Has reading ever changed your religious beliefs?

Reading Dostoyevsky makes me reconsider Christianity, but I don't think I could become Christian again.
I also hate this fucking Catholicism meme that's being pushed on here. Bunch of poser fags.

I grew up agnostic and didn't really think God's existence was relevant but being British, Christianity is embedded in our culture.

I first got into Buddhism through meditation and studied it deeply but was always drawn more to Zen/Chan sects than the Indian ones.

Have since realised that Buddhism is really about trying to escape life and felt more attuned to Taoism. Have several books on it and refined my feelings towards them.

Recently read Carl Jung's autobiography and accompanied by live events have started to move towards a loosely Christian God perspective though I still follow and believe in the principles of Taoism - arguably though that is more of a philosophy than a religion.

>user no. No.
The only kind God worth talking about is that of Spinoza and that of Feuerbach

From what I've read of Taoism it seems very compatible with Christianity, especially early Christina mysticism.

Taoists believe in a God though

No, but music certainly did
youtube.com/watch?v=spaEV6jCosQ

>.....so you a daoist.
There's some philosophical crossover, but I don't subscribe to any daoist or their principles explicitly, so no.

so... how long until being atheist becomes cool again?
will the pendulum eventually stop swinging and we'll reach a neutral balance?

Yes, I went from being a Christian, to an atheistic-agnostic, to a more Christian-agnostic/cultural Christian due to reading several texts.

Yes, from atheist to agnostic, from agnostic to deist, from deist to false catholic, from false catholic to false traditionalist catholic, from false traditionalist catholic to true catholic.

>from deist to false catholic, from false catholic to false traditionalist catholic, from false traditionalist catholic to true catholic

please explain

Atheism was never cool. It only seemed popular on the internet because they were obnoxious enough to discourage people from being open about their beliefs.

As soon as atheism stops attracting autistic losers with unwarranted intellectual vanity and combativeness masking feelings of inferiority and weakness. So never.

What passes as catholicism since John XXIII is not catholicism, but a new religion. A false traditionalist is someone who claims to hold the traditional catholic viewpoints but belive these people are valid popes, or even people who agree they are anti-popes, but do not believe in the salvation dogma.

>I also hate this fucking Catholicism meme that's being pushed on here
Why?

But losers are now becoming "christian" and shitposting about degeneracy.

Being a schismatic doesn't make you more catholic.

>autistic losers with unwarranted intellectual vanity
This describes pretty well a good portion of the Catholics I've met on this board.

A schismatic is someone who refuses communion with valid authority, but the Church has already dogmatically defined that heretics are outside of the Church and cannot retain their offices, which they lose without any declaration.

By the way, post-conciliar antipopes reject Vatican I, since they believe eastern "orthodox" schismatics to be inside the Church, which means they believe it is not necessary to submit to the chair of St. Peter. They also have signed agreements rejecting the conversion of each other, doing the same to protestants, etc.

>A schismatic is someone who refuses communion with valid authority
A schismatic is also someone who re-defines what counts as a valid authority, such as yourself, by denying the validity of the papacy itself.

You are an absolute tosser

Depends what you mean by religious beliefs. Just like everything can be interpreted politically, everything can be interpreted "religiously". And I do. Perennial philosophy ftw

Real atheists hate the world; real Christians love the world.

LARP atheists claim to love the world; LARP Christians hate the world.

Prove me wrong, protip you cant :)

sounds like a dying goose. The drums sound nice though

I'm not redefining anything, subjection to the Roman Pontiff is absoltely necessary for salvation. But the Church has, as I've said, already defined that heretics lose their offices without any declaration, and should be rejected by lay people even if all the cardinals approve of him. A heretic is someone who denies certain dogma or dogmas, and every anti-pope since John XXIII have done so, publicly and repeatedly.

Not changed, but given the tools for them to change. Reading brought words to phenomena that was otherwise ephemeral and unspoken, and I'm thankful for that. But real spiritual change has to come from the intuitive/experiental. There must be a visceral actionable movement for real spiritual change to occur, and that's something that can never be found in books.

Great answer! ^_^

watching the young pope and a few religious movies made me stop being an atheist.

And what are you, a LARP stoic?

>and I'm thankful for that
Thankful? Youre just writing words--
And then (you) go on..
What (you) are is a didactic anti-didact, or confused.
But (you) do write well on the spot (theoretically) and that's something.

