*Author

Ele124

  • Guest
Re: Why not Islam? https://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=19330.msg249231#msg249231
« Reply #12 on: January 16, 2011, 06:18:18 pm »
Even Evolutionists believe in God, but call it a fluke of reality. They know there is something that created a big Bang and even admit there was some force that set everything in its first motion and they know there is a set of rules by which everything works. This is their view of God.
Not sure I agree with this bit. There are a wide variety of theories in science, particularly surrounding the big questions. To suggest that any group of scientists accepting one theory will automatically accept another is just wrong. Even within the big bang theory there are numerous theories describing what occurred beforehand without invoking god. My personal favorite is that time was created during the big bang, so there was no "before", but I still respect the repeating cycle theory. I have several friends from my time at uni who are evolutionary biologists and also secular humanists and they definately do not believe in god in any format.


Getting back to Islam. My main beef with Islam can be sumed up in 2 words. Sharia law. Basically meaning that there is one law for everyone and a different law for members of Islam within the UK. Is this fair?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/2202111.stm  <=Particularly disturbing
http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2010/jul/05/sharia-law-religious-courts

Daxx

  • Guest
Re: Why not Islam? https://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=19330.msg249484#msg249484
« Reply #13 on: January 16, 2011, 11:04:16 pm »
All belief in god is belief in the same true God.
That's quite a statement to make. What do you mean by it, and what do you mean by the phrase "true God"?

Kael Hate

  • Guest
Re: Why not Islam? https://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=19330.msg249756#msg249756
« Reply #14 on: January 17, 2011, 03:34:44 am »
Not sure I agree with this bit. There are a wide variety of theories in science, particularly surrounding the big questions. To suggest that any group of scientists accepting one theory will automatically accept another is just wrong. Even within the big bang theory there are numerous theories describing what occurred beforehand without invoking god. My personal favorite is that time was created during the big bang, so there was no "before", but I still respect the repeating cycle theory. I have several friends from my time at uni who are evolutionary biologists and also secular humanists and they definately do not believe in god in any format.
Actually they do, they just don't acknowledge it as such.
God isn't just some magical being in the sky. God is the perception of an order that exists.
Any rule or any definition they put in place had to be preset for them to define it, God is the thing that defined it before it could exist.

And if you say well its all programming and this exists before the current and something existed before that, you get to a point where either there was an origin, a point that all things came from or a point where there was nothing and it became something. The thing that defines that first point is God, you mightn't call it that, you might call it the first chaos event or something else you consider undefineable, but its all the same, its God.


All belief in god is belief in the same true God.
That's quite a statement to make. What do you mean by it, and what do you mean by the phrase "true God"?
Its a very simple statement and its what it is. God itself is not defined in-inexistance by man, it can can only be assumed. This assumption is what you use to choose your religion, be it a diffuse or singular belief or even science.  God both exists and does not exist at the same time, it is a conundrum at the bottom of a puzzle that shows there is an answer but that we still can't know what it is.

If I look at the sky and call it orange, and you look at the sky and call it blue, is either of us wrong? It cannot be proven that the others perception is incorrect because it cannont be known without changing our own perception. It can only be assumed that we are both referencing the same thing and that the variables applied to it are different, even if impercieveably they are the same. This state of existance and non-existance at the same time causes a conundrum when communicating so we choose to ignore a state so we , can define our own relating existance. "It can't be orange because I see blue", "Ah it is Orange", "it must be somehting that is neither orange nor blue for us to both be incorrect in our perceptions", "Ah, it is both blue and orange at the same time", "There is no sky"

Most people are incapable of thinking at such high levels that they can comprehend a state of non-existence. Like dividing by 0, you have a result that both exists and does not at the same time.

I like Shinto it has the best creation story. "In the begining there was nothing. Nothing was all powerful and all Knowing. (Note there is not anything yet to be known or have power over so we just divided 1 by 0) and then Nothing contemplated something and something was."

