Mere Memeianity is an embarrassing excuse of a book. It actually worked against its purpose and convinced me of atheism further. Lewis should have stuck to writing bedtimes stories for kids.
But that's enough about Mere Memeianity. Can you lads recommend me some actually good apologetics? I mean THE BEST OF THE BEST HERE. I've read Aquinas and Kant's only possible argument in support of a demonstration of God.
Christianity, to me, looks like a horrendous death cult. God is abusive in that he forces you to worship him or face eternal torture. Fuck God. Now rec me some books that will convince me that He is based.
If your dad told you not to jump off a bridge because, if you lived, you would be crippled for life, would you still do it? God is merely telling you that it would be a better choice for you in the long run to choose Him and what He wants over an alternative because He can see the big picture. God can’t stop being holy, so either you choose to be with Him, or you will be eternally separated from Him in the long run. That’s Christianity 101.
James Anderson
rec a book
also that nigga god isnt directly telling me to choose him, the only shit he has on this earth is a book and a church where kids get raped. how the fuck is he telling me anything at all if that is legitimately all he has to show for his existence
Adrian Roberts
If you're serious, try The Experience of God by David Bentley Hart. Hart is an orthodox theologian, but he doesn't approach the matter from a specifically Christian perspective in the book. Even if you're not convinced, the book will help you make better arguments and stop looking like a complete fedora tipper.
>God is abusive in that he forces you to worship him or face eternal torture. Fuck God. "Was klagstu über GOtt? Du selbst verdammest dich: Er möcht' es ja nicht thun / das glaube sicherlich."
Chase Foster
you could start by not projecting your teenage morals onto a omnipotent being
Charles Hall
alright ill read that but im not a fedora tipper i guarantee i have read more christian shit and listened to more sermons than the majority of atheists. the idea of hell disgusts me as a concept tho. at least the punitive one. annihilationism makes sense to me at least
Dylan Carter
Listening to Pr*ts doesn't count though
Blake Diaz
fuck protties aquinas is based
Samuel Parker
What's that quote from?
Brody Reed
>I hate him, therefore he doesn’t exist
Isaiah Davis
You type like an insufferable faggot
Ayden Evans
This is fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva. Children die slowly as your flesh gradually turns to bone, all because one dude once ate an apple.
>God existing is illogical you stupid Christians! >never mind God is real, I just don’t like the God of Christianity, he’s the evil demiurge!
Daniel Perez
ITT: Atheists who disbelieve God because of angst, anger, and emotion. >God is abusive in that he forces you to worship him or face eternal torture Abusive? OK. So what? How does it follow that God doesn't exist, and exist as the supreme source of moral and intrinsic value. Give me one reason that your life, your well-being, or even your pain and pleasure, mean anything. Explain how the "God" of your conception, "this mean guy in the sky," is obliged to only shower enjoyment on humanity. God has given your very existence, and the very act of motion and change therein, as a revelation of his existence. You don't care about that, because you've already established that your reasons for hatred against God are based on your beliefs about his supposed character. What difference does it make if an angel literally split open the sky? You'd still only have the faith of a demon.
Michael Gomez
>Give me one reason that your life, your well-being, or even your pain and pleasure, mean anything. Explain how the "God" of your conception, "this mean guy in the sky," is obliged to only shower enjoyment on humanity.
lol kind of a dick move to make humanity and then torture humanity for eternity
Juan Diaz
>my ministry is Yea Forums >my testament is that yeah, sure, god may be a twisted sadist but that doesn't mean he doesn't real rabbi yeshua would be so proud
Seriously, read pretty much anything else by C.S. Lewis. I took a whole class on the guy last semester and I assure you every one of his books we read that wasn't Mere Christianity (besides Perelandra fuck that) was so much better. Try The Abolition of Man or The Problem of Pain.
>God is abusive in that he forces you to worship him or face eternal torture. God is telling you that your soul is immortal, and it's going to spend that immortality either "worshipping" the Good or...not. Guess what happens when you pick the latter option.
