Islam and Modern Terrorism - The Divine Solution.

[YALASH]

Peace be on everyone at this forum and all other human as well.
These days, almost on daily basis, somewhere in the world, innocent people are losing their lives in blasts done by planted devices, suicide bombers or by any other way. Unfortunately, most of such life-takers label themselves as Muslims.


A German who remained with terrorists, said that when he reminded the fighters that most chapters of the Koran began with the words "Allah... most merciful".
"I asked: Where is the mercy? I never got the real answer."
Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-30585783

So where these people who even does not their creed, come from? where they get funds from? what is their ultimate motive?......Answers to these questions may have surprising dimensions.


Islam begins with the idea of universal God, as Holy Quran says:
[ch1:v2] All praise for Allah the Lord of all people (all worlds).

Quran calls about Prophet of Islam, he was for all people.
[7:159] Say, ‘O mankind! truly I am a Messenger to you all from Allah to Whom belongs the kingdom of the heavens and the earth. There is no God but He. He gives life, and He causes death. So believe in Allah and His Messenger, the Prophet, the Immaculate one, who believes in Allah and His words; and follow him that you may be rightly guided.’


Thus a true Muslim cannot harm others.


Holy Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be on him) foretold that faith would become very weak in latter days. Quran and he mentioned various signs of latter days; advancement of knowledge, human right awareness, moral decay, heavenly signs etc.


Holy Quran
[ch62:v3] He it is Who has raised among the Unlettered people a Messenger from among themselves who recites unto them His verses, and purifies them, and teaches them the Book and wisdom, although they had been, before, in manifest misguidance;

[ch62:v4]And among others from among them, who have not yet joined them. He is the Mighty, the Wise.

About the above verse,
The Companion Abu Hurairah (may Allah be pleased with him) said:
One day we were sitting with Holy Prophet when Surah Jumua (chapter 62) was revealed. I enquired from the Holy Prophet, Who are the people to whom the words, "And among others who have not yet joined them" Salman, the Persian was sitting among us. Upon my repeated asking him the same question the Holy Prophet put his hand on Salman and said;If faith were to go up to the Pleiades, a man from these would surely find it.
[Ref: Book of Hadith, Bukhari]


While one Islam is on decline, there is another Islam which is on the rise, as per above prophesies.
http://www.religiousforums.com/threads/march-23-1889-the-promised-messiah-the-mahdi-has-come-khilafat-continues-his-peace-mission.185813/#post-4683704


This revival of Islam asks its followers to respect life of all other human, to talk to everyone to bring them closer to God, to worship God such that their worship translate into peace for all humanity, to pray for all humanity, and not use force for faith. This era demands discussion and use of pen and prayers.

[YesNo]

I agree with you that a true Muslim should not harm others, but there must be something in the Koran that is motivating those who commit violence. I'm not familiar enough with the Koran to be able to say much about it.

You could address Christianity in the same way. A true Christian should not be antisemitic and yet their Gospels blame Jews rather than Pilate for the death of Jesus.

[YALASH]

I agree with you that a true Muslim should not harm others, but there must be something in the Koran that is motivating those who commit violence. I'm not familiar enough with the Koran to be able to say much about it.
Peace be on you.
These are terrorist, so they have to do what they have to, they are like the wolf at down end of canal who (when could not find excuse to eat the lamb) found excuse to eat the innocent lamb that why it is drinking before wolf do.

Quran talks about Jihad - the struggle.....At early time, since early Muslims were attacked by sword as soon as they began to impart message. Thus after 13 years of suffering, they were allowed to defend themselves .
True meanings can be found at:
https://www.alislam.org/jihad/

There are people / clergies who interpret to conquer the world by power, obviously it is wrong for religion which claim to be for all world.


You could address Christianity in the same way. A true Christian should not be antisemitic and yet their Gospels blame Jews rather than Pilate for the death of Jesus.

Pilate did his best to save Jesus, chose timings so that he could be removed from cross.
www.alislam.org/topics/jesus/

[fajfall]

The Qur'an states Allah is 'Most Merciful' then details Allah's cruel, completely unnecessary torture of unbelievers in the afterlife for the simple thought 'crime' of not believing that's merciful at all. The Mujahideen in Syria merely cut your head off for a few minutes but Allah burns you alive for eternity, thereby making Muslim terrorists still more merciful than 'Allah'.

[tonywalt]

You have to be a certain type of person to be religious: Lacking curiosity versus cautious and liking routine); conscientiousness (which is defined as being organized, having self-discipline and a sense of duty). Naturally the religious here will resist this, but it is, mostly, what it is.

I notice the many in the religious section of Litnet are, to the best of my knowledge, rarely in the artistic (free thinking!-wow, what a concept) section or even in the literature section. Instead they are here, chewing over texts written by who? - well, who cares. Such a waste of energy, time, and possibilities.

[YesNo]

Pilate did his best to save Jesus, chose timings so that he could be removed from cross.
www.alislam.org/topics/jesus/

I couldn't get to the link. I have heard that Muslims do not think Jesus was actually crucified: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_view_of_Jesus%27_death

My view of Pilate is different. It looks to me as if he was intent on mocking the Jews he ruled. Jesus came into Jerusalem. Pilate took advantage of this knowing the Jewish religious holidays were coming and staged an event to make it look as if the Jewish leaders requested that Jesus be crucified.

One example of Pilate's mocking comes from the Christian text Luke 13:1: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+13:1&version=NKJV


There were present at that season some who told Him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.

As I read that, it appears that Pilate was mocking the blood sacrifices of some Galileans by ordering them killed sacrificially as well.

[YALASH]

The Qur'an states Allah is 'Most Merciful' then details Allah's cruel, completely unnecessary torture of unbelievers in the afterlife for the simple thought 'crime' of not believing that's merciful at all. The Mujahideen in Syria merely cut your head off for a few minutes but Allah burns you alive for eternity, thereby making Muslim terrorists still more merciful than 'Allah'.
Peace be on you friend:
1=Please note, Hell is a corrective place / hospital:
Quran:
[ch101:v9] But as for him whose scales are light,
[ch101:v10] Hell will be his nursing mother.

Holy Prophet (s.a.w.) said:
A time will come when no one will be left in Hell; winds will blow and the windows and doors of Hell will make a rattling noise on account of the blowing winds." [Tafsir-ul-Maalam-ul-Tanzil under verse Hud:107]

So as a person comes out of womb when it is completed, those who have spiritual deficiencies, after proper treatment will be out.

2=Those who are cutting heads of innocents have nothing to do with religion, God and basic humanity. Mere name is nothing.

[Ahmadiyya-Muslim understandings]

[YALASH]

I couldn't get to the link..............
Could you please try this one, http://www.alislam.org/library/articles/Death-on-the-Cross-Slides.pdf

[YALASH]

You have to be a certain type of person to be religious: Lacking curiosity versus cautious and liking routine); conscientiousness (which is defined as being organized, having self-discipline and a sense of duty). Naturally the religious here will resist this, but it is, mostly, what it is.
Peace be on you.
Maybe you saw some religious people with lack of attributes you mentioned, but humbly I assure you, i try not to be among those. Our first prayer (Fajr Salaat demand we wake up well before sunrise).
Curiosity: Try to see what is behind some acts of people and how things work etc.
Self discipline: Avoiding self-praise, but just as example, please see, in these posts, I missed symbols " [/quote] " in a post, it was not a big issue, but next day, fixed it so that the person I was communicating to, may not feel hurt.......

May God help me improve.

I notice the many in the religious section of Litnet are, to the best of my knowledge, rarely in the artistic (free thinking!-wow, what a concept) section or even in the literature section. Instead they are here, chewing over texts written by who? - well, who cares. Such a waste of energy, time, and possibilities.
If art is clean and useful one should have indulgence in it.

[YesNo]

Could you please try this one, http://www.alislam.org/library/articles/Death-on-the-Cross-Slides.pdf

That is a very detailed account of how Jesus might have escaped crucifixion with his ultimate burial in Kashimir. I can see the motivation for not wanting Jesus to die crucified since it would imply he was defeated and therefore not a prophet by some people's expectations. However, given the resurrection, the Christian position is more powerful if he actually died on the cross.

To test the theory that he didn't actually die on the cross, What do you make of the reported events where he appeared after the resurrection out of nowhere to people in a room to show one of his disciples his wounds or vanished while eating a meal? This appearing and vanishing is not the way people normally enter and exit a place.

The view of Pilate is also too tame. Here is a another view of Pilate where he is portrayed as not concerned with saving Jesus: http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/videos/pontius-pilate/

I don't completely agree with that view either, but it comes closer to what I think is true. I see Pilate as sadistic and perhaps self-righteously intent on humiliating a people he considered barbarian compared with his advanced, modern, civilized Roman culture.

Both your view and the one I cited assume that Jewish leaders handed Jesus over to be crucified. That doesn't ring true to me. Crucifixions were meant to terrorize the population. I would need to see evidence that Jewish leaders handed other people over to be crucified. I think they could find easier ways to kill someone.

Jesus stood out because he was popular. When Jesus entered Jerusalem he attracted crowds. Pilate noticed this. He knew about the coming Jewish holidays. He intended to humiliate all of those barbarous, uncivilized Jewish people by crucifying Jesus, a popular religious figure, on their religious holiday. In addition he would make it look as if the Jewish leaders requested this to alienate those leaders from other Jews who followed Jesus. This would cause internal conflict. That internal conflict led to antisemitism.

[fajfall]

@yaslah: no the qur'an is unequivocal that unbelievers will be hell forever. A made-up Hadith of a heretical sect won't change the Qur'an.

Ahmadiyya are heretics and therefore rejecting them (peacefully or by killing them, both are acceptable Islamic interpretations depending on whom you ask) is acceptable of pious Muslims. The founder of the Ahmadiyya sect died on the toilet, a divine sign to other Muslims that he was a false teacher. If all Muslims would be Ahmadiyyas and Ismailis the world would be a better place but 1.5 billion Muslims rightly view them as heretics because their teachings contradict the Qur'an, the Sunnah, and History.

[YALASH]

@yaslah: no the qur'an is unequivocal that unbelievers will be hell forever. A made-up Hadith of a heretical sect won't change the Qur'an.
Peace be on you.
1=Friend, may I humbly direct your attention to post # 7 above.
In post # 7, the basic proof is given from Holy Quran that hell is temporary.

Quote form post # 7
Please note, Hell is a corrective place / hospital:
Quran:
[ch101:v9] But as for him whose scales are light,
[ch101:v10] Hell will be his nursing mother.

The transliteration of verse [101:10] is:
"fa-ummohu havia"
i.e thus hell will be his (nursing) mother.

Hadith was supportive.


2=May I point out that just like this above missing a major argument, your subsequent notes are not correct.



Ahmadiyya are heretics
All reformation-movements are called so. You can see Holinesses Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad. All kind of things were said for them and their early communities. Latter times show, they were the rights, others were wrong.




and therefore rejecting them (peacefully or by killing them, both are acceptable Islamic interpretations depending on whom you ask) is acceptable of pious Muslims.
One of the misunderstandings, which found the ways in Islam was killing those who are not liked.
It is true that some orthodox-clergy-driven Muslims kill them, but does Islam say so? No.
True Islam does not teach to kill anyone whom you do not agree.
Wrong acts of certain people is not a licence to kill.



The founder of the Ahmadiyya sect died on the toilet, a divine sign to other Muslims that he was a false teacher.
Sorry, you said so. No such thing happened.

