818 thoughts on “Philosophical Approaches To Proving The Existence Of God”

1. And, on the opposite end of the spectrum (couldn’t resist):
   http://www.belencrew.com/index.php/evocation/evocation-of-lucifer-live-ritual/

   1. does it work for you, brother? i still can not decide between lucifer and that yogi snake up my ass and spine. any pro con article?

      1. “KALI-MAAAAAA!”

2. No point in trying to prove that God exists, because athiesm and degeneracy is now embraced by the masses.
   All religions such as Christianity, Islam and Judaism are attacked from all corners of the world and have even been perverted and hijacked by radical fundamentalists.
   Instead of looking at religion as a way of instilling morality, America and the rest of the world are increasingly rejecting it and instead, embrace and celebrate Bill Maher, Sam Harris and the rest of the athiest cults that are now considered “scholars” in this sickening world.
   Religion requires faith, something which is now rejected by people.

   1. come on dude, you dont love Maher? He worships the trinity of I hate kids/dont get married/legalize drugs- I mean, what could possibly go wrong with promoting that type of mindset?

      1. Maher sounds like The Boomer Bible’s Harrier Brayer.

         1. Talkin over my head here Daneel lol- I dont get this reference

         2. The Boomer Bible is a philosophical forerunner to the manosphere. A very interesting community preserved in the The Wayback Machine and by the author. You can find all sorts of stuff if you google it, like “Shuteye town”:
            http://rflaird.com/shuteye-town-1999/

      2. I’ve notice not a single more Jewish looking atheist than Maher in my life.

   2. Here we go with “muh degeneracy” again. There is no God because the earth cannot be created in 7 days, among a million other reasons that the Bible is wrong on.

      1. The Bible does not say that. That is a hyper-literalist interpretation of Genesis that most theologians reject.

         1. I’m glad he said it though. Rejection of intelligence is Atheist Orthodoxy. Rejection of intelligence leaves chance and coincidence. Hence the entropy that generally ensues when atheism overtakes religion, in a society.

         2. So the Genesis Adam-Eve-talking snake fable about sin isn’t literal? I’m glad you cleared that all up! (You don’t take Jesus and that resurrection stuff hyper-literally, right?)
            Now [figurative/literal] Jesus himself was about thirty years old when he began his ministry. He was […] the son of [figurative/literal] Adam, the son of God. (Luke 3:23-38)
            Just as it was in the days of [figurative/literal] Noah, so also will it be in the days of the [figurative/literal] Son of Man. (Luke 17:26)
            For just as through the disobedience of the [figurative/literal] one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the [figurative/literal] one man the many will be made righteous. (Romans 5:19)
            For as in [figurative/literal]Adam all die, so also in [figurative/literal] Christ all will be made alive. (1 Corinthians 15:22)
            And [figurative/literal] Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was [figuratively/literally]deceived and became a [figurative/literal] sinner. (1 Timothy 2:14)

         3. Do you not understand how to look at a text and tell if it was meant to be read literally or figuratively? The Gospels are clearly written as literal history and even make this claim. No such claim exists in Genesis 1. In fact, a text that mentions magical fruit, a talking snake, and “days” of creation before there were celestial bodies is a pretty obvious clue that the text is allegorical.
            As to the NT references to Adam and Noah, I believe Noah was a true story, just that the flood wasn’t worldwide. The Bible actually says the flood was local (the idea of a global flood is based on a literal interpretation of the mistranslation of the Hebrew word for land). Regardless, you can refer to a fictional character for teaching purposes. People teach their kids not to lie by telling them the story of the little boy who cried wolf, that doesn’t mean the story is an actual historical event.

         4. The Gospels are clearly not written as literal history. They’re merely pious fictions.
            Randel Helms (1988) Gospel Fictions. Prometheus Books. prometheusbooks.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=1849
            You’re just picking and choosing what you want to believe literally or figuratively by fitting the Bible to what you want to believe.

         5. More nonsense while you sit from your high horse. Honestly, I’m not going to continue to debate whether god exist or not because theist come up with the same exact tired arguments over and over again.(not to take the bible literally, Dragons = dinosaurs, 1 day means 1 million years or any amount of time etc etc) no point in continuing that.
            The thing that bothers me the most is that you all somehow believe just because you are religious, you are morally superior to non-believers, which is not the case. Not every atheist is a moral degenerate, just like how not all religious folk are truly that religious, and they sin left and right.
            Point is, a truly good person does not need to believe that an invisible being is watching him in order for him to do right and not do wrong. If a person truly needs to believe in god in order to not murder, cheat, or steal, he’s a mental weakling.

         6. I agree. There’s no need to debate whether god exists or not as God’s existence is self evident. That said, I never asserted that believers were morally superior to non-believers. I had merely stated the obvious by pointing out how atheistic societies generally live short and violent existences; Which is a historical fact.
            History has shown us, time and time again, that Atheistic regimes will genocide far more of it’s own people, in a fraction of the time. There really is no way around this fact and it should come as no surprise, as atheism cheapens life. It dispirits human beings as soulless, purposeless, animated meat-sacks who exist by coincidence and are ultimately destined to return to nothingness anyways, so what the hell.
            Lastly, what “high horse” am I sitting on? You appear to be projecting your own unpleasant impulses and insecurities, as you concluded your infantile rant by denigrating anyone who believes “an invisible being is watching him” by labeling them “mental weaklings.”
            Pot meet kettle.

         7. And I can cite history on the numerous countries and nations that killed in the name of religion, whether it was a “short” or “long” existence of any said nation. WHICH IS A HISTORICAL FACT WHICH OCCURRED FOR CENTURIES(we all know you want to say USSR or any commie country, why tip toe around that)
            To your convenience, you ignore the DOZENS of other, actual reasons these regimes (USSR/CHINA ETC) killed, which is a another discussion in and of itself. These regimes did not kill in the name of Atheism, unlike the myriad of examples I can bring up of past monarchs doing so in the name of religion. Again, not sure why you brought this up.
            “…as atheism cheapens life. It dispirits human beings as soulless, purposeless, animated meat-sacks who exist by coincidence and are ultimately destined to return to nothingness anyways, so what the hell.”
            Again, i need an imaginary being in order to have a purpose in life? You know nothing of those who do not believe, most likely you get your insight on atheist from youtube videos. Go outside for once.

         8. The 20th century brought many evils but none caused the suffering that State atheism did in terms of raw numbers of people being killed and starving to death. Face it, atheism and feminism are symptoms of the same spiritual rot. After all, atheists work to tear down religious tradition with the same glee as feminists, who undermine the masculinity of our civilization. Many atheists are arrogant and narcissistic, just like feminists and other SJWs.

            Again, i need an imaginary being in order to have a purpose in life?

            Is this the same person who came to RoK a few months back to brag about sleeping with another man’s girlfriend? Obviously you do need an imaginary being to do the right thing. You’re in no position to speak about such matters.

      2. According to the Bible, Lucifer and the angels once reigned on Earth and Genesis doesn’t speak of them. That would only mean that Genesis is a story about the history of man.
         Before Young Creationism came to being, there was something called the gap theory which says that there was a gap of time between verse 1:1 and 1:2. The theory is supported by later chapters that mention Lucifer’s rebellion, him possessing the serpent, and some other things. Some try to discredit the theory but where does Lucifer fit in with Young Creationism? The Bible isn’t exactly linear anyway.

         1. Aha! Was waiting for someone to mention a pre-adamic race. This is close enough. Stuff interests me to no end.
            You are completely correct – the bible is the story of the creation and salvation of mankind. I’m sure there is a lot more to it. Our God is a consummate creator. Our hearts are modelled from that. Knowing my own drive for creation (one of my great passions), I’d be happy to assume that God created so much more than just us. Who knows – there could be entire other dimensions that we’ve never even dreamed exist!

         2. the book of Enoch covers all that but it was left out of the bible. It was written by Noah’s grandfather Enoch who talks about lucifer and the other angels who watched over man but eventually took the daughters of men for their own leading to their rebellion. It’s actually interesting because he mentions an angel named azazel that taught men the tricks to metallurgy to fashion armor and weapons and hiw women could use different things for makeup and seduction and ends up ruining them with his teachings

      3. Exactly how do you know that the earth cannot be created in 7 days? Are you postulating that God is not powerful enough? How would one know that? Are you saying that God is incapable of creating a functioning universe with the appearance of age? Again how would one know that? You state that the Bible is wrong, but by what standard of truth are you using to judge the truthfulness of the Bible?

         1. …..and I thought shitty progressives were the only ones who used lame arguments like “who’s to say what’s true and what isn’t?”

         2. Progressives speak of relative truth, and make emotional ad hominem associations. I am assuming that in a discussion of philosophy by “red-pill” truth seekers, the questions of epistemology will be discussed without the guilt by association fallacy. The question stands unanswered, “by what standard is one to judge the truth of the Bible?” It is no flippant query, but central to the topic at hand.

         3. Howzabout these standards? 1. The Bible is a patchwork of earlier religious texts. 2. If it’s the word of God, it appears to be mutable, given that the changes the Bible has seen even in its Christian version in koine or Latin can be traced. Each regime seems to want to put its own spin. 3. Even with the same edition of the text, every church has its own interpretation; which one is right? Surely if there were a supreme being as you claim, he’d have no trouble making his meaning plain to everyone. Oh, wait: only the chosen get that info, right? What happens when you have multiple groups that believe they’re the chosen ones? Whom does one believe?

         4. 1,2 &3 are not (a) standard(s) in any sense of the word. They are but bare assertions presented as complaints. To have a valid epidemiological argument an appeal to a higher truth must presented. The question is what is that higher standard of truth?

      4. For the first 3 days there was no Earth-time as we now know it. And an hour is as 1,000 years to the Lord. The creation tale in Genesis is told from the perspective of the one who was there during creation, not the man, who wasn’t made until day 6.
         Ancient commenters reading Genesis concluded that the entire universe was created in one moment, and the rest of the days are re-orderings of the created materials, forming them into the cosmos we now know.
         I am an Old Earth Creationist.

      5. thank you. now wait for the goalposts to be moved 100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 times , as it always is when you use the actual holy books against believers.

      6. Nonsense. The Hebrew reads “Day One, Day Two, Day Three, etc.” It does not specify six, 24 hour days. That interpretation only arose with Martin Luther. St. Augustine (in the 4th century, nonetheless), realized that the “days of creation” were not to be taken literally. Rather, he saw them as more of a literary framework.
         Genesis 1 was not meant to be interpreted in the woodenly literalistic way that many fundamentalists (both atheists and Christians) interpret it. The original Hebrew, which almost none of them can read, precludes such an interpretation.

         1. Given the problems with the long-age earth models (fossils in the wrong place, strata in the wrong order, discovery that strata can be laid down by rushing water, discovery of ancient DNA, etc.) there is no reason to reject the short-earth models out of hand.
            The possibility remains that it is merely a myth, but the claims of the “scientistic” religionists are insufficient to justify that claim.

         2. Many of the so-called “problems” have been dealt with by geologists. I see no reason why religious believers have to deny the tenets of modern science. Indeed, St. Augustine realized how dangerous such a position was.

         3. The ones I posted above have definitely been handwaved, but never addressed. Here are a few more major problems:
            – The Moon is either way too close to earth or moving way too fast for it to have split from the Earth on any of the proposed timelines.
            – The amount of moon dust is entirely too shallow
            – No evidence has been provided to contradict the currently perceived “DNA walls” which keep species separate. For example, Chimps have more chromosomes than we do, but they cannot reproduce with fewer.
            – Calibrating isotope tests (K-Ar, C14, etc) relies on knowledge of the age of a thing and the conditions under which it has existed. We get incorrect C14 results, from objects whose ages are known, with disappointing regularity.
            This is not, strictly speaking, a debate about “science.” What it is is a collection of observable (scientific) facts which seem to dispute the philosophical and historical models drawn up by atheists.
            No Christian debates the validity of the observable, testable, or reproducible. What we debate is the interpretation of these scientific findings with regard to history.
            Historical note: it was the Catholic Church’s alignment with the contemporary Scientific community that led to their rejection of Heliocentrism. I (rightly) fear the consequences of repeating that mistake.

         4. The moon dust argument doesn’t work. That oft-cited figure is based on an overcalculation that was then readjusted during the 1960s. The isotopic tests are generally very reliable.
            Evolution has far better evidence for it than YEC. I don’t understand why it’s a point of contention among religious believers.

         5. Because “better” is subjective. And Science is not a subjective philosophical branch.

      7. Don`t project your own incompetance at God, you homo.
         Just because faggots like yourself can`t make planets in 7 days, doesn`t mean a qualified and competent guy like God can`t make them either.

         1. Wow, what a well-thought and literate reply.

      8. Creation, by virtue of being the reversal of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, is impossible in nature. This is why Christians view it as a miracle.
         The case can be made that, without such a miracle, the universe cannot exist. “Aristotle’s God” is an ancient example of that case.

   3. Faith is pretending something you don’t know

      1. Faith is a confidence trick.
         • Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.
         • Ephesians 3:12 confidence through faith
         • 1 Timothy 3:13 increased confidence in their faith

         1. What an interesting translation you use. The literal Greek translation for “confidence” in Hebrews would be “substance”, associating it with almost physical reality.
            Also worth note, the Greek which we translate “faith” is “pistis”, which means “collateral”.

         2. If you’ve got “physical reality” for your claimed beliefs, then show it.

         3. “Associated with almost” – to imply it’s not actually physical. It’s a metaphor in the Greek, to compare this faith with a down-payment on a loan, or collateral on a promise.

         4. Almost, huh? *chuckle*
            Guess what, almost pregnant…isn’t.

3. I don’t see how a god really solves the problems that theists want it to solve. A god could, without logical contradiction, have created humanity without any purpose, meaning, moral standards, an afterlife or a guarantee of ultimate justice. Humans just attribute these ideas to a god as a wish list, and for basically selfish reasons, when a god has no obligation to arrange its creation for our convenience and emotional comfort.

   1. But you’re describing a made-up God that pretty much no theist believes in.

   2. Some esoteric circles believe that man creates God; “progress” in history is a sequence in which man gets better and better incrementally, moving towards an apex point. Without this apex point, we have nihilism, and the SJWs are living optimal lives, since in the end, it doesn’t even matter.

      1. This apex point is God. Then this God creates the universe.

4. It looks like you haven’t read that much in atheist literature, especially what’s published in philosophy. I could recommend two easy examples, and you can easily find more:
   “Atheism: A Philosophical Justification” by Michael Martin
   http://www.amazon.com/dp/0877229430
   “The Non-Existence of God” by Nicholas Everitt
   http://www.amazon.com/dp/0415301076

5. I’ve studied both Catholic and secular scholars; my conclusion is that god probably isn’t real. I lack the arrogance to take that claim to the extreme, but I’ve neither seen nor read any evidence to the contrary.

   1. god is outside reality. he is extra-real. notice how similar it sounds to extraterrestrial.

      1. God is outside physical reality, but not outside of reality. Theism presupposes a cause to the Universe, which must necessarily exist apart from the universe itself.

         1. reality epistemologically stems from realis, meaning “relating to things”. consider the word realtor and the reality business. reality is physical reality, that is what the word means.
            cause is a consequence of reality, of the physics of our brains and the world around us. there is no logical reason to believe that the same kind of causation works outside reality / this universe. because logic is a method that has evolved inside reality.

         2. Working within a finite universe, a ‘first cause’ (one that is metaphysically necessary) has to be posited. Otherwise you end up with a ‘bootstrap’ problem.

         3. is it impossible to believe that reality started just a second ago and all your memories of your past have been programmed into you?
            am i misunderstanding the bootstrap problem? it sounds to me like you make a claim – the need for a first cause – in order to avoid a problem. it seems arbitrary.

         4. Sure, solipsism solves virtually every intellectual problem in existence though. But it presents other problems, for instance, why am I responding to your point when for all I know, you never made it, and I have imagined the whole thing. Have you presented an argument at all?

         5. solipsism was not my point, but if you want to take that route, let me introduce you to my super-solipsism: if it is all in your mind, it is obviously not in your mind in reality as we know it. if anything, it will be in your mind in some kind of higher reality. that mind in a higher reality would have constructed this world so that your perception inside this “dream” is limited to this entity we could call a human. therefore, to know yourself and to know your own mind – which i could be a part of – you have to actually speak to me. it does not really matter. i have never understood the debates about life being a dream. if it is, it does not change it’s nature. the same laws apply.
            but my original point was that your memories could be implanted, not that everything around you is imagination. that there may – a few seconds or a few millenia ago – have been some kind of “image”, like a hard disk with a preinstalled operating system. e.g. you can then read a file from 2007 on a hard disk that was produced in 2012.
            on this hard disk, everyone’s mind would be imprinted, not just yours, so no solipsism.
            yes, you would have to wonder who fabricated the hard disk. but would it even be a “who”? why not an “it”? maybe no pronoun fits. does it even change anything about our life here and now?

         6. Fascinating stuff, but it’s above my pay-grade bro. Julius Evola is about as abstract as I can handle.

         7. what does julius have to say?

         8. As you point out, even if everything came into exsistance a mear moment ago it would follow that there would need to be a first cause causing that exsistance.
            When the first cause happens is irrelivant to it’s necessity.
            “What if things aren’t as they seem to be and everything you think you know is a lie?” Is a fun question, but ultimately nothing more than a distraction. Given that we are dealing with an objective, real universe it is far more meaningful to posite questions dealing with our objective, real universe than to posite questions dealing with a faux reality.
            The “who” is implied by the seeming intelligibility of the universe. For example: for any scientist to be succesful they have to believe in a fundamental theological framework. Namely that the universe is knowable and logical, otherwise if the universe were disorderly and chaotic (as the laws of entropy would imply that it should be) then any attempt to understand it would be futile. A theist would say that this implies that a great intelligence created the universe when it was first created, else it wouldn’t be nearly as ordered at a fundamental level.

         9. About that? Not sure he addressed it. He was more into ancient links between religions and the occult, spiritual centers of power, quests for the lost Hyperborea, that sort of thing. I read him more for his metapolitics.

         10. What if things aren’t as they seem to be and everything you think you know is a lie?

             that is a straw man. if anything, my argument is that it does not matter whether it is faux or real. these words mean nothing. the world around us cannot be faux, because real is what we call it. but our ideas about it can be faux.

             Namely that the universe is knowable and logical, otherwise if the universe were disorderly and chaotic (as the laws of entropy would imply that it should be) then any attempt to understand it would be futile.

             indeed, that is an important mindset. believe for a second that something is not analyzable and you will succumb to all the problems of life.
             i like the approach that god made logic. i also had this idea during one of my psychedelic experiences. made me give the devil the name “wurxlqwarxl”, as a symbol of chaos.
             but i prefer to consider my own thoughts more on a meta level. that is: why does that idea seem plausible to me? well, because my brain has evolved to understand things in a social context. irrational, sure, but why should evolution bother providing me with more rationality than is necessary for survival? in fact, this kind of irrationality keeps society together.
             i do not think that intelligence created logic. i think that logic created intelligence. intelligence is an adaption to logic.
             there is also the idea that the universe itself, including it’s laws, goes through evolutionary selection, selecting for the best suited laws, e.g. to produce black holes. black holes being new universes in that idea. it is a bit abstract, i admit. but still amusing to consider.

         11. metapolitics in a machiavellian sense? if so, any recommended reading?

