/christian/ - Christian Discussion and Fellowship

>>723645

Do you think God, creator of ALL worlds, wouldn't take that into account?

In my opinion it's already fairly reasonably proven. If the evidence (historical, prophetic, testimony of the apostles) was presented in a court of law I think the trial would rule in favor of Christianity. There's actually been a number of legal thinkers who have taken precisley this approach to verifying Christianity, i.e. examining it the way you would examine a legal case.

>>723645

No, because Atheists will always fall back on the unprovable "multiverse" theory in order to avoid believing in God. All attributes needed for creating the world–omnipotence, timelessness, etc. are swept away because Atheists can just believe in the multiverse instead. Even the necessary intentionality of creation and its design can be swept away, for all the information in the universe can be written off to be monkeys on typewriters. The multiverse has, after all, created infinite universes, and therefore, eventually, after making millions of defective ones, must certainly make a good one. It's stupid but they will always fall back on it

>>723651

Multiverse doesn't actually disprove God at all, in fact it might explain the nature of His Omniscience and of our free will.

>>723762

This seems like a recipe for apostasy btw

>>723762

Uhm, I mean, even Christ pointed to the OT prophecies to demonstrate that He is the promised Messiah to the people of the day.

>>723768

>I refuse to have faith because it's faith

>>723778

More that the narrow path is hard to keep on and even harder to stay on in an increasingly material and godless world I’d the official stance is “abandon worldly pleasure and I refuse to actually prove it’d not all in vain”

>>723645

Absolute* proof of Christianity undermines it. I currently view faith as being most pure when it's blind. Nothing to me strikes as more devout than a Christian who has faith that isn't shrouded in intellectually dishonest attempts to spin it as science. I have more respect for a man whose belief is based in faith than one who tries to try to contain God in an argument.

Our limited power of observation prevents any absolute argument for Christianity from being made. You wouldn't argue to me what a color looks like if you had no way to measure electromanetic radiation. By seeing the effects of a force and inferring its cause, you put others in this position: determine if the cause seems likely or not. When this force is God, and you say He is likely to exist, but you have no way to measure Him, that is a facet of faith. It is not something I can argue my way out of or around, and that is why I afford it a special manner of respect.

Should Christianity be absolutely proven, it will mean that we (humans) have obtained a new method of measuring what we currently call the "supernatural" (and in this process, it will be reclassified as natural as it is observable). At this point, it would be foolish to deny what can be repeatedly observed to be correct. Were that to happen, faith would no longer be applicable.

*I treat "absolute" as a relative term. While the religious have a framework for absolutes, I do not. For your own purposes, consider "absolute" as having its common meaning.

>>723651

I'm an atheist. You're welcome to ask me if I'd like to bullshit you in such a manner.

>>723651

if i were the devil

>>723798

> I currently view faith as being most pure when it's blind

i currently view your view as being inordinately ignorant

faith is an old english word for trust - specifically, a 'trust based on evidence'

the reason anyone puts their trust in Christ is because God brings their soul to life, opens their blind eyes, and enables them to both perceive The Truth and live according to it

blind belief is for cults

>>723798

>I currently view faith as being most pure when it's blind.

Faith is not about blind submission; this is what cults and Islam do. Faith in Christianity is pistis, faithfulness, the relationship of trust between God and man. Faith was never supposed to be blind in Christianity, Jesus came and fulfilled the prophesies of old and resurrected Himself from the dead to prove that He was both the prophesied Christ and true God.

>You wouldn't argue to me what a color looks like if you had no way to measure electromanetic radiation.

Measuring light along the spectrum does not actually prove what color looks like because according to your own empiricism, color is a secondary quality that is only experienced in the conscious mind. You can measure that blue light is around 450 nanometers in wavelength, but you can't actually "prove" that 450 nm looks "blue"

>When this force is God, and you say He is likely to exist, but you have no way to measure Him, that is a facet of faith.

