Format: 5 posts each, 200-500 words per post, 2 days to reply.
The participants have agreed to a scholarly debate, avoiding fallacious or dishonest arguments, refraining from abuse and personal attacks, responding to arguments made by the other party, and conceding points where appropriate.
Hello. Please bear in mind that l live in a secular country (as most nations are), l donât believe in political religion, and l consider full adherence to religion to be contradictory, because religion has to majorly compromise to fit inside a secular state. My point is: Iâm discussing religion as an ideal.
Quick note on definitions of the two beliefs being discussed:
I speak as someone brought up in orthodox Islam (i.e. the Main Body of believers) rather than a sect e.g. Shiâism, but l donât think it matters.
Atheists may say their belief is a lack of belief in religion, but thatâs not the traditional definition. Traditionally, it was a positive belief that there is zero quantity of Gods. Moreover, a chair is a lack of Theism. Is a chair Atheist?
I feel Islam trumps Atheism in the form of Secular Humanism (as opposed to the Hard Nihilism side of Atheism) as follows:
1. Only religion has legitimate claim to morality. Non-religion is a squatter in the multi-chambered mansion of morality.
That is because there are two core logics: Theist and Atheist. Theist logic admits to infinity, Atheist logic does not. At that level, they are not strictly Theist or Atheist.
However, as the logic becomes clothed in the flesh of reason, it pans out as Theist and Atheist morality as follows:
ATHEIST MORALITY (JUST ETHICS REALLY):
(i) If the universe is finite, or even if our existence is finite, we will die and then nothing. Therefore, for there to be âsomethingâ, is sentimental, pointless whimsy. The only logical response is suicide, i.e. cut to the chase and arrive at the conclusion (death) pronto. Not even walking to oneâs death would be acceptable, taking time walking would be sentimental, one must sprint to their death. This Hard Nihilism as l imagine it, is the only reasonable form of Atheism.
(ii) We each have a soul, and that soul can only be explained as a fragment of Godâs infinite soul, like a finite arc of an infinitely large circle. That soul wants to live because life-urge is of the opposite logic to suicide and so the life-urge is of the logic which admits to infinity, just as suicide is of the logic which rejects infinity. The soul is of infinity, and thus opposes suicide, and thus urges to life.
(iii) Therefore as a subconscious concession to infinity, because all humans have a soul, the Atheist might live for pleasure: the undulating levels of cortisol and neurotransmitters, along a time axis = a forestalling suicide for the pursuit of pleasure, and thus a person will bide their time from one high to the next.
(iv) This of course leads to depraved acts, e.g. a morbidly obese person (living from tasty pizza to tasty pizza) could grab someoneâs baby and bite its head off and chew the brains - not that they ever would, but this would be a gross illustration of hedonism, it is not reductio ad absurdum, because the absurdity follows via logic and reason, l think reductio ad absurdum is only a logical fallacy if the reductio itself is illogical.
All vices become logical as per Thrasymachus justifying the tyrant, for the tyrant lives life to the max, and gets things done in the world, and eventually creates societal equilibrium - Goodfellas: âone day some of the kids from the neighbourhood carried my motherâs groceries all then way home ⊠outta respectâ. Even then, itâs inescapable that the only worthwhile happiness is infinite happiness that goes beyond death, so we boomerang back to the logic of suicide we reject infinity.
(v) Societal living demands constraints. So we end up with ethical codes of good living and because nobody can sincerely fully commit to the codes of good living (e.g. Humanism) whilst rejecting God, we have laws that take the ethical codes to a bare minimum. The police enforce these so thatâs the hard limit.
THEIST MORALITY:
(vi) If infinie God exists the our existence is contingent on his, and thus potentially infinite so long as he wills
(vii) In fact, Islam promises that our existence winds up in infinite heaven or hell
(viii) If infinite God exists, then greed and rivalry in material increase are delegitimised, they are illogical given infinite resources
(ix) In fact, all vices become illogical. Virtues are realised, morals are legitimised, logical. The soul is listened to.
(x) Islam teaches that no soul is tasked beyond what it can bear - Qurâan 2:286.
Therefore Islam has legitimate claim to Morality and its code of conduct IS attainable.
2. No matter how sweet an Atheist code of conduct may be, it is philosophically illegitimate, i.e. has no basis in reason or logic. As such, it is impracticable.
3. There are 2 ways l can think of that a code becomes impracticable:
(A) Nobody will believe in it in their minds, theyâd be in disqueting doubt about it
(B) Nobody can financially accomodate / physically perform what is required
4. Humanism may set out a nice pattern of behaviour, but for the Atheist itâs just an ethical code and even as an ethical code, itâs impracticable because:
(A) The Atheist logic is that, as we are bounded by finitenes, itâs all pointless. Suicide is the hard logic. Moreover, the Soul will be paradoxically crying out for life. The result will be an extended time axis (instead of instant suicide) governed by vices instead of morals. In other words: Worldly Hedonism, living oneâs best life, gorging on pleasure, as per personal tastes. Thus the mind is in disquieting doubt, due to the layers of contradiction (suicide vs. soul wanting life vs. hedonism vs. code of Humanism vs. legal limitations) under a Humanist code of ethics.
(B) It could be financially unfeasible, i.e. whatever your code is, l could add All-You-Can-Eat free chocolate per person. Also, if your code is that everyone has a right to self fulfilment, then who pays for the Young Offendersâ Rehabilitation Projectâs Africa safari? Itâs the taxpayer. Or the central bank prints more money, and to keep inflation down, we exploit another country with trade tariffs or mining rights etc. Just so our arsonists can find their happy whilst on a probationary correctional course (aka the expensive African safari).
5. What about conduct in non-standard harsh situatons? Islam teaches the best conduct in its scripture and thus its believers are (according to Islam) âthe best Ummahâ (community) that ever lived. A crucial test of this is war. We can look at various communist and secular conflicts, as well as the conduct of Muslims in wars of religion. All the mass casualties l seem to recall, are from secular conflicts. Muslims donât do atrocities either - the famous terror group people speak of today (to name them is to acknowledge them) are considered âa collection of sins in Islamâ i.e. they do whatever is against the religion. Pakistanâs butchery in Bangladeshâs War of Independence is debatable. Many Hindus were slaughtered - but so were many Muslims fighting for independence, and the intelligentsia were systematically killed off, and Pakistan wasnât recognisably an Islamic caliphate as such - this is not a âNo True Scotsmanâ fallacy, it really was not, and is not, an Islamic caliphate and its actions were prohibited by Islamic rules of war. So yes there was a lot of killing but it was essentially political, secular, with religous overtones, not even undertones but overtones. Note also that most Muslims consider nukes to be against Islam as they are absolutely indiscriminate and Muslims arenât permitted to kill noncombatants, and if a person kills an infant they almost certainly will never get even within smelling distance of heaven.
If we look at this list: List of wars by death toll - Wikipedia
Here are the top 33, but the list goes goes to 130, with #130, the White Lotus Rebellion being a religious conflict in China which claimed 0.1 million lives.
