Re: Believing ...

[Bruno Marchal]

Here is the post I was searching!

Le 21-mars-07, à 18:01, Brent Meeker a écrit :

>
> Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>
>>
>> Le 20-mars-07, à 13:02, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit :
>>
>>
>>
>> On 3/20/07, *Bruno Marchal* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>
>>
>> Le 01-mars-07, à 00:35, Brent Meeker a écrit :
>>
>>> Brent Meeker quoted:
>>> "Atheism is a belief system the way "Off" is a TV channel."
>>>   --- George Carlin
>>
>>
>>
>> Carlin makes the typical confusion between atheism and 
>> agnosticism.
>>
>> An atheist has indeed a rich belief system:
>> 1) he believes that God does not exist (unlike an agnostic who
>> does not
>> believe that God exists: that makes a huge difference)
>> 2) he generally believes in a material or Aristotelian 
>> Universe
>> (despite its contradiction with comp, or with QM, or with some
>> physically reproducible facts, and despite any proof or 
>> argument
>> beyond
>> the Aristotelian Matter reification.)
>>
>>
>>
>> 1) Do you believe we should also be agnostic about Santa Claus and
>> the Tooth Fairy? If so, should the balance of belief in these
>> entities (i.e. belief for/against) be similar to that in the case 
>> of
>> God? I ask in all seriousness as you are a logician and there 
>> *is* a
>> huge difference, logically if not practically, between atheism and
>> agnosticism.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Of course (cf Brent's comment) we are on the verge of a purely
>> vocabulary discussion. If you define God by a big white male sitting 
>> on
>> a cloud, there is a case of comparing "God" and "Santa Klaus". If you
>> define "god" by "ultimate meaning or ultimate theory of everything
>> including persons and feeling, quanta and qualia, ...", or even more
>> generally by "god" = "truth" about "us", then it is different. Now 
>> most
>> religions accept or even define God by its transcendance and
>> unnameability,
>
> A god defined solely by that would not be accepted by any of the major 
> religions, except perhaps Bhuddism which doesn't include gods.  The 
> Abrahamic religions add that God is a person, is beneficient, is 
> demanding, and answers prayers.  These are defining characteristics of 
> theism.  Which is why I was careful to specify a theist God.  The 
> etymology of "atheist" implies that it is this religion of theism that 
> is not believed.


Perhaps. Theology has been a scientific field during one millenium, 
until it has been transformed into a political power, which has 
systemically use some repression precisely against anyone thinking 
freely in that field. The problem is that many atheist continues that 
tradition by taking for granted the theology of Aristotle, like if 
doubt were not allowed. IMO Atheism and theism are are almost 
faithfully mirroring each other. They take for granted a notion of 
nature/matter, and they both put under the rug the very fundamental 
question.





>
>> making "truth" an elementary lobian machine/entity's God,
>> and this is enough for coming back to serious theology.
>
> Serious theology for Bruno seems to be that of Paul Tillich: God is 
> whatever you consider fundamental.  To me that seems like an attempt 
> at theological jujitsu to convert atheists by redefining words.


I disagree. But OK, I am probably not enough clear.

I associate to each machine M a theology. I define it by the set of all 
true propositions about machine M, including experiences and many 
unprovable truth. By Science about and by a machine M, I mean what a 
machine can prove about herself. The pure theology of machine M is then 
given by the difference between theology on M and Science by M.
I don't consider the "fundamental" has being theological per se, like 
Tillich. It is more the difference between what a machine can 
(correctly) prove and what a machine can (correctly) bet.
It is relate with a sense of uncommunicability.

having said this, you can guess that "our theology" cannot be 
scientific. But with comp a sort of miracle occurs. A machine having 
rich axiom can study "scientifically" the whole theology of a simpler 
machine, and then can lift it on herself in a betting way. So I can 
study the complete theology of Peano Arithmetic (the machine! not to be 
confused xith Arithmetical truth: the non effective set of true 
arithmetical proposition). Then I can hope comp is true for me, and I 
can hope the PA theology could apply to me. So with comp there is both 
a scientific theology and a "non scientific one". The trick is just 
make clear when you apply the comp hyp, and when you reason about 
simpler machine than you.

Of course, in a nutshell: the modality "science" is given by the modal 
logic of self-reference G. And theology is given by the modal logic G*.





>
>> The gap between
>> truth about a machine and provability by that machine already
>> illustrates the necessity of distinguishing the scientific and 
>> religious
>> dis

Re: Believing ...

[John M]

Bruno, those 'idealistic' definitions from Leibnitz and Descartes are not 
experienced in -
- what is called usually as "science". Look at the "Laws" of physics, does 
engineering doubt them? The statements of 'logic', arithmetic, etc. etc. are 
all " believed" as FIRM laws. Now that is what I call 'reductionist" = to 
consider a topical limited cut from the totality for the relevant (?) 
observations WITHIN such (what I call: model), and draw conclusions if there 
were nothing else to consider. That is what Academia (tenure-Nobel) does and 
what - as I wrote - most editing companies accept for publication. This is 
close to what young minds get brainwashed into in college education. e.g. 
Physics 101 etc. (Neurology not exempted).
Absolutely different from what you and I said. No 'flexible mind' allowed. 
I hope you accept "my terms" for 'reductionist science' ,  
John
  - Original Message - 
  From: Bruno Marchal 
  To: everything-list@googlegroups.com 
  Sent: Friday, March 23, 2007 7:36 AM
  Subject: Re: Believing ...




  Le 21-mars-07, à 22:18, John Mikes a écrit :

  > Academic - tenure - even Nobel type conventional science is 
  > rfeductionistic
  > in this sense.. I agree: "SCIENCE" should be as you identified it.


  Thanks for telling. I thought, a bit naively perhaps, that after 
  Descartes and Popper, say, it was part of common knowledge that 
  science, properly understood, is an arrow from doubts to ... more and 
  more doubts, and cannot, thus, be reductionist.

  You know, people like Leibniz and even the young Hilbert thought that a 
  machine could exist capable of answering, at least in principle, all 
  question about numbers, actually all question about machine as well, 
  including herself. Now we know that we can interview machine as 
  powerful as we want, as far as they remain self-referentially correct, 
  they remain extraordinarily modest. If you ask to such a machine if she 
  will ever say a bullshit, well, the young one crash immediately 
  (transforming herself into a universal dovetailer btw), the older one 
  answer that either they will say a bullshit, or that they ...  might 
  say a bullshit(*).

  Bruno

  (*) For the modalist: "I will prove a falsity or it is consistent that 
  I will prove a falsity"

  Bf v DBf(same as Dt -> ~BDt).

  With the older modal notation:

  []f v <>[]f   (same as <>t -> ~[]<>t )

  B = [] = Godel purely arithmetical provability predicate (Beweisbar)
  D = <> = ~B~= ~[]~
  Recall that, as Aristotle already got, ~B = D~ and ~D = B~ (in the 
  alethic mode: not necessary p = possible not p ; not possible p = 
  necessary not p. See my older modal posts.

  http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/


  


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7:44 AM


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Re: Believing ...

[Bruno Marchal]

Le 21-mars-07, à 22:18, John Mikes a écrit :

> Academic - tenure - even Nobel type conventional science is 
> rfeductionistic
> in this sense.. I agree: "SCIENCE" should be as you identified it.


Thanks for telling. I thought, a bit naively perhaps, that after 
Descartes and Popper, say, it was part of common knowledge that 
science, properly understood, is an arrow from doubts to ... more and 
more doubts, and cannot, thus, be reductionist.

You know, people like Leibniz and even the young Hilbert thought that a 
machine could exist capable of answering, at least in principle, all 
question about numbers, actually all question about machine as well, 
including herself. Now we know that we can interview machine as 
powerful as we want, as far as they remain self-referentially correct, 
they remain extraordinarily modest. If you ask to such a machine if she 
will ever say a bullshit, well, the young one crash immediately 
(transforming herself into a universal dovetailer btw), the older one 
answer that either they will say a bullshit, or that they ...  might 
say a bullshit(*).

Bruno

(*) For the modalist: "I will prove a falsity or it is consistent that 
I will prove a falsity"

Bf v DBf(same as Dt -> ~BDt).

With the older modal notation:

[]f v <>[]f   (same as <>t -> ~[]<>t )

B = [] = Godel purely arithmetical provability predicate (Beweisbar)
D = <> = ~B~= ~[]~
Recall that, as Aristotle already got, ~B = D~ and ~D = B~ (in the 
alethic mode: not necessary p = possible not p ; not possible p = 
necessary not p. See my older modal posts.

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/


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Re: Believing ...

[John Mikes]

Thanks, Bruno,

The 'truth' was missing from my post.

there was a technical mistake: from my sentence as mailed:

> Being a "he" you pointed to (rejcted though as 'atheist') I really do
> not ' believe. What I
> find "logically not so repugnant -

one word disappeared in the mailing process. Originally I wrote:

> Being a "he" you pointed to (rejcted though as 'atheist') I really do
> not ' believe in T R U T H  (that was in RED). - then came a new par:
. What I  find "logically not so repugnant - etc. etc.

Maybe the red insert was not well accepted by the computer-god.
*
The reductionist dichotomy is semantic: I called 'science' (the reductionst)

the conventional historic 'gathering of information as humanity could'
and identified it earlier as a "model-view" of a boundaries-enclosed topical

cut out from the totality. Reductionist science (sic) observes events WITHIN

the topical boundaries and draws conclusions applied many times BEYOND
 them.(what I find false).
Academic - tenure - even Nobel type conventional science is rfeductionistic
in this sense.. I agree: "SCIENCE" should be as you identified it.

John

On 3/21/07, Bruno Marchal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
> Le 21-mars-07, à 15:48, John M a écrit :
>
> > BRUNO:
> >
> > I have never met an atheist who does not believe in primitive matter.
> > Well, today even theist believe in primitive matter, with few
> > exception.
> > Now, if an atheist does not believe in primitive matter, he certainly
> > believe in something, all right. And if he does fundamental research,
> > he certainly believe in something fundamental, and then if he is a
> > lobian machine, then it can be shown that that fundamental thing has
> > to be unnameable and god-like, even if it is "just" a pagan notion of
> > god.
> >
> > Bruno
> > -
> > I cannot offer myself as the example you missed so far, because - as I
> > explained - I do not consider myself conform to MY definition of an
> > atheist.
> > Theists do beluieve in primitive matter, created by their God. The
> > previous Pope even undersigned to the Big Bang (some version).
> > *
> > Being a "he" you pointed to (rejcted though as 'atheist') I really do
> > not ' believe. What I
> > find "logically not so repugnant - as either the reductionist science
> > fables" nor the religious hearsay - is a 'story' and I call itmy
> > "NARRATIVE" to just speak about an origination of our world and
> > uncountable others in a less nausiating way.
> > And yes, you may call my 'plenitude' a 'god', outside (not above) OUR
> > mother-nature AND unidentified to the limit of minimum information.
> > Not sitting as an old man oncloud.
> >
> > John M
> >
>
> OK then, except that I think that you confuse "science" and "scientism
> or fake science". I just don't see how "science" can be reductionist.
> Science is "opening the eyes and doubting what we see".
> When a scientist thinks he knows the truth (or acts like he/she was
> thinking that) then he looses his scientific attitude.  Be it in
> biology, astronomy, theology or even in astrology, or whatever. In
> science, like in conscience, public lack of doubt is akin to madness.
> This is provable (indeed it is a form of Godel second incompleteness
> theorem) for machines or lobian entities.
>
> Bruno
>
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>
> >
>

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Re: Believing ...

[Brent Meeker]

Bruno Marchal wrote:
> 
> 
> Le 20-mars-07, à 13:02, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit :
> 
> 
> 
> On 3/20/07, *Bruno Marchal* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 
> 
> Le 01-mars-07, à 00:35, Brent Meeker a écrit :
> 
>  > Brent Meeker quoted:
>  > "Atheism is a belief system the way "Off" is a TV channel."
>  >   --- George Carlin
> 
> 
> 
> Carlin makes the typical confusion between atheism and agnosticism.
> 
> An atheist has indeed a rich belief system:
> 1) he believes that God does not exist (unlike an agnostic who
> does not
> believe that God exists: that makes a huge difference)
> 2) he generally believes in a material or Aristotelian Universe
> (despite its contradiction with comp, or with QM, or with some
> physically reproducible facts, and despite any proof or argument
> beyond
> the Aristotelian Matter reification.)
> 
> 
> 
> 1) Do you believe we should also be agnostic about Santa Claus and
> the Tooth Fairy? If so, should the balance of belief in these
> entities (i.e. belief for/against) be similar to that in the case of
> God? I ask in all seriousness as you are a logician and there *is* a
> huge difference, logically if not practically, between atheism and
> agnosticism.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Of course (cf Brent's comment) we are on the verge of a purely 
> vocabulary discussion. If you define God by a big white male sitting on 
> a cloud, there is a case of comparing "God" and "Santa Klaus". If you 
> define "god" by "ultimate meaning or ultimate theory of everything 
> including persons and feeling, quanta and qualia, ...", or even more 
> generally by "god" = "truth" about "us", then it is different. Now most 
> religions accept or even define God by its transcendance and 
> unnameability, 

A god defined solely by that would not be accepted by any of the major 
religions, except perhaps Bhuddism which doesn't include gods.  The Abrahamic 
religions add that God is a person, is beneficient, is demanding, and answers 
prayers.  These are defining characteristics of theism.  Which is why I was 
careful to specify a theist God.  The etymology of "atheist" implies that it is 
this religion of theism that is not believed.

