(August 27, 2013 at 4:31 pm)Harris Wrote:

(August 27, 2013 at 10:31 am)genkaus Wrote: Your opinion IS blind faith. And you can't see that.

Well! Its your opinion. I respect that.

It's not an opinion, so your respect is going nowhere on this one.

What you have here is indeed blind faith, but since you don't see it that way, let's just call it regular old "faith" for a moment. Even after renaming it something a little more comforting, it still makes me feel sorry for you. You put your trust into something you can't possibly know is leading you right. What if this thing you trust suddenly told you to kill your kids? You've trusted it your entire life; do you continue to trust it and do as it asks?

Quote:Anyway, I am waiting to see few of your most favourite allegations

The quran.

Quote:Indeed, the example of Jesus to Allah is like that of Adam. He created Him from dust; then He said to him, "Be," and he was.

Most biologists would disagree.

Quote:Simply, remember if someday someone finds some really authentic contradiction or discrepancy in Quran CNN and BBC would be the first to give a shout on that. It would be the biggest news in the world.

Biologists have known about evolution since before the BBC first broadcast, it wouldn't be big news and most television stations don't dare even show cartoons that might offend muslims, why would it be in their interest to suddenly start debunking the quran?
I can tell you now the politically correct BBC would be the LAST to "give a shout on that".


The quran actually offers very little information that isn't incredibly vague, to actually prove a claim wrong you have to know what that claim is in the first place.
The qurans claims are so vague muslims cannot agree on what it says, so it would be impossible to prove the quran wrong if people don't even know what it says to begin with.
For example the verse that says man was created from a drop emitted from between the backbone and ribs.
I've argued about this before with Muslims, I've had one muslim tell me the drop is seman, another muslim say that testicles are formed high up in the body in babies so the quran must be talking about that, another muslim told me that the quran is talking about the blood flow from another part of the body to the testicles.
Muslims will have to all agree on what the quran actually says and get their story straight before anyone can prove it wrong.
I've even seen muslims who believe in evolution and that adam was just a life form but not necessarily human, so how can I prove a book wrong that isn't actually giving out clear information?
I can't prove an intoxicated homeless man wrong in the streets if he shouts "RAOARRRR THE TIGERS GOT EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD ROUND HIS HEAD AT NIGHT WHEN THE MOON IS OUT" it doesn't mean he is right it just means he is talking jibberish that no one understands.

(August 27, 2013 at 4:31 pm)Harris Wrote: Well! Its your opinion. I respect that.

Well, it was a fact. And facts don't require your respect.

(August 27, 2013 at 4:31 pm)Harris Wrote: Good Job.
I like your style of refutation. At least you are giving supporting material with your arguments.

I know all these and other similar allegations by heart. For you these allegations maybe a rocket science but for me these are no more than a schoolboy’s joke. Pick couple of most prominent contradictions and give me so I will refute them right here in this forum.

You say I have a blind faith but you are demonstrating it is in fact you who have blind faith in such allegations as you don’t even bother to verify whether those allegations are correct or not.

Let me inform you it is Dr. William Campbell (a doctor and Christian missionary) who originated most of those allegations. He lived and worked in Morocco and Tunisia for long time and knows fluent Arabic.

I recommend you to have a look on the work of Jochen Katz as well

http://www.answering-islam.org

You may find some good evidences against Quran from there as well.

Anyway, I am waiting to see few of your most favourite allegations

I've given you a whole list of them - refute them all. I don't need to pick and choose "just a few" - even if one of those contradictions and scientific discrepancies is is not show to be absolutely and undeniably
incorrect, then by your admission, quran is not superior or miraculous.

For the record, this isn't rocket science - it is at the level of a schoolboy's joke. That's the level of your quran - that even a schoolboy would be able to see how ridiculous and moronic it is. The only reason you can't is because of your blind faith.

As a matter of fact, even if I were to point to a single discrepancy, your faith is so predictable that I can probably lay out the whole discussion for you. It'd be a long and boring discussion which would end in you giving up or appealing to faith.

(August 27, 2013 at 4:31 pm)Harris Wrote: Simply, remember if someday someone finds some really authentic contradiction or discrepancy in Quran CNN and BBC would be the first to give a shout on that. It would be the biggest news in the world.

