The rampant growth of theism on this board is amusing. Don't mean to be a fedora tipper...

>He thinks he's not the only autist on Veeky Forums that doesn't believe in higher powers
lmao

We're all for real. This is a christian board. You're the odd one out, bud.

Spirituality is something I will never experience, no matter how much I want to feel God's presence. So I compensate by reading about religious experiences. Also I miss Catholic school.

>no matter how much I want to feel God's presence
>Also I miss Catholic school.
You should remember one of the gifts of the spirit is pants shitting awe in the presence of God, and then maybe He'll give you what you wish when you stop wishing for it.

*catholic
fucking protestant dogs

What?

Thanks for fixing that mistake, friend. I'm Catholic too, don't worry.

>rejecting empiricism is necessary to be a theist

Are protestants still considered Christian here? What about manichees?

I'm gonna have to plant a flag here, pham
>the fine-tuning of the universe
The universe is anything but fine-tuned, it took 13 billions years, billions of collapsed stars and extinct species for a sentient life to appear. It looks like a job of random design, not of a great benevolent creator
>People usually recognize evil, even if they are reluctant to recognize good
Because 'evil' is much more easily identifiable. For example, you will recognize anything that physically harms you or your family as evil. Yet, the boundaries for 'good' aren't as clear.
>Utilitarianism cannot suffice to prevent murder or theft, because some individuals sometimes find these actions quite useful
Thats why human societies never adopted utilitarianism in the first place
>Yet they are actions universally condemned, by civil law and common morals. Such condemnations are among the moral truths that human beings naturally know. -These norms witness something that philosophers describe as "natural law."
This is bs, there are no such things. Many people argee that capital punishment should be a thing. Theft, while illegal, can sympathized as if the thief did it to save his family from hungry death or something. Mudslimes think you should be beheaded if you put dick in another man's butt. Etc. Even the most seemingly obvious notions of morality cannot be agreed upon universally.
>So an ultimate moral good must be conscious and free; it must be god.
Why? Why can't it, for example, be a random platonic form, or some sub-atomic particle that fills things with 'goodness' like electric charge?

>The rampant growth of theism on this board
>rampant growth
>of theism
you are new.

anyways I'm not Christian per se, but I believe there is intention behind the creation of life and the existence of the cosmos and it may even be the intentions of the same being/entity/concept/whatever. I was an atheist when I was younger but science doesn't have half the answers that dogmatic atheists pretend it does. Furthermore, the deeper into science you dig away from religion, theism just pops back up again. I think the conviction and certainty that there is no God is silly. Especially those who cherrypick a Bible verse or two to support their beliefs, or lack of.
There is, at the conjunction of belief and disbelief, a split in the road that demands an equal conviction as to whether there was intentional cause or random accident and atheists never seem to want to acknowledge that. I didn't have the faith for atheism. The science had too many dead ends and it all seemed so unlikely. And yet these reddit immigrants think that by rejecting the Christian-God package for le rationality they've made some profound statement that humans are born atheist and "don't need" God. That's a cheap strawman and lazy logic.

Also, don't get /pol/ Christians mixed in with Veeky Forums Christians. They're easy to distinguish unless you're a newfag and have obvious differences in reasoning.

I accept theism on Veeky Forums because most anons can articulate their beliefs specifically, have researched them deeply, and acknowledge their shortcomings.

>God
spook
>moral facts
spooks
>evil
spook
>good
spook
>heroic
spook
>norms
spooks
>"natural law"
spook
>free will
spook

Gee. Time to do some proper busting, fine chap.

Manicheaism is OUT.

I don't read the posts of people who do that greentext shit. I did happen to read your response to the fine-tuning and you have no idea what it means but you tried anyways without even bothering to look it up. I can only assume the rest of what you wrote is equally retarded.

hahaha. stop embarrassing yourself

>it took 13 billions years
I'm sorry, but I'm gonna have to plant a flag here. There's no reason to think 13 billion years is a long time, other than from a human perspective. Time is utterly meaningless without a subject to observe it.

i believe in the beast behind all perceptions, an entirely insectoid physical plane of existance where all consciousness is recorded and through which they travel to travel to other dimension.

