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This is THE most profound statement here.. It reads like poetry, full of all that's life-sustaining and -affirming, the hope to fight these Titans of Truth and Justice and to do so without a book in hand, but with humility - a socratic understanding - that we don't know it all. Thanks for the refreshing remark, wrested between the folds of the self-righteous and pious, to which it reacts like a thunderclap. :banana:Quote:
Originally Posted by Xamonas Chegwe
1. Say: He is Allah, the One and Only;Quote:
Amra,
If god is unknowable, as you repeatedly say, how do you know that he is neither male, female nor neuter? How do you know that he doesn't influence our choices? How, indeed, can you claim to know anything at all about this god?
2. Allah, the Eternal, Absolute;
3. He begetteth not, nor is He begotten;
4. And there is none like unto Him. (Surah 112)
This surah in the holy Qur'an is considered worth 1/3 of the Qur'an, because it contains the most important message, namely that God is ONE, that no one is equal to Him, and that nothing is like Him. Besides, as God calls himself in Qur'an with the noun Allah, we gather that He doesn't assign Himself a gender, because the noun Allah doesn't have a gender. Everything I said about Allah s.v.t is based on the revelation He gave to Prophet Mohammed a.s. However, you are right that we should be careful about making any claims about God, since we really can never know Him, except through those things He revealed about Himself in the Qur'an.
There is no country in the world today that is implementing shariah law. What we have are muslim countries that mostly live under dictatorships, who implement very perverted versions of Islamic law, and that only in certain circumstances. If you want to look into shariah law more deeply, you would have to go back in history a couple of hundred years ago to see what a true shariah ruled society looks like.Quote:
"Probably wouldn't"? In many islamic countries, preaching christian religion to muslims is punishable, let alone preaching atheism. I think you are guilty of portraying shariah law as a little more tolerant than it actually is.
I guess it depends how you would define "quite openly". Why do you suppose those who preach communism openly do not get any media coverage in the USA? How can it be that we don't see any communists offering their point of view on Fox News? Or claiming that democracy as such is not fulfilling the needs of the working class, and communism could do that? Could you form a party and promote communism as the better alternative to democracy? Could I form a party and promote shariah law as the best alternative to democracy? I think not. Democracy is tolerant only then when there is no real threat. Every right is relative, and can be given or taken away depending on the interests of the ruling party. I guess, I should stop here since we are not allowed to discuss politics, but I am sure you get my point.Quote:
And I can quite openly 'preach communism' in my democratic society thank you. I wouldn't, but that is because I find it as flawed and ultimately ridiculous as any other dogmatic philosophy, islam included.
Why do you think that others don't question their faiths? I mean, most of the people I know were not born muslims, and even if they were born muslims, they didn't practice it. So, most of them chose to practice it after they have evaluated other teachings and ideas, believing Islam to be the right choice for them. I have been born into an atheist family living under communism, and I have become a muslim through my own questioning of different ideas and beliefs. No one can force you to accept an idea, and simply because you defend an idea and believe it to be true at this point, doesn't necessarily mean that it was always like that. Mostly, you go through the stage of questioning it before you accept it. However, once you accept it, the need of questioning it all the time decreases, because you have done most of the research before you accepted that idea.Quote:
The true difference is that I question my faiths; I constantly question them. I believe, as did Socrates, that the unexamined life is not worth living. I prefer to be awake, rather than slumber on, hoping for some vague promise of a better life to come. I prefer to look for my better world here; in this world
Xamonas, I thought your last post was very well written and I respect the view you’re expressing.
I wonder though if you’re being completely sincere since I think you probably accept that some things aren’t fully amenable to the type of logical or rational explanations that you seem to be pressing for. Personally I do believe in God even though I cannot justify this belief to you in terms that would qualify by the standards of Socratic argument. The more important thing is that even if you were able to show me why my belief is illogical, this probably wouldn’t change my mind on this issue; I’d continue to believe in any case even if atheism could be demonstrated as the rational option.
