LONDON !

I don't believe in Science but accept the evidence provided for claims. The thing thing with Science is that it's true whether you choose to believe it or not.

As for the Pseudoscience of looking for science in the quran, id say check out this from a qualified muslim scientist
http//tribune.com.pk/story/238607/the-science-of-scriptures/

London baby !

@goodlogic

I respect the right for people to believe in a invisible, impalpable higher power and performing prayer rituals to it. I don't respect that as a intellectual belief, but a belief one has the right to hold with no interference from the state as long as that person causes no physical harm to others or use that belief as a validation to subject others(as many muslims do with islamic scriptures and some jews do with Judaism)

Similarly I don't find astrology a respectable/intelligent belief but I don't think holding astrological beliefs should lead to criminal prosecutions.

In thinking critically I think it's better to abstain from believing in objective claims until sufficient evidence is provided and if you do believe without evidence in my opinion requires alot of gullibility and a false methodology of ascertaining objective claims.

@Man of Faith

Quantum physics only prove the phenomenon of "God" or a 'Constancy' effect even better.

Quantam Physics shows no empirical proof of any god or the role of any god in the mechanism. If you are able to provide "PROOF" of a god involved in any Scientific process I suggest you submit your data and becomed renowned for discovering a "god" and then recieve a Nobel Prize too.

My point about Quantam physics was related to it demonstrating how not everything created requires a cause. Hence making god completely redundant.

But it is not fallible to think a "background intelligence" is needed for life to evolve. Either that little cell is very intelligent or there is higher intelligence.

I wouldn't regard humans as particularly intelligent. Granted we are more intelligent than other species but we define ourselves with the superlative of "intelligent" by our own standards. If there is a species out there in the universe 1.5% smarter than us watching us than us they'd be saying "look at these dumb humans, we are the intelligence ones"

It is not a fallible argument at all, or how would you expect that the universe with its energy have everything
bind together. I find it is more fallible and irrational saying there is no "higher power".

We don't know all the answers yet, being honest and humble and saying "I don't know" for what Science doesn't know is how Science works. Absolute certainty without a crumb of proof is the domain of religion/theism/deists.

The same question could be posed to you. How does gods energy bind together as one and from where. Of course you'd then use the special pleading fallacy of "ohhh but there's different rules for god"

You think nature knew what looks nice? What caused gravity to exist?Why do atoms stick together and form molecules?

These are just arguements from ignorance and the notable god of the gaps fallacy.
it seems you're very uncomfortable with answers of "we don't know yet". This is why it's problematic
http//i.imgur.com/a1U4S6H.jpg

Religion brings people to the Pagan materialistic god which jiburl objects against, but that is not really what "god" is. The word "god" is a very poor choice actually, particularly when talking to someone who is ignorant of what it means.

My second reply showed I'm not ignorant of what god means and you're doing exactly what I said theists do
with the term god lol
God is a slippery term that means many different things and can mean anything. When something can mean anything it can't mean anything.

@reel
You thought I am against science? No, I am not.

not you specifically, the general vibe amongst replies.

From your discussion so far it seems that you have least amount of knowledge about both science and religion.

Right let's resort to ad hominems

I have a very bad news for you. Whether it is UK or US, when the lawmakers work on ethical laws, they look into to religions esp, Bible, Torah and Quran.

This is just patently false and the most preposterous and ridicilous thing anyone has said in this thread so far. In the UK and many US states The more gay friendly laws are completely antithetical to homophobic abrahamic scriptures. Also how does the freedom of religion abide by the abrahamic scriptures which tell you to kill people for leaving the religion ?

What is funny is that despite your rejection to religions, you are abiding by them.

lol, another stupid baseless comment. I do many harmless things which would be regarded as "sin" by religions.

Another bad news is that UK is number 4 country to adhere to Quran faithfully.
I highly doubt that, not many people in the uK take sex slaves and behead people as endorsed in the quran.

@Man of Faith

Yuur mental contortions obfuscate things more than they provide lucidity. How can you even know what a god wants/needs or doesn't want/need when no god can even be discerned?

