Tfw you realize that atheists are literally just too stupid and/or obtuse to realize that the church was right all...

>implying Catholicism isn't a corruption of true Christianity.

The Pope is the anti-christ.

>tfw found god by merely sitting on my balcony and pondering the universe

heaven has a special needs section. god isn't cruel.

Reading and writing is for dumb people ,smart people solve equations

>the church was right all along
which church? there's a lot of them

it's pathetic (not that I claim to be above you) that you would put any effort into the filenames of your reaction images, even it is for purely personal amusement

Catholic, Orthodox, or any of the others they are in communion with.

There aren't really that many.

>conflating devotion to God with adherence to the Church
don't do this.

You were too confused so you decided to commit intellectual suicide?

get this heretic out of my thread

Blake is a legend and that picture is pure class.

(from memory)

Little fly
Thy summer's play
My thoughtless hand
Has brush'd away

Am not I
A fly like thee?
Or art not thou
A man like me?

For I shall dance,
and drink, and sing,
Till some blind hand
Shall brush my wing

If thought is life
And strength and breath
And the want of thought
Is death

Then am I
A happy fly
If I live
Or if I die

>tfw you want to be an atheist but all paths lead to God

Anyone else here /havingaspiritualcrisis/?

Apostolic churches only TM

Start with the Greeks user. Plato's Republic, it will help you understand how to think.

I prefer those, but I've been forced to see it as spiritual bondage, blindness and curse.

Does anybody ITT really believe this? If it's not the Catholics what is it? Do you go all the way back to James the Just?

>tfw you want to be a theist but _?paths?_

1. getting involved in religious life/prayer/worship might lead to an emotional investment which I might mistake for the influence of God, or which will blind me to my own confirmation bias or make me want to preserve my faith irrationally
2. don't trust myself to make intellectual judgements on such a huge matter, too easily persuaded by good rhetoric

what do, religiousbros?

Develop your intellect until you feel confident enough to distinguish between sophistry and the real thing. Start with the Greeks and power forward up until now and whatever convictions you hold by the end should be, if not correct, at least built on foundations stronger than those of 99.9% of people.

I partially agree, OP.

what I see that happens to pretty much every non-retard atheist, also happened to me:
>start thinking on my own
>start questioning the existence of god
>start to get skeptical
>see no reason to believe in god
>become atheist

but the real problem is here
>think that I don't need to study anything on this matter, because my own arguments seems very logical and get 100% convinced that there is no god, thus, no need to study the matter

this is what I see in most cases.

and then thank god this happened:
>start lurking Veeky Forums 4 years ago
>read the book of salvation, THE DIVINE COMEDY
>it is so great it makes me take my head out of my anus and start studying the philosophy/theology
>read even minor theology authors and realise how retard my arguments were
>literally all decent questions and arguments about the non-existance of god I knew were all answered hundreds of years ago by augustine and aquinas

so its really impossible for atheists see it on their own, either because they are too edgy and would rather have 2 dicks up their asses than study anything on the subject besides richard dawkins, even if that

or

they have their head up their asses so deep they are 100% convinced there is no god so they don't need to put in effort to study it.

the great atheist argument
>"science is my religion, we believe in studies and proofs and shit, not in magic or imaginary friend"
>"but, hehe, let them do their study, and their science, not me, I will just wait for their arguments while I watch these animes and superhero movies, so I can regurgitate them without understanding it xD"

Yeah, the semi-literate rednecks who have gone to church their whole lives are much smarter than those foolish atheists who are likely more familiar with the bible and the history of Christianity.

Are you the poster who also insists that protestant seminaries don't exist in nearly every Biblical thread?

>Atheist for years, try to read theology as part of a "well-rounded" self-improvement education.
>NKJV, Paradise Lost and the Comedy under the belt
>Introduction to Orthodox Theology, "Finally reading a modern formal study of Christian belief"
>Pic Related
>You don't search God, he searches for you, he seizes you, only then you can look for him.
>No further explaining of the point, it's just that.
>Keep reading. Paraphrasing "If you feel him in your heart, that's God, if not, you're fucked."

T-thanks.

You can't really begin to understand theology without a explicit understand of Plotinus. No clue why you didn't start with Aquinas or Augustine.

>tfw you realize a cause without a causer or an infinite regression are as likely as an uncaused causer

is the final redpill the causality redpill?

No, but I doubt the average Christian has thought more deeply about our origins than the average atheist.

I have Agustine in my todo list. I chose to begin with Orthodoxy because I was brought up Catholic so I wanted to start with a different point of view. Aquinas is so fucking long, which normally wouldn't be a problem, but I'm not sure if all of it is essential or I could be using the time to read other things.

Right about what?

Virtual particles seem like a compelling "from nothing" model, I'm not saying it's been proven whatsoever, but it's at least an idea of how you can get a thing from nothing (not even energy).

>tfw you move beyond narrow cause-and-effect explanations and finally see the whole picture (of which no god is a part)

>tfw you're so confident in your bait that you don't need to put any effort into formatting or substance
>tfw it works perfectly
>tfw this format can be used by replacing "atheists" and "church" with any other nouns

I honestly don't know, but I've noticed people on Veeky Forums don't realize the levels of secular formal education priests receive, to be even considered for candidacy your required to have a master's degree.