Does this mean that I am simply dogmatic, or maybe a bit stupid? Possibly it does. However, I happen to think that there are some things that, despite failing by the bar of reason will continue to be important precisely because they cannot be fully explained or justified. Isn’t it part of the definition of faith that it cannot be proved? I would also perhaps put hope in this category – it continues even in circumstances where all reasonable factors point to the contrary conclusion.
If a fully “examined life” means that all aspects of belief and thought are to be exposed to continual interrogation and rational examination then I would tend to think this could also be inflexible and dogmatic, as well as being a very partial view of life. I think you probably already know this in any case, so I am not sure what it is that you are trying to get the religiously minded participants of this discussion to admit? Is it that you see yourself as the forum “gadfly”?
If I say that “All poets are blonde. Mary is blonde so she must be a gardener,” is that logical? If it is or isn’t, is it just my opinion or not?Quote:
Originally Posted by “Amra”
What if I say that my God is not limited to such logic and that for Him it can be both? My God is beyond human comprehension and can simultaneously influence and not influence. It makes argument a little difficult, doesn’t it?Quote:
Originally Posted by “Amra”
I did. I pointed out that I am not a God so I can have no knowledge of the future. Had I created the universe and everything in it, including ‘future history’, then I would not only be influencing people’s choices but defining what is and isn’t possible. Your statement “Simply by knowing the future, He is not influencing it in any way,” is not an argument – merely a repeated opinion. Explain to me, in rational/logical terms how God can know the future if people are free to deviate from it. This is a question you have failed to answer. How can I pick up the other pen? If I can, God is not God: if I can’t, I have no free will. Telling me that God knows my free will avoids the issue by creating a dimension beyond the human and rational. I see a contradiction within the two positions outlined and no one has yet explained how this can be resolved.Quote:
Originally Posted by “Amra”
Why are you asking me this? I’m not God. I am not omniscient and omnipotent, so the analogy is irrelevant. If I were, I assume that I would have the ability to change it. However, for the sake of argument, I’ll play along for a moment. Person X is driving along and comes to a fork in the road. Road A leads to a safe route and road B leads to a sheer drop from a cliff. If I know (in the way that God knows) that the driver will take road B and die, then nothing he or she does will make any difference to that outcome. He or she might think he or she has free will but the outcome is unavoidable. In this sense I am not only influencing the future but also setting it in stone. Also, you suggest that having knowledge of the future does not mean that we can influence it. Are you saying that God does not have the ability to influence things? I thought He was omnipotent.Quote:
Originally Posted by “Amra”
It’s not that I confuse predestination with knowledge but that I believe knowledge of the future is indistinguishable from predestination and certainly incompatible with the idea of individual free will.Quote:
Originally Posted by “Amra”
Again, you simply restate the same opinion. As I said, in the final analysis, you resort to the claim that your God is beyond human rules.Quote:
Originally Posted by “Amra”
Yes, difficult concepts always confuse me, which is why I don’t mind being patronised.Quote:
Originally Posted by “Amra”
This is the crux. If God knows the future, in what sense can we be said to be free to create it? We cannot do anything that is inconsistent with that future. All decisions we make cannot alter anything. I presume that God knew my actions and decisions before I was even born. A whole lifetime of history precedes me and when I come along, nothing I do will change it.Quote:
Originally Posted by “Amra”
Exactly, so what use is it?Quote:
Originally Posted by “Amra”
Okay, I don’t believe in any God so he/she/it exerts no explicit influence over me because he/she/it doesn’t exist. However, if there is an omniscient being that knows the future, I, as an individual, cannot do anything about that future because it’s already decided. It’s not that I see God as standing on the sidelines, urging me to do what I might or might not have decided to do anyway. It’s simply that if the future is written in stone then I can have no free will to change it. Surely that highlights why the two concepts are irreconcilable?Quote:
Originally Posted by “Amra”
Although I think the question of why “we have been taught by the society to use He for God” is revealing and worth considering, I won’t do so here.Quote:
Originally Posted by “Amra”
Now we move into a different realm – I am no longer concerned with the philosophical aspects but the moral ones. I want justice and fairness in the here and now, not in some unproven, supernatural other world where everything is lovely.Quote:
Originally Posted by “Amra”
Firstly, I’m from the UK, a supposedly democratic country. There is no law against openly preaching communism. I believe this is true for most democracies. Secondly, you say that I can practise whatever faith I like but that certain ideas would not be tolerated. I can’t practise what I choose then, can I?Quote:
Originally Posted by “Amra”
So a bit of good old intolerance is okay then and justified on the basis that intolerance is everywhere? I know that intolerance is everywhere – which is why I think those beliefs need challenging. I can only say that I am glad that I do not live in a society that enshrines its religious dogma in law.Quote:
Originally Posted by “Amra”
While I understand your frustration with having heartfelt beliefs challenged, I disagree that it’s irrelevant to question those beliefs. I am not trying to take away your faith, I am simply explaining my views. Given that a great many of our laws have some basis in the teachings of various faiths, it matters what those beliefs are.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ryduce
Isn’t this what Cardinal Bellarmine said to Galileo?Quote:
Originally Posted by “Ryduce”
To an extent, this is true. However, I am offering reasoned argument and explanations for why I think the way I do. If you choose to ignore these, then perhaps that is why the discussion goes no further.Quote:
Because I have faith,and you don't.That's all this discussion will ever be.
