faith

MARTHA:

Edited by elijah-boy - 17 June 2010 at 10:01pm

elijah-boy wrote: MARTHA: � 1. Asume you right about the sun. I still don't understand�how that related to god'sxistence. � 2. " I am sure globally there are more believing in God than not. SO, what are you then?" --- I'm the minority. You can also find a lot of cases in the course of history when�the minority was right.��A lot of�significant breakthroughs in scince started as ideas that were thought to be irrelevant, or plain outragious. What you saying - is sweeping generalization and cannot be used as an argument as god's existence. I understand this argument (about the majority) can be satisfying to you, but not to me. � Plus, I beleive you are somewhat wrong about majority. Chrstian would never accept the existence of Allah, so is buddhist, Jehova witness, or the follower of judaism. Same way you would not accept Greek Zeus as god. Putting together every one who beleive in different gods is hardly a convincing argument. � ��

Well, your topic is about faith..I gave a simple reply by using the sun as an example of that.

So.. you reckon the majority are to be discarded as it doesn't fit in with your views. Still, you could be right..God, the One and Only God, is in the minority, so yeah, history (as in Holy Scriptures), science(fallible mans slow attempts at discovering God is real after all) are all part of mans personal attempts to understand and know God.

But tHere is only ONE God, He is the same God for Muslims, Jews, Hindu's , Buddhists, CHristians..anyone who believes that we were created and did not come from apes. It is only man's misinterpretations that God becomes a different entity, hence different religions. Despite that all religions have some truth. Personally my only concern,( and it applies to billions of others)would be finding the only true religion, as there is one.

You mention Zeus being a god. MOst probably he was a human being, as were the other Greek Gods and GOddesses, and the Greeks relied upon legends handed down. Even so, disregarding this, the Greeks would still have been religious, and believed in a greater being. MAybe with all their myths and legends it is again another example of misguided interpretation. Humans are not perfect, life is a time of learning. And that would also apply to you. You learn something daily. You have some faith and belief as it keeps you going. But going for what? Where are you headed? Will you just die and that will be it? What would be the point of your existence then? Seems rather pointless.

Maybe you could start a new thread on what your views are? As you don't seem to want to listen to us and feel your Godless life is far more rewarding than ours please share. I am all for listening and discussing. You have heard my views, let me hear yours. I am not being at all disrespectful with my comments here. I really am keen to discuss your outlooks on life.

Have a good day.

HAYFA and ACE:

:I find this topic interesting as when people answer you as to WHY they have faith that is there is one God, you argue that "their" reason is wrong.
---- I understand where you coming from. When people hear objections they usually think that they are being accused of thinking wrong. This is not my intention. A try approaching it differently as I can�t agree with something that doesn�t stand close scrutiny and I can�t agree with something only to make other people comfortable. In fact I don�t argue with you here, I argue with myself. This is the way I approach it � I ask the question, then I receive the explanation. I can�t agree with explanation unless I see the grounds, the justification, or substantiation for it. I give you my reasons for not agreeing in order to hear counter-arguments, not in order to accuse you or force you into thinking the way I do. In other words � prove that my arguments are wrong, that it just fine.

HAYFA:

It�s like I believe that chocolate ice cream is the best. Is there logic in my mind - yes.
---- This is an illustration of having different preferences when it comes to taste. I fail to see this as an exampe of logic.

:Is it subjective- yes.
--- I don�t know what the subjective logic is, please give me an example.

Let me know what stance you take.

P.S. I can�t believe in god if all logical explanations prove that it doesn�t exist. If I (or you) can find an argument that proves me wrong, then I will change my mind. Do you think that�s a fair approach?


:I too like Martha, would like to know if you and every living creature "just happened along" or you were created?
--- My answer is I don�t know.
There is an irony in the fact that Darwin named his book �the origin of species� � he convincingly describes how evolutions develops, but doesn�t mention the origins of life.
My view is � nobody knows how the life began, the answer is not known. If there is no way to corroborate either point, then the fair thing is to say �I have no idea�.

