I love religion!

[lukec]

See, even saying ‘some sort of animism’ requires an initial idea that there are souls in other things, and an idea of what a soul is. It’s also important to remember that our ancestors weren’t necessarily backwards cavemen terrified of the world. No one woke up one day and said, “right, that deer over there has a soul.” I’m not disagreeing with you here, merely emphasising that it probably was a little more complex. Having said that, humans are also as superstitious as they used to be, so you are right that these ideas probably started that way and developed.

No, they probably weren't communicating with grunts if that's what you mean. But primitive people were exactly that. There is a tribe in South America right now whose members, as of last year, didn't have a concept of "the future," so I find it somewhat hard to ascribe that much sophistication to our ancestors.

There’s a couple of things that arise here; one being that most humans follow the pack, but we are the only species to also display genius. The trigger here could be the idea that one person in the tribe has an insight that he/she explains as a deity, then the others go along with the idea. (You could argue this is how Islam started out.)

Now, what would that experience be? If it’s biological, as I suspect it might be, then we have a cause. What came first, the numinous experience or the concept of deity? If people are having a certain experience, then they may explain it in the way that they can.

The second issue is one that mainstream thought seems to avoid, and that’s drugs. A shaman doesn’t come from nowhere. Naturally growing hallucinogens can cause experiences which can be regarded as religious in nature, but how would they be described before the concept of religion? I’m not convinced this could not have been the cause of some of the ideas, and then the others followed the idea, even though they had not necessarily had the same experience.

Makes perfect sense. Shamanistic rituals often do involve psychotropics. I don't know if it's strictly necessary for a belief to form, but definitely I'd think some of the early "religious" experiences were drug related. That said, humans have such a strong tendency to anthropomorphize that I think it could easily have happened in day to day experience (Pocahontas quote: The rainstorm and the river are my brothers, The heron and the otter are my friends, And we are all connected to each other, In a circle, in a hoop that never ends ). In fact it was probably both- I think that religious or supernatural concepts were developed multiple times around the world.

It’s really difficult to explain stuff like that plus avoid the semantic trap of inferring genes are thinking and have a plan! You did well. The problem is that it still infers a plan of some sort. I’m not sure you can say it’s a strategy as such, more just the way things have panned out. Natural selection isn’t a strategy, it’s just the result of how things are.

100% agreed- it's just easier to talk in metaphor- when I can say strategy instead of "set of properties of a certain allele which lead to the same allele becoming more numerous in the gene pool after successive generations" my head hurts less.

On a slightly off tangent note, we do see that happening. Have you heard of Harun Yahya? He’s a famous Muslim creationist who apparently just blindly lies about evolution to get people to believe him. I’ve not read his stuff, but I’ve talked with Muslims who use his arguments, and they are just so flawed it’s amazing. It wouldn’t surprise me if a lot of religious ideas such as hell are not necessarily believed in by some people who espouse the ideas.

Never heard of him, but it surprises me very little. Hell is a great religious motivator, and throughout history it's probably caused a "hell" of a lot of conversions.

I’ve not read it yet, but I might do on your recommendation. It’s only Dawkins’ literalist take on religion that bugs me, the stuff on biology he does is great from what I’ve seen and heard.

Yeah, it's one of his first books, about 30 years old, so there's not a lot of harping on about god or anything. It's just very well written and easy to understand- and actually it's the book which really solidified exactly how simply evolution works when you look at the gene as the active participant in natural selection, rather than the individual, group, or species. Sometimes I get really awed by the beauty in the simplicity, and it's because of this book.

[ghostlighter]

No, no, no. I meant "problem" in the sense that it is hard to convey your interest in religion to others while identifying yourself as an atheist without invoking the sense that your perpective is somehow paradoxal. I myself have an interest in religion, yet find no need to believe in some "big imaginary dude who controls shit". I find your love of religion to be valid. That's what I was trying to say: that I appriciate your point of view.

