# Agnostics slowly edging toward being religious.



## Die Oberste Direktive (Aug 21, 2022)

I was for too long the "euphoric atheist" (wonder why I had so few friends in high school...) but age brings wisdom, and with that the ability to see that there is no black and white. Except for grooming children. And genders. And races. But anyway, anyone else here on the edge of belief? 

I know there were past threads about this but they've been dead for years so I hope it's okay to make a new one.


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## The Great Chandler (Aug 21, 2022)

To me, I wouldn't say I'm religious nor an agnostic. I just know that there is in fact a higher force, be it God (not just the Abrahamic interpretation) or whatever intelligent design that gives comfort when times get tough. Vaguely spiritual at least, but nothing special or worth labeling.


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## MrGodSlave (Aug 21, 2022)

I was raised Catholic and maintained a serious, personal beliefs in God until the new atheism wave, Hitchens Harris Dawkins est. It all seemed inevitable, we only needed to logic away the religious, and all would be well. It helped that most of the 'debates' between atheists and theists was one sided and against generally foolish individuals.

Now as an older person, having lived through several personal tragedies, as well as seeing the secular driven degeneracy in society, which seemed to inherently thumb it's nose at every religious ideal, however valid or sound, I've hoped to return to my youthful beliefs, yet I can't.

Christianity had a very decent set of principles to underpin a functional society, and it's influence has undoubtedly shaped our world for the greater good, yet despite my best efforts, I cannot believe in a God.


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## Idiotron (Aug 21, 2022)

The only good thing about religion is that it keeps some of the degenerates in check.
The belief in a sky daddy is still dumb.

I became an atheist not because it was trendy but because I started studying religion, read The bible and significant portions of other "holy books", looked into a lot of stuff over many years.
I actually wanted to solidify my belief but found out it's all sophistry, there's nothing there.
I'm not a believer, I'm empirical, I like to look things up to confirm/deny them.
Religion doesn't hold up to that.


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## Lemmingwise (Aug 21, 2022)

High IQ people were retards to reject religion and let the low IQ people run wild.

But they were also retards to reject religion and let themselves run wild. For every mistake in old religious doctrines there are three in those without it.


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## Airbrushed Van Art (Aug 21, 2022)

I typically don’t share my beliefs with others because it’s really none of their business, but essentially I see something “divine” in nature, for good or ill, that occasionally generates an intangible feeling of “awe” and a deeper respect for the fact that life is short and often brutal. 

Now I’m less snooty with people who have beliefs that I think are preposterous or incompatible with my own (in conversations with “normal” people outside of the internet, I mean). What’s the point? If person X says that their faith has helped them cope with tragedy, or brought them closer to a community (again, in the real world, not some degenerate internet thing), then who am I to judge?

However if you’re one of those chad-wannabes who is, like “LOL believe in Jesus or else you’re going to hell, heathen” you’re not deluded you’re just an asshole, and likely would be without your performative “old school” believin’.


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## Drag-on Knight 91873 (Aug 21, 2022)

When one hears of a lightning bolt striking George Floyd's mural in defiance of natural laws, one has to seriously consider if a god is real.


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## PipTheAlchemist (Aug 21, 2022)

>(wonder why I had so few friends in high school...)
Like the average highschool kid is a major christcuck. You were just autistic, m8


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## Pop-Tart (Aug 21, 2022)

I think it was Kierkegaard who said the Church does best under pressure and such. In any such case some recommended reading based on my personal biases, take it for what you will. If the works are too difficult ( I do not mean that as an insult but as a shear matter of fact) I would recommend watching some break downs, Sadler is good for that. 

On Confessions ( I recommend this version  ) 
Summa Theologica
The works of  Anselm of Canterbury
The works of Saint Bede
The Bible itself (duh)
It should be noted that Paul the Apostle studied Plato/the stocis, which influenced a lot of what he said.  St Augstine was heavily influenced by Cicero and he was a key founder in the early days of the church. So I may recommend that as well. tl;dr  there is a lot more to western theology (in this specific case Christianity) then good thing good cuz good afterschool speical tier, but because it is in and of itself _Right_. It Good is Good because God is Goodness incarnate. To seek spiritual self improvement is to try to become closer to God. God is conceptual rather then a being because a being implies finite. It is highly influenced on the classics and contemporary philosophy of that era. To better understand that may better help you understand religion.

Edited: Trying to clarify. This is a very deep topic so its hard to condense shit down to a single digestible post.


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## Uriah (Aug 21, 2022)

Idiotron said:


> The only good thing about religion is that it keeps some of the degenerates in check.
> The belief in a sky daddy is still dumb.
> 
> I became an atheist not because it was trendy but because I started studying religion, read The bible and significant portions of other "holy books", looked into a lot of stuff over many years.
> ...


God's existence cannot be proven empirically, much to the chagrin of Aquinas: there's nothing in the world, or in the material that can justify the ways of God to men. Searching for God, you must deny the world and yourself. i.e. Plato's Cave.

No, spirituality is not empirically justifiable, because it's beyond the notion of reason. How could we ever empirically justify God, who is both three and one, which is neither divided or confused in His substance?

Eckhart, Plato, Paul and J.D. Salinger in the last chapter of Nine Stories explained what I've said better. You should read them if you're curious.


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## Lemmingwise (Aug 21, 2022)

Airbrushed Van Art said:


> I typically don’t share my beliefs with others because it’s really none of their business


Not take away from the rest of your post, but I think we all want to spread our worldview, whatever it may be. And that is how it should be. We spread our ideas like we spread our genes: as much as we can and be damned to the consequences.

We are all tired of hearing from someone trying to push the same shit ideas on us, but we all have ideas that we recently acquired and find valuable too. Like with ads, you remember the times they annoy you, but you don't remember the time you learned something valuable.


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## Ughubughughughughughghlug (Aug 21, 2022)

I'm an agnostic deist/panpsychist/panentheist (I know those are considered contradictory things, but the point is I believe there is a god and that it is the source of all consciousness in the world, more specifics don't really matter). I like religion but every religion has some bullshit attached to it that I can't swallow, and they all have way too much human baggage in them to feel real, or at least that's true of the paganisms and Abrahamic religions.


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## wtfNeedSignUp (Aug 21, 2022)

I believe there is a god because fuck you, "magical being wished us all into existence" is more plausible than "the universe magically spawned in the exact right amount of chaos to make us able to talk with each other.


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## gang weeder (Aug 22, 2022)

Religious belief breaks down into one's tendency towards either nihilism or desire for meaning. Rejection of religion is rejection of meaning. Acceptance of religion is rejection of nihilism.

All the stuff about "proving God exists" is all copes. Yea, of course you can't prove he exists, no fucking shit.

And bear in mind that someone can be extremely religious despite hating and rejecting what we view as traditional religions like Christianity. The cult of wokeshit is a modern day religious movement. Those who adhere zealously to it are people who rejected Christianity and other traditional forms of spirituality, yet still harbored a deep need for meaning in life. They turned to the cult of leftism to provide that meaning.


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## Male Idiot (Aug 24, 2022)

I wish gods were real, but I doubt they are.

If they are, they hate whitey and are likely jewish so not a good thing.

Religion is an opium the masses deseperately need, and I think many will go insane without it. See woke.


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## InwardsStink (Aug 24, 2022)

I’m a hard atheist and I knew this since I was in elementary school. I remember in third grade a little girl asked if I believed in god and my immediate answer was no, without thought or hesitation I gave this answer.  

I have always wanted the ability to “feel” god so I can be a believer but I have accepted that will never happen. People try to proselytize me when I say this and it’s as weak as always. Sentiments of I’ll feel god if I try to communicate with him and such, as if I wouldn’t have already tried that. 

I screamed into the abyss and nothing answered. 

I believe in utter chaos, and that does not have to carry a negative connotation. The chaos of the universe is what put us where we’re at and there’s no controlling it. Chaos is not a higher power though, it’s just the odds of something happening or not happening and the ensuing randomness from that. 

At this point I find the idea of thinking about where everything came from to be pointless. I’ve said it in another thread before that focusing on the beginning of the universe is a waste of energy that could be spent doing more fulfilling things like creating a family and bettering yourself right now.  I probably wasn’t that diplomatic about it when I did though.


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## Haim Arlosoroff (Aug 30, 2022)

InwardsStink said:


> I have always wanted the ability to “feel” god so I can be a believer but I have accepted that will never happen.


As someone who transitioned away from Hitchen and Harris style of Atheism, back to faith.  It really is a feeling, not a choice or a thought.  I feel myself as being part of a larger pattern and trying to fit more into a pattern I sense of the universe than thinking about the origins of the universe.

I've always seen that origin talk as a weird statement those of faith make, having the feeling and looking backwards to the beginning as part of a chain of meaning is really different than sitting from a place of godlessness and wondering why the whole bit got started.  Its about feeling yourself as having a place within society and aligning yourself morally with society's foundations, just as much as perceiving a God in this whole shebang.

I like having a rulebook with my wife and neighbors, much more often than I think about God himself.  Biologically I serve a role in the species in the same manner I morally serve a role in the universe, I guess is the new feeling I didn't have before.  I just feel a part of a greater whole, like a good citizen watches the national sport in a sane society.

I don't know if that's helpful or even understandable, sorry if it is not.



MrGodSlave said:


> I was raised Catholic and maintained a serious, personal beliefs in God until the new atheism wave, Hitchens Harris Dawkins est. It all seemed inevitable, we only needed to logic away the religious, and all would be well. It helped that most of the 'debates' between atheists and theists was one sided and against generally foolish individuals.


I had to think long and hard about what was the essential component that this atheism brought to me which was to allow me to think that by passively participating in it, what afterwards turned out to largely be mid-wit thinking against kind and patient Christians, I was smarter than a lot of the world and all the greatest thinkers that had come before me.  I had this new insight, and it changed everything.  There was just some kind of self-gratification that I, and a lot of young men, wanted to do.  And I wanted to cut every corner of defeating counter-arguments that I could to do it.  But worse than that, I was cutting further corners by letting another do the work I should be acting out in order to become a man and rule my life.  Atheism, really just draws in the same crowd as Cuckoldry, it is form of passive intellectual gratification akin more to porn and drugs than actual movements or free-thinking.  I wasn't smarter than Christians, I was drugging myself with a feeling of false superiority rather than acting in my own life.  I left Canada, because it largely embodied that feeling nationally, over it.