Leo Flores
Ok? Plenty of other people have written on apologetics, kierkegaard, even Chesterton. If you narrow your scope to only consuming pop pseud shit then yeah, you won’t learn anything. But that’s most atheists
Aiden Campbell
it really is, though, and if you don't see that, you lost the argument a long time ago
Carter Kelly
you're a liar
you already bent the knee to the devil and that alone didn't convince you to reject the prince of this world instead of embracing Jesus Christ.
Easton Wright
God's a writer. That's why people suffer, otherwise it'd be a boring story to tell. It's also why "NPCs" exist, they just aren't important characters.
Anthony Bailey
I don't really know how to describe it to be honest. But you know when you're reading and you get really into it and you just start seeing what's happening in your head and it doesn't even feel like you're reading anymore? Perelandra was like the opposite of that. Absolute chore of a book. Haven't read Out of the Silent Planet so I don't know if that's any better.
Juan Jenkins
>admitting God is real and still believing an omnipotent omniscient deity doesn’t know better than you
If God isn't lacking in anything why the fuck does he need a bunch of slaves to sing his praises
Henry Lewis
I really liked the central dialogue of the book, where the Un-Man tempts the Venerean Eve -- the "argument" is just absolutely relentless and subtle. And I thought the portrayal of Paradise was charming and clever.
Out of the Silent Planet is a much weaker book, largely because it's a straight-up re-skin of Wells' The First Men in the Moon and more tightly follows the strictures of 1930s genre SF. The only thing it really has going for it, maybe, is anti-colonialism, which I don't give a shit about.
Noah Gray
Also That Hideous Strength is CS Lewis putting his weirdest beliefs into print under cover of fiction.
Samuel Baker
Pain and suffering can be good Pleasure is not the highest good You're approaching the argument with an a priori hedonist assumption which you have yet to justify
Joseph Martinez
So Hell is good?
Isaiah Edwards
You're some dipshit low IQ tween so no matter what we give you it would go way over your head just like something as elementary as Mere Christianity did. Kys.
Robert Bennett
So whats the "good" athiest way to explain these things?
Brody Morris
Atheists don't believe there's a good God who created and is controlling the world.
Gabriel Gutierrez
Why are internet catholics such edgelords
Thomas Nelson
That Hideous Strength is a pretty dope title though you have to admit
Carson Carter
>Can't understand intro level theological arguments >All counter-arguments are appeals to emotion >This happens every single fucking day on this website Gee I dunno man. How could that ever get old?
Ryder Miller
>it's not god's job to prove himself to you >it's actually impossible to prove god >he's going to send everyone off to be tortured for eternity for not believing in him except me and my friends >and that's a good thing >i'm an intellectual and you're a low-iq teenager fedora cringelord naenae ass bitch
Nothing about my statement suggested Hell is good. Suffering can be good is not the same as all that is good is suffering Hell is an absence of God, God being Goodness, and therefore not good
Jayden Cooper
>The One is uniquely Christian >unironically thinking Creation has its origin in multiple entities
Jordan Perry
Then we're back to the start where he said making humans just to inevitably torture them for eternity is a dick move
Kayden Reyes
>thinks the trinity is the same as the one
Josiah Nguyen
Can anyone explain how reform jewish rabbi = god? Because I know of God's existence but it doesn't match the Abrahamic variant
Luis Young
That's literally what Christians think though
Isaac Ortiz
>there is an origin to reality >good and bad are functions of reality >the origin of reality is the author of good and bad >thinking the creation can apply subjects of the Creator to the Creator Himself
Jacob Mitchell
The trinity is three in one, the unity of the three as one being the main point
Evan Ross
The father, son, and holy spirit are either different entities or the same entity. Which is it?
Grayson Gonzalez
Why does it have to be either or?