We see the following overtly secular conflicts, in order: #1 World War II - 70â85 million killed #2 Mongol invasions and conquests - 20â60 million killed [The Mongols were Tengri Shamanists, their victims were overwhelmingly Muslim, Christian, Confucian, but it wasnât a religious conflict as such, because the #3 Three Kingdoms - 34 million killed #4 Taiping Rebellion - 20â30 million killed #5 Manchu Conquest of China - 25 million killed #6 World War I - 15â22 million killed #7 Conquests of Timur (he was supposedly Muslim but he destroyed all of the Islamic empires around him, he also destroyed Georgia and defeated Russian Muscovy a few times l think, but his prime victims were other Muslims) - 7â20 million killed #8 An Lushan rebellion - 13 million killed
We see the following overtly religious conflicts, in order - including conflicts between religions and communism: #9 Spanish conquest of Mexico - 10.5 million killed [Christians on the attack] #10 Russian Civil War - 7â10 million killed [Atheists on the attack] #12 Crusades - 1-9 million killed [Christians on the attack after initial Muslim invasion, the atrocities were mostly if not all done by Christians] #13 Thirty Yearsâ War - 4.5â8 million killed #14 Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire - 7.7 million killed [Christians on the attack] #15 Reconquista - 7 million killed [Christians on the attack] #20 Deccan wars - 4.6â5 million killed [Muslims vs. Hindus, unsure of the dynamics, but Muslims may have begun hostilities] #24 French Wars of Religion - 2â4 million killed #27 SovietâAfghan War - 1â3 million killed [Atheists on the attack, Muslims rebelling] #28 Delhi Conquest of North India - 0.5â3 million killed [Muslims vs. Hindus] #32 Ethiopian Civil War and Eritrean War of Independence - 1.75â2 million killed [Atheists on the attack, though to be fair Haile Selassie was a lunatic] #33 Russo-Circassian War and Caucasian War - 1.5â2 million killed [Christians on the attack, the mostly Muslim and minority Christian Circassians were nearly exterminated, it was a genocide]
Muslims were conceivably only attacking in #20 and #28.
Muslims were being attacked in #12, #14, #27, #33
Sorry but a quick edit - this might be of interes - in response to somebody trolling me, here is my cataloguing of info about Islamic conduct in war, and the rewards of Paradise, including females that are a new non-human creation, and martyrs being transformed into green birds
6. Islamic conduct even extends to our treatment of the natural world as we are told we are custodians of the earth - flora and fauna - hence Muslims have a halal slaughter code, limitation of war to defensive, respect for the environment and the habitats of wildlife (e.g. the Qurâan teaching about King Solomon and the Ants, which is also reflected in the Bible)
7. The Qurâan is not extreme and it exhorts to moderation such that it is better than the Bible and Atheism in those terms. Recall that after the suicide Hard Nihilism would demand (in my opinion), the next most reasonable thing from the POV of Atheist logic is extremism, gorging on pleasure, including gorging on violence, the exercise of limitless unbalanced force.
8. As such, l would say that Atheism is the root of extremism and fanaticism. Itâs presence in religious ideologies is what causes them to break with religion and turn to petty acts of extremism, fanaticism. Atheism is effectively the death cult that Atheist often accuse Islam of being (suicide being the only purely logical conclusion in Atheism - coincidentally, suicide is forbidden in Islam) even if it is not thought to positively be a belief system by its proponents.
9. Atheism cannot admit to objective knowledge. Iâll admit, mathematical axioms and logic are objective. However, Reasoning surely leads regressively to Logic, which in turn is based on mathematics. Without admitting to a First Cause, Atheism cannot admit to the end of the road of Reason, whence the objective Truth is reached, i.e. no route to Logic via Reasoning. Atheism is thus necessarily restricted to Lore rather than Data (nod to Star Trek TNG). Iâll admit this is obscure and shakey ground and l may receive a shin kick here.
10. Atheism does not have a claim to Justice. It can only derive its laws as hand-me-downs from Religion and perhaps also Utilitarianism, but faulting Utilitarianism is easy. Whether you see Utilitarianism as being for / agains Idealism and for / against Rationalism, it is inescapable that you are the only person you know to exist, even though you didnât create human language and cannot psychically control others, there is always a workaround to restore Solipsism to the throne (or at least a type of Solipsistic Henotheism, where other key individuals are permitted to share power with you, but you donât acknowledge the existence of anyone else - thatâs basically how friendship circles work these days, and definitely how street gangs work). So, Utilitarianism is in free fall. Itâs a road, not a station. A road to materialstic Tyranny, solipsism enthroned.
Furthermore, as for modern secular laws deriving from Religion (at least in my theory), only Monotheism has given us any basis for modern laws (disregarding Utilitarianism for now), because in religion, Law comes from a revealed Scripture, and revealed Scripture only comes from Prophets, and there were only ever Monotheistic Prophets, there were never Polytheistic Prophets. Iâll admit, Zoroaster was a prophet of Dualism, but maybe thatâs not polytheism on a technicality that poly begins at 3. Also, who was Zoroaster even? Do we know for sure? Heâs lost in time, just as the core of Hinduism, which is Brahminism, which could be argued to be monotheism. So, sorry for rambling but the point is, l think secularism has grandfathered laws from Monotheism. And Atheism must follow suit.
11. Limited Ecumenicism in Islam: Islam has a degree of ecumenicism / universality built-in (though itâs the only religion Muslims believe God will explicitly accept), in that it teaches that all infants are Believers (Moomins) and thus innocent, and thus itâs a sin to deliberately kill a born infant (abortion may be acceptable up to approx. 12 weeks l think, but at that stage, the soul is breathed in to the foetus by an angel), except if perhaps during childbirth it is killing the mother and so forth. Surely rings true in all good hearts. Does any other belief system teach the sanctity of all infants? Some explicitly deny this. Some belief systems have no problem with infanticide of children of a âlesser godâ. Also: Islam teaches that there can be non-Muslims in heaven, albeit ideally people who lived before Islam.
12. Iâd be interested to know how Islamâs view of gender roles compares with Humanism? As l see it, these days a married man lives in fear of the wife cheating, triggering a messy costly divorce, and then after that, he has to FURTHER relinquish at least half of his home (after it is sold). A single male fears a spurious rape allegatoon, which where l live, can very easily lead to being arrested followed by invasive tests. Even if the female is found to be lying, she only gets lightly punished, the impression l get is that her penatly will be non-custodial. So, marriages donât succeed, babies donât get born.
13. Islam is emphatically - no, absolutely - anti-Materialist - because its core paradigm is that we are created just to worship an infinite God. Infinity is antithetical to materialism, as is a life dedicated to worship. Atheism seems to me to be predicated on Materialism, as without the Divine, there is no higher reality, thus nothing to transcend materialism. Also, if reality is finiite, then the Divine cannot exist, as the Divine is defined as infinite Actual, among other definitions.
I appreciate the kind words you had to say for Humanism. And I donât mean only where you refer to Humanism setting out a nice pattern of behavior, or to the sweetness of an atheist code of conduct. Rather, I appreciate the implicit acknowledgement throughout your post that the doctrine of Islam must be justified against Humanist values â must be shown to be compatible with something deeper than sectarian myth.
You acknowledge, for example, that war is bad, and so Islam is OK because your god hates war. You acknowledge that nature is good, and so Islam is OK because your god loves the Earth. You even make the case for Islamâs embrace of ecumenicism and positive gender roles, because you acknowledge that the truth must be for everyone.
For the ancients who wrote our Great Books, these acknowledgements would seem insane. Take any ancient religion that still lives, and we can find in its history endless examples of parochialism, chauvinism, and bigotry. With the blessings of hindsight, we can see that these were petty hatreds born of their times. Those of us who continue to believe adapt our faiths to fit with what we have learned. We take what is good from our history and disclaim what is evil, and in doing so we acknowledge something more fundamental.
Indeed, to repay your kind words, I must also acknowledge the fundamental good in Islam. Perhaps easiest is to point to the Islamic Golden age, whose works of art and literature still speak to our fundamental appreciation for beauty; whose works of science still speak to our fundamental curiosity and desire to learn; and whose works of mathematics to a fundamental commitment to reason and truth. But we need not look back nearly so far: Islamic rituals that continue today offer profound examples of the power and beauty of unity and connection; and perhaps the defining teaching of Islam, of submission before a great God, evokes the fear and wonder that all humans feel when we reflect on our smallness, and the greatness of the expanse of unknown.
These too are Humanist values. We find them throughout the great religions because, while religions may differ on their preferred gods and prophets, they have in common that they are the creation of humans, and so they embed values common across humanity.
