Re: God is Not Great
"Will" and "Permission" are two different things when it comes to Islamic point of view.
Yes but "fate" and "will" are contradictory. If your fate is preordained, then do you really have free will? Or does God know what choices you will make, in which case He already knows whether you will end up in heaven or hell? If this is the case, why have humans live their lives when the end is already known, and the punishment/reward is already decided?
Re: God is Not Great
Yes but "fate" and "will" are contradictory. If your fate is preordained, then do you really have free will? Or does God know what choices you will make, in which case He already knows whether you will end up in heaven or hell? If this is the case, why have humans live their lives when the end is already known, and the punishment/reward is already decided?
It is actually not contradictory in my opinion. I often give this example to explain that knowledge of Allah does not affect our free will:
Suppose an informant gives a tip to Police that so and so will steal such and such thing from such and such place at such and such time. Does knowledge of informant and police have anything to do with what so and so was about to do?
Re: God is Not Great
^ The informant, police, or criminal, are not God. They are not an all knowning, all seeing, supreme being, which is how God is unequivocally described.
The informant or the police will not know what is going to happen, but God would. God would have known from the moment the informant, police, and criminal are born, how their lives would play out. Yet somehow, they all have free will.
Re: God is Not Great
I'm not atheist but I would say that inequality would be harder to justify as a theist. How do you rationalize AIDS-stricken children born in poverty? They have literally done nothing and are plagued with enormous burdens. Why would God allow this? And it's not hard to imagine that someone in poverty would resort to violence. Would you then condemn this person?
An atheist would say that there is no justice and equality. People are born, and we do what we can. Humans have empathy because it helps the "tribe" survive. People who lie, cheat, and steal, would get outcast from the tribe.
So basically they just accept that there is no justice and equality? And even if we remove the current sources of all that is wrong with the world, as per them, i.e., religions and believers in God, there will still be no justice or equality?
Re: God is Not Great
Tussi saray great ho, God di khair hai. 
He’s Al-Ghani, the self-sufficient and the fact that people do worship him is because he’s Al-Hamid, the praiseworthy, not because he depends on our sajdas.
If one worships him falsely just to save his butt from hell, that ain’t going to work. Even the infamous Pharaoh, when he was about to drown, said “I believe that there is no god except Him whom the children of Israel believe in: I am of those who submit.” His last minute lame apology wasn’t accepted because he was being insincere just to save himself. So yeah you gotta have imaan. I might be praying 5 times a day because I’m scared of the azaab in the hereafter but if I didn’t have any imaan in Allah and His Rasool saw, none of the prayers would be qabool.
So people like the author with no imaan who will even question why God let someone scratch their lamborghini and break their heart are really doing themselves a favour by just being truthful and not bothering with religion. Why are they on a dawah mission of their own though I fail to understand.
Re: God is Not Great
^ The informant, police, or criminal, are not God. They are not an all knowning, all seeing, supreme being, which is how God is unequivocally described.
The informant or the police will not know what is going to happen, but God would. God would have known from the moment the informant, police, and criminal are born, how their lives would play out. Yet somehow, they all have free will.
Peace Ghost14
Rather than considering it in temporal terms at a given instance in time ... Consider it in perpetual terms ... Man chooses, God Knows, man changes decisions, God Knows, man changes decision, God Knows, and on and on .... Take this to infinitum and the result is both man has free will and God has full Knowledge .... For God the past present and future is the SAME ... If we can't even rationalise this, we can't possibly learn to understand the dynamics of the free will vs Divine Knowledge debate ... But we can conclude using analogy that such is possible.
Alternatively, one can say that at each juncture or decision point, we become aware of alternate realities ... Factor up all of the possible junctures and you have exponential growth of possibilities, God Knows them all ... We merely choose one path to get to our end point ... So one may imagine that a new 'me' comes into being upon each new decision that we make, but we are only aware of the 'me' that we are associated with in this consciousness.
Re: God is Not Great
So basically they just accept that there is no justice and equality? And even if we remove the current sources of all that is wrong with the world, as per them, i.e., religions and believers in God, there will still be no justice or equality?
Basically. I guess an atheist would see the world as is, and since there is no equality or justice, they would accept it. One is free to change that as best they can, but it still exists.