         12. I guess I fail to see your point then. My apologies.

         13. His opus is ‘Revolt Against the Modern World’, but I’d recommend first reading a smaller book by Rene Guenon called ‘Crisis of the Modern World’ which lays out some of the key concepts that Evola goes on to use, in a much more accessible way. If you dive into Revolt straight away, you will get a headache, trust me. He expects you to know a crapton of terminology.

      2. This presupposes that the observable is all that is real. Philosophers throughout history have asserted that there is something beside the physical – the “metaphysical”.

         1. as i explained in my reply to the other comment, reality is explicitly observable physical reality.
            i have not had much dealings with metaphysics. what are some good insights that it offers?

         2. Metaphysics is the study of anything which cannot be immediately observed. Among its contributions are logic, history, philosophy, and ethics.
            One cannot discover the laws of the physical realm without engaging in metaphysics. When these laws are discovered, they are considered to be real in the metaphysical sense.

      3. Who knows if god exists or not? I imagine it energy and potentiality. The problem is a when a man of limited understanding and an impaired intellect imagines a god or the attributes of one and tries to get me to believe his version. That’s bullshit.

      4. A sign, please.

6. I always enjoy your delvings into the history of things, Levinson, and you don’t disappoint here. Despite being converted myself by apologetics, I didn’t know some of the historical facts you lay out here. Important to note that the Ontological Argument today has been refined by Alvin Plantinga using the concept of ‘possible worlds’.
   What I find encouraging is even very staunch atheists on the right are admitting that you cannot base a successful culture around unbelief (birth rates being one of the biggest problems).
   Whatever the religious tradition is, there has to be one, or else the Progressives will make one for the masses, their own cult. Society always has a religion, the question is which one. Is it a religion of static traditions which creates a chain of cultural inheritance through innumerable generations… or is it an ever-metastisizing holiness spiral where even if you are considered a good follower today, you will most surely be a bigot tomorrow.
   The progs told us they were transcending God. In reality, they were just itching to sit in His chair and justify their own hate against the ‘unfairness’ of reality.

   1. Progs like to think that we’re so much smarter than our superstitious ancestors, but so long as you preface your remarks with, “Scientists say…” they’ll believe almost any outlandish nonsense you make up.

      1. Scientists say that women know everything and you should always believe them because they never lie.

         1. Can you post a link to that study? I’ve never heard of that one. The one I have heard of is the link between religion and lack of intelligence and critical thinking abilities. I won’t bother posting any links, the info is easy to find.

         2. Some of the greatest minds in history and today are extremely religious. African Americans and the poor are disproportionately represented in all of those studies either deliberately or because those groups have disproportionate religiosity.

         3. Almost none of the smartest people alive are religious.

         4. 1 Corinthians 3:19-21
            19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their own craftiness”; [a] 20 and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.”[b] 21 Therefore let no one boast in men.
            I trust God more than “smart” people as they too will have to account for their sins.

         5. Well if the holy book says it.

         6. I’m pretty sure you think overrated idiots like Stephen Hawking or all the other extremely naive, philosophically-retarded scientists are the smartest of people alive.
            The smartest people alive of today pale in comparison to the smartest people alive in the early 20th Century and before.
            There isn’t any modern scientist half as smart as say Werner Heisenberg or Edwin Schrodinger from the late 19th early 20th,
            philosophy is an even worse state since scientists who suck at it and who are as I mentioned before overrated and considered an authority on truth by many make ridiculous statements on it because they’re too fucking dumb to have any critical thinking out of doing math and theorizing stupid shit like parallel universes.

      2. “The Muslim says, “If Allah wills it.” The Christian says, “In Jesus’ name.” The liberal says, “Studies have shown.” These are the sacred words that establish the authoritative truth of whatever ruinous mischief the liberal is about to propose.”
         Lawrence Auster, 2012
         http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/023970.html

         1. I really miss Auster. It’s hard to overstate how much he influenced my thinking.

         2. So ROK should start citing religious text instead of citing scientific studies from now on

         3. Direct working part time459.69$perday
            >r
            http://www.world.Media Point network/Money/Jobs
            

         4. Recent studies have shown that women don’t regret having abortions. However, upon scrutinising the methodologies employed, these ‘peer reviewed’ incontrovertible truths are clearly flawed, since they didn’t include the child-murderers who are being disembowelled, and minced up by the babies they vacuumed into fragments, in the torture chambers of hell. The earth studies showed that women over 55 ‘forgave themselves’ and ‘stopped grieving’ (do murderers generally grieve for their victims?). Hades Institute of Damnation however shows that womens’-studies inspired self-forgiveness has no statistical significance on the number of knives a murdered baby sharpens for every candle lit in ‘grief’, and every facebook like the murderess receives for agonising over ‘the hardest decision she ever made in her life.But she knows he’s in heaven now’

         5. Women are not qualified to discuss abortion since something like 1/3rd of them have had an abortion, and who knows how many of the rest would like to have that option. They should be excused from the discussion, like a jury member who is related to a plaintiff. You’ll get nothing but bias and rationalizations from them.

         6. Bingo, except the babys and knives, hell is bad enough without such inventions.

      3. I think that very few people think that we are in any objective way much “smarter” than our ancestors. The point is that today we have better access to information, more accurate information and better tools for making sense it (this, of course, is to a large degree thanks to the insights made by our ancestors). For something to be deemed a scientific conclusion, very high standards of empirical evidence are required. For example, the statement “Scientists say that planet earth was formed approximately 4.5 billion years ago” is not an article of faith, but a conclusion supported by a multitude of independently verified and carefully documented evidence, which in principle is free for anyone to examine (and possibly refute). It is for a very good reason that most people tend believe in scientific conclusions.
         While there exists bad science, bad science journalism and pure charlatanism, this is no reason not mistrust proper science in general.

7. Christians invented the idea that religions have expiration dates, and that old religions have to go away to make room for new ones. So why should Christians act surprised that this has started to happen to their religion? If humans still exist 10,000 years from now, Christianity will probably have long since vanished. Some scholars of the time might know about it, but only from fragmentary evidence. And this people’s dominant religion will probably have started some time between now and then, say, 7,000 years from now.

   1. Unlikely. Look at Hinduism. It’s been around for 5000 years and is still going, picking up steam in fact.

      1. Hinduism acts as a catch-all term for a lot of the random religions which originated on the Indian subcontinent. Therefore Hinduism has the ability to “move the goalposts” when you try to pin it down.

   2. It’s not so much that Christians believe other religions have expiration dates but that they are false.

      1. Christianity can disappear like any other religion, and Christians know this on some level. I suspect the growing visibility of atheists gives many Christians the creeps because we look like an invasion of time travelers from the coming “Jesus who?” age.

         1. the visibility isn’t really growing. As was pointed out recently, the whole ‘New Atheism’ fad has largely run its course. The religious view making headlines today is without a doubt Islam.

         2. Frankly, our high heeled overlords don’t have the balls for a Roman-style persecution involving bloody martyrs. Christianity can shrink and has shrunk drastically in the West, but we have a divine guarantee that it cannot disappear.

         3. You sound like those girls that say they don’t want to work out because “Beauty always fades so why worry about it?”

         4. Indeed. It can disappear, and the Internet is killing it off quickly.

8. This site needs to make up it’s mind on the message it wants to get across. One article preaches that women are nothing more for sex and that’s it. The next article gives tips on finding a wife and what qualities make her a “unicorn”. You than have articles saying that women are disruptive in the work force and should all go back to the kitchen but in the same breath say never get married because your wife will take all your money and or spend most of what you make. You say women are useless in college and get bullshit degrees that won’t benefit them but than turn around and judge and make fun of women who fly to Dubai to try and make a living. If you hate having female co-workers than marry more of them so they will be less women at work. Now we have a religious article which last I checked the Abrahamic religions don’t preach the lifestyle that’s most preached on this site, the Abrahamic faiths are pretty clear get married and reproduce.

   1. This site consists of different views from different authors, hence the different variety of different opinions and articles.
      If everyone chose to have the same collective viewpoint, would make this site look no different from communism and socialism.

   2. Basic concept of the Manosphere: our sexual economy is utterly broken, and can be easily exploited
      Basic concept of Reaction: well, duh. you gave up patriarchy and monarchy, of course this was going to happen.
      The two flow together naturally. Notice both are enraging to SJW morons. The first group are rapists, the second are the Taliban.

      1. Nice summary. If you want to exploit the current situation, this is how you do it. If you want to correct it this is the way back.

   3. These articles don’t contradict each other necessarily. On the contrary, most of the articles you summed up about women are mere observations that one should take into account when dealing with women or with life. E.g.
      – most modern western women are currently nothing more for sex, because they have nothing else to offer. A decent woman on the other hand would bring more to the table, such as loyalty, hence the “unicorn” article you mentioned. The latter thus simply describes the ideal scenario, or how decent women should be like, but doesn’t contradict the former which is how most women currently behave.
      – “never get married because your wife will take all your money”. This is, once more, an observation that has been made by thousands of men. The same applies to the statement that many women are disruptive in the workforce, which is also observed by women themselves. By the way, it is far from certain that women having a job won’t ruin you financially during your marriage or a divorce. Note that most divorces end up in their favour. And this doesn’t mean of course that all these women are jobless… far from it.
      – it’s hard to see how prostituting yourself in Dubai is “making a living”. And it is even harder to see how this contradicts the statement that women should not pursue bullshit degrees in college. If they want to make a living, why can’t they pick up jobs that nurtures their femininity like being a nurse, teacher, waitress, … These are professions that don’t require college degrees or anal camel sex.
      – the Abrahamic faith shows how a healthy society should work, where everyone has his or her place. The lifestyle preached on this site is a mere reaction to the degeneracy that affects western countries. As such, when one meets a traditional girl, one can still apply the principles of Abrahamic faith.

   4. Some guys are pissed because they didn’t choose the right woman or manage her properly. Others are capable of finding and managing women, and relate their experiences so others don’t go MGTOW.
      Considering the invention of the vibrator (the first one was steam-powered!) was to treat “hysteria” resulting from women not having an orgasm, women are pretty nutty. The trick is to find one you can tolerate. Or that rare one that believes (or claims to believe, which is pretty close) in old-fashioned relationships and exploit the hell out of it.

   5. different authors write here. i see it more as a cool discussion board.

   6. Personally I like getting several sides to different issues. Nothing flourishes in an echo chamber except ignorance.

   7. Maybe I got it all wrong, but I didn’t think this site had any “message” other than the promotion of the masculine back into our feminist/SJW societies. To that end, a man needs a well-rounded intellect, without exercise our minds grow stagnant and complacent in our ideals leaving us vulnerable when finally questioned. As this author stated his object was not to convert but to familiarize his readers with these particular philosophical arguments.
      Many people may disagree, but I think it is fundamental to study all aspects of the world when given opportunity, and am open to learning about things I don’t personally agree with (and which I most always continue to doubt).
      In this case, for the non-believer, religion has once been claimed an “opiate of the masses.” That is no meager feat no matter how you slice it, and deserves a respectful acknowledgement. Articles like this can serve to illustrate what has been done and how to guard against it being used to manipulate and control and how the approaches behind the religion can be applied to other forms of indoctrination/propaganda (not surprisingly this would apply to the faithful as well).
      For the believer, perhaps it can offer a deeper understanding of the history of Christianity than one might get sitting in a pew and not questioning what you are told. Also, the strength of one’s resolve is only as great as the pressures and strains one tempers it in (a good lessen for any man).
      This is the point of a forum and open discourse, the free exchange of ideas, even (and especially) when they seemingly conflict.

   8. Christianity is a beta male religion because it forbids men to have sex if they are unmarried.

      1. Stable families are the building block of any civilization. Players and sluts ye shall always have with you, but there was a time when young people were encouraged by the community to marry and have children at a young age. It’s not a coincidence that civilization began crumbling in earnest with no-fault divorce laws.

         1. It glorifies eunuchs and demands that unmarried men deny their sexuality. It is a beta male religion and Nietzsche was correct to characterize it as slave morality.

         2. Nietzsche’s brain was rotted by syphilis and he died in a madhouse as a gibbering lunatic.

         3. True, but if that is your argument, then you are not as philosophically astute as you first appeared.
            Let me call academia, so we can forget Nietzsche on the basis of your ad hominem…

         4. Who said anything about forgetting him? Christianity is integral to the West. Science as we know it rests on the assumption of a logical and orderly universe, which is itself an assumption in Scripture. There can never be any real conflict between faith and reason.
            Nietzsche demonstrated through his life that his philosophy ends in madness and death if you try to live it out.

         5. They tout the mad man as wise. Same with Hitchens one must wonder all that blasphemy and he dies from throat cancer. Strange coincidence

      2. Don’t forget to pluck out your eyeballs.
         http://www.awkwardmomentsbible.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/AwkwardMomentsBible_PluckItOut.jpg

         1. These cartoons show exactly what was wrong with the Pharisees: they took every word Jesus said literally but failed to understand the true meaning behind it. Like many atheists today bitching about bible verses that they have put out of their context just to be able to bash christians.

         2. Out of their context? I doubt you know what “context” means. Christians use it as a weasel word to cover up contradictory and embarrassing passages with other passages that they favor.
            CONTEXT!!!!!
            http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PK7P7uZFf5o

         3. You just keep on confirming my statements. There is no cover up on anything. E.g. atheists like to refer to so-called ‘genocides’ in the Hebrew scripts like on the Canaanites in a pathetic attempt to show how bloodthirsty the bible is… while failing to realize that the Canaanite civilization was perverted to such a great extent that even archeologists wondered why God didn’t punish them earlier. Child sacrifices, immorality, violence, prostitution, etc was practiced at large, and their society sunk to the deepest depths of depravity near the end.
            If this would happen now, what would you do? Or the UN? Oh I see, you would bring them to the tribunal of Den Haag. I see how that works with IS. These guys must be so scared in Syria.

         4. You, talking perversion. Now that’s funny.
            Psalm 137:9 Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.
            If you follow the Bible, your moral compass is so far askew, you don’t know East from West. And that includes the horrible ethics of your Dear Leader too.
            Avolos, H. (2015) The Bad Jesus: The Ethics of New Testament Ethics. Sheffield Phoenix Press Ltd.
            sheffieldphoenix.com/showbook.asp?bkid=294

         5. What the hell man seriously? If you would actually read that psalm from the beginning, you would see this applies to the jews who were captivated by the Babylonians and thus is a reference to the hardships they had to endure.
            Look man, I’m not going to waste my time on this pointless discussion anymore. I have better things to do than to reply on your comments that are copy-pasted from christian bashing websites without doing the proper background research yourself.

         6. I did actually read it. Your excuse-making for morally reprehensible crap is as lame as ever.

9. Buddhism makes an interesting contrast with Christianity, in that it doesn’t fit neatly into Western categories of religion, philosophy or psychology, though it has aspects of all those of those ideas. And Buddhism, unlike Christianity, doesn’t depend on claims made about an historical Buddha. You can’t test whether Jesus rose from the dead, but you can test the effects of Buddhist practices in the here and now, using the tools of modern science.
   For example: Buddhists ‘really are happier’ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3047291.stm

   1. If ‘testability’ was a factor for religion, then the Cult of Progress has it nailed down. Didn’t you see Dr. Oz present Roosh with all those studies on fat-shaming? Testability supposedly proves Progressivism, so I reject ‘testability’ out of hand.

      1. Dr. Oz really needs to scold Michelle Obama for fat-shaming America’s children.

         1. Forget that, how about the irony that he works for Queen Hamplanet herself, Oprah!

      2. are you talking out of blind loyalty to roosh or out of rational conviction that something about dr. oz’s evidence was wrong? i accuse you of the first.

         1. I said as I was watching the show, if I were Roosh, I would have bought a stack of 100 studies from Russian economists between 1920 and 1980 all saying Communism was a viable long-term economic model. Would those studies have made for a strong argument or a weak argument?

         2. brings us to an interesting epistemological problem: how do you find out which argument is strong or weak when you do not trust information?
            if i had been roosh on the show, i would not have tried to convince those idiots that i am a good guy. i would have told them that i fat shame because it is fun and that i follow an adapt or die ideology.
            deep down, roosh can not stop to idealize his inner nice guy. that is why he totally lost the power play on the show.

   2. There are claims that Jesus was well travelled and visited India and conversed with the Brahmins and Tibetan monks. His message had a lot in common with Eastern thought, specifically Buddhism. People speculated he survived Crucifixion and simply left Judea.
      Many of his ideas were quite alien to the religion and the local simpletons either couldn’t understand it or turned it into a cult later adopted by Rome. Seems they tried to squeeze in attributes of earlier Sun cults and Pagan religions and expected people to accept nonsensical things like walking on water, raising the dead and declaring them miracles. Once you abandon rational thought and accept bullshit stories, religion has got you by the balls. If you don’t accept the dogma you are branded a Heretic or a witch.
      You got all these bored fucking sexless monks creating fantasies about who Jesus was, his relationship to God and Dogma that brought nothing of value of the human condition. Just blind devotion to a movement that died when Jesus died or left. They used it to control people by making them believe in bullshit rather than the more personal and practical parts of his message.
      Whoever Jesus was, he was a genius surrounded by idiots who likely worshipped fucking rocks and sticks before he showed up. He likely survived the cross and simply got the hell out of the sand pit called Judea knowing they were too stupid to make good information useful. The people were surrounded by a brutal Empire and crazy Jewish religious leaders and got heavily taxed by both.
      The real act of destroying a religion is making a man a god rather than emulating his message.

   3. That’s a bullshit argument. If you do a basic search you’ll find the same results ‘proving’ that Christians who read the Bible more or pray more or go to church more ‘really are happier’. Why is a atheist ‘using the tools of modern science’ to promote a religion anyway? Anti-religion…or just Anti-Christ? Reincarnations and Dalai Lamas don’t fit to well with not needing to depend on historical figures either.

10. He gave my thoughts a definition, the ontology arguement. I have thought of this a lot. God exist In everyone’s brain, people just shift his reference to something else, like money or fame. And how you imagine your God is how big he is in your brain, not outside though, but to you if God is all powerful than he is. And even huge earth shattering events don’t rattle the believer to much. But those who claim he doesn’t exist are tossed to and fro from popular opnion and what’s on the tv.

11. Religion is like guns: in the right hands it can save lives and enhance your life. In the wrong hands, it can kill people.

    1. Everthing is like that

       1. Never said it wasn’t. The world is full of grey. More than fifty shades of it, too.

    2. Sometimes killing is not unnecessary. We’d be foolish to think so in this day and age.

       1. it always depends on your purpose.

    3. Agreed. But more important; the God(s) must be something that appeal to the very core of your being to have true meaning for you.
       I cannot succumb to a desert god who has his chosen people far from my own people, and kill others who get in their way. He is just a jealous, revengeful god invented to suit a desert tribe.

12. The amount of blood shed over religion means that whether I believe in God or not, organised religion is not for me.
    I’m atheist just in case I’m wrong – I’d rather have the soft cuddly modern God mad at me than Thor. 😉

    1. Dude, please look at the millions upon million killed by atheist leaders throughout history, blood is on the hands of atheists and theists alike.

       1. OK so I’m atheist and also against MASS MURDER.
          Morality without religion, who’d have thought?

          1. Yes, you can be moral without religion; you just have no objective basis for your morality. And, if mass killings committed by atheists don’t prevent you from being an atheist, why do mass killings (on a much smaller scale) by theists prevent you from being a theist?

          2. You aren’t in charge of a country with an apparatus to cover for anything you do.

          3. If God is a person, then his views of morality are also subjective.

          4. Because I stopped believing. Atheism is something I can ‘believe’

          5. Catholic church cover-up anyone?

       2. Blood is on the hands of men. Many men find ways to justify their killings, but the blame rests with them.

       3. If not for the fact that religion lost control of the state before modern technology became available, religion certainly would have killed equal numbers of people, if not more.

