☩ GOD IS REAL ☩ | [Atheists GTFIH] | IQMaxxing

I don’t know why you’re putting question marks. This is a claim made on the very foundation of logic and epistemology.

For example, you can’t prove to me that your mom truly loves you. Does that mean she doesn’t love you? Obviously not.
Good point, I stand corrected
 
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I didn't call the existence of God untrue, I'm a believer, but I believe in the futility of ontological argumentation as well. Idiot.
btw this is the definition of a verificationist fallacy: "verificationist fallacy" refers to the logical flaw in verificationism (the belief that a statement is only meaningful if it is empirically verifiable or logically true by definition).
 
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Good thread, most of the people seething about it won't engage with it intellectually at all sadly, I say this as a lapsed christian/agnostic
Imop I find that the TAG argument is the best argument out of the bunch. I think you should look into that one especially as a lapsed Christian/Agnostic. It’s super interesting and very logically sound.
 
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tfw goyim thinking their clever with their over simplistic views on profound topics that require primary source studying
 
ICL you are looking at it in an extremely black and white way

the black pill isnt 100% genetic determinism otherwise what would be the point of looksmaxxing nothing matters
The black pill is mostly genetic determinism, and doesn't matter if its 1%, 10% or 100%

Theist claims there is no genetic determinism. Since that either breaks free will for those unfortunate to be in said 1%

Like, you can't tell a 5'5 ND jeet he can looksmax. Clearly he's predetermined to be doomed an incel
and many times in the bible we see people with different burdens and challenges so genetics arent rejected in theism either
This doesn't really matter

Different challenges is not the topic. Genetics have nothing to do with the challenges you'll face. It'll either be easier or harder depending on your genetics, although on a specific set of scenarios.
 
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The black pill is mostly genetic determinism, and doesn't matter if its 1%, 10% or 100%

Theist claims there is no genetic determinism. Since that either breaks free will for those unfortunate to be in said 1%

Like, you can't tell a 5'5 ND jeet he can looksmax. Clearly he's predetermined to be doomed an incel

This doesn't really matter

Different challenges is not the topic. Genetics have nothing to do with the challenges you'll face. It'll either be easier or harder depending on your genetics, although on a specific set of scenarios.
can you show me where theism claims there is absolutely 0 genetic determinism
 
can you show me where theism claims there is absolutely 0 genetic determinism
It would only make sense, there's no direct or unambiguous proof.

Abrahamic religions claim everything is up to you, which is free will. Free will and genetic determinism cannot coexist. If someone's predetermined, they do not have free will, and if others do as well then they are a favourite
 
coming from a place of love, why would a God the triune one specifically let the place your born dictate what your beliefs are?
Why would he allow such confusion and ambiguity in seeking him surely an all powerful god capable of bringing everything into existence just by speaking them into existence wouldnt struggle with basic communication
Why is he silent? Why does he hide? Just why?
Low iq response to a very high iq philosophical thread
 
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The premise of the argument is the idea that everything and every state of existence has a cause
1.

This premise isnt even true if we look at modern physics , which cointains events that seem to happen without a cause.

Quantum events are often described as random . If these a truly uncaused events then the premise that everything must have is cause is basicly wrong
2.

.Still lets assume that for the sake of the argument that quantum events are not really random and that sciene has not discovered their causes yet.
In that case every event and every state of the universe would be caused by previous states

This would imply a deterministic universe

If the universe is deterministi then human thoughts and choices r also determined

What we call our will is ultimately a physical state of the brain and the brain is made of atoms that follow the laws of physics

If every movement of every atom is caused by prior conditions then every thought, desire, and decision is also caused by prior conditions

Under such a view free will becomes impossible because nobody could have acted differently from how they actually acted

This creates a serious problem for many Christian arguments

If people cannot freely choose their actions then moral responsibility becomes difficult to justify

Reward and punishment would lose their foundation and the common explanation that suffering exists because God gave humans free will would also collapse.

Likewise the idea that earthly life is some kind of test for Heaven or Hell becomes questionable if every action is already determined before a person is born

3.

even if we say that compatibilism could be true and that free will can coexist with a determistic universe

that still wouldnt prove the christian god

At most it would point to some kind of first cause

But why should this first cause be allgoo all knowing or identical to the God of Christianity?

The argument itself does not establish any of those qualities.

The first cause could be a completely different kind of being a different god, multiple gods or even some unknown form of existence that created the universe either intentionally or unintentionally

The existence of a first cause does not automatically tell us anything about its nature, its morality or its intentions

Therefore, even if the argument succeeded in proving a first cause it would still be a very large step from that conclusion to the specific claims of Christianity
I believe in God and this is a high iq response, aquinas' argument suck and he's a fucking retard with a shitty metaphysical system.

Causal argument is rehashed and shifts the quantifier from "a cause" to a "specific cause" being the christian god. really retarded argument.

The only arguments that hold up are the epistemological and ontological presuppositionalist arguments
 
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whhy doesnt he just make a world with free will and no evil at the same time if he wants it so bad
He did, you're being vague. If you're asking him to continuously sustain that then it'd be a logical contradiction.
 
You can say that all of this is rational speculation but just like you said, there is no way to prove it
Retard response no disrespect, normies think there's only one metric of justification as if justification can be empirical and rational:lul::lul:
 
can you address the epicurean paradox? I don't have time to reply to every single bit

Additionally, how are you blackpilled and theist? Blackpill is genetic determinism, which goes strongly against common theist scolar's belief, arguing that there is no determinism, and those religions that are abrahamic
View attachment 5145333
Theistic scholars don't determine doctrine, they're scholars and have 0 authority at all.

When determining theology we go to the church fathers, a lot of scholars are usually protestant to that only account for a fraction of the religion that isn't even true. We don't hold to strict libertarian free will either.

Genetic determinism =/= determinism in moral/standard agency is where you're getting this mixed up. Genetic determinism itself already is slightly flawed as you can change what your genetics determine anyways
 
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nice strategy of typing so much no one will bother to read it and argue
 
Retard response no disrespect, normies think there's only one metric of justification as if justification can be empirical and rational:lul::lul:
I don't think that, I actually believe it can be qualitatively proven but only experientially on an individual level through mystical experience, in my first reply I was affirming that it can't be proven rationally or empirically, as this thread is trying to do despite acknowledging it isn't possible. I bet you think you're sooo smart bhai
 
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I don't think that, I actually believe it can be qualitatively proven but only experientially on an individual level through mystical experience, in my first reply I was affirming that it can't be proven rationally or empirically, as this thread is trying to do despite acknowledging it isn't possible. I bet you think you're sooo smart bhai
That's not even the point being made, also mystical experience is literally empirical:lul::lul:"experientally" also is empirical. Nice contradiction.

Anything can be proven rationally.
 
That's not even the point being made, also mystical experience is literally empirical:lul::lul:"experientally" also is empirical. Nice contradiction.

Anything can be proven rationally.
Mystical experience cannot be measured or used to verify empirical truths; it is only affirmative of truth to the person themselves and, as I said, it is experiential, it is an experiential form of knowledge, not a rational one. This doesn't mean it can contradict reason, but that it stands above reason. It is something that can only be known by experiencing it yourself and is completely beyond the linear subject-object distinction that discursive reasoning is confined to. Every mystical tradition in human history has held some variation of this belief. Even Thomas Aquinas who this thread is centered around said that everything he had written was but straw compared to his single mystical experience, indicating that true knowledge of God is just completely beyond the scope of rational philosophy.
 
Mystical experience cannot be measured or used to verify empirical truths; it is only affirmative of truth to the person themselves and, as I said, it is experiential, it is an experiential form of knowledge, not a rational one. This doesn't mean it can contradict reason, but that it stands above reason. It is something that can only be known by experiencing it yourself and is completely beyond the linear subject-object distinction that discursive reasoning is confined to. Every mystical tradition in human history has held some variation of this belief. Even Thomas Aquinas who this thread is centered around said that everything he had written was but straw compared to his single mystical experience, indicating that true knowledge of God is just completely beyond the scope of rational philosophy.
You're confusing 2 different things, we know mystical experience of God is a more intimate experience of God, but in terms of thesis and proving things it isn't. also, it is STILL empirical. Any proposition or truth derived directly by empirics or the senses is empirical justification.

Experiential knowledge is still empirics. I'm just pointing out the crackers in the pantry fallacy, I'm not saying empirics are bad but you're presupping they're the only valid thing as you verbatim said it cant be rationally proved. It's a true disjunct that it's either rational or empirical:FeelsLoveMan:
 
You're confusing 2 different things, we know mystical experience of God is a more intimate experience of God, but in terms of thesis and proving things it isn't. also, it is STILL empirical. Any proposition or truth derived directly by empirics or the senses is empirical justification.

Experiential knowledge is still empirics. I'm just pointing out the crackers in the pantry fallacy, I'm not saying empirics are bad but you're presupping they're the only valid thing as you verbatim said it cant be rationally proved. It's a true disjunct that it's either rational or empirical:FeelsLoveMan:
Ask anyone who has had a truly mystical experience if it is comparable in any way to ordinary sense experience. It is not. It is not seeing something or hearing something in material reality, it is a personal spiritual experience of forces beyond the scope of this reality. This is why St. Thomas said what he did, he was affirming that all of his reasoning absolutely paled in comparison to a single mystical experience. Mystics have always believed this; the Hermetics distinguished between two forms of knowledge, episteme and gnosis. Episteme is regular discursive knowledge and gnosis is experiential knowledge, they held these things as absolutely separate and also affirmed that the entire purpose of episteme is to achieve gnosis, it is a higher form of knowledge that is achieved, it arrives upon you, and the fact that it is such makes it unquantifiable by empirical means, it just can't be understood rationally (I don't mean rationally as independent reasoning separate from empirical discovery, I just mean using reason as you do with both).

If it were empirical in the same way as science is then wouldn't it be clear that God is real? Yet it remains empirically ambiguous. The fact that it can't be measured or proven in a scientific way shows it is in a completely different domain.
 
This type of threads it's why I love this forum
OP you so goated even if there disagreement
 
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Theistic scholars don't determine doctrine, they're scholars and have 0 authority at all.

When determining theology we go to the church fathers, a lot of scholars are usually protestant to that only account for a fraction of the religion that isn't even true. We don't hold to strict libertarian free will either.

Genetic determinism =/= determinism in moral/standard agency is where you're getting this mixed up. Genetic determinism itself already is slightly flawed as you can change what your genetics determine anyways
I'd argue that said church fathers would agree that genetic determinism shouldn't exist, as it collides with free will.

Genetic determinism is a form of determinism, for instance, you can't say that a person with asperger's syndrome has the same "free will" as the average person.

I think I'll respond to the other guy this week, since it's a pretty long response
 
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I never even said that the love would be directed toward God. I was making a general statement about love and the inability to do so without free will. However, love towards God is also applicable.

God isn’t selfish for desiring our love.

“But St. John goes even further when he affirms that "God is love": God's very being is love. By sending his only Son and the Spirit of Love in the fullness of time, God has revealed his innermost secret:God himself is an eternal exchange of love, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and he has destined us to share in that exchange.” CCC, 221

The word love here is being used as agape - a self giving love. He creates us to share in his divine life. A selfish God would not create us for that purpose. Foreknowledge ≠ Causation. God’s omnipotence knows our choices yet he does not infringe on our ability to make our choices.



Evil is a privation of good. Moral evil literally comes from the ability to choose between lesser gradations of goodness instead of a truly good option. This perfectly explains how misuse of free will is the author of moral evil.

