RE: Is atheism self-contradictory ?
June 25, 2017 at 6:17 pm
(This post was last modified: June 25, 2017 at 6:28 pm by Parsim0ny.)
(June 25, 2017 at 5:35 pm)Astreja Wrote: That, in my opinion, is a very bad assumption to make. If one examines other animals, one sees quite a few similarities and I consider it considerably more likely that the human brain evolved and was not created.Even assuming that the human brain evolved doesn't help much, you still can't justify belief that your mind can actually demonstrate anything objectively true, that reason is indeed a reliable tool. Nothing can justify this without some kind of an appeal to a being with superior abilities.
(June 25, 2017 at 5:35 pm)Astreja Wrote: That's why I believe that matter/energy have always existed in some form. Don't bother trying to claim that your god did it, unless you have empirical proof that your god exists and also have an explanation for where it came from. If you're going to assert "My god was always there," I can assert "Matter/energy was always there."
There's no such thing as empirical proof for god, because it doesn't make sense. God by definition created matter and thus is excluded from any empirical observation, only logical reasoning is valid to demonstrate his existence. I do not claim that the argument previously cited is sufficient to conclude to it is god exactly who created the universe, but there has to be a cause for the universe's existence, regardless of its nature. Only then we can talk about whether this cause is personal or not, if it has any attributes at all, etc.
(June 25, 2017 at 5:35 pm)Astreja Wrote: Well, considering that stylistically it resembles 6th century Arabic poetry, contains blatant plagiarisms from the Bible and from the Greek physician Galen ("clot of blood" embryology), and is rife with violence, misogyny, absurdities (talking ants and the sun setting in a muddy pool at the end of the day) and contradictory instructions ("There is no compulsion in religion" versus "Kill the unbelievers"), I think it considerably more likely that it was cobbled together by a committee of adequately literate imams sometime after the death of Muhammad.
How do you know that the Qur'an resembles pre-Islamic poetry if you're not an Arabic speaker yourself ? And can you cite some of the plagiarisms you're talking about ?
As far as the "sun setting in a muddy pool" goes, you're simply repeating the same blatant misunderstandings of Arabic christians make. If you check any reliable tafseer of the verse you're referring to, the Qur'an was describing how the sun looks like from the perspective of its viewer. And also if you even read the verse, its exact words are this :
18.86. Until, when he reached the setting of the sun, he found it setting in a murky spring, and found a people in its vicinity. We said, “O Zul-Qarnain, you may either inflict a penalty, or else treat them kindly.”
The Qur'an clearly states : He found it setting in a murky spring. Thus the verse simply describes the scene from Zul-Qarnain point of view, and there's nothing contradictory or logically inconsistent about this.
(June 25, 2017 at 6:00 pm)Khemikal Wrote: I think it's cute, btw...that you think that since she was his buddies property.....that somehow makes it better.
Suddenly there are some objective moral truths such as "child marriage is permanently wrong" ?
(June 25, 2017 at 6:00 pm)Khemikal Wrote: Is this the moral conclusion that your reliable brain from a perfect creator comes up with?
As I already said, you can't demonstrate that anything is morally wrong outside belief systems. Why the killing of an innocent human being is wrong if getting away with murder means that the killer will never be punished for his crime ? What's the difference between the genocide of thousands of people and the extermination of million of bacterias when you shower ? Can you even prove that morality is rational without warranting any religious premise ?