Answer my question from before then, do you think professional evolutionary biologists who have quite conclusive evidence that there was no first human being are wrong?
Because if you can prove such a thing, you're in line for a fecking Nobel prize.
Religion, what's the point?
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Answer my question from before then, do you think professional evolutionary biologists who have quite conclusive evidence that there was no first human being are wrong?
Because if you can prove such a thing, you're in line for a fecking Nobel prize.
Bad interpretation?
You said yourself...
It doesn't matter who wrote it, it is supposedly the definitive word of your god.
How can your fair and just god allow the text he's promised to protect to be lost in translation?!
Surely the one thing that cannot possibly be ever lost in translation is the divine word of the almighty omnipotent god!
Can't you see that?
If god allows for various interpretations of his word then he isn't fair and isn't just. If he hasn't allowed it, but it's happened regardless, then he isn't omnipotent.
You're wrong. The Quran is not a word. The Quran is made of many many words. Thousands of words. How can you miss such an easy fact that you can discover by simply reading the Quran, or even seeing it?
Right. It's not one word. Got it.
You're quite severely brainwashed.
You're quite severely brainwashed.
So Harry Potter and the ***********'s Stone is not a 6 word title, rather it's a collection of the thousands of words within it?
fecking hell Danny.
fecking hell Danny.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Word
11. ( initial capital letter ) .
Also called the Word, the Word of God.
a. the Scriptures; the Bible.
b. the Logos.
c. the message of the gospel of Christ.
Admittedly I neglected to capitalise it.
11. ( initial capital letter ) .
Also called the Word, the Word of God.
a. the Scriptures; the Bible.
b. the Logos.
c. the message of the gospel of Christ.
Admittedly I neglected to capitalise it.
Definition #11?! Why do I have to go that far down in my interpretation/translation? The clear meaning (#1) for the word "word" is clear.. You're just trying to justify your statement which was factually wrong, by resorting to interpretations..
Has to be a wind up at this point.
Took dozens of pages to find the evidence to Danny's apparent retardation. He's one of those know-it-alls. Knows everything in each thread he posts within.
Danny's beyond salvation, no point in 'arguing' with him see threads passim.
The difference between the Quran and the word 'word' of course being that one is supposed to be the divinely protected, god given guidance to heaven, whilst the other is just simply a word.
The former should definitely not leave room for interpretation; especially so if such interpretation leads us to the persecution of homosexuality and the subjugation of women. The latter is just a word.
The former should definitely not leave room for interpretation; especially so if such varied interpretation leads us to dispute, conflict, genocide and war. The latter is just a word.
The former should definitely not leave room for interpretation; especially so if god is supposedly fair and just, for how can a fair and just being be so unfair and unjust as to allow his holy message to be distorted to the extent that belief in him is rendered entirely unreasonable? The latter is just a word.
The former should definitely not leave room for interpretation; especially so if god is supposedly omnipotent, for how can the holy guidance on an omnipotent being ever be misconstrued when such guidance would by definition be absolutely perfect? The latter is just a word.
So, yeah, I get that you're trying to be a pedantic cnut in order to make a point, but the truth is, what you're really doing is avoiding the actual point of the matter; that the inefficiency of the Quran as an unambiguous message from god represents very strong evidence supporting the nonexistence of god.
Don't make yourself dumber than you already are. It's really not necessary.
I would disagree with this point cider. If you look at the logistics of writing a book that will serve as a guiding foundation for the course of humanity's history, I think its clear said book will have to allow for essentially infinite interpretations.
Humanity's worldview (collectively, different parts of the world think differently than others) is in a constantly evolving state. I don't think that point needs to be labored as its pretty self evident imo. Thus, the humanity of today will find different teachings/instructions/guidances/wisdom/etc relevant than someone who lived 1000 years ago. Similarly, somebody 1000 years in the future (assuming we're still around) will see the world drastically different than we do now.
I know you don't believe it, but pretend for a second there is an omnipotent God, and he's writing a book that must serve as the guidebook of humanity, for all of humanity at any given point in time and for all points in time to come. The book is going to have to be open to infinite interpretations, because it will be read by an infinite number of human beings with an infinite number of worldviews. And it must remain relevant to all of these.
Of course the counter to this is "Well why doesn't God just tell us the correct world view, then everyone can believe that for all of time and we can all just follow the definitive truth. No need for layers of understanding and interpretation, the book should simply say 'this is the way it is'". The problem with this line of thinking is that if God is going to just tell us the absolute truth, there's really no point to our existence. If however the point of human existence is to continually strive for higher understanding (which is how I see it), then the book must guide us along the journey to the truth, rather than hitting us over the head with it.
*I should make clear that most of this is my own interpretation both of Islam and my own life experience in general, I'm not claiming it to be necessarily be representative of other Muslims or Islam itself.
No, unless you are from the Shiites (who constitute something between 10% and 15% of the whole muslim population) you cannot reject Sahih Al Bukhari. Reformists in Islam are a minority.
http://www.islam-qa.com/en/ref/122705
Logistics of writing a book for an all-powerful creator? Come now, don't be silly.