>it is god, the only god,
>the world, the only world.
the only thing required to exist for all other things to exist.

im absolutely sure this is also how ansible works, as well as every other magic system, because of them all being built with ansible.

>jane gives me a holodeck, and i can control peoples souls
i hope you like eternal and unlimited lewdness in a cosmic scale

A belief in god AKA divine geometry seeking order out of chaos is a definition of the universe. And that's just one way of looking at it.

Denying that is not a definition, and standing by scientific facts only leaves you with an incomplete image of existance.

Why should I explain myself if you are the one who doesn't know what he believes in?

You're a fucking idiot. The greentext allows for ease of presenting and dissecting each argument made. You're a goddamn fool if you didn't want to read the user's post, which might have information that could make you a little bit smarter, just because of an arbitrary antipathy towards the shitting format.
You're the demons, Timmy

not meant to quote you btw

>disbelief in empiricism
There are fools who believe in empiricism to the point they stop believing in themselves. Takes a special kind of retardation to do that.
Atheism is identical.

>You're a fucking idiot.
Your momma
>he greentext allows for ease of presenting and dissecting each argument made.
I disagree. I think it's pretty stupid and the people that do are equally stupid. Nobody that does this is worth reading.
>You're a goddamn fool if you didn't want to read the user's post
Yeah well you're a nigger. The reason i don't tolerate this sort of shit is because when people don't respond to a persons post as a whole, it forces other people to respond in king. The conversation then quickly devolves into a hundred little micro arguments where people respond to individual sentences
>which might have information that could make you a little bit smarter,
I guarantee that it doesn't. I previewed his response to fine-tuning and he completely misunderstood what it is yet responded to it anyways
>just because of an arbitrary antipathy towards the shitting format.
I think I have a pretty good reason to dislike this form of posting. It's shitposting, it's not productive, it's harder to read, and it doesn't facilitate discussion. I don't want anything to do with the sort of people that do this because it's ultimately an intellectual crutch. They're incapable of responding to multiple points in a post without breaking them up into single sentences.

I'm a Christian. I haven't determined whether I'm Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant though. I lean towards Protestantism.

Redneck crossboarders from /pol/.
If you a Christtard just do your civil service to this site and ignore him.

I thank you for making it a greentext. This served me greatly in understanding what you thought of my points

>disbelief in empiricism
strawman

Reasons:
>the existence of the universe out of, apparently, "nothing", the fact that anything exists at all
>the fact that humans exist, can perceive, are conscious
>the fact that, besides humans, nature and animals exist, are mind-bogglingly complex and simply beautiful
>events in own life which would be seen by anyone as very strange coincidences and obeying laws beyond the ken of what anyone would call "science"

However, I still believe everything, even God and "super"natural phenomena (really, nothing can be outside nature), obeys "science", simply a greater science than that we know.

I would only believe in a god that cares about me. Since my entire life has been miserable, I don't believe in one.

>Can you briefly sum up your philosophical argument behind your belief, and disbelief in empiricism?

Firstly whether God exists or not is sort of irrelevant. My faith is approximate to hope, and not a strong one at that.

But even an atheist can draw moral lessons from the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. Through Him, you can lead a better, fuller life and bring about the Kingdom of God in this world. Simply love thy fellow man, and follow the beatitudes and sermon on the mount and the parables. Being righteous requires no philosophical argument, but if you want one, then you can call it viral epicureanism, that is if it is best to seek modest pleasures in life, than using christian teachings to bring pleasure and happiness to all of your fellow man must be greater than doing so for yourself.

Have you heard of Job?

I doubt anyone here is stupid enough to actually be religious. It's just ironic memers and troll posts.

Personally, I'm sort of in a state where I'm not entirely sure what I believe in. I'm well enough to leave people be. I find that just like with statistics, you can argue any position with enough information.
The human mind (yes, even yours) argues persuasively, not rationally, and the number of people who agree on every premise are laughably small. Empericism is another method of persuading yourself and others of some end.
I tend not to discuss religion because people rarely, if ever, move from their position, and I'm not that good at explaining things in the first place.

Sure have. I went to a Christian school.

I believe that 'good' is a kind of culinary delicacy savored by certain alien engineers located in other multiverses. The fine-tuning of the universe towards morality can be explained in the same way that farmers plant cabbages to be as large and as fresh as possible before they are to be devoured.

