Oh? What do I believe then? As for your motives I am just judging by past experience.
Yes, that sort of discussion is more interesting. There is no fruit to be borne from the discussion of whether or not God exists. One must start from the basic premise that there are intractable differences of belief.
I’ll start with a single premise but move from there. I’ll start a thread and make an assertion. From there you tell me your opinion of that assertion, or if not an opinion how you might go about approaching the questions implied by my assertion.
I’d have to see evidence of that considering that computers are a few steps beyond erector sets.
But such self-interested modifications are endemic to nearly every religion. How many Christians do you know who actually follow the spirit of Jesus’s teachings? What I typically see are people who subvert the spirit in order to fulfill personal desires, and justify their pre-existing prejudices through convenient misreadings/interpretations of scripture. Nothing new here. And what about the Gospel of Paul? This is a guy who self-interestedly twisted Jesus’s words around to mean something completely different than what Jesus said. Christians now base their religious largely around what this guy said. I don’t see how this is any different, really.
Right, you have a point, but it’s not the same. Because the self-interested modifications in this case were made by Mohammed himself and therefore case doubt upon the notion that it is divinely transmitted in its totality, that Mohammed himself subjected it to an editing process based upon his personal self-interest.
The counter-argument only works if you apply it to Christ himself. A separate argument can be made about Christianity that the message has been redacted beyond all recognition and so the original message may have been lost in that shuffle, but as we are not trying to convince someone not to convert to Christianity, it is ultimately irrelevant to the discussion.
This is a discussion of Islam, and can be had without even mentioning Christianity as a counter-example even once.
There’s a Gospel of Paul? I thought he wrote some letters to some congregations (and individuals), and that was about it (barring whatever role he played in Acts).
The inevitable descent of this thread into the standard believer vs nonbeliever mantras now having played itself out, I am still curious blink as to why you feel the need to belong to any particular group?
Or to ask another way: Religion serves many needs. It provides a tool to feel part of a greater meaning than ones own self. It provides for a basis upon which build a moral code. It explains that which seems unexplainable. It provides a structure for daily life - a set of rules to live by, which many find reassuring. It provides for a community. Of those the one that requires conversion (unless believes that one needs to be saved) is that membership of a particular community. If you are serious about your post, is that your desire, to become part of that community? Or, as has been suggested by someone early on, to more fully reject the communities of your origins? Or neither?
I have sort of the same reason for not converting to Islam as for not converting to Judaism. By converting, I create for my children an identity. Both religions are very big on transmission through descendants. This creates a tendency to fetishize descent, to turn devotion into identity politics & racism. However I may see the religion, my descendants might turn into fanatics; be persecuted by fanatics into be more compliant with extremism; or simply encourage arrogant bigotry by adding to the numbers of the “us” group.
Then I “win”, in the sense that you clearly believe (or at least say you believe)things about my motives that are wrong (hence your knowledge is a net negative) while I make no claims about your beliefs, so I’m prepared to accept a knowledge level of zero on that front if I must. Since zero is not less than a negative value, my bet is a safe one.
If my posting history (or your experience of it) is at all relevant, I’d like to bring this post of early 2007 to your attention.
I don’t care if God exists or not or, more accurately, it’s a matter of as much personal significance to me as whether or not some Roman in the year 121 had olives with his lunch or not. Whether or not God of some kind exists is similarly divorced from all human religions - we simply have no way of knowing if any religion ever conceived or practiced in all of human history is even a slightly accurate model of the nature of God, if any.
