Does God exist? (13 Viewers)

[Legham]

See if I just started calling "god" Thomas, no one would know what the hell is going on and if I walked into church and started praying to Thomas, people would think I'm crackers

Not if you called it Harold! Lano & Woodley fans would know whats going on

 

[Slidey]

Pastafarians everywhere, rejoice!

 

[Josie]

Pastafarians everywhere, rejoice!

Marry me slidey.

 

[HistoryPoi]

In my personal capacity I now post a number of important atheistic/agnostic counter-arguments from the old thread, to bring the discussion up a notch and to save having to repeat them. (Rebuttals are taken from www.talk-orgins.org.)

Arguments against theism

• Why you cannot use a religious text to prove God’s existence
• Rebuttal: The first cause argument
• Rebuttal: The design argument
• Rebuttal: My religious text is scientifically and historically accurate
• Rebuttal: Prophecies prove the accuracy of my religious text
• Rebuttal: First law of thermodynamics claim
• Rebuttal: Creationism explains what science cannot

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• Why you cannot use a religious text to prove God’s existence

The claim here is that the religious text (Bible, Quran, etc) proves that God exists. This argument makes the fallacy of begging the question (or circular reasoning). When the argument is set out clearly this becomes obvious:

How do we know God exists?
God exists because the Bible says so.
Why should we believe the Bible?
Because the Bible is the word of God.
How do we know God exists?
God exists because the Bible says so.
Why should we believe the Bible?
Because the Bible is the word of God.

How do we know God exists?

(etc, ad infinitum.)

You cannot use the conclusion you are trying to prove (that God exists) as one of your premises. The premise “the Bible is the word of God” already assumes the truth of the conclusion.

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• Rebuttal: The First Cause Argument

Claim:

Every event has a cause. The universe itself had a beginning, so it must have had a first cause, which must have been a creator God.


Response:

1. The assumption that every event has a cause, although common in our experience, is not necessarily universal. The apparent lack of cause for some events, such as radioactive decay, suggests that there might be exceptions. There are also hypotheses, such as alternate dimensions of time or an eternally oscillating universe, that allow a universe without a first cause.

2. By definition, a cause comes before an event. If time began with the universe, "before" does not even apply to it, and it is logically impossible that the universe be caused.

3. This claim raises the question of what caused God. If, as some claim, God does not need a cause, then by the same reasoning, neither does the universe.


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• Rebuttal: Design Arguments

Claim:
Complexity indicates intelligent design.

Response:
1. This is an argument from incredulity. Complexity usually means something is hard to understand. But the fact that one cannot understand how something came to be does not indicate that one may conclude it was designed. On the contrary, lack of understanding indicates that we must not conclude design or anything else.

Irreducible complexity and complex specified information are special cases of the "complexity indicates design" claim; they are also arguments from incredulity.

2. In the sort of design that we know about, simplicity is a design goal. Complexity arises to some extent through carelessness or necessity, but engineers work to make things as simple as possible. This is very different from what we see in life.

3. Complexity arises from natural causes: for example, in weather patterns and cave formations.

4. Complexity is poorly defined.

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Claim:
Intelligent design has explanatory power. It accounts for a wide range of biological facts. This makes it scientific.

Response:
1. Merely accounting for facts does not make a theory scientific. Saying "it's magic" can account for any fact anywhere but is as far from science as you can get. A theory has explanatory power if facts can be deduced from it. No facts have ever been deduced from ID theory. The theory is equivalent to saying, "it's magic."

2. "Intelligent" and "design" remain effectively undefined. A theory cannot have explanatory power if it is uncertain what the theory says in the first place.

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Claim:

Life looks intelligently designed because of its complexity and arrangement. As a watch implies a watchmaker, so life requires a designer.


Response:

1. Nobody argues that life is complicated. However, complexity is not the same as design. There are simple things that are designed and complex things that originate naturally. Complexity does not imply design; in fact, simplicity is a design goal in most designs.