Be careful in interpreting Nietzshe. I suppose the fact that you haven't studied him much might make it easy for you to take the quoted passage out of context. To Nietzsche, power is everything. He wasn't mocking "outdated" power. He was praising it. But also, he points out that it is the cultural ESTEEM that the belief in an ideal provokes that is of real value and not the thing that is actually believed. (sorry if that's confusing) For instance, he admired druids and pagans because they LOVED LIFE and their beliefs repesented and acceptance and appriciation of LIFE, though he did not believe in gods of the rocks and fertillity and such. I was proposing that maybe you shared his awe and wonder at the cultural diversity (and, indeed, cultural divergence). On the other hand he saw Christians as weak and despicable because they always are WEARY of life and HATE life and DENY life and claim that the only important life was some IMAGINARY life or "eternal" life in "heaven". The doctrines of denial of the passions also put him at odds, to a lesser extent, with buddhism. But a knowlegable person knows that Buddhism is about REALIZING passions by letting them go and not being attatched to them like a weak spirit, but I digress...

Birth of Tragedy is a pretty good mind opener, but it reprents his thinking before it passed through a certain threshold never to return. To get a better presentation of what were Nietzsche's mature ideas check out "Twilight of the Idols" (very short) or "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" (medium length). Now to get a scholastic-grade familiarity with his most powerful and culturally relevant arguments you must read (in this order) "Beyond Good and Evil" (long, but opens up the mind magically) "Geneology of Morals" (fairly short) and finally "The Antichrist" (very short and one of my favorite titles by him, garenteed to blow your mind if you can grasp it-- you might not need to read the two former titles to "get it" but it would most surely help. If you understand "Antichrist" you understand basically the whole of Nietzsche).

Finally, I just wan't to point out that I do NOT agree with about 75% of the man's philosophy. But I do so love his accurate portrayal of the psychology of the "believer"-- a liar who hates life so much he has adopted a system of thought and ritual to deny it. And his style is magnificent and stylish. But one thing you will find by studying Nietzsche is that he has his own dogma as well. And as a non-dogmatist, I just can't groove with that.

In summary, I was just saying that your love of religion is completely valid, that I too love religion along with any other great work of fiction, for its inherent literary value as did Herr Nietzsche. But even Christianity has some truth to it. Afterall, it "should be considered unclean to lie with animals" shouldn't it?

Peace

PS: We will never know if Buddha was an atheist. I think he probably WAS because there is no trace of "God" in his core truth. I think that BUDDHA was an atheist, but most BUDDHISTS aren't. How ironic. But this is coming from the guy who wonders if Jesus might have been an atheist...

[tackattack]

I woulnd't say (if Jesus existed) that he was an atheist by definition, but definately hated religion.

[Purple Rabbit]

No, many religious people teach that the followers should not question, and should believe in things that there is little evidence for. (A Muslim would argue the Qur’an is proof of God’s existence. I know that’s a circular argument, but I’ve seen it used. Therefore you can’t say there is NO evidence, but there is certainly no ‘scientific’ evidence.)

That is probably the dumbest thing I've ever heard an atheist claim. Circular arguments are not evidence but flaws in reasoning.

No, it was a comment containing both a theist view and an atheist view in one. The trick in understanding ideas is to see things from another point of view in order to examine your own. My post contains two ideas:

Theist: God exists, and He shows Himself to humanity via prophets and so on, therefore the Qur’an is evidence that God exists.

Atheist: There is no scientific, empirical evidence that God exists.

You have gone from the assumption that God doesn’t exist to the conclusion that the Qur’an is wrong. If the Qur’an is right, it’s not circular, as God caused the Holy text, and therefore it is evidence. Only from a non-believer’s view is that incorrect. I don’t necessarily agree with Descartes either on things, but I still try to see his view when reading his works.

I side with Leo here. Either your remark is silly or you are extremely sloppy with defining the terms you use. Though evidence in a broad sense may include everything that is used to determine or demonstrate the truth of an assertion, in debate not all 'evidence' is seen as valid evidence.