“Evil imports the absence of good. But not every absence of good is evil. For absence of good can be taken in a privative and in a negative sense. Absence of good, taken negatively, is not evil; otherwise, it would follow that what does not exist is evil, and also that everything would be evil, through not having the good belonging to something else; for instance, a man would be evil who had not the swiftness of the roe, or the strength of a lion. But the absence of good, taken in a privative sense, is an evil; as, for instance, the privation of sight is called blindness.” ST I, q. 48, a. 3



I never called suffering a virtue. This is a weak strawman fallacy. I stated that suffering can build virtue. That good can come out of evil.



This is a horrible disease that is the result of a fallen world due to Original Sin. God does not mold or give the disease to the baby. It is the result of the natural law of the universe. We don’t know why this happens because we don’t know the secondary causes, and we don’t know God’s plans.





God is not unfair. Omnibenevolence does not apply to the temporal world. It applies to the ultimate good of the person, eternity with Him, and that he provides sufficient grace necessary for salvation.

The child is human and is given a soul at the moment of conception. The Catholic Church has never taught that infants that die go to hell. There used to be an opinion on Limbo for these cases but it was never dogma.

“As regards children who have died without Baptism, the Church can only entrust them to the mercy of God, as she does in her funeral rites for them. Indeed, the great mercy of God who desires that all men should be saved, and Jesus' tenderness toward children which caused him to say: "Let the children come to me, do not hinder them,"63allow us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without Baptism. All the more urgent is the Church's call not to prevent little children coming to Christ through the gift of holy Baptism.” CCC, 1261


False, a human is more than just genes. Every human being has a soul. (Not even going to argue this any further. I’m 2 days w 4 hours of sleep i’m boutta slump out.)
prove the quantifiable existence of a soul and i will believe that Christ is the true living God
 
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Wow
 
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No god for your mandibular recession
 
GOD IS REAL
INTRO

From what I have gathered, a majority of you guys reject belief in God, whether you are an atheist, agnostic, etc. I completely understand this position because I was in the exact same place six years ago. It is true that you cannot prove God is real; however, you can't disprove Him either. On the contrary, we can follow strong logical arguments that were created by some of the greatest minds in history.

The content of this post is a twenty-page letter that I wrote to someone very dear to me. This originally took me weeks to write, so I hope that all my effort is not in vain. If this post benefits just one person, that makes it all worth it. This is being treated as a part two that is focusing on the spirituality aspect mentioned in my recent post: https://looksmax.org/threads/the-actual-dangers-of-looksmaxxing-high-iq-gtfih.2113266/

St. Thomas Aquinas

St. Thomas Aquinas offered five classic ways that still hold up remarkably well even 500 years later.

  • The Argument from Motion / Change (Aquinas’ First Way): Nothing can move or change itself: whatever is in motion has to be moved by something else. Motion means reducing potentiality to actuality; only something already “actual” can do this. For example, an actuality would be “hot”. It is a potentiality to become hot. The actuality would be being “hot”. If something is put into motion, you would need a prior cause. (There cannot be an infinite chain of movers.) Therefore, there must be a First Mover that is pure actuality, that is God.

  • The Argument from Efficient Causation (Second Way): Every effect has a cause. Nothing can cause itself (that would require it to exist before it exists – an absurdity.) An infinite regress of causes is impossible. If there is no first cause, there is no intermediate or final effect. Therefore, there must be a First Efficient Cause that is uncaused. This is the one who is (Exodus 3:14 “I AM WHO I AM”).

  • The Argument from Contingency (Third Way): We observe many things that are contingent, beings, events, or things whose existence is not necessary, they depend on something else for their existence and could potentially not exist. (Born, grow, decay, die, break, etc.) If everything were contingent, then there would have been a time where nothing existed. To believe something can come from nothing is an absurdity. However, we can recognize existences that eventually will cease to exist, like me and you, for example.

  • Therefore, it is logically impossible to deduce that everything is contingent. There must be at least one being whose nature is to exist, that has to exist. This necessary being does not derive its necessity from anything else. Otherwise, we would need another cause, which would lead to an infinite regress. It must be necessary in its very nature. This is God.

  • The Argument from Degree (Fourth Way): We observe things of different degrees of quality: things are more or less good, true, beautiful, etc. These qualities are judged to a maximum or perfect standard. There must be a perfect source of all perfections, something that is perfect in every way. God is that maximum.

  • We observe degrees of qualities; things are more or less good, true, beautiful, noble. These gradations imply a maximum standard. There must be a perfect source of all perfections (goodness, truth, beauty) that we participate in. God is that maximum.

  • The Argument from Design / Governance (Fifth Way): The universe is not chaos. Plants, animals, laws of physics, etc., are all ordered to an end. These things lack intelligence and cannot guide themselves toward an end unless it is guided by something intelligent. For example, an arrow needs an archer. Therefore, there must be an intelligent being that directs all nature to its ends. This being is once again God.

Transcendental Argument for God

“A truly transcendental argument takes any fact of experience which it wishes to investigate, and tries to determine what the presuppositions of such fact must be, in order to make it what it is.” –Cornelius Van Til, A Survey of Christian Epistemology

We are going to be investigating human experience, knowledge, logic, morality, science, and intelligible prediction, which all are possible and actual. These experiences all presuppose specific conditions: universal, immaterial laws of logic, natural order, objective morality, the unity-and-diversity of being, and the reliability of inductive reasoning. Only the Christian worldview is true. Without the Christian worldview, there is a lack of preconditions of knowledge and meaningful experience, and more. Therefore, the triune God exists as the necessary precondition for epistemology and metaphysics.

Only the Triune God accounts for Logic and Reason, the One-and-Many Problem, Morality, and Science and Uniformity of Nature. I will go through and explain each of the following.

Laws of logic are universal, immaterial, and invariant in their very nature. They are all propositions that serve as primary bearers of truth. These are not simply linguistic or physical. You can state a law of logic in numerous languages; there is still the same law of logic that exists independently of language or brain chemistry. The issue here is that materialism will reduce them to brain chemistry, and atheism is unable to justify its application to reality without circularity or arbitrariness. The only way to ground these propositions is through a God that precedes these things.

Reality displays unity and diversity, and this is something that we can see. Pure monism reduces these distinctions into one essence; pure pluralism states that ultimate reality is not grounded in a single unified system and is grounded in diversity. This would ultimately mean that knowledge is impossible because knowledge requires relating things together. This ultimately yields chaos. The Trinity alone resolves this issue: one divine essence and three distinct Persons (hypostases) in eternal relational communion. Unity and diversity are equally ultimate and eternal in God, grounding a precedent and a coherent world without reductionism.

It is illogical for objective morality to rely on evolution, social convention, or preference. These foundations would reduce objective morality to relativism or a “might makes right.” Relativism reduces objective morality to subjectivism, and objective morality cannot work under a “might makes right” because it would assume that strength ought to define what is objectively moral. The only adequate foundation is the triune God who grounds objective morality within His holy nature, which is defined as perfect and eternal love that exists within the relationship of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Induction assumes that the future will resemble the past. This is a principle known as the uniformity of nature. Atheistic naturalism does not offer a guarantee against radical contingency. The triune God created and continues a natural order that the world participates in as long as the earth exists. “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.” –Genesis 8:22 RSVCE

All religions and philosophies that deny the triune God fail to justify their own preconditions. Atheistic materialism reduces logic and morality to physics and opinion, which ultimately renders itself self-refuting. Other religions cannot adequately solve the one-and-many question and ultimately collapse into pluralism or monism.

The Transcendental Argument for God does not simply suggest God’s existence; it proves that without Him, nothing, not even the argument against Him, makes sense.

The Patristic Argument for the Existence of God

1. Everything that changes needs a Maker who doesn’t change (The “Uncreated Creator” Argument)

By: St. John of Damascus (c. 675-749 A.D.)


Everything we see around us is contingent — it comes into being, changes or eventually ends.. Stars burn out, living things die, man-made things break, etc. These realities cannot be self-explanatory; they require an external cause. If every cause itself needs a prior cause, we would face an infinite regress with no ultimate explanation. Therefore, there must be a creator who is eternal and is uncreated. This is God — the eternal source of all existence.

2. The perfect order and balance in the universe can’t be luck or chance (The “Harmony and Design” Argument)

The world is full of opposite forces that should clash yet somehow work together — fire and water, for example. Seasons arrive on schedule year after year. Even more impressive are living systems in nature. For example, a forest: trees release oxygen that animals need to breathe, while animals give off carbon dioxide that trees use to grow. Insects pollinate flowers, predators control animal populations, and bacteria breaks down dead matter to return nutrients to the soil. All these parts fit together in a balanced, ongoing cycle. If everything happened by random change, it’s hard to explain why we see this kind of stable order and teamwork instead of total chaos or everything being the same.

3. Deep down, we already know God exists (The “Implanted Knowledge” Argument)

Throughout history, almost every culture has believed in some higher power, even without hearing about the Bible. This feeling is built into human nature, similar to knowing right from wrong. Creation (sunsets, stars, a newborn baby) often stirs a sense that life isn’t meaningless. Only strong distractions or habits can push this awareness away. This inner sense suggests we’re wired to recognize something greater than ourselves.

4. Variety and Beauty in Creation Can’t Come from Blind Cause

If the world was created by random atoms or blind forces, everything would likely be uniform and mush. However, we see purposeful diversity: sun and moon, land and sea, unique plants and animals, all beautiful in their own way. This variety of beauty reflects an intelligent creator.

The Human Person

Beyond the physical world, look inward. We experience an objective moral law—
Deep down we know some things are truly right and wrong, not just cultural preferences (e.g., the slaughter of children is evil everywhere). Conscience calls us to goodness beyond self-interest. Where does this binding moral obligation come from if the universe is just blind matter? A moral Lawgiver best explains it.

We also have desires that nothing in this world fully satisfies: endless hunger for truth, beauty, perfect love, and lasting happiness. These point beyond the material to a transcendent fulfillment—God. Our very capacity for reason and science assumes an orderly, intelligible universe, which a rational Creator explains better than chance.

Without an intelligent creator there would be no objective morality. The only morality that would be present would be subjective. However, we know that there is an objective morality because there is something deep within us that tells us whether something is right or wrong i.e. your conscience. Objectively speaking we all agree that murder is wrong. It is wrong because it is the unlawful taking of another person’s life. We must ask ourselves, “Why does that matter?” It matters because there is an intelligent creator who designed us in his image and likeness, who provided us with a soul, a purpose, the ability to reason, etc. Without this world view, murder would not matter, we would simply be “bags of meat/clumps of cells” who have no transcendent value. who are in motion. If we have no purpose and we are here purely by chance then it wouldn’t matter if one person killed another. Without an intelligent creator we must ask, “Who cares if one clump of cells happens to bump into another clump of cells and kill it?” It wouldn’t matter because there is no purpose to our lives, there is no reason for us to live, there is no intelligent creator.

A lot of atheists argue that the value of life comes from thought, love, experience, etc. At the end of the day, however, none of this matters without a God. The absence of God means an absence of objective morality, an absence of love, etc. All of these things are reduced to purposeless electrochemical events in a purposeless universe, which would render them lacking in objective or ultimate significance. If we are here by chance, why treat love more than a useful illusion or murder as more than rearranging particles?