>making "truth" an elementary lobian machine/entity's God, 
> and this is enough for coming back to serious theology. 

Serious theology for Bruno seems to be that of Paul Tillich: God is whatever 
you consider fundamental.  To me that seems like an attempt at theological 
jujitsu to convert atheists by redefining words.

>The gap between 
> truth about a machine and provability by that machine already 
> illustrates the necessity of distinguishing the scientific and religious 
> discourse of machines. Pure theology can be (re)defined by "truth minus 
> science". Then, lobian theology is controlled by the G/G* mathematical 
> gap, and their intensional (modal) variants.
> Talking or acting or doing anything in the name of God leads to 
> inconsistency and most probably suffering. 

What difference does "in the name of make"?  That seems to attribute magic 
power to phrases.

>In the scientific (= 
> doubting) discourse, we can use use the term "God" like we can use the 
> term "first person", but we cannot talk *in* those names.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 2) I don't know that atheists are much more likely to believe in a
> material universe than other people.
> 
> 
> I have never met an atheist who does not believe in primitive matter. 
> Well, today even theist believe in primitive matter, with few exception.
> Now, if an atheist does not believe in primitive matter, he certainly 
> believe in something, all right. And if he does fundamental research, he 
> certainly believe in something fundamental, and then if he is a lobian 
> machine, then it can be shown that that fundamental thing has to be 
> unnameable and god-like, even if it is "just" a pagan notion of god.

I can appreciate that the fundamental thing (if there is one) must be unameable 
and god-like (omnipresent)...but not God-like (person, answer prayers, 
beneficient) and not God.

Brent Meeker


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Re: Believing ...

[Bruno Marchal]

Le 21-mars-07, à 15:48, John M a écrit :

> BRUNO:
>  
> I have never met an atheist who does not believe in primitive matter. 
> Well, today even theist believe in primitive matter, with few 
> exception.
> Now, if an atheist does not believe in primitive matter, he certainly 
> believe in something, all right. And if he does fundamental research, 
> he certainly believe in something fundamental, and then if he is a 
> lobian machine, then it can be shown that that fundamental thing has 
> to be unnameable and god-like, even if it is "just" a pagan notion of 
> god.
>
> Bruno
> -
> I cannot offer myself as the example you missed so far, because - as I 
> explained - I do not consider myself conform to MY definition of an 
> atheist.
> Theists do beluieve in primitive matter, created by their God. The 
> previous Pope even undersigned to the Big Bang (some version).
> *
> Being a "he" you pointed to (rejcted though as 'atheist') I really do 
> not ' believe. What I
> find "logically not so repugnant - as either the reductionist science 
> fables" nor the religious hearsay - is a 'story' and I call it my 
>  "NARRATIVE"  to just speak about an origination of our world and 
> uncountable others in a less nausiating way.
> And yes, you may call my 'plenitude' a 'god', outside (not above) OUR 
> mother-nature AND unidentified to the limit of minimum information. 
> Not sitting as an old man on cloud.
>  
> John M
>

OK then, except that I think that you confuse "science" and "scientism 
or fake science". I just don't see how "science" can be reductionist. 
Science is "opening the eyes and doubting what we see".
When a scientist thinks he knows the truth (or acts like he/she was 
thinking that) then he looses his scientific attitude.  Be it in 
biology, astronomy, theology or even in astrology, or whatever. In 
science, like in conscience, public lack of doubt is akin to madness. 
This is provable (indeed it is a form of Godel second incompleteness 
theorem) for machines or lobian entities.

Bruno

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

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Re: Believing ...

[John M]

BRUNO:

I have never met an atheist who does not believe in primitive matter. Well, 
today even theist believe in primitive matter, with few exception.
Now, if an atheist does not believe in primitive matter, he certainly believe 
in something, all right. And if he does fundamental research, he certainly 
believe in something fundamental, and then if he is a lobian machine, then it 
can be shown that that fundamental thing has to be unnameable and god-like, 
even if it is "just" a pagan notion of god.

Bruno
-
I cannot offer myself as the example you missed so far, because - as I 
explained - I do not consider myself conform to MY definition of an atheist. 
Theists do beluieve in primitive matter, created by their God. The previous 
Pope even undersigned to the Big Bang (some version). 
*
Being a "he" you pointed to (rejcted though as 'atheist') I really do not ' 
believe. What I 
find "logically not so repugnant - as either the reductionist science fables" 
nor the religious hearsay - is a 'story' and I call it my  "NARRATIVE"  to just 
speak about an origination of our world and uncountable others in a less 
nausiating way. 
And yes, you may call my 'plenitude' a 'god', outside (not above) OUR 
mother-nature AND unidentified to the limit of minimum information. Not sitting 
as an old man on cloud.

John M






: Original Message - 
  From: Bruno Marchal 
  To: everything-list@googlegroups.com 
  Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2007 7:25 AM
  Subject: Re: Believing ...



  Le 20-mars-07, à 13:02, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit :




On 3/20/07, Bruno Marchal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


  Le 01-mars-07, à 00:35, Brent Meeker a écrit :

  > Brent Meeker quoted:
  > "Atheism is a belief system the way "Off" is a TV channel."
  >   --- George Carlin



  Carlin makes the typical confusion between atheism and agnosticism.

  An atheist has indeed a rich belief system:
  1) he believes that God does not exist (unlike an agnostic who does not
  believe that God exists: that makes a huge difference)
  2) he generally believes in a material or Aristotelian Universe
  (despite its contradiction with comp, or with QM, or with some
  physically reproducible facts, and despite any proof or argument beyond
  the Aristotelian Matter reification.)




1) Do you believe we should also be agnostic about Santa Claus and the 
Tooth Fairy? If so, should the balance of belief in these entities (i.e. belief 
for/against) be similar to that in the case of God? I ask in all seriousness as 
you are a logician and there *is* a huge difference, logically if not 
practically, between atheism and agnosticism.




  Of course (cf Brent's comment) we are on the verge of a purely vocabulary 
discussion. If you define God by a big white male sitting on a cloud, there is 
a case of comparing "God" and "Santa Klaus". If you define "god" by "ultimate 
meaning or ultimate theory of everything including persons and feeling, quanta 
and qualia, ...", or even more generally by "god" = "truth" about "us", then it 
is different. Now most religions accept or even define God by its transcendance 
and unnameability, making "truth" an elementary lobian machine/entity's God, 
and this is enough for coming back to serious theology. The gap between truth 
about a machine and provability by that machine already illustrates the 
necessity of distinguishing the scientific and religious discourse of machines. 
Pure theology can be (re)defined by "truth minus science". Then, lobian 
theology is controlled by the G/G* mathematical gap, and their intensional 
(modal) variants.
  Talking or acting or doing anything in the name of God leads to inconsistency 
and most probably suffering. In the scientific (= doubting) discourse, we can 
use use the term "God" like we can use the term "first person", but we cannot 
talk *in* those names.





2) I don't know that atheists are much more likely to believe in a material 
universe than other people.


  I have never met an atheist who does not believe in primitive matter. Well, 
today even theist believe in primitive matter, with few exception.
  Now, if an atheist does not believe in primitive matter, he certainly believe 
in something, all right. And if he does fundamental research, he certainly 
believe in something fundamental, and then if he is a lobian machine, then it 
can be shown that that fundamental thing has to be unnameable and god-like, 
even if it is "just" a pagan notion of god.

  Bruno


  http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/


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Re: Believing ...

[Bruno Marchal]

Le 20-mars-07, à 17:07, Brent Meeker a écrit :

>
> Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>
>> Le 01-mars-07, à 00:35, Brent Meeker a écrit :
>>
>>> Brent Meeker quoted:
>>> "Atheism is a belief system the way "Off" is a TV channel."
>>> --- George Carlin
>>
>>
>>
>> Carlin makes the typical confusion between atheism and agnosticism.
>>
>> An atheist has indeed a rich belief system:
>> 1) he believes that God does not exist (unlike an agnostic who does 
>> not
>> believe that God exists: that makes a huge difference)
>
> I disagree.  Those are definitions consistent is usage, but so are
>
> atheist: one who doesn't believe that God (meaning the god of theism) 
> exists.
>
> agnostic: one who believes it is impossible have any knowledge as to 
> whether God exists.
>
> Those are also common usages and align more closely with the etymology 
> of the words.


Even searching in most web dictionaries I don't find such definitions, 
except in parentheses with remark like "some also use the term in such 
or such way".


>
>
>> 2) he generally believes in a material or Aristotelian Universe
>> (despite its contradiction with comp,
>
> What contradiction is that?


It is the epistemological contradiction which follows the UDA 
reasoning. It is not an ontic contradiction because science can never 
refute anything ontological. But it is a logical contradiction between 
comp, materialism and even very weak form of Occam razor, like the 
contradiction in believing in both thermodynamic and invisible horses 
pulling cars.



>
>> or with QM, or with some
>> physically reproducible facts, and despite any proof or argument 
>> beyond
>> the Aristotelian Matter reification.)
>
> To say one shouldn't reifying matter seems like saying one shouldn't 
> anthropomorphize people.  Things made of matter, tables and chairs, 
> exist paradigmatically.  That there may be some deeper, more 
> fundamental explanation of tables and chairs hardly makes them go 
> away.

Of course. I was talking about primitive or reifed matter, not about 
gluons or elephants.


Must go for now,

Bruno


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/


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Re: Believing ...

[Bruno Marchal]

Le 20-mars-07, à 13:02, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit :

>
>
> On 3/20/07, Bruno Marchal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>
>> Le 01-mars-07, à 00:35, Brent Meeker a écrit :
>>
>> > Brent Meeker quoted:
>> > "Atheism is a belief system the way "Off" is a TV channel."
>> >   --- George Carlin
>>
>>
>>
>>  Carlin makes the typical confusion between atheism and agnosticism.
>>
>> An atheist has indeed a rich belief system:
>> 1) he believes that God does not exist (unlike an agnostic who does 
>> not
>> believe that God exists: that makes a huge difference)
>> 2) he generally believes in a material or Aristotelian Universe
>> (despite its contradiction with comp, or with QM, or with some
>> physically reproducible facts, and despite any proof or argument 
>> beyond
>> the Aristotelian Matter reification.)


> 1) Do you believe we should also be agnostic about Santa Claus and the 
> Tooth Fairy? If so, should the balance of belief in these entities 
> (i.e. belief for/against) be similar to that in the case of God? I ask 
> in all seriousness as you are a logician and there *is* a huge 
> difference, logically if not practically, between atheism and 
> agnosticism.



Of course (cf Brent's comment) we are on the verge of a purely 
vocabulary discussion. If you define God by a big white male sitting on 
a cloud, there is a case of comparing "God" and "Santa Klaus". If you 
define "god" by "ultimate meaning or ultimate theory of everything 
including persons and feeling, quanta and qualia, ...", or even more 
generally by "god" = "truth" about "us", then it is different. Now most 
religions accept or even define God by its transcendance and 
unnameability, making "truth" an elementary lobian machine/entity's 
God, and this is enough for coming back to serious theology. The gap 
between truth about a machine and provability by that machine already 
illustrates the necessity of distinguishing the scientific and 
religious discourse of machines. Pure theology can be (re)defined by 
"truth minus science". Then, lobian theology is controlled by the G/G* 
mathematical gap, and their intensional (modal) variants.
Talking or acting or doing anything in the name of God leads to 
inconsistency and most probably suffering. In the scientific (= 
doubting) discourse, we can use use the term "God" like we can use the 
term "first person", but we cannot talk *in* those names.



>
> 2) I don't know that atheists are much more likely to believe in a 
> material universe than other people.

