We're discussing theism and imagination, not logic, but perhaps your past still haunts you.
Our attitude concerning mockery of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon
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We're discussing theism and imagination, not logic, but perhaps your past still haunts you.
When you lack the ability to see what's in front of your nose, what hope is there for the present ?SAM said:
Not much. The contention is that belief in a deity is fundamental, with human curiosity and imagination byproducts of it. In support of that we are informed that it makes no sense for atheists to value natural conservation, therefore they don't, nor are they capable of formulating imaginative and not immediately evident explanations for natural phenomena, since they lack imagination. Additionally, they regard absence of evidence as evidence of absence.
We know all this about atheists and human imagination by having been made the beneficiaries of a flash of insight into why a theist would find themselves puzzled about what atheists were saying in response to past allegations of that kind.
I confess that I am unable to predict what will be the next step in this stairway to some kind of alternative reality. I have a guess regarding the root insight, though. I think the first step was the sudden realization that anyone who could truly imagine a deity would believe in it. With that a priori and unarguable, the rest kind of falls into place.
My definition of fundamentalist differs from yours I think, but we’ll never know since you have never told me what your definition really is.
Let’s retrace this dialogue to see who is saying what:
Check the first quote up top and see where you go wrong here.
FFI.com is an Atheist run website... Although, like you, I cannot tell the difference
See what I mean?Disregarding that my definition differs from yours...
Where you have failed to provide any evidence for...
Once again, read the very top quote to see where you are wrong.
Remember this; here you say that my definition of a fundamentalist doesn’t differ from yours.
Backed up? Where?
So here is my definition of fundamentalism. According to you, it doesn’t differ from yours. So that should be good for a one cookie. Here you go. Oh wait, it does differ? Too bad you didn’t tell me your definition. *Munches on cookie*
Very Interesting isn’t it? How many times have you called me fundie and ascribed to be symptoms of schizophrenia and how many times have I said you are wearing shades of hate? Who has provided links and names of and to prominent Atheists who let themselves out over Islam? Who has done the same to back up his claims about Christians? This is all I’m going to say about this. That is, unless you go out there and check the evidence I have given and provide me with evidence of your claims.
Oh dear, it seems we have someone here who has missed the start of this thread. I advise you not to go down that road. Michael tried it, until I showed him that the very Wiki pages he was using acknowledged that there is no record whatsoever of any of his, and probably your, assumptions about the conquest of North Africa. Anyway, during this “expansion”, no one was forcibly converted and the sword was not the Khalifa’s best friend. The expansion of the Muslim state did not go hand in hand with the spread of Islam.
Furthermore, you should really stop reading about dhimmis from the likes of Gisèle Littman and actually ask a Muslim about what it means, since Muslims themselves are dhimmis as well.
My opinion was stated after having read the various sources I talked about in that post, about the presence of Jesus in India and becoming the Metteya to the Buddhists as was predicted in the teachings of Buddhism and is recorded in their own history. If you just want to stick to the Bible, go ahead.
First of all, the vast majority of Muslim converts ehh... converted during the time the Treaty of Hudaibiyah was in effect, which was peace time, when there was no fighting. People accepted Islam because they were convinced by it, its teachings and its beauty.
Secondly, I very much doubt you know what the word Ridda actually means. It is an intransitive verb and the root of it, rail, has no transitive form whatsoever. To keep it short, because you are probably not that well versed in Arabic: a person can recant, but no one else can make him recant. Let me give another example: you can execute or murder someone but you cannot suicide someone. They do that themselves. This is what separates Irtadda from the concept of apostasy as you probably know it from the medieval Christian theology and or maybe from that idiot Maududi. There is no support in the Quran whatsoever for killing someone who leaves Islam.
Now to move on to the so called “Ridda wars”. These were a series of conflicts directly after the Prophets death where some tribes rebelled against the newly elected successor to the Prophet, not on religious terms, but purely on political terms. Thinking that the Muslims were in disarray after the death of the Prophet, some tribes even attacked the Muslims out of the blue to take whatever they could from the Muslims. The vast majority of tribes rebelled, I’ll say it once again, not because of any religious conviction but purely because of political differences. And that major political difference they disagreed on was tax. So delegations were sent to tribes to reconcilliate the severed political ties and even the tribes themselves said they did not want to sever the religious ties, just the political ones.
