Friend or Foe?

[Mystic]

Another issue I have with Quran is that it said in one Surah not to befriend/love your enemy and enemy of God. Then it is also said in the same Surah that God only forbid you from befriending/loving those whom fought them and drove them out of their homes, and that he doesn't forbid you from those whom have not fought them. The logical conclusion would be only those whom fought them are enemies of God. However this is contradicted in Suratal Baqara where it is said God is the enemy of disbelievers. Moreover in Suratal Fatir, it is stated that God hates disbelievers with a strong hatred (the word maqtan denotes a strong type of hatred). Naturally whom God loves people should love, and whom he hates people should hate. Then you also have verses in Suratal Maeeda that although can be argued to mean other then friendship, context as Tabatabai shows, shows it to mean friendship, and it was forbidding it with people of the book. At any rate, those verses are not necessary to show the contradiction, what has been stated previously is enough.

[Darwinian]

Just goes to show that religious texts are all man made, or rather written down by men and that those men didn't really consider checking each others work before creating theirs much of a priority.

[Mystic]

Just goes to show that religious texts are all man made, or rather written down by men and that those men didn't really consider checking each others work before creating theirs much of a priority.

You know what bugs me a lot. Is that, in Howza they teach logic. And many Muslims learn logic.

Muslims can easily see logical problems in the Bible, but not so in the Quran.

Yet Muslims will feel confidence that the Quran is error free because if it wasn't, surely Muslims would have found errors by now, or at least the scholars would have right?

They also feel confidence because they read the Quran themselves and could not find errors themselves.

It's been about 14 hundred years the Quran has been around, yet these errors are not recognized.

What it is blocking the human mind from seeing these errors amongst the Muslim community?

What blocked me from seeing all these errors and then all of sudden I was unblocked and was able to recognize so much of them?

[Brian37]

Under your Veiws under your avatar you entered "Believes in God without religion".

That to me is simple superstition lite. Half the tribalism with all the great taste of fantasy.

What you are attempting to do is say "I am not like the others". Maybe in the sense that you don't like being judgmental of people with different positions, and that seems nice.

Here is the problem, when we are talking about human disputes as to "what is" the problem, even with your "cant we all just get along" attitude, should not be the issue. Yes humans should get along.

My point would be that the issue is not about one's right to make a claim, but the ability to demonstrate the credibility of a claim to the point that it goes beyond personal bias

The biggest problem our species has, even some athiests, is that they confuse themselves as being the claim itself and humans are not claims. Claims are positions people hold, but claims are not people.

So if you want to argue this generic god who doesn't subscribe to conformity, you are not the first. Jefferson rejected lots of Christian claims and even tons of the fantastic claims in the bible. So what? I liked his ideas about common law and government neutrality on the issue of religion. But I cant even agree with the concept of a "no clubs, everyone welcome" god concept.

Why? Because no matter how inclusive someone might claim their god is, it still sets them up to feel superior(LOOK AT ME I AM NOT JUDGMENTAL) not to mention, regardless of religon or label, no human in history, in antiquity or today, has any lick of evidence that a non material invisible thinking being is even a possibility.

[Mystic]

You missed the question and are assuming too much. I didn't leave Islam because I didn't confirm to Muslim ideology, I was actually extremely religious before. I believed in Islam. I found errors in the Quran while being religious and then found more and more errors, but I had hope or even belief that they would be solved. But the more I thought about the issue and the more I engaged with Muslims about them, the more I realized there was no solution to most of these problems.

I'm wondering what keeps Muslims from seeing these problems all these years when many of them learn logic, and what kept me from seeing these problems the first 40 times I read the Quran.

There is something at work here, some psychological force, that blinds us to see.

This bugs me a lot, I just don't know what it is. There is confirmation bias, but that makes you look at the facts in your favor....should it blind you from clear contradictions and logical errors?