The moment a humanity reaches a certain level of moral consciousness, their brains become particularly tasty for such alien connoisseurs. These alien creatures are manufacturers of galaxies and they cannot be stopped. We can only avoid our fate through the perpetuation of evil and the destruction of development - which will at least allow humanity to continue on our own terms rather than achieving a higher moral state but, as a result, turning into someone's dinner.

Just skeptics. Ignorance is manifest in those who believe they have the truth.

Most atheists are just christians but edgier.

Perfectly reasonable

...

is there a book that justifies through reason and evidence that hating women is a virtue?

Why is God necessary for a "complete image of existence?" Because there are aspects of existence which we don't understand? Why must everything have an explanation? Why settle on a supernatural explanation, other than a desire to adhere to tradition? Where do you see evidence for God?

I feel like you'd be surprised how unironic 'cultural Christians', or 'non-theistic Christians' are. Apologetics has come a long way and it looks like it is going to make it acceptable for anything from 'cultural Christians' to 'atheist Christians' to be accepted as valid identity categories by the larger Christian community. And that's a good thing.

This is all fine; secularising religions and fine-tuning their ethical content through secular reasoning is what we should be applauding.

What I find hilarious is that previous atheists describe themselves as Christians just because they were confronted with a reading of scripture that surfaced a Christian ethics that they feel they can adhere to. Being that it is charged with weighty history, art and tradition obviously adds to its charm. And this is all due to some internet celebrities, when the same arguments have been lurking in literature for ages. It's funny how the surge of Christians on Veeky Forums surfaced from Christian themes getting popular on yt, rather their more thoughtful representation in literature.

I personally view it as weakness and dishonesty. It almost disgusts me, even though I feel there is merit to Christian thought. It's something I'm going to have to learn to deal with, because it's sort of a cognitive dissonance that prevents me to take Christians seriously.

I agree. The estimation is that star systems will form for another 100 trillion years. So another 100 trillion years for planets to form and create the basis for life. That means that we haven't even reached beyond 1%.

Beauty is subjective.

OP and people like OP: you're already determined to disbelieve God. You've set up a set of rules, that of empiricism and philosophical argument, that can't be played to using the terms you want to see at play in them. You're guaranteed to win because the procedures exclude.

The existence and persistence of the terms and 'logic' connecting terms like god, spirit, etc, and the way they operate in the world, rather than in armchairs, very clearly point to some basic fact of human experience. Language is referential, not essential. Nobody is going to deeply convince you of anything with just words. If you're willing to let go of your comfort and intellectual arrogance and genuinely submit yourself to the teaching and practices of believers you will come to see why people believe in god.

If the natural world had a beginning then a supernatural explanation is a logical necessity. The explanation for the existence of time and space can't be bound by time and space, or else it would just be part of the same universe and it would explain nothing.

No it's not.

For people of a high enough level of consciousness, there are objectively beautiful things. Worms, obviously, do most likely not view anything as beautiful.

In the same way, some people of a lesser level of consciousness may not see objectively beautiful things as beautiful. This does not mean there is not objective beauty, simply that some people aren't fit to see it.

>the fine tuning of the universe
Retard Alert. But seriously if the universe wasn't tuned to the right "levels" humans never would have developed, and been here to make this specious point. Google the anthropomorphic principle.

Why do you say it's retarded but then go on to agree with the concept?

It's just this board being edgy contrarians as a way of trying to stick it to the fedora STEMlords, not realizing it just makes you look even more retarded in the process.

anthropic principle is the funniest thing I've heard in a long time. It just handwaves it away with circular logic.

>Wow! The universe is so fine-tuned, it's a miracle humans even exist and are conscious!
>Well, obviously you'd think like that since you're conscious. If we weren't conscious, the universe wouldn't be so fine-tuned at all!

The time argument is irrelevant. I'm not sure that was the poster's point. It's the seeming exceptionalism of sentient life that's the point. There is no reason to believe that this has intrinsic value and isn't a mere happy accident. It's fruition by physical processes is more statistically improbable than the formation of rocks, but statistical thinking is not the right way to go about things when discussing the origins of things and their existent or non-existent intrinsic values.
yes, a handful of interpretations converted atheists to Christianity. Quite funny. I wonder how much water their previous convictions held, or if its a mere manifestation of an existential crisis.