Reasoning from the Qur’an texts that assert that god exists, to conclude that god exists is circular reasoning. Like saying that a Purple Rabbit in the 26th dimension exists because I say so, is circular. To identify circular reasoning it's totally irrellevant whether or not the Qur’an is right. The reasoning is circular nonetheless. Circular reasoning is fallacious reasoning, it does not stick as valid argument in any serious debate accepting the rules of informal logic. It does not mean that the opposite is true (i.e. that god does not exist) or that there can be no other proof, but simply that it is not a valid argument. Also the identification of circular argument as such, is not a prescription for what alternatively should identify as valid argument. You bring up empirical evidence yourself as an acceptable alternative but non-empirical deductional proof is valid also in debate. Still you put the words in the mouth of the atheist that all evidence must be empirical.

In trying to see "things from another point of view in order to examine your own" you stretch yourself beyond the boundary of logic and forget that both theists and atheists implicitly or explicitly accept the rules of informal logic in which circular reasoning is fallacious when engaging in debate. This is necessary to be able to communicate. If a theist or atheist chooses to accept what is considered illogic such as the circular reasoning in your examples all gates to hell are open for we should accept on word alone all assertions being made. There is no halfway into the realm of illogic. Once you let in illogic all argument disintegrates.

So if you mean the word 'evidence' to include invalid evidence, circular reasoning counts as evidence brought to the table. But accepting this as evidence in that sense does not make it valid evidence. It is clear however that both theists an atheists want their evidence to be not just evidence in that broad sense but also valid evidence under the rules of logic.

[Purple Rabbit]

My point is that many atheists just dismiss religion, and I think it's an interesting subject. You said it made you laugh, well why? I'm arguing that atheists shouldn't just dismiss religious people's ideas as silly superstitions.

You were the one who brought up fundamentalists, not me. Maybe we should just avoid discussing fundamentalist ideas here, as we seem to be both agreeing that there is no beardy man in he sky. I am saying there is more to religion than that, and that's why I find it fascinating.

You are mixing up religious stances with the cultural phenomenon. The latter indeed is very interesting and this whole site testifies of that. What makes you think that atheists just dismiss religion?

Thanks for such a detailed response. I’m replying bit by bit to not miss anything!

I don’t think I am mixing these two things, but I will admit I have a not particularly orthodox view on religion, which seems confusing at first as it takes a while for me to get the ideas across. As a cultural phenomenon, we agree religion is interesting, but I also think religious stances are fascinating, even if I don't agree with the viewpoint. Half the interest is trying to see ideas from others’ perspectives.

Well, I think they're fascinating too, on prima facie, but on closer inspection a lot less fascinating than the stances about reality being produced by science. What's most fascinating about religious stances is why they are adhered to. The psychology of religion if you will. From that POV these religious stances are interesting. But with respect to content they do not come close to scientific findings. How to compare naive cosmogony with modern cosmology? How to judge the shallowness of a master slave relation with profound insight how nature is build from symmetry principles? How to compare bible inconsistency with math, it simply is no match. Yet they are portrayed by theists as competing methods for finding truth. Since you're so eager to look beyond your own perspective , have you tried the naturalistic perspective? Then please do elaborate on your delicate and balanced POV on the holographic principle versus the "god did it"?

Some atheist writing I have read simply dismisses religion as silly ideas, and that’s where I get that view of other atheists from. I can quote examples from this very forum if you want, where comments are made that religious ideas are simply bull shit, or some such.

Be my guest to organize a contest of silly quotes and prove that there are plenty around! But please don't suppose you're building an argument against atheism with it, in the best possible case you could only build an argument against atheists with it.

There is a patronising tone in some atheists’ language towards believers’ ideas, like people with faith are childish and they should grow out of their ideas. That is what I object to. I’m not saying it’s necessarily people here, but it’s something I have seen.

Come of it, there's no monopoly on patronizing. A comparison of patronizing tones does not build into an argument against atheism, only into an argument against certain atheists and theists.

The former constitutes no one coherent idea but a plethora of ever shifting ideas ranging from the extreme naive to the multi-layered multi-colored oecumenal variant of religious humanism. Since I value free thought I value the right to belief. I will never attack that right. What I do attack is religious claims being made here out in the open.

When you say it like that, how can you not find it interesting?!?

Because I simply did not say that.

By ‘here’ do you mean this forum?

With 'here' I mean every public place that serves as a place for debate.

