Re: ATHEISTS … explain
Thats the whole point isn’t it. if the the God is incomprehensible how can you comprehend any qualities of God.
Re: ATHEISTS .... explain
Yes it does apply to the Abrahamic God. As you say, you according to your believe is not capable of descibing God then why did you give me all the qualities or nature of your God. Please understand your God first and then post. If you can't comprehend what you believe in why waste time?
Re: ATHEISTS … explain
**Scratch the surface of a theist and you will find an agnostic. 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. **
Thats what i wrote in my last post.
**How predictable you are.
**
Re: ATHEISTS .... explain
That's the Islamic belief, we can't comprehend God and whatever we know of God is what He described to us in the Quran. I don't see any contradiction. We don't attribute any extra attributes to God, we attribute those attributes which He has attributed to Himself (in the Quran and Hadith).
All those attributes of God in that list have been taken from Quran and Hadith. All Muslims believe Quran to be the word of God and the speech of the Prophet to be revelation, so anything described through these two mediums is from God, ie. God is describing Himself but we don't delve into the details because we cannot. We just accept them as is.
Thats what i wrote in my last post.
How predictable you are.
I can see how these flaws occur in other religions like in Christianity and Hinduism but I still don't see how your argument applies to Islam.
And yes, I do agree that there is no scientific proof for the existence of God but on the other hand there is no scientific proof proving that there is no God.
The Quran talks about knowing that there is a God and it talks about signs of the existence of God.
Re: ATHEISTS .... explain
All those attributes of God in that list have been taken from Quran and Hadith. All Muslims believe Quran to be the word of God and the speech of the Prophet to be revelation, so anything described through these two mediums is from God, ie. God is describing Himself but we don't delve into the details because we cannot. We just accept them as is.
I can see how these flaws occur in other religions like in Christianity and Hinduism but I still don't see how your argument applies to Islam.
And yes, I do agree that there is no scientific proof for the existence of God but on the other hand there is no scientific proof proving that there is no God. The Quran talks about knowing that there is a God and it talks about signs of the existence of God.
Thank you to agree with me that there is no direct knowledge or validity of your claim of qualities of the God.
I respect your point of view. Its good you mentioned in your post that you are talking in Islamic terms. I on the other hand am looking at the bigger picture and not restricting my argument to one religion.
What I am doing is not Islam vs Atheism. Its rather Theism vs Atheism.
Re: ATHEISTS .... explain
Try this thought experiment.
Somebody tells a man that something that is impossible happened. The man telling the story that could not be true is a convincing storyteller. The man hearing the story believes it.
He tells another man. The second man believes him for the simple reason he sees no particular reason not to. He tells a third, who tells a fourth and he goes on to say that people who believe the story will go to Heaven while those that don't believe it will go to Hell. The fourth man is tortured to death proclaiming that the impossible thing happened and he himself had seen it happen, or so the sixth man is told, and why should he doubt the story? Seventy generations later your
father tells you the impossible happened.
Everybody believes the first man and none of them has any good reason to. Is the chance that the impossible happened affected by the number of people in the chain? If so, does a long chain make doubt more or less sensible? Logically the answer lies with the original event or non-event, everything that happens afterwards is as irrelevant as the magician's assistant's feather-trimmed bustle. The test of time is meaningless. People will believe what they have been told to believe until something shocks them into a different belief, and when you are surrounded by people who consider any doubt to be proof of an evil character you have a strong incentive to keep your doubts to yourself.
We cannot know anything except what we know ourselves, that we were told and who told us. Anywhere along that chain the story could have been made up or distorted. Once faith has been added to the mix all prospects of ever knowing anything have been thrown out of the window. Once believing something becomes an act that is regarded as good in and of itself all prospects of knowing what has really gone on have been lost.
Faith is a form of bribery. The faithful have been told that believing an intrinsically unlikely or impossible thing is as good as doing something good, that you can be a good guy, a hero, just by believing. How hard is believing? People can and do believe the weirdest stuff even without the prospect of reward. Eternal life and happiness plus the bonus of just punishments for those who deserve them, that is surely a better bribe even than free beer and pizza.
