ATHEISTS .... explain

Society Religion & Philosophy
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Re: ATHEISTS .... explain

^ Above, speech I heard it before its an excellent speech, I am listening to his audios I like his attitude about Aqeedah and no deviation.

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2 - The steady state theory was rejected a long time ago because the universe expands according to latest scientific discovery.

1 - This is what we believe as muslims. Belief in this comes from the overwhelming evidence God has created through this universe. Other than this we cannot prove it. We can only take what Allah SWT has made available to us in terms of universe animate or inanimate and use it to prove Allah SWT existence and there is so much here that I find it sheer arrogance on part of those who just reject the existence of Allah SWT or God saying all this came about by chance and has evolved over time. Built over time I can believe but evolved is not correct.

People who view Quran as a book of everything are totally wrong and are create more and more confusion among non-muslims. Quran is a message from Allah SWT that contains guidance for achiving eternal salvation. For people to believe it contains some scientific facts or very precise overviews of how things came about. This kind of verses have always been ahead of time and as science progresses they are not able to contradict those verses. One reason why Quran contains this information, in my humble opinion is because Prophet Muhammad SAW did not spread by the message of Islam through the support of miracles given by Allah SWT as in the case of Prophet Moses PBUH, Prophet Jesus PBUH, Prophet Soloman PBUH etc. Our Prophet SAW miracle is the Quran for those who understand what miracle means.

I think muslims who try to shove down the throats of non-muslims that Quran has every little detail of scientific knowledge in it should correct what they are preaching. When you exagerate things people will eventually start rejecting it. Quran is a message from Allah SWT for guidance in achiving eternal salvation. In order to convey that message Allah SWT incorporated information in it that would be needed to convince those who are sincerely looking for answers. Those who are not interested in achieving eternal salvation will get nothing out of it infact they will go more astray.

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I agree with you during the time of Prophet salaAllaahalayhi wa salam, science did not exist at all, and the Sahaba Karam only became Muslims because of Good character of our dear Prophet, there were others who loved the Words of the Noble Quran and became Muslims.

The other Muslims, wanted peace in there life and Quran and Islam came as a blessing to them. May peace be upon them all. But 1400 years was no science but only **SIGNS **from Allaah Glorified and Exalted he is.

Overall for the Muslims Noble Quran is itself a Miracle which has challenged since 1400 years to the Non-Muslims.

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Sorry yo_wasim, but I might not be able to reply to your post today as well, just stepped in the office and have to leave for a client side meeting.

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Good point. This attests the miraculous nature of Quran. It convinced those who had nothing to do or knowledge of sciences or modernization about 1400 years ago whereas today it still convinces those who reach the extremes of science and confess that all there theories hit a dead end, which cannot be possible without a creator. Or the accuracy of what is given in the Quranic verses so concisely.

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Just a newbie and have caught the end bit of this debate.....and made me recall this story:

two friends, one an atheist, the other a believer, were argueing about the existence of God. The atheist, who was an astronaut, claimed arrogantly that he has been to space many times and has never seen God...and that is proof that God does not exist....to which his friend, a brain surgeon, paused...and then said I have explored many human brains...and have yet to see a single thought....does that mean that thoughts donot exist?

"Seeing is believing" is a very weak argument......

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I shall disagree to that. If we consider Quran a word of God, we should not be afraid to disect and understand the meaning and the wordings of it. If we believe in God and His Quran, we have to understand that every little piece of scientific knowledge in Quran has to be correct. As I said somewhere else, there is a logic behind every little thing and event in this world; if God did not want us to explore His universe, He could have made it without any logic behind it.

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The Concept of God
Or the Meaning of "God"

Knowing what one is talking about is of inestimable value in any dialogue, so the theist, before he sets out to explain why we should believe in God;

Must first explain what he means by the word "God
What is the theist attempting to establish the existence of?
What is the nature of God?
How are we to identify him (or it)?

At least some of the attributes of this supposed creature must be known before anything can be considered relevant to establishing his existence. With no description or definition to work from, we will literally fail to know what we are talking about.

For example, consider the following dialogue:
Mr. Theist: "A Puvey exists".
Mr. Light Bearer: "Prove it".
Mr. Theist: "It has rained for three consecutive days that is my proof".

