RE: The Stage is Yours.
July 5, 2012 at 4:59 am
(This post was last modified: July 5, 2012 at 5:07 am by Rayaan.)
(July 4, 2012 at 8:44 pm)fr0d0 Wrote: Technically you did exactly what i said. You mix up empiricism with metaphisics. Intelligence = scientific facts = link to allah. (I mean this as no insult here)
The existence of an "intelligence" that I was talking about are based on my own inductive reasoning of the world around me and not something that I came to conclude based on scientific facts nor experimentation. So, I don't think that this is empiricism, but mainly a metaphysical view.
I know that you believe that there is no empirical evidence of God (which I don't disagree with either), but then what are some of your metaphysical arguments? Do you have any?
(July 4, 2012 at 8:44 pm)fr0d0 Wrote: I didn't provide details, no. It is my assertion that all conclusions lead back to god. They don't lead back to no god. I'm not condemning any other world view there, just laying down the criteria. If you believe that your own view works out, and I hope you do, I haven't found that.
"All conclusions lead back to god." <- Well, that seems like a very vague critera unless you specify what are some of those conclusions and demonstrate how they "necessarily" imply that only the Chrisitian God is real.
My own view works and I explained this in great length in this thread. This was a mixture of both science and metaphysics (physics being one of the branches of metaphysics since metaphysics essentially deals with the fundamental nature of reality).
(July 4, 2012 at 8:44 pm)fr0d0 Wrote: Well ive seen many Islamic presentions claiming scientific precedence from koranic texts. I'm sure you're very aware of these.
They Quran may contain certain scientific information, but I never consider it as a "book of science," because teaching science is not the purpose of the book at all. Rather, the Quran is primarily meant to be a moral and a spiritual guideline. It is a text that seeks to engage the inner dimensions of man and to build his relationship with Allah through faith and worship.
The main reason that science is included in the Quran is to make us think and reflect on how God created nature so beautifully and wisely, not necessarily to imply that they are scientific discoveries that no one knew before. There are many verses in the Quran that illustrate some of the phenomenons of the natural world such as the planets orbiting the sun, the stars, the alternation of the night and day, the various animals in this planet, the intricacies of our own psychological and physiological development, and the embryological stages, and so on.
These things are included just to remind us that these are some of the signs of God's existence which, again, relates to my argument from design/complexity.
(July 4, 2012 at 8:51 pm)ElijahDrew Wrote: Then how do you explain why in the vast solar system, there are billions of planets that get constantly smashed by asteroids. Does that serve this God a purpose? And how can these be clues to God's existence. There is more out there than just Earth and humans, you know. We are truly an anomaly.
Yes, we may be an anomaly and most of the universe may be dark and lifeless. There are many other planets (which may or may not contain life), there are many other stars, many other solar systems, many other galaxies, clusters, superclusters, and so on. The universe is very big and it is expanding at an accelerating speed. Maybe there are even other universes, or multiverses, and maybe there are also extra dimensions that are hidden from our naked eyes and even the most powerful instruments.
But, still, none of that subtracts or dimishes the beauty and the complexity of the variety of life and structures that exist in this small planet of ours.
Norfolk And Chance, I value knowledge also, but I don't agree with your opinion that knowledge is greater than belief. A lot of our beliefs are connected to our knowledge as well as to our experiences, and thus beliefs are also very important, in my opinion. I think of belief more as a mental state than anything else. And I think that one's beliefs may even be dependant on his or her intuition and reasoning.
So, while knowledge deals with facts and concrete information, belief is something that is subjective and it is a summation of all of our mental aspects (along with our knowledge) that are not constrained by our five senses, and that's why I think that belief is deeper than knowledge (although the former we are never sure of).
@ all of your "How"s:
My point was that, in my opinion, it seems more likely that there is an intelligence or a mind that made it possible for all these complex things such as our genes, DNA, cells, our brains, our consciousness, the different plants and trees, the variety of foods for us, the variety of animals, and so on. You're asking me "how" as if you want me to tell you how all of this stuff proves that God did it, but that is not provable, nor did I ever say that they prove the existence of God, but only that these things are hints or clues for the existence of God (or something intelligent), in my opinion.
I strongly believe in evolution, too, but the idea of evolution doesn't necessarily negate the idea that the laws of evolution itself were created by a higher intelligence.
@ Ace: ^ See my comments above in regards to evolution.
Also, the fact that we are understanding more and more about the universe does not necessarily exclude God's existence either.
