Religion, what's the point?

VeevaVee said:
I don't believe in any of the religious views of God. But I do wonder why no ever seems to think there could have been a creator at the beginning and everything since then has happened naturally. Not that I believe that either, just think that if there was a creator then it is a more likely scenario.
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I'd never have a problem with this and I'm sure it is the case for a lot of people. Most would assume that 'something' is responsible for the creation of the universe. Surely then that 'thing' falls under the definition of a creator and perhaps therefore a God doesn't it? Whether it had some form of intelligence or not.

I would of course point out that if there was something to create the universe then there wasn't nothing before it and there must have been something to create the something, so on and so forth...

However there is a big difference between believing in a God and following Christianity/Islam/Hinduism/etc. Most peoples problems with religion stem from the fact so many people around the world believe in and forge their lives around the creationist ideas of people a few thousand years ago just because they were the first to get them down on paper and fight enough wars to make them the most popular.
 
Uzz said:
Going back to God-I've said talking about the nature of God i.e. Why does God do the things God does (in a broad sense), is something I don't do as we're trying to comprehend something we're simply too limited to understand. That doesn't make God Himself irrational. It simply makes Him too great for human comprehension. Not knowing something doesn't make it irrational.
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If god is beyond our comprehension how is he to be perceived, let alone understood - and what's the point?
 
peterstorey said:
If god is beyond our comprehension how is he to be perceived, let alone understood - and what's the point?
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It's just another form of "god is mysterious" spiel that has no meaning to the skeptical and only serves as an ad-hoc cop out answer to wiggle out of a tough question. You could say that about any old thing you make up. For example, "Cthulhu is too complex for us to understand, that doesn't mean believing in Cthulhu is irrational"

I deal with this exact same answer that my father (Christian) gives me when I'm arguing religion with him all the time. And then promptly after I get the usual "you just have to have faith" BS, at which point debating becomes pointless.
 
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peterstorey said:
If god is beyond our comprehension how is he to be perceived, let alone understood - and what's the point?
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He's understood through His messengers and books etc. and the point is shown through that as well.

Perceiving-well He's not a old, bearded man, that's something I'm sure about. In Islam we can't really comprehend what God looks like. What we do have is 99 attributes of God, to help us understand Him in other ways. For example, one of these is the All-Forgiving. So, from that we can draw inferences.
 
tombombadil said:
You do realise you're contradicting yourself, right?
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Winrar said:
More important question would be, how so? How can we reconcile such (seemingly) contradictory ideas?

And again, if God predestined us to go to heaven or hell before we even came into existence, what's the point of this test in the first place?
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God in His infinite cognizance and wisdom created/outlined an immeasurable number of algorithms based on our choices. As God is All Knowing, He would have known all the choices we make with our free will (reflected in our algorithm). So, in the bubble of the universe, and in the space time continuum that we live in, we have free choice. We are running a linear course of events based upon the actions we take. Remove ourselves from time and space, and look upon it externally, and we'd see that there are an infinite number of strands of actions that these people living in this bubble are taking. We can see what choice they make before they even make it.
 
Winrar said:
It's just another form of "god is mysterious" spiel that has no meaning to the skeptical and only serves as an ad-hoc cop out answer to wiggle out of a tough question. You could say that about any old thing you make up. For example, "Cthulhu is too complex for us to understand, that doesn't mean believing in Cthulhu is irrational"

I deal with this exact same answer that my father (Christian) gives me when I'm arguing religion with him all the time. And then promptly after I get the usual "you just have to have faith" BS, at which point debating becomes pointless.
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Well at least 'faith' does have the merit of embracing the irrational rather than nonsensically trying to justify it in the land of reason.
 
Uzz said:
God in His infinite cognizance and wisdom created/outlined an immeasurable number of algorithms based on our choices. As God is All Knowing, He would have known all the choices we make with our free will (reflected in our algorithm). So, in the bubble of the universe, and in the space time continuum that we live in, we have free choice. We are running a linear course of events based upon the actions we take. Remove ourselves from time and space, and look upon it externally, and we'd see that there are an infinite number of strands of actions that these people living in this bubble are taking. We can see what choice they make before they even make it.
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So you're saying there are an infinite number of Uzz and some Uzz go to hell and some don't?
 
tombombadil said:
So you're saying there are an infinite number of Uzz and some Uzz go to hell and some don't?
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No I'm saying from birth to death I've had a limitless amount of choices for everything. I've chosen a certain set of choices that have led me to this moment now typing this response. Now if I'm looking externally I would be able to follow this strand from present time backwards until my birth going past the different choices/actions I've made (or not made).