100% yes. Was fedora, am now very interested in joining the Catholic Church.

What part of Catholicism appeals to you?

Well when I've always been a christian my whole life, but while exploring a ton of different philosophies in various works of fiction it became inevitable that I would have to confront literally every aspect of my own ideals and why I believed them. Long story shot, I basically realized that as long as I called myself a christian I would have to follow christianity's rule lest I violate my axioms and I be an idiotic hypocrite

I've realized that everything in the West goes back to Catholicism, which goes back to Jesus

I started going to church, reading the Bible and the catechism

yes and no
it depends

Yes. I firmly believe in God now and am experimenting with Christianity, though I have no clue whether it is the correct religion. It seems very unique in all the world religions though. Its not a comfort thing like Buddhism is

the choirboys

lol just kidding, in srsness tho id say the structure. In todays political environment there's too much 'I got this, just give me 20 mins on google, Bush did da 9/11' shit. The acceptance of educated authority (a priesthood) is so appealing to me,

There's a book you might like called the The Death of Expertise by Tom Nichols, its all about this modern tendency to ignore established knowledge because "i got google i can know everything myself"

ooooh. That's a good reason, and I not even a catholic.

>Have since realised that Buddhism is really about trying to escape life
Vitalists, when will they learn!

Reading helped strip me of them.

Because people are just in it for fashion. Same as with political ideologies. They just pick and choose whatever is niche and contrarian.

Reminder that organized religion is like organized crime.

>The persecution of witches came down to a battle for the ‘market share’ of post-Reformation Christians, according to a paper by two economists
theguardian.com/society/2018/jan/07/witchcraft-economics-reformation-catholic-protestant-market-share

>according to a paper by two economists
I told you, man.

I told you about usury!

I'm a christian myself but how is buddhism a comfort thing

Religion of some form is necessary for social order. Kant understood this.

lol you could say that about any movement, ideology, or group

(you) being a christian isn't though

Im unironically a theosophist now AMA

The correct answer to this conundrum is the one that is the most obvious, which is that the institution you're trying to hold up is a sham and there was never any supreme papal authority as posited by Vatican I etc. Stop trying to put a square peg in a round hole and just admit you're wrong. The Orthodox were on the correct side of the Great Schism, and the Pope wasn't. It took a long time to clearly prove who that Catholics were the actual schismatics, but be glad it finally happened.

did you read how heretical Beasant, Leedbeater and Bailey were and that they stole Judge and Blavatsky’s teachings? if not, fuck off.

What led you to it?

Changed my view on God to be more probable but still don't believe.

>probable
How do you decide the probability of God or compare probabilities of different God ideas

I'm a born-again Christian who's unsure of what denomination would fit me best. I was born into the Catholic church, and love the actual churches. Though I also like how more open protestants are at discussing and arguing the scriptures. I also like eastern orthodox iconography, though I do not know that much about them.

Literally who
Blavatsky was the starting point but it was Rudolf Steiner's work as well as Scriabin's late mystical music that got me over the line.

you increase a number until it hits 1.0

If it doesn't make you believe in God more, then you aren't doing it right.

To be honest, we have some intellectuals today that are prominent believers in God but it has been a bad last hundred years for faith. This does not bode well and points towards cultural decadence. Maybe we can recover

There are seeds and signs everywhere that the next intellectual elite will be religiously minded

Yes
>used to be an atheist SJW (though with a belief in an afterlife of some time and a vague sort of idealism)
>now an Eastern Orthodox traditionalist

Absolutely, yes. I was loosely raised Christian, but from 10-14 I switched to the Catholic Church, and went with my Grandpa instead of going with my sisters. Fuck christiian church! They barely talk about the bible, change all the songs, and are generally fake-nice. 15-20 I was, no reading necessary, just an edgy atheist teen. However, the past couple years, after reading every religions holy book--except ironically enough the Bible in its entirety--I have come back to the belief in God, but, as influenced by Nietzsche, stop that belief there. I thank God for life and thats about it. Morality is thoroughly a spook. Any moral I follow is only due to utility or choice.

Go on.

I can maybe understand a 1 but how can you define anywhere between 0 and 1 with God.

Disgusting

If you end up lured towards Catholicism, I would advise that you investigate Eastern Orthodoxy so that you can understand the other side of the issue, because Catholics will certainly not tell you about it.

