Proof of God

[Harris]

Any comment on ripping off my maths equations and writing unrelated stuff next to them in order to bolster an argument from ignorance?

I am quoting your fabulous equations intentionally and on purpose to advocate the idea that you guys follow neither science nor logic.

So you think those bits of the quaran are actually talking about the Big Bang?

About what else you think these verses are talking. I can give many similar verses from Quran that are much more surprising but better if you try to understand Quran yourself. Quran is a miraculous scripture. Believe or not.

So do you think the universe is 14 billion years old?
Or do you think it is 6000 years old?

The age of the universe (14 billion years) is an educated guess not a reality.

I do not think that universe is 6000 years old.

I don't understand why theists are impressed when a book supposedly inspired by God gets a few things right.
I have a higher standard for science textbooks than they do for their infallible books.
Hell, I have a higher standard for emails I write.

These modern scientific facts first revealed about 1500 years back in time. This fact first kills the “God of the Gaps argument” and secondly the time and place of the revelation makes these verses miraculous.

Nothing about the Bible, or God, or Allah, is my truth, and I need to express no conviction in it. I do not accept your definition of a good God, because I can see much evil in the world, much of it inflicted on the innocent. I do not accept your definition of a just God, because I see foul swine who live and prosper, and pure children who are struck with disease and death.

Atheists love Emotional arguments I am now convinced.

Efforts to disprove the existence of God via “the problem of Evil” is paradoxical. I have already argued that GOOD and BAD have MEANINGS only with the existence of God. You are trying to use MEANINGFUL EVIL to disprove the existence of God simply to make GOOD and BAD MEANINGLESS. Without GOOD and BAD justice has no MEANING and without justice “Survival of the fittest” and “Eugenics” rule over morality.

Bullshit. I do not believe that the Koran, or the culture which claims to adhere to it, care about mutual consent. Did women consent to be held under the thumbs of petty and jealous men?

Please spend time in some Muslim community to have a practical and first-hand knowledge about the status of woman and infant in Islam. Secular media selectively picks and makes popular the black sheep to portray Islam as evil religion. Culprits (black sheep) that secular media is presenting as fundamentalist Muslims perhaps are not even Muslims.

And so you and yours impose these rules on others.
Where, then, is their free will? Their freedom is to follow the views of scum like you, or to face punishment.

These laws were introduced to humanity about 1500 years back. People love these laws and that is the reason there are about 2 billion Muslims on the earth today and increasing exponentially. No one has imposed these laws on anyone rather people are accepting these laws by their free will.

What about atheism, which is roughly 3000 years old. How many atheists are there on earth today? 2% only!

What hubris you have, to think that you are capable of judging what is right or wrong, or that God needs your assistance in either judgment or in execution of punishment.

You are trying to depict Muslims as lawmaker or imposer of duties over unbelievers, which is nothing, but a propaganda to deceive simple minds.

The right of my liberty extends to what I am obliged to do, to refraining from all unlawful actions and to all actions that are indifferent. We are obliged to act morally, and it only makes sense to do so if we believe that we, and so our souls, will continue to live forever.

You just quoted a bunch of ancient desert people. Time to join the 21st century, and benefit from the experiences of people who have discovered refrigeration (pork is okay now, dude) and personal hygiene (no more fear of "unclean" women on their *gasp* periods*), and running water.

Thank you for the invitation but I am more satisfied by keeping myself away from CLEAN PORK and from legal woman when she is in her “GASP PERIODS.” I follow instructions of Quran and Hadith as they are more SCIENTIFIC than your contemporary material science. Think thrice before you laugh over the truth mentioned in Quran.

God Himself Wills as law what is for the common good, but He obliges humanity to obey the law, not by His mere willing it nor by an appeal to the human rational calculation of pleasures and pains, but by an invitation to unify each person’s particular will with the general will of God. God is the perfect intuitionist utilitarian who alone is capable of self-obligation, and humans can imperfectly take part in his unity of intuition and will. God’s invitation to humanity - revelation apart - is expressed in the rewards and punishments that are naturally connected with compliance with, and transgression of, the law of nature. These are not, as a common utilitarian reading will have it, sanctions for or grounds of obligation to the law of nature; they are grounds of discovery of the law of nature.

Harris Wrote: Because virtues and vices are settled practices of deliberately choosing good and bad courses of action and in parallel people have power of self-control therefore, punishment for deliberate sin is inevitable.

Bennyboy Wrote: If your God is real, then it truly is inevitable.

I do not doubt in the existence of God because if there is no God then there is nothingness but nothingness is not true because I (a conscious being) cannot have roots in nothingness. Secondly, God, whom I believe to exist, exists in a manner different from the mode of existence of all finite beings: that is, He exists so truly and eternally and immutably that He cannot even conceivably not exist. In comparison with this mode of existence, finite beings are as nothing.

