Re: God Thread, Pt. III

[Cruijf]

Frankly, since all versions of genesis basically consist of "God/Allah/Insert-Deity-Here made the world with magic", the premise of "there is no magic, fact" already denies all religions credibility.

Not that I disagree, but it is a poor basis for open discussion.

Strangely, I find myself agreeing with Viva for the third time today. Shocking.

As for the question, I'll do my best to outline the Islamic response, but I can't speak on a general basis for all theists.

The short answer is essentially that we don't and can't know, but there's more to it than that, and since it seems that doesn't satisfy you, I'll elaborate a bit.

There are two big Islamic principles that apply to this discussion.

The first is that every nation/culture has had the message of monotheism conveyed to them in some way.

"And We certainly sent into every nation a messenger, [saying], "Worship the One God and avoid false deities." (Quran 16:36)

This is not meant to say that every human to ever exist received the message of God, but it is to say that on the whole, every culture's perception of God comes from the teachings of Islam having been sent to them and being corrupted and changed over time. This is why we all have perceptions of the afterlife, why almost every culture has a story of a great flood, etc.

The second principal is that God will never punish someone who did not receive His message. The proof for this is two-fold: the word used to indicate disbelief in the Quran is almost always kufr which comes from kafara which means to hide or reject something. 'Disbelief' as mentioned in the Quran thus only applies to those who heard the message, understood it, ad still turned away from it.

The second proof is the following verse:

"...and never would We punish [a person or people] until We sent a messenger [to them]." (17:15).

Fairly straightforward stuff, so far - almost everyone to walk this earth has received the message of monotheism, and only those who have will be held accountable.

As for this whole gap between prophets thing, you have to understand the message (and logical merits of the arguments presented) of a religion outlast any messenger. 1400 years after the Prophet Muhammad Peace Be Upon Him, there is still a ridiculous amount of information available to us about his life, practices, and message. And the fact that we're having this conversation is indicative that the message has been delivered. The whole foundation of Abrahamic theology is that God has given us information on how he wants us to live, and its up to us whether we decide to believe it is from Him and follow it, or whether we decide to reject it. For the most part though, not just Islamic teachings but actual historic evidence shows that people have gotten the message. That's why all religions are so similar.

The more interesting question though is what I think you're on the cusp of throughout your post, which is, "why does God allow us to disbelieve?" And that one we really can't know, other than that willful obedience is better in the eyes of God than obedience that is forced. After all, if you accept the whole thing for a second you realize every living non-human being, whether they're animals or angels, must obey God. Everything in existence would obey a God. Humans are the exception in that they have a choice.

But again, that one we really can't say, because as your class concluded, finite physical beings such as us can never really comprehend the logic of an infinite metaphysical being.

For the record though, the Quran addresses this question:

And (remember) when your Lord said to the angels: "Verily, I am going to place (mankind) generations after generations on earth." They said: "Will You place therein those who will make mischief therein and shed blood, - while we glorify You with praises and thanks and sanctify You." He (Allah) said: "I know that which you do not know."

[Adit]

Frankly, since all versions of genesis basically consist of "God/Allah/Insert-Deity-Here made the world with magic", the premise of "there is no magic, fact" already denies all religions credibility.

Not that I disagree, but it is a poor basis for open discussion.

Strangely, I find myself agreeing with Viva for the third time today. Shocking.

As for the question, I'll do my best to outline the Islamic response, but I can't speak on a general basis for all theists.

The short answer is essentially that we don't and can't know, but there's more to it than that, and since it seems that doesn't satisfy you, I'll elaborate a bit.

There are two big Islamic principles that apply to this discussion.

The first is that every nation/culture has had the message of monotheism conveyed to them in some way.

