At what age did you grow out of atheism?

Materialism is flawed yes.

consc.net/papers/2dargument.pdf

andrewmbailey.com/ap/Against_Materialism.pdf

youtube.com/watch?v=3xdT4ZYw728

Because now we know about evolution but need to make room for God somehow for cultural reasons.

the reason you're here user

>I don't see how evolution and Christian theology are mutually exclusive.
No Adam and Eve for one

Why did God make humans evolve so poorly?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_poor_design#Examples

>Sheldrake

>21
>After 9 years of Catholic schooling (jr. high, high school, college) finally have Catholic/theistic theology explained to me in a serious way
>Learn about Thomism/MacIntyre
>Realize Dawkins/Hitchens are the atheist versions of fundie-baptists
>Realize the actually-smart atheists have weird and non-intuitive arguments
>Stop being libertarian, start watching McLaughlin group for weekly Pat Buchanan dosage

what are the chances that you were the sperm that fertilised your mother's egg? It could have just as easily been a different sperm cell but it was you. Really it was just a coincidence that you were the one who got through. I guess you could say God chose you as the one who would make it but I can't see the reasoning behind that decision.

I hate this board

we need a /rel/igion board

>Go to College
>Take Course on Eastern Philosophy
>Watch Adi Shankara wreck my pleb tier materialism

arguments against atheism are just as weak are arguments for atheism. if you are going to form your beliefs exclusively through logical argument, i don't see how you could be anything by agnostic.

>be 21
>pick up a book on Zen after digesting the New Atheist canon of Dawkins, Sagan, and co. and being an obnoxious "yo FUCK jesus we're all just chemicals maaan"-tier edgy atheist for years
>based Zen wrecks my fucking shit
>teaches me there is a way to see the world that transcends language and discursive thinking
>5 years later neck-deep in esotericism and magic
>mfw

You aren't taking a stance against materialism, you're just claiming you have special access to some material.

Meanwhile, 5 years later and I'm neck deep in Tolstoy and Rosary Beads.

why can't cucks keep their garbage on /pol/?
religion should only be discussed here in a historical context. I care about the consequences of the council of Nicea, not "jeez look how grown up I am by rejecting atheism :^)"
If you were a teenager 15 years ago, you'd have been posting "jeez look how grown up I am by rejecting religion :^)"
Contrarian children make me embarrassed to have been young.

You could've picked Christianity instead of Catholicism

>tolstoy
>catholic

>Went to a Jewish school and then a Catholic school
>Realized belief in God was useful but no longer necessary
>Subscribe to every edgy materialist account of existence

feels great being this euphoric :-)

What do Esoteric systems do differently to justify straying from Zen Buddhism?

>the entire bible was meant to be taken literally and isnt just conglomerate Semitic mythology and metaphor

Fundies pls go

>rejects the Holy Bible
>Christian

>cant see the reasoning behind that decision
Damn son thats savage af

>different interpretation than yours is rejecting it
Youve got jokes kid keep'em coming

>interpretation
>the bible is wrong

...

>Rosary Beads.

the experience of nondual, present moment awareness transmitted by Zen is the bedrock of all esoteric practice. esotericism and the like are just an "unpacking" of what's implicit in Mu, anyways. no matter what, it always comes back to that present moment awareness.

>someone has a different interpretation
>they are wrong, my interpretation is right

>the bible is wrong

i-i'm a christian xd

So, would learning about western esotericism be useful even if your practise is eastern? Or would it be stuff I already knew already?

I'm interested in Neoplatonism and Hermeticism specifically, but I don't want to waste my time if nothing new is brought to the table.

Because the earth can only possibly be 6,000-10,000 years old under a Christian dating scheme of the universe. Unless you say "MUH METAPHOR", but that just begs the question of how you discern what magical shit is or is not a metaphor.

Fuck off, papist. It's all bullshit, but your so clearly the Antichrist it's kind of ridiculous.

Zen skips the bullshit and gets right to the meditation. Neoplatonism is a beautiful and elegant philosophy that fills in a lot of the metaphysical gaps between mundane consciousness and enlightened consciousness (I know that's not a distinction one is supposed to be made, you get the idea). Hermeticism is about reconciling the fundamental duality in oneself between matter and mind, lunar and solar, moist and dry, passive and active, conditioned and unconditioned. Note that the goal is an integration of these two natures, not a rejection of one for the other - like I said it all comes back to the transcendent nondual reality of satori.

