Do you believe in God?

there's only one reality, but it can be viewed relatively or absolutely.

Study Plato or Plotinus.
For Plotinus the world is neither the creation of God nor an evolute from Him, but just an emanation. Plotinus, no doubt, takes care to see that this emanation does not in any way affect the Perfection of God. God does not become the world by modification or transformation of Himself. He is ever what He is and the emanation is something like that of light from the sun. God never gets lost or exhausted in the world. Plotinus is thus free from the charge of propounding a pantheism. God is both transcendent and immanent. The world originates, subsists and finally merges in God. The Thought of God and the Object of this Thought are one and the same, and the world is God's Thought. God's Thought is merely the activity of His own being; it is the immediate, instantaneous, all-comprehending Essence of pure Consciousness, direct and intuitive, knowing everything at one stroke, and transcending the dualistic categories of relative reason, which functions through a succession of ideas.

>mfw Plotinus

The flashes of insight in Plotinus are superb: "There everything is transparent, nothing dark, nothing resistant; every being is lucid to every other, in breadth and depth; light runs through light. And each of them contains all within itself, and at the same time sees all in every other, so that everywhere there is all, all is all, and each all, and infinite the glory. Each of them is great; the small is great: the sun, there, is all the stars, and every star again is all the stars and sun. While some one manner of being is dominant in each, all are mirrored in every other." "In this Intelligible World, every thing is transparent. No shadow limits vision. All the essences see each other and interpenetrate each other in the most intimate depth of their nature. Light everywhere meets light. Every being contains within itself the entire Intelligible World, and also beholds it entire in every particular being... There abides pure movement; for He who produces movement, not being foreign to it, does not disturb it in its production. Rest is perfect, because it is not mingled with any principle of disturbance. The Beautiful is completely beautiful there, because it does not dwell in that which is not beautiful." "To have seen that vision is reason no longer. It is more than reason, before reason, and after reason, as also is the vision which is seen. And perhaps we should not here speak of sight; for that which is seen if we must needs speak of seer and seen as two and not one is not discerned by the seer, nor perceived by him as a second thing. Therefore this vision is hard to tell of; for how can a man describe as other than himself that which, when he discerned it, seemed not other, but one with himself indeed?" (Enneads, V. 8; VI. 9, 10).

Thanks Jordan Peterson

Yes. There are intellectual atheists but very few, if any, truly genius atheists (by genius, I meant on the caliber of Mozart, Tolstoy, Newton, Goethe, etc.) Most of the great geniuses throughout history you'll find had a belief in a God, even if a somewhat mystical, unorthodox view.

classic and inevitable quote in this respect:
>It is true, that a little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism, but depth philosophy bringeth men’s minds to religion; for while the mind of man looketh upon second causes scattered, it may sometimes rest in them and go no further; but when it beholdeth the chain of them, confederate and linked together, it must needs fly to Providence and Deity.

Even Shakespeare was Catholic.

>Most of the great geniuses throughout history you'll find had a belief in a God, even if a somewhat mystical, unorthodox view.
Give it time, public atheism at least in the has only just become acceptable in past 100 years. Take a look at how long it took for Christians to start outpacing the intellectual achievements of the pagans. The point of view you put forward would be no different than an ancient Greek questioning the wisdom and capacity of Christians as they had having no Aristotle, Euclid or Homer.

Greeks found great wisdom in the Christians, right from the 1st century, from St John and Saint Paul to St Ignatius of Antioch, Justin Martyr, and the early Church fathers, which is why they adopted the religion in place of their decaying pagan cults.

>atheism is something new and young
lol

Atheism isn’t gonna last. They don’t breed enough and all atheistic countries are predicted to become either Muslim or Christian in a couple generations

Luke 10:27 "He answered, "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"

God is real
And is the most aesthstic answer

Ya darn tooten

I thought England was Anglican at this point, is there evidence he was Catholic as opposed to high church Anglican? Great writer (and Christian) either way

No.
Love books influenced by religion though and Saint Augustine's Confessions was amazing.

My only challenge is trying to read Clarel by Meville which is thicc with biblical and historical references

Of course, but I don't know what I'm supposed to do about it

>Greeks found great wisdom in the Christians, right from the 1st century, from St John and Saint Paul to St Ignatius of Antioch, Justin Martyr, and the early Church fathers, which is why they adopted the religion in place of their decaying pagan cults.
You are avoiding the point here user, I didn't say that no one found beauty or conviction in the works of early Christians I only say that at that early period time Christians had produced no genius like you described earlier on. There was no Christian Newtons or Mozarts (even the famed divine liturgies were almost half a millennium away) or Aristotles which you place such high value on.