I have never met an atheist who does not believe in primitive matter. 
Well, today even theist believe in primitive matter, with few 
exception.
Now, if an atheist does not believe in primitive matter, he certainly 
believe in something, all right. And if he does fundamental research, 
he certainly believe in something fundamental, and then if he is a 
lobian machine, then it can be shown that that fundamental thing has to 
be unnameable and god-like, even if it is "just" a pagan notion of god.

Bruno


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

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Re: Believing ...

[Brent Meeker]

Bruno Marchal wrote:
> 
> Le 01-mars-07, à 00:35, Brent Meeker a écrit :
> 
>> Brent Meeker quoted:
>> "Atheism is a belief system the way "Off" is a TV channel."
>>  --- George Carlin
> 
> 
> 
> Carlin makes the typical confusion between atheism and agnosticism.
> 
> An atheist has indeed a rich belief system:
> 1) he believes that God does not exist (unlike an agnostic who does not 
> believe that God exists: that makes a huge difference)

I disagree.  Those are definitions consistent is usage, but so are

atheist: one who doesn't believe that God (meaning the god of theism) exists.

agnostic: one who believes it is impossible have any knowledge as to whether 
God exists.

Those are also common usages and align more closely with the etymology of the 
words.

> 2) he generally believes in a material or Aristotelian Universe 
> (despite its contradiction with comp, 

What contradiction is that?

>or with QM, or with some 
> physically reproducible facts, and despite any proof or argument beyond 
> the Aristotelian Matter reification.)

To say one shouldn't reifying matter seems like saying one shouldn't 
anthropomorphize people.  Things made of matter, tables and chairs, exist 
paradigmatically.  That there may be some deeper, more fundamental explanation 
of tables and chairs hardly makes them go away.

Brent Meeker 

> 
> Bruno
> 
> 
> 
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
> 
> 
> > 
> 
> 


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Re: Believing ...

[John M]

Bruno, 
a different reflection from Stathis's, but similarly not a counter-argument
First off: George Carlin is a comedian and his humorous remarks are not subject 
to be discussed in a serious argumentation. I like him - at least the "old" 
Carlin.
*
to your #1:
:your" atheist has got to believe in the existence (maybe only as a valid 
topic) something to deny it. To speak about it in a yes/no fashion. He had to 
accept that "it is a topic". 
This is why I formulated "an atheist needs a god to deny".
*
to your #2:
"Not to believe in something" is IMO not implying "to believe in something 
else". Anything else.  Not even 'generally'.  Example: a solipsist. Or a 'comp' 
pantheist. (Caution: this word just appeared without consideration, I do not 
argue for its reasonable application).
Agnostic IMO is just pointing to the lack of well defined knowledge about 
ANYTHING, not restricted to god or religion, as it earlier was used. I consider 
myself a 'Science-Agnostic" because the ideas I take for most acceptable have 
no firm(?) foundations. 
*
to the reply of Stathis - reading::
-
1) Do you believe we should also be agnostic about Santa Claus and the Tooth 
Fairy? If so, should the balance of belief in these entities (i.e. belief 
for/against) be similar to that in the case of God? I ask in all seriousness as 
you are a logician and there *is* a huge difference, logically if not 
practically, between atheism and agnosticism. 
2) I don't know that atheists are much more likely to believe in a material 
universe than other people.
Stathis Papaioannou
-
I consider his #1 - AS:  "asantaclausist" or "atoothfairyist" - not 'agnostic' 
- like: "atheist". (Unless you believe in 'something like that' to exist).
An agnostic "is not sure" but does not deny the existence FOR SURE. 
The difference, as I feel, between  "I don't know" and "I no that no" - as I 
take Bruno's emphasis. (And I try to use only my own common sense logic).
With StP's #2 I agreed above.

John M

  - Original Message - 
  From: Bruno Marchal 
  To: everything-list@googlegroups.com 
  Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2007 7:27 AM
  Subject: Re: Believing ...




  Le 01-mars-07, à 00:35, Brent Meeker a écrit :

  > Brent Meeker quoted:
  > "Atheism is a belief system the way "Off" is a TV channel."
  > --- George Carlin



  Carlin makes the typical confusion between atheism and agnosticism.

  An atheist has indeed a rich belief system:
  1) he believes that God does not exist (unlike an agnostic who does not 
  believe that God exists: that makes a huge difference)
  2) he generally believes in a material or Aristotelian Universe 
  (despite its contradiction with comp, or with QM, or with some 
  physically reproducible facts, and despite any proof or argument beyond 
  the Aristotelian Matter reification.)

  Bruno



  http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/


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Re: Believing ...

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On 3/20/07, Bruno Marchal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
>
> Le 01-mars-07, à 00:35, Brent Meeker a écrit :
>
> > Brent Meeker quoted:
> > "Atheism is a belief system the way "Off" is a TV channel."
> >   --- George Carlin
>
>
>
> Carlin makes the typical confusion between atheism and agnosticism.
>
> An atheist has indeed a rich belief system:
> 1) he believes that God does not exist (unlike an agnostic who does not
> believe that God exists: that makes a huge difference)
> 2) he generally believes in a material or Aristotelian Universe
> (despite its contradiction with comp, or with QM, or with some
> physically reproducible facts, and despite any proof or argument beyond
> the Aristotelian Matter reification.)


1) Do you believe we should also be agnostic about Santa Claus and the Tooth
Fairy? If so, should the balance of belief in these entities (i.e. belief
for/against) be similar to that in the case of God? I ask in all seriousness
as you are a logician and there *is* a huge difference, logically if not
practically, between atheism and agnosticism.

2) I don't know that atheists are much more likely to believe in a material
universe than other people.

Stathis Papaioannou

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Re: Believing ...

[Bruno Marchal]

Le 01-mars-07, à 00:35, Brent Meeker a écrit :

> Brent Meeker quoted:
> "Atheism is a belief system the way "Off" is a TV channel."
>   --- George Carlin



Carlin makes the typical confusion between atheism and agnosticism.

An atheist has indeed a rich belief system:
1) he believes that God does not exist (unlike an agnostic who does not 
believe that God exists: that makes a huge difference)
2) he generally believes in a material or Aristotelian Universe 
(despite its contradiction with comp, or with QM, or with some 
physically reproducible facts, and despite any proof or argument beyond 
the Aristotelian Matter reification.)

Bruno



http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/


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Re: Believing in Divine Destiny is one of the pillars of faith, and, in accordance with this belief, everything in the universe is determined by God, the All-Mighty. While there are countless absolute

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On 3/2/07, Brent Meeker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> What I say is if we really want to 'shape up' and survive, then
> > compassion, democracy, ethics and scientific method are four essential
> > ingredients without which our modern world will go the way of all those
> > other civilisations your mentioned.
>
> It will go the way of those other civilizations anyway because: a) it's
> dependent on energy from cheap oil and b) all civilizations rise and fall,
> none last forever.


It always fills me with hope when I hear unsentimental realism like that.

Stathis Papaioannou

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Re: Believing in Divine Destiny is one of the pillars of faith ... well that's as may be. How about: Let's all accept responsibility for our own actions!

[Mark Peaty]

Brent: 'But they lasted a lot longer than we have.'

MP: Indeed this is probably true in most cases, but what none of them 
had, which we DO have access to, is scientific method. Now I know Bruno 
is dismissive of scientific method as applied in the modern world, but I 
think Bruno is being idealistic. The fact is that we live in an ecology 
made of dirt. I mean, what is good soil if not bug pooh! And we live in 
a real world in which entropy is king, so to speak.

You are right that modern American culture seems irretrievably, and 
perhaps fatally, dependent on burning oil in car engines. Well that may 
just be the doom of the USA. It does not have to be the doom of the rest 
of humankind!

In fact, if 'Americans' were really smart they would realise that not 
only do they have one of the most well watered continents, supplied with 
very fertile soils [compared to Australia anyway], and abundantly 
supplied with useful minerals accessible to safe and sensible mining, 
endowed with beautiful landscapes, beaches, snow fields, lakes, 
wonderfully diverse flora and fauna. Not only ALL THAT which so many 
USA-ns either ignore in mind boggling ignorance or just take for granted 
in a media mesmerised torpor but, under Yellowstone National Park [or is 
that 'Jellystone'] there is a vast reservoir of heat energy which needs 
to be tapped or else one day it's going to blow and spread deep ash from 
Harlem to Hollywood.

The caveat will be DO NOT BREACH THE TOP OF IT!  The trick to successful 
usage will be to sink water-filled shafts down many kilometres in the 
cooler rock around the perimeter of the hot spot and then tunnel and 
drill horizontally into the hot mass so as to gradually liberate the 
heat energy and gas pressure. Remote control mining underwater should 
not be hard to master for the spiritual descendants of Edison, Bell, 
Ford, and so forth.

When I contemplate things like that I find myself boggled by the amazing 
stupidity of the so-called 'free market' ideologues who cannot 
understand how come cooperation is billions of times more powerful than 
the puny efforts of the so-called captains of industry who advocate  
scientifically discredited concepts of social Darwinism in order to 
maintain a dysfunctional, unfair, inefficient and life-threatening 
status quo.

[Amen! Amen! In the Name of Capital, Money, and Market, Amen! Hail 
Banks! Mothers of Money, Blessed art Thou amongst Companies!]

Hmm think of it ... Father Capital, Dollar Bill the Son, and the Unseen 
Hand of Market, the Comforter who is always with us and is never wrong 
... :-)

But really, my point is that in this modern era we finally have the 
intellectual tools we need to liberate the human race from slavery. Only 
some of it is 'rocket science', the rest is common sense and hard work, 
coupled with the realisation that a person who is truly smart and truly 
strong, is also truly kind. Why? Because his/her cup runs over, and 
there is nothing nobler than to help those in need who share our world 
during our transient passing through.

 Regards

Mark Peaty  CDES

[EMAIL PROTECTED]

http://www.arach.net.au/~mpeaty/

 



Brent Meeker wrote:
> Mark Peaty wrote:
>   
>> No Brent, what I AM saying is that they are GONE! Well and truly 
>> gorrnn!
>> 
>
> But they lasted a lot longer than we have.
>
>   
>> We could get side tracked into all sorts of discussions about how each 
>> of the civilisations you named, waxed and waned more than once in the 
>> face of environmental changes and the inherent instability of feudal 
>> societies, but I haven't got the time [fascinating though it would be :-].
>>
>> My point is that, with all due respect to the late Douglas Adams, and I 
>> suppose to whoever it was who wrote the book of Daniel in the 
>> Judaeo-Xian Bible, the TRUE
>> "Writing on the Wall" AKA God's last message to humankind, is five short 
>> words in plain-English:
>>
>> * Shape up or die out!
>>
>> What I say is if we really want to 'shape up' and survive, then 
>> compassion, democracy, ethics and scientific method are four essential 
>> ingredients without which our modern world will go the way of all those 
>> other civilisations your mentioned. 
>> 
>
> It will go the way of those other civilizations anyway because: a) it's 
> dependent on energy from cheap oil and b) all civilizations rise and fall, 
> none last forever.
>
> Brent Meeker
> Nations and empires flourish and decay,
> By turns command,  and in their turns obey.
>   --- Publius Ovidius Naso
>
>
> >
>
>
>   

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Re: Believing ...

[Bruno Marchal]

Le 01-mars-07, à 17:48, John M a écrit :

> So what else is new?


Perhaps the discovery that if we reason carefully with numbers and 
machines, we can see the ineluctable failure of all reductionist 
philosophies/theories.
And nature, up to now, confirms this.

Bruno




http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

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Re: Believing ...

[Brent Meeker]

John M wrote:
> Well, Brent, this was a post that requires multiple replies (marked JM) 
> and a longer reflection (with my apologies).
> *
> "...individuals within that "belief system" will have a variety of 
> views. Some will have some views in conflict with the belief system."
> JM: right. Some are converted to Islam as well.
> *
> "...they may simply stop thinking about it and rely on faith ..."
> JM: my late brother in law did not 'dare' to die because he - catholic 
> and an excellent natural scientist - lived in sin (had a 2nd marriage) 
> and was afraid of Hell.
> In my wordset an atheist requires a god to deny and agnosticism may be 
> an irrelevant mindset 'who cares'.
> *
> About my 'opinion' "Big Bang": I wrote it several times, in varied 
> detail, that Hubble was a genius thinking of the redshift as an optical 
> equivalent to Dopler, marking an expanding universe, but it was not 
> scrutinized before the scientific establishment took it for granted. 
> Lookiong for 'other' explanations was seen as heretic and unscientific.
> Since 1922(Hubble) - 3 generations of scientists were brainwashed into 
> that, (including you and me) and literally millions of experiments were 
> carried out for *proving* it
> only. 

