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That is the how and why I became Muslim. I did not want to accept Islam, I came to understand I am Muslim and always will be.
That is not evidence for anything though. You were in a bad place and the way of life of a certain religion appealed to you. Fair enough, I can not object to that.
Nothing in that even comes close to suggesting that there is a god, that an illiterate man likely suffering from Cynophobia and pedophilia was dictated a book by invisible voices, or that when we die we are all going to some great after life in the sky.
If the way of life appeals to you then that is great for you. However we are alas talking about two massively different things. I am asking for evidence there is a god. You are talking about evidence that religion can lead SOME people to live a better life. We could not be talking about more different things.
That is not evidence for anything though. You were in a bad place and the way of life of a certain religion appealed to you. Fair enough, I can not object to that.
Nothing in that even comes close to suggesting that there is a god, that an illiterate man likely suffering from Cynophobia and pedophilia was dictated a book by invisible voices, or that when we die we are all going to some great after life in the sky.
If the way of life appeals to you then that is great for you. However we are alas talking about two massively different things. I am asking for evidence there is a god. You are talking about evidence that religion can lead SOME people to live a better life. We could not be talking about more different things.
I believe we have taken this thread off topic. I started a new thread HERE
Let us continue our discussion there and let thisthread return to the Original topic.
I on the other hand think it very much on topic. There are many misconceptions around atheism but for most atheists there is only one thing to understand, and if you understand it you will lose most of the misconceptions.
And that misconception is they are somehow close minded or do not want to think there is a god.
The point therefore of my last posts to you is to show that it does not matter how open minded a person is. If you have no reason on offer AT ALL to convince them of an idea, they are not going to be convinced by the idea. Nothing to do with open mindedness.
I on the other hand think it very much on topic. There are many misconceptions around atheism but for most atheists there is only one thing to understand, and if you understand it you will lose most of the misconceptions.
And that misconception is they are somehow close minded or do not want to think there is a god.
The point therefore of my last posts to you is to show that it does not matter how open minded a person is. If you have no reason on offer AT ALL to convince them of an idea, they are not going to be convinced by the idea. Nothing to do with open mindedness.
In that context I will concede you are on topic.
Good point:
Quote:
And that misconception is they are somehow close minded or do not want to think there is a god.
I agree many of us theists do believe that to be true and probably we all do at one time or another.
It is good to see you making the effort to show that is a misconception.
As far as being able to offer you any absolute proof or even compelling evidence for the existence of God(swt), I can not, nor do I see any need to do so.
I can say why I believe and understand that is neither evidence nor proof to anyone.
I can only hope that you explore all things with an open mind, know that you are the one in charge of verifying your own belief or unbelief. I can not convince any person who does not believe to believe. I also see no reason I should have to.
I agree many of us theists do believe that to be true and probably we all do at one time or another.
It is good to see you making the effort to show that is a misconception.
I would hasten not to lay the blame at theists for this! It is a human trait not a theistic one. If you disagree with a person often it is simply easier to call them close minded, or claim they have some bias or other against seeing your point of view. It is certainly easier than actually arguing ones position!
I have seen atheists do this as well as theists and I move to stiffle it in both. It is a conversation stopping approach and is empty. I am the sworn enemy of anything which closes conversation. In our world I see nothing more dangerous than conversation stoppers.
Alas I find religion can be one of the greatest conversation stoppers of all, for reasons that very much are off topic to this thread.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Woodrow LI
I can not, nor do I see any need to do so.
No, nor can/does anyone else it seems! Given the size and magnitude of the claims, and given the number of people claiming it, you would expect at least SOME substantiation for the claim.
The fact that there is none therefore should itself be enough to make you wonder if maybe the claims being made are... for want of a better word.... bunk.
I would hasten not to lay the blame at theists for this! It is a human trait not a theistic one. If you disagree with a person often it is simply easier to call them close minded, or claim they have some bias or other against seeing your point of view. It is certainly easier than actually arguing ones position!
I have seen atheists do this as well as theists and I move to stiffle it in both. It is a conversation stopping approach and is empty. I am the sworn enemy of anything which closes conversation. In our world I see nothing more dangerous than conversation stoppers.