"And We certainly sent into every nation a messenger, [saying], "Worship the One God and avoid false deities." (Quran 16:36)

This is not meant to say that every human to ever exist received the message of God, but it is to say that on the whole, every culture's perception of God comes from the teachings of Islam having been sent to them and being corrupted and changed over time. This is why we all have perceptions of the afterlife, why almost every culture has a story of a great flood, etc.

The second principal is that God will never punish someone who did not receive His message. The proof for this is two-fold: the word used to indicate disbelief in the Quran is almost always kufr which comes from kafara which means to hide or reject something. 'Disbelief' as mentioned in the Quran thus only applies to those who heard the message, understood it, ad still turned away from it.

The second proof is the following verse:

"...and never would We punish [a person or people] until We sent a messenger [to them]." (17:15).

Fairly straightforward stuff, so far - almost everyone to walk this earth has received the message of monotheism, and only those who have will be held accountable.

As for this whole gap between prophets thing, you have to understand the message (and logical merits of the arguments presented) of a religion outlast any messenger. 1400 years after the Prophet Muhammad Peace Be Upon Him, there is still a ridiculous amount of information available to us about his life, practices, and message. And the fact that we're having this conversation is indicative that the message has been delivered. The whole foundation of Abrahamic theology is that God has given us information on how he wants us to live, and its up to us whether we decide to believe it is from Him and follow it, or whether we decide to reject it. For the most part though, not just Islamic teachings but actual historic evidence shows that people have gotten the message. That's why all religions are so similar.

The more interesting question though is what I think you're on the cusp of throughout your post, which is, "why does God allow us to disbelieve?" And that one we really can't know, other than that willful obedience is better in the eyes of God than obedience that is forced. After all, if you accept the whole thing for a second you realize every living non-human being, whether they're animals or angels, must obey God. Everything in existence would obey a God. Humans are the exception in that they have a choice.

But again, that one we really can't say, because as your class concluded, finite physical beings such as us can never really comprehend the logic of an infinite metaphysical being.

For the record though, the Quran addresses this question:

And (remember) when your Lord said to the angels: "Verily, I am going to place (mankind) generations after generations on earth." They said: "Will You place therein those who will make mischief therein and shed blood, - while we glorify You with praises and thanks and sanctify You." He (Allah) said: "I know that which you do not know."

Only similar Religions are the Semitic religions,Christianity,Jews and Islam because they originated from the same story of Abraham.

If you tell me Hinduism with multiple gods, Jainism, Budhism (no god),The greek religion before christianity took over,African religions,Tawoism,Confusionism etc are similar to those Semitic religions then you cant be further from the truth.

[Adit]

Origin stories are always interesting nonetheless. Our capacity for creativity and how we view the world is showcased in them.

What I've always found interesting is this attempt by theists to co-opt science into religion. When all we knew was that there was this planet, God created it. Then we discovered the moon and magically God created that too, then we discovered the other planets and conveniently God created them too and finally we discovered the universe itself, and what do you know? God created the universe.

It's almost like the more we discover of the vast space around us, the more ownership is attributed to God.

Extremely convenient for a deity that created such a primitive species as ours when there are literally thousands of worlds they could've chosen instead.

Maybe I'm off base with these musings, but just observations.

Imagine them claiming Evolution was also gods creation.

Thankfully , all those books have those weird creationist theories written now they can no longer back track and claim evolution as well.

[FennecFox7]

i'm atheist because of a lack of belief. however there is no wrong. we have no idea. hence i would rather not believe in anything until i have undeniable proof

[El Gunner]

^^Then you are an agnostic.

[rwo power]

Indeed. After all, atheists are believers, too. They just believe in the non-existence of God/gods, a belief that has the same problems to be proven by irrefutable proof as the belief in the existence of God/gods.

[Cruijf]

I'm assuming you're an agnostic Rwo?

[rwo power]

Yup. Agnostic here. No way to prove anything atm, although I can go ballistic when people use some "God" to legitimate themselves to subjugate, kill or torture other people, just because they decide not to follow their beliefs.

