Is atheism self-contradictory ?

[Anomalocaris]

Welcome to the forum. Tell us more about yourself when you get a chance.

I will. Thank you for responding quickly 

You had 7 more chances, and.......??

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Well, shit, Min ninja'd me. If I'd read down to this point before posting, I wouldn't have posted. OP, Islam is no more true than an Invisible Pink Unicorn, or Scientology (which is demonstrably false, as people have seen the formation of that "religion" in real time. Ascribing to a religion that has its roots in antiquity doesn't make it any more true. If you live in the US, did you vote for Donald Trump? If not, why not? This is an actual homework assignment.

Nobody asked for your baseless thoughts about Islam ...

Thank you for replying.

No one asked you about your baseless musings about anything either, so if you are so forsaken as to feel offended if your religion is described to be the shit it is, swallow it.

[Parsim0ny]

You can only rationalize by the existence of a superior power in the eyes of creatures with similar minds and intelligence.  Which puts you in the exact same position except you're adding an unneccesary unproven god into the mix.

This brings me back to what I was saying before.

An agnostic says they don't know.

You say you do know that the quran is perfect, muhammad is perfect and all the prophets are perfect yet you're judging them using your own imperfect, bias, indoctrinated mind.

This isn't to pick on you for being indoctrinated, bias or imperfect.  I believe all humans are bias, imperfect and indoctrinated in some way.

So what's the one thing agnostics know for sure ? If there's no common ground between agnostics and theists, the latter cannot do anything to prove their belief for them. It's like entering an Euclidian Geometry course and expecting the teacher to successfully convince you of a theorem while you reject all Euclid's postulates, under the (pretext) that you don't know. You know you rely on your mind's judgment all the time to perform day-to-day tasks, you know causality exists since you don't expect your computer to turn on by his own without plugging in the power cable first, and also you know your house was broken into if you find damaged doors and broken windows, and you're sure that a burglar exists and therefore will turn to the police immediately, without sitting there second-guessing everything you know about your mind or the universe.  

It's just plain impossible to convince you of anything if we don't share some kind of common logical assumptions such as the trustworthiness of our mental judgment, the need to explain it or any other kind of logical statement.

I know the Qur'an is perfect because that's what these assumptions lead me to, since a perfect being exists He can't leave his creatures without guidance, so there must some kind of a connection between Him and us, and the most acceptable condidate for me is Qur'an. The Bible/christian belief is fundamentally irrational since it requires you to simply accept that three different and separate entities are one unique god and vice versa, it's a direct violation of the simplest laws of logic.

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Whatever you think about the prophet of Islam

Trust me on this, mon ami.  You do not want to know what I think of the "prophet of islam."

I talked to many atheists before joining this forum and I know exactly what you think of him, but here's the thing : you cannot condemn anything he did or anyone's wrongdoings since nothing is "immoral" outside belief systems. Even assuming that the Prophet commited immoral actions nothing says to me that they ARE indeed immoral. Homosexuality for example is gravely immoral in Islam, and was considered as such in the Western civilisations until modern times, so whose perspective should you adopt and why ?

Also if objective moral truths exist - and you are compelled to believe that at least one does exist because only then you can say Muhammad violated moral codes because he did this or that - this would immediately warrant a supernatural explanation - according to the atheist philosopher J.L. Mackie, and this directly leads us to the famous argument from morality.

[The Grand Nudger]

I know the Qur'an is perfect because that's what these assumptions lead me to, since a perfect being exists He can't leave his creatures without guidance,

Well,  if a perfect being can't leave his creatures without guidance then there is no perfect being.  / shrugs

so there must some kind of a connection between Him and us, and the most acceptable condidate for me is Qur'an.

Good luck with that.

The Bible/christian belief is fundamentally irrational since it requires you to simply accept that three different and separate entities are one unique god and vice versa, it's a direct violation of the simplest laws of logic.

Your own beliefs are based, importantly, on theirs.  Even Mighty Mo's alleged contemporaries noticed it...and the quran..hilariously, records it-

Quran 25:5

And they say:  "Tales of the ancients, which he has caused to be written: and they are dictated before him morning and evening."

 
Quran 16:103-104

"We know indeed that they say "It is a man that teaches him." The tongue of him they wickedly point to is notable foreign while this is Arabic pure and clear.  Those who believe not in the Signs of Allah, Allah will not guide them and theirs will be a grievous Penalty." 