I hope you have read what Wellhausen said about these so called “wars”:
Or Bernard Lewis:
Or maybe you can check that trusty friend of yours again, Wikipedia:
You understand now where you are wrong? The “Ridda wars” had nothing to do with any Islamic teaching nor with the spread of Islam, they were a simple contractual disagreement about tax which lead to rebellion from tribes.
The House of Saud are incredibly vile people and one of the main reasons for instability in that region. Their unIslamic dictatorship and the way they gained that power, accompanied by their disgusting habits makes them vile. Saddam Hussein was much better than them. Maybe you haven’t heard, but Iraq was a pretty safe place with him, very liberal too and terrorists didn’t dare to set foot in it. Ahmadinejad is an extremely misunderstood man in the West, mainly due to the on purpose and continued mistranslations attributed to him. He is way better than the House of Saud will ever be because he seems like a man who will not lie and stand by his word and his continued denouncement of any nuclear weapon as completely unIslamic is one of the most positive stances by a leader of any country regarding nuclear weapons or any WMDs.
I’m talking about military bases on Muslim Holy Land. Not about non-Muslims just living there. You know what, you come back to me when you find an Iraqi or Iranian or Pakistani military base in the Vatican or next to the White House, whose soldiers have free reign to execute operations in that country.
Saddam wanted to end the whole Kuwait situation through dialogue, not war, but his words were thrown to the wind because the military needed another outing. After Iraq was destroyed and loads of people killed, the Western powers suddenly wanted a dialogue with him to resolve the situation.
Not to forget the chemical weapons given to Saddam to attack Iran and the Iranians pointed that out with horrific pictures of the victims of those weapons. The same weapons for which the US now claims to have killed him, while showing the same pictures that the Iranians were showing when the US was supplying him with the weapons. The difference is, this time the pictures are shown to you, but when the Iranians were dying, you probably didn’t even know about them.
First you ask for a concept that’s unique to Islam. I explain to you the concept of Universality in Islam and its uniqueness. Then you ask for what the central message in Islam is, I tell you what it means. Now you are asking the same thing over and over again. Read what I wrote previously. It seems everyone besides you has grasped it.
As for the plagiarism part, it’s funny to see an atheist use an argument concocted by the likes of Pfander to attack Islam in India and convert them to Christianity. It is a ridiculous and baseless argument. You have never provided me with any information about how and where the Prophet of Islam could have gained such an insightful knowledge about the Books he supposedly plagiarized. There is only a vague mention him meeting Christians, and that is a brief and casual meeting in Syria iirc. A meeting that was too short for him to even talk about the events in such detail. Let me put this another way: I have been living in predominantly Christian countries for the better part of 15 years. Yet I still don’t know the names of every Christian Prophet, nor do I know every story in the Bible. Nor do I know all the history about the country I am living in. But yet your theory expects me to have impeccable knowledge of all this. This is me living here for the better part of 15 years. And I know people who are born here that do not know all this stuff. Or you can apply this theory to anyone going to any region in the world. If I went to India for a day, would I be able to completely plagiarize their religion? The Prophet went to Syria with a trade caravan and there is a vague mention of a small, brief and casual meeting with Christians before he returned. And the argument put forward is that because he talked with them about religion, he copied Islam from the Bible and called it the Quran and called the religion Islam. I challenge you to apply that argument to anywhere in the world and instantly you will see the hollowness of it and ridicule it yourself.
And don’t forget that the Prophet could not read or write. So you are saying that a man, who cannot read or write, who goes to another country as part of his work and is focused on his work and has a small, brief and casual meeting with some Christians with whom he talks about religion, he suddenly knows the Bible inside out. That is a completely ridiculous argument. In that small time how can he know the entire history of Christianity and all their Prophets and what was wrong here and what was wrong there so that it could be omitted from his version? How could he have grasped the messages and concepts in such depth?