I find the atheists who are most confrontational towards religion tend to be the ones who were raised religiously. That speaks volumes I would say.

Well maybe if you supply some statistics on this we could decide if your hunge has some meat to the bone. Personally I haven't come across groups of atheists going door to door to confront our theistic fellow human being with the good message of ablolishment of slavery to gods.

I highly value Richard Dawkins' opinion about the epistemolological aspects of religion and I think the accusation that his critique is shallow and without indepth knowledge of theological grounds is a shallow attempt to dismiss his critique by avoiding the content of the matter. It is a reference to some still deeper grounds, it's the mystical card being played. If there are any straight answers they should be given, if there are non they shouldn't been feigned.

From what I’ve seen Dawkins is a very good biologist, and I won’t argue with him there. However, he attacks literalist religion, nothing more, and is very rude in basically saying religious people are superstitious and should grow up.

The majority of the world population of abrahamic theists abides to literalist interpretation in some form. It is indeed very rude to simply deny these theists their belief by implying that surely no sane believer has any literalism left. Dawkins' head on attack of literalism is more sincere than your attempt to cloak literalism with non-literalism.

I will go into more detail if you wish (indeed I’d enjoy it, as I’ve been trying to run these ides past people for a while.) Some of Dawkins’ ideas on the formulation of religion as a social construct I think are not too far off, but there’s a lot he misses. His dismissal of polytheism in The God Delusion just got to me, as he didn’t even deal with it in the way psychology does. He just assumes if there’s no God in the Abrahamic sense then the polytheistic religions are wrong. Hinduism is vastly more complex than that, seeing as it looks like a polytheistic faith, but is actually monotheistic. That’s where I’m coming from saying he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Brahman is not the same theological concept that Yahweh or Allah is.

Complexity is no replacement for substance. And the alleged complexity of Hinduism cannot make up for christian literalism. I do acknowledge however that Dawkins primarily attacks the god concept of abrahamic belief.

[Zen Badger]

In reply to your earlier question.

I grew up in a totally secular household. My parents were neither pro or anti-religion.

Never went to church, was never sexually assaulted by a priest.

My childhood was completely free of religion.

My disrespect for Religion is purely intellectual.

And just because someone is a philosopher doesn't mean they are automatically right.

You can only judge religion by peoples actions. It is a purely human thing, it is not

something in and of itself. Geography on the other hand is, take away people

and geography will still exist.

You are right in one respect though, Religion as a major factor in human

development does deserve serious study and understanding.

Just like War.

That doesn't mean I need to accord it some sort of reverence or think it's a good thing.

"If you are so dismissive of faith, why do you label yourself an atheist and hang around a religion section of an atheist forum?"

Is this a serious question?

[Zagreus]

See, even saying ‘some sort of animism’ requires an initial idea that there are souls in other things, and an idea of what a soul is…

No, they probably weren't communicating with grunts if that's what you mean. But primitive people were exactly that. There is a tribe in South America right now whose members, as of last year, didn't have a concept of "the future," so I find it somewhat hard to ascribe that much sophistication to our ancestors.

The thing is, a comparison with our ancestors and modern day primitive people is not quite accurate, as there are such big differences. Our ancestors developed into us, whereas the ancestors of the people in the tribe you speak of didn’t, they would have been much the same. Their generations have spent many, many millennia like that. Our ancestors built Stone Henge, developed trade with stone tools (archaeological record shows this), developed more complex language, and developed into people who could build great monuments, such as the pyramids.

Part of this is obviously contact with more advanced homo sapiens, as we see technological development spread fairly slowly across the planet. Bronze Ages happened at different times in different places and so on. England, for example, was about 2,000 years behind the middle east on agriculture, and it was relatively late over here. The tribes like the one you mention have not had the contact with more ‘advanced’ members of the species. That’s partly where I’m getting the idea for a trigger for, as ideas had a domino effect as they were told from group to group. Trade routes had a massive impact on the spread of ideas.

The capability of sophistication is there, it’s the cultivation of it that is key. Some of our ancestors had that sophistication, to a relative degree (I reckon).