If this exchange is less than satisfactory, much of the blame rests with Mr. myself: my demand for proof is premature. Mr. Theist has not specified what a "Puvey" is; until and unless he does so, "Puvey" is nothing but a meaningless sound, and Mr. Theist is uttering nonsense.

Without some description of a "Puvey” the alleged proof for its existence is incoherent. When confronted with the claim that a God exists, the person who immediately demands proof commits the same error as does Mr. Light Bearer.

So here it is, "What is it for which you are claiming existence?"

The theist must present an intelligible description of God. Until he does so, "God" makes no more sense than "Puvey"; both are cognitively empty, and any attempt at proof is logically absurd. Nothing can qualify as evidence for the existence of a God unless we have some idea of what we are searching for. Even if it is demanded that the existence of God be accepted on faith, we still must know what it is that we are required to have faith in.

[quote]
"Until the content of a belief is made clear, the appeal to accept the belief on faith is beside the point, for one would not know what one has accepted. The request for the meaning of a religious belief is logically prior to the question of accepting that belief on faith or to the question of whether that belief constitutes knowledge." – LB
[/quote]

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Sir I think your argument is good and valid however it does not refute what I said. We are not on the same page in what we meant to say. I agree that we should understand the meanings but when you hear (and I have heard from many Khatibs) that if you want to learn Astronomy no need to go to NASA, everything is in the Quran. These kind of statements reflect the utter neglect on part of our common day preachers. Quran alludes to many truths but to say that you can extract the whole research of a lifetime or ages from a single verse is wrong. Nobody is saying scientific facts or phenomenon in the Quran are incorrect, all I mean is don't replace scientific subjects and studies with Quran. Quran encompasses the facts of many scientific things not the research. The fact that these things are mentioned so accurately in the Quran at a time when science was not even in its cradle regarding a lot of these scientific subjects attests the miraculous nature of the Quran and indicates that only one who could have known that man would later on discover these things could put them in there centuries ahead of time to impose upon its readers its truthfulness. The research is left to our brain.

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WHAT IS IT FOR WHICH YOU ARE CLAIMING EXISTANCE?

Let's lay the ground rules to move forward.

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The following is an excerpt from Aqeedat ut Tahawiyyah

[quote]
1. We say about Allah's unity believing by Allah's help - that Allah is One, without any partners.

2. There is nothing like Him.
3. There is nothing that can overwhelm Him.
4. There is no god other than Him.
5. He is the Eternal without a beginning and enduring without end.
6. He will never perish or come to an end.
7. Nothing happens except what He wills.
8. No imagination can conceive of Him and no understanding can comprehend Him.
9. He is different from any created being.
10. He is living and never dies and is eternally active and never sleeps.
11. He creates without His being in need to do so and provides for His creation without any effort.
12. He causes death with no fear and restores to life without difficulty.
13. He has always existed together with His attributes since before creation.
Bringing creation into existence did not add anything to His attributes that was not already there. As He was, together with His attributes, in pre-eternity, so He will remain t hroughout endless time.
14. It was not only after the act of creation that He could be described as 'the Creator' nor was it only by the act of origination that He could he described as 'the Originator'.
15. He was always the Lord even when there was nothing to be Lord of, and always the Creator even when there was no creation.
16. In the same way that He is the 'Bringer to life of the dead', after He has brought them lo life a first time, and deserves this name before bringing them to life, so too He deserves the name of 'Creator' before He has created them.
17. This is because He has the power to do everything, everything is dependent on Him, everything is easy for Him, and He does not need anything. 'There is nothing like Him and He is the Hearer, the Seer'. (al-Shura 42:11)
18. He created creation with His knowledge.
19. He appointed destinies for those He created.
20. He allotted to them fixed life spans.
21. Nothing about them was hidden from Him before He created them, and He knew everything that they would do before He created them.
22. He ordered them to obey Him and forbade them to disobey Him.
23. Everything happens according to His decree and will, and His will is accomplished. The only will that people have is what He wills for them. What He wills for them occurs and what He does not will, does not occur.
24. He gives guidance to whoever He wills, and protects them, and keeps them safe from harm, out of His generosity; and He leads astray whoever He wills, and abases them, and afflicts them, out of His justice.
25. All of them are subject to His will between either His generosity or His justice.
26. He is exalted beyond having opposites or equals.
27. No one can ward off His decree or put back His command or overpower His affairs.
28. We believe in all of this and are certain that everything comes from Him.
[/quote]

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Light Bearer,

In #288, are you claiming that how the word GOD existed linguistically, emotionally or psychologically.

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I think he meant logically

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^ ha ha ha..:D . Good one there.

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Yeh mujhse konsi dushmani hai bhai:(

BRIDAL PICS.
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Faith is something that can not be explained. many of the people, including me, because, well, the just believe in god. some dont and that is their business. I might find some compelling reasons to believe in god; others might not find those very same things very compelling. there are some people who see god, and his work, everywhere; others just think that those are natural laws working.

so i think that atheists might not have an evidence to prove their point, just like we dont have any evidence to prove ours.

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koi dushmani nahi... I was just answering your question ... The question he asked has no logical answer to my knowledge. Hence the existence of goods seems very irrational.

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The atheists dont have to prove nothing. For instance if you say that you have a red car. And I say well prove it to me. The only person who has to prove anything here is you not me. I am the one asking the question. Now if you drive you car up to me and let me see it and I see that its really red, your point will be proven. And you will be right about your claim.
Similarly an atheist doesnt say that there is a God. Its you who does. All the atheists are saying is prove it to them. So its ur job to come up with a certain evidence to back up ur claim not the atheist's. Now if God was visible and everybody could see him then it would have been the atheist's job to prove that God doesnt exist and in that case you would have been the questioner.
An atheist is the one who questions ..( not religion specifically) .. and I think its a very simple question when one asks you OK if you think God really exists and all that my brain tells me about God's existence is BS, then please prove it to me that my Brain is wrong and you are right. And if make a valid sensible and logical argument my question will be answered.

Allegations Against Ahmediyya
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And these are excerpts from my own notes:

Thats an impressive list of qualities. Anyway my reply is:

The Abrahamic God (with a capital "G") is complex and mysterious. Theists debate among themselves concerning God's attributes (your list of qualities) and the degree to which God's nature can be comprehended by man. There is a strong current in theists thought which defends the capacity of man to know God through reason. There remains, however, a problem regarding the status of this knowledge.

Can a theist have direct knowledge of God's nature?
Theists unanimously answer "no." I would be really surprised if anyone claims yes, then the validity of that claim is another matter to be discussed.
Then what is the nature and validity of our knowledge of God?
In what way is it reliable?

If we wish to discover the nature of the God, you have offered us a generous assortment of attributes from which to choose.

[quote]
"almighty, eternal, holy, immortal, immense, immutable, incomprehensible, ineffable, infinite, invisible, just, loving, merciful, most high, most wise, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, patient, perfect, provident, supreme, true." So on so forth
[/quote]

This is certainly an impressive list, but one problem immediately becomes apparent: You forgot to mention "Incomprehensible". Please included in this catalogue of characteristics the word "incomprehensible."

Now I wonder how it is possible to declare God's incomprehensibility and simultaneously list twenty-eight additional attributes. If God cannot be comprehended, how can the theists offer us a string of attributes whose function, presumably, is to enable us to understand the nature of God?

The answer lies in the fact that religious agnosticism and all other varieties of theism, maintains that the true nature of God and his essence lies beyond the reach of man's reason.

Whatever knowledge of God we may possess is necessarily deficient in some way. According to some theists:

[quote]
"... there is an important element of truth in the mystical view that God is ineffable. It arises from a vivid awareness of the transcendence of God and provides a salutary warning that finite man can never fully know the essence of God and must never expect to comprehend Him in clear and distinct ideas. But to infer from this that He is wholly ineffable is to overlook the fact that He is immanent as well as transcendent and may be known in a measure through His effects in nature and experience."
[/quote]

Theists and religious agnosticism thus have a common base: each holds the nature of God to be fundamentally unknowable.

