(June 25, 2017 at 6:17 pm)Parsim0ny Wrote: 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.
I have no particular use for objective truth, as I manage just fine with conditional truths. Even if there is such a thing as objective truth, that doesn't necessarily mean that we have to worship your imaginary friend in order to access it. I know enough about evolution to accept it and to reject creationism in all its forms as pure fantasy, not even up to the status of a hypothesis.
Quote: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...
How, um, convenient to exclude your god from the possibility of ever being demonstrated via non-religious methods. Suffice to say that empirical evidence is literally the only thing that I would find even remotely convincing, so if you don't have that evidence I have no interest in your religion, as I have no interest whatsoever in attempting to develop religious faith. Your statement "God by definition created matter" indicates only that you have a very weak definition, as it's just a bald assertion.
Quote:How do you know that the Qur'an resembles pre-Islamic poetry if you're not an Arabic speaker yourself ?
I obtained that information a long time ago from what I considered a reliable source. I'll try to track it down again and provide a link.
Quote:And can you cite some of the plagiarisms you're talking about ?
Various Biblical characters and narratives, including Adam and Eve (mythical), Noah and the flood (mythical event and probably mythical character), and many more. Here's a list. Copying nonsense from another religion results in your religion being just as nonsensical.
As for Galen:
Quote:But let us take the account back again to the first conformation of the animal, and in order to make our account orderly and clear, let us divide the creation of the foetus overall into four periods of time. The first is that in which. as is seen both in abortions and in dissection, the form of the semen prevails (Arabic nutfah). At this time, Hippocrates too, the all-marvelous, does not yet call the conformation of the animal a foetus; as we heard just now in the case of semen voided in the sixth day, he still calls it semen. But when it has been filled with blood (Arabic alaqa), and heart, brain and liver are still unarticulated and unshaped yet have by now a certain solidarity and considerable size, this is the second period; the substance of the foetus has the form of flesh and no longer the form of semen. Accordingly you would find that Hippocrates too no longer calls such a form semen but, as was said, foetus. The third period follows on this, when, as was said, it is possible to see the three ruling parts clearly and a kind of outline, a silhouette, as it were, of all the other parts (Arabic mudghah). You will see the conformation of the three ruling parts more clearly, that of the parts of the stomach more dimly, and much more still, that of the limbs. Later on they form "twigs", as Hippocrates expressed it, indicating by the term their similarity to branches. The fourth and final period is at the stage when all the parts in the limbs have been differentiated; and at this part Hippocrates the marvelous no longer calls the foetus an embryo only, but already a child, too when he says that it jerks and moves as an animal now fully formed (Arabic ‘a new creation’) [Source]
I see that you came up with a possible explanation for the sunset, which is moderately plausible but still a bit questionable (how would the reflection of a setting sun appear in a mud puddle? Too low to the horizon, IMO). Not a word about the talking ants, though.