TO SAMI:
That's why I think it's a waste of time for we atheists and you bible-wielding types to engage in a serious dialogue; it's just not possible. We athiests have an acute sensitivity to the rhythms of nature, to what's here, to what's accessible, which is vastly limited. I think it was Whitehead who said one of the fundamental problems of life is that our creator just didn't give us enough information. We atheists acknowledge a shut-off valve, humility, when our mind has gone full-circle, where the analytical needle hits Zero, the Nothing, God, the One; we choose not to be pulled down the drain by biblical hyperbole and metaphysical illusion to substantiate that which is unavailable, and accept having a "very partial view of life" because we live in a 3-dimensional world. Reason recognizes those limits and accepts it. That is the great and joyous gift of "Being There" (Da-sein). Heidegger rightly said the gods of history have retreated, the modern age has done "violence to metaphysics," the chains are off, and while we sway over the infinite abyss, we hear an echo, those mystic rhthyms Socrates once heard and for which he followed his speculative mind to the height of the Sun and where he allowed it to rain down on us. This was the light of Reason. You say we're dogmatic? Surely ye jest. Faith is as empty a concept as the Old/New Testaments and Koran.
Copernicus, Galileo, Newton ushered in a new science that sought material and efficient causes and deemed irrelevant Aristotle's formal and final causes (i.e. purpose). You bible types ascended to a fourth dimension, from a perspective that today speaks down to Galileo, Newton, and the rest of us, because you are the universal voice, you are god incarnate, who speaks down and comes down to chastise those who are endlessly searching, wondering. We accept our own mortality; we accept tragedy (begrudgingly so); we call on no god for recompense, we suffer, and somehow conjure meaning from the absurd; we are Sissyphus; we don't discriminate, we "live free, love free, court destruction with taunts..." We invite change, divergent lifestyles - from the moral to the profane; you cast aspersions against the Will to life (amor fate!); we jump into the eye of the storm and dance to earthy incantations; we accept human beings with all their imperfections; we are, above all, discoverers and not followers.
You say, "Where all reasonable factors point to the contrary conclusion," we say, however seductive the pull of this notion, we wake up in the morning, look in the mirror and ask, "I wonder if its true."