The Restlessness of the Human Heart

One of the Doctors of the Church and Church Father, St. Augustine’s most famous quote is, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”

Look inward and dig deep down. Do you ever sense a kind of emptiness that no relationship, achievement, experience, entertainment, or success has ever fully satisfied? You may find temporal things that bring real joy, and that’s good, but that eventually fades, leaving the same emptiness behind. Many people who step away from faith notice this same pattern: temporal fillers that never reach the depth that is craved.

The Catholic tradition doesn’t see this as a flaw or psychological accident, but as powerful evidence that we were made for something, someone, infinite. Our hearts are wired for perfect Truth, perfect Beauty, perfect Love, and perfect Happiness. Nothing in the created world will be able to ultimately fill that void because we were created by and for God. St. Augustine’s prayer, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” doesn’t prove God exists on its own, but it fits perfectly with everything else we’ve seen: a universe that points to an intelligent Creator, and a human heart that hungers for the infinite. Faith in Christ doesn’t erase life’s struggles, but it offers the relationship that can finally satisfy the deepest part of who we are.

A Black Pill Argument Against God

One of the most common refutations against God's existence I see on here is, "Why would God create subhumans?"

My response:

Every person has infinite dignity because they were created in the image and likeness of God. This dignity is not based on a looks scale. It’s inherent from the moment of conception. We must keep in mind that the world is not in its final, perfected state, and because of original sin, there is a brokenness of creation, which causes a spectrum of outcomes: some people are born with ideal genetics, and some people have severe deformities.

St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that the universe is more perfect with this range of perfections and imperfections. A world with stable natural laws allows for defects. Look at the looks hierarchy. We recognize that some people are chads and some people are gigadeformed subhumans. These are clear degrees of beauty that are not random chaos. This is a perfect example of Aquinas’ Fourth Way, which states that gradations only exist because they participate in a perfect, maximum Beauty. If everyone were equally attractive, this would actually argue against God. The brutal reality is that the looks scale itself is evidence of a Creator. God does not override the natural laws of the world with constant miracles because that would collapse creation into chaos. Subhumans are extreme cases of a fallen material world.

Everyone has a cross to bear and not everyone gets the same cross to bear. Some people hit the genetic lottery and have a different cross to bear than people who are born with poor genetics. We must keep in mind that even if someone is subhuman, they may be able to develop different virtues that may be harder for a Chad to develop. Some of these virtues include: radical humility, detachment from vanity, etc.

It is true that life is brutally unfair on the looks scale in this fallen world, and Catholic theology agrees; however, it adds that this earthly life is not the whole story. Your looks are temporal; what lasts is how you play the cards you are dealt. For example, the subhuman who improves what he can and unites his suffering towards Christ can rank higher in eternity than a Chad who is arrogant and uses his gifts on pride and vice. This is not to say that a Chad cannot have the same virtues as said subhuman.

There is no problem with improving what you can, however, it is important not to idolize looks because they are not your ultimate worth and are not the telos to life. Furthermore, even if you are subhuman, you are not worthless because you have an immortal soul and have an infinite ontological dignity and were created in the image and likeness of God.

In the same way that God allows suffering in the fallen world, he permits extreme genetic deformities. Christ’s passion shows that he did not abstain from deformity and pain; he entered it himself and lived out the fallen world and suffered himself.

@ALBOSS @Jason Voorhees @GUMMIKZKDI @Acquiescence @avgsub5human @Paul.jnxy

high iq post
 
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prove the quantifiable existence of a soul and i will believe that Christ is the true living God
That shouldn't be the methodology of justifying Christianity as the soul is a metaphysical reality/concept.

Christianity ought to be proven through logic
 
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I'd argue that said church fathers would agree that genetic determinism shouldn't exist, as it collides with free will.

Genetic determinism is a form of determinism, for instance, you can't say that a person with asperger's syndrome has the same "free will" as the average person.

I think I'll respond to the other guy this week, since it's a pretty long response
Well no it's just a mix of a category error and word concept fallacy. Just because Christians don't believe in "determinism" it doesn't mean they don't believe in various forms of determinism. The word determinism doesn't exclude other sets/groups or types of determinism.

Christians don't believe in determinism in a very strict metaphysical way, which is that every action done is predetermined and out of your control. Genetic determinism is simply saying the way your life goes in various scenarios is based off of your genetics.

So if for example someone was born genetically retarded, it wouldn't necessitate that they can't do things that require a good amount of intelligence. There's no abstract predetermined factor here that restricts them outside of genetics which are flawed in itself and are maleable.

Our actions in terms of what I will do tomorrow aren't restricted and determined. That's what Christians are talking about when they say "we don't believe in determinism". The blackpill/genetic determinism idea comes at it from a different more pragmatic than REAL angle.
 
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Nigga believes in deism and think it's high iq, cagefuel
you cant prove me that your religion is real its simply not factual nigga:lul:
 
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you cant prove me that your religion is real its simply not factual nigga:lul:
Sure, I'll drop my argument in this thread lets see if u can attack it.

No one else on this thread start loading this shit into jewgpt, I've already debated against ai with it so I know every single response it'll give (they're all flawed so i'll def know:lul::lul::lul:) :FeelsLoveMan:
 
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you cant prove me that your religion is real its simply not factual nigga:lul:
Ontological Transcendental Argument for God (Presuppositionalism)



p1 logic is an unchanging universal and abstract concept
p2 a changing particular mind cant predicate this type of abstract concept
c1 therefore, an abstract unchanging universal mind has to predicate this concept
p3 this mind has to consistently sustain the concepts' prior ontological commitments
p4 this mind also cannot have composition division or passive potency
c2 then, this mind is personal and has some intent in the world instead of being a mental or deistic abstraction/force.
c3 therefore, this transcendent mind is also absolutely unitive and simple, without parts or separation
c4 this mind has always acted and had revelation in the world due to having no passive potency and being intentional (p4),(c2)
p5 Only Islam, Judaism And Christianity testify to every single given premise/conclusion
c5 One of these 3 positions is true
p6 Islam posits an all merciful/good/loving God which is an intrinsic property that's only actualised extrinsically w/ other persons
p7 Islam does not acknowledge a multi-personal God in which love is actualised between the persons and would be conceptual
c6 Islam is false
p8 Most forms of judaism follow this principle of 0 multiplicity in the personhood of God
c7 Most forms of judaism are false
p9 The small few jewish sects believe in multiplicity but isaiah 9:6 says The messiah will be The Mighty God
p10 Judaism is premised on the rejection of the messiah being God
c8 Judaism is false
p11 God is really distinct from his energies (operations in the world)
p12 Only Orthodox Christianity Posits a case for the essence energies distinction
c9 Orthodox Christianity is true
p13 Only Orthodox Christianity upholds every prior premise including EED which are necessary preconditions for logic
c10 The Orthodox Christian paradigm is the necessary precondition for logic.

If you don't want to get too deep into Christian theology you can cut the argument down to Christianity without acknowledging which specific sect of Christianity is true, (i.e. Orthodoxy)
 
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Ontological Transcendental Argument for God (Presuppositionalism)



p1 logic is an unchanging universal and abstract concept
p2 a changing particular mind cant predicate this type of abstract concept
c1 therefore, an abstract unchanging universal mind has to predicate this concept
p3 this mind has to consistently sustain the concepts' prior ontological commitments
p4 this mind also cannot have composition division or passive potency
c2 then, this mind is personal and has some intent in the world instead of being a mental or deistic abstraction/force.
c3 therefore, this transcendent mind is also absolutely unitive and simple, without parts or separation
c4 this mind has always acted and had revelation in the world due to having no passive potency and being intentional (p4),(c2)
p5 Only Islam, Judaism And Christianity testify to every single given premise/conclusion
c5 One of these 3 positions is true
p6 Islam posits an all merciful/good/loving God which is an intrinsic property that's only actualised extrinsically w/ other persons
p7 Islam does not acknowledge a multi-personal God in which love is actualised between the persons and would be conceptual
c6 Islam is false
p8 Most forms of judaism follow this principle of 0 multiplicity in the personhood of God
c7 Most forms of judaism are false
p9 The small few jewish sects believe in multiplicity but isaiah 9:6 says The messiah will be The Mighty God
p10 Judaism is premised on the rejection of the messiah being God
c8 Judaism is false
p11 God is really distinct from his energies (operations in the world)
p12 Only Orthodox Christianity Posits a case for the essence energies distinction
c9 Orthodox Christianity is true
p13 Only Orthodox Christianity upholds every prior premise including EED which are necessary preconditions for logic
c10 The Orthodox Christian paradigm is the necessary precondition for logic.

If you don't want to get too deep into Christian theology you can cut the argument down to Christianity without acknowledging which specific sect of Christianity is true, (i.e. Orthodoxy)
p1. logic is an unchanging universal and abstract concept -
Ontological Transcendental Argument for God (Presuppositionalism)



p1 logic is an unchanging universal and abstract concept
p2 a changing particular mind cant predicate this type of abstract concept
c1 therefore, an abstract unchanging universal mind has to predicate this concept
p3 this mind has to consistently sustain the concepts' prior ontological commitments
p4 this mind also cannot have composition division or passive potency
c2 then, this mind is personal and has some intent in the world instead of being a mental or deistic abstraction/force.
c3 therefore, this transcendent mind is also absolutely unitive and simple, without parts or separation
c4 this mind has always acted and had revelation in the world due to having no passive potency and being intentional (p4),(c2)
p5 Only Islam, Judaism And Christianity testify to every single given premise/conclusion
c5 One of these 3 positions is true
p6 Islam posits an all merciful/good/loving God which is an intrinsic property that's only actualised extrinsically w/ other persons
p7 Islam does not acknowledge a multi-personal God in which love is actualised between the persons and would be conceptual
c6 Islam is false
p8 Most forms of judaism follow this principle of 0 multiplicity in the personhood of God
c7 Most forms of judaism are false
p9 The small few jewish sects believe in multiplicity but isaiah 9:6 says The messiah will be The Mighty God
p10 Judaism is premised on the rejection of the messiah being God
c8 Judaism is false
p11 God is really distinct from his energies (operations in the world)
p12 Only Orthodox Christianity Posits a case for the essence energies distinction
c9 Orthodox Christianity is true
p13 Only Orthodox Christianity upholds every prior premise including EED which are necessary preconditions for logic
c10 The Orthodox Christian paradigm is the necessary precondition for logic.

If you don't want to get too deep into Christian theology you can cut the argument down to Christianity without acknowledging which specific sect of Christianity is true, (i.e. Orthodoxy)
give me 2-3 hours
 
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GOD IS REAL
INTRO

From what I have gathered, a majority of you guys reject belief in God, whether you are an atheist, agnostic, etc. I completely understand this position because I was in the exact same place six years ago. It is true that you cannot prove God is real; however, you can't disprove Him either. On the contrary, we can follow strong logical arguments that were created by some of the greatest minds in history.

The content of this post is a twenty-page letter that I wrote to someone very dear to me. This originally took me weeks to write, so I hope that all my effort is not in vain. If this post benefits just one person, that makes it all worth it. This is being treated as a part two that is focusing on the spirituality aspect mentioned in my recent post: https://looksmax.org/threads/the-actual-dangers-of-looksmaxxing-high-iq-gtfih.2113266/

St. Thomas Aquinas

St. Thomas Aquinas offered five classic ways that still hold up remarkably well even 500 years later.

  • The Argument from Motion / Change (Aquinas’ First Way): Nothing can move or change itself: whatever is in motion has to be moved by something else. Motion means reducing potentiality to actuality; only something already “actual” can do this. For example, an actuality would be “hot”. It is a potentiality to become hot. The actuality would be being “hot”. If something is put into motion, you would need a prior cause. (There cannot be an infinite chain of movers.) Therefore, there must be a First Mover that is pure actuality, that is God.