But we must take into account that Abrahamic religions attempts to provide some means, however inadequate, by which man can know God. The theists offers some characteristics for his God, so he differs from the agnostic in this respect at least. We must now determine how successful theism has been in its escape from the unknowable God of agnosticism.

It is important to note that, although religious agnosticism is blatantly irrational, the agnostic is aware of one vital point: to assign attributes to an entity is to limit the capacities of that entity. An entity can function only within the context of its nature, and to define the nature of God is to restrict the capacities of god to that nature.

John Hospers describes the agnostic position as follows:

[quote]
What can we say truly about God? According to the mystic, nothing at all. Indeed, to say anything about God is to limit God. To say that God possesses characteristic A is to say that God lacks the characteristic not-A, and to say this is already to limit God, who transcends all such distinctions.
[/quote]

Since he wishes to retain the idea of an infinite or unrestricted God, the theistic agnostic refuses to assign positive attributes to his God. Rather than run the risk of imposing limits, the agnostic prefers to believe in an unknowable God.

Many theists wish to avoid agnosticism by assigning characteristics to their deity, but these theists find themselves confronted with a serious dilemma. On the one hand, they favor the notion of a supernatural being, a being without restrictions, a being with an infinite nature. On the other hand, they want a God with characteristics, a God that can be identified. Therefore, they must conceive of a way to give their God a nature while avoiding the consequence of limitations.

The solution of this difficulty has been the introduction of "unlimited attributes" characteristics of God that do not limit his nature. Hence, we have the traits of omnipotence, omniscience, and other limitless qualities whose function is to give substance to the concept of God without restricting the nature of God. In this way, the theist hopes to keep his supernatural being without collapsing into the contradiction of agnosticism.

But this enterprise is doomed from the start. An "unlimited attribute" is a contradiction in terms. To specify characteristics is to specify determinate qualities, and these qualities cannot be divorced from limitations.

Again quoting Feuerbach:

[quote]
"Dread of limitation is dread of existence. All real existence ... is qualitative, determinative existence. ... A God who is injured by determinate qualities has not the courage and the strength to exist."
[/quote]

The phenomenon of the "unlimited attribute" is the central epistemological contradiction of the Abrahamic God. As we shall see, the attributes of the Abrahamic God cannot withstand critical examination; the concept of God is permeated with ambiguities, contradictions and just plain nonsense. Most of these flaws stem from the futile effort of the theists to endow his God with unrestricted qualities. The result is an insoluble mixture of finite qualities and an infinite being, which transforms the Abrahamic God into a conceptual mess of unequalled dimensions. When God's attributes are pushed to the limits of absurdity, *the theist invariably falls back on man's inability to comprehend God. *

If the atheist complains that omnipotence is impossible, or that a benevolent God cannot be reconciled with the existence of evil in the universe, the theist retreats into the unknowable God of agnosticism. Man, we are told, cannot understand the ways of God. We have now uncovered an important principle: Scratch the surface of a theist and you will find an agnostic. The Abrahamic God is simply the agnostic God with window dressing. *The characteristics of the Abrahamic God are a first line of defense against agnosticism, but the theists will eventually seek refuge in the claim that his God, like the agnostic God, is unknowable. *

If this is true if the God of theists collapses into agnosticism under scrutiny then the theist is no better off than the agnostic, and my previous criticisms of agnosticism will apply to theism as well. The theists will be expressing the inexpressible, thinking about the unthinkable, and presenting knowledge of the unknowable. If this is the case, we must ask the theists to "retreat into silence" or relinquish his belief. And we shall also have demonstrated why Abrahamic theism must be rejected by any person with even a shred of respect for reason.

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Okay, I don’t know if you actually read what I had posted or not.
God is incomprehensible was mentioned in point 8. And Muslims don’t believe in an omnipresent God, it isn’t in my post.
And point 13 says that He existed with His attributes before creation and will exist with those attributes forever.

And there’s another point from the same book

Muslims do not try to even think about the nature of God. How can one understand the nature of something that is incomprehensible, it doesn’t makes sense.
I don’t know, it looks to me that your argument does not apply to the Islamic definition of God.

For your reference, you can read the rest of the book from here
http://www.islaam.net/main/display.php?id=236&category=3