Re: God is Not Great
I'm not atheist but I would say that inequality would be harder to justify as a theist. How do you rationalize AIDS-stricken children born in poverty? They have literally done nothing and are plagued with enormous burdens. Why would God allow this? And it's not hard to imagine that someone in poverty would resort to violence. Would you then condemn this person?
An atheist would say that there is no justice and equality. People are born, and we do what we can. Humans have empathy because it helps the "tribe" survive. People who lie, cheat, and steal, would get outcast from the tribe.
I would rationalise it this way ....
Earthly life = battering of an eye lid
heavenly life = life time
Earthly hardship leads to reduced hardship hereafter
Also earthly pain and pleasure = low
heavenly pleasure = high
Hellfire pain = high
So for low pain, short duration God gives High pain relief or high pleasure for long duration ...
Re: God is Not Great
In Hitchens’ mind, religion causes a lot of unnecessary conflict and divisions. He’s unquestionably unfair against Muslims, but that’s because he’s an imperialist.
I can’t accept “it’s not possible for us to understand it” as an answer. You say that God can see beyond our understanding, so what seems illogical to us is logical to him, but this is based on the presumption that God exists. The other explanation is that this is a genuine paradox in religious writings, and one can use this to conclude that religion (not God) may be man-made or influenced.
Your second explanation, the multi-verse theory, seems more logical and I’m more inclined to believe that, but this is something we are extrapolating from religious writing and recent scientific theories, not something that Medieval Islam talks about.
I’m not refuting anything, I honestly don’t know and would like to “Believe”, but I can’t ignore inconsistencies. As always, it is interesting talking about this with you psyah.
Re: God is Not Great
In Hitchens' mind, religion causes a lot of unnecessary conflict and divisions. He's unquestionably unfair against Muslims, but that's because he's an imperialist.
I can't accept "it's not possible for us to understand it" as an answer. You say that God can see beyond our understanding, so what seems illogical to us is logical to him, but this is based on the presumption that God exists. The other explanation is that this is a genuine paradox in religious writings, and one can use this to conclude that religion (not God) may be man-made or influenced.
Your second explanation, the multi-verse theory, seems more logical and I'm more inclined to believe that, but this is something we are extrapolating from religious writing and recent scientific theories, not something that Medieval Islam talks about.
I'm not refuting anything, I honestly don't know and would like to "Believe", but I can't ignore inconsistencies. As always, it is interesting talking about this with you psyah.
Peace Ghost14
Well there are many references in classical writings, for example ... When we say that God's knowledge knows no bounds and at the same say that God gave us freedom to choose, we understood that with a conviction that did not require the level of 'logical' steps that we demand for in such debates today ... We merely accept it and believing in it is more important than to being able to prove it - logically. Logic itself has been found by classics to be insufficient to deal with the real universe ... Unless logic itself can be proven to be faultless we can't totally rely on it either.
So as you see I am using reasoning that is somewhat logical to denounce logic ... Makes me seem somewhat of an ingrate ... But, no ... Logic has it's purposes ... But the tool should never be confused for being the absolute truth ... Logic is arbitrary when taken to the extents of ghaib (hidden knowledge) hidden because we do not have faculties that can reach it. This is a belief, which is more pertinent to Quranic terminology ... it does not offer proofs and logical arguments as such ... But offers signs and guidance statements ... We are never required to set about proving the existence of God, but yes we do require consistency ...
Our references offer us consistency in our arguments for both fatalism and for freedom of choice ... Without interfering with one another ... Only when we decide to contrast them they interfere ... And even then we can work out some analogous method to overcome the apparent problems ... So whether it is not traditional or it is. ... The fact is if an average mind can route out a mechanism that 'makes sense' to achieve a satisfactory balance between the two then for one it cannot be proven to be a contradiction even though the apparent contrast makes it seem that way and secondly ... Since a mind can perceive the possibility of it show that by some suitable analogy or anecdote then one conclude that there must be at least one possibility of it being compatible.
