What are some of the best books arguing for the existence

Edward Feser's blog T B H

>>9083560
just accept that you have been fooled and move on. You know, like an adult

>>9083560
you'd think they could have straightened the cloth on that altar before taking the picture

All those medieval Christian metaphysicians, probably.

File: meister-eckhart-81215.png (165KB, 480x480px) Image search: [Google]

165KB, 480x480px

Meister Eckhart desu

File: 1486009417580.png (43KB, 250x225px) Image search: [Google]

43KB, 250x225px

>>9083560
>Christian God

Atheists, everyone. Educate yourself.

>faith
>proof

These are not the same thing.

If you want to know why people have faith though, spend about half a year homeless on the streets. You'll quickly realize why something like the golden rule can be viewed like nothing short of a miracle

>>9083801
Nigga was probably lit on dmt

>>9083560
The term "Christian God" is literally triggering me

Are there any nonfiction books about a rejecting atheism and finding Christ?

Something like the Rage Against God, Peter Hitchens, but with more of a philosophical focus.

>>9083560
Descartes has an admirable approach to arguing for the existence of a higher being, given that he recognizes the problems that exist when you try, and though his arguments have been picked at by other philosophers they are short, fairly compelling, and easy to conceptualize. You could start there at least

>>9083844
Just face it: there is no God. Don't waste your time reading books about it. Atheism is the final destination. Get comfortable.

>>9083868
Holy... I want more

>>9083868
What about Pantheism?

>>9083560
Spinoza's Ethic

>>9083904
You don't get to decide how words are defined I'm afraid.

>>9083868
>Atheism is the final destination
Lmao, its just the first step

>>9083905
Spinoza did not argue for a Christian god

>>9083779
>golden rule

I don't mind being pissed on therefore I can piss on everyone else.

>>9083995

Talk is cheap

File: 1437299171917.jpg (92KB, 499x499px) Image search: [Google]

92KB, 499x499px

>>9083936
Seeing how the Christian God being the only God, you can't really successfully argue for anything but a Christian God.

>>9084010

Do suicidal people have the moral right to kill other people under the golden rule?

>>9083737
>says the 14 year old

>>9084054
>Do suicidal people have the moral right to kill other people under the golden rule?
Wtf, i hate jesus now

>>9084054
Yes, and then you have the moral right to despite and clean up after them.

>>9084207
*despise

>>9084054
No.

>>9083560
the consolation of philosophy maybe?

Ignatius can't be wrong

I recommend William James' "Will to Believe" essay, but I recommend reading it not as a flimsy pseudo-ontological proof like
>You can't prove God doesn't exist, therefore he does!
like so many people do, but more as a vindication of the feelings of desire and faith you have TOWARD God.

James himself was an extremely vague "spiritual" but still sincerely "believing" person. He wasn't a dogmatist. His spiritual awakening practically saved his life after 20 years of suicidal despair.

Don't go into it expecting to be convinced. Just go into it for an encounter with James' vindication of his own conviction that some form of Truth higher than what we know is worth aspiring toward, and that a tendency, or several tendencies, toward this is built into us.

In writing the essay James is refuting W.K. Clifford, who had recently polemically said that no one should believe anything on the basis of insufficient evidence. James is trying to prove that not only are most of our "beliefs" about the world not based on evidence or even on conscious deliberation, but that belief in situations where there can be no empirical proof (at least not to our current faculties) either way is perfectly valid if based on mystical feeling.

File: Craig.png (286KB, 855x203px) Image search: [Google]

286KB, 855x203px

Something William Lane Craig something

>>9083560
Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis, who converted, is a good read

File: IMG_6198.png (482KB, 484x307px) Image search: [Google]

482KB, 484x307px

>>9083560
The King James Bible

Alvin Plantinga's warrant trilogy
--Warrant: The Current Debate
--Warrant and Proper Function
--Warranted Christian Belief

Also check out Richard Swinburne

File: DSPT.jpg (11KB, 215x173px) Image search: [Google]

11KB, 215x173px

>>9083560
Fesey Fez

File: download (1).jpg (6KB, 193x254px) Image search: [Google]

6KB, 193x254px

Van Til, Herman Dooyeweerd, Scott Oliphint, just off the top of my head. Pretty straight forward presuppositionalist/Calvinist perspective that's worth considering

>>9085750
Might as well include Greg Bahnsen and John Frame.

>>9085765
Yeahhh Bahnsen drinks too much of that cringy theonomy koolaide desu, but Frame is fine

>>9083560
The Bible

It isn't something you believe via rhetoric, however.

You need a genuine encounter with the Living God.

That's why the Bible is the best book for it - it will teach you how to meet Him.

Everything else is just so much lip service - not necessarily devoid of all value, but spiritually dead, and incapable of producing genuine faith.

File: not kek anymore.jpg (62KB, 421x421px) Image search: [Google]

62KB, 421x421px

>>9084054

>>9085603
Came here to post this. My professor in philosophy of religion suggested we read it. I'm interested in picking it up to say the least.

>>9083560
Leibniz, especially his famous cosmological argument. If you accept the principle of sufficient reason, then you have a proof of God's existence

A history of the crusades can be pretty persuasive.

>>9086995
Bahnsen's work on explaining and popularizing Van Til is valuable.