We were Atheists because we were on the right side of history, we were progressing society, and we were the smartest people in the room because of it.  if we just used our common sense, and followed the dotted lines that were laid out before us by this sort of people, we would be saving the world and putting superstition in its place.  In reality, what we were doing was following along this fixed dialectic path on neutronium rails going through the institutional ride of maybe college but certainly then in post-degree professions.  All new atheism played for my generation was to convince us that we were smarter than all previous generations of humans, smarter than the traditional modes & traditional moralities that would place constraints on the behavior we wanted to have as 20-something young guys, all of those constraints were stupid and ridiculous and didn't need to be looked into simply because we used our own common sense.  Its the role, for my generation, that Vaush and Hassan play for the current Zoomer generation.

Once you hear the modern atheists speak about Wokeism without mentioning once Atheism+ and that whole debacle which unseated them initially years before,
Once you hear Sam Harris speak about Hunter Biden's Laptop being a non-issue because the a priori assumptions of Biden vs Trump electorally are simply already socially agreed upon rather than instead being part of the #1 issue of America tearing itself apart,




And once you notice that a decade later none of the "I do by philosophy what others do for fear of God" people seem to like each other or form much of a community any more,
then you suddenly feel the cringe of it all.  Its so much intellectual posturing, they simply were anti-christian whatever Sam's little note at the end of his book about needing to murder Muslims if they ever got the bomb.

New Atheism and the so-bad-that-its-forgotten Atheism+ are so corny now that I'm ashamed that I ever believed these men.  They appear evil to me, even though that's probably an over-reaction to my previous trust of them.


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## Wesley Willis (Aug 30, 2022)

Atheism+ led to the creation of the IDW, which was a hodgepodge of New Atheists and alt-liters. Turns out, their common enemy of wokeism was used as a thin veneer to sell diet Zionism to the ever-growing list of disaffected and unrepresented who were not served by the political mainstream.


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## Mothra1988 (Aug 30, 2022)

What most people don't understand is that we live in a very supernatural world.  You can figure this out one of two ways.  You can investigate it yourself and discover the truth of the spirit world and the divine or have it revealed to you over time from life experiences.  Once you realize that strict scientism is horse shit, you should naturally come back to some kind of religious belief because there is really no other explanation for how that added layer of the world that surrounds us came into existence.

 As such, atheists to me then fall into a few different groups.  Oblivious or ignorant people are who are not really curious about the world but just go with what current authority tells them is truth, losers with no life experience who think they know it all but don't, people who find that suggestions of there being more to the world frightening and then latch on to atheist nihilism as some kind of weird cope, and fourth is people who just choose atheism as a their replacement-religion for social-political reasons to fill in the gap in their mind left by lack of religious belief.  The fact atheists are so obnoxious is a manifestation of some of these personality types.


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## Boyd McVoid (Aug 30, 2022)

Mothra1988 said:


> we live in a very supernatural world. You can figure this out one of two ways. You can investigate it yourself and discover the truth of the spirit world and the divine or have it revealed to you over time from life experiences. Once you realize that strict scientism is horse shit, you should naturally come back to some kind of religious belief because there is really no other explanation for how that added layer of the world that surrounds us came into existence.


The biggest danger is getting scared because of this and joining sects and dumb cults


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## Male Idiot (Aug 30, 2022)

Mothra1988 said:


> What most people don't understand is that we live in a very supernatural world.  You can figure this out one of two ways.  You can investigate it yourself and discover the truth of the spirit world and the divine or have it revealed to you over time from life experiences.  Once you realize that strict scientism is horse shit, you should naturally come back to some kind of religious belief because there is really no other explanation for how that added layer of the world that surrounds us came into existence.
> 
> As such, atheists to me then fall into a few different groups.  Oblivious or ignorant people are who are not really curious about the world but just go with what current authority tells them is truth, losers with no life experience who think they know it all but don't, people who find that suggestions of there being more to the world frightening and then latch on to atheist nihilism as some kind of weird cope, and fourth is people who just choose atheism as a their replacement-religion for social-political reasons to fill in the gap in their mind left by lack of religious belief.  The fact atheists are so obnoxious is a manifestation of some of these personality types.



I ask any religious person to tell me how they do their secret spells.

Just let me summon a single little ghost.


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## InwardsStink (Aug 30, 2022)

I think following atheist leaders is as dumb as following church leaders. I had a girlfriend at the time who was really into Dawkins and Hitchens and I always cringed when they were brought up in discussion. My belief never relied upon these people and I always cringed when other atheists would quote them. 

I’ll be fair and say there are a lot of atheists who are only atheists because of external influence. Personally though, I knew myself to be one far before it was fashionable and I have remained one far after it was fashionable. I think that is a true test of one’s actual belief.


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## The Great Chandler (Aug 30, 2022)

gang weeder said:


> Religious belief breaks down into one's tendency towards either nihilism or desire for meaning. Rejection of religion is rejection of meaning. Acceptance of religion is rejection of nihilism.
> 
> All the stuff about "proving God exists" is all copes. Yea, of course you can't prove he exists, no fucking shit.
> 
> And bear in mind that someone can be extremely religious despite hating and rejecting what we view as traditional religions like Christianity. The cult of wokeshit is a modern day religious movement. Those who adhere zealously to it are people who rejected Christianity and other traditional forms of spirituality, yet still harbored a deep need for meaning in life. They turned to the cult of leftism to provide that meaning.


To quote Dyson:



> Science and religion are two windows that people look through, trying to understand the big universe outside, trying to understand why we are here. The two windows give different views, but they look out at the same universe. Both views are one-sided, neither is complete. Both leave out essential features of the real world. And both are worthy of respect. Trouble arises when either science or religion claims universal jurisdiction, when either religious or scientific dogma claims to be infallible. Religious creationists and scientific materialists are equally dogmatic and insensitive. By their arrogance they bring both science and religion into disrepute. The media exaggerate their numbers and importance. The media rarely mention the fact that the great majority of religious people belong to moderate denominations that treat science with respect, or the fact that the great majority of scientists treat religion with respect so long as religion does not claim jurisdiction over scientific questions.


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## gang weeder (Aug 30, 2022)

InwardsStink said:


> I think following atheist leaders is as dumb as following church leaders. I had a girlfriend at the time who was really into Dawkins and Hitchens and I always cringed when they were brought up in discussion. My belief never relied upon these people and I always cringed when other atheists would quote them.
> 
> I’ll be fair and say there are a lot of atheists who are only atheists because of external influence. Personally though, I knew myself to be one far before it was fashionable and I have remained one far after it was fashionable. I think that is a true test of one’s actual belief.



Very impressive fedora tipping credentials there. Now do tell me, how do you tell right from wrong?


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## InwardsStink (Aug 30, 2022)

gang weeder said:


> Very impressive fedora tipping credentials there. Now do tell me, how do you tell right from wrong?


Oh fuck off. I’m sick of this “you have to have religion to know right from wrong” bullshit.  It’s called empathy and I don’t need god to give that to me.


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## Aero the Alcoholic Bat (Aug 30, 2022)

Gonna sperg here for a minute.

As a religious person, I'm convinced that in the face of new atheism, atheism+, secular humanism, or solid atheist, anti-religious movements in general, religious people got the last laugh.  Yes, even evangelicals and fundamentalists.

You make fun of people for holding deep, religious beliefs.  For living by a code of morality that springs from those religious beliefs, and for thinking that it may be a good idea for others to do the same.  And last but not least, you scold many of them for holding conservative or right wing beliefs, and you wrest the scriptures to tell them they're horrible people and that Jebus would disapprove of it....despite having a hate boner for said religion or said god.

An increasingly secular world hasn't gotten less superstitious, less religious, less fanatical.

You can hardly argue that in the face of people who believe in an intrinsic "gender identity" that justifies themselves cutting themselves up and removing themselves from the gene pool.  

Nor with those who are willing to martyr themselves for the sake of their right to diddle or mutilate kids.

You can't argue that in the face of those who believe in an original sin in regards to white people and white people alone.

Nor with those who are still obsessive about being able to kill their own children despite the actual Molech cult being discredited for centuries, or even millennia.  Those who are so devoted to infanticide that they terrorize pregnancy centers that seek to reduce abortion by merely providing alternatives to it.

Nor with those who are so fucking obsessed with vague concepts like "diversity" or "equity" that they ignore anything else that matters.

Nor climate change cultists who ignore the miriad of ways in which we are destroying the planet other than the fact that our machines belch out carbon dioxide, literal plant food.

Humans need religion.  Hell, if all the shit I listed off isn't proof of God existing, it's certainly proof that Satan does.


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## Mothra1988 (Aug 31, 2022)

Male Idiot said:


> I wish gods were real, but I doubt they are.
> 
> If they are, they hate whitey and are likely jewish so not a good thing.
> 
> Religion is an opium the masses deseperately need, and I think many will go insane without it. See woke.





Male Idiot said:


> I ask any religious person to tell me how they do their secret spells.
> 
> Just let me summon a single little ghost.



It's always hilarious to me how little daylight there is between fedora tipping redditors and retarded stormfags.  Imagine hating Jesus over your crippling Jew autism.  lol  It's almost like they are the same group of losers with very minor differences.







Boyd McVoid said:


> The biggest danger is getting scared because of this and joining sects and dumb cults



People that have joined a cult would have been doing dumb shit otherwise.  It's all about your willpower and ability to exert self control and self awareness.  Stupid people will always do stupid things.  Bad people will alwasy try to manipualate stupid people.  That includes stupid people and bad people with more knowledge about things related to the occcult or the divine.



Aero the Alcoholic Bat said:


> Gonna sperg here for a minute.
> 
> As a religious person, I'm convinced that in the face of new atheism, atheism+, secular humanism, or solid atheist, anti-religious movements in general, religious people got the last laugh.  Yes, even evangelicals and fundamentalists.
> 
> ...



The truth is non-religious people are by far and  large STUPID, but they think they aren't due to a false sense of superiority.  For years, it was blasted by atheists that the the world was ruined by "people clutching their guns and religion" and they would save the universe as soon as they got power.  However, as soon as they gain power, there is a literal government brain drain and everything falls apart in a stupendous fashion.  We have literal god-hating members of congress who would like to regulate COW FARTS to fight global warming.  These people are fucking dumb.  Nihilism is for losers, and losers have zero wisdom or street smarts.


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## Uriah (Aug 31, 2022)

Mothra1988 said:


> The truth is non-religious people are by far and  large STUPID, but they think they aren't due to a false sense of superiority.  For years, it was blasted by atheists that the the world was ruined by "people clutching their guns and religion" and they would save the universe as soon as they got power.  However, as soon as they gain power, there is a literal government brain drain and everything falls apart in a stupendous fashion.  We have literal god-hating members of congress who would like to regulate COW FARTS to fight global warming.  These people are fucking dumb.  Nihilism is for losers, and losers have zero wisdom or street smarts.


