What's even the point of reading Kirkegaard if you're an atheist...

Christianity is obviously the only valid religion.

why is that?

Whatever, fuck bitches acquire entry to the pearly gates
Kirkegaard had his priorities right

Idiot
Basically, specific types of Christianity.
The problem with people's challenge to the wager (many G/gods challenge) is that they believe the only 'benefit' in the wager is going to heaven. This is a misunderstanding, what's at stake is not 'going to heaven'/'going to hell' but 'going to heaven on one's terms'. Many people are not willing to live in a 'heaven' where they are diluted and placated into something that they are not. In example: many people are not willing to experience bliss if it can only be achieved by sedating oneself with drugs that keep you chair bound and unconscious. This eliminates the many gods issue because there are many potential gods that we are simply not willing to engage with (where going to their heaven is not actually a benefit to us). What I am getting at is, each of us has to determine which God or gods we believe have the integrity to make going to 'their' heaven the actual benefit that Pascal discusses in his wager. Just going to a heaven is not necessarily a benefit.

you have a child like understanding of religion

My post has nothing to do with religion but with faith. I don't need pascal's wager for mine.

no it's about probability. i believe you misunderstand the wager itself. pascal dismissed the many gods argument because he viewed the numerous pagan religions and others as merely superstition and just brushed over them.
what about inauthentic belief? genuine belief isn't a choice, so isn't it impossible to choose to believe out of fear of the possibility of punishment?

/pol/ please go

If you read Pascal you know he addresses the issue of genuine belief. He believed that if one committed oneself to a faith and to ritual, even if it begins as a mere cost-benefit 'going through the motions', over time it will develop into something genuine. Whether or not you accept that is a different story.

My earlier post isn't as much about Pascal's way of avoiding the 'many gods' because clearly, many people don't think he did avoid it. It's actually not about probability though, it's a cost-benefit that demonstrates the potential benefits of belief so far outweigh the costs that you'd have to be insane to bet against them. Pascal isn't actually saying that it is much more probable that God is real, even though he definitely believed it was.

His wager is made from a Catholic perspective which assumes certain characteristics about the nature of God and the afterlife which not all other Christian sects agree with, and conflates the two, without considering the infinite other possible combinations of divine nature and afterlife, each of which much be factored into one's risk assessment for adopting any particular religious practice.

For example, eastern religions have samsara, or the endless cycle of death and rebirth, where the process to be freed from that does not require acknowledging the existing of a deity at all, but attaining enlightenment through spiritual practice.

So there might be "infinite bliss" in the Christian heaven, which might make any sacrifice to attain it worth while, as Pascal argues, but there are also an infinite number of other possibilities not taken into account which would negates the value of this infinite bliss as an overriding factor in decision making. Each of these possibilities have their own ritualistic requirements, most of which would be incompatible with each other if following these rituals or divine decrees plays a role in what happens in the afterlife.

He also states that if you lose the wager and there is no God and heaven, you lose nothing, but this isn't true. Simply acknowledging God exists doesn't got you into heaven, you have to follow his rules and live your life a certain way, which can be considered a cost as you have to sacrifice your time and resources.

What's the point of even being?

suffering

so you can become a great individual

...

>What's even the point of reading Kirkegaard if you're an atheist?
Why watch porn if you're a virgin?

Just fucking read and stop worrying about if you're wasting your precious time

Kirkegaard is noticeable not for his debate on the matters of faith but for his precise analysis of public discourse of his time.

Pascal's Wager is one of those things that reminds me how utterly fucking stupid most philosophy is, whenever I'm tempted to try that shit again. A drunk three year-old can spot the holes and assumptions in that idiocy.

that is a nice shirt

>not knowing about determinate negation
why would you start with Kirkegaard if you haven't read Hegel yet?

Why, thank you! It's my "ontology is strictly for entertainment" shirt.

>What's even the point of reading someone who has a different belief than you?
>What's even the point of learning about other people's beliefs and ways of thinking?

Anyway, I read A Sickness Unto Death and some of it can be taken philosophically without having to do with religion.

>le philosophy is stupid and irrelevant
>my evidence is one not very important philosophical idea
Do you believe scientism is flawless too?

I would kierkegaard all over them titties mang

>the scientism meme
cringe

>He also states that if you lose the wager and there is no God and heaven, you lose nothing, but this isn't true. Simply acknowledging God exists doesn't got you into heaven, you have to follow his rules and live your life a certain way, which can be considered a cost as you have to sacrifice your time and resources.
He acknowledges that lol...

Again, just another stupid 'many gods' argument.

