only way of man’s salvation, the many other incomparable excellencies, and the entire perfection thereof, are arguments whereby it doth abundantly evidence itself to be the Word of God: yet notwithstanding, our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts.(l)

(k) I Tim. 3:15.
(l) I John 2:20, 27; John 16:13, 14; I Cor. 2:10, 11, 12; Isa. 59:21.

This is how we know our canon. We just happen to have the same NT canon.

>>18712071
>I just want to work on myself and my mental health

This may be the book for you!

>>18721069
>we just happen to have the exact same New Testament canon as the papist orthodox Catholic bishops compiled at the Council of Rome 382 presided over by Pope Damascus I
You can't be intellectually honest enough to admit that you believe the orthodox Catholic church made a divinely-inspired decision at the Council of Rome 382 - which is exactly what we would expect if the Holy Spirit "led the [apostles] into all truth" (John 16:13), which naturally would extend to their successors after they laid hands on them and gave them the Holy Spirit (Acts 8:17), who would, in a few generations of succession, go on to meet at the Council of Rome 382?

Is it not too convenient a coincidence that you copied the exact NT canon of the heretical papist Catholic church over a millennium later, in the 16th century?

>>18721111
While we're at it, read these as well.
https://archive.org/details/churchse00sert/page/n7/mode/2up?view=theater
https://archive.org/details/christamongmen00sertuoft

>>18720191
>>18720282
I went to Catholic school from k-12 with mandatory religious classes in each grade. We were reading the Catechism, letters from Popes and writing essays on them

>>18721121
Well we don't share a OT canon for the same reasons as I stated earlier >>18721069

What OT canon did these ancient councils decide?

>>18721213
Which still doesn't make you an expert. For all we knew you were a D student or your teacher was an easy grader.

>>18712071
If you want to use religion as a means for your own self-development and mental heath, you shouldn't be looking into Catholicism, you should be looking into Pietism. I don't recommend it or whatever but for some reason a lot of Catholic converts go into the religion like it is rehabilitation for their own individual spiritual life. If thats what you're after, just become a pietist, or perhaps a puritan.

On the note of non-trad Catholicism, look into Gustavo Gutierrez, and Hans Küng.

>>18712071
>I just want to feel better about myself, tee hee
You sound like a fucking woman. You have no interest in the truth, and you will never find it.

>>18712116
>As a former trad Catholic who finds the mendacity of Catholics and of Christianity in general intolerable
>REEE WHY DID JESUS SAY THERE IS NO WAY TO THE FATHER EXCEPT THROUGH ME?!
>STOP TRYING HOLD UP THE TRUTH!
Keep crying, bitch nigga.

>>18712116
Last I checked it wasn't Catholics trying to push that there are three genders. You just sound like a fag who got mad that your pet esoteric theories couldn't stand up to proper theological scrutiny.

>>18720025
Spoiler alert: he's going to outlive Francis. Maybe not by much, but Francis will die before Benedict. You heard it here first. Call it a prophecy.

>>18721226
You don't share an OT canon because of the opinions and influence of Martin Luther, which were later distorted, showing that you follow the traditions of men. Even without this point (that you reject the ancient scriptures embraced by successors of the apostles, which Jesus said would be "led [...] into all truth" by the Holy Spirit), you have only moved the goalpost, and did not address the actual points I raised in this post >>18721121.

>>18721208
Could you say something about these books anon? I read the intellectual life and would be interested in reading more sertillanges

>>18712071
I'm not a "Trad-Cath" anon, but I would recommend talking to a priest. Even if you have no interest in converting, I'm sure they'd be happy to talk with you. You could also check out Bishop Robert Barron's YouTube channel.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcMjLgeWNwqL2LBGS-iPb1A

>>18721516
>You don't share an OT canon because of the opinions and influence of Martin Luther
I've already stated we don't derive our canon from men. See pic >>18720959
>IV. The authority of the Holy Scripture, for which it ought to be believed and obeyed, dependeth not upon the testimony of any man, or Church; but wholly upon God (who is truth itself) the author thereof: and therefore it is to be received because it is the Word of God.(i)
(i) II Pet. 1:19, 21; II Tim. 3:16; I John 5:9; I Thess. 2:13.

If Martin Luther had believed the apocryphal books were Scripture I still wouldn't believe they were, because they aren't.

>>18721670
>we don't derive our canon from men
>but our OT canon was compiled by men
>and our NT canon is the exact same as the group of heretical papist orthodox Catholics who met under Pope Damascus I in the Council of Rome 382, ~1200 years before my church existed

Do you seriously believe this? This circular logic must seem ridiculous to any outsider not already brainwashed to comply, which is why having impartially weighed the claims of both, I realized that the Protestant position is literally laughable, and epistemologically unsound

>If Martin Luther had believed the apocryphal books were Scripture I still wouldn't believe they were
>even though, conveniently, the only books I don't believe are scripture are the ones that Martin Luther classified as apocryphal
This is your brain on Protestantism.

>>18721713
>Martin Luther was the first to recognize those books were different.
And I thought you were big on church history.

>>18721713
>heretical papist orthodox Catholics
And where did I say they were heretical? Typical papist putting words in others mouths.
Just because some ECF believed in some goofy stuff doesn't mean they weren't saved men, lul.

If this thread is still here tomorrow afternoon I will be back.
Have to get up for work in 6 hours. Protestant work ethic and all that I guess.