          1. Baseless speculation about a future scenario that never took place. Anybody can do that. If Atheist Communism had not collapsed when it did hey would have nuked and killed billions, if not more.

13. Dostoyevsky said through the character of Ivan Karamazov that if God does not exist, then everything is permissible.

    Dostoevsky didn’t know enough atheists in his time to form a good generalization about how a reduced-god society would function in practice.
    For example, none of those atheist sexual utopians in the 19th and 20th Centuries predicted that if you secularized sexual relationships. you would wind up with a growing population of adult male virgins. How could this happen? I thought that godlessness would make a sexual utopia “permissible.”

    1. Utopias made by man are fantasies, as always. Look not at the argument from the perspective of the religious who didn’t understand it fully, but from the perspective of God. A set of moral guidelines were given, with the warning that if they are strayed from, very bad things will occur.
       The Modernists strayed from them, thinking they would achieve ‘Enlightenment’. Instead, we got Laci Green. Hence, bad things have very much occurred.

       1. Dostoevsky said that everything becomes “permissible” without a god. He clearly made a false statement, because a whole lot of secular guys these days have discovered how “impermissible” sexual relationships have become, at least for them.

          1. there is a semantic difference between “permissible” and “possible”. All things being permissible is exemplified int he growing acceptance of deviant sexuality, rather than something like the malfunctioning sexual economic dynamic between males and females.

14. “I have known many gods. He who denies them is as blind as he who trusts them too deeply. I seek not beyond death. It may be the blackness averred by the Nemedian skeptics, or Crom’s realm of ice and cloud, or the snowy plains and vaulted halls of the Nordheimer’s Valhalla. I know not, nor do I care. Let me live deep while I live; let me know the rich juices of red meat and stinging wine on my palate, the hot embrace of white arms, the mad exultation of battle when the blue blades flame and crimson, and I am content. Let teachers and philosophers brood over questions of reality and illusion. I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content.”
    ― Robert E. Howard, Queen of the Black Coast

15. 
    This is only an hour long and is well worth every minute of your time.The only Biblical apologetic for not only the existence of God, but the Biblical narrative being an accurate description of the true nature of reality. This is how the disciples preached, it’s how Jesus preached. Enjoy

16. I didn’t need any philosophical argument to convince me that God is real. All I needed was history. Jesus existed — that is a historical fact that even the overwhelming majority of secular historians agree on. It’s also a pretty well-established historical fact that early Christians and the apostles were martyred for refusing to give up their testimony that they witnessed the resurrected Christ. People don’t die for things they know are false (Yes, people die for false beliefs but not things they know for a fact are untrue).
    When someone claims divinity, affirms the God of the Old Testament, and backs it up by His resurrection (and performing miracles, which even His enemies admitted), I believe that person.

    1. I never found Jesus as an allegedly historical figure all that interesting. I would rather read books by and about accomplished classical Greeks and Romans, a recurring theme here on ROK.

       1. Whether or not Jesus was “interesting” is irrelevant to me. But, personally, I find a historical figure who claimed deity and backed it up pretty interesting.

          1. And I never understood this fear-based approach to make us pay attention to Jesus. If you don’t heed Jesus’ life and message, he will do all kinds of mean things to you in the afterlife.

          2. What “fear-based approach” did I resort to and where did I say anything about being punished in an afterlife? I believe in total reconciliation — that Jesus died for everyone’s sins and everyone will eventually be reconciled with God. I don’t believe in eternal hell.

          3. I thought the Christian belief was that mankind, in having sinned, has been separated from God and damned. But that Jesus opened a way to salvation through his sacrifice so that our sin might be absolved?
             (I thought that the “fire and brimstone” approach was more about control by the organized entity than practice of the faith).

          4. fire and brimstone is always useful. those who laugh at it as a control device, don’t understand how necessary it is to chain the chaotic and evil nature of man.

          5. He is your shepherd, right? I mean, he is every christians shepherd.
             What does that make you? Normally a sheep, but a goat on a good day, I presume…….

          6. Yes, I am a sheep and Jesus is my shepherd. So what’s your point or were just playing semantics with a metaphor used by Jesus?

          7. Disagree. This is not just ‘semantics’. Metaphors is what builds a religion, which guides your life. It turns real pretty fast. My point, and thank you for asking, as I was definitely unclear about it, is as follows:
             Christianity is a slave religion, and the implications in the bible to support that are several. The shepherd metaphor being only one.
             It would take to much space to go into details here, but religion is more than anything a personal choice. Granted that we are all here in the west indoctrinated with christianity, but still – it is a choice.
             In my view you are choosing to pursue a slave mentality when looking for your religion in the bible.

          8. Fear-mongering about mythical underworld monsters under your bed is Jesus’ way.
             Jesus: “Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” (Matthew 10:28)
             Jesus: “But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after your body has been killed, has authority to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.” (Luke 12:5)

          9. Fear is simply a marketing tool.

             Marketers use fear as a motivator as often as they can. They present a scenario they hope will invoke our sense of fear. Then they show us a solution – a path back to our comfort zone – that entails using their product or service. Fear is used to sell virtually everything…
             The Most Powerful Motivator
             How fear is etched into our brains
             psychologytoday.com/blog/the-main-ingredient/200909/the-most-powerful-motivator

          10. Yes, I am a slave to Christ and I have no problem with that. My only concern is objective truth. Your personal feelings about “slave mentality” are not objective truth.

          11. The word used by Jesus that was translated to “hell” was Gehenna — a garbage heap just outside the walls of Jerusalem. Jesus was warning the Jewish leaders of the coming destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. when many of their bodies were literally thrown into Gehenna. Jesus was not talking about a place of everlasting torment.

          12. How did the Norse mythological underworld of Loki’s daughter Hell get in the Bible, anyway?
              Jesus also spoke of the Greek mythological world of Zeus’ brother Hades.
              And don’t forget, the whole Jesus religion is just another Greek salvation scam with a bit of Hebrew syncretic spice. This sounds familiar to you, I’d guess:

              […] they perform their ritual, and persuade not only individuals, but whole cities, that expiations and atonements for sin may be made by sacrifices and amusements which fill a vacant hour, and are equally at the service of the living and the dead; the latter sort they call mysteries, and they redeem us from the pains of hell [Hades], but if we neglect them no one knows what awaits us.
              Plato (4th century BCE) The Republic. Book II.
              classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.html

          13. I don’t know about a sheep but you sure are a dumb ass lol

    2. If you guys want to watch an interesting flick, check out Philip K Dick’s “Radiofree Albumuth”…also check out his life in the mid-late 70s, and what prompted his writings

17. i do not admire sir kant, but the ontological stuff does not make any sense to me. as you say, i can not pinpoint to what is wrong with it, other than that i can not really tell what it is trying to say, other than perhaps: my mind has the idea of something perfect, therefore it exists.
    reminds me of the problem of proving free will against determinism. eventually, you start to wonder what exactly it is that you are trying to prove anyway.
    the teleological argument is more interesting to me. after my ayahuasca trip which introduced me to a total chaos of perception where neither time nor geometry nor personality existed, i intuitively understood structure and logic as something divine. to flee chaos and to create in it a world bound by rules and shaped by a rational mind, freeing the consciousness from that prior chaos, would require some kind of godlike force – similar to the concept of entropy. but then again, it would not necessarily need to be a christian god. it could just be – well – “it”. the universe.
    from that perspective, i am less intrigued by the question whether “god” exists and much more intrigued by the question what exactly that word is supposed to describe. before proving god, i must know what it is i am trying to prove. and when i know what i am trying to prove, have i not already proven it by the fact that i know of it and assigned a name to it? weirdly, this sounds similar to the ontological argument.
    i like the first three “proofs” of aquinas. the fourth and fifth do make less sense to me, as they imply a meaning. when we put rats in a cage, was it in our intent that they will eventually kill off each other once they reach peak population?
    if you simply use the word god for a kind of origin, i could live with that. to assume that god is an intellectual being like us, though, that i consider a consequence of our human nature that evolved in this universe.
    david hume seems like a cool guy. most simple and convincing logic in his words. we know the rules of mathematics because we devised them. the rules of the universe, though, can only be reverse engineered from observations.
    kant seems a bit confused, but he has a point in that god transcends human reason. human reason has evolved to survive through the ages. there is a purpose behind it. when we ask “why” existence exists, what exactly are we asking? are we asking the intention of a suggested being? or the laws by which existence came to be? the preceding events?
    all in all, the moral arguments seem weak. moral is much more well explained through evolution. also, what about psychopaths? are they the “devil” or what? what about the people in between the shades of grey?
    the weirdest part about religion for me is: if god exists (and that presumes that i know what i mean by that), of what consequence is it? only a power play. what if god is an angry motherfucker who despises christians?
    religion is a great instrument of leadership. if you can associate love, happiness, serenity, virtue and self-control with your concept of a god, you can steer people. because if they start to question god, it is subconsciously to them as if they questioned happiness.

    1. Do you find any of the arguments for the exsistance of god compelling enough to logically believe in the exsistance of some sort of god?
       And if so, would you agree that the apparent intelligibility of the universe implies a sort of intelligence on the part of god?

       1. no, i do not. because it is futile to try to convince myself of something i have not defined. i do not know what the word god originally described, therefore i can not prove it.
          maybe the first people to perceive god just meant to describe a vague sense of happiness or calmness about life. or something different. if that is the case, all is fine. nothing needs to be proven – you have a name for a perception.
          look at science. the only thing you can ever prove is a theory. you make an assumption, a prediction. then you test whether it happens. you need to be very precise about the questions you pose so that the answer can be meaningful. but what exactly does the existence of god predict?
          try to prove the existence of an apple. how would you do it? you would pick up an apple and say “this exists. this is an apple.” but then somebody would possibly disagree about whether that thing you hold actually is an apple.
          god seems confusing because it is vague. if it was on me, i would just abolish the word for myself, as i do not know what it means.
          on the other hand, if you observe something or describe an abstract concept, then call that concept god, that is fine with me. then you have described something that obviously exists and given it a name.

          1. So is the problem that god can’t be positively defined? Or that he doesn’t exsist as an object in the universe? Or both?
             Because fundamentally I would agree with you that god is both of those things.
             To restate my original question, would you agree to the nessecity of a first mover?

18. To summarize:
    Ontological: god exists because by definition god exists. (Feminism is by definition equality for all, so must be awesome right?)
    Teleological: 5 ways to badly and incompletely define things so that they lead to backward paradoxes without god. (There’s a sky. It’s not falling. Things fall if not held up. Therefore there must be something holding it up. Therefore some guy named Atlas MUST be somewhere holding it up).
    Moral Argument: See aspects of both Ontological (exists by definition) and Teleological (stupid ways to define things).
    Let’s pretend all of these are correct. Now which god is real? Thor’s pretty awesome. So is Zeus. The jews, Christians, and muslims apparently all follow the same god, but all received wildly different messages from their prophets. Which one is right?
    The only significant difference between Christianity and islam is length of time since their founding. But that’s flawed because Christianity was a few days old back when the jews had been worshiping for hundreds of years at least. Chinese gods are an order of magnitude older. The sun god can be seen in cave paintings dating tens of thousands of years. So if age is not how you define the right one, how about number of worshippers? Nope, again Christianity had a handful of followers when (literal) legions where sacrificing goats to Mars, god of war. You can’t use the ‘latest iteration’ argument either because then scientology wins. Unless you count minor cults in which case a new one is born every day.
    What’s left other than “muh feels!”?

    1. Your lack of understanding about early Christianity, history, Islam, and theology is astounding. Your comment is based on so many false premises it would take a book to dissect it.

       1. He’s right about the two Abrahamic offshoots, Christianity and Islam, being kissing cousins.

          “[…] the Quran derives from a Syriac Christian lectionary.”
          The Christian Origins of Islam, by Peter Leithhart
          http://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2012/12/the-christian-origins-of-islam

          1. He’s right that the ONLY difference between Islam and Christianity is the length of time since their founding? You’ve got to be kidding me. Christianity is based on the deity, death, and resurrection of Christ — all tenants that Islam rejects.

          2. You obviously don’t know the evolution of dogma in the early church.

             “During his lifetime, Jesus himself didn’t call himself God and didn’t consider himself God, and … none of his disciples had any inkling at all that he was God. –Historian Bart Ehrman”
             If Jesus Never Called Himself God, How Did He Become One? | April 07, 2014
             npr.org/2014/04/07/300246095/if-jesus-never-called-himself-god-how-did-he-become-one

          3. The first thing you’ve said on this forum which I can endorse.
             Many of the “difficult” words in the Quran have defined (Christian) meanings in Syriac, but no meaning in Arabic. This implies that the Quran was a Christian lectionary, prior to the Abbasids and Ummayids. These caliphs were known to create hadith (historical stories) about Muhammad, and the majority of the religious truths in Islam are derived from these hadith.
             It is entirely possible/likely that Islam is a politically-driven corruption of Scripture, further corrupted by different regimes over time.
             Compared to the historical evidence of the Jewish and Christian writings, Islam is substantially harder to support.

    2. The arguments never specifically stipulate a Christian God, or any other god. The insertion of a specific god is non-essential to the argument because men understand God through the lens of convention. The arguments refer to an entity that exists by nature; i.e. they refer to the landscape itself, not the map.

19. I also don’t understand why people today don’t see the gospels as fan fiction. Any reasonably literate person back then could write a story about Jesus or one of the other legendary figures associated with him, and possibly get unsophisticated people to accept it as genuine. And not through deliberate deception, but just from a simple misunderstanding. Some early Christian who wrote one of these stories dies, other people find his manuscript among his effects, and they misinterpret what they read.
    By contrast, no one in antiquity could write a book and attribute it to the mathematician Archimedes unless the author also possessed freakish mathematical talents of his own. Very few people can think like that in any generation. You can’t bullshit mathematicians; you have to present clear theorems and logical proofs of your assertions so that other mathematicians can take you seriously.

    1. Your understanding of how the Gospels were written is so flawed I don’t know where to begin. The Gospels were written by eye witnesses or people who interviewed eye witnesses. The idea that they were late creations has been discredited by the finding of gospel writings dating back to the first century. And, the letters of Paul (which we know are authentic and know, generally, when they were written) reference aspects of Jesus’ life and figures from the gospels.

       1. Agreed. The prime support for the scriptures comes from the fact that they were written while people existed who could refute them, as eye witnesses.
          It is the same as dismissing biographies of Steve Jobs. There are still people around who could tell you where the biographies were wrong.

       2. This kind of poor scholarship is unfortunately very common, but I put it down to pathetic religious figures who typically are ignorant of the facts you present as well.

          1. True. One of the biggest problems with Christianity today is its own leaders. Sadly, Christianity has been hijacked by anti-science, anti-intellectual leaders who think “faith” means just picking something to believe in and believing it no matter what.

          2. Christianity has two problems, the same two problems every other religion has on earth now
             1) Liberal Christians who are beyond retarded shills for Modernism (I include those dumbass mega-churches here too)
             2) Fundamentalist Christians who are reacting to Liberal Christianity by interpreting the Bible in disordered ways that the early Christians never interpreted it in.
             It’s why I am very glad to be Orthodox. We love our kin, our traditions are as old as the apostles with no annoying “Vatican 2” equivalent, and we’re not afraid to show the martial character of our faith, as you can see when a Libtard pops their head up in Russia to promote some garbage.

       3. Actually, we don’t know who wrote the Gospels. The names assigned to them are merely Church tradition. And there currently has been no Gospel manuscript found that can conclusively be dated to the first century.

          1. The Gospels aside with unknown authors, half the NT is made up of deliberately deceptive texts.

             “There were a lot of people in the ancient world who thought that lying could serve a greater good,” says Ehrman, an expert on ancient biblical manuscripts.
             Half of New Testament forged, Bible scholar says
             religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/05/13/half-of-new-testament-forged-bible-scholar-says/

    2. apparently, there are many people who confuse hollywood actors with the characters they portray and hate them for killing their heroes. also, many people who confuse movies with real life.
       the problem probably is that we are wired to accept stories as real lessons, because that may have evolved as their purpose. when people then battle each other with different perspectives, everybody gets confused.

    3. “I also don’t understand why people today don’t see the gospels as fan fiction.”
       But why would a person who didn’t exist have fans? And, why would His fans feel compelled to tell other people about His life and prove His deity if they had no reason to believe that themselves?

       1. For the same reason Mithra, Osiris and Horus had fans.

          1. There were people who believed Mithra, Osiris, and Horus were literal, historical figures and claimed to have met them? Interesting theory. Do you have any documentation for that?

    4. Who would write such fan fiction and for what purpose? For the first 300 years of Christianity’s existence, claiming to be a Christian was a good way to get yourself jailed or killed.

    5. The Gospels and the Book of Acts are clearly literary works and not historical. An excellent book on the subject is The Historicity of Jesus by Dr. Richard Carrier. The analysis and arguments he lays out are devastating against Christian claims about Jesus, assuming that Jesus even existed in the first place.
       In modern times, the religion of Rastafarianism quickly developed around Haille Selassie–a man who specifically made it known that he was not God and did not want to be worshipped. How much easier this would have been in the vastly more ignorant days of two thousand years ago.

       1. You’re citing to Richard Carrier as a credible source on Jesus? He is a Marxist and literally the only credentialed historian who doubts the historical existence of Jesus — simply to support his own agenda.

20. Aquinas’s arguments for the existence of God are sound.
    His arguments for burning non-Romanists alive at the stake are diabolical.

    1. Aquinas is a bit hit-or-miss. His logic was too often submissive to his desire to support the papacy.
       My favorite example is a proof for the need for the Pope, which ultimately relies on the necessity of the Pope.

    2. Every man has his foibles.

21. Women and children need God. They need the fatherly figure to guide them and keep them in line. Grown up men can do without him.

    1. Yes, a person can be a successful, functioning member of society without believing in God. But that has nothing to do with the question of whether He exists.

       1. God is just an idea. His imagery presence is felt because of the etheric energy, which is around us, and it permeates all physical matter and space throughout the universe. It is the same as that which is called chi, qi, vital force, prana and other names in various languages.
          In Christianity, he presents the Universe, which is masculine – the Heavenly Father. But God is best represented by the image of True Parents, a divine couple. A married husband and wife in loving embrace represent the divine polarity.
          Therefore, a grown up man who is the head of his family does not need God as much as his woman and his children, because he is God now.
          Perhaps, I should have said “women, children AND single men need God.”

          1. Ok, I have no idea what you are talking about and that still doesn’t address the fundamental question of whether God exists.

    2. A society of grown men doing without him, as history has shown, degenerates into utter Liberalism.

       1. The pendulum swings both ways, you can’t change that.

          1. It’s less like a pendulum, more like a Phoenix actually.

22. I can see giving Jesus’ story the “Outlander” treatment. An experienced trauma nurse from the early 21st Century, perhaps fresh from treating war wounds of American soldiers from the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, mysterious travels back in time to 1st Century Palestine. She meets a charismatic preacher named Yeshua, and after his botched crucifixion, she uses her knowledge to treat his injuries and save his life.
    Because Jesus’ crucifixion does look botched to me. Romans usually left bodies of crucified criminals hanging until they started to decompose, then they took them down. They faced no urgency to do that for Jesus’ body before dusk on a Friday because Jewish superstitions about the Sabbath didn’t bind them. And if they had to go along with these beliefs for political reasons, they could simply have held Jesus in custody until Sunday morning, then crucified him properly when they had a block of non-taboo days ahead of them to let his body hang and rot.

