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Well that's a rabbithole we can go down, but the original argument here was and I quote
>Religious people always use religious scripture to prove religion. It is baffling.
I just wanted to pop in and say that that is simply not true. If you are interested in following down the rabbit hole of arguments for the existence of God, I would recommend you start at Ed Feser who is a former atheist professor of philosophy, and whose book addresses your particular concern about the first cause.
Not that I want to take the bait and go too deep into the rabbithole with you, but the "what caused God" question misses the point of the argument. The God of the first cause argument is not one more being in a chain of causality, but rather the condition of being itself. It is not an exercise of looking throughout the observable universe for an old bearded guy who flicked a light switch and started a sequence of events. Of course if we were to look for one such element, the question "but who made that one dude who flicked the switch" would be valid.
Instead what we argue is that being itself stands athwart non-being; and because things are, they are sustained in that being-ness by that to-be itself which we could call "God." This being itself is not a part of the observable universe but rather the condition for its existence.
You would say that those of us who believe in this are superstitious fools who believe in a magical being sustaining the universe, but in reality what we are is contending with the question why is there something rather than nothing which is a question worth contending with. I think it would be far more superstitious or magical-thinking to just say "it just is" or that it comes from nothing.
Reagan talked about an Extraterrestrial invasion uniting the world:
Foreshadows Project Bluebeam:
https://www.amazon.com/PROJECT-BLUE-BEAM-Quest-Antichrist-ebook/dp/B008KGT7S2
Keep digging.
Well on the authorship of John, it isnt claimed to be by the Apostle John so whether or not if that is the case that shouldn't be an issue. Fr John Behr actually argues it was not written by the Apostle but rather a different John, for instance Ephesus has two tombs for John, and makes his case here along with other reasons regarding how early Christians talk about the Apostle, the beloved disciple, and the primary author the text is attributed to.
https://www.amazon.com/John-Theologian-his-Paschal-Gospel-ebook/dp/B07PBCH1HR
On the topic of the Old Testament, why do you think that is an issue? I dont think it gets in the way of reading the texts like the early Church and in a lot of ways helps us to do so.
It's unclear what you're after. Take for example the following position:
> There is perhaps no greater contribution one could make to contain and perhaps even cure faith than removing the exemption that prohibits classifying religious delusions as mental illness. The removal of religious exemptions from the DSM would enable academicians and clinicians to bring considerable resources to bear on the problem of treating faith, as well as on the ethical issues surrounding faith-based interventions. In the long term, once these treatments and this body of research is refined, results could then be used to inform public health policies designed to contain and ultimately eradicate faith. (A Manual for Creating Atheists, KL 3551–55)
That's from Peter Boghossian and there's a subreddit named after his stuff: r/StreetEpistemology. Do you think that should be applied to all religion? I myself think it's a bit extreme.
A rather different option is to look at those groups which greatly punish you if you decide to leave. That doesn't apply to a great swath of religion (especially in the West), but it often does apply to what many people mean when they use the word 'cult'. But this property doesn't show up anywhere in the definition of 'cult' you provided in the OP.
I personally think you need rather more interesting definitions in order to justify much of any actions. If you don't, you risk implicitly depending on what certain people associate with 'religion' or 'cult', without spelling it out.
https://www.openculture.com/2014/02/kurt-vonnegut-masters-thesis-rejected-by-u-chicago.html - Vonnegut wrote a thesis on narrative arcs.
https://www.amazon.com/Power-Myth-Joseph-Campbell-ebook/dp/B004QZACH6/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=the+power+of+myth&qid=1661365546&sr=8-1 - Joseph Campbell wrote about mythic arcs that inspired Star Wars as a mash up of Japanese samurai movies, Westerns, and reskinned early cinema scifi adventure films.
Lastly, > What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.
- Some bronze age asshole
Humans used to record knowledge through oral tradition. The use of memes/tropes to embody and represent lengthy rules of thumb or narrative ideas to build larger stories predates any recorded history. Once you begin to understand how we recycle and reskin those tropes/memes to tell new narratives with modern meanings, then you naturally start to realize that we have always toyed with the same concepts.
The dichotomy of good and evil. The purpose of being. The seen world versus the unseen world. We've always had protagonists and antagonists, whether they were individuals, ideas, or things. We've always had conflicts and peace, tragedy and comedy, romance and heartbreak.