A gentleman writer Mr. Iain Adamson mentions details of his passing away in his book [Ahmad the guided one]
http://www.alislam.org/library/books/guidedone/?page=329#top

Please think by using common sense, were the opponents allowed to be inside a house when a person was ill and passing away.

On the contrary, in Quran, God told and fixed a rule of thumb:
God told about Holy Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.) :
[69:44] It is a revelation from the Lord of the worlds.
[69:45] And if he had forged and attributed any sayings to Us,
[69:46] We would surely have seized him by the right hand,
[69:47] And then surely We would have severed his life-artery,
[69:48] And not one of you could have held Us off from him.
[69:49] And verily it is a reminder for the righteous.


Ahmadiyya Promised Reformer, received, published and continued to mention revelations from God
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tadhkirah_(Ahmadiyya)

God did not finished him as promised in above verses, it shows the holy man and his claim was right. At the time of his death in 1908, he had about 300,000 followers in India, now they are in millions worldwide under his Khilafat, they officially present in 209 countries. They are trying to talk and do peace. His Khilafat is struggling to bring peace in the world:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5fyRMDMrNU

While the other so called Khilafat is busy chopping heads of innocent Muslims and non-Muslims.

I humbly request to your inner noble heart to see where the truth stands!



If all Muslims would be Ahmadiyyas and Ismailis the world would be a better place but 1.5 billion Muslims rightly view them as heretics because their teachings contradict the Qur'an, the Sunnah, and History.

Thank you. You decided by yourself.
I assure you, Quran, Sunnah and History stands with the Promised reformers.
You are most welcome to check at www.alislam.org and www.mta.tv [official sites] and see anything against true religion, Islam, inter-faith harmony, humanity, humanitarian services and values and right arguments.

Very good wishes.

[YesNo]

I would not think worse of someone if they died on a toilet or died on a cross or died in a crowded area where a suicide bomber killed himself. I would not look at these deaths as a sign from God that they are not to be trusted.

However, if someone blows himself up in a crowded market place, that person has almost immediately negated any philosophical or religious position they might have professed while alive. By their actions, they have witnessed to the falsity of their beliefs.

I think this is what YALASH is trying to work around. Muslim terrorists are proving by their actions that the Muslim religion is a false religion. He is offering an alternative.

[fajfall]

Qur'an states hell is eternal for non-Muslims, without a doubt:

33:64 Lo! Allah hath cursed the disbelievers, and hath prepared for them a flaming fire, Allah has cursed the disbelievers, and has prepared for them a flaming fire, wherein they will abide forever.
The Fire
33:65 Wherein they will abide for ever. They will find (then) no protecting friend nor helper.

I don't see how exploding yourself in a marketplace is any worse than attacking villages, towns and cities with swords, which historically kills far more civilians. It's mind boggling that people deny terrorists are pious Muslims when the terrorists themselves are doing it for Islam just as Muslims have always historically done.

[desiresjab]

All religions are false, they are made up. The moslems do not have a lock on terrorism or stupidity, though they are the world leaders right now. Moslem enlightenment is about equal to the pilgrims at Plymouth Rock. They are far behind and proud of it. The only thing they can offer the world right now that it needs is oil. Too many people holding onto and taking ancient hogwash deadly seriously and making up their own out of it remains a major problem for the world, not just the moslem world.

I am ashamed when my own family starts their christian hogwash. Why would I feel differently about a stranger spouting moslem offal? Ancient goat herders high on unrefrigerated cheese did not have any secrets to reveal. Driveling followers have been testing their ancient garbage for thousands of years. It doesn't work, otherwise someone would have had a prayer answered by now.

And God said: Do this thing daily, morning, noon and night, from which you will never see any results. Keep doing it, like a rat running the wrong ramp until you drop.

All these little gods--Allah and Jehovah et al, they are really so local it is pathetic. They originate from goat villages. Ha! Ha! Why, they are no better than a Roman household god like Lars, puny little monkey gods of monkey men.

Everyone drop your holy books and get some real work done. Read something worthwhile instead of pouring over foolish texts full of physical and social nonsense. You could draw notions out of a hat at random and come up with a religion superior to earthly examples.

If the Koran is that peaceful, it means the moslems cannot be trusted with their own texts. Those texts are too dangerous because they drive moslems mad, like a bad drug.

What the world needs and is going to give is some good, old fashioned moslem mangling. We will shut our doors to them, as we should, and maul the terrorism out of them abroad.

[YesNo]

The only thing they can offer the world right now that it needs is oil.

Last I heard is we don't want any more of their oil.

[YesNo]

Qur'an states hell is eternal for non-Muslims, without a doubt:


I really don't care what the Koran says. Or the Bible. YALASH's version of hell is not eternal and it is more like a nurturing hospital. I like that idea better.

[desiresjab]

Last I heard is we don't want any more of their oil.

I said the world.

[desiresjab]

I really don't care what the Koran says. Or the Bible. YALASH's version of hell is not eternal and it is more like a nurturing hospital. I like that idea better.

I do too. I find it much easier to accept. One difference between you and me is I don't run out to shout I believe that, every time I hear a good idea. You run from thread to thread proclaiming you believe all matter is conscious because you say electrons are obviously making choices when we ask them questions.

Be a wave, now, if you want cherry pie and become a particle if you prefer apple. Be a wave if you believe in the doctrine of Free Will but a particle if are convinced of determinism. Electrons can answer all kinds of deep questions for us, it appears. Should I marry? Hmmm., the particle form says yes.

I believe your first necessary step is to convince anyone that electrons are being asked questions. I am not convinced of that. Something besides a binary result is preferable. When I ask a cannonball if it wants to fall, it always makes the same decision when I drop it. Cannonballs are stubborn, though.

[Ecurb]

All religions are false, they are made up. .

It is possible that some religions, especially those for which key texts were the work of one author (The Book of Mormon or the Quran, for example) are "made up". The term "made up" implies "fictional" -- intentional invention by a single author. However, most religions are traditional, and their texts are based on oral traditions which combine history, poetry, and supernatural claims (among other things). They are not "made up" by anyone.

In addition, many aspects of religion cannot be reasonably called either "true" or "false". It would be silly to apply those words to rituals like confession, or meditation, or singing in church.

Did Homer "make up" the Iliad? He probably added his personal and poetic touches to the story, but the story was traditional and historical (at least, meant to be historical).

Religion is like language. Esperanto was "made up". English "developed". Few doubt language is a human creation (hence language courses at universities are "Humanities", like courses in Religion). Since desiresjab seems to despise "made up" things, it's surprising to see him posting on a literature board; novels and poems are "made up" (although religion is not). As for Gods being "puny", dj's description of them as such defies history, reason, and common sense. Allah and Jehovah loom gigantically over the world of both the devout and the atheistic, for better or for worse.

[YesNo]

I said the world.

That probably goes for the world as well considering the price of oil.

I didn't understand your other post about "believing" and "being a wave" now and then "being a particle" later, so I'll just skip it. It's OK with me if you want to believe something or if you want to believe you don't believe anything.

[ennison]

"Moslem mangling" might be the alliterative panacea to your world's ills, not mine. You're parochial to me pal

[tailor STATELY]

Ecurb: "It is possible that some religions, especially those for which key texts were the work of one author (The Book of Mormon or the Quran, for example) are "made up"."

Author (wikipedia): "An author is broadly defined as "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility for what was created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work and can also be described as a writer."

I can't speak for the Quran, perhaps more enlightened readers may be more informed and weigh in, but it is also possible that they are works inspired by God, as I believe, brought forth by prophets of God.

The Book of Mormon, Another Testament of Jesus Christ was written by many writers, abridged by one writer, and translated vocally by one individual to a scribe (I believe a total of 3-scribes total were used, one at a time) https://www.lds.org/ensign/2011/10/who-wrote-the-book-of-mormon?lang=eng

Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY

[desiresjab]

It is possible that some religions, especially those for which key texts were the work of one author (The Book of Mormon or the Quran, for example) are "made up". The term "made up" implies "fictional" -- intentional invention by a single author. However, most religions are traditional, and their texts are based on oral traditions which combine history, poetry, and supernatural claims (among other things). They are not "made up" by anyone.

In addition, many aspects of religion cannot be reasonably called either "true" or "false". It would be silly to apply those words to rituals like confession, or meditation, or singing in church.

Did Homer "make up" the Iliad? He probably added his personal and poetic touches to the story, but the story was traditional and historical (at least, meant to be historical).

Religion is like language. Esperanto was "made up". English "developed". Few doubt language is a human creation (hence language courses at universities are "Humanities", like courses in Religion). Since desiresjab seems to despise "made up" things, it's surprising to see him posting on a literature board; novels and poems are "made up" (although religion is not). As for Gods being "puny", dj's description of them as such defies history, reason, and common sense. Allah and Jehovah loom gigantically over the world of both the devout and the atheistic, for better or for worse.

I insist all religions are made up. They are mere guesses reacting with events of nature like thunder and death, installed as fact. The rituals and confessions et al were made up afterwards, that does not make them any less made up, even if someone insists they were "inspired." Storytellers used to be in charge of explaining the universe, remember? Superstition, then its cousin religion (which is superstition taken to belief) became the official storyteller. We folk have been at it for a long time. Maybe that is why humans are fantastic storytellers--we learned it from those who made up the universe out of personal notions and perceptions of nature.

In the mid 16th century it was determined by the council of Trent that salvation was acheived through grace + good works. Someone had received word from on high. But someone else--the new protestants--had gotten a different word from on high--salvation is acheived through grace alone.

How about this? Neither one of them has the slightest idea what they are talking about. They do not know if there is any salvation, because they do not know if there is even a god. Of course that does not stop them. It makes them go the harder. They must make up hundreds of rituals, define heresy, create decrees, issue proclamations and condemnations, pray, confess, face east, kneel, genuflex, avert their eyes, mollify Heammawihio, all because that exactly is what the creator prescribed, that is the precise inspiration someone at some time got from on high. Why else decree that everyone perform the ritual, if the message is not inspired from on high?

It was not enough to say: It is a nice symbolic gesture to face the kaaba while we pray. Instead, it must be so if you wish to please God the maximum and not get his ire up. If you are mistakenly praying west, then suddenly turn east, God is immediately more pleased and responsive to your spirit. Continue facing west, and a more devout moslem of the temple may justifiably whet his scimitar as he eyes your scrawny neck.

The King James bible is supposed to be inspired, too, if you ask the right people. They will tell you every word is as God wanted it because he saw to that himself. Hogwash to that as well.

Fiction is wonderful, but not for defining physical laws. We came up with something better for that, but creaation tales and "instructions" from old books are still taken seriously though shown to be hogwash i.e., irrelevant to any physical laws or good sense.

Long, narrative fiction is a high acheivement in language on both sides of the word. The value of the Bible and other ancient religious texts is that they offer insights into the way people of particular ancient cultures lived, often in a chronoglically datable fashion applicable to wider contexts, not because they are still good models to believe and write social ordinance upon. To be a reasonable person and yet a modern follower of one of the major religions, one must discard so much the Book instructs is true, why even call one's self a christian or moslem anymore? Devotees can reject the mythologies of all but their own religion.

Most forthright christians, for instance, would have to check off a long list of biblical declarations they do not take literally. The same is true in any religion. God meant something other than what folks thought before; they did not realize God was speaking symbolically.

We have Odin and Zeus in their proper place, but we just cannot get the same job done with Jehovah and Allah.