You are very much misinformed.  There have been plenty of alternative 
explanations put forth - dust absorption and re-emission, "tired" light, 
variable speed of light.  And they all failed one empirical test or another.  
So it is your opinion that is unsupported - not the Doppler shift explanation 
of the Hubble constant.


> If a result was 'not good' it was rejected (alternate 
> (oppositional) opinion of mine landed a quip in a friendly discussion  
> (1997) without any further word from an MIT cosmologist: "HOAX").

Professionals sometimes get testy in dealing with cranks.

>  
> As I said: I owe myself the distinctions of  the extenf of
> a 'belief system'.  One may be a western natural scientist and have an 
> unusual 'belief' imbedded in it, what does not make one so 'obtuse'. The 
> applied math is so reassuring. The fact that the regression counted 
> backwards linearly and it was detected that the 'moves' in cosmology go 
> nonlinearly (call it chaotic?) (e.g. many body interactions) - but more 
> importantly: that the physical connotation was recognising in the vastly 
> different (concentrated into a  miniaturized?) universe quite similar 
> 'laws' to our present (expanded?) world, leading to hard to swallow 
> paradoxes - is a basis for my disbelief. Then marvellous ideas were 
> invented (assumed?) to solve the controversial math: inflation in the 
> first place, and others, what makes me call the cosmological Big Bang 
> view a scientific narrative. However: mathematically/theoretically 
> proven. Even new theories added and adjusted.
> The starting point still remains: did the spectra shift to a lower 
> frequency by receding lightsources, or (guessably) by passing 
> magnetic/electric/or else(??) fields that slow down the 
> (observable/registrable) 'frequency' in our model of light? 

Doesn't work: EM fields are light - they don't slow light down as is easily 
observed in the laboratory.

>Or by some 
> effects yet to be discovered, not fitting into our conventional 
> (historic) model of the 'physical wiorld'?

Well you could suppose God did it - that's yet to be discovered.  It's easy to 
claim a scientific theory may be overturned by something yet to be discovered; 
that's the essence of science.  But it's hardly a reason to libel scientists 
for maintaining a theory that has passed all the tests they've been able to 
think of.

> I consider Hubble of similar importance to the DeCusa-Copernicus duo in 
> their establishing (changing?) a geocentric physical worldview into a 
> heliocentric - for the coming generations - it was also temporary and 
> later on gave place to a wider informatics.
> That's all, not any denigration for people with a more conventional 
> 'scientific' basis. I even value the practical
> results of reductionist scientists (I am one of them).
> Trying to step out from the quantized reductionist model-view  and its 
> (beyond model) conclusions makes me a scientific agnostic and renders my 
> 'talk' vague. I feel we are not there (yet)  

But being "not there yet" doesn't imply that we need to reconsider the 
flat-earth theory or keep an open mind about the sin theory of disease.  
Newton's theory of gravity was wrong in the sense that it gives the wrong 
bending of light and wrong advance of the perihelion of Mercury.  But 
Einstein's theory didn't disprove Newton's, it just showed it to be an 
approximation.  And we already know Einstein's theory is wrong; it's 
inconsistent with quantum mechanics.  But that doesn't mean we should 
reconsider the theory that the Earth sucks.  Of course the Big Bang isn't the 
last word; but the next word is still going to include the Big Bang

>and I try a different path 
> from the UD or comp etc. ways, 

Re: Believing in Divine Destiny is one of the pillars of faith, and, in accordance with this belief, everything in the universe is determined by God, the All-Mighty. While there are countless absolute

[Brent Meeker]

Mark Peaty wrote:
> No Brent, what I AM saying is that they are GONE! Well and truly 
> gorrnn!

But they lasted a lot longer than we have.

> 
> We could get side tracked into all sorts of discussions about how each 
> of the civilisations you named, waxed and waned more than once in the 
> face of environmental changes and the inherent instability of feudal 
> societies, but I haven't got the time [fascinating though it would be :-].
> 
> My point is that, with all due respect to the late Douglas Adams, and I 
> suppose to whoever it was who wrote the book of Daniel in the 
> Judaeo-Xian Bible, the TRUE
> "Writing on the Wall" AKA God's last message to humankind, is five short 
> words in plain-English:
> 
> * Shape up or die out!
> 
> What I say is if we really want to 'shape up' and survive, then 
> compassion, democracy, ethics and scientific method are four essential 
> ingredients without which our modern world will go the way of all those 
> other civilisations your mentioned. 

It will go the way of those other civilizations anyway because: a) it's 
dependent on energy from cheap oil and b) all civilizations rise and fall, none 
last forever.

Brent Meeker
Nations and empires flourish and decay,
By turns command,  and in their turns obey.
  --- Publius Ovidius Naso


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Re: Believing ...

[John M]

Well, Brent, this was a post that requires multiple replies (marked JM) and a 
longer reflection (with my apologies).
*
"...individuals within that "belief system" will have a variety of views. Some 
will have some views in conflict with the belief system."
JM: right. Some are converted to Islam as well.
*
"...they may simply stop thinking about it and rely on faith ..."
JM: my late brother in law did not 'dare' to die because he - catholic and an 
excellent natural scientist - lived in sin (had a 2nd marriage) and was afraid 
of Hell. 
In my wordset an atheist requires a god to deny and agnosticism may be an 
irrelevant mindset 'who cares'. 
*
About my 'opinion' "Big Bang": I wrote it several times, in varied detail, that 
Hubble was a genius thinking of the redshift as an optical equivalent to 
Dopler, marking an expanding universe, but it was not scrutinized before the 
scientific establishment took it for granted. Lookiong for 'other' explanations 
was seen as heretic and unscientific.
Since 1922(Hubble) - 3 generations of scientists were brainwashed into that, 
(including you and me) and literally millions of experiments were carried out 
for *proving* it 
only. If a result was 'not good' it was rejected (alternate (oppositional) 
opinion of mine landed a quip in a friendly discussion  (1997) without any 
further word from an MIT cosmologist: "HOAX"). 

As I said: I owe myself the distinctions of  the extenf of 
a 'belief system'.  One may be a western natural scientist and have an unusual 
'belief' imbedded in it, what does not make one so 'obtuse'. The applied math 
is so reassuring. The fact that the regression counted backwards linearly and 
it was detected that the 'moves' in cosmology go nonlinearly (call it chaotic?) 
(e.g. many body interactions) - but more importantly: that the physical 
connotation was recognising in the vastly different (concentrated into a  
miniaturized?) universe quite similar 'laws' to our present (expanded?) world, 
leading to hard to swallow paradoxes - is a basis for my disbelief. Then 
marvellous ideas were invented (assumed?) to solve the controversial math: 
inflation in the first place, and others, what makes me call the cosmological 
Big Bang view a scientific narrative. However: mathematically/theoretically 
proven. Even new theories added and adjusted. 
The starting point still remains: did the spectra shift to a lower frequency by 
receding lightsources, or (guessably) by passing magnetic/electric/or else(??) 
fields that slow down the (observable/registrable) 'frequency' in our model of 
light? Or by some effects yet to be discovered, not fitting into our 
conventional (historic) model of the 'physical wiorld'? 
I consider Hubble of similar importance to the DeCusa-Copernicus duo in their 
establishing (changing?) a geocentric physical worldview into a heliocentric - 
for the coming generations - it was also temporary and later on gave place to a 
wider informatics. 
That's all, not any denigration for people with a more conventional 
'scientific' basis. I even value the practical 
results of reductionist scientists (I am one of them). 
Trying to step out from the quantized reductionist model-view  and its (beyond 
model) conclusions makes me a scientific agnostic and renders my 'talk' vague. 
I feel we are not there (yet)  and I try a different path from the UD or comp 
etc. ways, with less founding, eo ipso  struggling in a "scientifically" 
(=math) not so convincing train of thoughts. The quantized physical edifice of 
the world (in
applied math) is very impressive, results in technology admirable at today's 
level of our expectations. When it comes to fundamental understanding 
(elimination of the paradoxes at least to our limited mental capacity), lately, 
 new ideas emerged. One proof is this list. Its present lines don't represent a 
monopoly. Academic tenure or a Nobel prize do not mean the ultimate 'truth'. 
Science is not even a democratic vote. 
And I love the humor of G. Carlin.

So what else is new?

Have a good day

John

- Original Message - 
  From: Brent Meeker 
  To: everything-list@googlegroups.com 
  Sent: Wednesday, February 28, 2007 6:35 PM
  Subject: Re: Believing ...



  John M wrote:
  > Brent,
  >  
  > as usual, you have hard replies. Just one exception:
  > I do not mean 'each and individual mindset' as the term 'belief system', 
  > but this is hard to explain. Most scientifically educated westerners - 
  > or many religious faithfuls can argue among themselves. I never tried to 
  > speculate about identifying what constitutes a 'different belief 
  > system', but 'system' must be more than just shades of individual 
  > different

Re: Believing in Divine Destiny is one of the pillars of faith, and, in accordance with this belief, everything in the universe is determined by God, the All-Mighty. While there are countless absolute

[Mark Peaty]

No Brent, what I AM saying is that they are GONE! Well and truly 
gorrnn!

We could get side tracked into all sorts of discussions about how each 
of the civilisations you named, waxed and waned more than once in the 
face of environmental changes and the inherent instability of feudal 
societies, but I haven't got the time [fascinating though it would be :-].

My point is that, with all due respect to the late Douglas Adams, and I 
suppose to whoever it was who wrote the book of Daniel in the 
Judaeo-Xian Bible, the TRUE
"Writing on the Wall" AKA God's last message to humankind, is five short 
words in plain-English:

* Shape up or die out!

What I say is if we really want to 'shape up' and survive, then 
compassion, democracy, ethics and scientific method are four essential 
ingredients without which our modern world will go the way of all those 
other civilisations your mentioned. But this time it will be well and 
truly final because we will have used up all the easily obtainable 
resources, and blighted enough of the landscape to see Homo sapiens 
disappear into fossilised oblivion.


 
Regards
Mark Peaty  CDES
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.arach.net.au/~mpeaty/
 


Brent Meeker wrote:
> Are you saying I just dreamed that Sumer, Ur, Egypt, Babylon, Rome, Sparta, 
> Cathay, and the Indus Valley where civilization first developed and lasted 
> for thousands of years (much longer than the U.S. which is the oldest 
> existing democracy) were not democratic and pre-dated the scientific method?
>
> Brent Meeker
>
> Mark Peaty wrote:
>   
>> Dream on Brent ...
>>
>>
>> Regards
>> Mark Peaty  CDES
>> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> http://www.arach.net.au/~mpeaty/
>>  
>>
>>
>> Brent Meeker wrote:
>> 
>>> Klortho wrote:
>>>   
>>>   
> The other thing I do is check to what extent a person's speech and
> writings support and affirm the four fundamental ingredients of
> civilisation:
> Compassion, democracy, ethics and scientific method. No civilisation can
> survive without all four of these.
>
>   
>   
 Talk about assertions without any evidence!
 
 
>>> Actually there's a lot of evidence that civilization developed and survived 
>>> until recently without democracy or the scientific method.
>>>
>>> Brent Meeker
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>   
>>>   
>
>
> >
>
>
>   

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Re: Believing ...

[John M]

Brent, 

as usual, you have hard replies. Just one exception: 
I do not mean 'each and individual mindset' as the term 'belief system', but 
this is hard to explain. Most scientifically educated westerners - or many 
religious faithfuls can argue among themselves. I never tried to speculate 
about identifying what constitutes a 'different belief system', but 'system' 
must be more than just shades of individual differentiation in the details. 

John M

  - Original Message - 
  From: Brent Meeker 
  To: everything-list@googlegroups.com 
  Sent: Tuesday, February 27, 2007 12:32 PM
  Subject: Re: Believing in Divine Destiny



  John Mikes wrote:
  > Stathis:
  > You, of all people, should realize that one belief system cannot reach 
  > over to
  > another one. Logic - mindset is different, "facts" come in different 
  > shades, "evidence" is
  > adjusted to the 'system', a belief system is a whole world.
  > Brent makes the same mistake: to argue from his 'scientific' (is it 
  > really - in the
  > conventional old sense???) mindset with statements of the faithful, but 
  > it is a
  > geerally committed error - while you, a learned mind-scientist should know
  > better.
  > I am not on top of this myself: I fall frequently into arguing from my 
  > 'rational'
  > worldview into the (rational for them) faith-induced mentality.
  > 
  > We are the (negligible) minority. "They" have less doubts than us.
  > 
  > So I thank [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> (whoever he 
  > or she may be) for the
  > valuable intofmation about the Muslim culture and take it as that.
  > We will never get a jihadic self-sacrificer to accept that his 
  > expectation of the
  > huris waitnig for pleasuring him 'over there' is unfounded. It is for 
  > him and who
  > cares (in my view) for 'happenings' of our present (human) copmplexity 
  > after it
  > dissolved (call it death) into disintegration?
  > 
  > A year ago or so Wei Dai put an end to religious discussions on the list.
  > That was in the Judeochristian domain. He was right on the button.
  > Is the Judeochrismuslim argumental domain different?
  > Such discussions cannot be resolved into any agreement of the 2 poles.
  > 
  > Anybody arguing  - MY - point?

