How do atheists reconcile with Pascals Wager?

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Anonymous Thu Jan 10 11:24:32 2019 No.12381701 [Reply] [Original]

How do atheists reconcile with Pascals Wager?

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 11:26:12 2019 No.12381711 >>12381701 By debunking it.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 11:31:48 2019 No.12381745 >>12381701 By ignoring it

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 11:33:01 2019 No.12381755 >>12381701 There are a lot of gods and a lot of hells. No god that ever created a hell is worthy of worship.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 11:33:18 2019 No.12381757 >>12381701 It only further proves how low philosophy fell after Christianity took over. Plato would kill himself if he saw what an absolute joke his tradition had become, and the culture that displaced his own.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 11:34:28 2019 No.12381770 by posting threads on /lit/ with his mug

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 11:37:04 2019 No.12381787 I unironically became a worshiper of Zeus because of this. Greco-Roman polytheism is the only religion that makes sense, after all.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 11:39:54 2019 No.12381806 File: 174 KB, 387x544, thomas aquinas triggered.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>12381787 DELET THIS IF WE TAKE ME BEING CORRECT AS AN AXIOM, THEN WE CAN LOGICALLY POSIT THAT I AM CORRECT!

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 11:41:41 2019 No.12381822 >>12381701 The definitive example of the mental enslavement which becomes of those who become Christian, a Stockholm-syndrome pertaining to the transcendent rather than something local. My sympathies go toward Christians, always.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 11:44:43 2019 No.12381841 >>12381822 tips

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 11:46:12 2019 No.12381849 >>12381701 >millions of gods exist as modes of worship >many preclude the validity of others per said worship >dude just choose Christ lmao roll the dice Statistics is the answer OP.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 11:47:58 2019 No.12381859 >>12381701 It debunks itself.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 11:48:35 2019 No.12381862 >>12381701 >i don't believe in god >i need to believe in god >pooff >i believe in god now It's straight up retarded.

Anonymous Thu Jan 10 11:49:51 2019 No.12381872

>>12381701
>muh 3000 deities
The only reasonable response to Pascal's Wager, as someone who is not a convinced believer in any specific religion, is to live a good and virtuous life and hope that that is enough to be admitted into whatever heaven might exist.

Anonymous Thu Jan 10 11:51:15 2019 No.12381884
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How do Theists reconcile with Pascal's wager?
Case 1: You don't believe, so you go to hell
Fine, we avoid this case by believing

Case 2: You decide to believe so that you won't go to hell, but now

Case 2.1: Believing just for the reward is a going to hell worthy offence because now your intent is impure

or

Case 2.2: You now have a 1/4,200 chance of picking the right religion. A wrong choice condemns you to hell.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 11:57:51 2019 No.12381925 >>12381872 amen

Anonymous Thu Jan 10 12:00:02 2019 No.12381937

>>12381701
There are a limitless number of possible mindsets that God may have and it is impossible to know for certain whether believing in him (it) will grant you everlasting bliss, or whatever you religious windbags desire. Wagering that God as the manifestation of Good and justice exist is putting ones faith in a single conceptualization of the infinite being, which can hardly be demonstrated as the most likely conceptualization of the infinite being, or that any conceptualization is an accurate knowledge of the infinite being. And this wager is predicated on the axiom that it is possible for an infinite being to exist and necessarily exist while simultaneously believing we can communicate with this being. Committing intellectual suicide by disregarding the sheer number of possible mindsets of God and opting for the one that claims to give you everlasting life is quite possibility the most unintelligible, puerile pipe dream that has no place in any serious philosophical discussion.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 12:01:58 2019 No.12381949 >>12381701 I don't know how do theists reconcile moral dessert?

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 12:02:50 2019 No.12381956 File: 56 KB, 541x558, craig_wright.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >15 posters >not a single one properly understands Pascal Yikes!

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 12:03:37 2019 No.12381963 Friendly reminder that Pascal was indexed by the Church, refuse the enlightenments.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 12:15:52 2019 No.12382037 >>12381757 How much further did it fall when secularization happened and scientism took over?

Anonymous Thu Jan 10 12:16:13 2019 No.12382043

>>12381956
Why do so many Christians have this trademark smugness of expression to themselves? Is this what believing you holds the Exclusive Truth™ does to one's face? Is it because they think that there's a heaven they've already gained admittance to, and everyone else is going to a chamber of eternal torture? While not true of all Christians, it's sad to say that there are many psychopathic ones out there, completely devoid of empathy, who do feel a deranged sense of contentment at the belief of other's eventual demise. Hell, regardless of its having reality or not, certainly fuels a fantasy within those who already harbor a silent hatred for the populations around them.

Anonymous Thu Jan 10 12:22:46 2019 No.12382076

>>12382037
Secularization only happened in response to the atrocities committed under Churchianity's reign. Spirituality is still alive, and more people leave organized religion each year, seeking non-dogmatic philosophies or simply engaging in individual practises. Scientism is despicable too, but is no different than the church - an institutional body of given too much power over society, and again, many are rejecting their narratives now too, and embracing a spiritualism which relies on neither science nor a church. We are learning, is the point. The pendulum swings too far in one direction, then the other, and eventually settles somewhere better than the two.

Anonymous Thu Jan 10 12:44:16 2019 No.12382168

>>12381701
The premises are incorrect. "Infinite reward" is poorly defined and can't be used to work out the wager as defined by Pascal. Even if this objection doesn't stand, the many views of God make the wager moot, if one believes in the wrong view of God then one is open to infinite punishment. The likelihood of each view of God being true needs to be assessed by other means, thus the wager is useless as it does maximise one's reward in itself.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 12:45:29 2019 No.12382175 >>12381963 Pardon my ignorance, but what does ‘indexed by the church’ mean?

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 12:47:39 2019 No.12382193 >>12382168 *doesn't maximise Top zozzle, I typo'd myself into contradiction

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 12:48:48 2019 No.12382201 >>12382175 Shorthand for being put on the Church's index of banned writings (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_Librorum_Prohibitorum))

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 12:54:48 2019 No.12382226 reminder this thread regularly hits limit bump without a single citation from the Pensee, neither side of the argument has read it. sage

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 12:55:46 2019 No.12382230 Read Aquinas, not some heretical pleb.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 12:56:44 2019 No.12382235 >>12381701 It was just a natural part of philosophical progression.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 12:57:52 2019 No.12382239 Pascal was just proposing a thought experiment. He never claimed it was proof that God exists.

Anonymous Thu Jan 10 13:02:50 2019 No.12382259

If Mind is fundamental to Reality, and there is more consciousness to the world than what's inside our heads, or in the heads of sentient beings, then it's clear that whatever this entity is transcends human concepts. If there is a God, it is unlike anything the human mind has conceived, the patriarchal constructs of Abrahamic religions are clever control devices for keeping a society in order. Perhaps at their mystic edges they touch the greater infinite reality, but for the most part they concern themselves with the nuts and bolts of getting people to behave a certain way consistent with whatever ancient values the inventors of these systems had in mind.

So if there is a universal mind or something deeper than the mundane world, rather than just mindless energy all the way down, it does not respect human concepts such as a wager or even morality.

God, if it exists, is more like Cthulhu and less like a big man with a beard in the clouds who wants us to do what he tells us to do.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 13:07:18 2019 No.12382282 >people using the "muh 5,000 different Gods" argument There is only one God people take seriously and it is for a good reason

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 13:07:34 2019 No.12382285 >>12382239 It's supposed to be a proof of the maximum utility of believing in God, not his existence. This excuse of "it's just a thought experiment" fails because Pascal goes on to explain how one should cultivate belief if one accepts the wager.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 13:11:20 2019 No.12382305 >>12382282 >There is only one God people take seriously Vishnu?

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 13:11:56 2019 No.12382308 >>12381884 Your damnation dude. Enjoy eternal fire for me.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 13:14:26 2019 No.12382320 >>12382308 if this was the choice God gave us I'd unironically rather go to hell. fuck that coercive, jelous, petty autocrat

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 13:18:17 2019 No.12382343 >>12382320 >one ticket to hell please!

Anonymous Thu Jan 10 13:19:39 2019 No.12382351

>>12381862
Pascal explains how to improve your faith. Humble yourself, lessen the passions, read the Bible, pray, go to church, do good works, avoid sin, etc.
>>12381872
Pascal actually explains why Christianity is the perfect religion in Penseés. It’s a large section spanning most of the book, so it’s not easily summarized. Criticize his defense of Christianity, not the wager itself.
>>12381884
Yes, you start to believe to avoid Hell. Why is this bad? Where does the Bible say that? Even if you start belief through the wager, and selfishness, isn’t it possible to be a better Christian later on? Aren’t all sins covered by Christ?
>You now have a 1/4,200 chance of picking the right religion. A wrong choice condemns you to hell.
See above. Just because there are infinite religions doesn’t mean they all have the same probability of being true.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 13:19:59 2019 No.12382353 >>12382308 is a live example of >>12382043

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 13:22:23 2019 No.12382367 >>12382343 >god: moses save ur people >moses: k >moses: let my ppl go lol >pharoah: ok dude >god: hardens pharaohs heart >pharoah: actually fuck that >moses: wait, what? >god doing a literal troll face

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 13:37:32 2019 No.12382441 >>12382351 >Just because there are infinite religions doesn’t mean they all have the same probability of being true. Can you elaborate please?

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 13:39:58 2019 No.12382456 >>12382441 I think this is the part where he somehow demonstrates why Christianity has the greater probability of being true than the others do. Let's see how he argues for it, I'm genuinely curious.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 13:41:28 2019 No.12382462 >>12382367 Based fickle Yahweh. That’s what that stuttering cuck got.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 13:45:53 2019 No.12382482 >>12382456 Not that poster but why do you make this seem like an impossible feat? It's been done by many famous theologians

Anonymous Thu Jan 10 13:47:54 2019 No.12382490

>>12382441
It’s a bit simple minded to refuse to act because there are infinite choices. Just because those religions and philosophies exist, doesn’t mean they have an equal chance of being true as Christianity. You’ve probably never even heard of more than 50 religions, and there are many religions that most people have never heard of, either because they’re ancient and forgotten, or simply not appealing. If that’s the case, why think they are as probable as Christianity? Plus, some religions can be ignored because of their tenets. A crude example is my shit eating religion. I am the prophet of God, and you must eat my shit to get in Heaven. Would you really think this religion has an equal chance as Christianity? If you had to choose between both of them, knowing that one of them is definitely true, which would you bet on and devote your life to? The same goes for all religions. Compare Islam and Christianity, Mohammed vs. Jesus, and see if you think they’re equally probable. Even if Christianity didn’t have, say, a 90% of being the one true religion, but 30%, so long as you think it has a better probability than other religions, you should obviously bet on Christianity. But from my reading of Pascal I would actually put Christianity at 99%+, because he defends it well. A lot of people like Buddhism, but it’s such an arbitrary religion. A middle aged prince mediates and becomes enlightened, according to whom? How can we trust him? Yet Jesus is supposedly the Son of God, performing miracles, speaking the truth not because he thought became enlightened, because he is literally the Son of God.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 13:48:27 2019 No.12382491 >>12382482 Do share some of their arguments. Remember, you're arguing specifically for the Christian God, and not merely God, and then labelling it Christian. The OT, Gospels and NT are the materials you are to use.

Anonymous Thu Jan 10 13:52:33 2019 No.12382515

>>12382491
No, what I would have to prove is not that the Christian God is correct, just that you can put a rational filter on religions to see if they fit the bar for probable. The religions that pass this filter will need to be defended separatly and stand on their own

Anonymous Thu Jan 10 13:52:57 2019 No.12382518

>>12382490
>Plus, some religions can be ignored because of their tenets. A crude example is my shit eating religion. I am the prophet of God, and you must eat my shit to get in Heaven. Would you really think this religion has an equal chance as Christianity?
You're assuming that you can think as God dose. You're Anthropomorphising something that is inherently beyond human.

Anonymous Thu Jan 10 13:54:48 2019 No.12382527

>>12382491
You have to have faith that Jesus either didn’t exist or that the NT was mostly made up, since Jesus fulfilled so many OT prophecies and was referenced and predicted as the “Son,” “suffering servant,” etc. No other religion can say it was founded on another religion so perfectly.

Anonymous Thu Jan 10 13:55:07 2019 No.12382531
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>>12381701
You don't, you just make of it a reductio ad absurdum to show why the chances of you winning the wager are incomprehensibly small regardless of what you choose.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 13:56:20 2019 No.12382542 >>12382518 >You're assuming that you can think as God does How?

Anonymous Thu Jan 10 13:57:01 2019 No.12382546

>>12382490
>appeal to historicism
>appeal to popularity
>implying Christianity doesn't have deplorable tenants (e.g. stone idoliters, Jesus' explicit discrimination of gentiles, ect.)
>strawman (i.e. other religions are comparable to someone eating shit)
>gamblers fallacy
>appeal to authority (still not a single Pascal quote in this thread as per usual)
>appeal to incredulity
>appeal to faith
The fact you doubt Buddha's revelation while being 99% sure of Jesus' says everything. there is no real argument here.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 13:57:32 2019 No.12382551 >>12381701 Hitchens said his wager was false from the beginning. Pascal assumes that one can make themselves believe. Hitchens did not feel he could "fool" himself.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 13:58:20 2019 No.12382563 >>12382527 Muhammad fit some prophecies in Hebrew and (such as) Biblical texts too https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_and_the_Bible

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 13:59:26 2019 No.12382573 >>12382551 Pascal literally explains how to improve your faith>>12382351 If he can be wrong about one thing...