There’s a couple of things that arise here; one being that most humans follow the pack, but we are the only species to also display genius…

Makes perfect sense. Shamanistic rituals often do involve psychotropics. I don't know if it's strictly necessary for a belief to form, but definitely I'd think some of the early "religious" experiences were drug related. That said, humans have such a strong tendency to anthropomorphize that I think it could easily have happened in day to day experience (Pocahontas quote: The rainstorm and the river are my brothers, The heron and the otter are my friends, And we are all connected to each other, In a circle, in a hoop that never ends ). In fact it was probably both- I think that religious or supernatural concepts were developed multiple times around the world.

I don’t think it’s strictly necessary for the belief to form either, but some of the more ‘out there’ ideas it could be a result of this. I am not denying the anthropomorphising or the fact that many ideas of God / gods are simply personifications of ideas. I think you are entirely right on that. There are other layers to belief though, such as the concept of the Tao from China. With something like that, I’m reckoning there is some brain state, that would have been achievable by older ancestors, that led to the sayings of people such as Lao Tzu in the Tao Te Ching. Drugs are somewhat comparable here, but not strictly so. I think that might be something I’ll mention in the pm and then if the conversation goes that way mention here.

Overall I agree with you here. Also, if Pocahontas was taking the hallucinogens that would explain why she thought her brother was an otter and a heron (maaaan!)

100% agreed- it's just easier to talk in metaphor- when I can say strategy instead of "set of properties of a certain allele which lead to the same allele becoming more numerous in the gene pool after successive generations" my head hurts less.

That made me laugh.

I’ve not read it yet, but I might do on your recommendation. It’s only Dawkins’ literalist take on religion that bugs me, the stuff on biology he does is great from what I’ve seen and heard.

Yeah, it's one of his first books, about 30 years old, so there's not a lot of harping on about god or anything. It's just very well written and easy to understand- and actually it's the book which really solidified exactly how simply evolution works when you look at the gene as the active participant in natural selection, rather than the individual, group, or species. Sometimes I get really awed by the beauty in the simplicity, and it's because of this book.

I’ll have a look at it then. Second book recommendation of the thread, so I’m happy!

---

No, no, no. I meant "problem" in the sense that it is hard to convey your interest in religion to others while identifying yourself as an atheist without invoking the sense that your perpective is somehow paradoxal. I myself have an interest in religion, yet find no need to believe in some "big imaginary dude who controls shit". I find your love of religion to be valid. That's what I was trying to say: that I appriciate your point of view.

Right, I get you, and your original post makes perfect sense now! Judging by the rest of your post, I guess you take it at a philosophical level, as opposed to necessarily having to be considered a possibility of truth. By this I mean, to take Nietzsche as example, you enjoy getting your head around the ideas as opposed to necessarily having to agree or disagree with the ideas; though working out an opinion is also part of it, but not necessarily a main part. The fun is in playing the game, as opposed to necessarily having to win, as it were. Am I right on that?

Be careful in interpreting Nietzshe. I suppose the fact that you haven't studied him much might make it easy for you to take the quoted passage out of context. To Nietzsche, power is everything. He wasn't mocking "outdated" power. He was praising it. But also, he points out that it is the cultural ESTEEM that the belief in an ideal provokes that is of real value and not the thing that is actually believed. (sorry if that's confusing) For instance, he admired druids and pagans because they LOVED LIFE and their beliefs repesented and acceptance and appriciation of LIFE, though he did not believe in gods of the rocks and fertillity and such. I was proposing that maybe you shared his awe and wonder at the cultural diversity (and, indeed, cultural divergence). On the other hand he saw Christians as weak and despicable because they always are WEARY of life and HATE life and DENY life and claim that the only important life was some IMAGINARY life or "eternal" life in "heaven". The doctrines of denial of the passions also put him at odds, to a lesser extent, with buddhism. But a knowlegable person knows that Buddhism is about REALIZING passions by letting them go and not being attatched to them like a weak spirit, but I digress...

This is very much appreciated, as you’ve pretty much given me a ‘beginner’s guide’, so I thank you for your time! That’s really grabbed my interest, and I might have a go at some of his works next. You were exactly right, pretty much, in what you were proposing was my interest in religion, and I look forward to chatting with you more about this subject if you’re interested? (I don’t mean talking specifically about my views, I’m not that vain, but about your digression.)