>Muh mental health
Truth must be either embraced or rejected. If the truth drives you mad, so be it.
But I would recommend reading Paul J. Glenn's history of Philosophy to start with. It will give you an orthodox and scholarly view of the history of thought and ground you in a Catholic worldview for sound judgement.
https://archive.org/details/historyofphiloso0000glen

>>18721771
>has to completely rephrase my sentence, and mischaracterize my position by adding and removing words to my post

"What sin have I committed if I followed the judgment of the churches? But he who brings charges against me for relating the objections that the Hebrews are wont to raise against the Story of Susanna, the Song of the Three Children, and the story of Bel and the Dragon, which are not found in the Hebrew volume, proves that he is just a foolish sycophant. For I was not relating my own personal views, but rather the remarks that they [the Jews] are wont to make against us. (St. Jerome, Against Rufinus, 11:33 [AD 402]).

>>18721779
You believe that orthodox Catholics were not heretical, and thus were orthodox? Why then do you reject canon 6 of the council of Niceae?
You would be decried as anathema if you did so while you were there, so either they are heretics, or you are.

>>18716518
The most westernized Eastern Nation lol...

The reason tradLARPers exist in the first place is because of the sorry state of the post-concilliar church and its naive post-war liberalism drive them to find a richer vein of belief. The best of them eventually join traditional parishes and contribute to their community. The SSPX is growing for this reason. The have seminaries, hopefully they can get a University going at some point.

>>18721820
I once saw someone say something very wise: everyone LARPs at first. Especially when it comes to these old ideas, and old traditions. It hasn't been passed down to us organically, so it's strange to us. As a result, it's inevitable that we'll approach these things somewhat awkardly and performatively. It will look silly and awkward at first because it is, especially to the one doing it. The trick is to keep going. You're going to look silly and feel foolish at first when you start reviving these old things. Do them anyway. It will get less performative and more organic with time.

>>18721857
That's a good thought. As awkward as twitter zoomer trads can look to outsiders, at least they're trying to support something that fostered the heroic and intellectual spirit of the West for centuries, and was never really lost. They're far less embarrassing than some Evolafag sewing together some half-plagiarized, half-forgotten esoteric traditions for wizard powers.

>>18721213
>I studied biology up to grade 12 I'm pretty much a doctor
Most cradle Catholics, at least in America, just go through the motions and treat religion as cultural background noise. Zealous converts are more likely to go in depth. It doesn't help that post-Vatican II Catholic schools are pretty lax in general.
t. Went to Catholic school and took religion classes but didn't really get serious about it until after college.

The complete works of Dennis Fahey

>>18712071
>I just want to work on myself and my mental health
You can't help yourself unless you put God first. The reason for all discord in the world is people refusing to follow God's guidance.

>>18720172
What I’m trying to say is that I don’t trust any religion/ideology at this point.

>>18720253
Go pray to some black saints

>>18722374
I understand these are confusing times, anon. But without some sort of grounding, you'll just get carried here and there by the currents of history. You may feel like you're a rugged individualist, but really, you're adrift without an anchor. Some others in the thread may have been more forceful than I am, but they are essentially correct. Christianity provided the intellectual and spiritual grounding for society for centuries, and moving away from it has had terrible consequences. But that's really just a macrocosm of the disaster and confusion when the soul moves away from God. Try praying the rosary, or a chaplet if that's easier. And if you have the time, look into the Eucharistic miracles or the miracle of Fatima.

>>18722387
Go bend over.

>>18713403
>and go out on a walk.
and my city is a grey hell filled with garbage and squalor. there is nothing to do except drinking or drugs.

>>18712116
>who finds the mendacity of Catholics and of Christianity in general intolerable
>>18712460
> But they will justify any kind of sophistry if it results in the right conclusion, and castigate any type of inquiry, no matter how justified, if it results in the wrong one.
I honestly don't understand what you're talking about here. It's usually atheists who fail to argue in good faith or use faulty arguments. It isn't Christians saying math is subjective or using a sliding scale of reliability for whether or not Biblical manuscripts can be trusted.

>>18720186
>Well, that is obviously true, but the key point is that it all hinges upon the resurrection - if Christ did not rise from the dead, our faith is in vain, so that subject should be the crux of your discernment.
I don't know about that. I find that there are a vast number of other things for me to criticize beyond just the miracle of resurrection.

>Because the truth claims for Catholicism stand up to intense scrutiny, whereas the truth claims of cults are almost entirely designed to trick the downtrodden and mentally unwell members of society into giving money, labour, or sex to the higher-ups in the system. In Catholicism, nothing is required of you save your attention, and the poorest of the poor is welcomed, with no strings attached. No tithing or payment is necessary whatsoever.

debatable

>but keeping in mind that fear here means a form of ultimate reverence and awe, rather than subjugation and terror of punishment.

this is absolutely splitting hairs. I propose the real issue of fear as a basis for doctrine and you just switch the goal post and say fear=love.

>Not only do we encourage meditation (eg. hesychasm, visio divina, and contemplative prayer), but it is a central part of our religion.

I would deny this. Some of your practices may be meditative but they nowhere approach the discipline required of true meditation. Being raised Catholic I've encountered some practices that are similar, like saying mantras for instance. But even this is limited compared to the scope of the Vedas. I once went to a funeral where one of my relatives (one of the only true Roman Catholics I know) went up to speak and made us all say something like "God is holy, lead us away from sin, live in fear of your love" or something for like that for 15 minutes straight.

>You would not be punished for cultivating those virtues, but you would hypothetically be punished for denying Jesus Christ and rejecting Him, assuming you are mentally well and mature enough to assess truth claims rationally (eg. you are capable of going on the spiritual and rational hero's journey of truth-discovery).
I am capable of going on a truth journey. That is precisely what I am doing now. This sounds like the gaslighting i was referring to earlier. You've seen very little about me from my posting but clearly from my posting you can tell I'm not incapable of critical thought, so what does that make me? Lying to myself?