2. In most cases, the inference of design is made because people cannot envision an alternative. This is simply an argument from incredulity. Historically, supernatural design has been attributed to lots of things that we now know form naturally, such as lightning, rainbows, and seasons.

3. Life as a whole looks very undesigned by human standards, for several reasons:

• In known design, innovations that occur in one product quickly get incorporated into other, often very different, products. In eukaryotic life, innovations generally stay confined in one lineage. When the same sort of innovation occurs in different lineages (such as webs of spiders, caterpillars, and web spinners), the details of their implementation differ in the different lineages. When one traces lineages, one sees a great difference between life and design. (Eldredge has done this, comparing trilobites and cornets; Walker 2003.)
• In design, form typically follows function. Yet life shows many examples of different forms with the same function (e.g., different structures making up the wings of birds, bats, insects, and pterodactyls; different organs for making webs in spiders, caterpillars, and web spinners; and at least eleven different types of insect ears), the same basic form with different functions (e.g., the same pattern of bones in a human hand, whale flipper, dog paw, and bat wing) and some structures and even entire organisms without apparent function (e.g., some vestigial organs, creatures living isolated in inaccessible caves and deep underground).
• As mentioned above, life is complex. Design aims for simplicity.
• For almost all designed objects, the manufacture of the object is separate from any function of the object itself. All living objects reproduce themselves.
• Life lacks plan. There are no specifications of living structures and processes. Genes do not fully describe the phenotype of an organism. Sometimes in the absence of genes, structure results anyway. Organisms, unlike designed systems, are self-constructing in an environmental context.
• Life is wasteful. Most organisms do not reproduce, and most fertilized zygotes die before growing much. A designed process would be expected to minimize this waste.
• Life includes many examples of systems that are jury-rigged out of parts that were used for another purpose. These are what we would expect from evolution, not from an intelligent designer. For example vertebrate eyes have a blind spot because the retinal nerves are in front of the photoreceptors. Orchids that provide a platform for pollinating insects to land on, the stem of the flower has a half twist to move the platform to the lower side of the flower.
• Life is highly variable. In almost every species, there is a spread of values for anything you care to measure. The "information" that specifies life is of very low tolerance in engineering terms. There are few standards.

4. Life is nasty. If life is designed, then death, disease, and decay also must be designed since they are integral parts of life. This is a standard problem of apologetics. Of course, many designed things are also nasty (think of certain weapons), but if the designer is supposed to have moral standards, then it is added support against the design hypothesis.

5. The process of evolution can be considered a design process, and the complexity and arrangement we see in life are much closer to what we would expect from evolution than from known examples of intelligent design. Indeed, engineers now use essentially the same processes as evolution to find solutions to problems that would be intractably complex otherwise.

6. Does evolution itself look designed? When you consider that some sort of adaptive mechanism would be necessary on the changing earth if life were to survive, then if life were designed, evolution or something like it would have to be designed into it.

7. Claiming to be able to recognize design in life implies that nonlife is different, that is, not designed. To claim that life is recognisably designed is to claim that an intelligent designer did not create the rest of the universe.

8. As it stands, the design claim makes no predictions, so it is unscientific and useless. It has generated no research at all.


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• Rebuttal: My religious text is scientifically and historically accurate

Claim:

My religious text’s accuracy on various scientific and historical points shows its overall accuracy.


Response:

1. The accuracy of the text is not remarkable. All of its accurate points can be explained by simple observation of nature or by selective interpretation of scriptures.

2. Accuracy on individual points does not indicate overall accuracy. Just about every thesis that is wrong overall still has some accurate points in it.

3. Claims about accuracy assume that the purpose of the religious text is to document scientific data. There is not the slightest indication that the text was ever intended as a scientific textbook. It is intended to teach people about God; even those who claim scientific accuracy for it use it with that intent.

4. Specifically, the Bible is not entirely accurate. If its value is made to depend on scientific accuracy, it becomes valueless when people find errors in it, as some people invariably will.