Now, if religion is just a set of rituals the give society structure and make people feel better, fine. I don’t see why any particular set of rituals is inherently better (or “truer”) than any other and can only judge a religion by its real-world effect, namely:
[ul][li]Is it too obviously designed to keep some people in power and many others in servitude?[/li][li]Does it seek to impose restrictions that serve no purpose?[/li][li]Does it work on the assumption that some segment of the population is automatically and irrevocably inferior?[/li][li]Does it get in the way of things that would relieve suffering? Does it require people to suffer for decades in abusive marriages or backbreaking labour or any other unpleasant circumstance?[/li][li]Does it operate on the assumption that mankind is inherently and inescapably evil/sinful, and thus demand constant sacrifices, tithing or displays of submission?[/ul][/li]
Some of these overlap, naturally. This gist is that we have absolutely no evidence that God (if God exists) is pleased by any particular religious ritual. Even if I made the rather generous assumption that God actually does exist, what difference would it make if I (or the OP) chose a particular religion?
So, no, I definitely don’t “must start from the basic premise that there are intractable differences of belief.” A simple reading of history shows that these beliefs are endlessly flexible and casually divide and recombine. For example, while Christianity may claim an “intractable difference” with, say, ancient paganism, that hasn’t stopped Christianity from assimilating various pagan rituals which are now casually accepted as important aspects of faith by modern devout Christians. If a good Christian from New York in 2008 were to meet a good Christian from Prague in 1308, they could easily be mutually horrified by the other’s beliefs. Are they both good Christians? Neither? One but not the other? How can anyone tell? Has God changed in 700 years? Do you have any way of answering these questions in a manner more concrete than just suggesting I “must” accept something?
I was understating it. I don’t just use computers, I use SUPERcomputers, with petaflop speed and holographic memory matrices and other features I can’t discuss under NSA rules.
See? That’s the problem with pointless anaolgies. Without any clear idea of what it actually means to use “blocks”, “lego”, “erector sets” or “computers” in metaphor, they’re all equally meaningless. Rather like religions.
Hmm, should I count this as the gotcha moment that I forecast you would ultimately make? If so I could count that as a victory, because you proved my prediction that eventually you’d come up with a gotcha moment.
That’s a good place to start because I don’t particularly care if you believe in God, or if you approve of my belief or not. So we start from a null circumstance where the discussion can move forward. If it is necessary we establish personal belief, and then accept the difference as being intractable but necessarily something we should accept. Trying to ‘prove’ it is a child’s game, as any theist who bases their views on revelation would say that you cannot force God to reveal himself, and any atheist should accept that they aren’t going to change a person’s faith by berating them on a message board.
I generally prefer to discuss religion in this way with atheists because there is no point in discussing supernatural aspects that in their view do not exist. So the only recourse is to discuss the impact of the ritual. So I will respond to your bullet points.
All systems of ritual benefit the power of some and not others. This is just a natural consequence of belonging to any system. Secular systems have this problem too. Communism benefits the bureaucrats in the top party positions, Democracy benefits the majority special interest group, Monarchy benefits the Monarch and his court.
Seek to impose restrictions that serve no purpose. This is a tough one. All systems do this to some degree or another, or I should say that the restrictions rather than serving no purpose have relative scales of benefit/harm. I would argue that the drug war is more harmful than beneficial, others might disagree with me. We can both come up with facts to support our case and the wide variety of opinion based upon it gives us ample argumentation to pick and choose our arguments from arguments that have already been made. That being said, I should be able to have my damned Bloody Mary with brunch at the Garden Cafe next to the Catholic Church on a Sunday if I damn well please.
This is a tough one without getting into specifics. Your specific examples do not apply universally to any major faith. Some religious faith proposes a separation of spiritual authority from temporal authority. So while the faith my require it of you, it can peacefully coexist with a secular authority that does not require it of you.
Well, here we find the problem that every religious discussion comes back as a critique of Christianity. This thread is about Islam, though obviously our side discussion is completely and totally separate from that as it is.
Well it would make a difference based upon what you view as truth, because you would have to be truthful to who you are, and that might mesh better with one religion rather than another.