    1. The Romans were acting at the request of Jewish leaders because they feared a Jewish uprising. Study the history of Israel during that time period.

       1. The Jews had nothing to threaten the Roman government with. The story makes no sense as given, and the Romans could simply have held Jesus until Sunday morning for his crucifixion.

          1. The Jews had nothing to threaten the Roman government with? Are you joking? There was a constant threat of Jewish rebellion during that time period. In fact, Rome had to go to war with the Jews just a few decades after Jesus’ resurrection, resulting in the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.
             To the Romans, Jesus was just another subject whose life meant nothing to them. It makes perfect sense that they would throw him to the mobs in order to appease the Jewish leaders.

       2. The Romans were never afraid of the Jews. They were used to much more formidable enemies, and easily defeated the Jews when the revolt did occur.
          Incidentally, the Gospels go out of their way to make Rome and Romans look good, because of Christianity’ s fear of them in the second century.

          1. Nice theory. But the Gospels were written in the first century. So, the Christians’ fear of Romans in the second century is irrelevant.

23. Great article! With all due respect to St. Anselm, I’ve always found the Ontological argument to be a bit silly, but St. Thomas’s proofs are spot on. Truly, this is one of the questions on which all else hinges.

    1. Sadly, Thomas’s proofs are a cheat. They rely on the listener to suspend logic.
       Either something can exist without a first mover: in Aquinas’ example this is God, but Occam’s razor tells us if there is something that always was and always will be, it is not an intelligent entity but a dumb process… branes clapping infinitely together creating new big bangs every 100 billion years, say; a process with no beginning and no end.
       Or, nothing can exist without a first mover, in which case, Aquinas’s God requires a God of his own, who must worship his own God greater than him, who must worship a God even greater, up an infinite chain of first movers for first movers.
       I would prefer a universe based around a higher meaning, but Aquinas’ proofs do not get us there.

       1. I see your point. But remember that Occam’s Razor tells us that we must choose the simpler when both hypotheses predict equally well. By definition, God would be uncreated because no one and nothing would be capable of creating Him. As God, He would be more than capable of setting the universe in motion. We cannot say the same of unintelligent processes with no beginning, because there is no way to explain the lack of beginning to them, either by logic or definition. While both possibilities do not make scientific sense, we must choose one, and the God hypotheses is less absurd. Therefore, I would say that according to Occam’s Razor, we should accept the existence of a supreme being. Even Occam himself regarded God as an ontological necessity.

          1. Occam was an interesting character. Many people mischaracterize his Razor as meaning we should always go with the simplest explanation. What he said was, if we must choose between competing hypotheses that predict equally well, we should choose the one that makes the fewest assumptions.
             Personally, I believe the decline and fall of the West started with him.

          2. He certainly was radical in the fact that he denied that the existence of God could not be proved rationally .

          3. Nay. An impersonal process is much less complex than a personal sentient creator being, so we must therefore rule out God.

          4. Divine simplicity? The “God is complex” argument comes from the philosophically inept ramblings of Richard Dawkins.

          5. Nonsense. Sentience, personality, omnipotence omniscience and a host of other attributes ascribed to God necessitate much more complexity than an impersonal force/process

          6. No, not at all. Read this: http://www.iep.utm.edu/div-simp/
             It answers that objection far better than I can. Such an objection confuses God’s existence with His essence.

    2. Aquina’s arguments are pre-Newtonian, much less pre-Relativity. Einstein’ s Theory tells us that all motion is relative, so the notion of a Prime Mover is bunk

       1. Aquinas isn’t talking about motion in the modern sense of the word. He’s talking about change. The argument from motion is better termed the argument from change.

       2. Ah, but but why is ANYTHING moving relative to everything else? There is undeniably still motion going on. Newton’s first law of physics dictates that an object will remain at rest until acted upon by an outside force, so Aquinas and Newton are actually in perfect accord

24. I don’t see how “going to heaven” really solves anything, either. What if you get to heaven, then you rebel against god?
    And consider that you can’t predict that you wouldn’t do that. For all you know, you have drawn the short straw in the next stage of god’s plan, and he intends for you to become the next satan.

    1. Craig has advanced the theory that at that stage, we will not have free will. Having made our decisions already, we will settle into an eternal heavenly mode of existence.

    2. And what if you woke up tomorrow and it was raining purple unicorns? You’re really grasping for straws with some of these “arguments.” Truth cannot be found by asking ridiculous hypothetical questions.

25. The most important one is the Theological Argument. The bible is supernatural. It predicted the coming of Christ down to the year in chapter 9 of Daniel, which was written hundreds of years before Christ. Isaiah 53 (I think that’s the reference) predicted Christ’s death and included details about crucifixion even though it hadn’t been invented yet. It was prophesied that Israel would get their homeland back. People thought those passages predicting the reunion of Israel were figurative until the middle of the 20th century when Israel get their territory and statehood back. I, like many ROK readers here, am not a huge fan of the Jews because of how they undermined Western Civilization with Marxism, Feminism, etc. But they are gonna get Jerusalem back and they are gonna rebuild the Temple. And then that’s when shit will hit the fan.

    1. Sorry dude, sounds like Armageddon porn.

26. Why do people care so much about “God” anyway. If he’s real, then perhaps he should pay a visit some time. If he’s not real, who gives a shit?

27. All good to decent arguements but there’s one thing that bothers me about these kinds of discussions, meaning. It always seems to be the driving force behind it and both sides always assert that the meaning or lack there of is the driving force behind their beliefs about God. I believe it’s a mix of both. Imagine you’re a being of unlimited power and infinite time. What would you do with it? The only thing I could see being of interest is limiting yourself. Rules are what dictate games and make them interesting. You may think having unlimited freedom to do as you please would be fun but how long do you think that would last? Forever? Doubtful. We exist because of boredom.

28. I personally see the g-d argument as pointless. One either has faith or not. You can’t prove or disprove a theological idea. G-d is the anchor, the solid rock upon which one can rely and seek guidance if one wishes to do so; g-d is a collective of thought on morality and how one should behave on this earth in which we are all temporary visitors.
    Left to our own devises, most of us would eventually (if we lived long enough) arrive at the same point with regard to what constitutes a moral living. However, life is way too short to be lived through trial and error. That’s where g-d comes in to guide us so we can achieve more whilst we still can.

29. My argument:
    I believe God exists no the good and merciful God but all need a beginning I believe in God as a beginning.
    If you also look at the universe you will realise that there is a order.
    You can also perceive that the order has lead to your existence.
    Supposing that nothing can be different due to “causal and physical predestination” you can deduce that our lives could be predicted long time ago, at the moment in which universe started.
    You will also notice that if something have changed the physical laws at the start of universe the current situation would had lead to a different universe without humans.
    Thus think if you change some elementals laws planets will exist, if you change another law stars will exist but planets no or maybe all will just be space dust, if you change gravity and make it stronger only black holes will exist. But the most imperceptible change will lead to a universe without us.
    The more convoluted is the universe the wider laws you need. And human brain is the most complex side of the universe.
    In order to have a universe with living beings you need add more physical laws. Since life is a most complex part of the universe. Having a planet is difficult but have biology require a planet and its laws plus life and its laws which must be in harmony with other laws. It’s like a symphony.
    There is a specific set for the life in the universe, water, amino acids, proteins and the laws that regulate them and their emergent characteristics.
    Laws are not just “set” to deterministically lead to the current moment but the fact that they merely exist proofs that there is another factor beside “fine tuning”
    At this point God is not merely the “Unmoved mover” his(never her)is also the great planner. But I prefer to call him the Great Architect of the Universe.
    The fact is that Occam’s razor simplest way to explain why there are beings that can think about the simplest way Occam’s razor may be thought by them is God.
    http://www.crystalinks.com/allseeingeyefreemasons350.jpg

    1. Very insightful!!

    2. Your argument is completely illogical, you are using God to pacify your mind. You have a lot of answers but you don’t ask the right questions.
       But am agnostic so, I guess my thoughts on the subject are not suprising.

       1. > using God to pacify your mind
          Exactly! Religion is a way of dealing with our uniquely human “mortality salience” and denying death with an immortality story, as Terror Management Theory http://www.tmt.missouri.edu explains.
          Ernest Becker (1973) The Denial of Death. Free Press.
          Stephen Cave. (2012) Immortality: The Quest to Live Forever and How It Drives Civilization. Crown.
          Sheldon Solomon and Jeff Greenberg (2015) The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life. Random House.
          The 4 stories we tell ourselves about death
          TED Talk | Philosopher Stephen Cave | 15 minutes
          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PB7xs7UpIfY
          Flight From Death
          Documentary by the Ernest Becker Foundation
          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Hi1C4NNnV4

          1. He is justifying the existence of God not living beyond life or any religious cult.
             Your atheist religion blinds your mind. Your genes wire you to be a believer. In the past you were a crazy worshiper of your country beliefs or social cults. Indeed you do it in the present.

          2. Sorry, I’m not an atheist, as I stated several hours ago. Why is it that Christfags think they’re the only group that believes in any gods?

          3. What are your beliefs? Why did you suppose I am christian?

       2. Your reply denotes that you haven’t understood the text. He is not pacifying his mind.He says that God is evil and free will doesn’t exist. That’s the opposite of “pacifying my mind” or something else.
          I don’t see illogics anywhere, can you specify what is “illogical”?

30. As it happens, when the Ontological Argument is formalized and run through a computer program for verifying correctness of formal arguments, the computer finds it to be correct. Here’s a link to the pdf and the abstract of the paper (by J. Rushby, Not my work):
    The Ontological Argument, an 11th Century proof of the existence of God,
    is a good candidate for Fun With Formal Methods as nearly everyone finds the
    topic interesting. We formalize the Argument in PVS and verify its correctness.
    The formalization raises delicate questions in formal logic and provides
    an opportunity to show how these are handled, soundly and eciently, by the
    predicatively-subtyped higher-order logic of PVS and its mechanized support.
    The simplicity of the Argument, coupled to its bold conclusion, raise interesting
    issues on the interpretation and application of formal methods in the real
    world.
    https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CB8QFjAAahUKEwj-g7nZ5_TGAhURM4gKHbgSDB0&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.csl.sri.com%2F~rushby%2Fpapers%2Fontological.pdf&ei=WLuyVf73KpHmoAS4pbDoAQ&usg=AFQjCNHhGbpYoxgrMEOsiQsTDKyDmBH0GA&sig2=n_w6H8LiBkyREOWrSifKzQ&bvm=bv.98717601,d.cGU

31. I’m surprised you didn’t mention Pascal’s Wager: Let us assume there is a God and an afterlife as Christians describe it. You will follow the belief in their God and make it heaven, or you will reject Him and be sent to hell for eternity.
    It is better, then, to believe in God than not. Because if you believe in him and you’re wrong, you’ve wagered nothing and lost nothing. But if you choose disbelief and are wrong, you’ve wagered everything and lost it all.

    1. A compelling argument for christians, but for seculars it’s nonsense.
       Secular mindset:
       Let’s assume that christians are wrong. Would you give up your personal good feelings and self determined freedom, for a maybe heaven. Or would you rather live your life for a certain upfront payoff, vs an uncertain afterlife.
       Would you give up everything for a maybe?
       Not saying the mindset is correct, just what it is.

       1. One interesting development I’ve noticed in the manosphere is that a lot of men with tight Game eventually grew tired of that lifestyle and have begun searching for more to life. Sometimes I wonder if there’s a new St. Augustine in the making out there.

          1. I grew tired of game within a year, and instead used it’s principles to go unicorn hunting. Mix a catholic ethic with the principles of game and the unicorns come out of hiding.
             The men on these forums are exactly the men we need to come back to church and rebuild it from within.

    2. I mentioned it briefly. My fellow RoK writer Quintus Curtius wrote an excellent column about it a while back: http://www.returnofkings.com/64462/the-application-of-spirituality-in-a-neomasculine-lifestyle

    3. Pascal’s wager, reloaded:
       http://www.awkwardmomentsbible.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/pascal_wager.jpg

32. I find it odd that there are so many religious guys on a site that has adopted the idea of the red pill – for seeing reality the way it is. I’m all for this regarding women, but religion is the biggest make believe fairy tale there is.
    How about applying a bit of that ‘red pill wisdom’ to your religious fantasies?

    1. note that atheism, like Feminism, is a Modern concept. ya think there’s a connection? *hint hint* Both are Liberal

       1. Tell that to Epicurus and Democritus

          1. An interesting point. Doesn’t the “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” mention this as a contributing factor to the destruction of that society?

    2. ‘Red pill’ deals with the objective reality of things.
       We know that it is impossible for something to come from nothing. Likewise, everything comes from something. To disagree with the above two points is to disagree with the objective reality of things.
       A theist defines God as the ultimate “something” from which all things come into being. (Likewise, it follows that this ultimate “something” must exist outside of our universe, for within the universe there doesn’t exist a mechanism to create something from nothing.)
       In denying the existence of God an atheist has to believe that something can come from nothing.
       Reiterating that ‘redpill’ deals with things as they objectively exist, which of the two positions are more ‘redpill’ in nature?

       1. “In denying the exsistance of god an atheist has to believe that something can come from nothing”.
          Nonsense. An atheist is perfectly capable of understanding and accepting this observation, but that in no way proves the existence of god. It simply highlights that fact that we have not yet proven how the universe came into being. But science is working on that.
          If that’s the basis of your argument for the existence of god, you should probably prepare yourself for what science may unravel in the coming years and decades.

          1. so then you have faith in science?
             but of which two points above of his you disagree–
             that something can come from nothing? or nothing started this universe lol

          2. Au contraire, the fact that there is anything at all, rather than nothing proves the existence of God!
             Fact from Science: Matter cannot be created or destroyed.
             Fact from Science: All of the universe came into existence 13.8 billion years ago
             Science deals with things that are measurable and observable within our own universe. However, our universe does not contain within itself the reason for it’s own existence (1st Law of Thermal Dynamics). Therefore science will never be able to explain the cause of the existence of the universe, only what happened after it was created. If you’re waiting for science to disprove the existence of God, you’ll be waiting for all of eternity. Good luck with that.
             On to more pertinent matters, you have yet to rebut my main point;
             please explain how God by the following definition doesn’t exist:
             A theist defines God as the ultimate “something” from which all things come into being. (Likewise, it follows that this ultimate “something” must exist outside of our universe, for within the universe there doesn’t exist a mechanism to create something from nothing.)
             Or, you could explain how something comes from nothing.

          3. “It simply highlights that fact that we have not yet proven how the universe came into being. But science is working on that.”
             This is ignorant. Science can’t be “working on that” since science is limited to the analysis of phenomena within space and time. It runs into a brick wall when you start asking questions of how space and time themselves came about, hence the need for philosophy.

          4. Interesting point, but the absence of knowledge about how our universe came in to being is simply not proof of god, its just proof we don’t know.

          5. “the fact that there is anything at all, rather than nothing proves the existence of God!”
             Sorry no. Thats not proof of anything.

          6. Given that you have now failed to address my main point twice, I must assume that you are either lacking in reading comprehension skills or critical thinking skills. Either way, this discussion appears to be an exercise in futility.
             Good day to you sir.

          7. “so then you have faith in science?”
             No. Faith is for the religious. Science is simply the best method we have (and its not perfect) for understanding the objective facts about our world. Unlike religion it is able to evolve as we learn new things. There is no faith involved.

          8. I addressed them perfectly adequately. Twice.
             The fact that something cannot come from nothing, which I agree with, does not prove the existence of god, personal or otherwise (ultimate something).
             Good day to you too sir.

          9. Please show us the empirical study used to determine that science is the “best” way to understand the universe.

          10. Well, everything we know about the universe is from science including the facts you stated earlier.
              What other method do you suggest we use for understanding the universe? Prayer? Talking to Jesus ? Or blindly accepting words from an old book.

          11. Why are you using a form of reasoning that is inferior to science to make your point? We need empirical observable data to determine the accuracy of your hypothesis that science is the superior way of understanding everything. Or do you not know how science works?

          12. I don’t need to provide data. What I mean by ‘best’ is that science is the only method we have as a species to establish facts about the nature of reality.
              Now you can answer my question. If we don’t use a scientific method to try to understand the universe, what method would you suggest we use?
              Last point. You do realise that if you believe there is a god, the burden of proof lies with you, not me, and I think it highly unlikely that you would be guy who proves to the world the existence of god.

          13. So history isn’t a way to establish facts about the nature of reality? Guess we can’t know anything about the past, because we can’t verify it scientifically. Economics has no knowledge of anything? Scientism begs the question.
              “What I mean by ‘best’ is that science is the only method we have as a species to establish facts about the nature of reality.”
              Can you scientifically verify such a statement? No. There’s also the issue of science not really proving things in any formal sense. Science draws inferences to the best explanation. Sometimes, there’s more than one good explanation for sets of data (see the current debate of universe vs. multiverse). It isn’t as simple as “science proves things” and “religion asserts things on faith.”

          14. I’m being ironic. You are using philosophical arguments in an attempt to “prove” that science is the only way to understand reality. I agree that the scientific method is an incredible way to understand aspects of reality, but it is limited by scope.
              Mainly, science can only deal with things that are observable and measurable that occur within our universe. Science can explain much about the natural world, and that is a good thing. However, there are many things that the scientific method is unequipped to handle; for example: the explanation for why we use the scientific method is philosophical in nature.
              My original proof (which is really just a simplified version of St Thomas Aquinas’s proof):
              P1. We know that it is impossible for something to come from nothing within our observable and measurable universe.
              P2. Likewise, everything within our observable and measurable universe comes from something.
              C1. Therefore, there must be something outside of our observable and measurable universe from which everything comes. Theists refer to this “something” as God.
              That is what philosophers refer to as a logical proof. It agrees with our scientific understanding of things (1st law of thermodynamics), is logical, and doesn’t have any false premises.
              Does it work within the framework of the scientific method? Of course not, it’s outside of the scope of the scientific method.
              If you would like this discussion to be framed only within the framework of the scientific method then the burden of proof falls to you to find an empirical study that uses measurable repeatable methods to determine that the scientific method is, in fact, the only way to understand anything. Likewise, no using philosophy to extract meaning from said scientific findings. (pro tip: this paragraph sets up an impossible task, as it is philosophical in nature and therefor outside of the scope of the scientific method)
              (I should clarify, by observable universe I mean the universe that is, was, and ever shall be, observable)

          15. You have put together some refreshingly coherent and well structured points, however I have many points of disagreement myself but have to leave this for now. I’ll return soon.
              Once again, good day to you sir.