I should clarify-in my original post I didn't mean God has created a immeasurable amount of algorithms for me or different versions of me. I meant in the sense, if I make one choice, that opens up a whole new set of choices, or a new algorithm for that one choice. I don't know if that makes it clearer.

Back to your original q-there is only one Uzz.
 
Uzz said:
No I'm saying from birth to death I've had a limitless amount of choices for everything. I've chosen a certain set of choices that have led me to this moment now typing this response. Now if I'm looking externally I would be able to follow this strand from present time backwards until my birth going past the different choices/actions I've made (or not made).

I should clarify-in my original post I didn't mean God has created a immeasurable amount of algorithms for me or different versions of me. I meant in the sense, if I make one choice, that opens up a whole new set of choices, or a new algorithm for that one choice. I don't know if that makes it clearer.

Back to your original q-there is only one Uzz.
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So certain set of choices lead you to heaven and some lead you to hell? If so, and if God is omniscient, wouldn't he know what path you'll take from birth to death?

If so, we're back to square one yet again. If God knows the result of the test, what's the point of the test?
 
Uzz said:
What's been nonsensical about what I've said? If anything your adamancy that God has to be either rational or irrational is ridiculous.
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He doesn't have to be irrational if you can adduce a rational argument for his existence. But you can't - hence your belief is irrational. QED.
 
What i want to know is.... All these gods of different religons are human.

Why cant they be like a massive dinosaur or a seal or something?
 
Is there solid evidence of Muhammad existed?

I've always been surprised at how willing scholars are to accept that Jesus existed. I'm not saying I don't think he existed, but just that I find the arguments that he didn't as convincing as those that he did.
 
SiRed said:
What i want to know is.... All these gods of different religons are human.

Why cant they be like a massive dinosaur or a seal or something?
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Gotta be anthropomorphic innit. The psychology of religion is just painful.

c
 
redmeister said:
Is there solid evidence of Muhammad existed?
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It's very likely he did. Have a read of this:

What do we actually know about Mohammed?

It is notoriously difficult to know anything for sure about the founder of a world religion. Just as one shrine after the other obliterates the contours of the localities in which he was active, so one doctrine after another reshapes him as a figure for veneration and imitation for a vast number of people in times and places that he never knew.

In the case of Mohammed, Muslim literary sources for his life only begin around 750-800 CE (common era), some four to five generations after his death, and few Islamicists (specialists in the history and study of Islam) these days assume them to be straightforward historical accounts. For all that, we probably know more about Mohammed than we do about Jesus (let alone Moses or the Buddha), and we certainly have the potential to know a great deal more.

There is no doubt that Mohammed existed, occasional attempts to deny it notwithstanding. His neighbours in Byzantine Syria got to hear of him within two years of his death at the latest; a Greek text written during the Arab invasion of Syria between 632 and 634 mentions that "a false prophet has appeared among the Saracens" and dismisses him as an impostor on the ground that prophets do not come "with sword and chariot". It thus conveys the impression that he was actually leading the invasions.

Read the rest here - https://www.opendemocracy.net/faith-europe_islam/mohammed_3866.jsp
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The author is a well-known medievalist at Princeton, who made her name questioning the entire traditional Islamic historiography. She has since recanted on some of her more radical assertions.
 
"sources for his life only begin around 750-800 CE (common era)"

What? You are slapping my face with a fish right? Someone let me in on the joke. And this is passed in these threads unchallenged? Has someone not heard about the authentic hadith? Not even non-Muslims deny the authenticity of the chain of the strong hadith. And no they weren't *started* 750 CE, the hadith document everything from when he was alive.

I would say there are faaaar too many trills (shrills, or whatever they're called) on here to come anywhere near what a real open minded person needs to be looking for. Honestly, folks, if you're truly open minded about religion or atheism find other sources and avoid threads like these.
 
It says "Muslim literary sources". Which would exclude orally transmitted hadith.
 
Also this - "Not even non-Muslims deny the authenticity of the chain of the strong hadith" - is incorrect. Scholars such as Ignaz Goldziher and Joseph Schacht have written entire works critiquing the isnad methodology (see for e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origins_of_Muhammadan_Jurisprudence - and before you dismiss them as Islamophobes or whatever, you should google in particular what Goldziher, a devout Jew, thought about Islam).