[tailor STATELY]

desiresjab : "I insist all religions are made up."

Opinion... nuff said.

Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY

[desiresjab]

I didn't understand your other post about "believing" and "being a wave" now and then "being a particle" later, so I'll just skip it. It's OK with me if you want to believe something or if you want to believe you don't believe anything.

What I believe is you have to first demonstrate that a question is really being asked by the placement of slits and observation relays.

[desiresjab]

That probably goes for the world as well considering the price of oil.

It's OK with me if you want to believe something or if you want to believe you don't believe anything.

I believe two is the successor of one, don't I? I believe all propositions true anywhere in mathematics would have equivalencies in any possible universe, don't I?

Do you call that nothing?

Those are things that simply must be believed in. I do not know of anything else that simply must be believed in for every universe, even the laws of chemistry.

I have a high opinion of fiction--too high to drone on for paragraph after paragraph about why or what it is.

[YesNo]

I believe two is the successor of one, don't I? I believe all propositions true anywhere in mathematics would have equivalencies in any possible universe, don't I?

Do you call that nothing?

Those are things that simply must be believed in. I do not know of anything else that simply must be believed in for every universe, even the laws of chemistry.

I have a high opinion of fiction--too high to drone on for paragraph after paragraph about why or what it is.

I'm puzzled by your references to mathematics as something you believe in, but maybe what you believe in is that mathematics is not only a model of reality, but it also is reality. I'll take an example from Jimena Canales' book, "The Physicist and the Philosopher". Do you believe that time is a continuum of instants in reality? In mathematical models it is such a continuum, but is the mathematical model more than a model? It it real? After reading Canales' book, it is not something I believe in.

Mathematical models are true in any universe just like the rules for playing chess are true in any universe. You claim that you believe in these rules to play the game of chess or the games of mathematics, but it is not something one normally "believes" to be true. It is something one "assumes" to be true. If one wants to play those games, one has to make the appropriate assumptions, that is, play by the rules of the game.

What requires a major leap of credulity is to believe that real kings and queens move in the real world the way chess pieces move. Most people have enough sense not to believe that even though they accept the rules of chess. What requires a similarly major leap of credulity, which many people actually do make, is to claim that the mathematical continuum of time is not only in the mathematical model, but also in the real world. But is it? That was the whole debate between Einstein and Bergson in the 20th century that Canales described.

Let's see if I can bring this digression back to the point of the thread. YALASH is trying to argue in favor of the Muslim religion as his group of Muslims practice it in spite of the existence of terrorism caused by other Muslims. He rejects this terrorism. He interprets the Koran differently than other Muslims.

I could view the Koran as a "game" or a "model" of reality much like a mathematical model providing an understanding of reality. Can one play the Koran game without resorting to terrorism? I think one should be able to do that although I think there may be problems with some players of the Koran game that lead them to terrorism, just like some players of the Christian Gospels game become antisemitic. However, one can play the Christian Gospels game or model of reality without resorting to antisemitism since not all Christians are antisemitic.

[YALASH]

Qur'an states hell is eternal for non-Muslims, without a doubt:

33:64 Lo! Allah hath cursed the disbelievers, and hath prepared for them a flaming fire, Allah has cursed the disbelievers, and has prepared for them a flaming fire, wherein they will abide forever.
The Fire
33:65 Wherein they will abide for ever. They will find (then) no protecting friend nor helper.

......
Peace be on you.
Quran is in Arabic, when such issue raises, original words should be seen:

There is no doubt that the abiding of evil-doers in hell is mentioned in some verses of the Holy Quran to be for "abad " which sometimes means prospective eternity, but " abad" also signifies a long time. And there are numerous passages in the Holy Quran showing that those in hell shall ultimately be taken out.

Thus, in ch. 6: v. 129, the Quran says: "God said, Verily the fire is your resort to dwell therein unless thy Lord will it otherwise, verily, thy Lord is wise and knowing." On another occasion, those in hell are spoken of as "staying therein for years" (ch. 78: v. 23). The original word is "Ahqab" which is the plural of "huqub", meaning a year or years, or seventy or eighty years, or a long time (see Lanes Arabic Lexicon).
Ref: https://www.alislam.org/library/links/00000017.html

[desiresjab]

I'm puzzled by your references to mathematics as something you believe in, but maybe what you believe in is that mathematics is not only a model of reality, but it also is reality.

Mathematics is that which cannot be otherwise. It is the only thing I know of which cannot be otherwise. It is not a model of anything. You are confusing mathematics with mathematical models, something you scold others for. Bad boy. Many features of the universe seem to follow in the shadow of mathematics. Now is that surprising, given that mathematics is that which cannot be otherwise?


Do you believe that time is a continuum of instants in reality?

I do not have an opinion on this, let alone a belief. I would not mind having one.


In mathematical models it is such a continuum, but is the mathematical model more than a model? It it real?

It doesn't have to be more to be real. It is no pine tree, but it is real, just like the rules of chess are real, to use your own example. It was a good example. Too bad you fouled the development of it up with your dadburned biases and misconceptions.


Mathematical models are true in any universe just like the rules for playing chess are true in any universe.

There you go, confusing the two again. You old sophist. Mathematics is true in any universe. Models are something we build.


You claim that you believe in these rules to play the game of chess or the games of mathematics, but it is not something one normally "believes" to be true. It is something one "assumes" to be true. If one wants to play those games, one has to make the appropriate assumptions, that is, play by the rules of the game.

There was a huge, pointless discussion over whether mathematics is a story. Please, no, not another one over whether it is a game.

In Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man, there is a beautiful phrase: The ineluctable modality of the visible, which occurs in the thoughts of Daedalus as he walks the beach.

Math is the ineluctable modality of the abstract. There may be other ineluctable modalities as well, I just don't know about them.


What requires a major leap of credulity is to believe that real kings and queens move in the real world the way chess pieces move. Most people have enough sense not to believe that even though they accept the rules of chess.

What is this red herring? Ineluctable does not mean easy. As Russel famously said,

"...it must have required many ages to discover that a brace of pheasants and a couple of days were both instances of the number two."


What requires a similarly major leap of credulity, which many people actually do make, is to claim that the mathematical continuum of time is not only in the mathematical model, but also in the real world. But is it? That was the whole debate between Einstein and Bergson in the 20th century that Canales described.

I guess people do. You know that I don't. Irrational and transcendental points exist as abstractions on the number line. They exist in this universe as ideals that only get approximated when translated to number line space. How they might apply or not to the nature of time is an open question, which is why two giants were not able to settle it.

We can divide any interval of time ad infinitum on paper. Whether or not time itself is so divisible is one of those big questions that may never be answered but only "remodeled" from time to time.


I could view the Koran as a "game" or a "model" of reality much like a mathematical model providing an understanding of reality

You could, but it would be a waste of time. The Koran and Bible are not part of an ineluctable modality of the visible or of the abstract. Their so called truths are opinions, that cannot be proven to anyone. I can prove to anyone that two is the successor of one, or that person is a halfwit. The small scraps of practical advice in the aforementioned texts is far outweighed by the abundance of blathering nonsense passed off as wisdom.


Can one play the Koran game without resorting to terrorism?

One could even play the love game without resorting to love. Who wants to?


I think one should be able to do that although I think there may be problems with some players of the Koran game that lead them to terrorism, just like some players of the Christian Gospels game become antisemitic. However, one can play the Christian Gospels game or model of reality without resorting to antisemitism since not all Christians are antisemitic.

First a story, then a game, maybe next a dance.

Religion has only lasted in a superficial sense. Politicians must claim a religion. No one believes the hogwash anymore, but old institutions die hard and slow. Look how long it is taking the U.S. to adapt to the metric system. That's peanuts.

The import and impact of religion will continue waning among the masses. The Bible and Koran will be trimmed to the size of first volumes of poetry for the flash generations ahead, and be better for it.

Just as normal believers from Plymouth Rock would be considered fanatics today, normal believers from today will be considered fanatics in 100 years due to the acceleration of social evolution. In 300 years this stuff will seem as far behind us as Greek and Norse mythology are now. The general consensus on anyone who takes religion seriously will be they are a fanatic or a halfwit, at vey best an eccentric.

[fajfall]

Hell is eternal in Islam, no doubt:

Qur'an 39:72:
“Enter the gates of Hell to abide eternally therein, and wretched is the residence of the arrogant.”

2:167
"and those that followed say, 'O if only we might return again and disown them, as they have disowned us!' Even so God shall show them their works. O bitter regrets for them! Never shall they issue from the Fire"

"As to those who reject Faith, - if they had everything on earth, and twice repeated, to give as ransom for the penalty of the Day of Judgment, it would never be accepted of them, theirs would be a grievous penalty. Their wish will be to get out of the Fire, but NEVER will they get out therefrom: their penalty will be one that endures." 5:36-37

"Taste ye then - for ye forgot the Meeting of this Day of yours, and We too will forget you - taste ye the Penalty of Eternity for your (evil) deeds!" S. 32:14

"Such is the requital of the enemies of Allah,- the Fire: therein will be for them the Eternal Home: a (fit) requital, for that they were wont to reject Our Signs." 41:28

"Enter ye therein in Peace and Security; this is a Day of Eternal Life!" 50:34

"If they accuse thee of falsehood, say: "Your Lord is full of mercy all-embracing; but from people in guilt never will His wrath be turned back." 6:147

---------

If these are misunderstandings or mistranslations of the Qur'an, even though Arabic scholars have for 1,400 years taught that the Qur'an says hell is eternal, then the Qur'an's a very poorly written book because it can't state this simple matter without error. It's therefore far from the 'perfect', 'divine' book it claims to be. In fact the Qur'an claims to be so miraculous that it challenges anyone to write a single sentence as good, let alone better, than it. Well here we go:

"Hell is temporary. All the dead return to their creator eternally in paradise"

There I've now defeated the Qur'an's challenge, as my statement is clear and therefore more 'miraculous'.

[YesNo]

Mathematics is that which cannot be otherwise. It is the only thing I know of which cannot be otherwise. It is not a model of anything. You are confusing mathematics with mathematical models, something you scold others for. Bad boy. Many features of the universe seem to follow in the shadow of mathematics. Now is that surprising, given that mathematics is that which cannot be otherwise?

So is any game, like chess. The rules of those games cannot be otherwise.



It doesn't have to be more to be real. It is no pine tree, but it is real, just like the rules of chess are real, to use your own example. It was a good example. Too bad you fouled the development of it up with your dadburned biases and misconceptions.

There you go, confusing the two again. You old sophist. Mathematics is true in any universe. Models are something we build.

You have a point. Let me rephrase. "Mathematics or games like chess are true in any universe."



There was a huge, pointless discussion over whether mathematics is a story. Please, no, not another one over whether it is a game.

In Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man, there is a beautiful phrase: The ineluctable modality of the visible, which occurs in the thoughts of Daedalus as he walks the beach.

Math is the ineluctable modality of the abstract. There may be other ineluctable modalities as well, I just don't know about them.

I don't know what an "ineluctable modality" is. All I am concerned about is whether we (including myself) confuse the models we construct (mathematical or religious) for reality.



What is this red herring? Ineluctable does not mean easy. As Russel famously said,

"...it must have required many ages to discover that a brace of pheasants and a couple of days were both instances of the number two."

This is one reason we feel we can trust mathematics. When we talk about finite things they match reality rather well. The model seems to work flawlessly as your quote above points out.