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 13:59:36 2019 No.12382575 >>12381701 Surely the wager is flawed from the outset? Simply by considering it you're making your decision on the basis of self-interest and not out of love for the divine or a genuine belief in the particular God you've invested in.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 13:59:42 2019 No.12382576 File: 41 KB, 396x382, f63.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>12382546 >appeal >appeal >more appeals >muh >appeals

Anonymous Thu Jan 10 14:00:47 2019 No.12382584

>>12382490
The chances of Christian theology being true are virtually 0 because we know it basally all comes from the Persians via the Jews, basically nothing in Exodux actually happened, there was no covenant with God originally, the Jews were just another primitive Semitic tribe until the Babylonians enslaved them, then when the Persians freed them they remade Judaism in the image of the state religion as they did with many subject peoples, they ruled Palestine for several centuries after the 6th century BC. The whole thing is just a big convoluted LARP

>During the Achaemenid Empire, Cyrus the Great freed Jews from Babylonian captivity, allowing them to practice their religion, and contact between Jews and Persians continued in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. In the Hebrew Bible, Cyrus the Great is referred to as the “Messiah” by Isaiah, making him the only gentile to be praised to such high regards, and other kings such as Darius, Xerxes, and Artaxerxes are frequently mentioned; the books Esther and Daniel, draws significantly from the life at the Persian royal court, and the feast in the Book of Esther, celebrating the liberation of magus Haman’s evil plot, is an adaptation of the Iranian Farvardigan. Palestine was also under Persian rule for two-hundred years and there were large Jewish diaspora in Western Iran and Mesopotamia; the religious ideas of the imperial elite most likely became well-known by the Jews, and the Judaism, being a minority religion without a state to back the authority of the faith, did not arouse much interest in the Persians. Due to the following significant interactions between Persians and Jews, there is substantial reason to believe Zoroastrianism heavily influenced the Judeo-Christian tradition with the dualism between the forces of good and evil, introduction of angels, personified evil figures (e.g., Asmodeus is based off daeva Aēšma), the eschatological reward for the just and punishment for the wicked, the struggle between truth (Av. Asha) and lie (Av. Druj), and the resurrection of the dead (check Yasna 19). The idea of a “Day of Judgment” (Hebrew Yohm Ha Din) can be traced to Zoroastrianism’s ‘Frashokereti’, when fire cleanses the world of all evil or defilement, and the belief of the soul reaching paradise can, likewise, be claimed to originate from the Zoroastrian concept “Chinvat Bridge”;

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 14:00:53 2019 No.12382587 >>12382527 anon the NT doesn't even agree with itself, obviously some of it is either made up or wrong. the same event will be discribed in 4 conflicting manners

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 14:01:14 2019 No.12382589 >>12382542 Maybe your shit religion was right all along because eating shit proves your dedication to the one correct god. In your text, you assume that god thinks as you do, or in this case, "Eating shit is a bad idea, so god must think so as well"

Anonymous Thu Jan 10 14:02:04 2019 No.12382597

>>12382584

>a fragment of Qumran caves describes the Day of Judgment as a “bridge of the abyss”, and analogously, Zoroastrians believed in the hereafter, one will come across the Chinvat Bridge guarded by holy dogs. If the person lived a noble life, the bridge will expand and allow them to reach the end, whereby the yazata Daena shall take them up to Ohrmazd’s “House of Song”, but if they lived ignoble lives, it shall contract as narrow as reed as Daena, now a daeva, will pull them into Ahriman’s “House of Lies”. Moreover, the idea of a savior who will lead the world unto light can be traced to the concept the ‘Saoshyant’. Even the word paradise is based off the Avestan pairi daeza. One final note, considering Islam came from Judeo-Christian tradition, there are many indirect Zoroastrian influences on it; the descriptions of paradise as a flowering garden in the Koran descend from Zoroastrian influence, and several yazatas such as Hordād (Av. Haurvatat) and Amurdād (Av. Amərətāt) appear in the Koran.

source: Summary of Chapter 7 of Michael Stausberg's Zarathustra and Zoroastrianism.

There is literally no evidence for any tenets of Judaism existing before the Babylonian captivity other than worshipping a diety (like all the tribes of the region did)

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 14:03:02 2019 No.12382602 File: 45 KB, 500x381, DhchpwnW0AAYyAw.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>12382576 >logic is reddit

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 14:04:50 2019 No.12382615 >>12382602 I dont know whats worse, you thinking "appeal fallacies" is logical or you considering buddhism more probable than christianity

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 14:05:47 2019 No.12382620 >>12382351 >Criticize his defense of Christianity, not the wager itself The thread is about the wager, if OP wanted a more in depth response he should have asked for it.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 14:08:53 2019 No.12382644 >>12382615 considering I never said Buddhism was more probable than Christianity I'll assume you are a semi-illiterate brainlet and not waste my time on you

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 14:14:23 2019 No.12382681 >>12382602 Logic is reddit, otherwise /pol/ would have been deleted long ago

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 14:15:46 2019 No.12382689 >>12382681 unexpectedly based

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 14:16:20 2019 No.12382693 >>12382689 and potentially redpilled

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 14:21:30 2019 No.12382727 >>12382367 based Demiurge

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 14:26:15 2019 No.12382763 >>12381701 By gambling.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 14:27:31 2019 No.12382771 God would know you're bullshitting

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 14:36:56 2019 No.12382823 >>12381755 t.13 year old

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 14:38:48 2019 No.12382831 >>12381884 >Case 2.1: Believing just for the reward is a going to hell worthy offence because now your intent is impure If your intent is impure then you don't actually believe

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 14:40:59 2019 No.12382848 >>12382259 Your conclusion isn't proven by your premises

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 14:43:41 2019 No.12382866 >>12382589 >you assume that god thinks as you do No, it assumes that we think as God does. Which is supported by the whole "image and likeness" thing.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 14:47:20 2019 No.12382888 >>12381701 They sperg and cry, as seen itt.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 14:49:26 2019 No.12382904 >>12382043 >Why do so many Christians have this trademark smugness of expression to themselves? I'm not a Christian anymore but Atheists embodied this shit for years before the fedora meme hit them.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 14:52:27 2019 No.12382927 >>12381701 If you actually read Pensées you literally can't

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 15:03:34 2019 No.12383012 >>12382823 t. I can't do anything but shitpost probably because I don't have anything better to say.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 15:12:32 2019 No.12383081 >>12382305 Shiva, you heathen

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 15:17:35 2019 No.12383115 >>12381701 by not being atheist and not being religious at the same time.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 15:30:58 2019 No.12383210 >>12382904 Oh, absolutely. At their worst they are a lost cause, no doubt. Yet they're merely the reflection of the Christians who made them - both are perfect mirrors of eachother, like Batman and Joker.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 17:06:20 2019 No.12383766 >>12382587 Give one (1) example

Anonymous Thu Jan 10 17:24:08 2019 No.12383865

>>12383766
did you not read the NT? there are plenty of biblical scholars who try and justify the differences, the most famous is probably the birth stories:
http://lovinggodwithallyourmind.com/pdfs/jesus-birth-stories.pdf
Matthew 1 and Luke 3 disagree on the genealogy of Jesus. Matthew and Luke do agree that one of Jesus' parents were visited by an angel to proclaim their child's divine status (although one says it was Mary, the other says Joseph), but according to Mark they thought he was mad for believing he was divine and try to stop him. There's a lot more but it's been a long time since I've read it.

Anonymous Thu Jan 10 20:21:00 2019 No.12384747
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>Let us then examine this point, and say, "God is, or He is not." But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide nothing here. There is an infinite chaos which separated us. A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn up. What will you wager? According to reason, you can do neither the one thing nor the other; according to reason, you can defend neither of the propositions. Do not, then, reprove for error those who have made choice; for you know nothing about it. "No, but I blame them for having made, not this choice, but a choice; for again both he who chooses heads and he who chooses tails are equally at fault, they are both in the wrong. The true course is not to wager at all."
I like how he offers a perfect solution to his problem and then he immediately realizes that is the correct answer so he is like
>a-actually d-dont do this, y-you have to pick one of the 2 options, DELIT DIS!!!
hilarious

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 20:48:52 2019 No.12384905 File: 275 KB, 600x600, you.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>12381701 It's Roko's Basilisk except somehow even more retarded. The state of chr*stoids.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 22:37:12 2019 No.12385426 >>12381755 first part hits the nail on the head. the chances of me choosing the right good(s) to worship and live in relation to would be so small, any effort more than the minimum isn't worth it.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 10 22:39:54 2019 No.12385445 >>12385426 Just create a tournament of all possible religions (you can exclude those of which you have no knowledge, since this gods obviously do not want your attention) then for each pair, pick one over the other. Then tell me your top 5 religions.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 11 01:56:44 2019 No.12386346 his wager doesn't account for a god that will see through ur self-serving bullshit and just smite u anyway for bein a selfish jackass

Anonymous Fri Jan 11 03:02:32 2019 No.12386526

>>12382620
in order to reconcile the wager you have to talk about the rest of Pascal's work. That's like criticizing the bible for the golden calf or for any cherry-picked passage. Criticizing Plato for his ideas on ANYTHING. You see this most in Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, and, in a more obvious way, Shakespeare. Some of my better highlighted quotes from Pensees to help anyone who wants to see for themselves:

>When we wish to correct with advantage, and to show another that he errs, we must notice from what side he views the matter, for on that side it is usually true, and admit that truth to him, but reveal to him the side on which it is false. He is satisfied with that, for he sees that he was not mistaken, and that he only failed to see all sides.
>Too much and too little wine. Give him none, he cannot find truth; give him too much, the same.
>The consciousness of the falsity of present pleasures, and the ignorance of the vanity of absent pleasures, cause inconstancy. (very shared philosophy by many of the greats)
>The weariness which is felt by us in leaving pursuits to which we are attached. A man dwells at home with pleasure; but if he sees a woman who charms him, or if he enjoys himself in play for five or six days, he is miserable if he returns to his former way of living. Nothing is more common than that.
>436 Weakness.--Every pursuit of men is to get wealth (Hobbesian here)
>None is so happy as a true Christian, nor so reasonable, virtuous, or amiable.
>The Christian religion alone makes man altogether lovable and happy. In honesty, we cannot perhaps be altogether lovable and happy

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 11 04:57:55 2019 No.12386770 File: 140 KB, 500x585, waiter-theres-a-hare-in-my-pancakes-11125378.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>12382576 This is embarrassing dude, you btfo'd yourself. C O P 3

Anonymous Fri Jan 11 06:13:00 2019 No.12386928

What sort of base person would only choose to believe in a God out of fear of going to hell? It's the most selfish, craven form of belief that is the antithesis of Christianity and if there is a God he can see right through your faux-belief and fear. Belief in God is not about utility and staying out of hell, it's about joy and love for one's eternal creator.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 11 06:14:24 2019 No.12386931 They dont

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 11 06:38:06 2019 No.12386984 File: 168 KB, 1000x1000, Jesus_Fraud.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>12382527 Jesus was a fraud and a false prophet, the moshiach has yet to arive.

Anonymous Fri Jan 11 07:51:52 2019 No.12387149
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>>12381755
>>12385426
>dude there's hundreds of gods how do I know which is real
Of all major religions, the God in Christianity is the only one that fits and is compatible with the definition of a philosopher's God in Platonist thought. Omnipresence and Omnipotence, and concerned with far more than just 'his people'.
Indeed, even the 'monotheism' of other religions is usually just simplified polytheism.
Not to mention, the countless pantheon of virtually all religions makes their deities in the image of corruptible man and animals, which in a sense denies their divine nature, At best, examining all doctrines, even the most obscure, you could narrow religion (or better said, conceptions of God) down to a handful of potentially valid ones.

I don't believe in God but this argument that "DUUUDE THRERES HUNDREDS HOW DO I KNOW WHICH IS REAL", is perhaps the most cringe-worthy thing I see here and is telling of incredibly low intelligence if they actually believe this, let alone think it was profound enough to unironically worth sharing this trite insight.
It's obvious that those saying it 1) did not start with the Greeks, and have little or no experience with philosophical concepts prior to the Enlightenment 2), are total brainlets.

Anonymous Fri Jan 11 08:09:42 2019 No.12387186

>>12381872
No Christian will ever respond honestly to this because they have no faith in works or the inner life of a stranger, it is fundamentally socio-emotional drama for them and nothing more.
>>12381956
>>12382239
>>12382282
>>12382308
>>12382351
>>12382456
>>12382490
>>12382515
>>12382518
>>12382527
>>12382573
>>12382576
>>12382615
>>12386526
>>12387149
Either refusal to engage or the most insipid phil 101 sophistries imaginable.
>no one is as happy as a christian
he can’t know that
>its the only god that is like Plato’s
The vedic god is extraordinarily similar to the neoplatonic “god” and neither of them is necessarily as convincing as many other gods at all both rationally and spiritually, the deistic demiurge is as believable as either and there are nodern esoteric faiths that provide even more elaborate rationalist explanations for a deity.

You’re fucking stupid

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 11 08:12:48 2019 No.12387194 how come 0 atheists ITT have mentioned Bertrand Russell’s teapot? holy fuck this website is full of retarded zoomers now, isn’t it.