The existence of God is an indubitable truth in its own right and can be doubted only because of some defect in the knower. A human being might doubt God’s existence from failing to understand correctly what the term ‘God’ signifies. Doubt might likewise spring from failing to carry one’s thinking far enough, or from having only a partial view of the evidence. In all cases, doubt arises from failures of the human intellect, not from God’s existence as a truth considered in itself.

Why, then, do Muslim men take it upon themselves to establish these punishments and bring them to fruition? Is God too weak to judge his own creations by his own hand?

There is no such thing as individuals taking themselves to mean something in isolation from the community, since there would be no background consensus to establish even assertion-conditions for claims about what they mean. The consensus depends on a community, so the appeal to the community rules out the possibility of someone establishing private punishments. You are targeting individual culprits (black sheep) because of a mistaken understanding of what is required to follow rules competently or you have a purpose in mind for propagating false picture of Islam.

Harris Wrote: Remedy of spiritual illness (vice) is virtue. Along with vice and virtue God has given us freedom of choice and power of self-control. Our choices are deliberate acts therefore; we are accountable for our deeds.

Bennyboy Wrote: Maybe, but not to you, or to your mosque, or to your uneducated leaders. If God is real, then let God judge me.

Do not look at me, at the mosque, or at the uneducated leaders (backed by the west). If you want to know real God then have a look at Quran and Hadith with the intention to understand them.

God’s judgment is inevitable.

“If Allah were to hasten for men the ill (they have earned) as they would fain hasten on the good,- then would their respite be settled at once. But We leave those who rest not their hope on their meeting with Us, in their trespasses, wandering in distraction to and fro.”
Yunus (10)
-Verse 11-

“Say: "I have no power over any harm or profit to myself except as Allah willeth. To every people is a term appointed: when their term is reached, not an hour can they cause delay, nor (an hour) can they advance (it in anticipation)."”
Yunus (10)
-Verse 49-

“But your Lord is Most forgiving, full of Mercy. If He were to call them (at once) to account for what they have earned, then surely He would have hastened their punishment, but they have their appointed time, beyond which they will find no refuge.”
Al Kahfi (18)
-Verse 58-

But don't constantly declare your lack of faith in the reality of God by insisting that Dark Age punishments like stoning of raped women could be permissible in the eyes of a just God.

According to Sharia Law rapist is a qualified criminal who deserves a capital punishment and victim gets the compensation. I have asked you guys several times study Islam first before criticising it based on the propaganda of the secular media.

If God is real, then my primary sin is that of using the senses He gave me, and the mind he bestowed on me, to consider ideas critically. You will fare much worse, as you support the suffering of others inflicted at the hand of proud men in the name of a God who could never have wanted such suffering.

You, and your outdated religion, are an offense to any real God who might exist.

Primary sin is the abusive use of intellect and free will to deny existence of God deliberately for a selfish cause. Primary sin is to act unjustly on the available facts.

Doing injustice is worse for oneself than being subjected to it. By acting unjustly, you make your soul worse, and that affects for the worse the whole of your life, whereas one who treats you unjustly at most harms your body or your possessions but leaves your soul unaffected.

Without studying Islam, you are denouncing it and in doing so, you are deliberately acting unwisely.

[henryp]

I say ok I agree with Mr. Atheist. I say there is no God. Nevertheless, is that the end of the story? I do not think so. If we say God does not exist then we are left with two options:

a. Nothingness or
b. Alternate of God

I'm sure the debate has long since evolved from the first post, but I'd like to weigh in anyways.

I think the reality in dealing with the origins of the universe is "who the heck knows."  There is soooooo much that we don't have any idea about that trying to create these a) or b) things is an exercise in futility.  We don't comprehend God, or nothingness, or infinity.  And we're sketchy at best on time and space.  And that still leaves out all the stuff we don't even know that we don't know.

In my religious days, I liked trying to create similar arguments.  But I've since come to accept that omnipotence probably isn't in the cards for humans, and we probably have to settle for not knowing exactly what happened a bazillion years ago.

[bennyboy]

@Harris

A tree shall be judged according to the fruit it bears. The European communities are thriving under democracy, relative equality for women, and the clear sight of science. Tell me, how are the Muslim communities doing? Poorly-- they are filled with rage, with a disrespect of education, with inequality for women, and a complete (I mean, really complete) disregard for free speech. You proudly proclaim that Islam is the fastest growing religion, but when anyone points out the great harm that this is bringing to the world, you go straight to no true Scotsman arguments: they aren't the REAL muslims, you should study the Koran to understand what REAL muslims think. Which is it?