Alexander Clark
>there is an origin to reality Prove it >good and bad are functions of reality Prove it >the origin of reality is the author of good and bad If god is the author of bad then he is not fully good >thinking the creation can apply subjects of the Creator to the Creator Himself Christians call god good all the time though
Dominic Diaz
Because 3 does not equal 1 no matter how hard you want it to
Austin Thomas
Can one thing have multiple aspects?
Adam Stewart
>origin to reality Principle of sufficient reason, firsr cause, etc etc. >good and bad are functions of reality Well if good and bad exist, then they are properties of Existence. Maybe "function" was a bad choice of word >if God is the author of bad then he is not fully good trisagionseraph.tripod.com/Texts/Plotinus5.html >Christians call god good all the time though Interesting point. I'll consider that
Christopher Thompson
He doesn’t, he’s just being kind and saying ‘do it, if you want’.
Lincoln Jenkins
>aspects that's modalism, patrick!
Jace Rivera
For sure. I doubt I'll read the other two though because honestly Perelandra made me want to kill myself.
Christopher Thomas
>and the Christian user was never seen again
Ayden Robinson
Sperg-tastic post
James Wood
>tfw nobody who bitches about bad things happening to people ever has a response to the idea of eternal life as a reward for suffering >even though this is literally the entire point of Christianity
>prayed >nothing happened >studied the Bible >nothing happened >attended church >nothing happened "Experiential" evidence for Christianity is literally just feels. If you're not predisposed to it, then it doesn't happen. No doubt all the internet Christians will tell me I'm a fag or predestined for hell, but they have no real argument against this point.
Cameron Edwards
Reminder the Wittgenstein's Catholic Protege G.E. Anscombe horribly btfo C.S. Lewis so bad he almost quit writing
>As a young philosophy don, Anscombe acquired a reputation as a formidable debater. In 1948, she presented a paper at a meeting of Oxford's Socratic Club in which she disputed C. S. Lewis's argument that naturalism was self-refuting (found in the third chapter of the original publication of his book Miracles). Some associates of Lewis, primarily George Sayer and Derek Brewer, have remarked that Lewis lost the subsequent debate on her paper and that this loss was so humiliating that he abandoned theological argument and turned entirely to devotional writing and children's literature.
Justin Walker
>As an undergraduate in 1939 she had publicly criticised Britain's entry into the Second World War. And, in 1956, while a research fellow, she unsuccesfully protested against Oxford granting an honorary degree to Harry S. Truman, whom she denounced as a mass murderer for his use of atomic bombs against Hiroshima and Nagasaki. She would further publicise her position in a (sometimes erroneously dated) pamphlet privately printed soon after Truman's nomination for the degree was approved. In the same she said she "should fear to go" to the Encaenia (the degree conferral ceremony) "in case God’s patience suddenly ends." She would also court controversy with some of her colleagues by defending the Roman Catholic Church's opposition to contraception. And later in life, she would be arrested protesting outside an abortion clinic, after abortion had been legalised in Great Britain (albeit with restrictions).
Wikipedia isn't brave enough to mention her seven children.
>calling a book mere memeianity >being so much of a memeatheist fucking lol
Caleb Lewis
I don't blame him, Lewis is a fucking brainlet. OP was probably already pretty reddit, but if I thought MC was all christians had to offer I'd be arrogant too.
OP read VoRE by William James
Cooper Phillips
Faith isn't obtained through merit or will. It is a gift from God. Read The Great Means of Salvation and of Perfection by St. Alphonsus de Liguori and 2 Cor 3,5.
Jo 16, 24. >"Experiential" evidence for Christianity is literally just feels. You did it wrong and you have the wrong mentality. Relying on the feelings of the psyche is diabolic and anti-christian. To be a christian means having a vigilant spiritus/pneuma over the psyche. Faith is mediated through the intellect, not through the psyche.
Bet you were asking for extraordinary signs instead of faith.
Adrian Phillips
Have you read the book? Wanna know how I can tell that you haven’t ?
Jordan Hill
Fear and Trembling. Or perhaps don't. Doubt you can handle the inevitable 6 month recovery of the dismantling of your entire "logical" schema.