You're slightly confused, sir. I didn't present any "evidence": I'm not making a case for anything, or trying to convince anyone. I gave my off-hand and subjective emotional opinion on something, and an example that was already being discussed. But calling Pascal's Wager "not very important" indicates you know even less about the history of philosophy than I do. And I said nothing about science or scientism at all.

Nice trips.

I'm agnostic, but I enjoy reading Kierkegaard because of the precision of his psychological insight into himself and humanity in general. He doesn't spare himself. I also recommend Proust for the same reasons (though all this assumes you enjoy that sort of writing).

...

does op's pic remind anyone of pic related?

To have your thoughts provoked and your beliefs challenged cunt.

Imagine you wrote "What's the point of reading Schellenberg if I'm a Christian?"

Thanks user, now I have to fire myself.

Beautiful.

The Wager is nonsensical unless you take as prior assumptions that we're talking about the Catholic faith, that the behaviour code being taught in that faith is accurate to God's whims (i.e. are a free ticket to heaven). We then must accept that belief in God equals eternal unlimited happiness, that going through the motions of faith will eventually make you a sincere believer (to avoid that pesky "I can't decide to believe in this shit, dude" reply), and the idea that you're probably doing all this for nothing is dismissed with "UNLIMITED happiness, bro! You can't measure silly little shit like how you spend your entire life against that!"). I get that it was groundbreaking in probability theory, decision theory, and anticipated shit like existentialism, pragmatism and voluntarism, but as an actual argument for faith, it's laughably weak. Right from the "let's say there's about a 50/50 chance that the Catholic faith is entirely correct," it's obviously only meant for Christians to take seriously.

Wow, so deep.

...

Well, I'll take most of the assumptions at face value for now.

But even then, I think the wager is very badly mistaken in its the little attention it pays to the price of living a catholic life.

I mean, if God doesn't exist or you fuck up and go to hell, you don't get that unlimited happiness. I die and disappear completely.
If living the life of a catholic goes absolutely against all my wills and desires, I just wasted the only time I ever had anywhere doing a lot of bullshit for no gain. It isn't huge losses vs small losses, it is huge losses vs huge losses.

I larfed.

90% of philosophy is not read for the reason that you'd adopt the beliefs and opinions of the philosophers as your own

you learn about them, maybe take some parts of them that you found useful despite fundamental disagreements, understand other philosophers better, and so on

Saying so deep doesn't do shit.

This user is smarter than I am. Here is boobage, in case you like that sort of thing.

Not him but I have slight erectile dysfunction and I am desensitised to breasts

That's a shame. Bottoms?

>What's even the point of reading Kirkegaard if you're an atheist
there's no point in doing anything as an atheist. you don't reflect or evaluate options, you just float from one animalistic urge to another.

Nice but it's not exciting enough for me

I've been on the Internet since I was like 8, been on Veeky Forums since I was like 12. 19 now. I've seen a lot of porn. Maybe I need a month off.

>tfw you want to live in a small apartment near the seaside and have a new girl in your bed every week

Why do I live in Phoenix?

Best one yet

infinite jest: the wheelchair scene amongst more im sure i missed

You haven't addressed the responses to the 'many gods' argument. You just keep repeating it as though it's the end all be all to the wager.

Atheists need faith too.

literally raised on Veeky Forums

God help you.

What are the responses?

Very successful bait. Respect

1. You can't know which god is the right one, you are more likely to pick the wrong one
2. Living a life according to religious doctrine, even though religions are most likely wrong, means you will waste huge parts of your life
3. If god is real, then he might respond negatively to dishonest calculated reasons for belief
4. All major religions got distorted over time, it might be impossible to follow the actual original commands of the god, assuming he existed

Don't need his help.

I'm very content with life.

I'm not very outgoing though in terms of social shit, but that's more because I see it as a waste of my time for the most part. I'd rather read a book or cook a nice curry than go out and get pissed with the lads and end up spending 60 quid on lap dances.

I'd see it mainly as a force for good in my life, aside from being a detrimental distraction. I've been introduced to music, literature, philosophy, alternative politics, fitness, food, and memes.

*Soren

The wager is not and never was about probability; it's not saying God's existence is more probable than God's non-existence. Simply says that it is more profitable (beneficial) to believe in Him because the potential benefits far outweigh the potential consequences.

