Anajmi,
Its no fun arguing with you 'cause your arguing style painfully reminds me of the arguing style used by 9 year olds in a school playground.
As far as hurting me goes, you are bit late on the scene. I have been on the net for some 9 years now and I've seen opponents who hit far lower than you. I used to be a bit sensitive but now I am quite hardened to personal attacks by the likes of you. Its almost laughable that you think you can hurt me with some words on a screen.
-N
The nature of "Aql"
Re: The nature of "Aql"
nausicaa,
now you are being a cry baby. Please be specific and tell me what argument of mine reminded you of a 9 year old.
And actually I did hurt you otherwise you wouldn't have been crying about being condemned to hell because of immorality.
Also, what you just did, i.e. "There is no fun in fighting with you, you always hit me, but even though I am bleeding, it does not hurt because I have been in more fights that you" is exactly what a 9 year old does. No wonder you remember the style of a 9 year old.
now you are being a cry baby. Please be specific and tell me what argument of mine reminded you of a 9 year old.
And actually I did hurt you otherwise you wouldn't have been crying about being condemned to hell because of immorality.
Also, what you just did, i.e. "There is no fun in fighting with you, you always hit me, but even though I am bleeding, it does not hurt because I have been in more fights that you" is exactly what a 9 year old does. No wonder you remember the style of a 9 year old.
Re: The nature of "Aql"
Anajmi,
now you are being a cry baby. Please be specific and tell me what argument of mine reminded you of a 9 year old.</I>
Come on now, I think even you would be able to spot those out. Places like confusing drinking with drunken driving, two quite unrelated things. All you tend to do is pull up a strawman and then fight the strawman.
And actually I did hurt you otherwise you wouldn't have been crying about being condemned to hell because of immorality.</I>
Crying about that? I would prefer to be in hell over heaven, at least the biblical hell is less hot than the biblical heaven. Seeing that Islam borrows pretty heavily from there I would think that Islamic hell and Heaven aren't all that different. You can get more info at
<a href="http://paul.merton.ox.ac.uk/science/hell.html"> Is Hell hotter than Heaven? </a>. So hell seems pretty cosy as compared to heaven
.
-N
now you are being a cry baby. Please be specific and tell me what argument of mine reminded you of a 9 year old.</I>
Come on now, I think even you would be able to spot those out. Places like confusing drinking with drunken driving, two quite unrelated things. All you tend to do is pull up a strawman and then fight the strawman.
And actually I did hurt you otherwise you wouldn't have been crying about being condemned to hell because of immorality.</I>
Crying about that? I would prefer to be in hell over heaven, at least the biblical hell is less hot than the biblical heaven. Seeing that Islam borrows pretty heavily from there I would think that Islamic hell and Heaven aren't all that different. You can get more info at
<a href="http://paul.merton.ox.ac.uk/science/hell.html"> Is Hell hotter than Heaven? </a>. So hell seems pretty cosy as compared to heaven
. -N
Re: The nature of "Aql"
Anajmi,
"I just didn't want to continue a lame discussion. "
THANK YOU !
-God Bless
"I just didn't want to continue a lame discussion. "
THANK YOU !
-God Bless
Re: The nature of "Aql"
nausicaa,
> Its rare to get a religious person who can talk reasonably with you without condemning you to hell or telling me how immoral I am.
I'm not sure how to respond to that. I guess I appreciate the challenge of being disagreed with, because it forces me to come to harder and more honest answers about what I believe in. Faith should spring from a seed of doubt...
while I agree with your comments regarding religion as a control mechanism and as a psychological outlet for people which makes them feel better about the world, neither of these makes the concept of religion inherently untrue.
Beyond that, even if all religion (by which I mean institutionalized systems for studying the spiritual) is bogus (an argument which I do think has some merit, even if I don't agree), this does not in itself invalidate the idea of God. Just because people have not constructed effective ways to contemplate God, does not mean God does not exist.
As for your notion that you only find a 1% likelihood of that being the case, I think we have once again entered the realm of subjective opinion. Although if you didn't actually pull that number out of thin air for the sake of argument, I'd be curious as to how you came by it.
Here's something else to throw at you:
"...If you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."
"God is dead." -- Nietzsche
"If God is dead, then everything is permitted."
-- Dostoyevsky
The upshot? If there is no God (by which I do not mean some anthropomorphized father figure), there is nothing, and we are left only with nihilism. All talk of morality and human responsiblity is utter hogwash -- you have the right to do anything you can get away with.
(Some of my friends have expressed that they actually find such a moral void liberating because then what matters is what we decide matters. hmmmm....)