That’s because Christianity didn’t come presupplied with ritual. It has a few basic core assumptions that supersede all ritual. In the end Christianity is seeking to destroy the cultural paganisms that are brought by each individual. The Christian would argue that providence in history has provided a sense of progress. The notion of linear eschatonian time denotes a sense of progress as it unfolds, culminating ultimately in the apocalypse when all is revealed and the false world is destroyed. I am not saying you ‘must’ accept anything in terms of the long view of your life, but if you want to have a productive discussion you ‘must’ accept the terms of the debate that make the discussion mutually beneficial to you and your interlocutor. IE, if you want to argue with a theist you ‘must’ accept that they believe in God. For instance I would argue that Der Trihs has in my experience never actually had a discussion of religion on this message board. He has come along and insulted theists, but that is not actually a discussion. I could easily write Der Trihs posts for him, therefore there is no point in actually discussing anything with him because I already know what he is going to say, though people like to believe I won’t out of resentment. It’s more due to tedious boredom.
Metaphors are useful to most people. In this case you just ignored the metaphor to make a ‘gotcha’ point that wasn’t very useful in context, because the metaphor was referring to relative skill. Like, “I am a level 3 scholar of religion, therefore I cannot discuss level 8 religious topics with a level 1 scholar of religion.”, your computer science skills are completely irrelevant, though damn cool in another context.
BTW, I started a thread specifically for you. Did you see it? Your name is in the thread title.
If one is going to discuss something like “providence” a useful starting point is to determine if it exists at all.
For example, prior to the existence of the germ theory people had a number of erroneous ideas about the causes of diseases: evil spirits, imbalances of humors, chi, bad air. You could certainly have a lively discussion about how to keep your bodily humors in balance, but it would be ulimately be pointless, because humors are imaginary.
If you want to discuss the role of providence in human affairs you need to first establish that it EXISTS at all. Otherwise it’s just wanking. You might as well spend your time discussing whether the Enterprise could defeat the Death Star in a fair fight. Making up imaginary worlds and arguing over their properties can be a fun way to the pass the time, but we shouldn’t pretend that it has any relavance to real questions of morality, ethics, or how we should live our lives.
Any religion would collapse under rational analysis, so in that sense I’d consider any kind of belief in a deity to be irrational by nature. Isn’t that kind of the point of believing in something anyway? When it’s clearly raining outside, I don’t believe it, I know it. If it’s a sunny day and the weatherman calls for rain within the coming week, I believe him. As far as evolution is concerned, I don’t think there is a concerted movement of muslims who rail against the theory as passionately as some christians do - historically Islam hasn’t had that kind of sour relationship with science and learning, in fact quite the opposite.
I don’t see Islam as being a coarse idealogy heavy on rules and regulations, because at its core, Islam is about acknowledging the creator. Someone can pray 5 times a day, fast every single day of Ramadan (plus every monday and thursday year round like the prophet did), give lots to charity, keep a long beard etc…but if their faith in God is weak or non-existent, then all that really doesn’t matter. Strong, solid faith is what separates those who consider duties to be rules, and rules to be duties. The Taliban may have thrown people in jail for not offering Salat, but the Prophet never did that, nor did he command anything of the sort.
I am aware of the history of Islam in India, and I’m aware that there are some unpleasant episodes to be found therein, but that sort of thing can be found everywhere. Hindus have committed their share of atrocities against muslims as well, and besides, I don’t see many Indian muslims rushing back to their hindu roots now that they aren’t in power anymore, just as I dont see Iranians clamoring back to Zoroastrianism. For the most part within its rise, Islam drastically improved the lives of the people within the territories it conquered, I don’t think that can really be debated - even if they wanted to give people a choice between Islam or the sword, that wasn’t really necessary, as per a general analysis of Islamic history. I’m not saying that forced conversions NEVER happened at any point in time, but it was by no means the norm, and certainly a negligible phenomenon.