>lol
Its true, look throughout history and you wont find atheist societies until the 20th Century and even those ones were and are operating under a heavy Christian influences and background. Even in our current times there are only about 20 countries on earth with an atheist majority and of those 20 only 3 have a majority beyond 60%.

there's various circumstantial evidence suggesting he may have been an underground Catholic. I believe his direct ancestors were Catholics.

>People are forced to follow their communities traditional beliefs
Maybe in places with religious extremists.

It’s a good thing Islam doesn’t have any religious extremists I guess, same with Christianity in Eastern Europe and Asia

What has that got to do with my point of new beliefs taking a fairly long time before they start producing geniuses?

>Atheism isn’t gonna last. They don’t breed enough and all atheistic countries are predicted to become either Muslim or Christian in a couple generations
By percentage of the earths population. A study that might interest you

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/imre.12289/abstract

No.

>(you): It takes a long time for beliefs to produce geniuses, atheism has only existed for a short time
>”well atheism isn’t gonna last much longer”
>(you): “what does the length of time a belief lasts have to do my point of new beliefs taking a fairly long time before they start producing geniuses?”

Yeah, I'm a catechumen in the Orthodox Church and, God willing, I will be chrismated on the Saturday before Holy Week.

cool im a grand wizard myself

that one in the middle with the goatee always reminds me of the guy who teaches cs193p at stanford

Dont you see how it just ignores the question of whether that reasoning its legitimate or not?
It would be akin to saying that trying to understand the origin and spread of Influenza A (H1N1) after the war is pointless because the outbreak is over.

I've come to understand that this is the wrong question -- the wrong approach.

How do you deal with this

1. for God is greater than our heart and knows all things. 1 John 3:20

2. Great is our Lord, and mighty in power; His understanding is infinite. Psalm 147:5

versus

3. But as for that day or hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Mark 13:32

No.

t.

Yo, Boston Bomber manhunt, I'm happy for you and all but Faces of Atheism was Reddit's worst mistake of ALL TIME

"Catechumen" comes from the Greek "kατηχούμενος". All it means is someone who is being instructed in the faith before becoming a member of the Church.
There are basically two views on this. One is that the Son is ignorant of the day according to his humanity, but not his divinity. The other, which I believe, is that this was simply a way for Jesus to end their questioning w/r/t the specific date. God isn't autistic, He doesn't speak to us like a 1960s cartoon robot.

I believe in THE GODS

I want to, my dudes. I really do. I’m not the man I thought I was. The realization that my own will is not enough to live the moral standards that I treasure makes me turn my gaze to God.

I’m a terrible human being.

stop self-punishing...

>The other, which I believe, is that this was simply a way for Jesus to end their questioning w/r/t the specific date.
Then he should've said "it is not for the Son to reveal, nor the angels in heaven to disclose..." etc. Saying that the Son doesn't know while he knows would simply be a lie.
The other answer is equally unhelpful.

I want to but I've yet to be convinced completely. Idk maybe ive never had a real "religious" experience

>stop admitting your faults
yep, just be delusional and ignore your flaws, hell, we should celebrate our flaws!

you seem insecure about your beliefs, friend.

youtube.com/watch?v=Sn7QvnhJgeA

Yes

careful, lest you end up like these poor pious people

obviously not what i was saying. stop using your neuroticism to punish me for trying to help you... you and I are the same. admire the saints, but do not be too impressed by amazing displays of human willpower and dignity to think that it is an objectively good path to take, that total self-abasement is "right". perhaps it is, but only assent once you truly believe in God, in some real metaphysical justification. otherwise you are simply torturing yourself for a cause without dimension or supplication.

Yes. Logically I can only answer yes in reference to something very disembodied, like Spinoza's panentheism (not pantheism, pantheism is some real dumb shit) because I can't get myself to make the leap into believing in a fully embodied traditional God, but intuitively I've had a massive 180 on my feelings of God in the past few years and have come close to something like ordinary Christianity. There's been far too many incredible coincidences in my life for me to not notice it, and I've had some life changing spiritual experiences since opening my heart to the possibility.

I know that still makes me a pussyfooting little bitch, but I'm working on developing a better relationship with God.

People that tend to believe in God are usually very quick to lay out the properties of said God.

Nope

what kind of coincidences

Lemme drop an idea on yall, lemme know what you think.

