Hi Callum,
czgibson said:
I hope we can agree on these attributes as being shared by the vast majority of people in their understanding of the word "god".
For info on the Islamic view of God's attributes, there is a list of 99 that Muslims commonly use. They are discussed
here.
The first point he mentions is one I agree with. Arguments for or against the existence of God have a history of not being convincing if you are on the other side, so to speak.
I don't recall ever making such a statement. You misconstrued my words. I stated that only GOD has the capability to guide someone, and no matter how many signs we point out to someone, it may have no affect. I made no statement on the history of atheist-theist debates and proofs associated with such. Many people have been convinced, and many are continually being convinced as we speak. But ultimately, it is one's desire to seek God that will lead to one's guidance, as the verses of the Qur'an demonstrate.
This misinterpretation of my words led you to think there was a contradiction in my post when I first stated that I had no capacity to convince anyone, and later began discussing arguments. While it is certainly true that I cannot give them the guidance that God gives those who turn to Him, I may be able to reason with them and lead them to turn to God. In Islam, the scholars have mentioned two types of
Hidayah (gudance):
1.
Hidayah Irshad - Showing someone to the true path
2.
Hidayah Tawfiq - Actually guiding someone to that path and on it
As for the former, any human being can give it to anyone. As for the latter, only God can give that form of guidance to people.
So the purpose of the arguments is to reason with you and present my view and direct you towards that which I deem truth, but I cannot convince you to accept it as truth. In short, my job is to convey, not convince. How convincing an argument is depends entirely on the person recieving it. Therefore, we can make no claims that one argument is unconvincing etc. it is all relative.
Belief in god is a matter of faith, which is not reached by arguments but by personal conviction (I'm assuming here. I clearly do not understand how faith in god is reached).
Think of that which you have faith in, and you might find your faith completely reasonable. Faith is commonly built upon reason. If I only believe in God because my parents told me so, then that's faith in my parents, not faith in God.
- tiny point: I know you are not an automated response due to the Turing test, which you may have heard of - it involves a human judge conversing with a computer and a human, without being told which is which. No computer has yet been built that can fool someone into thinking it is a human.
Improbable, but not impossible!
OK. A reasonable argument, but there are objections that could be made here, such as the fact that it is not massively unlikely that there is a person at the other end writing, messages, posting to forums etc. People do this all the time! What is more, it can be observed. On the other hand, I believe that a being with the attributes of god mentioned above is unlikely (to say the least),
I'm interested in the above comment since that would make a useful argument for atheism. What makes you believe that a God of such attributes is unlikely?
and also that any such being has never been observed by anyone.
This is a flawed analogy. Your stating that you conclude I exist because you have seen other people doing a similar activites, but you've never observed a God. However, the fact that you haven't observed God is analogous to the fact that you haven't observed me, but the fact that you have observed other people posting on a forum is analogous to the fact that you have observed every machine designed and created by an intelligent designer. So these are two different ideas here.
If I use your analogy, then just as you conclude I exist because you observe people posting on forums, so does a theist conclude that there is an Almighty Creator because he observes the careful planning and design of the creators behind the inventions of technology.
Tragedy can also turn people away from God, too, no?
Absolotely, and both aspects are discussed in the Qur'an:
41:49 Man does not weary of asking for good (things), but if ill touches him, he gives up all hope (and) is lost in despair.
The above verse explains that tragedy can be a test of faith.
At the same time, the Qur'an says:
39:49 Now, when trouble touches man, he cries to Us: But when We bestow a favour upon him as from Ourselves, he says, "This has been given to me because of a certain knowledge (I have)!" Nay, but this is but a trial, but most of them understand not!
This verse states that many people only remember God in times of need. When things in their lives are pleasant they forget about their Creator, but when tragedy befalls them they plead to God to help them.
And there is no contradiction between the two. Both are aspects of human mentality.