  I guess it would be futile to discuss anything with you, since you believe 
each of us is hermetically sealed in their own belief system.  I don't agree - 
but that's my error.

  Brent Meeker



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Re: Believing ...

[Brent Meeker]

John M wrote:
> Brent,
>  
> as usual, you have hard replies. Just one exception:
> I do not mean 'each and individual mindset' as the term 'belief system', 
> but this is hard to explain. Most scientifically educated westerners - 
> or many religious faithfuls can argue among themselves. I never tried to 
> speculate about identifying what constitutes a 'different belief 
> system', but 'system' must be more than just shades of individual 
> differentiation in the details.
>  
> John M

If you don't mean something individual by "belief system", but rather some 
general summary of what a group of people think, then individuals within that 
"belief system" will have a variety of views.  Some will have some views in 
conflict with the belief system.  And some can have their views changed by 
argument.  People are converted from Christianity to atheism everyday.  And 
rational argument plays a large part in this.  Most theists are also rational 
people who want to have beliefs that are coherent and consistent with empirical 
observation.  When they become sufficiently uncomfortable with conflicts 
between Church teachings and science and they may simply stop thinking about it 
and rely on faith - or if they are theologians they may assign tortured 
meanings to words to avoid the conflict - or they may reject those aspects of 
Church teaching that are empirically wrong and become agnostics or atheists.

I notice that you frequently imply that there is something wrong with "the Big 
Bang"; but you have never, so far as I know, provided an argument or any 
evidence for this opinion.  Instead you imply that those with a contrary view 
are just too obtuse to see other possibilities.  This shows a certain contempt 
for your readers.

Brent Meeker
"Atheism is a belief system the way "Off" is a TV channel."
--- George Carlin

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Re: Believing in Divine Destiny

[John M]

Excellent, Saibal Mitra! Thanx!

Now you just have to quantize the miracles into a physix 
that fits those "scriptures" -  into 'physical laws' of those religions. Maybe 
it would require a different math as well, to make a fit. And do not forget 
about the calory-supply of Hell. ("Brimstone" requires oxygen, to burn - at 
least in THIS universe.) 

John M

 Original Message - 
  From: Saibal Mitra 
  To: everything-list@googlegroups.com 
  Sent: Wednesday, February 28, 2007 8:08 AM
  Subject: Re: Believing in Divine Destiny



  The only connection I can think of is as follows. For any given religious
  text there should exist a universe which "best fits" those text.


  Saibal


  - Original Message - 
  From: "Wei Dai" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
  To: 
  Sent: Tuesday, February 27, 2007 11:55 PM
  Subject: Re: Believing in Divine Destiny


  >
  > > A year ago or so Wei Dai put an end to religious discussions on the
  list.
  >
  > I don't remember if I did that a year ago or not, but I certainly think
  the
  > current discussion is off-topic. This mailing list is based on the premise
  > that all possible universes exist. Unless someone can think of a
  connection
  > to this idea, can we please drop this thread?
  >
  > I have also noticed that all of [EMAIL PROTECTED]'s posts are
  > copy-and-pastes from online sources:
  >
  > http://www.islamanswers.net/destiny/recorded.htm
  > http://www.islamanswers.net/unity/understand.htm
  > http://sg.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070226110342AAy6SG5
  > http://www.themodernreligion.com/basic/quran/quran_proof_preservation.htm
  >
  > Copying other people's writings without attribution is plagiarism, which I
  > certainly do not approve of.
  >
  > And aside from that, if anyone wants to reference large amounts of online
  > material, please post a link instead of copying the text.
  >
  > P.S., I find that I am not always able to keep up with all of the
  > discussions on the list. Putting my name in a post is a good way to get my
  > attention, and please always feel free to email me directly with any
  > administrative issues related to the list.
  >
  >
  >
  > >


  


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  No virus found in this incoming message.
  Checked by AVG Free Edition.
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3:24 PM


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Re: Believing in Divine Destiny is one of the pillars of faith, and, in accordance with this belief, everything in the universe is determined by God, the All-Mighty. While there are countless absolute

[Brent Meeker]

Are you saying I just dreamed that Sumer, Ur, Egypt, Babylon, Rome, Sparta, 
Cathay, and the Indus Valley where civilization first developed and lasted for 
thousands of years (much longer than the U.S. which is the oldest existing 
democracy) were not democratic and pre-dated the scientific method?

Brent Meeker

Mark Peaty wrote:
> Dream on Brent ...
> 
> 
> Regards
> Mark Peaty  CDES
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> http://www.arach.net.au/~mpeaty/
>  
> 
> 
> Brent Meeker wrote:
>> Klortho wrote:
>>   
 The other thing I do is check to what extent a person's speech and
 writings support and affirm the four fundamental ingredients of
 civilisation:
 Compassion, democracy, ethics and scientific method. No civilisation can
 survive without all four of these.

   
>>> Talk about assertions without any evidence!
>>> 
>>
>> Actually there's a lot of evidence that civilization developed and survived 
>> until recently without democracy or the scientific method.
>>
>> Brent Meeker
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>   
> 
> > 


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Re: [SPAM] Re: Believing in Divine Destiny is one of the pillars of faith, and, in accordance with this belief, everything in the universe is determined by God, the All-Mighty. While there are countle

[Brent Meeker]

Torgny Tholerus wrote:
> Mark Peaty skrev:
>> However, we must call a spade a spade; all this guff that gets called 
>> 'theology' and 'spirituality' is ultimately a bunch of assertions that 
>> can neither be proved nor disproved in any concrete sense because they 
>> are all expressions of belief and ONLY belief.
> I have written an essay called: "A Proof of the Existence of God and Why 
> does Universe Exist" (11 pages), where I scientifically prove that God 
> exist (or rather prove that it is probable that God exists...).  This 
> essay is attached.
> 
> -- 
> Torgny Tholerus

It is an equivocation on "personality"="consciouness"="cooperation" and a 
non-standard meaning of "God".

Here's a much simpler proof:

God is love.
Love exists.
Therefore: God exists.

Brent Meeker

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Re: [SPAM] Re: Believing in Divine Destiny is one of the pillars of faith, and, in accordance with this belief, everything in the universe is determined by God, the All-Mighty. While there are countle

[Mark Peaty]

Well [EMAIL PROTECTED] your response has been even more disappointing 
than even my very low expectation prepared me for. You have not even 
recognised what my questions were about, let alone made any significant 
attempt to address them.

As an ex-Christian I know what it is like to be sucked into a world view 
that projects part of one's own nature into a 'spiritual being' and 
projects other, completely unacknowledged and rejected parts of one's 
psyche onto outsiders who are perceived as being threatening and evil 
because they exhibit those impulses rather than oneself.

However, we must call a spade a spade; all this guff that gets called 
'theology' and 'spirituality' is ultimately a bunch of assertions that 
can neither be proved nor disproved in any concrete sense because they 
are all expressions of belief and ONLY belief. Because there is no way 
of relating these holy ramblings to any concrete test, belief in them 
becomes, as often as not, a function of a person's social and political 
allegiances. The beliefs change to comply with and rationalise the 
ambitions and practices of the ruling elite. The chanting of sacred 
texts and the recitation of beliefs become assurances of acceptance, 
badges of compliance with the regime. There will be NO significant 
contributions to the well being and advancement of human kind arising 
from this religiosity, just acquiescence and the turning of a blind eye 
to the crimes of the rulers and the thugs who impose the anti democratic 
rule.

 The moral and intellectual contrast is expressed most vividly, I think, 
by the way a free-thinking monk called Giordano Bruno was vilified, 
stripped naked, tortured and finally burnt alive by the inquisitor thugs 
of the Roman church, in a public square somewhere in Rome 17 February 
1600. His crime? Being a sceptic and publicly questioning some of the 
preposterous beliefs that religion required people to agree to. He was 
murdered because the sceptical method he advocated and employed 
threatened the very foundations of the corrupt religious hierarchy and 
the secular regimes - all feudal thug-ocracies. From what I read, hear, 
and see reported about Islam in Iran, Iraq, Saudi, and umpteen other 
places, the basic issues are the same as for Christianity. The holders 
and wielders of traditional power WILL not acknowledge that the 
demonstrated power of scientific method to show us how the natural world 
works and to show us deep insights into how the human brain and mind 
work has a moral authority at least equal to that of their 'holy' books. 
THIS is the real challenge of the 20 and 21 centuries.
 
Regards
Mark Peaty  CDES
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.arach.net.au/~mpeaty/
 


[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Jesus said: "I and the Father are one" (Jn.10:30), therefore, is not
> Jesus the same, or, "co-equal" in status with his Father?
> Answer No.1
> In Greek, `heis' means `one' numerically (masc.)
> `hen' means `one' in unity or essence (neut.)
> Here the word used by John is `hen' and not `heis'. The marginal notes
> in New American Standard Bible (NASB) reads; one - (Lit.neuter) a
> unity, or, one essence.
> If one wishes to argue that the word `hen' supports their claim for
> Jesus being "co-equal" in status with his Father, please invite his/
> her attention to the following verse:
>
> Jesus said: "And the glory which Thou hast given me, I have given
> to them (disciples); that they may be one, just as we are one." (John
> 17:22).
> If he/she was to consider/regard/believe the Father and Jesus Christ
> to be "one" meaning "co-equal" in status on the basis of John 10:30,
> then that person should also be prepared to consider/regard/believe
> "them" - the disciples of Jesus, to be "co-equal" in status with the
> Father and Jesus ("just as we are one") in John 17:22. I have yet to
> find a person that would be prepared to make the disciples (students)
> "co-equal" in status with the Father or Jesus.
>
> The unity and accord was of the authorized divine message that
> originated from the Father, received by Jesus and finally passed on to
> the disciples. Jesus admitted having accomplished the work which the
> Father had given him to do. (Jn.17:4)
>
> Hot Tip (precise and pertinent)
> Jesus said: "I go to the Father; for the Father is greater than
> I." (Jn.14:28). This verse unequivocally refutes the claim by any one
> for Jesus being "co-equal" in status with his Father.
> 
>
> Question No.2
> Jesus said: "I am the way, ...no one comes to the Father, but through
> me." (Jn.14:6), therefore, is not the Salvation through Jesus, ALONE?
> Answer No.2
> Before Jesus spoke these words, he said; "In my Father's house are
> many mansions (dwelling places); if it were not so, I would have told
> you; for I go to prepare a mansion (a dwelling place) for you." (John
> 14:2). The above explicit statement confirms that Jesus was going to
> prepare "a"

Re: [SPAM] Re: Believing in Divine Destiny is one of the pillars of faith, and, in accordance with this belief, everything in the universe is determined by God, the All-Mighty. While there are countle

[Mark Peaty]

OK, tell me where all those civilisations of the past have gone to, 
because THEY did NOT survived.

Tell me what makes YOU so sure this current global civilisation can 
survive. I am more than happy to be shown where I am wrong, but if you 
TRULY disagree with what I am saying, I would like you to provide some 
clear and unambiguous empirical evidence to back up your assertions. 
Without that, you are simply complaining that I am just strongly 
expressing an opinion. I never deny this, in the context that we are 
speaking of here, but I think that my opinion on this is as good as 
anybody's that I have seen so far.