  • The Argument from Efficient Causation (Second Way): Every effect has a cause. Nothing can cause itself (that would require it to exist before it exists – an absurdity.) An infinite regress of causes is impossible. If there is no first cause, there is no intermediate or final effect. Therefore, there must be a First Efficient Cause that is uncaused. This is the one who is (Exodus 3:14 “I AM WHO I AM”).

  • The Argument from Contingency (Third Way): We observe many things that are contingent, beings, events, or things whose existence is not necessary, they depend on something else for their existence and could potentially not exist. (Born, grow, decay, die, break, etc.) If everything were contingent, then there would have been a time where nothing existed. To believe something can come from nothing is an absurdity. However, we can recognize existences that eventually will cease to exist, like me and you, for example.

  • Therefore, it is logically impossible to deduce that everything is contingent. There must be at least one being whose nature is to exist, that has to exist. This necessary being does not derive its necessity from anything else. Otherwise, we would need another cause, which would lead to an infinite regress. It must be necessary in its very nature. This is God.

  • The Argument from Degree (Fourth Way): We observe things of different degrees of quality: things are more or less good, true, beautiful, etc. These qualities are judged to a maximum or perfect standard. There must be a perfect source of all perfections, something that is perfect in every way. God is that maximum.

  • We observe degrees of qualities; things are more or less good, true, beautiful, noble. These gradations imply a maximum standard. There must be a perfect source of all perfections (goodness, truth, beauty) that we participate in. God is that maximum.

  • The Argument from Design / Governance (Fifth Way): The universe is not chaos. Plants, animals, laws of physics, etc., are all ordered to an end. These things lack intelligence and cannot guide themselves toward an end unless it is guided by something intelligent. For example, an arrow needs an archer. Therefore, there must be an intelligent being that directs all nature to its ends. This being is once again God.

Transcendental Argument for God

“A truly transcendental argument takes any fact of experience which it wishes to investigate, and tries to determine what the presuppositions of such fact must be, in order to make it what it is.” –Cornelius Van Til, A Survey of Christian Epistemology

We are going to be investigating human experience, knowledge, logic, morality, science, and intelligible prediction, which all are possible and actual. These experiences all presuppose specific conditions: universal, immaterial laws of logic, natural order, objective morality, the unity-and-diversity of being, and the reliability of inductive reasoning. Only the Christian worldview is true. Without the Christian worldview, there is a lack of preconditions of knowledge and meaningful experience, and more. Therefore, the triune God exists as the necessary precondition for epistemology and metaphysics.

Only the Triune God accounts for Logic and Reason, the One-and-Many Problem, Morality, and Science and Uniformity of Nature. I will go through and explain each of the following.

Laws of logic are universal, immaterial, and invariant in their very nature. They are all propositions that serve as primary bearers of truth. These are not simply linguistic or physical. You can state a law of logic in numerous languages; there is still the same law of logic that exists independently of language or brain chemistry. The issue here is that materialism will reduce them to brain chemistry, and atheism is unable to justify its application to reality without circularity or arbitrariness. The only way to ground these propositions is through a God that precedes these things.

Reality displays unity and diversity, and this is something that we can see. Pure monism reduces these distinctions into one essence; pure pluralism states that ultimate reality is not grounded in a single unified system and is grounded in diversity. This would ultimately mean that knowledge is impossible because knowledge requires relating things together. This ultimately yields chaos. The Trinity alone resolves this issue: one divine essence and three distinct Persons (hypostases) in eternal relational communion. Unity and diversity are equally ultimate and eternal in God, grounding a precedent and a coherent world without reductionism.

It is illogical for objective morality to rely on evolution, social convention, or preference. These foundations would reduce objective morality to relativism or a “might makes right.” Relativism reduces objective morality to subjectivism, and objective morality cannot work under a “might makes right” because it would assume that strength ought to define what is objectively moral. The only adequate foundation is the triune God who grounds objective morality within His holy nature, which is defined as perfect and eternal love that exists within the relationship of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Induction assumes that the future will resemble the past. This is a principle known as the uniformity of nature. Atheistic naturalism does not offer a guarantee against radical contingency. The triune God created and continues a natural order that the world participates in as long as the earth exists. “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.” –Genesis 8:22 RSVCE

All religions and philosophies that deny the triune God fail to justify their own preconditions. Atheistic materialism reduces logic and morality to physics and opinion, which ultimately renders itself self-refuting. Other religions cannot adequately solve the one-and-many question and ultimately collapse into pluralism or monism.

The Transcendental Argument for God does not simply suggest God’s existence; it proves that without Him, nothing, not even the argument against Him, makes sense.

The Patristic Argument for the Existence of God

1. Everything that changes needs a Maker who doesn’t change (The “Uncreated Creator” Argument)

By: St. John of Damascus (c. 675-749 A.D.)


Everything we see around us is contingent — it comes into being, changes or eventually ends.. Stars burn out, living things die, man-made things break, etc. These realities cannot be self-explanatory; they require an external cause. If every cause itself needs a prior cause, we would face an infinite regress with no ultimate explanation. Therefore, there must be a creator who is eternal and is uncreated. This is God — the eternal source of all existence.

2. The perfect order and balance in the universe can’t be luck or chance (The “Harmony and Design” Argument)

The world is full of opposite forces that should clash yet somehow work together — fire and water, for example. Seasons arrive on schedule year after year. Even more impressive are living systems in nature. For example, a forest: trees release oxygen that animals need to breathe, while animals give off carbon dioxide that trees use to grow. Insects pollinate flowers, predators control animal populations, and bacteria breaks down dead matter to return nutrients to the soil. All these parts fit together in a balanced, ongoing cycle. If everything happened by random change, it’s hard to explain why we see this kind of stable order and teamwork instead of total chaos or everything being the same.

3. Deep down, we already know God exists (The “Implanted Knowledge” Argument)

Throughout history, almost every culture has believed in some higher power, even without hearing about the Bible. This feeling is built into human nature, similar to knowing right from wrong. Creation (sunsets, stars, a newborn baby) often stirs a sense that life isn’t meaningless. Only strong distractions or habits can push this awareness away. This inner sense suggests we’re wired to recognize something greater than ourselves.

4. Variety and Beauty in Creation Can’t Come from Blind Cause

If the world was created by random atoms or blind forces, everything would likely be uniform and mush. However, we see purposeful diversity: sun and moon, land and sea, unique plants and animals, all beautiful in their own way. This variety of beauty reflects an intelligent creator.

The Human Person

Beyond the physical world, look inward. We experience an objective moral law—
Deep down we know some things are truly right and wrong, not just cultural preferences (e.g., the slaughter of children is evil everywhere). Conscience calls us to goodness beyond self-interest. Where does this binding moral obligation come from if the universe is just blind matter? A moral Lawgiver best explains it.

We also have desires that nothing in this world fully satisfies: endless hunger for truth, beauty, perfect love, and lasting happiness. These point beyond the material to a transcendent fulfillment—God. Our very capacity for reason and science assumes an orderly, intelligible universe, which a rational Creator explains better than chance.

Without an intelligent creator there would be no objective morality. The only morality that would be present would be subjective. However, we know that there is an objective morality because there is something deep within us that tells us whether something is right or wrong i.e. your conscience. Objectively speaking we all agree that murder is wrong. It is wrong because it is the unlawful taking of another person’s life. We must ask ourselves, “Why does that matter?” It matters because there is an intelligent creator who designed us in his image and likeness, who provided us with a soul, a purpose, the ability to reason, etc. Without this world view, murder would not matter, we would simply be “bags of meat/clumps of cells” who have no transcendent value. who are in motion. If we have no purpose and we are here purely by chance then it wouldn’t matter if one person killed another. Without an intelligent creator we must ask, “Who cares if one clump of cells happens to bump into another clump of cells and kill it?” It wouldn’t matter because there is no purpose to our lives, there is no reason for us to live, there is no intelligent creator.

A lot of atheists argue that the value of life comes from thought, love, experience, etc. At the end of the day, however, none of this matters without a God. The absence of God means an absence of objective morality, an absence of love, etc. All of these things are reduced to purposeless electrochemical events in a purposeless universe, which would render them lacking in objective or ultimate significance. If we are here by chance, why treat love more than a useful illusion or murder as more than rearranging particles?

The Restlessness of the Human Heart

One of the Doctors of the Church and Church Father, St. Augustine’s most famous quote is, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”

Look inward and dig deep down. Do you ever sense a kind of emptiness that no relationship, achievement, experience, entertainment, or success has ever fully satisfied? You may find temporal things that bring real joy, and that’s good, but that eventually fades, leaving the same emptiness behind. Many people who step away from faith notice this same pattern: temporal fillers that never reach the depth that is craved.

The Catholic tradition doesn’t see this as a flaw or psychological accident, but as powerful evidence that we were made for something, someone, infinite. Our hearts are wired for perfect Truth, perfect Beauty, perfect Love, and perfect Happiness. Nothing in the created world will be able to ultimately fill that void because we were created by and for God. St. Augustine’s prayer, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” doesn’t prove God exists on its own, but it fits perfectly with everything else we’ve seen: a universe that points to an intelligent Creator, and a human heart that hungers for the infinite. Faith in Christ doesn’t erase life’s struggles, but it offers the relationship that can finally satisfy the deepest part of who we are.

A Black Pill Argument Against God

One of the most common refutations against God's existence I see on here is, "Why would God create subhumans?"

My response:

Every person has infinite dignity because they were created in the image and likeness of God. This dignity is not based on a looks scale. It’s inherent from the moment of conception. We must keep in mind that the world is not in its final, perfected state, and because of original sin, there is a brokenness of creation, which causes a spectrum of outcomes: some people are born with ideal genetics, and some people have severe deformities.

St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that the universe is more perfect with this range of perfections and imperfections. A world with stable natural laws allows for defects. Look at the looks hierarchy. We recognize that some people are chads and some people are gigadeformed subhumans. These are clear degrees of beauty that are not random chaos. This is a perfect example of Aquinas’ Fourth Way, which states that gradations only exist because they participate in a perfect, maximum Beauty. If everyone were equally attractive, this would actually argue against God. The brutal reality is that the looks scale itself is evidence of a Creator. God does not override the natural laws of the world with constant miracles because that would collapse creation into chaos. Subhumans are extreme cases of a fallen material world.

Everyone has a cross to bear and not everyone gets the same cross to bear. Some people hit the genetic lottery and have a different cross to bear than people who are born with poor genetics. We must keep in mind that even if someone is subhuman, they may be able to develop different virtues that may be harder for a Chad to develop. Some of these virtues include: radical humility, detachment from vanity, etc.

It is true that life is brutally unfair on the looks scale in this fallen world, and Catholic theology agrees; however, it adds that this earthly life is not the whole story. Your looks are temporal; what lasts is how you play the cards you are dealt. For example, the subhuman who improves what he can and unites his suffering towards Christ can rank higher in eternity than a Chad who is arrogant and uses his gifts on pride and vice. This is not to say that a Chad cannot have the same virtues as said subhuman.

There is no problem with improving what you can, however, it is important not to idolize looks because they are not your ultimate worth and are not the telos to life. Furthermore, even if you are subhuman, you are not worthless because you have an immortal soul and have an infinite ontological dignity and were created in the image and likeness of God.