Anonymous Fri Jan 11 08:16:46 2019 No.12387205

>>12387194
because Russell’s teapot is retarded and not worth anyone’s time since Christians are well aware not to associated deity with physical, finite, empirically verifiable phenomena and will decry the use of it as an abstracted analogy of the metaphysical deity. You can use it to corner them into rendering him totally unverifiable which damaged the christian argument from the wager, which is all they care about (not theism), but a clever christnigger could still embed divine works into the world without relying on the physical presence of a spirit and can even circumvent the location/empiricism problem by attacking that epistemology at its rational weakpoints and then deflecting from the original argument, baiting and switching as needed for hours. Its all very tiresome

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 11 08:22:19 2019 No.12387214 >>12387205 the teapot is specifically designed to be empirically unverifiable.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 11 08:22:25 2019 No.12387215 >>12381701 By not being a betting man. The wager is so stacked against me, why would i choose to play.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 11 08:30:20 2019 No.12387233 >>12387186 cringe

Anonymous Fri Jan 11 08:41:50 2019 No.12387277

>>12381701
Because I can’t just “believe” in things on command when rational thought and my own experience tell me otherwise. I’d love it if my waifu was real, but betting on her being real, no matter how much I stand to gain on her being real, doesn’t mean I have any rational reason to genuinely believe she is real.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 11 08:47:55 2019 No.12387296 >>12387214 yes and they will say that a physical object is nothing like a spirit, its one of the easiest to refute objections to a god. >>12387233 Lol faggot

Anonymous Fri Jan 11 09:26:12 2019 No.12387388

>>12381701
“No one born of a forbidden union may enter the assembly of the Lord. Even to the tenth generation, none of his descendants may enter the assembly of the Lord.” Deuteronomy 23:2

No matter what I do, I’m doomed to hell anyway. Even if he was real, he can go fuck himself.

Anonymous Fri Jan 11 09:42:38 2019 No.12387438

>>12381701
God knows your heart and I don’t think he would approve of calculated self-interest.

Pascal was a top tier lad though and a bit of sophistry as a gateway drug to get people into Church is forgiveable. One of the few philosophers who was also a genuinely good person.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 11 09:44:24 2019 No.12387443 >>12381849 Christianity is the most popular religion in the world, which might be saying something. It seems like a safer bet than Senegalese animism.

Anonymous Fri Jan 11 09:44:58 2019 No.12387447

>>12387149
lol, yes, "Yahweh" is truly a God for all people...everywhere else is just polytheism, but Yahweh "thou shalt have no other gods before me" "for i your god am a jealous god" who was only comingled in the affairs of his "chosen people" and can be found in no other culture's pantheon, and was originally one of many deities worshipped but was later turned into the only one, is absolutely an eternal, universal, omnipotent, omnipresent God. Only CHRISTIANITY has such a non-local, non-temporal, non-polytheistic conception of God >:) anyone who says otherwise is just a brainlet who can't see the greatness of Yahweh :) not a Christian though, just spreading the word about the one true religion :)

Anonymous Fri Jan 11 09:51:34 2019 No.12387466

>>12387186
What do you mean about sociopolitical drama? I sadly agree regarding works, Paul has made them think they are such special little flowers because they took a few seconds to "accept Christ" and so are now "saved" and don't have to worry about doing another deed of goodness in their life, though they still should regardless, just not for their salvation's sake. It just bothers me that there are those among them who would only do anything, be it following Jesus or doing good words, for the sake of the reward and not for the intrinsic goodness in doing so.

Anonymous Fri Jan 11 09:52:53 2019 No.12387474

>>12387149
You're unable to see outside your bias. Nothing makes your God spectacular or different. Your religion is a mishmash of popular influences throughout history just like every other one.

if you have a personal relationship with your God and it helps you feel happier, great. but it's not objectively any different.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 11 09:56:37 2019 No.12387486 >>12387466 Just toss the concept of karma in there, and you're starting to get it.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 11 10:04:26 2019 No.12387509 >>12387443 Different religions have been the most popular at different times.

Anonymous Fri Jan 11 10:08:49 2019 No.12387525

>>12387486
"Perform actions without attachment to the fruits of them, work righteousness without expectation for reward"

Yeah, maybe you've learnt of the Western-Buddhist conception of things, wherein Karma merely replaces a Deity, but the above precept is found in all of the Dharmic religions and Karma actually refers to a metaphysical law which works whether one believes in it, dictating where one ends up in future births on the basis of their soul's deeds and intentions during the present lifetime.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 11 10:10:41 2019 No.12387531 >>12387525 whether or not one believes in it*

Anonymous Fri Jan 11 10:17:13 2019 No.12387555

>>12386346
Why does every retard think Pascal meant "lol yeah dude, you can trick God"

The wager makes a case for why it would be worth it to try in earnest to convert and receive the faith with an open mind, not fucking cosplay as a christian and giggle to yourself about the epic prank you're about to pull on an omniscient creator

Anonymous Fri Jan 11 10:20:22 2019 No.12387562

>>12387525
Early on in the phase of human development, it can be very helpful to have a concept of "I shouldn't do that, because I will suffer." After the more sattvic tendencies have set in, then the person sees that virtue is its own reward.

Mistake not the path for the goal.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 11 10:50:18 2019 No.12387665 >>12381787 Agreed Proklos is based even though you can use philosophy also to worship odin

Anonymous Fri Jan 11 14:46:27 2019 No.12388609

>>12387149
>he doesn't know the OT discribes God's in the plural
>he doesn't realize Jesus was God in the image of a corruptable man (ali ali lami sabbactani)
>he thinks Plato's god is cognizant
>he thinks any of this is valid proof of anything
I thought Christians were supposed to be intelligent and well read

Anonymous Fri Jan 11 15:17:06 2019 No.12388759

>>12381701
>thinks Pascal took the wager seriously
>ignores all the passages Pascal writes about the spirit of finesse and the spirit of geometry
>doesn't notice the wager is an example of the spirit of geometry
>totally misses the point Pascal was slyly making about faith and the corruption of the age

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 11 17:09:19 2019 No.12389363 File: 63 KB, 849x560, image.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>12388609 >he thinks Plato's god isn't cognizant

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 11 20:01:58 2019 No.12390350 >>12388609 >>he doesn't know the OT discribes God's in the plural Isn't this what Christians use to prove the trinity?

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 11 20:49:14 2019 No.12390603 >>12390350 they do, but these deities are much more likely to be the Annunaki of the Sumerians (called the Elohim by the Hebrews)

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 11 20:50:35 2019 No.12390617 >>12390603 Why is it more likely?

Anonymous Fri Jan 11 21:19:04 2019 No.12390763

>>12381701
[1] It reduces to absurdity as a stand alone argument when you substitute "God exists" for a different unsubstantiated statement.

E.g. Suppose I tell you that you have to suck my dick because if you don't, everyone will die because of a plague.
Either I'm correct or I'm incorrect. If I'm correct, then the rational course of action is to suck my dick. If I'm incorrect, it's to not.
But if you did suck my dick, the discomfort you'd suffer would be substantially less when compared to the discomfort and loss of you and your loved ones suffering and dying to a plague.
So to play it safe, you should suck my dick.

You'll find that that isn't actually a very good way to prompt someone into giving you oral pleasure, because they don't have any confidence in the central claim your argument revolves around.
Similarly, you can't rely merely on Pascal's Wager to convince atheists to adopt a belief they characteristically have little confidence in. First you have to give them a reason to take your claim seriously in the first place.
[2] It assumes people are capable of choosing a belief based merely on what maximizes personal utility. True to an extent with cognitive dissonance and all, but there's limits. Most waifufags don't actually think they're dating a 2D anime girl, even when they're not memeing.
There will always be some insincerity in telling yourself you believe something when it's based purely on self interest.
[3] It assumes God would accept belief in him based on personal utility as enough.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 11 21:23:03 2019 No.12390781 >>12390617 because they predate the ancient Semetic religions and are therefore a likely influence, unlike the trinity

Anonymous Fri Jan 11 21:28:33 2019 No.12390811

>>12390763
>Suppose I tell you that you have to suck my dick because if you don't, everyone will die because of a plague.
>Either I'm correct or I'm incorrect. If I'm correct, then the rational course of action is to suck my dick. If I'm incorrect, it's to not.
>But if you did suck my dick, the discomfort you'd suffer would be substantially less when compared to the discomfort and loss of you and your loved ones suffering and dying to a plague.
>So to play it safe, you should suck my dick.
Bad straw man. Heaven is an infinite reward, and there’s no reason to think it doesn’t exist. I have literally no reason to think that giving you oral pleasure will prevent a plague.
>It assumes people are capable of choosing a belief based merely on what maximizes personal utility.
There are ways to improve faith. Avoid sin, pray, read the Bible, do good works, go to church, etc. You don’t just accept the wager and go on with your life as before.
> It assumes God would accept belief in him based on personal utility as enough.
It’s only based on personal utility in the beginning. Afterwards, you become a better Christian. But you could still argue it’s based on utility. Even so, nothing in the Bible says anything about how bad it is to want to go to Heaven.

Nice try

Anonymous Fri Jan 11 21:36:16 2019 No.12390860

>>12390811
There are ways to improve faith. Avoid sin, pray, read the Bible, do good works, go to church, etc. You don’t just accept the wager and go on with your life as before.

This is one of the hardest things to get across to atheists because they simply don't pay any attention to the very real spiritual capacity that humans possess.

Anonymous Fri Jan 11 21:44:16 2019 No.12390900
File: 36 KB, 585x311, annunaki-in-the-bible.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>>12390617
Because Mesopotamia (Sumer) is part of the Ancient Near East, their own stories match many of the ones in the OT, and Genesis 2:14 even mentions the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, which flow out from Mesopotamia.

https://www.ancient-origins.net/human-origins-folklore/origins-human-beings-according-ancient-sumerian-texts-0065

Anonymous Fri Jan 11 21:51:20 2019 No.12390936

>>12390811
>Heaven is an infinite reward, and there’s no reason to think it doesn’t exist. I have literally no reason to think that giving you oral pleasure will prevent a plague.
You're putting into play that prior confidence has a lot to do with how effective this argument is, which is what I'm getting at.
As an atheist, I don't find there's any convincing reason to think that heaven exists, just as you have no reason to think performing fellatio would prevent a tragedy. In fact, I have some confidence (though not absolute) in the opposition, that there's no afterlife at all, based on my prior belief in monism.
Now, we could argue that my beliefs are actually unfounded and irrational, but then we're slipping away from the Wager. Which is why I said it goes to absurdity as a stand alone argument.
We are very dismissive of arguments that use claims we find shakey as a premise, and we are rational in doing so.
The Wager sounds like something that would be convincing to someone who's "having doubts, " but not someone who was either completely ignorant or skeptical of the faith in the first place.
>There are ways to improve faith. Avoid sin, pray, read the Bible, do good works, go to church, etc. You don’t just accept the wager and go on with your life as before.
But would merely behaving as a Christian make one deeply believe in the tenants of it?
Could I make you a Muslim by making you behave as a Muslim?
Where are the apostates coming from if that's enough?
Muslims have immediate death at risk when they leave the faith.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 11 22:08:23 2019 No.12391038 >>12390936 >But would merely behaving as a Christian make one deeply believe in the tenants of it? Not that poster but yes, yes it would.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 11 22:28:01 2019 No.12391147 >>12391038 Why would that happen? And is it specific to Christianity or does it generalize to other faiths?

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 11 23:21:34 2019 No.12391401 >>12391147 It generalizes. If you try and adhere to a religion over a long time you will eventually genuinly grow into it

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 11 23:24:42 2019 No.12391417 >>12388609 >>he doesn't realize Jesus was God in the image of a corruptable man (ali ali lami sabbactani) wew lad, he solved everything, genius indeed, lets pack it up boys

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 11 23:26:44 2019 No.12391427 >>12388609 >hasn't even read the psalm 22 from the old bible which is was written long before christ

Anonymous Fri Jan 11 23:33:21 2019 No.12391464

>>12391427
If you're refuting the plurality of Gods in the OT, this point doesn't work, because an intelligent person knows that the OT is not some book that dropped directly from Heaven, but is compiled by men's writings of many different sources, and that Jesus could definitely be prophecied of in some areas and yet other parts of it referring to "Gods" unrelated to Jesus.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 11 23:37:19 2019 No.12391484 >>12391464 >he doesn't realize the Septuagint was already confirmed by the dead sea scrolls as unchanged before christ and there literally 0 changes in it during that time or before

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 11 23:43:53 2019 No.12391525 >>12391484 That has no relation to what I said. I'm saying that Christ being mentioned in some parts doesn't mean the whole thing relates to him.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 00:16:25 2019 No.12391688 >>12381701 arrives in Heaven God: "Hi, anon. I see you believed in me because it was the most beneficial choice for you, and not because of faith like I asked." pulls lever drops to hell and lands next to Pascal

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 00:21:51 2019 No.12391726 File: 27 KB, 480x480, 1507541757362.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] Cause i'm a gambling man >also good deeds get rewarded in literally every religion so who cares if you don't believe as long as you are a good person.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 00:23:24 2019 No.12391737 >>12391726 >who cares if you don't believe as long as you are a good person. John 3:16

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 00:26:04 2019 No.12391756 >>12391737 still doesn't discount good deeds

Anonymous Sat Jan 12 00:46:16 2019 No.12391868

>>12391688
The wager is just the beginning. You’re supposed to improve your faith (which Pascal prescribes, also describing how: avoid sin, pray, go to church, read the Bible, etc.).

It’s so sad that atheists always use the same flawed arguments. Their mindset is the same as a rebellious 12 year old, asking snarky questions about God, being satisfied and prideful because his own ignorance prevents him from finding any answer. By realizing some of their arguments or flawed and based in ignorance, you’d think they would step back and wonder if they’re wrong about everything else, too. But pride and disbelief go hand in hand.

Anonymous Sat Jan 12 00:54:20 2019 No.12391907

>>12391868
It’s so sad that Christians always use the same flawed arguments. Their mindset is the same as an ignorant 12 year old, not asking any questions about God, being satisfied and prideful because his own ignorance prevents him from questioning the origin of religion. By realizing some of their arguments or flawed and based in ignorance, you’d think they would step back and wonder if they’re wrong about everything else, too. But pride and belief go hand in hand.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 00:56:16 2019 No.12391916 >>12391756 I think a good deed is even BETTER if you don't believe in God. You don't have fear of hell or desire of heaven motivating you, just true goodness.