Your only true departure from Humanist values is your commitment to anti-materialism. Thatâs understandable. Once weâve acknowledged that the only defensible version of Islam is effectively Humanism wrapped in God, to embrace a skeptical and empirical outlook may feel like a final betrayal against a culture that we â and perhaps many generations before us â have devoted ourselves to. But we donât need to feel that way. Religious anti-materialism, too, is a product of its time, and we have learned much since those ancient worldviews were first devised. There can be little doubt that had the cultures that produced the great religions had access to the wealth of material knowledge we have, they would have seen no appeal in its superstition. On matters of science, they were ignorant, so we can comfortably reject what they tell us about the nature of reality; on matters of humanity, they were as human as we are, and we can comfortably hold on to what they tell us about life.
I will end with a quote from the great Muslim scholar, Ibn al-Haytham, arguably the founder of the scientific method, on the importance of skepticism and empirical inquiry in the pursuit of truth:
Therefore, the seeker after the truth is not one who studies the writings of the ancients and, following his natural disposition, puts his trust in them, but rather the one who suspects his faith in them and questions what he gathers from them, the one who submits to argument and demonstration, and not to the sayings of a human being whose nature is fraught with all kinds of imperfection and deficiency. The duty of the man who investigates the writings of scientists, if learning the truth is his goal, is to make himself an enemy of all that he reads, and ⊠attack it from every side. He should also suspect himself as he performs his critical examination of it, so that he may avoid falling into either prejudice or leniency.
I feel lâve drowned you out with the OP. I was hoping to be handed the Amsterdam Declaration of Human Rights to dissect.
WAR IN ISLAM:
We may have a misunderstanding. In Islam, God commands us to fight and die for him, chiefly via the Qurâan. Also, we are told in the Sunnah (ahadith) - l cannot recall where, so l paraphrase: Allah loves when a Muslim is killed in battle, and that personâs killer in turn becomes Muslim. Itâs the ultimate sacrifice, transcending the material. Of course this is horrible but the Qurâan urges Muslims to fight wars of justice, defensive wars with no indiscriminate killing, and with a sense of mercy instead of ruthlessness e.g.:
*002.190 Fight in the way of Allah against those who fight against you, but begin not * hostilities. Lo! Allah loveth not aggressors.
*002.191 And slay them wherever ye find them, and drive them out of the places *
*whence they drove you out, for persecution is worse than slaughter. And fight not *
*with them at the Inviolable Place of Worship until they first attack you there, but if * they attack you (there) then slay them. Such is the reward of disbelievers.
002.192 But if they desist, then lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.
*002.193 And fight them until persecution is no more, and religion is for Allah. But if * they desist, then let there be no hostility except against wrong-doers.
*002.194 The forbidden month for the forbidden month, and forbidden things in *
*retaliation. And one who attacketh you, attack him in like manner as he attacked you. * Observe your duty to Allah, and know that Allah is with those who ward off (evil).
*004.094 O ye who believe! When ye go forth (to fight) in the way of Allah, be careful *
*to discriminate, and say not unto one who offereth you peace: âThou art not a *
*believer,â seeking the chance profits of this life (so that ye may despoil him). *
*004.077 Hast thou not seen those unto whom it was said: Withhold your hands, *
*establish worship and pay the poordue, but when fighting was prescribed for them *
*behold! a party of them fear mankind even as their fear of Allah or with greater fear, *
*and say: Our Lord! Why hast Thou ordained fighting for us ? If only Thou wouldst *
*give us respite yet a while! Say (unto them, O Muhammad): The comfort of this *
*world is scant; the Hereafter will be better for him who wardeth off (evil); and ye will * not be wronged the down upon a date-stone.
Please note though, the amount of war dead from non-religious wars, and the quality of atrocities comitted by non-religious people and people inspired by the Bibleâs teachings on war.
MY CRITIQUE OF HUMANISM STILL THERE:
What about when l say Humanism could be impracticable, because:
(A) The Atheist logic is that, as we are bounded by finitenes, itâs all pointless. Suicide is the hard logic.
Moreover, the Soul will be paradoxically crying out for life.
The result will be to prolong life (instead of instant suicide) governed by vices instead of morals. In other words: Worldly Hedonism, living oneâs best life, gorging on pleasure, as per personal tastes.
Thus the mind is in disquieting doubt, due to the layers of contradiction (suicide vs. soul wanting life vs. hedonism vs. code of Humanism vs. legal limitations) under a Humanist code of ethics.
(B) It could be financially unfeasible, e.g. if your code is that everyone has a right to self fulfilment, then who pays for the Young Offendersâ Rehabilitation Projectâs Africa safari? Itâs the taxpayer. Or the central bank prints more money, and to keep inflation down, we exploit another country with trade tariffs or mining rights etc.
Can l also add, that Humanismâs justifying a thing because itâs done with mutual consent, could lead to repugnant things e.g. incest, and physical relationships that are repugnant in other ways. People accuse Muslims about the age of marriage but this was natureâs way and the way of all cultures and religions (pretty much, though Judaism does take it very low).
RELIGIOUS PEOPLE DEVIATED IN THE PAST, HUMANISM AS A CORRECTING MANOEUVRE?
- YOU SAY: For the ancients who wrote our Great Books, these acknowledgements would seem insane. Take any ancient religion that still lives, and we can find in its history endless examples of parochialism, chauvinism, and bigotry. With the blessings of hindsight, we can see that these were petty hatreds born of their times. Those of us who continue to believe adapt our faiths to fit with what we have learned. We take what is good from our history and disclaim what is evil, and in doing so we acknowledge something more fundamental.
- I SAY: THANK YOU for not chickening out. I appreciate the gloves being off now.
Though it may seem like the No True Scotsman fallacy, can l say, as l mentioned somewhere in the OP, that when religious adherents make a concession to Atheism, materialism, these things happen.
We get idol-intercessors because people want a personal Jesus, someone they can hold - they want to reach out and touch faith (Depeche Mode - âPersonal Jesusâ).
We get religous nationalism
We get organised religion with its reliance on funds for its gigantic buildings
We get people impatient to lead petty squables for the next life, or even to forgive altogether (if this is your only life, then forgiveness makes you an absolute punk)
We get people that do sexual abuse because they want to gorge themselves on pleasure without discernment, because they want everything they can get in this life
We get political religion, religion concerned with economics, and thus this injection of materalism into religion leads to terrorism, religious nationalism, etc.
HUMANISM IS COMMON TO ALL MANKIND - BUT THIS IS DUE TO THE SUPERNATURAL NATURE OF THE SOUL, WHICH IS FROM GOD:
- YOU SAY: These too are Humanist values. We find them throughout the great religions because, while religions may differ on their preferred gods and prophets, they have in common that they are the creation of humans, and so they embed values common across humanity.
- I SAY: They are common values, because humans all have the soul in common, and that comes from God, and God is good. God is materially infinite (among other infinite aspects) and thus the Soul is predicated on Virtues which are the reality of infinity, rather than Vices which are the reality of Non-Infinity, Finiteness, Materialism.
The point is: Not even the Amsterdam Declaration dares to tackle the reality of the Soul: it can only be explained as being from God, because it leads to common goodness, and has no material aspect, and is innate to us and cannot arise from matter, cannot arise via natural processes.
ISLAM SHOULD PAIR WITH HUMANISM?
- YOU SAY: the only defensible version of Islam is effectively Humanism wrapped in God ⊠Religious anti-materialism, too, is a product of its time, and we have learned much since those ancient worldviews were first devised.
- I SAY: Islam already contends that the soul is from God, and that God is closer to us than our jugular vein.
Also our declaration of faith, one of the Five Pillars of Islam, is âThere is no god but Allah, Muhammad is the Messenger of Allahâ
âThere is no godâ = Solipsism = the essence of Atheism
âbut Allahâ = We are alone with the Alone
âMuhammad is the Messenger of Allahâ = Yet there are others that are also âalone with the Aloneâ, thus Solipsism, with its problem of âwho created the existing language you speakâ etc. is finally cracked, yet rehabilitated into us: we are to act as if we are alone, in a private audience with Allah, throughout life, albeit still acknowledging other people so far as Allah sanctions it.
QURâAN HAS BEEN WITH SCIENCE ALL ALONG (I CONTEND):
- YOU SAY: On matters of science, they were ignorant, so we can comfortably reject what they tell us about the nature of reality; on matters of humanity, they were as human as we are, and we can comfortably hold on to what they tell us about life.
- I SAY: Where is Islam wrong on science? I see it as ahead of its time relative to human civilisations. The Qurâan even encodes the speed of light: Angels are made of light. The Qurâan tells us that angels relay matters back to Allah in a day which is 1,000 years of what we count. In other words, a ratio is set up of 1 day : 1000 years. Distance covered by Moon in 1,000 lunar years divided by time in 1 day = Speed of Light. Again: Angels are made of light. Once you reach light speed, you donât continue chugging along, you âjumpâ to another reality.
Love the Ibn Haytham quote and itâs great that you acknowledge the Muslim origin of the Scientific Method. Muslims also created the first University (as opposed to academy) - i.e. multiple academic subjects taught in one place, with the lecturer sat on a chair (hence âChairâ of a faculty), the students sat on the floor. The first was in Madrid (Majrit) in Moorish Spain, or Kairouan, in Tunisia. Wikipedia shows characteristic spite toward Islam by defining universities as European style institutions, hence ruling out the first universities that were indeed Muslim! Still, weâve done too little over the past 600 years. Peace.
Your claim about angels is a useful example, and in several ways shows what a secular worldview offers that an ancient book cannot.
First, again, is the implicit acknowledgement: what science provides us is good. Through the use of empiricism, skepticism, investigation of the material world, we discover deep truths about the universe and our place in it. Science delivers on what the ancients who put their faith in claims of revelation really wanted: to understand their existence, to control their environments, and to make better lives for themselves and their people.
But the ability to discover such truths while making only material assumptions about the world is a threat to religion. The claimed perfection and completeness of their books is undermined by the important truths we discover without any reference to them. Why didnât the divine author of those books know about the speed of light, or the value of pi, or the nature of space beyond our atmosphere? And if they did know, why didnât they tell us that useful information, or at least guide us to it?
Some of those who cannot accept the gaps and imperfections of their favored book will take as a given that all truths must be in there, somewhere, and will interpret and reinterpret the same words, wringing new life from long-dead letters, and find whatever theyâre searching for âencodedâ in them.
And here is the result: a passage that does not mention the moon, or angels, let alone light or its speed, is read to mean that messages are conveyed to God at the speed of light over a distance of 1000 times what the moon travels in a year. That this is not a natural reading of the passage is attested by the fact that it was not interpreted that way until very recently. For over a thousand years, devout Muslims read that passage, and despite Islamic society being the global leaders in science and mathematics, none proposed such a reading until after secular scientists established the values with great precision.
As it happens, even this ad hoc and preposterous reading doesnât do what it aspires to do â the value is off by about 10%. But thatâs not really the point. It isnât hard to find a collection of numbers and operations to produce a particular number. Witness: I have 2 eyes, 2 ears, 10 fingers, 10 toes, 32 teeth, and Jim Carey starred in a movie called âThe Number 23â â and lo! 2\times2\times10\times10\times32\times23 = 294400! A much closer approximation of the speed of light than we get from moon \times angels or whatever.
Once we know the number weâre looking for, we can find endless combinations that will produce it, and if weâre quite liberal in our interpretations, we can find a way to shoehorn one of those combinations into the text.
But the information about the speed of light came from secular, rational, materialist inquiry into the world â not from the Quran.
Religious devotees honor that secular method when they retcon their interpretations to include it. They acknowledge that without religion, human reason and empirical inquiry are sufficient to discover profound truths that ancient books do not contain.
This is a relatively good outcome; religious faith engenders much worse responses. Like many other religions, people guided by devotion to the Quran have often suppressed inquiry and explorations, attacked truths â and truth-seekers â that show it to be merely a book, âthe sayings of a human being whose nature is fraught with all kinds of imperfection and deficiencyâ. Indeed, this reaction has become dominant, and is no small part of the reason that Islamic cultures have âdone too little over the past 600 yearsâ, while secular societies have revolutionized our understanding of the world.
To be clear, many who follow the Quran also contribute to the work of science. But they do not do it by examining the scriptures, by reinterpreting its words to find secrets inside. They do it by rational, empirical, material inquiry. They donât assume a soul as they study the brain. They donât put God in their equations. Their holy books inspire them, as poetry inspires us all. But by their actions they acknowledge that an ancient book cannot be a complete and perfect revelation, and that a rational worldview is the better way to reveal the truth.
Note: EDITED to minimise signs of ragequitting.
Logical Fallacy call-outs & chapter headings etc. were put in BLOCK CAPS but l was not shouting.
YOU SAY: Science delivers on what the ancients who put their faith in claims of revelation really wanted: to understand their existence, to control their environments, and to make better lives for themselves and their people.
I SAY: Science is just a method. Itâs not a rival or alternative to religion. I would suppose the same about Sufism. it too is just a method, not an alternative to religion, nor a sect.
Religion isnât manâs striving to achieve control etc. Itâs man being told what to do by God.
YOU SAY: But the ability to discover such truths while making only material assumptions about the world is a threat to religion. The claimed perfection and completeness of their books is undermined by the important truths we discover without any reference to them.
I SAY: To say our own ability to discover things, is a threat to religion, is false, it is a NON SEQUITUR.
Also to say that âthe claimed perfection and completeness of scripture is undermined by important truths we discover without any reference to themâ, is plain false and l feel it is a NON SEQUITUR FALLACY or POISONING THE WELL FALLACY. Scientific discoveries do not innately hurt Islam, and in fact, they do not AT ALL hurt Islam and thus you are just aiming to discredit religion. This is a sub-type of AD HOMINEM known as POISONING THE WELL.
The perfection and completeness of the Qurâan is: It is perfect for its purpose.
Further: The Qurâan gives us the nomoi, not the particulars of everything - see a few sentences below, re: al Lawh al Mahfuz.
THE QURâAN ITSELF WAS A CHANGING, DYNAMIC MESSAGE SPANNING THE PROPHET MUHAMMADâs (Peace be upon him) MINISTRY:
The Qurâan abrogates itself.
Parts of the Qurâan have been entirely erased.
It was never a static revelation such that you read the book â> go to heaven.
One day it will disappear from the pages on which it is written / printed. It will just disappear overnight, possibly due to a change in timelines, this is after Jesus (peace be upon him) has returned and died. It will be at a time when Satan rules the earth as its final king, in physical form.
THE QURâAN ITSELF EXPLAINS IT IS NOT A RECORD OF EVERYTHING: #The Qurâan tells us of creatures we (at least the Arabs of the time) do not know of, but does not mention them. #The Qurâan persistently tells us that there are things Allah withholds from us for example the Unseen (a common theme is the Unseen), e.g.
003.179 ⊠And it is not (the purpose of) Allah to let you know the Unseen. #The Qurâan tells us that it is kept in a master respository called the Preserved Tablet (al Lawh al Mahfuz) (85:21-22). It is also implied in 15:9 and other parts of the Qurâan e.g. reference to Umm al Kitab (the Mother of the Book). We have through the Sunnah more information about the Preserved Tablet. It is a master record of everything, literally, everything. Everything. Nobody has touched it. Higher orders of Angels may have seen it but they are creatures made of Light. It is assumed that their being light prevents the quantum changes noted in Youngâs Double Slit Experiment (i.e. obsreving light changes its form from photons to waves).
SCIENCE IS NEVER A THREAT TO MY FAITH, AND IN FACT MY FAITH TRADITIONALLY ENCOURAGED IT
Science is never a threat to Islam, as lâm sure the polymaths of the Islamic Golden Age would have told you.
In fact our Prophet told us to seek out knowledge.
The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: âSeeking knowledge is obligatory upon every Muslim.ââ (220. Classed as saheeh by al-Albaani in Saheeh Sunan Ibn Maajah)
They say the hadith: âSeek knowledge even if you have to go as far as Chinaâ is fabricated but it still fits the agreed-upon ahadith about knowledge.