In the same way that God allows suffering in the fallen world, he permits extreme genetic deformities. Christ’s passion shows that he did not abstain from deformity and pain; he entered it himself and lived out the fallen world and suffered himself.

@ALBOSS @Jason Voorhees @GUMMIKZKDI @Acquiescence @avgsub5human @Paul.jnxy

It’s really just water I want to see someone smart enough here show reason why god isn’t real.
 
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Ontological Transcendental Argument for God (Presuppositionalism)



p1 logic is an unchanging universal and abstract concept
p2 a changing particular mind cant predicate this type of abstract concept
c1 therefore, an abstract unchanging universal mind has to predicate this concept
p3 this mind has to consistently sustain the concepts' prior ontological commitments
p4 this mind also cannot have composition division or passive potency
c2 then, this mind is personal and has some intent in the world instead of being a mental or deistic abstraction/force.
c3 therefore, this transcendent mind is also absolutely unitive and simple, without parts or separation
c4 this mind has always acted and had revelation in the world due to having no passive potency and being intentional (p4),(c2)
p5 Only Islam, Judaism And Christianity testify to every single given premise/conclusion
c5 One of these 3 positions is true
p6 Islam posits an all merciful/good/loving God which is an intrinsic property that's only actualised extrinsically w/ other persons
p7 Islam does not acknowledge a multi-personal God in which love is actualised between the persons and would be conceptual
c6 Islam is false
p8 Most forms of judaism follow this principle of 0 multiplicity in the personhood of God
c7 Most forms of judaism are false
p9 The small few jewish sects believe in multiplicity but isaiah 9:6 says The messiah will be The Mighty God
p10 Judaism is premised on the rejection of the messiah being God
c8 Judaism is false
p11 God is really distinct from his energies (operations in the world)
p12 Only Orthodox Christianity Posits a case for the essence energies distinction
c9 Orthodox Christianity is true
p13 Only Orthodox Christianity upholds every prior premise including EED which are necessary preconditions for logic
c10 The Orthodox Christian paradigm is the necessary precondition for logic.

If you don't want to get too deep into Christian theology you can cut the argument down to Christianity without acknowledging which specific sect of Christianity is true, (i.e. Orthodoxy)
Why does the fact that a contingent particular mind can't predicate logic necessitate that an abstract universal mind does? Why can't logic just exist?
 
Ontological Transcendental Argument for God (Presuppositionalism)



p1 logic is an unchanging universal and abstract concept
p2 a changing particular mind cant predicate this type of abstract concept
c1 therefore, an abstract unchanging universal mind has to predicate this concept
p3 this mind has to consistently sustain the concepts' prior ontological commitments
p4 this mind also cannot have composition division or passive potency
c2 then, this mind is personal and has some intent in the world instead of being a mental or deistic abstraction/force.
c3 therefore, this transcendent mind is also absolutely unitive and simple, without parts or separation
c4 this mind has always acted and had revelation in the world due to having no passive potency and being intentional (p4),(c2)
p5 Only Islam, Judaism And Christianity testify to every single given premise/conclusion
c5 One of these 3 positions is true
p6 Islam posits an all merciful/good/loving God which is an intrinsic property that's only actualised extrinsically w/ other persons
p7 Islam does not acknowledge a multi-personal God in which love is actualised between the persons and would be conceptual
c6 Islam is false
p8 Most forms of judaism follow this principle of 0 multiplicity in the personhood of God
c7 Most forms of judaism are false
p9 The small few jewish sects believe in multiplicity but isaiah 9:6 says The messiah will be The Mighty God
p10 Judaism is premised on the rejection of the messiah being God
c8 Judaism is false
p11 God is really distinct from his energies (operations in the world)
p12 Only Orthodox Christianity Posits a case for the essence energies distinction
c9 Orthodox Christianity is true
p13 Only Orthodox Christianity upholds every prior premise including EED which are necessary preconditions for logic
c10 The Orthodox Christian paradigm is the necessary precondition for logic.

If you don't want to get too deep into Christian theology you can cut the argument down to Christianity without acknowledging which specific sect of Christianity is true, (i.e. Orthodoxy)
Read this, and it's like you're just connecting dots:forcedsmile:
 
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I believe in God and this is a high iq response, aquinas' argument suck and he's a fucking retard with a shitty metaphysical system.

Causal argument is rehashed and shifts the quantifier from "a cause" to a "specific cause" being the christian god. really retarded argument.

The only arguments that hold up are the epistemological and ontological presuppositionalist arguments
Aquinas' arguments definitely aren't the strongest but I think they hold up pretty well when TAG is implemented with them.
 
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Ask anyone who has had a truly mystical experience if it is comparable in any way to ordinary sense experience. It is not. It is not seeing something or hearing something in material reality, it is a personal spiritual experience of forces beyond the scope of this reality. This is why St. Thomas said what he did, he was affirming that all of his reasoning absolutely paled in comparison to a single mystical experience. Mystics have always believed this; the Hermetics distinguished between two forms of knowledge, episteme and gnosis. Episteme is regular discursive knowledge and gnosis is experiential knowledge, they held these things as absolutely separate and also affirmed that the entire purpose of episteme is to achieve gnosis, it is a higher form of knowledge that is achieved, it arrives upon you, and the fact that it is such makes it unquantifiable by empirical means, it just can't be understood rationally (I don't mean rationally as independent reasoning separate from empirical discovery, I just mean using reason as you do with both).

If it were empirical in the same way as science is then wouldn't it be clear that God is real? Yet it remains empirically ambiguous. The fact that it can't be measured or proven in a scientific way shows it is in a completely different domain.
In my original 20-page paper, I wrote about how I personally saw the Virgin Mary and demons as a child. I omitted it for this post.
 
Read this, and it's like you're just connecting dots:forcedsmile:
That's what a formal philosophical argument is.. premises and conclusions that follow validly.
 
GOD IS REAL
INTRO

From what I have gathered, a majority of you guys reject belief in God, whether you are an atheist, agnostic, etc. I completely understand this position because I was in the exact same place six years ago. It is true that you cannot prove God is real; however, you can't disprove Him either. On the contrary, we can follow strong logical arguments that were created by some of the greatest minds in history.

The content of this post is a twenty-page letter that I wrote to someone very dear to me. This originally took me weeks to write, so I hope that all my effort is not in vain. If this post benefits just one person, that makes it all worth it. This is being treated as a part two that is focusing on the spirituality aspect mentioned in my recent post: https://looksmax.org/threads/the-actual-dangers-of-looksmaxxing-high-iq-gtfih.2113266/

St. Thomas Aquinas

St. Thomas Aquinas offered five classic ways that still hold up remarkably well even 500 years later.

  • The Argument from Motion / Change (Aquinas’ First Way): Nothing can move or change itself: whatever is in motion has to be moved by something else. Motion means reducing potentiality to actuality; only something already “actual” can do this. For example, an actuality would be “hot”. It is a potentiality to become hot. The actuality would be being “hot”. If something is put into motion, you would need a prior cause. (There cannot be an infinite chain of movers.) Therefore, there must be a First Mover that is pure actuality, that is God.

  • The Argument from Efficient Causation (Second Way): Every effect has a cause. Nothing can cause itself (that would require it to exist before it exists – an absurdity.) An infinite regress of causes is impossible. If there is no first cause, there is no intermediate or final effect. Therefore, there must be a First Efficient Cause that is uncaused. This is the one who is (Exodus 3:14 “I AM WHO I AM”).

  • The Argument from Contingency (Third Way): We observe many things that are contingent, beings, events, or things whose existence is not necessary, they depend on something else for their existence and could potentially not exist. (Born, grow, decay, die, break, etc.) If everything were contingent, then there would have been a time where nothing existed. To believe something can come from nothing is an absurdity. However, we can recognize existences that eventually will cease to exist, like me and you, for example.

  • Therefore, it is logically impossible to deduce that everything is contingent. There must be at least one being whose nature is to exist, that has to exist. This necessary being does not derive its necessity from anything else. Otherwise, we would need another cause, which would lead to an infinite regress. It must be necessary in its very nature. This is God.

  • The Argument from Degree (Fourth Way): We observe things of different degrees of quality: things are more or less good, true, beautiful, etc. These qualities are judged to a maximum or perfect standard. There must be a perfect source of all perfections, something that is perfect in every way. God is that maximum.

  • We observe degrees of qualities; things are more or less good, true, beautiful, noble. These gradations imply a maximum standard. There must be a perfect source of all perfections (goodness, truth, beauty) that we participate in. God is that maximum.

  • The Argument from Design / Governance (Fifth Way): The universe is not chaos. Plants, animals, laws of physics, etc., are all ordered to an end. These things lack intelligence and cannot guide themselves toward an end unless it is guided by something intelligent. For example, an arrow needs an archer. Therefore, there must be an intelligent being that directs all nature to its ends. This being is once again God.

Transcendental Argument for God

“A truly transcendental argument takes any fact of experience which it wishes to investigate, and tries to determine what the presuppositions of such fact must be, in order to make it what it is.” –Cornelius Van Til, A Survey of Christian Epistemology

We are going to be investigating human experience, knowledge, logic, morality, science, and intelligible prediction, which all are possible and actual. These experiences all presuppose specific conditions: universal, immaterial laws of logic, natural order, objective morality, the unity-and-diversity of being, and the reliability of inductive reasoning. Only the Christian worldview is true. Without the Christian worldview, there is a lack of preconditions of knowledge and meaningful experience, and more. Therefore, the triune God exists as the necessary precondition for epistemology and metaphysics.

Only the Triune God accounts for Logic and Reason, the One-and-Many Problem, Morality, and Science and Uniformity of Nature. I will go through and explain each of the following.

Laws of logic are universal, immaterial, and invariant in their very nature. They are all propositions that serve as primary bearers of truth. These are not simply linguistic or physical. You can state a law of logic in numerous languages; there is still the same law of logic that exists independently of language or brain chemistry. The issue here is that materialism will reduce them to brain chemistry, and atheism is unable to justify its application to reality without circularity or arbitrariness. The only way to ground these propositions is through a God that precedes these things.

Reality displays unity and diversity, and this is something that we can see. Pure monism reduces these distinctions into one essence; pure pluralism states that ultimate reality is not grounded in a single unified system and is grounded in diversity. This would ultimately mean that knowledge is impossible because knowledge requires relating things together. This ultimately yields chaos. The Trinity alone resolves this issue: one divine essence and three distinct Persons (hypostases) in eternal relational communion. Unity and diversity are equally ultimate and eternal in God, grounding a precedent and a coherent world without reductionism.

It is illogical for objective morality to rely on evolution, social convention, or preference. These foundations would reduce objective morality to relativism or a “might makes right.” Relativism reduces objective morality to subjectivism, and objective morality cannot work under a “might makes right” because it would assume that strength ought to define what is objectively moral. The only adequate foundation is the triune God who grounds objective morality within His holy nature, which is defined as perfect and eternal love that exists within the relationship of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Induction assumes that the future will resemble the past. This is a principle known as the uniformity of nature. Atheistic naturalism does not offer a guarantee against radical contingency. The triune God created and continues a natural order that the world participates in as long as the earth exists. “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.” –Genesis 8:22 RSVCE

All religions and philosophies that deny the triune God fail to justify their own preconditions. Atheistic materialism reduces logic and morality to physics and opinion, which ultimately renders itself self-refuting. Other religions cannot adequately solve the one-and-many question and ultimately collapse into pluralism or monism.

The Transcendental Argument for God does not simply suggest God’s existence; it proves that without Him, nothing, not even the argument against Him, makes sense.