Empirically prove that there are other sources of truth

Good point.

In accepting the degree of complexity of a construction and its degree of perfection as inseparable features, you have confused two quite different things. You conceive of algae as simpler, therefore more primitive than and inferior to an eagle. But that algae introduces photons of the sun into the compounds of its body, it turns the flow of cosmic energy directly into life and therefore will last as long as the sun does; it feeds on a star, and what does an eagle feed on? Like a parasite, on mice, while mice feed on the roots of plants, a land variety of algae. Such pyramids of parasitism make up the entire biosphere, for plant vegetation is its vital anchor. On all levels of these hierarches there is a continual change of species kept in balance by the devouring of one by another, for they have lost contact with the star; the higher complexity of organisms fattens itself, not on the star, but on itself. So if you insist on venerating perfection here, it is the biosphere which deserves your admiration… but if evolution applied itself to the progress of life and not of the code, the eagle would now be a photoflyer and not a mechanically fluttering glider, and living things would not crawl, or stride, or feed on other living things, but would go beyond algae and the globe as a result of the independence acquired.

Is this a joke? You're already assuming in the challenge that empiricism is the only source of truth. Not that poster btw, and I'd be hard-pressed to argue against empiricism in my own opinion.

I fail to see how that is circular reasoning.

I may not be using the exact definition of "circular reasoning", but you can see the tautological nature of it. It doesn't negate the very interestingness of the fact that human consciousness exists, and that this human consciousness can see how interesting it is that it exists.

>I may not be using the exact definition of "circular reasoning", but you can see the tautological nature of it.

No I don't see it. What do you mean?

> there are sources of truth
Well this is a tall claim, isn't it. Most empirical truth is already subject to the filter of human perception. But I kinda wanna hear what other sources you would claim there are.

Is the answer meme magic?

You, however, in the depths of your ignorance, perceive progress in the fact that a primeval perfection has been lost on the way upward – upwards to complication, not progress… Why did the constructor utter molecularly brilliant words at the beginning, turning light into substance with laconic mastery, and later lapse into an indefatigable jabbering of longer and longer, and more and more intricate chromosomal sentences, squandering its primitive artistry? Why did it go from consummate solutions taking their power and vital knowledge from a star, wherein every atom counted, and every process was quantitatively attuned, and descend into any cheap, jury-rigged solutions – the simple machines, the levers, pulleys, planes, inclines and counterbalances that constitute joints and skeletons? Why did it slip from atomic physics into the technology of your Middle Ages? Why, though still as brilliant as ever on a molecular level, has it made such a mess in every larger dimension, to the point of getting bogged down in organisms which, with all their richness of their regulating dynamics, die from the occlusion of a single arterial tube, organisms which have individual lives that are evanescent in comparison with the duration of the constructional sciences, organisms that are thrown out of an equilibrium called health by tens of thousands of ailments which algae do not know?

We observe that if any of the physical constants varied in the slightest then it would have been impossible for intelligent life to develop. Then we try to explain how this could be. Some people think God is the best explanation for this, other people might say there's a potential multiverse and we just happen to live in the one universe that looks like it's designed by God. Either way it's not a tautology and there's no circular reasoning.

Not everything is about you.

Billions of collapses over millions of centuries, despite improvements, final inspections renewed attempts, and selection, and you still do not see reason? Out of loyalty I have tried to justify your blindness, but it is as if brilliant engineers assisted by lightning fast computers were to erect buildings that began tilting as soon as the scaffolding was removed – veritable ruins! It is as if one were to construct tomtoms from circuit boards, or to paste billions of microchips together to make cudgels. Don’t you see that a higher order descends into a lower order in every inch of the body, and that its brilliant microarchitectonics are mocked by coarse and simple-minded macroarchitectonics?

As I see it, there are on one hand those who argue for the existence of God or some Mystical organizer because the world seems very fine-tuned to support human consciousness.

On the other hand, skeptics use the "anthropic principle" to claim that it's not remarkable, because if the universe wasn't fine-tuned, we wouldn't be able to observe that it's fine-tuned.

