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@Yassine
So what you are saying is that it is ridiculous to believethat the universe was created by a giant plate of spaghetti even if it is noncontingent Necessary & Singular & Transcendent & Absolute?
I presume then that you have some way of proving that.
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It doesn't apply to any christians in truth.
The moral law (such as the Ten Commandments) is the direct command of God, and it requires strict obedience (see Exod 20:13, for example). The moral law reveals the nature and will of God, and it still applies today. Jesus obeyed the moral law completely.
it would be a terrible mistake to ignore the Old Testament,
here are just two articles (along with short excerpts) written by christians that prove my point. For some christians the old testament is a valid source of morality.
the thread is a "Debate" of Islam,
Yes and I got the impression from the op that the discussion was about whether or not the claims of Islam are true. Whether or not they incite violence is beside the point in that discussion. Just to be clear I do not regard Islam as observably more or less true than christian doctrine.
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@Stephen
As I said to Yessine how any one person interprets the book/belief does not tell us wether or not the belief can be used to justify violence/harm. Some christians point to the old testament to justify their moral standards and therefore the old testament is a potential justification for christian behavior even if this does not apply to all christians.
So again there some reason we are eliminating the old testament from consideration? Is it not used as part of some christians moral foundation?
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@Stephen
So I am going to take it you do not have any New Testament verses resembling those (quranic verses)
Is there some reason we are eliminating the old testament from consideration? Is it not used as part of some Christians moral foundation?
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@Fallaneze
You mean if you don't grant that conciousness is more than an illusion? Then you would finally be admitting the limits of human epistemology. I would be proud of you for making such a big step.
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@Fallaneze
Why would I need to grant you assumptions if the thing has independently verifiable perceivable observable evidence for it?
I do not recall asking you to grant anything.
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@keithprosser
I am not singling monotheism or even theism out political systems are also faith based and suffer the same tendency toward dehumanizing the "outsider".
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@Fallaneze
If conciousness is more than an illusion then human behavior is the verifiable observable evidence. I'm pretty sure I already said this.
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@Yassine
ok, given notorious verses such as 2:191"And kill them wherever you overtake them"and 5:51"Do not take the Jews and the Christians friends"Shouldn't you be out there killing Christians rather than being friendly with them?- Who says I'm not already doing that... LOL! Seriously, I know. It's getting really old though. It's just baffling to me how they can quote that verse & say it incites violence against [insert whomever] with a straight face, as if they don't know that self defense is!! Of course, by conveniently omitting the whole context & the inconvenient bits, like when you read a classified document with all the blackouts... They see "kill them wherever you overtake them"... & not "Fight in the way of Allah those who fight you"..."but do not transgress'..."Allah does not like transgressors"..."... they have expelled you* ..."And do not fight them at the Holy Mosque until they fight you there"...'if they cease, then there is to be no aggression except against the oppressors"...etc.- As for the second verse, it's another interesting twist. The Salafis LOVE that, of course when it suits them. Thank God they aren't big on that mantra since Trump, now they are buddy-buddies. The classical schools, however, agree that befriending or loving non-Muslims is only prohibited in matters of religion, as the verses specify. That is, to befriend them or love them for their religion or to support their religion or support them against Muslims: "Allah does not forbid youfrom those who do not fight you because of religionand do not expel you from your homes - from acting kindly and justly toward them. Indeed, Allah loves those who act justly. Allah only forbids youfrom those who fight you because of religion andexpel you from your homes and aid in your expulsion - [forbids] that you make allies of them. And whoever makes allies of them, then it is those who are the wrongdoers". (60:8-9), Obviously a Muslim can not support a non-Muslim to transgress against other Muslims, that's treason. The Prophet (pbuh) had a lot of non-Muslim friends whom he loved, particularly his uncle, his son-in-law, his Jewish neighbor... & a lot of allies among them too, the Christian Abyssinians, the Copts of Egypt, most Jewish tribes of Medina (except the three that betrayed him).,,etc! The whole notion is patently absurd.
The problem with Islam is the same as for any faith based beliefs. The way you personally interpret the quran does not prevent others from interpreting it in a way that does seem to suggest that violence is more or less compulsory.