Then we assume (believe) mathematics is right about everything, such as, whether space really is Euclidean or whether it really is Riemannian or whether the Earth is the center of the universe or whether the Sun really is the center of the universe or whether time can be split into infinitesimal instants or whether there are "many worlds" because using one's imagination strongly enough one could interpret the Schrodinger wave function as claiming they exist in reality.

But that's not the worst.

The worse sort of trust in mathematics comes when we think we need nothing but mathematics to explain reality. Then we start assuming that we could download our consciousness into a computer or that we are deterministic or that our subjectivity doesn't matter because it is an epiphenomenon of some hypothetical objective substructure.

From Russell's finite observation comes two errors: (1) belief that reality contains mathematical infinities and continuity, and (2) belief that all of reality can be modeled using mathematics including our subjectivity.



I guess people do. You know that I don't. Irrational and transcendental points exist as abstractions on the number line. They exist in this universe as ideals that only get approximated when translated to number line space. How they might apply or not to the nature of time is an open question, which is why two giants were not able to settle it.

We can divide any interval of time ad infinitum on paper. Whether or not time itself is so divisible is one of those big questions that may never be answered but only "remodeled" from time to time.

I agree.



You could, but it would be a waste of time. The Koran and Bible are not part of an ineluctable modality of the visible or of the abstract. Their so called truths are opinions, that cannot be proven to anyone.

The way I see it the Koran and the Bible are like mathematics in the sense that they try to objectify a map of reality to guide us through life. The errors occur when we take these maps literally. The reason we can't expect to take any map or model literally is because we cannot objectify completely our subjectivity, we can't download ourselves into a computer.

I know that some people, but not all, who think they represent science or mathematics believe that they are superior to religious people. They think they have found a more solid ground. However, both these scientists and religious people use models whether mathematical or religious. In both groups belief is required to go from model to an assertion that reality is just like that model.

The reason why religious models (like the Koran and the Bible) will continue is because those scientists who think they have all the answers and who think their answers are the only possible answers have not answered the more basic, subjective questions about life that these religious models actually do answer. All these scientists have done is posit that those subjective questions that real people have and that they cannot answer are questions that are not worth answering. However, dismissing a question about a subjective concern, say, what is the meaning of life, of my life, by asserting that such a question is not meaningful is not a meaningful answer.

[Ecurb]

I insist all religions are made up. They are mere guesses reacting with events of nature like thunder and death, installed as fact. The rituals and confessions et al were made up afterwards, that does not make them any less made up, even if someone insists they were "inspired." Storytellers used to be in charge of explaining the universe, remember?

Well, yes, your insistence has been noted. Muslim Jihadists insist that they are doing the work of God and that once they blow themselves to smithereens they will be rewarded in heaven. Your insistence and theirs are about equally persuasive.

Zeus does, occasionally, toss some thunderbolts about. However, it would be silly for anyone who has read Greek Mythology to think that Zeus is no more than a "mere guess reacting (to) thunder". How is the Jovial character a "reaction to thunder"? What about his many escapades that have nothing to do with thunder or any other explanations of natural phenomena? His rape (or seduction) of Leda engendered Helen, the "face that launched a thousand ships and burnt the topless towers of Ilium." It inspired W.B. Yeats to write:



A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.

How can those terrified vague fingers push
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
And how can body, laid in that white rush,
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?

A shudder in the loins engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead.
Being so caught up,
So mastered by the brute blood of the air,
Did she put on his knowledge with his power
Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?


How, I wonder, does this story, or Yeats reaction to it, compete with science or provide supernatural explanations for thunder or other natural phenomena we now explain scientifically?

As for the rituals of religion being "made up afterwards", this is a mere guess on your part (your antipathy for supernatural "guesses" about nature does not preclude your own guessing). In fact, the relation of myth and ritual has been a subject of discussion and disagreement among those who have actually studied religion (some even call themselves scientists). Some think that rituals preceded myths and that many myths developed not as explanations of natural phenomena, but as explanations of rituals. Here's a Wiki link to a brief discussion on the long history of the debate (although the article's discussion ends with references from many decades ago, the debate continues). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_and_ritual

When we look at the religion most of us know best, Christianity, your "explanation" of religion as a sort of primitive alternative to science continues to lack credibility. Despite that troublesome initial chapter in Genesis, the rest of the bible seems generally uninterested in "explaining" natural phenomena. Instead (tiresome non-scientific tome that it is) it gives quasi-historical accounts of the Hebrew people; poetry; several biographies of Jesus, concentrating mainly on what He says rather than on the mundane facts of His life; and letters of Paul outlining ancient Christian theology. One page (even if it is the first one) in a book thousands of pages long hardly provides convincing evidence that the book consists primarily of "mere guesses reacting with events of nature".

P.s. to Tailer Stately: I have only the vaguest notion about how the Book of Mormon (or the Quran) came into existence. In general, literature in pre-literate times was communal: myths (i.e. historical stories with some supernatural facets) were passed on from generation to generation. IN the case of the gospels (for example) we know that they were not written down until 60 years (or whatever) after Jesus' death. So they survived for some time as oral histories. The letters of Paul (by contrast) are not oral histories (myths). They are works of theology that Paul (it would be reasonable to say) "made up". My only point -- not to disparage either the Quran or the Book of Mormon -- was to insist that communal oral literature was not "made up" in the sense that fiction is, and, indeed, cannot have been.

[desiresjab]

I think you are still ignoring key points because they do not fit your agenda. The rules of chess are entirely arbitrary. We could have written any rules we chose. The laws of mathematics are not arbitrary. They cannot be otherwise. We made the chess board and pieces up.

The basis of numbers was counting. No one said: "Two as the successor of one sounds interesting, I think I will include it in my new game Mathematics." That concept was already an ineluctable modality of the abstract as well as the visible. We could not have it any old way we pleased. That is hardly the same thing as "a bishop may only move diagonally on the same color." There is nothing ineluctable about the latter. We made it up. We did not make up that "two is the successor of one." That is the way we found things. The language is ours, the implicit ideal precedes any language.

You are campaigning hard to categorize mathematics as "just another game." You will not get it on a level playing field with other games. It is the only game in town. Chess and cards are not ineluctable modalities of the abstract.


The way I see it the Koran and the Bible are like mathematics in the sense that they try to objectify a map of reality to guide us through life.

The Koran and the Bible are some pitiful maps. Mathematics may only address a tiny sliver of reality's wider context, but it does that much accurately.

Religion is superstition on steroids.

[desiresjab]

"Moslem mangling" might be the alliterative panacea to your world's ills, not mine. You're parochial to me pal

Get your program
For tonight's pogrom.

[YesNo]

I think you are still ignoring key points because they do not fit your agenda. The rules of chess are entirely arbitrary. We could have written any rules we chose. The laws of mathematics are not arbitrary. They cannot be otherwise. We made the chess board and pieces up.

It doesn't matter whether the laws of mathematics are made up or discovered. The question is can they be taken literally? For example, is time as we experience it literally a mathematical continuum consisting of infinitesimal instants? Does the Schrodinger wave function literally mean that every choice that occurs pops into existence multiple universes?

It is the belief in the literalness of these maps, whether mathematical or religious, that gets people into trouble.



The basis of numbers was counting. No one said: "Two as the successor of one sounds interesting, I think I will include it in my new game Mathematics." That concept was already an ineluctable modality of the abstract as well as the visible. We could not have it any old way we pleased. That is hardly the same thing as "a bishop may only move diagonally on the same color." There is nothing ineluctable about the latter. We made it up. We did not make up that "two is the successor of one." That is the way we found things. The language is ours, the implicit ideal precedes any language.

I don't understand why you consider mathematics to be something special? Forget the "ineluctable" part. I can't even pronounce that word, let alone make sense out of it. I suspect you consider mathematics to be a kind of "sacred" text supporting a belief in the primacy of unconscious reality.



You are campaigning hard to categorize mathematics as "just another game." You will not get it on a level playing field with other games. It is the only game in town. Chess and cards are not ineluctable modalities of the abstract.

That sounds like members of one religion trying to come up with a justification that the sacred texts of some other religion are not as good as their own sacred texts.

When you say that mathematics is "the only game in town", I recall seeing Christians (some decades ago and I don't know if they still do this) put their index fingers in the air proclaiming that Jesus is the only way. Since I was younger and more hot-headed in those days that arrogance made me want to put my middle finger in the air, but are they any different from mathematicians who can't see the limits of their texts?

Why do people think that only their texts are "ineluctable"?



The Koran and the Bible are some pitiful maps. Mathematics may only address a tiny sliver of reality's wider context, but it does that much accurately.

Religion is superstition on steroids.

The problem is mathematics has nothing to offer to replace the Koran or the Bible. As you admit, mathematics "can only address a tiny sliver of reality's wider context". If that really is the case, and I agree with you that it is, on what ground do you claim that "religion is superstition on steroids"? What mathematics provide a justification of that?

What is worse, mathematics leads to an extraordinary bedevilment when it is taken literally. Innocent, but naive, people start thinking that they are living in a block universe of complete determinism. They start thinking that someday someone will be able to flush their subjectivity down the toilet of a computer. They start thinking of themselves as either deterministic robots or mindless, random zombies. These views are even more idiotic than believing that the universe was literally created in a handful of days as stated in Genesis.

[desiresjab]

It is the belief in the literalness of these maps, whether mathematical or religious, that gets people into trouble.

I don't know who keeps tormenting you this way. Are you not satisfied that -b+√b2-4ac/2a, will give the real roots of a quadratic equation? I am quite satisfied that it does.


I don't understand why you consider mathematics to be something special? Forget the "ineluctable" part. I can't even pronounce that word, let alone make sense out of it. I suspect you consider mathematics to be a kind of "sacred" text supporting a belief in the primacy of unconscious reality.

Show me your list of better ways to investigate "physics," then we can talk. Here is how slanted you are. Even if I thought math was a sacred text, why would I think it supported a belief in the primacy of "unconscious reality?" Math just keeps track of order.


That sounds like members of one religion trying to come up with a justification that the sacred texts of some other religion are not as good as their own sacred texts.

It is. I guess you still don't know why. Chess texts and religious texts are woeful instruments for studying the physics of the universe, mathematics is a great one.


When you say that mathematics is "the only game in town", I recall seeing Christians (some decades ago and I don't know if they still do this) put their index fingers in the air proclaiming that Jesus is the only way. Since I was younger and more hot-headed in those days that arrogance made me want to put my middle finger in the air, but are they any different from mathematicians who can't see the limits of their texts?

It is you who cannot see the limits. You want to know if points in space are infinitely divisible the way they are in the mind; you want to know if the Schodinger wave function corresponds to something physical that happens; you want to know if time is discrete or continuous like Cantor's number line.

These are physics questions you want mathematics to take the heat for not having the answers to. Essentially, a mathematical philosopher is criticizing mathematics for not solving the problems of physics. It usually can't.


Why do people think that only their texts are "ineluctable"?

They have not looked into it deeply enough to understand that like their own God, mathematics constrained creation itself. In a religious sense, only God could do that, therefore mathematics is God or some part without which God would no longer be God. Mathematics just keeps track of the order in God's creation. Why would anyone who believes in God be surprised that there is a fantastic amount of order?



The problem is mathematics has nothing to offer to replace the Koran or the Bible.

It has already replaced them where it matters to science. No one is expected to pray to the quadratic equation for deliverance.


As you admit, mathematics "can only address a tiny sliver of reality's wider context".

Since that tiny sliver is the only predictable invariant across all universes, and its actual name is mathematics, that tiny sliver gets done rather well.