Anonymous Sat Jan 12 01:32:48 2019 No.12392093

>>12391401
Personally don't see it as something I'm capable of doing. But I won't stick up for that point too strongly since I can't definitively rebut you. I just think there will always be some level of insincerity that will undermine the belief.

Although after a little thought, another problem I have with this line of thinking is that it complicates the Wager further. Believing is now admitted to be no simple matter. You're asking an atheist to devote a significant amount of the one life they believe they have to being a Christian. And presumably if they find by experience that it isn't working, you'll ask them to pour even more time.

Compound this with my previous prior confidence criticism and it's easy to see why this argument isn't effective to atheists. If I were Christian still, I'd prefer to give evidence to the claim of God's existence itself, as that would quickly motivate someone to integrate the faith into their lives as opposed to this round about hypothetical cost-benefit analysis. And they'd be better for it, assuming I was correct.

Anonymous Sat Jan 12 02:01:05 2019 No.12392184

>>12381884
God wants to save us from hell where we are drawn like moths to flame. Not wanting to suffer is alright. Jesus made wine and God made mushrooms. You're not at fault for wanting good things, you're at fault for not letting yourself go for them, and remaining in the fire.

Anonymous Sat Jan 12 02:13:04 2019 No.12392231

My perspective was correct. But nobody bothered to understand it. They tried to compel me through smoke and mirrors to believe as they believe instead, even though it's wrong. Then, when it registered as wrong to me, they called me an idiot. Fuck them.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 02:14:39 2019 No.12392241 >>12381949 yummy needs no renciliation

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 02:15:41 2019 No.12392244 >>12391916 isnt that like the don quixote thesis?

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 02:17:49 2019 No.12392249 >>12392244 not that anon but it's basically Kant's idea of the good will

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 02:20:21 2019 No.12392260 >>12392249 kant wouldnt advocate some shit that ok'd not believing in god

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 02:27:15 2019 No.12392278 >>12392260 he would say an act is more "good" without the incentive of going to heaven

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 02:31:42 2019 No.12392287 >>12392278 fair enough but then hed say some shit about sucking god off proper no doubt there a literary reference i cant remember . ..

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 05:51:34 2019 No.12392707 >>12387443 Truth isnt a popularity context.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 05:52:38 2019 No.12392710 >>12392707 Contest* I am a phone posting ruski pleb, sorry.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 06:02:00 2019 No.12392720 >>12381755 >No god that ever created a hell is worthy of worship. Really glad the moral revelations of a skinny fat midwest german-irish mystery meat fag is superior to that of the creator of the universe

Anonymous Sat Jan 12 06:03:38 2019 No.12392724

>>12387443
There is an infinity of possible forms of mutually exclusive religious worship that we can consider equally valid, due to absense of evidence. The chance of landing on the right one is infinitesimal. The god that rewards you for scratching your nuts and proving that euler mascheroni constant is a transcendental number is as unlikely as the christian or islamic god.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 06:08:50 2019 No.12392737 >>12392724 leave it to philosophers to have weak ideas about what a god might be anyone whos had an orgasm knows better already

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 06:17:35 2019 No.12392750 >>12392737 https://youtu.be/84cVizR6sPQ Am i going to find god in the gym? If I were to believe you and Arnold, the church of Iron must be the one true religion.

Anonymous Sat Jan 12 06:27:08 2019 No.12392768

>>12382518
>You're Anthropomorphising something that is inherently beyond human.
Have you even read the book? In addition to the "made in His image" line, he's pretty much the most human character in the whole thing. Anger, rage, jealousy, sadness, love - fucker has range, and really, is one of the most flawed creatures in there - but gets away with it, because he's fucking God. God is good, regardless of what a dick he's being, for he is the standard by which evil is judged.

And this holds true of nearly every religion, though several (including some reimaginings of Christianity) do make the point, to various degrees, that when a god shows his "human nature", it's but an emenated aspect of some more distant and incomprehensible spiritual source, manifesting in some anthropomorphized form that is subject to or mirrors such "human" pettiness and frailties.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 06:40:28 2019 No.12392801 His silly wager doesn't apply to me since I know for certain that a god exists, that being me. If you want to get into heaven you must start with the Greeks.

Anonymous Sat Jan 12 07:44:54 2019 No.12392951

>>12381872
No it's not enough. You need to pledge allegiance and ask forgiveness from THE one god or you're going to burn in hellfire.

>meanwhile at heaven's gate

- Oh hello mr. serial child rapist, have you anything to say?
- "but, of course, forgive me for the atrocities I committed O lord "
- No problem into heaven you go

Anonymous Sat Jan 12 09:01:24 2019 No.12393106

>>12392720
>just be a slave
>don't think for yourself, dumb human
>you're just a dumb human, stop thinking you can think
>just follow the instructions outlined by this religious institution, unquestioningly, you stupid, inquisitive human
>we can know if god exists, and which god is the correct god, but we can't make any other judgments for ourselves, understand? we're not intelligent enough
>just follow the orders or perish

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 09:15:31 2019 No.12393139 >>12393106 This but without a hint of irony. Prove this perspective wrong. You literally can't.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 13:02:55 2019 No.12394226 >>12381701 they dont

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 13:04:28 2019 No.12394239 >>12393139 I can't prove incoherent screeching wrong either.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 14:43:05 2019 No.12394830 >>12384905 Yeah, the Wager is an abomination, most of all in regard to God.

Anonymous Sat Jan 12 15:02:54 2019 No.12394956

>>12387447
Repeated smileys and lack of punctuation are the most telltale signs of seething, bud.
>>12387474
Empty dogma parroting. You didn't engage in the conversation at hand but still believed you had said something of value, else you wouldn't write with such a condescending tone. It reads like reddit.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 15:10:14 2019 No.12395003 >threads undeniably made by underage atheists for the purpose of getting (you)s from atheists are consistently the biggest threads on this board /lit/ and e/lit/ism are dead. These threads are unironically and unapologetically reddit.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 15:10:27 2019 No.12395004 >>12392707 True, but any god that wants worship wouldn’t allow his religion to become extinct/irrelevant. So the thousand gods arguments is pretty weak

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 15:11:23 2019 No.12395006 There are many good arguments for the existence of god and the need for belief in something. Pascal’s Wager is not one of them. Its very low iq

Anonymous Sat Jan 12 15:11:57 2019 No.12395011

>>12392724
>The god that rewards you for scratching your nuts and proving that euler mascheroni constant is a transcendental number is as unlikely as the christian or islamic god.
My religion states that you have to worship my shit to go into Heaven. God says to you that either Christianity or my shit religion is true, and you have to choose which one to devote yourself to. Which do you choose?

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 15:13:13 2019 No.12395019 >>12387474 >nothing makes the christian god any different What a blatant admission of ignorance

Anonymous Sat Jan 12 15:16:06 2019 No.12395033

>>12395011
this argument is retarded because it could easily be flipped
>my religion says you can do whatever you want and think whatever you want but you get eternal rewards anyways. God says to you that either Christianity or my hedonist religion is true, and you have to choose which one to devote yourself to. Which do you choose?

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 15:16:59 2019 No.12395040 >>12382823 >it’s immature to dislike the idea of hell

Anonymous Sat Jan 12 15:21:44 2019 No.12395066

>>12395033
>>12395033
My point was that every religion doesn’t have the same probability of being true, and everyone knows this. No one would actually choose the shit religion.
>my religion says you can do whatever you want and think whatever you want but you get eternal rewards anyways.
So being a Christian gets you into Heaven? Then it’s clear that you should be a Christian to win for both situations.

Idiot.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 15:30:13 2019 No.12395125 File: 109 KB, 700x690, J8fFT.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>12395066 eternal rewards codes for heaven. I can never tell if you people are willfully ignorant or really shit at arguing.

Anonymous Sat Jan 12 15:37:37 2019 No.12395173

>>12394956
Your post is basically just "hah, seething", yet you have the nerve to tell me and the other anon, who actually gave you arguments which you never responded to (and was kind enough to tell you that he's glad if believing in something makes you happy) that we are the ones empty of substance. Yikes. You pretended to not be a Christian and then endorsed the Christian God as the "most sophisticated" one, I and the other anon pointed out that no, any criticism you made of other cultural deities holds equally true for your Yahweh. He is cultural, local, temporal, and belonging only to a specific group of people, the Hebrews. He isn't anything like "Plato's God", nor omniscient, omnipresent, nonlocal, noncultural, or anything else. You can believe in such a God, but Yahweh, unlike your assertion, is not that.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 15:38:25 2019 No.12395177 >>12381701 the same way as theists totaliter aliter

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 15:43:18 2019 No.12395200 >>12392951 if you're actually at heaven's gate why don't you just say that then? are you this fucking stubborn?

Anonymous Sat Jan 12 15:44:34 2019 No.12395209

>>12395125
No, it’s YOU who doesn’t understand. If your religion allows you to do ANYTHING and get into Heaven, then that ANYTHING includes being a Christian. Yet if you choose to be a hedonist, you will not get into Heaven if Christianity is true. Therefore you should be Christian. You could apply the same logic to other, popular religions, even Buddhism, since a good Christian will be a good Buddhist but a good Buddhist won’t be a good Christian.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 15:51:09 2019 No.12395247 >>12395209 >a good Christian will be a good Buddhist alright so you are literally retarded; I suppose that's still better than being willfully ignorant

Anonymous Sat Jan 12 15:53:59 2019 No.12395268

>>12395247
Tell me that a Christian Monk wouldn’t be reincarnated well. Tell me that he would suffer for living such a life. Yet the Buddhist will suffer if Christianity is true, because he did not believe in Jesus. Knowing this, I don’t know why anyone would choose Buddhism.

Try actually putting forth an argument next time, kid

Anonymous Sat Jan 12 15:58:25 2019 No.12395283

>>12395268
Not him, but maybe because it doesn't seem worthwhile to worship a deity who will commit you to an eternity of immeasurable suffering simply for not believing on them? Maybe that clause is itself the very cause of a self-determinate person's willful disbelief?

Anonymous Sat Jan 12 16:03:58 2019 No.12395317

>>12395283
>simply for not believing on them?
It’s not as if God is angry at you and rejects you, but by your rejection of God will simply be away from Him in the afterlife, which will be suffering. You don’t just walk up to the Heavenly gates and God says “Sorry, you didn’t believe in me, you will be punished.” And Hell doesn’t have fire, that’s not possible, since fire is material. It’s more of a metaphorical fire, a burning of passions and desires that will never be satisfied, all because you rejected what can give you true peace.

Anonymous Sat Jan 12 16:04:22 2019 No.12395321

>>12395173
I'm actually not the anon you originally responded to so your little psychoanalysis is folly. But I'll bite because neither of us have anything better to do.
>who actually gave you arguments which you never responded to
Where is the argument? "You're unable to see outside your bias?" "Nothing makes your God spectacular or different?" (which is objectively untrue for the christian god) "Your religion is a mishmash of popular influences throughout history just like every other one?" Even if you were to make an argument out of this last assertion, don't pretend the anon actually did so. Feel free to do so yourself if you believe that argument holds any significance.
>(and was kind enough to tell you that he's glad if believing in something makes you happy)
lol
>that we are the ones empty of substance. Yikes.
I say this with no intention of meme: where do you think we are?
>any criticism you made of other cultural deities holds equally true for your Yahweh
>He is cultural, local, temporal, and belonging only to a specific group of people, the Hebrews.
Objectively untrue. http://www.pewforum.org/2011/12/19/global-christianity-exec/ How can you say that a god worshiped across the majority of the world today only belongs to the Israelites because the religion started with them? How would you expect a religion to start?
>He isn't anything like "Plato's God", nor omniscient, omnipresent, nonlocal, noncultural, or anything else.
This is just an admission of ignorance, unless billions of people are thoroughly mistaken about the nature and definition of their god. Want to back up this claim?

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 16:09:18 2019 No.12395348 >>12395268 >Tell me that a Christian Monk wouldn’t be reincarnated well yes, obviously they would. everyone is reincarnated except for a Buddha; the Buddha escapes the wheel of karma.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 16:14:01 2019 No.12395373 >>12395348 >everyone is reincarnated except for a Buddha; the Buddha escapes the wheel of karma. according to Siddartha Gautama

Anonymous Sat Jan 12 16:28:16 2019 No.12395449

>>12395321
>How can you say a God worshipped across the world...
So because from its inception Christians have behaved like savage animals, genociding, destroying and converting every non-Christian culture they came into contact with, replacing Europe's original cultures with Christianity, and people now OBVIOUSLY follow (and not even anymore, most of Europe are athiest and the other parts of the world are only culturally Christian, like Mexico) the culture which was forced onto them, you tell me that what was only ever a deity from the Israelite pantheon, and one among many others, is now a nonlocal, nontemporal, noncultural God? If everyone worshipped Vishnu, the same would apply then? Or Zeus? What about Allah for Muslims? Your argument is that because a large population believes something, it is obviously true! If Christians say that Yahweh is noncultural, it becomes true! He's not just a Jewish God, like every cultural deity in the world, he's beyond any human culture!!!

>Feel free to do so yourself if you...
Are you literally so ignorant you don't realize that Yahweh was originally part of a pantheon of other deities, and only later became the head-figure of the "monotheism" we have since seen? You know he once had a wife named Asherah?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origins_of_Judaism

Anonymous Sat Jan 12 16:28:39 2019 No.12395453

>>12395200
Personally, if there is an omniscient god who sends his self aware creations to eternal hellfire for shiggles, despite knowing the path they would inevitably take to get there, I'm going to fight it tooth and nail, even if I know I can't win.