I'm not arguing that Islam cannot have utility in creating a functional society or that it is not a positive force in your life. What I am arguing is that just like christianity and Judaism before it and indeed all faith based beliefs is that since no evidence is required for belief that persecuting the (heretic/non-believer/infedel/illegal alien) can be believed to be for the greater good with no evidence that this is so.
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@Fallaneze
Are my behaviors the same thing as my consciousness? You have observable evidence of people's behaviors but do you have observable evidence of their consciousness?
Are the movements of planets the same thing as gravity? The answer is no. Are the movements of planets observable evidence for gravity? The answer is yes.
Therefore unless conciousness is an illusion your behaviors lead me to believe that you possess a conciousness similar to mine and if conciousness is an illusion you would appear to be experiencing the same illusion.
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@Fallaneze
Unless conciousness is an illusion I can look at your behaviors.
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@Outplayz
Going from I saw a pendant spinning once to I don't believe in death is quite a leap. How do you justify this leap given the actual evidence?
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@Fallaneze
I will continue to subjectively assign meaning as I see fit the same as you.
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@Fallaneze
I suppose that is correct. What there is evidence for is that humans assign meaning.
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@Fallaneze
Ah I see what you are asking. There is none. Meaning is entirely contingent on brainstates. Without our subjectively assigning meaning there is no meaning. What observably exists is the human capacity to assign meaning. Nothing is intrinsically meaningful in any independently verifiable manner.
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@Fallaneze
As I said before your responses seeming to be in direct response to my own is independently verifiable (I could ask kieth if it looks like you are assigning meaning to him) and I do perceive them. You would seem to display the very human characteristic of assigning meaning.
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@Fallaneze
We have already defined evidence so I will assume you are asking what observable means? In the context of evidence it means independently verifiable perceptions.
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@Fallaneze
Meaning exists subjectively for me as a brainstate. I can only assume that since you seem to respond to my posts moe or less apropriately that you assign meaning to the symbols I string together to form words and that you too are assigning meaning.
If this is incorrect then this conversation has been entirely one-sided.
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@Fallaneze
I can observe people. I can observe their actions and their statements and look for inconsistencies. That is observable evidence by definition.
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@Fallaneze
This is untrue. The evidence is humans considering things meaningful but having different opinions about what is meaningful and how meaningful.it is. This evidence points to the concept of meaning existing and humans assigning meaning as they see fit.You have no observable evidence of meaning.
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@Snoopy
If there is a specific problem with my argument please point it out.
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@Fallaneze
then you must not find anything meaningful.
This is untrue. I assign meaning as I see fit just as you do. The only difference is our self justification.
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@Snoopy
A position is contingent on your axioms nothing more.
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@Snoopy
Allah is Arabic, not necessarily Islamic.
I'm not sure what post this is reference to but thank you for your response.
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@Fallaneze
Then again we cannot possibly determine that such a being exists.Again, "observable evidence" won't get us any closer to answering whether God does or does not exist because a "prime, eternal consciousness who created the universe" has no physical, observable characteristics.
Again, whether God's existence is "provable or "unprovable" is irrelevant. All we should concern ourselves with is whether belief in God's existence is more rational than not.
And again the only way to determine if it is rational to believe something is to examine the evidence. No observable characteristics no evidence. No evidence no rational reason to believe.
A belief is more rational than not when there's sufficient evidence for that belief. There's sufficient evidence for a belief when there's more information indicating that it's true than untrue.
If no information indicating the truth or falsity the default is skepticism. To withhold belief until some information becomes available.
If there is no observable evidence then I am unable to maintain belief. If you have none them we are at an impasse.
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@nagisa3
Feel free. We are often our own worst enemy.So I was straw manning myself?
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@janesix
It's ok if you don't want to talk but I'm still curious what you were trying to get at.
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@nagisa3
But again, I could poke holes in that until it looked like swiss cheese.
So this is merely a strawman.
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@Fallaneze
The big bang is the earliest event we have observable evidence for. We cannot say what if anything existed or happened before then. I would argue that this renders your definition unprovable. We literally cannot know if a being fitting this description can or could exist.
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@Fallaneze
By first do you mean specifically preceding the big bang?