> While Eastern religions can elicit the former (often in dangerous ways, as is pointed out by Swami Vivekananda in his Raja Yoga), they cannot provide a cogent explanation for the latter.
I really feel that you haven't studied the Vedas. This is just damnably false.

>>18720161
Well if your stance is that the individual is the measure of divinity (Brahman through Atman) than it makes perfect sense

>>18722581
And what exactly have the Vedas produced besides a nation of craven, soiled savages? Catholicism is the only religion ordained by God himself, with verrified miracles to it's credit. Hinduism is nothing but frightful ethnic superstitions.

>>18716284
Francis going full retard has caused a conservative/trad revival in American Catholicism. The Church has a remarkable capacity for self-repair. I wouldn't worry.

>>18721713
>canon 6 of the council of Niceae

>Let the ancient customs in Egypt, Libya and Pentapolis prevail, that the Bishop of Alexandria have jurisdiction in all these, since the like is customary for the Bishop of Rome also. Likewise in Antioch and the other provinces, let the Churches retain their privileges. And this is to be universally understood, that if any one be made bishop without the consent of the Metropolitan, the great Synod has declared that such a man ought not to be a bishop. If, however, two or three bishops shall from natural love of contradiction, oppose the common suffrage of the rest, it being reasonable and in accordance with the ecclesiastical law, then let the choice of the majority prevail.

Why specifically mention this canon, seems unextraordinary to me.

>>18722623
Have you seen the bishops' responses to him trying to ban the Latin Mass? Almost all of them are actually really gentle and kind and understanding. I actually unironically am appreciative of most of the US bishops. It feels like there's more good than bad among them. Feels like a lot of them are actually kind of serious about following Christ. And there's some real standouts in their ranks, like Archbishop Gomez and Archbishop Sample.

>>18712100
Hinduism and Daoism are the cusp of oriental religions. Buddhism is for apathists and western atheists.

>>18719470
Thank you, Anon.
I'm going to comb through these pictures of your little library and use those sites to improve my own.
If you're still around in this thread, and don't mind me asking, who would you say has been the most important Puritan author for you?

>>18722736
>trying to ban the Latin Mass?
I dont get this framing
the reopening of latin mass was an attempt to reach out to sspx
they responded by spitting on the offered hand and deepening the schism
Francis had to respond somehow

>>18722623
How can an infallible Pope go "full retard"?

>>18722581
>I find that there are a vast number of other things for me to criticize beyond just the miracle of resurrection.
St. Paul says it himself - "And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain". This is why the resurrection should be the crux of your research - you have to understand that this, if true as depicted in the eyewitness narrative biographies, proves Jesus' claims to be God.
>debatable
Usually, one would debate at this point.
> I propose the real issue of fear as a basis for doctrine and you just switch the goal post and say fear=love.
I never said fear=love, I clarified what the word fear means in the context of passages like "Fear of God is the beginning of all wisdom". There is nuance here.
> Some of your practices may be meditative but they nowhere approach the discipline required of true meditation. Being raised Catholic I've encountered some practices that are similar, like saying mantras for instance
There are monastic meditation disciplines that you probably wouldn't even be able to keep up with. Just because you were raised Catholic, does not mean you understand the depth of orthodox Catholic meditative practices. This is attested to by our numerous mystic saints, like St. Teresa of Avila, St. Augustine, and St. John of the Cross - they have all progressed far further than you in their meditative spiritual practice, using Catholic practices.
>You've seen very little about me from my posting but clearly from my posting you can tell I'm not incapable of critical thought, so what does that make me? Lying to myself?
If you are on the truth journey, you should learn more about the position you are exploring. Catholicism does not punish anybody for cultivating virtues.

>>18723961
The Pope is not infallible in all contexts. He has the authority to issue Motu Proprios based on his prudential judgment, but another Pope has the ability to issue a revision. The only time a Pope's statement is infallible -eternally- is when he makes an ex cathedra declaration on faith or morals.

>>18724008
>The Pope is not infallible
all that you needed to say, the rest is cope

>>18715782
Thanks for this post, gave me a reality check, I was falling for the dogmatism meme lately even though it was contradictory to my beliefs.

>>18722606
Racism has no place in the one universal church sweatie.

>>18722606
Verified Miracles TM (R)

>>18712100
Buddhism is great but I disagree with anatta. That's the only gripe I have with it.

>>18719197
Imagine having such a sterile utilitarian view of spirituality. "Christianity is true because my optimization-obsessed mindset has led me to the conclusion that it is more statistically likely to be true than other religions" seriously?
You also have a bias against eastern religions since mystical experiences are not "often dangerous" and the resurrection of Jesus isn't really an obstacle for any of them, most of them don't care in the first place/believe it didn't happen, and those who say it might've just see it as another supernatural power.

>>18720133
lmao imagine seriously believing this

>>18724364
Christers act like the resurrection is the greatest magic trick of all time but tons of other mythical traditions had or have similar stuff, e.g. Osiris, Orpheus, Dionysus... the Buddha even is said to have sat up from his coffin and gave a sermon to his mother before going back to being a corpse.

>>18722606
Why do all christians turn out to be crypto-physicalists?
>>18724346
kek

>>18712071
Here are some names that might interest you: Girard, Bobin, Weil, Claudel, Malègue, John of the Cross, Teresa of Ávila, Bernanos (trad but in a non-meme way and very interesting), Grosjean, Thibon, Chaucer, Rabelais, Mauriac, Green, Hugo, Thérèse of Lisieux, Boethius and watch Bresson's movies.

>>18724008
>if true as depicted in the eyewitness narrative biographies, proves Jesus' claims to be God.
Nah, doesn't follow. He could have simply had those powers but not made truthful claims regarding his nature.