The Patristic Argument for the Existence of God

1. Everything that changes needs a Maker who doesn’t change (The “Uncreated Creator” Argument)

By: St. John of Damascus (c. 675-749 A.D.)


Everything we see around us is contingent — it comes into being, changes or eventually ends.. Stars burn out, living things die, man-made things break, etc. These realities cannot be self-explanatory; they require an external cause. If every cause itself needs a prior cause, we would face an infinite regress with no ultimate explanation. Therefore, there must be a creator who is eternal and is uncreated. This is God — the eternal source of all existence.

2. The perfect order and balance in the universe can’t be luck or chance (The “Harmony and Design” Argument)

The world is full of opposite forces that should clash yet somehow work together — fire and water, for example. Seasons arrive on schedule year after year. Even more impressive are living systems in nature. For example, a forest: trees release oxygen that animals need to breathe, while animals give off carbon dioxide that trees use to grow. Insects pollinate flowers, predators control animal populations, and bacteria breaks down dead matter to return nutrients to the soil. All these parts fit together in a balanced, ongoing cycle. If everything happened by random change, it’s hard to explain why we see this kind of stable order and teamwork instead of total chaos or everything being the same.

3. Deep down, we already know God exists (The “Implanted Knowledge” Argument)

Throughout history, almost every culture has believed in some higher power, even without hearing about the Bible. This feeling is built into human nature, similar to knowing right from wrong. Creation (sunsets, stars, a newborn baby) often stirs a sense that life isn’t meaningless. Only strong distractions or habits can push this awareness away. This inner sense suggests we’re wired to recognize something greater than ourselves.

4. Variety and Beauty in Creation Can’t Come from Blind Cause

If the world was created by random atoms or blind forces, everything would likely be uniform and mush. However, we see purposeful diversity: sun and moon, land and sea, unique plants and animals, all beautiful in their own way. This variety of beauty reflects an intelligent creator.

The Human Person

Beyond the physical world, look inward. We experience an objective moral law—
Deep down we know some things are truly right and wrong, not just cultural preferences (e.g., the slaughter of children is evil everywhere). Conscience calls us to goodness beyond self-interest. Where does this binding moral obligation come from if the universe is just blind matter? A moral Lawgiver best explains it.

We also have desires that nothing in this world fully satisfies: endless hunger for truth, beauty, perfect love, and lasting happiness. These point beyond the material to a transcendent fulfillment—God. Our very capacity for reason and science assumes an orderly, intelligible universe, which a rational Creator explains better than chance.

Without an intelligent creator there would be no objective morality. The only morality that would be present would be subjective. However, we know that there is an objective morality because there is something deep within us that tells us whether something is right or wrong i.e. your conscience. Objectively speaking we all agree that murder is wrong. It is wrong because it is the unlawful taking of another person’s life. We must ask ourselves, “Why does that matter?” It matters because there is an intelligent creator who designed us in his image and likeness, who provided us with a soul, a purpose, the ability to reason, etc. Without this world view, murder would not matter, we would simply be “bags of meat/clumps of cells” who have no transcendent value. who are in motion. If we have no purpose and we are here purely by chance then it wouldn’t matter if one person killed another. Without an intelligent creator we must ask, “Who cares if one clump of cells happens to bump into another clump of cells and kill it?” It wouldn’t matter because there is no purpose to our lives, there is no reason for us to live, there is no intelligent creator.

A lot of atheists argue that the value of life comes from thought, love, experience, etc. At the end of the day, however, none of this matters without a God. The absence of God means an absence of objective morality, an absence of love, etc. All of these things are reduced to purposeless electrochemical events in a purposeless universe, which would render them lacking in objective or ultimate significance. If we are here by chance, why treat love more than a useful illusion or murder as more than rearranging particles?

The Restlessness of the Human Heart

One of the Doctors of the Church and Church Father, St. Augustine’s most famous quote is, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”

Look inward and dig deep down. Do you ever sense a kind of emptiness that no relationship, achievement, experience, entertainment, or success has ever fully satisfied? You may find temporal things that bring real joy, and that’s good, but that eventually fades, leaving the same emptiness behind. Many people who step away from faith notice this same pattern: temporal fillers that never reach the depth that is craved.

The Catholic tradition doesn’t see this as a flaw or psychological accident, but as powerful evidence that we were made for something, someone, infinite. Our hearts are wired for perfect Truth, perfect Beauty, perfect Love, and perfect Happiness. Nothing in the created world will be able to ultimately fill that void because we were created by and for God. St. Augustine’s prayer, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” doesn’t prove God exists on its own, but it fits perfectly with everything else we’ve seen: a universe that points to an intelligent Creator, and a human heart that hungers for the infinite. Faith in Christ doesn’t erase life’s struggles, but it offers the relationship that can finally satisfy the deepest part of who we are.

A Black Pill Argument Against God

One of the most common refutations against God's existence I see on here is, "Why would God create subhumans?"

My response:

Every person has infinite dignity because they were created in the image and likeness of God. This dignity is not based on a looks scale. It’s inherent from the moment of conception. We must keep in mind that the world is not in its final, perfected state, and because of original sin, there is a brokenness of creation, which causes a spectrum of outcomes: some people are born with ideal genetics, and some people have severe deformities.

St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that the universe is more perfect with this range of perfections and imperfections. A world with stable natural laws allows for defects. Look at the looks hierarchy. We recognize that some people are chads and some people are gigadeformed subhumans. These are clear degrees of beauty that are not random chaos. This is a perfect example of Aquinas’ Fourth Way, which states that gradations only exist because they participate in a perfect, maximum Beauty. If everyone were equally attractive, this would actually argue against God. The brutal reality is that the looks scale itself is evidence of a Creator. God does not override the natural laws of the world with constant miracles because that would collapse creation into chaos. Subhumans are extreme cases of a fallen material world.

Everyone has a cross to bear and not everyone gets the same cross to bear. Some people hit the genetic lottery and have a different cross to bear than people who are born with poor genetics. We must keep in mind that even if someone is subhuman, they may be able to develop different virtues that may be harder for a Chad to develop. Some of these virtues include: radical humility, detachment from vanity, etc.

It is true that life is brutally unfair on the looks scale in this fallen world, and Catholic theology agrees; however, it adds that this earthly life is not the whole story. Your looks are temporal; what lasts is how you play the cards you are dealt. For example, the subhuman who improves what he can and unites his suffering towards Christ can rank higher in eternity than a Chad who is arrogant and uses his gifts on pride and vice. This is not to say that a Chad cannot have the same virtues as said subhuman.

There is no problem with improving what you can, however, it is important not to idolize looks because they are not your ultimate worth and are not the telos to life. Furthermore, even if you are subhuman, you are not worthless because you have an immortal soul and have an infinite ontological dignity and were created in the image and likeness of God.

In the same way that God allows suffering in the fallen world, he permits extreme genetic deformities. Christ’s passion shows that he did not abstain from deformity and pain; he entered it himself and lived out the fallen world and suffered himself.

@ALBOSS @Jason Voorhees @GUMMIKZKDI @Acquiescence @avgsub5human @Paul.jnxy

To believe in God is to believe we are special.......and no humans are not special we are animals
 
GOD IS REAL
INTRO

From what I have gathered, a majority of you guys reject belief in God, whether you are an atheist, agnostic, etc. I completely understand this position because I was in the exact same place six years ago. It is true that you cannot prove God is real; however, you can't disprove Him either. On the contrary, we can follow strong logical arguments that were created by some of the greatest minds in history.

The content of this post is a twenty-page letter that I wrote to someone very dear to me. This originally took me weeks to write, so I hope that all my effort is not in vain. If this post benefits just one person, that makes it all worth it. This is being treated as a part two that is focusing on the spirituality aspect mentioned in my recent post: https://looksmax.org/threads/the-actual-dangers-of-looksmaxxing-high-iq-gtfih.2113266/

St. Thomas Aquinas

St. Thomas Aquinas offered five classic ways that still hold up remarkably well even 500 years later.

  • The Argument from Motion / Change (Aquinas’ First Way): Nothing can move or change itself: whatever is in motion has to be moved by something else. Motion means reducing potentiality to actuality; only something already “actual” can do this. For example, an actuality would be “hot”. It is a potentiality to become hot. The actuality would be being “hot”. If something is put into motion, you would need a prior cause. (There cannot be an infinite chain of movers.) Therefore, there must be a First Mover that is pure actuality, that is God.

  • The Argument from Efficient Causation (Second Way): Every effect has a cause. Nothing can cause itself (that would require it to exist before it exists – an absurdity.) An infinite regress of causes is impossible. If there is no first cause, there is no intermediate or final effect. Therefore, there must be a First Efficient Cause that is uncaused. This is the one who is (Exodus 3:14 “I AM WHO I AM”).

  • The Argument from Contingency (Third Way): We observe many things that are contingent, beings, events, or things whose existence is not necessary, they depend on something else for their existence and could potentially not exist. (Born, grow, decay, die, break, etc.) If everything were contingent, then there would have been a time where nothing existed. To believe something can come from nothing is an absurdity. However, we can recognize existences that eventually will cease to exist, like me and you, for example.

  • Therefore, it is logically impossible to deduce that everything is contingent. There must be at least one being whose nature is to exist, that has to exist. This necessary being does not derive its necessity from anything else. Otherwise, we would need another cause, which would lead to an infinite regress. It must be necessary in its very nature. This is God.

  • The Argument from Degree (Fourth Way): We observe things of different degrees of quality: things are more or less good, true, beautiful, etc. These qualities are judged to a maximum or perfect standard. There must be a perfect source of all perfections, something that is perfect in every way. God is that maximum.

  • We observe degrees of qualities; things are more or less good, true, beautiful, noble. These gradations imply a maximum standard. There must be a perfect source of all perfections (goodness, truth, beauty) that we participate in. God is that maximum.

  • The Argument from Design / Governance (Fifth Way): The universe is not chaos. Plants, animals, laws of physics, etc., are all ordered to an end. These things lack intelligence and cannot guide themselves toward an end unless it is guided by something intelligent. For example, an arrow needs an archer. Therefore, there must be an intelligent being that directs all nature to its ends. This being is once again God.

Transcendental Argument for God

“A truly transcendental argument takes any fact of experience which it wishes to investigate, and tries to determine what the presuppositions of such fact must be, in order to make it what it is.” –Cornelius Van Til, A Survey of Christian Epistemology

We are going to be investigating human experience, knowledge, logic, morality, science, and intelligible prediction, which all are possible and actual. These experiences all presuppose specific conditions: universal, immaterial laws of logic, natural order, objective morality, the unity-and-diversity of being, and the reliability of inductive reasoning. Only the Christian worldview is true. Without the Christian worldview, there is a lack of preconditions of knowledge and meaningful experience, and more. Therefore, the triune God exists as the necessary precondition for epistemology and metaphysics.

Only the Triune God accounts for Logic and Reason, the One-and-Many Problem, Morality, and Science and Uniformity of Nature. I will go through and explain each of the following.

Laws of logic are universal, immaterial, and invariant in their very nature. They are all propositions that serve as primary bearers of truth. These are not simply linguistic or physical. You can state a law of logic in numerous languages; there is still the same law of logic that exists independently of language or brain chemistry. The issue here is that materialism will reduce them to brain chemistry, and atheism is unable to justify its application to reality without circularity or arbitrariness. The only way to ground these propositions is through a God that precedes these things.