If that really is the case, and I agree with you that it is, on what ground do you claim that "religion is superstition on steroids"? What mathematics provide a justification of that?

The original wellspring of religion is superstition. Pretty simple. Putting rituals historically first accomplishes nothing for the argument against that, since the rituals themselves were superstitions. Or perhaps it is a successful way of predictiong good luck to bury three stones not far from a deceased relative.


What is worse, mathematics leads to an extraordinary bedevilment when it is taken literally. Innocent, but naive, people start thinking that they are living in a block universe of complete determinism.

Who? How does it damage them worse than religion?


They start thinking that someday someone will be able to flush their subjectivity down the toilet of a computer. They start thinking of themselves as either deterministic robots or mindless, random zombies.

Most people who think about it enough just admit they don't know.


These views are even more idiotic than believing that the universe was literally created in a handful of days as stated in Genesis.

Wrong again. The science of reductionism has been successful enough to give it more clout than creation myths with zero evidence. Believers of straight ahead science are hardly as cosmologically goofy as people clinging to ancient creation myths.

[YesNo]

I don't know who keeps tormenting you this way. Are you not satisfied that -b+√b2-4ac/2a, will give the real roots of a quadratic equation? I am quite satisfied that it does.

Within the game of mathematics I am satisfied with the quadratic formula. That does not imply that there exists anything in the real world that has a length precisely the irrational root of a quadratic equation.



Show me your list of better ways to investigate "physics," then we can talk. Here is how slanted you are. Even if I thought math was a sacred text, why would I think it supported a belief in the primacy of "unconscious reality?" Math just keeps track of order.

Mathematics is a useful tool for keeping track of order as you mention. The hope to reduce reality to a deterministic model is what removes the consciousness.



It is you who cannot see the limits. You want to know if points in space are infinitely divisible the way they are in the mind; you want to know if the Schodinger wave function corresponds to something physical that happens; you want to know if time is discrete or continuous like Cantor's number line.

These are physics questions you want mathematics to take the heat for not having the answers to. Essentially, a mathematical philosopher is criticizing mathematics for not solving the problems of physics. It usually can't.

Physicists need to take the heat for taking mathematics literally just as fundamentalists need to take the heat for taking their sacred texts literally.



They have not looked into it deeply enough to understand that like their own God, mathematics constrained creation itself. In a religious sense, only God could do that, therefore mathematics is God or some part without which God would no longer be God. Mathematics just keeps track of the order in God's creation. Why would anyone who believes in God be surprised that there is a fantastic amount of order?

The idea that "mathematics is God" doesn't make sense to me. Are you saying that mathematics is conscious and that it is an agent? That would be an unusual view of mathematics although I agree that one has to be conscious to know mathematics. Those that can know knowledge are conscious. Robots don't actually know anything.



Who? How does it damage them worse than religion?

If one is viewing oneself as not having enough free will to act as an agent because one believes the universe is completely determined, that would harm that innocent, but naive, person with such a belief more than religion would.

How did someone come to the conclusion that they are completely determined? That would come from a block universe concept which comes from taking mathematical models literally.

Those are the kinds of beliefs that I call extraordinarily bedeviling.



Wrong again. The science of reductionism has been successful enough to give it more clout than creation myths with zero evidence. Believers of straight ahead science are hardly as cosmologically goofy as people clinging to ancient creation myths.

Reductionism is another belief that comes from taking mathematics literally. True, reductionism works in mathematics. We can analyze a number into prime components in many algebraic structures of interest. We can also synthesize those resultant primes and get the original number back again. In the game of mathematics, reductionism works. In reality it is only partially successful.

Are "believers of straight ahead science" as "cosmologically goofy as people clinging to ancient creation myths"? To the extent they do not think they are agents because they believe in determinism, they are goofier than religious people. To the extent that they cling to ideas such as "many worlds" popping out of nowhere every time a choice is made, they are goofier.

----------------------

I want to bring this back to the OP. The question is whether the Koran leads to terrorism. I think there are ways to literally interpret the Koran that one could argue that it does. One could argue similar things about the Gospels. One could argue similar things about atheism taking perhaps mathematical texts too literally.

The problem is with the literal interpretation of a text whether sacred or not. Often one doesn't even know that one is interpreting a text too literally because the question doesn't come up. I suspect most physicists don't even ask themselves about the validity of time as a literal mathematical continuum.

All of these texts have a history as well. Texts over time have commentaries written about them and inspired by them which enhance the texts. For example, the Koran means something different to YALASH than it does to other Muslims who disagree with him because of the tradition he belongs to. The same would go for believers in different sects of Christianity or those who study different sciences.

[desiresjab]

By itself the Koran does not cause terrorism. The world is full of violent books, thousands of them with more vilolent content than the Koran and far fewer references to love. Thousands of years of cultural interpretation of old religious texts can cause violence. Picking and choosing what you want to believe out of it has caused violence.

There is extraordinary violence in the Bible. Not many are going around these days proclaiming the Bible causes terrorism. But a few years ago when Irish terrorists were going strong and the KKK was more prominent, they would have been as justified, as the same message is with the Koran now.

What I have against the Bible and Koran is that they are silly old books masses have taken seriously for far too long.

Faith healing is a joke and does not work, never has. There are still parents who refuse to let their children see a doctor because of religious nonsense.

[EmptySeraph]

The thing is, religion no longer has any spiritual power. It's all about tradition, it's all about perpetuating what has already been done - a mere reflex, and it is precisely this reflex that allows specific species survive. God, any god, lives by the actions of his followers, and thus, his power is summed up to the power of those who believe that his power is reflected in their power augmented by his power. In fact, a god is just as good a god as his proselytes are, but let us not forget that his vitality is also generated by the vitality of these zealots' atrocities. When crimes are committed in the name of a god no longer, he is truly dead.

[ennison]

Religions are "made up"? So are the texts being commented upon in the threads on this website. The West is good at pretending it doesn't do terror. It's citizens have short memories and selective interpretations of facts. Regulated state terror is terror. It's aim is to kill.

[YesNo]

What I have against the Bible and Koran is that they are silly old books masses have taken seriously for far too long.

Faith healing is a joke and does not work, never has. There are still parents who refuse to let their children see a doctor because of religious nonsense.

Who told you that the Bible and the Koran are silly old books? Who told you that faith healing is a joke? Have you heard of placebos? If your position were correct, placebos should not exist.


The thing is, religion no longer has any spiritual power. It's all about tradition, it's all about perpetuating what has already been done - a mere reflex, and it is precisely this reflex that allows specific species survive. God, any god, lives by the actions of his followers, and thus, his power is summed up to the power of those who believe that his power is reflected in their power augmented by his power. In fact, a god is just as good a god as his proselytes are, but let us not forget that his vitality is also generated by the vitality of these zealots' atrocities. When crimes are committed in the name of a god no longer, he is truly dead.

I think you are on to something when you mention "spiritual power", but what agent(s) do you see exercising that power? The idea looks like it should work well with "extraordinary bedevilment".


Religions are "made up"? So are the texts being commented upon in the threads on this website. The West is good at pretending it doesn't do terror. It's citizens have short memories and selective interpretations of facts. Regulated state terror is terror. It's aim is to kill.

I agree. I suspect at least some of what we see as Muslim terrorism can be traced back to damage done to them. This doesn't justify their actions, but it helps explain it outside the context of their religion. One of the most damning things Christians have done was to lie about weapons of mass destruction fifteen years ago.

[Delta40]

Qur'an states hell is eternal for non-Muslims, without a doubt:

It's mind boggling that people deny terrorists are pious Muslims when the terrorists themselves are doing it for Islam just as Muslims have always historically done.

I understand. We love nothing better than to deny Hitler was a Christian. When Christians commit gross acts against humanity - Pro-lifers murdering pregnant women and staff for example, nobody mentions the Christian thing or if it is mentioned, they're deigned as misguided. Anti-Muslim Killers are seen as patriots rather than Christians. Pedophile Christians are simply not Christians at all. The fact is, Christianity that is, true Christianity, never receives bad press because as you know, a true Christian never does anything that disgusting. The same hypocrisy is not extended to Muslims who are all frequently condemned for the actions of every individual and are punished severely for it and I wonder why.

[bounty]

One of the most damning things Christians have done was to lie about weapons of mass destruction fifteen years ago.

am reluctant to venture off the "literary" portion of the forum, but having heard the "lying about weapons of mass destruction" claim for years and caring greatly about words, their meaning and the truth, i find it especially bothersome.

being wrong about the existence of wmd and lying about their existence are obviously not the same thing, yet one frequently hears the latter claim with absolutely no evidence to support it.

[Ecurb]

When Christians commit gross acts against humanity - Pro-lifers murdering pregnant women and staff for example, nobody mentions the Christian thing or if it is mentioned, they're deigned as misguided. .

If nobody mentions it, how do you know that the murders were committed by Christians?

[desiresjab]

The moslem mash is on. We will mangle maul and mutilate them for sassing back. With an average 85 IQ, will they be a big loss?

Possibly. For remember, 85 or not, these people were innovators and keepers of algebra 800 years ago. East injuns are only average 85, too, yet they produced the likes of Ramanujan. Such populations only have to overcome one additional standard deviation more than a population with average 100 to produce their own super genius. This frequency can be calculated.

Any human population will produce an occasional super genius. These are the only people that matter. You and I matter to ourselves and a few family members, and a tiny fraction of us that might trickle down to the rest of humanity through an individual or two we influenced. As soon as we die the forgetting of us starts, and it proceeds very fast.

Arabs (middle east), east injuns and negros will not produce the super genius as often, but each super genius is important enough to change the world if they get the right training at the right time early. Ramanujan did not get the right training, yet his ideas were powerful enough for him to become an immortal of mathematics. People like Ramanujan or Euler or Omar Kayaam matter and belong to everyone. Let's say everyone matters, but everyone does not matter to everyone else the way those three do. That is simply a nicer way to put it.

The fact is, everyone who is not a super genius has a job--breed and try to create one; help fund and create universities and educational structures capable of nourishing those of the highest intellectual order. It takes a pyramidal structure. If first class education had been available to Ramanujan, I guarantee we would not live in the same world right now.

Certain swaths of China and east Asia average 106 IQ, compared to the American 98. The highest average IQ belongs to Hasidic Jews, at a lofty 110.

A curiosity of those aforementioned Asian populations is their low variance. They cluster about their average more strongly, meaning a lot of high average people with fewer geniuses. A steeper bell curve that rides its asymptote sooner. Don't count 'em out, though. The world's greatest living mathematician is generally considered to be Terrence Tao, a Japanese. My Finns and Swedes and eastern europeans may be the kings of variance, and of course they built the world once they were handed the baton in the human relay, but even with higher variance they may not match the number of third world super geniuses in the near future, due to population distribution.

Do not write back crying and squalling, trying to dispute what IQ numbers mean. I don't know everything they mean. They are excellent indicators of certain talents, but far from flawless. They are better at measuring abstract intelligence than they are creative intelligence. Some people believe they are hugely culturally biased. I believe much intelligence flys under the radar of IQ tests, but still they do capture quite a bit.

None of that is my domain, folks. I am just disseminating the numbers.

If you have to club a religion like seals, its stands to reason to start with moslems, since they are on the low IQ end and are causing problems. They only have to be clubbed because they will not go away fast enough and become in actu atheists and agnostics like the rest of us. They are back at Plymouth Rock in terms of social evolution and we do not have time to tolerate the same ignorance from them we once perpetuated.

