Islam and Modern Terrorism - The Divine Solution.

[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

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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.

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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?