I've decided to renounce the degenracy of atheism and embrace God's grace

>How come you found a certain branch of Christianity and not any other faith?

Well I haven't really chosen a certain branch. I didn't grow up in a christian setting. All most all of my peers are atheists or agnostic. You are asking how I know Christianity to be the truth. Coming into christianity from being an atheist is incredibly difficult. I doubted myself and every word and in a sense I still have my doubts its really impossible to be without them. The long transition period in which I put all of my beliefs to the test and questioned everything I presumed to be true was a spiritually taxing time but through all that I learned both academically and spiritually I felt ready to take the leap of faith.

>holding the truth to be what fits with ones sentiments and aesthetics

Christianity represented the opposite of what I believed for most of my life. I was a hardcore individualist and capitalist. I chose Christianity not from a list of different faiths which I evaluated to be true or false I chose it because either it was true or there was nothing.

>people would still be free to chose

Not at all actually. When I say if god revealed himself I don't mean to individuals I mean to humanity as a whole. Everyone would know his truth. Would anyone actually choose hell?

fugg
youtube.com/watch?v=TcNxY4TudXo

Damn

>Well I haven't really chosen a certain branch. I didn't grow up in a christian setting

Did you grow up in East Asia? Because cultural setting extends well beyond ones home and immediate surroundings. Western History and laws are intermeshed with Christianity heavily.

>I chose Christianity not from a list of different faiths which I evaluated to be true or false I chose it because either it was true or there was nothing.

So how did you go about eliminating the other faiths as truth?

>Christianity represented the opposite of what I believed for most of my life. I was a hardcore individualist and capitalist

But thats the thing it actually works very well with it and the wests culture of indivudalism. Being a Jain or particularly a Buddhist would be closer to the opposite of your outlook and both present lifestyles which would be vastly more difficult to live than a christian one.

>Everyone would know his truth. Would anyone actually choose hell?

Why did the underground man choose to be sick, why would he stick out his tongue at the crystal palace?

To use another example why does anyone smoke tobacco or meth when we know its harm?

Humans would choose sin because of its short term benefits, they would choose hell out of pride and the list goes on.

Absolute garbage, fuck off with your heresy my dude.

Mr. Rogers was a god damn saint.

Why is it garbage? Arent you moved by the power and dedication of the music

>Did you grow up in East Asia? Because cultural setting extends well beyond ones home and immediate surroundings. Western History and laws are intermeshed with Christianity heavily.

Toronto Canada.

>So how did you go about eliminating the other faiths as truth?

Pure reason and faith don't really mix. As I stated before I knew Christianity as a personal truth not something that could be clearly argued or articulated and I am not really articulate anyways. It surprise you to know that I learned and spent a lot of time on Buddhism before moving on from it.

>But thats the thing it actually works very well with it and the wests culture of indivudalism. Being a Jain or particularly a Buddhist would be closer to the opposite of your outlook and both present lifestyles which would be vastly more difficult to live than a christian one.

You are right I guess but Christianity still felt like it existed in opposition to my former beliefs.

>Humans would choose sin because of its short term benefits, they would choose hell out of pride and the list goes on.

While this may be true I think this is a serious minority compared to those who in our time do not believe simply because they do not have the will to take the leap of faith required. Knowing that god existed would take faith out of the question and alleviate this stress. The people you are talking about would rebel simply for the sake of doing so.

I'll never be "moved" by Arabic bullshit, my man. Deus vult.

but it's CHRISTIAN arabic

Not the guy who posted the vid but Arabic does not equal islamic. Arabia is just a place and people from there can be christian as well.

>Muslim scholars teach that Muslims should generally be truthful to each other, unless the purpose of lying is to "smooth over differences."
There are several forms of lying to non-believers that are permitted under certain circumstances, the best known being taqiyya. These circumstances are typically those that advance the cause of Islam - in some cases by gaining the trust of non-believers in order to draw out their vulnerability and defeat them.

>There are several forms of lying to non-believers that are permitted under certain circumstances, the best known being taqiyya. These circumstances are typically those that advance the cause of Islam - in some cases by gaining the trust of non-believers in order to draw out their vulnerability and defeat them.
You really think people would chant orthodox christian chants in order to trick Christians and destroy them?