Try to remember that it won't even qualify as news. Existence of authentic contradictions and discrepancies in quran is a well known and well established fact. We don't discuss it in polite company so as not to hurt the feewings of wee-muslim babies. The only reason you don't see it and desperately try to excuse, justify or otherwise rationalize them is because of your blind faith.

(August 27, 2013 at 4:31 pm)Harris Wrote: Well! When I wrote:

“…science has not come to the stage where it can define self-consciousness.”

You wrote

“You are wrong. It has.”

Means we are talking about Hard Verifiable Evidences.

After I checked the article, I did not find any scientific evidence on the discovery of consciousness.

First part of the article mostly talked about how brain is functioning. In the second part, especially in HARD PROBLEM the author is giving clear signals that there are no scientific proofs on the discovery of Consciousness and indeed, there are no hard evidences in the article that can be verified by other scientists. The article is speculative in nature.

I already said I know that you didn't understand the article - you don't have to prove it.

Consciousness is the function of brain - that's what the article establishes. That's what it gives copious amount of evidence for. He has given you a lot of cases and methods of detecting consciousness - solid, verifiable evidence reviewed by a whole lot of scientists. The speculative parts only address the currently less understood aspects of consciousness - but a great part of it is very well understood. By them, not by you, obviously.

Also I'd just like to add that it isn't the duty of every atheist to go disproving every crazy prophet in the world out there, to disprove every religion we would have to learn languages that don't exist, or languages that we don't know, plus there wouldn't be enough time in one life time to read every religious scripture in the world, or listen to every single claim.

I haven't read the quran in arabic, according to some muslims that's the only way to understand it.
I don't see it as my duty to learn a language just so I can be sure for 100 percent that a horse didn't fly and that a stick didn't turn into a snake, and that evolution didn't happen instead someone said "be" to some dust to create a man.

Quote:First part of the article mostly talked about how brain is functioning.

Brain function IS consciousness. The notion of consciousness surviving the wreck of the brain is analagous to 150 kph surviving the wreck of the car.

Boru

(August 28, 2013 at 5:29 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote:

Quote:First part of the article mostly talked about how brain is functioning.

Brain function IS consciousness. The notion of consciousness surviving the wreck of the brain is analagous to 150 kph surviving the wreck of the car.

Boru

This is probably the most popular view on it, but you might not be on the philosophical solid ground you think you are.

(August 28, 2013 at 8:29 am)bennyboy Wrote: This is probably the most popular view on it, but you might not be on the philosophical solid ground you think you are.

Unless you philosophically presume mind-body dichotomy, it is on philosophically on solid ground as well.

Quote:This is probably the most popular view on it, but you might not be on the philosophical solid ground you think you are.

It wasn't a philosophical claim, but a biological one. Take a brain, any old brain. Dice it. Mince it. Bathe the bits in nitric acid. Dump the resultant sluge in a container of petrol. Light it.

Now, take the resultant ash and test it for consciousness. Use any test you like. Get a verifiable positive reading and I'll shake your hand and retract my prior statement. Until and unless that happens, I'm going to go on happy in my conviction that consciousness is the result of brain function.

Boru

(August 28, 2013 at 7:39 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: ...get a verifiable positive reading and I'll shake your hand and retract my prior statement. Until and unless that happens, I'm going to go on happy in my conviction that consciousness is the result of brain function.

Nevertheless your conviction would not be based on science. In your opinion, brain events generate mental properties. An alternate opinion, one with which I agree, holds that brain states represent mental properties similar to how abacus beads stand for numbers.It would be like erasing a PDF after you read it. The signs that represent meaning would be gone, but the meaning would remain in thought.

In either case, when brain activity ceases, the body would no longer be able to express mental properties. Neither theory is falsifiable nor does either one of them qualify as a proper scientific theory. Thus resolution of the mind-body problem is beyond the reach of neuroscience.

(August 27, 2013 at 10:06 am)Harris Wrote: If you are troubled with this assertion then you have your choice. Prove Quran is false by using methods of science, Logic, and rationale. What you are thinking about me or what I am thinking about you is not important here.

Prove that the Quran is making a true claim about the existence and properties of a god.

Note: the Quran could be scientifically, mathematically, and historically accurate down to the letter, but that does nothing to verify its most basic and fundamental claim; the only claim that really matters.

The claims of your religion are unfalsifiable and unproven and, therefore, worthless.