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Your only chance is to argue that our world is not reality as we understand it, but a simulation (for lack of a better term) which we misinterpret as *the* reality.
Ahem. Quantum physics implies exactly that. Matter, when not observed, behaves as though it's existence, position, and actions are calculated, not physical.
That doesn't imply the existence of "god", at least not as meant by the OP, but it does imply the existence of a larger reality, and the sentient, intentional creation of this one.
An easy thing to just declare. Not so easy to prove. I think you will find the capabilities of individual humans in ALL works of life, especially the literary, can far excel the average skills of the masses at times. That books like yours and the King James Bible are beautifully written is something you will never hear me argue against. I am well aware of their beauty as a text.
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Originally Posted by Nozzferrahhtoo
That this is evidence for non human entities however. No it is not.
Only if you believe it is possible for a Human to write anything comparable with the Qur'an. so far in the entire history of written Arabic (Which admittadly is not very old, as Arabic had no written form until about 100 years before the first Ayyat of the Qur'an was written)
But the point no one else has yet to write a rational thought in Arabic and have it rhyme. Not as much as one sentence. Arabic does not lend itself well to Rhyming. While there are beautiful Arabic songs and poetry, the words make little sense in Arabic.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nozzferrahhtoo
Then you were one step ahead of me even then as I have not been shown by anyone, much less by you, even evidence for the "might" which is exactly what I am asking for when I use words like "modicum of credence".
There is nothing I could present to you as evidence. As I have nothing to offer that could not be explained by other reasons.
But the point no one else has yet to write a rational thought in Arabic and have it rhyme. Not as much as one sentence. Arabic does not lend itself well to Rhyming. While there are beautiful Arabic songs and poetry, the words make little sense in Arabic.
.
I find this hard to believe, and other sources don't back this up.
I don't speak arabic, so I'm at a disadvantage, but is it possible you mistyped what you meant to say?
Or do you really claim that:
1. there is no rational thought in Arabic that rhymes - not even a sentence.
2. The arabic that does ryhme makes little sense.
Certain types of gods would be hard to prove exist. An impersonal god that doesn't intervene in human affairs would be very hard to prove one way or the other.
But the god of Abraham should be easy to prove exists, if he is real. Because that god is supposed to intervene in human affairs, and thus his intervention should be easily detected.
Depends on whose concept of intervention you look at. Life is just a temporary part of our existence. It is a time of trials and learning any hardship we face is necessary for our growth and learning, how we overcome any hardship is the intervention of God(swt) in giving us the ability to do so.
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Originally Posted by Boxcar Overkill
For example, if one believes their god will cure at least some of their believers some of the time when they are sick, that would be super-simple to detect. Just do a study on people who have had some form of cancer and see if the ones who prayed to their god were cured at a significantly higher rate than athiest who meditate or people who pray to different gods.
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Originally Posted by Boxcar Overkill
If the Abrahamic god folks were surviving cancer at a 30% better rate than anyone else, you could make a pretty good case for god existing.
True, but it seems that would remove the trials we must face in this life.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Boxcar Overkill
If one thinks the power of prayer can move mountains, then move mountains already. Besides saving the tax payers a great deal of money on road building, it would go a long way to proving that god is real.
Prayer lets us acknowledge to God(swt) he is the source of all things. Prayer is not a means to get God(swt) to do anything. It is our way of submitting and acknowledging we need him to provide us with all things.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Boxcar Overkill
About the only way that it's hard to prove god exists is if you believe that god behaves in ways that are indistinguishable from no god exisiting at all.
To a non-Muslim that is probably how the Muslim concept of God(swt) would look. we do not believe God(swt) is a benevolent, Bearded old man sitting on a throne, Mountain top or cloud. In fact we do not believe He has any describable form.