What I find to be the most miraculous aspect of the Qur'an is that it contains guidance on every single aspect of our lives and any question a human being raises, they shall find the answer in the Qur'an if they search for it. As God says in the Qur'an:
6:38...We have neglected nothing in the Book. In the end, they shall all be gathered unto their Lord
"No strong arguments"? Surely even a strong argument wouldn't convince you, since you have faith. I thought we agreed that arguments can't change someone's view from atheism to theism or vice versa, that it was a matter of faith? Or perhaps you believe arguments can take someone from atheism to theism? This is the point I mentioned earlier.
I repeat that I have yet, in all my discussions with atheists, to see them make a strong argument against God's existence. If they did, it would call my faith into question unless I could answer their argument. And I believe that all arguments have been answered from the Qur'an.
Let me be clear that as Muslims we do not subscribe to blind faith. The Qur'an encourages us to use our senses and our reason to discover and comprehend the truth. When one is liberated from their material desires and turns towards God, they become aware of the truth. We are not Muslims because our parents were Muslims, but rather because we have discivered the truth and chosen this path for ourselves. I fully embraced Islam when I had examined alternative paths of life and found that none of them can compare to the comprehensive system which our Creator has revealed to us. We also have sevral Muslims converts on the forum and they have left their previous ways of life (some were former atheists like _salam_ and steve) and they have accepted Islam.
I don't think this is a good analogy, for reasons connected with the Turing test mentioned above. In fact I can barely see the connection between atheism and the absurd argument you mention here.
The point is that there are no supporting arguments for atheism. Atheists seem to feel it is sufficient to simply argue the proofs brought by theists without bringing their own proofs. Which brings us to your next point:
Re: the invisible pink unicorn argument, the question here is about the burden of proof. Who has to prove their belief, the person who affirms something or the person who denies it? In my view, the theist must take most of the burden of proof, because the assertion "god exists" is prior to the assertion "god does not exist"; it happened first. The concept of god with all his attributes came about at the same time as the idea of his existence. Before the first person ever to say "god exists" said it, it was not possible to think "god does not exist" since the concept hadn't been created yet.
I agree that the position that God exists preceded the position that He doesn't. However, there is a difference between not believing in God and rejecting His existence. I don't agree with your opinion on the burden of proof because if someone came to you and stated that your relatives did not exist anymore, and you argued against them all the reasons why you felt that your relatives did exist, you would probably demand that they provide proof for their assertion. They have made the assertion that your relatives do not exist, hence they must substantiate their claim. There is no neutral position here. One Christian author words the idea very concisely:
The statement “I lack belief in a god” is becoming a common position of atheists. In discussions with them, they tell me they lack belief in God the way they lack belief in invisible, pink unicorns. In other words, they have no position, take no intellectual action, have no “belief or unbelief” on the matter concerning God. To them it is a non-issue. Though this may sound sensible to some, the problem is that once you are introduced to an idea you cannot stay neutral about it. You invariably make a judgment about an idea once it has been introduced to you. You can brush it off as ridiculous, ponder its possibility, accept it, reject it, or do something in between. But, you cannot return to a “lack of belief” position if “lack of belief” is defined as a non-intellectual commitment or non-action concerning it. Though I admit that an atheist can claim he lacks belief even after being exposed to an idea and contemplating its rationality, I still assert that a position of some sort is required.
Let’s pick a baby that has no awareness of the concept of invisible, pink unicorns. Later in life, when the baby is mature and is introduced to the concept, he either accepts the existence of invisible pink unicorns, rejects them as a ridiculous notion, chuckles about it and dismisses it, becomes unsure about them, holds off judgment until later, etc. Either way, he develops a position on the concept of invisible pink unicorns. He has to do something with the concept once he’s been exposed to it. He doesn’t continue in a lack-of-belief or a lack-of-awareness state of mind because the fact is, some sort of intellectual action occurs in regard to it. He cannot become unaffected by the concept. He has been made aware of it and he, by default, does something with it.