Birth of Tragedy is a pretty good mind opener, but it reprents his thinking before it passed through a certain threshold never to return. To get a better presentation of what were Nietzsche's mature ideas check out "Twilight of the Idols" (very short) or "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" (medium length). Now to get a scholastic-grade familiarity with his most powerful and culturally relevant arguments you must read (in this order) "Beyond Good and Evil" (long, but opens up the mind magically) "Geneology of Morals" (fairly short) and finally "The Antichrist" (very short and one of my favorite titles by him, garenteed to blow your mind if you can grasp it-- you might not need to read the two former titles to "get it" but it would most surely help. If you understand "Antichrist" you understand basically the whole of Nietzsche).

Again, I can’t thank you enough for that breakdown, and I’ll go for the books in that order. I have copies of Tragedy, Zarathustra, and Beyond, but have only delved into Tragedy so far as it was applicable to the research I was doing on Dionysus at the time. I definitely want to get my head around his ideas soon though as he was such an important thinker of the last century, and I feel I’m missing out. I chose doing a module and dissertation on Aristotle instead whilst at university rather than him; I wish I could have done both!

Finally, I just wan't to point out that I do NOT agree with about 75% of the man's philosophy. But I do so love his accurate portrayal of the psychology of the "believer"-- a liar who hates life so much he has adopted a system of thought and ritual to deny it. And his style is magnificent and stylish. But one thing you will find by studying Nietzsche is that he has his own dogma as well. And as a non-dogmatist, I just can't groove with that.

In summary, I was just saying that your love of religion is completely valid, that I too love religion along with any other great work of fiction, for its inherent literary value as did Herr Nietzsche. But even Christianity has some truth to it. Afterall, it "should be considered unclean to lie with animals" shouldn't it?

I really like your comment here. You seem to get what I’m meaning. Even if I disagree with 99% of religious philosophy, doesn’t mean I can’t take an interest. As I said though, it looks to me like we’re both coming at this from a philosophy perspective, which will alter a view. If I’d done a degree in physics I might not feel quite the same.

PS: We will never know if Buddha was an atheist. I think he probably WAS because there is no trace of "God" in his core truth. I think that BUDDHA was an atheist, but most BUDDHISTS aren't. How ironic. But this is coming from the guy who wonders if Jesus might have been an atheist...

I’m up for discussing whether they were atheists if you want, especially Jesus. If it’s a conversation you’re interested in either pm or start a thread. My knowledge of Christianity is better than that of Buddhism, but half the fun is the research to have these conversations, in my opinion.

[lukec]

I see what you mean now about the comparison between ancient cultures (builders of Stonehenge, etc). It's important to note, though, that human culture (inclusive of music, art, etc has been around for probably around 40-50 thousand years. That far predates any pyramids etc, and I'm willing to bet that if they had song and dance they probably had inklings at least of supernatural belief.

It's interesting to think about how the species migration and locale would've affected the advances of civilization across the world. What I mean is that it probably took humans a lot longer to get from Africa to Europe than from Africa to America. And if they came over across the Bering strait, it probably took even longer to get down south. Once they were there, I wonder how much of an impact the climes would've had on cultures down there? Why didn't they advance at a similar pace? Veeery interesting.

[KichigaiNeko]

In reply to your earlier question.....

Geography on the other hand is, take away people and geography will still exist.
...

Is this a serious question?

Sorry ZB...grama nazi to the rescue!!!

From Wiki...Geography (from Greek γεωγραφία - geographia, lit. "earth describe-write"[1]) is the study of the Earth and its lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena.[2] A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes (276-194 B.C.). Four historical traditions in geographical research are the spatial analysis of natural and human phenomena (geography as a study of distribution), area studies (places and regions), study of man-land relationship, and research in earth sciences.[3] Nonetheless, modern geography is an all-encompassing discipline that foremost seeks to understand the Earth and all of its human and natural complexities—not merely where objects are, but how they have changed and come to be. As "the bridge between the human and physical sciences," geography is divided into two main branches—human geography and physical geography.[4][5]

Perhaps you might be referring to... Topography?? or perhaps Geomorphometry???

