The Stage is Yours.

[fr0d0]

Hey there buddy! :-) Sorry, I decided to give the laptop a rest last night and was reading the forums on my phone. Responding would have been almost impossible.

No connection doesn't necessarily mean that there are going to be "car crashes"/logical contradictions.

Secondly, <snip> our metaphysical beliefs are partly dependent on our observations, at least.

I don't get point 1

Point 2. Sure our thinking has to find some footing, and all we have for that are things drawn from our own experiences. That is never to say though, that metaphysics and materialism/ empiricism collide. Just one may be used to describe the other, because with metaphysics, that's all we can have, besides our logic.

What I need to persue is why you don't have that car crash. But justification from you is up to you.

Sure, I'll explain it right now.

To put it simply, I don't feel that I have these car crashes of logic in my personal beliefs because my sensory perceptions + my knowledge of the physical world are not necessarily contradictory with my metaphysical thoughts. So, in other words, what I know and what I perceive in the world around me does not negate my faith nor my metaphysical views. I don't see why it should unless if you can explain to me why.

Well let me try to explain why then... IMO supporters of ID to attribute complexity in nature to a deity, stating that this couldn't be natural processes alone. Now I think you're on track with me here, but just to check... I think nature alone explains nature, and the metaphysical question never encroaches upon the scientific mechanisms that we can discover. This is no god of the gaps. This is NOMA. I have heard Muslims quote the Quran like it's made scientific statements which are empirically sound which therefore support Islam over the Christian Bible which makes no such statements. I think you're in some middle ground here, with a foot in both camps. Which you cannot have, to be logically correct on metaphysics.

I don't need to reitterate my points for disagreement with Islam as a whole, as I don't think it's helpful.

Well, it might be a little helpful for the other members reading this thread because they are probably curious to know exactly why you disagree with Islam. But no pressure.

Ok fine.

You mention that Allah can destroy. From what I've studied of Islam, Allah has the ability to do evil. It isn't worded exactly like that, but that's the general point. This contradicts the logical steps back to a creator god who is necessarily a positive force. A force capable of both good and bad cannot be the originator. It must originate from one or the other. A negative force destroys itself. Only a positive force can create. ....goes the line of reasoning.

I would therefore classify Allah as a lesser god. One necessarily beneath the Christian God in the logical food chain of metaphysical origins. (due to his bipolar nature, as described by Islam).

That's my main contention. I have other contentions but I couldn't provide you with fair evidence to counter, not being a scholar or the subject. I do find some of the main criticisms of Christianity amusing in their naivety. I have addressed them point for point before. If only I was a search ninja like yourself I'd dig them up for you ;-). No matter though. I think the main point is big enough to be enough here.

It leads back to the Christian description of God. It's how and why Christianity came about - to describe meaning and purpose, as it is the reason for most religious endeavour. I believe that the Christian model answers that perfectly, where other endeavours do not.

But I could say the same thing about Islam (i.e that it came about to describe our meaning and purpose).

Yes. See that I said "most religious endeavour". That would include Islam ;-)

So, you should have more than just "meaning and purpose" as an argument for Christianity because the same argument can be made for any other religion.

Meaning and purpose as the raison detre of all religious endeavour I said. Nothing about justification for only christianity.

And you should also be able to explain to me why you think that the Christian model of God is only model that answers everything perfectly which you still haven't done yet.

See my answer above. Also, this is way to big a question, and one I'm not qualified to answer. I could try and put it all together for you, but it would fail scrutiny because I am no expert. See any studies on the summa theologica by Thomas of Aquinas. I'm sure someone like Ryft could be far more exacting for you if you require sources.

Straight away (I think) you and I would dismiss those endeavours that have god as a destructive force. So it goes on and we find what makes sense for us.

Well, I believe that God is both a creative force and a destructive force. Maybe not so according to your belief, though.

Yes. That I find pivotal, and as referenced above.

I'm not sure I'm with your definition of metaphysical. Do you take it to mean a kind of macro physics? that's the impression that I get. Forgive me if that is incorrect.

To me, anything metaphysical is something that refers to the nature of reality. And it may or may not include physics, but that's not necessary.

Nature of reality how?

To me, religious endeavour encompasses the why questions, as opposed to the how questions, that is definitely doesn't answer. Would you agree?

Well that's a particular problem that Muslims have with Xtianity isn't it.

Yeah, certainly one of the problems.

And do you agree that those are legitimate problems?

I didn't say that God shouldn't be 3 things at once, but my question was, what do you base that on and/or how did you "logically" deduce that as the only possible answer?