It is a sad fact of humans since their beginning that the less advanced are almost always the ones getting clubbed like seals by their smarter brothers with a little more testosterone. Savage, tough and smart beats savage tough and average, that is what the moslems are not smart enough to assess.

The biggest shame is that so many peaceful people get plowed under in wars. All wars have an element of pogrom in them. Human cruelty unleashed is awesome. You have to be a perpetrator, a victim or an artist to know it. Cruelty is easily accessible in us all. You can tell by the number of denials.

The world is moving a certain way socially, and those who do not come along will be clubbed down, literally or figuratively.

Old birds like me do not decide where the world is going anymore, but become good at seeing the ineluctable direction of those movements and their results in advance.

The young birds have decided that:

1 They will have the world the old farts (founding fathers) promised.

2 Global climate change has a big human footprint

3 Gay mariage is fine

4 There are not as many murders in countries where guns are banned.

5 I am "spiritual," but not a church goer.

6 We want social democracy with more emphasis on social.

7 Abortion is in

8 Bad moslems must be clubbed

The young birds have a massive dependency on technology. That is their weakness. The old birds have a massive dependency on their prescription drugs. There is really no one to challenge who is not strongly dependent on something which can be cut off. I do not think the young birds are in charge any more than the old birds are, just a little more receptive to the views of those image makers shaping their views into a world direction.

In the end it is not about making people free, but about making them good customers. Good customers do not go around blowing other customers up. The image makers shape a world where monster money still rules under a different robe. The propaganda machine has advanced so far since the time of Ivy Lee and Edward Bernaise that I have no doubt the masters could convince people who were slaves they were free and better off than most others; could convince people who were poorer than they used to be that they are the luckiest people in the world, etc., etc., etc.

Who really decides the direction your world is moving in?

Agree with them or not, I feel the above listed views are as good as already done. They are the way the United States is moving and the way the world will follow.

[fajfall]

I understand. We love nothing better than to deny Hitler was a Christian. When Christians commit gross acts against humanity - Pro-lifers murdering pregnant women and staff for example, nobody mentions the Christian thing or if it is mentioned, they're deigned as misguided. Anti-Muslim Killers are seen as patriots rather than Christians. Pedophile Christians are simply not Christians at all. The fact is, Christianity that is, true Christianity, never receives bad press because as you know, a true Christian never does anything that disgusting. The same hypocrisy is not extended to Muslims who are all frequently condemned for the actions of every individual and are punished severely for it and I wonder why.

Hitler was an extreme Darwinist, you will see it page after page in Mein Kampf. He loathed Christianity as a meek, feeble, weak-minded religion that contradiction the laws of nature. When the SS had 'Got mit uns' on their belts it was not any specific Christian God being referred to: Catholic, Muslim, Protestant, Pagan, all were welcome.

The Hadith teach that Muhammad engaged a 6 year old girl and married her at 9. To this day it's Islamically permissible to have sex with a 9 year old because of it. You can 'thigh' her between 6-9 years of age because his wife's, Aisha, herself said so. I raised the issue of Catholic priest paedophilia with a Muslim apostate and she said 'Muslims don't need to molest children in our country; they simply marry them and do the same because Muhammad did'.

This is a literature forum and I'm using religious texts to assert my points.

[YesNo]

am reluctant to venture off the "literary" portion of the forum, but having heard the "lying about weapons of mass destruction" claim for years and caring greatly about words, their meaning and the truth, i find it especially bothersome.

being wrong about the existence of wmd and lying about their existence are obviously not the same thing, yet one frequently hears the latter claim with absolutely no evidence to support it.

Most people were simply wrong. They were fooled and so they weren't lying. However, there were UN weapons inspections which found nothing. That should have made those who didn't know question their beliefs, but it didn't.

I find it hard to believe that no one was lying and that everyone was innocent given the evidence from those UN inspections. Since all that was done under a Christian president and prime minister, Christians need to take the heat for that. I do remember hearing that the Catholic pope at the time opposed Bush publicly. Catholics are the only Christians that I would exclude from those responsible for this and that is only because of their pope.

[YesNo]

If you have to club a religion like seals, its stands to reason to start with moslems, since they are on the low IQ end and are causing problems. They only have to be clubbed because they will not go away fast enough and become in actu atheists and agnostics like the rest of us. They are back at Plymouth Rock in terms of social evolution and we do not have time to tolerate the same ignorance from them we once perpetuated.


It is because of texts like this that I am opposed to atheism.

[YesNo]

I understand. We love nothing better than to deny Hitler was a Christian. When Christians commit gross acts against humanity - Pro-lifers murdering pregnant women and staff for example, nobody mentions the Christian thing or if it is mentioned, they're deigned as misguided. Anti-Muslim Killers are seen as patriots rather than Christians. Pedophile Christians are simply not Christians at all. The fact is, Christianity that is, true Christianity, never receives bad press because as you know, a true Christian never does anything that disgusting. The same hypocrisy is not extended to Muslims who are all frequently condemned for the actions of every individual and are punished severely for it and I wonder why.

I agree with most of what you say. Christians tend to excuse themselves when blame comes their way. The same goes for Muslims. The same goes for atheists. Probably the same goes for most of us.

The differences between these groups lie in the texts they reference for support.

[Ecurb]

It is because of texts like this that I am opposed to atheism.

This is a non sequitur. One bigoted atheist does not represent atheism any more than one Muslim suicide bomber represents Islam.

[YesNo]

This is a non sequitur. One bigoted atheist does not represent atheism any more than one Muslim suicide bomber represents Islam.

I agree that what I am doing is generalizing from a particular example. That's what science does. It goes from the particular to the general. I do think this particular example conveniently represents the problems of atheism. Atheism is pseudo-scientific dehumanization, a bedevilment. This leads to dreams of genocide and then, if the world is unfortunate enough, actual genocide. This should be a wake-up call to atheists to examine what it is they actually believe.

The existence of Muslim suicide bombers is a good reason for people to avoid the Muslim religion. When Muslims blow themselves up killing others, they are effectively offering the world a YouTube video of them forcing their Mohammad to kneel while they decapitate him.

The way Christians pushed weapons of mass destruction is a good reason to avoid the Christian religion. It can't be trusted. They effectively lined their baby Jesus up against the wall and fired rounds into his face.

Given all this scandal from atheists, Christians and Muslims, I feel like Robinson Crusoe with a wrecked cultural ship sinking off the island and wondering just what is worth saving from that doomed vessel.

[Ecurb]

Your argument doesn't make sense. You are not generalizing from a particular example. Instead, you are opposing a philosophy (atheism) because you dislike one proponent of that philosophy. Its as if you would refuse to believe that 2+2=4 because someone who thinks it does is a bigot. The bigotry of one person is irrelevant to whether 2 + 2 = 4.

[YesNo]

Your argument doesn't make sense. You are not generalizing from a particular example. Instead, you are opposing a philosophy (atheism) because you dislike one proponent of that philosophy. Its as if you would refuse to believe that 2+2=4 because someone who thinks it does is a bigot. The bigotry of one person is irrelevant to whether 2 + 2 = 4.

I actually like desiresjab. I have had many interesting conversations with him on the cosmology thread that he started. I wish he would stick to that.

The statement 2 + 2 = 4 is a statement related to a certain mathematical structure. Its validity has nothing to do with whether the person stating it is a bigot or not. Its validity only depends on the particular math game in which the statement occurs. It is like a statement about how the rook is permitted to move in chess. It is true in any universe and only those who take mathematics or other games literally would confuse mathematical statements or chess moves with reality.

The truth or falsity of atheism, on the other hand, is not part of mathematics. Mathematics cannot decide anything about atheism any more than the game of chess can. Nor is atheism some sort of game isolated from reality that works in all universes. It is a metaphysical claim about reality.

My claim is that atheism is a form of dehumanization that comes, to some extent, from taking deterministic structures like mathematics too literally. It is not so much about the nonexistence of Gods as the nonexistence of human consciousness. Atheism leads to speculations that human beings are not agents, or that they are deterministic or that they have no real subjectivity. That implies they are expendable. That view of reality, I maintain, is false. If you think it is true, I welcome you to defend such a position.

The thread is about violence and ideology. YALASH is trying to find a way to redefine the Muslim religion to avoid the violence associated with Muslim suicide bombers. What I like about his position is that he is not trying to cover up this violence. He admits it occurs and he offers an alternative that comes out of an interpretation of the Koran.

[Ecurb]

My claim is that atheism is a form of dehumanization that comes, to some extent, from taking deterministic structures like mathematics too literally. It is not so much about the nonexistence of Gods as the nonexistence of human consciousness. Atheism leads to speculations that human beings are not agents, or that they are deterministic or that they have no real subjectivity. That implies they are expendable. That view of reality, I maintain, is false. If you think it is true, I welcome you to defend such a position.



I think that your claims about atheism are incorrect. An omniscient God is deterministic -- if He knows what will happen before it happens there can be no freedom of agency. (Obviously, freedom is compatible with non-omniscient Gods.)

In any event, your argument about math is simply irrelevant. I could have used "Springfield is the capital of Illinois" as my example. If a bigot thinks Springfield is the capital of Illinois, does that mean that Springfield is NOT the capital of Illinois? Are we to judge what we believe to be true based on what world-views appear most useful? This appears to be desiresjab's POV, and your POV. The difference is he bases his beliefs on the material usefulness of a world-view, and you base yours on the moral usefulness of a world-view. It seems to me that neither POV is epistemologically valid, and both may, in fact, be cowardly (i.e. they involve believing what you want to believe instead of investigating without prejudice).

In addition, speculation that human behavior is determined does NOT imply humans are expendable. Why would it? If human behavior is determined, surely recognizing that fact cannot be "dehumanizing". Surely making correct assumptions about human nature is "humanizing", not "dehumanizing". (What these assumptions are is, of course, questionable.)

[Danik 2016]

My claim is that atheism is a form of dehumanization that comes, to some extent, from taking deterministic structures like mathematics too literally. It is not so much about the nonexistence of Gods as the nonexistence of human consciousness. Atheism leads to speculations that human beings are not agents, or that they are deterministic or that they have no real subjectivity. That implies they are expendable. That view of reality, I maintain, is false. If you think it is true, I welcome you to defend such a position.

The thread is about violence and ideology. YALASH is trying to find a way to redefine the Muslim religion to avoid the violence associated with Muslim suicide bombers. What I like about his position is that he is not trying to cover up this violence. He admits it occurs and he offers an alternative that comes out of an interpretation of the Koran.

Sometimes we quarrel about definitions. If I understand it right, "atheism" for Yes/No (with or without mathematics) is a kind of synonym for the loss of essencial positive human values we are experiencing these days. In this context an atheist that lives decently and respects his neighbour is as good as a believer from whatever religion who believes in doing good.
I believe that positive religious values further life in society inasmuch as they teach basic forms of respect and responsibility.
I don´t need to enlarge on what negative religious values do. We all know that much too well!

[desiresjab]

Atheism gives up too much. It gives up flexibility, for one thing. Once someone states they now believe this or believe that, dogma sets in. Sometimes that is just a reaction to the claims of those who are not atheists.

Only agnosticism offers whatever you want it to. It sides with Socrates that any strong belief about the existence of Gods was presumptuous.

Yes, there may be a God. To declare there is is meaningless to others and drives them away to form their own dogmas. We simply do not know and at present are not equipped to know the answers to ultimate questions.