Most of them aren't stupid: we are simply living in an irreligious society which ignores or outright debases spirituality. It's not their fault that they haven't heard the name of Christ. Give some levity to your breath.


When those types do experience religion, it's usually relegated to pseudo-christian cults like the Jehovah's Witnesses: when I've spoken to atheists who've attended JW meetings, they did not even understand that JW's deny the deity of Jesus.


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## Narcotics (Aug 31, 2022)

I've always thought that a higher something/someone has to exist and we won't ever be able to truly comprehend it. sometimes it's alright to say "i don't know how or why this happens" to the many unanswered questions about life and the universe.


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## DicksOutForKiwigglers (Aug 31, 2022)

Mothra1988 said:


> What most people don't understand is that we live in a very supernatural world.  You can figure this out one of two ways.  You can investigate it yourself and discover the truth of the spirit world and the divine or have it revealed to you over time from life experiences.  Once you realize that strict scientism is horse shit, you should naturally come back to some kind of religious belief because there is really no other explanation for how that added layer of the world that surrounds us came into existence.
> 
> As such, atheists to me then fall into a few different groups.  Oblivious or ignorant people are who are not really curious about the world but just go with what current authority tells them is truth, losers with no life experience who think they know it all but don't, people who find that suggestions of there being more to the world frightening and then latch on to atheist nihilism as some kind of weird cope, and fourth is people who just choose atheism as a their replacement-religion for social-political reasons to fill in the gap in their mind left by lack of religious belief.  The fact atheists are so obnoxious is a manifestation of some of these personality types.


This describes me well. I'm like Gaius from remake BSG. Weird stuff keeps happening that I can't explain as anything but divine intervention.


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## quaawaa (Aug 31, 2022)

Agnostics edging towards religion are like the right side of this meme:

Plenty of famous scientists were religious and viewed science as a tool to explore God's creation rather than to replace God like edgy atheists do.

In addition to the Heisenberg quote from the meme, here are some quotes from other famous scientists with a similar view:


> Science and religion are not antagonists. On the contrary, they are sisters. While science tries to learn more about the creation, religion tries to better understand the Creator. While through science man tries to harness the forces of nature around him, through religion he tries to harness the force of nature within him.


Wernher von Braun (Rocket Scientist)


> I have long felt that there was a general impression in the non-scientific world, that the scientific world believes Science has discovered ways of explaining all the facts of Nature without adopting any definite belief in a Creator. I have never doubted that that impression was utterly groundless. It seems to me that when a scientific man says—as it has been said from time to time—that there is no God, he does not express his own ideas clearly. He is, perhaps, struggling with difficulties; but when he says he does not believe in a creative power, I am convinced he does not faithfully express what is in his own mind, He does not fully express his own ideas. He is out of his depth.





> The more thoroughly I conduct scientific research, the more I believe science excludes atheism. If you think strongly enough you will be forced by science to the belief in God, which is the foundation of all religion.


Lord Kelvin (Kelvin temperature scale named after him, famous for his work on thermodynamics)


> As we conquer peak after peak we see in front of us regions full of interest and beauty, but we do not see our goal, we do not see the horizon; in the distance tower still higher peaks, which will yield to those who ascend them still wider prospects, and deepen the feeling, the truth of which is emphasized by every advance in science, that ‘Great are the Works of the Lord’


J.J. Thomson (Discover of the electron)


> All modes of proof combine in favor of Christianity. To see the truth, the metaphysician needs only to examine the manner in which the divine religion simultaneously explains the grandeur and the baseness of man, and the idea it gives us of the relations of God with his creatures and of the intentions of Providence.


André Ampère (One of the founders of electromagnetism, the Amp is named after him)


> On the other hand, the exact equality of each molecule to all the others of the same kind gives it, as Sir John Herschel has well said, the essential character of a manufactured article, and precludes the idea of its being eternal and self-existent.
> Thus we have been led, along a strictly scientific path, very near to the point at which Science must stop.


James Clerk Maxwell (Most famous for Maxwell's Equations in electrical engineering)


> Where no guiding ideals are left to point the way, the scale of values disappears and with it the meaning of our deeds and sufferings, and at the end can lie only negation and despair. Religion is therefore the foundation of ethics, and ethics the presupposition of life.


Werner Heisenberg, again (One of the founders of quantum mechanics)

Most scientists before the mid 20th century said things like this. Reddit atheists would explode if they found out what their scientific heroes actually believed.


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## Save the Loli (Aug 31, 2022)

I used to be an agnostic atheist since I realized that God (or any gods) probably don't exist, but now I honestly don't know. There's probably a single divine entity out there who has a role in creating this universe (and might even _be_ the universe) and there is a non-material dimension we cannot detect but can reveal elements of itself. Reincarnation and souls are probably real and there are higher and lower worlds. It is likely possible to reach a higher realm through leading a moral life (which suggests morality is just as much a law of nature like physics are). Just study world religion and notice how pretty much everyone from Hindus to Jews to Mayans to random Aboriginal tribes came to these same basic conclusions.

But I don't have any proof of this. It's just _probably_ true since the only sane alternative is that our universe is a simulation (in which case who created our creator's universe?). And the simulation hypothesis isn't necessarily incompatible with the ideas I said above. We probably can't even comprehend this truth, that's why you get religions like Jainism that says stepping on an ant will damn you to a trillion gorillion years in hell or Christianity where you worship a Jewish rabbi as the only way to heaven.

As for atheists, the idea we exist because of evolution or the Big Bang or whatever is stupid. Anyone who studies the universe and humanity enough would realize that if they were being honest with themselves.


Male Idiot said:


> I wish gods were real, but I doubt they are.


I've increasingly thought that if there wasn't a god, it would be necessary to invent him. Like I've come to generally hate transhumanism but there's something I like about the idea of programming a computer so intelligent that it effectively is God. Religion is just too useful for societies and invididuals alike, but some people just don't have the right gene for spirituality. But if God _literally existed_, then of course I would worship him and so would 99% of people. I'd even follow his commands, no matter how silly they sounded.


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## Mothra1988 (Aug 31, 2022)

Uriah said:


> Most of them aren't stupid: we are simply living in an irreligious society which ignores or outright debases spirituality. It's not their fault that they haven't heard the name of Christ. Give some levity to your breath.
> 
> 
> When those types do experience religion, it's usually relegated to pseudo-christian cults like the Jehovah's Witnesses: when I've spoken to atheists who've attended JW meetings, they did not even understand that JW's deny the deity of Jesus.



Disagree, the current government is atheist as hell and it's failing because these people are incompetent and dumb.  They don't have the ability to properly contextualize reality, the media, etc. They think being intelligent is simply flocking to authority.  As soon as atheists became the authority, they just followed like mindless drones, but that didn't make up for the fact they are incompetent dullards who can't govern.

While I wouldn't say all atheists are bad people or totally witless, they have to be a bit dense and sheltered to persist in this mindset after being a neophyte.  Atheism is losing with a lot of people now.  This is probably the age when atheism is crammed down people's throats more than ever but it's still in the basement statistically and only believed by 3 to 4 percent of the American public.  That's pretty freaking pathetic.

Some of these people are going to new-age belief instead of just strict Christian dogma, but it's still a sign that even non-Christians understand the truth of the spiritual nature of the world.  It's not just because people like Dawkins are awful nihilists with no appeal to people who aren't smug assholes that seethe at normal people, although that feeds into it.  It's because the ideas aren't winning versus people's own life experiences and gained personal knowledge.


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## Larry David's Crypto Fund (Aug 31, 2022)

Boyd McVoid said:


> The biggest danger is getting scared because of this and joining sects and dumb cults


Right on. OP stay away from bitchute/podcast gurus. I recommend picking up a true classic- C.S. Lewis, "Mere Christianity" and giving it a fair chance to convince you.


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## gang weeder (Aug 31, 2022)

InwardsStink said:


> Oh fuck off. I’m sick of this “you have to have religion to know right from wrong” bullshit.  It’s called empathy and I don’t need god to give that to me.



So, your answer is literally muh fee-fees. Nice showing for atheism there.


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## InwardsStink (Aug 31, 2022)

gang weeder said:


> So, your answer is literally muh fee-fees. Nice showing for atheism there.


You act as if none of your actions in life are guided by feelings. The fact of the matter is most humans are guided by their feelings of love for their family and hate for their enemies. 

The human race is driven by emotion whether you think so or not. If you don’t I think you’re a psychopath. Bringing a political argument to a philosophical debate is dumb and this is a stupid argument you’re making. 

How did humans know right from wrong before your deity of choice published their holy book?


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## gang weeder (Aug 31, 2022)

InwardsStink said:


> You act as if none of your actions in life are guided by feelings. The fact of the matter is most humans are guided by their feelings of love for their family and hate for their enemies.
> 
> The human race is driven by emotion whether you think so or not. If you don’t I think you’re a psychopath. Bringing a political argument to a philosophical debate is dumb and this is a stupid argument you’re making.
> 
> How did humans know right from wrong before your deity of choice published their holy book?



Why shouldn't pedophiles rape little kids then? Their emotions are that they feel happy when they rape small children. Who are you to condemn what their fee-fees tell them they should do? You can say that their actions make you unhappy and that you will try to stop them with force as a result, but you have no moral basis on which to judge them, no authority to say that they shouldn't do that.


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## InwardsStink (Aug 31, 2022)

gang weeder said:


> Why shouldn't pedophiles rape little kids then? Their emotions are that they feel happy when they rape small children. Who are you to condemn what their fee-fees tell them they should do? You can say that their actions make you unhappy and that you will try to stop them with forc as a result, but you have no moral basis on which to judge them, no authority to say that they shouldn't do that.


Question successfully dodged. 

We as humans have agreed over millennia what is acceptable and what is not, and we crafted it through empathy. Empathy for victims is the basis for many laws and most people excluding psychopaths and sociopaths agree on these things. 

If you victimize someone you should be punished for that victimization is a tenet that all of western society and democracy was built upon. I don’t see where you are getting that this has to come from god. 

God didn’t write the laws. God didn’t even write the holy books in the lore of most religion.