__________________
Xamonas, you carry on being a gadfly. As soon as anyone on this forum asks awkward or probing questions, there is a chorus of disapproval activated. Liberal sentiment takes over and thinking is marginalized. Thank God the writers we are supposedly on here to discuss didn’t take the same anaemic approach. I am not threatened by thought and often find your posts interesting and provocative. They make me think and/or laugh – either one is fine by me, although some of your humour does need to be a bit funnier. :brow:
This is where we differ, and because we start of from different postulates, we are not going to go anywhere with this discussion. So, I'll leave it at this, because I can't reconcile the idea that mere knowledge of the future is indistinguishable from predestination, and that it somehow has an affect on free will, whereas you don't have a problem with that.Quote:
It’s not that I confuse predestination with knowledge but that I believe knowledge of the future is indistinguishable from predestination and certainly incompatible with the idea of individual free wil
Practice and preaching is different. You can practice whatever you like, but preaching it openly to the public would certainly be regulated in a way it is in every society. There may not be a law against communism per se, but let's say we redefine communism to mean terrorism, as we can so easily do nowdays, and all of a sudden we have no problems not tolerating that idea anymore? Funny, how democracy works to protect itself from any possible threat. What if someone came with the idea to abolish democracy and started preaching against it? What if someone formed a party that calls for an shariah based law in the UK? How do you think your tolerant UK country would react?Quote:
Firstly, I’m from the UK, a supposedly democratic country. There is no law against openly preaching communism. I believe this is true for most democracies. Secondly, you say that I can practise whatever faith I like but that certain ideas would not be tolerated. I can’t practise what I choose then, can I?
WEll, intolerance is a very relative and subjective phenomena. Perceived intolerance is what I was referring to, and not actual, because we would have to have an objective standard if we wanted to decide upon an objective (in)tolerance level. Since we don't have that, every society would be PERCEIVED as intolerant by one or the other group, and it is impossible to get away from that. Who on Earth can set a law that would satisfy everyone? For example, every society that doesn't implement shariah law is intolerant in my eyes, whereas you will certainly think otherwise. Do you think that this can every be reconciled? Certainly not.Quote:
So a bit of good old intolerance is okay then and justified on the basis that intolerance is everywhere? I know that intolerance is everywhere – which is why I think those beliefs need challenging. I can only say that I am glad that I do not live in a society that enshrines its religious dogma in law.
Just to clarify: I was not trying to suggest that we ought not to question faith or belief. Faith could be opposed to reasoned argument, and historically and politically speaking religious faith has, of course, been used as a means to suppress debate. However, I don’t think that this necessarily has to be the case, and the point I was trying to make is that a commitment to non-belief could also become dogmatic if this meant that we were always required to provide a rational account of ourselves. Is such an account always possible?
I have really struggled with the question of atheism, but tend towards the conclusion that it would be very dishonest of me not to admit that I do have faith in God. An atheist might rationally convince me that this is incorrect, but I don’t happen to think that we always live according to the rules of reasoned discourse. For me, this is what makes life interesting, surprising and basically worthwhile.
I suspect that Xamonas knows this since he too claims to have faith. I also think he knows that Socrates might agree with the idea that reasoned knowledge has limits (didn’t Socrates have “hopes” about death despite the fact that he could not possess any certainty about the afterlife?)
Unnameable: I tend to think of the free speech and open debate that you seem to favour as very liberal assertions, so I am not sure that it’s a liberal “chorus of disapproval” that worries you?
Jon1jt: Your post contains a lot of assumptions. In particular you seem to assume that faith is always closed to debate and, once again, for me this is not necessarily the case. If I did not wish to debate with you, then I would not have posted my view. I am sorry that you think it’s a “waste of time” to discuss matters with people who believe in God. I wish you every success in finding a more interesting and constructive way of passing the day. Also, is someone who believes in God necessarily a “Bible type”?
I’m happy with that but I would like to point out that you are being disingenuous. My whole argument does not rely on the fact that I see predestination and knowledge of the future as the same thing. I gave perfectly adequate examples of how free will and knowledge of the future are irreconcilable. You have simply ignored them, citing the above as your reason for so doing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Amra
I was a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain when I was a callow youth. I used to preach my beliefs. I wasn’t once arrested, nor was I the victim of a Press smear campaign.Quote:
Originally Posted by Amra
What kind of argument is that?! Let’s say we redefine Stamp Collecting as Terrorism and see what happens?Quote:
Originally Posted by Amra
I think you’ll find that it’s easier to redefine some activities as terrorism than others. It usually involves large numbers of innocent dead people. I never once killed anyone when I was a member of the Communist Party, nor do I remember any of my fellow members doing so.Quote:
Originally Posted by Amra
You find it funny; I find it reassuring. Democracy, for all its faults, is my culture and I want to preserve it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Amra
I would not have a problem with that. I believe in free speech.Quote:
Originally Posted by Amra
I don’t know but I hope it would argue as strongly as possible against it. I know I would. I don’t wish to live under shariah law.Quote:
Originally Posted by Amra
I agree, which is why I would never live in a country that implemented shariah law. I will promote and defend my values and western style democracy will allow me to do this (within limits, of course). The same would not be true if I lived under shariah law.Quote:
Originally Posted by Amra
I don't understand your point.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sami
My interest in the contradiction I mentioned comes from Milton’s Paradise Lost. It bothered Milton sufficiently for him to consider it at length throughout his works. Here is a passage from Paradise Lost, Book 3 (‘his’ in the first line refers to Satan)
For man will hearken to his glozing lies,
And easily transgress the sole command,
Sole pledge of his obedience: So will fall
He and his faithless progeny: Whose fault?