The funny thing is that for 14 years into his prophethood, he never once mentioned Christianity and or Judaism. Furthermore, if he had copied it from the Bible or Torah, the Jews at Medina would have immediately called him on it and said that he was plagiarising. They didn’t. Neither did any Christian in that time. Even his own followers would have mocked him and left Islam if they thought he had copied it from another religion. They didn’t.
All these facts of history reject this hollow argument which is without any substance. It is simply impossible for someone to have come in brief, casual contact with people from another religion to suddenly grasp every concept of that religion to the depth displayed by the Prophet, or to know the history, order and stories of all the Prophets of that religion. But the most remarkable thing would have to be when that person suddenly starts correcting the other belief. The Quran throws out all the hocus pocus from those stories and teachings and provides a view based on reason and science. Let me explain: you can speak about the scientific subjects of today if you are well versed in them. But you cannot speak about the scientific subjects of 100s of years in the future. So how came it that while the Bible miserably failed to predict the correct state of nature and the natural laws and started speaking of those myths that were current among the illiterate people back when it was written, the Quran avoids reference to any such hocus pocus narrations and added knowledge of which the Bible had no knowledge whatsoever.
Furthermore the Quran carried these subjects to our time and beyond. And all these have so far proven to be correct. Did he copy that from the Bible or Torah? Why and how did he suddenly start rectifying the stories about the Prophets in the Bible, who were accused of all kinds of vile deeds that if you accepted them as having done those deeds, they were not worthy of being called holy men, let alone Prophets? The Quran rectified all these stories about them while the Bible didn’t and the Quran also added things here and there which were borne out to the true by future investigations of man. How could an illiterate person who had a brief, casual contact with another religious person do this? For example, the Bible nowhere mentions a dialogue between the Pharaoh and God while he was drowning. No remote mention. Now why is this? Because the Israelites when they migrated from Egypt and the analysts who kept the record of the Bible, did not know what happened behind them. But this is mentioned in the Quran. The Bible fails there. They did not write it down because they weren’t there and didn’t know about it.
This is an interesting event because when the Pharaoh was drowning, he said something along the lines “Now I believe in the God of Moses and Aaron” and God’s reply was along the lines of “Now? This is no time for saving your soul. So we will accept your prayer and since you are only interested in material wealth we will preserve your material body for future time to draw lessons from it.” The Quran mentions this. And in the time of the Prophet, there was absolutely no knowledge that the bodies of the Egyptians were being preserved and mummified and kept in the pyramids. It was much later, more than a 1000 years later that the world would know what the pyramids contained and it was the Christians themselves who were to unearth the body of the Pharaoh mentioned in the Quran and turn his body into a lesson for everyone to see, just like it’s mentioned in the Quran. The Bible hasn’t the remotest mention of this.
So how did an illiterate man who came in brief, casual contact with other religions people copy this from their religion? Where is it mentioned in the Bible? Or the Apocrypha or whatever? This allegation that he copied it from the Christians or Jews has no substance whatsoever. It is just another false argument concocted by Christians to convert Muslims to Christianity in India during the time of colonialism. If it’s not, provide proof. Or tell me where I’m wrong. This isn’t comparable with you and the knowledge you already possess. This isn’t about you having read Einstein’s works. Why didn’t anyone back then raise this allegation? Surely, someone must have seen the plagiarism going on here? Where did he learn the Bible? Where did he learn the Torah? Interestingly, the Aborigines have the concept of a supreme Creator. So when the Quran mentions a supreme Creator, does it plagiarise from the aborigines? What utter crap.