          16. I look forward to your reply good sir

          17. “Faith is for the religious.”
              No. Faith is for anyone. You have faith that you will wake up tomorrow. Can you prove that you will? Nope. Can you prove that next time you go to a restaurant the food won’t give you a stomachache? Nope. You have faith buddy.
              “Science is simply the best method we have (and its not perfect) for understanding the objective facts about our world.”
              Well science encompasses a lot. Even philosophy is a science. So yeah.
              “Unlike religion it is able to evolve as we learn new things.”
              Unless you’ve lived under a rock and have no knowledge on the historicity of different faiths, you would have known that they have evolved quite a lot. Heck, that was the point of this article. All of those philosophers gave Christianity something new.
              “There is no faith involved.”
              Of course there is. You have faith that someday science will give some answers to some questions. You cannot prove it, nor can the scientists. All they can say is “well someday goddess time will answer our questions”
              So the question remains: how can something come from nothing? Well no faiths–science please–scientist-

          18. “you should probably prepare yourself for what science may unravel in the coming years and decades.”
              Keep dreaming. Life is not going to form on it’s own in a test tube. They have been trying for years now with chemical concoctions and got nothing (if they did it would be due to intelligent intervention). A fish isn’t going to sprout limbs and lungs and run out onto land anytime either. The noah’s ark story from vacation bible school is more fucking believable than that.
              I ask the ‘experts’ all kinds of questions about atheistic evolution and all that happens is they hesitate and then accuse me of being a young earth genesis biblical literalist. For the true skeptic interested in origins that should be your red flag.
              http://www.unz.com/freed/fredwin-on-evolution-267/

          19. It may well be the case that science never discovers how to create life, but you can be no more certain of that than I, so lets wait and see.
              And no, of course we are not going see a fish “sprout limbs and lungs and run out onto land anytime either”, because that process takes millions of years of evolution, but it is science that has discovered that that did happen.
              Anyway, like every single challenge I have had to my original comment, a gap in scientific understanding is in absolutely no way proof of the existence of god if that is what you are inferring. Explain to me how the fact that we cannot form life in a test tube proves the existence of god.
              The thing is, if science does discover how to generate life for example, my world view will have expanded, but yours will become ever narrower as you look for the next gap in scientific knowledge to retreat to with your baseless beliefs.

          20. Yes of course you are right, I do have certain kinds of short term superficial faith like the examples you describe.
              However, the kind of faith I am referring to is the kind that pervades for decades and lifetimes which remains in place despite complete lack of evidence – the ‘my god exists just because he does or because it says so in this old book’ kind of faith.
              The basic tenets of all the many religions have not really evolved to keep in step with our current understanding of things.

          21. “So history isn’t a way to establish facts about the nature of reality?”
              Yes of course history can give us insight into past events, but what I was referring to was our current understanding of the nature of the universe, so history doesn’t offer much there.
              Best method does indeed refer to ‘best explanation’. Science is the most effective method we currently have to give us a ‘best explanation’ about our world at any given moment. These ‘facts’ are of course under constant review allowing for new evidence to alter them.

          22. ” the scientific method is an incredible way to understand aspects of reality, but it is limited by scope.”
              – Agreed
              “Mainly, science can only deal with things that are observable and measurable that occur within our universe. “
              – Agreed
              “We know that it is impossible for something to come from nothing within our observable and measurable universe.”
              – Based on what we currently know – Agreed. (However, science my throw some new light onto this – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbsGYRArH_w)
              “Likewise, everything within our observable and measurable universe comes from something.”
              – Agreed (again based on what we currently know).
              “Therefore, there must be something outside of our observable and measurable universe from which everything comes. Theists refer to this “something” as God.”
              I’m not sure that this is sound reasoning since we cannot comprehend a no-thing that ‘exists outside’ of our universe. You also run in to the considerably more complex problem of how did that ‘something’ come into ‘existence’. But for the sake of this discussion lets go with what you suggest.
              All this actually proves is that ‘something’ existed from which the universe arose. It does not prove that this ‘something’ is some kind of conscious entity as described in the various religious books of the world, that concerns itself with what we do and how we live, that designed the universe and judges us – a personal god.
              I cannot deny the idea of some kind of creative ‘force’ at play within and without the universe, but I cannot accept without proof that this ‘force’, or ‘something’ corresponds in any way to anything described in our religious texts, has any kind of ‘awareness’, or is anything other than a natural force. It would be like saying gravity is a conscious god.
              And lets not forget, there are a lot of different versions of god or gods, so we would have to establish which one of these is the one theists are referring to as god (presumably you believe it is the god described in the Christian bible?).
              ” the burden of proof falls to you to find an empirical study that uses measurable repeatable methods to determine that the scientific method is, in fact, the only way to understand anything”
              Atheism, as I am sure you are aware, is absence of belief, therefore if you wish to posit the existence of god, the burden of proof is with you. This is the burden of proof I refer to.
              If you provide me with evidence that god exists, then I will accept that evidence for as long as it remains relevant, just as I would do with scientific evidence. If new evidence showed up that altered or superseded that evidence I would update my own understanding.
              I would not say that the scientific method was the only way to understand something. What I would say is that it is the most robust method we have for gaining an objective ‘best explanation’ of something. It is the only system we have that is open for independent review and investigation by others, and subsequent modification in light of new evidence. Anything else is subjective, and therefore cannot be objectively reviewed and tested. This may not be perfect because there are perhaps some things that science is not currently equipped to investigate, but the moment you start accepting any method that is subjective, then anything goes. I could believe we were created from a spaghetti monster that speaks to me every day. This may actually be 100% true, but you cannot verify that truth unless you have the same experience and can prove that your experience is the same as mine.
              In a globalised world, we need a method for establishing what is, to the best of our knowledge at that moment, true. Our world views, politics and relationships should then be based upon these foundations, and reviewed and updated if we learn something new. The alternative is a myriad of contradictory supernatural claims about the nature of the world, none of which can be verified objectively to the agreement of all.
              I’m sure if you have got this far, that we can both agree that neither of us can ‘prove’ our positions. Therefore, in this case, I would always default to what we do know to be true, not philosophies or theories that might be true.

          23. Two options present themselves:
              – Accept (even under protest) the solution proposed by Aristotle and the religious (God is the supernatural force that supports the natural reality)
              – Reject any hypothesis that does not support your religious framework
              If you only seek apples on your pear tree, you will not find them.

          24. I apologize for the delay. Here is my response followed by comments.
              I completely agree with you. As you rightly observed, my proof has absolutely nothing to do with the nature of God, merely with the factual basis for His existence. Given that you object to none of my premises, nor my conclusion I will press on under the assumption that you are a theist.
              As for the basic nature of God, I will draw from two basic theological assumptions that are the cornerstone of all scientific discovery and one observation:
              P3. The universe is not divine, nor is it God.
              P4. The universe is intelligible.
              P5. The universe appears to be ordered, in direct contradiction to what entropy would predict if our universe were to be strictly randomly oriented. (this doesn’t mean that entropy is wrong, simply that there must be other forces at work)
              C2. Given that the universe is ordered and intelligible but not in itself divine, This implies that a creator God (who is divine) is intelligent (the universe is knowable through reason), and has a will (there is order rather than chaos.)
              I’m curious where you find fault with this proof as I am still in the process of developing it for my own benefit.
              I would go so far as to say that there are concepts that science in principle can never address. What is beauty? What is morally good? How do we acquire more justice? These are examples of questions that, in principle, exist outside of the scientific method and will always exist outside of the scientific method.

    3. If “red pill” means seeing the world as it truly is, then that means accepting the truth that some things transcend man and reason. A post-modernist is a positivist who has despaired of the modern project of making man into God, and has given up the idea that we can be truly certain about anything.

       1. Some things are indeed beyond our understanding, but that is not proof of anything.
          Every argument presented to me on this thread follows this line of thinking – there are mysteries about the world and that proves there is a god, but this is just complete nonsense. And which god does it prove anyway?

    4. You state that the definition of the red pill is “seeing reality the way it is”. If we arose out of entirely atheistic, evolutionary processes, everything about us including our sensory organs and cognitive faculties would have been selected for solely in virtue of reproductive success and survival value. Things such as beliefs-even true beliefs, and our sensory faculties, both of which are required to see reality the way it is, take a hindmost role if any in respect to the ability to live long enough to knock up a chick. In this way, atheism gives us a reason to doubt that our minds possess the grasping of true beliefs as an end or that they even provide us with beliefs that are mostly true, making the attempt to perceive reality the way it “truly” is an exercise in futility. It can be said then that atheism is the most anti-red pill philosophy.

       1. Just because we evolved having a myriad of supernatural beliefs, doesn’t make them true does it?
          And if they are true, are they all true simply because we evolved with them or is it only your particular belief that is true?

          1. No, of course not. But you misunderstand my argument. If atheism and evolution are both true, then there is no warrant at all for believing that we are able to grasp any true beliefs at all, not just religious beliefs, but also facts such as water being good for us, or that extending an arm to a hungry tiger would cause one to lose said arm. The probability that any one of our beliefs is true can thus be stated as P(R/N&E), where R is the statement that our beliefs are rational, N being the truth of naturalism and E being the truth of evolutionary theory (i.e. the probability of our beliefs being rational given that Naturalism and Evolutionary theory are both true.) Obviously, we think that our ability to hold true beliefs about the world around us is reasonably strong i.e. P(R/N&E)= >>0.5, so either N or E has to have a low value. So if evolutionary theory is true, atheism has to be false or improbable.

          2. Yes, unfortunately I don’t understand your point. I get a sense that it might be quite interesting though.
             What I would point out is that atheism is an absence of belief. You say god exists. I say fine, show me the evidence. When you inevitable cannot provide me with that evidence, I simply go about my day.
             I don’t have to prove atheism is true, you have to prove that god is true if that is your position.

          3. Callanish, based on your opposition to belief in the existence of God, I would posit that you do not lack a belief.
             Contrary, you seem to have a very firm conviction in the non-existence of God. Any such conviction or assertion requires support.
             The idea that only positive truth claims require support is specious.

          4. I do not ‘believe’ that god does not exist. I have simply never been presented with any evidence for his existence.
             If I say to you ‘I believe in magic rainbow unicorns’, is it not then reasonable for you to say fine, where is your evidence?
             It would be ridiculous if I could make that claim then simply say ‘well prove me wrong’.
             How about you just prove to me your god (christian I presume in this case) exists?
             Or how about you just prove to me that your god is the true god, and all the other religions are misinformed.

          5. I disagree with that definition of atheism. Throughout history and by virtue of its etymology (a-=no, theos=God, alternatively theoi= gods), atheism has always meant the the belief in the nonexistence of God or gods (lit. no gods). The lack of a belief in the existence of God should more appropriately be called agnosticism (a=no + gnostos=know), and it is the redundant redefinition of atheism in the last quarter of a century or so that has given philosophers of religion, epistemologists and linguists alike a headache, much like the erroneous use of “literally” nowadays.
             Under the proper definition of atheism then, atheism is a belief which, like theism, needs to be justified and true in order to count as knowledge.
             As for the argument I presented, I have laid it out in formal notation below:
             N=Naturalism is true, E =evolution is true, R= our cognitive faculties are capable of rationality
             Prove E, R, (N&E)–>R ⊢ ~N
             1…………….1) E…………………….A
             2…………….2) N…………………….A
             3…………….3) R…………………….A
             4…………….4) (N&E)–> ~R……….A
             1,2………….5) N&E……………….1,2 &I
             1,2,4……….6)~R………………….4,5 MP
             1,2,3 4…….7)R&~R……………..3,6 &I
             1,3,4,………8)~N………………….7(2) ~I
             In English:
             Depends
             on:
             1………….1) Evolution is true.
             (Assumption)
             2…………..2) Naturalism is true.
             (Assumption)
             3…………..3)Our cognitive faculties are rational
             (Assumption)
             4…………..4) If Evolution and naturalism are both true,then our cognitive faculties are not rational
             (Assumption)
             1,2 ………5)Evolution and naturalism are both true
             (1,2 Conjunction Introduction)
             1,2,4……..6)Our cognitive faculties are not …………………..rational
             (4, 5 Modus Ponens)
             1,2,3,4….7)Our cognitive faculties
             …………….are rational and not rational
             (3,6 Conjunction Introduction)
             1,3,4…….8) Naturalism is false
             (From 7 discharge 2, Negation Introduction Due to contradiction in 7)
             You will see that the argument presented above is logically valid and airtight. That is to say, the assumptions the conclusion (Naturalism is false) rests on guarantees the conclusion if the assumptions are true. Those assumptions are 1) That evolution is true, 3) Our cognitive faculties are capable of rationality, and 4)If naturalism and evolution are both true, then our cognitive faculties are incapable of rationality. I suspect that you hold to the truth of 1 & 3, and that 4 will be the assumption you wish to dispute.
             As mentioned in an earlier post, if both evolution and naturalism are true, then everything about us including our sensory organs and cognitive faculties would have been selected for based solely on their ability to enable us to live long enough to reproduce successfully. Things such as the truth of a belief would take a hindmost role, if any.
             An example would be a frog sitting on a lily pad and a fly flying past.
             (T) True belief: The fly is yummy. If I eat the fly it will strengthen and nourish my body.
             (F) False belief: If I eat the fly, I will turn into a prince.
             Naturalistic evolutionism would reinforce either belief, as they will both ensure the survival of the frog.
             Another example would be a caveman named Paul encountering a sabre-toothed tiger. One would think that the Paul would engage in behaviours such as fleeing from the tiger because he has an aversion to being eaten and that running away would be a good means of avoiding such a fate.
             But such behaviour could arise out of thousands of other combinations For example, “Paul very much likes the idea of being eaten, but when he sees a tiger, always runs off looking for a better prospect, because he thinks it unlikely that the tiger he sees will eat him. This will get his body parts in the right place so far as survival is concerned, without involving much by way of true belief. Or perhaps he thinks the tiger is a large, friendly, cuddly pussycat and wants to pet it; but he also believes that the best way to pet it is to run away from it. Or perhaps he confuses running towards it with running away from it, believing of the action that is really running away from it, that it is running towards it; or perhaps he thinks the tiger is a regularly reoccurring illusion, and hoping to keep his weight down, has formed the resolution to run a mile at top speed whenever presented with such an illusion; or perhaps he thinks he is about to take part in a 1600 meter race, wants to win, and believes the appearance of the tiger is the starting signal; or perhaps . . . . Clearly there are any number of belief-cum-desire systems that equally fit a given bit of behavior.”
             (edited for formatting and syntax)

          6. Based on your comments in this thread, can you not see how I could draw the assumption that you believe that God does not exist?
             You have certainly argued from the position that there is no supernatural reality, specifically that of God. This is not an agnostic position, but a position of negative assertion.
             I do appreciate that you understand intellectually that you don’t know whether or not your position is correct, but you have not apparently grasped that you operate with the bias that it is.
             As for proofs, the article in question provides a list of (at least attempted) philosophical proofs. Such are the only non-experiential proofs that can be made, for there is no way to use natural means to argue for a metaphysical concept.
             It is the same as “proving” the Red Pill. You can only look at the logic, the arguments, and the results (physical, mental, and philosophical). This will never be enough to convince the most die-hard SJWs, because they seek only to extend their worldviews (not correct them).

          7. “Based on your comments in this thread, can you not see how I could draw the assumption that you believe that God does not exist?”
             If I say to you ‘I am a believer in the magic rainbow unicorn’ but have no proof of that, does that make you a believer in the non existence of that entity? Whatever, I’m not trying to agree on a dictionary definition of an atheist here.
             “I do appreciate that you understand intellectually that you don’t know whether or not your position is correct, but you have not apparently grasped that you operate with the bias that it is.”
             I don’t need to know whether my position is correct. I am not the one making the claim. You are making a claim, and I am saying show me your evidence. You apparently cannot grasp this basic fact.
             “As for proofs, the article in question provides a list of (at least attempted) philosophical proofs.”
             Proofs? These are clumsy philosophical thought experiments, written in times when scientific understanding was limited and they don’t prove anything.
             For example, things move, therefore something must have moved them.. and so on, this we call god!
             This simply establishes the possibility of a ‘first cause’, but that first cause could just be a natural random process, not a conscious prayer answering deity that wants to judge us and watch what we’re up to.
             It certainly does not in any way prove it is the entity described in the Christian bible (if thats the god we are trying to prove here), even if it is some kind of pure consciousness, force or higher intelligence.
             Science has already demonstrated that a universe from nothing is not only plausible, but likely.
             It makes any of these ‘prime mover/first cause’ arguments irrelevant.
             “This will never be enough to convince the most die-hard SJWs, because they seek only to extend their worldviews (not correct them).”
             The exact same thing can be said about a Christians/Muslims/Hindus/Pagans/Sikhs, etc when presented with scientific evidence that contradicts the words in their particular made up book.
             By the way, you still haven’t stated which particular god/ gods or other deities we are talking about here.
             Would be nice to just narrow that little problem down first because I am assuming that you believe in the Christian god, and that your god is the correct one (again with absolutely no evidence).

          8. Honestly, the aim of this post was to help reveal to you your own biases. I am fully aware of my bias toward Biblical Theology, though I do *attempt* to set it aside when studying alternatives.
             Also, the “science” which demonstrates the “universe from nothing” is not science, but assertion. It is the same as the “scientific” claims to multi-verse reality (which, by their own definitions, we can never observe).
             Science is a subset of Philosophy which is employed only to analyze observable phenomena. As such, Science is a most reliable philosophical branch, but most limited. Philosophical arguments which do not conform to the bounds of Science must be addressed in a philosophical manner.
             Finally, with regards to my “SJW” statements, I agree that the same thing can be said about theists. The point I wish to emphasize is that it applies equally to “enlightened secularists”, despite the common denial of that fact.

    5. I guess Sweden is the ultimate red pill nation then. 82% of them do not believe in God. They do this while sitting down to piss to promote gender equality. Their terrified “police” have no-go zones in the Muslim immigrant areas that are taking the country over via massive immigration and birth rates vs. the non-existent birthrate of the biological dead end atheists.

       1. Its interesting that you should see a link between atheism and feminism. I can assure you however, that I personally absolutely do not align myself with this feminist degeneracy, yet remain 100% atheist. I love this site for throwing light onto this feminist nonsense, but find it difficult to see religious nonsense on the same pages.