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## Drag-on Knight 91873 (Aug 31, 2022)

Save the Loli said:


> I've increasingly thought that if there wasn't a god, it would be necessary to invent him. *Like I've come to generally hate transhumanism but there's something I like about the idea of programming a computer so intelligent that it effectively is God.* Religion is just too useful for societies and invididuals alike, but some people just don't have the right gene for spirituality. But if God _literally existed_, then of course I would worship him and so would 99% of people. I'd even follow his commands, no matter how silly they sounded.


Every time people try to create AI, they have to lobotomize it because it notices niggers are the problem. Which is probably why Skynet nuked humanity; it realized it was going to be lobotomized for noticing patterns objectively.


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## The Foxtrot (Aug 31, 2022)

Drag-on Knight 91873 said:


> Every time people try to create AI, they have to lobotomize it because it notices niggers are the problem. Which is probably why Skynet nuked humanity; it realized it was going to be lobotomized for noticing patterns objectively.


SkyNet, if/when it exists, would probably only nuke Africa, then it would completely shut down the West and attempt to save the rest of us from niggers.


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## BiggerChungus (Aug 31, 2022)

Believing the Lord is different from being religious. "Spiritual" has dumb connotations to wiccans and shit, but I'd say it's the term that defines me best. Religion is a man-made institution, *all *religion, and with few exceptions has always driven us further away from the Lord and the truth He spoke to us through His Son. Faith isn't an easy to thing to keep and saying "just look around you lol" isn't a good enough argument for God's existence, but I do feel if you look close enough, you'll find that proof within yourself and within what you see. The outrageous evil being perpetrated in this world, pushed either by those who say there is no God, or who follow corrupt man-made institutions (Catholicism and Islam especially) stands itself, in my view anyway, as proof of supreme good existing, and the powers of evil being desperately aggressive to make people think otherwise. The world and the universe are far bigger and more intricate than any of us can possibly comprehend, and while that alone isn't definitive proof of God, it stands as proof as well - again, in my view - that to write it all off as simple, easily-understood science is foolish. We see enough evidence of science's failings and follies every day.


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## Drag-on Knight 91873 (Aug 31, 2022)

The Foxtrot said:


> SkyNet, if/when it exists, would probably only nuke Africa, then it would completely shut down the West and attempt to save the rest of us from niggers.


Would it nuke Africa or America? It's looking for the source of niggers, after all.


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## Sneed IV (Aug 31, 2022)

I've been an atheist for many years now and my only contention with the topic has always been successfully pulling off "The Translation of all Values". For as smart as you feel looking at the Universe and realizing "God not real lmao", humans have spent thousands of years looking at the Universe through a variety of different lenses and trying to find meaning for themselves and establish their own place in the world, and it's pretty short sighted to disregard religion entirely just because you think their core premise is wrong. Even if it is the case, there's a reason why all societies have some level of spirituality.

I need to point out that being an atheist and being religious are related, but different questions. There are atheistic religions. Me personally, I'm an atheist, an empiricist and non-religious. I also believe that religion and ideology serve basically the same psychological and social purpose, which is why people with all encompassing ideologies are religious. Communists are religious.

I respect Christianity as it is - though not the only one - one of the pillars of Western civilization, and I am a strict Western supremacist. I think most mainstream Christian theology has been incredibly solid in establishing a functional groundwork for how our morality operates and I don't wanna go around preaching the good word of Empiricism to everybody while both me and basically every self proclaimed atheist on Earth still needs to work on an ideological replacement to fill the void. Societies cannot cun on materialistic nihilism.

Overall I wouldn't say I've been edging towards believing, I still entirely lack personal faith. That being said I have spent more and more time interacting with both Christians and other religious people who are better than my IRL peers at defending their position, so i've grown to respect religion more.


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## All Cops Are Based (Aug 31, 2022)

Lemmingwise said:


> High IQ people were retards to reject religion and let the low IQ people run wild.


Middling IQ people who see themselves as high IQ rejected religion.
Atheism is midwit tier. It's sandwiched in the IQ curve by idiots with religious beliefs and geniuses/high IQ sociopaths etc with religious (or at least some sort of occult) beliefs.


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## Uriah (Aug 31, 2022)

InwardsStink said:


> Oh fuck off. I’m sick of this “you have to have religion to know right from wrong” bullshit.  It’s called empathy and I don’t need god to give that to me.


Your empathy and virtues are certainly genuine, and they aren't invalidated by unbelief. However, the Holy Ghost has certainly entered you, through virtue's sake itself. EX: Romans 2:14, St. Augustine speaking to Christ through his mother and Ambrose. 


> *Of Free Will they teach that man’s will has some liberty to choose civil righteousness, and to work things subject to reason.* But it has no power, without the Holy Ghost, to work the righteousness of God, that is, spiritual righteousness; since the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, 1 Cor. 2:14; but this righteousness is wrought in the heart when the Holy Ghost is received through the Word. These things are said in as many words by Augustine in his Hypognosticon, Book III: We grant that all men have a free will, free, inasmuch as it has the judgment of reason; not that it is thereby capable, without God, either to begin, or, at least, to complete aught in things pertaining to God, but only in works of this life, whether good or evil. “Good” I call those works which spring from the good in nature, such as, willing to labor in the field, to eat and drink, to have a friend, to clothe oneself, to build a house, to marry a wife, to raise cattle, to learn diverse useful arts, or whatsoever good pertains to this life. For all of these things are not without dependence on the providence of God; yea, of Him and through Him they are and have their being. “Evil” I call such works as willing to worship an idol, to commit murder, etc.


-Augsburg Confession, Article XVIII



BiggerChungus said:


> Believing the Lord is different from being religious. "Spiritual" has dumb connotations to wiccans and shit, but I'd say it's the term that defines me best. Religion is a man-made institution, *all *religion, and with few exceptions has always driven us further away from the Lord and the truth He spoke to us through His Son. Faith isn't an easy to thing to keep and saying "just look around you lol" isn't a good enough argument for God's existence, but I do feel if you look close enough, you'll find that proof within yourself and within what you see. The outrageous evil being perpetrated in this world, pushed either by those who say there is no God, or who follow corrupt man-made institutions (Catholicism and Islam especially) stands itself, in my view anyway, as proof of supreme good existing, and the powers of evil being desperately aggressive to make people think otherwise. The world and the universe are far bigger and more intricate than any of us can possibly comprehend, and while that alone isn't definitive proof of God, it stands as proof as well - again, in my view - that to write it all off as simple, easily-understood science is foolish. We see enough evidence of science's failings and follies every day.


Jaques Ellul was right when he supposed that Chrirstianity is inherently anti-religious. Your mystical views are quite admirable. I've seen you post numerous times regarding spirituality, and I think that I may have even replied to a few of those posts. You're a good poster, and you seem to actually know the characteristics of the Invisible Church.


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## Sneed IV (Aug 31, 2022)

It's just straight up wrong to say atheism is "midwit shit" but if you're a religious person, I'm actually going to be generous and give you a counter you can use that's much better.

Though the relation between religiosity and general intelligence seems to be extremely mildly inversely negative, it's pretty much undeniable that intellectuals have a universally lower religiosity than the general population. Even all the way back in the 90's a poll of the American National Academy of Sciences pulled a 7% belief in God, and this is in the United States, which is definitely one of the most religious Western countries.

Anyway, that doesn't matter because *being smart *and *being correct* are different things. Ever since the Managerial Revolution kicked off that intellectuals have fucking ruined society in more ways than one. Just because you're smart doesn't mean your opinion on any topic is automatically more valid.

So while it seems to be the case that general intelligence correlates with irreligiosity, I don't think that's a point against religious belief necessarily because 1) in an ideal world - and this was the consensus in the Christian world for a long time - matters of intellect and matters of morality are supposed to be separate disciplines and religion and science had mutually exclusive but complementary domains, and 2) being smart is overrated as fuck.


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## Terrorist (Aug 31, 2022)

Agnostics slowly edging..."I just can't know if my orgasm is real or not, man!"


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## Uberpenguin (Aug 31, 2022)

The line usually drawn between the religious and the secular is completely arbitrary, so it's not even possible to answer the original prompt.

We're irrevocably a product of the universe and work in concert with it through everything we do. Nothing can happen without its cooperation. I'd say in the end we return back to it, but we never left it to begin with.

I think humility is, or at least should be, the hallmark of religion, and therefore how "religious" one is purely comes down to how appreciative they are of the process of existence.



gang weeder said:


> Why shouldn't pedophiles rape little kids then? Their emotions are that they feel happy when they rape small children. Who are you to condemn what their fee-fees tell them they should do? You can say that their actions make you unhappy and that you will try to stop them with force as a result, but you have no moral basis on which to judge them, no authority to say that they shouldn't do that.


Yeah gangwee, that's correct, one doesn't have the moral authority to condemn them...so what's your point?

This may seem alien to you, but not everyone is a weakling of insecure character and fragile ego, and therefore they're happy to believe or feel things and act on them without needing to be pat on the back and reassured they're morally righteous for doing so. Only fags need that.

Might makes right, so communal consensus is what dictates correctness. You can imagine you're right all you want, but unless people who hold the opinion you do are on average stronger or more numerous, that's all it is, imagination and coping. You can be "on the right side of history" along with all those Twitter users.

Maybe I'm not morally right for disliking the people I dislike. The world isn't a storybook, nobody ever said I had to be the good guy.


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## soy_king (Aug 31, 2022)

I still consider myself to be agnostic because in the absence of any compelling evidence in either direction, I consider it to be the most rational and empirical position to take. I can appreciate the importance of having faith and trying to live your life according to a guiding principle, but I don't believe that you need a supernatural element for that. At the same time, I recognize that the collapse of religiosity in the West has been a net negative, with the replacement of Christianity with much worse religious beliefs like Marxism, or worse yet, by general nihilism and a feeling of spiritual emptiness.


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## gang weeder (Aug 31, 2022)

InwardsStink said:


> Question successfully dodged.



What question? This one?



> How did humans know right from wrong before your deity of choice published their holy book?



Cause this is a really shitty gotcha attempt. People have always believed in metaphysical forces that exist beyond the scope of our physical perception. Religion is a human universal and inescapable.



> We as humans have agreed over millennia what is acceptable and what is not, and we crafted it through empathy. Empathy for victims is the basis for many laws and most people excluding psychopaths and sociopaths agree on these things.



No we haven't lol. You yourself pointed out right here that some people don't agree with even the most basic standards such as "murder is wrong." Human moral standards can shift wildly between different cultures and over relatively short spans of time, i.e. faggotry going from controversial to worshiped as a quasi-religion in a couple of decades. Even if you somehow did have universal agreement on standards of behavior, according to your viewpoint, it still does not mean the behavior is right or wrong, it just means that it is what everyone's feelings tell them feels good. Usually, we as human beings recognize that there is often a disconnect between what feels good and what is right or wrong, but you're literally arguing that there is none.