But let’s just look a bit more closely to the comparison you have given about the E=MC2 and the Qurans novel and enlightening message. You say that simply stating E=MC2 doesn’t make you intelligent or a mathematician or physicist. You’re right, it doesn’t. And let me tell you the reason you keep bringing this up whenever talking about the message of the Quran: you have completely failed to grasp the concept of Universality as it is taught in the Quran. It looks like it’s just a concept too far for you to understand. Have you ever taken Literature, Sociology or Psychology at any level? Please share with us any result you may have achieved there as this may indicate to some degree your capability of understanding the message of any literature, let alone the Quran. Now let me tell you exactly why taking the comparison you have brought up. You said that Einstein came up with that equation first and therefore it is new and novel and ascribed to him. According to your favourite pages of knowledge:
Interesting, let’s dig around a bit more. It turns out that Einstein published his paper regarding this in what has now become known as the Annus Mirabilis papers. Let’s look at what your favourite site says:
So Einstein wasn’t the first to relate energy with mass? Interesting. And his world famous equation which you have tried to use in an utterly crap argument, and failed btw, was based on the investigations of people that went before him. The likes of Newton, J. J. Thomson, Oliver Heaviside, George Frederick Charles Searle, Wilhelm Wien, Max Abraham, Hendrik Lorentz, James Clerk Maxwell, Adolfo Bartoli, Henri Poincaré and Friedrich Hasenöhrl all went before him in this particular field. So, going by your stubborn and completely false argument which you apply to the Quran, Einstein plagiarized from these people. The mere mention of the relating between mass and energy and or Mass-Energy Equivalence is proof of plagiarism! Right? That is what you were saying about the Quran right? Oh, what’s that you say? His equation was different than the others? Well, by your thinking that doesn’t matter because it concerns Mass-Energy equivalence and therefore it is plagiarism of the hard work, blood, sweat and tears of all these other wonderful people and that mean old Einstein stole it! Back in the real world, thats not how it works, does it? In the same way, Universality, as explained in the Quran, is completely different, unique, novel and enlightening. No other religion has it. Being able to leave ones religion or follow another religion is not what I mean with Universality, being able to do that is a given. If it isn’t then the religion is not universal.
Which has been answered, and quit extensively I may add, in this thread. Just go back and read what was said. The concept of Universality as it is in Islam is completely unique and novel and nowhere else to be found. Not in Buddhism, Christianity or any fictional Greek you want to throw at me.
I didn’t say that Muslims misinterpret the meaning of Ahle Kitab. I said that people who aren’t Muslims, like you, usually misunderstand this because of their lack of knowledge about Islamic theology, since the vast majority of literature, and believe me, it is vast, is in Arabic and not English.
The debate about Ahle Kitab requires you to have some knowledge about the Arabic language, mainly about what Ahle Kitab means and what Sabhyeen means. These are 2 terms which go together and any failure to grasp what they mean will result in the block you are experiencing now. Furthermore, it requires you to have an understanding about the various classes of Prophets, more specifically regarding the classes of Law Bearing and non-Law Bearing, as they are advocated in Islamic theology.
Let’s check a list here:
Do I accept Jesus as a real Prophet of God? Check
Do I accept Moses as a real Prophet of God? Check
Do I accept Buddha as a real Prophet of God? Check
Do I accept Krishna as a real Prophet of God? Check
Do I accept Zoroaster as a real Prophet of God? Check
Do I accept Confucius as a real Prophet of God? Check
Do I accept numerous other Prophets worldwide as real Prophets of God? Check
Do I believe that the Books and teachings by these Prophets are of Divine Origin? Check
Do I.... Well you probably get the idea now, hopefully. And so I can go on and on and keep checking the list. Can a Christian do this? Can a Buddhist do this? Can any other religion claim this? No. Because of their belief they have to denounce the Prophet of Islam for example as false and an impostor and or they are completely silent on the subject. But a Muslim talks about these Prophets with veneration and love because that’s the only option available to him. It is a fundamental article of faith, namely the belief in Prophets and the belief in the Holy Books, to accept their truth and honour. With the establishment of these various Prophets the time had come for the Prophet mentioned in their books. In the Torah, the Bible, the Books of the Hindus and their songs. And when you claim that your Prophet is universal it is only logical that you accept the claim of other prophets as true and of divine origin.
Religions and Prophets were from Divine Origin is what I’m saying. The novel and enlightening concepts and message of Islam will not alter itself to fit your agenda. I have told you what it is. I have explained how it is unique and novel. You either accept that explanation from a Muslim or you reject it, either way, it’s not really my problem. My duty is just to tell you what it is.