If you want a minimum of detail and just hard, no-bullshit practice, stick with Zen. If you like your ancient Greek philosophy and got an aesthetic streaks Neoplatonism is the way to go. If you like your esoteric symbolism rich, evocative, and practical, go Hermetic. It's really best if you're familiar with all of them though. They're all just different formulations and paths to the same goal - the Absolute

Those 2 traditions definitely sound useful at this stage of my practise. I'm definitely reading a Hermetic/Neoplatonist work next, thanks for clearing that up.

Never left the Church my friend

this couldve all stopped after post why did hiro do this to us

Atheism is just a lack of belief in the existence of a deity or group of deities. It's not something I'm ever going to grow out of because there is no real evidence that deities have ever been anything other then fictional characters.

>Materialism flawed
Every philosophical position you can name is flawed in some way.
>Hard Problem of consciousness
Oh boy, the old "we don't understand how our brains work so therefore souls exist" argument.
>Cosmological argument
This argument boils down to "we don't know what happened before the big bang, therefore a deity did it" which is not exactly convincing.

Maybe you should understand what the hard problem is before talking out of your ass

>Hard Problem of consciousness
>>The really hard problem of consciousness is the problem of experience. When we think and perceive there is a whir of information processing, but there is also a subjective aspect.
So there's a certain amount of subjectivity to human experiences and always will be, and you think this means that some sort of deity exists?
Yeah no, you're a faggot.

There is a measurable, physical component to consciousness because a measurable, physical event results from it. That event being the post you just made about consciousness, which wouldn't exist otherwise.

Therefore, there are no non-physical factors at play here.

Meaning what? Not seeing how you get from this to "herp derp check mate atheists :^)".

You can't claim you experience non-physical things because making said claim is a physical gesture.

>

>Also the only reasonable choice is agnosticism
yeah that's why most all atheists are agnostic

>not making the argument yourself

We came here to post on Veeky Forums. Not read your pet thinkers. Either make the argument yourself, or shut the fuck up. Turning every thread into a bibliography is a dick move and you're a stain on Veeky Forums for it.

I never really grew out of it, I just developed a more nuanced understanding of the divine that changed very little. I still think the notion of a personal deity with anthropomorphic aims is fucking idiot. Us arriving through chance is no more absurd than anything else arriving through chance. Look at any stone on the ground and ask yourself "what are the odds that this stone would be exactly this shape and composition?" our existence is fundamentally no different. The "odds" of our existence don't matter, because the odds were 100%; this doesn't imply a designer any more than the nature of that stone implies a designer..

How is materialism flawed? No, I'm not going to another site.

>Ya it's just pure luck that the universe is somehow made so perfect that we can exist, and BTW Anthropic principle!!!
no, the planet is not made to be perfect place for us to live there. we have evolved to be perfectly fit to live on this planet.

>Materialism flawed
About as much as any other metaphysics.

>Hard Problem of consciousness
Literally unsolvable no matter which metaphysics you pick.

>Cosmological argument
You mean the one that relies on unjustified assumptions on reality?

The last sentence in this post makes me think it's not quite genuine.

And how did that higher being came to be? Who created the creator? Did another higher being created what you call god or did it came to be throught magic?

Not an argument

Never grew into it t.b.h.

I grew out of it when I realised that athiesm was just as much an unsubstantiated theory as the things it opposes, and now I am a proud knight of faith

ITT: brainletfag returns

Thats a pretty big claim to make about yourself. Which faith, though? Would you suspend the ethical in the face of Divine Revelation?

When I was 16

Spent my teenage years studying hermetica, focused on Alchemy. Eventually lead me to accepting Islam. Definitely a good topic to study.

I stopped believing in God when I stopped believing in Santa Clause.
I find it very puzzling that there are so many people who seem to have this irrational desire to believe in a higher power

The old 6,000 year old Earth meme. If you actually read the Bible, it never says this. It never gives a date on when the Earth was created or how old it is. Actually question your beliefs instead of clinging on to Richard Dawkin tier memes

In my late 20's. That's usually when all the actions you have put forth, your ideals, your general behavior, it's when all of it starts to produce a large more discernible and tangible product and outcome to examine. A large sample size.

Pride and arrogance are the first to go, you no longer speak out of that youth and arrogant vigor. Basically you talk less out of your ass. You get some pretty humiliating experiences, that generally calm you down and teach you its better to shut up and listen sometimes.

But this doesn't automatically turn one into a believer, but I feel like for most people, they'll address an aspect of life they didn't prior. It's actually the only good thing about getting older imo. You're overall capacity increases and your narrow mindedness gradually disintegrates.

But again, that's not to say everyone will come to these conclusions or humble themselves with age. I mean there are people well into their 40's who still have serious issues with race and other prejudices. For some the pride and arrogance doesn't fade, it's seriously a hard thing to shake since a large part of the modern social construct is to compete and seek leverage in all sorts of debates. Everyone want's to be right and crush shit. And that's okay in my opinion, just as long as at the end everyone learns something and doesn't fly off the hinges with any sort of violent intentions.

You can be violent without physically swinging on someone, you can a have a general perspective that's just combative in nature...with words and ideals. That's the shit you should steer away from. There's literally nothing there but a mental dick measuring contest.

Yeah, because the whole 6,000 year old Earth thing is an atheist meme. Kek.

>what magical shit is or is not a metaphor.
The OT is a metaphor, the NT is literal. Easy.

The age of the earth is calculated from the genealogies of Jesus, starting with Adam. The Bible itself mentions the lifespan of most of the figures, and the blanks are filled in using other textual information. It never says the date of creation directly, but it definitely implies one unless you take the list as metaphorical.

Jesus frequently quotes the OT like it is literal in the NT.

jewsforjesus.org/publications/newsletter/september-2008/05

the 6,000 years isn't directly in the bible, correct. but you can easily reach it through events in the bible that we know have a specific date (I believe the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar is one) and then trace back through the kings' genealogies, the various 40 and 80 year periods in Judges, the 400 years in Egypt, and the Genesis genealogy. you should know that it was a Catholic priest that came up with the 6000 year date, not some fundie

What makes you think it's only about desire and not a conclusion that's formed?

Some people believe because they don't have a choice, they've literally seen some things outside of the body. The testimonies are through the roof on this particular cause for conclusion, specifically for Christianity. And some can just understand the word of God through examining the world and comparing it to the teachings.

Just from those two examples, people actually come to the conclusion of a love from God and so they love back. There are zealots though, that try to play judge jury and executioner, they try to take on Christs role and enforce a religious and various judgements on groups like Homosexuals. These people I think desire to be something they're taught not to be. But I'm not saying zeal is bad, it just comes down to how it's utilized.

What makes all this so confusing though is the fact there's so many religions and doctrines, so, to form a solid conclusion you have to study everyone of them to find tangible truth, not only that but you have to understand what you're reading which is a whole other issue for some people.

But yeah, it's really not only about a desire. Some people just see something that someone else doesn't. Some times literally and sometimes it's through the written word of God.

>What makes you think it's only about desire and not a conclusion that's formed?

Would you believe in God if there was no heavenly reward involved?

If the teachings matched perception of whats seen in the world, of course. That's why some people believe. That journey it produces, is truly amazing for people.

But I understand the point you're trying to make. But the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, it's not the end all be all. It's the introduction. People who only focus on a reward system...I don't know much about. I really can't speak on that because I never examined that context.

Not an argument.

>Eventually lead me to accepting Islam.
Are you a Sufi, then? How did you go from Hermeticism -> Islam? Seems like a weird way to develop.

I went Stoicism ->Buddhism personally.

God is the agentification of the whole of reality.
Much like we can be seen on the one hand to be biological machines following certain rules with our actions not really in our control since, we can also be seen as agnts of our actions.
These are paralel non exclusive views of reality.
They are different sides of the same d&d dice.
We can asee the universe from some physical reductionistic perspective or from a religious perspective where the universe or the forces of the universe are agented.

>all christians accept evolution
Haahahahaha

At what age did you grow out of Christianity?

If humans didnt evolves then explain appendixes.
If whales or snakes didnt evolve explain their vestigial leg bones.

>