Abu Huraira reported: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said, âThe word of wisdom is the lost property of the believer. Wherever he finds it, he is most worthy of it.â Source: Sunan al-TirmidhiÌ 2687
Grade: Hasan (fair) according to Al-Suyuti
The Qurâan inculcates in us that it is for âMen of Understandingâ. A search of an English translation reveals the phrase comes up 14 times, some of the more relevant examples which spur us to research nature, history and philosophy are:
003.190 Lo! In the creation of the heavens and the earth and (in) the difference of night and day are tokens (of His Sovereignty) for men of understanding, [REDACTION NOTE: The meaning here is very deep]
012.111 In their history verily there is a lesson for men of understanding. It is no
invented story but a confirmation of the existing (Scripture) and a detailed explanation of everything, and a guidance and a mercy for folk who believe.
038.029 (This is) a Scripture that We have revealed unto thee, full of blessing, that they may ponder its revelations, and that men of understanding may reflect.
039.021 Hast thou not seen how Allah hath sent down water from the sky and hath caused it to penetrate the earth as watersprings, and afterward thereby produceth crops of divers hues; and afterward they wither and thou seest them turn yellow; then He maketh them chaff. Lo! herein verily is a reminder for men of understanding.
In my opinion three things spurred the Islamic Gold Age:
Pax Islamica all the way up to China
Common new language: Arabic
Islam (via the Qurâan and Sunnah) spurring us to understand the world (as quoted above). Also as a spin-off, working out prayer times and prayer directions in many different places.
YOU SAY: Why didnât the divine author of those books know about the speed of light, or the value of pi, or the nature of space beyond our atmosphere? And if they did know, why didnât they tell us that useful information, or at least guide us to it?
I SAY: ARGUMENT FROM OMISSION: I already told you that that Qurâan encodes the Speed of Light (as well as another speed approx. 50x faster).
Also, how would you have defended Humanism before the discovery of c as a constant?
As for the value of Pi, lâm pretty sure it was already known at that time. Also, whatâs to say it wasnât revealed by an earlier Prophet, e.g. Seth / Agathodaimon or a later Greek Prophet?
As for the nature of space beyond our atmosphere, we repeat the following phrase at least 17 times a day (more likely, double or triple that) if we pray 5 times a day: âPraise be to Allah, Lord of the Worldsâ. We have always thought of multiple worlds existing, however that is to be interpreted.
Also, space beyond our atmosphere is called the Lowest Heaven. This is all that there is in the night sky. The Qurâan mentions it here for example: 037.006 Lo! We have adorned the lowest heaven with an ornament, the planets;
Also notice how the following both explicitly states that the lower heaven is the realm of stars and planets, and also gives us a clue about planetary formation, either from a nebula or even harking way back to the opaque phase before reionisation, though l have doubts about the latter because the earth didnât exist in any form at that time:
041.011 Then turned He to the heaven when it was smoke, and said unto it and unto the earth: Come both of you, willingly or loth. They said: We come, obedient.
041.012 Then He ordained them seven heavens in two Days and inspired in each heaven its mandate; and We decked the nether heaven with lamps, and rendered it inviolable. That is the measuring of the Mighty, the Knower.
Interestingly, while searching for quotes on the lowest heaven being the realm of stars, i.e. outer space, l stumbled on this, which l wanted to delve into anyway, which is the recurring theme of doubters wanting more and more hard proof but nothing would satisfy them:
017.090 And they say: We will not put faith in thee till thou cause a spring to gush forth from the earth for us;
017.091 Or thou have a garden of date-palms and grapes, and cause rivers to gush forth therein abundantly;
017.092 Or thou cause the heaven to fall upon us piecemeal, as thou hast pretended, or bring Allah and the angels as a warrant;
017.093 Or thou have a house of gold; or thou ascend up into heaven, and even then we will put no faith in thine ascension till thou bring down for us a book that we can read. Say (O Muhammad): My Lord be Glorified! Am I aught save a mortal messenger ?
017.094 And naught prevented mankind from believing when the guidance came unto them save that they said: Hath Allah sent a mortal as (His) messenger ?
^^^ that is just one short tract but it is a recurring theme in the Qurâan that Allah admonishes the diehard skeptics with their ridiculous list of required certified proofs. Your line of skepticism cannot be satisfied, this is not ad hominem, but the fact is, you want a holy book mentioning random stuff like Pi and c.
Also the Qurâan notes that you really CANNOT handle the full extent of what God has to say:
18:109. Say: Though the sea became ink for the Words of my Lord, verily the sea would be used up before the words of my Lord were exhausted, even though We brought the like thereof to help.
Can l also point out: This life is a test , the beauty of BELIEF is that there is DOUBT. We are meant to look at the evidence and find God ourselves because he loves our intellect very dearly. The hadith has different translations in English:
*I was a hidden treasure; I loved to be known. Hence I created the world so that I would be known*
*I was a hidden treasure, and I wished to be known, so I created a creation (mankind), then made Myself known to them, and they recognised Me*
*I was a Treasure unknown then I desired to be known so I created a creation to which I made Myself known; then they knew Me*
The universe knows Allah through our intellect (as Carl Sagan later echoed). Where is the virtue in being handed a book full of everything from c to Pi to teaspoon manufacture to a detailed study of North Vietnamese Social Services 1962-1972? Iâm going to assume youâre just throwing flashbangs in my path now.
If your requirement is that the Qurâan includes every tidbit imaginable, I could discredit you in the same way: you did NOT show me how to make butter or smelt bronze.
What is your complete list of everything that should be in a holy book and why should it be so? And why should what you leave out be left out? And who are you to decide so?
This is an IMPROPER PREMISE logical fallacy, of which there are several subtypes, unsure which e.g. BEGGING THE QUESTION, CIRCULAR LOGIC. You dubiously assert that things must be a certain way to be correct, and then conclude that things arenât that way and so they fail your test.
Why should God even make us to begin with?
FAULTY GENERALISATION FALLACY.
Also âwringing new life from long-dead letters, and find whatever theyâre searching forâ is the type of FAULTY GENERALISATION known as MISLEADING VIVIDNESS.
Letters are dead, including yours. Qurâan means ârecitationâ by the way, it is a living word. Similar root for the word âChoirâ l guess.
I am not finding whatever lâm searching for in long-dead letters (by the way, the Qurâan has NEVER ceased to be recited, itâs one thing that keeps us together). That would be extremely dishonest of me.
I did not state that Angels travel a distance of 1000x the distance the moon travels in 1 lunar year. in fact, l stated that itâs not about âchugging alongâ, itâs about "jump"ing into âanother realityâ.
I can sort of see how you might make the mistake. Anyway, here is what l originally wrote:
The Qurâan even encodes the speed of light: Angels are made of light. The Qurâan tells us that angels relay matters back to Allah in a day which is 1,000 years of what we count. In other words, a ratio is set up of 1 day : 1000 years. Distance covered by Moon in 1,000 lunar years divided by time in 1 day = Speed of Light. Again: Angels are made of light. Once you reach light speed, you donât continue chugging along, you âjumpâ to another reality.
ITâS ABOUT THE RATIO:
Here are the Qurâan quotes:
Here are two mentions of the 1 day : 1000 years ratio:
022.047 And they will bid thee hasten on the Doom, and Allah faileth not His
promise, but lo! a Day with Allah is as a thousand years of what ye reckon.
032.005 He directeth the ordinance from the heaven unto the earth; then it ascendeth
unto Him in a Day, whereof the measure is a thousand years of that ye reckon.
Here is a mention of the 1 day : 50,000 years ratio
070.003 From Allah, Lord of the Ascending Stairways
070.004 (Whereby) the angels and the Spirit ascend unto Him in a Day whereof the
span is fifty thousand years.
We shall focus on Qurâan 32:5
032.005 He directeth the ordinance from the heaven unto the earth; then it ascendeth
unto Him in a Day, whereof the measure is a thousand years of that ye reckon.