That may be what the Christians are claiming nowadays to convert people, but let’s just take a look at the Bible. First of all, the God of the Bible is not God as you and I know; rather it is the God of Israel, hence dispelling any thoughts about Jesus’ message being Universal. It is very ethnic. The Bible continuously confirms this:
And so there are more. Now let’s move onto what Jesus himself said:
Prior to that he said:
And so there are more. You can claim all you want that Christianity is for everyone who accepts Jesus as his or her saviour, but even that is denied by the Bible itself. So the Bible and its teachings do not support what you have said about Christianity. But don’t worry; it’s not just you who fails to see this.
Now let’s take a look at the concept of forgiveness you keep bringing up regarding Christianity. The major inherent flaw regarding the concept of sin and atonement in Christianity is that Jesus himself was born of a human mother, who was carrying with her the sin of Eve (Her being a woman and all). So Jesus was born as a sinner if we follow the rules of the Bible. Furthermore, if Jesus was born around the year 0, what happened to the progeny of Adam, scattered all over the globe, who had no chance to even be saved by Jesus?
Another flaw is the way Jesus behaved in the Bible prior to the crucifixion. Iirc the crucifixion is meant to be the moment when Jesus, willingly sacrificed himself to take the sin of everyone that accepted him. So surely when this joyous occasion came, a once in a lifetime opportunity, to help the people that believed in him, he should have been looking forward to it. But what do we find? A weeping Jesus, crying and praying to God to take away this cup of death from him. What’s this then?! Jesus didn’t want to take this burden, to sacrifice himself for the people he so loved? That’s not what we are told by Christians! Let’s look at what the Bible says about Jesus leading up to this momentous and joyous occasion in Christian history, when sin carried so long by mankind was finally banished from this world:
Now, why is this passage important? The reason is that according to the Bible:
Anyone who was crucified as Jesus was is according to the law he himself followed and taught a cursed one. That is the reason for his prayers in Gethsemane. He knew that his enemies would see this as a sign of him being an impostor and a cursed one. And this is also the reason that his last cry was:And if a man have committed a sin worthy of death, and he be to be put to death, and thou hang him on a tree:
His body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day; (for he that is hanged is accursed of God
Why did his God forsake him? It is clear he wasn’t willing to go through with all of this. Can a person who doesn’t want to be sacrificed be sacrificed and then that sacrifice still attributed to that person as a voluntary act to save people if they believe in him? No. The Bible itself doesn’t allow for any of this. The concept of sin and atonement in the Bible is inherently flawed. Ya, you can say “Christianity has forgiveness, an important psychological factor...” For whom? The criminal? And why isn’t that supported in the Bible itself? But of course, we will never see you question this...
Maybe you shouldn’t have bunked Sociology. Maybe then, just maybe, you would have understood the difference between a religion and the various denominations and or sects it is made up of. The core message of Mormonism revolves around Jesus and his message. Islam does not deny that, rather it accepts it. After all, there are around 73 sects in Islam; is every sect or school of thought a different religion? No. You need to understand this.
Furthermore, why do you continue to bring up the Bahais? Do you have some Bahai friends? If so can you ask them the question I asked in my previous post? The reason is that the Bahais are an interesting sect, yet at the same time extremely frustrating. Let me tell you what I mean. Some time ago we were invited to their temple in Chicago for some major event. We assumed it would be packed with Bahais since it is “the fastest growing religion” as they claim. So the temple filled up and when we asked the Bahais whether all these people were Bahais, their answer was yes. So we asked the people that were there and only around 20 people in that temple during that time, a major Bahai event in the US, were Bahai. The rest? Tourists, visitors, people who had read the ads and seen a building and wanted to take pics and some tours.
And every time we put the question to the Bahais where we can find a large majority of Bahais, they always seem to point to the other side of the world. We asked them there, they said someplace else. We went to that place and asked them there, they said the Fiji Islands. It was at that time that our suspicions began to be aroused. There is nowhere on this world where you can find a reasonable group belonging to the “fastest growing religion”. They always point to someplace else. Walk down the streets in any major world city, you’ll find Muslims and Christians. But Bahais? Nope. I’ve never seen one in my time in London. There are very serious questions to be asked of the Bahais.