Alll things that uses a point where Nothing becomes something beleives in the same God. Religions add theme to the rest of the story.



QuantumT

  • Guest
Re: Why not Islam? https://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=19330.msg249773#msg249773
« Reply #15 on: January 17, 2011, 04:00:04 am »
@ Kael

You're using a distinctly different definition of the word "god" than most people typically use. In your definition, everybody from theists and deists to pantheists and even the most hardcore atheist all believe in the same god. But your definition isn't the one that most people are using.

Kael Hate

  • Guest
Re: Why not Islam? https://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=19330.msg249796#msg249796
« Reply #16 on: January 17, 2011, 04:21:11 am »
@ Kael

You're using a distinctly different definition of the word "god" than most people typically use. In your definition, everybody from theists and deists to pantheists and even the most hardcore atheist all believe in the same god. But your definition isn't the one that most people are using.
From Dictionary.com
***
God   /gɒd/  Show Spelled
[god]  Show IPA
–noun
1. the one Supreme Being, the creator and ruler of the universe.
***

This is the one that I am using.

QuantumT

  • Guest
Re: Why not Islam? https://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=19330.msg249802#msg249802
« Reply #17 on: January 17, 2011, 04:28:09 am »
@ Kael

You're using a distinctly different definition of the word "god" than most people typically use. In your definition, everybody from theists and deists to pantheists and even the most hardcore atheist all believe in the same god. But your definition isn't the one that most people are using.
From Dictionary.com
***
God   /gɒd/  Show Spelled
[god]  Show IPA
–noun
1. the one Supreme Being, the creator and ruler of the universe.
***

This is the one that I am using.
Not really. That definition is specifically monotheistic. It's singular, so that throws out all poly/pan-theistic religions, and I don't think most people will claim that science created the universe either.

Kael Hate

  • Guest
Re: Why not Islam? https://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=19330.msg249949#msg249949
« Reply #18 on: January 17, 2011, 10:01:29 am »
@ Kael

You're using a distinctly different definition of the word "god" than most people typically use. In your definition, everybody from theists and deists to pantheists and even the most hardcore atheist all believe in the same god. But your definition isn't the one that most people are using.
From Dictionary.com
***
God   /gɒd/  Show Spelled
[god]  Show IPA
–noun
1. the one Supreme Being, the creator and ruler of the universe.
***

This is the one that I am using.
Not really. That definition is specifically monotheistic. It's singular, so that throws out all poly/pan-theistic religions, and I don't think most people will claim that science created the universe either.
Definition is only positive, not a negative.

Mono-theism relates that the supreme being, takes on the appearance of a singular entity, whereas poly-theism relates that the supreme being is multifaceted and can be communicated with in different aspects, where atheism relates that the supreme being cannot be communicated with at all and only scientific observation can be seen.

QuantumT

  • Guest
Re: Why not Islam? https://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=19330.msg249964#msg249964
« Reply #19 on: January 17, 2011, 10:25:10 am »
Definition is only positive, not a negative.

Mono-theism relates that the supreme being, takes on the appearance of a singular entity, whereas poly-theism relates that the supreme being is multifaceted and can be communicated with in different aspects, where atheism relates that the supreme being cannot be communicated with at all and only scientific observation can be seen.
the one Supreme Being, the creator and ruler of the universe

Eliminates polytheism

Atheism does not assert that the supreme being cannot be communicated with, it asserts the supreme being does not exist. Deism is what would fit that definition.

That aside, you may be able to be creative with the definition and interpret it to mean something else, but definitions aren't really things you're supposed to be creative with. You take the words literally as they're given.

Kael Hate

  • Guest
Re: Why not Islam? https://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=19330.msg249971#msg249971
« Reply #20 on: January 17, 2011, 10:40:18 am »
Definition is only positive, not a negative.