That's the whole fucking point. Infiltrate and conquer without war. Exactly what's happening in Europe.

>Toronto Canada.
A pretty western country and society you see.

>Pure reason and faith don't really mix. As I stated before I knew Christianity as a personal truth not something that could be clearly argued or articulated and I am not really articulate anyways.

Yet reason and faith are not contradictory to one another and can and do coexist; hence why for instance why one can reject scientology despite it being able to deliver profound and out of body experiances to its members.

As someone who has been burned by a cult transcendent personal truths are something that im very wary of.

>It surprise you to know that I learned and spent a lot of time on Buddhism before moving on from it.

The reason I brought buddhism up is because it doesnt have room for laity and isnt based on revelation which is extremely difficult for westerners to come to terms with.In Buddhism its monk life or its nothing which is an impossibility under capitalism.

Did you ultimatly reject it because it didnt give you a sense of it being moving?

>While this may be true I think this is a serious minority compared to those who in our time do not believe simply because they do not have the will to take the leap of faith required...he people you are talking about would rebel simply for the sake of doing so.

Well half of the Angles made by God deserted him for Satan despite knowing him better than any human and 20% of Canadians smoke tobacco so its not all that small.

>in our time do not believe simply because they do not have the will to take the leap of faith required

The issues is that they do and come up dry, which is why people are so apt to turn to atheism rather than agnosticism. God is not nearly as accessible as many Christians like to claim.

People of modern times have to make larger and greater leap of faith than the apostles and church fathers themselves.

>A pretty western country and society you see.
Western in a different sense. Toronto specifically is far far from god.

>As someone who has been burned by a cult transcendent personal truths are something that im very wary of.

My faith in my opinion is very reasonable. I base it off of everything I can learn from Theology philosophy and science. But I know that on a base level one cannot with reason as his only tool prove Christianity to be truth. This is where pure faith comes in.

The reason I brought Buddhism up is because it doesn't have room for laity and inst based on revelation which is extremely difficult for westerners to come to terms with.In Buddhism its monk life or its nothing which is an impossibility under capitalism.

Did you ultimately reject it because it didn't give you a sense of it being moving?

I still feel as though Buddhism has a lot to offer psychologically as a practice but I couldn't bring myself to come to terms with the more specific mystic beliefs and honestly I am just not strong enough to become a monk.

>Well half of the Angles made by God deserted him for Satan despite knowing him better than any human and 20% of Canadians smoke tobacco so its not all that small.

Here we hit a certain contradiction because Satan represented everything that god would represent if he abandoned faith and endowed his truth to every human. Satan offered these temptations to Jesus so that he could enslave humanity. There are those who agree with Satan and believe that Jesus was wrong to reject these temptations and it is possible that the angels felt similarly. So if God were to take the temptations then the angels neither people would even need to turn to Satan.

>People of modern times have to make larger and greater leap of faith than the apostles and church fathers themselves.

This is a sad truth but if in our scenario god endowed his truth to all of humanity no faith would really be required.

Start with Dianetics OP.

read some nag hammadi library and other gnostic writing. You don't want to buy into the devil vatican

>Western in a different sense. Toronto specifically is far far from god.

Not at all, its extremely western, indeed a great deal of modern morality still derives from the christian heritage and is simply attributed to an absolute like "humanity". When you spend time in a foreign country you really see just how western and Christian Europe and all of North America are.

>My faith in my opinion is very reasonable. I base it off of everything I can learn from Theology philosophy and science. But I know that on a base level one cannot with reason as his only tool prove Christianity to be truth. This is where pure faith comes in.

How do you feel about Hindus or Mormons who have the same reasoning as their proof?

>I still feel as though Buddhism has a lot to offer psychologically as a practice but I couldn't bring myself to come to terms with the more specific mystic beliefs and honestly I am just not strong enough to become a monk.

Thats why I used it as an example of a completely foreign belief.

>So if God were to take the temptations then the angels neither people would even need to turn to Satan.

But thats working on the false assumption that knowledge of God would equal enslavement, which as we discussed earlier isnt clear cut.

>This is a sad truth but if in our scenario god endowed his truth to all of humanity no faith would really be required.

What if he merely made it clear to us like he did the disciples and people of earlier times, back when he had living prophets to guide us and saints being able to levitate and raise the dead?