>>9083560
I hate this shit, every time someone comes on here and wants a book recomendation regarding anything philosophical its always to re-affirm there own beliefs. Things like this are conclusions to be arrived at, not jumped to.

>>9083560
ITT people willing god into existence through wordplay

>>9090626
i mean seriously, are people really retarded enough to think everything has a cause? logic 101 fallacy of composition; just because everything within the universe has a cause does not mean the universe itself has a cause

basically every cosmological argument somehow conveniently skips over this

>>9090633

Well the universe appears to have a beginning and an end so what makes you think it doesn't have a cause? Or at least what reason do you have to disregard the scientific and philosophical evidence for the universe having a beginning and end?

>>9090623
OP never specified he was or wanted to be a Christian. You seem to be jumping to that conclusion. He could just be interested in hearing what Christian theologians have to say.

>>9084112
You should also call him a fedora. You christcucks have so many funny little non-argument ad hominems that you throw around whenever you have no proper justifications for your unjustified beliefs.

>>9090667
The laws of the universe only apply inside of the universe. Just because everything IN the universe has an effect and a cause, doesn't mean the same laws are true for potential other universes or whatever might exist outside of the universe.

But lets assume for the sake of the argument there is a cause for the universe.
There is no reason to assume that cause is a god or even a conscious entity. Out of all the possible causes, why do you jump to the conclusion that it must be a god? And even more obscure: the particular God of the christian mythology who cares about human affairs, punishes evil humans and prepares an afterlife for people who do what he says. There is an infinite number of possible causes and you just pick that one particular very unlikely one that you personally would like to be true with no evidence for it whatsoever.

>>9090864

"The universe" is just the name that give to the collection of all space, time, matter, and energy. So any explanation for the universe cannot be bound by the universe, because if it were it would just be a part of the same universe. This means that any potential cause for the universe must be timeless and immaterial. We have to go by what we know of our universe, and we know that when something begins to exist it must have a cause. By postulating that other universes exist or that there could be other laws of physics you're merely enlarging the problem and creating the need for an even bigger explanation.

The argument of whether god exists or not has nothing to with Jesus Christ or whether Christian theology is correct. Any cause of the universe would be called god and whether or not it looks like the Christian conception is irrelevant to the question.

>>9090918
>This means that any potential cause for the universe must be timeless and immaterial.
Wrong. For instance the universe could have been caused by a previous universe, and that universe could in turn be eternal or caused by another unknown precursor.

It is impossible to know. And you are again applying the restrictions of the universe to a thing that is not bound by the laws of the universe. Time and material are functions of our universe. There are infinite possible causes and your infinite immaterial god is just one of the infinite explanations.

> We have to go by what we know of our universe
This is where you are going wrong. You can't just apply what we know about the universe to things that aren't part of the universe. We can't make any informed guess about things that aren't part of the universe. We don't know why the universe started to exist and we can't possibly know.

>By postulating that other universes exist or that there could be other laws of physics you're merely enlarging the problem and creating the need for an even bigger explanation.
That is what you are doing by postulating a fullblown timeless immaterial god. A god arising out of nothing is even harder to explain than a universe arising out of nothing. You have replaced a hard problem with an even harder problem.

File: reee reee reee.png (130KB, 364x532px) Image search: [Google]

130KB, 364x532px

>>9090918
>We have to go by what we know of our universe
Indefensible. This is what was meant by a fallacy of composition. There is no reason to believe that something which is true of part or even all of the parts of something applies to the whole.

>By postulating that other universes exist or that there could be other laws of physics you're merely enlarging the problem and creating the need for an even bigger explanation.
No, he's remaining open to the pursuit of a useful and evidence-backed explanation for things rather than speculating on whether or not his pet deity might fit this particular gap in human knowledge.

>Any cause of the universe would be called god and whether or not it looks like the Christian conception is irrelevant to the question.
Why would you call an impersonal process that doesn't possess any traits of a God except for initiating the creation of a universe a God?

>>9083560
>Christian God

Its ether a god or no god

>>9090967

Again, by postulating that this universe could have been caused by another universe and then that universe could have been eternal you're merely enlarging the problem and the explanation needed. What caused the universe that caused our universe to exist? Do you see what I mean? You're not answering anything this way. The existence of other universe or theoretical laws of physics (neither of which we have any evidence for BTW) does not answer the question of why something exists rather than nothing. If you want to claim that this universe was caused by another universe, then you must explain what caused that universe.

We can know with reason what any cause of our universe isn't, and I demonstrated this in my previous post but I'll reiterate my point. The creator or cause of time and material cannot be bound by time and material, because if it were, it would just be another part of the universe since the universe is defined as the total collection of all time and material. Thus, the cause of the universe must be timeless and immaterial.

>>9090981

I don't know how anyone that insists on using explanations that we have zero evidence for, like the existence of other universes, the eternal universe, or hypothetical laws of physics that we can't even describe could claim that their position is "evidence-backed."

>>9091032
>Again, by postulating that this universe could have been caused by another universe and then that universe could have been eternal you're merely enlarging the problem
No you are suggesting an even more unlikely explanation.
We know universes exist. We don't know gods exist.
Universes can start of simple and expand to limited complexity. A god starts off, coming out of nowhere, with infinite complexity.
You are suggesting we go with one of the most complex possible explanations. And you ignore all of the other way simpler explanations because it confirms your beliefs. And all of this is pointless in the first place because we can't confirm any of the possible explanations.