[Zagreus]

Purple Rabbit, thanks for the obviously well thought out answer. We seem to agree a fair bit, so if you’ve read the whole thread then I’ve obviously not conveyed my meaning quite as I intended.

No, many religious people teach that the followers should not question, and should believe in things that there is little evidence for. (A Muslim would argue the Qur’an is proof of God’s existence. I know that’s a circular argument, but I’ve seen it used. Therefore you can’t say there is NO evidence, but there is certainly no ‘scientific’ evidence.)

No, it was a comment containing both a theist view and an atheist view in one. The trick in understanding ideas is to see things from another point of view in order to examine your own. My post contains two ideas:

Theist: God exists, and He shows Himself to humanity via prophets and so on, therefore the Qur’an is evidence that God exists.

Atheist: There is no scientific, empirical evidence that God exists.

You have gone from the assumption that God doesn’t exist to the conclusion that the Qur’an is wrong. If the Qur’an is right, it’s not circular, as God caused the Holy text, and therefore it is evidence. Only from a non-believer’s view is that incorrect.

I side with Leo here. Either your remark is silly or you are extremely sloppy with defining the terms you use. Though evidence in a broad sense may include everything that is used to determine or demonstrate the truth of an assertion, in debate not all 'evidence' is seen as valid evidence.

It’s more a case of the fact that my remark wasn’t intended seriously, especially the clarification one. I am not saying a circular argument constitutes true evidence, or even a logical argument (I wouldn’t have passed my degree if I thought that!), but the statement I said was one that I have seen made. If I thought that was evidence, then surely I would at the very least class myself as agnostic? I don’t, I’m an atheist.

Reasoning from the Qur’an texts that assert that god exists, to conclude that god exists is circular reasoning…

Totally agree with you here. Hypothetically my point was that a Muslim (for instance) might argue something along the lines of there is evidence of God via the existence of a Holy Book. Imagine you are in a snowy forest and can see no wildlife at all. There is no sign of life, apart from the fact you can see the tracks left by a wolf, so you assume wolfs exist. Some Muslims might, (I have seen them do this, as I said), use this as evidence that Allah exists; He left tracks (The Qur’an.) I know this is flawed logic, and I only mentioned it in the first place as a demonstration of arguments I have read and heard, not as one I think is valid.

You bring up empirical evidence yourself as an acceptable alternative but non-empirical deductional proof is valid also in debate. Still you put the words in the mouth of the atheist that all evidence must be empirical.

I disagree here if we are trying to prove existence. Deductional proof does not validate the existence of a deity. You can logically prove things by definition, but that does not mean they exist. It can work in debate if it’s theoretical, but not in physical reality.

In trying to see "things from another point of view in order to examine your own" you stretch yourself beyond the boundary of logic and forget that both theists and atheists implicitly or explicitly accept the rules of informal logic in which circular reasoning is fallacious when engaging in debate. This is necessary to be able to communicate. If a theist or atheist chooses to accept what is considered illogic such as the circular reasoning in your examples all gates to hell are open for we should accept on word alone all assertions being made. There is no halfway into the realm of illogic. Once you let in illogic all argument disintegrates.

Hmmm, not quite, but I agree with you. Thing is, once you get really into theological ideas you inevitably get into symbolic and codified language. Many religious ideas aren’t quite ‘illogical’ if you see them from their point of view; i.e. Qur’an is proof of God’s existence. I am going beyond my logic, but I can still try to see other’s views. Once you go into the philosophical ideas deeply, they create their own logic rather than working by simplistic means. The Qabalah could be an example of this.

Circular arguments should be dismissed now though, that was more a dig at those who use them, as opposed to a serious attempt to justify them.

So if you mean the word 'evidence' to include invalid evidence, circular reasoning counts as evidence brought to the table. But accepting this as evidence in that sense does not make it valid evidence. It is clear however that both theists an atheists want their evidence to be not just evidence in that broad sense but also valid evidence under the rules of logic.

I don’t mean this at all, it was a flippant remark.