To help you chew on this:

* compassion is the acting out of the ability to see oneself in the
  other and the recognition that, except for the throw of some
  cosmic dice, I am he or she and they are me; compassion
  facilitates the breaking down of the fear and false consciousness
  which underpins unconscious projection; compassion is a sign and
  manifestation of authentic being and strength, not weakness;
  without compassion truly human life is well nigh impossible
* ethics is the foundation of civilisation and is the acting out of
  the ability to see that we each depend on many, many others for
  our survival and well being and they depend upon us, and that the
  true genius and strength of humankind is our ability to cooperate
  with each other rather than a propensity to strive against others
* democracy is essentially the systematic implementation of the
  non-violent resolution of conflict, it requires that everyone's
  voice be heard and democracy advances as the excessive and
  aggressive power of the rich and powerful is curtailed and
  controlled; Karl Popper gave the most succinct explanation of why
  democracy is both better than all the alternatives and absolutely
  essential and the basic form of his argument is this: all policies
  formulated by governments and governing bodies will have
  unexpected negative consequences, no matter how good the policies,
  and it is to be expected that at least 50% of the unforeseen
  consequences will be significantly adverse and negative for those
  who experience them so it is imperative that the negative
  consequences of policies be made known to those who govern and
  that the rulers take notice and actually ameliorate the problems.
  If the rulers cannot be made to correct these unforeseen negative
  outcomes then over time the negative outcomes will accrue to the
  extent that the people feel driven to rebel or vote with their
  feet and leave the land of the rotten regime.
* the advent of scientific method into human culture is what has
  made the modern world; this modern era is a time of transition in
  which every traditional belief and practice is being challenged by
  the application of scientific method and of the fruits of the
  application of science; in this world of great and ceaseless
  changes, the continued application of scientific method is and
  always will be essential for allowing us to adapt to all the
  unforeseen outcomes of change so far; with scientific method human
  beings have the ability to journey out into the solar system and
  beyond, to be citizens of the galaxy, but without scientific
  method humans will die out on a devastated planet

 
Regards
Mark Peaty  CDES
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.arach.net.au/~mpeaty/
 


Klortho wrote:
>   
>> The other thing I do is check to what extent a person's speech and
>> writings support and affirm the four fundamental ingredients of
>> civilisation:
>> Compassion, democracy, ethics and scientific method. No civilisation can
>> survive without all four of these.
>>
>> 
>
> Talk about assertions without any evidence!
>
>
> >
>
>
>   

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Re: Believing in Divine Destiny is one of the pillars of faith, and, in accordance with this belief, everything in the universe is determined by God, the All-Mighty. While there are countless absolute

[Mark Peaty]

Dream on Brent ...


Regards
Mark Peaty  CDES
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.arach.net.au/~mpeaty/
 


Brent Meeker wrote:
> Klortho wrote:
>   
>>> The other thing I do is check to what extent a person's speech and
>>> writings support and affirm the four fundamental ingredients of
>>> civilisation:
>>> Compassion, democracy, ethics and scientific method. No civilisation can
>>> survive without all four of these.
>>>
>>>   
>> Talk about assertions without any evidence!
>> 
>
> Actually there's a lot of evidence that civilization developed and survived 
> until recently without democracy or the scientific method.
>
> Brent Meeker
>
> >
>
>
>   

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Re: Believing in Divine Destiny

[Saibal Mitra]

The only connection I can think of is as follows. For any given religious
text there should exist a universe which "best fits" those text.


Saibal


- Original Message - 
From: "Wei Dai" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: 
Sent: Tuesday, February 27, 2007 11:55 PM
Subject: Re: Believing in Divine Destiny


>
> > A year ago or so Wei Dai put an end to religious discussions on the
list.
>
> I don't remember if I did that a year ago or not, but I certainly think
the
> current discussion is off-topic. This mailing list is based on the premise
> that all possible universes exist. Unless someone can think of a
connection
> to this idea, can we please drop this thread?
>
> I have also noticed that all of [EMAIL PROTECTED]'s posts are
> copy-and-pastes from online sources:
>
> http://www.islamanswers.net/destiny/recorded.htm
> http://www.islamanswers.net/unity/understand.htm
> http://sg.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070226110342AAy6SG5
> http://www.themodernreligion.com/basic/quran/quran_proof_preservation.htm
>
> Copying other people's writings without attribution is plagiarism, which I
> certainly do not approve of.
>
> And aside from that, if anyone wants to reference large amounts of online
> material, please post a link instead of copying the text.
>
> P.S., I find that I am not always able to keep up with all of the
> discussions on the list. Putting my name in a post is a good way to get my
> attention, and please always feel free to email me directly with any
> administrative issues related to the list.
>
>
>
> >


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Re: Believing in Divine Destiny

[Wei Dai]

> A year ago or so Wei Dai put an end to religious discussions on the list.

I don't remember if I did that a year ago or not, but I certainly think the 
current discussion is off-topic. This mailing list is based on the premise 
that all possible universes exist. Unless someone can think of a connection 
to this idea, can we please drop this thread?

I have also noticed that all of [EMAIL PROTECTED]'s posts are 
copy-and-pastes from online sources:

http://www.islamanswers.net/destiny/recorded.htm
http://www.islamanswers.net/unity/understand.htm
http://sg.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070226110342AAy6SG5
http://www.themodernreligion.com/basic/quran/quran_proof_preservation.htm

Copying other people's writings without attribution is plagiarism, which I 
certainly do not approve of.

And aside from that, if anyone wants to reference large amounts of online 
material, please post a link instead of copying the text.

P.S., I find that I am not always able to keep up with all of the 
discussions on the list. Putting my name in a post is a good way to get my 
attention, and please always feel free to email me directly with any 
administrative issues related to the list. 



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Re: Believing in Divine Destiny

[Brent Meeker]

John Mikes wrote:
> Stathis:
> You, of all people, should realize that one belief system cannot reach 
> over to
> another one. Logic - mindset is different, "facts" come in different 
> shades, "evidence" is
> adjusted to the 'system', a belief system is a whole world.
> Brent makes the same mistake: to argue from his 'scientific' (is it 
> really - in the
> conventional old sense???) mindset with statements of the faithful, but 
> it is a
> geerally committed error - while you, a learned mind-scientist should know
> better.
> I am not on top of this myself: I fall frequently into arguing from my 
> 'rational'
> worldview into the (rational for them) faith-induced mentality.
> 
> We are the (negligible) minority. "They" have less doubts than us.
> 
> So I thank [EMAIL PROTECTED]  (whoever he 
> or she may be) for the
> valuable intofmation about the Muslim culture and take it as that.
> We will never get a jihadic self-sacrificer to accept that his 
> expectation of the
> huris waitnig for pleasuring him 'over there' is unfounded. It is for 
> him and who
> cares (in my view) for 'happenings' of our present (human) copmplexity 
> after it
> dissolved (call it death) into disintegration?
> 
> A year ago or so Wei Dai put an end to religious discussions on the list.
> That was in the Judeochristian domain. He was right on the button.
> Is the Judeochrismuslim argumental domain different?
> Such discussions cannot be resolved into any agreement of the 2 poles.
> 
> Anybody arguing  - MY - point?

I guess it would be futile to discuss anything with you, since you believe each 
of us is hermetically sealed in their own belief system.  I don't agree - but 
that's my error.

Brent Meeker


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Re: Believing in Divine Destiny

[John M]

Stathis, 
you argued 'my points' in your usual eloquence. What you missed IMO:
 the 'seeming rationality' of the pro-Q'ran  argument is in the rationality (?) 
of the faithful mindset. It starts from premises as 'truth' what you would 
question. "I" find your position reasonable and OK for our minority.  
And do not denigrate numberwise the religious portion of the (western?) part by 
the agnostics: they are believers, not so sure in what. 

Our nameless Oriental (?) sage reverses the question of 'proving' into 'prove 
the nonexistence', which is quite impossible, if the 'existence' has not been 
'justified' - only such argument can be made a subject of a debate. 

I don't think it is reasonable to 'talk' to those who blow you up because of 
their worldview impenetrable by our mindset. What can we say to them? that they 
are wrong? Whatever we tell them "is a lie", is noise, meaningless. 
They KNOW. They are instructed by people they believe and THOSE people are not 
subject to discussion. It is a power-war (aggrevated by US political moves into 
- what I am afraid of - no recourse). It is just as not religious as the commi 
world was (unless you call that, too, religion). 
More dangerous, because of the promised rewards in the 'afterworld' which is 
believable, but not checkable. 

John 

  - Original Message - 
  From: Stathis Papaioannou 
  To: everything-list@googlegroups.com 
  Sent: Tuesday, February 27, 2007 9:24 AM
  Subject: Re: Believing in Divine Destiny





  On 2/28/07, John Mikes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


Stathis:
You, of all people, should realize that one belief system cannot reach over 
to 
another one. Logic - mindset is different, "facts" come in different 
shades, "evidence" is 
adjusted to the 'system', a belief system is a whole world. 
Brent makes the same mistake: to argue from his 'scientific' (is it really 
- in the 
conventional old sense???) mindset with statements of the faithful, but it 
is a 
geerally committed error - while you, a learned mind-scientist should know 
better. 
I am not on top of this myself: I fall frequently into arguing from my 
'rational' 
worldview into the (rational for them) faith-induced mentality.

  [EMAIL PROTECTED] was specifically arguing that the evidence for the Qu'ran 
being the genuine word of Mohamed was good. That is an empirical argument and I 
can accept it. But this misses the point because the more interesting question 
is whether the Qu'ran is the word of God. [EMAIL PROTECTED] has been proposing 
allegedly rational/empirical arguments in support of this latter claim, but 
they are not nearly up to the standard of the evidence that the Qu'ran was, 
indeed, written by the historical figure Mohamed. Had [EMAIL PROTECTED] said, 
"this is what I believe to be the truth, so there", there is no gain in 
pointing out logical or empirical inconsistencies, although there may still be 
a point in examining the nature of faith, and how to decide which of the 
multitude of conflicting faiths is true (sometimes religious people are 
perfectly rational and scientific about every religion except their own, which 
strikes me as cheating). 



We are the (negligible) minority. "They" have less doubts than us.

  Most of what is commonly called the western world today, with the notable 
exception of the US, is agnostic, atheistic or just plain uninterested in 
religion.



So I thank [EMAIL PROTECTED] (whoever he or she may be) for the 
valuable intofmation about the Muslim culture and take it as that. 

  No doubt about it, he or she put a lot of work into the posts and even writes 
reasonably well. 



We will never get a jihadic self-sacrificer to accept that his expectation 
of the 
huris waitnig for pleasuring him 'over there' is unfounded. It is for him 
and who 
cares (in my view) for 'happenings' of our present (human) copmplexity 
after it 
dissolved (call it death) into disintegration? 

  You don't think we should even try to talk to them? Admitedly, they are far 
more likely to listen to economic or political arguments than philosophical 
ones. 



A year ago or so Wei Dai put an end to religious discussions on the list.

  Did he? I suppose we are straying from the list subject somewhat, but overall 
the quality and relevance of the debate has remained very high over the years, 
more so than some moderated lists. 



That was in the Judeochristian domain. He was right on the button. 
Is the Judeochrismuslim argumental domain different? 
Such discussions cannot be resolved into any agreement of the 2 poles.

Anybody arguing  - MY - point?

  What you've consistently said is that people may come from com

Re: Believing in Divine Destiny

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On 2/28/07, John Mikes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

Stathis:
> You, of all people, should realize that one belief system cannot reach
> over to
> another one. Logic - mindset is different, "facts" come in different
> shades, "evidence" is
> adjusted to the 'system', a belief system is a whole world.
> Brent makes the same mistake: to argue from his 'scientific' (is it really
> - in the
> conventional old sense???) mindset with statements of the faithful, but it
> is a
> geerally committed error - while you, a learned mind-scientist should know
>
> better.
> I am not on top of this myself: I fall frequently into arguing from my
> 'rational'
> worldview into the (rational for them) faith-induced mentality.


[EMAIL PROTECTED] was specifically arguing that the evidence for the
Qu'ran being the genuine word of Mohamed was good. That is an empirical
argument and I can accept it. But this misses the point because the more
interesting question is whether the Qu'ran is the word of God.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] has been proposing allegedly rational/empirical
arguments in support of this latter claim, but they are not nearly up to the
standard of the evidence that the Qu'ran was, indeed, written by the
historical figure Mohamed. Had [EMAIL PROTECTED] said, "this is what I
believe to be the truth, so there", there is no gain in pointing out logical
or empirical inconsistencies, although there may still be a point in
examining the nature of faith, and how to decide which of the multitude of
conflicting faiths is true (sometimes religious people are perfectly
rational and scientific about every religion except their own, which strikes
me as cheating).

We are the (negligible) minority. "They" have less doubts than us.


Most of what is commonly called the western world today, with the notable
exception of the US, is agnostic, atheistic or just plain uninterested in
religion.

So I thank [EMAIL PROTECTED] (whoever he or she may be) for the
> valuable intofmation about the Muslim culture and take it as that.


No doubt about it, he or she put a lot of work into the posts and even
writes reasonably well.

We will never get a jihadic self-sacrificer to accept that his expectation
> of the
> huris waitnig for pleasuring him 'over there' is unfounded. It is for him
> and who
> cares (in my view) for 'happenings' of our present (human) copmplexity
> after it
> dissolved (call it death) into disintegration?


You don't think we should even try to talk to them? Admitedly, they are far
more likely to listen to economic or political arguments than philosophical
ones.

A year ago or so Wei Dai put an end to religious discussions on the list.


Did he? I suppose we are straying from the list subject somewhat, but
overall the quality and relevance of the debate has remained very high over
the years, more so than some moderated lists.