Is this proof that God exists? Absolutely not, nor should it be. But you're right, I am glad that I believe in one, because that belief forms the basis of my ability to believe in everything else.
salaam
> Its rare to get a religious person who can talk reasonably with you without condemning you to hell or telling me how immoral I am.
I'm not sure how to respond to that. I guess I appreciate the challenge of being disagreed with, because it forces me to come to harder and more honest answers about what I believe in. Faith should spring from a seed of doubt...
while I agree with your comments regarding religion as a control mechanism and as a psychological outlet for people which makes them feel better about the world, neither of these makes the concept of religion inherently untrue.
Beyond that, even if all religion (by which I mean institutionalized systems for studying the spiritual) is bogus (an argument which I do think has some merit, even if I don't agree), this does not in itself invalidate the idea of God. Just because people have not constructed effective ways to contemplate God, does not mean God does not exist.
As for your notion that you only find a 1% likelihood of that being the case, I think we have once again entered the realm of subjective opinion. Although if you didn't actually pull that number out of thin air for the sake of argument, I'd be curious as to how you came by it.
Here's something else to throw at you:
"...If you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."
"God is dead." -- Nietzsche
"If God is dead, then everything is permitted."
-- Dostoyevsky
The upshot? If there is no God (by which I do not mean some anthropomorphized father figure), there is nothing, and we are left only with nihilism. All talk of morality and human responsiblity is utter hogwash -- you have the right to do anything you can get away with.
(Some of my friends have expressed that they actually find such a moral void liberating because then what matters is what we decide matters. hmmmm....)
Is this proof that God exists? Absolutely not, nor should it be. But you're right, I am glad that I believe in one, because that belief forms the basis of my ability to believe in everything else.
salaam
Re: The nature of "Aql"
I'm not sure how to respond to that.
Scared of getting a compliment from an unbeliever ?
while I agree with your comments regarding religion as a control mechanism and as a psychological outlet for people which makes them feel better about the world, neither of these makes the concept of religion inherently untrue.
It doesn't make it untrue. I was only responding to your question of what purpose does religion serve.
Just because people have not constructed effective ways to contemplate God, does not mean God does not exist.
Of course, and your argument cuts both ways. It doesn't mean that he exists either. Just because we haven't found effective means to contemplate flying elephants does not mean flying elephants don't exist. You get my point?
As for your notion that you only find a 1% likelihood of that being the case, I think we have once again entered the realm of subjective opinion. Although if you didn't actually pull that number out of thin air for the sake of argument, I'd be curious as to how you came by it.
The one percent figure was just to illusrate the low probability. As to how I came about it I can expand on that for hours. My first doubts came by during very early teens, when I started praying in mosques. I often wondered why this God cares so much about how exactly you stand when you pray, whether you keep your hands folded or apart, whether you touch your nose to the ground or your forehead. It didn't really make sense, I thought one should be a good human being, and that should be all that is to it, do not hurt others needlessly, and all that good stuff. Also, the current state of the world does not lead me to believe that if a God really exists he is a loving one. Thousands of babies die in Iraq and other parts of the world and he just sits by watching gleefully. Thousands of people go to bed hungry. Most of them strong believers. Strong theistic beliefs are much more common among the poor.
Now, when I asked others about it, no one was able to give me a credible answer. Most just point blank said, we do it because we are told to. In my opinion this kind of argument is an argument of a slave. And the thought of being a slave to anyone, even God, is nauseating to me. If there is a God and he gave you a brain, it wouldn't hurt to occasionally use it. Moreover, the most common arguments given by theists for belief in a God are the variants of "Anselm's ontological Argument" or "Pascal's wager" and both have more holes than a fishing net. Something more that put me off from believing a God was actually reading parts of the Quran and Bible. At the risk of offending people here, I'll just say I hadn't seen someone taking such joy in describing torture as the riters of these books had. This was again inconsistent with a loving God.
What also put me off was the anti-science attitude in most religous books, though it is much less in Islam than in Christianity. Questioning and thinking is actively discouraged. As a scientist, this gets my blood pressure up quite a bit.
"...If you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."
"God is dead." -- Nietzsche</I>
I love Neitzsche. I think he was one of the best philosophers of all times.
"If God is dead, then everything is permitted."
-- Dostoyevsky
This does not follow. Everything is permitted even with God's existence. You just have to kinda, sorta pretend that the criminal will get his punishment in the 'next life'. Even though I am an atheist I still know what is right and wrong. I do have my own moral system. It isn't derived from some dude in the sky but its still a valid system.
All talk of morality and human responsiblity is utter hogwash -- you have the right to do anything you can get away with.
