This is part of what mystifies me. Paul in Saudi, you’re an otherwise sharp and intelligent poster. But this one is utter, ignorant silliness. There is no direct or indirect evidence for god.
You say that creation is evidence for god’s existence. Well creation could be:
The result of the the Christian God.
The result of Odin building us on frost giant bones.
The result of Maui pulling us from the world ocean.
The vomit of a celestial turtle.
The result of Nyx’s shell in the darkness being broken, one half for the sky and the other for the Earth.
The Matrix.
Or any other of countless creation myths.
And you take existence as proof for your particular brand of silliness? Why? Because you were brought up in a Christian country?
In contrast China is mentioned by people you know and printed on a lot of maps. If it doesn’t exist it is a grand charade and in our technological world that seems unlikely that anyone could pull it off.
There shouldn’t be two standards of silly. If religious ideas can’t stand up to scrutiny then they should be discarded, just like anything else.
That’s not evidence for any god(s); there’s no evidence that intelligent direction was required. And that begs the question of where the creator came from.
Because it’s the simplest explanation for why so much matter we can see is moving as if it was being affected by matter we can’t. It’s behavior that requires an explanation, and and dark matter fits the evidence.
Faith is simply foolishness, insanity or stupidity. There’s no equivalence between believing in China and believing in God. There’s a vast amount of evidence for China; zero for God.
As for the OP; like all religion, Islam is nonsense. Destructive, insane nonsense without a shred of evidence supporting it. You should avoid it and every other religion. Unless, of course you have no problem with withdrawing into a fantasy world.
People were threatened with death over that whole fiasco. If threats of murder don’t qualify as attempts to impose one’s beliefs, I don’t know what does.
Particularly since clerics went out of their way to provoke that outrage and lied about what the cartoons were.
Of course, I’m pretty sure you’re not in an Islamic republic, so that stuff, and the more violent leanings and attitudes of Islamic fundamentalists, probably doesn’t apply to you in the first place. I wouldn’t attempt to argue you out of your faith, but so far I don’t think you’ve explained why Islam appeals to you and I’d be curious to hear more about that.
You’re not responsible for the wrongs of your co-religionists, but I don’t think you should ignore them either. You may run across some of these people and I believe you’d do better to be aware of their faults rather than excusing them or waving them off.
Various beheadings, executions etc by Muslims of American captives, videotaped and sent to the West
The reason you don’t hear from any “moderate” Muslims is that there aren’t any. Those who profess Islam but stay silent about the above incidents are as guilty as those whom acutally pulled the trigger.
At least in other religions (priest sex scandal within Roman Catholicism, e.g.) there are those within those religions whom have been whistleblowers and have turned the criminal element in.
The silence among so-called “moderate” muslims (if there really are any) speaks volumes, to me.
Just because you draw a different conclusion from the evidence does not mean that the evidence does not exist.
Liberal is right, it is just evidence that some will not accept.
On the topic of converting to Islam, a bigger question for you is why? Its quite clear that Mohammed borrowed heavily from a couple different religious to create his specific religion. What makes you think it is the correct religion?
The protesters called for the prosecution, conviction, and execution of the Danish cartoonists. Folks that live in non-islamic countries, that are not muslim, that were exercising free expression in a lawful manner. That’s advocating imposing islamic beliefs on others. There is no way to spin it otherwise.
As the hardest of hardline atheists, I see no purpose in trying to persuade anyone against a particular set of beliefs. Belief is not subject to rational discussion, at least not for those who choose to believe in a non-falsiable God, so by all means, believe away.
What I would ask you to consider, however, is the wisdom of your personal belief system applying to anyone outside of your head. Believers do not, in my experiece, want to believe as much as they want to justify their actions and be granted special privileges in secular society because of their beliefs, which is where all the “religious” issues manifest themselves, at the point where they conflict with the rights of non-believers (in religion in general or in a particular religion). I would counsel you to believe whatever you choose, while scrupulously avoiding all claims to special rights that your religion affords you that are denied to those who do not share (and may in fact oppose) such beliefs. Live an exemplary life and people may think of you as someone to be admired and emulated, which may draw them to your religion.
Christianity borrowed heavily from Judaism, so there is a precedent.
Personally I’d say not to join Islam on the basis of it’s more trouble than it’s worth in the western world. If you’re going to embrace ignorance and randomly glom to a specific religion I’d suggest Christianity. It’s the most popular in the west and will improve your prospects the most.