That was in the Judeochristian domain. He was right on the button.
> Is the Judeochrismuslim argumental domain different?
> Such discussions cannot be resolved into any agreement of the 2 poles.
>
> Anybody arguing  - MY - point?


What you've consistently said is that people may come from completely
different backgrounds and viewpoints and this does not mean we should
discount the non-standard viewpoint. However, at the very least, if someone
comes along and claims that they are following the standard rules of a game,
such as science, they can't complain if they are judged according to those
rules.

John Mikes
>
> On 2/26/07, Stathis Papaioannou <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> > But how do you know that the Qu'ran is actually the word of God? People
> > claim all sorts of things, and while it's often easy to prove that they
> > *claimed* these things (although as you rightly point out, with many
> > religions, such as Christianity, even this is not a given), the point is to
> > prove that these things are *true*. The more incredible-sounding, the more
> > proof is needed. If I tell you I had a conversation with my mother last
> > night you would probably have no reason to demand proof, but if I tell you I
> > had a conversation with God or aliens or Elvis Presley, then you'd be
> > foolish to just accept it, even if it can be shown that I genuinely believe
> > what I am claiming.
> >
> > Stathis Papaioannou
> >
> >
> > On 2/27/07, [EMAIL PROTECTED] < [EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> >
> > > Skip text
> > >
> > >
>
> >
>

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Re: Believing in Divine Destiny

[John Mikes]

Stathis:
You, of all people, should realize that one belief system cannot reach over
to
another one. Logic - mindset is different, "facts" come in different shades,
"evidence" is
adjusted to the 'system', a belief system is a whole world.
Brent makes the same mistake: to argue from his 'scientific' (is it really -
in the
conventional old sense???) mindset with statements of the faithful, but it
is a
geerally committed error - while you, a learned mind-scientist should know
better.
I am not on top of this myself: I fall frequently into arguing from my
'rational'
worldview into the (rational for them) faith-induced mentality.

We are the (negligible) minority. "They" have less doubts than us.

So I thank [EMAIL PROTECTED] (whoever he or she may be) for the
valuable intofmation about the Muslim culture and take it as that.
We will never get a jihadic self-sacrificer to accept that his expectation
of the
huris waitnig for pleasuring him 'over there' is unfounded. It is for him
and who
cares (in my view) for 'happenings' of our present (human) copmplexity after
it
dissolved (call it death) into disintegration?

A year ago or so Wei Dai put an end to religious discussions on the list.
That was in the Judeochristian domain. He was right on the button.
Is the Judeochrismuslim argumental domain different?
Such discussions cannot be resolved into any agreement of the 2 poles.

Anybody arguing  - MY - point?

John Mikes

On 2/26/07, Stathis Papaioannou <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> But how do you know that the Qu'ran is actually the word of God? People
> claim all sorts of things, and while it's often easy to prove that they
> *claimed* these things (although as you rightly point out, with many
> religions, such as Christianity, even this is not a given), the point is to
> prove that these things are *true*. The more incredible-sounding, the more
> proof is needed. If I tell you I had a conversation with my mother last
> night you would probably have no reason to demand proof, but if I tell you I
> had a conversation with God or aliens or Elvis Presley, then you'd be
> foolish to just accept it, even if it can be shown that I genuinely believe
> what I am claiming.
>
> Stathis Papaioannou
>
>
> On 2/27/07, [EMAIL PROTECTED] < [EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
> > Skip text
> >
> >

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Re: Believing in Divine Destiny is one of the pillars of faith, and, in accordance with this belief, everything in the universe is determined by God, the All-Mighty. While there are countless absolute

[Stathis Papaioannou]

[EMAIL PROTECTED], I rarely pass up an opportunity for religious debate,
but I am honestly overwhelmed by your recent posts. I hope you have not done
all this work just to be relegated to the list archive. How did you find us,
anyway?

Stathis Papaioannou

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Re: Believing in Divine Destiny is one of the pillars of faith, and, in accordance with this belief, everything in the universe is determined by God, the All-Mighty. While there are countless absolute

[Stathis Papaioannou]

But how do you know that the Qu'ran is actually the word of God? People
claim all sorts of things, and while it's often easy to prove that they
*claimed* these things (although as you rightly point out, with many
religions, such as Christianity, even this is not a given), the point is to
prove that these things are *true*. The more incredible-sounding, the more
proof is needed. If I tell you I had a conversation with my mother last
night you would probably have no reason to demand proof, but if I tell you I
had a conversation with God or aliens or Elvis Presley, then you'd be
foolish to just accept it, even if it can be shown that I genuinely believe
what I am claiming.

Stathis Papaioannou


On 2/27/07, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


>
>
>
> On Feb 25, 2:06 am, Brent Meeker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> > > Believing in Divine Destiny is one of the pillars of faith, and, in
> > > accordance with this belief, everything in the universe is determined
> > > by God, the All-Mighty. While there are countless absolute evidences
> > > of Destiny, it may be sufficient to make some introductory remarks to
> > > demonstrate how important a place this pillar of faith has for the
> > > whole of creation.
> >
> > > The Qur'an specifically explains that everything is predetermined, and
> > > then recorded after its coming into existence, as indicated in many
> > > verses like,
> >
> > > Nor anything green or withered except it is all in a Manifest Book.
> >
> > I guess the Koran's author hadn't heard about quantum randomness.
> >
> > Anyway that's not an explanation, it's just an assertion - and why
> should anyone credit assertions written without supporting evidence by a man
> who didn't even know that the Earth orbits the Sun.
> >
> > > This Quranic statement is confirmed by the universe,
> >
> > It's not only not confirmed, it would be impossible to confirm even if
> it were true.
> >
> > Brent Meeker
>
>
> There are hundreds of religions flourishing around the world:
> Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Sikhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Bahaism,
> Babism, Zoroastrianism, Mormonism, Jehovas Witnesses, Jainism,
> Confucianism etc. And each of these religions claim that their
> scripture is preserved from the day it was revealed (written) until
> our time. A religious belief is as authentic as the authenticity of
> the scripture it follows. And for any scripture to be labeled as
> authentically preserved it should follow some concrete and rational
> criteria.
>
> Imagine this scenario:
>
> A professor gives a three hour lecture to his students. Imagine still
> that none of the students memorized this speech of the professor or
> wrote it down. Now forty years after that speech, if these same
> students decided to replicate professor's complete speech word for
> word, would they be able to do it? Obviously not. Because the only two
> modes of preservation historically is through writing and memory.
>
> Therefore, for any claimants to proclaim that their scripture is
> preserved in purity, they have to provide concrete evidence that the
> Scripture was written in its entirety AND memorized in its entirety
> from the time it was revealed to our time, in a continuous and
> unbroken chain. If the memorization part doesn't exist parallel to the
> written part to act as a check and balance for it, then there is a
> genuine possibility that the written scripture may loose its purity
> through unintentional and intentional interpolations due to scribal
> errors, corruption by the enemies, pages getting decomposed etc, and
> these errors would be concurrently incorporated into subsequent texts,
> ultimately loosing its purity through ages.
>
> Now, of all the religions mentioned above, does any one of them
> possess their scriptures in its entirety BOTH in writing AND in memory
> from the day of its revelation until our time.
>
> None of them fit this required criteria, except one: This unique
> scripture is the Qur'an - revelation bestowed to Prophet Muhammad
> (p.b.u.h) 1,418 years ago, as a guidance for all of humankind.
>
>
>
>
>
> 
>
> Lets analyze the claim of the preservation of the Quran...
>
> Memorization
>
> 'In the ancient times, when writing was scarcely used, memory and oral
> transmission was exercised and strengthened to a degree now almost
> unknown' relates Michael Zwettler.(1)
>
> Prophet Muhammad (S): The First Memorizer
>
> It was in this 'oral' society that Prophet Muhammad (S) was born in
> Mecca in the year 570 C.E. At the age of 40, he started receiving
> divine Revelations from the One God, Allah, through Archangel Gabriel.
> This process of divine revelations continued for about 22.5 years just
> before he passed away.
>
> Prophet Muhammad (S) miraculously memorized each revelation and used
> to proclaim it to his Companions. Angel Gabriel used to refresh the
> Quranic memory of the Proph

Re: Believing in Divine Destiny is one of the pillars of faith, and, in accordance with this belief, everything in the universe is determined by God, the All-Mighty. While there are countless absolute

[Brent Meeker]

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Jesus said: "I and the Father are one" (Jn.10:30), therefore, is not
> Jesus the same, or, "co-equal" in status with his Father?
> Answer No.1
> In Greek, `heis' means `one' numerically (masc.)
> `hen' means `one' in unity or essence (neut.)
> Here the word used by John is `hen' and not `heis'. The marginal notes
> in New American Standard Bible (NASB) reads; one - (Lit.neuter) a
> unity, or, one essence.
> If one wishes to argue that the word `hen' supports their claim for
> Jesus being "co-equal" in status with his Father, please invite his/
> her attention to the following verse:
> 
> Jesus said: "And the glory which Thou hast given me, I have given
> to them (disciples); that they may be one, just as we are one." (John
> 17:22).
> If he/she was to consider/regard/believe the Father and Jesus Christ
> to be "one" meaning "co-equal" in status on the basis of John 10:30,
> then that person should also be prepared to consider/regard/believe
> "them" - the disciples of Jesus, to be "co-equal" in status with the
> Father and Jesus ("just as we are one") in John 17:22. I have yet to
> find a person that would be prepared to make the disciples (students)
> "co-equal" in status with the Father or Jesus.

I'd say that they were better than co-equal; since they actually existed.

Brent Meeker


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Re: Believing in Divine Destiny is one of the pillars of faith, and, in accordance with this belief, everything in the universe is determined by God, the All-Mighty. While there are countless absolute

[[EMAIL PROTECTED]]

How can we argue for God's existence and unity in a way everyone can
understand?
In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.

So God sets forth parables for men in order that they may bear (them)
in mind and take lessons (through them). (14:25)

Such parables do we set forth for men so that they may reflect.(59:21)

The existence of God is too evident to need any arguments
The existence of God is too evident to need any arguments. Some
saintly scholars have even stated that God is more manifest than any
other being, but that those who lack insight cannot see Him. Others
have said that He is concealed from direct perception because of the
intensity of His Self-manifestation.

However, the great influence of positivist and materialist schools of
thought on science and on all people of recent centuries makes it
necessary to discuss such arguments. As this now-prevalent
"scientific" worldview reduces existence to what can be perceived
directly, it blinds itself to those invisible dimensions of existence
that far vaster than the visible. To remove the resulting veil, we
will review briefly several traditional demonstrations of God's
necessary existence.

Before doing so, let us reflect on one simple historical fact: Since
the beginning of human life, the overwhelming majority of humanity has
believed that God exists. This belief alone is enough to establish
God's existence. Those who do not believe cannot claim to be smarter
than those who do. Among past and present-day believers are innovative
scientists, scholars, researchers and, most importantly, saints and
Prophets, who are the experts in the field. In addition, people
usually confuse the non-acceptance of something's existence with the
acceptance of its non-existence. While the former is only a negation
or a rejection, the latter is a judgment that requires proof. No one
has ever proven God's non-existence, for to do so is impossible,
whereas countless arguments prove His existence. This point may be
clarified through the following comparison.

Suppose there is a large palace with 1,000 entrances, 999 of which are
open and one which appears to be closed. No one could reasonably claim
that the palace cannot be entered. Unbelievers are like those who, in
order to assert that the palace cannot be entered, confine their (and
others') attention only to the door that is seemingly closed.

The doors to God's existence are open to everybody, provided that they
sincerely intend to enter through them. Some of those doors-the
demonstrations for God's existence-are as follows by way of a parable:

A parable to understand God's Existence and Unity
Once two men washed themselves in a pool. Then, under some
extraordinary influence they fell into a trance-like state and when
they opened their eyes, they found themselves in a strange land. It
was a land in perfect orderliness and harmony-as it might be a well-
ordered state, or a single city, or even a palace. They looked around
in utmost amazement: from one point of view, it was a vast world; from
another, a well-ordered state; from yet another, a splendid city. If
it was looked at from still another point of view, it was a palace
though one that was in itself a magnificent world. They traveled
around this strange world and saw that there were creatures of diverse
sorts speaking a language they did not know. However, as could be
gathered from their gestures, they were doing important work, carrying
out significant duties.