Mono-theism relates that the supreme being, takes on the appearance of a singular entity, whereas poly-theism relates that the supreme being is multifaceted and can be communicated with in different aspects, where atheism relates that the supreme being cannot be communicated with at all and only scientific observation can be seen.
the one Supreme Being, the creator and ruler of the universe

Eliminates polytheism

Atheism does not assert that the supreme being cannot be communicated with, it asserts the supreme being does not exist. Deism is what would fit that definition.

That aside, you may be able to be creative with the definition and interpret it to mean something else, but definitions aren't really things you're supposed to be creative with. You take the words literally as they're given.

Ok. Define existence for me.

And tell me with all assuredness that anything identified as one cannot be percieved as anything but that one view. The sky is and only blue and never orange. A person is always male or female and can never act in a method other than which they are defined. And that a man who leaves society and is forgoten never existed.

QuantumT

  • Guest
Re: Why not Islam? https://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=19330.msg249981#msg249981
« Reply #21 on: January 17, 2011, 11:01:21 am »
I don't think that those are parallels like you're implying.

Existence is an abstract concept that is difficult to put into words. That isn't a problem for polytheism for monotheism.

Polytheism-Belief in more than one god

Monotheism- Belief in one God

See how easy that was?

I'll just say that when people read the definition of God that you gave, they're thinking of a distinctly monotheistic god. There's absolutely no need to group other views in with it because those views are easily expressible with slightly different definitions. Furthermore, trying to shove all of them into that one definition just leads to confusion.

I see what your point was. Your "God" is the name for whatever the guiding force in your life is, whether it's God, gods, science or whatever. My point was that isn't the way that most people use the word God.

Daxx

  • Guest
Re: Why not Islam? https://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=19330.msg250462#msg250462
« Reply #22 on: January 17, 2011, 08:32:04 pm »
Kael, definition is by its very nature negative, not positive. Let's look at the etymology of the word; it is related to finite, meaning limited or having an end. To de-fine a thing is to ascribe limits to it. This is different to a description, which assigns qualia to a thing (of course, that in itself is also limiting).

By defining a thing as orange, it is necessarily not-blue. By describing something as square, it is necessarily not-circular.

A definition that includes all conceptions of the nature and/or origin of existence, even the ones which do not include the supernatural, is not a useful one. If a person says "there is a God as is described by the Judeo-Christian tradition" and I say "such a being does not exist", saying that both statements describe the same "true god" is not a useful description of our positions.

Kael Hate

  • Guest
Re: Why not Islam? https://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=19330.msg250663#msg250663
« Reply #23 on: January 18, 2011, 12:43:18 am »
Kael, definition is by its very nature negative, not positive. Let's look at the etymology of the word; it is related to finite, meaning limited or having an end. To de-fine a thing is to ascribe limits to it. This is different to a description, which assigns qualia to a thing (of course, that in itself is also limiting).

By defining a thing as orange, it is necessarily not-blue. By describing something as square, it is necessarily not-circular.

A definition that includes all conceptions of the nature and/or origin of existence, even the ones which do not include the supernatural, is not a useful one. If a person says "there is a God as is described by the Judeo-Christian tradition" and I say "such a being does not exist", saying that both statements describe the same "true god" is not a useful description of our positions.
So God, something that is limitless in power and presence is limited in state?
Something that has power over everything in the universe cannot be non-existant?


In this "By defining a thing as orange, it is necessarily not-blue. By describing something as square, it is necessarily not-circular." a Can is both Square and circular, look at it from a horizontal plane, its base and edge form a right angle and if its base and width and height are the same it is square. Look at it from above and its circular. Being square did not prevent it from being circular. The Sky above my home is blue when I look straight up but orange when I look to the horizon, being blue does not prevent it from being orange. Definitions only provide positive evaluations.


You need to be more open minded to even start to understand basic comprehension of infinites.

Lets use a classical conundrum of omnipotence.
"Can the omnipotent being microwave a potato so hot that even he can't eat it?"
The Answer is Yes.
"Can he then eat it"
The answer is also Yes.


 

anything
blarg: