Skydivephil & ThereIsNoSpoon,
Hello Iman,
I would prefer it if you stopped mixing Skydivephil and me together. You did that two or three times now. I was not following your discussion with him/her, nor do I do that now.
Your last post makes it very clear that you mix up the topics that you seem to discuss with me and with him. In this post (to which i am replying) you write about several issues that are not at all related to my posts.
So I would ask you to adress him/her and me seperately.
My post was relatively clear. I do ask for a reasonable and rational approach to evaluate religions. You made the claim that religion should be judged differently than science. But you also agreed in one of your last posts that the method of evaluation should be based on reason and rationality.
Although you didn't provide any conclusive arguments (actually you brought forth no argument at all) for why religions should be judged any differently i didn't question your statement and for the sake of the argument just asked you (and remember that I did that several times now) what method for evaluation you would want to have.
OBVIOUSLY if you are someone who really judges religions based on reason and rationality then you should be able to tell me HOW this should be done and also WHY you think it is the correct way.
After asking you several times now you still did not provide me with any real answer.
Your last post doesnt contain one either.
So again I ask you what method for evaluating a religion it is that should be used and why.
Now let me turn to your post....
First of all, I never pretended to be anything but a Muslim and if I am one then I would have to argue for the Islamic perspective rather than the Hindu or Christian perspective.
First of all i neither talked about what you are or what you are not nor do i require any specific perspective. I asked you about reason and rationality, about a neutral method for evaluating the truth of any religion.
I think you mistake me for the other poster you adressed.
I know you are atheists and your arguments are going precisely in that direction.
The term "atheist" doesn't exist for me.
And "my" arguments go into the direction of neutral, objective evaluation and knowledgefinding. Again ... don't mix me up with others.
If you can't see evidence of an intelliegent force in the universe and believe that a haphazard and accidental chain of events could have resulted in the meticulous universe and the presence of life, intelligence and consciousness, it is you not I who is making a dangerous leap of faith.
This is a rather dishonest way of dealing with our discussion. I asked for a method, you agreed that there should be one. Now you simply bash around with an empty statement. It definetly is not a "leap of faith" if someone doesn't see something.
It is a leap of faith if you believe in something without evidence.
There is a difference.
According to your own statements before religion should be judgable. Now instead of lamenting that people are blind you perhaps should provide the answer to the question i posted now for half a dozen times.....
Second, who says that revelation is not evidence in itself.
What kind of evidence?
There is a text and that text says something.
This makes the text itself a claim. A claim that should be judged and verified.
No more and no less.
The "name" revelation is already an assumption by the way...
If it were only one or two figures who came and claimed to have such close contact with the divine, you may be right in your skepticism, but it is a string of prophets in different times , places and historical contexts who claimed the same thing, one God, and an afterlife. Their message was substantial andconsistent.
As I have already told you in the last posts your view is rather untrue. All you have to do is to actually COMPARE the messages of the different religions. The bible speaks about different things than the torah which speaks about different things as the Quran. If they were so consistent, then we would only have one religion. But defacto we do have great differences.
Also according to your own reasoning you would have to abandon islam and stick to the bahai since they had a "prophet" that came afterwards with also a supposedly consistent message based on islam.
I am sure you know exactly well why you dont stick to the bahai faith.
This renders your earlier argument inconclusive however.
It had strong appeal and followers who number more than half of earth population. They were certainly not crazy and their message touched an instictive cord for all of us humanbeings.
Perhaps you should take a look around and see how many different so called prophets spoke to people and how many followers they got.
That something has a strong "appeal" is NOT a rational and reasonable factor for evaluating its TRUTH.
We need God in our lives, We needed Him yesterday, we need Him now and we will always need Him in our lives.
Postulations, postulations, postulations.
Is THIS the sort of "reason" and rationality" that you spoke of earlier in your posts?
Can all these messangers be delusional or lying? My common sense says No.
Common sense says a lot of unlogical things.
And again... you are mistaken to assume that all those folks spoke about islam. They didnt. They spoke about totally different things. So its quite clear that a lot of them MUST have spoken the untruth if you assume that only one thing can be true.
A series of witnesses to the same act are admissable in court, why not here?
You can't even muster witnessess or their accounts Iman.
You can't even proove that the historic data is authentic.
As for Islam, I have already talked about it as the natural culmination for all revelations and why I think that. In the end, faith and belief are personal issues.
BOOM.
Here goes all the claims about reason and rationality.
Belief in the end is just a personal pick and choose. Thank you for finally admitting it although i think it was not your intention to do so.
You will never produce evidence that God is not here.
I don't need to. You cant even define me your specific version of God.
You argue that disbelief is the default mode for human beings.
No. I argue that not believing until being convinced of somethings existence is the only practical approach that is practical. And YOU by the way too EXCEPT for one single instance of God.
Now do me the favor:
Either bring me your reasonable and rational method to judge a religion OR simply admit that you have none. Spares me much time.