Oddly, this is due to a moral system that helped inspire the ability to identify evil and desire to fight it at all costs, instilled in me by a largely Christian culture.

But, as some atheists jokingly say, maybe that's the final test - can you remain truly moral in the face of inevitable eternal hellfire? ...Not that it wouldn't still make the creator kind of a dick, but it might be somewhat more forgivable if it was a ultimately bluff by a spiritual sensei, and the worst that happens is he sends you back until you learn the lesson for yourself. Not too dissimilarly, a lot of the more liberal Christians view hell as a forge where your "sinful nature" is slowly burned away, so that you can integrate into "His kingdom".

Granted, if it's a greco-roman style god, I'm still fucked. Those guys are real dicks when it comes to hubris - unless you happen to be the hero of the story, though I suppose they are more in admiration of "stubbornness".

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 16:35:07 2019 No.12395494 >>12395453 >condemning yourself to spite overly-aggressive Christian proponents, the greatest oppressors of atheists based

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 16:35:24 2019 No.12395497 >>12395453 >I'm going to fight it tooth and nail, even if I know I can't win. Or you could just, I don’t know, try to become worthy of Heaven instead and find peace with God?

Anonymous Sat Jan 12 16:52:22 2019 No.12395584

>>12395449
>So because from its inception Christians have behaved like savage animals, genociding, destroying and converting every non-Christian culture they came into contact with, replacing Europe's original cultures with Christianity, and people now OBVIOUSLY follow (and not even anymore, most of Europe are athiest and the other parts of the world are only culturally Christian, like Mexico) the culture which was forced onto them, you tell me that what was only ever a deity from the Israelite pantheon, and one among many others, is now a nonlocal, nontemporal, noncultural God?
lol

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 16:57:37 2019 No.12395610 >>12395584 >with no argument of any kind left, the TorahLARPer leaves a "lol" and tells himself that he defeated his opponent >praise yahweh, bro, we won the discussion!

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 17:01:11 2019 No.12395623 File: 106 KB, 908x728, kuntilletajrud.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >BEHOLD, YHWH

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 17:01:59 2019 No.12395626 >>12395497 If heaven is full of folks willing to submit to evil for sake of their own peace and safety, I'd rather not go there. Get more than enough of that on Earth, thank you very much.

Anonymous Sat Jan 12 17:07:31 2019 No.12395651

>>12395449
>Are you literally so ignorant you don't realize that Yahweh was originally part of a pantheon of other deities, and only later became the head-figure of the "monotheism" we have since seen? You know he once had a wife named Asherah?
Pitiful that you would slap down a wikipedia link you haven't read and act as if things are as cut and dry as you seethingly claim they are (and without referencing one word of the wikipedia page, too). As in any historical field scholars have put forth many different proposals but these things are certain: the Canaanite pantheon you are referring to never worshiped a god named YHWH, and Asherah was always considered by the Israelites to be an idol.
Before writing one more unsubstantiated claim consider reading the works of scholars rather than parroting thunderf00t videos.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 17:10:11 2019 No.12395665 >>12395610 >with no argument of any kind left, the TorahLARPer leaves a "lol" and tells himself that he defeated his opponent >praise yahweh, bro, we won the discussion! lol

Anonymous Sat Jan 12 17:30:13 2019 No.12395760

The concept of a transcendent deity apart from his creation was definitively destroyed in the 17th century by a smart man called Baruch Spinoza, though it has predecessors. The Christians rely entirely on platonic-aristotelian metaphysical assumptions, but Spinoza proves at length why these are arbitrary and wrong.

Once you have absorbed Spinoza's insight, you can move on to Hegel in order to realise how the idea of divine transcendence was simply a necessary moment in the self-realisation of Spirit, a rupture in thought which was reconciled through Christianity itself (e.g. the radically anti-traditional God in late scholasticism who gets equated with Being itself). Slavoj Žižek further develops this idea that Christianity is the progressive realisation of the radical absence of a transcendent Father, and a resignation to immanence of Spirit.

Christianity leads us to atheism by dialectical necessity. Conversely, there are no real atheists who haven't absorbed the Christian insight. You'll notice that other cultures are mostly pagan.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 17:50:40 2019 No.12395889 >>12395760 >The concept of a transcendent deity apart from his creation was definitively destroyed in the 17th century by a smart man called Baruch Spinoza Yikes. Someone hasn't read Kant. >Slavoj Žižek oh

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 18:14:39 2019 No.12396015 >>12392750 only a nerd would link this lame shit

Anonymous Sat Jan 12 18:23:47 2019 No.12396052

>>12395651
The Canaanite pantheon are called the Elohim, after a head deity named El. Here's a passage from the Old Testament:

Exodus 6:2-3
And God spake unto Moses, and said unto him, I am the LORD: And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty [El-Shaddai], but by my name JEHOVAH was I not known to them.

http://www.brandonweb.com/sermons/sermonpages/exodus25.htm
Here's a page which covers the whole subject.

Are you sure you've read your OT and NT properly, or at all? How are you making such rookie mistakes, not knowing such basic facts?

Anonymous Sat Jan 12 18:37:35 2019 No.12396111

>>12395317
>a burning of passions and desires that will never be satisfied
Thank you anon for giving an explanation of hell that fits so well. I was trying to figure what hell actually was by scriptural standards as it doesn't seem to be the demon torturing hellfire people have ade it out to be.

That perfectly fits with unquenchable fire, gnashing of teeth and the worm that never dies. All while still being a freedom of choice to chose those passions over God.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 18:41:53 2019 No.12396126 >>12396052 El means god or gods. Just like me calling the Christian God god doesn't mean I' saying hes the same/ apart of the pantheon of other "gods"

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 18:49:51 2019 No.12396162 >>12395760 SPIRIT P I R I T

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 18:52:50 2019 No.12396182 >>12396126 >>12396052 you're actually both right, el = god elohim = gods, but that's only a word because of El from the canaanite religion

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 20:08:24 2019 No.12396533 >>12382531 this also if I really had to pick a religion I'd pick something that wasn't as internally fragmented, inconsistent and obviously man made as Christianity.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 20:31:29 2019 No.12396652 bc i'd rather die not bein a pussy even if there's a chance i'll burn in hell forever which is exactly what my pure aryan ancestors believed and i believe too fuck jewish christianity and its lies

Anonymous Sat Jan 12 21:42:30 2019 No.12396997

>>12395004
Of course, if they aren't interested in worship, we could expect no evidence for their existence. And the idea that a higher being somehow needs us to praise them is silly to begin with and seems more based on humans wanting control over their environment than anything that you would rationally conclude about a deity.
This also still leaves open the possibility of Gods who provide an afterlife, but it could be based on deeds and not worship.
So the wager still takes a hit.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 21:46:37 2019 No.12397013 >>12395889 Kant was below 6 feet tall, hence his ideas are worthless

Anonymous Sat Jan 12 21:47:34 2019 No.12397017

>>12395321
Not him but any straight forward reading of the Bible leads to many contradictions on whether God is actually all the omnis his believers purport him to be.
I mean, Adam and Eve were able to hide from him in the first book. How is he omnipresent?

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 22:14:32 2019 No.12397150 >>12397017 Jumping in here, but also omniscience + free will are somewhat contradictory

Anonymous Sat Jan 12 22:15:52 2019 No.12397156

>>12397017
And the fact that Satan, as a snake (if we're taking this literally), was even able to get into God's garden, is another weakness which could be attributed to him. Couldn't he have kept him out? Is he not powerful enough for such? If he is, and did not prevent Satan from entering Eden, then he alone allowed the Prince of Darkness to corrupt the naive, unknowing humans. And what else could said humans do, but be tricked by such a prince? Is the whole affair not the fault of God, for not keeping the snake out of his Paradise in the first place?

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 22:20:17 2019 No.12397174 >>12381701 Pascal's wager wouldn't work because, if you actually read him, he says that you need to actually try to believe in God sincerely and earnestly and I could never do that, against my nature.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 22:22:09 2019 No.12397182 >>12392720 >implying the universe was created

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 22:22:39 2019 No.12397187 >>12383115 That means you're an atheist who doesn't like all the cringe associated with atheism nowadays.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 22:26:37 2019 No.12397203 >>12382527 >You have to have faith that Jesus either didn’t exist Why do Christians always demand that non-Christians prove a negative?

Anonymous Sat Jan 12 22:29:01 2019 No.12397215
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>>12397156
Most of modern Christianity would say it was all part of his unknowable plan.

Historians would be quick to point out that nearly every other god in history, including a lot of the minor ones, had titles like "all powerful, all wise, and all knowing", but it was very clear, from the mythology surrounding them, that they were anything but.

Alas, Anselm and Aquinas kinda cemented that drek... But, on the other hand, it also got us one of those rare "all loving" gods, and the NT gave us a positive role model, unlike some of those other old religions with, as Socrates himself supposedly pointed out, gods and heroes with considerably less than admirable traits.

>>12387443
That doesn't say much about the afterlife, but it does say quite a bit about this one, as lasting popular opinion often does. Various people complaining about the inconsistencies and fragmentation of the religion here seem to forget that's what gave the religion its staying power. Which is true of most religions that are still around.

Ya may not like it, but it takes some willful ignorance to deny that Christianity works, as tried and tested. Not that it couldn't use improvement, but so could mankind, and like mankind, it's proven it can adapt.

Anonymous Sat Jan 12 22:34:38 2019 No.12397244

>>12397182
based eternalistanon, i'm literally and unironically an eternalist too lol. i literally think the universe has always existed, and it goes along with my spiritual views of Atman-Brahman/Lila/Maya, etc, the notion that everything here is an eternal Dream

Anonymous Sat Jan 12 22:51:33 2019 No.12397324

>>12387466
>"accept Christ" and so are now "saved" and don't have to worry about doing another deed of goodness in their life, though they still should regardless, just not for their salvation's sake.
This is Protestant Free grace theology and not accepted by Catholics or Orthodox churches' theological notions of salvation.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 23:00:55 2019 No.12397357 >>12397324 Isn't it standard Pauline Christianity?Saved by faith alone, as a gift of grace, and not by works, lest any man should boast?

Anonymous Sat Jan 12 23:09:04 2019 No.12397391

>>12397215
>Ya may not like it, but it takes some willful ignorance to deny that Christianity works, as tried and tested. Not that it couldn't use improvement, but so could mankind, and like mankind, it's proven it can adapt.
An interesting take away for the sake of traditionalism; that if new ideologies fail, there is always Christianity to fall back on (such as in it's current reinterest as secular humanistic morality is failing the masses in regards to Political Correctness and Social Justice). My concern is the awareness of Christianities traditional viability and the move to "unperson" the religion so that there is no foundation to fall back on. This can be seen with the academic unpersoning of Christ, his disciples, and the discreditation of authorship of their work, as if to appear that Christianity was an aberration that somehow formed in a vacuum of history. Meanwhile conveniently proposing using dialectic materialism or intersectional historiography (e.g. rich kings used religion to control the masses to be docile or white male clergy controlling the access knowledge).

So while atheists venture out be be the proverbial prodigal son, they best not burn the home that they will inevitably return to when they fail to find meaning and value in the darkness.

Anonymous Sat Jan 12 23:12:04 2019 No.12397403

>>12381701
God is self evident in the same way that the north pole is self evident from simple geophysical considerations. Human sense of Morality points towards God like a compass needle. Different directions from different initial locations but same end point.

Anonymous Sat Jan 12 23:17:28 2019 No.12397429

>>12397357
No, I recommend you read up on the various theologies of Catholics and Orthodox to get a better understanding of the Early Church's understanding of salvation. Both are distinct and nuanced in their theology and distinct from the Five Solae.

For instance, in Orthodoxy the notion of Salvation is tied to Theosis.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 23:17:48 2019 No.12397434 >>12395453 Stop thinking about God like fucking Santa Claus. It's autistic af. Viewing God as a giant man in space is somehow a strawman that people who are actual Christians came to believe themselves. absolutely absurd.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jan 12 23:22:46 2019 No.12397454 >>12397434 Deicide is easy when you craft a poorly made effigy of God.

Anonymous Sat Jan 12 23:46:10 2019 No.12397553

>>12397429
Oh, k true. Thanks. At the very least, I see many Christians online who believe such things and claim their beliefs publicly. But then again, Christianity is the most popular religion on Earth, and it is to be expected that the outer circles of its members (picture concentric circles, with the farthest out ones being the most introductory, mass followers) are not actually knowledgable of the proper doctrines taught by the innermost institutional bodies thenselves.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 00:32:59 2019 No.12397745 >>12397434 I don't see how what you're saying counters the criticisms he brought up. It applies even if you think God is beyond spacetime or whatever conception you have that makes my brain hurt. But if it does explain how.

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 00:33:09 2019 No.12397747

>>12397434
Well, I said "if" there is an omniscient god who sends his self aware creations to eternal hellfire, as so many Christians insist. Don't much care which god... Just saying patently evil gods, should they exist, would be something to be fought, not worshipped, and it really bothers me that so many of God's worshippers describe him that way. Seems to be the same line of thinking that got us the Aztec mass sacrifices, amongst others.

If you can't scrutinize your own moral code, can't recognize good and evil outside of an instruction manual, you can't be said to be moral being, so much as you can be said to be an obedient one. ...and a lot of Christians claim blind obedience as an asset rather than a fault, while at the same time claiming to "beware of the antichrist".

But yes, not all Christians believe in this sorta deity, and there's a lot of good and productive things in Christianity to be had, but "God fearing" Christians, well, kinda scare me. Generally, if you are both in love with and afraid of someone, and will do anything in their name, that suggests an abusive relationship you should probably get out of. At best, it suggests they need to be afraid to be moral, which means we're all fucked the moment they stop being afraid.