Alas I find religion can be one of the greatest conversation stoppers of all, for reasons that very much are off topic to this thread.
No, nor can/does anyone else it seems! Given the size and magnitude of the claims, and given the number of people claiming it, you would expect at least SOME substantiation for the claim.
The fact that there is none therefore should itself be enough to make you wonder if maybe the claims being made are... for want of a better word.... bunk.
I do not speak for Christians, but from an Islamic view, It is a person's own responsibility to prove the existence of God to themselves. Nobody is going to hand feed a Muslim proof of anything we have to search and find on our own.
We each have to find our own proof. It is all about choices. Nobody can force a person to believe in God(swt) or to accept Islam. We each search on our own.
I have searched, and my agnostic atheism is the result. There is no 'proof' for any of it. The existence of a god or gods is strictly hypothetical and can be nothing else. Belief is not based upon proof; otherwise, it would be something else.
I have searched, and my agnostic atheism is the result. There is no 'proof' for any of it. The existence of a god or gods is strictly hypothetical and can be nothing else. Belief is not based upon proof; otherwise, it would be something else.
I do not believe in blind faith. I adhere to the idea that a person should not, believe something unless they themselves have found reason to believe it is true. We should not believe nor disbelieve based only upon what others tell us.
None of us should ever be able to use the excuse that somebody misled us. When we are misled, we do so by being too lazy to not search on our own.
I am not a christian (and as far as I'm concerned, christianity and islam can go take a flying leap), but I agree with the point that it takes just as much blind faith to say there is absolutely no god as it does to claim there absolutely is one.
The agnostics are the only ones (in my book) that can get away with saying they are purely logical.
Godly theism, strictly and literally, requires that there be no evolution, no ancient earth, no geostratification, no dinosaurs, no pre-hominid fossils, and on and on. And yet, there it all is! So...
...our version, ever more rational and evidenced by the spectacular veracity of that very same list, is, by the vast-majority of numbers "Tha Winnah!". [It even outshines pure agnosticism, if one is willing to go with the most likely outcome, and not try to cover all bets... I'm officially willing to be a ten-tenths atheist, just for the pure fun of it!]]
As General Colin Powell said when confronted by the outrageous accusation of radical Islamics that the American Forces weren't fighting fair in the original Desert Storm conflict... "We're not here to fight fair!"
We will, however, accept gracious defeat. I mean, if Christians can only man up.... Just once.....
I do not speak for Christians, but from an Islamic view
Maybe not but this is irrelevant because the CORE claim you both make is identical, which is the existence of a non human supernatural intelligence responsible for the creation and/or subsequent maintenance of our universe. So you do not get to distance yourself from them so easily.
And given the strength of numbers you each have, and have together when summed... you would think at least one of you would get around to substantiating the claims!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Woodrow LI
It is a person's own responsibility to prove the existence of God to themselves.
And again I simply see this as a cop out. You have no substantiation for the claims so you revert to this slogan to get out of that. You keep playing this "I will not evidence my claims nor do I think I have to" card as a cop out. However the fact is you have come out espousing your position on a public DISCUSSION forum and you are making entirely unsubstantiated claims. You therefore put the onus on yourself to evidence your claims, regardless of how many times you cry "but I do not see why I have to".
The fact is if we let people get away with crying such things, then anyone can claim anything at all, then just say "Its a persons own responsibility to find evidence for my claims". Tosh I am afraid. Thankfully the rest of the world does not work in this fashion. Can you imagine if statistics agencies, prosecution lawyers, scientists and more could all just trot out whatever the hell they liked and then just claim that it is up to everyone else to verify it? We would be in chaos.
No, if you want to come on to a discussion forum espousing your notions that there is some kind of god, then be prepared to be asked to back up those claims. Cop outs are rarely tolerated on forums such as this. There was another thread recently locked talking about why people are so hostile to claims like this and I pointed out that one of the reasons is people like you think they can get away with claiming any notion they want, as often as they want, where they want, and be let off actually substantiating what they say in any way. If there is hostility towards people like yourself it is CAUSED by people like yourself in how you go about discourse and insulting peoples intelligence by making grandeous and baseless claims and then doing all kinds of linguistic somersaults to get out of backing up a single thing you say.
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