Aleister Crowley and William Butler Yeats Get into an Occult Battle

Re:Aleister Crowley and William Butler Yeats Get into an Occ... by b800h on Wednesday June 14, 2023 @12:10PM (#36328071)

You might like to look at some apologetical writing. Christian apologetics, for example, are often split into three layers, essentially:

1. Is there a God - this is actually fairly straightforward to argue, simply because we can use analytical philosophy to reason about the unknowable and first causes and so on.

2. Is Jesus God - much tougher to approach for obvious reasons, but can at least be reasoned about if you've gone through step 1.

3. Should I be x sort of Christian - easier to reason about if you accept 1 & 2.

That first step is very approachable if you're already interested in things like logical proofs and higher physics.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Aleister Crowley and William Butler Yeats Get into an Occ... by b800h on Wednesday June 14, 2023 @12:32PM (#36328426)

@krapp - Disagree on that point. Obviously the three above are going to break down into further stages, but there are plenty of apologetic arguments which squarely fall into a broad question of "is there a God?" and not a more specific question.

You're right about the starting point though. By its very nature it has to start there, but it doesn't assume that the people it'll be arguing with will be in the same place.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Aleister Crowley and William Butler Yeats Get into an Occ... by krapp on Wednesday June 14, 2023 @12:23PM (#36328294)

Your first layer isn't really "Is there a God" but "Does the Judeo-Christian God exist?" Like Pascal's Wager, Christian apologetics begins by assuming that the only God that can possibly exist is the one Christians already believe in.

And neither logic nor higher physics proves that Christianity has the right idea out of the multitude of human religions and infinitude of possibilities beyond.

[ Parent | on HN ]