/lit/ - Literature

I too am Catholic and believe in God, and although I’ve read lots of sources implying the validity of the gospels I still struggle with the idea that Jesus is God.

>>23397992

>>23398004
well, brother, we both aren't Christians/Catholics formally speaking. but I appreciate that I'm not alone in both believing in God, rejecting Jesus's godhood, and considering the Catholic Church the only place worthwhile to praise God

it's a weird pickle we're in

>>23398012
I don’t reject it. But it’s the only part of my faith that is hard to defend.

>>23398014
ah, ok. nevermind. well let's say then I was in ur place until I came to peace with myself regarding my own disbelief. don't worry bro, it's no biggie

>>23398034
I mean Thomas Aquinas and other sources convinced me that God is real.

Quite a bit of theology convinced me of the Teachings of the church. Though that doesn’t mean I practise all of them, I can defend them to my friends. Abortion, euthanasia, not having women in the priesthood, etc etc.

But the proof of the divinity of Jesus, though is very strong IMO, is a question of faith and I don’t think the argument is rock solid when you discuss with non-believers.

>>23397992
So you're not a Christian. Gotcha.

>>23398039
I don't reject God. I believe in God. Can you read? I only reject the premise that Jesus resurrected and that he's God literally.

only God is God and can't take on human forms
God also isn't omnipotent, or at least omnipotence doesn't extend itself to such humanly wishful thinking
God is the Ultimate Principle, impersonal, the driving force behind Time, Life and the universe! God is the objective Truth, manifesting itself in the sheer Existence, and also through Beauty, Order etc. - this is all 1 and the same thing - the opposite of non-existence, of negation, of falsity, of chaos, of disorder and disintegration, of Entropy

t. plato pro
anyhow, I believe Christianity/Catholicism/what-have-you would be infinitely more successful if it was structurally more like Islam or Judaism (where they do not consider Muhammad/Moses to be God, only a messenger of Allah/Yahweh). it would be 100% of the Truth concentrated then, basically, instead of the kinda schizo/make-believe shit it is now
>(fun fact - it only took on this form a few hundred years after Jesus died, before the Council of Nicea, especially in the 1st century before the Gospels were written down, it wasn't established whether Jesus himself is really God or not)
but I also acknowledge that the form Christianity took on now is specifically to appeal to the lowest common denominator, the plebs, as a sort of humiliation ritual

>>23397992
What makes the resurrection any less plausible than the existence of God or primacy of peter?

>>23398044
the existence of God is self-evident to me:
>>23398042
as the carrier of existence itself, and in fact Existence in-itself
>primacy of peter
you mean what? Peter was the first bishop of Rome, I think that's self-evident too? this is relevant only for administrative purposes anyway

>>23398042
I’m not implying you reject God I was explaining the context of my own “struggle”

And there is quite a bit of evidence of Jesus as a healer/miracle worker.
The gospels were written based on lots of eye witnesses and only 30 years after the death of Jesus. We wouldn’t doubt someone writing a history about something in 1994. In the context of responsible historians, 30-50 years ago is nothing.

>>23397992
so you're a Muslim.

>>23398065
I wish Christianity was more like Islam but no, i'm no mudslime, islam is a subhuman desert ayyrab nation religion

>>23398054
>the existence of God is self-evident to me:
The reason you give doesn't seem at all self evident to me. Why do you think there is an "existence-in-itself" separate from everything that exists?

>>23398072
And in addendum, why do you think "existence-in-itself" would have anything at all to do with us, or be worthy of worship?

>>23398072
>separate
said who? it's inseparable. lemme ask you the better, age-old question: why is there Something rather than nothing?

>>23397992
Okay so everyone who resurrects is a god and I should start worshipping Frankenstein and Job Snow

>>23398083
Okay, so things exist. What next?

>>23398078
what it has to do with us manifests itself through Good and Evil, which are the same things as Existence and void (1 and 0)
Existence, the Good, Creation, all of it is worth praising
non-existence, evil, destruction, that is not worth praising

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things that Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to…. Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend; and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God.

>>23398091
If there is a void, it exists, and is thus not a void. If it does not exist, it does not exist.

>>23398097
all the empty space doesn't exist? woah...

>>23398094
well he was human, no human is perfect, eh? if he didn't lie at least a little bit, he would be ignored and forgotten OR crucified and forgotten

>>23398104
If it is directly contrary to what you term "Existence", then of course it does not exist. Unless you now wish to claim the contrary, of course.

>>23398117
you are right in a sense, in that if not for Existence, non-existence wouldn't "exist" either.
we can tell the void for what it is through its difference from Existence. consider the Miles Davis quote: "Music is the space between the notes."

>>23397992
>I believe in the Catholic Church
>except for its most fundamental teaching
yeah, sure buddy

>>23398127
But isn't talking about "void" as though it does exist, even in contrast to "Existence", a contradiction in terms. It seems that it does not exist by definition.

>>23398140
how is that contradictory? is computer code contradictory because it's composed of a series of 1's and 0's? i believe reality is the same and that there is a singular Code of Reality describing the distribution of Existence/Energy across the universe (which is homogenous, mind you), only waiting to be cracked

>>23398132
I believe IN it, not IT. I believe in it as the most respectable such institution and a necessary opium for the masses (fuck marx)

Real skeptichads disbelieve in the existence of the Catholic Church entirely.

>>23398166
>is computer code contradictory because it's composed of a series of 1's and 0's?
No, because the 0 represents a certain physical state of existence. This is not the same for the "void", which by definition does not exist.
>i believe reality is the same
Can you say more here? How does reality differ from existence?

>>23398175
>because the 0 represents a certain physical state of existence
and you mean what by that exactly?
the 0 represents, literally, 0 energy passing through at a given moment

>>23398179
The zeros and ones keep track of transistors, which have energy or do not.

>>23398183
>which have energy or do not.
yeah
sorry for not making it obvious earlier:
the monadic equation of Existence = Truth = Good = Beauty, also applies to Energy
Existence = Energy

bump

>>23397992
Come back to me after you read up on Arianism. Then we can talk. Unless you already did, at which point, based.

>>23398811
arianism is basically JW, they basically believe almost all the same bullshit just with slight tweaks. i discard that entirely and adopt a skeptical-rational viewpoint (but not atheistic-bugman-like)

>>23398041
There are no Christians, Christ was the first and final Christian to exist, that's the entire point.

>>23398820
>they basically believe almost all the same bullshit just with slight tweaks
so you didn't read it, and calling rejection of Trinity a slight tweek is retarded.