Expanded, this reads, "If the universe wasn't fine-tuned to support our being able to observe that it is fine-tuned, we wouldn't be able to observe that it is fine-tuned."

>it took 13 billions years, billions of collapsed stars and extinct species for a sentient life to appear. It looks like a job of random design, not of a great benevolent creator

If instead we live in a very young universe where no stars have died yet would you in contrast see this as evidence for the existence of God?

>scientific facts only leaves you with an incomplete image of existance
Which will be filled by science eventually

>Plato's forms
>Berkeleys rejection of immaterial forms, replacement with perception, and existence outside of human perception as within the 'perception' of an omniscient and omnipotent active will
>Realizing the aggregate of the 'forms' is God

People still discussing non-falsifiable concepts. And loose definitions related to ethics. Unironically. Jhee Zuss

>Expanded, this reads, "If the universe wasn't fine-tuned to support our being able to observe that it is fine-tuned, we wouldn't be able to observe that it is fine-tuned."

Or in other words, if we don't exist there's no need to explain our existence. We don't need to explain things that don't exist. If something does exist it needs an explanation. That's not a tautology.

At least he managed to explain his world view without resurrections nor virgins getting magically pregnant.

>non-falsifiable
>haha you can't prove your point within this box I've arbitrarily created that means I won

I'm not a hardline atheist, I don't believe strongly in any particular direction and am reading more into catholicism, but I'm also a stemfag and these arguments are hot garbage.

>the existence of the universe out of, apparently, "nothing", the fact that anything exists at all
Only popsci redditor fags assert any kind of knowledge of pre-Big Bang timelines. Physicists aren't, and never will be, able to study it and so no reputable one will do anything more than speculate. "Scientists think you came from nothing!" is a point along the same lines as "Darwinists think your dad was a monkey!"
>the fact that humans exist, can perceive, are conscious
Have you heard of the anthropic principle? Of course we're conscious life, that's a prerequisite for looking around and noticing that we are. We could only have this debate if the necessary complexity was reached. It is unlikely, yes, but not impossible, and obviously humans wouldn't be around for the inconceivably huge number of times and places that this level of complexity didn't occur.
>the fact that, besides humans, nature and animals exist, are mind-bogglingly complex and simply beautiful
The world around us being cool does not imply God at all. Complexity is described above, and beauty is defined by our tastes as humans - this is all we know, the most beautiful things and the ugliest things are defined by what we see around us.
>events in own life which would be seen by anyone as very strange coincidences and obeying laws beyond the ken of what anyone would call "science"
Very strange coincidences happen. Unlikely events happen. This does not imply divine intervention and is probably one of the most grossly fallacious theistic arguments out there because you see counterexamples every day - for every sickly child God miraculously saves, thousands die painful deaths.
>However, I still believe everything, even God and "super"natural phenomena (really, nothing can be outside nature), obeys "science", simply a greater science than that we know.
This is an agreeable stance, depending on what you're implying this other science to be.

>Or in other words, if we don't exist there's no need to explain our existence. We don't need to explain things that don't exist. If something does exist it needs an explanation. That's not a tautology.
haha, OK.

It's just fedora-tier /pol/ christfags for the most part.

Not him, but that was one example he gave of how it looks like random design and by far the only one. Even if there weren't, things "seeming" a certain way doesn't make it so.

But Intelligence—is this not its work? Does its origin not contradict the negative gradient? Could it be the delayed overcoming of it?

Not in the least, for it originated in oppression, for the sake of servitude. Evolution became the overworked mender of its own mistakes and thus the inventor of suppression, occupation, investigations, tyranny, inspections, and police surveillance—in a word, of politics, these being the duties for which the brain was made. This is no mere figure of speech. A brilliant invention? I would rather call it the cunning subterfuge of a colonial exploiter whose rule over organisms and colonies of tissues has fallen into anarchy. Yes, a brilliant invention, if that is how one regards the trustee of a power which uses that trustee to conceal itself from its subjects. The metazoan had already become too disorganized and would have come to nothing, had it not had some sort of caretaker installed within it, a deputy, talebearer, or governor by grace of the code: such a thing was needed, and so it came into being. Was it rational? Hardly! New and original? After all, a self-government of linked molecules functions in any and every protozoan, so it was only a matter of separating these functions and differentiating their capabilities.