How can you take the faith of the faithful seriously any more than you can trust the testimony of the murderer's wife? People of faith believe not because they know but because they choose to believe in order to receive a reward.
Courts only accept testimony from professional paid witnesses with caution and anybody who is paid to give evidence in a single case is rightly dismissed all together as being unreliable. A bribed witness is a nobbled witness. The faithful are bearing witness in the expectation of being rewarded for bearing witness. They may say they are not presumptuous enough to expect a reward but you know they don't expect nonbelievers to get anything remotely resembling a reward. Surely this makes whatever they say they believe in seriously questionable.
When was the last time you were offered a bribe for telling the truth or for believing something you had every reason to believe? When was the last time anybody offered you the prospect of eternal life or even a half a pint of lager for believing that water is wet or two and two make four? When does anybody offer a witness a huge bribe to give honest testimony they would be happy to give without such a payment?
Religions spread by the despicable techniques of
1] Bribery
2] Threats
3] Indoctrination of the malleable minds of children
Liberalism, secularism and humanism shun these techniques. The truth needs no special pleading, no threats and no bribes. Liberal secular humanist education allows people to question all values including its own.
No belief should be accepted as reasonable if it involves bribes for the believers. Everlasting life in paradise with 72 virgins has to be considered something of a bribe. Any belief that relies on bribes should be regarded with extreme suspicion and yet religions are not only accepted they are considered to be the epitome of respectability. This is utterly bizarre.
How have we allowed religions to make out that their threats and bribes are actually respectable and legitimate? If any commercial product was sold with promises of everlasting life or eternal punishment in hellfire for people who bought a rival product do you think there might be just a little bit of hostility generated towards the product and those marketing methods? Of course if you believe what they are selling then you see things differently. I don't.
Re: ATHEISTS … explain
Ahh…nice coy reply…its ok you can come out of the closet…in a similar vain as those endless threads in the Social/Lifestyle section(s) soliciting remedies for one’s own issues, under the guise of “my friend has such and such awkward/embarassing problem”, to mask their own dilemmas…
Re: ATHEISTS .... explain
The first problem with the designation of supernatural (or any equivalent term) is that it tells us nothing positive about a God.
"Supernatural" tells us what a God is not that it is not part of the natural universe but it does not tell us what a God is. What identifiable characteristics does a God possess? In other words, how will we recognize a God if we run across one? To state that a God is supernatural does not provide us with an answer. In addition, the entire notion of a supernatural being is incomprehensible. The theist wishes me to conceive of a being exempt from natural law a being that does not fall within the domain of scientific explanation but no theist has ever explained how we can conceive of existence other than "natural" existence. "Natural existence" is a redundancy; we have no familiarity with "unnatural" existence, or even a vague notion of what such existence would be like.
Natural law pertains to the presence of regularity in the universe, and, for this reason, it is sometimes referred to as the "uniformity of nature." Entities behave according to specific causal conditions, and we know that an object will not suddenly disappear or act in an incredible manner without an explanation or causal antecedent. Given the right conditions, an acorn will grow into a tree; it will not mysteriously transform itself into a pumpkin, a snowball, or a theologian. A dog will not sprout wings and breathe fire, a cat will not give birth to an elephant, and a colony of ants will not burst into a chorus of the national anthem. Natural law is based upon the limited nature of existence. Every entity has a specific nature, specific characteristics, that determine the capacities of that entity. A plant, for example, does not have the capacity to think, and a man does not have the biological capacity for photosynthesis. The capacities, abilities, and potential actions of any existing thing, living or inanimate, are dependent on its characteristics and since these are always specific and determinate, their resulting capacities are also specific and determinate. The characteristics of an entity determine what an entity can and cannot do; limitations are an integral part of the natural universe, and they constitute the foundation of natural law.
Regularity in nature is the consequence of limitations; entities are limited in terms of their actions. No existing thing can randomly do anything at any time under any conditions. This uniformity in nature permits the systematic study of reality (science) and the formulation of general principles of nature ("laws") which are used in predicting future states of affairs. While the particular scientific laws will change as man's knowledge increases, the principle of natural law itself is a constant; it persists as a corollary of existence.