Whose but his own? ingrate, he had of me
All he could have; I made him just and right,
Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.
Such I created all the ethereal Powers
And Spirits, both them who stood, and them who fail'd;
Freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell.
Not free, what proof could they have given sincere
Of true allegiance, constant faith or love,
Where only what they needs must do appear'd,
Not what they would? what praise could they receive?
What pleasure I from such obedience paid,
When will and reason (reason also is choice)
Useless and vain, of freedom both despoil'd,
Made passive both, had serv'd necessity,
Not me? they therefore, as to right belong'd,
So were created, nor can justly accuse
Their Maker, or their making, or their fate,
As if predestination over-rul'd
Their will dispos'd by absolute decree
Or high foreknowledge they themselves decreed
Their own revolt, not I; if I foreknew,
Foreknowledge had no influence on their fault,
Which had no less proved certain unforeknown.
So without least impulse or shadow of fate,
Or aught by me immutably foreseen,
They trespass, authors to themselves in all
Both what they judge, and what they choose; for so
I form'd them free: and free they must remain,
Till they enthrall themselves; I else must change
Their nature, and revoke the high decree
Unchangeable, eternal, which ordain'd
Their freedom: they themselves ordain'd their fall.
The first sort by their own suggestion fell,
Self-tempted, self-deprav'd: Man falls, deceiv'd
By the other first: Man therefore shall find grace,
The other none: In mercy and justice both,
Through Heaven and Earth, so shall my glory excel;
But Mercy, first and last, shall brightest shine.
God uses the same sophistry that has been offered here. Milton also discusses the problem of free will and censorship in Areopagitica. He has to offer some comment on the problem and, fabulous though his verse is, its power to persuade rests more on that than on rational thought. The fact that Milton has felt it necessary to address the issue is itself significant.
The emboldened type is an example of where Milton’s epigrammatic terseness serves to persuade us by rhetorical rather than logical means.
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Unnamable
oh go ahead and make fun! Say you don't write material for the comedians at Yuk Yuks in your spare time now do you? :D
I am a little, just a little shocked that you said this dear Unnameable, but at any rate since you are a teacher and since I don't get the opportunity to be in you class and learn, I at least looked up good old gadfly in the online dictionary. When visiting the farm of course I know what one is , but i never thought about the use any other way(you know how simple I am and yet you are kind to me.....very telling wouldn't you say?)Quote:
Originally Posted by The Unnamable
At any rate I hope by calling XC a gadfly you were referring to the second meaning. I really hope that is what you meant. Or I shall defend him to the death. And you will see Mary as you have never seen her before.! :D
Quote:
I don't understand your point.
That’s completely understandable :) I probably shouldn’t be posting on this topic since I am all too aware that I am muddled on these questions.
I think what I was trying to say about free speech was that your concern with religious views limiting debate seems to be an anti-liberal position to me. The chorus of disapproval that you mentioned did not seem to be motivated by a “liberal sentiment”, but by less tolerant positions that reject the possibility of debate and plurality.
I know next to nothing about Milton so it is interesting to read your post – thanks! I think that the relationship between logical argument on the one hand, and rhetorical persuasion on the other, is a very difficult one. Is there necessarily always going to be a tension between the two sides, or as you put it, a “contradiction”?