Interestingly, there was a show on TV some time ago, dedicated to the Bahais. There was a segment where they were showing some Bahais going door to door. So they come to this house and tell the people about their religion. The people seem interested in some more info. Now here’s the fun part: they ask them to sign a form and that’s it. Those people are now counted as Bahais. No explanation of any of their theology, no concepts, no message, no nothing. Just: “are you interested? Here sign this and become one of us!” No wonder they call themselves “the fastest growing religion”. If that isn’t suspicious then the very fact that they refused to make their Holy Book public should be enough evidence for anyone to say “Something’s wrong here”. It is only very recently that they have started making it public. Our community got a copy of their Holy Book back when, way before they made it public. It is still there in our library. That version and the version they are now making public are totally different.
From my own experience, asking 2 Bahais what their religion is will result in 4 different answers over an extremely long period of time and sometimes no answer at all. Ask them to send you any books, no answer. I find that suspicious. And the reason they are not accepted among Muslims is the insistence of Bahaullah that he is God. That is the reason they are no longer viewed by Shias as Shias, even though that’s where they started: the Bab to the Mahdi in Shia theology.
Furthermore, how can such a small group fund such extensive PR campaigns, build such expensive Temples all over the world, when, in relative comparison, the major religions can’t? So yeah, there are serious questions to be asked of the Bahais, but I suspect it won’t be you asking them.
Nope. Greco-Buddhism had nothing to do with Judaism or that area. It was established in the regions of India. But that is moving away from the point that Jesus is mentioned in the history books of the Buddhists, coming to them as their Metteya, long after Buddha died. That is the point.
Oh, so somehow being Spanish has something to do with being a terrorist? How did him being Spanish influence his decision to commit an act of terrorism? Is it because the minds of Spanish people work differently than normal people which led him to commit this act of terrorism? Do you even see the complete futility of the argument you are trying to make?
The fact of the matter is that it was the Islamic Golden Age, a term, btw, used by Western academics to describe that period, not the Muslims themselves. These people and their intelligence, God given intelligence, was nurtured through the message of the Quran which encouraged Muslims to gain knowledge from anywhere possible, to study the laws of nature, to observe and by doing so see the intricate beauty that was created and appreciate it. But I don’t expect you to understand this. After all, you are the product of a way of thinking which sees religion and science as two completely opposite entities and conflicting where a clear demarcation is required. You see science as reason and religion as abdication of reason. I don’t. I see religion and science as two things that go hand in hand. The Quran continuously exhorts people to study, study and study. To gain knowledge. To apply reason to Quranic teachings. Furthermore, the various scientific knowledge stated in the Quran has been accepted as being true by science itself. It was under the influence of this teaching that a people who had 40 year old family vendettas concerning a camel, turned their attention towards studying nature and its laws and it marked the beginning of probably the most dynamic scientific movement in history, which has no equal in Christian history or Buddhist history for that matter. It produced the greatest minds in their respective fields, all of whom attributed their findings to the teachings of the Quran. And who would I rather believe: you, who has a proven track record of anti-Islamism and general anti-religiosity, or the likes of Al-Jabir, Ibn-Hayyan, Al-Jahiz, Al-Damiri, Ibn-Musa Al Khwarizmi, Abu Kamil, Razi, Masudi, Al-Beruni, Ibn-Sena, Omar Khyyam, Al-Kindi, Ibn-Rushed, Yahya Ibn-Mansur, Ibn- Al-Haitham, Al-Farisi, Abul Wafa, Al-Beruni, Sharafu-Din at - Tusi, Al-Farghani, Al-Battani, and Ulugh Beg about their endeavours? When Einstein came up with that equation, was it an anti-scientist with no knowledge regarding the concept and content of that equation who we believed about what the equation actually was or did we let Einstein explain how he came to that equation? And who would we believe? By your reasoning, not Einstein. But hey, let’s see what Western academics and writers have to say:
That last quote is by Dr. Abdus Salam. He was a devout Muslim and is credited together with his colleagues with one of the most profound contributions to 20th century science. And who did he attribute this to? The Quran. When he was awarded the Nobel Prize, he read from the Quran to the gathered assembly. So who do we believe: him, a Nobel Prize winner, or you, regarding his endeavours?