>You're not answering anything this way.
Yes, that's the point. Neither are you, you are just postulating things. I am throwing other possible similarly unfounded explanations at you so you see how unfounded your explanation is.

A god COULD be the cause, but so could be an infinite amount of other things. You are postulating that this god would be eternal? Once you open that can of worms, then we have consider all other possible eternal explanations like a meta eternal universe or an eternal cycle of universes or an eternal mindless process that kickstarts universes for no good reason now and then.

>neither of which we have any evidence for BTW
Again that's the point. We have no evidence for anything outside of the universe because we can only investigate things IN the universe. There is no evidence for a god, just as there is no evidence for any of the other infinite number of explanations.

>The creator or cause of time and material cannot be bound by time and material, because if it were, it would just be another part of the universe since the universe is defined as the total collection of all time and material.
Why is that 'creator' the only possible thing not bound by time and material? That's your hang-up. You assume it's a conscious being with intend for no good reason, while it could be literally anything.

There's no need to argue for it

>>9083560
How To Abandon Reason and Start Deluding Yourself Into Believing Things That Aren't There Without Being Called Mentally Ill, by John Cristcuck

>>9083868
Then what is your metaphysical outlook?

>>9091084

First off I need to correct some of your misconceptions. We don't know that other universes exist, we have exactly zero evidence for the existence of other universe. The second is that the timeless cause of the universe (or god) doesn't "start off." Because it's timeless or eternal it doesn't begin to exist so the explanation for its existence would be within itself.

The argument is very simple. Everything that begins to exist must have an explanation for its existence, and we see from scientific and philosophical evidence that the universe began to exist, so the universe must have a cause. The simplest explanation or cause for the existence of the universe is a timeless and immaterial "being" that explains its own existence. By postulating that our universe was caused other universes, or that our universe part of infinite number of universes you're only increasing the number of explanations needed. Now instead of explaining the existence of one universe you need an infinite number of explanations for the infinite number of universes. You have made the problem and explanation infinitely more complex and you still haven't even begun to try and explain the causes of the universes, why they exist rather than not. How you can then go on to call this the "simpler explanation" is beyond me.

I could be wrong but it seems to me that you're just hoping for a better explanation to come along so you don't have to believe in god.

>Why is that 'creator' the only possible thing not bound by time and material? That's your hang-up. You assume it's a conscious being with intend for no good reason, while it could be literally anything.

As I said earlier, I would call any explanation for our universe god. The argument has nothing to do with whether the cause of our universe is intelligent or personal, and I'm not interested in having that debate because if you don't believe in god it's pointless and it's completely irrelevant to the question of whether or not god exists.

File: complexity.png (135KB, 1412x2768px) Image search: [Google]

135KB, 1412x2768px

>>9091175
Here I've drawn a picture for you in mspaint

>>9091209

Saying "unknown, we don't know" is not an explanation to anything.

>>9091209

Also how would the "meta universe" explain its own existence?

I see the thread has devolved into arguments between posters instead of more suggestions one way or another.

Read Sam Harris instead.

>>9091032
I don't know how anyone that insists on using explanations that we have zero evidence for, like the existence of other universes, the eternal universe, or hypothetical laws of physics that we can't even describe could claim that their position is "evidence-backed."
My position doesn't posit anything except that we may learn more in the future. Not having a conclusive answer is the right thing to do when there isn't conclusive evidence.

>>9091225
How would god explain its own existence? It just is.

>>9091217
It's a stand-in for unknown easier explanations than a meta universe. Considering we are talking about things that aren't bound by our natural laws, it could be an infinite amount of explanations.

>>9091238
>I don't know how anyone that insists on using explanations that we have zero evidence for, like the existence of other universes, the eternal universe, or hypothetical laws of physics that we can't even describe could claim that their position is "evidence-backed."
>My position doesn't posit anything except that we may learn more in the future. Not having a conclusive answer is the right thing to do when there isn't conclusive evidence.

All people who claim the universe was started by a god, or The God, are insisting on one of those zero-evidence-explanations.

>>9085750
Is presuppositionalism taken seriously anywhere outside of that school? It seems like a big joke.

>>9091253
That's the point. I meant to greentext that first sentence.

>>9091239

I have explained earlier that gods eternal nature is the explanation for his existence. Something that doesn't begin to exist doesn't need an external explanation for its existence. An explanation that doesn't explain itself doesn't succeed in explaining the existence of anything. This is why I said that you seem to be hoping that a better explanation will come along so you don't have to believe in god. Your "meta universe" is ultimately just an obfuscation because you simply don't want to accept the most reasonable explanation.

>>9091238

That's perfectly fine. You don't have to seek the answers to anything in life. I only have a problem when you take your own unwillingness to accept the most likely likely explanation as evidence for the non existence of god. Just because you personally find the evidence and philosophical arguments inconclusive doesn't mean that a proper conclusion can't be had.

>>9091281
>I have explained earlier that gods eternal nature is the explanation for his existence.
Yeah, same goes for that eternal meta universe. See? That works with everything, not just god.