5. If occasional scientific accuracy shows overall accuracy of the text, then the same conclusion must be granted to the Bible, Qur'an, Zend Avesta, and several other works from other religions, all of which can make the same claims to scientific accuracy.

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• Rebuttal: Prophecies prove the accuracy of my religious text

Claim:

The religious text contains many prophecies that have accurately been fulfilled, proving it is a divine source.


Response:

1. There are several mundane ways in which a prediction of the future can be fulfilled:

• Retrodiction. The "prophecy" can be written or modified after the events fulfilling it have already occurred.
• Vagueness. The prophecy can be worded in such a way that people can interpret any outcome as a fulfillment. Nostradomus's prophecies are all of this type. Vagueness works particularly well when people are religiously motivated to believe the prophecies.
• Inevitability. The prophecy can predict something that is almost sure to happen, such as the collapse of a city. Since nothing lasts forever, the city is sure to fall someday. If it has not, it can be said that according to prophecy, it will.
• Denial. One can claim that the fulfilling events occurred even if they have not. Or, more commonly, one can forget that the prophecy was ever made.
• Self-fulfillment. A person can act deliberately to satisfy a known prophecy.

There are no prophecies in religious texts that cannot easily fit into one or more of those categories.

2. In biblical times, prophecies were not simply predictions. They were warnings of what could or would happen if things did not change. They were meant to influence people's behavior. If the people heeded the prophecy, the events would not come to pass. A fulfilled prophecy was a failed prophecy, because it meant people did not heed the warning.

3. Specifically, the Bible contains failed prophecies, in the sense that things God said would happen did not (Skeptic's Annotated Bible n.d.). For example:

• Joshua said that God would, without fail, drive out the Jebusites and Canaanites, among others (Josh. 3:9-10). But those tribes were not driven out (Josh. 15:63, 17:12-13).
• Isaiah 17:1-3 says that Damascus will cease to be a city and be deserted forever, yet it is inhabited still.
• Ezekiel said Egypt would be made an uninhabited wasteland for forty years (29:10-14), and Nebuchadrezzar would plunder it (29:19-20). Neither happened.

4. Other religions claim many fulfilled prophecies, too.

5. For Christians, divinity is not shown by miracles. The Bible itself says true prophecies may come elsewhere than from God (Deut. 13:1-3), as may other miracles (Exod. 7:22, Matt. 4:8).

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• Rebuttal: Rebuttal: First Law of Thermodynamics Claim

Claim:

The first law of thermodynamics says matter/energy cannot come from nothing. Therefore, the universe itself could not have formed naturally.


Response:

Formation of the universe from nothing need not violate conservation of energy. The gravitational potential energy of a gravitational field is a negative energy. When all the gravitational potential energy is added to all the other energy in the universe, it might sum to zero (Guth 1997, 9-12,271-276; Tryon 1973).

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• Rebuttal: Creationism explains what science cannot

Claim:

Cosmologists cannot explain where space, time, energy, and the laws of physics came from.


Response:

1. Some questions are harder to answer than others. But although we do not have a full understanding of the origin of the universe, we are not completely in the dark. We know, for example, that space comes from the expansion of the universe. The total energy of the universe may be zero. Cosmologists have hypotheses for the other questions that are consistent with observations (Hawking 2001). For example, it is possible that there is more than one dimension of time, the other dimension being unbounded, so there is no overall origin of time. Another possibility is that the universe is in an eternal cycle without beginning or end. Each big bang might end in a big crunch to start a new cycle (Steinhardt and Turok 2002) or at long intervals, our universe collides with a mirror universe, creating the universe anew (Seife 2002).

One should keep in mind that our experiences in everyday life are poor preparation for the extreme and bizarre conditions one encounters in cosmology. The stuff cosmologists deal with is very hard to understand. To reject it because of that, though, would be to retreat into an argument from incredulity (fallacy).

2. Creationists cannot explain origins at all. Saying "God did it" is not an explanation, because it is not tied to any objective evidence. It does not rule out any possibility or even any impossibility. It does not address questions of "how" and "why," and it raises questions such as "which God?" and "how did God originate?" In the explaining game, cosmologists are far out in front.