We're still the same people that set out from the end of an Ice Age and the failing jungles of Ethiopia to spread ourselves around the world. Our technology changed, but the way we think about the world is largely just an artifact of having built on and iterated our memetic ideas for generations.
stress yan, future sakit ng ulo kapag nagkakamabutihan na kayo, kung wala sa isa sa inyo ang mag-sacrifice ng religion, usap na agad kayo habang maaga na need nyo mag hiwalay ng landas.
pakiramdaman mo din kung casual dating lang, go lang, minsan kasi ay gusto lang din ng girl sa inc na ma-experience yung kumawala sa social group na ginagalawan nya, for experience lang.
suggestion ko para sa win-win:
alis kayo both sa catholicism at inc, study humanism at atheism, saka studies/researches tungkol sa gawain ng mga cult groups.
Perhaps you have not seen their bible.. There is a huge difference between a person who does not believe in god and a person who actively believes there is no god. Most of the former usually turn out to be agnostic once you talk to them, and most of the later are very active in their disdain for believers.
Yes, I am in a position to tell you leave your religion. You have no idea how badly you've been brainwashed by it. It is distorting your development if you are worried about "the one" at fifteen years old. I have the perspective to realize how screwed up this is, therefore I am in that position.
I'll tell you what, don't take it from me. Do a little reading on your own.
The God Delusion is always a good read for the beginning of the journey.
Do not worry, gods, hell, ... are all man made. But you are making kind of a hell from your life. For the start I suggest you buy https://www.amazon.com/God-Delusion-Richard-Dawkins-ebook/dp/B003JTHWJQ/ref=sr_1_1 but there are many more good books.
You have a great start. At 15, you're going to discover so much more than argues against religion - just give it time. Keep questioning and reading. I'm sure the folks in this sub can recommend some good books for you. Like The God Delusion by Hitchens.
Apoclyse is a Greek word that we typical translate into English as unveil or revelation. For instance the last book of the Bible Revelation is named Apoclyse in Greek.
Thank you though but pretty much everything I said was from fr John Behr.
https://www.amazon.com/John-Theologian-his-Paschal-Gospel-ebook/dp/B07PBCH1HR
To "win" the debate, the morality argument is unrelated to truth value, and science has not established whether the universe ever came into existence. Boom. So what? To actually change his mind, even an iota, check out Street Epistemology, or Manual for Creating Atheists. Their approaches are similar.
Behr's recent publication might interest you
https://www.amazon.com/John-Theologian-his-Paschal-Gospel-ebook/dp/B07PBCH1HR
Although part three of the book is a twist as he looks at the Johannine school through the 20th century French phenomenologist Michel Henry.
Thank you for your response!
Agreed regarding religiosity, but even secular Israeli Jews have quite a bit higher than secular American jews, something like 2.1 to 1.6 I think.
The demographic decline of secular American Jews is such an important story in my opinion.
Eric Kaufmann has a great book on fertility differentials you might like! He was on Tyler Cowen's podcast about a year ago, great episode!
Why in the world would you depend on a Google search? Aren't you supposed -judging by your post history and reading- to have books lying around?
Okay, this is my last reply. That's because potency and act divide being in such a way that whatever is, is either pure act, or of necessity it is composed of potency and act as primary and intrinsic principle. If you say God has some sort of absence in its nature, then it is to say that he is not pure act, which means that he is a composed being of potentiality and actuality. This means that something else put together God and actualize God's potentiality "everything whose act of existing is other than its nature [must] have its act of existing from another" (De ente et Essentia, 4).
If you want a beginner guide, you can fetch yourself a copy of Aquinas by Edward Feser, you really need to brush your Metaphysics first.
Good luck.
I’ll just leave this here
https://www.amazon.ca/God-Delusion-Richard-Dawkins-ebook/dp/B003JTHWJQ
In this book (God delusion) Dawkins answers your question. Moral values should not be derived from the bible, they are developed from human experience.
What did you read by Aquinas? And what did you think the faults were in DBH's book? I don't take The Case for Christ very seriously since the guy is in no way trained in theology or philosophy, nor really puts forward an argument for God's existence. Mere Christianity is likewise not so much an argument for God's existence.
