"those who believe and do good works" - 2:62 and 3:21
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Peace
With all respect to my brothers and sisters in the forum I guess the story of Satan being a believer (or not) is a useless argument. There was nothing for Satan to believe, in fact he was a witness according to the Quraan. Satan saw it, knew it. Satan was there in Gods presence with the angels, refused to bow to Adam, mislead Adam and Eve and challenged God that he will lead many astray. When you know a fact for certain the question of believing does not arise.
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Peace Enquirer
as do all the ingredients/entities that make up reality and nature...I dont verify that there is ONE entity/god in full control and possesing all power,eg i reject pure monotheism.
What are ?all the ingredients/entities that make up reality? ?
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Peace warner. These ingredients are all the 'things' that we know,and also all those things that we dont know...
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Peace Enquirer
Peace warner. I personally do not need any concept of god to keep me happy...I look to cause and effect my friend....I directed you to idolfree because his interpretation of god is one i partly can live with,and can be verifed partially....I appreciate the guy has 4000+ posts....Check the search engine if you have time.....If a person called god nature or reality i could live with that as well.....In numerous posts i have stated my views on god/concepts of god....I only have 1500+ posts so there are less to look at.... I could be called an atheist by some,but i do verify that humans have power,gravity has power,animals have power,as do all the ingredients/entities that make up reality and nature...I dont verify that there is ONE entity/god in full control and possesing all power,eg i reject pure monotheism.
What does god mean to you?
ps;i dont want to speak on behalf of idolfree,but i think his view is that the subjective part of god is our 'conciousness',and the objective part of god is the conciousness of the whole of all that exists,along with all the universal laws/cause and effect which this 'objective' part brings about.....I may be wrong in exactly how idolfree defines god....maybe other folks can reference his work...
Take it easy... peaceI am trying to fathom your above explanations.
According to you,
God is cause and effect, nature or reality
Since Humans have power, gravity has power, animals have power, and all the ingredients/entities that make up reality and nature God can not have all the power. Can you explain a little more please?
Since according to you subjective part of God is our consciousness, God could not have existed before us. So rather God is our creation (creation of our consciousness) rather than we are His creation.
And I do not understand how you mixed ?our consciousness? and ?consciousness of the whole of all that exists with all the universal laws/cause and effect? to create a God which you are happy with. Can you explain please?
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Peace
With all respect to my brothers and sisters in the forum I guess the story of Satan being a believer (or not) is a useless argument. There was nothing for Satan to believe, in fact he was a witness according to the Quraan. Satan saw it, knew it. Satan was there in Gods presence with the angels, refused to bow to Adam, mislead Adam and Eve and challenged God that he will lead many astray. When you know a fact for certain the question of believing does not arise.
Hi Bro Warner!
That further solidifies my argument. If certainty and knowledge cannot save one from becoming a rejecter, than what can mere belief do?
Just to clarify, I believe that there is a difference between what is normally recognized as "belief" and the quranic usage of "belief". I believe that the former manifests itself in ackowledgment of something, whilst the latter manifests itself in the attidude of someone. In my posts, like this one, is use the word belief as it is normally understood.
Nadeem
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Peace Enquirer
as do all the ingredients/entities that make up reality and nature...I dont verify that there is ONE entity/god in full control and possesing all power,eg i reject pure monotheism.
What are all the ingredients/entities that make up reality ?
Peace warner. These ingredients are all the 'things' that we know,and also all those things that we dont know...
Peace Enquirer
I can not understand how you connect ?all those things we do not know? to ?reality?. How can something we do not know be real?
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Peace warner. Do you know everyone who inhabits the earth? No,but they still exist,yes?
Also,when man didnt know about the existence of dinosaurs,atoms and such like,it didnt mean those things didnt exist,or hadnt existed....So i make an allowance for things undiscovered,or things that are not perceived by our ordinary senses. peace handshake -
Peace warner. Do you know everyone who inhabits the earth? No,but they still exist,yes?
Also,when man didnt know about the existence of dinosaurs,atoms and such like,it didnt mean those things didnt exist,or hadnt existed....So i make an allowance for things undiscovered,or things that are not perceived by our ordinary senses. peace handshakePeace Enquirer
So God can exist and be real although we do not know and also not perceived by our ordinary senses
Do you think Moses , Jesus and Muhammad are liars( or maybe metaphors ) ?
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Peace Nadeem
It strengthens your argument because you are comparing x with y. Believing and being righteous is to do with mankind and not with Satan. His belief and submission is not asked for. Satan is rejected by God and Satan?s destiny is hell. But man has an opportunity to escape the fire so man needs to believe and do good.
Can psychopaths claim insanity in a court of law?
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Peace Warner. I greatly respect idolfrees verification method,his controlling of emotions philosophy,and his idea of reconditioning our behaviour through meditation/salat,but i dont follow all his other conclusions....
Moses,jesus and muhammed? From what i read of their scriptures,they are either mad or misunderstood or mistaken...Or all three...
Yes god could exist in theory unperceived to some degree,but so could the tooth fairy...
muscle peace handshake -
Peace Nadeem
It strengthens your argument because you are comparing x with y. Believing and being righteous is to do with mankind and not with Satan. His belief and submission is not asked for. Satan is rejected by God and Satan?s destiny is hell. But man has an opportunity to escape the fire so man needs to believe and do good.
Can psychopaths claim insanity in a court of law?
You cannot really believe that. I must be misreading you. Do you really believe that satan was never asked to believe and submit? Then why is he in hell? What is his crime? That he did not follow gods orders? Why should he? No one asked him to!
I cannot believe that. Satan was just as obligated to follow god, as we are, maybe even more.
As to psychopath claiming insanity... I don't know.
I'm not a fan of the insanity loop hole, nor am I educated in psychology.
Can I ask why you asked this question?
Nadeem
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Peace Enquirer
So did you add tooth fairy to ?all those things we do not know that make up reality? but did not add God? Thanks for admitting tooth fairy is your God to ?some degree?.
Idolfree?s verification method is based on the Quraan (and other scriptures) I guess. So don?t you think you are wasting your time reading idolfrees 4000 explanations on the Quraan while writing 1500 posts on the Quraan and scriptures you perceive to be mistaken and misunderstandings sheer madness?
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Peace Nadeem
Let me explain to you. The Quraan instructs man to believe and be righteous for example the verses you quoted above 3961 and 2177. Now these are instructions to mankind and not to Iblis who was rejected from the Garden. Satans doom is sealed. Whereas Adam repented since he disobeyed but Satan was arrogant and challenged God to lead man astray.
I am bit intrigued by your comparison of Psychopaths with rejecters and hypocrites in earlier post. So I was wondering whether, if psychopaths can claim insanity in this world because they are mentally not sound will God be unfair to them in the hereafter?
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Hi Warner,
Thanks for the explanation -)
It is no surprise to me that the instructions in the quran are ment for mankind, since the whole book itself is addressed to us.
However, I also believe that there are basic rules, that have no need to be stated anywhere, for one to understand that they should be followed. Not being arrogant is one of them. No one needs to tell me, or write to me "Dear Nadeem, don't be arrogant." for me to understand that I shouldn't be. Though in some moments I do forget. However, all in all, God gave me the ability to repel arrogance and I assume that He wants me to use that ability.
I believe that this is the case with satan. He had the ability to repel arrogance. If he didn't have this ability, then God has put a burden on his soul to much for his soul to lift by asking him to "submit" or "prostrate" - which does not sound like something God would do. Doesn't the quran say so?
Please do not pay to much attention to whether or not Satan had a "soul", try to focus on the principle of God instead.
But I think we're drifting away from the point by discussing the characteristics of satan. Which is that satan knew, he had the highest level of belief in all those items in part a, yet he was sentenced to hell. He was arrogant.
Therefore, I argue, that mere belief* wont cut it. I'm not saying that belief has nothing to say, It can be a great motivator for doing good deeds, to which I'll testify to, but in the end, I believe all that matters is whether or not the good deed was done. If one truly was a believer, one will have them done.
I believe, that we can claim or unclaim whatever we want, we can call ourselves muslim, hindu, kafir, christian and so on, but it won't matter to god. I argue that what is in our hearts and minds, is expressed by our actions, and that it is our actions that form what is truly in our heart and minds.
We can claim that we have the love of god in our hearts, as the hypocrits did when they went on slaying the prophets. But from their actions we knew what they really believed, what they themselves did not know that they believed.
I'm not trying to compare you and me and our beliefs to the beliefs of the hypocrits. No. I am trying to show that what we have in our hearts, is not what is said from our tongues, but what is done in our deeds.
Do we agree?
*belief as in simply acknowledging the existence of something.
I am bit intrigued by your comparison of Psychopaths with rejecters and hypocrites in earlier post. So I was wondering whether, if psychopaths can claim insanity in this world because they are mentally not sound will God be unfair to them in the hereafter?
Ok. That is a valid question. But I don't have any valid answer, as of yet. I'll try to study the case, and then hopefully bring more insights.