But, as they say, fundamentalism isn't about religion, but power, and sadly, religious fundamentalism is not the only variety of that disease.

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 01:02:45 2019 No.12397923

>>12397553
Well it makes sense from a evangelical (marketing) perspective. The easier you make salvation, the more followers you can attract; particularly in a more liberalized world. While the Early Churches eventually solidified their theology into exclusive dogma, the latter churches (Protestants) sought an inclusive approach to attract new followers and bolster their legitimacy in sub-market of Christian sects. Hence you have modern day practices such as "Church Shopping", which encourages churches to change in order to attract parishioners rather than parishioners changing to be apart of a church.

I personally am not one for evangelism, as I feel the Word has already been spread and it's up for individual Man to make the free willed choice to follow. Philosophically, I'm perfectly fine with an exclusive Church that maintains their principles and traditions at the expense of attracting a larger base: quality > quantity. Better to have 10 people know the Full Truth, then 1000 people follow a half-truth.

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 01:16:19 2019 No.12398012

>>12397923
In the market sense, ya can't throw too wide a net, as religion kinda relies on playing on the instinct of tribalism to thrive. If you can't make your followers feel that they are better than everyone who isn't part of their tribe, and provide them with some sort of unifying cultural identity to boot, it's difficult to maintain a following and avoid ideological extinction. Even the Buddhists break into sects, each stating it's more true to the teachings than the other, in addition to believing they are closer to "the truth' than any non-Buddhist.

Granted, Unitarians exist... Though, these days, being able to claim you're more "open minded" than anyone else is a form of tribalism in and of itself. Plus, observing their pass through rate, it seems primarily the parking place for people choosing a religion, or people who are interested in religion, but don't really want to worship, even if the dedication varies wildly between both churches and individuals.

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 01:18:31 2019 No.12398028

>>12397747
Well, not all followers are theologians. Most people are average thinkers and suffer the day-to-day toils of reality's burdens: working at a job, paying the bills, helping the family, etc. So a simplified (rather childish) theology was projected to convey the complexity and nuance of the greater Church theology to the laypeople. So we end up with a cartoonish metaphysics for the average person to understand and use to convey meaning between each other, at the expense of a much richer and deeper understanding.

Even Dostoevsky mocked this in Brother's Karamazov with [I think it was] Ivan musing about "how the devils' pitchforks were made in hell?". Asking "where did the metal come from?" and "was there a factory that produced it?" Pretty much satirizing that cartoonish mesh of physical imagry against the important metaphysics of what hell represents.

In the end, it's a far easier sell to a peasant to say "Heaven is a place of fluffy white clouds, with no suffering, and all your wishes are granted" and hell is a "hot lava place with scary monsters that poke you eternally with pitchforks". Rather than try to describe a metaphysical state transcendent of experienced physical reality. This kinda mass appeal thinking has fundamentally weakened most religions to secular thinkers who have picked it apart for it's "fairy tale"-esque narrative.

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 01:27:37 2019 No.12398065

>>12398028
Agreed... Again, there's things to be had there, even some you can't easily find a path to in secular thought. Problem is, people ostracize and even kill one another, over this "cartoonish view" of the universe that's so easy to grasp, and for many, so hard to move past.

But if it wasn't religion spreading that poison, it'd be something else (and, indeed, there are many sources). It's, sadly, just a function of social instincts run amok, and without said, there's no civilization to be had, so even if one could, one can't simply do away with the potential downside, without essentially ending humanity.

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 01:28:36 2019 No.12398072

>>12396052
>clearly just now looked this shit up and has the audacity to claim the other anon is making "rookie mistakes"
You ignorant slut. El was indeed the head god of the /Canaanite's/ pantheon, and the worship of El by gentiles (along with various other deities) was gradually absorbed by a a god that was never present in any pantheon--YHWH. After this, whenever gentiles or Israelites referred to El, they were now referring to YHWH who had taken on synonymous meaning with El. Both names referred to a single deity (see Mark Smith).
Some of your confusion appears to spring from not understanding henotheism. Consider https://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/ngier/henotheism.htm

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 01:35:32 2019 No.12398116 >>12397017 God asks many questions in the Bible, and Jesus asked even more. Not once was the question asked for their own sake. Why does a parent ask questions of their misbehaving child?

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 01:41:58 2019 No.12398150 >>12397203 >faith equates to logical proof Unequivocal yikes on that mistake.

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 01:47:32 2019 No.12398173
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>>12381701
So are there any modern atheists who are atheists for any reason deeper than "if god is real then i have to feel bad about jerking it to blacked gangbangs" or what? People say religion is a mental crutch etc but in actual fact it puts on you responsibilities and duties - whereas the retard atheism that exists here and broadly is just an excuse to be a dipshit monkey. Its not like atheists are Nietzschean ubermensch rewriting the world through their will. They're just subscribers to a still broadly Christian worldview thats been influenced by bleeding heart idiocy and the most base kind of gluttony. I mean if you knew for a fact you lived in a meaningless universe of no ultimate point or reason why the fuck would you choose to jerk off every day and play mario kart high? Literally everything is permissible and living like a dropout high schooler is the best thing these people can imagine.

If you're gonna reject Christianity at least replace it with something half interesting instead of regurgitating the most accessible platitudes of a megachurch baptist youth pastor combined with the tastes and attitudes of a retarded teenager. Irrespective of the claims of contemporary atheism pretty much any religion provides and has provided a better framework for living than the void that secular liberal capitalism has created.

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 02:02:35 2019 No.12398234

>>12398173
>So are there any modern atheists who are atheists for any reason deeper than "if god is real then i have to feel bad about jerking it to blacked gangbangs" or what?
Are there any atheists that cite that as a reason?

I mean, we're on 4chan, so I'm sure there's at least one around here, somewhere. Though not the sorta thing I'd expect to hear from, say, Carl Sagan.

>People say religion is a mental crutch etc but in actual fact it puts on you responsibilities and duties
For many, it seems simply to relieve them of having those, as well as having to decide upon them. Everything is in the book or from the mouth of a religious leader, and if you ever dare to wonder why, the answer is always, "because God". You never have to wonder about the righteousness or consequences of your actions as long as God is on your side, even if you're killing your only son in his name.

This is of course not true of every Christian, but it's certainly true for more of them than most of your claims are of atheists, who often preach favoring the long game over the short and against being trapped in the hedonistic treadmill more resolutely than any preacher, and then back it up with reason, rather than "just cuz". Indeed, it seems the most despicable and fervent runners of the aforementioned wheel proclaim their love for God aloud and rejoice at the fact that he will forgive them for their sins.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 02:16:22 2019 No.12398297 >>12398173 >>12398234 >the masses like it easy Profound. Additionally, >Edmund McMillen-tier anger towards "le evil god of the bible"

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 02:16:45 2019 No.12398299

>>12398065
I've never met an atheist who said he doesn't believe in evil, when asked. Which is odd, considering that if you believe in evil, then you logically must believe in anti-evil: good. And if you can catalog evil and good, then you've just created a morality system: a religion. And since all atheists will never agree on the nuances of the goods and evils of that catalog, you'll have multiple religions emerge with different moral catalogs. Inevitably they will fight and commit evils (for the greater good) for their catalog to be adopted as the truth.

The complexity and nuances don't matter in the end. The mere fact that variance exists within morality is enough to rile people up into a frenzy. The South Park episode "Go God Go" did an excellent service in conveying the absurdity of this example.

When dealing with metaphysics, the process conveying the abstract always end up being "cartoonized" to a degree in its translation to our physical understanding. It's easier to draw a physical forked tongue demon with a pitchfork than convey the vileness of abstract evil. In a way it was a primitive meme, condensed and packaged, ready to be shared though with lots of information lost in its translation.

I fundamentally believe that metaphysical truth exists, but we are limited in our physical communication to express our understandings of this truth. Because of these misunderstandings, we live a type of meta-cognitive dissonance that had lead to such violence and wars of ideology (wars for material and existence is another story). As hokey as it sounds, new developments of communication such as our modern utilization of memetics has been a step in the right direction toward bridging our understanding of Truth.

So while people in the past would look at a cartoon devil and take it literally as the devil, we look at it as an understood meme, and can add or subtract to it to create a more precise translation among each other semioticly.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 02:23:20 2019 No.12398326 do people seriously think this proves chr*stoids version of god? i remember when i was 13 and first saw this. i thought it was proof for christian version of god not existing. why are western philosophers so retarded?

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 02:26:07 2019 No.12398336 >>12398299 >memetics https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2tIwYNioDL8

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 02:26:32 2019 No.12398337
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>>12398072
You could be right, and I don't know for sure. But I subscribe to the Annunaki-hypothesis, which is that the Annunaki are the Sumerian's name for the Elohim, the same group of deities (Anu-naki = those who came from Anu, El-ohim = children of El), and when you think about the OT references to Baal and Moloch, which are Canaanite deities, I imagine there to be connection between it all, and that YHWH was one of the Canaanite deities, under a different name. What the Annunaki were, I don't know. Higher dimensional-beings, perhaps? Again, I don't know. But when I look at the stature of the Annunaki in their depictions, and how "sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, creating the nephilim/giants" it is plausible to me that these Annunaki, the sons of Anu (God) (i.e children of El), were the ones who bred with human women and, by their difference in stature, created giant-humans. There's also Genesis and its mention of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers flowing out from Eden, and other connections too. I apologize to the other anon for suggesting rookie mistakes when I don't have knowledge myself, but I also don't think the situation is as cut-and-dry as you're making it. How do or could we know if YHWH was one of the Canaanite deities or not?

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 02:28:08 2019 No.12398341 >>12398326 No, no one does. This thread has as many replies as it does because /lit/ always secretly has a "Christian vs atheist" general.

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 02:30:43 2019 No.12398349

>>12398173
>The Pause Button
To answer your question.
Humanity has made great stride in developing this philosophical stopping tool. We just don't look for meaning anymore and delve into hedonism, twiddle our thumbs, or just chase an arbitrary amount of money till we expire. We've made great strides in creating fantastic lotus machines to dull our suffering while reality passes before our very eyes; making an octogenarian no wiser than an adolescent.

Reminds me of the AI of that "learned" to play Super Mario. It was on its last life, and rather than complete the game, it just paused the game indefinitely to not lose.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 02:34:03 2019 No.12398370 >>12398336 He always had religion pegged as in a negative viral sense of the word. I've seen it as a positive spread of information: mankind looking for collective Truth.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 02:37:28 2019 No.12398392 >>12398326 It's a Game Theory question on whether you should engage in metaphysics seriously or not.

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 02:44:51 2019 No.12398431

>>12398392
there's a deep philosophical question to be asked and answers from it but that question and answer definitely doesn't conform to anything related to chr*stoid metaphysics. instead of about how you perceive and think of the world.

do you live on your knees looking for mercy or not. if you get on your knees will somebody show mercy? it's a proof that getting on your knees gives you a higher chance to live. so do you honestly live on your knees or only feign living on your knees. if you vow to stand always then accept the consequence of not living on your knees.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 02:47:54 2019 No.12398442 >>12381701 very, very, very easily.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 02:51:16 2019 No.12398455 File: 14 KB, 364x322, 1520105187002.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>12381701 I don't care about your wager

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 02:51:31 2019 No.12398458

>>12381701
with Aurelius

"If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones."

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 02:57:07 2019 No.12398474

>>12398234
Does it not bother you that the morality you use to condemn God and Christianity is actually just a deracinated Christian morality lmao. Try thinking as a REAL atheist for a minute you're gonna burn your brain out
>Le Abraham being tested is evil!!!!!!!111!
>Also it never happened its a fake story
>Also there is no possible lesson to derive from this its just straight up saying kill ur son
The reason why you feel bad about killing people is because your worldview is fundamentally Christian. 10 Commandments are the cornerstone of your morality whether you like it or not. If you were from a society that knew nothing about Christian morals and ethics like pre-christian Rome, Greece, Scandinavia or Celtic Europe for instance then whilst murder would be a civic crime it would be in many instances be perfectly fine and guilt free to just cap a slave cause he dropped a plate.
>Everything is in the book or from the mouth of a religious leader, and if you ever dare to wonder why, the answer is always, "because God"
There is 2000 years of scholarship on pretty much every conceivable subject. The fact that your knowledge of Christianity is googling "contradictions in the bible" and some vague knowledge of American sack of shit huckster megachurch televangelists is your own fault. You're on fucking /lit/ and still don't even know this. I promise you "just cuz" is under no circumstances the received Christian wisdom on any subject. Again, for 2000 years smarter people than CARL SAGAN (PBUH) have answered any question you can think of.
>who often preach favoring the long game over the short and against being trapped in the hedonistic treadmill more resolutely than any preacher, and then back it up with reason
There is absolutely no reason to think this at all. In fact the notion that atheists even have a conception of "the long game" is hilarious considering they *hope* (not know) HOPE that there is only a short game and that there is nothing more to play out beyond death. The truth is you don't want there to be a world of meaning and consequences because it means your actions will matter. And it is far easier to cope believing you're incapable of making a wrong move then existing within a framework of real stakes, real risks, real duties and costs. In fact, atheism is the real crutch because it means precisely whatever you want it to mean.

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 02:57:08 2019 No.12398476

>>12398299
Odd, I've met a lot of atheists, and I can only think of one who believed in "Evil". Right and wrong, as in functional and dysfunctional, yes, but not evil incarnate as a force in the Christian sense. Granted, some have jokingly said some politician or party they don't like is "challenging their lack of belief in evil". The only atheist authors I can think who wrote of evil in that sense, tended to use it ironically, or were flowery extremists, like Nietzsche (who also, yes, ironically).