Traditionally people explained that to have free will means that God's facilitates our choices by making things happen, and that God's Knowlege is different to His Power (Qadr), they called it Divine Estimation ... 100% accuracy of God's guesses ... Is a crude way to put it ... But allows the mind to accept it on that basis. Mathematics is purely logical and when it comes to limits in Mathis we arrive at interesting answers ... Ones that are otherwise not obvious making them seem wrong ... But that is merely our lack of familiarity with the equations ... Perhaps that too is the problem behind the alleged contradiction between fate and free will ... We are not familiar enough to see the sense in this and feel that these are in contradiction, mainly because we see them as exclusive but have not proven either way that they are ... For example: if I say ...
Fate is true, free will is true ... We can identify with free will, but we are removed from fathoming fate because we do not control it ... However, we always tend to argue that since God Knows what is going to happen then our choices are redundant ... But we should look at fate differently, we should say that our fate is that we will make our own choices ... In other words we are destined to choose ... Now there should be no confusion ...
If we can choose our destiny, and we are destined to choose and both of these statements make sense then it follows that predestination and free will cannot be a contradiction but merely an apparent one.
Re: God is Not Great
Please see this video from 30 mins to 48 mins … and further
Re: God is Not Great
Just saw this thread, great posts by queer and ghost.
As usual I completely ignore our fluff masters circular logic posts.
I have read some of the book, I agree with most of it but the title is exaggerated. Religion does not spoil "EVERYTHING". The exaggeration is perhaps to sensationalize things but his underlying points are valid IMO. Hitchens was quite a character. He made some fantastic points most of the time.
The only thing I'd like to add to this discussion is that the notion of "if religion wasnt real, there would be so much more violence cuz people will think they are not accountable" is not relevant. Religion might help some people become or stay moral, but this is no proof of religion's fantasy stories being real!
Re: God is Not Great
Just saw this thread, great posts by queer and ghost.
As usual I completely ignore our fluff masters circular logic posts.
I have read some of the book, I agree with most of it but the title is exaggerated. Religion does not spoil "EVERYTHING". The exaggeration is perhaps to sensationalize things but his underlying points are valid IMO. Hitchens was quite a character. He made some fantastic points most of the time.
The only thing I'd like to add to this discussion is that the notion of "if religion wasnt real, there would be so much more violence cuz people will think they are not accountable" is not relevant. Religion might help some people become or stay moral, but this is no proof of religion's fantasy stories being real!
no it is not proof, but it is demonstrable evidence - which tends towards our conviction ... as I said earlier we do not demand proof ...
Also, absence of proof is not the same as proof of negation ... No proof simply means it might or might not be the case ... in the objective sense ... I trust the morals are true on the whole since there is also no proof the stories are false.
These are not circular arguments either ... don't hide be truthful and accept at least my arguents are cogent.
Re: God is Not Great
no it is not proof, but it is demonstrable evidence - which tends towards our conviction ... as I said earlier we do not demand proof ... Also, absence of proof is not the same as proof of negation ... No proof simply means it might or might not be the case ... in the objective sense ... I trust the morals are true on the whole since there is also no proof the stories are false.
These are not circular arguments either ... don't hide be truthful and accept at least my arguents are cogent.
The onus to provide proof is on the claimant, not the person questioning the claim. "You cannot prove my theory is false, so it is true" - does not make any sense.
If you simply say that "I do not need proof, I am going to believe it anyway".. that is fine. But just say only that then.
Psyah, there is often circular logic in your posts.. and wild metaphors and weird comparisons. I am not the only one who feels this way. This coupled with your often super long religious ramblings full of religious references that you expect us to accept..is what has made me stopped reading your posts all together. I say this in all honesty that I very very rarely find your arguments to be cogent. Just like I largely ignore your posts now, feel free to do the same to me.
Re: God is Not Great
And the referee steps in and sends the pugilists totheir corner at the bell.
Re: God is Not Great
The onus to provide proof is on the claimant, not the person questioning the claim. "You cannot prove my theory is false, so it is true" - does not make any sense.
If you simply say that "I do not need proof, I am going to believe it anyway".. that is fine. But just say only that then.
Psyah, there is often circular logic in your posts.. and wild metaphors and weird comparisons. I am not the only one who feels this way. This coupled with your often super long religious ramblings full of religious references that you expect us to accept..is what has made me stopped reading your posts all together. I say this in all honesty that I very very rarely find your arguments to be cogent. Just like I largely ignore your posts now, feel free to do the same to me.