I was just passing through looking for english stuff, so i havnt read anything, not even the post im quoteing. but for a religious person you have a point. But it does back fire on you. I really should be doing my work, but you said soem5thing interewsting. you said the universe is casuitive. thus it is a deterministic universe. If our univers was deterministic, which it is, it eliminates the idea of free will, or that free wll is an illusion. So that what eva happes to us is out of our control, hence showing that we cannont chooose God. A deterministtic univerve has more implicatinos in terms of christianity, but my English assignment is due tomorrow! Ill be back.

 

[KFunk]

I really should be doing my work, but you said soem5thing interewsting. you said the universe is casuitive. thus it is a deterministic universe. If our univers was deterministic, which it is, it eliminates the idea of free will, or that free wll is an illusion.

Aye, and it's a convenient illusion at that (moral responsibility etc). I would actually argue (as I think David Hume did) that determinism it important to our concept of 'willing' (even if not free willing). Imagine an indeterministic world or, more specifically, an indeterministic will - every decision we made in such a world would amount to nothing more than a dice role! At least determinism allows for our values, knowledge, reason, emotions, etc. to play a role in what we will, even if we can only will one thing.

 

[mr EaZy]

what was the question, how far back to i have to go? all i saw was stuff on pantheism and what seemed to be deism

 

[mr EaZy]

you quoted this source:

• Rebuttal: Prophecies prove the accuracy of my religious text

Claim:

The religious text contains many prophecies that have accurately been fulfilled, proving it is a divine source.


Response:

1. There are several mundane ways in which a prediction of the future can be fulfilled:
Retrodiction. The "prophecy" can be written or modified after the events fulfilling it have already occurred.
Vagueness. The prophecy can be worded in such a way that people can interpret any outcome as a fulfillment. Nostradomus's prophecies are all of this type. Vagueness works particularly well when people are religiously motivated to believe the prophecies.
Inevitability. The prophecy can predict something that is almost sure to happen, such as the collapse of a city. Since nothing lasts forever, the city is sure to fall someday. If it has not, it can be said that according to prophecy, it will.
Denial. One can claim that the fulfilling events occurred even if they have not. Or, more commonly, one can forget that the prophecy was ever made.
Self-fulfillment. A person can act deliberately to satisfy a known prophecy.
There are no prophecies in religious texts that cannot easily fit into one or more of those categories

is that a challenge for us to bring just one example that doesnt fit in those categories?

ill just paste from something i found whilst doing a search online: (i know ill get rebuttals, ill try to reply if im here

Submitted by Nuray, Jan 25, 2006 at 19:01

Let's read what Islamic and non-Islamic history books say.

Non-Islamic source :
610 AD Heraclius became the new Byzantine Emperor (610-641 AD )

622-626 AD During this time the war with the Persians continued in respect to the Byzantines (the war now entered into it's 2nd decade). More lands were won by the Persians, however the Byzantines did manage some large victories over the Persians within Asia Minor (here the Persians were flushed out).

Surah 30 is sent down in 615 AD. It is clear that it were fulfilled within the stipulated period of ten years.

Islamic source :
I didn't summarise the passage that I have taken from English Quran with historical background by MidEastWeb. You will enjoy it because it is about history of both Christians and Muslims.
The passage refers to the British historian Gibbon says, even seven to eight years after this prediction of the Qur'an,the conditions were such that no one could even imagine that the Byzantine Empire would ever gain an upper hand over Persia, not to speak of gaining domination.

If you don't like history you can skip the following section.

30 AR-RUM - ROME
This Surah dates from 615 CE, the year when the Romans were completely
overpowered by the Persians, during the time of the Prophet's residence at Mecca.
This was the same year in which the Prophet gave permission to the oppressed
Muslims to migrate to Habash (Ethiopia).