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@Fallaneze
Also I'd like to talk about this definition of yours. Firstly I would like to know what you mean by prime. Secondly I would like to know how you could gauge that an unobservable being possesses conciousness. Thirdly I would like to know how any finite beings (like us) could possibly verify that something was eternal.
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@Fallaneze
What is the difference between God, god(s) and deity in that case? I infer from you objection that they have different meanings to you so you will have to tell me how God differs from a deity.
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@keithprosser
If that deity provides an afterlife the difference is very important.
Irrelevant unless the rules of entry can be clearly established.
Otherwise there is no actionable data.
Also I hate to be a stickler but the god(s) and the afterlife are two separate things demonstrating one would not necessitate the other.
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@Fallaneze
I object your trying to move the goal posts from some prime eternal conciousness to the specific prime eternal conciousness you have referred to as God. If you had a specific character in mind the time to mention that was when I asked "which god?"
Even If you can prove that a prime eternal conciousness exists this conciousness is as likely to be Xenu or the Flying Spaghetti Monster as whatever god(s) you think exist until you can provide sufficient evidence otherwise.
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@Fallaneze
If the being is unobservable then how do we tell the difference between it and no being at all? I think that is a fair question.
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@Fallaneze
Ok then what is the difference between a universe with an unobservable deity and one with no deity at all? You have the floor.
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@Fallaneze
Do we further agree that no amount of evidence short of sufficient justifies belief?
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@Fallaneze
Before we go any further we do agree there is a difference between some evidence and sufficient evidence do we not?
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@Fallaneze
One cannot obtain empirical knowledge of something for which there is no evidence even if we would not expect to see evidence.
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@Fallaneze
Aliens, alien aircraft, and abductions are all posited to be material entities that interact with earth's population and are therefore subject to observation.
Why would we necessarily expect an alien race advanced enough to cross interstellar distances would be subject to observation if they chose to hide their presence from us?
In that case how do we determine if we are in a universe with no information indicating the existence of advanced aliens because the aliens in question are unobservable or if we are in a universe with no information indicating the existence of advanced aliens because no aliens are present?
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@Fallaneze
I'm fine with this definition butinformation indicating whether a claim is true or untrue."
If this is true
A "prime, eternal consciousness and creator of the universe" is not (subject to observation)
Then we would not expect to have any information indicating whether or not such a being exists. How then do we determine if we are in a universe with no information indicating the existence of a deity because the deity in question is unobservable or if we are in a universe with no information indicating the existence of a deity because no deity is present?
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@Fallaneze
This is exactly my stance on god(s)Our observed absence of these occurrences warrant disbelief in the claim.
Are we using the same definition of "evidence"?
I'm not certain but we almost certainly differ on what constitutes sufficient evidence.
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@Fallaneze
Why don't we look at another issue in which there is no preponderance of evidence for or against the prospect of.
Let's say alien abduction. Would you say that neither belief not disbelief in alien abduction is more rational?
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@Fallaneze
I see no way to provide a preponderance of evidence for or against deism.That wholly depends on the preponderance of evidence.
if the evidence is exactly equal for and against, then we simply withhold belief and can't make a determination of which belief is more rational.
I tend to withhold belief in the absence of sufficient evidence.
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@Fallaneze
I see no way to prove or disprove deism.
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@Yassine
- No, that involves an entirely different definition. Once you define FSM as the necessary singular transcendent & absolute being, it can not also be some spaghetti character, for that is decidedly not a necessary being, for it is contingent on space. Any thing which is contingent on space or time can not be a necessary being, by definition. This is called an equivocation fallacy.
I only applied a definition to the FSM that prove a the FSM is necessary. Necessary and necessarily Allah are not the same thing. You are the one that said Allah and the FSM are one not me.
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@Yassine
Allah is a giant plate of sentient spaghetti? That is something that I didn't know about him.- It's the strictly the same thing, you defined FSM as God is defined in the Quran. You can't accept one & deny the other, for they are one & identical The demonstration establishes that a Necessary & Singular & Transcendent & Absolute being exists. This being just happens to be identical to God as defined in the Quran. Calling this being 'FSM' or '007' or '&(!%&)!' does not change the meaning.
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