Besides I gave you reasons to why you would not be able to exist if it was not for some incomprehensible "higher power".

up to now we know that some things are created and some don't require a creator. The "what ever begins to exist need a creator" fallacy is outdated armchair philosophy that has been demonstrably debunked and proven to be untrue with Quantam Mechanics.

@good logic

personal visceral feelings are not proof of an objective claim. Those same type of subjective feelings lead to many other people to a completely different religious certainty belief which are irreconcilable with yours. How would it be possible to work out between yours and a persons whose religious belief is different whose is true and untrue ?

peace

Hello my fellow human bean )

@goodlogic

clarity in speaking is important, what do you mean by gods system? and how do you know this systems exist? what data do you have access to that nobody else has?

@hawk

Theism has always been a belief with 100% certainty that a supernatural god exists. If you are not 100% you are an agnostic.

How can one ascertian jealousy or anger through a screen? I find otherwise educated grown adults having invisible, imaginary friends very bizarre and childish and try to understand why they need that.

I don't have the fear that i could very possibly face an eternal holocaust where I'm repeadtly burnt by a god because of thought crimes who doesn't accept me as I am. What exactly is there to be jealous of there? Why would I be jealous on a belief which draws people in through fear mongering and treat people like children who need something to be scared of to manipulate them?

@Man of Faith

Play the ball, not the man. What's with the personal insults? Are you ten years old and in Primary School?

@goodlogic

I have heard of Pascals Wager many a time before.

It has many problems, for example how would you know you're beelining in the right god and won't face the repercussions of not believing in the right one? If I accept Jesus as my personal saviour and god, I'd go to the islamic hell for shirq(polytheism) if it turns out islam is true. If i I believe in Allah and no other as his equal as islam requires and it turns out Christianity is true i'd get thrown in the christian hell for not accepted Jesus as my personal saviour. I suppose you could worm your way out of that by saying "oohh only god knows who really goes to hell" or "as long as you except any god you won't go to hell".

As for oblivion I like the idea as it means I won't have to know my family forever ;D

@ManOfFaith

Arguments for ignorance, which you made are not a reason to believe in a supernatural sorcerer magician. Not having a Scientific explanation for something yet does prove the existence of anything Deity whether it's Krishna, Ahura Mazdha or Allah.

There is a long list of things which people had(and still do) supernatural/spiritual beliefs for which we have now understood the processes much better with naturalistic Scientific explanations. IE epilepsy, thunder/lightning, origin of species etc. If someone has an epileptic fit no Scientifically literate person will now say "oh it's demonic possession, let's have an exorcism", rather he/she will be given anticonvulsants.

If you believe in a god of the gaps as you have demonstrated who directs evolution, created the universe etc and natural explanations are found for these processes will it lead to you jettisoning that belief?

@Hawk99

That we have evolved to have many superstitious beliefs is not an argument for those beliefs being true.

When I spoke of Intelligent Life in the universe I said "if" it was discovered. I never made a claim with absolute certainty, which is what one is required to do to be a supernatural theist. Please don't distort or misrepresent what I'm saying, if anything it makes you look slimey and duplicitous.

Hi, as a fellow human , I hope you soon feel better.

@hawk99

I like to have conversations with people who have beliefs in things that I find very peculiar. I am genuinely perplexed as to how some otherwise very intelligent people believe in invisible magical entities with absolute certainty. You have people with PHD's who are supernaturalists. The majority of humans have beliefs which lack evidence, this is not just restricted to religion, ie some people uninfected with the god belief believe that George Bush knocked down the Twin Towers.

If we were to discover concious life in the universe and be able communicate with them in something like a language I'd want to know if they like most people on Earth believe objective claims about reality which have zero evidence.

If anyone can give convincing reasons to me I'd like to think I can change my mind on anything if provided with good arguments. If something is true and can directly effect me I wanna know about it. I want to know how things happen, how they came about. Is the universe infinite or did it have a beginning? What's the origin of life? how did biological conciousness first arise from chemical molecules? etc. Religions have treaded on the feet of Science by making claims in these fields.