The command of Allah descends from heaven to earth. It then ascends (i.e. the news of the outcome) to him in 1 day, which scoops up, has a dimension of, has an aspect of, integrates ⊠1000 years of what we reckon.
So we have a ratio of 1 day : 1,000 lunar months
1,000 YEARS = 1,000 LUNAR YEARS, EACH YEAR BEING 12 LUNAR MONTHS:
Muslims measure their months in lunar months. Here is a quote from the Prophetâs farewell sermon:
âWith Allah the months are twelve in number.â (also mentioned in Surah at Tauba of the Qurâan)
So, 1000 years of what WE RECKON = 1,000 lunar years.
ADD A STROKE OF GENIUS - INFERRING THE RATIO TO BE, WELL, A RATIO:
Speed is the ratio of distance : time.
We see a ratio between 1 day : 1,000 lunar months
This can translate as speed if we infer 1,000 lunar months to be a distance. This derivation via substitution / analogy is a stroke of genius. The inference is all within the concept of Travel.
THE CALCULATION THUS GOTTEN IS THE SPEED OF LIGHT:
I base my calculations on the Miracles of Quran website here
It features some expository animations.
Iâll admit IâM NOT TERRIBLY SURE OF IT MYSELF. The author does an interesting derivation of lunar orbital travel in a joint sidereal time frame (i.e. measuring against âfixedâ stars) and inertial time frame (i.e. ignoring earthâs gravity bending things, just as we consider light to move straight without bending), by looking at the change in lunar orbital radius as we go from having earth there, to having zero influence from earthâs gravity, as if earth were no longer there. The end result is 0.01% difference with actual speed of light. Thing is, he adds just over 6 seconds to 1 sidereal earth day, because in his calculation, the sunâs gravity should similarly not be acting on the earth ⊠but l could not really followthat part of the calculation .
ANGELS ARE MADE OF LIGHT & SOME ANGELS ARE GO-BETWEENS BETWEEN GOD & EARTH:
Angels are the go-between between Allah and creation. Not all angels fulfil this role, some are so enrapt in matters around the Throne.
The verse can only be referring to Angels.
It is believed in Islam that Angels are made of light.
I can say it because l have a basis for it in my faith even if it is ENTIRELY fictional it doesnât matter, it is the paradigm either way. I could be talking about Hobbits or Harry Potter, it doesnât matter, if the book or other bundled literature being discussed states they are made of light, then l work on that basis. It is the paradigm. You cannot re-write the paradigm itself, in order to disprove it.
So the paradigm is, whether you like it or not, that Angels are made of Light and they are the bearers of decrees and tidings mentioned in Qurâan 32:5, as is backed up by the surrounding Islamic beliefs.
There is a digest of lore regarding angels here, and it includes mention of their performing commands from God and reporting back to God, as well as their being made from Light
FAULTY GENERALISATION FALLACY: e.g. approximate subtype: NO TRUE SCOTSMAN FALLACY
You are setting the goalposts so that my argument falls outside of your parameters, however you have no basis to do this. The verse is cryptic even on the face of it and thus invites interpretation, and thereâs no set way to calculate the movement of angels.
Furthermore, l did say the speed of light was encoded therein. Hence a derivation is required, as outlined above, such that 1,000 lunar years is translated as a distance. There is some precedence, e.g. a light year is a measure of distance though the term is predicated on time.
Then you seem to take on bigotry, implying that Muslims should not access knowledge about the speed of light because it was based on a discovery / discoveries by secular scientists. This ironically rules out access to all of science by yourself because by your admission, the scientific method was invented by Ibn Haytham of Basra, a Muslim.
There is no room for bigotry or dogma in Science. Science is not partisan. Knowledge is for all to use. Islam teaches that knowledge is the lost property of the Believer and this was one of the things which spurred the Islamic Golden Age. Scientiific journals are accessible for all to read.
If a religious person invents something would you be barred from making use of it? Probably 20-40% of all scientists are open to the existence of God.
Also, secular doesnât mean Atheist, it can be as much by a system installed by religious assent as by Atheist involvement. In fact the Father of Modern Secularism was Ibn Rushd of Cordoba in Moorish Spain, a Muslim.
Also, again, here is another quote from the Prophetâs farewell sermon: âAll those who listen to me shall pass on my words to others and those to others again; and may the last ones understand my words better than those who listen to me directly.â So here it is said that the last generations will understand at least the Prophetâs sayings, better than his own, as if anticipating your objection âfor over a thousand years, devout Muslims read that passageâ.
The derivation of the speed of light is not 10% off by the calculation lâve linked to. And moreover, from an Atheist POV 10% off isnât bad at all.
You then go full REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM to say:
You are blatantly fudging your way to a value using random parameters (or whoever originally came up with that response), in order to discredit the value being arrived at in a coherent manner. You are arguing using incoherence.
Iâve already explained how science is not partisan. Moreover, lâd have thought youâd understand that science is a method.
It is not even proven that the value of c was arrived at by materialists but letâs assume it was, it doesnât matter either way.
You seem to think that Science is an alt religion or some type of movement away from Religion.
One more thing, you have hereby struck down the Amsterdam Declaration of Humanism in two key points:
Though we believe that a commitment to human well-being is ageless, our particular opinions are not based on revelations fixed for all time. Humanists recognise that no one is infallible or omniscient [BUT YOU SEEM TO THINK SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH IS IMMUTABLE?], and that knowledge of the world and of humankind can be won only through a continuing process of observation, learning, and rethinking.
For these reasons, we seek neither to avoid scrutiny nor to impose our view on all humanity. On the contrary, we are committed to the unfettered expression and exchange of ideas, and seek to cooperate with people of different beliefs who share our values, all in the cause of building a better world.
This is my major gripe with Humanists. Thereâs nothing holding them to their principles. In fact they are in layers of conflict, as stated in my earlier posts e.g.
And so their principles fly away at the slightest challenge. Terrible internet trolls have initially professed Humanism and turned out to be just massively bigoted.
The process is like this:
CLAIM TO BE HUMANIST - so far so good.
BEGIN SPEAKING FOR HUMANKIND - ermm okay, good! I think. Yes who am l to start getting premonitions? Iâm too cynical.
EVENTUALLY START TO SEE NON-HUMANISTS AS ANTI-HUMANKIND - Sigh, here we go. Another troll.
THEN AS NON-HUMAN
THEN AS LIABLE FOR PUNISHMENT, which under Atheism, means limitless force and hate, because Atheism is a world with nothing to moderate it except the hard rule of the law of the land, but on the internet, there is little confirmity to national law. Humanists act quite unreasonably on the internet.
You see it with that other user hounding me around the site with a sackful of blasphemies. He typifies my experience of Humanists though there are far worse.
IGNORED QUESTIONS (reminding you because according to the Amsterdam Declaration, you donât avoid scrutiny):
You did not answer or concede the following points in the OP: #1: Only religion can claim Morality. Atheism can only legitimately claim Vices. #4: Humanism cannot be believed in the mind of the Humanist, due to the Atheist logic under the hood #5: Humanism has not stopped the body count from non-religious wars, nor can it prevent atrocities in war. In fact, Humanism has no response to human savagery, it is in denial and thus Humanists deny the dark side of the human condition and of Ahtheism and are quite likely to become aggressors as they have no dialectic of moderation to refute extremism with. Or quite likely to be scalped by some savage forest tribes.
You have also not responded when in Round #2 l questioned your statement about religions that âOn matters of science, they were ignorantâ. I asked how Islam was incorrect in matters of knowledge.
CONCLUSION:
I have reasoned all of my thrusts at Atheism and Humanism). I expected counterpunches to be reasoned out. Resorting to logical fallacies is failure to reason, it is unfair.
I sincerely apologize if what Iâve said offends you, it is not my intent to insult or disparage you, and none of my arguments depend on any personal trait of yours.
If anything Iâve said has suggested otherwise, it is entirely a failure of communication on my part.