What someone feels about it is never going to convince others. Devotees can stand in flames praying as their fats boil and others will not be convinced. Whether or not subjective and objective truths are fundmentally the same, seems ages ahead of our current understanding.

[YesNo]

I think that your claims about atheism are incorrect. An omniscient God is deterministic -- if He knows what will happen before it happens there can be no freedom of agency. (Obviously, freedom is compatible with non-omniscient Gods.)

I suspect that an omniscient God would know whatever is possible to be known and no more. That would be the limit of that God's omniscience.



In any event, your argument about math is simply irrelevant. I could have used "Springfield is the capital of Illinois" as my example. If a bigot thinks Springfield is the capital of Illinois, does that mean that Springfield is NOT the capital of Illinois? Are we to judge what we believe to be true based on what world-views appear most useful? This appears to be desiresjab's POV, and your POV. The difference is he bases his beliefs on the material usefulness of a world-view, and you base yours on the moral usefulness of a world-view. It seems to me that neither POV is epistemologically valid, and both may, in fact, be cowardly (i.e. they involve believing what you want to believe instead of investigating without prejudice).

When you claim that "Springfield is the capital of Illinois" you are making a statement about reality. When you claim that "2 + 2 = 4," you are making a statement about a game, not reality. Such a statement is closer to a statement about a story or a poem than a fact of geography. So I would say these two statements are different.

The problem of determinism involves taking mathematical games containing ideas like a continuum of infinitesimal time instants literally as real rather than part of a game. This leads to determinism. I am using the idea of "literal" in the same way one might complain about people taking Genesis literally because it is essentially the same problem.

By the way, I investigate everything with prejudice. Let me suggest something that might come as a shock: we all do. It is what makes the investigations interesting and gives us a place to start.



In addition, speculation that human behavior is determined does NOT imply humans are expendable. Why would it? If human behavior is determined, surely recognizing that fact cannot be "dehumanizing". Surely making correct assumptions about human nature is "humanizing", not "dehumanizing". (What these assumptions are is, of course, questionable.)

Since humans initiate activity, such as posting to this thread, they are agents and so they are not determined although they might have dispositions to act in one way or the other. Given that humans are agents to say they are not agents is dehumanizing since it denies what humans are.

Does this lead to humans being expendable? Yes. If humans are determined they are no different than a washing machine or a computer. We treat such determined objects rationally. That is, when we push a button we expect a determined response. When we don't get that response, we replace the object because the object is expendable.

Are there people who believe that people are determined? Yes. See Sam Harris's "Free Will" for one atheist's view of determinism. Consider people who think they can download human subjectivity into a computer. Consider people who think consciousness is an epiphenomenon.

[desiresjab]

I do not see myself as an atheist or having a cosmological agenda or preference.

At the beginning is where I tried to start, my attempt being to find anything about the universe I felt was incontrovertible. In mathematics I felt I found such statements. It has nothing to do with Gods or not. Two is the successor of one cannot be denied by reasonable people.

I wanted people to realize there was something undeniable in the universe, there was a footing. That view in no way denies the existence of God. There may be additional footing not accessible to mathematics, but at least mathematics is there and undeniable. I am open to all investigations, though subjective impressions gained while in a trance, etc., will not be worthwhile evidence for the foreseeable future. Perhaps an enlarged theory of subjectivity as Yes/No suggests will come about which can handle weird evidence. Even then, there is likely to be some mathematical basis to the new theory. Perhaps the only objective undeniable of the universe is math. All other ultimate truths may only be accessible subjectively. Math could be the only such foothold, but I seriously doubt it. The complexity of the infinite unfolding of emergent properties is responsible for the opinion.

[Ecurb]

You're rambling, Yesno. The context for the discussion about 2+2 or the capital of Illinois was that you clearly stated that you opposed atheism BECAUSE of texts like dj wrote:



If you have to club a religion like seals, its stands to reason to start with moslems, since they are on the low IQ end and are causing problems. They only have to be clubbed because they will not go away fast enough and become in actu atheists and agnostics like the rest of us. They are back at Plymouth Rock in terms of social evolution and we do not have time to tolerate the same ignorance from them we once perpetuated.

Of course mathematical "facts" are different from facts about state capitals. What does that have to do with whether your opposition to atheism BECAUSE OF dj's post is a non sequitur?

YesNo wrote:



I suspect that an omniscient God would know whatever is possible to be known and no more. That would be the limit of that God's omniscience.

Given determinism, nobody would know either more or less than whatever is possible to be known. We would all be equally omniscient (in that limited and almost meaningless respect). Only the possible would be actual, and only the actual would be possible. This is logically self-evident. But that's not what people mean when they say God is omniscient.

It's reasonable to talk about human agency, whether behavior is pre-determined or not. The murderer pulls the trigger and "causes" the death, because those are the rules of our language. That's what the word "causes" means. Whether God knew that the trigger-man would shoot his own mother since the creation of the universe makes no difference in this respect. Those who believe in a determined universe (Calvinists, for example) blame others for crimes and punish them for crimes (sometimes, they punish them for imaginary crimes, like witchcraft). The proposition that fatalism means that its proponents cannot differentiate between a human and a washing machine is ludicrous.

Neither a "free will" dependent on supernatural souls nor a "determinism" dependent on an understanding of how neurons firing in our brains control our thoughts are likely to have much moral impact. We will always act as if we have free will, whether or not we do. Also, Sam Harris does not speak for all atheists (although I agree that atheism is dogmatic, as are most religions).

[desiresjab]

If someone were to ask What is the progress of religion? one might have to answer: Nothing. Other possible answers might be:

1 They no longer use human sacrifices.

2. They exonerated Galileo, finally.

3. They mainly stopped arguing cosmology with science.

4 Religions are slightly more tolerant of other religions, i.e. slightly more tolerant than an outright pogrom.


Answers which are not possible are:

1 Religion has stopped or slowed down warring.

2 People are nicer and more moral than ever before. (The cumulative effect of centuries of religion.)

3 Religion has united people.

4 Greed is waning


There are no such problems when answering the question: What is the progress of science?

Any progress of religion seems well hidden.

Progress defined by Big Religion is often cast more in geopolitical or statistical language than spiritual. There is no way to mathematicize spirituality yet, if ever. So instead we get the number of converts to this or that Christian denomination broken down by country, or a simple map of territory controlled by Moslem extremists as measures of progress, when nothing could be further from the truth. Those political constructs measure nothing about the value of religion, but only its advance across strategic territory.

Big religion abuses personalized religion because it has different goals. The acquisition of territory may be unreligious to people who take relgiojn to heart. The fight and goals of Big religion may not be to their personal tastes. They may see the necessary actions of those goals as contradicting their religious values.

Big religion knows all the tools of mass hyteria and mass hypnosis. It invented some of them.

[desiresjab]

How do you turn peaceful religionists into war mongers?

You convince them something they cherish is under attack, for instance their highly personalized religion.

For a good propagandist it is not hard to marshall Christians to the cause that Christianity is under attack. It is not that hard for the moslems either. These are the millions on either side that lend their moral permission to extremists, if nothing more.

These puzzles full of smoke and mirrors can be hard to see rightly, but I think I figured this one out.

Yes, Christians and Moslems are both under attack. But not really from each other but from secularity. Such is the image making power of the propaganda overlords that they can even disguise who the battle is between. There is a war on Christianity; there is a war on Moslemia. Rather than face Moslems and Christians openly, it is safer to turn them against each other and control that.

No, every tiny move is not planned and part of a plot. Many moves are forced because of the goal itself, which predetermines many parameters and makes everything seem planned, or as if conspiracy theorists are saying that. However, the adoption of parameters consistent with a plan is itself a plan, or can easily be construed so. Then, yes, I believe the fix is in.

The goal of the secular reductionists is to sideline religion. I do not disagree that I wish it were sidelined. I disagree with mass manipulations by billionaire think tanks.

No one has to be in charge of this conspiracy by corporations to turn us all into good customers who do not blow other customers up because of religious differences, because capitalism itself has devised a conspiratorial plot as the philosophy developed. The general scheme of capitalism is clear: grab all you can and make everyone a good customer. With the help of greedy men (never in short supply) to foster and implement the philosophy, sub plots will arise as necessity dictates.

[YesNo]

But that's not what people mean when they say God is omniscient.

Let me put it differently. The only omniscient agent that I acknowledge is one that does not contradict my ability to make a choice, nor the ability of a quantum "particle" to make a choice. Hence that agent cannot know in advance what my choice will be although that agent might guess or try to influence me. I know you might counter that such an agent is not "omniscient" or not all powerful. I would respond that that agent is omniscient and powerful enough for me.



It's reasonable to talk about human agency, whether behavior is pre-determined or not.

How do you get human agency with determinism? I would say that is not reasonable.


The murderer pulls the trigger and "causes" the death, because those are the rules of our language. That's what the word "causes" means.

It might be worthwhile looking at Stephen Mumford and Rani Lill Anjum's "Causation: A Very Short Introduction" before proceeding with this. The topic of causation has a long history that is not obvious nor trivial.


Whether God knew that the trigger-man would shoot his own mother since the creation of the universe makes no difference in this respect. Those who believe in a determined universe (Calvinists, for example) blame others for crimes and punish them for crimes (sometimes, they punish them for imaginary crimes, like witchcraft). The proposition that fatalism means that its proponents cannot differentiate between a human and a washing machine is ludicrous.

The people who believe in a determined universe, whether Calvinists or atheists, are wrong. That has been shown by quantum physics almost a century ago.

Atheists who persist in believing in determinism are looking for a mechanism by which they can nullify human consciousness through some form of reductionism. What I am trying to show is that such a position is ludicrous, just as you claim, even without quantum physics.

If those atheists are right, then we are equivalent to deterministic mechanisms such as computers or washing machines. The way one relates to computers and washing machines is by being rational. However, that is not the way we relate to each other. When we push a button on a deterministic mechanism, we expect a deterministic result to follow. We expect the machine to respond to us "rationally" or we replace it. However, humans require empathy, not button pushing. Since those atheists can, in fact, distinguish between a human being and a washing machine, their deterministic perspective is compromised. By their very ability to differentiate between a human and a machine, they falsify their position. They know the difference between rationality and empathy.

Of course, they will counter and say that they need time for their "science" to build a machine that can pass the Turing test. But even Turing admitted that his test will fail given human psi abilities (a form of empathy) that cannot be programmed into any computer.



Neither a "free will" dependent on supernatural souls nor a "determinism" dependent on an understanding of how neurons firing in our brains control our thoughts are likely to have much moral impact. We will always act as if we have free will, whether or not we do. Also, Sam Harris does not speak for all atheists (although I agree that atheism is dogmatic, as are most religions).

If we act as if we have free will, then we have free will.

There are limits to our freedom. Atheists like to take a reductionist view and claim we are limited by neurons as well as genes and atoms. We are limited by these, but there are even more powerful limits to our freedom. We are also limited by other agents. However, atheists don't believe in agents. They think all agency can be reduced to neurons. That is their fundamental error.

