What books will convince me there's a God?

The book of love. Its long and boring though.

>>8744356

Gospel of Judas

>>8744356
infinite jest

Spinoza's "Ethics"

>>8744356
You can go from religious to nonreligious, not the other way around. Once your mind takes a skeptical turn you'll never fully believe. All the arguments for God in the world will only serve to make you an agnostic atheist.

The Holy Bible.

>>8744381
Don't listen to this redditor. The Book of Revelation will blow your mind

>>8744356
I will have that hat.

>>8744381
I was never raised to be religious. Does that still apply?

>>8744356

Anselm's Proslogion
Aquinas' Summa Theologica
Spinoza's Ethics

Check out Gödel's ontological proof too.

>>8744381

>agnostic atheist.

It's actually just called agnostic. Which is pretty great, since that allows you to be one without having to be associated with militant, internet gaytheism and their insipid and utterly idiotic agendas.

>>8744381
>hurr durr religious experience is limited to logical, scholastic arguments and has nothing to do with revelation or the mystical

>>8744443
On one side you're associated with the fedoras, on the other you're with the obese rednecks and the Muslim extremists. Every group has a bad contingent, that shouldn't factor into your search for truth.

>>8744445
>hurr durr magic stuff happened back in that time before cameras were invented and suddenly stopped for some reason
>hurr durr revelations and miracles happen all the time yet the sum of human knowledge is for some reason unable to study, identify, or catalogue them

I'm amazed you're able to figure out breathing.

>>8744415
Le Reddit meme is a weak argument. And revelations is a vague, trippy mess left open for interpretation. It's the biblical equivalent of Chinese restaurant fortune cookies.

I grew up in a non-religious family and got pretty into the new atheists as a teenager.
Reading Aquinas and Spinoza turned things around for me, especially Spinoza.
idk if this is one or your issues, but it's important to realize that explanatory questions now better answered by science than by religion aren't the ones that smart people used to justify belief in God--rather, it's questions like 'why is there something rather than nothing?'. Accordingly, historical arguments are just as relevant now as they ever were.
>>8744436
this is good stuff, I second these choices

>>8744381

Kind of true. Quite a few logicians chose outright to reject modal logic rather than accept Gödel's ontological proof.

You can lead a pleb to the light but you can't make him see...

>>8744456
>Every group has a bad contingent
Except for agnostics, who don't (afaik) operate in any sort of group.

Agnosticism isn't giving up on a search for truth by the way, it's an epistemological position rather than a theological one.

>>8744466
>yet the sum of human knowledge is for some reason unable to study, identify, or catalogue them
you have a very narrow understanding of what knowledge constitutes, bucko. The vast majority of existing knowledge systems assert God's existence, just not western science.

Be mad if you want.

>>8744509
Obvious troll. Can't believe I fell for it.

>>8744381
>tfw switched from christian to atheist then back
I'm pretty much clinically insane on matters of belief tho

>>8744356
W2C that hat?

>>8744356
My diary, desu

>>8744478
>Le Reddit meme is a weak argument. And revelations [is] the biblical equivalent of Chinese restaurant fortune cookies.

hmmmm....

>>8744381
Hi I'm here to say this is false.

>>8744579
Wrong.
MY diary desu. I am a schizophrenic who talked to God, and He told me is He is true. I just KNOW.

>>8744381
false with experience

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>>8744381

>All the arguments for God
>the arguments
>arguments

There's your problem. Becoming aware of the Divine is mostly down to one's acceptance of one's Numinous experience. It only lends itself to very few Human Linguistic frameworks - Gnosticism, Platonic Forms...Terence McKenna's lectures (minus the mushroom memes). Rational arguments are for ditch digging.

>>8744368
I've been tempted to post a Magnetic Fields reference more and more over the past month, not sure why.

>>8744356
None if you're wise.

Almost any if you're highly credulous of unsubstantiated claims and wishful thinking.

The Qur'an, Bhagavad Gita, Bible, Torah, take your pick.

If you're really desperate enough to see God in any of them you will.

>>8744509
>just not western science.

Not literally of course, but the only way we can contemplate any combination of determinism and randomness as basal driving forces of all things is by tacitly accepting that they are the servants of Conscious agency.

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>>8745027

>if you're wise
>if you've read pamphlets saying the boundary of matter is the boundary of everything
>wise

Psalms

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>>8744356
This is probably the best book you could read on the matter

>>8744381
>my experience is the only valid experience
thanks for sharing your infinite wisdom my man, it was a benefit to everyone

>>8744443
>>8744445

If God was real, one of yall would have getten thos sick quint quads

>>8744356
The Holy Bible

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>Everyone in this topic BTFO'D

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Hegel.

>>8745010
good grief
religionists are always such overbearing fucknuts

>>8745085

A rebuttal worthy of an Animal.

>>8745053
A manifesto of the Christian taliban written by a radical who wants to tear down society and ban most of everything. He accuses his opponents of "hating god" and tries to assign senses of purpose to things with no inherent purpose in the first place. It's the Christian version of the God Delusion, a book that jerks off the people who agree with it by using nasty language and alienates everyone else.