Evolution is a lazy babble, obstinate in its plagiarism until it gets into deep water. Only when pressed by harsh necessity does it develop genius, and then just enough to match the task, and not a whit more. Shuffling through its molecules, it tries out every combination, every trick. So it prepared an overseer for its tissues, since their unity, controlled by a countersign from the code, had weakened. But it remained merely a deputy, a coupler, a reckoner, a mediator, an escort, an investigating magistrate, and a million centuries passed before it exceeded these functions. For it had arisen as a lens of complexity located in the bodies themselves, since that which commences bodies was no longer able to focus them. So it committed itself to these, its nation-colonies, as a conscientious overseer represented by informers in every tissue, and one so useful that, thanks to it, the code was able to continue jabbering, elevating complexity to power, since the latter was acquiring support, and the brain backed it up, fawned on it, and served it by compelling bodies to pass the code on. Since it proved such a convenient trustee of Evolution, the latter was game—and on it blundered!

Was the brain independent? But it was only a spy, a ruler powerless in the face of the code, a deputy, a marionette, a proxy intended for special assignments, but unthinking by virtue of having been created for tasks unknown to it. After all, the code had forced it to be its steward, and in this unconscious coercion transferred authority to it without disclosing its true purpose, nor could the code have done so. Although I am speaking figuratively, things were just like that: the relationship between the code and the brain was settled feudally. That would have been a fine thing, if Evolution had listened to Lamarck and given the brain the privilege of restructuring bodies. This would surely have led to disaster, for what sorts of self-improvements could saurian brains have procured, or even Merovingian ones, or even your own? But the brain continued to grow, for the transmission of capabilities proved favorable, since when it served the transmitters, it served the code. So it grew by positive feedback, and the blind continued to lead the lame.

Nevertheless, developments within the range of permitted autonomy were ultimately concentrated on the real sovereign, that blind man, the lord of the molecules, who went on transmitting functions until he made the brain into such a schemer that it brought forth a duplicate shadow of the code —language. If there is an inexhaustible enigma in the world, this is it: above the threshold, the discreteness of matter turns into the code as zero-order language, and on the next level this process recurs, echolike, as the formation of ethnic speech, though that is not the end of the line. These systemic echoes rise rhythmically, though their properties can be isolated and identified only from above and not otherwise—but perhaps we shall speak of this intriguing matter another time.

Your liberation and the anthropogenetic prelude to it were aided by luck, for herbivorous arboreal quadrumanous creatures had got into the labyrinth, postponing destruction only by special resourcefulness. This labyrinth consisted of steppe, glaciers, and rain forests, in whose windings and turnings the changing orientations of this tribe occurred—from vegetarianism to meat-eating, and from the latter to hunting; you realize how much I must condense this.

Do not think that here I am contradicting what I said in my introduction, since there I described you as having been expelled from Evolution, whereas here I am calling you rebellious captives. Those are two sides of the same destiny: you have escaped from captivity, while it has released you. These counterimages converge in mutual nonreflectiveness, for neither that which did the creating nor that which was created was aware of what was happening. It is only when one looks back that your experience takes on such meanings.

can you not see how the tale of Job could be used to convince less fortunate people to just accept their lot in life and not seek to improve it?

Personally I view his whole tale as God being a huge prick to one of his most loyal followers to win a bet. This would be like your mom and dad arguing over whether or not one of them could fuck with your head enough to make you kill yourself.

Philosophers, you should have occupied yourselves more with the technology of man, and less with dissecting him into spirit and body, into portions called Animus, Anima, Geist, Seele, and other giblets from the philosophical butcher's stall, for these are entirely arbitrary segmentations. I understand that those to whom these words are addressed for the most part no longer exist, but contemporary thinkers too persist in their errors, weighed down as they are by tradition; beings must not be multiplied beyond necessity. The road that goes from the first syllables chattered by the code to man is a sufficient condition for his characteristic properties. This process crept. Had it progressed upward, for example, from photosynthesis to photoflight as I have mentioned, or if it had collapsed for good—if, for example, the code had not succeeded in clamping its rickety structures together by means of a nervous system—then Intelligence would not have arisen.