Measurement is not equivalent with knowledge, nor is it the only method to knowledge, as empiricism claims

>Should Christianity be absolutely proven, it will mean that we (humans) have obtained a new method of measuring what we currently call the "supernatural" (and in this process, it will be reclassified as natural as it is observable). At this point, it would be foolish to deny what can be repeatedly observed to be correct. Were that to happen, faith would no longer be applicable.

Many people convert because of personal religious experience, including myself, but reading something like Hume's work on miracles, even sense experience isn't enough to prove Christianity true to an Atheist because he will always have underlying assumptions (such as the assumption of materialism) that allow him to conveniently throw out such experiences and come up with alternate theories, such as hallucination theories.

>>724047

My definition of faith is incorrect. So, operating on what you have defined, I can assume that people are religious because some evidence has compelled them?

Am I to treat the supposed effect of a force as evidence when I cannot confirm the nature of the force?

>>724070

I had a feeling that light example would get shot apart since "color" is an experience. All of our hard definitions I treat in the same way, and take them as limitations of the human mind. I've yet to see someone agree with me on that though.

Can you tell me what you deem to be "knowledge?" My worldview pins it as something which, in the absense of absolutes, is likely to be correct. This is unique from simply knowing/having a memory of something.

It would be intellectually dishonest of me to create a hypothetical scenario for the purpose of dispatching someone else's claim. However, I will not accept an explanation simply because, by its definition, I do not have the means to disprove it. This leaves me in a position which I assume most people are uncomfortable in: perpetual unknowing. It gives me no peace to assume I have "disproven" something. Such a pursuit is useless to me.

Should someone wish to call me intolerant or arrogant for denying a religious claim because I cannot be sure of it, I would implore them to seperate their argument from their self-image. Criticising a book does not mean criticising the author (in my estimate anyway). I used the wording I did to avoid making a claim for you, and at no point in my posts will I (intentionally) make a strawman.

Both of the posters above this seem to have a problem with the term "cult." Why is cult association bad; is faith not fundamentally seperate from a group identity? I would assume that someone's faith in God may still be legitimate no matter what religion he chooses to dress it in. Or, perhaps the personal God must take a certain conception?

I would prefer atheist remain lower case.

>>724156

>I can assume that people are religious because some evidence has compelled them?

yes

>Am I to treat the supposed effect of a force as evidence when I cannot confirm the nature of the force?

that's a false dichotomy - the reality is that you deliberately suppress the truth presented by the evidence that surrounds you; everything from the existence of the cosmos to your conscience a screaming confirmation of the Creator

that's why God says that no-one has an excuse and you are held accountable for denying His rightful Lordship over your life

- Rom 1:20

>>724156

Your argument has nothing to do with intolerance or arrogance but foolishness. All knowledge is fundamentally based on that which cannot be proven. The state of perpetual unknowing is what every right-thinking man is besieged by, for there is nothing which cannot be doubted, nothing which cannot be called into question, and nothing which cannot be dismissed under certain assumptions.

Your definition of knowledge is nothing more than a farce, for in saying that knowledge is that which "is likely to be correct" you have predicated it on nothing more than your own personal feeling; If you do not show operationally what the objective difference between unlikeliness and likeliness is, then your definition falls flat on its face, and is useless.

Your distaste for religious "proofs" based on your assertion that they cannot be disproven is pointless, because it is based on assumptions which you yourself cannot prove.

>>724180

Everything I have observed screams to me that there is no Creator, and yet I am not willing to absolutely discount Him. I lack the means to do so.

Having confirmation of a certain conception of God (the God of Orthodox Christianity) would bring a great deal of peace to me. Really, it would be advantageous for several reasons which I will not specify on the internet. I can't tell myself I am suppresing some sort of truth that I know to be right, because I am not. Should you insist that I am, my only response would be this: you don't know me.

>>724183

It seems most likely to me that absolutes are not possible. As I stated, I lack the framework for objectivity. Using the phrasing "is likely to be correct" is a bandage at best, but it's all I have. It's not practical to throw an asterisk on every statement that I make. If I wanted to say that something is 1, but what I really meant was a number infinitely approaching 1, I would say the following: 1.