Thanks, user

I tend to lean towards Platonism but still would not consider myself religious in the Christian/Muslim sense.

what am I if I love the world but I don’t feel like I fit into it?

You made a mistake.

(You)

>goes back to partying in Cancun without ever giving religion a second thought
>i love being me this world is great

Yes. Hermeticism.

John 12:25 He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.

"Met" a lot of people on this anonymous board, have you?

He is talking about loving your life more than loving God. Living selfishly

It excuses your rejection of the entirety of existence as a means of ending suffering. The entire end goal of Buddhism is a withdrawal from everything because you don't want to experience it.

Not the user you're replying to, but it seems interesting. Why is it worth reading? I've googled up the synopsis but I want to know your opinions on it.

I havn't actually read it myself, but I did attend a lecture by its author on the subject of the book and it seems like he has a point. His basic idea is that people have become so narcissistic that they can't accept that someone else might know more than they do, and that this tendency is polluting the political discourse. It's on my to-read atm

Reading the Bible made me an atheist.

How so?

Why? The bible doesn't argue for or against the existence of God.

It made me less hostile to Christianity after growing up in a fundamentalist environment.

and the priest sat inside the darkness his pale face shining brightly where nothing else shined but for the moon which roamed the space around earth uncaringly smiling swiftly at the children of earth when he felt like it. The priest was tasting the night at the moment. He found the taste to be a taste of purpose, strangely enough. Yes, somehow the man found purpose in this dark and lonely night. His only companion were the trees who were enacting ritual dances with the wind swooshing carelessly round the priest and not evn seeing or sensing him though he did sense them and occassionally despite the dread of purpose flowing through his soul he smiled at his indifferent friends. Dread. Yes, it is dread i feel, though the priest with a bitter taste on his tongue, for it was an unpleasant surprise that finding your purpose would cause a feeling of dread, a feeling of running away (once more). Strange is the world thought the priest and eyed the stars who were deceivingly still but he wouldn't let himself be deceived and he smiled as he knew that stars were anything but still. There vibrations were as fast as lightning, speeding through empty space and bombarding our silly planet with no regards.
1.Truly, i am a priest
2. I can see it so clearly now.
3.There had been times when i considered myself to be a scholar
4.There had been times when i considered myself to be an adventurer of the soul
5.There had been times when i considered myself to be an aristocratic decadent
6.There had been times when i considered myself to be a self-pleasuring animal
7.There had been times when i considered myself to be a plain and boring consumerist,or whatever
8.There had been times when i considered myself to be a fake
9.There had been times when i considered myself to be an actor an imitation
10. There had been times when i considered myself to be a friend
11. There had been times when i considered myself to be an analyst or whatever
12. Reflecting upon the day which has passed me i must admit that i am a priest.
13. All of which i learn and all which i see is transformed into yet another battlefield of the soul

He was a priest without religion. A priest without religion is a lone wolf and as a lone wolf he roamed through the forest with a bitter pain in his heart. A bitter bitter pain in his heart for there were things he would rather be. This task seemed hopeless but one of the absolute truths of his will was that he was automatically carried back to the battlefield of the soul. He was a priest without a god, a priest of mankind so to say. And as such he did love mankind which had occured to him to be a strange thing. He could not help but laugh and love the people and their follies and hearing the tales of fairies and elves in britannia and ireland made his heart do backflips from joy, his heart jumped down from a 5-meter board screaming and laughing shrill laughs when he observed and heard the man of earth and that was a true pleasure of his existance, despit

I was an extremely devout protestant until I read Kant’s refutation of the cosmological and ontological arguments. I read it online, but I think it counts. Since then I’ve been a weird mythical theist or something it doesn’t really have a name.