>>18724379
>the Buddha even is said to have sat up from his coffin and gave a sermon to his mother before going back to being a corpse.
Imagine being so based you decide to come back from the dead for five minutes just because you weren't done explaining something to someone

>>18724396
>anyway as I was saying, four noble truths, eightfold path, twelvefold origination, mom make sure ananda got all of that

>>18724386
oh and Rohmer's movies too

>>18724413
It's interesting because if I recall correctly one of the Buddha's stances on miracles was that he didn't do them because he wanted people to focus on the teachings, but he just casually resurrects. This puts into perspective the Christian-influenced perspective on miracle working where it's considered as a sign of divinity whereas in Buddhism or just sramanic religions in general it's seen as just another facet of reality and not something to get hung up on on the way to moksha/nirvana/etc.

>>18724424
There's a lot less cosmological significance given to them, at least in some cases. I mean on /lit/ when I see these debates its usually Christians that get into bringing up miracles as evidence whereas no one on the Buddhist side bothers. In ancient India there was probably more interest in superpowers as evidence especially in cases where Buddhism was in competition with the Brahminical religion of the period. I do think one can argue there was a kind of pan-Indian understanding of "miracles" as a kind of illusion magic, not unlike the Egyptians, while Christianity insists on a firm physicality to them (which is going to lead to later Christian debates about substance(s) that are less pronounced in indian systems, where substance usually either is or is not).

>>18724452
>pan-Indian understanding of "miracles" as a kind of illusion magic
Could this just be related to the overall view that miracles, as tangible as they may seem, are in the end just another aspect of maya? In abrahamism you have the rejection of this view and the affirmation that there is no "delusion" aspect to reality, that the ontology of creation is not based on illusion or delusion, hence the greater importance put on miracles.

>>18724387
And yoi base this on what exactly? There is more direct evidence for Christianity that Buddha going "dude trust me"

>>18724471
Did you respond to the wrong person? Your post is incoherent. Even if there was "direct evidence" for the resurrection (there isn't), it wouldn't change that the truthfulness of Jesus' claims cannot be verified one way or the other.

>>18724424
Sounds like Eastern religions are just more credulous.

>>18722606
The only reason India is so fucked is because capitalist imperialism (at behest of Christianity) went into hard

>>18724493
Says the guy who believes one dude who performed miracles was God while dozens of miracle workers in pajeet lands just had people going "sure whatever"

>>18724464
Well from a Hindu pov in the Bhagavad Gita you've got Krishna able to manifest and change forms at will to Arjuna to the point where there is nothing but what is willed; and on the Buddhist side especially in Mahayana you have verses about entire universes being contained in a hair follicle so at that point phenomena are just a kind of screen, capable of infinite manifestations for the sake of enlightenment. If someone rose from the dead in that context, he probably was never really dead or alive, if that makes sense.

>>18724502
Because we have tangible evidence for Christian miracles, while Pajeet miracles can all be explained as slight of hand

>>18724512
>entire universes being contained in a hair follicle
Indra's net is really something. I had held those exact beliefs since childhood and was in awe when I came across the same ideas 20 years later while reading about Huayan stuff.

>>18724526
>we have tangible evidence
>slight of hand

>>18724498
They were shitting in the streets, burning widows, and marrying chipdren long before whitey showed up.

>>18724533
The Tilma of Guadalupe
All the Eucharustic miracles mentioned in this thread
Shroud of Turin

>>18724529
Not to get overly materialist but in a way it's also literally true thanks to electron microscopes and the like.

>>18724545
None of these provide tangible evidence for anything at all and all non-Christians rightfully dismiss those things as unexplained phenomena in the absence of real, concrete evidence. Try again.

>>18724545
Oh yeah well there are 86,000 relics of the Buddha and some of them spontaneously replicate. Yawn.

>>18724548
Some researchers like Bohm do seem to believe all of reality can be "retrieved" from any single parcel of it. Vacuum energy and the cosmological constant problem are also interesting.

>>18724303
>all that you needed to say, the rest is cope
I already know that you do not understand Papal Infallibility or Vatican I, no need to make it explicit.

>>18724364
>not taking a rational approach when making decisions regarding your soul and eternal life
>since mystical experiences are not "often dangerous"
Somebody far more advanced and knowledgable than you, Swami Vivekananda (as well as many others masters in Sramanic traditions) have stated the opposite, which is why the guru-disciple relationship is so ubiquitous in Eastern spirituality.
>the resurrection of Jesus isn't really an obstacle for any of them, most of them don't care in the first place
Yeah, it's definitely not an obstacle if you irrationally close your ears. The problem is that a historical man from Nazareth (not a fictional character like Krishna) performed far greater unprecedented miracles than any Eastern mystic ever had, culminating a miracle that has never been surpassed - prophesying His own resurrection from the dead.

>those who say it might've just see it as another supernatural power.
How interesting that no other Eastern mystic has ever been able to replicate this miracle, despite it being just "another supernatural power".

>>18724372
>imagine seriously believing this
See >>18718578.

>>18724387
>man claims to be God
>man prophesies His own resurrection from the dead - the first and last man in history to ever do so
>this does not corroborate His claim to divinity and pre-existence, despite literally doing something unarguably divine and unprecedentedly miraculous (while being literally dead) that nobody has ever done before or since

>>18724379
> e.g. Osiris, Orpheus, Dionysus
None of these are provably real historical persons, only mythological stories with no evidence behind them.
>the Buddha even is said to have sat up from his coffin
You think hagiographic stories written hundreds of years after Siddhartha's death, by people who didn't even know him, carry an equal weight to firsthand eyewitness testimonies from people within the same generation, who intimately knew the person being biographized?