We both hold views that are dear to our hearts, let�s try avoiding getting on defensive end and try applying logic. You do get defensive as well and actually fell into the same trap as I did with example with a 5 year boy. I stayed away from pointing it out as I didn�t want to turn the discussion into bickering.

:  But my life changed and I was given different ideas of God than the Catholic one and it made sense.
----- It could be great if you can give:
a. The most significant example of the Sign that convinced you
b. The most convincing idea that was given to you that made sense about god existence.

Elijah

elijah-boy wrote: === You�re changing the topic. I ask �What makes you think that god exist�, you reply with the question �What makes you think he doesn�t exist�. === Sure, that is st**id argument if any atheist uses that. But look at what you doing � you take an obviously erroneous statement and prove it wrong. I agree with you, but how is it relevant? The fact that atheist are wrong on that one can�t be used as an argument that god exists.

^Yeh well, I'm of the opinion that a better way of going about it would be hear an atheist's views on why he/she belives the inexistence of God, and then write them off one by one, with practical thinking of course. Cuz I believe, if I don't know of your personal take on this aspect, I might not be able to do a very good job on hitting the right mark, just as I in this case took an example against something you already don't support. I started off with that cuz that's actually what many of them came up with when I discussed this with them, an illogical point. Good to see however, that you're off it though.

elijah-boy wrote: === Basically what you saying � there are things that cannot be perceived. Agree. But that doesn�t mean that the god exist. I fail to see the logic.

^Nah, you mistook my general point intended in saying that, which was to explain about what people mean by saying they 'feel God' which you might not understand just as you can't literally feel someone else's pain, as I thought was pretty clear when I said "That's what muslims mean when they say they can 'feel God'," right at the next sentence. Also, it was further in regards to not being able to see/hear/smell/touch/sense God, that if we can't in the case of of the creation, I doubt it'd make a valid point in the case of the creator. But I see it doesn't further needs to be addressed to.

elijah-boy wrote: === That is unsubstantiated belief. A supposition. You also ask a direct question � what would I feel and for some reason you are convinced that my reaction would prove your point. I travelled for a number of years and I was in a life-threatening situations, our boat was close to drowning in a storm, I did some rock climbing and almost fell of the cliff. I had different thoughts in my head at that time.

^Well, personally I believe you've abandoned those feelings, but alright, since you say you don't at all feel or have ever felt anything even close to it your entire life, sure, lets write this point off and move on.

elijah-boy wrote: === Sure, the answer is clear � the creator of the device. But in the case when it is not clear if this machine exists, this can hardly be used as an argument.

^Another thing I've not quite understood, or maybe not been enlightened properly to by an atheist. By being "unclear of this machine not existing," as in such a systematic universe having a creator, do you believe, as I've heard, that the process of big bang was initiated by a "mere chance"?

Cuz, if anything the first thing to get cleared off with is to deduce if perhaps this earth actually had a creator, which'd be the major part in deciding God's (in)existence. If you could enlighten me to how you think it all started...

elijah-boy wrote: === 2000 years before the discovery of atoms, greek philosophers made an assumption that world is comprised of molecules. (Demokrit if memory serves me made that assumption) The theory was not popular at that time but proved to be correct 2000 years later. Alchemist made some assumptions that were verified a couple of ages later. Mexican Indians had a mythology about layered structure of the world which was proved really feasible by late M-theory discoveries.  If we dig into history we probably can find more examples. So it is not unheard of that correct statements about the nature of the world were made long before the actual discoveries. It doesn�t make them the proof of the devine interference.

^Naturally I had this curious thought myself at one time, and got on to researching about this, so don't scratch it off just as yet, as this has pretty valid points against it.