Obviously other scholars, such as Wael Hallaq, have come to different conclusions and published rebuttals (see for e.g. http://globalwebpost.com/farooqm/study_res/islam/fiqh/hallaq_hadith.html). That's the nature of open-minded enquiry.
 
It is. Much better. I'll have a look through those later. Thanks for them.
 
harshadgada said:
Honestly, folks, if you're truly open minded about religion or atheism find other sources and avoid threads like these.
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The logical refutation of the existence of a JCI god is sitting on the table. No religious person has come any where near taking it down.
 
peterstorey said:
He doesn't have to be irrational if you can adduce a rational argument for his existence. But you can't - hence your belief is irrational. QED.
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So to begin to show you the baselessness of your assumptions, we need to start with deciding if God is rational.

By definition, and by context, we conclude that rational things can be explained by logic or reason.

1) God is infinite/eternal. This defies logic and reason, because there is nothing in this world that exists or existed that is/will be infinite.
2) God is perfection/flawless in every conceivable way. This also defies logic and reason, because there is nothing in this world that we can say is objectively perfect.
3) God is All Knowing. This also defies logic and reasoning (by our definition of the word).

So, either our understanding of logic and reasoning is limited to the point where we can't explain the rationality of God (my take on this). Or this does not make God rational (your take on this, and subsequently, you believe that because God isn't rational, by default He should be irrational).

Now, if we extend this a bit further and decide if God is irrational.

By definition, and by context, we conclude that irrational things can't be explained by logic or reason.

1) God is One. This defies irrationality in its most primal form. 1 is unique and indivisible.
2) The fact that God is perfection in every conceivable way means there is some form of pattern, symmetry, form (call it whatever you want), so advanced that it simply can't be considered, by definition, random or illogical. We have never found a context where irrationality leads to something even close to perfection, let alone perfection itself.
3) God is All Knowing. Stemming from God's perfection, He would have a limitless and depthless knowledge of every single fact. So, whereby we humans are limited by senses amongst other things, God being All Knowing can't be considered irrational.

So, this negates God from being irrational as well.

Which leads me to what I was saying in my original post-God is neither rational nor irrational. And this brings me onto another point as well, even the terms of rational and irrational are just a culmination of our sensory experiences. If God transcends all of these experiences, then we can't place Him into either category. My personal belief on the situation is that God is simply too great for human understanding, and to be able to explain an unquantifiable supreme being using logic and reason doesn't make Him irrational, or conversely, the lack of irrationality doesn't make him rational. QEdoubleD.
 
Winrar said:
So certain set of choices lead you to heaven and some lead you to hell? If so, and if God is omniscient, wouldn't he know what path you'll take from birth to death?

If so, we're back to square one yet again. If God knows the result of the test, what's the point of the test?
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To your first point-yes. But the important thing is: we don't know what path we take until we've taken it/have died.

Imagine you are at a fork in the road. You take one option. You take this option out of your free will, don't you? It doesn't matter if someone is looking down on you from outside of space and time knows you would have taken that option, you still took it out of your own free will.

Birth, like death, is a phase of transition. Birth was transition from nothing to temporary, whereas death is the transition from temporary to permanent. The test is what we do in the life segment, and the life segment is the only segment we really have control over. The point is to decide what happens after death. God knows the path we take, but like I've said many times earlier, we don't know where we end up, and that's the key point. God has entrusted us to make this life count.
 
Uzz said:
My personal belief on the situation is that God is simply too great for human understanding, and to be able to explain an unquantifiable supreme being using logic and reason doesn't make Him irrational, or conversely, the lack of irrationality doesn't make him rational. QEdoubleD.
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A long spiel which boils down to the old cop out 'God moves in mysterious ways'. I can make up any old nonsense and play that card to justify it.
 
Uzz said:
To your first point-yes. But the important thing is: we don't know what path we take until we've taken it/have died.

Imagine you are at a fork in the road. You take one option. You take this option out of your free will, don't you? It doesn't matter if someone is looking down on you from outside of space and time knows you would have taken that option, you still took it out of your own free will.

Birth, like death, is a phase of transition. Birth was transition from nothing to temporary, whereas death is the transition from temporary to permanent. The test is what we do in the life segment, and the life segment is the only segment we really have control over. The point is to decide what happens after death. God knows the path we take, but like I've said many times earlier, we don't know where we end up, and that's the key point. God has entrusted us to make this life count.
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If we don't know if we'll go to heaven or hell regardless of your beliefs, then what's the point in believing?
 