33. Wonderful article Andrew. It comes off as reasonable without being proselytizing, intelligent without sounding religious. Well done.
    I’m sure it will come as no surprise that you will be summarily attacked by the atheist (antitheist actually) trolls and the relatively few antitheist ROK members. That’s par for the course when you introduce a red pill perspective to people who tend to lean blue on matters of spiritual relevance.
    In regards to the arguments you presented, i think there is one that you left out (maybe because no one in ancient history has made it)
    The argument that doesn’t try to make an argument for the existence of God, it simply makes an argument AGAINST those who make an argument against the existence of God.
    In other words, an argument against those who deny faith simply because their secular religious nature drives them to do it.
    You can’t “prove” God to people, that’s not how faith is supposed to operate. If faith could be proven through logic it wouldn’t be faith anymore, it would become logic itself. When antiatheists look back at the views of these Men of faith, they will do no more than mock and scorn, not realizing that they were speaking from a perspective of faith that was to be taken as axiomatic on its own account by the faithful. They (antitheists) summarily dismiss them because their own perspective based belief in the axiomatic infallibility of their philosophy compels them to do so. They are no better in that regard than the people they dismiss. Even when i was an antiatheist i didn’t dismiss the scriptures as completely useless, i felt they had a benefit in that it could lead people to at least make themselves into better human beings than they originally started out as. The “golden rule” of the bible is shared by the Karmic belief of hinduism, budhism and other faiths, and these all have the common denominator of recommending a non barbaric approach to a fellow human being by treating them as you yourself would like to be treated. This altruistic approach however ignored in human religious history, is not invalidated simply because those following in religion’s name chose to ignore this specific part. If anything, it only lends credence to the belief that any religious person (Christian, Catholic, etc) in history committing atrocities needed to do so through an intentional denial of this core concept of faith…making them no more of a real representative of that faith than the sorry lot of wimp christians that represent American christianity nowadays.
    There are examples in nature that support the existence of God, but they are by no means undeniable. That is the point. If God made it so we could prove his existence, what would be the point of believing in him? If all it takes to gain faithful worship is to demonstrate the sight and might that comes with visible and undeniable authority, how would God function any different than man?
    We can’t determine just how a supernatural entity operates (scriptures speak on why) we can however determine how Man operates, and reason that God would operate far differently from Man because God would by necessity have to be more than Man to be worthy of the definition of “God.” If Man exerts power and influence over other men through direct coercion, how could God be considered different? There would be no voluntary support involved in that instance, simply blind “chain of command” type loyalty because of fear and intimidation.
    If the old testament scripture is any indication, God certainly exerted his power and influence directly over his people, but new testament scripture indicates that God no longer operates in that fashion…nowadays we need Jesus to speak to God, to motivate Him to become present in our lives, and so forth. The modern day antitheist in his sciolist ridicule tends to use OT examples of God to identify him as a tyrant, but as i said the coming of Jesus brought with it a new method by God that takes a far more personal approach on an individual scale, less directly involved approach on a collective scale. The view of God as a tyrant is an appeal to ignorance, as it ignores the existence of Jesus in order to attempt to to tie modern day Christians back to old testament Hebrew times.
    If God however remains a mystery, intangible except in regards to a collection of seemingly cryptic scrolls, then those who would nonetheless believe in him and follow his word willingly would do so out of love. THAT is what God wants…loyalty through love. Jesus (God in the flesh) confirmed as much when He said:
    “Mat 22:37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.”
    The person who is seeking truth greater than his or her own mind possesses, regardless of a religious affiliation or not, will take evidences in nature (however circumstantial) and combine it with his reason to prove to HIMSELF that God exists or doesn’t exist. A person will be led to believe in God or not depending on where their evidences lead them, multiplied by the beliefs of the people they choose to seek advice from. Both arrive at vastly different conclusions not because of undeniable evidence, but because of undeniable influence. After all, who here is born knowing all there is to know? We are thrust into the world as blank slates adding to the information already chiseled into our minds, struggling to understand in which direction to go and on the naive belief that what has been taught to us is actually, accurate.
    To make a long response shorter, the X factor that actually leads to a belief in God is extremely personal and different for every person that does come to believe in God. I won’t bore anyone with the details of my conversion but, let me just say that i believe (not think, since “think” implies an approach rooted in conventional logic) that suffering is the key. When you suffer, and especially when you learn from it (through experience) your knowledge tends to increase and it multiplies your wisdom.
    Back when you were blue pill, how many of you ROK members of faith suffered at the hands of blue pill mentality, atheist or otherwise? How many of you have learned from it, and are now red pill as a result of suffering from feminism, atheism, progressivism, etc?
    Suffering breeds wisdom, which is why the suffering of Jesus is especially noteworthy in the life of the aspiring Christian.
    Without suffering, one cannot know truth…and without truth, one cannot know what real love is…and without real love…one cannot know Jesus/God.
    Proving God therefore, is the equivalent of proving that you love someone. It’s something that can’t be defined, or quantified logically to prove it undeniably to someone else who does not love that person the same strong way you do. The only people who understand and believe the love is real are those two who are sharing it between each other….everyone else is left to speculate, disapprove, or disbelieve.
    This is no different than with loving God, which is why the faithful antitheist will never see the evidence that those of faith have gathered as legitimate. Maybe they haven’t suffered enough, which is why a lot of SJ progs tend to come from spoiled backgrounds and raised in a belief that they are in essence, gods unto themselves.
    When you believe that there is nothing greater than yourself, a certain complacency develops in that you no longer seek answers to existential metaphysical related questions, you merely (and arrogantly) choose to deny the answers of others who are still doing so, especially those others who are leading themselves towards an acceptance of God. There is no “golden rule” love within them, because they consider themselves superior to the person of (Christian) faith, because in essence they consider themselves their own god even if they don’t realize it.
    I’ve dedicated part of my life to debating against these “little gods” and their religious secular arguments against the real God, by exposing how little in the way of fact they actually have.
    Selah.

    1. Thank you. I appreciate your thoughtful comment. As I said, I’m not a disinterested observer on this question but I try to be fair to dissenting ideas.
       I would answer that reason alone can demonstrate the existence of God. Many people ask where that leaves room for faith. Faith means we accept a supernatural truth based solely on the authority of the God who revealed it. For example, reason cannot prove that God is a trinity of three beings sharing one substance as I wrote about in last week’s article about Athanasius of Alexandria. We small “o” orthodox Christians accept that truth on faith. Faith transcends reason but there is never any real contradiction between the two.
       New Atheist polemicists like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, on the other hand, portray religion as accepting something completely irrational without any evidence at all. Christianity hinges on the historical life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. St. Paul himself said that if Christ is not risen, Christians’ faith is in vain. Christianity makes truth claims based on historical fact, in other words.
       Antitheists, as you call them, tend to be selective in the stringency of their need for evidence. If we are to dismiss the Gospels as complete fiction, then that would mean ditching a lot of what we know about the ancient world besides, as we have such scanty first hand accounts of the period compared to the Middle Ages or the Renaissance. I’ve never seen Poland with my own eyes but I’m certain that Poland exists because I trust the observations of others.

       1. Documents can be individually studied internally to determine the nature and genre of the work. If the Gospels and Acts give evidence of being literary non-historical works (which they do) this is in no way a de facto invalidation of the claims of any other ancient document. Every such work must be evaluated on its own merits.

          1. In the last 30 years, NT scholars have increasingly viewed the gospels (and Acts) as biographies of Jesus. See Richard Burridge’s book on this topic. I don’t know where you get your claim that the gospels and Acts are “literary non-historical works,” but the best current scholarship doesn’t support it.

          2. Google ‘Homer’
             and ‘Acts of the Apostles’
             and you will find numerous studies proving that large portions of the book were lifted directly from Homer’s Odyssey ( particularly Paul’s voyages).
             Also check out the you tube video by Dr. Richard Carrier: Acts as Historical Fiction.
             Carrier’s book on the historicity of Jesus shreds Christianity to pieces, and I have yet to see any apologists even attempt to answer any of his arguments.
             You could see William Lane Craig’s eyes get wide with fear when Carrier brought up just a few of those points on their debate

          3. The study you’re referring to is Dennis MacDonald’s study on the similarities between Homer and Mark. That study has been largely rejected as not understanding how the OT works in conjunction with Jesus’ Jewish mission. MacDonald actually believes that Jesus existed, by the way.
             Carrier’s book is the only peer-reviewed mythicist book of the last 50 years. His arguments are questionable at best, and his examination of the Ascension of Isaiah is rife with errors. He has to date it incredibly early for it to make any sense, and his attempts to grapple with Paul are miserable. If you have any knowledge of the relevant fields, Carrier’s thesis does not make sense. The book has been completely ignored by the scholarly community; I know of only one review of it. The reason why nobody has engaged it is because it’s a fringe thesis from a school of thought that has been dead for over 50 years. Don’t even get me started on Carrier’s disaster of Bayesian analysis. It’s not a useful tool in historical investigation.
             As for Craig, I don’t really care about how he did in his debate. I’m not interested in Craig’s apologetics, some of which I think have severe issues. I’m interested in what history shows. A historical Jesus makes the most sense of the data we have.

          4. Furthermore, large parts of Christian myth were taken from the myths of Astarte, a Semitic goddess.

          5. Find a peer-reviewed work (in the last 50 years) that supports this and I’ll consider it. Most of early Christian belief was heavily influenced by Judaism.

          6. Cohen, Shaye J.D. (1988). From the Maccabees to the Mishnah ISBN 0-664-25017-3

          7. The book appears to be about the development of Jewish belief between the Hasmonean period and the development of Rabbinic Judaism. There aren’t many OT scholars who would deny that other Semitic religions influenced what later became Judaism. The influence of pagan religions on Christianity, on the other hand, is fairly negligible.

          8. Absolutely agree. The purported links to early Christianity and eastern mystery religions is threadbare and easily debunked just going a little beyond the surface.

          9. “Christian myth”? There are no Christian mytsh, if anything they are Judaic myths

          10. Christians are an offshoot of Judaism, so, yes, I guess technically they’re Judaic myths, but they’re still in the Old Testament. The guy they worship is a Jew who was tortured by Romans.

          11. You don’t want to go there if that’s your primary argument. Scholars — many of whom aren’t necessarily interested in supporting the Bible as fact — almost universally accept the non-allegorical aspects of it from a historical perspective.

          12. So you watch the blatant lies on ‘zeitgeist’ and bill maher’s plea for personal damnation and in regurgitating them you think you are a scholar. Wrong on all counts bubba.

          13. I’m sorry, bubba, but did you cite any research? Nope? Not surprising.
              It’s so funny that you feel so threatened by my response that you have to jump in and try to refute, relying on emotional attacks to try to throw me off.
              You’re crying right now, aren’t you?

       2. I have yet to hear one single reasonable explication that supports the existence of God.
          Why do you believe “that reason alone can demonstrate the existence of God”?

          1. Here’s one:
             Do you really think with all of our flaws that we are the superior beings? Do you really think our “reason” (which looking at progressives tends to contradict) is the end-all/be-all?

          2. That is such a weak argument, I question even responding to it, but I will anyway.
             What I think is irrelevant, but our reason being the end-all/be-all, as you put it, certainly is in the realm of possibilities.
             However, even if there is no God there could still be a being out there with a far greater capacity for reason than us humans.

       3. ” Faith transcends reason but there is never any real contradiction between the two.”
          ^^ This.
          Once upon a time it would have been considered unreasonable to believe in things we can’t see, hear or smell (microorganisms) but the development of technology allowed us to build a bridge between ignorance and knowledge in that regard, in order to show HOW this was possible.
          The scriptures are no different in that they help us build a bridge between ignorance and knowledge, even if they so from a “why” perspective.
          Again, thanks for the insightful article.

       4. Your example about Poland makes no sense.

    2. Christians believe that Jesus is Yahweh, so they are in fact tied to the genocides and atrocities committed in the Old Testament. That is the very God they worship; Jesus is that God according to orthodox Christianity

       1. The irony of this comment is that the most brutal instances of mass murder, genocide and state sanctioned repression have been closely tied to various historical manifestations of atheism.

          1. Only because religion lost control of the state before the advent of modern technology. If the inquisitions and witch trials would have had access to Stalin’s methods, the death tolls would have been similarly staggering.

          2. At most, two dozen people were killed during the Salem Witch Trials and roughly a few thousand people were killed during the inquisitions. Atheistic regimes are responsible for the deaths of millions of human beings. Name one country that is legally atheistic by law and ask yourself would you want to live there?

          3. The modern numbers are higher due to the reasons I stated
             Not to mention that the genocides recorded in the Bible were staggering in numbers killed and brutality in their own right
             Go through the Bible and find every passage where God orders genocide or killing. It boggles the mind

          4. Then it’s fair to assume Atheistic regimes would have killed tens of billions of human beings with methods and technology more advanced than what they had access to. After all, Atheistic regimes have killed far more humans than religion, in a fraction of the time. It’s about the only thing Atheist regimes excel at.

          5. The Biblical genociedes commanded by God demonstrate moral relativism at its worst.

          6. Are you implying that Atheists believe they’re Gods?

          7. The “most massive act of genocide in the history of the world” (Stannard, 1992) was accomplished by Christians.

             “The reason the Christians have murdered on such a vast
             scale and killed anyone and everyone in their way is purely and simply greed.” –Bartolomé de las Casas, A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies (1542
             ” The destruction of the Indians of the Americas was, far and away, the most massive act of genocide in the history of the world…” –David Stannard, American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World (Oxford University Press, 1992)

             And don’t forget the Nazis of Christian Germany, who were inspired by Martin Luther.

             “My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior…I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian…For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.” –Adolf Hitler, in a speech on 12 April 1922
             [Norman H. Baynes, ed. (1942) The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939,Vol. 1 of 2. Oxford University Press. pp. 19-20.]
             nobeliefs.com/Hitler1.htm
             “First to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them. This is to be done in honor of our Lord and of Christendom, so that God might see that we are Christians…” –Martin Luther, The Jews and Their Lies (1543)
             jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/Luther_on_Jews.html

          8. The Nazis were pagan (see: the thule society); The swastika should have been a dead giveaway. Lastly, war isn’t genocide.

          9. Sure, the land of the Reformation was purely pagan for a brief span of a few years.
             “How conveeeeeenient.” –Church Lady
             P.S. Stalin would be proud of your excuse-making about genocide.

          10. > legally atheistic by law
              Is this close enough?

              “As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion…”
              Article 11, Treaty of Tripoli, officially ratified by the Senate with John Adams signature on 10 June, 1797
              nobeliefs.com/Tripoli.htm

          11. Wait, a minute ago you suggested Whites wiped out the Natives, in the name of Christianity but now you’ve asserted America was never founded on the doctrine of Christianity? Which is it?

          12. This made absolutely no sense.

          13. Read your history if you don’t understand. The US Gov’t was founded as a secular government, precisely because the Founders were intimately familiar with the horrors of their own culture, and trying to change the course of history.

              “Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.” -Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782 nobeliefs.com/jefferson.htm

          14. http://imagizer.imageshack.com/img913/3573/uQNQMq.png

          15. That should suit you well.

          16. How many Christians “men” want to be a *ahem* “BRIDE of Christ?
              For cultural context, I’m sure you’ve seen Jesus pictured as an older, bearded God-man, with a younger, beardless John the Beloved in his bosom. Just like the earlier Greek art of an older, bearded Zeus with a younger, beardless Ganymede in his bosom.
              Hey, what is that in Jesus’ hand, anyway? Reminds me of the etymology of semen-ary.

              The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines the word ‘seminary’ as originating from ‘semen-ary, a place of vice’ (The Concise Oxford Dictionary, p. 1131).
              vatileaks.com/_blog/Vati_Leaks/post/Seminary_secrets/

          17. Are you trying to weasel out of the genocides in the Bible?
              http://www.awkwardmomentsbible.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/virgins_full.jpg

          18. Maybe because the “Natives with a capital N” were in the process of being wiped out before there was an America. The Spain and Portugal took marching orders from the guy from Rome in the fancy hat, too.

          19. “Is this close enough?
              ‘As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion…’
              “Article 11, Treaty of Tripoli, officially ratified by the Senate with John Adams signature on 10 June, 1797”
              You realize that countries lie to other countries in treaties all the time right?

          20. Are you another one of those Liars for Jesus?

              Liars For Jesus: The Religious Right’s Alternate Version of American History liarsforjesus.com

          21. “Are you another one of those Liars for Jesus?
              “Liars For Jesus: The Religious Right’s Alternate Version of American History”
              America is Mystery Babylon. The best parts of it were due to the influence of Heterodox Christianity. Yet, the reason it has failed and has become worse than Sodom is the weakness of Heterodox Christianity and the Satanism (Masonic and other occult influences) that was there from the beginning also.
              Don’t like what God did and ordered in the Bible? Just wait until the judgements of the Book of Revelations start to unfold.

          22. > The best parts of it were due to the influence of Heterodox Christianity.
              Yep, you’re another Liar for Jebus. liarsforjesus.com

              “…the project to free the American people from the yoke of King George III was part of a grander project to liberate the world from the ghostly tyranny of supernatural religion.”
              The Original Tea Partier Was an Atheist
              Remembering America’s forgotten founding father.
              By MATTHEW STEWART | September 01, 2014
              politico.com/magazine/story/2014/09/original-tea-partier-atheist-thomas-young-110497.html

          23. The Spanish colonization of the Americas was a mission to seize the resources of the New World before anyone else could and the conquistadors were welcomed by the Natives as it was a better alternative to the system of tribute bondage and human sacrifice the natives were under at the time. It really is that simple.

          24. No, not at all. The Canaanites engaged in acts that would be considered criminal in any civilized society (e.g. bestiality, incest, infant sacrifice, et cetera). God waited over 400 years for Canaan to hit moral rock-bottom before commanding they be driven out. Is this your way of telling me you advocate bestiality, incest, infant sacrifice? No surprise there.

          25. Speaking of making absolutely no sense, Atheists believe that life and the material world each exist by coincidence. Now that’s crazy.

          26. I’m not sure what your point is. Religion has no place in government. However, America had never been a godless society until recently. A nation won’t exist for long if it’s dead spiritually. e.g. Look around you.

          27. Parroting Creationist talking points again? They’ve been debunked here:
              Index to Creationist Claims
              talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html

          28. So you think sacrificing virgin female war captives to God, as the Bible commanded in Numbers, is ok? You’re a fucking sicko. Your moral compass is so far askew, you don’t know shit from shinola. Keep banging that Bible, baby-murderer. You’d probably get your jollies like this fellow:
              Psalm 137:9 Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.

          29. I’m not religious as God’s existence is self evident. Mostly I’m sick of Atheists destroying societies. Oh and before I forget, do you believe the absence of evidence is evidence of absence? It would seem so.

          30. I’m sick of the Cross destroying societies.
              “I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved—the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!” ~John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, September 3, 1816

          31. Psalm 137 is a lament for Jerusalem after the Babylonians invaded and destroyed it. Whoever wrote it hated the Babylonians and would have loved to kill their children. More importantly, Psalms express the feelings of the writer, Not theological rules for your behavior.
              If you don’t understand the Bible, you really shouldn’t speak on it.

          32. Oh, look at the excuse-making for murdering babies! You have all the moral bearing of a serial killer. Kind of like your deity, whose moral behavior is worse than Satan’s.

              According to Steve Wells’ excellent book, “Drunk with Blood: God’s Killings in the Bible” – the score isn’t even close. God (aka Jesus): 2,821,364 dead. Satan: 10 (Poor Job’s family – and even then, only under God’s blessing as part of a sadistic bet).
              Keeping Score: Jesus VS Satan
              http://www.awkwardmomentsbible.com/project/keeping-score-jesus-vs-satan/
              http://www.awkwardmomentsbible.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/keeping_score_full.jpg

          33. Over a half century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of old people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.” Since then I have spent well-nigh 50 years working on the history of our revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.”
              —Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

          34. Funny how an America-hater like you avoids quoting any of the founders.
              “All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.”
              — Thomas Paine, (1737-1809), The Age of Reason

          35. Violence is an inevitable aspect of the human condition, and it’s morality depends on it’s application.

          36. Still making lame excuses for murdering babies, moron?
              Psalm 137:9 Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.

          37. I love America, as well the founders but I understand the dangers of Atheism. Btw, the founders were almost certainly deists; Most great minds are.

          38. Still throwing a tantrum because each of your points were manhandled? I’m sorry the Canaanite children couldn’t grow up to continue the legacy of bestiality, incest and infant sacrifice their fathers started. I know how much you would have loved that.

          39. Deists didn’t believe in the religious bullshit you believe in. Jefferson explicitly excluded the following:
              “the immaculate conception of Jesus, his deification, the creation of theworld by him, his miraculous powers, his resurrection & visible ascension, his corporeal presence in the Eucharist, the Trinity, original sin, atonement, regeneration, election orders of Hierarchy etc.”
              http://www.csun.edu/~hcfll004/jefflet.html

          40. Oh, now your pathetic excuse making for murdering babies is manhandling? LOL! I’m gonna rub your nose in the immoral filth of the Bible again, twit. This is your moral system:
              Psalm 137:9 Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.

          41. I sense a lot of fear and anger in you, Atheist. That’s understandable. Again, you appear to be projecting your own self more than anything else. Propaganda has convinced you that no informed conclusion might stand in opposition to your progressive indoctrination, but timeless opinion does testify against you. You might inform yourself of this rather than seek to silence it.

          42. The founding fathers were freemasons, this is a known fact. In most parts of the world, one must profess a belief in a Supreme Being and the immortality of the soul to become freemason. So again, you’re mistaken.