>Your "meta universe" is ultimately just an obfuscation because you simply don't want to accept the most reasonable explanation.
I don't believe in a meta universe, it is just an example of one easier explanation so I can point out to you that assuming a god for no reason is just wishful thinking. I already mentioned other easier explanations, I just didn't bother drawing them.

My entire point is that we don't know what started the universe and you just insert your god into that gap of knowledge.

>>9091291

What is the difference between your eternal meta universe and the god that I have proposed?

>>9091310
It's simpler. We have evidence for neither explanation.

You said we should believe that a god did it because that's the easiest explanation, I pointed out that god isn't the easiest explanation even if we go with that retarded criteria.

>>9091322

In what way is it simpler?

>arguing
God is believed in, not argued for.
Apollonians are barely quasihominum, of course they are unable to believe in anything of their own making.

If you want, you can argue that a being that is omnipotent exists whether or not it 'exists'.
>>9090823
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lz78dn2Zegw

>>9091325
Everything is simpler than an omnipotent omniscient intelligent being bound by no laws whatsoever. We understand universes and physical laws to some degree, we don't understand gods.

>>9091281
>That's perfectly fine. You don't have to seek the answers to anything in life
Bitchiest reply I've ever received. Accepting that I don't have the answers now does not mean that I'm not open to finding some in the future.

>I only have a problem when you take your own unwillingness to accept the most likely likely explanation
I fail to see how "God done did it" is more likely to be true than anything else.

>as evidence for the non existence of god
I think you've got this backwards. You seem to think that our lack of concrete knowledge about the origin of the universe constitutes evidence of God. That is a positive claim, which I find unconvincing and unsupported, and that's all I've really said. I have not made a negative claim about the possibility of God's existence.

>Just because you personally find the evidence and philosophical arguments inconclusive doesn't mean that a proper conclusion can't be had.
This sentence isn't very clear but it sounds like you're saying, "I may not be able to explain it but I'm entitled to my opinion," which is trailer-trash tier thinking.

>>9091338

That's not what I'm arguing for. I'll reiterate in a more simplified way. The universe is defined as the collection of all material and time, so the cause of material and time can't be bound by material and time so it must be timeless and immaterial. Any explanation for the universe that is timeless and immaterial would be called god.

You seem to be arguing for the same thing I am without realizing it, you just want to call it the "meta-universe" instead of god.

>>9091364
>I'll just call this thing that's totally unrecognizable as a God, God
ATHEISTS BTFO DEUS VULT

>>9091364
We are arguing for the same thing if you define god as anything outside of the universe. And anything doesn't imply intent, consciousness, knowledge, foresight or any other characteristic commonly associated with 'a god' or 'the God'.

Is that what you are saying? Because that would be a really bad misleading definition for 'god' and it would give no kind of religion any additional credibility, which I assume is your intention.

>>9091379

I have said multiple times and that any explanation outside of our universe would be called god. If you remember, this conversation started because you disputed the notion that the universe had a cause, and that is what the conversation has been about. The debate over whether or not that cause (god) is intelligent and personal is a completely different topic and it can't even be touched if you're unwilling to accept the existence of A god.

>>9091399
Find me one popular dictionary that uses your definition for 'a god'. Why do you call it 'a god'?

I accepted your effect-cause assumption for the sake of the argument, as I said. And that is still in effect while I am talking to you right now.

Sorry to interrupt the conversation that's being had, but what reason do we have to assume that the universe had a beginning? Even if we accept the Big Bang Theory as true, that does not preclude the existence of the universe before it. If we are looking for the simplest explanation of things, why would it be simpler to suppose that the universe did not exist at some point and was brought into being by some force outside of it? Would it not be simpler to suppose that the universe itself is timeless?


Captcha made me select squares in the shape of a cross, wonder if that's a sign?

>>9091413

You can literally call it whatever you want. I just think it's useful to call it god because this very simplified conception of god is the ultimate foundation of pretty much every major religion. It is what most religions build off of.

File: spurdo fedora.png (26KB, 889x737px) Image search: [Google]

26KB, 889x737px

>>9091421
There is no reason. Christcucks are simple-minded so they try to find a personal explanation for everything so they don't get a headache.

>>9091431
Pretty sure most major religions are founded on the notion of a god that interferes in human affairs in one way or another.

>>9091431
That's wrong though. Deistic religions are build upon the idea that there is a powerful being (not a mindless thing or process), commonly refereed to as 'a god' that created the universe.

A subsection of deistic religions are the theistic religions (like the Abrahamic ones), which assume that powerful being is a personal god, commonly referred to as The God and that being interacts with its creation. All of these religions assume that this unknown Cause MUST be a conscious being. Not CAN or MAYBE, it is MUST.

The existence of an unknown cause does not give these religions any credibility. So calling it a god is misleading.

>>9091450
>Pretty sure most major religions are founded on the notion of a god that interferes in human affairs in one way or another.

Well no, we would have to believe a god existed before we can this postulate that it's intelligent and personal.

>>9091454

>That's wrong though. Deistic religions are build upon the idea that there is a powerful being (not a mindless thing or process), commonly refereed to as 'a god' that created the universe.

That's the god that I'm arguing for. A powerful "being" that is timeless and immaterial that caused our universe to come into existence.