So to begin to show you the baselessness of your assumptions, we need to start with deciding if God is rational.

By definition, and by context, we conclude that rational things can be explained by logic or reason.

1) God is infinite/eternal. This defies logic and reason, because there is nothing in this world that exists or existed that is/will be infinite.
2) God is perfection/flawless in every conceivable way. This also defies logic and reason, because there is nothing in this world that we can say is objectively perfect.
3) God is All Knowing. This also defies logic and reasoning (by our definition of the word).

So, either our understanding of logic and reasoning is limited to the point where we can't explain the rationality of God (my take on this). Or this does not make God rational (your take on this, and subsequently, you believe that because God isn't rational, by default He should be irrational).

Now, if we extend this a bit further and decide if God is irrational.

By definition, and by context, we conclude that irrational things can't be explained by logic or reason.

1) God is One. This defies irrationality in its most primal form. 1 is unique and indivisible.
2) The fact that God is perfection in every conceivable way means there is some form of pattern, symmetry, form (call it whatever you want), so advanced that it simply can't be considered, by definition, random or illogical. We have never found a context where irrationality leads to something even close to perfection, let alone perfection itself.
3) God is All Knowing. Stemming from God's perfection, He would have a limitless and depthless knowledge of every single fact. So, whereby we humans are limited by senses amongst other things, God being All Knowing can't be considered irrational.

So, this negates God from being irrational as well.

Which leads me to what I was saying in my original post-God is neither rational nor irrational. And this brings me onto another point as well, even the terms of rational and irrational are just a culmination of our sensory experiences. If God transcends all of these experiences, then we can't place Him into either category. My personal belief on the situation is that God is simply too great for human understanding, and to be able to explain an unquantifiable supreme being using logic and reason doesn't make Him irrational, or conversely, the lack of irrationality doesn't make him rational. QEdoubleD.
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Using this I can also make a case for the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Just watch.

By definition, and by context, we conclude that rational things can be explained by logic or reason.

1) Flying Spaghetti Monster is infinite/eternal. This defies logic and reason, because there is nothing in this world that exists or existed that is/will be infinite.
2) Flying Spaghetti Monster is perfection/flawless in every conceivable way. This also defies logic and reason, because there is nothing in this world that we can say is objectively perfect.
3) Flying Spaghetti Monster is All Knowing. This also defies logic and reasoning (by our definition of the word).

So, either our understanding of logic and reasoning is limited to the point where we can't explain the rationality of Flying Spaghetti Monster (my take on this). Or this does not make Flying Spaghetti Monster rational (your take on this, and subsequently, you believe that because Flying Spaghetti Monster isn't rational, by default He should be irrational).

Now, if we extend this a bit further and decide if Flying Spaghetti Monster is irrational.

By definition, and by context, we conclude that irrational things can't be explained by logic or reason.

1) Flying Spaghetti Monster is One. This defies irrationality in its most primal form. 1 is unique and indivisible.
2) The fact that Flying Spaghetti Monster is perfection in every conceivable way means there is some form of pattern, symmetry, form (call it whatever you want), so advanced that it simply can't be considered, by definition, random or illogical. We have never found a context where irrationality leads to something even close to perfection, let alone perfection itself.
3) Flying Spaghetti Monster is All Knowing. Stemming from Flying Spaghetti Monster's perfection, He would have a limitless and depthless knowledge of every single fact. So, whereby we humans are limited by senses amongst other things, Flying Spaghetti Monster being All Knowing can't be considered irrational.

So, this negates Flying Spaghetti Monster from being irrational as well.

Which leads me to what I was saying in my original post-Flying Spaghetti Monster is neither rational nor irrational. And this brings me onto another point as well, even the terms of rational and irrational are just a culmination of our sensory experiences. If Flying Spaghetti Monster transcends all of these experiences, then we can't place Him into either category. My personal belief on the situation is that Flying Spaghetti Monster is simply too great for human understanding, and to be able to explain an unquantifiable supreme being using logic and reason doesn't make Him irrational, or conversely, the lack of irrationality doesn't make him rational. QEtripleD.
 
Winrar said:
If we don't know if we'll go to heaven or hell regardless of your beliefs, then what's the point in believing?
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I'm not sure if you're being deliberately dense or not, but I'll give you the benefit of doubt in this instance.

You go to heaven or hell based on your beliefs. I honestly don't know how you can't see that.
 
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