The Bible should be number one, there are many good books though. I would start here:
amazon.com/Case-Christ-Faith-two-books/dp/0310608821/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1484798870&sr=1-6&keywords=a case for christ
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutes_of_the_Christian_Religion

>How do you feel about Hindus or Mormons who have the same reasoning as their proof?
So be it. I told you already I believe in freedom of faith.

>What if he merely made it clear to us like he did the disciples and people of earlier times, back when he had living prophets to guide us and saints being able to levitate and raise the dead?

When I talk about god making himself clear to humanity I mean in a different way then he did previously. You should read the grand inquisitor to get a better idea of what I mean.

Fuck that shit. Read the bible and the confessions of Augustine. No need for that psedu shit.

OP, I would personally recommend you begin by looking at Pelagianism, though the works of Pelagius himself appears contradictory to the body of works under this umbrella term. It is probably easiest to think of Pelagianism as a litmus test for which particular flavor of religious (specifically Christian) readings you would find most intriguing and intellectually rigorous. It was labeled a heretical belief system (along with its attempt at a compromise, Semi-Pelagianism) by the Council of Carthage and the Second Council of Orange, respectively, but it offers an interesting view concerning the responsibility of man toward salvation.

If you find Pelagianist writings to be too close to your current beliefs on the role of man in the universe and wish to go further in reading about orthodoxy, then you should read works by Augustine of Hippo (City of God, Confessions) which essentially is its diametric opposite.

If you find it to be more in line of what you would like to explore, aside from reading its opponents, there are many other converging branches of literature that also espouse its humanistic philosophies. That would require further analysis beyond the scope of this post, however.

Be Hindu instead. You can still be atheist if you like, sometimes, depending on your mood, when you're Hindu.

>When I talk about god making himself clear to humanity I mean in a different way then he did previously. You should read the grand inquisitor to get a better idea of what I mean.

I know that point I raised was a new tangent about what would be a good but currently absent middle ground

The Imitation of Christ is a great start once you've gone past the basic stuff. For the very basic stuff Mere Christianity does a good job

If it wasn't for semites you would have no idea who Jesus Christ is snownigger, show some respect

As a russian orthodox, why is Veeky Forums so into orthodoxy now all of a sudden? It was all "hardcore atheists" five years ago

Its the latest trend of contrarianism however that said there is an apparent purity in it which Catholicism lacks which attracts anons.

I cried.

Belief in God in an Age of Science
Surprised by Joy
The Consolation of Philosophy
A Life of Jesus
Kristin Lavransdatter

I have a theory, just a theory, of course, that comes from a parable.

20 For the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which went out early in the morning to hire labourers into his vineyard.

2 And when he had agreed with the labourers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard.

3 And he went out about the third hour, and saw others standing idle in the marketplace,

4 And said unto them; Go ye also into the vineyard, and whatsoever is right I will give you. And they went their way.

5 Again he went out about the sixth and ninth hour, and did likewise.

6 And about the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing idle, and saith unto them, Why stand ye here all the day idle?

7 They say unto him, Because no man hath hired us. He saith unto them, Go ye also into the vineyard; and whatsoever is right, that shall ye receive.

8 So when even was come, the lord of the vineyard saith unto his steward, Call the labourers, and give them their hire, beginning from the last unto the first.

9 And when they came that were hired about the eleventh hour, they received every man a penny.

10 But when the first came, they supposed that they should have received more; and they likewise received every man a penny.

11 And when they had received it, they murmured against the goodman of the house,

12 Saying, These last have wrought but one hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us, which have borne the burden and heat of the day.

13 But he answered one of them, and said, Friend, I do thee no wrong: didst not thou agree with me for a penny?

14 Take that thine is, and go thy way: I will give unto this last, even as unto thee.

15 Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil, because I am good?

16 So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen.

This parable suggests that it is never too late to repent. Why then, couldn't someone repent while facing God's own judgment?

>It was all "hardcore atheists" five years ago
It wasn't.

...

Different user here. Perhaps not five years ago, but they're right; by my own testimony, some years ago Veeky Forums was the most atheist saturated place I could name.

It's the new Buddhism, apparently. To them it's exotic and deep and true compared to their evil old Catholicism /Protestantism. I guess everybody needs something fresh at some point in their lives.