 

[Parsim0ny]

Well,  if a perfect being can't leave his creatures without guidance then there is no perfect being.  / shrugs

Can you demonstrate that to me, please ?

Your own beliefs are based, importantly, on theirs.  Even Mighty Mo's alleged contemporaries noticed it...and the quran..hilariously, records it-

Quran 25:5

And they say:  "Tales of the ancients, which he has caused to be written: and they are dictated before him morning and evening."

 
Quran 16:103-104

"We know indeed that they say "It is a man that teaches him." The tongue of him they wickedly point to is notable foreign while this is Arabic pure and clear.  Those who believe not in the Signs of Allah, Allah will not guide them and theirs will be a grievous Penalty." 

 

You know, it's incredibly easy to quote a couple of verses of the Qur'an out of their context. What do these verses have to do with Christianity ? And what's wrong with the fact that some aspects of our belief is based in theirs ? We even believe that the earliest versions of the Bible were indeed the word of God.

[The Grand Nudger]

Well,  if a perfect being can't leave his creatures without guidance then there is no perfect being.  / shrugs

Can you demonstrate that to me, please ?

What do you mean?  It's your argument, not mine.  If that's true, then there is no perfect being.  
(I suppose it leaves open the possibility that we aren't his creation too, might explain all the beetles...guy loved beetles..maybe there's a beetlebook, or maybe he chit chats with beetles directly, who knows?)

You know, it's incredibly easy to quote a couple of verses of the Qur'an out of their context. What do these verses have to do with Christianity ? And what's wrong with the fact that some aspects of our belief is based in theirs ? We even believe that the earliest versions of the Bible were indeed the word of God.

What was the context, then?  

Nothing wrong with basing your own beliefs on theirs..I mean, unless you think their beliefs are batshit crazy and illogical...which you do...then their problems become your problems.  The trinity is not an exhaustive list of batshit things they believe.  They also believe that the earliest bible was the word of god..when in fact it was the word of a bunch of trinity believing proto-catholics, stolen in large part from a dead heretic who would have thought that both of you were....shall we say, uninformed?

I have to ask, is that question a wheedling and instant retraction of your comments about those verses being taken out of context? Would it be fair, of me, to suspect that you know that those verses referred to exactly that borrowing...and that you know that the borrowing occurred?

[Parsim0ny]

What do you mean?  It's your argument, not mine.  If that's true, then there is no perfect being.  

Why do you conclude that there is no perfect being ? The assumption that a creator exists doesn't mean that He have to provide an independent proof of his existence for everyone. A math teacher doesn't need to travel around the world to demonstrate that the Pythagorean theorem holds, because it's already there for everyone : in a Geometry book. Similarly, those who claim that God doesn't show himself just assume that the Qur'an is not proof enough despite the fact that he literally challenges every non-believer to come up with his own Qur'an, and if you truly studied the content of the Qur'an, you'll know that he directly condemned Muhammad's paternal uncle Abu lahab to hell while he was still alive, all he had to do was to portray himself as a Muslim and Muhammad will be directly proved to be an imposter. How can a rational person possibly risk himself to be exposed by inventing such verses ? or maybe he wasn't inventing them ?

What was the context, then?  

Nothing wrong with basing your own beliefs on theirs..I mean, unless you think their beliefs are batshit crazy and illogical...which you do...then their problems become your problems.  The trinity is not an exhaustive list of batshit things they believe.  They also believe that the earliest bible was the word of god..when in fact it was the word of a bunch of trinity believing proto-catholics, stolen in large part from a dead heretic who would have thought that both of you were....shall we say, uninformed?

I have to ask, is that question a wheedling and instant retraction of your comments about those verses being taken out of context?  Would it be fair, of me, to suspect that you know that those verses referred to exactly that borrowing...and that you know that the borrowing occurred?

Well, the trinity is their problem, not ours. We simply believe that they were initially right. The verses you quoted simply stated some of the polytheists claims : that Muhammad was simply repeating tales of the ancients in his book. The verses didn't acknowledge that at all.
Yes, thoses verses refer to the fact that Muhammad presumably borrowed from ancient books, but not the Bible specifically. And the Qur'an immediately responds to this claim afterwards, by stating that his sayings are the word of an all-knowing god.