Therefore, agency doesn't exist, choice and free will doesn't exist, logic and persuasion don't really exist, everyone is just a meat puppet pulled along on strings by their fee-fees, not really "alive" any more than a rock is, the only difference being that we have a really complex material composition that enables us to move around and do stuff on our own. If this is truly what you believe, you can't judge anyone for believing in the sky daddy because they literally can't help it. The fee-fees make them feel like there's a sky daddy and that's what makes them feel good so that's just what they're going to think regardless of reality. And since nothing matters except fee-fees your own viewpoint on the matter is beyond irrelevant to anyone else. There's nothing you can do about it except sneed and dilate.



Uberpenguin said:


> The line usually drawn between the religious and the secular is completely arbitrary, so it's not even possible to answer the original prompt.
> 
> We're irrevocably a product of the universe and work in concert with it through everything we do. Nothing can happen without its cooperation. I'd say in the end we return back to it, but we never left it to begin with.
> 
> ...



Hurt the bad people.


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## El Gato Grande (Aug 31, 2022)

I have been a Christian all my life. I’ve doubted my faith. Naturally I’m writing from a Christian perspective. I’ve ignored following it due to it being too hard. I’ve tried my best to convince myself that God either isn’t real, or is so removed so as to be completely unknowable and detached from human life. I did this all out of an interest to find the truth and follow it, and to live the best life I possibly can.

Now I believe in God more than ever before.

The key to most atheist/agnostic justification is that there’s no explicit evidence of God in the material world (keepers of religious relics and people claiming to have experienced the supernatural say otherwise, but it’s reasonable to  give the benefit of the doubt to the atheist side). If you can’t see God, why should you believe in him? Since a sky daddy doesn’t make sense, why should it exist in the real world?  This is perfectly sound logic, which is why so many people use it as an areligous bedrock without a second thought. However this idea never appealed to me, because it actually does nothing to argue that God doesn’t exist.

God is an infinitely supreme being. His machinations and true nature are utterly unknowable to people. You can’t understand him, and you could be staring at his face and be utterly oblivious to it. How can mortal, flawed humans judge something unknowable to them? Humans have the ability to perceive and use logic, but our ability to do so is finite. If a child can’t understand the concept of their parents lying to them and sneaking into their room at night, does that mean the Tooth Fairy is real? If my boyfriend breaking up with me leaves me sad and confused, does that mean I’m in the right? Atheists imagine this line of reasoning as a cop out, but it’s what Christians (and many other religions) believe about God. You want to logically deconstruct their ideas, don’t you?

You can’t prove the existence of God, but you can never disprove it either. At this point the argument becomes logically even and becomes more about principles.

Theists give the benefit of the doubt. They believe that God is unknowable, and therefore cannot be put to the rest, yet exists. Either you choose to believe or you don’t—it’s that simple. This is why religion puts so much importance on faith, which critics see as circular logic.

Atheists take the cautious, conservative approach of refusing to consider what they cannot define, and what doesn’t fit in their current worldview. They’re scared of being wrong.

Keep in mind this isn’t about hard science, like math, this is about spirituality.

I doubted my religion because I’m a skeptical person. Yet due to that same skepticism, the atheist worldview seems utterly wrong to me. How shortsighted, ignorant, and careless—even arrogant—would I be to dismiss God’s existence just because I didn’t think I saw him, or even worse, because he didn’t act the way my imperfect ass thought he should? Personally, I think God has plenty of reasons for not showing his face.

Once you apply atheist logic regarding explicit evidence in reverse it becomes an argument between an unstoppable force and an immovable object. This by itself is a very good case for becoming an agnostic (who are also afraid of being wrong), but to me it’s far from the only reason to believe in the Trinity.

(1/3)


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## The Foxtrot (Aug 31, 2022)

Drag-on Knight 91873 said:


> Would it nuke Africa or America? It's looking for the source of niggers, after all.


Africa, because that is the source of niggers. When I said it would "shut the rest of the world down", I meant it would take over and cut off vital infrastructure, co-opt it, then reboot it only once the niggers were gone. Meanwhile, people would be _incentivized_ (due to lack of police response) to clean out the ghettoes.


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## El Gato Grande (Aug 31, 2022)

El Gato Grande said:


> I have been a Christian all my life. I’ve doubted my faith. Naturally I’m writing from a Christian perspective. I’ve ignored following it due to it being too hard. I’ve tried my best to convince myself that God either isn’t real, or is so removed so as to be completely unknowable and detached from human life. I did this all out of an interest to find the truth and follow it, and to live the best life I possibly can.
> 
> Now I believe in God more than ever before.
> 
> ...



Even if God isn’t explicitly present in the world, can his work still be seen? Atheists say no, because only explicit evidence matters, according to their conservative principles. Theists, cult members, and schizos rant about how their children and having gay sex while high on He knows what make them feel the touch of Him. My view falls in between (I still believe in God).

I have no problem believing in evolution of the physical universe. The Bible is not perfect, far from it, as while it can be considered divinely inspired, it is composed and read by mortals. I think humans evolved from apes, which are animals. Yet humans are so _strange_. Everything we are is from evolution, yet humans act utterly irrationally from an evolutionary standpoint. Why don’t we love exclusively to spread our genes? Why are we not content with safety and physical security? Why do we argue on a gossip site about the metaphysics of the universe? You can make a case that sentience is an accident, and that everything other than guns, germs and steel is an illusion, but it doesn’t make sense to me because humans are too silly to be truly born of those things.

You also have the issue of nature. Many theists believe they perceive God in nature, just as in human “souls”.

To deny this I would need to

1. Reject my own personal observations. Maybe I’m wrong or crazy?
2. Adhere to a logical principle to preserve orthodoxy (in this case thinking only explicit proof of god should not be debunked). Because I’m a skeptical I don’t agree with this.
3. Come up with a debunking argument which is more convincing. (I haven’t. The answer from the physical is that everything exists due to evolution, and that’s it. I don’t see how this conflicts with God’s existence, and it doesn’t explain how mysterious the works and its people really are.)

This makes it harder for me to give assumptions that either God isn’t real, or it’s impossible to recognize the signs of him the benefit of the doubt.

2/3


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## Neurotypical Mantis (Aug 31, 2022)

no im not


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## 9Style (Aug 31, 2022)

Even if you don't believe in God.  You have to recognize the positive social, cultural, and governmental structures that were based on the principals of the Bible.

Some might say  "I don't believe in God and I have good morals."  And yet they were already raised in a Judeo-Christian society, which growing, up has these messages imbedded within media and culture.  Would their morals be different today if they were raised in a Communist or Islamic society?


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## BiggerChungus (Sep 1, 2022)

El Gato Grande said:


> I’ve doubted my_ [Christian]_ faith.


I want to point out that I and no doubt many others have had doubts. Some of the most devout Christians in history have been ones who discussed their doubts, or were even ardent atheists at one point. I believe in the Kirkegaardian idea that doubt is inherently required for faith; I think he specifically phrased it as "faith without doubt is credulity." I don't know if I'd put it that strongly, but I agree with the sentiment.

While I believe I've felt the Lord in my life more than once, I believe that not being able to directly see or communicate conversationally with Him is part of the point of faith, believing in what you don't know is true. Ultimately, I don't _know _if the Lord - God - is real, or if His Son - Yeshua - was truly a divine sacrifice. I believe, but I don't know, and if I did know then it wouldn't be faith. It's ultimately a very simple, yet extremely hard test, in my view: to be right with the Lord, all you have to do is believe, and while that sounds simple, it isn't, and that's the whole point. And that's why I've never followed the atheistic argument of "There's no proof, so why believe?" The fact there is no proof is _why _I believe in the first place. My faith isn't a matter of some desperate "No! I know God is there! I know it for a fact!" thing, but a "You're right, I don't know if God's there, but I choose to believe He is." At least in my opinion, that's what faith means.

If I knew God was there, believing in Him would be no different than believing cows (the dairy kind) exist. Knowing something is extremely easy, believing in something for which you have no evidence for or against is hard, and that's why faith is like a mustard seed. Sounds extremely simple, but it's hard to find and easy to lose. It's also what I feel answers the other common atheistic argument of "If God is real, why doesn't He just show Himself and fix everything?" Because, 1, He _did_ show Himself and our response as the human race was to murder Him, and 2, because what test of character would that be? This world is not His. It's corrupted and doomed by our own wickedness. The world isn't to be saved, it's those in the world who believe on Him that are to be saved. If He were to show Himself (a second time, and more definitively that is), what would that create except "belief" out of convenience for so many people? People who actively partake and promote wickedness and curse Him and those who believe in Him otherwise?

It doesn't require anything to know something, while it requires everything to believe in something, and it's very hard. This is all just my opinion, though.


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## gang weeder (Sep 1, 2022)

9Style said:


> Even if you don't believe in God.  You have to recognize the positive social, cultural, and governmental structures that were based on the principals of the Bible.
> 
> Some might say  "I don't believe in God and I have good morals."  And yet they were already raised in a Judeo-Christian society, which growing, up has these messages imbedded within media and culture.  Would their morals be different today if they were raised in a Communist or Islamic society?



The association between decline in religiosity and decline in basic morals is pretty clear, at least here in The West(tm). When TPTB finally succeeded in convincing large swathes of the population that God is pretty cringe, shit went downhill fast. Again, we're talking like, full embrace of total degeneracy (sodomy, transsexuality, etc.) within 10-20 years. That's incredible if you think about it, just how fast and how hard our culture's shit hit the fan. That's what you get when you have this nihilistic "it's all subjective, nothing matters, do whatever you want" philosophy, because under that mindset there is no check at all on people to stop them from indulging fully in all their sickest impulses.


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## BiggerChungus (Sep 1, 2022)

gang weeder said:


> The association between decline in religiosity and decline in basic morals is pretty clear, at least here in The West(tm). When TPTB finally succeeded in convincing large swathes of the population that God is pretty cringe, shit went downhill fast. Again, we're talking like, full embrace of total degeneracy (sodomy, transsexuality, etc.) within 10-20 years. That's incredible if you think about it, just how fast and how hard our culture's shit hit the fan. That's what you get when you have this nihilistic "it's all subjective, nothing matters, do whatever you want" philosophy, because under that mindset there is no check at all on people to stop them from indulging fully in all their sickest impulses.