>>9091467
Yeah and like I said there is no reason to assume that it is a being.

>>9091456
You think that people decided there must be a man in the sky for no reason and THEN attributed things to him? Dan Dennett presents a very compelling case that belief in the supernatural arises from an overgrown sense of pattern recognition in humans, where people start to feel that something must be consciously influencing the world around them.

>>9091481

I'm not sure how that relates to what we're talking about.

>>9091468

I would agree that god is not "a being." That would be another way of saying that god is a creature. The god that I'm arguing for would have be "being itself," or in other words, existence itself, because if it doesn't exist then it couldn't cause anything.

>>9091481
>man in the sky
Fuck off back to lebbit

>>9091505
You said that you think people posited an impersonal God first. I don't think that makes sense.

>>9091508
We were talking about the absolute most primitive initial forms of religion. Chill out

>>9091505
Well let's call it 'a whatever' then.

Deistic religions work on the assumption that it is 'a being' though. That's why the existence of 'a whatever' can't give them any credibility. Just like the existence of winged flying creatures does not prove the existence of fairies. All this means is that 'a being' COULD exist and that isn't enough to function as the foundation of a religion.

>>9091523

Would you accept that this timeless and immaterial "whatever" is the most likely cause for the existence of the universe? The reason I say this timeless and immaterial "whatever" is the foundation of most major religions is because if you accept this, then you can start asking the question of why this timeless and immaterial "whatever" caused the universe to come into existence. The answer to this is where some religions will start to become distinct.

>>9091562
>Would you accept that this timeless and immaterial "whatever" is the most likely cause for the existence of the universe?

For the sake of the argument I agreed with that, yeah. This follows from the effect-cause thing we talked about earlier.

>then you can start asking the question of why this timeless and immaterial "whatever" caused the universe to come into existence.
Nope, here is the problem: 'Why' questions assume intent and only 'a being' has intent.

>>9091562
>>9091505
>>9091467
>>9091456
>>9091431
>>9091399
What a moron. Go back to your state school "classes" and learn to think and express yourself clearly.

>>9091515
>We were talking about the absolute most primitive initial forms of religion.
Primitive religions weren't monotheistic you fucking idiot. Monotheism probably isn't more than 4000 years old.

>>9091590

But why would an indifferent or impersonal god take the action necessary to cause us to come into existence? This touches on the question of why there is something rather than nothing. I think it's perfectly rational to assume that there was some sort of intention behind the cause of our universe.

>>9091607

Even the early pagan religions recognized the need for a supreme creator, they just normally didn't put it together and worship it because they presumed an impersonal nature like with Plato and his Demiurge.

I'm homosexual and socialist can i belive in god? What branch of christianity should i embrace?

>>9091614
>indifferent or impersonal god
Now we are back to 'a being' instead of 'a whatever'. For instance 'a whatever' could be a mindless process and a mindless process just does what it does without any intent behind it.

Being indifferent, impersonal, caring or any kind of emotion or reasoning assumes 'a being', an intellect, a consciousness.

>>9091607
>There's a man in the sky who controls the weather and another who controls the crops
Happy now?

>>9091614
>I don't know where the entire universe came from
>It's creation was definitely analogous to things I do and done by a being similar to me
Theist """""""thought""""""" right, everyone.

>>9084054
you cant enact your will on other freethinking beings. think of the priest from the end of the Stranger

>>9091638
Judaism T B H

Mainline protestant denominations like PCUSA or some Lutherans if you insist on Christianity

>>9091643
That's later polytheism, still.

Fuck off back to lebbit

>>9091638
Any kind of mainstream 'pick the parts that you like' evangelical Christianity will do.

Or go with the Pascal's Wager version and just make up your own Christianity, based on what works for you personally.

>>9091640

Causing the universe to come into existence would be an act. How could a mindless process act, or in other words take the action that caused our universe to come into existence? It's a contradiction. For something to act it would imply intelligence.

>>9091668
A sun fuses Hydrogen into Helium and heavier elements. You wouldn't ask a sun why it does this, or would you?

>>9091680
>a sun does this
No it doesn't.

>>9091682
Who does it then?

>>9091691
Jesus, obviously, you dumb fedora-tipper.

>>9091691
It doesn't happen,

>>9091707
A star does not fuse hydrogen into helium? What are you even going on about?

>>9091719
A star does not exist, hydrogen and helium do not exist.

>>9091724
Okay it was nice talking to you.

>>9091680

The sun fusing hydrogen into helium would be analogous to a rock falling down a hill. The sun doing its thing is just part of an ongoing process that was started by something else. The question is why that process started to begin with. Why there is something rather than an eternity of nothing. I think the fact that something exists is reason enough to believe there was an intention behind it, which then implies intelligence of the cause of our universe.

Wouldn't you agree that an eternal mindless process that did nothing but then started doing something raise more questions than an eternal mindful process?

>>9091755
Eternity and nothingness are not intuitive concepts, but I'm not so self-centered as to assume that my own cognitive defects imply a super-person who created the world.

>>9091217
You'd rather make up an explanation than admit that there are some things that some sacks of meat on a tiny planet can't know?

>>9091767

That is literally what all of science and philosophy is. You make up explanations for things and then you test them against other explanations.