@goodlogic

You are confused about why you are here in this life and have no idea who you are? That is my understanding according to your latest post.

If there was a reason completely out of my control that I'm here in this life then I'd be a suppressed individual living in a autocratic dictatorship. It's rather supercilious to assume we have a purpose. You already have the presupposition that there has to be a purpose to life then working from there. We humans aren't special and it's highly unlikely we are eternally immortal as our "selfs". We are just 1.5% smarter than chimps. If there is a species in the universe 1.5% smarter than us, they would look at us humans & think "look at these dumb animals".

There is very probably no ultimate purpose to life and one should realise that no matter how much it hurts our frail egos. One we all accept the mediocrity we are in then we can work on improving the only life we know we'll have.

Your own purpose in life is something you choose for yourself. If it's something you accept is chosen for you, you are accepting you're are a slave who has been designated his/her purpose by his slavemaster. For some their purpose if feminism, veganism yoga etc. The beauty of being a freethinker is that is you get to choose yourself .

Most people are convinced that reason and science prove the in-existence of God rather than His existence

I've not heard any Scientist say this, this is a rather absurd misrepresentation. You can't disprove a negative, that's one of the fundamental basics of critical thinking ie nobody can disprove they are a murderer, nobody can disprove the existence of dragons. What Science can do is show how supernatural explanations are unnecessary.

A lot of the time I hear and see sweeping generalisations and misrepresentations of people who aren't supernaturalists. By many it's assumed they all hold one position on politics, science, philosophy etc. Me not being convinced about the existence of supernatural deities is just an answer of no to that question. It doesn't say anything about my views on anything else. I've never stated for example that the universe came about accidentally. There are speculative possibilities in theoretical Physicists in regards to the origins of the Universe however I don't know how the universe came about or even it was created, and nor does anyone else yet. For me saying "I don't know" is the most sincere and virtuous answer to that question. No amount of armchair philosophy can change that.

sophistication, precision, consistency, coordination and harmony?"

Really? Nature is trying to kill us in so many ways. Aids, wildfires, typhoons, cancer, volcanoes, tornadoes, avalanches, tsunamis, droughts, cyclones, tuberclosis, floods, heatwaves, cholera, polio, ebola, sars, mengingities, malaria etc. I fail to see how this is intelligent work.

@Man of Faith

Wow you really just came out with god of the gaps arguments?

No contradiction, because pointing out how one and two are different has nothing to do with the point of islam and islamism not being indistincy.

your tailing off into a discussion about what quranist islam is/isn't, which is irrelevant to the thread.

@jafar

If a person of faith has weak faith, then why do they call themselves a believer, it makes them an an assumer. I value sincerity as a virtue. BTW I've heard these banal mental gymnastics before.

@Good Knowledge

lol at conflating faith and Science.

Science is not beliefs, It's provides knowledge with different levels of probabilities. Science is not dependent on an individual subjective confidence to a claim, but the actual testable evidence and experiments.

Supernatural is that which violates naturals laws. For any of the thousands of claimed gods to be natural it would require it's existence to palpably demonstrated in the natural world otherwise it's indistinguishable from a belief in leprechauns. I'm pretty sure this hasn't been done yet. Like I said if anybody has sensory data to back up this claim they should bring it, until then they shouldn't be having comversations at the adults table. There's a childrens table for people
who believe in spirits, tooth fairies, deities and other spooks and woo woo.

If you look at what you are saying you will find a lot of "faith" in your beliefs.

I have faith for nothing. I'm not certain about any objective claim that have no evidence, which is what faith is.

@hawk99

that's because religion is Santa Claus for grown ups !

As for reading the quran, literature is a subjective medium. Subjective mediums don't provide evidence for objective claims, particularly in a dead language !

@reel

Science doen't know everything, it knows alot of things. Religion doesn't know anything

I find the the anathema for Science on here astonishingly hypocritical, considering everyone is on here on a laptop/PC, something given to us by applied Science ROLLEYES

@Man of Faith

Can you prove your not a thief?