[Danik 2016]

The reaction of the Mayan gods according to the Popol-Vuh when they noticed the extension of the knowledge of the humans they had created:
“Perfect was their sight, and perfect was their knowledge of everything beneath the sky. If they gazed about them, looking intently, they beheld that which was in the sky and that which was upon the earth. Instantly they were able to behold everything. They did not have to walk to see all that existed beneath the sky. They merely saw it from wherever they were. Thus their knowledge became full. Their vision passed beyond the trees and the rocks, beyond the lakes and the seas, beyond the mountains and the valleys.
Their knowledge of everything that they saw was complete—the four corners and the four sides, that which is within the sky and that which is within the earth.
But this did not sound good to the Framer and the Shaper:
'What now can be done to them so that their vision reaches only nearby, so that only a little of the face of the earth can be seen by them? For it is not good what they say.Is not their existence merely framed, merely shaped? It is a mistake that they havebecome like gods.'
THEIR eyes were merely blurred by Heart of Sky. They were blinded like breath upon the face of a mirror. Thus their eyes were blinded. They could see only
nearby; things were clear to them only where they were.4 Thus their knowledge was lost"
Extracts from: http://holybooks.lichtenbergpress.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/POPOL-VUH-THE-MAYAN-BOOK-OF-THE-DAWN-OF-LIFE-translated-by-Dennis- ppTedlock.pdf?810c00 pp 185-188.

[YesNo]

That story of the Mayan Gods limiting humans seems like a good example of how our freedom can be limited by other agents.

[YALASH]

Misunderstanding Removed:

The Hadith teach that Muhammad engaged a 6 year old girl and married her at 9.
This is a literature forum and I'm using religious texts to assert my points.
Peace be on you.
Quran and practice of Holy Prophet (peace and blessings be on him) was to begin with, hadith was collected 150 years or so latter. First two are judge over the third one, whose purpose is supportive.

The mention of six year age is tied to one person only. There are many problems:
1-Hisham ibn ‘Urwah is the only man who said about Hadith.
2-He mentioned this hadith in old age, and he admitted he suffered severe memory loss in that age.

"....several historical events and Ahadith narrations demonstrate that Hadhrat Ayesha was likely 15-16, or as old as 19-20 at the time of her consenting marriage to Prophet Muhammad. For example ........"
Reference:
http://www.muhammadfactcheck.org/?muhammad=prophet-muhammad-sa-married-ayesha-ra-when-she-was-underage

Perhaps you know the consent age of girls in modern age. Some are mentioned in above reference too.

[Ecurb]

If we act as if we have free will, then we have free will.

There are limits to our freedom. Atheists like to take a reductionist view and claim we are limited by neurons as well as genes and atoms. We are limited by these, but there are even more powerful limits to our freedom. We are also limited by other agents. However, atheists don't believe in agents. They think all agency can be reduced to neurons. That is their fundamental error.

You've been having these discussions since I came to these boards, and nothing has ever been resolved. Since this is a literary board, let me make one suggestion: the discussion is about the meaning of the words "choice", "free", and "will", not about the nature of the universe. This being the case, I can prove that people can make choices (be "agents") whether or not the course of the universe is predetermined (I couldn't care less whether it is or not).

We use the words in the past tense. We might say, "John freely chose to go to Walmart instead of Target last Monday." Of course, John's choice, because it was in the past, cannot be otherwise than it was. Still, the words we use to describe it are both appropriate and meaningful. They mean that no OUTSIDE AGENT coerced John into going to Walmart. It is utterly irrelevant whether John was coerced by the neurons in his brain. Our "choice" to use the word "choice" does not even speak to that possibility (or impossibility).

An omniscient observer (we'll call him "God",although he could be some futuristic neuroscientist) can see the future (we'll posit), just as we puny humans can see the past. Therefore, although He will know exactly what "choices" we will make in the future (just as we know what choices we made in the past), it remains reasonable to describe these decisions as "free choices".

Of course Religion, being an attempt at the universal and timeless, does not "progress". On the contrary, the world has fallen from Eden. Gods and demigods (for the Greeks) no longer walk the earth. If you want progress, look elsewhere.

Nice story, Danik. Don't skip to the end of the book and find out what happens. It will ruin the suspense.

[Danik 2016]

That story of the Mayan Gods limiting humans seems like a good example of how our freedom can be limited by other agents.
I meant it more in the sense that our vision is partial. We don´t have access to the whole picture.

[Danik 2016]

You've been having these discussions since I came to these boards, and nothing has ever been resolved. Since this is a literary board, let me make one suggestion: the discussion is about the meaning of the words "choice", "free", and "will", not about the nature of the universe. This being the case, I can prove that people can make choices (be "agents") whether or not the course of the universe is predetermined (I couldn't care less whether it is or not).

We use the words in the past tense. We might say, "John freely chose to go to Walmart instead of Target last Monday." Of course, John's choice, because it was in the past, cannot be otherwise than it was. Still, the words we use to describe it are both appropriate and meaningful. They mean that no OUTSIDE AGENT coerced John into going to Walmart. It is utterly irrelevant whether John was coerced by the neurons in his brain. Our "choice" to use the word "choice" does not even speak to that possibility (or impossibility).

An omniscient observer (we'll call him "God",although he could be some futuristic neuroscientist) can see the future (we'll posit), just as we puny humans can see the past. Therefore, although He will know exactly what "choices" we will make in the future (just as we know what choices we made in the past), it remains reasonable to describe these decisions as "free choices".

Of course Religion, being an attempt at the universal and timeless, does not "progress". On the contrary, the world has fallen from Eden. Gods and demigods (for the Greeks) no longer walk the earth. If you want progress, look elsewhere.

Nice story, Danik. Don't skip to the end of the book and find out what happens. It will ruin the suspense.
I think that the "book" is still being written. I don´t mean the Popol-Vuh now but the story of present humanity.

[Ecurb]

Now that we've hijacked the thread, I'll offer Tolstoy's take, from War and Peace:


When an apple has ripened and falls, why does it fall? Because of its attraction to the earth, because its stalk withers, because it is dried by the sun, because it grows heavier, because the wind shakes it, or because the boy standing below wants to eat it?

Nothing is the cause. All this is only the coincidence of conditions in which all vital organic and elemental events occur. And the botanist who finds that the apple falls because the cellular tissue decays and so forth is equally right with the child who stands under the tree and says the apple fell because he wanted to eat it and prayed for it. Equally right or wrong is he who says that Napoleon went to Moscow because he wanted to, and perished because Alexander desired his destruction, and he who says that an undermined hill weighing a million tons fell because the last navvy struck it for the last time with his mattock. In historic events the so-called great men are labels giving names to events, and like labels they have but the smallest connection with the event itself.

Every act of theirs, which appears to them an act of their own will, is in an historical sense involuntary and is related to the whole course of history and predestined from eternity.

[fajfall]

Misunderstanding Removed:

Peace be on you.
Quran and practice of Holy Prophet (peace and blessings be on him) was to begin with, hadith was collected 150 years or so latter. First two are judge over the third one, whose purpose is supportive.

The mention of six year age is tied to one person only. There are many problems:
1-Hisham ibn ‘Urwah is the only man who said about Hadith.
2-He mentioned this hadith in old age, and he admitted he suffered severe memory loss in that age.

"....several historical events and Ahadith narrations demonstrate that Hadhrat Ayesha was likely 15-16, or as old as 19-20 at the time of her consenting marriage to Prophet Muhammad. For example ........"
Reference:
http://www.muhammadfactcheck.org/?muhammad=prophet-muhammad-sa-married-ayesha-ra-when-she-was-underage

Perhaps you know the consent age of girls in modern age. Some are mentioned in above reference too.


Muslims cherry-pick which hadiths are 'weak' or 'strong'. Cruel verses are easier to cherry pick because there are so many more and so many historical examples to justify them. Child marriage has always been acceptable in Muslim societies, as has slavery and sex with slaves because the Qur'an and highest scholars have always allowed it. Ahmadiyyas will look someone straight in the eye and say hell isn't eternal in the Qur'an even though line after line the Qur'an says that hell is eternal and there will be no mercy.

[desiresjab]

Muslims cherry-pick which hadiths are 'weak' or 'strong'. Cruel verses are easier to cherry pick because there are so many more and so many historical examples to justify them. Child marriage has always been acceptable in Muslim societies, as has slavery and sex with slaves because the Qur'an and highest scholars have always allowed it. Ahmadiyyas will look someone straight in the eye and say hell isn't eternal in the Qur'an even though line after line the Qur'an says that hell is eternal and there will be no mercy.

Show me a "Bible" of any religion that is not cherry-picked by its followers. If followers didn't they could be committed. Many who cherry-pick the wrong verses are.

[caddy_caddy]

Hello everybody,
This is a long thread and things get so complicated here so I couldn't follow up with all the comments and arguments here.
However, let me speak from the real life point of view which is more relevant than the theoretical one.
You know I'm Lebanese and I can proudly tell you that I have two relatives ( brothers) that went to Jihad in Syria at the beginning of the Syrian Revolution.
One was 17 years old and the other around 20. They went separately , one after the other, without even coordinating with each other.
Before leaving to Syria , the youngest one wrote a letter to his mother . He said " Mom , I love you but those who are killed and raped in Syria are our mothers too. I don't have only two sisters, those girls in Syria are my sisters too"
Jihad in Islam to defend other Musilms is a must since all Muslims are brothers . What those guys did was an act of love and mercy and it 's a noble act and we're proud of them .This is Jihad against terrorism because what happens in Syria is nothing but terrorism . Don't expect us to wait for the free world to help us .
The two brothers were arrested shortly after arriving to Syria. The Youngest is still in the Syrian prisons and we know nothing abt him. The Oldest is in the Lebanese Prison and he is on trial . In the lebanese Prison , they put him with other Jihadist but extremist who have different beliefs than him. Once he said to his mother in one of her visits ," i'm afraid they would kill me " because those extremist kill other Muslims . We are their first enemies because of their misunderstanding of the rules of Islam .
Jihad is not terrorism , extremism is terrorism because it denies the right of any other part to exist (who is not like me).
We are terrified of extremist and we fear that one day they could enter our cities . If they enter they woudl kill and slay most of the people who do not follow their rules; I insist these are their rules not the Islam rules.
You might ask what's the difference between your relatives and the extremists. My relatives don't believe in slaying or bombing . They went to war , man to man.The judge wanted the oldest to sign a paper that he regrets what he has done but he refused and he is still in prison and he might spend his life in prison but he is not regretful. He keeps on saying this is part of my belief and refused to sign.
As u see in one cell in one prison you can find a jihadist and a terrorist and they are both unfortunately called Muslims.
They both read the Quran but each interprets in a different way.
They both went to war but one was motivated by love and the other by revenge and they are all Muslims.



As for eternity in hell : there are two questions, the question of justice and the question of mercy
1-justice justifies eternity in hell.
2-Mercy " that embraces everything " a verse from the Quran justifies salvation
what is the most important attribute of Allah: Justice or Mercy ?
Mercy is prior to justice .Muslims do not enter heaven by their " deeds " but by Allah's mercy too.
This is the ultimate divine law and you can find plenty of verses that speak abt mercy.

[YesNo]

I wish your family well, caddy caddy.

I agree with you that there is a difference between love and revenge as motivations. I like the idea that mercy embraces everything and is prior to justice.

[Whifflingpin]

Justice does not justify eternity in hell because, in justice, punishment is proportional to the crime and no-one can commit an offence which equates to eternal and boundless pain.

[caddy_caddy]

[QUOTE=Whifflingpin;1323787]Justice does not justify eternity in hell because, in justice, punishment is proportional to the crime and no-one can commit an offence which equates to eternal and boundless pain.[/QUOT
sorry cz I didn't quote the part I'm responding to.
This is in response to the argument that Disbelievers and polytheists will be for "eternity "in hell because this is the most awful sin in Islam . And sins and punishment are proportioned to each other as u said.