>>9091755
No I wouldn't agree. If we assume that an intellect without brain and body can exist (something we have never observed) then we must also assume mindless processes without matter can exist.

Wouldn't you agree that a mind is way more complex than a simple algorithm that says: Create one or more universes? A mind popping into existence raises WAY more questions than a mindless process popping into existence.

>>9091737
wah your dumb for rejecting my ideology
>>9091775
That's what bad philosophy (which science is a part of) is.

>>9091775
Yes, but arguing over things in the world (like science) or human ideas (like philosophy) isn't the same as arguing over a nonsensical linguistic abstraction called "God".

>>9091755
To reiterate a question I posed earlier . . .

Why do you assume that the universe "began"? There is no evidence to suggest this is true. As I stated in my previous post, even the Big Bang Theory does not necessitate that the universe did not exist prior to a big bang event. Why do you not think the universe itself is timeless?

>>9091786
>science
>in the world

>>9091804
>>9091779
Schizo deteced. Take your meds.

>>9091755
>>9091788

Also, your explanation of the creation of our universe is subject to the question of infinite regress, unless you presuppose that the creator is eternal, but that brings you back to ny original question: why do you need something external to our universe to be an eternal prime mover? It makes more sense to me to suppose that our universe is itself eternal, or rather, that linear time as we understand it is a misconception of reality that arises out of our ridiculously limited ability to perceive reality. Our senses allow us to perceive only an infinitesimal percentage of what actually exists.

>>9091776

I can accept the idea that mindless process exist but I can't accept the idea that an eternal mindless process acted without some external factor. This process that caused everything to come into existence would have to have everything it needed within itself, or it by definition wouldn't be the prime cause. In other words f there was an eternal mindless process there's no reason to think it would suddenly start creating things by itself.

>>9091831
>I can't think abstractly
It's good that Trump wants to strengthen the trades. People like you deserve a chance to scratch out a living.

>>9091831
>This process that caused everything to come into existence would have to have everything it needed within itself

Yes it would have to. But a mind that is able to come up with this process would be way more complex than the process itself.

The multiverse theory is based on a similar idea, just all possible variations of universes are created randomly. One of the random iterations must be like ours. An algorithm like that would be rather simple.

Even if the process would be really complex, a full-blown mind would still be WAY more complex. If you know something about neuroscience and psychology, our consciousness is the product of many mindless processes that work together to create a self-aware mind. Something like that is tremendously complex.

>>9091880

Let me try to frame the problem I have in a different way. How could the thing that caused our intelligence to exist be in itself less intelligent then us?

I don't think the cause of our universe is complex at all, I think it's a single perfect intelligence and I don't see how that would be more complex than an eternal mindless process. The only difference that I see between the two is that the single perfect intelligence explains why something exists rather than an eternity of nothing. The analogy with our own brains isn't applicable because remember, the cause of the material universe would itself have to be immaterial.

File: PfMFcUv.png (183KB, 500x500px) Image search: [Google]

183KB, 500x500px

>>9091831
>>9091870

>>9091812
>ANYONE I DONT LIKE IS INSANE HAHA FUCKING BTFO

>>9091927
>How could the thing that caused our intelligence to exist be in itself less intelligent then us?
We had millions of years of evolution. Natural selection improved the mindless processes that made up the proto-minds of our ancestors up to the point where self-awareness arose.

A similar process could create your god entity, but then you would need mindless process for that too and your god entity wouldn't be the prime mover.

>a single perfect intelligence
How is that not the most complex thing imaginable? Not just an intelligence, but a perfect one on top of that? I don't think you comprehend how complex minds are. Maybe it only appears simple to you because it is shrouded in an opaque cloud of obscurity. A clock looks simple from the outside too, but if you look inside then it is really fucking complex.

>The only difference that I see between the two is that the single perfect intelligence explains why something exists rather than an eternity of nothing.
I don't see how you require an intelligence for that.
And why would the intelligence do anything in the first place? It doesn't have any reason to do anything.

>>9091959
>evolution
Doesn't exist, doesn't happen.

Fuck off back to lebbit with your pseudo-philosophizing.

>>9090864
The only thing I can say for sure exists is my own conciousness. Conciousness isn't explainable by any of our science. It's just there, and completely mind boggling to think about. I don't know what would have created the universe. But given that conciousness is the most undeniable truth of the world, a universal conciousness seems like a reasonable explanation.

Note this isn't really an argument, it's just speculation. But it's just as valid as your speculation.

>>9092311
Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology
Read that and get back to us about consciousness being some fundamental feature. It's the an emergent property of a mind-boggling array of sensors and connectors that are fundamentally mechanical and unconscious themselves.

>>9092339
No, thats only an explanation for others. It's something that appears concious. I'm talking about the self. We are slef aware, or at least I am. I can't say for sure if you are, but you can say you are and can't say the same for me.

We have no good explanation for it. It just is. It's also the fundamental truth. Conciousness precludes everything else.

File: retard alert.gif (480KB, 493x342px) Image search: [Google]

480KB, 493x342px

>>9092357
>No these things which appear self-aware are just robots but I'm special because I feel special

>>9092378
They're akin to cockroaches. They move around, they're goal oriented, that's not self aware. Self awareness has no explanation right now.