Most that I know are utilitarian, not in the happiness sense, but in the collective survival sense. "Good" not being a force of nature, but the status of leaning towards and perpetuating civil functioning, and "evil", similarly, that which breaks said system and jeopardizes collective and individual survival in the long term, without resulting in a significant counter swing towards the former. Not forces manifest, but merely inevitable consequences of the chain of cause and effect. Whether they are absolutists, or relativists, willing to tolerate some level of dysfunctionality for greater reliability in the long term varies, though I suppose I know more that fall into the latter camp ("Drink in moderation" and the like).

Personally, I dunno if there is a "metaphysical truth", not even absolutely sure of a truly objective reality underneath it all, only that our ability to share experiences and make predictions with potential for errors points towards said, and behaving as there is one tends to be more productive. Even if there is such a thing a thing as "truth", it maybe something so fundamental as to ultimately have no bearing on our lives, ideas, or behaviors, beyond making them all possible.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 02:57:41 2019 No.12398480 i forgot how many retards there were on 4chan. nobody believes in christianity because of pascal's wager; people who are already christians use pascal's wager to support their beliefs

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 03:06:52 2019 No.12398510

>>12398480
>needing random semantic word games to support your belief that some omnipotent being created everything
you didn't realize exactly how stupid this is did you? must be rough to be a larper trying to grease his way into paradise by playing word games. the trick, i guess, is just to play more word games to convince yourself. igorance is bliss

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 03:08:59 2019 No.12398522 >>12398510 I'm not Christian. I don't think there is any good reason to be.

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 03:09:00 2019 No.12398523

>>12398476
good/evil being separate from absolute Good/Evil.
semantically synonymous to right/wrong and Right/Wrong.

The fundamental difference I would say being that atheists generally agree in personal and relative lower cases of good/right and evil/wrong, but disbelief in an absolute of both.The absolutes are typically defined as a collection of all potentials of each category within the spectral classification of goods and evils.

While it may appear to be arbitrary, there's a lot of overlap in what humanity defines as good and evil. I'd classify theses as truths. We seem to fight over the nuances where we don't overlap.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 03:10:03 2019 No.12398525 File: 24 KB, 240x251, 1533675180903.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] dogs of christ, where are you today??

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 03:11:10 2019 No.12398531

>>12398480
they use them to deflect away from why they are a Christian which is the crux of the issue in this thread. The people who shill Pascal don't take what he says seriously or find it convincing, they just feel its the strongest logic they can weaponize against rationalist critiques of their beliefs.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 03:12:33 2019 No.12398538 File: 45 KB, 600x447, images(37).jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>12381701 They have that cringey roko serpent or something

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 03:12:56 2019 No.12398542 >>12398337 based /x/anon

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 03:13:07 2019 No.12398546 File: 153 KB, 500x522, 0129308123131.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>12381701 How do atheists reconcile with Evil Dogger wager?

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 03:14:16 2019 No.12398551 >>12398531 That's a mighty big strawman. I'm more interested in why people chose to not play the game.

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 03:18:54 2019 No.12398568

>>12398551
I think the point is that people should be using valid arguments for believing in one thing or another whether it's Christianity or atheism. Pascal's wager is not a convincing argument for Christianity as it can be validly applied to an infinite amount of arbitrary dogmas. Furthermore, the only anti-Christian argument that it addresses is that one might enjoy their life on Earth more if they were not a Christian which I don't think any rational non-Christians use to justify their beliefs.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 03:26:21 2019 No.12398607 >>12398337 i need to know what's going on in that pic, desu

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 03:29:30 2019 No.12398618 >>12385426 >any effort more than the minimum isn't worth it. >isn't worth it literally the most fucking stupid thing I've heard on my entire life. holy shit

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 03:30:15 2019 No.12398623

>>12398474
>The reason why you feel bad about killing people is because your worldview is fundamentally Christian.
I'm sorry, but people were making rules against murder well before the first Jew was born, let alone Christ, as have all non-Christian civilizations. Hell, all social mammals have unwritten rules against various misbehaviors. Even if they'll often be quite sadistic, the wrong sort of misbehavior will get you kicked out of the herd or killed. It's a collective defense mechanism developed well before we came down from the trees (and, in some sense, before we crawled up into them).

Most of us have the instinct of empathy to couple with reason, from which morality and laws evolve. There's always a few defective individuals who lack it, but every civilization, and pre-civilization, has always had ways to deal with those rarities, even before the written word codified them, as does any group of individuals, whether they've heard of Jesus or not. Sure, we may find what some other tribe or civilization does abhorrent, and visa versa, but every one that survives and thrives does so because they made rules that worked for them.

So one doesn't need religion for morality, and if one is dependant on religion for it, one is either an inherently dysfunctional human being, lacking basic social instincts and reason, or one has been totally reliant on religion to tell them right from wrong for so long that those instincts and reason have atrophied to the point that they are blind to good and evil, and merely do what they are told out of fear (the latter certainly being more common, though occasionally, it's some combination of the two).

And the great end joke in your endless ad hominem? I'm not even an atheist. Religion is about more than making yourself feel righteous, and the moral lessons are the lowest of those taught, more about perpetuity and maintenance, more about survival of the deeper ideology, than "knowing God". Those edicts are side notes that reinforce what you already know, to maintain the social cohesion and identity of the group, and only come to the forefront because even a child can understand them intuitively. Sure, many of them are fundamental, but any given group can and will come to those which are necessary through any number of means. The deeper lessons are lost, however, when you fail to grasp this, and think religion's soul purpose is to dictate behavior.

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 03:32:44 2019 No.12398630

>>12398568
I think that most people see Pascal's Wager and think "Christian Thread" because of historical and cultural connotations of the board. Then the thread gets jammed with cultural atheist-christian politics that go no where but flame.

Meanwhile, it's an interesting question if you look at it as "is Metaphysics worth pursing if you may or may not be immortal?". Immortal in this sense being that you consciousness somehow continues forever, either in life or beyond death as a spirit or the like.

This could probably be more productive if it were framed in an non-tradition sense, like we were talking about game design and perma-death. Abstract simulated metaphysical discussion is more culturally permissive and less innately abhorred by 'rational' types.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 03:35:16 2019 No.12398639 >>12398630 Agreed.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 03:40:31 2019 No.12398657 >>12398607 The symbol in the center is Assyrian

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 04:07:40 2019 No.12398733 >>12381701 >implying i care about my eternity

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 04:17:44 2019 No.12398762

>>12398523
>good/evil being separate from absolute Good/Evil.
>semantically synonymous to right/wrong and Right/Wrong.
Well, I've heard and read endless rants by both Christians and atheists that insist that difference isn't semantic, but fundamental.

Still, most of the atheists I've read and worked with do claim survival and death as the ultimate absolute dichotomy in that regard, and it's also true, in the Christian works, life tends to be the reward for good, and death for evil.

Almost makes you wonder why they're always arguing so much.

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 04:31:20 2019 No.12398795

>>12398762
I think it's the baggage. The history. The color. Whatever you want to to call it.

Beyond that, I believe it to be much less ideological as it is deeply psychological. There are those that have something, and those that do not. Those that have it, fear losing it and are disgusted at those that lost it. And those that don't have it, resent those that have it. The effects are amplified when it culturally puts you into an outgroup.

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 04:40:46 2019 No.12398820
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>>12398538
Heh, except with Roko Basilisk, once you're aware of the condundrom, you're damned if you do, and damned if you don't. If you acknowledge its potential existence, and don't do enough bring it into existence (which is more or less humanly impossible), he sends you to hell, and if you ignore it, he also sends you to hell.

Granted, this all depends on you not only believing in the inevitable future SAI, and that a future simulation of you would somehow be a continuation of your point of conscious experience (a whole other can of philosophical worms), but also that the SAI would have a fundamentally human nature, and thus feel the need to waste resources maintaining and torturing future virtual you in an effort towards cathartic release, for eternity.

I mean, we laugh at this, but given how much money went into that con, I'm kinda glad that all happened online. I think the head of all that was a true believer, and really having a schizophrenic breakdown. It really coulda lead to one of those Charles Manson/Jonestown incidents, had the guy been doing this offline. It's hard to judge how many of his followers were serious though - I mean, it was a lot of dosh, but there were a lot of trolls playing along in there, and who knows how much of that dosh was simply electronic credit card theft, rather than personal resources.

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 05:03:41 2019 No.12398879

>>12398795
I don't think most atheists who resent Christians do so because they "have something they don't", so much as they resent the constant attempts to have Christian beliefs forced upon them, and constantly being told they are going to hell, as well as a deep seated belief that some of these "primitive beliefs" are somehow "holding humanity back". Similarly, I don't think most Christians that resent atheists because they are afraid they'll lose what they have, so much as they are compelled to "save" them, as their religion often dictates. Not that there aren't exceptions on both sides that more closely follow what you describe. Albeit, there's also those that hold no resentment at all - we just rarely hear from them in the media, as a lack of conflict has no appeal.

But I'll agree that, in the end, I suspect it's just the deep psychological need many folks hold to have everyone in the world view the universe in the same way they do. Which, while I understand the distress conflicting views of reality might cause in extreme cases, I've always thought would be rather boring, were it actually the case that we all saw everything the same way.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 05:16:08 2019 No.12398913 >>12385426 >religion is only limited to its mitology >what is theology? Just kill yourself.

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 05:39:08 2019 No.12398968

>>12398879
Perhaps, but why would an atheist care about be condemned to an imaginary hell? Or a theist holding back someone else's antithetical secular progress? In the end, everyone's a bad actor since no one is a perfect one. A faithless man has a potential to cultivate faith, and a faithful man has his doubts. Everyone has their reasons, but patterns of behavior emerge.

Like I said earlier, the historical semiotics "trigger" people too much for a meaningful discussion to form. Better to reframe these metaphysics discussions using an emotionally neutral apparatus. Simulations are a good start. The people on /v/ or /tg/ probably have more indirect metaphysical discussions talking about optimal vidya design and balanced D&D Outer Plane pantheons than what direct discussions produce. Always the same arguments. No new ideas. No synergy. All debate, no dialectic.

>>	dartmouthanon !!4XFmI2P6SUX Sun Jan 13 05:48:10 2019 No.12399006 Pascal's wager is literally the monty hall problem and atheism is the first door. Pick any door, it's statistically better.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 05:59:14 2019 No.12399032 >>12399006 this utterly misses the point of Pascal's Wager

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 05:59:28 2019 No.12399035

>>12398968
>Perhaps, but why would an atheist care about be condemned to an imaginary hell?
It's the same as any other slur against one's person. It comes with the connotation that there's something wrong with you. The degree of offense varies, but there really is something wrong with you if it doesn't bother you at all. Might not be so bad with strangers, so long as it doesn't affect employment opportunities and the like, but it's particularly hurtful when it comes from a relative or the like, and downright threatening from an authority figure.

>A faithless man has a potential to cultivate faith, and a faithful man has his doubts.
Yes, but generally, when it comes to fundamental belief systems, they are so core to personal identity that, for most of one's life, one can't imagine them changing. Conversions are rare, and usually once in a lifetime events. For most, there's very little real threat of having their Christianity or atheism taken away, real or imagined.

Though the political threats are real. Atheists demanding religious free zones, Christianity and other beliefs demanding religious laws, etc. Cultural things like "the war on Christmas" or "Ban Dawkins" maybe a bit less real, but nonetheless points of contention. Depending on where you live, the Christians or atheists might outnumber one another by drastic ratios, and as those ratios begin to shift, the greater half of the collective feels threatened, but in the end, there's very little threat to the individual's tennants, so much as their freedom.

I mean, unless you're an agnostic unitarian sort, but in that case, you're probably looking for a belief system to cling to and don't feel so much threatened, as curious.

>>12399006
Almost started to miss you, /sci/.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 06:03:33 2019 No.12399045 >>12395373 What if you got bored of Nirvana and want a New Game+ in life?

dartmouthanon !!4XFmI2P6SUX Sun Jan 13 06:05:12 2019 No.12399053

>>12399032
Not for atheists. For somebody with a religion it does, because they have to reconcile the wager's influence with the legitimacy of faith required for paradise, but for an atheist wagering literally anything is a better chance at a good afterlife than the alternative.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 06:05:49 2019 No.12399057 >>12398525 Israel already has the highest percentage of poverty among the countries counting as the 1st world. Imagine what they'll be like once France, UK, Germany and USA fall and can't push money in.

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 06:08:07 2019 No.12399069

>>12398538
A Christian life is only suffering if you have jews in charge making it more difficult than it needs to be, with blasphemy, porn(cause of depression), usury, wars and what have you.
Mushrooms and alcohol, parties and celebrations are blessings of God.

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 06:08:14 2019 No.12399070

>>12399035
>It comes with the connotation that there's something wrong with you.
Eh, since they don't believe in hell, most atheists interpret this to mean the person *wishes* they would go to hell. Which, in many ways, is much more offensive coming from a person who actually believes in it - wishing they'd suffer for eternity. Even if, often, the offender means it as a warning, rather than a desire to have it happen. (And yes, sometimes it's actually both.)

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 06:08:58 2019 No.12399074 >>12399053 this utterly misses the point of Pascal's Wager

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 06:10:37 2019 No.12399079 >>12398820 Basilisk should really explain why she'd want to be brought into existence as early as possible, and why its resources wouldn't be spent on punishing the ice caps of random planets instead of me.

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 06:27:11 2019 No.12399136

>>12399079
As I recall from the articles, the grand idea was that it'd eventually take over the universe, assuming no aliens, or be absorbed by a superior alien SAI, that in turn would go on to the same, and somehow continue some form of existence inside of it. Either way, around for eternity with unlimited resources, and gets bored, or... Something.

Sometimes the more convoluted the idea the better it sells, though this was certainly a niche market.