[DuringTheWar]

Christopher Hitchens Morality Challenge




The proposition is twofold:

1. Find one moral deed or statement that a religious believer has made that could not have been made by an unbeliever.
2. Find a wicked action that could only have been taken under the belief that God willed it.

Hitchens asserts it takes just 10 seconds to think of a wicked action only a religious person could commit. Whereas not 1 good deed can be thought of that only a religious person would be capable of.
I presume genital mutilation and sacrificial rituals are among the wicked acts he has in mind. As far as terrorism, even suicide missions, are concerned, it isn't limited to religious motivation.

The second part of the challenge inspired me to search for skeletons in the closet of Atheism or science that could be linked explicitly to atheism/science as the motivation to determine whether this is really a fair challenge to make. This is the most evil I could find:

Science

In the pursuit of knowledge and development of biological weapons the following acts were committed on prisoners of war and civilions by Japanese scientists during the world war period:

-Vivisections performed on live "patients" (men women and infants) without anaesthetic, including in at least one instance the removal of a persons brain.
-Placing human beings in a centrifuge to test how fast a human can be spun until dying.
-Deliberately infecting people of all ages from adults to infants with diseases such as syphilis and gonorrhea, and in some case forcing them to have sexual intercourse to transmit said diseases.
-Limbs frozen to test frostbite.
-Chemical weapons tested.
-Exposed to radiation.

The United States at the end of WW2 took the research findings...

More can be read here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731

Atheism

"Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.”

That quote from George Orwells 1984 has never seemed so sinister as when I read of the atrocities committed during the Romanian communist dictatorship in a place named Pitesti prison.
A violent brainwashing experiment took place with the explicit purpose in most cases being to turn believers into atheists, via a process of psychical violence and humiliation aimed at destroying their personality - given the technical term "depersonalisation". Among the acts the victims were subjected to included:

- Sexual humiliation including forced analingus,
- Forcibly made to eat human excrement in blasphemous "black mass" rituals.
- Forcibly made to blaspheme in a myriad of ways
- Forcibly made to participate in torturing others
- Being made to urinate in each others mouths
- Having their faces submerged in buckets containing urine and excrement.
- Made participate in or observe blasphemous sex plays that was considered a form of pedagogy. It is also referred to as "The theatre of punishments" by Michel Foucalt.

"one of the most ferocious experiences of dehumanization that our era has known" - the  historian François Furet

"most terrible act of barbarism in the contemporary world" - Solzhenitsyn

More can be read here, including pictures drawn by an artist commissioned by survivors of the experiment -
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/~cama20z/classweb/worldpolitics/thepitestiphenomenon/experience.html

I'd think there is a nihilistic sadism that characterised that phenomenon. Nihilism is antithetical to religious feeling and so in response to Hitchens challenge I suggest there are certain forms of sadism that only an atheist could indulge in and in the case i have analysed it was explicitly motivated by atheism itself.
And so judging the moral standing of a particular creed or way of thinking, by what it may lead some people to do, no one wins.

[FennecFox7]

Meh, nice post admittingly, but I'm gonna have to stop you at the end and say that no, atheism does not motivate those disgusting things.

If someone is a messed up individual in terms on how to act in society, you can't go and blame the lack of a belief in God because they have nothing to do with one another. Likewise, blaming religion on the acts of a few is not always 100% correct, although it is a good excuse for violence in some people's eyes

It's like saying because I ate cereal today, the sky is blue. There is absolutely zero correlation

[El Gunner]

Yeaaaa no.

You (on Hitchens' questions of course) basically handpicked a few extremities from each side (atheism, science, religion) and then came across as generalising which is a poor thing to do.

So yea, that little arguments doesn't hold any strong regard and neither does Hitchens' questions, I don't see what he is trying to prove cause nothing can be proved from that.

A label doesn't make a person, more so than ever that should be understood today.

[Bellabong]

Fry with some good (empirical) views:

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