The prediction made in the initial verses of this Surah is one of the most outstanding
evidences of the Qur'an being the Word of Allah. Research Scholar Abul A'la
Maududi narrated the historical background relevant to this Surah as follows:
"Eight years before the Prophet's advent as a Prophet, the Byzantine Emperor
Maurice was overthrown by Phocus, who captured the throne and became king.
Phocus first had the Emperor's five sons executed in front of him, and then had the
Emperor killed and hung their heads in a thoroughfare in Constantinople. A few days
after this, he had the empress and her three daughters also put to death. The event
provided Khusrau Parvez, the Sassani king of Persia; a good moral excuse to attack
Byzantine. Emperor Maurice had been his benefactor; with his help he had got the
throne of Persia. Therefore, he declared that he would avenge his godfather's and
his children's murder upon Phocus, the usurper. So, he started a war against the
Byzantines in 603 CE and within a few years, putting the Phocus armies to rout in
succession, he reached Edessa (modern, Urfa) in Asia Minor, on the one front, and
Aleppo and Antioch in Syria, on the other. When the Byzantine ministers saw that
Phocus could not save the country, they sought the African governor's help, who sent
his son, Hercules, to Constantinople with a strong fleet. Phocus was immediately
deposed and Hercules was made emperor. He treated Phocus as he had treated
Maurice. This happened in 610 CE, the year the Prophet was appointed to the
Prophethood.

The moral excuse for which Khusrau Parvez had started the war was no more valid
after the deposition and death of Phocus. Had the object of his war really been to
avenge the murder of his ally on Phocus for his cruelty, he would have come to terms
with the new Emperor after the death of Phocus. But he continued the war, and gave
it the color of a crusade between Zoroastrianism and Christianity. The sympathies of
the Christian sects (i. e. Nestorians and Jacobians, etc.) which had been
excommunicated by the Roman ecclesiastical authority and tyrannized for years also
went with the Magian (Zoroastrian) invaders, and the Jews also joined hands with
them; so much so that the number of Jews who enlisted in Khusrau's army rose to
26,000.

Hercules could not stop this storm. The very first news that he received from the East
after ascending the throne was that of the Persian's occupation of Antioch. After this,
Damascus fell in 613 CE. Then in 614 , the Persians occupying Jerusalem, played
havoc with the Christian world. Ninety thousand Christians were massacred and the
Holy Sepulchre was desecrated. The Original Cross on which, according to Christian
beliefs, Jesus had died, was seized and carried to Mada'in. The chief priest Zacharia
was taken prisoner and all the important churches of the city were destroyed. How
puffed up was Khusrau Parvez at this victory can be judged from the letter that he
wrote to Hercules from Jerusalem. He wrote: "From Khusrau, the greatest of all gods,
the master of the whole world : To Hercules, his most wretched and most stupid
servant: ‘You say that you have trust in your Lord. Why didn't then your Lord save
Jerusalem from me?"

Within a year after this victory, the Persian armies overran Jordan, Palestine and the
whole of the Sinai Peninsula and reached the frontiers of Egypt. In those very days,
another conflict of a far greater historical consequence was going on in Mecca. The
believers in One God, under the leadership of the Muhammed, were fighting for their
existence against the followers of shirk under the command of the chiefs of the
Qureysh, and the conflict had reached such a stage that in 615 CE, a substantial
number of the Muslims had to leave their homes and take refuge with the Christian
kingdom of Habash (Ethiopia), which was an ally of the Byzantine Empire. In those
days the Sassani victories against Byzantine were the talk of the town, and the
pagans of Mecca were delighted and were taunting the Muslims to the effect: "Look
the fire worshippers of Persia are winning victories and the Christian believers in
Revelation and Prophethood are being routed everywhere. Likewise, we, the idol
worshippers of Arabia, will exterminate you and your religion."