Daily reminder that Aquinas admitted that you can't prove all the claims of the Church and that you have to take some on faith.

>read The Bible
>Jesus teaches us to love any person, even if they are your worst enemy.
>Jesus teaches us to give away all our goods and not bind ourselves to materials
>Jesus teaches us to not use violence
>Jesus teaches us to look out for the sick, poor and the outcasts of society

>proceed to study history
>Catholic Church starting wars and persecuting people by violently torturing and murdering them for centuries
>Catholic Church tells you to buy letters so you can go to heaven
>Catholic Church builds golden palaces with marble floors all over Europe

>look at modern day christianity, including people ITT
>people happy with the comforts capitalism brought them, despite the countless poor people and refugees we have
>bitter people angry at societal outcasts like homosexuals or refugees
>judging fellow men as heretics and stupid atheists

>realize Jesus teachings are impossible because people don't even try
>realize that Christianity is just a way of deceiving yourself into believing life has purpose
>most Christians have never even tried to follow Jesus
>realize humanity is way too weak for Christianity and that the last Christian died on the cross in Jerusalem

Christianity is a big lie.

>tfw Christianity willing killed itself and all of its traditions through adhering to rational materialism in a vain attempt to appease atheists
>it obviously didn't fucking work because you can't beat empiricism at its own game

It's utterly bizarre looking at Ethiopia, Eastern Europe, Pre-modern Christianity in Europe, Europe's Pagan traditions, and Dharmic regions and seeing these religions and cultures that haven't/hadn't hopped onto the rational materialism meme and looking at the vast array of traditions and practices and beliefs they have.

And then I return back to reality in the West and see that Christians here willingly killed all of that, things that we HAD, in an autistic fit to try and make Yahweh "Make sense" or """""""prove""""""" that he's real. Even Conservatives and Reactionaries here in the West fall into this trap. They'll rant and rave about "muh tradition" and then you ask them "Okay, what tradition? What practices do you want to conserve?" they'll just start mumbling about "muh church" and "muh morals" because they have none, they've abandoned it all. At least the Ethnonationalists can say "Genetics, language, culture, history, morals, our clearly superior breed of autism".

Christians in the west are no different from atheists, they just disagree on whether or not Yahweh is watching you masturbate. Being a Christian is completely divorced from doing anything other than virtue signalling that you answer yes when asked "Do you believe in Yahweh?" and nothing more. Even Catholics do it, and no you aren't "Eastern Orthodox" for liking the aesthetics of fringe monastic sects and looking up "Orthodoxy" on Wikipedia.

Roman Catholic

>Jesus teaches us to not use violence
You didn't read hard enough, try again.

What do you think is the solution to that? What did Christianity even lose by trying to rationalize itself? Do you really want to go back to doing rituals and shit?

>Christianity is a big lie.
Of course it is. Even taking religion out of the equation, if you spend even a little time with others and are slightly perceptive, you should quickly realize that most people are spiritually and creatively bankrupt and survive day to day on lies and drugs (coffee in most cases).

Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds. This episode is the more affecting in that it is NOT Christ's usual M.O. In modern meme-terms, seeing the money-changers do their thing so upset Jesus that even he had to go upside they head. But yes, Jesus would generally advise against going upside any head.

I live a few blocks away from a version of El Greco's depiction of the episode. The first time I saw it, I bust out laughing. Now the picture makes me feel all comfy every time I see it-exactly because the incident is atypical of Christ, and he's beating on jews.

Atheists harm their own cause by mindlessly repeating this mantra of there being no evidence or no good reason to believe that God exists or that religion is irrational because eventually people are going to discover that this isn't the case and that guys like Richard Dawkins have been lying to them. As an atheist you don't have to accept the arguments for the existence of God but you should respect them because they're not stupid and they're not irrational, you just don't understand them which ironically exposes your own stupidity and irrationality.

roflmao wtf is up with that dude's hair?

>mindlessly repeating this mantra of there being no evidence or no good reason to believe that God exists

Many atheists are still asking what you mean by God, and get several, often conflicting answers from different people who disagree, engaging all of them at once is an impossible task, but there are many atheistic philosophers who still draw philosophical chops from theology

It's no coincidence that the religions atheists tend to have more sympathy for are like zen buddhism and daoism, where you have most if not all of the same conceptions of the role of humans in a cosmic drama, except those religions don't try to go through all these autistic, inter-conflicted, definitions (as much as Abrahamic religions at least), and focus on the mechanics of consciousness and dutiful living. Many practitioners of those religions insist they are atheists.

There's no reason to believe a loving God will intervene on your behalf in the physical domain, my step-grandad died of cancer because he was part of some christian scientist extremist off-shoot, and thought that consuming nothing but salad, water, and lord's word was going to cure his disease. He died an extremely slow, painful death.

Psychoanalysis to crowbar you out of modernity,
schizoanalysis to crowbar you out of psychoanalysis, and religion to crowbar you out of schizoanalysis,

Anyone else with this feel?

If there is a god(s), it isn't any of the fallacious man made ones and the god(s) don't care about us.

However, if the point you are trying to convey here is of that the church knows how to control mass populations of dangerous humans then you are correct for the most part.