One of the two men said to his friend:

This strange world must have someone to administer it; this well-
ordered state must have a lord, and this splendid city, an owner, and
this skillfully made palace, a master builder. We must try to know
him, for it is understood that the one who brought us here is he. If
we do not know him, who else will help us here? What can we expect
from those impotent creatures whose language we do not know and who do
not heed us? Moreover, certainly one who has made a huge world in the
form of a state, or a city, or a palace, and filled it from top to
bottom with wonderful things, and embellished it with every sort of
adornment, and decorated it with instructive miracles, wants something
from us and from whoever comes here. We must know him, and find out
what he wants.

The other man objected:

I do not believe that there is such a one as you speak of, and that he
governs this whole world alone by himself.

His friend responded to him:

If we do not recognize him and remain indifferent towards him, there
is no advantage in it at all, but it may be very harmful, whereas if
we try to recognize him, there is little hardship in it, but it may be
very beneficial. Therefore, it is in no way sensible to remain
indifferent towards him.

The other man insisted:

I find all my ease and enjoyment in not thinking of him. Besides, I am
not to bother myself with things like this which do not concern me.
These are all confused things happening by chance or by themselves.
They ar

Re: Believing in Divine Destiny is one of the pillars of faith, and, in accordance with this belief, everything in the universe is determined by God, the All-Mighty. While there are countless absolute

[[EMAIL PROTECTED]]

Jesus said: "I and the Father are one" (Jn.10:30), therefore, is not
Jesus the same, or, "co-equal" in status with his Father?
Answer No.1
In Greek, `heis' means `one' numerically (masc.)
`hen' means `one' in unity or essence (neut.)
Here the word used by John is `hen' and not `heis'. The marginal notes
in New American Standard Bible (NASB) reads; one - (Lit.neuter) a
unity, or, one essence.
If one wishes to argue that the word `hen' supports their claim for
Jesus being "co-equal" in status with his Father, please invite his/
her attention to the following verse:

Jesus said: "And the glory which Thou hast given me, I have given
to them (disciples); that they may be one, just as we are one." (John
17:22).
If he/she was to consider/regard/believe the Father and Jesus Christ
to be "one" meaning "co-equal" in status on the basis of John 10:30,
then that person should also be prepared to consider/regard/believe
"them" - the disciples of Jesus, to be "co-equal" in status with the
Father and Jesus ("just as we are one") in John 17:22. I have yet to
find a person that would be prepared to make the disciples (students)
"co-equal" in status with the Father or Jesus.

The unity and accord was of the authorized divine message that
originated from the Father, received by Jesus and finally passed on to
the disciples. Jesus admitted having accomplished the work which the
Father had given him to do. (Jn.17:4)

Hot Tip (precise and pertinent)
Jesus said: "I go to the Father; for the Father is greater than
I." (Jn.14:28). This verse unequivocally refutes the claim by any one
for Jesus being "co-equal" in status with his Father.


Question No.2
Jesus said: "I am the way, ...no one comes to the Father, but through
me." (Jn.14:6), therefore, is not the Salvation through Jesus, ALONE?
Answer No.2
Before Jesus spoke these words, he said; "In my Father's house are
many mansions (dwelling places); if it were not so, I would have told
you; for I go to prepare a mansion (a dwelling place) for you." (John
14:2). The above explicit statement confirms that Jesus was going to
prepare "a" mansion and not "all" the mansions in "my Father's house".
Obviously, the prophets that came before him and the one to come
after, were to prepare the other mansions for their respective
followers. The prophet that came after Jesus had evidently shown the
current "way" to a modern mansion in the kingdom of heaven.
Besides; the verse clearly states; Jesus was the "WAY" to a mansion.
It is a folly to believe that Jesus (or any prophet) was the
"DESTINATION".

Jesus said; "I am the door" to find the pasture. (Jn.10:9).
A sheep that walks through the "door" will find the pasture.
A sheep that circles around the "door" will never find the pasture.
One who crosses over the "way" will reach the mansion. Anyone that
stops on the "way" and believes the "way" to be the end of his/her
journey, will be out in the open without any shelter and a roof.
Hot Tip (precise and pertinent)
Jesus said; "Not every one that says to me; `Lord, Lord,' will enter
the kingdom of heaven; but he who does the will of my Father, who is
in heaven." (Mt.7:21).

On Feb 25, 5:50 pm, Mark Peaty <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>1.   Could you, [EMAIL PROTECTED], please spell out what YOU
>   understand by the meaning of the term 'scientific method'.
>
>2.
>
>   RE:  'The expression Manifest Book symbolizes the Destiny Actual, which 
> is a
>   title for Divine Will and God's creational and operational laws of the
>   universe and the physical order displayed by living creatures. The
>   Manifest Record means the Preserved Tablet which is the book of Divine
>   Knowledge and symbolizes the Destiny Formal or Theoretical determining
>   the immaterial order and the life of the universe.'
>
>   MP: Could you please tell us just exactly where all these books and 
> records are.
>   The clause: 'The
>   Manifest Record means the Preserved Tablet which is the book of Divine
>   Knowledge'
>   is very confusing; something /means/ something else but /is actually/ 
> something else again.
>
>   The second clause: ' and symbolizes the Destiny Formal or Theoretical 
> determining the immaterial order and the life of the universe.' seems to tell 
> me that in fact all this is metaphor.
>
> I have a saying: If something can't be put into plain English then it
> probably isn't true. I apply this standard to everything I read and
> hear, particularly when I am confronted with someone or something
> who/which is 'holding forth' and purporting to describe my world for me.
>
> The other thing I do is check to what extent a person's speech and
> writings support and affirm the four fundamental ingredients of
> civilisation:
> Compassion, democracy, ethics and scientific method. No civilisation can
> survive without all four of these.
>
> Regards  
>
> Mark Peaty  CDES
>
> [EM

Re: Believing in Divine Destiny is one of the pillars of faith, and, in accordance with this belief, everything in the universe is determined by God, the All-Mighty. While there are countless absolute

[[EMAIL PROTECTED]]

On Feb 25, 2:06 am, Brent Meeker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> > Believing in Divine Destiny is one of the pillars of faith, and, in
> > accordance with this belief, everything in the universe is determined
> > by God, the All-Mighty. While there are countless absolute evidences
> > of Destiny, it may be sufficient to make some introductory remarks to
> > demonstrate how important a place this pillar of faith has for the
> > whole of creation.
>
> > The Qur'an specifically explains that everything is predetermined, and
> > then recorded after its coming into existence, as indicated in many
> > verses like,
>
> > Nor anything green or withered except it is all in a Manifest Book.
>
> I guess the Koran's author hadn't heard about quantum randomness.
>
> Anyway that's not an explanation, it's just an assertion - and why should 
> anyone credit assertions written without supporting evidence by a man who 
> didn't even know that the Earth orbits the Sun.
>
> > This Quranic statement is confirmed by the universe,
>
> It's not only not confirmed, it would be impossible to confirm even if it 
> were true.
>
> Brent Meeker


There are hundreds of religions flourishing around the world:
Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Sikhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Bahaism,
Babism, Zoroastrianism, Mormonism, Jehovas Witnesses, Jainism,
Confucianism etc. And each of these religions claim that their
scripture is preserved from the day it was revealed (written) until
our time. A religious belief is as authentic as the authenticity of
the scripture it follows. And for any scripture to be labeled as
authentically preserved it should follow some concrete and rational
criteria.

Imagine this scenario:

A professor gives a three hour lecture to his students. Imagine still
that none of the students memorized this speech of the professor or
wrote it down. Now forty years after that speech, if these same
students decided to replicate professor's complete speech word for
word, would they be able to do it? Obviously not. Because the only two
modes of preservation historically is through writing and memory.

Therefore, for any claimants to proclaim that their scripture is
preserved in purity, they have to provide concrete evidence that the
Scripture was written in its entirety AND memorized in its entirety
from the time it was revealed to our time, in a continuous and
unbroken chain. If the memorization part doesn't exist parallel to the
written part to act as a check and balance for it, then there is a
genuine possibility that the written scripture may loose its purity
through unintentional and intentional interpolations due to scribal
errors, corruption by the enemies, pages getting decomposed etc, and
these errors would be concurrently incorporated into subsequent texts,
ultimately loosing its purity through ages.

Now, of all the religions mentioned above, does any one of them
possess their scriptures in its entirety BOTH in writing AND in memory
from the day of its revelation until our time.

None of them fit this required criteria, except one: This unique
scripture is the Qur'an - revelation bestowed to Prophet Muhammad
(p.b.u.h) 1,418 years ago, as a guidance for all of humankind.






Lets analyze the claim of the preservation of the Quran...

Memorization

'In the ancient times, when writing was scarcely used, memory and oral
transmission was exercised and strengthened to a degree now almost
unknown' relates Michael Zwettler.(1)

Prophet Muhammad (S): The First Memorizer

It was in this 'oral' society that Prophet Muhammad (S) was born in
Mecca in the year 570 C.E. At the age of 40, he started receiving
divine Revelations from the One God, Allah, through Archangel Gabriel.
This process of divine revelations continued for about 22.5 years just
before he passed away.

Prophet Muhammad (S) miraculously memorized each revelation and used
to proclaim it to his Companions. Angel Gabriel used to refresh the
Quranic memory of the Prophet each year.

'The Prophet (S) was the most generous person, and he used to become
more so (generous) particularly in the month of Ramadan because
Gabriel used to meet him every night of the month of Ramadan till it
elapsed. Allah's Messenger (S) use to recite the Qur'an for him. When
Gabriel met him, he use to become more generous than the fast wind in
doing good'. (2)

'Gabriel used to repeat the recitation of the Qur'an with the Prophet
(S) once a year, but he repeated it twice with him in the year he
(Prophet) died'. (3)

The Prophet himself use to stay up a greater part of the night in
prayers and use to recite Quran from memory.

Prophet's Companions: The First Generation Memorizers

Prophet Muhammad (S) encouraged his companions to learn and teach the
Quran:

'The most superior among you (Muslims) are those who learn the Qur'an
and teach it'. (4)

'Some of the companions who memorized the Quran were: 'A

Re: Believing in Divine Destiny is one of the pillars of faith, and, in accordance with this belief, everything in the universe is determined by God, the All-Mighty. While there are countless absolute

[Brent Meeker]

Klortho wrote:
> 
>> The other thing I do is check to what extent a person's speech and
>> writings support and affirm the four fundamental ingredients of
>> civilisation:
>> Compassion, democracy, ethics and scientific method. No civilisation can
>> survive without all four of these.
>>
> 
> Talk about assertions without any evidence!

Actually there's a lot of evidence that civilization developed and survived 
until recently without democracy or the scientific method.

Brent Meeker

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Re: Believing in Divine Destiny is one of the pillars of faith, and, in accordance with this belief, everything in the universe is determined by God, the All-Mighty. While there are countless absolute

[Klortho]

> The other thing I do is check to what extent a person's speech and
> writings support and affirm the four fundamental ingredients of
> civilisation:
> Compassion, democracy, ethics and scientific method. No civilisation can
> survive without all four of these.
>

Talk about assertions without any evidence!


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Re: Believing in Divine Destiny is one of the pillars of faith, and, in accordance with this belief, everything in the universe is determined by God, the All-Mighty. While there are countless absolute

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On 2/25/07, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

Believing in Divine Destiny is one of the pillars of faith, and, in
> accordance with this belief, everything in the universe is determined
> by God, the All-Mighty. While there are countless absolute evidences
> of Destiny, it may be sufficient to make some introductory remarks to
> demonstrate how important a place this pillar of faith has for the
> whole of creation.
>
> The Qur'an specifically explains that everything is predetermined...


If God decided to lay off the pressure on you to fulfil your destiny, so
that you could do whatever you wanted, but you didn't know that he had done
this and believed firmly that you were still guided by divine destiny, how
would your behaviour be different?

Stathis Papaioannou

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Re: Believing in Divine Destiny is one of the pillars of faith, and, in accordance with this belief, everything in the universe is determined by God, the All-Mighty. While there are countless absolute

[Brent Meeker]

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Believing in Divine Destiny is one of the pillars of faith, and, in
> accordance with this belief, everything in the universe is determined
> by God, the All-Mighty. While there are countless absolute evidences
> of Destiny, it may be sufficient to make some introductory remarks to
> demonstrate how important a place this pillar of faith has for the
> whole of creation.
> 
> The Qur'an specifically explains that everything is predetermined, and
> then recorded after its coming into existence, as indicated in many
> verses like,
> 
> Nor anything green or withered except it is all in a Manifest Book.

I guess the Koran's author hadn't heard about quantum randomness.

Anyway that's not an explanation, it's just an assertion - and why should 
anyone credit assertions written without supporting evidence by a man who 
didn't even know that the Earth orbits the Sun. 

> This Quranic statement is confirmed by the universe, 

It's not only not confirmed, it would be impossible to confirm even if it were 
true.

Brent Meeker


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