Anyway, why do you need to argue about the religious community? We are talking about whether an all-good, all-powerful God exists. The fact is that if there are false muslims, and they are inflicting harm on innocents, then God is allowing this harm and injustice to be inflicted on innocents. God therefore is unjust, or unwilling/unable to eliminate the injustice. Such a weak or immoral God could only be the product of the minds of men-- and if there is a real God, your ideas about Him must necessarily be wrong.

[The Grand Nudger]

Go fuck yourself Harris.  Isn;t there some other group of people you'd like to call defective today? Women, gays.....jews..whatev. Why should we be the sole beneficiary of your tremendous intellect?

Go spread that muslim love.

[Harris]

I'm sure the debate has long since evolved from the first post, but I'd like to weigh in anyways.
I think the reality in dealing with the origins of the universe is "who the heck knows."  There is soooooo much that we don't have any idea about that trying to create these a) or b) things is an exercise in futility.  We don't comprehend God, or nothingness, or infinity.  And we're sketchy at best on time and space.  And that still leaves out all the stuff we don't even know that we don't know.
In my religious days, I liked trying to create similar arguments.  But I've since come to accept that omnipotence probably isn't in the cards for humans, and we probably have to settle for not knowing exactly what happened a bazillion years ago.

“When our senses of sight and hearing are used without thought and thus become obscured by material things, the material things act on the material sense and lead them astray. That is all. The function of the mind-and-heart is to think. If we think, we will get the principles of things. If we do not think, we will not get them. This is what Heaven has given us. If we first build upon the ‘great body’ of our nature, then the ‘small body’ cannot overcome it. It is this which makes human beings great.”
Mencius (Mengzi 6A15; Van Norden 2008, 156)

@Harris
A tree shall be judged according to the fruit it bears. The European communities are thriving under democracy, relative equality for women, and the clear sight of science. Tell me, how are the Muslim communities doing? Poorly-- they are filled with rage, with a disrespect of education, with inequality for women, and a complete (I mean, really complete) disregard for free speech. You proudly proclaim that Islam is the fastest growing religion, but when anyone points out the great harm that this is bringing to the world, you go straight to no true Scotsman arguments: they aren't the REAL muslims, you should study the Koran to understand what REAL muslims think. Which is it?

Without God, survival of the fittest and urgencies prevail in any culture. That what exactly is happening in the Secular West.
The deliberate interference by Western countries in the politics of Africa and Muslim world has risen to alarming levels as the Secular West is, by all possible means, trying to get total control over Muslim world and over African wealth. Secular West sponsors all the wars and conflicts in the Muslim world and in Africa.
Only remove western interference from the Muslim world and from Africa and everyone in these regions would live the happiest life.
However, that will not happen because Secular West will never give up their luxurious life style, which is founded over natural resources of the Muslim world and Africa.
Following are some countries; whose natural resources make them the wealthiest countries in the world, but these countries have faced and facing deadliest conflicts due to Western intervention and people of these countries are one of the poorest. This is a simple example of the ambitious adventures of the Secular West, which is destined to get hold on African wealth for the lavish lifestyle that it adopted.
Diamonds:
46% of the world, divided as Botswana 35%; Congo (Kinshasa) 34%; South Africa 17%; Angola, 8%.
Gold:
21% of the world, divided as South Africa 56%; Ghana, 13%; Tanzania, 10%; and Mali, 8%.
Uranium:
16% of the world, divided as Namibia 46%; Niger 44%; South Africa less than 10%.
Bauxite (for aluminium):
9% of the world, divided as Guinea 95%; Ghana 5%.
Steel:
2% of the world, divided as South Africa 54%; Egypt 32%; Libya 7%; Algeria 6%.
Aluminium:
5% of the world, divided as South Africa 48%; Mozambique 32%; Egypt 14%.
Copper (mine/refined):
5%/ of the world, divided as Zambia 65%/77%; South Africa 15%/19%; Congo (Kinshasa) 13%/0%; Egypt 0%/3%.
Platinum/Palladium:
62% of the world, divided as South Africa 97%/96%.
Coal: 5% of the world, divided as South Africa 99%.
Finally yet importantly, do not forget Afghanistan, which is now facing more than 100 years of Western and socialist aggressions.
A very recent development in Ukraine is also the result of Western intervention.

Anyway, why do you need to argue about the religious community?

You are attacking Muslim community and I have no option than to argue against your unjustifiable and reckless attacks.
I hate Politics (especially Western politics), which is not politics but hypocrisy. Supporters of that hypocrisy whether Muslims or not are also double-dealers.

We are talking about whether an all-good, all-powerful God exists. The fact is that if there are false Muslims, and they are inflicting harm on innocents, then God is allowing this harm and injustice to be inflicted on innocents.