This, in essence, is the meaning of natural existence or natural law.
A God, as we have seen, cannot exist within this framework, but according to the theists he must exist nonetheless. This brings us to the considerable problem of how anything can exist as a supernatural being. If a supernatural being is to be exempt from natural law, it cannot possess specific, determinate characteristics. These attributes would impose limits and these limits would restrict the capacities of this supernatural being. In this case, a supernatural being would be subject to the causal relationships that mark natural existence, which would disqualify it as a God.
Therefore, we must somehow conceive of a being without a specific nature, a being that is indeterminate a being, in other words, that is nothing in particular. But these characteristics (or, more precisely, lack of characteristics) are incompatible with the notion of existence itself.
To be is to be something as opposed to nothing, and to be something is to be something specific. If a God is to have any characteristics (which it must to exist), these characteristics must be specific but to assign definite attributes, to say that a being is this as opposed to that, is to limit the capacities of that being and to subject it to the uniformity imposed by those capacities. A supernatural being, if it is to differ in kind from natural existence, must exist without a limited nature which amounts to existing without any nature at all.
If we are to talk intelligibly about a God, we must presuppose that this God has characteristics by which it can be identified. But once the idea of supernatural existence is introduced, an existence apart from the limitations of natural law, we exclude the possibility of assigning any definite characteristics to a God because by so doing we bring our God within the realm of limitations and hence within the realm of natural law.
The theist, even if he agrees with this analysis, is bound to remain singularly unimpressed. To the charge that I cannot comprehend "supernatural" existence, that it makes no sense to the human mind, the theist is liable to reply, "See, I told you so. God transcends human understanding; he is unknowable."
This is the standard defense against any objection to the metaphysical impossibility of a supernatural being. The theist and the atheist may well agree that a supernatural being cannot be grasped by the human mind; but whereas the atheist wishes to scrap the notion of God for this reason, the theist uses it as evidence that God falls beyond the scope of human understanding.
Thus, so long as the discussion remains on this level, an impasse is reached which indicates that we need to examine a more basic issue. We must move from metaphysics to epistemology. As is often the case, this is where the fundamental disagreement lies; ultimately, this is where the conflict will be decided.
Re: ATHEISTS .... explain
^like any1 is going to read that.
Re: ATHEISTS .... explain
^Sure ppl will read that. The question is will they debate it decently, logically and without repeating themselves?
Re: ATHEISTS .... explain
decided.
True I have heard that a billion times
Re: ATHEISTS .... explain
There is no prove of existance or non existance of God scientifically.
But logical proof exists that God cannot be.
Re: ATHEISTS .... explain
First, we must ask: If God cannot be known, how can God be known to exist?
Quoting Nathaniel Branden,
[QUOTE]
"To claim that a thing is unknowable, one must first know that it exists but then one already has knowledge of it, to that extent."
[/QUOTE]
To assert the existence of the unknowable is to claim knowledge of the unknowable, in which case it cannot be unknowable.
Second, if God cannot be comprehended, then none of his attributes can be known including the attribute of incomprehensibility. To state that something is by nature unknowable is to pronounce knowledge of its nature, in which case we are again involved in a contradiction. When one claims that something is unknowable, can one produce knowledge in support of this claim? If one cannot, one's assertion is arbitrary and utterly without merit. If one can, one has accomplished the impossible: one has knowledge of the unknowable.
Third, to support the existence of the unknowable not only presupposes knowledge it presupposes omniscient knowledge.
Again quoting Branden:
[QUOTE]
The assertion that a thing is unknowable carries the necessary epistemological implication that the speaker is omniscient that he has total knowledge of everything in the universe and, from his unique vantage point, is able to proclaim that certain things are inherently beyond the reach of man's knowledge and understanding.
[/QUOTE]
While some things are presently unknown to man, it is never rational to claim that something is forever unknowable to man. There is no possible evidence that one could adduce in support of this claim. Any evidence would flatly contradict one's initial claim, because it would entail knowledge of the unknowable.