Your epistemology is incoherent, and you are blinded in this matter by your disdain for Christian spirituality.

>>18724008
>St. Paul says it himself - "And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain". This is why the resurrection should be the crux of your research - you have to understand that this, if true as depicted in the eyewitness narrative biographies, proves Jesus' claims to be God.
I see thank you for this information. Though I don't see how this necessarily proves Jesus to be God. Even within Jesus' time there were many other prophets and miracle workers. Like I said earlier a lot of very strange things are possible.


>Usually, one would debate at this point.
funny man

>I never said fear=love, I clarified what the word fear means in the context of passages like "Fear of God is the beginning of all wisdom". There is nuance here.
Okay, here is what you said

>The entire central narrative of Christianity is founded on God's love for us (John 3:16),
I'm following here
>but we do recognize that because of God's unimaginable transcendence,
and this makes sense
>that it is prudent and "the beginning of all wisdom" to fear Him -
This is where you lose me. How at all do the first two propositions lead to this conclusion? I've had this conversation many times in my life debating Christians and it always seems that as this point we disagree without an explanation handy. This is like the leap of faith moment. You believe that it is "the beginning of all wisdom" to fear him, but that seems to me to follow more as a consequence from what the church teaches than just purely reason itself. So what I must conclude is that it as this point that the authority of the Church and Gospels becomes more central than anything else. And this is fine, but i'm curious what you have to say about what i perceive as a sort of leap in the argument. I can reasonably assume that if God exists he is definitely omnipotent, but how can i be as sure as this that i need be in fear of him? This is doubtless one reason why so so so many different Christians sects have developed since Luther. However, in the Vedas the various schools of thoughts do not contradict one another, despite seeming to to a Western mind. This is the power of the Vedas, which can accept multiplicity while still adhering to the same principles. I have a quote on this from Guenon i'll post

continued

>>18724550
The lab results say otherwise.
>>18724551
And have any of them been studied scientifically?

>>18724604
Holy fuck the mental gymnastics and straw-grasping in this post are absolutely insane.
Look you can believe in the ressurection if you want, but the bottom line is: there is no proof for it (cry and seethe all you want, this is true, and testimonies from cult followers don't count), many other religions have claimed miracles just as outlandish as what Christianity claims (but you're disregarding them because they threaten your worldview), and basically you're full of shit.
By the way guruism is only important in some strands of tantric hinduism and in vajrayana, i.e. not the majority of eastern religion. Displaying your ignorance so openly makes it much harder to take anything you're saying seriously.
You should stop being so prideful and conceited and accept that your beliefs are just that, beliefs. There is no proof or evidence for your faith, that's just how it is, and it's not special by any means as far as miracles are concerned, even if you really want to believe the opposite.
Your whole argument boils down to: "these things are true because Christianity is true, the other stuff is false because it's not Christianity". This is unfortunately a typical Christian argument, but it's not convincing to people who don't share your delusions.

>>18724615
>but keeping in mind that fear here means a form of ultimate reverence and awe, rather than subjugation and terror of punishment.
how can fear ever be anything else? I am putting myself (actually putting myself there) into a state which is only aware of consequences. This is the sort of thing that meditation turns around early on because, like i said, it is the person themselves doing it to themselves. I think were getting somewhere but still i remain convinced in my beliefs. Fear is a primitive extinct and only a hindrance to perception of God.

>There are monastic meditation disciplines that you probably wouldn't even be able to keep up with. Just because you were raised Catholic, does not mean you understand the depth of orthodox Catholic meditative practices. This is attested to by our numerous mystic saints, like St. Teresa of Avila, St. Augustine, and St. John of the Cross - they have all progressed far further than you in their meditative spiritual practice, using Catholic practices.
I have read some of the mystics but link me with some sources of these meditative practices which you refer and we can discuss them. In a certain sense, self-flagellation is meditative and requires a high degree of discipline, but I wouldn't consider it anything beyond unnecessary and myopic.

>If you are on the truth journey, you should learn more about the position you are exploring. Catholicism does not punish anybody for cultivating virtues.
I've been told otherwise. Personally exploring my own consciousness makes some people very uncomfortable, especially when the first stage of that journey was eliminating guilt within my psyche. Perhaps I did not make this clear enough, but that is one way in which I am defining the meditative journey. "Self-harm" is gradually understood as the individual learns how to give themselves the space to live in peace.

>>18724620
>The lab results say otherwise.
No they don't kek, the shroud doesn't say anything at all about the resurrection, your kind just likes to distort the truth when convenient

>>18724615
>Miracle workers
None of which came back from the dead, or provided continuous miracles.

>>18724604
>The Pope is only infallible when he's infallible, other times he's not infallible!!! If he says something out of line just don't listen lol!
Right, right. This is how you get shit like popes putting dead popes on trial for heresy and then later getting put on trial for putting the dead pope on trial.

>>18724620
>The lab results say otherwise.
mind linking to them?
>inb4 LOL SOIJAK, HE ASKED FOR A SOURCE!!! I MUST DEFLECT BECAUSE I DON'T HAVE ONE

>>18724638
How does it say nothing? It meets all the criteria of a burial cloth and possess characteristics entirely consistent with the resurrection

>>18724651
>the shroud was moved, that means Jesus came back from the dead
I have a bridge to sell you, you interested?

>>18724604
>You think hagiographic stories written hundreds of years after Siddhartha's death, by people who didn't even know him, carry an equal weight to firsthand eyewitness testimonies from people within the same generation, who intimately knew the person being biographized?
Why should I trust these testimonies? Why are the people giving them trustworthy to outsiders? Why wouldn't it be more likely that they were a cult of grave-robbing cannibals?