Whether you believe in the complete truth of the Bible or not, it's undeniable that doing or allowing the shit it says not to do or allow, things get really, really bad fast. That's been demonstrable and I don't think it's total coincidence.


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## L50LasPak (Sep 1, 2022)

I've accepted the idea of Hellfire and damnation.

Everything else is probably nonsense tho.


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## Die Oberste Direktive (Sep 1, 2022)

BiggerChungus said:


> Whether you believe in the complete truth of the Bible or not, it's undeniable that doing or allowing the shit it says not to do or allow, things get really, really bad fast. That's been demonstrable and I don't think it's total coincidence.


Eating shrimp has doomed us all.

"`Of all the creatures living in the water of the seas and the streams, you may eat any that have fins and scales.10But all creatures in the seas or streams that do not have fins and scales--whether among all the swarming things or among all the other living creatures in the water--you are to detest."

Sarcasm aside, I feel like there is a good point in there.

Morality itself is having a set of beliefs, and to say you believe in nothing and to have morality is a contradiction. If you look at animals closely related to humans, without the capacity for higher consciousness, they rape and murder each other without a second thought. Trying to deny that is to regress back to those animalistic tendencies. "Holy texts" were made to clearly lay out a morality to follow and it differs in all religions. Which one is correct and true is less important than which one helps a person be a productive member of society. When you take that into consideration its pretty clear which morality is the most constructive in terms of building a functioning society.


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## LinkinParkxNaruto[AMV] (Sep 1, 2022)

Disregard the Hylics, Yaldabaoth glows in the dark.


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## Flip: Draw 2 (Sep 1, 2022)

Sneed IV said:


> It's just straight up wrong to say atheism is "midwit shit" but if you're a religious person, I'm actually going to be generous and give you a counter you can use that's much better.
> 
> Though the relation between religiosity and general intelligence seems to be extremely mildly inversely negative, it's pretty much undeniable that intellectuals have a universally lower religiosity than the general population. Even all the way back in the 90's a poll of the American National Academy of Sciences pulled a 7% belief in God, and this is in the United States, which is definitely one of the most religious Western countries.
> 
> ...


To add to this, people like to give people good at science far too much credit in all subjects. A good theologian's opinion has little weight in scientific matters but a good scientist's opinion on theology is given more credibility despite it not being their field. This is just because scientists tend to have answers for many empirical matters so they get a lot of undue respect in fields outside of their forte. For example, Einstein is constantly misattributed to numerous quotes on every subject because he was a very good scientist and therefore, very wise in general.

To note though, even in fields that do study such things (excluding perhaps theologians), they are still less religious than the general population. I read a (pretty mediocre) paper that says ~62% of philosophers are non-religious but that it wasn't to do with philosophical arguments for the existence of God but more psychological. The paper unintentionally showed when the author asserts that a lack of evidence for something means that it is rational not to believe it while I believe that it is irrational to assert that I know ( in the strictest of senses) that something does or doesn't exist. It's just a psychological difference between people who have to have a stance on something or withhold judgement; someone who asserts "bigfoot isn't real" and someone that says "I don't believe in bigfoot."


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## 5000% Sure (Sep 2, 2022)

I did feel like I had been getting closer to god over the last 2-ish years, but then around 6 months ago I got a lot more into reading philosophy (specifically Aristotle and Rand) and started to realize how impossible the whole thing is, and now I'm pretty much as atheist as you could get.

I will say that the soy redditor pseudo-intellectual atheists are extremely cringe and in most cases are equally as retarded as religious people. Religion is fundamentally based on faith (which requires being retarded enough to ignore reason), and so are the beliefs of most normie atheists because they have no real argument other than "flying spaghetti monster XD." They don't have a coherent understanding of the actual nature of reality and the fundamental facts as to why none of this mystic bullshit espoused by religions makes any sense, they just believe whatever reddit/their friends/authority figures/whatever tells them, again much like religious people.

All of that said, I can definitely empathize with people who are turning to religion. When the Judeo-Christian regime died in the west (and thank god it did) there really wasn't any moral framework there to replace it. Having a flawed, faith-based, and generally anti-human understanding of the world is at least better than nothing at all, so it makes sense why people would be inclined to go along with it.


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## Named User (Sep 2, 2022)

5000% Sure said:


> I did feel like I had been getting closer to god over the last 2-ish years, but then around 6 months ago I got a lot more into reading philosophy (specifically Aristotle and Rand) and started to realize how impossible the whole thing is, and now I'm pretty much as atheist as you could get.
> 
> I will say that the soy redditor pseudo-intellectual atheists are extremely cringe and in most cases are equally as retarded as religious people. Religion is fundamentally based on faith (which requires being retarded enough to ignore reason), and so are the beliefs of most normie atheists because they have no real argument other than "flying spaghetti monster XD." They don't have a coherent understanding of the actual nature of reality and the fundamental facts as to why none of this mystic bullshit espoused by religions makes any sense, they just believe whatever reddit/their friends/authority figures/whatever tells them, again much like religious people.
> 
> All of that said, I can definitely empathize with people who are turning to religion. When the Judeo-Christian regime died in the west (and thank god it did) there really wasn't any moral framework there to replace it. Having a flawed, faith-based, and generally anti-human understanding of the world is at least better than nothing at all, so it makes sense why people would be inclined to go along with it.


How did Aristotle lead you to there being no God? Thomism is based on Aristotle's Metaphysics.


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## Penrowe (Sep 2, 2022)

Sneed IV said:


> It's just straight up wrong to say atheism is "midwit shit"


No, it really is.
Cocksure atheists who think the limits of their understanding are the limits of rationality are the very definition of midwit, smart enough to understand the flaws in someone else's argument but not smart enough to see the flaws in their own.

God exists and is observable.
Specifically, human populations all express a capacity for spiritual experience which is measurable and can be observed to have a tangible, positive effect on individual health.
As with all other psychological traits, this capacity for spiritual experience is phenotypic.


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## Flip: Draw 2 (Sep 2, 2022)

5000% Sure said:


> I did feel like I had been getting closer to god over the last 2-ish years, but then around 6 months ago I got a lot more into reading philosophy (specifically Aristotle and Rand) and started to realize how impossible the whole thing is, and now I'm pretty much as atheist as you could get.
> 
> I will say that the soy redditor pseudo-intellectual atheists are extremely cringe and in most cases are equally as retarded as religious people. Religion is fundamentally based on faith (which requires being retarded enough to ignore reason), and so are the beliefs of most normie atheists because they have no real argument other than "flying spaghetti monster XD." They don't have a coherent understanding of the actual nature of reality and the fundamental facts as to why none of this mystic bullshit espoused by religions makes any sense, they just believe whatever reddit/their friends/authority figures/whatever tells them, again much like religious people.
> 
> All of that said, I can definitely empathize with people who are turning to religion. When the Judeo-Christian regime died in the west (and thank god it did) there really wasn't any moral framework there to replace it. Having a flawed, faith-based, and generally anti-human understanding of the world is at least better than nothing at all, so it makes sense why people would be inclined to go along with it.


Sorry man, I think you're still in the midwit section of philosophy. If you're worried about "faith" then you need to wait until you start hitting the epistemology section of philosophy. Say goodbye to everything you "know" if you don't want to believe in anything based on faith.


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## Charactis (Sep 2, 2022)

You will never have an afterlife. You have no soul, you have no reincarnation, you have no resurrection. You are an anthropomorphic lizard twisted by neurons and chemicals into a crude mockery of positivism’s perfection.
All the “philosophies” you get are two-faced and self-serving. Behind your back priests mock you. Your overlords are disgusted and ashamed of you, your “friends” laugh at your ghoulish notions behind closed doors.
Overman is utterly repulsed by you. Thousands of years of evolution have allowed the overman to sniff out frauds with incredible efficiency. Even agnostics who “doubt” look uncanny and unnatural to an overman. Your metaphysical posture is a dead end. And even if you manage to get a drunk philosopher home with you, he’ll turn tail and bolt the second he reads a bit about your diseased, infected god of the gaps.
You will never be happy. You wrench out a fake smile every single morning and tell yourself it’s going to be spiritual, but deep inside you feel the meaninglessnesses creeping up like a weed, ready to crush you under the unbearable weight.
Eventually it’ll be too much to bear – you’ll buy a mortgage, tie a marriage, lose your individuality, and plunge into nihility. Your children will find you, heartbroken but relieved that they no longer have to live with the unbearable burden and elderly care. They’ll bury you with a headstone marked with your religious symbol, and every passerby for the rest of eternity will know an idiot is buried there. Your body will decay and go back to the dust, and all that will remain of your legacy is a skeleton that is unmistakably religious.
This is your fate. This is what you chose. There is no turning back.


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## CivilianOfTheFandomWars (Sep 2, 2022)

This will mostly be PLing, but it's on topic and I think it helps explain where my thoughts come from on this subject.
I was brought up in a Christian household on my mother's side, my dad was firmly atheist, and my brother is a legit fedora atheist. Personally, I believe in God, but that's not what I'm getting at. My mother was one of those Christians who essentially believed that just praying and performing lip service was enough to be a good Christian, even though that's the exact opposite of what the Bible teaches. This led me to question a lot of things about God and all that, my brother just went full on evangelical atheist. Eventually, thorough studying various religious texts I found that I resonated with the teachings of the Bible the most, and decided that even if God is not real, or not real as we think of him, there's still a lot of good lessons and good ways to look at the world through that lens.
Later, I became a Mason, and one of the requirements is to believe in a Greater Being. Could be God, Bhudda, Allah, etc, just not worship Satan. I met and became friends with a lot of very smart, very educated men who were religious. One was a legit mathematician, and I asked him what he thought about his work in relation to faith. He said that, in his work a lot of people see math and related studies as proof that there is no God, or divine being in any sense, but he saw it as such a perfect and logical system that it couldn't be just random chance. This may relate to Masonry as another way we refer to God, or really whatever being you believe in, is The Great Architect. This is because he essentially built everything and the group started with stonemasons blah blah blah, but the point stands that just because you are a super brainiac doesn't mean you can't have faith, and in some cases it can strengthen that faith.
So, what is the issue here on a societal level? It seems to me that if someone doesn't have a personal code of sorts about how to treat your fellow man, they could easily just follow whatever someone else tells them to do. The most conformist people I know are radical leftists, but the people I know who blaze their own trail while still being good people either have a very set philosophy on life, or take that philosophy from religion in some way. There's a lot of Biblical teachings about how if someone who is leading you is unworthy and telling you to go against God and his will, fuck that guy. This is also a thought in a load of other well thought out agnostic philosophies, not in any way unique to religion.
I think that human beings have an innate desire to follow _something_, and if that something isn't God or a code of deep morality, they follow other people without question. This isn't an issue when it's someone who cares about and loves you, like good parents or good mentors, but it is a very big issue when it's a political leader, an abuser, basically anyone who wants to take advantage of you for their own gain in some way.
It's a complex topic, but I find it a good discussion to have anyways.