This would make more sense if religion actually prevented people from doing anything they want to get away with. I see religion more often being used to justify doing anything that you can get away with. The Hindus who raped and burnt in Gujarat did so with the name of their God on their lips. Jews who lob bombs into Palestinian territories do so by claiming that the land biblically belongs to them. The palestinians who bomb pizza parlors and school buses do with with the name of Allah on their lips. Bush launches his cruise missiles with veiled and not-so-veiled references to God. Everybody seems to fervently want to believe that there is a God and that he is on their side.
Whew. That was a long one . Peace
-N
Scared of getting a compliment from an unbeliever
?while I agree with your comments regarding religion as a control mechanism and as a psychological outlet for people which makes them feel better about the world, neither of these makes the concept of religion inherently untrue.
It doesn't make it untrue. I was only responding to your question of what purpose does religion serve.
Just because people have not constructed effective ways to contemplate God, does not mean God does not exist.
Of course, and your argument cuts both ways. It doesn't mean that he exists either. Just because we haven't found effective means to contemplate flying elephants does not mean flying elephants don't exist. You get my point?
As for your notion that you only find a 1% likelihood of that being the case, I think we have once again entered the realm of subjective opinion. Although if you didn't actually pull that number out of thin air for the sake of argument, I'd be curious as to how you came by it.
The one percent figure was just to illusrate the low probability. As to how I came about it I can expand on that for hours. My first doubts came by during very early teens, when I started praying in mosques. I often wondered why this God cares so much about how exactly you stand when you pray, whether you keep your hands folded or apart, whether you touch your nose to the ground or your forehead. It didn't really make sense, I thought one should be a good human being, and that should be all that is to it, do not hurt others needlessly, and all that good stuff. Also, the current state of the world does not lead me to believe that if a God really exists he is a loving one. Thousands of babies die in Iraq and other parts of the world and he just sits by watching gleefully. Thousands of people go to bed hungry. Most of them strong believers. Strong theistic beliefs are much more common among the poor.
Now, when I asked others about it, no one was able to give me a credible answer. Most just point blank said, we do it because we are told to. In my opinion this kind of argument is an argument of a slave. And the thought of being a slave to anyone, even God, is nauseating to me. If there is a God and he gave you a brain, it wouldn't hurt to occasionally use it. Moreover, the most common arguments given by theists for belief in a God are the variants of "Anselm's ontological Argument" or "Pascal's wager" and both have more holes than a fishing net. Something more that put me off from believing a God was actually reading parts of the Quran and Bible. At the risk of offending people here, I'll just say I hadn't seen someone taking such joy in describing torture as the riters of these books had. This was again inconsistent with a loving God.
What also put me off was the anti-science attitude in most religous books, though it is much less in Islam than in Christianity. Questioning and thinking is actively discouraged. As a scientist, this gets my blood pressure up quite a bit.
"...If you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."
"God is dead." -- Nietzsche</I>
I love Neitzsche. I think he was one of the best philosophers of all times.
"If God is dead, then everything is permitted."
-- Dostoyevsky
This does not follow. Everything is permitted even with God's existence. You just have to kinda, sorta pretend that the criminal will get his punishment in the 'next life'. Even though I am an atheist I still know what is right and wrong. I do have my own moral system. It isn't derived from some dude in the sky but its still a valid system.
All talk of morality and human responsiblity is utter hogwash -- you have the right to do anything you can get away with.
This would make more sense if religion actually prevented people from doing anything they want to get away with. I see religion more often being used to justify doing anything that you can get away with. The Hindus who raped and burnt in Gujarat did so with the name of their God on their lips. Jews who lob bombs into Palestinian territories do so by claiming that the land biblically belongs to them. The palestinians who bomb pizza parlors and school buses do with with the name of Allah on their lips. Bush launches his cruise missiles with veiled and not-so-veiled references to God. Everybody seems to fervently want to believe that there is a God and that he is on their side.
Whew. That was a long one
. Peace-N
Re: The nature of "Aql"
nausicaa,
If comparing drinking and drunken driving is the sign of a 9 year old arguing, how old would I be if I were to compare drinking with driving (a car) and flying (in an airplane) or say if I were to compare excessive drinking of alcohol with excessive drinking of water? I would have to be 4 years old, right??
If comparing drinking and drunken driving is the sign of a 9 year old arguing, how old would I be if I were to compare drinking with driving (a car) and flying (in an airplane) or say if I were to compare excessive drinking of alcohol with excessive drinking of water? I would have to be 4 years old, right??
Re: The nature of "Aql"
nausicaa,
If you do not believe in God, then can you please tell me who created you?