>>18724639
>muh necromancy
Why are you getting so hung up on this? It's an extremely common component of myths. There's nothing special about resurrection in religion.
Even assuming it to be true (highly doubtful), how does it translate to Jesus being God? It doesn't. Jesus said he would die (not a hard prediction to make considering how hard he was making the jews seethe), he did, then allegedly rose from the dead. Where is the missing link between this alleged "fact" and the allegation of his divinity?
A man doing something miraculous does not mean he is God. Nothing indicates that the claims he made are true, period. He could simply have been just another miracle worker (I am assuming the miracles were true which is doubtful in the first place) and then made false claims, either to mislead or because of his own ignorance.
Power does not imply knowledge. Jesus being able to do things other people weren't able to do do not mean he was God, this is a naive extrapolation. It is also hypocritical, considering you Christians are so quick to call supernatural manifestations demonic whenever they do not fall within what is considered acceptable by your dogma.

>>18724620
>we can use science to prove that magic is real
Are you an anime character or something?

>>18724615
>Though I don't see how this necessarily proves Jesus to be God. Even within Jesus' time there were many other prophets and miracle workers.
It is the unprecedented nature of the miracle, the prophesying of His own resurrection from the dead, which has never before or after been replicated by any person to ever live - combined with the fact that numerous times in His life, He claimed divinity and eternal pre-existence. These the former fact adds an intense epistemological weight to the latter claims.

>This is where you lose me. How at all do the first two propositions lead to this conclusion?
Because the natural and healthy response to being confronted with the infinite majesty and transcendence of the creator, who did not need to create this universe and did not need to save us, but chose to do so out of his infinite love, is to show complete reverence and awe.
For a more clear picture, see this quote from Psalm 130:
"But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared."
The word "feared" in this context is the same as "the fear of God is the beginning of all wisdom". But wait, why would God being forgiving lead us to fear him? The answer is that the word contains some nuance - it can refer to awe and reverence, which is what it signifies in this case, as in the book of Proverbs.

>but that seems to me to follow more as a consequence from what the church teaches than just purely reason itself
It is a quote from the book of Proverbs, which existed many hundreds of years before the church existed - it has nothing to do with the church's teachings.

>the authority of the Church and Gospels becomes more central than anything else
Again, see above.

>but how can i be as sure as this that i need be in fear of him?
Should you revere and be in awe of an omnipotent and infinitely loving being who created the universe?

>>18724637
Again, you are getting caught up in the lack of nuance of the English word "fear" compared to the Hebrew word "yare". See the example of Psalm 130 above.

>I have read some of the mystics but link me with some sources of these meditative practices which you refer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_meditation#St._Teresa_of_Avila
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoplatonism_and_Christianity#Late_antiquity
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesychasm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_contemplation#Dionysius_the_Pseudo-Areopagite
These are just some.

>I've been told otherwise
You've been told wrong. Read CCC 2705-2707.

>>18724641
>still doesn't understand which situations the Pope is infallible
Literally just read Vatican I, stop shitting up the thread.

>>18724693
>It is the unprecedented nature of the miracle, the prophesying of His own resurrection from the dead, which has never before or after been replicated by any person to ever live
You can repeat this as much as you want but it won't make it true or more convincing.

>>18724633
>there is no proof for it [...] testimonies from [...] followers don't count
If your epistemological standard for historical events completely discards firsthand eyewitness testimonies, taking your philosophy to its logical conclusion, you will have to discard 99% of ancient history. It is epistemologically incoherent to avoid using the most powerful form of evidence (firsthand eyewitness testimony), simply because it will lead you to conclusions you don't want to accept.

>many other religions have claimed miracles just as outlandish as what Christianity claims
Please show me a single historical person who was testified to have prophesied their own resurrection, and then has a valid historical case to be made asserting that they actually did resurrect from the dead, and appear to many eyewitnesses?

>By the way guruism is only important in some strands of tantric hinduism and in vajrayana
This is laughably vague. Almost all Yogic and mystical traditions can be considered "tantric", and that is exactly what we are discussing here, not basic cultural Hinduism for laypeople.

>There is no proof or evidence for your faith,
There is historical evidence of the existence of a man called Yeshua from Nazareth, who was known as a miracle worker, was crucified, and whose disciples testified that He appeared to them in a resurrected physical body. Just because you conveniently apply a unique and epistemologically unsound standard of historical criticism to firsthand eyewitness testimonies, does not mean there is "no evidence".

>Your whole argument boils down to: "these things are true because Christianity is true, the other stuff is false because it's not Christianity".
A strawman argument is indeed very easy to refute and ridicule. Unfortunately, I am an actual human who presented actual arguments, which still stand.

>>18724726
>It is epistemologically incoherent to avoid using the most powerful form of evidence (firsthand eyewitness testimony), simply because it will lead you to conclusions you don't want to accept.
Uh, well in that case Islam supersedes Christianity. Time for you to move on.

>>18724708
I mean, you have not provided any counter-argument for why we should reject firsthand eyewitness testimonies, so your lack of an argument is not compelling at all.

>>18724666
Why should you trust firsthand eyewitness testimonies? Besides the fact that you already do trust firsthand and secondhand (if that) eyewitness testimonies to shape your understanding of ancient history? We can say that because the disciples of Jesus who corroborated and spread the testimonies chose to potentially be tortured and killed (eg. the apostle Peter) rather than staying silent, this provides a heavy epistemological weight to their already strong eyewitness testimony - not to mention the fact that nobody in human history is willing to be tortured and killed for something that they know to be false, which would have been the case if they had never seen the resurrected Jesus (because the testimonies record that detail).