The mistake being made is that people are interpreting the benefit to be 'heaven' and the consequences to be 'wasted time' or, in the event that He is real, 'hell'. The error lies specifically in the benefits section. The benefit is not merely heaven but 'heaven on acceptable terms'. Most self-respecting individuals are not going to find all 'heavens' to be equal. It's been said before there is a difference between a genuine happiness and the same kind of happy feeling being forced upon you by drugs or some other method. If you can agree with that distinction (materialists wont generally agree that there is a difference because to them everything might as well be a chemical response), then you'd also have to accept that not all 'heavens' are created equal. Those 'heavens' that align with your values and dignities become more beneficial, arguably infinitely more beneficial, than those that are at odds with them. In this way you can eliminate all those god options in the 'many gods' argument that are disagreeable to your values at the time of your choosing to accept the wager. For example a 'punishing believers God' option just doesn't mesh with my values. His 'heaven' is far less of a benefit to me than a Catholic God's heaven.

kek

The OP is actually from a subreddit about pictures accidentally looking like a renaissance painting. hough they never produce this level of prime OC
god bless you user

PLS
>doing anything wrong as an atheist
>have to live with shame and regret til your death, nothing forgives

>doing something wrong as a christian
>oops srry jesus
>it's alrite son, np, you're forgiven

>a new girl in your bed every week
D E G E N E R A C Y
M A N S L U T

>what's even the point of reading Blake and Rumi if you're an atheist?

It's just a terrifying idea for me. When you were born I still had dial-up. Most families did not have a computer at all, let alone an internet connection. I remember loading millions of floppy discs to install a game under my dad's watchful eye in 1995. When you were a kid, did you go play in the park? Did you explore abandoned areas and catch frogs? Or was it all videogames indoors?

Do you know what tv was like in the 1990s? It was shit. Tiny, fuzzy, CRT screens, and "cable" included 12 channels unless your parents were really indulgent or liked it themselves.

There is an entire other world out there.

Most religions don't even mandate belief in said religion as a prerequisite for going to "heaven". I don't even like Pascal's Wager, but you fucking retards constantly bring up the "but which of the THOUSANDS do I pick" like its a valid argument when the bottom line is you just don't know SHIT about religion, probably don't really know shit about ANYTHING.

Here's a tip; very few 'religions' (idk if you could even call old god stuff religion, its not like it mandated belief most of the time) required belief for salvation. Most were too primitive for doing anything beyond "do good shit and go to heaven".

The fallacy you're making comes from sheltered fuccbois like yourself making the absolutely asinine assumption that all religions function just like Christianity, when in reality you haven't looked into many religions at all and probably haven't even left your little middle class suburb for anything more than a week

I'm a little drunk but yeah fuck you and the rest of your idiot atheist crew, you're all bonified retards , bring me a real fucking atheist to chat with cuz you ain't shit nigga

Soren*

It's utilitarian, which is universally understood to be a stupid way of valuing things.

Kierkegaard has tons to offer even atheists. Hell, in Fear and Trembling he puts himself in the same bracket with the faithless. The Knight of Infinite Resignation is simply a dude following a passion hard enough that he will resign/let go of anything for it. Any of the would-be professional writers on here would do well to read what he has to say about such a person, how to do it right, and how and what happens when you do it wrong.

F u c k

um for understanding theistic and atheistic European existentialism

Lmao mate just because I've been on the web for a while it doesn't mean that's all I've done.

Of course I've done kid shit. I've been out to the forests, played sword fights with big sticks, played gladiator on the rafts out on the beach, etc.

>do you remember 90s TVs

No but I do remember 00s TVs which were fat at the back and only had about 6 channels

Actually it's Soren*, you plebeians.

>A god would be fooled by people worshipping it for their benefit rather then genuine veneration

(You)

UUUU

Jesus, user, the 90s weren't some special shithole. Growing up we only had four channels, two of which would show kids stuff, sometimes. I'm eighteen.

As for the rest -- I went online, sure. Mostly for flash games. But, my parents were slightly paranoid, and limited my time a great deal. As a result I did everything you think as normal -- as did everyone else, who wasn't limited.

This just sounds like your projecting.

I did know a kid who literally spent all day every day on vidya. Like, he got up at six just so he could play vidya before school, and went to bed at ~two. But he was autistic.

>the 90s weren't some special shithole
They were but for different reasons. That guy's fallen into the trap of trying to pathologise everyone, it often happens as peeps get older.

>They were but for different reasons
Yeah; what I really meant was that certain aspects of the nineties, which were shit, were not unique to the nineties.

For example, I genuinely cannot fathom living in a world without the internet. I know you had fanzines and stuff, but the thought of trying to organise niche interests like Veeky Forums or even Veeky Forums, or trying to communicate with anyone about them like we do nowadays...it's horrible.

But then, you've got stuff like Arthur and Spongebob Squarepants, which was what we grew up with.

>For example, I genuinely cannot fathom living in a world without the internet. I know you had fanzines and stuff, but the thought of trying to organise niche interests like Veeky Forums or even Veeky Forums, or trying to communicate with anyone about them like we do nowadays...it's horrible.
Usenet groups are/were very similar to Veeky Forums discussion. And they cater to the nichest of niche interests.