Can you tell me why you were created in the first place?
And o foolish Nausicaa, can you tell me what makes your body move? Is it the soul or is it magic?
And by the way the real world is not this world but the other world(the herafter).
Maulana Ali (AS) says - "this world was not created for itself."
It is because dumb and blind people like you cannot visualise the greatness of God and the fact that in your daily lives you are immersed in great sin that you have chosen to abadon the path of religion.
Sorry will be your plight in the hereafter where you will be made to taste the worst of torments.
If you do not believe in God, then can you please tell me who created you?
Can you tell me why you were created in the first place?
And o foolish Nausicaa, can you tell me what makes your body move? Is it the soul or is it magic?
And by the way the real world is not this world but the other world(the herafter).
Maulana Ali (AS) says - "this world was not created for itself."
It is because dumb and blind people like you cannot visualise the greatness of God and the fact that in your daily lives you are immersed in great sin that you have chosen to abadon the path of religion.
Sorry will be your plight in the hereafter where you will be made to taste the worst of torments.
Re: The nature of "Aql"
Huzaif,
My parents created me. I did not magically appear in the world one day. What makes my body move? hmm...muscular contractions caused by nerves impulses.
Now, huzaif, if you do believe in a God, can you please tell me who created God?
-N
My parents created me. I did not magically appear in the world one day. What makes my body move? hmm...muscular contractions caused by nerves impulses.
Now, huzaif, if you do believe in a God, can you please tell me who created God?
-N
Re: The nature of "Aql"
Just as it is easy for you to believe that no one created the universe, it is easy for the believers to believe that no one created God.
Re: The nature of "Aql"
> can you please tell me who created God
nausicaa,
so, one of my objections to the viewpoints of many of the atheists I have encountered is that they fundamentally view God as a "person," with a personality, and wants, needs, and desires, and a beginning and end. It is my feeling that the most accurate depiction of God is the Buddhist/Hindu conception of the Brahman, the supremely manifest All. Unfortunately, as the Buddha told his initial disciples, this concept is too unreal and abstract to mean anything to the vast majority of people, and the monotheistic religions have instead taken a more anthropomorphic tack to describing God.
My point is simply that I see God as the manifestation of Being itself. To ask who created Him is not even a viable proposal because He is the very essence of reality.
And no, I do not stand behind my choice of pronoun. Yet another flaw in the ability of language to convey the essence of the Infinite.
Can I prove any of this? No, nor do I have any hope to. I do, however, believe it. Just another element of faith, I suppose...
salaam
nausicaa,
so, one of my objections to the viewpoints of many of the atheists I have encountered is that they fundamentally view God as a "person," with a personality, and wants, needs, and desires, and a beginning and end. It is my feeling that the most accurate depiction of God is the Buddhist/Hindu conception of the Brahman, the supremely manifest All. Unfortunately, as the Buddha told his initial disciples, this concept is too unreal and abstract to mean anything to the vast majority of people, and the monotheistic religions have instead taken a more anthropomorphic tack to describing God.
My point is simply that I see God as the manifestation of Being itself. To ask who created Him is not even a viable proposal because He is the very essence of reality.
And no, I do not stand behind my choice of pronoun. Yet another flaw in the ability of language to convey the essence of the Infinite.
Can I prove any of this? No, nor do I have any hope to. I do, however, believe it. Just another element of faith, I suppose...
salaam
Re: The nature of "Aql"
Khairan,
so, one of my objections to the viewpoints of many of the atheists I have encountered is that they fundamentally view God as a "person," with a personality, and wants, needs, and desires, and a beginning and end.
Again, atheists do not believe in a God so they cannot ascribe any properties to him/her/it. The anthropomorphization (love that word) is done by the religious scriptures themselves. For example, Koran talks about Allah as being jealous, loving, vengeful and other human emotions. He wants his children to be kind and other stuff. The wants and desires of God from humans are quite clearly laid down in the Koran, even though they may be contradictory at different points.
It is my feeling that the most accurate depiction of God is the Buddhist/Hindu conception of the Brahman, the supremely manifest All.
There are branches of buddhism that are essentially non-theistic. The world is supposed to run by itself and people are locked into a life-birth cycle until you attain moksha. It is a pretty sublime view and though I like Buddhism (more specifically Zen and Taoism) as a philosophy, I find myself unable to go along with all the mumbo-jumbo that it often contains. It certainly seems to be a healthier way of living life than the other major world religions. As far as Hinduism goes, I think of it as a vast collection of interconnected mythologies, some of which are pretty good, though the religion as practised today doesn't seem to be very uplifting for its practitioners.