These false Muslims are working for the cause of Western hypocrites only to get some sucked bones. You can find such people in every community. Western countries are supporting those culprits and eating the Muslim world from inside out like termites. On top of that, they come with all their latest weaponry in order to kill that termite by calling their actions as War on terror.
In any case, Muslims are the one who are losing their lands, properties, and lives in their homelands by the fictitious War on Terror.

God therefore is unjust, or unwilling/unable to eliminate the injustice. Such a weak or immoral God could only be the product of the minds of men-- and if there is a real God, your ideas about Him must necessarily be wrong.

At several occasions, I have indicated that without God justice and injustice, moral and immoral, and Good and Bad have no meanings. If you think, there is no God then why are you concerned about justice and injustice at all. Without God fittest has the right to live a lavish life at the cost of health of poor and feeble people. Without God, poor and feeble people are no more than worms.

Go fuck yourself Harris.  Isn;t there some other group of people you'd like to call defective today? Women, gays.....jews..whatev. Why should we be the sole beneficiary of your tremendous intellect?
Go spread that muslim love.

I thought atheists are unprejudiced people. It seems I am mistaken.

[downbeatplumb]

Go fuck yourself Harris.  Isn;t there some other group of people you'd like to call defective today? Women, gays.....jews..whatev. Why should we be the sole beneficiary of your tremendous intellect?

Go spread that muslim love.

I thought atheists are unprejudiced people. It seems I am mistaken.

You are. Atheism has nothing to say about prejudices. All atheism is is that we don't think that gods exist.
Now atheists tend to be less prejudiced than theists but that is because we tend to evaluate things using evidence.
But there is nothing to stop an atheist being prejudiced.
Religions however, demand it. 

[Whateverist]

I for one am convinced. I've seen the photos. When I first saw the toast on which Christ appeared, my lack of faith was sorely tested. But when He appeared again in the anus of a pug dog. Shiii-it. That right there you couldn't fake.

[robvalue]

Harris: I'm very sad to hear that you would have no idea how to act morally without the existence of an undemonstrated celestial fascist dictator.

Morality has no meaning if it is based in god's opinion. Any definition of morality which isn't evaluated by the wellbeing of living creatures is a pointless one to begin with, concerned more with toadying than on caring about anyone or anything.

I would like to think that you would be very surprised by your own morality if you did lose your belief and find you do have an internal moral compass. I would estimate 9 out of 10 people who talk like you are mistaken about themselves.

[pocaracas]

At several occasions, I have indicated that without God justice and injustice, moral and immoral, and Good and Bad have no meanings. If you think, there is no God then why are you concerned about justice and injustice at all. Without God fittest has the right to live a lavish life at the cost of health of poor and feeble people. Without God, poor and feeble people are no more than worms.

Perhaps, for humans -those somewhat intelligent and social animals inhabiting the planet Earth - "fittest" means those that can best cooperate with each other and survive as a group. You ever think of that?

One person alone is weak, no matter how strong he is compared with other humans... one person alone cannot maintain his sustenance, health, home, family,... gadgets, transportation, thirst for knowledge or recreation for very long.
One person alone is so much less than a community.

[bennyboy]

You are attacking Muslim community and I have no option than to argue against your unjustifiable and reckless attacks.
I hate Politics (especially Western politics), which is not politics but hypocrisy. Supporters of that hypocrisy whether Muslims or not are also double-dealers.

I was attacking your ideas about God, which are illogical, and you used the greatness of Islam, especially its growth, as evidence supporting you God idea.

These false Muslims are working for the cause of Western hypocrites only to get some sucked bones. You can find such people in every community. Western countries are supporting those culprits and eating the Muslim world from inside out like termites. On top of that, they come with all their latest weaponry in order to kill that termite by calling their actions as War on terror.
In any case, Muslims are the one who are losing their lands, properties, and lives in their homelands by the fictitious War on Terror.

Still a red herring. Are we talking about the social injustices which may or may not be faced by the muslim community (for which I have some sympathy), or about proof of God?

At several occasions, I have indicated that without God justice and injustice, moral and immoral, and Good and Bad have no meanings.

Sure they do. I know they do, because all those words have meaning, and there is no God. Those things are good which seem to me beneficial and healthy, and those things are bad which seem to me counterproductive or destructive.

If you think, there is no God then why are you concerned about justice and injustice at all. Without God fittest has the right to live a lavish life at the cost of health of poor and feeble people. Without God, poor and feeble people are no more than worms.

Humans are a social animal, and have instincts that allow us to work together. These include a sense of right and wrong, the feelings of familial love and brotherhood, and so on. Your religious texts didn't create moral feelings-- they reflect an ancient (and mostly uneducated) culture's response to those feelings.

I thought atheists are unprejudiced people. It seems I am mistaken.

I seriously doubt you ever thought that.