These were the conditions when this Surah of the Qur'an was sent down, and in it a
prediction was made, saying: "The Romans have been vanquished in the
neighboring land and within a few years after their defeat, they shall be victorious.
And it will be the day when the believers will rejoice in the victory granted by Allah." It
contained not one but two predictions: First, the Romans shall be Victorious; and
second, the Muslims also shall win a victory at the same time. Apparently, there was
not a remote chance of the fulfillment of the either prediction in the next few years.
On the one hand, there were a handful of the Muslims, who were being beaten and
tortured in Mecca, and even till eight years after this prediction there appeared no
chance of their victory and domination. On the contrary, the Romans were losing
more and more ground every next day. By 619 CE the whole of Egypt had passed
into Sassani hands and the Magian armies had reached as far as Tripoli. In Asia
Minor they beat and pushed back the Romans to Bosporus, and in 617 CE they
captured Chalcedony (modern, Kadikoy) just opposite Constantinople. The Emperor
sent an envoy to Khusrau, praying that he was ready to have peace on any terms,
but he replied, "I shall not give protection to the emperor until he is brought in chains
before me and gives up obedience to his crucified god and adopts submission to the
fire god." At last, the Emperor became so depressed by defeat that he decided to
leave Constantinople and shift to Carthage (modern, Tunis). In short, as the British
historian Gibbon says, even seven to eight years after this prediction of the Qur'an, the conditions were such that no one could even imagine that the Byzantine Empire would ever gain an upper hand over Persia, not to speak of gaining domination. No
one could hope that the Empire, under the circumstances, would even survive.
When these verses of the Qur'an were sent down,

the disbelievers of Mecca made
great fun of them, and Ubayy bin Khalaf bet Sayyiduna Abu Bakr ten camels that the
Romans would not be victorious within three years. When the Prophet came to know
of the bet, he said, "The Qur'an has used the words bid-i-sinin, and the word bid in
Arabic applies to a number up to ten. Therefore, make the bet for ten years and
increase the number of camels to a hundred." So, Sayyiduna Abu Bakr spoke to
Ubayy again and bet a hundred camels for ten years.

In 622 CE, when the Prophet migrated to Medina, the Emperor Hercules set off
quietly for Trabzon from Constantinople via the Black Sea and started preparations to
attack Persia from rear. For this he asked the Church for money, and Pope Sergius
lent him the Church collections on interest, in a bid to save Christianity from
Zoroastrianism. Hercules started his counter attack in 623 CE from Armenia. Next
year, in 624 CE, he entered Azerbaijan and destroyed Clorumia, the birthplace of
Zoroaster, and ravaged the principal fire temple of Persia. Great are the powers of Allah, this was the very year when the Muslims achieved a decisive victory at Badr for the first time against the pagans. Thus, both the predictions made in Surah Rum were fulfilled simultaneously within the stipulated period of ten years


The Byzantine forces continued to press the Persians hard and in the decisive battle at Nineveh, (627 CE) they dealt them the hardest blow. They captured the royal residence of Dast-Gerd, and then pressing forward, reached right opposite to Ctesiphon, which was the capital of Persia in those days. In 628 CE, in an internal revolt, Khusrau Parvez was imprisoned and 18 of his sons were executed in front of him and a few days later, he himself died in prison. This was the year when the peace treaty of Hudeybiyah was concluded, which the Qur'an has termed as "the supreme victory," and in this very year Khusrau's son, Qubad II, gave up all the occupied Roman territories, restored the True Cross and made peace with Byzantium. In 628 CE, the Emperor himself went to Jerusalem to instal the "Cross" in its place, and in the same year the Prophet entered Mecca for the first time after the Hijrah to perform the Umra-tul-Q'adah.

After this, no one could have any doubt about the truth of the prophecy of the Qur'an,
with the result that most of the Arab polytheists accepted Islam. The heirs of Ubayy
bin Khalaf lost their bet and had to give a hundred camels to Sayyiduna Abu Bakr
Siddiq. He took them before the Prophet, who ordered that they be given away in
charity, because the bet had been made at a time when gambling had not yet been
forbidden by the Shari‘ah; but now it had been forbidden.

Therefore, the bet was
allowed to be accepted from the belligerent disbelievers, but instruction given that it
should be given away in charity and should not be brought in personal use."