It's precisely for those reasons that the word of god would have to be concise, clear, unambiguous, terse, and intelligible to all. That's the whole point of the matter. Human legislature is faced with the same exact problems, and does a better job of it, imperfect as it is. At least our legislation is made available in different languages so that all subjects could comply with it.
This is an absurd bit of circular reasoning. The point of our existence is A. If it weren't for A there would be no point to our existence.
This is first of all a baseless assertion. And secondly and more importantly, as has been said a billion times now, the implication of it is that this god who apparently wants us to misinterpret his text, is playful, capricious and sadistic. He wants us to eternally struggle to understand, cause it's just so much more fun that way for him.
Herein lies the fundamental failings of religion in the modern world; humanity is changing rapidly whilst the holy texts are simply rotting away into obsolete antiquity. If god has attempted to write an infinitely relevant book in either the Bible or the Quran then he's failed the mandate as with every human discovery each book is being speedily rendered as being an absolute load of shit.
Religion has been fortunate since humanity's worldview has evolved only very slowly over the last however many thousands of years. That isn't the case any longer; with the invention of modern technologies such as the plane, the television, the computer and the internet, humans in recent years have begun making comparatively large steps forward in the fields of ethics and morality. We no longer require the teachings of these obsolete books which encourage us to stone women who overcook the dinner and systematically condemn homosexuality. If god intended the holy texts to remain relevant through the ages then he's failed in that task.
One book to teach morality for all of time? Why is this omnipotent god labouring under such an ridiculously unreasonable restriction? Didn't he forsee the advancement of science one day rubbishing all the bollocks he tricked the ancients with? If the guy had only one crack at it with only one book, then why didn't he just tell the bloody truth?!
You've hit the nail on the head here: there is no point to human existence!
Do you think we're here to entertain god? "I know! I'll make a bunch of humans, throw them a bunch of contradictory riddles and see how many can survive the inevitable genocides with sanity intact! I could let the winners up here to live with me!" If god is indeed omnipotent then he wouldn't think that way; he'd have no need for us, we'd provide no entertainment, no mystery, no interest to him. The very moment such an entity conceived of us he'd know from beginning to end exactly how we'd turn out, and that would be exactly how he decided we'd turn out. He wouldn't even need to bother creating us.
The notion of an omnipotent being creating the universe and giving humans within it the freedom of personal choice is ridiculous; if we are indeed the creation of god then everything we do is his responsibility and he already knows exactly what we're going to do at any juncture. An omnipotent being would have known exactly how every one of us would react upon reading the ever mistranslated holy texts; all the disputes, conflicts, wars and genocides can only be of god's own exact design. If this isn't the case then he isn't omnipotent; strong evidence of his own nonexistence.
Fair enough.
It's a brilliant bit of anthropomorphism, and should be telling too, that some of us think an omniscient being would be enthralled by our inability to understand, and our continuous struggle, so much that he wouldn't lift a finger as we shed blood over 'unimportant' bits of his revealed text.
And if you grant him a sadistic quality, then all the instances when he did meddle are incongruous. Have your cake or eat it.
And if you grant him a sadistic quality, then all the instances when he did meddle are incongruous. Have your cake or eat it.
Has to be a wind up at this point.
Either a massive wum or someone who doesn't speak English as a first language, or both.
It seems incomprehensible to him that a word can have more than one meaning. Putting it down to just language would be a polite way to explain it.
With all due respect to Bebe above, but any religious text that condoned slavery, concubines, demeaning of women, murder, rape, incest, etc. is perceived by me as bullshit. No god would allow of such atrocity irregardless of the times, especially a loving god. But apparently god was so appalled at human actions that he sent his "son" and yet still condoned such irrational behaviors. What was the fecking point then?
He was trying to make a point. I told him that only a particularly cruel or weak god would allow his sworn protected holy text to be misinterpreted by humans; countless millions of deaths over the centuries being the direct result. Was this god's intention? Then he's cruel. Was it his error? Then he's weak.
Danny responded flippantly by demonstrating that words can have multiple meanings. I guess god just didn't think of that.
As Moonwalker points out; human written legislature manages to overcome the issue of the multiple interpretations of words pretty well, so why didn't the almighty god think to apply the same such techniques to his holy text?
Oh so that's what that was. Slightly roundabout and utterly pointless, but not as bad as I thought.
There are surprisingly a lot of well read people in this thread. And reasonably open minded too.
Makes for good objective reading. Just out of interest have a few of you read the Qur'an? Seems like a few have.
Makes for good objective reading. Just out of interest have a few of you read the Qur'an? Seems like a few have.
you're gonna have fun in here or a spaghetti.There's no other way of looking at it; the ambiguity of the holy scriptures represents very compelling evidence of the nonexistence of the Abrahamic god.
Consider the following statements:
The three statements cannot possibly all be true as they contradict one another.