duude some more alcohol for my heart now, some mor ealcohol for my heard iws what i need right now as to ease the pain of the tears which are rolling downwards ever downwards from my tears as i have no friends in this world and you may think what you may think as he drank the alcohol and you may think that this is nothing of importance but do you properly know th edread of lonelyness while sitting inside an empty room where he had moved in for it was cheap and so he could live from state support and eat cheap food from kebbab store preferbly döner but with no salad ann all 3 sauces for he like ssauces give me the alcohol he said but there was nobody there and he had been alone the whole day lying in his mattress having run out of money because he drank so much alcohol and he was actually still drunk despite of his felings and the tears were making backflips down his cheeks there was actually still alcohol to his left but he was looking to the right for hors now and had forgotten about the alcohol being too his left he got up then and walked into the kitchen and pissed into the sink and then drank water and forgot what he was actually looking for in the kitchen when he then remembered the had just wanted to drink as to not have such bad hangover because despite of the lots of alcohols he was not fond neither supportive of hangovers and he did not take them lightly for he was alone with a mattress and life is a dangerous game when one is alone with a mattress he stumbled back into his room and saw the alcohol but it just displeased him to see it he thought as there was some liberation in not having the alcohol not being able to have it because he ran out of money but wanting it craving it but not getting it and sobering down and thinking abot what to do sohe sato down on his bad and drank the alcohol and rememberd thed very first time hahd sex with a woman which was at age 16 and he had then convinced himself back inthose days that the girl around him had had love in her eyes when she figured out his naked nude figure of a man that he was but the images didn't last long there was nothing there he found there was no feeling left there was nothing left so he drank some more and laid down in his bed and there was a feeling in his upper body but it was nothing to be expressed through language he thought that maybe someone should kill me and he pictured a machine gun shooting down 4000.000 people with it's killing rounds praise the lord and pass the ammunition he whispered to nobody but himself, his mattress and his nude and naked room and perhaps he was thinking also of michael jackson who was an imaginary friend of his for he often dreamt of meeting michael jackson and saving him from his despair and having good times with michael jackson who seemed to him to be a totally okay and decent guy at heart and who was clearly a victim and as such entirely relatable to him and then he had attemped to sing a song form mcihael jackson but there was just emptyn

Was your faith based entirely on the ontological and cosmological arguments?
I don't understand why the disarmament of two arguments that don't even argue for an inherently christian God and aren't even directly supported by scripture would make you disregard christianity. Especially when you didn't even reject the idea of a theistic model, which is what the cosmological and ontological arguments were designed to support.

she stumbled forward in the rain trying to grasp the bars through which she could find hold in the world as the heat waves were rushing up and down her body. the drugs were kicking in nicely now it was a very good feeling and she was waving her head in unity with the flow of being left and right left and right like waves of the ocean rising and receeding and the world turning in an ellipsis through the universe and the clouds circling the planet meaninglessly that was the unity of being which he felt now as she was stumbling alone in a nigh ttoo cold for her outfit but she had no home that was to be assured she then reached the house of Gabriel in the forest where Gabriel stood and she sat down not looking at him but the floor of the earth which was filled with needles and dirt was rising up and down and then she looked up and saw the door which she knew and she realized that she knew that door and there was a light in the cabin which made her smile and sort of melt from excessive happyness and make her laugh and also cry so much that she hid her eyes behind her hands while crying in slow motion from intense happyness for knowing the door and knowing what was behind this door and the person it belonged to, feeling a deep and great gratefulness out of a sudden for knowing this particular Gabriel and having found his shack in the woods where he was shooting himself up with drugs away from any other people but she knew him and they liked each other even though they weren't having sex anymore simply because their drugs had killed their libido so to say aside from their libidual drive to do more drugs and some other things not worht mentioning until suddenly gabriel walked out of of the shack and screamed a woo of joy and shouted to her: I FUCKING KNEW YOU WERE OUT HERE I FUCKING KNEW IT I WAS FEELING IT I DIDN'T HEAR YOU I FELT IT moving towards her and taking her tear-ridden face into his hands pressing her cheeks against the bones and whispering in her hear in such a shrill voice that it was barely audible I FUCKING KNEW YOU WERE OUT HERE DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS he repeated it until his voice was nothing but a shreiking whisper of joy and then he erupted laughing and ran off into the forest and she was overwhelmed but not stressed and crawled into the shack which was heated by a fire in the fireplace and she sat in front of it and felt the flames making love to her so heavenly that she was moaning from pleasure and moaning some more moaning inside the shack until Gabriel returned and she looked at him staring in the door having a seirous and stern face and she laughed hysterically saying that he looked like a video game character and repeating it in a slur to which he said will you stop it now. Will you stop it I don't look like a video game character. no no you look like somebody who rides on horses she screamed from laughter to which he slammed the door shut and went outside and she sprawled herself out on the floor and had visions of red hor

Please answer me on your reasoning here

Your views Buddhism are reductionist and wrong.

this did make me feel the god in me die a little

William Blake single-handedly cured by "internet atheist" phase. Preserve us from single vision and Newtons Sleep.

why