Why are you asking me? Couldn’t you just check your favourite site? Let me quote some stuff from there:
Apparently he also:
Not a bad list. Some of the verses that are given on that regarding his scepticism and the scientific method are listed there as well. One goes as follows on that page:
Interesting.
This is much like the argument you presented with Einstein’s equation. Any competent medical treatment in any age would have required a medical practitioner seeing what is wrong first, hence examination. Then any competent medical practitioner would think about what to do and execute any treatment required, hence diagnosis and treatment. Saying that the modern scientific method was not invented by Ibn al-Haytham is therefore false. Or maybe you would like his scientific method to call upon magic to cure patients as well?
I don’t have to. It is common knowledge among academics that the use of the digit zero as we know it now is due to the Muslims as is its commonality.
That is not the way to go about an argument. This goes to show that you are not really interested in the debate; rather, you are so focused on trying to attack me that you will take any shot you can take, even if it means shooting yourself in the foot.
What stage exactly?
It’s not me saying that, I’m merely pointing to what the books themselves are saying. Is it a crime to point out that the Holy Books of other religions acknowledge themselves that they are not eternal, neither Universal, but rather, ethnic? It really isn’t is it?
I didn’t say anywhere that there are polytheists in Mecca. I challenge you to find that post. I said, yes, there are still polytheists in some Muslim countries. Heck, there are even cults that worship the devil and call the Prophet all kinds of names! Polytheism is interesting though. We saw from the example set by the Jews during the time Moses was absent, that when religious teachings are neglected and become corrupted, people start worshipping stuff. So the Jews worshipped a golden calf. But when Moses came back, they all went back to normal after some time. In my opinion, the same thing happened with polytheism in Arabia prior to Islam. The Kaaba was built by Abraham for the One God. But, after he passed on, that teaching became lost and corrupted and eventually instead of worshipping 1 God, the Kaaba was soon filled with over 300. So yes, in my opinion, polytheism can result from corruption and or neglect of religious teachings. There is also the option that people that taught people, Prophets, became so revered that after they died, people started worshipping them. We see it all the time around the world nowadays. It is in human nature to worship. So we see people who have idols, who worship their favourite actor, footballer or even scientist.
And regarding the whole Hirsi Ali issue: she is an opportunisitic, lying politician. But we know that some people on here wont call her to acocunt for that. But God forbid if any Muslim politician had lied in the same way... Who thinks any of these people would still support him like this? Hehe, hypocrisy is rife! Smells great doesnt it!
Ty. Sry for the late reply though, Euro 2008 has been superb!
Feel sorry for Turkey
Yeah, but third place isn't bad for such a depleted roster. We're lookin' better every year. Whoops! This isn't the thread for soccer.
Tnx. Nah I couldnt write a book, im too lazy lol
Man, you just wrote like three formal essays! Of course you have the patience to write a book. I have sufficient confidence in your knowledge, although you'd have to send me a premature copy of your book for proofreading. I'll take care of all those petty technicalities and whatnot.
It predates the next round of conception.
"I cannot explain everything (especially as I ignore the evidence). Ergo, there must be some power called God."
Still confusing no with I don't know.
I'm beginning to see why there have been so many futile arguments
As the Quran says:
“You shall not accept any information, unless you verify it for yourself. I have given you the hearing, the eyesight, and the brain, and you are responsible for using them.”
Yeah but you can't argue back to the caveman now, saying he's still right because he didn't know any better. He obviously wasn't. I'm not being hard on cavemen here, I'm just saying that we know better now. Otherwise, we're the cavemen and the argument from ignorance doesn't work. It has to be an eternal ignorance or it just won't fly, eventually.