You're taking a literal interpretation of al-Qur'an and anthropomorphizing God and that is why you're arguments fail. I am taking a metaphorical interpretation of the Divine attributes of Allah (saw) and viewing them within context much in the same way the Mu'tazli scholars did in the 8th-10th centuries CE. For example, Allah (saw) is omniscient but He knows through His essence rather than by having seperate knowledge apart from him.
Strawman fallacy and red herring, as well as non sequitur logic.
Firstly, my post doesn't say anything about
HOW gods are omniscient - while this is all hypothetical, I'd like you to prove why the means by which Gods acquire knowledge
matters (in short: why would it matter relative to my argument
how god came to be all knowing?). If a God
knows all THEN It doesn't think (how would it think, thinking is a process) and It can not learn (learning is also a cognitive process) - via It's "essence" or otherwise.
So, if anything you should seemingly be in agreement. I just don't think you like the obvious conclusions we must arrive at.
Secondly, I'm not sure why you mention the 8-10th century "scholars"? It seems like
argumentum ad antiquitatem and
argumentum ad verecundiam. Although, maybe you were just mentioning it, if so that is fine. The point still stands, HOW a God comes in possession of all knowledge it not the point. We're talking about NOW, a God that has omniscience.
Let me rephrase it: It doesn't matter HOW the Great Hard-Drive (saw) in the sky came to hold all knowledge, at this point, It exists as a Hard-Drive (saw) with all knowledge.
You're not taking into account the definition of Deity and what that term full implies and the limits of human language to conceptualize the Transcedent.
It's a historical term that is used out of convienance even if not being accurate in it's description which is why I don't necessarily have a problem with doing so, it's easier. I assume, the reader would take into account the definition of Deity in that God would be beyond such classifications.
Ok, if it doesn't matter and is ONLY being used out of convenience then use the words
She and
Her as well as the occasional
It. But, I don't think you can do that. Because you are trapped in your own superstition in this regards. By your own logic you should be able to say She... or Her.... or It.... because these words do not describe anything that matters about God... not in the least. I'd go further and say this: IF they don't matter, then you must use She... or Her.... because that proves you're not ideologically bound to misconceptions such as He or His.
Agreed?
As usual you assume to much. By taking a literal interpretation of the Divine attributes of Allah (saw) in al-Qur'an you anthropomorphize God and thus it's based upon this interpretation where and why your arguments fails. If your arguments are based upon this premise, I don't really see why a fuller explaination is necessary aside from clarification. My objections to your arguments were clear and to the point, they fail because you're putting Deity in mortal terms.
How am I anthropomorphizing anything? If you say God "cares" or "feels" or "thinks"
THAT is anthropomorphism.
I could be talking about anything that "knows all". By stating something "knows all" or is omniscience you are saying it doens't ever NOT have omniscience. So, with this in mind, we can discuss this thing.
So, according to you, the socio-economic material conditions, class, gender, culture, and political aspects and so forth of history are of no importance to you? By trying to assert the superiority of Atheism you're in effect basing the creative capabilities of a nation based solely upon their ir/religious make up without taking into account any other factors that would and could contribute to the creative capabilities of a given state. This is of course absurd. Not only this, you're stripping any context away from historical events by making everything about whether or not they are or were religious. I also think it's highly ironic that an avowed and quite devout Atheist would view history in such a manner. Not to mention this argumentum ad hominem.
Superstitions appear to have an effect on all of these aspects of civilizations. I mean, these are core-belief ideas here. They're pretty influential.
When you imagine how much superstition can be piled into a person's mind, I sometimes wonder if their personality is simply an aspect of this all-encompassing paradigm. As if the "person" really doesn't make up that much of the individual.
Anyway, as an example of Islamic superstition's effect on society, just take a look at the marble sculptures of the human form before and after the advent of Islam in the middle east. Middle Eastern people were the world's foremost sculptors in this regard. This magnificence art-form was lost - due to something as minor as single aspect of that particular superstition. What else was could have developed we'll never know. Perhaps if not for that single event, Arabs may be leading the world technologically. They were applying the Scientific Method, but, refused to cross superstitious lines due to the "Perfect Qur'an" meme.
THAT hindered their progress. Why do Muslims have to claim some glory by saying the
European Enlightenment happened because Muslims preserved Greek Philosophy :bugeye: Well, if THAT'S all it took, then WHY didn't it happen in the ME - where they held all this philosophy!?!?!
IMO the reason Europeans took the next step, and kept taking it, was because when they found evidence against the Bible, they didn't ignore it, but were intrigued by it. Finding out that the Bible was wrong on many accounts, drove those couple of people to push further and they did so in a society that allowed them to.
Well, anyway, I'm not advocating an atheistic society. IMO atheism is the default position human beings take when their security is met and they have the legal freedom to question faith. I agree that this may not be the case, and we can't really run such experiments, but, I feel that this is the case.
Is THAT true???