Think about that then you're realise how fallacious the "you can't prove argument is" )

Also Intelligent Design arguments? This is what I'd expect if I accidentally went on to a far right crackpots christian creationists website who believe the world is 6000 years old. These are only things a very Scientifically illiterate person would say.

Please tell me where is the intelligence in small helpless children slowly and excruciatingly dying of pneumonia? Where is the intelligence in a mother having a blood haemorrhage when she has to push out her baby through a tunnel which shouldn't be anywhere near as narrow as it is if it was well crafted ? Where is the intelligence in a parasitic worm nourishing on the back of a childs eye in Africa that is torturing him daily and will eventually make him/her go blind ?

@Israfeel

I'm not Christian

@hawk

Telling someone who finds no convincing reason to think any deity or satan about is like telling a kid who don't believe in Santa that he won't get no presents for Christmas. It doesn't make a jot of difference!

@Jafar

a thinking. perceptable entity is sentient, but go ahead define god as you like. The definition of god to individuals has to remain elastic for belief to persist.

And you do have faith, you have faith that you will still be alive tomorrow although you don't really know
whether that's true or not as it can't be proven as of now

No I don't have faith in being alive tomorrow, I'd say it's very probable that I will be, not certain. IF I was CERTAIN I'd be alive tomorrow then I'd have FAITH.

You're mistaken, some elements within religion can be validated to be not true..
And some elements within religion can be validated to be true..

I'm referring to the supernatural/paranormal claims not being true. Parts of religious scriptures can be true ie places/cities etc, but that's no proof for the supernatural twaddle. Kings Cross Station in the Harry Potter books is a real place, but that doesn't mean all the magic in the Harry Potter books is.

@good logic

I don't care about beliefs, I care about demonstrable knowledge for objective claims.

this clears up my religious position
http//free-minds.org/forum/index.php?topic=9606879.0;topicseen

@

which blog about Gaza are you referring to? I think you have me confused with someone else

I only made a guest post on that blog. The actual website/blog is of a Christian I know. I'm not even a Christian

Some of my thoughts on this "Islamophobia" term.

The term "Islamophobia" is as preposterous as contriving the terms 'fascistophobia' or 'fluophobia'. There is rational and reasonable grounds to be fearful and perturbed by how Islamic scriptures can and are destructively put into real life action by those who have ascendancy and follow the fundamentals of Islam. Is a person irrational and ?Islamaphobic? when they point out how a homosexual or an apostate in one of the many Muslim majority countries will face the death penalty or imprisonment if they are discovered to be a homosexual or an apostate, where the establishment warrant these punishments on an Islamic basis?

It is even more rational to have apprehensions about Islam when you peruse the Quran and read the copious amount of verses which have rampant instructions to kill / smite / slay / strike / subjugate the non-believers. Moderates will contextualise/historicise violent parts of the Quran in Western societies as a mental exercise in propitiation despite no part of the Quran saying any of it is within a context or only for a particular historical period. The likes of ISIS and many others do not however perform this cognitive buffet so some level of trepidation is fully justified as the correct response to the present and impending danger or Islamic doctrines. Followers of the fundamentals of Islam don?t just believe these are fictitious scriptures in the Shakespearean sense that should have no practical application. They are seen by those staunchly dutiful to the fundamentals of Islam as being pertinent to contemporary life in the 21st Century.

The crucial distinction that should be made is that awareness and a response to the menacing aspects of Islam as an ideology should not be commingled with Muslims as people, who should not face bigotry on the basis of their Muslim identity. ?Islam? and ?Muslims? are not synonymous terms. Muslims are very diverse and pluralistic and the only common trait every person who give themselves the "Muslim" label has is that they breathe oxygen. They are many Muslims who just like Jews and Christian give themselves that identity label but think the supernatural claims are complete twaddle(albeit more Muslims don?t disclose their non-belief in supernatural claims as openly), but will celebrate Eid with family and friends, just like cultural non-believing Christians celebrate Christmas. These nominal Muslims, many who don?t practise Islamic rituals at all and don?t spread odious rhetoric towards non-Muslims should be distinguished from the fundamental followers of Islam and not clustered as one entity.