And why does it have to be that specific number "three" and not any other number?

The summation is based upon the understanding of many texts in which the actions of God can be subdivided into 3 distinct attributes. This is so clear as to make it possible to name 3 distinct persons.

(I'm incredulous at the seemingly common misconception that Muslims have that the xtian Godhead comprises the father, the son and the mother. this apparently came about from travellers that Mohammed met who passed on this faulty understanding on to him.)

The Spirit is the creator, that moved upon the waters and that moves amongst us as a living force. The son is the redeemer, the father the loving giver. I think Islamic scholars have helped in defining these attributes. I'm pretty sure they identified the spirit as a female person, from the exact texts and their approach to interpreting the language.

Islam encompasses the book of Genesis IIRC. Where God says "we created this": clearly plural.

1. Maybe it does encompass the book of Genesis because, as Muslims, we believe in something known as 'progressive revelation' by which God revealed the Old Testament to the Jews, then the New Testament to the Christians, and lastly, the "Final Testament" (the Quran) to the Muslims, but the message is still for everyone. In that sense, according to Islamic belief, there is a divine continuity in religious belief between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Yeah I know the Sikhs believe the same thing. Kinda destroys the whole meaning of Christianity. Which is why he needed to be demoted to prophet. You can't then also accept the NT as in the Xtian bible?

3. In the Quran, when God says something like "We created so and so," the "we" refers to God along with his angels, but God himself is never mentioned as a plural.

I'm pretty sure that there's a clear distinction that angels and God are completely separate entities. "We" comes at the beginning of all creation stories before and the creation of angels (God didn't create his persona, they were originally existent). (Wasn't the angel that dictated the text to Mohammed supposed to be the arch angel Gabriel?)

Now is God not plural, and Genesis wrong? Or is God one and many at the same time, as Christians assert?

I believe that God is only One. It is only Christians who assert that God is one and many at the same time.

Right so that pretty much establishes that the Quran has to be saying that Genesis is incorrect.

I tried several times

Well then maybe you have some reading comprehension issues if you still didn't understand any of that. And the summary is only a few paragraphs.

Ok wise guy

Not so much reading comprehension. I think you may have stumbled upon a gold mine here. I read it and I find my eyelids getting very heavy. It's an instant cure for insomnia!!

Joking aside, I have no problem with the comparison. No objection to it.

I thought you would notice some "car crashes" there, but okay.

What? With The Matrix? Blasphemy! Stone him!!!

The Matrix is one huge car crash, yes. But then we aren't considering the real world there, just metaphors for it. It doesn't compute if you add in the real world, which is why serious religious endeavour, even yours () trumps it.

I don't see any unique ideas about faith and religion there, unless you could kindly point some out for me.

Then I will point out some of them by quoting just the summary from there, which is only 6 paragraphs, and I will even highlight some of the key points:

*fr0d0 falls asleep*

Well, the whole post was mostly on how and why I think that the universe is some kind of an elaborate computer and how this seems to match with some of the Islamic beliefs. I explained that the stars, galaxies, planets, Earth, life, human beings, animals, plants, and everything in the universe are part of a massive computation and that these things are also able to store and process information. In that sense, the universe behaves like a giant computer, and I think that it really is a computer, so this is not just a metaphor. And that being said, I'm not saying that such a view of reality is necessarily true. It's just a metaphysical theory that makes sense to me.

*fr0d0 hacks away at his eyelids with a machete*

Man you should put a warning on that stuff! People could be like, flying an aeroplane or something and fall asleep at the controls!!

So the universe is a running computer program, and everything in it has access to a big hard drive on which it stores and makes decisions using.

Would that be correct?

Did you make a point there? I couldn't find it, sorry.

Then, I started talking about my idea of how a master program which is running the cosmological computer might be a program that is "conscious" and "alive." It sounds pretty crazy, in my opinion, but I think it's still possible for a program to be conscious and have a mind of its own after reading the articles that I posted. So, the point is that the program can be thought of as an intelligent being that is controlling the entire universe. Of course, I don't know whether or not this is the correct understanding of God. I just think that all the complex and organized physical systems that exist in this planet are a result of some kind of a higher intelligence, not a result of blind and accidental causes. Most of the universe is probably cold, empty, and lifeless, but even then I still find it beautiful.