You stated that at any other point Muhammad would have been a failure, but I see it differently. The fact that Muhammad arrived on the scene when he did, with a revelation and message powerful enough to inspire an illiterate and uncivilized nation to create an empire that stretched as far and wide as it did, seems to me to be more than just a case of convenient timing. Again of course, that’s just how I see it.
Your experience with Muslim converts, while valid, is hardly an absolute representation. I’ve known a few people over the years who’ve converted to Islam as well, and I can’t say that I share that assesment. Then again, I may be a little biased ;). No, but really…
My father has been out of the picture since I was 12, and my mother isn’t even religious anymore. She’s perfectly content with going to the gym 3 days a week, hanging out with her gal-friends, dating, and watching dancing with the stars. I share an apartment with my girlfriend, work 10 hours a day, and have been pretty much independent since I was 19 years old. So na bruh, this isn’t really a “phase.” I’m a little too old for those.
But can I ask you, have you ever been to a Mosque on friday and listened to the sermon, or was that just speculation? Is that really what you think goes on in the average muslim congregation?
It hadn’t occurred to me that it was a “gotcha moment”, so claim it if you like.
I’m not berating you, merely pointing out that your religious beliefs (indeed, everyone’s) has never successfully demonstrated a better handle on “truth” than any other. Such beliefs persist in society because of tradition and wishful thinking and not because of any objective merit.
I’m prepared to be proven wrong, of course. If you’re totally opposed and belittling of all explorations of issues of proof, I figure you simply have no business making statements about atheists, let alone about how intolerant we allegedly are.
“Be truthful to who you are” is as vague and empty a statement as can be, isn’t it? Wouldn’t a more accurate rendition be “live your life in a manner you find satisfying and comfortable” ? I understand that this changes religion from some noble quest for fulfillment to something comparable to picking out a good pair of shoes, but so be it. Good shoes are quite important, after all.
All right, and how is this better or worse than any other set of core beliefs? In fact, if a person abandons Christian core beliefs and adopts Muslim core beliefs, what change, if any, has actually occurred? Has this hastened or slowed the apocalypse? If Christianity (or Islam, or any particular religion) were to die out in the next generation or two, what if anything would be irretrievably lost?
Without question or hesitation I believe that you believe in God (acknowledging of course the potential for a “gotcha game” where you turn around and claim youdon’t actually believe in God, but hinted you did to prove my lack of knowledge about your actual beliefs - as a sidebar, that’ll hopefully be the last time I have to use the phrase “gotcha game” in this discussion and its offshoots, because all it really does is inspire pointless qualifier-laden parenthetical tangents like this one). Without question or hesitation, I believe that several billion people believe in various flavours of God. I’ve simply no reason to accept that God exists in any way outside of these beliefs.
No, what I ignored was the attempted condescension in the metaphor, since such condescension only serves to try to prove what it is claiming - i.e. A accuses B of being childish, then uses B’s angered reaction to prove the validity of the accusation. My invoking of computer skills had a double meaning - aside from the obvious real-world truth of the claim, I was metaphorically claiming a “level 15” on your implied scale, or at least something well beyond whatever it was you were implying, just to demonstrate the meaninglessness of the metaphor. Why not claim level one billion? Level X? Level Dave? Level… God?
I dont believe that God can “reside” anywhere, because that would mean that he would have to be encompassed by a space larger than himself, which wouldn’t befit his Majesty. Allah describes himself in the Qur’aan as encompassing the entire creation, and I take that to mean exactly that, without speculating beyond that which I am capable. The intricate nature of God’s being and existence will never be known by man in the absolute, at least in this world, but I think that even you would agree that a deity that is hindered by limits of any kind isn’t worthy of being worshipped.
All kidding aside, and I hope you realize that I was kidding you about being a polytheist, I’d be very interested in a thread outlining your beliefs. Particularly with respect to areas of departure from mainstream christian denomination beliefs, and your scriptural reasons.
Plus the ‘confined against my will’ thread. That I’d REALLY like to see.