To claim that God is incomprehensible is to say that one's concept of God is unintelligible, which is to confess that one does not know what one is talking about. The theist who is called upon to explain the content of his belief and who then introduces the "unknowable" as a supposed characteristic of the concept itself is saying, in effect: "I will explain the concept of God by pointing out that it cannot be explained."
Atheists have long contended that the concept of God is unintelligible, this being a major reason why it cannot be accepted by any rational man. The theist who openly admits this cannot expect to be taken seriously. The idea of the unknowable is an insult to the intellect, and it renders theism wholly implausible.
By criticizing the notion of an unknowable being, we have indirectly destroyed the concept of a supernatural being. We have seen that these ideas are two sides of the same theistic coin. If it is irrational to assert the existence of an unknowable being, it is equally irrational to assert the existence of its metaphysical corollary: a supernatural being. If knowledge of the unknowable is a contradiction, knowledge of the supernatural is a contradiction as well. This has the effect of excluding theism from the sphere of rational consideration, in which case atheism wins by default.
The theist now has two basic alternatives: he can abandon his defense of a supernatural being altogether, or he can continue to proclaim the existence of a supernatural being while arguing that this being is knowable, at least to some extent, by the human mind.
Since the first choice is a surrender to atheism, the second possibility is usually adopted. The survival of theism requires an escape from agnosticism and a defense of man's intellect to comprehend God in some manner. This brings us to the Abrahamic conception of God, which has sensed the indefensibility of religious agnosticism and has rejected it accordingly.
Re: ATHEISTS .... explain
But logical proof exists that God cannot be.
Well, without using science, can you logically prove that there's a brain in your skull or a heart in your chest?
Without the help of science I cannot comprehend the brain in your skull or the heart in your chest, so does that mean that these organs are incomprehensible?
Re: ATHEISTS .... explain
Your whole argument is based on how can an incomprehensible God be comprehended.
I as a Muslim believe that I cannot comprehend God and whatever I know of God is through Quran and Hadith. Both Quran and Hadith are revelation, meaning that this is information from God, ie. He is describing Himself.
Attributing something to God which is not revealed to us is committing shirk. Because we cannot comprehend God, so it is impossible for us to attribute something to God.
By the way, you are not the first person to bring up this argument. This type of argument has already been answered by Islamic scholars.
If you read Aqeedah ut Tahawiyyah carefully, you should be able to see that this argument does not apply.
There's a story that Imam Awlaki mentions, that three blind men went to visit an elephant. One grabbed a leg, the other the trunk and the other an ear. So when they got back to their village one of them described the elephant as big and rough, the other said no it is long and slender and the third one said no it is thin and flat.
Since they were not able to totally comprehend the elephant, they all described it in different ways and yet they were all correct.
Re: ATHEISTS .... explain
By the way, you are not the first person to bring up this argument. This type of argument has already been answered by Islamic scholars. If you read Aqeedah ut Tahawiyyah carefully, you should be able to see that this argument does not apply.
There's a story that Imam Awlaki mentions, that three blind men went to visit an elephant. One grabbed a leg, the other the trunk and the other an ear. So when they got back to their village one of them described the elephant as big and rough, the other said no it is long and slender and the third one said no it is thin and flat. Since they were not able to totally comprehend the elephant, they all described it in different ways and yet they were all correct.
It's a good story but now there's a little twist, after the three original blind men, three other blind men went to visit an animal one touched the eye, one touched the tusk and one held the tail. When they got back to their village and met the three original blind men and described the elephant as wet and spongy, hard as rock and short and hairy. The three earlier blind men refused to accept the new knowledge claiming to be an innovation. What right these men have to say such a thing? Afterall all six of them were equally blind and were known to be righteous and equally truthful.
But still I like this elephant story because in this story at least they could touch the elephant. Keep it in mind when we take about elephant; it's a known entity.
Also then you face another dilemma what about future knowledge of the elephant. Should we dissect the elephant and have a look inside what it looks like. Or rather the blind men who touched the body, trunk and various part should claim that they know the brain and internals of the elephant as well.
Another scenerio one blind man went to visit a tumnideo he came back and says tumnideo is very soft and gel-like, now as we know what a tumnedio looks like and is totally unlike this desciption but the blind man is never known to be a liar, Should we also follow the blind man and accept tumnedio as soft and gel-like or the way we see it.