We do believe he answers all prayers, in terms of giving what we truly need and not necessarily it being what we asked for. We do believe he gives us both trials and the strength to handle our trials. Not necessarily removing or solving our trials, but through giving us the ability to overcome them. we do not believe we can control Him with prayer and get miracles granted, simply because we want them. God(swt) has no need of us, it is we who have need of God(swt)
Woodrow, you still haven't answered my question on why Allah would use a book -- written by humans -- to convey his message? Wouldn't it make more sense for an all-powerful god to speak for himself, rather than use human beings as conduits?
1. there is no rational thought in Arabic that rhymes - not even a sentence.
If this were the case, then not even God could form a rational, rhyming thought in Arabic, because it would be an impossibility. It would be like asking God to create a square circle.
In tens of thousand of years man will come to understand the following..opinion
1)Over 90% of all human life suffers and is miserable , more miserable than the birds in the trees
2) Most animal life is miserable quite a bit due to cold, hunger, getting eaten.
3) There doesn't appear to be a concrete phone line to a God , or annual signs ect.
It doesn't seem reasonable that a Godhead or Trinity would avail itself to a project in which life
is invited for sharing on an eternal basis with mutual understandings. That is direct contact after life.
Reason....90% of life would in "honesty" say...thanks for nothing for the spin on earth. People get to comfortable when looking at these things and forget that their comfort can only be the result of many others dis-comfort. In preparation life shows you what nature is all about before that special ending moment...a kick in the head for your good effort, even the majority who do nothing but..."row the boat and bag groceries for a snobby sneer and pocket change"
Oh yes...row the boat...bag the groceries, clean my mess I'm headed for eternity with the creator.
So man has to get real if there is going to be some kind of fanciful thinking of immortality. The largest question in my thinking is what would be the nature of a God...do people want a stupid God...is that it..? God cannot be some kind of person or individualistic momentum of reasonable thought or consciousness who intentionally thought one day to wave a magic wan a start life on earth...
The universe is expanding, therefore "something" is conforming and allowing this to be. That something does not repel against an expanding universe. It is virtually impossible given the data man knows to think that multi verse is not a huge possibility.
So...is that reaching...can I go from this abstract...I think I can. Mutiverse is reasonable, no doubt about it
Now we have other co-existing universes with the laws were aware of at this point all governing
energy which we know in the law of thermodynamics cannot be created or destroyed. We also know that consciousness happened in a way which dis-allowed reaching the end of the universe in order to probe the outer apparent egg shape formation.
Through a hypothetical white hole it is reasonable to speculate that the many universes are interconnected all providing a possible continued flow of consciousness which in effect could be looked at as a system which is built on laws and infinite properties of energy , perpetually
"herding" a flow of passing life ending consciousness.
Where does all the consciousness go if the goodness or peace in the mind escapes the body through a mental back door? Can the mind do this...well of course , we know the mind can escape the body...even the memory can escape...its a built in back door where trouble is at hand. Moment to moment consciousness provides a habitual flow which cannot simply cease to exist on the spot..theres too much momentum...it goes somewhere. Peace is timeless. This is reasonable.
The system of universes with its cannot be destroyed or created energy MUST be part of a cycle.
A cycle which also cannot be created or destroyed following the nature of its content energy which allows the universes to be what they are .
So now we have an infinite cycle, always was, always will be with consciousness escaping the multitudes of interconnecting universe's.......This escaping consciousness the peace left in mind
unifies with all other such individualistic souls or whatever...the accumulation is what the future will call God....Christianity is real, it is only meant to be a peace, sharing, value to sacrifice....thats it....no more....It is an extreme which represents a theme, focus and trueness in the entire infinite cycle.
Unity in the laws of the known universe is impossible to deny in overall shape and form....it is the unity of infinite souls which is the God...
A God of Unity, always was, always will be ...a cycle which is whole and complete. It halos the entire creation and radiates available , or mutual peace..it is all it knows
Man , one day will go back to the idea originally held in the Sun God...always shining...this is the goodness in peace of past infinite supply of souls which radiate the above cycle existence.
