RE: The Quran stressing on the link between winds and clouds: rain
May 8, 2018 at 8:47 pm
(This post was last modified: May 8, 2018 at 8:56 pm by WinterHold.)
(May 8, 2018 at 12:58 pm)robvalue Wrote: I'll take a stab at the unspoken implication here.
The people who wrote this book "knew" things that they couldn't reasonably have known about at their point of scientific development (zero). This means that the information is likely to have come from an external source.
This wouldn't be too bad, if it was to stop there. It would better to just say we don't know how they "knew" these things, but I'll settle for the above. But we all know that the further implications are going to be:
Since their information source was right about this thing (and whatever other examples), we should trust the rest of what the book has to say too.
Nope. That is hopelessly flawed thinking. You're in a position where you'll literally believe anything this source says, about any subject. That is a total surrender of all scepticism. It's reasonable to have confidence in someone speaking about a certain field of which they have demonstrated a very firm grasp, but to extend that to every word they have to say is not justified.
At the very best, we could say that we have some confidence that everything the source says has some credibility and is worth looking into. But as we all know, when viewed without the lens of prior belief, all these books come off as exactly the kind of ramblings you'd expect from a primitive culture with zero scientific knowledge. It's guesswork at best, and those wanting to find meaning just fill in the blanks.
The scale of the information given is the factor determining the size of trust. When the information revealed is huge; the trust increases too.
The Quran revealed a lot; the scale of what it revealed is the cause of the utter loyalty you see; i.e belief and faith.
There are reasons other than being convinced by "signs"; like what we see with tribalism and extremism because of racist causes; some people hold the faith and kill for it just because their tribe believe in it or so.. but the trust that comes because of observing signs is different, and with the Quran it is huge, because its revelation is huge.
(May 8, 2018 at 1:06 pm)Minimalist Wrote: Most ancient religions had a wind god. Even now, when the FSM rises from the pot in a cloud of heavenly steam he cuts a fart which causes the wind to blow.
Haven't you figured out by now that no one is impressed with your fucking koran?
Come on Minimalist; I'm not trying to get impressions, believe me.
(May 8, 2018 at 1:14 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote:(May 8, 2018 at 12:58 pm)robvalue Wrote: I'll take a stab at the unspoken implication here.
The people who wrote this book "knew" things that they couldn't reasonably have known about at their point of scientific development (zero). This means that the information is likely to have come from an external source.
This wouldn't be too bad, if it was to stop there. It would better to just say we don't know how they "knew" these things, but I'll settle for the above. But we all know that the further implications are going to be:
Since their information source was right about this thing (and whatever other examples), we should trust the rest of what the book has to say too.
Nope. That is hopelessly flawed thinking. You're in a position where you'll literally believe anything this source says, about any subject. That is a total surrender of all scepticism. It's reasonable to have confidence in someone speaking about a certain field of which they have demonstrated a very firm grasp, but to extend that to every word they have to say is not justified.
At the very best, we could say that we have some confidence that everything the source says has some credibility and is worth looking into. But as we all know, when viewed without the lens of prior belief, all these books come off as exactly the kind of ramblings you'd expect from a primitive culture with zero scientific knowledge. It's guesswork at best, and those wanting to find meaning just fill in the blanks.
There's an even more fundamental error going on there. They assume that because the person is right about something that they, presumably, shouldn't have had knowledge about, that it isn't simply unexplained, but rather that the source of their knowledge was an omniscient God. Not only is this a non sequitur, but they are using this as the basis for believing other claims in the book, such as that Mohammed spoke to the angel Gabriel, based upon that non-sequitur, and using that as confirmation that the source of the things in the book was supernatural. It's an incestuous little circle of one fallacious conclusion supporting another fallacious conclusion, which supports yet another fallacious conclusion, and so on.
It's not a conclusion or an assumption: it's a claim made by prophet Mohammed peace be upon him, that the Quran was revealed to him from God.
There is no room for assumption: the book is supposed to be authored by God himself; directly.