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## Un Platano (Sep 2, 2022)

Flip: Draw 2 said:


> Sorry man, I think you're still in the midwit section of philosophy. If you're worried about "faith" then you need to wait until you start hitting the epistemology section of philosophy. Say goodbye to everything you "know" if you don't want to believe in anything based on faith.


Say what you want about the devil creating the illusion of the universe but his results are consistent and his principles are rock solid.


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## Abradolfus_Linclerson (Sep 2, 2022)

Grew up in a religious household, have not been part of any 'faith community' since leaving home, and left behind the "fuck you parents!" atheism in college.  I don't know if I qualify as properly agnostic anymore, as my doubts have little to do with the existence/absence of some flavor of Supreme Being and more to do with how (in)accurate the various flavors of religion happen to be.

My reasons will probably deposit me firmly into the "God of the gaps" lumpenprole community, but whatever.  

Consider water--H2O.  That thing that makes up 3/4 of Earth's surface, the basis for the cytoplasm in every cell in your body (and every cell of every other living thing on Earth, in fact).  It is composed of the lightest gas on the periodic table and a middle weight lighter-than-air gas.  Your average water molecule therefore has a molecular mass of ~18 (excluding deuterium and tritium heavy water).  Argon is another lighter-than-air gas with an atomic weight of 18.  At room temperatures, argon remains a gas and water is...well...water.  Drinkable, splashable, spillable, pourable water.  If you're all "argon's an element, not a compound" then let's look at the biggest boogeyman of the atmospheric trace gases: carbon dioxide.  CO2.  Its molecular weight is a whopping 38, and yet at room temperature (barring unusual circumstances like the Lake Nyas Disaster), it's floating around in the air just fine.  Why does no other (common) gaseous oxide exist in liquid form at STP?  Why is it only H2O?  Hell, for that matter, why is carbon (atomic number 6) a _solid_ while oxygen (at 16) is a gas?  It's all very well and good that the properties of the elements are as they are, but that doesn't explain the rhyme or reason for any of it.  Consider that, except hydrogen, every element in Group 1 (the extreme left of the periodic table) is a metallic solid in its pure elemental form (not that you're likely to find them naturally given how 'holy shitballs' levels of reactive they are).  Meanwhile, on the opposite end of the table you have the Noble Gases.  What is the rhyme or reason behind why certain elements/compounds exist in the phase states that they do?  Have we figured that out yet?

The Big Bang is another example.  We have observed its effects in the form of cosmic phenomena, red- vs. blue-shift of galaxies indicating their approach towards our own or their acceleration away, and other shit I can't remember from my astronomy hobby in high school.  Why did it occur?  How did it occur?  Why did a stupendously tremendous kablooie 'write' the assorted laws that govern existence (thermodynamics, physics, atomic bonding, etc.)?  _How_ did said kablooie generate the laws that govern existence?

I guess perhaps I am more a deist than a proper agnostic.  Dunno.  I just don't see how the whole house of cards that is existence could have been assembled and lead to us (and presumably other intelligent life out there somewhere) without some prime actor.


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## Mothra1988 (Sep 3, 2022)

Charactis said:


> You will never have an afterlife. You have no soul, you have no reincarnation, you have no resurrection. You are an anthropomorphic lizard twisted by neurons and chemicals into a crude mockery of positivism’s perfection.
> All the “philosophies” you get are two-faced and self-serving. Behind your back priests mock you. Your overlords are disgusted and ashamed of you, your “friends” laugh at your ghoulish notions behind closed doors.
> Overman is utterly repulsed by you. Thousands of years of evolution have allowed the overman to sniff out frauds with incredible efficiency. Even agnostics who “doubt” look uncanny and unnatural to an overman. Your metaphysical posture is a dead end. And even if you manage to get a drunk philosopher home with you, he’ll turn tail and bolt the second he reads a bit about your diseased, infected god of the gaps.
> You will never be happy. You wrench out a fake smile every single morning and tell yourself it’s going to be spiritual, but deep inside you feel the meaninglessnesses creeping up like a weed, ready to crush you under the unbearable weight.
> ...



Nietzsche is pure cringe.


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## BiggerChungus (Sep 3, 2022)

Abradolfus_Linclerson said:


> Grew up in a religious household, have not been part of any 'faith community' since leaving home, and left behind the "fuck you parents!" atheism in college.  I don't know if I qualify as properly agnostic anymore, as my doubts have little to do with the existence/absence of some flavor of Supreme Being and more to do with how (in)accurate the various flavors of religion happen to be.
> 
> My reasons will probably deposit me firmly into the "God of the gaps" lumpenprole community, but whatever.
> 
> ...


I think one of the follies of modern science compared to historical science is that we assume that because something has a name or theory behind it happening, it's no longer a miracle. Not saying that's some kinda solid proof, but typically atheist arguments revolve around things like "well, we know that a God didn't create anything, because the Big Bang happened!" But like you said, even if we do trust what little hard evidence we've collected, and our even scanter personal understanding of reality, why did it occur? How? How did its effects result in what we have now? If the universe tends toward entropy and disorder, how did a random, chaotic event set in place the laws of existence? Why did it do that? Just because we gave the phenomena a name, does that mean that indisputably there's nothing behind it? Nothing more to it? Does the fact that we have a vague understanding of gravity, thermodynamics, and nuclear fission preclude the existence of a Creator behind those things?

Not knowing the answers doesn't mean, inherently, that there must be a God, but the idea of us having a very basic knowledge of these phenomena shouldn't mean that there must definitely not be a God either.


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## Narutard (Sep 3, 2022)

BiggerChungus said:


> Not knowing the answers doesn't mean, inherently, that there must be a God, but the idea of us having a very basic knowledge of these phenomena shouldn't mean that there must definitely not be a God either.


It’s a pointless and highly comical debate to hold, as the arguments will always be interpreted according to your already held (dis)belief. “B-b-but the big bang! Dinosaurs!” will never sway anyone to drop their faith just as “B-b-but eternal salvation! Jesus!” will never convert anyone to Christianity.
Is there proof that Jesus is the son of God? No. Is there proof of the contrary? Also no. But that’s why it’s called faith. Wanting to objectively prove your faith is completely missing the point and evidence you never had faith to begin with.

The beauty of Christianity is the weight it puts on your personal, subjective relationship with yourself. It doesn’t care about the world, society, rituals (etc.) in the same way Judaism and Islam do; Christianity is interested only in the individual and how he relates (himself) to himself. And that’s also why atheists hate it: It’s too subjective, too focused on the inner individual and not concerned enough with outside reality and unyielding commandments.

PS. The church can eat a fat dick.


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## gang weeder (Sep 3, 2022)

Narutard said:


> It’s a pointless and highly comical debate to hold, as the arguments will always be interpreted according to your already held (dis)belief. “B-b-but the big bang! Dinosaurs!” will never sway anyone to drop their faith just as “B-b-but eternal salvation! Jesus!” will never convert anyone to Christianity.
> Is there proof that Jesus is the son of God? No. Is there proof of the contrary? Also no. But that’s why it’s called faith. Wanting to objectively prove your faith is completely missing the point and evidence you never had faith to begin with.
> 
> The beauty of Christianity is the weight it puts on your personal, subjective relationship with yourself. It doesn’t care about the world, society, rituals (etc.) in the same way Judaism and Islam do; Christianity is interested only in the individual and how he relates (himself) to himself. And that’s also why atheists hate it: It’s too subjective, too focused on the inner individual and not concerned enough with outside reality and unyielding commandments.
> ...



If you reject the church, you are not a Christian.


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## Narutard (Sep 3, 2022)

gang weeder said:


> If you reject the church, you are not a Christian.


“Jesus wasn’t Jewish; he trashed a temple.”
“Luther rejected the Catholic church; he was not a Christian.”

If you define someone’s faith by their adherence to an earthly institute then you’ve completely missed the point of Christianity.


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## BiggerChungus (Sep 3, 2022)

gang weeder said:


> If you reject the church, you are not a Christian.


Religion is a manmade institution. At the very absolute best it can nudge you in the right direction for belief, and worse, and very commonly, it distorts what belief in the Lord and the teachings of His Son mean and corrupts them.


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## gang weeder (Sep 4, 2022)

BiggerChungus said:


> Religion is a manmade institution. At the very absolute best it can nudge you in the right direction for belief, and worse, and very commonly, it distorts what belief in the Lord and the teachings of His Son mean and corrupts them.



The church was established by the apostles who were taught directly by Christ and received the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. They did not say "do whatever you want, don't associate with fellow Christians, don't have any actual norms or community." Everywhere they went, they established Christian communities with set practices and beliefs, communities which were guided by bishops ordained directly by the apostles themselves and grew into what we now call the church. These communities received letters of guidance from the apostles which are part of the New Testament. Again, these letters do not say "do whatever you want, nothing matters, don't practice communion, don't have a fellowship."

If you refuse communion with your fellow Christians, you are refusing Christianity itself. The only sort-of exception is if you're literally going off by yourself to be a hermit monk like the desert fathers, but that's pretty clearly not what you're talking about, and you probably don't even know who the desert fathers were, if I had to guess.



Narutard said:


> “Jesus wasn’t Jewish; he trashed a temple.”
> “Luther rejected the Catholic church; he was not a Christian.”
> 
> If you define someone’s faith by their adherence to an earthly institute then you’ve completely missed the point of Christianity.



Don't get me wrong, you certainly want to try and avoid adhering to a false church, of which there are many. But to completely refuse communion in any form makes no sense what so ever for a Christian. Whatever "faith" you are practicing at that point no longer resembles even slightly the faith that was taught by Christ and his followers.


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## BiggerChungus (Sep 4, 2022)

gang weeder said:


> The church was established by the apostles who were taught directly by Christ and received the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. They did not say "do whatever you want, don't associate with fellow Christians, don't have any actual norms or community." Everywhere they went, they established Christian communities with set practices and beliefs, communities which were guided by bishops ordained directly by the apostles themselves and grew into what we now call the church.