>But then, you've got stuff like Arthur and Spongebob Squarepants, which was what we grew up with.
Are you trolling? Those are 90s cartoons (well Spongebob barely but w/e). Most people growing up in the 90s had that late 80s/early 90s educational aesthetic (with the lesson shoehorned in at the end) (I miss this in a way tbpqh). It also seemed like we were getting past racism in TV shows, but then everything seemed to go backwards in the 00s, and every black person had to suddenly contend with a secret or overt gangsta identity or be so background and token as to be wallpaper.

>usenet groups
Were fairly niche themselves, or so I thought.
>Are you trolling? Those are 90s cartoons (well Spongebob barely but w/e).
They showed them all the time when I was a kid. As it happens, both were getting new content well into the 00s.

I believe both are getting new conent even now.

And the internet itself was niche, but id you were on the internet you probably knew about usenet groups. Easily the biggest differences were lack of (good) search engines, so often you also had a kind of phonebook of useful websites.

I'm finding google's really gone to shit in the past couple of years tho, and in many ways is worse than a lot of early search engines.

If God exists and I'm an atheist, I have wasted my eternity because I will be in hell.

If Im a believer and there is no God, I will still have wasted my eternity/existence as all of it was wasted believing in a God that wasn't real.
Regardless, God would know that your're only worshiping him through fear of punishment and would send you to burn anyway

what did you mean by this?

If I explained it it would be extremely painful.

Guys, what did user mean by ?

He meant shut the fuck up and stop shitposting.

Saged and downvoted.

No gold for u :(

the 'many gods' argument works is both infalsifiable and a valid piece of rebuttal
>this
also I admire just how quickly this thread dissolved from the subject

From what I understand OP Kierkegaard is largely for historical importance as would Thompson and Bohr whom shaped their respective fields irrevocably.

Yet Kierkegaard had also said more beyond his petty theistic existentialism, he gave a comprehensible psychoanalysis - and one of the earliest ones I know of - on religious belief (rather confabulation) and even criticized followers of the Christian religion

I don't understand any of this. It sounds like you're saying the actual existence of God and heaven doesn't matter to the wager, just believing does.

What? Define wrong as an atheist.

Do you believe in Jesus (be nice, don't kill people, sympathize) but not God? If not then it's free game son.

Are you utilitarian?
You have all sorts of Wikipedia to read on how that system ruins people and civilization. Religion doesn't simplify questions of existence at all

Atheists are usually fools; it's difficult being a true, authentic atheist because you have to invent your own morality without killing yourself.

That's part of it. The wager assumes some possibility that God does not exist. But the point of the wager really has nothing to do with figuring out whether or not God exists. Pascal, in so much as I remember, does not give us a probablistic breakdown; God's existence may have a .01% chance of being the case. The actual probability of Him is irrelevant to the wager because the wager is focused on how noticeably the scales tip in favor of the benefits versus the costs.

The latter part of it is that what is commonly regarded as the 'benefit' (heaven) is not actually the whole 'benefit'. This argument only works if you make a distinction between two things based on HOW you get to those things. We usually imagine happiness as a part of heaven but we experience it in the real world as well so I use it as a clearer example here. Is there a difference between a happiness inspired in you through forced sedation that you would otherwise be against and a happiness that is achieved by means that are agreeable to you? If there isn't then the many gods argument will crush the wager for you. You're basically Cypher from the Matrix; doesn't matter how you get the feeling so long as you get it. If that's the case for you then all heavens are of equal benefit in the wager. If that is not the case however then not all heavens are of equal benefit. Only those heavens that are offered on terms you agree with are those that offer the highest possible benefit to you at the time of the wager. You can eliminate most of the 'many gods' options because, even if those gods turn out to be real, he benefit offered isn't a benefit, or at least a benefit of the same magnitude, to you and the wager is all about the degree to which the benefit outweighs the consequence. I don't think Pascal necessarily went in this direction because it weakens the wager a little bit but it's still useful.

first of all the concept of anxiety is one of his most complete works. The downside of it is that its one of the hardest but Veeky Forums likes to pretend to read hard texts so mb start pretending to read the concept of anxiety instead of either/or and fear and trembling.

As for OP: youre prolly baiting but whatevs. Hes one of the most influential philosophers to ever live, and theres SO much more in his body of work then religion.

I don't want to be rude or anything, but what this user is saying is real simple to follow tbqh. A very similar thing is put forward in the movie "Batman V Superman" ffs.

What'd absolute cape kino have to say about this?

Veeky Forums is the last message boards. Message boards were the shit; much more personality than shitter or shitbook

I think I'm hung up on the whole existence vs. non-existence thing. And I'm dense, but that's another post

I thank you for taking the time to explain all this. It's quite a lot to think about.