1 > First off, sure, there might might be a few ideas which may have been presented slitghly before the Quran. But the one thing a must to emphasize on the Quran's part would be that there aren't one or two but several scientific facts, in many different fields, physics, astronomy, biology, etc etc, not really sure if any person in history evolved that many ideas in this many fields. One might've been a good guess or an assumtion, two might have, three might have, but obviously not that many, just can't logically be.

2 > Now logically another argument would be that maybe all the ideas were stolen. Sure, sounds reasonable, could be a possiblity. But once again, it just can't be. Simple. First cuz, sure, atoms and some other ideas may have evolved much early, but not all have. Many of the facts are only much recently being discovered by science. You can't steal what's not there.

3> If you notice, I myself definitely did when I looked it up, many of those ideas that were slightly before the time of Quran, during, or even much after, were sort of general ones. Not much details, not much clarity, some even for being generally right had flaws in the explanation, in short many of them didn't hit the perfect spot, obviously so, since they were more of guesses and assumptions as you had labelled. While the Quran, you'll notice, is shockingly perfect and simplistic in description in many cases. A simple example to state, we know that the exact shape of the earth is Oblate spheroid. The Quran in clear words implies the earth's shape to be like that of an "ostrich's egg", hence the perfect and simple discription. You see, when many of the scientific facts are of this deadly accuracy, it sure tells a human mind a special something.

4> A point which is extremely under-rated I believe, obviously because not the entire world is arab, but worth throwing in regards to this subject. The Arabic language in the Quran is officially of unbelievable class of literature (I'm not an Arab, but I made it a point to get this fact approved from respectable Arabs themselves). No one has yet matched this level of Arabic, and mind you, the Quran was revealed to an Arabic nation first, of course with people who were masters of their  language, and Arabic being a poetic language actually had a lot of highly reputed poets of the time around, yet they were left astonished of the intensity of the Quran's literature. There's a verse in the Quran, which clearly forwards a challenge to anyone, to produce a single Surah at that level, like ones in the Quran. No one has yet, in the 1400 years that have passed, ever accomplished it, as far as I'm concerned. Add to it the fact that the Prophet was an illiterate to begin with, its pretty shocking enough.

5> I was looking into another matter once, about the Pharaoh's body. The Quran (positive that any other scripture including the Bible doesn't) in clear words states that God will have the Pharaoh's body "preserved" and "keep it as a sign for people to come after him." Pharaoh's body was found in the ninteenth century if I'm not mistaken, preserved. And now, on display in the Royal Mummies Chamber of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo is a mummified body believed to be that of this tyrant. It was officially confirmed to be him according to my knowedge as his face clearly resembled that of his grandfather, whose body was kept and stored since his time by the Egyptians too. In all likelihood, Pharaoh's body floated to shore after being drowned, was found and mummified by the Egyptians, and then carried to a previously prepared burial chamber. Unfortunately, and might I add oddly, I don't seem to find enough information on this subject when I try searching on this for detailed information. Nevertheless, I doubt any other book might have specifically predicted, or rather foretold the preservance and finding of a lost body.

6> Even with this many scientific facts in Quran, not yet has one scientific fact proved any of them wrong, or did any sort of contradiction between the two occur. If it would, it would've been made quite big a fuss about, I'm sure. Just as it has with the Bible, quite weirdly inspite of the fact that there have been several editions of the bible, and none of the Quran (assurative).

elijah-boy wrote: === I�ve read the same material about Christianity once, they make similar claims. Wasn�t really convincing, but let�s give it a try with Quran as well. Since you mentioned countless examples � I�d appreciate quotes from Quran.

Christianity? I doubt the Bible is anywhere near the Quran. If anything, there are major scientific errors proved in the Bibile, and I've personally looked into a few of them. A fact to add in here would be that Bible and other scriptures involve human intervention. The context is edited, and I'm told this is to "move along with the modern world" or whatever. Quran, on the other hand has assuringly been of the same as what it was when it was revealed. Copies of Quran of that time have been found, and confirmed to be exacly same as that of the modern day, word for word.
Sure, glad to. Fine with you if I put in some Youtube links?