>>18724737
Completely missed the point. Muhammad performed no miracles, which people repeatedly called him out for in the Qur'an - whereas the firsthand eyewitness testimony of the Gospels are adding heavy epistemological weight to the miracle of the prophesied resurrection performed by Jesus, which would corroborate His claims to divinity (as being the first and only man to ever do so, both before and since). Not sure how you're not getting this.

>>18724743
I don't doubt that the martyrs bought into what they were getting killed over—they were promised paradise. I doubt what they bought into. There's a difference. People die for all sorts of causes.
>>18724757
Muhammad ascended to heaven lol. I guess that's not turning water into booze, but different strokes.

>>18724653
How do you account for the burst of super energized light thatbcame from the body and created the image? Because that's what studies say happened.

>>18724726
>eyewitness
Yes, because witnesses who were part of Jesus' following and believed in everything he said are extremely reliable. You are so biased and deep into your narrative that you don't even realize how incapable of objectivity you are. You will grasp at anything.
>conclusions you don't want to accept
Yeah this is only valid in my case but never applies to you right? See >>18724737.
>a valid historical case to be made asserting that they actually did resurrect from the dead
So, not Jesus? The "historical data" is extremely unconvincing for anyone who isn't a Christian already.
And I already told you why all this shit was inconsequential here >>18724669.
>Almost all Yogic and mystical traditions can be considered "tantric"
You are factually wrong and should refrain from posting about things you don't know about.
>There is historical evidence of the existence of a man called Yeshua from Nazareth, who was known as a miracle worker,
No, there is no historical consensus on whether the historical Jesus was reported to be a miracle worker by anyone else than his followers and extremely sparse talmudic sources (that generally call him an exorcist).
>whose disciples testified
Utterly irrelevant, and if you can't see why, you should really go get some air.
>conveniently apply
I'm not the one grasping at straws to make history fit my narrative here. The historical consensus is as follows:
>Jesus was a first-century Jew, baptized by John, who taught and preached, had followers, was believed by them to be a miracle worker, went to Jerusalem where there was an incident of some kind, was subsequently arrested, convicted and crucified.
All the rest is just you making shit up to suit your faith.
>who presented actual arguments
No, you just said "Christianity is true because alleged eyewitnesses from 2000 years ago said they saw miracles". You're gonna need more than that to prove Jesus was a miracle worker, let alone to prove he was God (which is an entirely different matter).

>>18724784
>studies
Link them, I could use a good laugh.
>>18724743
>nobody in human history is willing to be tortured and killed for something that they know to be false
What are cults?
Are you seriously arguing that because people were willing to die for Christianity, that means it's true? Please get your head out of your ass.

>>18724669
>necromancy
It idn't animating a dead body, it's coming back to life. You'rebeingbincredibly disingunious.

>>18724784
>the scientific basis for the miracle is that a body emitted light
Stop befouling the English language

>>18724790
It's a joke, get that broomstick out of your ass and address the actual points.

>>18724789
So you know more than the actual forensic experts?

>>18724797
>still not linking the study
What's wrong, isn't it "solid evidence"? kek

>>18724793
Super powerful light that can burn a thin image onto fabric. How often to you think dead bodies do that?

>>18724797
What foresic expert concluded that a body emitted a burst of light to create the image? Where was he trained? Nigeria?

>>18724795
Your points have already been addressed numerous times, but yoi insist on being an obstructionist fag.

>>18724806
Nope, you have addressed none of them and continue to be a pilpulling, dishonest dogmatist because you have no actual evidence of anything.

>>18724798
>>18724804
Read for yourself
https://shroud.com/

The strongest "arguments" for Christianity in this thread has been this:
>we have testimonies from the time Jesus lived
>these testimonies, mostly from his followers/sympathizers, say that he performed miracles
>a few testimonies say that he rose from the dead
>ergo, Jesus was God
Putting aside the obvious (that testimonies from followers should be taken with a huge grain of salt), even if all of this did happen, making a huge leap of faith and assuming that Jesus' life happened exactly as told in the Gospels, this still leaves an important question:
>why should we believe that Jesus was God simply because 1. he was one of the most powerful miracle workers that existed and 2. he just said so?
This would mean lending credence to his claims just because he appeared to be extremely powerful, but there is nothing that proves Jesus was the only individual in human history to ever perform such feats, just as there is nothing to suggest such feats of power are somehow the proof that the one who possesses them is God. He could be "a" god, some kind of higher being, or something else.

And keep in mind I'm actually giving Christians the benefit of the doubt here by assuming that their "evidence" even deserves to be called that. We are a very long way from proving Christianity is true.

>>18724778
>I don't doubt that the martyrs bought into what they were getting killed over
You have to take into account that what they "bought into" was a series of statements involving what they themselves saw. If they had never seen the resurrected Jesus, they would not have chosen to be tortured and killed for this testimony, because nobody will ever choose to be tortured and killed for something they know to be false.
>People die for all sorts of causes.
Causes that they believe are true, not causes that they know to be false (which would be the case if the apostles had never seen the physically resurrected Jesus).

>Muhammad ascended to heaven lol
Muhammad's "night journey" was literally a dream, and nobody else witnessed it - the only reason people believe it is because Muhammad said it happened, not because there was eyewitness testimony.

>>18724785
>witnesses who were part of Jesus' following and believed in everything he said are extremely reliable
If they chose to face torture and death for testifying that they saw Him physically resurrected from the dead, meaning they truly believed what they were saying? Yes, it is reliable firsthand eyewitness testimony.
>You are so biased and deep into your narrative that you don't even realize how incapable of objectivity you are.
I was agnostic before weighing the truth claims of all these different religions, including syncretism and new-age, and Christianity has, by far, the most epistemologically sound claim to truth.
>The "historical data" is extremely unconvincing for anyone who isn't a Christian already.
That is your opinion, but you have not provided any evidence as to why firsthand eyewitness testimonies which were preached on pain of torture and death are unreliable.