Unfortunately, as the Buddha told his initial disciples, this concept is too unreal and abstract to mean anything to the vast majority of people, and the monotheistic religions have instead taken a more anthropomorphic tack to describing God.
As I said earlier, many forms of Buddhism seem to tend towards pantheism. I don't have any particular problems with that.
My point is simply that I see God as the manifestation of Being itself. To ask who created Him is not even a viable proposal because He is the very essence of reality.
Again, I have no problems with that. I cannot absolutely disprove the existence of some God either. Though I can find holes in the descriptions offered by various religions and all that does is tell me that a particular concept of God is wrong, not that there is no God.
A functional definition of theism I once saw is that there is a transcendent, universe-creating, dimention-spanning entity that, for some reason, is terribly obsessed with what I do with my penis.
-N
so, one of my objections to the viewpoints of many of the atheists I have encountered is that they fundamentally view God as a "person," with a personality, and wants, needs, and desires, and a beginning and end.
Again, atheists do not believe in a God so they cannot ascribe any properties to him/her/it. The anthropomorphization (love that word) is done by the religious scriptures themselves. For example, Koran talks about Allah as being jealous, loving, vengeful and other human emotions. He wants his children to be kind and other stuff. The wants and desires of God from humans are quite clearly laid down in the Koran, even though they may be contradictory at different points.
It is my feeling that the most accurate depiction of God is the Buddhist/Hindu conception of the Brahman, the supremely manifest All.
There are branches of buddhism that are essentially non-theistic. The world is supposed to run by itself and people are locked into a life-birth cycle until you attain moksha. It is a pretty sublime view and though I like Buddhism (more specifically Zen and Taoism) as a philosophy, I find myself unable to go along with all the mumbo-jumbo that it often contains. It certainly seems to be a healthier way of living life than the other major world religions. As far as Hinduism goes, I think of it as a vast collection of interconnected mythologies, some of which are pretty good, though the religion as practised today doesn't seem to be very uplifting for its practitioners.
Unfortunately, as the Buddha told his initial disciples, this concept is too unreal and abstract to mean anything to the vast majority of people, and the monotheistic religions have instead taken a more anthropomorphic tack to describing God.
As I said earlier, many forms of Buddhism seem to tend towards pantheism. I don't have any particular problems with that.
My point is simply that I see God as the manifestation of Being itself. To ask who created Him is not even a viable proposal because He is the very essence of reality.
Again, I have no problems with that. I cannot absolutely disprove the existence of some God either. Though I can find holes in the descriptions offered by various religions and all that does is tell me that a particular concept of God is wrong, not that there is no God.
A functional definition of theism I once saw is that there is a transcendent, universe-creating, dimention-spanning entity that, for some reason, is terribly obsessed with what I do with my penis.
-N
Re: The nature of "Aql"
> For example, Koran talks about Allah as being jealous, loving, vengeful and other human emotions.
I see this as a concession made so that people can have something to relate to. Like the Buddha, I think Islam recognizes that people cannot really understand the PanEntity.
The Quran is actually pretty explicit about this, and the idea behind the "qualities" assigned to God is not to limit Him to them but rather to give the believer facets of God to contemplate. All the while, the understanding is that these are not actually an accurate description, and should not be taken as such.
I keep bringing up Buddhism because I find many similarities between core Buddhist philosophy and Islam, right down to the Prophet's mehraj and the Buddha's nirvana. The two religions serve as a fascinating example of how people treat the same basic idea in its abstract and concrete forms.
I see this as a concession made so that people can have something to relate to. Like the Buddha, I think Islam recognizes that people cannot really understand the PanEntity.
The Quran is actually pretty explicit about this, and the idea behind the "qualities" assigned to God is not to limit Him to them but rather to give the believer facets of God to contemplate. All the while, the understanding is that these are not actually an accurate description, and should not be taken as such.
I keep bringing up Buddhism because I find many similarities between core Buddhist philosophy and Islam, right down to the Prophet's mehraj and the Buddha's nirvana. The two religions serve as a fascinating example of how people treat the same basic idea in its abstract and concrete forms.
Re: The nature of "Aql"
> all that does is tell me that a particular concept of God is wrong, not that there is no God.
Well said. Frankly, though I suppose this is not the majority view, I don't think Islam requires anybody to have a single conception of God, or even an Islamic one, so long as the Unity is not disrupted.
But this argument has been had before...
Well said. Frankly, though I suppose this is not the majority view, I don't think Islam requires anybody to have a single conception of God, or even an Islamic one, so long as the Unity is not disrupted.
But this argument has been had before...