>>9092404
Oh my God, will you just have a seizure if I ask you to imagine a black polar bear? If someone leaves your field of vision, do you think that they've ceased to exist? What is it like to go through life unable to conceive of and make connections with things you can't put your hands on like an illiterate Siberian peasant? Don't hurt yourself trying to answer that one.

>>9092438
I'm not arguing for Soliphism retard. I explicitly say you can say you're concious too. I'm saying you can't prove it. The fundamental reality is conciousness, so it's reasonable in a purely speculative sense that the fundamental reality of the material universe might be concious.

Anyways, just for arguments sake, when something leaves my vision it does stop existing in the most literal sense of the world. What is reality? It's something that manifests itself in my conciousness. If I don't see a tree, then the tree isn't really there. Tree is just a category in my mind that I use to figure out what actions to take. My eyes take in something tree looking, my mind says it's a tree, then it's concious and I see a tree. In the material world it's just a bunch of particles, there's no such thing as trees in the strictest sense of thing.

>>9083769
i like eckhart. if you are a pantheist or pretty much any religon or interests in religion you should try him

>>9092339
>psychology
>valid
Science is the philosophy of idiots.

File: antifafu.png (1MB, 1136x640px) Image search: [Google]

1MB, 1136x640px

See: >>9085603

Mere Christianity is a must read.

Picture of SJW girl to get your attention.

>>9093082
But she's a fascist.

>>9093093
niceme.me

>>9093093
She's still somewhat cute so I'd fuck the antifa out of her any day.

>>9093082
I like how beta the guy behind her looks like... That's one of the reasons bbc is considered a thing I guess... I'll stop there. I'm not on /pol/ now.

The cosmological argument is a valid argument with powerful defences, and at least as plausible as any other explanation that adresses the cause of the universe. The validity of the cosmological argument obviously doesn't provide explanatory power for a religious system and its associated moral and political implications. However, due to the emotional investment people have over the issue of Theism, any argument that can be connected to religion systems is ridiculed far beyond any strictly philosophical theory.
For instance, you are far more likely to consider Plato's theory of ideas even though it's not any less metaphysical than an ultimate being as a causal explanation. This is the main reason these arguments invite major butthurt.
The conclusion is, it's very naive to think there can be unbiased accounts of theist because everyone places huge stakes on them, and they are usually directly related to one's wider worldview.

>>9084832
so basically wittgenstein is a giant rip off of william james

>>9094762
>However, due to the emotional investment people have over the issue of Theism, any argument that can be connected to religion systems is ridiculed far beyond any strictly philosophical theory. For instance, you are far more likely to consider Plato's theory of ideas even though it's not any less metaphysical than an ultimate being as a causal explanation. This is the main reason these arguments invite major butthurt.
You're absolutely right. To phrase it a bit differently: some "thinking" men (teens) of today have an aversion to "God", both the term and the concept (because it's "so primitive"), so they laugh and ignore anything related to that, but they can, and usually do, adapt some idea that is metaphysical on the same level as God.

>>9094762
Don't tell me what I'm likely to think, you concern-trolling catamite. They're both speculative and unfalsifisble nonsense, interesting but useless.

my diary

>>9083560
Whichever are the biggest, heaviest ones - because nobody'd believe that tosh unless they'd had the sense knocked out of them!

>>9096166
So the Summa?

>>9096166
t. fedora wearing atheist from reddit.

>>9094840
Is he really though?

>>9091335
when will the irony meme die?

>>9094762

>The cosmological argument is a valid argument

read Kant

File: 1434573175328s.jpg (3KB, 96x125px) Image search: [Google]

3KB, 96x125px

>>9100512
I'm afraid I Kant!

File: fear-trembling-soren-kierkegaard-paperback-cover-art.jpg (12KB, 200x300px) Image search: [Google]

12KB, 200x300px

I'm literally shaking right now

File: normie's.png (672KB, 906x799px) Image search: [Google]

672KB, 906x799px

>any real thing being "best"
>subjugating your will to a ghost

You're just going to pick whichever you "like the best" anyway, so why bother asking for recommendations?

Is there a religion that has the universe as its deity?

>>9101209
Pantheism? Deism?

>>9101209
Universalism?
Create your own? Biophillia maybe. Check out the Gaia hypothesis.

>>9094762

The bias is pretty heavy sometimes. I've noticed it in atheist criticisms of Craig/Plantinga/Swinburne that nevertheless accept arguments by Dawkins/Harris or posit similar arguments. For a lot of people, Christian philosophers are expected to be 20 times more educated and erudite than atheist counterparts and they still won't be taken seriously.