That said, I will continue to make the case that the Quran is a human creation, neither divine nor particularly unique. That the Islamic worldview takes it to be otherwise is a large part of why it is worse than Humanism. I apologize if that offends you, but you invited this debate and I wonât desist from a forthright expression of my position: you are defending a position that is mistaken in its conclusions, and its defense depends on false premises and false reason.
I donât have much to add about the speed of light. The link you provide in support of the calculation demonstrates my point: ad hoc adjustment after ad hoc adjustment, nudging the result toward the target on no consistent principle other than whatever works to get a predetermined answer. That is the definition of ad hoc.
When I say that it was science based in materialism and reason that provided us with our current knowledge of the speed of light, it is not to exclude anyone from that knowledge or its use. Rather, my point is that the Quran does not teach us that information, because it was written by humans who did not know the speed of light. Without already knowing the speed of light, there is no way to derive it from a close study of that text.
Many religions have central texts that their adherents maintain to be written or inspired by their god: the Hebrew Bible; the Christian New Testament; the Book of Mormon; the Hindu Vedas; the Sikh Guru Granth Sahib; the Bahaâi Iqan â all claim divine authorship. Though allegedly written by omniscient beings, they contain no information that was not known by the humans of their time, and to the extent they make clear assertions about the natural world, those assertions make all the mistakes we would expect their human authors to make.
You ask for specifics, but in the context of the kind of the reinterpretation offered elsewhere in your argument, what is the point? A clever person unconstrained by the plain meaning of the text can read as much out of it as into it.
But Iâll indulge you.
The Quran contains consistent and repeated errors about the nature of the sky:
The sky is described as a canopy (002.022); the clouds are said to travel between the earth and the sky (002.164); the sky is held up without visible pillars (013.002); the sky is a roof (021.032); the sky is the kind of thing that needs pillars (031.010); the sky is a thing that can be broken into pieces (034.009); the sky is a canopy (040.064); the sky is a thing without holes (050.006); Allah raised the sky as a canopy or roof (052.005); a piece of sky is not a cloud (052.044); Allah raised the sky (055.007); the sky can be torn or split (055.037); the sky will be torn on a day when it is flimsy (069.016); the sky can be pulled off (081.011); the sky was lifted (088.018).
The consistent theme is that the sky is a solid thing, a blanket, roof, or canopy, suspended over the earth as part of creation and capable of breaking into pieces or torn. This is what the human authors of the Quran would have believed, and that is why the Quran describes it that way.
And, not for nothing, while researching this I found noteworthy the number of times water and rain are mentioned in the Quran, something youâd expect to be a central concern of its desert-dwelling authors.
Religious texts are a product of the times and places where they were written. They encapsulate the worldview of their authors, telling us about what those cultures believed about the world, their values and concerns, hopes and fears. The fact that people of that time found them compelling tells us about how those people saw the world and their place in it. As cultural artifacts, they are a rich source for learning about where we came from, how our societies developed.
But the world they assume is as blinkered as their authors were by the limitations of their pre-scientific lives. Their moral codes are in many respects barbaric â and for good reason generally ignored by their modern followers (here again, some liberal reinterpretation helps). As I argued before, modern religious morality is largely Humanist in its motivations and particulars, because Humanist morality is better suited to the modern world. So too with their picture of the natural world, where the small horizons of their bookâs authors have been replaced by the expanse discovered by employing materialist assumptions and empirical inquiry.
MY REPLY: I did actually ask for criticism of my faith in direct comms before the debate, whilst also urging to avoid logical fallacies. Itâs the logical fallacies that are the fracture point. But letâs continue!
MY REPLY: The adjustments seem reasonable except toward the end where lâm not sure. Yes they do get a bit involved when he adds just over 6 seconds to the earth day, in order to put the earth into deep space without influence from the sun. Which is reasonable (not random; in fact the term you use - âad hocâ - means ânecessary, neededâ which they may well be!), but l still donât understand it nor the calculation for it. Even without half of the adjustments, the figure arrived at is still close to light speed.
Also note that when you really go into physics you commonly end up with a blackboard full of factors (e.g. Einstein field equations). Itâs not random, and itâs not stretching belief, and we cannot dismiss it because it looks daunting. Itâs mathematics confronting nature.
However, never mind - faith should not be objectively provable otherwise thereâs no merit to life.
MY REPLY: This is similar to the Nirvana Fallacy though not realy the same:
â> NIRVANA FALLACY (perfect-solution fallacy) â solutions to problems are rejected because they are not perfect.
Youâre presenting an ideal that the Qurâan will give the speed of light directly, upfront. I already responded to this by showcasing other things he thus ought to have bundled, e.g. a thesis on North Vietnam Social Services 1962-1972. You did not comment on what SHOULD be in the Qurâan and why (lâm guessing) North Vietnam Social Services 1962-1972 would be excluded. Yes itâs an anachronism but that means nothing. God. Should. Anticipate. So North Vietnam Social Services should be in it.
It is NON SEQUITUR that because humankind didnât know the speed of light back then, it cannot be encoded for future generations as an easter egg. There may be greater secrets that will never be discovered. [EDIT: In fact there are some cryptic letters at the start of some chapters, known as the Huruf Muqattaâat, their meaning is unknown to mankind]
Despite it being non sequitur on the face of it, l can also explain how it is also non sequitur and in fact illogical, via reasoning:
God is beyond time. Godâs love for has an extra 99 components additional to the compassion we have seen in this life. HOWEVER, he will send most of us to hell and wonât care, and he will send some of us to heaven and wont care. POINT IS: This is because God is infinite, and thus has infinite levels. SO, itâs conceivable that we donât even matter to him at some higher level. So why have anything in the Qurâan other than âhereâs how to build a house, now go forth and multiply and donât interrupt me lâm trying to sleepâ. Atheist logic wonât accept an infinite God and thus the Qurâan has to be a survival guide allowing us to become spacefaring and fully zero carbon - otherwise the Qurâan is bunk. [EDIT: And trust me, if you had tech problems in 622 CE, or even 2025 CE, then you donât wanna know the issues that crop up when orbiting Saturn in a self-sustaining spaceship, or even trying to reach Saturn, so youâll need more info in the Qurâan]
Anyway, scope for debate is limited so lâll continue:
Thank you for this. I am currently reading the Qurâan in translation as thanksgiving for something. I am actively seeking out things l need clarification on, but none of them are things youâve listed. I love reading about the motif of a piece of sky breaking off, and elsewhere it has people taunting the Prophet, daring him to make that exact thing happen seeing as he said it happened to others in the past. To me, it rings true, and so lâm intrigued to know what exactly occurred but l digress, letâs get down to detail (l love this type of discussion btw):
Iâve picked up on the following, the excluded items being obviously true and lâm unsure why youâd object to them:
13:2 - YOU SAY: the sky is held up without visible pillars
I SAY: The translation l use has âheavensâ instead of âskyâ. However, sky is fine. The skies, laden with clouds, arch above us and do not collapse on us except during specific events where some kind of electrostatic netting droops down to earth and we have rainfall, tornadoes, dust devils, etc.
21:32 - YOU SAY: the sky is a roof
I SAY: Yes it has its own properties, l hope you can see that itâs not just empty space and from the POV of a skydiver, itâs very much like a layer cake of different types of fluid. For example, you have the Ozone layer, lâm sure that would harm us if it existing at ground level. I consider that safely withheld, held up from us.
34:9 - YOU SAY: the sky is a thing that can be broken into pieces
I SAY: The translation l have states âor cause obliteration from the sky to fall on them.â However, it is my understanding that this happened on occasion to previous civilisations that attacked their prophets. It took the form of a piece of sky falling, according to at least one translation. There was also, either separately or at the same time, a loud scream that filled the air. It happened to the civilisations of Thamud (possibly Petra or nearby) and 'Ad (near Yemen) too were destroyed by a terrible unnatural meteorological event.