The hatred towards Muslims is opportunely used by fundamental followers of Islam who then profusely and incessantly scream ?Islamaphobia? in their attempts to detract attention away from well-substantiated criticisms of Islam as an ideology. It serves to duplicitously portray the opprobrium Islamofascists ideological views receive as demonisation of all Muslims. It desires to quieten the ideological criticism of Islam that effect the aspirations of Islamofascists who do not wish to be hindered in expressing their loathing of those who do not subscribe to their views and for their actions to be combated.

To sum it up for Islamophobia to be a term which makes sense linguistically it would require the user of the term to show how not a single version or interpretation of Islam presently or historically has presented any danger to anyone or presents any danger to anyone at this instant in time. You would have to think the wrath faced by non-believers, homosexuals, women and apostates with Islamic scriptural validations since Islam's inception has all been one complete fabrication. This of course is intellectually impossible to do and would require the user to engage in an unparalleled level of denialism.

What makes you think you have the true and right Islam?

When I speak about Mohammed as the founder of islam, I'm speaking in historical terms as a religion which is claimed to have originated from Arabia in 7th Century, not faith terms of "Ohh Adam was the first Muslim".

The point of this article is not a theological analysis, it's analysing how islam has been a political movement since it's historical inception and the idea of "islamism" being something separate is untrue.

@wrkmmn
"Faith is something that only believers can have/feel. Believers are those who have the word/truth already in their heart"

Hello appeal to emotion fallacy. Nothing visceral is an argument for an objective claim.

I am witness that there is not God but one God, the God of Noah/Abraham/Moses/Jesus/Mohammad.
How can we know this. Notice I said "know" not "believe", beliefs are jejune and for children. You claim to be a witness, to witness something one has to experience a claim with their primary senses, do you somehow have access to sensory data that nobody else does?

@hawk99
I believe you are sincere in your disbelief and appear to be devoid of spiritual guidance at this point in your life
Oh that fuzzy nebulous word "spiritual". The only spirits that are reality based to me so far are Gin and Vodka, I'm bored of these stretchable wishy washy terms.

@Man of Faith
I thought this was a forum for emancipated minds as the title suggests, not those in subservience and enslaved to an imaginary semetic deity!

You must have been raised in the wrong "islam" and looked at the wrong "Islam". No wonder you found garbage and mumbo jumbo.

No, I found no convincing reason to think it is true. I'll elaborate a bit more on why no thinking person should either.

From researching the matter and and being self inquisitive I found the concept of god/allah abstract and vague and felt it was a slimey way out of proving he exists objectively. What i heard was that when it suited islamic apologists they knew exactly how god/allah was, but then when difficult questions are posed he suddenly becomes "mysterious" & "we cant understand his ways".... it was one paradox after another, it was eating the cake and not having it at the same time......i felt it was eating the cake and not having it at the same time

God/Allah was supposed to be sentient, but then i knew all sentient objects were made of observable matter and no observable conscious matter had ever been demonstrated of any claimed deity, whether it Allah, Zeus or Ahura Mazda. Ultimately i found no objective proof for an objective claim, nor has anybody ever.

As for having faith, which religionists tell u to have, I find that nobody has ever mentioned faith for that which has proof. It just came across as a a desperate emotional substitute/plea. Faith in fact I found to be a vice as it's insincere, it's pretending to be certain of things you possibly can't know.

Ultimately with all religions providing no objective proof or bad equivocal evidence(full of non-sequitors, sophistry, word games etc ) and all saying you need the feel good factor and goosebumps of faith there was no way to validate any as true for me.

Some of my thoughts, I welcome any feedback and personal ad hominem attacks. ;D

http//infidelsareus.com/2014/09/14/the-islamism-neologism-is-a-misnomer/