>>8745047
This is what theists fall back on when their feelings get hurt. Pictures of MTG cards and other nerd stereotype items. Great point friendo

>>8745088
i reserve my meaningful discourse for sites other than asian cartoon porn networks, my deluded friend

>>8745069
>the cosmos is so creative and amazing that we can call it god, apply the characteristics of the Christian god to it for whatever reason instead of one of the thousands of other gods, and that will make us better, friendlier, and happier.

There. Saved you some time. He's a Jewish atheism that managed to meme himself back into pseudo-theism.

>>8745027
This is correct. "God is there if you search for him" translates to "God exists if you want him to exist, and you can use the idea of him to support your social and political beliefs in the process."

>>8745053
I disagree, Feser has produced superior works and even in contemporary thomism is not necessarily the go to author.
That said his purely academic works are excellent.

>>8744356
Where can I get that hat?

>>8744485
Where do you stand now? Aquinas and Spinoza are a strange mix.

>>8744356
lolita
>>8744381
nah, I have seen some people go back after a traumatic moment in their life. I have also seen some turn to god in their old age "just in case" like my grandma who used to send people to jail in soviet union but feels bad about it so "just in case" she has been going to church for 10+ years now

>>8744443

It's more precise to say agnostic atheist if you mean agnostic atheist, since agnostic theists exist as well.

>>8745192
http://www.cafepress.com/+i-have-autism+t-shirts

I can't find the hat, but here are the T-shirts.

>>8745191
>Feser
Feser is fine and everything, but maybe broaden your horizons there.

>>8745267
Mate he isn't even my favorite contemporary Thomist.

>>8745278
That's fine.

Don't get me wrong, I like the guy, I just suspected someone on here was getting a bit overly focused on him

>>8745027
Three of those four books stem from the same religion and the fourth is often studied in tandem with them.

>If you're really desperate enough to see God in any of them you will.
>>8745149
>"God exists if you want him to exist, and you can use the idea of him to support your social and political beliefs in the process."
>>8745203
>I have also seen some turn to god in their old age "just in case"
These are strawmen. targeting a person's reasoning for a belief says nothing of the belief itself, nor the legitimacy of the belief, nor the nature if the belief. Plenty of people belief right things for the wrong reasons just as plenty of people believe wrong things for the right reasons and that is neither here nor there. We are not discussing your social circle or your political standing or your grandma and I can guarantee you that they have no say in how a person should construct their beliefs. You think like teenagers- you're reactionaries, you're needlessly militant and easily influenced by your own repulsion towards those you don't want to be associated with. I dont mean to imply that I have the truth, but if I did and I spoke it to you in simple terms you would cheapen it into a meme and "defeat" it with buzzwords

>>8745293
He's incredibly accessible and also really good so his popularity amongst 20 something Catholics overshadows Oderberg and MacIntyre for example.

>>8745191
Can you think of a better introductory author and text for the issue?

>>8744356
The Holy Bible. You also have to consider the outside evidence.

>>8745322
Honestly, Copleston. Philosophy is massive and no one can present it as well to my knowledge.
It's not as focused as Feser is in here, but I believe atheism versus Christianity requires a larger historical context and where's, why's and how's there are less emotional and larger.
I'd also count in MacIntyre, but, again, it's not as focused, his epistemology strikes at every core of liberal beliefs.
I guess you might be right, I didn't come into this whole thing as an atheist.

>>8745295
The belief itself has been discussed more times than anyone can count. Academic scrutiny and empirical evidence as well as the lineage of Christian mythology itself expose it as yet another manmade faith, just like all the others.

Who knows, maybe there is some supernatural force or being out. If there is, it's probably so far beyond our comprehension that attempting to describe it or consider its mind would be a futile effort. All we can do is treat Christian schools of social and philosophical thought as yet another category to be analyzed and compared to the others, and not to be elevated above because of some perceived divine mandate.

What you have to understand is that most unbelievers aren't euphoric fedora tippers who hate the unknowable, they simply don't believe in the same way you don't believe in Santa.

Mein Kampf

>>8745368
But, you are one of the fedora tipper.
In fact, if fedora was a concentrated substance, your post would be made entirely from it.

>>8745380
Eh, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink. Believing isn't a social issue as long as the belief itself isn't radicalized i.e. Radical Islam or fundamentalist Christianity, regardless of how insufferable the believers can be.

>>8745368
>yet another category to be analyzed and compared to the others
this is the shortcoming of your logic. other than your first paragraph. you see things categorically, nominally, with distinguished but restrictive borders. you're so caught up in "-isms" that you can't see the forest for the trees. Historical context of Judaism and it's relationship with other eastern belief systems would equip you with the knowledge that supersedes your current beliefs, or at least fully realize them. You have a fundamental misunderstanding of religion as a whole, not to mention the inner components

>>8745414
Well that ignorance comes from his compare and analyse premise.
At least he is consistent with it.