[Angrboda]

The brain is like a one-way door, it keeps the things that comfort us in, and the things that might distress us out. This is cognitive bias. It's readily apparent from the outside, but not from within. When reasoning about the mind, it is helpful to keep in mind that a brain which cleaves to the truth is not necessarily more desirable than one that doesn't. There is a common trade-off in the brain's heuristics of speed versus accuracy. The more accurate the brain's heuristic, the slower it is going to be. For readily apparent reasons, evolution is going to tend to bias for speed, at the expense of accuracy. (I've recently been introduced to some new work by a favorite psychologist, Daniel Kahneman and his book Thinking Fast and Slow. I haven't read the book yet, but apparently it details how the brain in its handling of stimuli in the environment has two basic strategies. One slow strategy, which considers the problem in its depth and nuance, mulling it over thoughtfully, and a fast system, which strips features from the problem if doing so yields a "fit" with an easier answer, and so on. Needless to say, because of its efficiency, the fast system is likely to handle the bulk of cognitive tasks. This also relates to religion, in which some of the concepts are "hard wired" into the brain, and are thus not truly available for introspection.) However, this means that a lot of error is built into our cognitive strategies, and that things may often persist for reasons completely apart from their truth or instrumental utility. (e.g. if there is a good fit between the brain's error and its biases, it quite likely will be more robustly persistent than another solution.)

Anyway, I haven't even hinted at the evolutionary psychological and sociological factors involved. In short, human brains are not geared towards the discovery of truth; other human needs are far more influential.

(You might start discovery with "perseverance of belief", the bias blindspot, and cognitive dissonance [of which, Tavris and Aronson's "Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me)" is excellent].)

[Mystic]

The more accurate the brain's heuristic, the slower it is going to be. For readily apparent reasons, evolution is going to tend to bias for speed, at the expense of accuracy.

Hmm...with my mental illness, I would have over drive moments with the brain. This is actually how I first really started to have strong faith in Islam (when I got sick).

And it's only when I started to take medications for a long period, that I began to realize errors.

Medications slow down my mind....so this would explain a lot.

[Mystic]

I thought I woud put the verses:

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جَاءَكُمْ مِنَ الْحَقِّ يُخْرِجُونَ الرَّسُولَ وَإِيَّاكُمْ ۙ أَنْ تُؤْمِنُوا بِاللَّهِ رَبِّكُمْ إِنْ كُنْتُمْ خَرَجْتُمْ جِهَادًا فِي سَبِيلِي وَابْتِغَاءَ مَرْضَاتِي ۚ تُسِرُّونَ إِلَيْهِمْ بِالْمَوَدَّةِ وَأَنَا أَعْلَمُ بِمَا أَخْفَيْتُمْ وَمَا أَعْلَنْتُمْ ۚ وَمَنْ يَفْعَلْهُ مِنْكُمْ فَقَدْ ضَلَّ سَوَاءَ السَّبِيلِ {1}
[Shakir 60:1] O you who believe! do not take My enemy and your enemy for friends: would you offer them love while they deny what has come to you of the truth, driving out the Messenger and yourselves because you believe in Allah, your Lord? If you go forth struggling hard in My path and seeking My pleasure, would you manifest love to them? And I know what you conceal and what you manifest; and whoever of you does this, he indeed has gone astray from the straight path.

إِنَّمَا يَنْهَاكُمُ اللَّهُ عَنِ الَّذِينَ قَاتَلُوكُمْ فِي الدِّينِ وَأَخْرَجُوكُمْ مِنْ دِيَارِكُمْ وَظَاهَرُوا عَلَىٰ إِخْرَاجِكُمْ أَنْ تَوَلَّوْهُمْ ۚ وَمَنْ يَتَوَلَّهُمْ فَأُولَٰئِكَ هُمُ الظَّالِمُونَ {9}
[Shakir 60:9] Allah only forbids you respecting those who made war upon you on account of (your) religion, and drove you forth from your homes and backed up (others) in your expulsion, that you make friends with them, and whoever makes friends with them, these are the unjust.

مَنْ كَانَ عَدُوًّا لِلَّهِ وَمَلَائِكَتِهِ وَرُسُلِهِ وَجِبْرِيلَ وَمِيكَالَ فَإِنَّ اللَّهَ عَدُوٌّ لِلْكَافِرِينَ {98}
[Shakir 2:98] Whoever is the enemy of Allah and His angels and His messengers and Jibreel and Meekaeel, so surely Allah is the enemy of the unbelievers.

يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا لَا تَتَّخِذُوا الْيَهُودَ وَالنَّصَارَىٰ أَوْلِيَاءَ ۘ بَعْضُهُمْ أَوْلِيَاءُ بَعْضٍ ۚ وَمَنْ يَتَوَلَّهُمْ مِنْكُمْ فَإِنَّهُ مِنْهُمْ ۗ إِنَّ اللَّهَ لَا يَهْدِي الْقَوْمَ الظَّالِمِينَ {51}
[Shakir 5:51] O you who believe! do not take the Jews and the Christians for friends; they are friends of each other; and whoever amongst you takes them for a friend, then surely he is one of them; surely Allah does not guide the unjust people.
فَتَرَى الَّذِينَ فِي قُلُوبِهِمْ مَرَضٌ يُسَارِعُونَ فِيهِمْ يَقُولُونَ نَخْشَىٰ أَنْ تُصِيبَنَا دَائِرَةٌ ۚ فَعَسَى اللَّهُ أَنْ يَأْتِيَ بِالْفَتْحِ أَوْ أَمْرٍ مِنْ عِنْدِهِ فَيُصْبِحُوا عَلَىٰ مَا أَسَرُّوا فِي أَنْفُسِهِمْ نَادِمِينَ {52}
[Shakir 5:52] But you will see those in whose hearts is a disease hastening towards them, saying: We fear lest a calamity should befall us; but it may be that Allah will bring the victory or a punish ment from Himself, so that they shall be regretting on account of what they hid in their souls.

هُوَ الَّذِي جَعَلَكُمْ خَلَائِفَ فِي الْأَرْضِ ۚ فَمَنْ كَفَرَ فَعَلَيْهِ كُفْرُهُ ۖ وَلَا يَزِيدُ الْكَافِرِينَ كُفْرُهُمْ عِنْدَ رَبِّهِمْ إِلَّا مَقْتًا ۖ وَلَا يَزِيدُ الْكَافِرِينَ كُفْرُهُمْ إِلَّا خَسَارًا {39}
[Shakir 35:39] He it is Who made you rulers in the land; therefore whoever disbelieves, his unbelief is against himself; and their unbelief does not increase the disbelievers with their Lord in anything except hatred; and their unbelief does not increase the disbelievers in anything except loss.

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[Brian37]

You missed the question and are assuming too much. I didn't leave Islam because I didn't confirm to Muslim ideology, I was actually extremely religious before. I believed in Islam. I found errors in the Quran while being religious and then found more and more errors, but I had hope or even belief that they would be solved. But the more I thought about the issue and the more I engaged with Muslims about them, the more I realized there was no solution to most of these problems.

I'm wondering what keeps Muslims from seeing these problems all these years when many of them learn logic, and what kept me from seeing these problems the first 40 times I read the Quran.

There is something at work here, some psychological force, that blinds us to see.

This bugs me a lot, I just don't know what it is. There is confirmation bias, but that makes you look at the facts in your favor....should it blind you from clear contradictions and logical errors?

There is something at work here, some psychological force, that blinds us to see.

YES FUCKING YES THERE IS SOMETHING AT WORK. But it is NOT cognitive or mysterious or super natural or new age.

MOTION and kentic and potential energy.

But we are not binded as far as all of the universe in it's current state. The millions of atoms and quarks in my body right now, were not the atoms of me when I was born. And they certainly have no bind to the quarks or atoms billions of light years away in galaxies now.

"Use the force Luke" seems to be what you are falling for.

[Shell B]

Cognitive does not mean anything mysterious, Brian. It actually is quite cognitive. I'm pretty sure he does not think it is supernatural, either. I think he is trying to say that he does not understand why so many people close their minds to it, not that God is closing their minds or something. Believing in God without religion makes him a deist. Do you give the same speech to people who have deist in their "views?"