:DQuote:
I’m happy with that but I would like to point out that you are being disingenuous. My whole argument does not rely on the fact that I see predestination and knowledge of the future as the same thing. I gave perfectly adequate examples of how free will and knowledge of the future are irreconcilable. You have simply ignored them, citing the above as your reason for so doing.
Well, you cannot argue that it is not one and the same thing, because then you don't have an argument to support the idea that free will and knowledge of the future are irreconcilable. They can only be irreconcilable if there is predestination, or influence from God, or both, since they can be seen as one and the same thing. Since you have expressed your opinion that none of those are present, I don't know what your argument is then based on. (?)
It can go three ways:
1. Knowledge of future and free will are irrencilable because there is predestination.
2. Knowledge of future and free will are irreconcilable because there is influence from God.
3. Knowledge of future and free will are irreconcilable because knowledge of future is indistinguishable from predestination, and predestination implies influence, which implies no free will.
4. you can add something, if I have missed it....
I can even make an argument on this..
1. Knowledge of future is predestination.
2. Predestination means influence.
3. Influence implies no free will.
4. Free will and knowledge of future are irreconcilable.
:) However, if you don't accept the first two premises, I dare you to make a logical argument to support your theory.
I stated that preaching to the public openly about a belief that is fundamentally different from the constitution of the country would be regulated, as it is in every society. Your one example doesn't not prove anything because there are million of others that I could state to offer another perspective. I mean, this subject is very broad, and we can go into it if you'd like, but I thought it was a very general statement that you would agree on without going into it deeper. Your own experience of something is not enough to disprove my statement, so we can't really take it into consideration. My point was that every society will regulate things that it perceives as a threat in one way or the other. I mean, it makes me wonder why Noam Chomsky, for example, does not get ANY media coverage in the USA. I have NEVER seen him giving an interview on Fox News, and in his books he claims that his views are purposefully cenzored because they do not agree with the mainstream (if you want to call it that) views. Would that be considered censorship? Why is the Austrian historian sentenced to three years in prison for denying the Holocaust? Why don't we have a free access to Al-Jazeera in the USA? Why did the USA bomb the Al-Jazeera headquarters in Qatar? Cenzorship? And so on... I should stop... ;)Quote:
I was a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain when I was a callow youth. I used to preach my beliefs. I wasn’t once arrested, nor was I the victim of a Press smear campaign.
The issue here is not what YOU would think, but what the society as whole would tolerate.Quote:
I would not have a problem with that. I believe in free speech
Well, that goes only in as much your values are in line with democratic values. If they would be different from that, democracy would cenzor and supress them.Quote:
I agree, which is why I would never live in a country that implemented shariah law. I will promote and defend my values and western style democracy will allow me to do this (within limits, of course). The same would not be true if I lived under shariah law.
Let's restate your above statement from my perspective...
I will promote and defend the values of shariah law(my values) and Islam will allow me to do this. The same would not be true if I lived under democracy. :D
You didn't get my point. I merely stated the way society is able to justify its own actions by redefining things. It is hard to talk about this subject on this forum because we are not allowed to talk about current politics, but Big Brother and Patriot Act are to me one and the same; in principle that is. Simply by giving a certain name to an idea doesn't necessarily change that idea, but it does affect how people look at it. Isn't it interesting that both Big Brother and Patriot Act carry such names, targeting your emotions? Why wasn't the Patriot Act called Allowed Spying Act? Would that change the essence of the law? NO. But it surely changes how people look at it. Attacking a free, sovereign country is certainly not democratic, nor can it be supported by ANY international law, but if we call the country a terrorist country and its leader a dictator, that would surely justify our actions. Create an evil and a threat, and our actions will appear democratic. Every society can do that, and then the question of tolerance and justice comes to mind. It is easy to be tolerant and just when there is no real opposition, but every society has its own interests that it will harbor and protect in ways that it can. To say that one is more tolerant than another is simply not true. They just mask their intolerance in different ways.Quote:
What kind of argument is that?! Let’s say we redefine Stamp Collecting as Terrorism and see what happens?