My family is for the most part highly educated - scientists, professors, doctors, engineers, you name it. They are also very culturally conservative. My father, however, is more a of a regular joe - “regular” job, moderate income, chose to go out and find his own wife instead of doing the whole arranged thing, smokes, drinks, gambles, etc. My mother stopped being religious after she divorced my father when I was about 10 years old, since divorce is considered to be pretty much taboo in my family, and that in turn caused most of them to look down on us after the fact. I haven’t had much to do with most of my family since then, unfortunately. With that said, my relationship with them, or lack thereof, doesn’t stand to be affected by any of my decisions.
To make a long story short, being born and raised in NYC, I grew up in more of a mixed environment, different kinds of people, exposure to different cultures, so naturally I was free to explore and form my own opinions on things. Going to Catholic school introduced me to a religion other than my own at the time, so that definitely influenced my decision to no longer consider myself a “hindu” since I never really believed in hinduism in the first place, though I could never really mesh with Christianity either. When I went to India for the first time in 1998, and saw COWS being treated better than the poor and starving, that pretty much sealed the deal for me. I returned and just became content with calling myself an agnostic, though there were certain things I believed in without quite knowing how to classify those beliefs.
Islam just seems, to me, to be the most practical in nature of all the religions. One aspect that really attracted me to it is the fact that the Qur’an is the only religious scripture, to my knowledge, that clearly and definitively declares the brotherhood of humanity within its very pages, regardless of color or nationality. Muhammad, in turn, is a Prophet whom we can reference and observe within the full light of history, unlike others, making him a more accessible figure, and therefore more “real.” Through reading and study, I also find the rise of Islam, the nature of the community from which it was birthed, and how it spread across the earth in such a short matter of time to be nothing short of miraculous in and of itself. It took a little time, but fuck it, I can’t run away from what I feel is the right thing to do.
Find me a single scientist who believes in dark matter the same way that a theist Believes in God.
Dark matter is called that simply because we can’t directly see it. It’s a concept which fills some holes in some of our theories- but as soon as we know what dark matter is, it will be replaced with our new knowledge. Nobody believes that dark matter exists- it’s just a convenient description for a phenomenon which has a list of properties.
God, on the other hand, is the *end *of scientific reasoning. It’s the ultimate answer- once you start to say “God did it”, there’s no reason to keep searching for the real answer.
Or they are scared of the people who “pulled the trigger”. And yes, there are moderate Muslims. There would have to be; an all-fanatic society would be like something out of a horror movie; you don’t see Israel being overwhelmed by a billion-strong human wave assault, do you ?
They just aren’t politically powerful, and tend to be understandably cautious about standing up.
With difficulty, after decades, and only because the religion in question is far weaker in the society in question. The Pope can’t get away with ordering whistleblowers killed. Not in modern America; back in places and times the Church had more power no one would have dared speak the truth.
blinkthrice, it seems to me you’re not really sure about this. You say you want to convert to Islam yet you come here asking a bunch of strangers to convince you otherwise. I think you’re not ready.
I fail to see how any of that pertains to Islam itself as a religion, though. All of these actions stem from conflicts which have very little to do with religion in general and more to do with one group of people trying to repel another, in what they see as an intrusive outside force who view their own way of life to be superior. 9-11 wasn’t an expedition carried out in an effort to “spread Islam,” to even suggest so is lunacy. I don’t think you’ll ever be satisfied with Muslims until they do something along the lines of declaring Islam to be inferior to secular democracy. Well, I think you already know that that isn’t likely to happen anytime soon. You can’t fault Muslims for having the audacity to actually believe in their faith or for wanting live their lives as they see fit.
If American interests in the Muslim word are threatened by Islam, or a state that were truly governed according to Islamic principles, then that’s a different discussion, but the debate, IMO, should be framed a little bit more honestly.
There is a big difference between theoretical religion and the religion that is practiced. You can find a lot of bible passages about turning the other cheek and being non violent. But the Christians are aggressive and want to force their beliefs on all of us. They are judgmental and their leaders are often an embarrassment. They have a history of backing wars and violence.
The mulims can make the same claims and the arguments still prevail. In practice it is a dangerous and aggressive religion. Both should be abolished. Lets start over.