Start with the first statement, that the scriptures are ambiguous. This cannot be refuted, surely? Across the world we have many religious factions swearing by various interpretations of the scriptures; it seems that hardly anybody can agree of god's exact meaning. The direct result of this ambiguity has been much dispute, conflict, war and genocide throughout human history; countless millions of lives lost around the globe essentially down to arguments over the interpretation of god's word.
Yet god is supposedly compassionate. We're expected to believe that god is a fair and just being who loves us completely. This can only be true though if the ambiguity of the scriptures was a mistake, for if the ambiguity was intentional then how can god, the direct and calculated cause of all this large scale pain and suffering throughout history be described as being compassionate, fair and just? If the ambiguity was no mistake then god's actions can only be described as being cruel and sadistic. The ambiguity of the scriptures has to have been a mistake!
Yet god is supposedly omnipotent. He doesn't make mistakes; he is all powerful and all knowing, flawless, almighty and magnificent. The ambiguity of the scriptures cannot have been accidental, it can only have been intentional, for otherwise god can be by no definition omnipotent. All the collected disputes, conflicts, wars and genocides brought about by the ambiguity of the holy texts cannot have been anything but god's will!
The three statements cannot all be true; one at least has to be false. We know the first one is true, we know that there scriptures are ambiguous; that leaves either god's compassion or god's omnipotence as the break in the chain, or perhaps even both. The idea of an omnipotent, compassionate god ruling over a world with ambiguous scriptures is a logical absurdity; it cannot be. The Abrahamic god cannot possibly exist.
Consider the following statements:
- The scriptures are ambiguous
- God is compassionate
- God is omnipotent
The three statements cannot possibly all be true as they contradict one another.
Start with the first statement, that the scriptures are ambiguous. This cannot be refuted, surely? Across the world we have many religious factions swearing by various interpretations of the scriptures; it seems that hardly anybody can agree of god's exact meaning. The direct result of this ambiguity has been much dispute, conflict, war and genocide throughout human history; countless millions of lives lost around the globe essentially down to arguments over the interpretation of god's word.
Yet god is supposedly compassionate. We're expected to believe that god is a fair and just being who loves us completely. This can only be true though if the ambiguity of the scriptures was a mistake, for if the ambiguity was intentional then how can god, the direct and calculated cause of all this large scale pain and suffering throughout history be described as being compassionate, fair and just? If the ambiguity was no mistake then god's actions can only be described as being cruel and sadistic. The ambiguity of the scriptures has to have been a mistake!
Yet god is supposedly omnipotent. He doesn't make mistakes; he is all powerful and all knowing, flawless, almighty and magnificent. The ambiguity of the scriptures cannot have been accidental, it can only have been intentional, for otherwise god can be by no definition omnipotent. All the collected disputes, conflicts, wars and genocides brought about by the ambiguity of the holy texts cannot have been anything but god's will!
The three statements cannot all be true; one at least has to be false. We know the first one is true, we know that there scriptures are ambiguous; that leaves either god's compassion or god's omnipotence as the break in the chain, or perhaps even both. The idea of an omnipotent, compassionate god ruling over a world with ambiguous scriptures is a logical absurdity; it cannot be. The Abrahamic god cannot possibly exist.
Cider you are a looking at it from your Christian experience. In Islam Good and Evil are not separate entities as in... oh if god is all good why is there evil....etc. Also the idea of Free Will it's deferent. This is the same view that that kid Sam Harris has. It took me a while to understand why atheists on here had certain incorrect view about Islam and this is why.
It shows serious lack of knowledge when it comes to things such as creed. If you wish to formulate an educated opinion I encourage you to read further. If you need help let me know.
It shows serious lack of knowledge when it comes to things such as creed. If you wish to formulate an educated opinion I encourage you to read further. If you need help let me know.
If good and evil aren't separate entities, then how can the moral agent you spoke of earlier even exist?
What are you saying, Abbsta, that god is both good and evil?
no. good and evil are both creations of god.
So, why do people suffer eternal damnation when god created evil?
So god is neither good or evil?
Can't be arsed with videos. Explain it in your own words.
That video is hilarious, trite ridden morality for five year olds.
And he couldn't have picked a worse animal for the one example he had.
And he couldn't have picked a worse animal for the one example he had.
Has to be a wind up at this point.
Thank you.
That's basically how you have been arguing about the Quran. ("The stars can't fall", "Bees don't eat fruit", "Earth doesn't orbits around Sun", ...etc.)See, but those are the pitfalls of trying to make a point by pretending to be daft, on a forum where everyone already thinks that you are.
You can't see the forest for the trees
You can't smell your own shit on your knees
You can't smell your own shit on your knees
Hey, you, what do you see?
Something beautiful? Something free?
Hey, you, are you trying to be mean?
You live with apes, well it's hard to be clean.
Something beautiful? Something free?
Hey, you, are you trying to be mean?
You live with apes, well it's hard to be clean.