Skye said:
If it weren't mere chance or sheer randomness then it leaves you with one other option, and I fear the direction will take you down a path you prefer to ignore given your way of life!
Well, I don't really have a specific way of life. It just so happens Atheist fits me more than any other option on the list.
Irrespectively, no. Non-randomness does not necessitate God. It is interesting to note that theists who often make this claim are overcompensating for what they see as a ridiculous existence (or a random existence). It is almost, very nearly a concession to the ridiculous design they propose. That perhaps if they didn't believe in a god they would believe in pure randomness. Yet somehow when God is claimed as true, it no longer has any familiarity with randomness and becomes a marvel of absolute creation. Strange.
Anyway, no. We know that things happen for tried, tested and understood reasons. It is not the thread to go into more specifics on that.
Whether or not it is sheer error in judgment it is left to the final judge to decide, from our perspective and what we know to be given so much and to deny it, is a crime!
God gets to define what a crime is in his book!
We are back to obedience stand-off again. You are welcome to make this claim and to make this argument, but I hope that you do not think it will be the slightest bit convincing to me. You have all but conceded that disbelief in Allah as a "horrendous crime" is an unevidenced and fanciful claim, yet you have redeemed yourself just by qualifying, as many do by saying 'god decides', or 'God gets to do what he wants'.
If you believe that God defines what he wants, when he wants and how he wants and it becomes absolutely right - then you have no need to engage me in any apologetics whatsoever. All of your analogies, justifications and claims become effectively meaningless in light of this rather big claim. In fact all moral claims ever become meaningless. You are essentially telling me that there is no such thing as 'morality' or 'ethics' but that there is only God's word. That there is only obedience to authority. That all of your principles, ideals, considerations that you have ever made are all superflous, all means to an ends and all enactments of commandments that you have received. If God was to by your own reckoning, decree that murder was valid you would have no grounds to reject it. If God was to decree that theft was desirable, you would have no means to disagree.
I ask of you how is this moral? How is this anything other than blind obedience with the same justification given by the leading Nazi's at the Nuremburg Trial?
Very valid reasoning..
and I quote the noble Quran:
23: 91 Never did God take unto Himself any offspring, nor has there ever been any deity side by side with Him: [for, had there been any,] lo! each deity would surely have stood apart [from the others] in whatever it had created, and they would surely have [tried to] overcome one another! Limitless in His glory is God, [far] above anything that men may devise by way of definition.54
This verse is simply praise to God's alleged ability. This is not a justification for how anything referenced is a "monstrosity".
The only error here that I can see is a lack of ability for either you or the Qu'ran to understand that polytheism is not linked nor based on Islam, a lack of objective understanding of beliefs not grounded in the same question-begging assumptions as yours
and a failure to recognise the naturalistic fallacy.
Note: Even if a God does exist, it does not mean that it is a crime or "monstrous" to ascribe partners or models to him - it would just be in error.
It isn't a mere 'thought-crime' as you allege, considering every aspect of life from how inheritance is distributed to how to run the state is dictated by this religion. Thus to deny it, isn't merely a minor misdemeanor!
Is it necessary, as per your understanding to be a Muslim before you can enter heaven (paradise)? If your answer is yes, then absolutely the qualifier is thought.
I don't see what this gibberish has to do with the topic?
I am really not following.. try to take this plane for proper landing!
Simple: disbelief is
not disobedience. If I disbelieve in something it could mean that I am not convinced of it rather than actively shunning it. This is the mistake that Muslim apologists make when they claim that Non-Muslims are disobedient and therefore deserving of eternal torture.
Your prior analogy really had no room on this thread, it was nice for a guffaw, now, I perfectly understand that you are not convinced that God exists.. what do we care? or why should we be made to care? I really fail to understand this-- it is becoming circuitous.. every couple of posts you state a grievance of something you don't believe in, what can any of us do to help you?
Firstly, I repeat my perspective because I am being told constantly that maybe I'm being a bit too affront, a bit too disobedient, perhaps a bit too smug and a bit too vindictive. I am not. I repeat my position because of these accusations and attacks on my motives.
Secondly, I repeat my position because it is one of the foundations of my complaints here. The idea that I ought to be, or rather it would be acceptable for me to be punished in eternal torture for what I thought, or did not think. Several posters on here have posted specific distinctions of different kinds of disbelief that offer differing responses, but in general the qualifier
is and
appears to be disbelief.
This is what I am arguing against. What I believe is unjust.
And if you contend, by the way, that Islam is a faith of moral piety - then these ought to be, if you take your position seriously be answered.
However the issue is again not mainly of morality there are many things to consider which are too expansive and a matter of faith to discuss with an atheist certainly a chance at immortality in an of itself is fantastic.. as I have stated in a previous post. I don't know what morality is per you to have at it with you. Since we are not starting from the same baseline, I find this to be another exercise in futility!
Indeed this is true. You have frequently been arguing on subjective ground with me, and this has destroyed communications almost entirely. You have already also shown me that you believe that morality is the same thing as unquestioning obedience to the highest authority. I personally find such a belief to be abhorrent, masochistic and subservient.
It is as simple as biting the hands that feed you!
This again is why I have to repeat myself. My disbelief in Allah is not based on any vindictive contempt, any nasty motive or disingenuous disagreement but purely on not being convinced of Islam's claim to divinity. I am not, in this context "biting the hands that feed you (me)" because I
don't believe that such hands even exist! If I bring you food anonymously, I leave you food by your door with no signature, no reference and you do not thank me for it - would I really make sense in complaining about your selfishness or your arrogance?
Because the author simply talks about what is
logical. He begins to forgo the use of morality and only starts suggesting what one ought to do based on pure self-interest, and the most efficient way to do it. (i.e: avoiding hellfire despite its questionable origins). Never mind the fact that say the Nazi's were a despicable bunch of racist genocidists, it makes more sense for you to join up with them, and indeed more sense to avoid their wrath.
That sort of logic is an opening to an acceptance of all kinds of evil.
I am very serious. I don't see what humility has to do with cutting through crap? I do it all the time when I read your posts!
Lol at respectfulness. I try and treat every poster I interact with, no matter how bigoted, petulant, ignorant and childish they may come across towards me with a measure of good-will, and yet from you, I have never witnessed any at any point. You frequently berate me, insult me, complain about me - you know that this discussion is
optional, right? If my presence so offends you so, then simply do not address me.
And, indeed it has everything to do with humility. To believe yourself above almost all of the greatest minds on the planet (within two days!) that have a comprehensive understanding of almost every religion is indeed arrogant.
Except that we don't have that eradicated from memory as research shows:
http://www.islamicboard.com/health-s...ic-claims.html (Children are born believers in God, academic claims)
belief in God is innate!
Belief in God, whether we have a predisposition or not to it is not a nod to the claim that you made. Irrespectively, a single article by a single researcher in a single university is hardly 100% reason to consider it an absolute fact that everyone at birth believes in God.
Moreover, no-one at that age is the person they become. You are hardly an ideal at age 0. You do not have free-will at that point.