Re: ATHEISTS .... explain
But still I like this elephant story because in this story at least they could touch the elephant. Keep it in mind when we take about elephant; it's a known entity.
Also then you face another dilemma what about future knowledge of the elephant. Should we dissect the elephant and have a look inside what it looks like. Or rather the blind men who touched the body, trunk and various part should claim that they know the brain and internals of the elephant as well.
Another scenerio one blind man went to visit a tumnideo he came back and says tumnideo is very soft and gel-like, now as we know what a tumnedio looks like and is totally unlike this desciption but the blind man is never known to be a liar, Should we also follow the blind man and accept tumnedio as soft and gel-like or the way we see it.
If you are going to use that story to represent God and Prophets, then some changes need to be made. My intention for putting up this story was not to make this comparison.
Anyways, if you replace the elephant with God and the blind men with Prophets then you have to also replace the touching part with revelation.
And according to Islam all Prophets received the same information about God, ie. they all received the same information relating to Aqeedah. The Messengers amongst the Prophets were the ones who received a different Shariah, but the Aqeedah was the same.
For example all Prophets warned their people about Ad Dajjal, and in Christianity he is referred to as the anti christ.
The people (or the villagers from the story) were the ones who distorted the message. That is why there are similarities between stories in the Quran and in the Bible but they are not exactly the same.
Going back to your original argument, the Bible talks about God creating the universe in six days and then he took a rest on the seventh. I believe this is on the very first page of the Bible. If God needs rest then it implies he is tired, and this is a human trait and hence it cannot be applied to God. The Quran counters this in Ayat ul Kursi, Surah Baqarah Ayah 255 that neither slumber nor sleep overtakes God.
So Quran corrects these sort of misconceptions about God. There are other verses similar to this in the Quran which address other issues about God's attributes.
So your twist in the story doesn't apply to Islam, because you have assumed that all Prophets received different information.
I don't know why you are mentioning this tumnideo thing. You have made an assumption that we already know what this thing is. If you are trying to make a comparison with God, then this assumption is incorrect.
Re: ATHEISTS .... explain
Nothing is unkowable is the very basis of the rationalists claim to attack the notion of God.
If such people were to be taken seriously then, by their own standards, they are required to provide an evidence for this statement.
Re: ATHEISTS .... explain
The example was fine because in your story we were talking about elephants which is a known entity whereas there is nothing in this world called Tumnideo you reacted just as any human would do.
The point is in your story it is pressumed that those blind men touched the elephant, the blind men never said that they touched or felt an elephant. How you came to know that what they touched was elephant only because the story teller is telling you so. Throw in an unknown entity and see where the story will end. Everybody will be right and wrong at the sametime.
Re: ATHEISTS .... explain
The point is in your story it is pressumed that those blind men touched the elephant, the blind men never said that they touched or felt an elephant. How you came to know that what they touched was elephant only because the story teller is telling you so. Throw in an unknown entity and see where the story will end. Everybody will be right and wrong at the sametime.
Maybe you didn't understand what I said, so I'll repeat it.
All the Prophets conveyed the same message to their followers, ie. Aqeedah / Creed / the fundamentals of the religion.
The people changed the religion themselves. It could be that someone like the Buddha could have been a Prophet from God and that his teachings were distorted by his people. Perhaps that would explain why a lot of religions are somewhat similar.
There's also evidence that religions have been distorted by man. This of course doesn't apply to Islam, there are a lot of modernists who are trying to bring these changes into Islam but from what it looks like, they haven't been successful. Today people say that Islam is backward, but this is already documented in the Quran in Surah 83 Ayah 13 that when the verses are recited to them they say this is the tales of the ancients.
But anyways, my point is that it is the people (the followers of the religion) who have always been distorting the message and because of this distortion one is able to find contradictions in their beliefs, ie. your incomprehensibility of God argument. So when you say "Everybody will be right and wrong at the sametime", this statement is based on an incorrect assumption (according to Islamic beliefs). The message from God has always been the same.