Nadeem
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Hi Brother Warner,
Here is something that might help you answer your question
http//www.slate.com/id/2099203/Reading that article, can one really miss the resemblance between a kafir as described in the quran, and a psychopath?
A quote from the article
In popular usage, almost any crazy killer is a "psychopath." But in psychiatry, it's a very specific mental condition that rarely involves killing, or even psychosis. "Psychopaths are not disoriented or out of touch with reality, nor do they experience the delusions, hallucinations, or intense subjective distress that characterize most other mental disorders," writes Dr. Robert Hare, in Without Conscience, the seminal book on the condition. (Hare is also one of the psychologists consulted by the FBI about Columbine and by Slate for this story*.) "Unlike psychotic individuals, psychopaths are rational and aware of what they are doing and why. Their behavior is the result of choice, freely exercised." Diagnosing Harris as a psychopath represents neither a legal defense, nor a moral excuse. But it illuminates a great deal about the thought process that drove him to mass murder.An article that sheds doubts about the above
http//news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/1524500.stmHere is more articles if you are intrested.
http//www.hare.org/links/media.htmlNadeem
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Peace Nadeem
Appreciate the excellent links you have posted.
Quote Nadeem
Therefore, I argue, that mere belief* wont cut it. I'm not saying that belief has nothing to say, It can be a great motivator for doing good deeds, to which I'll testify to, but in the end, I believe all that matters is whether or not the good deed was done. If one truly was a believer, one will have them done.
Although I am agreement with some of the point you made , I simply said do not bring Satans analogy as a believer (or for that matter Adam or some of the prophets) because Satan never denied God. There was no question of belief. He did not submit. When you know something for certain and you are witness it is a fact and a forgone conclusion.
Quote Nadeem
I also believe that there are basic rules, that have no need to be stated anywhere, for one to understand that they should be followed. Not being arrogant is one of them. No one needs to tell me, or write to me "Dear Nadeem, don't be arrogant." for me to understand that I shouldn't be
Sorry Nadeem. Although you feel the basic rules need not be stated anywhere and no one needs to tell you, God states all basic rules in the Quraan including not being arrogant. Are you telling God no need to state basic rules anywhere and is God included in ?no one needs to tell me? not to be arrogant.
Quote Nadeem
I believe, that we can claim or unclaim whatever we want, we can call ourselves muslim, hindu, kafir, christian and so on, but it won't matter to god. I argue that what is in our hearts and minds, is expressed by our actions, and that it is our actions that form what is truly in our heart and minds
When we call our selves Hindu or a Christian we have to act like one. If you call your self a Christian, you have to follow Jesus and the disciples and the Bible. And accept all that is in it are inspired and Jesus is son of God or God or whatever. Then if you call your self a Hindu you must follow the Vedas, Puranas, etc and accept the 10,000 Gods. Other wise you are just a liar or a hypocrite. I used to call my self superman (used to believe in it sometimes too, ha) when I was 3 years old but I guess no body took me seriously other than my mum.
If you call yourself a Muslim you must believe that the Quraan is inspired to the Prophet and believe in one God and submit to Him by following the Quraan.
Also,
There is nothing wrong if a person says he believes, if it is the truth and it is from his heart and his actions reflect his belief.
And
I explained in another post above how and why a believer can end up in the fire and even Ahmed was in agreement with that.
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I think the answer is a little bit of both. The "feeling good" effect of "doing good" is certainly selfish in it's essence. Afterall, who doesn't want to feel good. But I think this is the built-in consequence of acting in harmony with the divine - just as feeling guilty, angry, jealous, etc, is a built-in consequence of acting out of harmony.
Peace Tay
I don?t agree.
All these feelings have evolved because they serve our selfish interests (the interests of our genes) , via reciprocal altruism.reciprocal altruism is a form of altruism in which one organism provides a benefit to another in the expectation of future reciprocation ().
http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reciprocal_altruismOf course genes themselves have no conscious desire to reproduce or to obey Hamilton's logic about inclusive fitness. Instead, they spread themselves by coding instructions for the building of bodies, which in higher organisms include specialized organs called brains. Brains have evolved by natural selection to give their possessors pleasurable feelings from certain activities?including the taking of nourishment, having sex, and being in the company of friends and family?that are important for reproductive success. Genetic propensities toward altruism are expressed only through the indirect mechanism of the brain, which until recently knew nothing of genes. If we are inclined to help our close relatives, including our children, it is because our brains typically derive happiness from assisting our loved ones, just as our brains tend to make us feel guilty whenever we withhold such assistance.
http//www.nybooks.com/articles/894See also http//web.mit.edu/~9.00/www/handouts/10recip.pdf
IMHO, our natural altruism is not sufficient, and to be genuinely altruistic, we need to believe in God.