(English Quran with historical background MidEastWeb)

(author ommitted)
source: http://www.danielpipes.org/comments/32474

http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/quran/maududi/mau30.html

Quran : chapter 30
001
YUSUFALI: A. L. M.

030.002
YUSUFALI: The Roman Empire has been defeated-

030.003
YUSUFALI: In a land close by; but they, (even) after (this) defeat of theirs, will soon be victorious-

030.004
YUSUFALI: Within a few years. With Allah is the Decision, in the past and in the Future: on that Day shall the Believers rejoice-

030.005
YUSUFALI: With the help of Allah. He helps whom He will, and He is exalted in might, most merciful.

030.006
YUSUFALI: (It is) the promise of Allah. Never does Allah depart from His promise: but most men understand not.

030.007
YUSUFALI: They know but the outer (things) in the life of this world: but of the End of things they are heedless.

030.008
YUSUFALI: Do they not reflect in their own minds? Not but for just ends and for a term appointed, did Allah create the heavens and the earth, and all between them: yet are there truly many among men who deny the meeting with their Lord (at the Resurrection)!

030.009
YUSUFALI: Do they not travel through the earth, and see what was the end of those before them? They were superior to them in strength: they tilled the soil and populated it in greater numbers than these have done: there came to them their messengers with Clear (Signs). (Which they rejected, to their own destruction): It was not Allah Who wronged them, but they wronged their own souls.

http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/quran/030.qmt.html

http://answering-christianity.com/defeat_romans.htm

 

[mr EaZy]

Have you actually read it? To me the end of the book is greater than the beginning.

LOL
u sound like a christian saying that the book of john is more spiritual than the first three books

*rolls eyes and leaves bos for its getting late

 

[Not-That-Bright]

LOL
u sound like a christian saying that the book of john is more spiritual than the first three books

*rolls eyes and leaves bos for its getting late

Err actually I'm just a guy reviewing a book. I don't take The God Delusion as gospel in any way, shape or form I don't even think it's all that great.

 

[KFunk]

I thought I'd add a few thoughts I recently had regarding pascal's wager (which I have seen brandished many times as reason for why it is rational to choose belief in a divine creator).There are other respects in which I disagree with the wager, but I'll just deal with this particular one in this post. First off, to rehash what pascal's wager is (quoting from wiki):

"God either exists or He doesn't... since we stand to gain ethernity, and thus infinity, the wise and safe choice is to live as though God does exist. If we are right, we gain everything, and lose nothing. If we are wrong, we lose nothing and gain nothing. Therefore, based on simple mathematics, only the fool would choose to live a Godless life."

My recently founded objection to pascal's wager is based on the idea that we are unable to know which set of criteria god uses to decide whether to admit people into heaven. There are numerous religious doctrines out there (each with its own rules) and, similarly, there exist an infinite number of other doctrinal permutations that we could potentially choose from. The issue is that they may differ regarding what is required for entry into the afterlife. Of course, there is little issue if all that is required for entry to heaven is mere belief in a creator, but if it is also required that an individual must adhere to a specific moral doctrine then it becomes imperative that they select the right set of beliefs. In the absence of a reliable decision procedure to tell us which set of values to go with I feel that pascal's wager looses a great deal of pursuasiveness.

On a finishing note: if you are convinced that belief is more rational path to take then why not stick with your own values or create your own brand of religion? Also, why must we assume that god rewards belief? Consider the possibility that god could favour a form of rationality which would lead people not to believe in god - in which case non-believers could be favoured by god.

 

[Emmaa07]

i believe that people have certain religious beliefs because that is what they are brought up with...
And also if we didnt have beliefs whether it be a religious belief or not what would we have to live for...
People live because they believe in themselves and religion can just assist in shaping this...

 

[ur_inner_child]

i believe that people have certain religious beliefs because that is what they are brought up with...
And also if we didnt have beliefs whether it be a religious belief or not what would we have to live for...
People live because they believe in themselves and religion can just assist in shaping this...