Peace sharaabee
I doubt you even know what circular logic means ... From the beginning I have never "made a statement of belief that I claim I can prove objectively" - Rather most of what I say is "evidence" based ... Now only if you understood the difference between "evidence" and "proof" ...
So you see the onus to provide proof is truly on the claimant ... but ONLY when that claim's nature is said to be objectively provable. I've never made such a claim that I further claim is provable objectively, but rather I appeal to subjective "proof" or evidence ... being possible and a valid basis to accept the claim as true when objective negation of the claim is absent.
I have never said the highlighted blue part above - this is an allegation by you. Rather what I have said is "since you cannot prove my theory is wrong there is a chance that it is true" - but I also say there are some things of truth that cannot be known or proven right or wrong until you "walk the walk" ... (that is to gather empirical evidence by experience rather than trying to gather a rational basis for it)
If you have contention on some sort of circularity then bring it forward ... The fact is you are afraid to get in to a detailed debate with me, because it will only show up that your allegations on me are false. Post #53 and your response in #54 just shows that you truly do not read my posts ... as you admitted to (highlight in red above quote).
And LOL ... bebo who likes your post must have been even less thorough than you ... :D
Re: God is Not Great
To explain the green section of my post above:
Man #1: The Sphinx is in Egypt
Man #2: Prove it
Man #1: Here look at this photograph
Man #2: But that is just a photograph, you could have taken that anywhere
Man #1: But I took it when I was in Egypt last year
Man #2: Prove you were in Egypt
Man #1: Here's my ticket and my entry stamp on my passport
Man #2: You could have stamped that yourself, and made that ticket, even then you can't prove you took that photo in Egypt when you were there
Man #1: Ok, I'll show you ... come with me
Man #2: No, you can't even prove to me that the Sphinx is in Egypt so why should I trust you and go all the way to Egypt with you?
The majority of what we work with is actually "evidence" - it depends on how unreasonable you are to reject it and continue asking for proof - but when being offered it - you deny yourself the chance to receive that proof ...
The proof of Deity is rooted in experience ... the motivator that should lead to attempting to walk that journey is the "lack of proof to negate Deity"
Once Deity has been found subjectively - then one should conclude that subjective proof is better than having nothing ... And trust should be formed on that basis. This is a reasonable conclusion to make - that in the absence of proof either way ... then you look to overwhelming evidence either way and see which evidence is weightier ...
Re: God is Not Great
Imagine there was a person in history that told people to bow down to him. They people didn't. So he erased an entire civilization because he had a temper tantrum as a result. Other people praise him for doing that and support him. Sound crazy? No one in the world will ever do that?
That's true. No one has ever done that.
Except for god. He proudly commits genocide when people don't do what he says. He has committed MANY documented genocides according to stories in the bible, quran, torah, the vedas. I do not have too much knowledge of other religious texts, but you see where i am going with this. If you claim hitler was a secular fella, well no one supports him and worships him as a result. Same thing with mr. stalin, or mr. edhi amin, etc.
What's more important is, that in today's world, religious people are the carnivorous cannibals. That is important to see.
It was Not religious people but Secular Scientist who have concocted the Grand Barbeque of all humanity...............the NUCLEAR WEAPON!
so get off your high horse and smoke that Dr Lulworthy!
Re: God is Not Great
It was Not religious people but Secular Scientist who have concocted the Grand Barbeque of all humanity...............the NUCLEAR WEAPON! so get off your high horse and smoke that Dr Lulworthy!
With nuclear weaponary, came nuclear energy which is a crucial energy provider today! Secular or atheist scientists have given sooooo much to society!
Dr. Lul's point remains valid. In many religious books, "God" has committed quite disgusting acts of genocide to prove petty points.
Re: God is Not Great
With nuclear weaponary, came nuclear energy which is a crucial energy provider today! Secular or atheist scientists have given sooooo much to society!
Dr. Lul's point remains valid. In many religious books, "God" has committed quite disgusting acts of genocide to prove petty points.
God made all the secular and atheist scientists who have given so much to society ... go figure ... everything bad in society you want God to be blamed for that and everything good even to your standards you want that to go to people ... But God made those people, gave them the ability to make those discoveries ...