Nevertheless, some might say that to hold off judgment until later is to be "atheistic" concerning pink unicorns and therefore support the atheist position of "lack of belief." But, as I said earlier, after being exposed to a concept a decision is made about that concept even if it is to withhold judgment. In other words, an assessment has been made and a position taken. This is not the same as going back to a state of unawareness. To suspend belief on a subject is to hold off judgment until more information is acquired. This is agnosticism, not atheism. It is an admission that not all information is acquired thus logically requiring the possibility of the existence of the thing being considered. This is something atheists do not do by definition, but agnostics do. Agnosticism is the position, in part, that "suspension of belief" is maintained until further information is acquired.
If I said that there was an ice cream factory on Jupiter, what would you think? Would you entertain the idea as a serious possibility? Would you quickly dismiss it as an outlandish absurdity? Would you request evidence for it? Or, did you suddenly have a desire to go to Jupiter for some Jupiterian Swirl? Of course, an ice-cream factory on Jupiter is ridiculous and we automatically know this so we naturally make a judgment on it. Thus, we cannot remain in a state of “lack of belief” concerning the concept once we’ve been introduced to it. We assign it to the “that is ridiculous” category.
This is why the lack of belief defense of atheists is not logical. It ignores the reality that people categorize concepts anywhere in the range of total acceptance to total rejection. It is our nature and it is the nature of the human mind.
Again: are these proofs necessary? If you discovered an extremely convincing atheist argument, would that have any effect on your faith? I'm fairly sure it wouldn't.
I've answered this before, but I'd also like to mention that the affect of the argument on me is irrelevant. We are having a discussion here, therefore we should bring forward arguments to support our stance in the discussion.
I think science has a huge amount of explanatory power. Think of how much more we understand about the universe than people from say 2000 years ago.
I never claimed otherwise. But undoubtedly, science is very limited. It always explains
what but never
why. Allow me to demonstrate with an example used by Maulana Wahiddudin Khan:
'Why is blood red in colour?' If you were to ask a doctor the reason, he would answer, 'Because your blood contains millions of little red discs (5 million to each cubic centimeter), each some seven thousandth of an inch in diameter, called the red corpuscles.'
'Yes, but why are the discs red?'
'Because they contain a substance called haemoglobin, which, when it absorbs oxygen from the lungs, becomes bright red. That is why the blood in the arteries is scarlet. As it flows through the body, the blood gives up its oxygen to the organs of the body and the haemoglobin becoms brownish-this is the dark blood of the veins.'
'Yes. But where do the red corpuscles with their haemoglobin come from?'
'They are made in the spleen.'
'That's marvellous, Doctor. But tell me, how is it that the blood, the red corpuscles, the spleen, and the thousand other things are so organized into one coherent whole, work together so perfectly that I can breathe, run, speak, live?'
'Ah! That is nature.'
'Nature!'
'When I say "nature", I mean the interplay of blind physical and chemical forces.'
'But Doctor, why do these blind forces always act as if they were pursuing a definite end? How do they manage to coordinate their activites so as to produce a bird which flies, a fish which swims, and me...who asks questions?'
My dear friend, I a scientist, can tell you how these things happen. Do not ask me why they are like that.'
While their is no gainsaying the fact that science has set up for us a vast storehouse of knowledge, this dialogue clearly shows that it has its limits. There is a point beyond which it can offer no further explanations.
Although some of the doctor's responses in the above quote may be outdated, in terms of accuracy, I think the quote still demonstrates my point.
There are abstract concepts, and there are metaphysical concepts. They should not be confused. Metaphysical concepts are beyond all possible physical experience. The objects or ideas they refer to cannot be observed. Abstract scientific concepts are simply labels for processes which can be repeatedly tested, observed and measured.
According to the Oxford American Dictionary of English, 'abstract concepts' is synonymous with 'metaphysical concepts'. Now if you wish to utilise an alternative definition thats up to you. The point still remains that we use abstract labels for the same concepts we claim to be beyond science. And my last point....
Then I'm looking for a good answer!
Peace be with you!
).