>there is no historical consensus on whether the historical Jesus was reported to be a miracle worker by anyone else than his followers and extremely sparse talmudic sources
There is no historical consensus besides these historical sources that call Him a miracle worker (in sympathetic sources) and a sorcerer (in unsympathetic sources)? What more evidence could you want?

>Utterly irrelevant, and if you can't see why, you should really go get some air.
Again, you are missing the key point, which is the willingness to be tortured and killed for something that they knew was false, if the events they were testifying did not actually occur.

>I'm not the one grasping at straws to make history fit my narrative here.
So please provide your explanation for why you think the apostles decided to testify to His physical resurrection, facing torture and execution? Is it the swoon hypothesis, vision hypothesis, messianic lie hypothesis? I've heard them all, and none are epistemologically sound on further scrutiny, but I am excited to hear if you have a novel hypothesis we can discuss.
>"Christianity is true because alleged eyewitnesses from 2000 years ago said they saw miracles
A strawman argument is easy to refute.

>>18724810
Your points are shallow. No miracle worker is as well attested or well terrified as Christ. And his command over the natural and supernatural order credits his divinity claims, but you are too obtuse to admit it.

>>18724813
Why won't you link me to an actual academic study and are instead posting a link to a Christian website?

>>18724813
Ah so you've thrown in the towel, or shroud as it were, as far as discussion is concerned.

>>18724839
Do you not get that people believe things that are not true? And that such beliefs influence their behavior? Christians are such solipsists. So anyone else who died for their "faith" was just knowingly dishonest and an idolator?

>>18724843
>>18724852
The person who created the website was a former atheist Jew, who converted to Christianity after being faced with vast amounts of scientific evidence pointing towards the Shroud's authenticity. Anybody who spends a substantial amount of time studying the Shroud comes to realize that it cannot be a forgery - and the 14th century dating has been heavily debunked by scientific studies, at this point.

>>18724839
>If they chose to face torture and death
What are cults?
>you have not provided any evidence as to why firsthand eyewitness testimonies
They are biased because they were part of Jesus' following. Would you also believe the Manson family's eyewitness testimonies to Charles Manson performing miracles?
You have not provided any evidence as to why these testimonies should be considered reliable and the burden of proof is on you by the way.
>besides these historical sources
...That are biased, and are not part of the historical consensus. You talk about epistemologically sound claims, so be rigorous and admit that the consensus does not include Jesus being a miracle worker.
>willingness to be tortured and killed
Refer to the cult thing. Also the promise of heaven as someone else pointed out.
>provide your explanation
I have. You think I'm wrong because you're a Christian. I'm not dumb enough to think I can lead you to abandon your faith by telling you the "proof" is not actually proof.
>strawman
Keep calling it a strawman all you want but it is what it is.
>>18724840
See above.
>his command over the natural and supernatural order credits his divinity claims
No it doesn't. See >>18724836

>>18724870
Yes. If people die for a faith other than Christianity, they were delusional and misled by demons. If people present any kind of anecdotal or testimonial "evidence" for a religion that isn't Christianity, that is demonic deception, poor methodology/forgery, or both.
If you disagree, you are obtuse and delusional.
>>18724874
The shroud not being a forgery is unrelated to the claim of the resurrection.
You still did not link to the study you originally brought up but are moving goalposts.

>>18724839
Since you seem to like cold, hard evidence so much, maybe you can help me figure out why current scientific models being elaborated in mathematical physics seem to contradict Christian metaphysics and affirm Buddhist metaphysics?

>>18724870
>Do you not get that people believe things that are not true?
You are, again, missing the point. It is not that people do not die for things that are not true - it is that if somebody KNOWS something is not true (such as, for example, the disciples of Jesus testifying to seeing Him and talking to Him after He physically resurrected), they would NOT choose preach it on pain of torture and death. This means that the testimonies of the disciples carry an extreme epistemological weight, because either they believed what they were peaching (which is that they all saw and spoke with the physically resurrected Jesus for several days), or they did not believe it (in which case they would not have preached it at risk of being tortured and killed, because they would know it to be a false lie).
>So anyone else who died for their "faith" was just knowingly dishonest and an idolator?
No, because they thought it was true. Please read my above argument slowly, and see if you can identify the nuanced point.

>>18724881
>Would you also believe the Manson family's eyewitness testimonies to Charles Manson performing miracles
If they chose to willingly risk being tortured and killed rather than recanting their testimonies, their testimonies would carry a much greater epistemological weight - it is the preaching in spite of the persecuting authorities which adds such weight to the testimonies of the apostles.

>...That are biased, and are not part of the historical consensus.
You have both sympathetic and unsympathetic sources testifying to His miracles. I'm not sure what else you could want. Plus, I didn't even claim that there was a historical consensus, I just saw that you sneakily changed my wording when quoting my post here >>18724726, which I didn't realize until now. I said there is historical -evidence-, which is true. I agree there is no historical consensus, but there is historical evidence, which is what I originally claimed before you edited my words.

>I have.
No, you haven't provided an explanation as to why the apostles chose to preach a testimony when risking torture and death. You need to say which hypothesis you adhere to - the vision hypothesis, messianic lie hypothesis, etc. (or, if it is a novel one, to explain it here).

>>18724920
>current scientific models being elaborated in mathematical physics
Perhaps you can elaborate on these new discoveries in "mathematical physics"? Surely you have a complex and nuanced understanding of such topics, so it should be easy.