We're not refuting that having an idea and committing to it is a bad thing.

Anyway

i believe that people have certain religious beliefs because that is what they are brought up with...

If we trusted whatever we were brought up with, we'd still be in the Dark Ages. Moving forward, questioning your strongest beliefs and observing from another stance is good from time to time, don't you agree?

And also if we didnt have beliefs whether it be a religious belief or not what would we have to live for...

If I said I lived for Santa, you would laugh at me. But hey, it gets me through each year. I'm rewarded for being a good person on an annual basis. I don't mean to condescend you beliefs, but I hope you understand my drift.

People live because they believe in themselves and religion can just assist in shaping this...

That part I agree. Religion is an institution that people can easily rely on as the moral system, or a way to identify someone. But that's not exactly what we're talking about here.

 

[lengy]

Then I'm already in heaven.

 

[bazookajoe]

"...maybe heaven isn't a place you can get to, maybe heaven is just an idea. A frame of mind or something gay like that." - South Park

"Maybe heaven...is this moment right now."

"So...you're saying we should bomb this moment right now?"

 

[Odette1990]

Many people will ask does God exist? Well tell me something if God didnt exist then who created the world? how did we get here? why are we here? Is there life after death? Why do we die?
Honestly just think about it, God seems to be an explanation for the questions most people have about the meaning of life, we may not see God, and there may not be proof that there is a God, that is why most traditions especially Christianity rely on faith. However think of this, the whole conscience thing, why do we have one? the answer is that our conscience is God speaking to us.

Just think about some of the questions i asked and try to find an answer for them without using God...

 

[_dhj_]

\Well tell me something if God didnt exist then who created the world? how did we get here?

If god does exist then who created god? If god doesn't need a creator then why does the world?

why are we here?

What would god say?

Is there life after death?

No.

Why do we die?

Because god hates us?

 

[Odette1990]

Ok well God is energy, and as we all know energy cannot be created nor destroyed. Being an energy source and all that, energy changed forms, becoming the world, people, blah blah blah, so we in a sense are God manifested into human, so we too are creators of our own lives, as for death we dont die we just change into another form of energy; a spirit, and once we do that its what we know as life after death hehe, any other questions?

 

[ur_inner_child]

Ok well God is energy, and as we all know energy cannot be created nor destroyed. Being an energy source and all that, energy changed forms, becoming the world, people, blah blah blah, so we in a sense are God manifested into human, so we too are creators of our own lives, as for death we dont die we just change into another form of energy; a spirit, and once we do that its what we know as life after death hehe, any other questions?

Which denomination are you again?

 

[Odette1990]

Well this is just my understanding of God, but I am Catholic; its not a Catholic view of God though, its more of what I believe God to be, but in a way it is linked to the Catholic belief of God. Well to be honest im only Catholic through my baptism but Im not a practicing Catholic; my view is Catholicism meets quantam physics lol

 

[ur_inner_child]

Just curious, why have you strayed from regular Catholicism? Not that Catholics would frown at your perception, but what led you to ponder about alternative perceptions?

I suppose it's interesting to make your own personal understanding of God. Possibly healthy, even. I use to do it all the time, especially when I disagreed with religious institutions in general.

It's just interesting that you've gone away and made up your own little perception about God, but hundreds of others can easily do the same and come up with something entirely different. In other words:

However think of this, the whole conscience thing, why do we have one? the answer is that our conscience is God speaking to us.

How are you so sure?

You could say we survived as a species through all these years by caring (having a conscience) as a society. We have an advantage over creatures who could not express empathy and compassion for each other. *shrug*

Anyway, my point. Whenever I made my own perception of God, like you have, there was always an inch of me wondering whether this perception was actually correct and reliable. The fact that I myself came up with it alone, and then sticking to it as the ultimate truth, doesn't such an action worry you? You made it up. How much can you rely on it? How can you say it with such confidence? For me, already when you suggest that we're all energy etc, about a thousand questions rise.

I'm just curious that you could do it, and I couldn't.