Idols, and culture are the two most important things required for civilizations to function. Over the past few centuries humanity has slowly come to this realization, and our general response has been to attempt to shed this reliance. I think we are now reaping the consequences of doing so. I also want to posit that, while the most successful instance of a strong idol and culture has been big G god and the cultures that have formed around his worship, humanity is simply outgrowing him. We should aim to evolve our idols and culture, rather than hold a death grip on them forever, or shed them entirely.

>Ancient man is barbaric and lawless, thus man creates a god to tame us and a practice to bind us

I ask you what is modern man, and what does modern man want to be.

The stories are too long and personal to share here, but the gist is that I've had my life saved 3 or 4 times by absurdly coincidental circumstances, including once by a guy who was wearing a shirt that only said "God" on it, as well as countless smaller moments of strange providence and synchronicity. I was a stubborn empirical logical positivist before all this, so I think it took some truly absurd events for God to open my eyes to it all

>i was a stubborn empirical logical positivist
Who didnt understand what a coincidence is?

A Christian God? No.

>There are intellectual atheists but very few, if any, truly genius atheists (by genius, I meant on the caliber of Mozart, Tolstoy, Newton, Goethe, etc.) Most of the great geniuses throughout history you'll find had a belief in a God, even if a somewhat mystical, unorthodox view.
what kind of retarded criterion is this

The crisis in which the world finds itself is due to the replacement of traditional values and truths with “humanistic” principles, and the precepts of “Faith, Hope, and Charity” with the pseudo-ideals of “Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity” which in the practical order mean: a liberty from the restrictions God has placed on mankind; an equality of the profane with the sacred; and the brotherhood of all men in their opposition to traditional values.

For him, it is not religion, but these distortions of reality along with the superstitions of “progress” and “evolution” that are the “opiates of the people,” giving man a false “faith” in humanity, and holding out to him the false “hope” of an earthly millennium in which society will be so organized as to remove from mankind the very need to be good. Within such a worldview “charity” is profaned to the level of “helping mankind” along its pilgrim road to this false utopia.

...

This guy straight up deleted his own post.

Humanism is the continuation of Christianity by other means.

No, not at all. In fact, the older I get, the more I hate the idea of god. I should mention that I was raised in a loving family and they hugged me enough.

No.

perfect

This.

t. reluctant philosophical theist

only when i need something

It depends on my mood.
But his existence or inexistence won't effect my day-to-day life tho,

t. """reluctant""" theist

No.

>mistaking the fractal grandeur of causality with mere divinity
Bacon was a fucking brainlet.

Nope. This is only sentimentality and "culture" of idle, intelligent minds who were either entirely obliged (as in Bacon's time) to make an intellectual display in favor of Christianity of some kind, or else in the case of that one quantum theory guy (I forget which-Heisenberg, Dirac, other? I'll let you tell me) to say roughly the same thing.

Think what a miracle (heh) it was that at this early-modern period of history, one could even /think/ and /posit/ atheism at all, in text, as the quote suggests (if accurate) as a possible and viable worldview. Here we already have the human Mind coming round. You wouldn't have written such blessed heresy six hundred years ago.

Muslims breed to create more muslims. The instances of this not occurring are virtually nonexistent. Britain's Muslim population is predicted to grow from five to 20% by 2050. And this is quite a conservative estimate.

Jesus perfectly knew their hearts. For all we know, that was the perfect thing to say in that moment. Is that verse preventing you from becoming Christian? The scriptures are full of things much harder to believe than the fact that God doesn't interact with us like an robot.

Can you not conceed that it may be possible that the scriptures were corrupted for political ends? I don't see a place where Jesus considered an institution like the Church as necessary, in fact there is no reason for "ecclesias" to be translated as "church" it is anachronistic

>For all we know, that was the perfect thing to say in that moment.
Lying is not perfection.
There's no need for him to lie to silence some questioners. It would've been better for him to remain silent. Also that verse is for all mankind to read and ponder now, not just for his audience.
>Is that verse preventing you from becoming Christian?
If Christianity is based on the Trinity and the Son is fully God then he should always be omniscient, and always tell the truth.

>implying mystcism isn't orthodox

okay

bullshit

I don't care. the answer is insolvable believe whatever you want it makes no difference.

>believe makes no difference
it makes all the difference, the will is a terrible thing when it conforms to the vain and false, and the will is a beautiful power when it conforms to the true

I believe in Dog

not literature, go to Veeky Forums or /pol/

...

What convinced me was how explicitly Hamlet was about purgatory.

I believe in the possibility of god(s) existing, but I don't believe that humanity could have ever known god(s)

Ah, the question the token bespectacled intellectual asks in every Dostoevsky book ever.

i do believe in god yes... but religion is autistic and ultimately false