Reality displays unity and diversity, and this is something that we can see. Pure monism reduces these distinctions into one essence; pure pluralism states that ultimate reality is not grounded in a single unified system and is grounded in diversity. This would ultimately mean that knowledge is impossible because knowledge requires relating things together. This ultimately yields chaos. The Trinity alone resolves this issue: one divine essence and three distinct Persons (hypostases) in eternal relational communion. Unity and diversity are equally ultimate and eternal in God, grounding a precedent and a coherent world without reductionism.

It is illogical for objective morality to rely on evolution, social convention, or preference. These foundations would reduce objective morality to relativism or a “might makes right.” Relativism reduces objective morality to subjectivism, and objective morality cannot work under a “might makes right” because it would assume that strength ought to define what is objectively moral. The only adequate foundation is the triune God who grounds objective morality within His holy nature, which is defined as perfect and eternal love that exists within the relationship of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Induction assumes that the future will resemble the past. This is a principle known as the uniformity of nature. Atheistic naturalism does not offer a guarantee against radical contingency. The triune God created and continues a natural order that the world participates in as long as the earth exists. “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.” –Genesis 8:22 RSVCE

All religions and philosophies that deny the triune God fail to justify their own preconditions. Atheistic materialism reduces logic and morality to physics and opinion, which ultimately renders itself self-refuting. Other religions cannot adequately solve the one-and-many question and ultimately collapse into pluralism or monism.

The Transcendental Argument for God does not simply suggest God’s existence; it proves that without Him, nothing, not even the argument against Him, makes sense.

The Patristic Argument for the Existence of God

1. Everything that changes needs a Maker who doesn’t change (The “Uncreated Creator” Argument)

By: St. John of Damascus (c. 675-749 A.D.)


Everything we see around us is contingent — it comes into being, changes or eventually ends.. Stars burn out, living things die, man-made things break, etc. These realities cannot be self-explanatory; they require an external cause. If every cause itself needs a prior cause, we would face an infinite regress with no ultimate explanation. Therefore, there must be a creator who is eternal and is uncreated. This is God — the eternal source of all existence.

2. The perfect order and balance in the universe can’t be luck or chance (The “Harmony and Design” Argument)

The world is full of opposite forces that should clash yet somehow work together — fire and water, for example. Seasons arrive on schedule year after year. Even more impressive are living systems in nature. For example, a forest: trees release oxygen that animals need to breathe, while animals give off carbon dioxide that trees use to grow. Insects pollinate flowers, predators control animal populations, and bacteria breaks down dead matter to return nutrients to the soil. All these parts fit together in a balanced, ongoing cycle. If everything happened by random change, it’s hard to explain why we see this kind of stable order and teamwork instead of total chaos or everything being the same.

3. Deep down, we already know God exists (The “Implanted Knowledge” Argument)

Throughout history, almost every culture has believed in some higher power, even without hearing about the Bible. This feeling is built into human nature, similar to knowing right from wrong. Creation (sunsets, stars, a newborn baby) often stirs a sense that life isn’t meaningless. Only strong distractions or habits can push this awareness away. This inner sense suggests we’re wired to recognize something greater than ourselves.

4. Variety and Beauty in Creation Can’t Come from Blind Cause

If the world was created by random atoms or blind forces, everything would likely be uniform and mush. However, we see purposeful diversity: sun and moon, land and sea, unique plants and animals, all beautiful in their own way. This variety of beauty reflects an intelligent creator.

The Human Person

Beyond the physical world, look inward. We experience an objective moral law—
Deep down we know some things are truly right and wrong, not just cultural preferences (e.g., the slaughter of children is evil everywhere). Conscience calls us to goodness beyond self-interest. Where does this binding moral obligation come from if the universe is just blind matter? A moral Lawgiver best explains it.

We also have desires that nothing in this world fully satisfies: endless hunger for truth, beauty, perfect love, and lasting happiness. These point beyond the material to a transcendent fulfillment—God. Our very capacity for reason and science assumes an orderly, intelligible universe, which a rational Creator explains better than chance.

Without an intelligent creator there would be no objective morality. The only morality that would be present would be subjective. However, we know that there is an objective morality because there is something deep within us that tells us whether something is right or wrong i.e. your conscience. Objectively speaking we all agree that murder is wrong. It is wrong because it is the unlawful taking of another person’s life. We must ask ourselves, “Why does that matter?” It matters because there is an intelligent creator who designed us in his image and likeness, who provided us with a soul, a purpose, the ability to reason, etc. Without this world view, murder would not matter, we would simply be “bags of meat/clumps of cells” who have no transcendent value. who are in motion. If we have no purpose and we are here purely by chance then it wouldn’t matter if one person killed another. Without an intelligent creator we must ask, “Who cares if one clump of cells happens to bump into another clump of cells and kill it?” It wouldn’t matter because there is no purpose to our lives, there is no reason for us to live, there is no intelligent creator.

A lot of atheists argue that the value of life comes from thought, love, experience, etc. At the end of the day, however, none of this matters without a God. The absence of God means an absence of objective morality, an absence of love, etc. All of these things are reduced to purposeless electrochemical events in a purposeless universe, which would render them lacking in objective or ultimate significance. If we are here by chance, why treat love more than a useful illusion or murder as more than rearranging particles?

The Restlessness of the Human Heart

One of the Doctors of the Church and Church Father, St. Augustine’s most famous quote is, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”

Look inward and dig deep down. Do you ever sense a kind of emptiness that no relationship, achievement, experience, entertainment, or success has ever fully satisfied? You may find temporal things that bring real joy, and that’s good, but that eventually fades, leaving the same emptiness behind. Many people who step away from faith notice this same pattern: temporal fillers that never reach the depth that is craved.

The Catholic tradition doesn’t see this as a flaw or psychological accident, but as powerful evidence that we were made for something, someone, infinite. Our hearts are wired for perfect Truth, perfect Beauty, perfect Love, and perfect Happiness. Nothing in the created world will be able to ultimately fill that void because we were created by and for God. St. Augustine’s prayer, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” doesn’t prove God exists on its own, but it fits perfectly with everything else we’ve seen: a universe that points to an intelligent Creator, and a human heart that hungers for the infinite. Faith in Christ doesn’t erase life’s struggles, but it offers the relationship that can finally satisfy the deepest part of who we are.

A Black Pill Argument Against God

One of the most common refutations against God's existence I see on here is, "Why would God create subhumans?"

My response:

Every person has infinite dignity because they were created in the image and likeness of God. This dignity is not based on a looks scale. It’s inherent from the moment of conception. We must keep in mind that the world is not in its final, perfected state, and because of original sin, there is a brokenness of creation, which causes a spectrum of outcomes: some people are born with ideal genetics, and some people have severe deformities.

St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that the universe is more perfect with this range of perfections and imperfections. A world with stable natural laws allows for defects. Look at the looks hierarchy. We recognize that some people are chads and some people are gigadeformed subhumans. These are clear degrees of beauty that are not random chaos. This is a perfect example of Aquinas’ Fourth Way, which states that gradations only exist because they participate in a perfect, maximum Beauty. If everyone were equally attractive, this would actually argue against God. The brutal reality is that the looks scale itself is evidence of a Creator. God does not override the natural laws of the world with constant miracles because that would collapse creation into chaos. Subhumans are extreme cases of a fallen material world.

Everyone has a cross to bear and not everyone gets the same cross to bear. Some people hit the genetic lottery and have a different cross to bear than people who are born with poor genetics. We must keep in mind that even if someone is subhuman, they may be able to develop different virtues that may be harder for a Chad to develop. Some of these virtues include: radical humility, detachment from vanity, etc.

It is true that life is brutally unfair on the looks scale in this fallen world, and Catholic theology agrees; however, it adds that this earthly life is not the whole story. Your looks are temporal; what lasts is how you play the cards you are dealt. For example, the subhuman who improves what he can and unites his suffering towards Christ can rank higher in eternity than a Chad who is arrogant and uses his gifts on pride and vice. This is not to say that a Chad cannot have the same virtues as said subhuman.

There is no problem with improving what you can, however, it is important not to idolize looks because they are not your ultimate worth and are not the telos to life. Furthermore, even if you are subhuman, you are not worthless because you have an immortal soul and have an infinite ontological dignity and were created in the image and likeness of God.

In the same way that God allows suffering in the fallen world, he permits extreme genetic deformities. Christ’s passion shows that he did not abstain from deformity and pain; he entered it himself and lived out the fallen world and suffered himself.

@ALBOSS @Jason Voorhees @GUMMIKZKDI @Acquiescence @avgsub5human @Paul.jnxy

dnr
 
In my original 20-page paper, I wrote about how I personally saw the Virgin Mary and demons as a child. I omitted it for this post.
My view is that these things are real but the fact that people from every religious frame of mind claim to experience them just as vividly but with completely different deities and spirits shows that these otherworldly forces manifest in the culturally appropriate form for the person they are appearing to. I believe all religions to be true, and the reason they appear to contradict each other is just contingent anthropological factors, but the mystical core of all of them is the same.
 
My view is that these things are real but the fact that people from every religious frame of mind claim to experience them just as vividly but with completely different deities and spirits shows that these otherworldly forces manifest in the culturally appropriate form for the person they are appearing to. I believe all religions to be true, and the reason they appear to contradict each other is just contingent anthropological factors, but the mystical core of all of them is the same.
Christ is real. Any vision that denies the Son of God is a deception from the great deceiver (Satan).
 
coming from a place of love, why would a God the triune one specifically let the place your born dictate what your beliefs are?
Why would he allow such confusion and ambiguity in seeking him surely an all powerful god capable of bringing everything into existence just by speaking them into existence wouldnt struggle with basic communication
Why is he silent? Why does he hide? Just why?
Because god made a world with free will allowing us humans evolve alongside our philosophical beliefs, and at point of creation why would god intend to make a world that is free of sin? God could make a million worlds free of sin for he would already know the answer to all of them in how they evolve and forage as humans. He created us to as dependable varaibles that walk this earth to view from afar, our main goal in this world as humans should be to attain a sin free world althoguh what sets such back is the devil which is imbursed and reimbursed in sin. Every thing in this world which leads to a negative moral comes from sin that us humans have walked the path towards. with this thought you can your question pretty simply
 
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GOD IS REAL
INTRO

From what I have gathered, a majority of you guys reject belief in God, whether you are an atheist, agnostic, etc. I completely understand this position because I was in the exact same place six years ago. It is true that you cannot prove God is real; however, you can't disprove Him either. On the contrary, we can follow strong logical arguments that were created by some of the greatest minds in history.

The content of this post is a twenty-page letter that I wrote to someone very dear to me. This originally took me weeks to write, so I hope that all my effort is not in vain. If this post benefits just one person, that makes it all worth it. This is being treated as a part two that is focusing on the spirituality aspect mentioned in my recent post: https://looksmax.org/threads/the-actual-dangers-of-looksmaxxing-high-iq-gtfih.2113266/

St. Thomas Aquinas

St. Thomas Aquinas offered five classic ways that still hold up remarkably well even 500 years later.

  • The Argument from Motion / Change (Aquinas’ First Way): Nothing can move or change itself: whatever is in motion has to be moved by something else. Motion means reducing potentiality to actuality; only something already “actual” can do this. For example, an actuality would be “hot”. It is a potentiality to become hot. The actuality would be being “hot”. If something is put into motion, you would need a prior cause. (There cannot be an infinite chain of movers.) Therefore, there must be a First Mover that is pure actuality, that is God.