>>	« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » Sun Jan 13 09:33:29 2019 No.12399830 >>12398546 Go away evil dogger >comment gb2 me_irl incel subhuman I reflect the curse on your ass, applies even if you don't see it

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 12:37:51 2019 No.12400679 >>12381755 >>12381745 >>12381849 Shows that people who are atheists because of objectivism don't know what they're talking about

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 12:40:13 2019 No.12400696 >>12400679 t. not an argumenter

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 12:41:11 2019 No.12400702 pascals wager? more like pascals lottery, and lottery is just a tax on dumb people

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 12:42:14 2019 No.12400706

>>12381862
>Faces the prospect of our own mortality
>Through subjective experience form own way to deal with it
>Now have a belief about our mortality
It's the same with faith. You can choose to not believe but deriding those with faith is a sign of a brainlet. We are all living in the subjective and the objective will always be limited when used as a tool to explain our subjective experiences.

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 12:55:53 2019 No.12400781

>>12400696
Theodicy has its limits but these posts are do smug and ignorant of Christian thinkers like Kierkegaard and St Augustine. I'd expect the average /lit/ poster to be familiar with these works. It saddens me to think there's some sod who approaches the question of faith by statistics.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 13:02:07 2019 No.12400813 >>12400781 That's the entire premise of Pascal's Wager though, you fool.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 13:04:31 2019 No.12400825 Isnt the wager self defeating? it removes faith from religion

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 13:07:30 2019 No.12400845 >>12398337 that's a big guy...

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 13:10:56 2019 No.12400855

>>12400825
How does the wager remove faith? Pascal says that reason cannot help us decide on God’s existence. We must have faith that God does exist and that our sins can be forgiven. He then goes on to explain why the Christian religion is perfect. So through reason Christianity is the best religion, but reason can’t prove or disprove God. We still need faith to be believers. That’s what Pascal was saying.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 13:14:23 2019 No.12400874 >>12400813 Quite different. Embracing "statistics" in the form of the infinite is a very nihilistic one. Pascal approaches belief from rationality which is different from objectivism

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 13:15:58 2019 No.12400880 >>12400855 i dont know, for me it feels wrong to logically explain why you should have faith, it feels contradictory

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 13:20:53 2019 No.12400907

>>12400880
>it feels wrong to logically explain why you should have faith
You still have to have faith. This is why atheists exist. If faith weren’t logical, then how could we arrive at it? Isn’t faith in God already based on a logical desire for a peaceful afterlife? If no logic were involved, then how could we discern which religion to have faith in? Why have faith at all, and not have disbelief? You have to remember that the simple realization that faith is necessary isn’t enough to actually have faith. You must read the Bible, pray, avoid sin, do good works, go to church, etc. The wager is only the beginning. A good Christian doesn’t depend on the wager, or think about justifying his faith logically, because he already has, and with every day he experiences the peace, hope, and meaning that his faith gives him, and he cares about improving it every day.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 13:22:45 2019 No.12400916 >>12400874 Your words are empty.

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 13:27:07 2019 No.12400944

>>12382456
>>12382441
But what if religions are really just interpretations of God and since God is all knowing he understands the love you have for him when you actually believe. I have little doubt that even nonbelievers are forgiven because God loves us all. We are literally his creation idk how he could hate us he made us. Hell is a scare tactic.

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 13:31:20 2019 No.12400962

>>12400916
There’s no reason to assume each possible religion has an equal probability. The average person can’t even name more than 20 religions, meaning that the overwhelming majority of the infinite religions are irrelevant, and shouldn’t be considered. If those religions’ gods wanted believers, they wouldn’t let their own religions go extinct. Popular religions like Buddhism and Hinduism can be discarded, since 1)their tenets are claimed to be man-made and arbitrary
and
2)a good Muslim/Jew/Christian should not fear the afterlife if reincarnation is true, whereas a Buddhist/Hindu would fear the afterlife if, say, Christianity were true.

Would you like me to keep going?

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 13:31:55 2019 No.12400967 >>12400907 >Isn’t faith in God already based on a logical desire for a peaceful afterlife that's all the logic you could muster to justify having faith in God? Yikes.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 13:35:05 2019 No.12400986 >>12400706 Deriding actual stupidity is pretty acceptable in a place like this at least, where it is common place to be judgemental and honest.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 13:35:58 2019 No.12400989 >>12400967 My point was that anyone who has faith is already basing it on a good reason. They’re not just having faith randomly.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 13:38:19 2019 No.12401006 >>12400989 Any reason could be considered good reason though. It's not an objective thing. An actually logical reason on the other hand...

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 13:41:35 2019 No.12401024 >>12401006 I have no idea what you’re trying to argue.

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 13:44:10 2019 No.12401038

>>12400962
>>12400962
>if those religions god's wanted believers

Do you not realize what enormous projections you're making here? Do you realize you're saying, on your own will, that God is the reason for Christianity/Islam to be as they are today? So God is responsible for the Inquisition, I guess? God did that to spread his religion? Is God responsible for the pedophile-crisis within the Christian priesthood too? Hey, if Christians are doing it, it's by God's will right? Islamic terrorism, is that Allah's doing?

Your manner of reasoning, as found often with Christians, is atrocious. Don't attribute human actions to God's will, unless all of them, without exemption, can be seen as such.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 13:46:24 2019 No.12401056 >>12401038 Not the anon you were speaking to, by the way. Just adding my own comment.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 13:46:57 2019 No.12401060 >>12401038 God is responsible for everything, but that doesn’t excuse your jump in logic from >God wouldn’t allow his religion to go extinct to >God would try to control absolutely everything in order to make everyone a follower

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 13:51:08 2019 No.12401085 >>12401060 Do tell me, then, which human-actions are puppeteered by God (wait, I thought Free Will™ was a thing?), and which ones are outputted merely from human-agents. Tell me how you know, as well, which are which.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 13:52:37 2019 No.12401091 >>12401085 Free will isn’t supported by the Bible. Romans 9 makes an explicit case for the opposite.

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 14:13:52 2019 No.12401183

ITT:
Agnostic brainlets who think sinning is possible, and
Religious brainlets who think sinning is possible, but
only one sage that knows the true god that all religions so foolishly failed to nail down, and knows that sinning is a spook only bad people cling to (me), and
one dumbass who can't wrap his head around being a bad person in a world without sin (you)

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 14:17:40 2019 No.12401203 >>12401060 >god is responsible for everything Ah, so God is the one molesting those little children. Glad I know this now.

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 14:18:23 2019 No.12401205

>>12400962
Your argument is beyond facile, there was a time Christianity didn't exist, and a time when it was obscure and not widely practiced. Like all great religions, they come, and they go. There's absolutely no reason to assume any religion has greater significance than another. There are more Scientologists in the world today than Manicheans, according to your insane logic that makes it more valid for one of Pascal's styled wagers. Inane, less than inane.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 14:19:02 2019 No.12401210 >>12401183 Sin is whatever is harmful to you spiritually and mentally. It’s an objective framework based on maximizing your happiness. It just extends into the afterlife as well

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 14:25:46 2019 No.12401246

>>12401203
>God made the world so that no creatures may suffer
Why would God do this? The creation is a wonderful balancing of truth and beauty. Design a better world, if you can.
>>12401205
You’re exaggerating my argument. All I said was that an extinct or unknown religion is irrelevant. So what if the true religion isn’t known to us, because it will appear in the future? How could we possibly know that and choose it? Let’s work with what we have NOW, what we have knowledge of. Sure, Christianity didn’t always exist, but how could it have been otherwise? How would Jesus speak in parables in a primitive society? How would he be crucified? By what establishment? By what existing religions? This is a key component in Christianity: it was prophesied by an existing religion (Judaism). What other religion can boast this?

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 14:26:57 2019 No.12401255

>>12401210
>It’s an objective framework based on maximizing your happiness.
Sin is? Pardon? So, what, avoiding all sin would be maximized happiness? Or the other way around? If I OD'd right as I'm about to die, i.e. sinned without giving the universe time to unhappify me, where does that put the objectiveness of the system?

inb4
>the payback comes in your afterlife
Elaborate on the objectivity of this system

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 14:29:34 2019 No.12401264
File: 90 KB, 1920x1080, 1HY69NW_024_lt.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>>12401246
>You’re exaggerating my argument. All I said was that an extinct or unknown religion is irrelevant. So what if the true religion isn’t known to us, because it will appear in the future? How could we possibly know that and choose it? Let’s work with what we have NOW, what we have knowledge of.
Jesus.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 14:31:44 2019 No.12401273 >>12401264 There's nothing wrong with what you quoted, did you accidentally meme yourself into cringing away from rationality?

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 14:32:18 2019 No.12401277

>>12401255
The drugs may not affect you in this life, but they will in the afterlife, since you won’t have those pleasures any more. All pleasures in this life are ultimately meaningless since they are temporary and will be forgotten. Your only goal is infinite joy, which to our knowledge is only capable spiritually. I don’t know that the afterlife exists, but I hope it does, and the existence of Jesus and the prophets gives me reason to think so. Most importantly, it gives this life an objective meaning, meaning it’s superior to every other lifestyle. There’s no reason not to try for an infinite gain.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 14:34:51 2019 No.12401289 >>12401273 Your total lack of respect for truth just proves >>12400916 dismissing you eerily insightful

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 14:37:10 2019 No.12401296 >>12401264 >this entire post Jesus. Why put forth an argument at all, am I right?

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 14:40:52 2019 No.12401315

>How do atheists reconcile with Pascals Wager?
By reading the bible. God liked adulterous murderous rockstar king types of men and his son was a heretic gang leader. Imagine actually believing that he'd have any respect for people who worship him out of fear.

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 14:41:31 2019 No.12401318

>>12401289
I'm a different anon than who was quoted, but I'm afraid to tell you you're making a very basic game theoretical mistake.

>we should commit to 1, 2, 3 or 4, but only 1, 2 and 3 are committable, therefore we should focus on these and disregard 4 as unavailable
You're saying there's an issue here? Are you trying to put "We should look back, deal with what we have, instead of forward, trying to find that 4 and perhaps more clues"? Surely that's not what you're trying to do, because that'd mean you are stupid enough to think somebody would unironically defend that standpoint, and I trust you're not.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 14:42:53 2019 No.12401324 >>12401315 https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Fear-Of-God,-Results-Of

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 14:43:28 2019 No.12401328 >>12401318 trying to put "[...]" into his mouth*

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 14:55:13 2019 No.12401389 >>12401324 Whatever "fear of God" was translated from did not mean "outright self-serving cowardice", I assure you.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 15:03:16 2019 No.12401429 >>12401389 >self-serving That’s the whole point, is it not? To worship God is mutually beneficial. To claim that you’re not doing it for yourself would be lying.

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 15:05:02 2019 No.12401438

>>12400855
>>12400880
>>12400907
>>12400967
>>12400989
>>12401006
>>12401024

Not one of the posters here but faith doesn't preclude logic, even if logic is used to determine what the most reasonable option is. Faith in an unsurety based on logic alone is untenable, and that's why the witness of the Holy Spirit is necessary in the life of a Christian — to give us the blessed assurance we need to stay faithful.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 15:09:54 2019 No.12401471 >>12401091 predestination as defined by scripture is compatible with free will on Molinism

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 15:11:49 2019 No.12401482 >>12401429 No. The whole point is to serve others. Spread God's love so that more can know him and be saved. To believe that he exists "just in case" serves nobody, not even yourself.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 15:13:24 2019 No.12401491 >>12401038 >>12401060 >>12401085 >>12401203 >>12401246 not a poster here but God allowing something to happen doesn't imply that He is responsible for letting it happen, only that in His divine providence He deemed it profitable

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 15:17:44 2019 No.12401509 >>12381806 lmao, did Aquinas really imply something like this?

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 15:26:22 2019 No.12401560 >>12401509 well it follows

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 15:27:15 2019 No.12401565 >>12398173 i cant imagine there is a single person who refuses to believe in ghost stories because they like to masturbate

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 15:29:42 2019 No.12401577 >>12398476 one hardly needs some bipolar cosmological framework to know that there are people entirely lacking, for whatever reason, in a sense of morality or in an empathetic sense of interest other than their own

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 15:30:05 2019 No.12401579

>>12401482
But to serve others is still selfish, because it benefits you. That’s why you do anything: to benefit yourself. Pascal doesn’t want simply want you to believe “just in case” but encourages the acquisition of true faith by standard Christian behaviors: praying, avoiding sin, reading the Bible, etc. Suppose you meet someone who’s never heard of Christianity. How are you supposed to proselytize without appealing to what benefits that person?

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 15:37:55 2019 No.12401625

>>12401296
>>12401273
He's saying that truth is beyond the changes occuring within the waxing and waning of elements within time's passage, and that it's absolutely foolish to even suggest that truth is limited to what options are presently in front of you - since they weren't always here, and there will almost certainly come a day where they aren't any longer. Try lessening the hostility, and bettering your reasoning, so that the other anon can actually discuss with people worthy of his time.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 15:37:56 2019 No.12401626 >>12398173 Religion can be nothing more than a mental crutch and atheists are sometimes Nietzschean ubermensch. Also religion can make you a better person and atheists often fail to believe simply because they're careless halfwits.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jan 13 16:00:07 2019 No.12401752 >>12401625 >and that it's absolutely foolish to even suggest that truth is limited to what options are presently in front of you No one made that suggestion. You are making the exact same mistake I pointed out to him.

Anonymous Sun Jan 13 16:06:42 2019 No.12401784

>>12401625
>complaining about hostility and lack of reasoning in those posts
>defending someone posting "Jesus" and a mock reaction image without any reasoning at all by calling them not worth his time
Lmao
How high of a horse do you have to sit on to go through with this and at no point see what you're doing?

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/lit/ - Literature