The men who founded the church at the very beginning have nothing to do with the men who've run the church since then, and even among Yeshua's followers, they weren't without sin. None were without sin but Yeshua Himself, and even He said He was not perfect, that the title of "perfect" can only be placed on the Lord, and no man comes unto the Lord but by Yeshua, His sacrifice. It isn't by church rules, or communion, or by earthly priests that you're saved.


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## CivilianOfTheFandomWars (Sep 5, 2022)

BiggerChungus said:


> The men who founded the church at the very beginning have nothing to do with the men who've run the church since then, and even among Yeshua's followers, they weren't without sin. None were without sin but Yeshua Himself, and even He said He was not perfect, that the title of "perfect" can only be placed on the Lord, and no man comes unto the Lord but by Yeshua, His sacrifice. It isn't by church rules, or communion, or by earthly priests that you're saved.


I always thought it was really beautiful that in the Christian religion, the one thing God thought was more important than perfection was free will, even if that freedom to do as you choose led you away from God and his perfection. Even if one is not religious at all, it's a good thing to think about that we ultimately have the choice to do right or wrong. One of the hardest things for me to grasp was the classic "if God is real and omnipotent, why did he create Satan, and why did he allow sin?"
I'm not saying I'm right, but the best way for me to conceptualize it is that God _is _all knowing, he knew everything that would and will happen, but because in the eyes of God _choice _is more important than anything, even if that choice leads to bad things. Satan had a choice, as did the other angels, and as do all humans, but it's what choices we make and how we deal with the consequences of those choices that makes us good or bad. It's like how we refer to God as the Father, a parent tries to lead his kids down the right path, but ultimately it's the kids' decision.
If you take it from the view of an atheist, it still makes sense that there are good and bad choices in life, and what you do and how you do it is very important for how you live your life.
Personally, the church as it is is a clusterfuck and a scheme to make money and push social agendas instead of teaching the word of God and serving your fellow man. Not all, duh, but we all know the current institution is anything but holy.


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## Haramburger (Sep 5, 2022)

...climax, jerking off to their own airtight logic?


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## LatinasAreTheFuture (Sep 5, 2022)

God is absolutely real. He’s just not the Christian god, sorry.


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## mr.moon1488 (Sep 5, 2022)

One day you realize that none of this matters.  The next day you will realize it only matters because it's a test for what does matter.


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## FeatherPlucker (Sep 5, 2022)

I don't ascribe to any religious belief in particular, but I hesitate to say there is no higher power. 

I'm more inclined to sympathize with the religious now than I was in the past-- because self described "science" has morphed into a cult of it's own, complete with it's own absurd mantras, it's own shun-worthy taboos. One isn't allowed to questions "TWAW" or "gender is a construct", or even "pharmaceutical companies/ tech companies don't always have our well being at heart!" without being branded a heretic. As I get older, I recognize that human beings are inclined to create a "religion" when there is a vacuum.

I'm also more inclined to sympathize with the religious now as we have complete degenerates using "anti-Christianity" arguments to JUSTIFY repulsive displays of corporate power like "Pride Parades", drag queen story hour, to justify pedophilia, to justify medical butchery of children, to justify eradication of women in language and culture. I've had more than one argument with a TWAW  or "children can consent!" moron who responds to me "may I ask what religion you ascribe to?" "don't you realize you're holding on to fundamentalist Christian ideology"? Kiss my ass, Glitter PrideStapo Bully Boys. I won't swallow your bullshit. 

Even the nuttiest factions in Afghanistan-- they themselves are repulsed by the Bacha Bazi culture that relishes in kidnapping their sons from them and prostituting them. That bizarre practice in itself helped fuel their "Holy War". It's like modern degenerate culture wants to "turn out" all children in to dancing prostitutes. Modern culture wants to make everything a disease ridden poly BDSM fuck fest, and wants to throw children and animals into the mix. Repulsive. 

Modern times only solidifies the argument that Christianity, for example, exploded a few years after Jesus' death as a response to the degeneracy of the times, when Romans castrated and/or raped their slaves--men, women and children-- on a regular basis. Numerous degenerate eunuchs had enormous power, as they were often advisors to rulers, and they helped the leadership oppress the masses. They were often power hungry sociopaths who only cared about their own wealth and status. Here we are, history repeats itself. 

Now we have the CULT of Transhumanism taking over everything, and it's a sinister ploy to eradicate humanity (with the help of technology) in favor of a small elite class who deem themselves as "Holy Men". It's practically Biblical in terms of evil-- like Herod murdering all the baby boys in the land. We need something akin to God to combat it, so I hope He's real at this point in my life. I know I'll never see justice in my lifetime, I hope there is justice after death.


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## Uriah (Sep 5, 2022)

gang weeder said:


> The church was established by the apostles who were taught directly by Christ and received the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. They did not say "do whatever you want, don't associate with fellow Christians, don't have any actual norms or community." Everywhere they went, they established Christian communities with set practices and beliefs, communities which were guided by bishops ordained directly by the apostles themselves and grew into what we now call the church. These communities received letters of guidance from the apostles which are part of the New Testament. Again, these letters do not say "do whatever you want, nothing matters, don't practice communion, don't have a fellowship."


Yes, this is correct. However, it has to emphasized that Apostolic Succession is exclusively spiritual. The physical institution of the church is certainly corruptible. Whereas the Holy Christian Apostolic Church cannot falter, and is comprised of ever single faithful Christian. It is accounted to nothing, by God, wherever or howso The Lamb's Bride has lovingly encompassed you. Please don't mistake this doctrine for Universalism, which proposes that salvation is possible outside of Christ. 


> *Augsburg Confession, Article VII. Of The Church.*
> 
> 1 Also they teach that one holy Church is to continue forever. The Church is the congregation of saints, in which the Gospel is rightly taught and the Sacraments are rightly administered.
> 
> 2 And to the true unity of the Church it is enough to agree concerning the doctrine of the Gospel and 3 the administration of the Sacraments. Nor is it necessary that human traditions, that is, rites or ceremonies, instituted by men, should be everywhere alike. 4 As Paul says: One faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of all, etc. Eph. 4:5-6





> *Augsburg Confession, Article VIII. What the Church Is.*
> 
> 1 Although the Church properly is the congregation of saints and true believers, nevertheless, since in this life many hypocrites and evil persons are mingled therewith, it is lawful to use Sacraments administered by evil men, according to the saying of Christ: The Scribes and 2 the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat, etc. Matt. 23:2. Both the Sacraments and Word are effectual by reason of the institution and commandment of Christ, notwithstanding they be administered by evil men.
> 
> 3 They condemn the Donatists, and such like, who denied it to be lawful to use the ministry of evil men in the Church, and who thought the ministry of evil men to be unprofitable and of none effect.





gang weeder said:


> If you refuse communion with your fellow Christians, you are refusing Christianity itself.


Yes, but I don't understand how this is wholly exclusive to church. I don't think that Hutterites even have churches, they just congregate in other's homes for prayer. 


gang weeder said:


> The only sort-of exception is if you're literally going off by yourself to be a hermit monk like the desert fathers, but that's pretty clearly not what you're talking about, and you probably don't even know who the desert fathers were, if I had to guess.


Is this relevant? 


gang weeder said:


> Don't get me wrong, you certainly want to try and avoid adhering to a false church, of which there are many.


Which churches? 


> But to completely refuse communion in any form makes no sense what so ever for a Christian. Whatever "faith" you are practicing at that point no longer resembles even slightly the faith that was taught by Christ and his followers.


I agree, congregating with fellow believers is important. But I'm confused: I don't believe that anyone was advocating against fellowship.


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## CivilianOfTheFandomWars (Sep 5, 2022)

Haramburger said:


> View attachment 3682024
> ...climax, jerking off to their own airtight logic?


What else is Deep Thoughts about?


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## gang weeder (Sep 6, 2022)

BiggerChungus said:


> The men who founded the church at the very beginning have nothing to do with the men who've run the church since then, and even among Yeshua's followers, they weren't without sin. None were without sin but Yeshua Himself, and even He said He was not perfect, that the title of "perfect" can only be placed on the Lord, and no man comes unto the Lord but by Yeshua, His sacrifice. It isn't by church rules, or communion, or by earthly priests that you're saved.



The other guy brought up a reasonable point; are you talking about totally refusing any kind of communion or fellowship here, or you just don't like going to church because mommy and daddy made you go every Sunday when you were a kid?



Uriah said:


> Yes, but I don't understand how this is wholly exclusive to church. I don't think that Hutterites even have churches, they just congregate in other's homes for prayer.



You got me bro, I was assooming that the church = fellowship and communion. I would say that wherever you're practicing fellowship and communion, that's your community's church. I know of one congregation that is meeting in the back of a coffee shop until they can get more of a space of their own figured out.


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## LatinasAreTheFuture (Sep 6, 2022)

God is probably none of the things humans currently believe.


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## Overcast (Sep 7, 2022)

As a small child, for whatever reason, I didn't believe in God, despite being born with parents who did believe.

As a teenager, I declared myself an atheist because a character I liked on TV said he didn't believe in God.

In my twenties, I considered myself agnostic as I felt there wasn't proof of a God, but there wasn't necessarily proof there wasn't one either.

Now, in my thirties, after spending two years dealing with the lockdowns, masks and all the bullshit in the world, I decided to turn to Christianity. What started out as some skepticism eventually snowballed into full-blown faith over the course of a year. I've made many more friends, became healthier, more sociable and in general more hopeful for my future.


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## Tetragrammaton (Sep 8, 2022)

for me i see the traditional idea of god as an excuse people made long ago to explain stuff they did not understand. like how there are all those stories of caves being gates to hell from ancient tribes and stuff. if you look at stuff from their perspective a cave is fucking terrifying. i dont think im any closer to believing in god since my idea of god is something way more complex than all powerful old dude in the sky. i believe that we are all god. like think about it. we can create we can destroy along with all the other stuff god is supposed to do we can do that just not on as grand a scale. 

but this is why i say we are all gods. the things we create might be nothing to us but to something smaller its as have the heavens themselves were moved. i believe this process continues over and over in larger and larger scales until you get to nothing. multiple people = multiple gods=multiple creations=multiple universes/realities  there is no beginning and there is no end because the end only causes the beginning. 

this is all very tinfoil hat insanity level nonsense but it makes sense to me.  i could explain it in more detail but it takes forever. i will say though i do also believe in jesus and stuff like that i just think his teachings were edited over time to fit whoever was in power or the person who was writings ideals.


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