  • The Argument from Efficient Causation (Second Way): Every effect has a cause. Nothing can cause itself (that would require it to exist before it exists – an absurdity.) An infinite regress of causes is impossible. If there is no first cause, there is no intermediate or final effect. Therefore, there must be a First Efficient Cause that is uncaused. This is the one who is (Exodus 3:14 “I AM WHO I AM”).

  • The Argument from Contingency (Third Way): We observe many things that are contingent, beings, events, or things whose existence is not necessary, they depend on something else for their existence and could potentially not exist. (Born, grow, decay, die, break, etc.) If everything were contingent, then there would have been a time where nothing existed. To believe something can come from nothing is an absurdity. However, we can recognize existences that eventually will cease to exist, like me and you, for example.

  • Therefore, it is logically impossible to deduce that everything is contingent. There must be at least one being whose nature is to exist, that has to exist. This necessary being does not derive its necessity from anything else. Otherwise, we would need another cause, which would lead to an infinite regress. It must be necessary in its very nature. This is God.

  • The Argument from Degree (Fourth Way): We observe things of different degrees of quality: things are more or less good, true, beautiful, etc. These qualities are judged to a maximum or perfect standard. There must be a perfect source of all perfections, something that is perfect in every way. God is that maximum.

  • We observe degrees of qualities; things are more or less good, true, beautiful, noble. These gradations imply a maximum standard. There must be a perfect source of all perfections (goodness, truth, beauty) that we participate in. God is that maximum.

  • The Argument from Design / Governance (Fifth Way): The universe is not chaos. Plants, animals, laws of physics, etc., are all ordered to an end. These things lack intelligence and cannot guide themselves toward an end unless it is guided by something intelligent. For example, an arrow needs an archer. Therefore, there must be an intelligent being that directs all nature to its ends. This being is once again God.

Transcendental Argument for God

“A truly transcendental argument takes any fact of experience which it wishes to investigate, and tries to determine what the presuppositions of such fact must be, in order to make it what it is.” –Cornelius Van Til, A Survey of Christian Epistemology

We are going to be investigating human experience, knowledge, logic, morality, science, and intelligible prediction, which all are possible and actual. These experiences all presuppose specific conditions: universal, immaterial laws of logic, natural order, objective morality, the unity-and-diversity of being, and the reliability of inductive reasoning. Only the Christian worldview is true. Without the Christian worldview, there is a lack of preconditions of knowledge and meaningful experience, and more. Therefore, the triune God exists as the necessary precondition for epistemology and metaphysics.

Only the Triune God accounts for Logic and Reason, the One-and-Many Problem, Morality, and Science and Uniformity of Nature. I will go through and explain each of the following.

Laws of logic are universal, immaterial, and invariant in their very nature. They are all propositions that serve as primary bearers of truth. These are not simply linguistic or physical. You can state a law of logic in numerous languages; there is still the same law of logic that exists independently of language or brain chemistry. The issue here is that materialism will reduce them to brain chemistry, and atheism is unable to justify its application to reality without circularity or arbitrariness. The only way to ground these propositions is through a God that precedes these things.

Reality displays unity and diversity, and this is something that we can see. Pure monism reduces these distinctions into one essence; pure pluralism states that ultimate reality is not grounded in a single unified system and is grounded in diversity. This would ultimately mean that knowledge is impossible because knowledge requires relating things together. This ultimately yields chaos. The Trinity alone resolves this issue: one divine essence and three distinct Persons (hypostases) in eternal relational communion. Unity and diversity are equally ultimate and eternal in God, grounding a precedent and a coherent world without reductionism.

It is illogical for objective morality to rely on evolution, social convention, or preference. These foundations would reduce objective morality to relativism or a “might makes right.” Relativism reduces objective morality to subjectivism, and objective morality cannot work under a “might makes right” because it would assume that strength ought to define what is objectively moral. The only adequate foundation is the triune God who grounds objective morality within His holy nature, which is defined as perfect and eternal love that exists within the relationship of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Induction assumes that the future will resemble the past. This is a principle known as the uniformity of nature. Atheistic naturalism does not offer a guarantee against radical contingency. The triune God created and continues a natural order that the world participates in as long as the earth exists. “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.” –Genesis 8:22 RSVCE

All religions and philosophies that deny the triune God fail to justify their own preconditions. Atheistic materialism reduces logic and morality to physics and opinion, which ultimately renders itself self-refuting. Other religions cannot adequately solve the one-and-many question and ultimately collapse into pluralism or monism.

The Transcendental Argument for God does not simply suggest God’s existence; it proves that without Him, nothing, not even the argument against Him, makes sense.

The Patristic Argument for the Existence of God

1. Everything that changes needs a Maker who doesn’t change (The “Uncreated Creator” Argument)

By: St. John of Damascus (c. 675-749 A.D.)


Everything we see around us is contingent — it comes into being, changes or eventually ends.. Stars burn out, living things die, man-made things break, etc. These realities cannot be self-explanatory; they require an external cause. If every cause itself needs a prior cause, we would face an infinite regress with no ultimate explanation. Therefore, there must be a creator who is eternal and is uncreated. This is God — the eternal source of all existence.

2. The perfect order and balance in the universe can’t be luck or chance (The “Harmony and Design” Argument)

The world is full of opposite forces that should clash yet somehow work together — fire and water, for example. Seasons arrive on schedule year after year. Even more impressive are living systems in nature. For example, a forest: trees release oxygen that animals need to breathe, while animals give off carbon dioxide that trees use to grow. Insects pollinate flowers, predators control animal populations, and bacteria breaks down dead matter to return nutrients to the soil. All these parts fit together in a balanced, ongoing cycle. If everything happened by random change, it’s hard to explain why we see this kind of stable order and teamwork instead of total chaos or everything being the same.

3. Deep down, we already know God exists (The “Implanted Knowledge” Argument)

Throughout history, almost every culture has believed in some higher power, even without hearing about the Bible. This feeling is built into human nature, similar to knowing right from wrong. Creation (sunsets, stars, a newborn baby) often stirs a sense that life isn’t meaningless. Only strong distractions or habits can push this awareness away. This inner sense suggests we’re wired to recognize something greater than ourselves.

4. Variety and Beauty in Creation Can’t Come from Blind Cause

If the world was created by random atoms or blind forces, everything would likely be uniform and mush. However, we see purposeful diversity: sun and moon, land and sea, unique plants and animals, all beautiful in their own way. This variety of beauty reflects an intelligent creator.

The Human Person

Beyond the physical world, look inward. We experience an objective moral law—
Deep down we know some things are truly right and wrong, not just cultural preferences (e.g., the slaughter of children is evil everywhere). Conscience calls us to goodness beyond self-interest. Where does this binding moral obligation come from if the universe is just blind matter? A moral Lawgiver best explains it.

We also have desires that nothing in this world fully satisfies: endless hunger for truth, beauty, perfect love, and lasting happiness. These point beyond the material to a transcendent fulfillment—God. Our very capacity for reason and science assumes an orderly, intelligible universe, which a rational Creator explains better than chance.

Without an intelligent creator there would be no objective morality. The only morality that would be present would be subjective. However, we know that there is an objective morality because there is something deep within us that tells us whether something is right or wrong i.e. your conscience. Objectively speaking we all agree that murder is wrong. It is wrong because it is the unlawful taking of another person’s life. We must ask ourselves, “Why does that matter?” It matters because there is an intelligent creator who designed us in his image and likeness, who provided us with a soul, a purpose, the ability to reason, etc. Without this world view, murder would not matter, we would simply be “bags of meat/clumps of cells” who have no transcendent value. who are in motion. If we have no purpose and we are here purely by chance then it wouldn’t matter if one person killed another. Without an intelligent creator we must ask, “Who cares if one clump of cells happens to bump into another clump of cells and kill it?” It wouldn’t matter because there is no purpose to our lives, there is no reason for us to live, there is no intelligent creator.

A lot of atheists argue that the value of life comes from thought, love, experience, etc. At the end of the day, however, none of this matters without a God. The absence of God means an absence of objective morality, an absence of love, etc. All of these things are reduced to purposeless electrochemical events in a purposeless universe, which would render them lacking in objective or ultimate significance. If we are here by chance, why treat love more than a useful illusion or murder as more than rearranging particles?

The Restlessness of the Human Heart

One of the Doctors of the Church and Church Father, St. Augustine’s most famous quote is, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”

Look inward and dig deep down. Do you ever sense a kind of emptiness that no relationship, achievement, experience, entertainment, or success has ever fully satisfied? You may find temporal things that bring real joy, and that’s good, but that eventually fades, leaving the same emptiness behind. Many people who step away from faith notice this same pattern: temporal fillers that never reach the depth that is craved.

The Catholic tradition doesn’t see this as a flaw or psychological accident, but as powerful evidence that we were made for something, someone, infinite. Our hearts are wired for perfect Truth, perfect Beauty, perfect Love, and perfect Happiness. Nothing in the created world will be able to ultimately fill that void because we were created by and for God. St. Augustine’s prayer, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” doesn’t prove God exists on its own, but it fits perfectly with everything else we’ve seen: a universe that points to an intelligent Creator, and a human heart that hungers for the infinite. Faith in Christ doesn’t erase life’s struggles, but it offers the relationship that can finally satisfy the deepest part of who we are.

A Black Pill Argument Against God

One of the most common refutations against God's existence I see on here is, "Why would God create subhumans?"

My response:

Every person has infinite dignity because they were created in the image and likeness of God. This dignity is not based on a looks scale. It’s inherent from the moment of conception. We must keep in mind that the world is not in its final, perfected state, and because of original sin, there is a brokenness of creation, which causes a spectrum of outcomes: some people are born with ideal genetics, and some people have severe deformities.

St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that the universe is more perfect with this range of perfections and imperfections. A world with stable natural laws allows for defects. Look at the looks hierarchy. We recognize that some people are chads and some people are gigadeformed subhumans. These are clear degrees of beauty that are not random chaos. This is a perfect example of Aquinas’ Fourth Way, which states that gradations only exist because they participate in a perfect, maximum Beauty. If everyone were equally attractive, this would actually argue against God. The brutal reality is that the looks scale itself is evidence of a Creator. God does not override the natural laws of the world with constant miracles because that would collapse creation into chaos. Subhumans are extreme cases of a fallen material world.

Everyone has a cross to bear and not everyone gets the same cross to bear. Some people hit the genetic lottery and have a different cross to bear than people who are born with poor genetics. We must keep in mind that even if someone is subhuman, they may be able to develop different virtues that may be harder for a Chad to develop. Some of these virtues include: radical humility, detachment from vanity, etc.

It is true that life is brutally unfair on the looks scale in this fallen world, and Catholic theology agrees; however, it adds that this earthly life is not the whole story. Your looks are temporal; what lasts is how you play the cards you are dealt. For example, the subhuman who improves what he can and unites his suffering towards Christ can rank higher in eternity than a Chad who is arrogant and uses his gifts on pride and vice. This is not to say that a Chad cannot have the same virtues as said subhuman.

There is no problem with improving what you can, however, it is important not to idolize looks because they are not your ultimate worth and are not the telos to life. Furthermore, even if you are subhuman, you are not worthless because you have an immortal soul and have an infinite ontological dignity and were created in the image and likeness of God.

In the same way that God allows suffering in the fallen world, he permits extreme genetic deformities. Christ’s passion shows that he did not abstain from deformity and pain; he entered it himself and lived out the fallen world and suffered himself.

@ALBOSS @Jason Voorhees @GUMMIKZKDI @Acquiescence @avgsub5human @Paul.jnxy

dnr
 

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