Even if theism is a failure, it's still superior to atheism

[The Architect Of Fate]

You should never bet body parts 

[The Grand Nudger]

The reason religious debates are pointless is because there is no way to prove either side right OR wrong. They are *pure* speculation over nonsense claims. 

Untrue.  Insomuch as  nuts are unwilling to engage in any reasonable or good faith assessment of religious claims, it's pointless to debate with those nuts.

It's completely voluntary.  You don't have to be a nut to be religious - and that's why nutter religions are horseshit. Not because religions have to be pure speculation over nonsense. That's a choice the religious make for themselves in any given faith.

[The Grand Nudger]

There actually are some topics/issues in Islamic faith or jurisprudence that only admit one true answer. You either accept the answer or you can no longer consider yourself a Muslim. 

Being able to consider yourself a muslim, and some proposition being true or false, are not interchangeable. It's certainly the case that islamists like yourself insist that there is only one asnwer you can give and be a true muslim..but it's not clear that this set of answers maps to the set of correct or factual answers, in mere reality.

[polymath257]

You say alot of stupid shit, the above is just another example of the same.  I think it's a shame if you've got some work on your bookshelf and have read it, and enjoyed it, and still managed to miss it..all the same.

Is that what's happened to you?

Al-Ghazali's book The incoherence is really not a cakewalk, so don't blame me if I didn't understand all the material there. I know enough though to tell there is nothing in this particular book speaking against arguing for qur'anic miracles.

Ironically, Al-Ghazali is one of the first leading thinkers that pointed out to scientific facts in the Qur'an. He has a very lengthy and famous paragraph in Jawahir al Qur'an quoting verses about planet motion, embryology, etc, and insisting that this is further indication of the divine source of the book.

Yes, like all apologists, he twists the verses until they agree with what he already knows.

[polymath257]

Still harping on that discredited rubbish, I see. 

Boru

He's one of the best minds in the history of Islamic thought. Show some minimal respect for these scholars, you don't have to agree with them for that.

And, my right hand to God you never opened a single book he wrote.

Sorry, but I don't have much respect for Al Ghazali. There are other scholars who were Muslim that I do have respect for, but I tend not to have much respect for theologians.

[polymath257]

Exactly the characteristics of a fundamentalist: they think they have the one, true answer and nobody should debate it.

There actually are some topics/issues in Islamic faith or jurisprudence that only admit one true answer. You either accept the answer or you can no longer consider yourself a Muslim. Muslims take their religion seriously, call them "fundamentalists" or whatever you want. 

It's a bit like someone clearly showingyou  some math proof and that the result/theorem is necessarily true (given some assumptions), and then you get angry and say : what a fundamentalist way to see things ? can't this theorem be interpreted any other way ..? there must be some way to avoid the correctness of this proof

It's exactly the same thing in religion. Once you accept metaphysical assumptions about God's existence and the divine source of the Qur'an, you have to accept the logical consequences, you can't play fast and loose with the faith after that.

There is no 'correct' interpretation of the Quran 

There is, but I assume at this point that you don't really care to know more about the topic.

Again, the Quran is wrong because it makes truth claims about a deity. Saying that there is only one interpretation doesn't mean that interpretation is the truth.

Being Muslim is NOT the same as 'believing the truth'. Those metaphysical assumptions and adherence to the Quran are precisely where things go wrong. The correctness of the proof is useless if the assumptions are invalid.

In contrast, the basic axioms of mathematics are not in doubt (outside of a few specialists). The correctness of the proof *does* say something about the truth of the conclusion.

[Jehanne]

In contrast, the basic axioms of mathematics are not in doubt (outside of a few specialists). The correctness of the proof *does* say something about the truth of the conclusion.

As in finitists? (Not to derail this thread, but, it appears to be in the doghouse anyways.) Some time ago I made an edit to a Wikipedia article on finitism to point out the fact that a mathematician, a finitist, who was being cited in the present tense had, in fact, died in 1985.

[Silver]

I have often found people tend to confuse maths proofs for empirical evidence.

[Jehanne]

I have often found people tend to confuse maths proofs for empirical evidence.

It's a mixed bag. On the one hand, you have theorists, such as Paul Dirac, who predicted the existence of the positron and is precise properties; after that, the experimentalists simply had to go look to find it. On the other hand, there was the ultraviolet catastrophe, where an established theory which described phenomenon at low energies broke down completely at higher energies. It got replaced.

In the absence of experimental evidence and/or observation, it's extremely difficult to tell which end of the spectrum one is dealing with. Beats guessing, in my opinion.

[polymath257]

In contrast, the basic axioms of mathematics are not in doubt (outside of a few specialists). The correctness of the proof *does* say something about the truth of the conclusion.

As in finitists?  (Not to derail this thread, but, it appears to be in the doghouse anyways.)  Some time ago I made an edit to a Wikipedia article on finitism to point out the fact that a mathematician, a finitist, who was being cited in the present tense had, in fact, died in 1985.

Very few working mathematicians today are strict finitists, There may be a few intuitionists left, but if so they don't publish much. Debates about the Axiom of Choice are all in the past: it is accepted by the vast majority of mathematicians without comment.

In any case, all atual proofs are finite, so even a finitist would agree that a conclusion follows from some axioms, even if the axioms are not accepted.

Perhaps the biggest issue right now is in the realm of large cardinal axioms. Most set theorists accept them and most working mathematicians either don't care or are unhappy with such axioms.