>Your distaste for…

What would you have me do? Yes, that point is an abstraction floating on an abstraction. That is what communication is. My statements are not perfect representations of my thoughts, and my thoughts are constructed with approximations based on imperfect observation.

I freely admit this. Perhaps it causes others to view my arguments as "weak," as if they fail because my presentation. By the way I think of truth, the absolutes that others operate on are illusory. Not only that, but they are illusions with variation- I can't assume everyone understands concepts in the same way.

This brings me back to the point of the thread. With no absolutes, a materialist can't say "God exists" or "God doesn't exist." This applies to every conception of God, though I think the snarky atheist talkers, living and dead (Hitchens, Dawkins) would disagree and say that certain Gods can be disproven. To a religious man, this kind of question is no problem. He has ample proof of absolutes, namely Him. Perhaps the point was to prove God to the religious? That seems to be much more helpful, being able to prove the Christian God vs the Muslim God.

Also, neither of you covered my cult question.

>>724232

>By the way I think of truth, the absolutes that others operate on are illusory. Not only that, but they are illusions with variation- I can't assume everyone understands concepts in the same way.

Tbh, this was actually one of the most Coherent points within the materialist Framework. That i've almost never see it from the *New Atheist*. They've completely abandoned that, and just started borrowing from other worldviews. But as for materialism. Keep reading, keep questioning. I'm getting back into C.S Lewis. And his stuff really helped me 7 months ago. And still is, as i haven't finished all of his work. And more. Now whatever worldview we take up. Problems will arise, Challenges to our belief Christian, Materialist, etc, you name it. But As for Truth Being an Illusion. And i honestly thinks. This was one of the Tenets that ended up making Nietzsche lose his mind was. Upon coming to the realization. That all Truths are just an Illusion and were never real from the beginning. That threw me, and i'm sure many people even Nietzsche back into another loop. Coming to this realization. I also must acknowledge that. The awaking to the illusion is just that an Illusion. Because what you see in front of you can never be absolute, real, or anything for that matter. It's just a Very beautiful lie at best. In other words i can't even trust my own realization to this *Reality*, even that by my own worldview it's just a lie. And endless lie. Here's a Vid related, just a quick glimpse, but he has more in depth talks about this. From an Academic Philosopher i watch. Who made this point to me. Hope this helps friend. And on your journey.

>>723645

There's no such thing as absolute proof

Christianity is already proved. Jesus proved that with his resurrection. People only chose to ignore the like because they prefer darkness.

>interplanetary habitation it won’t occur at all.

And why is that? It makes no sense. When the end of the world comes everything will end. The world is the entire universe, not just this stupid rock orbiting the sun.

>>723941

>If I were the devil, I'd soon have families at war with themselves, churches at war with themselves, and nations at war with themselves.

>Until each in its' turn was consumed.

This is happening now. These mindless identity politics are exactly what has driven neighbour against neighbour, man against woman, children against parents and have even split the churches even further apart than they already were. It's coming to a head. I don't know if me finding this during one of the most divisive elections ever is a sign of things to come, but you don't need to be Christian to see that all this hatred pouring up on both sides is soon going to spill over, and drown the nation.

And it will spread throughout the world until every single country is fighting their own people. A Civil World War.

>>723645

>Jesus returns and walk among men on Earth

"I don't know man, I still have some doubts"

>>725081

People say this but I don't believe for a second it's true. It always sounds like a sort of cop-out. It's like "If God Himself descended from the sky right now and shot lightningbolts out of his fingertips while proclaiming Catholicism to be the one true faith, neckbeards would still go 'That was just a government psyop using nanomachines and tesla coils'"

Proven? Yes. Revelation makes it quite clear that it will be proven, through the day of judgement and the outpouring of wrath in this world. But not before the church (that is, the universal church and body of Christ, it can be speculated that the sectarian divisions in the church will be mended and the full mysteries of Christ revealed for all to know) And not before the gospel is preached to all the world. Revelation indicates that it will get better before it gets worse, and the truth of Christs word will be made manifest to all the world. Once this happens, the antichrist will shatter the church and the tribulation will be in effect. We live in interesting times.