A book I've been recommending to people lately (since it's only just come out) is Ed Feser's <em>Five Proofs of the Existence of God</em>.
> Especially when it harms NOONE!
Christopher Hitchens wrote a whole book debunking that sentence.
And then he made an audiobook of it.
I'm not sure if I can commit to that. However, if you haven't already maybe check out A Manual for Creating Atheists, or watch some of the videos on Anthony Magnabosco's channel for some tips on a softer, more persuasive approach to these kinds of interactions.
<em>Aquinas</em> by Feser is a great introduction, then his <em>Scholastic Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction</em>.
https://www.youtube.com/user/magnabosco210
r/StreetEpistemology
Based on the book A Manual for Creating Atheists by Peter Boghossian
The arguments you've presented here are not Thomas Aquinas's arguments.
>Everything that exists must have a beginning. The world has a causer / creator.
Aquinas didn't think the universe had to have a beginning. The argument you've presented here is popularly known as the kalam cosmological argument, and it was roundly rejected by Aquinas: http://dhspriory.org/thomas/ContraGentiles2.htm#38
>All of those that exhibit Intelligent Design must have a creator.
This sounds more like Paley's Watchmaker argument, which again is not Aquinas's teleological argument at all. Aquinas's argument is based on final causes: things that aim or direct towards specific ends. It has nothing to do with the appearance of design.
I'd recommend a book such as this one to get yourself up to speed on what Aquinas really argued.
> How exactly is it a "Proven Necessity?"
> Christianity/Catholicism, the correct means of worship? Why not Judaism? Or Islam? Why can't Gaia and Uranus of ancient Greek religion be the prime movers?
I never said it was the only choice. This is religious freedom. It wasn't what we were talking about. I would certainly say that Christianity is the best/actually true, but this is America and people can go about it differently.
So HB2 is in violation of Title VII then?
All beside the point of my initial comment on this thread however... the point is to seek out why /u/federalfarmer2016 sees it so diametrically opposed to the way you see it. While there are trolls, I don't read her comments as trolling. She's not making those comments because she thinks she's wrong. Something is making her think she is right. If she is in fact, wrong, facts about this issue at hand won't likely sway her... you have to get her to realize whatever contradiction exists on her own. The Socratic Method's useful. Digressing though...
This is the point of the article! Why are people so diametrically opposed that they can't even agree on what are facts.
Have you read The Righteous Mind or A Manual for Creating Atheists (poorly named... should be called practical applications of epistemology)?
You should read the book Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth?: Demography and Politics in the Twenty-First Century Kindle Edition by Eric Kaufmann (Author)
>Dawkins and Hitchens have convinced many western intellectuals that secularism is the way forward. But most people don't read their books before deciding whether to be religious. Instead, they inherit their faith from their parents, who often innoculate them against the elegant arguments of secularists. And what no one has noticed is that far from declining, the religious are expanding their share of the population: in fact, the more religious people are, the more children they have. The cumulative effect of immigration from religious countries, and religious fertility will be to reverse the secularisation process in the West. Not only will the religious eventually triumph over the non-religious, but it is those who are the most extreme in their beliefs who have the largest families.
>Within Judaism, the Ultra-Orthodox may achieve majority status over their liberal counterparts by mid-century. Islamist Muslims have won the culture war in much of the Muslim world, and their success provides a glimpse of what awaits the Christian West and Israel. Based on a wealth of demographic research, considering questions of multiculturalism and terrorism, Kaufmann examines the implications of the decline in liberal secularism as religious conservatism rises - and what this means for the future of western modernity.
> I'll happily accept the tool that will get that job done the fastest.
In my opinion your sledgehammer will just drive the nails in deeper. When people feel attacked their views grow more entrenched. On top of that, bystanders see your aggressive demeanor and only feel sympathy for the believer.
Slow, methodical, insidious civility works wonders. Tease them out, turn it into questions of epistemology, get them to look more closely at fallacies like the argument from ignorance, and interesting things can happen in time.
"What do you mean by 'God'? What basis do you have for these claims you've made? Let's look at this more closely...." Slowly, slowly. Calling them stupid or insane shuts down their mind and gets them in full battle mode. This isn't about you feeling you've smacked someone down--it's about persuading people.