          43. Trying to play junior Luke Skywalker now? LOL You’re getting more and more pathetic with your amateur online mind-reading.

          44. Liar. (Didn’t I call you a Liar for Jesus? You just keep proving me right!)

              Thomas Jefferson’s connections to fraternal organizations have often been misunderstood. He is frequently, yet falsely, linked to the Freemasons. Comments that he made in his correspondence suggest that he had a generally negative opinion of fraternal organizations.
              Fraternal Organizations
              monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/fraternal-organizations

          45. George Washington was one of many:
              http://www.gwmemorial.org/washingtonTheMason.php
              Are you even from America?

          46. Oh, you found one. Cool. You said “the founders” as all-inclusive, and you were proven wrong. Thanks for back-pedaling for me. I’ll keep improving your skills in that.

          47. Majority of the founding fathers were freemason. Thomas Jefferson isn’t the only signature on the constitution, you know. Although, it was amusing to watch you assert the exception as the rule.

          48. Tell me, atheist animal, did Thomas Paine write this before or after he witnessed the Reign of Terror in atheist France?

          49. Doubling down on your lies, Liar for Jesus? You are just one bald-faced lying cocksucker.

              Signers of the Declaration of Independence
              Total Number Involved: 56
              Number & Percent Who Were Freemasons: 9 (16%)
              Signers of the U.S. Constitution
              Total Number Involved: 39
              Number & Percent Who Were Freemasons: 13 (33%)
              bessel.org/foundmas.htm

          50. In this case, you have a point. Most of the founders were ideologically a part of the precursor to agnostics, deists.
              Essentially, if God exists, he can’t be known by human beings.
              The only real christian in their lot was John jay.
              However, they relied heavily on Cicero, definitely a theist, and his writings. As well as Blackman’s work on law. And most importantly, the teleological concepts, and rationale of the Early Christian Church inspired philosophy.
              You are close to a rational thought, but still fall perilously short.
              Great job referencing another nebulous website. I hope it has tons of books that will “obviously” support your point of view. All I have to do is read all of it for you, and we will both be enlightened.

          51. Which they did under the authority of the Church. You do remember, don’t you, that the “explorers” brought with them large contingencies of clergy to “convert” (more like force) the natives to Christianity. Even the royalty of Europe had to demonstrate some degree of fealty to the dictator in Rome.

          52. Don’t forget, five year planning people into mass starvation in order to control foreign markets. No one kills Russians or Venezuelans like themselves.

          53. Albeit, I don’t trust strange websites, I stand corrected until I find a better source.

          54. Wow, that was a lot of quote mining. I have little doubt you did not actually do all that useless work yourself.
              GTFOH, this sap is a troll.
              Speaking of baby murders, abortion and safe haven laws allow a woman to kill, or abandon a baby up to thirty days after birth.
              Yet a man can only relinquish his responsibility to a baby on the mother’s written consent.
              This is alrgely an atheist inspired set of events.
              There have been over fifty million abortions in the US alone since the 60s.
              What civilization in the past even comes close to that many?
              Oh yeah, the atheist ones. The US has steadily become more atheist. Therefore, it is killing more human beings then ever before in it’s history.
              You, being an atheist, support such nonsense. Therefore, you are a baby killer, telling one of us to hurry up and get better at it?
              Little black tea cup, meet large nuclear ISBM submarine.

          55. What was the premise or Spanish colonization of the Americas? Was it Christianity, simply because the vatican allowed it? or was Good ol’ Fashioned European Imperialism?

          56. The two can’t be separated–that’s the point.

          57. > You, being an atheist…
              Wrong, troll-boy. Here is where I openly state my philosophy, which is expressly not atheist.

          58. Then how do you explain the imperialist ambitions of the current Anglo-American establishment? and what of China’s rising imperialism? China is officially Atheist. Obviously, they’ve found a way to separate imperialism from religion.

          59. That’s like saying, “one guy blows up an abortion clinic and he’s atheist and two other clinics are blown up by Christians, therefore all destruction of abortion clinics must be by atheists.” Just because China is feeling the imperialist itch doesn’t mean that other colonial enterprises weren’t propelled by Christian sentiment. Nice attempt at diversion.

          60. That’s not what I said, that’s what you said. In fact, your analogy is the opposite of what I said. You attempted to attach religious ideology to Imperialism and asserted the two were inseparable; I gave you two examples (and could provide countless more) proving your statement false. To wit, the statement has its basis in your own personal feelings (i.e. not any real scholarship). Either way, Spanish colonialism was inspired far more by Imperialism and chauvinism than the “divine authority” of the Pope.

          61. With god we go or some such nonsense. Right on the SS belt buckles. You lost your argument. Just Saying!
              Ps the crusades doh lost again!
              Pss the convert or die crowd. Not looking good for you bro.

          62. Funny how easily a moron like you cherrypicks from great men in order to sustain your moronic energy.
              “To the corruptions of Christianity I am indeed, opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian, in the only sense in which he wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines, in preference to all others; ascribing to himself every human excellence; and believing he never claimed any other.”10 1813 May 31. (Jefferson to Richard Rush). ”
              Jefferson considered himself a CHRISTIAN through a deliberate use of the word…head explode yet, troll?
              https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/jeffersons-religious-beliefs

          63. With respect I’ll disagree on the Founders being deist. Paine was the only open deist of note. Jefferson for his part was unitarian which was still distinct enough from deism for him to not convincingly be considered deist.
              Most of the FF’s were men of judeoChristian affiliation if not appreciation. Some of them were masons, as you said. That being said, i hate it when some people imply that the fact of them being massons automatically means they were devil worshippers. (not saying you said that)
              Back then joining the masons was a commonplace theme among those of social prominence. The lower end ones would not be aware or have involvement with the true intent of the organization unless they took the luciferian oath, which allowed them to reach the highest ranks (33rd %)

          64. Um, you ARE aware of the controversy involved with article 11, are you not?
              Hunter Miller’s research on article 11 strongly implies that Joel Barlow (the American translator) inserted the text of article 11 in order to promote the deist view that America was somehow hostile to Christianity. This comes as no surprise, since Barlow was a close associate of Thomas Paine, the only confirmed deist FF to date.
              Furthermore, are you aware of the Treaty of Tunis? Specifically, with it’s religious wording in regards to the US President being “as “the most distinguished among those who profess the religion of the Messiah, of whom may the end be happy”
              So if the TOtripoli meant that the US has no ties to faith, why the hell did the TOtunis say that the President represents Jesus Christianity?
              What, did the US government change its mind?
              Dude, your research much like your presence on here, is pathetic. Get a clue.

          65. Nice bit of cherrypicking. The politician Jefferson called himself a Christian; meanwhile, he did not believe any common Christian doctrines, as follows, (and I quote Jefferson):

              “the immaculate conception of Jesus,
              his deification,
              the creation of the world by him,
              his miraculous powers,
              his resurrection & visible ascension,
              his corporeal presence in the Eucharist,
              the Trinity,
              original sin,
              atonement,
              regeneration,
              election orders of Hierarchy
              etc.”
              LETTER: Thomas Jefferson to William Short
              http://www.csun.edu/~hcfll004/jefflet.html

              If somebody does not believe in those things, would you accept them as a Christian brother at your fucking church? Or are you trying to have it both ways like a two-faced whore?
              Head explode yet, Christfag?

          66. I wish i had come on here two days ago. That moron would have made for an especially amusing time. That being said, you and the others here have pretty much picked him apart, i wish i had been here to witness the carnage firsthand 🙂

          67. Controversy? No, that’s the way the treaty was ratified by the Senate and signed by the President.
              Looks like you’re just another Liar For Jesus. Now that’s pathetic.
              Liars For Jesus: The Religious Right’s Alternate Version of American History
              http://www.liarsforjesus.com

          68. Liar.

              Patrick Henry’s widow wrote in 1799, “I wish the Grate Jefferson & all the Heroes of the Deistical party could have seen my… Husband pay his last debt to nature.” wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson_and_religion#Jefferson_and_Deism

              Here’s you:
              Liars For Jesus: The Religious Right’s Alternate Version of American History
              http://www.liarsforjesus.com

          69. You’re the one cherrypicking bozo. You throw out a lot of words that you don’t seem to possess the definitions for. I NEVER denied that Jefferson held views against spiritual divinity, i merely took issue with your sad attempts to paint him as someone who was against faith, when an OBJECTIVE interpretation of his life shows that he vacillated between positive and negative feelings about faith.
              The ULTIMATE POINT i was making is he STILL called himself a Christian, even if he didn’t subscribe to the supernatural beliefs of Christianity. People like you tend to make him out to be some anti religious person which is why you’re the one guilty of cherrypicking here.
              You’ve gotten your ass handed to you by others on here so now it’s my turn to show you just how much of a blithering idiot you truly are 🙂

          70. Is that another book you didn’t bother to read and are going to cherrypick from? lol

          71. So Henry’s widow considered Jefferson a hero of deism? What does that prove? Nothing more than the fact that his views were popular with those who DID consider themselves deist.
              Oh but by all means, show me where Jefferson called himself a deist, and i will gladly apologize to you.
              😀

          72. “The Reverend Thomas Buckley, SJ, professor of American religious history at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley, said that belief is more complex than saying a person shrugged off Christianity and put on deism: “Too many historians keep calling the ‘founding fathers’ Deists. Even Thomas Jefferson on his worst days was not one of their ranks.” A better term than deist for most of them, Buckley said, is “rationalistic Christian.” Agreement on that point comes from Dreisbach, who said he thinks “there were relatively few Deists in America. There were a few elites who gravitated to a form of theistic rationalism, but we’re talking about a relatively few, albeit influential, elites.””
              BWAHAHA try again dumbass!
              😀
              http://www.history.org/foundation/journal/spring09/deism.cfm

          73. Revealing your academic style, Liar for Jesus?
              Liars For Jesus: The Religious Right’s Alternate Version of American History
              http://www.liarsforjesus.com

          74. You’re trying to paint Jefferson as somebody like you, when you would reject him from brotherhood in your church for not being a Christian.
              Hypocrite much?

          75. > …show me where Jefferson called himself a deist…
              Will do.

              In a letter to Benjamin Rush dated April 21, 1803 Jefferson wrote […] “Jews. Their system was Deism; that is, the belief in one only God. But their ideas of him and of his attributes were degrading and injurious. He” (Jesus) “corrected the Deism of the Jews, confirming them in their belief of one only God, and giving them juster notions of his attributes and government.”
              The Deist Roots of the United States of America
              deism.com/deistamerica.htm
              (Jefferson’s full 1803 letter to Rush is also here:)
              http://www.angelfire.com/co/JeffersonBible/jeffbsyl.html

              Thus, we can observe that Jefferson, in stating that he was a “Christian” and a follower of Jesus, followed what he thought was a Deistic Jesus from a Deistic Judaism.
              Jefferson clearly referred to himself as Deist by his own pen.

          76. Your Jesuit isn’t too knowledgeable of Jefferson, as Jefferson did refer to his belief system as one of Deism, as I demonstrate here from Jefferson’s own pen
              But thanks for bringing the Jesuits up. *chuckle*

              I do not like the reappearance of the Jesuits….Shall we not have regular swarms of them here, in as many disguises as only a king of the gipsies can assume, dressed as printers, publishers, writers and schoolmasters? If ever there was a body of men who merited damnation on earth and in Hell, it is this society of Loyola’s. Nevertheless, we are compelled by our system of religious toleration to offer them an asylum. — John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, May 5, 1816
              “This society [Jesuits] has been a greater calamity to mankind than the French Revolution, or Napoleon’s despotism or ideology. It has obstructed the progress of reformation and the improvement of the human mind in society much longer and more fatally. –John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, November 4, 1816
              Cabalistic Christianity, which is Catholic Christianity, and which has prevailed for 1,500 years, has received a mortal wound, of which the monster must finally die. Yet so strong is his constitution, that he may endure for centuries before he expires. — John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, July 16, 1814
              Can a free government possibly exist with the Roman Catholic religion? — John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, May 19, 1821

          77. Reject him? Please. If you really believe that, you really don’t know what the Christian faith teaches.
              You’re a moron of the highest magnitute. A typing turd with no Christian understanding whatsoever.
              Who are you to tell me what Christianity would or would not do, when you aren’t even Christian yourself? You’re the hypocrite here, not me 🙂

          78. Apparently your reading comprehension lies within the threshold of mental retardation.
              I asked you where Jefferson called himself a deist, not where its IMPLIED that he’s a deist.
              “Jefferson clearly referred to himself as Deist by his own pen.”
              No he didn’t. That is YOU making that prevaricating statement. The word “Deist” doesn’t hold the same meaning back then as it does today. Deist doesn’t mean atheist, because Jefferson believed in God, he just didn’t believe in most of the supernatural aspect.
              For example, Jefferson believed in God’s involvement in the destiny of Man, saying that his “infinite power rules the destinies of the universe…”
              “Relying, then, on the patronage of your good will, I advance with obedience to the work, ready to retire from it whenever you become sensible how much better choice it is in your power to make. And may that Infinite Power which rules the destinies of the universe lead our councils to what is best, and give them a favorable issue for your peace and prosperity”
              -Thomas Jefferson, first inaugural address.
              http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/jefinau1.asp
              …and Jefferson believed God was a being “who has us in his hands”:
              ” I shall need, too, the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our fathers, as Israel of old, from their native land and planted them in a country flowing with all the necessaries and comforts of life; who has covered our infancy with His providence and our riper years with His wisdom and power, and to whose goodness I ask you to join in supplications with me that He will so enlighten the minds of your servants, guide their councils, and prosper their measures that whatsoever they do shall result in your good, and shall secure to you the peace, friendship, and approbation of all nations.”
              -Thomas Jefferson, second inaugural address.
              http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/jefinau2.asp
              Yeah, there’s NO supernatural aspect there, right? lol.
              Nice try painting Jefferson out to be what you want him to be, but you forget some people have actually studied him and understand the complexities of his views far better than you do.
              Get lost troll, it’s obvious you have nothing of substance to share here. If not, i and others like myself will continue to embarrass you as you so appropriately deserve.
              😀

          79. Jefferson calls the leader of his personal version of Christianity a Deist, and you lie, lie, lie. Trying to weasel out of your apology, Liar For Jesus? That was predictable.
              Jefferson was a “Materialist,” opposed to Jesus’ “Spiritualism.”

              “I am a Materialist; he [Jesus] takes the side of Spiritualism; he preaches the efficacy of repentance towards forgiveness of sin; I require counterpoise of good works to redeem it, etc., etc.” ~Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Short, April 13, 1820

              And he specifically did not believe in the supernatural, as he wrote here:

              “To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. To say that the human soul, angels, God, are immaterial, is to say they are nothings, or that there is no God, no angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise: but I believe I am supported in my creed of materialism by Locke, Tracy, and Stewart. At what age of the Christian church this heresy of immaterialism, this masked atheism, crept in, I do not know. But a heresy it certainly is.” ~Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, August 15, 1820

          80. Answer the question, instead of weaseling. You know you wouldn’t accept anybody as a Christian who didn’t believe in miracles, revelation of the Bible, Jesus as a deity, etc., etc.

          81. Apparently neither are you, because you STILL can’t prove Jefferson was a deist, more so when he NEVER used that word to describe himself.
              Your citation of a deist website and from a snippet of his letter to Benjamin Rush STILL doesn’t prove he was a deist, more so when my citations of his first and second inaugural address PROVE he did believe in some supernatural element with regard to God’s involvement. After all, he claims we are in God’s hands, in his infinite power, which rules the destinies of the universe. Hardly a deist perspective lol.
              http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/jefinau1.asp
              http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/jefinau2.asp
              Jefferson was not a deist, regardless of your dismissal of the “jesuit.” If you are going to reject my earlier citation as being from a “jesuit” i am most certainly within my right to reject your absurd citation from a deist website lol.
              Jefferson’s views were complex, but one of the few instances where he declares an absolute with regard to himself (besides calling himself a Christian) is when he considered himself a unitarian, which is still different enough from a deist to be considered dissimilar. Oh but by all means, don’t take my word for it, take it from Jefferson himself 🙂
              ” I am anxious to see the doctrine of one god commenced in our state. but the population of my neighborhood is too slender, and is too much divided into other sects to maintain any one Preacher well. I must therefore be contented to be an Unitarian by myself, altho I know there are many around me who would become so if once they could hear the question fairly stated.”
              -Thomas Jefferson, letter to Benjamin Waterhouse, 1825.
              http://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/founders/default.xqy?keys=FOEA-chron-1820-1825-01-08-6
              Your citations of Jefferson don’t prove he is a deist, which is my entire issue with you. It only proves he had a conflict with the hypocrisy and most of the supernatural flair of organized religion, a point i never disputed.
              I HOWEVER have proven that Jefferson called himself a Christian, and now i’ve proven he called himself a unitarian. You have failed to do anything more than bullshit on here. You haven’t proven he is a deist, you ony prove that you believe he is. Big difference.
              You’re out of your league bozo. Get lost, or i will continue to show you just how ignorant you truly are.

          82. I just proved Jefferson regarded himself a Deist, by his own pen that describes his very peculiar religion. You, being a dishonest Liar for Jesus, are weaseling out of your promise to apologize.

          83. I asked you to SHOW me where Jefferson called himself a deist, and you were unable to do so. Now you are just trying to weasel out of admitting that. You’re pathetic. You’re just a liar period.
              Again, your citation only proves that Jefferson had conflicting views over the course of his life. It’s the equivalent of saying i should be remembers as an atheist because i called myself that for a brief period in my life. You’re a historical revisionist. A small boy trying to twist the perceptions of a great Man to your own pathetic and biased interpretation.
              Jeffferson wasn’t a deist, indeed he never called himself one and you haven’t proven that he did. You can lie to yourself and say he implied it, but we both know that isn’t true.
              A deist by definition would NOT believe in supernatural involvement, and yet here Jefferson is speaking on supernatural involvement:
              “Relying, then, on the patronage of your good will, I advance with obedience to the work, ready to retire from it whenever you become sensible how much better choice it is in your power to make. And may that Infinite Power which rules the destinies of the universe lead our councils to what is best, and give them a favorable issue for your peace and prosperity.”
              http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/jefinau1.asp
              and here also:
              I shall now enter on the duties to which my fellow citizens have again called me, and shall proceed in the spirit of those principles which they have approved. I fear not that any motives of interest may lead me astray; I am sensible of no passion which could seduce me knowingly from the path of justice; but the weakness of human nature, and the limits of my own understanding, will produce errors of judgment sometimes injurious to your interests. I shall need, therefore, all the indulgence I have heretofore experienced — the want of it will certainly not lessen with increasing years. I shall need, too, the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our forefathers, as Israel of old, from their native land, and planted them in a country flowing with all the necessaries and comforts of life; who has covered our infancy with his providence, and our riper years with his wisdom and power; and to whose goodness I ask you to join with me in supplications, that he will so enlighten the minds of your servants, guide their councils, and prosper their measures, that whatsoever they do, shall result in your good, and shall secure to you the peace, friendship, and approbation of all nations.”
              http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/jefinau2.asp
              Dude you’re full of shit. You have been exposed as a bullshitter. You are in my crosshairs now and i will continue to expose you the more you try and pass off your bullshit as fact 🙂

          84. I answered the question. The true Christian Church would NOT reject anyone, they would welcome all to an understanding of God.
              Your point here is pointless as it was with everyone else you said elsewhere.