When Christ comes at the end of the world. But by then it will be too late to switch sides.

(part 1)

>>724255

Thank you anon. I hope that I'll continue to have the strength to question myself like I've done while reading and participating in this thread.

>>724288

The idea of looking inwards for answers instead of to the world doesn't really make sense to me. I read guys like Emerson and Thoreau and often have to pause and enjoy their phrasing, but end up disagreeing with their actual point. What your conscience tells you is fundamentally informed by outside information. Looking to your conscience is really just relying on what you grew up with and trying to dress it up as something innate.

I operate on morality as a construct that for practical purposes could resemble something absolute but if I was asked if it was, I'd say no. My morality is a set of notions that originate from human behaviour. With this view, all moral codes are the result of the population that uses them. Whether those morals are absolute depends on if you assume that the person that wrote them was indeed divinely inspired. It seems very unlikely that divine inspiration is possible, so I assume that those morals originated from man.

I think it's fair to say that there are moral absolutes for those who believe in God and think that He has communicated to certain individuals what these morals are. If I were you, I'd believe in absolutes.

My personal worldview is that the conception of God as seen in the monotheistic desert religions, most importantly Christianity, seems quite unlikely to exist. Furthermore, I know of no way of distinguishing between thoughts that are inspired and those that are not. As far as I can tell, your absolute morality is a construct with the same origin as my morality- human thought and society. When you say

>the concept of moral absolutes

I think of a very particular kind of morality with its "absolute" identity rooted in a particular conception of God and it does not strike me as being more absolute than the codes used by other religions.

(part 2)

>is it wrong for me…

It is not a wrong thing for you to do- not under my morality, or what I assume to be yours. Moral systems are made to be applied. Should it be necessary to judge my traits based on your system, do so. Such an action would be advantageous so long as the moral system being used is effective.

That the Christian set of beliefs is more "strict" in some ways than the degeneration seen being espoused by many late-night talk show hosts is no coincidence. Sacrifice (the more general definiton of giving something up. Lent is a sacrifice) has a great impact on young people and they are more likely to adopt something if sacrifices are made for it. This is why Christianity and the extreme practices of Islam are so widespread. So while I view your type of morality with that in mind- that it is so successful because of how it rings with the development of our youth, I do not entirely dismiss the system just because of that. I view the application of that conception of morality to have had enjoyed a degree of success in the past and so would have no problem encouraging you to apply it to me. So while I don't think the supposed origin of the morality is likely to be accurate, I still see the worth of it and have no problem with people thinking that it IS divine. Being able to enjoy the literature of transcendentalism doesn't necessarily hinge on agreeing with it.

There is likely no person on this Earth that I will completely agree with. However, I still am swayed by people whose arguments seem reasonable to me. That they continue to hold opinions that I don't agree with doesn't make them unable to change my mind.

Having a concept of moral absolutes does not mean that you think your moral system IS absolute.

Universally recognized values are still constructs. Without our ideas of morality, they mean nothing. Though it makes me uncomfortable to say it, the values that I hold dearest appear to have no ultimate basis. I can say that it would be an atrocity for me to kill my family, and for every practical purpose, that is an atrocity. Not only that, but it decreases the success of my relatives and of my race. There would seem to be no valid reason to do such a thing.

But what does the Earth care should such a thing happen? The planets would not stop in their orbits, nor would there be a way to absolutely say that the planets stopping, or for stars to stop reacting, or any possible thing that happens, is a "bad" thing. Seperate from the artificial systems of morality, there are no good and bad things.

However, I exist locally. I have conceptions as to what my actions will do, and a fabricated system in place to say what is acceptable. That there is no absolute law saying that my refusal to steal, my refusal to kill or be violent, is indeed right, I will stay the course because I feel like it.

Lie to yourself if you want. If you believe your morals to be absolute, there is no lie. Rest easy that the people with absolutes can explain to me why this song means so much to me better than I myself can.