old testament >plato > aristotle > new testament > augustine > aquinas

>>9083560
By 'Christian God' do you mean El/Yahweh/Jehovah the tribal deity of Israel/God of the Old Testament, Ahura Mazda the God of Zoroastrianism's Avesta which inspired the Abrahamic faiths, Krishna of the Bhagavad Gita (who's birth was witnessed by three kings (the three kings in the Bible being mistranslated or the translators were purposely removing the title 'Magi' meaning the three witnesses were Zoroastrians), born both God and man (sent to our world), performed miracles including healing, gathered a group of disciples, and was crucified onto a tree, his hands and feet nailed (notice how the Bible refers to Jesus' crucifixion as "...to a tree." in various chapters), ending in Krishna ascending into the heavens, i.e. Krishna who's entire legend was "borrowed" by Christianity for Christ?), the Nephilim (origin story of humanity, Gods that mixed with the humans giving some great powers, like Utnapishtam from the Epic of Gilgamesh, also known as "Noah" in the Bible, who overhears a God speak about a great flood and suggesting anyone who'd wish to survive build a ship, or as the Bible states: God told Noah to build a ship. My, what a long list of coincidences.) or the God of Job, from the Book of Job in the Torah/Bible, an ancient Hebrew poem about a man named Jobab who lived ~1600 years prior to the poem, I wonder who his God was, Yahweh? Or maybe one of the other Semite deities? Well, at least we know it couldn't be the God of Cyrus the Great, the King of Persia, seeing as his great-grandfather was Cyrus I and the family religion was ZOROASTRIANISM, that's right, Cyrus the Great had fuckall to do with Yahweh, the Jews just claimed him as their own probably to make up for wandering a desert for 40 years, splitting rocks and disobeying an old man claiming to hold in his hands another set of split rocks with words on it, commandments from God, too bad he was gone long enough for the Jews to start worshiping a golden bull disobeying their tribal deity that just days before split the ocean for them to cross.

Religion, like culture, comes from the people. It is formed in the minds of the various races of mankind, to write myths, legends, stories about that people's nature and to venerate the land they live on and the ancestors who came before them. There is no right religion, we've been here in various forms evolving over time for hundreds of thousands of years, we have evidence of religious practices dating back tens of thousands of years ago, to think that any deity found in the religions copy-pasting the myths, legends, and stories of their time with a new face--a Semitic face no less--to be the right one, the one that will get you into heaven or even worse actually be the one who's God exists is absolute insanity. Whether God exists or not is an impossible answer, faith is blind for a reason, you put your trust in the unknown.

>>9105263
The two choices you have is:
a. Do you state you know that no deity exists and live with the anxiety and torment that that brings you?
b. Do you state you know that a deity exists and live in the comfort and tranquility that that brings you?

Read up on Deism, get that mindset going, then depending on your race and/or ethnicity (if you're >50% something) or your family's religion, pick one. If your family has a religion, pick that one and then enjoy looking through the religions of your race and/or ethnicity (multiple reasons for this: 1. it will be made for you, the nature of your people, 2. it'll be inspiring to see the myths and legends and deities of your ancestors, 3. by going with the religion of your family--which will most likely be one of the major religions (hopefully not Islam, otherwise start formulating ways to unbrainwash them before its too late, the amount of rituals etc. are mind numbing and will destroy them)--you'll have a complete doctrine and set of guidelines which will help you live better, so if your folk religion is hedonistic (as most are) you'll be able to counter them, this is what I wish most Pagan girls would do because they are almost without fault, unbearable sluts, had they only had something that grounded them before they rebelled they'd be fine but most don't make it out of that phase).

Religion > Atheism as long as you realize it's a set of tools, that no religion is the right religion, and that whether or not God exists or not is something we can't solve, debating atheists on that premise is useless, debating them on the benefits of a good religion and how it can benefit you, solve the anxieties of life which man has yet to solve, destroys all their arguments and is the great glaring weakness, but religious people just can't fucking bring themselves to stop arguing on questions that we can't answer, on proofs we don't have, etc. oh well.

>>9084054
The confucian version is better and avoids conclusions like this

>[do not] do to others as you would not wish done to yourself
-from Analects book 12 (Legge translation)

>>9105307
Why does a deity bring comfort? Why does the lack of a deity create anxiety?

>>9104749
this.

Why are religious people so dumb?
Serious question.

It's like they don't understand the concept of evidence based reasoning.

And don't even get me started on how they determine right from wrong - "Because God says so".

I don't believe religious people should be accorded respect for their beliefs, and I think religious organizations should pay taxes out the ass for the privilege of not being shut down for pedalling garbage.

>>9105520
Because he's been indoctrinated.

Don't try to reason with him, just shun religious people IRL.

They're all like him deep down; Stupid misbegotten slaves of evil.

>>9108131
You can tell that to God when he shows up to visit you. And he will.

dude tasted like starburst

>>9108131

They only appear to misunderstand the concept of evidence because you narrowly restrict the term evidence to only mean direct empirical evidence. This fails because there is no direct empirical evidence or scientific experiment that can prove the belief that all true beliefs must be validated with the scientific method. This is called Scientism and it's ultimately self-defeating.

I think everybody looks dumb in the eyes of the utterly ignorant. That's been my experience working with people at least. The dumb don't normally realize how dumb they are, and if they do on some level they may subconsciously work to protect their own ego by bringing other people down (they'll regularly call other people idiots) or they may go out of there way to try and identify with people they think are smart, like atheists. That's where this fedora meme ultimately comes from, stupid people that want to seem smart, and I think you're one of them.

>>9083560
The Bible. Read various books in it and decide for yourself.

Why would someone else be able to convince you if The Bible can't?

I'm serious though, read it and test it yourself.

You aren't going to be converted by an argument. I wasn't. No one is, I think. God will give you faith or he won't.

Being and Time