Like the seasons the universe's produce ready peace , an everlasting constant flow which always was. We are one in the same, like toddlers in a system, made of...stardust. Individual stars to one day join the ...Unity God of all consciousness....not the God of singular entity who is "responsible" for creating this one universe....which is quite frankly ridiculous and primitive...more primitive than the Sun God idea...and we can clearly see where the anti-unity king style God has gotten us....why?? because .
So I wrote this quickly and there are many things I left out...but basically this is what we have.
Arguing about pre-historic king gods is a waste of time...its got to be a unity theme god.
and there must be an infinite cycle which express's the energy concept in thermo....open to criticism
We do believe he answers all prayers, in terms of giving what we truly need and not necessarily it being what we asked for. We do believe he gives us both trials and the strength to handle our trials. Not necessarily removing or solving our trials, but through giving us the ability to overcome them. we do not believe we can control Him with prayer and get miracles granted, simply because we want them. God(swt) has no need of us, it is we who have need of God(swt)
Do you believe that prayer will give you "what you truly need" to a greater extent then people who are not muslims?
Do muslims who need food get it more often then non-muslims? Clean water?
What is it that you "truely need" that bhuddist monks don't get, for example?
Because this would be a great way to prove that your god is real. But I suspect that the only way you will be able to point to is a way which is not demonstrable.
In general, it seems to me that people like the muslim-less Japanese and scandanavian countries get more of what they need then muslim countries, and according to polls mulims countries don't appear to be happier or more content with life.
Your point would be stronger if the evidence actually showed that muslims got "what they need" more often then other religions. But that doesn't appear to be the case, in any respect.
If people are being honest, this thread should never have gone past 1 page. The evidence quite simply does not exist. In fact, that's the entire point of faith. If theists had a giant exhibit A, it wouldn't be NEARLY as mysterious and fun, now would it?
That's true. I have never met a Christian or Muslim who believed based on the evidence. Never. It's always about family upbringing, culture, faith, god's love, fear of hell, or some combination thereof. Evidence, logic, or empirical truth doesn't even enter into the equation.
Even the rational Christians (most theists I know are some form of Christian, although I do know a few Muslims and Hindus) I know who say they believe because of the evidence were raised in the church, and obviously their views are shaped by the beliefs they were handed as children. Even though they profess to be evidentialists, I think that their upbringing plays a larger role in their faith than they care to admit.
I've yet to see an atheist, with an irreligious upbringing, accept religious theism for intellectual reasons. I've known plenty who became Christian (again, I live in a predominately Christian area) because of emotional reasons, loneliness, traumatic experiences, etc., but never intellectual reasons. However, I have known several de-converts from religion (including myself) who left faith because the evidence points toward naturalism.
If someone could show me a logical, evidential, and scientific defense of Christianity / Islam / any religion, that explains reality better than agnostic naturalism, I will happily believe and dedicate my life to worshiping god. That just hasn't happened yet, and I have no reason to think it will happen anytime soon.
I find this hard to believe, and other sources don't back this up.
I don't speak arabic, so I'm at a disadvantage, but is it possible you mistyped what you meant to say?
Or do you really claim that:
1. there is no rational thought in Arabic that rhymes - not even a sentence.
2. The arabic that does ryhme makes little sense.
???
That is what I meant.
The Best Arabic poems are not/were not written in Arabic (ie Omar Khayyam) but in Farsi. farsi is often mistaken for Arabic as most speakers of it are Muslim. But Farsi is more closely related to English and German and has very little resemblance to Arabic, except Farsi has borrowed a few Arabic words.
Arabic in prose sounds very much like a camel coughing up a hair ball. to make words rhyme in Arabic you have to alter the endings on them to rhyme, but this will change the gender, tense, possessive tense etc.
Also the Qur'an is the only Arabic that is understood by all Arab speakers . there are many dialects of Arabic and most can not be understood outside the speakers of the same dialect. For example I speak the Darija of Morocco and Algeria. I can not understand a single word of the spoken Egyptian dialect.
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