*sanity break*

So God is the O/S. Hey man I could way precis this story better than you

Wait... you linked complex systems with deity. Now if, like you and I, you believe in a creator. Are we leaving this act of creation out of our grasp or are we claiming something empirically testable? (I'm just trying to eek out if we have a difference of opinion on this)

You see I think that creation eminates physically from a singularity. Pre-existing that existence is God adding the potentiality. God then takes up his position as pilot and manages it.

(Boy, you and I are KOOKS! *waves at you, atheist *)

This master program, or God, has chosen certain people in the past as his communication channels [or prophets] to transmit his messages instead of speaking to everyone. This is like a sender-signal-channel-receiver model of God's word and this is something that correlates with the computational theory of the universe. Also, as you may already know, there are many similarities between the scriptures of the monotheistic religions, but there are also many differences between them. I think that the differences exist because the older ones were updated and/or modified by the later ones. I believe that the Quran is His last set of revelations and that the previous scriptures were over-written by the last one. And I think that this is something that is similar to the concept of data erasure through an overwriting process in a computer. The only difference is that this was happening the real world (which itself is another computer).

Now that was quality necrophilia inducing medicine right there. Bottle it NOW!

I have also said on these forums that I think it's a progression. I, of course, think the end point so far is Christianity. Because Islam, steps back to what is essentially Judaism: God without the means to connect to him (Jesus).
We have the sum of all endeavour: God separate and man with no means to achieve life fully. And then xtianity where Jesus makes the bridge. Islam hasn't bettered that. It's removed it.

The rules and guidelines contained in the Quran are like the rules in a "game." The book tells us that there will be winners and there will be losers. And there's going to be only one chance to play. Winners go to Heaven and losers go to Hell. The game might be taking place in a simulated reality in which we are the players.

So is this a hope of something in the future or is it attainable now? See I think only what's attainable now is relevant to anybody.

I also talked about a possible mechanism for resurrection. According to the Quran, we believe that a trumpet will blow and it will cause everyone to be resurrected. In this post, I hypothesized that the trumpet might be black hole because black holes are also known to create sound waves. Also, black holes may be extremely powerful quantum computers that exist in space, as explained in the links that I posted, and by performing a computation, I read that it is possible for them to recreate a human or an object that fell into the singularity. I think that this could be a similar physical process that allows resurrection. And resurrection might be a type of reversible computation that reconstructs our bodies.

I'm reading this a paragraph at a time and it still seems to go on for ever! Do you have Muslim super powers dude?!?

At this point I believe you started to hallucinate! Now here you're definitely trying to shoehorn the physical into the metaphysical. Car Crashes happening!!!

Essentially, my point is

Oh wow it must be near the end peeps!

that all these things are related to each other and I think that's why they further support the idea of the universe being a computer (or a type of simulation perhaps), and following from there, I think that the fact that these connections exist even though the people during those times didn't think of the universe as a giant computer (or maybe they believed that but only at a subconscious level if so) makes it more likely that these religious beliefs are a disclosure of the computer-like nature of the universe rather than being just a coincidence (although that is still possible).

*removes pins from eyes*

Well yeah I kinda see your point. Would be better minus the scientific explanations but . S'all good I think.

That's what I think exactly. God is not an existant being in that sense. He is what we refer to him as,

Not necessarily, and I think that no one can truly understand the exact nature of God.

I think we come from the same song book there. I guess there may be some interesting variances too.

Given a creator god, god is everything. From a vaccuum to the most solid of objects, it's all god. God is not separate.

God is everything? So are you some kind of a pantheist Christian or what?

You don't see how god being creator must also be in everything? How if everything came from him everything has him in it? (I'm not saying that is all of God.)

Frankly, I think that you seriously contradicted yourself when you say that "God is everything" and that "God is not separate." It makes you sound like you're a pantheist. Why is it contradictory? Because all this time you were asserting that Jesus himself is God and a man at the same time and that God is a person (and you've said this in other threads as well) - but now you're saying that God is everything - even from a vacuum to the most solid of objects. If that's what you really believe, then it seems like you are mixing God (metaphysical) with all the material/empirical stuff as well, aren't you?

At some point, if you believe, as I do, that god = creator, then you have to make a link with material and non material. There has to be some function of god that crosses the gap. What's logical, is that god cannot be proven empirically. This is not the same as conflating the physical world with the metaphysical. We still keep the two strictly separate. That's a weakness in your theological thinking, and not a weakness in the case for God, if I may humbly suggest.

Now I assume that you will have no problem with that. I have a feeling that we both think the same thing on this.

See my comments above. I do have a problem with that.

Yeah I'm surprised. Interesting though.