> On 9 Jun 2019, at 15:45, Lawrence Crowell <[email protected]> > wrote: > > On Tuesday, June 4, 2019 at 11:44:11 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote: > >> On 3 Jun 2019, at 16:21, Lawrence Crowell <[email protected] >> <javascript:>> wrote: >> >> On Monday, June 3, 2019 at 6:01:05 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote: >> >>> On 3 Jun 2019, at 04:59, Samiya Illias <[email protected] <>> wrote: >>> >>> >>> >>> On 02-Jun-2019, at 11:38 PM, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List >>> <[email protected] <>> wrote: >>> >>>>> Here the materialist often fails, as they talk like if they knew >>>>> primitive matter exists, >>>> >>>> A straw man. Nothing I wrote referred to primitive matter. >>> >>> The Quran does mention the existence of something before and beyond the >>> ‘universe/ cosmos/ space’ we live in. This may be of interest: >>> https://signsandscience.blogspot.com/2019/01/space-before-and-beyond.html >>> <https://signsandscience.blogspot.com/2019/01/space-before-and-beyond.html> >>> >> >> That is still rather Aristotelian. The first half of the Quran is better >> than that, it contains the just reference to Judaism, and you can feel the >> openness to neoplatonism, where indeed there was something deeper than the >> physical reality at play at the origine of the physical reality (the how and >> why being indeed addressed in the Quran). >> The second half of the Quran is more problematic, and in my opinion, not >> written by the same people, or something happened to them. It is problematic >> both on the metaphysical level, but also on the ethical level, doubly so if >> it is taken literally (as it contains basic hate speech toward non-muslims, >> especially the jews, even some call for murdering some people, or sentences >> which can be interpreted easily that way). >> >> There are the Mecca and Medina portions of the Koran. The Mecca Koran is the >> start, at least chronologically, and some of it reads a bit like Psalms and >> Proverbs. As the story goes Muhammad wrote this in Mecca, but was later >> thrown out. The second portion is presumed to be written by Muhammad in >> Medina, and there he was piqued to say the least. This part of the Koran is >> pretty sharp edged with eschatology. Some think these two parts were written >> by different people, though saying that publicly in parts of the Islamic >> world will get your head served on a platter. > > Unfortunately, just being a christian is enough for that in many Islamic > countries. > > We have resist and partially win the battle for separating state and church, > and our political correctness makes many of us tolerating the intolerable, > and cutting the branch on which we stand. > > Thank you for confirming my feeling after a personal reading of the Quran. > > The problem is not Islam, but the fact that since Al Gazhali, Islam has > confined itself in literalism, which is frightening concerning the second > part of the Quran, and the practical implementations of that religious > oppression in many countries which called themselves islamic. > > Before Al Ghazali, the muslims translated the greek, made progress in > science, and, “thanks to the fanaticism” will make all this flying away in > Europa, leading to the Renaissance (still not transformed due to the > (understandable after so many years of religious oppression) confusion > between religion and anti-science). > > Theology has to come back at the academy of science, because like free-will > need determinacy, liberty needs rigour. > > Bruno > > I am not in favor of extra-judicial punishments against Muslims or anything > of that sort. However, after reading a translation of the Koran I found > myself scratching my head. Islam actually teaches it is acceptable to lie to > kafirs, or nonbelievers. There are other aspects to this, and Islam has a > history of gaining adherents not be voluntary conversion but by conquest. Of > course Christianity has a history of similar activity, but at least with > Christianity there is more measure of voluntary conversions. With Islam there > has been a long history of either outright conquest, or by out populating a > region and then declaring an Islamic state, caliphate etc. There are some > murmurs of this with respect to Europe. Once that happens then a Christian or > Jew is relegated to d'himus (spelling might be off) and you are secondary > status. If you think about it, we kept Russians from immigrating here if they > refused to renounce Communism, and in some ways religion is not that > different from political ideology. With religion "Big Brother" is > supernatural.
The problem is when religion is mixed with the temporal plane, which is a spiritual nonsense. Islam is not special about this, as the period before Al Ghazali illustrates. If you want, making Big Brother supernatural is a way to avoid it on Earth. But when literalism is encouraged, Big Brother becomes quickly the next very concrete dictatorship in town. When theology was scientific: the minimal understanding shared by all is that we cannot invoke the spiritual directly in any temporal endeavour. Theology/religion is not a problem. The problem is the lack of rigour, which is maintained as long as we tolerate the authoritative institutional religion (in church or universities, whatever). The difference between science and pseudo-science or pseudo-religion is the right to be skeptical, the encouragement of doubt and changing our mind, etc. Now, one literalism is there, I can agree that the second part of the Quran becomes an incentive to convince the others by force, and in that sense, the Quran becomes dangerous. Any religion/science claiming truth is a fraud. Bruno > > LC > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/ad731ccd-d11e-4861-ae2c-bc933c24256a%40googlegroups.com > > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/ad731ccd-d11e-4861-ae2c-bc933c24256a%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/84066249-520F-451A-A649-DBABA758B2B1%40ulb.ac.be.