Peace
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Peace JM,
I respect your opinion JM but I do not consider a scientific definition enough to alter the understanding of what's being discussed. Just because science has a name for it, doesn't mean it's not something more than meets the eye or the predisposition of scientists to make everything fit into the evolutionary cycle on a "functional advantage" basis. These people would have you believe that art was invented due to some sort of sexual eminence over competing males - kinda like a peacock spreading it's feathers.
If we are inclined to help our close relatives, including our children, it is because our brains typically derive happiness from assisting our loved ones, just as our brains tend to make us feel guilty whenever we withhold such assistance.
See, science measures the effects, and often mistakes it for the cause. The same is being done with scientific research on near-death experiences in Canada. They're manipulating parts of the brain and recording what the patient is "experiencing", which often is exactly the same as those who've witnessed the near-death experience. Thus, these scientists conclude that what people witness and feel is not something "out there" but a creation of the brain, yet they fail to take into consideration that the creation of the brain is actually the effect of the near-death experience, not the cause.
This is like saying someone just sprinted a 1/4 mile and his heart is racing. Then the scientists find other ways to make the heart race to the same exact speed in a controlled laboratory environment, and thus conclude that it wasn't the sprinting that caused the heart to race, it was the heart.
IMHO, our natural altruism is not sufficient, and to be genuinely altruistic, we need to believe in God.
My conclusion is that natural altruism is simply the name given to our God-given inborn compass. Of course this will be amplified by further contemplation, but not nullified for lack of it.
Peace,
Tay -
I'm not trying to compare you and me and our beliefs to the beliefs of the hypocrits. No. I am trying to show that what we have in our hearts, is not what is said from our tongues, but what is done in our deeds.
Do we agree?
Yes.
By the way, the insights I have developed in this post (http//www.free-minds.org/forum/index.php?topic=5261.0) have been based by the same reasoning path as you.
Satan is not a mumin. He is a real kafir.
Why ? Because a mumin is not someone who merely believe in the existence of God, it is someone who fear God and fear what shall happen to him in the hereafter. As a direct consequence, a mumin will be a good-doer.
A kafir is someone who knows iman in God implies, but he will ungratefully reject God as his (only) source of guidance, and thus, he will become an evil-doer.Some useful links
http//www.free-minds.org/forum/index.php?topic=6221.msg96769#msg96769
http//www.free-minds.org/forum/index.php?topic=5831.0
See http//www.altmuslim.com/perm.php?id=1676_0_25_0_C44Between theses 2 extremes cases, there are the jahileen (ignorant). Their hearts are not yet sealed, and they should be invited to the way of God with wisdom and goodly exhortation.
There are many atheists today that don?t believe in the existence of God. But the main reason for that is that their concept of god is flawed. So, they are not kuffar, but jahileen.
Peace
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Peace Tay,
I am not sure you have got my point.
The evolutionist paradigm is that the genes of an organism are selected if they contribute to more replications of the organism (survival, reproduction).
Eating and drinking is good for survival. So, the genes which favor the drives which favor eating and drinking (hunger and thirst) have been selected
In the same way, reciprocal altruism (tit-for-that) is good for survival. So, the genes which favor the drives which favor reciprocal altruism have been selected.
Among these drives, there are liking, anger, gratitude, sympathy, guilt, shame, generosity, honor? and maybe some God-awareness.So, we are naturally, to some extent, generous and compassionate.
What I am saying is that this natural and inborn disposition (and the good deeds that can go along) is not enough.
We need, to be genuinely good doers, to genuinely believe in God and in the hereafter.Helping your fellows can be in your interest, because it gives you a good reputation, and this reputation will give you the feedback of your good deeds; your fellow will help you in return. This is a perfect example of reciprocal altruism, and this is for that kind of altruism that we are genetically predisposed.
But, there is a higher level of good working helping the poor (who may not be able to help you in return), or fighting the oppressors (when you are dead, you get no feedback) ; for this higher lever of good doing, belief in God is necessary.
Do you know why the nations who do not uphold Islam are eventually destroyed? This is because they have not been able to develop a real solidarity (the kind of solidarity that only a sincere belief in God results in) between its members. Such a nation becomes vulnerable to almost everything attacks of the enemies, internal plots, natural disasters?etc.. and eventually, it get destroyed. This lesson is what God repeats with multiples examples in the Quran.
Peace