          85. No you didn’t, you only proved that you believe he is based off of insinuations, which is nothing more than circumstantial evidence and NOT fact.
              I however, proved he was a unitarian since he called himself by that PERSONALLY 🙂
              You’re a liar for satan, so your words don’t faze me in the least, doofus 🙂

          86. So you really accept people into your church who do not believe in miracles, call themselves “Materialist,” scoff at the Trinity, etc., etc.?
              Liar.

          87. I showed you. You’re in denial. My citation proves Jefferson regarded himself as a Deist in his outline of what he believed about religion.

          88. Satan? LOL Jefferson would consider you a moron, or at least a demonist, for believing in silly monsters-under-your-bed.

              “I concur with you strictly in your opinion of the comparative merits of atheism and demonism, and really see nothing but the latter in the being worshipped by many who think themselves Christians.” ~Thomas Jefferson, letter to Richard Price, January, 8, 1789

          89. No controversy huh? Guess you are also ignorant as to James Mchenry (a signer of the US constitution no less) objection to article 11 lol!
              John Adams’ Secretary of War James McHenry protested the language of the Treaty of Tripoli, while writing to Secretary of the Treasury Oliver Wolcott, Jr., September 26, 1800:
              “The Senate…ought never to have ratified the treaty alluded to, with the declaration that ‘the government of the United States, is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.’ What else is it founded on? This act always appeared to me like trampling upon the cross. I do not recollect that Barlow was even reprimanded for this outrage upon the government and religion”
              https://books.google.com/books?id=ki4DAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA580-IA1&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=3#v=snippet&q=religion&f=false
              Don’t just copy paste snippets from history and those in it, dude. READ WITH UNDERSTANDING.
              Mchenry’s own words acknowledge how bizarre the existence of article 11 is. We know from historian (David) Hunter Miller’s research that Barlow likely inserted it himself, since the wording in article 11 doesn’t exist in the original arabic text.
              “As even a casual examination of the annotated translation of 1930 shows, the Barlow translation is at best a poor attempt at a paraphrase or summary of the sense of the Arabic; and even as such its defects throughout are obvious and glaring. Most extraordinary (and wholly unexplained) is the fact that Article 11 of the Barlow translation, with its famous phrase, “the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion,” does not exist at all. There is no Article 11. The Arabic text which is between Articles 10 and 12 is in form a letter, crude and flamboyant and withal quite unimportant, from the Dey of Algiers to the Pasha of Tripoli. How that script came to be written and to be regarded, as in the Barlow translation, as Article 11 of the treaty as there written, is a mystery and seemingly must remain so. Nothing in the diplomatic correspondence of the time throws any light whatever on the point”
              http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/bar1796n.asp
              Since Barlow was a close acquaintance of Paine (he printed Paine’s tome “Age of Reason”) i will go a logical step further and say that he inserted it as a favor to him, in order to try and have the US government accept the idea that the US government is not founded on the Christian religion.
              http://www.njreadforlife.org/painetext8.html
              Yes article 11 passed the senate and was approved, but given the controversy behind it its CLEAR that the reason for its very existence is mired in subterfuge. Regardless, it was essentially repudiated by the later Treaty of Tunis, with the key wording of:
              “The most illustrious and most magnificent Prince Hamuda Pasha, Bey, who commands the Odgiak of Tunis, the abode of happiness; and the most honored Ibrahim Dey; and Suleiman, Agha of the Janizaries and chief of the Divan; and all the elders of the Odgiak; and the most distinguished and honored President of the Congress of the United States of America, the most distinguished among those who profess the religion of the Messiah, of whom may the end be happy.”
              http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/bar1797t.asp
              The President…of the US…the most distinguished among those who profess the religion of the Messiah (Jesus)
              What does that tell you? The Shaw of Tunis was declaring that Jefferson was the most prominent of those who were professing the religion of the Messiah. Since the Messiah is Jesus, the religion must therefore be Christianity.
              Now what does google give us as a definition for “profess:”
              “affirm one’s faith in or allegiance to (a religion or set of beliefs)”
              My friend, it’s clear that you are in way over your head. Your perception of the Triploi treaty has been thoroughly debunked by me. You are hopelessly outmatched. Give it up. Exposing you as an ignoramus is getting boring.

          90. My church welcomes anyone who comes to understand, regardless of how much footing they have in the world.
              You would understand the Christian faith if you actually researched it with objective understanding.

          91. No you didn’t liar. “Regard” is NOT THE SAME AS ASKING YOU TO PROVE TO ME WHERE JEFFERSON CALLED HIMSELF A DEIST, WHICH IS WHAT I ASKED YOU INITIALLY.
              Posted in caps, to hopefully pierce the intentional ignorance you are using to try and avoid addressing that.

          92. Naw, Jefferson would appreciate my thorough research. He’d look at someone like you in sheer disgust. They tried to twist his words back then, so he wouldn’t be surprised that they are still doing so now.
              Here’s another refutation to your ignorance, bozo:
              “I can never join Calvin in addressing his god. He was indeed an Atheist, which I can never be; or rather his religion was Daemonism. If ever man worshipped a false god, he did.”
              -Letter to John Adams, April 11 1823.
              http://www.beliefnet.com/resourcelib/docs/53/Letter_from_Thomas_Jefferson_to_John_Adams_1.html
              Which comes first, 1789 or 1823? lol 😀

          93. Jefferson didn’t believe in a pantheon of silly gods, including Satan, like you and 99.9% of Christians do. Do you even understand what the word “unitarian” (which Jefferson mentions) means, numbskull? Fact is, he called your ilk atheists, as you just showed.
              Way to step on your own dick, moron.

          94. You have no personal honor, and are tying to not apologize as your promised. That’s what is pathetic.

          95. Still weaseling out of the fact that your church leaders would call Jefferson a “howling atheist” and an “infidel” just like your ilk did back in the day during the election of 1800?

              “Should the infidel Jefferson be elected to the Presidency, the seal of death is that moment set on our holy religion, our churches will be prostrated, and some infamous ‘prostitute’, under the title of goddess of reason, will preside in the sanctuaries now devoted to the worship of the most High.” — New England Palladium (1800)

          96. I never said Jefferson believed in “gods” moron. I’m saying what i’ve been saying before: Jefferson never considered himself a deist, never called himself one, and never rejected ALL supernatural element of faith which a deist would have to in order to properly qualify as a deist.
              I’m well aware of what a deist is, are you aware of my mention of “dissimilar” in regard to the comparison of deist and unitarian?
              The fact is, he used atheism in a negative term, and the other fact is you ignore having to address how many times you’ve been proven wrong on here.
              No wonder you get no upvotes…you’re an idiot.

          97. You wouldn’t know a concept like honor if it bit you on the ass.
              Someone as benighted as you is no more than gum sticking on the bottom of the shoes of great men.

          98. I’m not weasling out of anything. Church leaders back then called anyone who didn’t COMPLETELY subscribe to their beliefs an “atheist.” That doesn’t prove he was one, more so when he personally rejected the title. What did i weasel out of liar? I call bs on your remark here 🙂
              Again, your only remarks are rooted in insinuation. You can’t be bothered to state fact through reason because you lack the capacity to provide either. You are biased against faith and your whole raison d’etre in that regard is to attack faith. You’re just another loser militant living in his basement trying to cherrypick from history in order to promote your worthless views.
              Loser!

          99. You’re still weaseling out of the apology you promised. I knew you wouldn’t do it, because you have zero honor.

          100. I proved Jefferson regarded himself a deist, by his own pen. You promised an apology if I could show you such a passage.
               If you had any integrity, you’d apologize like you promised. But you won’t.

          101. No you didn’t. Nothing you posted of Jefferson proved he was a deist, his remarks about deism with regard to the Jews DO NOT PROVE he himself was one, more so when he never described himself as one. Epic fail liar.
               You are just a bottom feeding troll trolling on this site in order to pass off your bs as truth.

          102. Keep dodging and weaving around the simple fact that Jefferson didn’t believe in silly gods like you do, such as “Satan.” And yeah, Jefferson considered himself a deist, by his own pen, as I’ve proven. But you would deny that the sun rises in the morning, if that truth put your religious belief in peril. You’re a moronic True Believer (Hoffer, 1951).

               Mass movements aggressively promote the use of Doctrines that elevate faith over reason and serve as “fact-proof screens between the faithful and the realities of the world”. wikipedia.org/wiki/The_True_Believer

          103. The satan remark is irrelevant, you’re inserting a red herring in order to distract from admitting you didn’t prove Jefferson was a deist.
               Let me call bullshit on you again..post it right here where Jefferson said he was a deist, not “implied” not “regarded himself” but CALLED himself a deist.
               Show me. Post it here. Otherwise you’re a damn liar.

          104. I proved Jefferson called himself as a Deist, by his own pen, as he outlined his belief system . You’re a liar.

          105. Post it here. Prove it. Otherwise you’re a liar.
               I want those words verbatim. I want you to post where Jefferson called himself a deist, liar.

          106. I’ve posted them, liar, from Jefferson’s outline of his belief system, in which he describes himself as a follower of a Deistic Jesus.

               Jefferson held deep Deistic beliefs. He even thought Jesus to be a Deist.
               In a letter to Benjamin Rush dated April 21, 1803 Jefferson wrote, “To the corruptions of Christianity I am, indeed, opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian, in the only sense in which he wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines, in preference to all others; ascribing to himself every human excellence; and believing he never claimed any other.”
               Jefferson went on to write in this same letter, “Jews. Their system was Deism; that is, the belief in one only God. But their ideas of him and of his attributes were degrading and injurious. He” (Jesus) “corrected the Deism of the Jews, confirming them in their belief of one only God, and giving them juster notions of his attributes and government.”
               The Deist Roots of the United States of America
               deism.com/deistamerica.htm

          107. Lol just as i thought, you couldn’t do it. You are a liar, not just a liar either, but a pathological one. I asked you to post for me verbatim where Jefferson called himself a deist, and you couldn’t do it.
               Posting from a deist website…now THAT’S objective LMAO

          108. Just as I though, you deny the obvious, because you’re trying to weasel out of an apology you offered.

          109. You can keep reposting this as much as you want, NOWHERE in it does Jefferson call himself a deist, which is what i asked a pathological liar like you to provide.
               “Historian Sydney E. Ahlstrom associated Jefferson with “rational religion” or deism,[13] however Jefferson’s expressed beliefs in divine interventionism, and in an afterlife would seem to disqualify him from being labeled as a true Deist, as the word Deist is understood in modern day usage. Jefferson saw a certain harmony between the various philosophies that he ascribed to, but his understandings of these philosophies themselves were sometimes at odds with the more popular or “orthodox” understandings of these philosophies of his day.”
               https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Thomas_Jefferson
               LOL
               Seriously, you need to get banned. You’re just trolling scum wasting people’s time with your bullshit.

          110. I can keep reposting it, and you can keep proving you lack the integrity and honor to apologize like you offered. Yes, Jefferson, in outlining his belief system as a follower of a Deistic Jesus, called himself a Deist.

          111. Ii asked you to prove where Jefferson said he was a deist and you couldn’t prove it. You deserve no apology, just the contempt that lying scum like you deserves.
               Where is my apology? For calling me a “jackass” “christfag” and your other crimes against intelligence?

          112. You can keep posting your bullshit as much as you want, it only shows you’re a pathological solipsist liar who ignores words to suit his insanity.

          113. Jefferson, in outlining his belief system as a follower of a Deistic Jesus, called himself a Deist. You, however, lack the honor and integrity to apologize as you offered.

          114. You lack the honor and integrity to apologize as you offered.

          115. No he didn’t. You’re a pathological liar and a deluded mind.

          116. You deserve no apology because you did not prove Jefferson called himself a deist. You’re a pathological liar with a diseased mind.

          117. You lack the honor and integrity to apologize as you promised. Jefferson, in his outline of his personal belief system as a follower of a Deistic Jesus, called himself a Deist.

          118. You lack the honor and integrity to apologize as you promised. Jefferson, in his description of his personal belief system as a follower of a Deistic Jesus, called himself a Deist.

          119. He never called himself a deist. You are a pathological liar and a diseased mind.

          120. He never called himself a deist. You are a pathological liar and a diseased mind. Repeat it ad nauseam, it doens’t change that fact.

          121. He never called himself a deist. You never proved he did or was one. You are a pathological liar and a diseased mind.

          122. Jefferson, in his outline of his personal belief system as a follower of
               a Deistic Jesus, called himself a Deist. You lack the honor and integrity to apologize as you promised.

          123. Thomas Jefferson, in his outline of his personal belief system as a follower of a Deistic Jesus, called himself a Deist. You lack the honor and integrity to apologize as you promised.

          124. Jefferson, Jefferson, in his description of his personal belief system as a follower of a Deistic Jesus, called himself a Deist. You lack the honor and integrity to apologize as you promised.

          125. No he didn’t, you are bullshitting there. You didn’t post that he said that, nor did you prove he was a deist.
               You deserve no apology, just scorn and ridicule.

          126. No he didn’t , he never called himself a deist. You are a pathological liar for continuing to repeat this lie. You are a liar for satan.

          127. No he did not, he never called himself a deist nor did he consider himself one. You are a pathological liar and a diseased mind. You deserve no apology just contempt and ridicule.

          128. Jefferson, in his outline of his personal belief system as a follower ofa Deistic Jesus, called himself a Deist. You lack the honor and integrity to apologize as you promised.

               Jefferson held deep Deistic beliefs. He even thought Jesus to be a Deist.
               In a letter to Benjamin Rush dated April 21, 1803 Jefferson wrote, “To the corruptions of Christianity I am, indeed, opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian, in the only sense in which he wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines, in preference to all others; ascribing to himself every human excellence; and believing he never claimed any other.”
               Jefferson went on to write in this same letter, “Jews. Their system was Deism; that is, the belief in one only God. But their ideas of him and of his attributes were degrading and injurious. He” (Jesus) “corrected the Deism of the Jews, confirming them in their belief of one only God, and giving them juster notions of his attributes and government.”
               deism.com/deistamerica.htm

          129. He did, in his description of his personal belief system as a follower of a Deistic Jesus. Still weaseling out of that apology?

               Jefferson held deep Deistic beliefs. He even thought Jesus to be a Deist.
               In a letter to Benjamin Rush dated April 21, 1803 Jefferson wrote, “To the corruptions of Christianity I am, indeed, opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian, in the only sense in which he wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines, in preference to all others; ascribing to himself every human excellence; and believing he never claimed any other.”
               Jefferson went on to write in this same letter, “Jews. Their system was Deism; that is, the belief in one only God. But their ideas of him and of his attributes were degrading and injurious. He” (Jesus) “corrected the Deism of the Jews, confirming them in their belief of one only God, and giving them juster notions of his attributes and government.”
               deism.com/deistamerica.htm

          130. Yes, he did, I proved it, and you’re weaseling out of an apology.

          131. Quoting from a deist website doesn’t qualify as a fact numbskull, they WANT him to be deist just like you do.
               Why don’t you just post where Jefferson said he was a deist? Oh that’s right…HE NEVER DID LOL.

          132. Funny how those words ” in his description of his personal belief system as a follower of a Deistic Jesus.” nowhere appear in Jefferson’s writings lol. You’re a chronic bullshitter dude.
               Where’s my apology for all the blasphemous insults against me?

          133. No you didn’t you never proved it by never providing where Jefferson said he was a deist.
               You’re a pathological liar and a diseased mind.

          134. > nowhere appear in Jefferson’s writings
               They are, in a letter to Benjamin Rush dated April 21, 1803.
               > Where’s my apology
               I never offered an sort of apology if you could prove something, like you did, Christfag.

          135. I proved it from Jefferson’s letter to Benjamin Rush dated April 21, 1803.
               deism.com/deistamerica.htm
               You offered an apology if I could. I did. You lack the integrity and honor to do as you said you would do, weasel.

          136. I proved it from Jefferson’s letter to Benjamin Rush dated April 21, 1803, as found here: deism.com/deistamerica.htm Or you can find it other places. Whoever quotes it isn’t the issue, liar.
               You offered an apology if I could. I did. You lack the integrity and honor to do as you said you would do, weasel.

          137. No they dont. You’re lying.
               Where’s my apology for all the blasphemous insults?

          138. No you didn’t you never proved it by never providing where Jefferson said he was a deist.
               You’re a pathological liar and a diseased mind. I feel sorry for you. You’re just a trolling antitheist with nothing better to do than shit all over this site. You should be banned.

          139. No, you proved no such thing. Providing a link to a deist website that thinks Jefferson is a deist is not the same as Jefferson himself saying it.
               You are full metal retarded. I feel sorry for your kids. You probably act like an arrogant prick around them as well lol

          140. Jefferson said he was a deist in his outline of his personal
               religion as a follower of Jesus, as evidenced here:
               deism.com/deistamerica.htm
               You refuse to apologize as you promised, because you lack honor and integrity.

          141. Jefferson never called himself a deist nor did he consider himself one. You are a pathological liar with a diseased mind.
               You have no morals and no character. You are wicked.

          142. Jefferson’s letter is available to the public, in many books. You’re simply trying to weasel out of your apology, because you lack personal integrity and honor.

          143. then post where he said it was a deist if it’s so easy to pull up. Until then you’re a pathological liar and a diseased mind.
               Where’s my apology for all the blasphemous insults?

          144. Why do you want to keep weaseling out of your apology?

          145. Why do you keep avoiding admitting to your lie?

          146. I never offered you a conditional apology like you offered me. To insinuate that I did shows your basic dishonesty.

          147. I didn’t lie. But do cite it if you think you can.

          148. Read what i said doofus.
               YOU OWE ME AN APOLOGY FOR ALL THE BLASPHEMOUS INSULTS YOU SHARED EARLIER.
               I never said you promised me one, i’m saying you deserve to give one because of how rude you’ve been since you came on here.
               You’re not much for basic english comprehension, are you?

          149. You shout like a Femi-nazi.

          150. your words are the lie. You keep posting that Jefferson was a deist when he never called himself that nor did he describe himself as one.

          151. Can’t cite it? Didn’t think you could. 🙂
               Jefferson was a deist, as I’ve proven. But you lack integrity and honor to apologize as you promised when I did that.

          152. No, just typing in all caps so that even a purposely blind tool like you can see.
               Guess it didn’t work. Figures lol

          153. Oh please. Reverse psychology? Wow how clever lol
               Why don’t you just prove that Jefferson called himself a deist? Oh that’s right, he never did.
               Where did he call himself a deist again?
               Father Thyme: *crickets*

          154. You keep denying the readily available proof. *chirp*

          155. You keep failing to provide it. Der!

          156. I proved it, you’ve failed to deliver on the apology you promised, because you lack personal integrity and honor.

          157. No you only proved you want to believe Jefferson is a deist. You deserve no apology for being a pathological liar, you do however deserve to provide one to me for being such a rude blasphemous prick.

          158. Still trying to weasel out of your apology, Christfag?

          159. Still trying to weasel out of admitting you’re a pathological liar?

          160. Bringing up lying, that’s your ken, Liar for Jesus.
               Liars For Jesus: The Religious Right’s Alternate Version of American History
               http://www.liarsforjesus.com

          161. Bla bla bla. Repeat bs ad nauseam.
               you’re a liar for satan.
               Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.

          162. Goebbels wrote in 1941 that Hitler “hates Christianity, because it has crippled all that is noble in humanity.” Thanks for playing.
               P.S. The crusades were a response to muslim invasion. You should be more grateful.

          163. Thanks for the polite response.

          164. You’re a civilized fellow so you deserve no less.

Comments are closed.