You have retained certain apelike features, for a family resemblance usually manifests itself; had you derived from aquatic mammals you might have had more in common with the dolphins. It is probably true that an expert studying man has an easier life if he acts as an advocatus diaboli rather than as a doctor angelicus, though this stems from the fact that Intelligence, being all-reflexive, is quite naturally self-reflexive, and that it idealizes not just the laws of gravity but also itself, evaluating itself according to its distance from the ideal. But this ideal has more to do with a hole stuffed with culture than with legitimate technological knowledge.

tldr

I'm not reading all that reddit masturbation

>haha you can't prove your point within this box I've arbitrarily created that means I won

you don't seem to understand what non-falsifiable means.

I'm not saying scientists say we came from nothing, I'm just saying that logically it's very difficult to consider what the universe came from. That's why I put "nothing" in quotation marks. In fact, your insistence that scientists don't really know and can only speculate on it furthers my conviction.

I've been laughing at the anthropic principle in this thread for a while, it strikes me as hilarious and meaningless.

Perhaps God is cruel or follows a different morality from us, or is not all-powerful --- perhaps some things go on mechanically, perhaps his influence can't reach everyone, perhaps the suffering/unconsciousness (like of divine interference in) of some or even many is necessary and only some can be helped.

After all, the world clearly follows scientific laws. God can't negate these. But perhaps there are other scientific laws we don't know of.

I suspect these things but still believe in God.

Can't speak for anyone else here, but the last few acid trips I had turned me into a pantheist, everything just suddenly seemed so obvious and clear.
Probably just fucked up my brain.

Before beginning the final section of these remarks, let me recapitulate what has already been said. Your philosophy— the philosophy of existence—requires a Hercules and also a new Aristotle, for it is not enough to sweep it clean: intellectual confusion is best eliminated by better knowledge. Accident, necessity—these categories are the consequence of the weakness of your intellect, which, incapable of grasping the complex, relies on a logic which I will call the logic of desperation. Either man is accidental—that is to say, something meaningless meaninglessly spat him out onto the arena of history—or he is inevitable, and therefore entelechies, teleonomies, and teleomachies are now swarming round in the capacity of ex-officio defenders and sweet consolers.

Neither category will do. You originated neither by chance nor under constraint, neither from accident harnessed by inevitability, nor from inevitability loosened by accident. You originated from language working on a negative gradient, therefore you were utterly unforeseeable and also in the highest degree probable, when the process started. It would take months to prove this, so I shall give you the gist of it in a parable. Language, because it is language, operates a sphere of order. Evolutionary language had a molecular syntax: it had protein-nouns and enzyme-verbs and, secure within the limitations of declension and conjugation, it changed through the geological eras, jabbering nonsense— though with moderation, since natural selection wiped excessive nonsense off Nature's blackboard like a sponge. So it was a fairly degenerate order, but even nonsense, when it derives from language, is a part of the order, and is degenerate only in relation to the wisdom that is possible, since realizable within that language.

When your ancestors in their animal skins were retreating from the Romans, they were using the same speech that produced the works of Shakespeare. These works were made possible by the rise of the English language, but although the structured elements remained ready, the thought of predicting Shakespeare's poetry a thousand years before him is nonsense. After all, he might not have been born, he might have died in childhood, he might have lived differently and thus written differently. But English has undeniably established English poetry, and it is in this, and precisely this, sense that Intelligence was able to appear on Earth: as a certain type of code articulation. End of parable.

...

Empirically prove there isn't

Are you new,baiting or just thick

I've been Catholic all my time on Veeky Forums, and I've been here almost ten years. I was born into the religion and grew more fully into it in college.

I would say I mostly believe from a position of faith. I have faith that God exists and that Christianity is the Truth. That may not be a satisfying answer, but it's the one I have to give. I try to use my reason to analyze and investigate what I believe, but it exists in harmony with my faith, not opposition to it.

Isn't it awesome when the faith you just happened to be raised in is so obviously the truth?

God follows a different morality from us, but desires to have us follow our morality to its fullest potential. Just as He wants bees to follow theirs.