[paulpablo]

In reply to the part where you said I know if my doors and windows are damaged that there's a burgler in my house.

That's wrong, it could be vandals who have no intention of burglary. It could be that someone in my family got really anger and smashed the place up. It could have been a series of accidents.

If the windows and doors were smashed one of my guesses will be that it might be burglars.

But if someone shows me a book written in Arabic and tells me it's from their prophet as a message to all mankind, obviously the prophet was also coincidentally Arabic. Then I'm going to be very skeptical and not believe that person.

Not one of my guesses would include, this might be god's work.

Just as I'm skeptical about all the other millions of claims to prophethood and godhood.
Just as I'm skeptical about all the other followers who say "but my God/book/prophet is special because....."

[The Grand Nudger]

Why do you conclude that there is no perfect being ?

You just told us that a perfect being couldn't leave his creation without guidance.  That's how.

The assumption that a creator exists doesn't mean that He have to provide an independent proof of his existence for everyone. A math teacher doesn't need to travel around the world to demonstrate that the Pythagorean theorem holds, because it's already there for everyone : in a Geometry book.

Who cares, we're not talking about math teachers or geometry books...it was your comment, your argument - that a perfect being could not leave it's creation without guidance.  Be satisfied that it's accurate or rephrase it.

Similarly, those who claim that God doesn't show himself just assume that the Qur'an is not proof enough despite the fact that he literally challenges every non-believer to come up with his own Qur'an,

I'm not sure what you think that means.......like, write a better book?  The Curious George series qualifies. Maybe the Good Doctor Suess? Hell, Where's Waldo counts and it only has two words.

and if you truly studied the content of the Qur'an, you'll know that he directly condemned Muhammad's paternal uncle Abu lahab to hell while he was still alive, all he had to do was to portray himself as a Muslim and Muhammad will be directly proved to be an imposter.

Yeah, alot of people think that their uncles are going to hell.  I'm not sure what you think this proves..or even what it;s in response to?

How can a rational person possibly risk himself to be exposed by inventing such verses ? or maybe he wasn't inventing them ?

You're right, a rational person wouldn't risk himself  to be exposed by inventing such verses (or at least wouldn;t risk his uncle, I guess?).  I guess that means that whomever ghostwrote for "Mohamed" wasn't a rational person.  Thanks for clearing that up, I'd been wondering.

Well, the trinity is their problem, not ours. We simply believe that they were initially right. The verses you quoted simply stated some of the polytheists claims : that Muhammad was simply repeating tales of the ancients in his book. The verses didn't acknowledge that at all.

So........I got the context exactly right, then, is what you're saying?  Yeah, I know.  You knew that too......so?

In any case, it's good to see you eliminated the problem of the trinity.  One down....the entirety of your religion to go.

Yes, thoses verses refer to the fact that Muhammad presumably borrowed from ancient books, but not the Bible specifically. And the Qur'an immediately responds to this claim afterwards, by stating that his sayings are the word of an all-knowing god.

Actually, it responds by stating that his words are in arabic.  The bar was obviously low at the time.  It then goes on to waffle, like all religions waffle, about how you won't see until you believe, and if you believed you would see.

[Minimalist]

I talked to many atheists before joining this forum and I know exactly what you think of him, but here's the thing : you cannot condemn anything he did or anyone's wrongdoings since nothing is "immoral" outside belief systems. Even assuming that the Prophet commited immoral actions nothing says to me that they ARE indeed immoral. Homosexuality for example is gravely immoral in Islam, and was considered as such in the Western civilisations until modern times, so whose perspective should you adopt and why ?

Completely wrong.  As far as I can see Big Mo is no more real than jesus, or moses.  Just another mouthpiece for some god.  Thus, I do not condemn your boy for raping 9 year olds or slaughtering unbelievers because these things did not happen.  They were created as apparently examples of good behavior by the morons who invented Big Mo in the first place.  Now, stop being a fool and go try some bacon.  It will improve your life and then wash it down with a beer.  Muslims have to be the most, dour, unhappy, uptight people in the world!

[Whateverist]

Just beginning to read this thread but I'm already willing to bet that it isn't atheism per se which the OP finds self contradicting but the assertion that: gods do not exist.

Can anyone save me the bother of finding out if the OP thinks it is self contradicting to answer the question "do you believe in gods?" with a simple "no"?