I regularly can gain enough altitude to see a piece of the sky fall when itâs raining miles away. But the destruction being discussed there is something far worse. Possibly like a tornado, which absolutely is a piece of the sky falling to earth btw, with jet stream winds that should have been high up. Incidentally, the jet stream may even be part of a superstructure that keeps the sky up, creating an electrostatic attraction without which the atmosphere could significantly droop down.
50:6 - YOU SAY: the sky is a thing without holes
I SAY: I guess this celebrates that the earthâs atmosphere is packed in and does not all tear up and whisp away into space. The translation l use has âriftsâ instead of holes, but itâs all the same to me. By the way, when the sky does develop a kind of hole, we get harmed e.g. a hole in the ozone layer would let high energy solar rays through, causing cancer etc. I gather this is a fairly recent phenomenon on the scale of human civilisation, quote Google âThe largest historical extent of the ozone hole â 28.4 million square kilometres â occurred in September 2000â
52:44 âAnd if they were to see a fragment of the heaven falling, they would say: A heap of clouds.â This refers to doomed people staring their destruction in the face and rationalising it as just another day. It refers to the unknown thing which destroyed the civilisation of Thamud, accompanied by a loud scream, and an earthquake.
I recall reading a book by Ursula le Guinn, l think it was independent of the Earthsea series. In the book, an evil man was about to be destroyed by a white dragon. He saw it approaching at great speed, and said âAlbatrossâ and stood there watching. It got closer and closer until it burned him to death with its fiery breath. That is the sense that is meant.
And it does indeed happen in real life just like that - surely you can verify that people dismiss destruction even as it plainly approaches them. In fact lâm suprised you didnât get the context of the verse - are you cherry picking?
55:37 âAnd when the heaven splitteth asunder and becometh rosy like red hideâ This refers to either the cosmos that we know with stars (the lowest heaven), or the sky of earth. Seeing as the translator uses âheavenâ he may have inferred the lowest heaven, i.e. that which fills the night sky. This refers to some eschatological event, and we are to be thankful we aint seen it yet.
69:16 - See above
81:11 - YOU SAY: the sky can be pulled off
I SAY: This will indeed happen according to standard planetary science, when the sun enters red giant phase, earth becomes absorbed within it. Iâm NOT saying thatâs what the verse refers to. In fact it has already happened, in a different way, on Mars.
88:18 - YOU SAY: the sky was lifted
I SAY: How is the sky raised indeed? See my proposal re: the jet stream in 34:9. Note how putting energy into a system can create a counterintuitive energy structure such that it creates a cooling effect, as per your fridge freeezer. Similarly, a structure may be created by the jet stream, following from solar input via charged winds, such that even on bright sunny days, we need not be 120 celsius like the moon. This micro-environment we have on Earth is a structure, and as such, the top end is a sky that is âwithheldâ, and an artificial gradient is set up. [EDIT: In fact, couple this with my explanation for 50:6, above, we see that the clouds are kept up, whilst the atmosphere is kept in, such that it doesnât dissipate away into space. Therefore you see, we indeed have a raised canopy, like a roof, above us. That is way beyond what 7th century people could have come up with.]
I SAY: See my above explanations. I think you are lumping the Qurâan with the Bible. The editors of the Bible incorporated some horrific Hellenistic bloopers e.g. Job 37:18
18 Can you, like him, spread out the skies, hard as a cast metal mirror?
18 he makes the skies reflect the heat like a bronze mirror.
The Qurâan does not repeat these errors. The Qurâan has no errors that lâm aware of but please do find some for me.
I SAY: The Qurâan was revealed between two cities, but the climate was indeed rather arid. However, the water cycle is fundamental to all life. It is as relevant in the rainy towns l have lived, as in Vegas, Makkah, Antarctica (the biggest desert on earth). I understand but reject your objection, l would counter this with North Vietnam Social Services 1962-1972 - why arenât you demanding that be included etc.
I SAY: Please show our immorality - the Qurâan is not immoral like the human additions to the Bible. You need to show it in our scripture and the life of our Prophet. Not individuals that claim to be us just to defame us.
Also please answer my growing list of questions and objections about Humanism / Atheism, in fact lâll just reduce it to a few simple Qs, but l must insist that you finally answer them before the debate has run out of permitted rounds, l need time to rebuff your answers:
1. What basis do you have for morality? You have no valid definition of âGoodâ without God. 2. What do you think of current laws which permit sex offenders to just get a job at a different hospital where they can be a surgeon again, sexually assaulting people from age 1 to age 70, and people with about 30 past convictions, having only spent about 3 years in jail total, then going on to murder an old lady and so forth etc etc etc etc etc etc The real problem here is where to begin. There is so much wrong with the law (though secular law is as much to do with religion as it is to do with Atheism, my question is: what would you rather be done instead of the present legal system?) 3. As per JS Millâs Utilitarianism a la âOn Libertyâ, how would you argue against Father-Son incest, e.g. if the son were 16 years old, and what if the father wanted his son at the age of say 4 (while washin his bum!) and the son thought itâs okay hence consented, what recourse do you have for condemning that? You cannot cite âNatureâs Wayâ surely, as that goes into metaphysical, beyond materialism? JS Mill would have just intervened and stopped it, but is his undoing: his arbitrary interventions undo his own philosophy. In fact, l can easily shoot down any Utilitarian arguments, be they JS Mill-eian or Bentham-ite or whatever. 4. Say an Atheist had 7 billion bullets, 7 billion guns and 5,000 kg of dried meat, dried fruit, cereal, UHT milk, and so forth. And say there was no other food left in the world. Why would an Atheist let anybody else on earth live? No special pleading e.g. the Atheist needs at 127 people to live to help him find the Lost Tablets of Macchu Picchu in order to bring about peace on earth so that we stop fighting each other and plants grow again etc. The paradigm is: they want your food and you have 5,000 kg but there is no more, so you really need all of it. 5. Why should you live another moment? Logically you should run - not even walk - to the kitchen right now and headbutt a knife so hard as to cause death. Seems to me that in Atheism, there is NO logical response to that. I can easily break through any argument an Atheist would make against it, not with mere cavilling but with powerful reasoning.
Apologies for the question about incest but l want to reduce your stance to absurdity via reason, not via absurdity. I need an answer, and donât worry, l am asking, not telling so please avoid responding with âSo youâre saying we should ⊠[just because a fictional God exists]?â Just an answer, finally, would do. We can take it from there ⊠but l must press you to answer these questions now, most of them lâve been asking since the debate began?
Itâs simply not the case that religious morality comes from religion. Morality comes from culture, continuously iterated on and negotiated by its members. Should we really believe that no one was honest, kind, or merciful before Muhammad? Of course not, those were already virtues, and they were included in his teachings because they are virtues. Even idiosyncratic moral obligations like keeping halal/kosher derive from the pre-religious situation of the people among whom the religion developed â for example, pork was forbidden in part because pigsties were located beneath outhouses, and were fed on human waste.
Religious morality takes a description of such a morality and tries to fix it in place for all time. A culturally-negotiated code from a culture that no longer exists, applied out of time and reason, to a culture with different needs. Thankfully, the attempt mostly fails; societies ostensibly practicing the same religion enact it differently, and maintain moral codes as different as many between different religions. And none apply it in the way it was applied in the ancient culture of its origin, because ancient cultures and modern cultures face different moral questions. The Quran condoned slavery, but today no Islamic country permits it, and only extremist groups like ISIS and Boko Haram continue to follow the fixed code of the Quran.
So what is the basis for Humanist morality? The same thing as is the basis for religious morality: the continuous iteration and negotiation of human beings. The difference is that it is not limited to what can be tortured from an ancient text. Humanist morality is what we get when we consider the place of the human species today, what we have and are capable of, who our neighbors are, and what behaviors make sense in this context. Thatâs why it so successfully leads religions away from their ancient codes.
Similarly, a Humanist continues to live for the same reason a religious person does: self-preservation is an instinct, we value our lives because those humans who did not tended not to produce the humans alive today. The typical human does not need reason to justify continuing to live, any more that we need reason to justify the taste of honey. The lack of a will to live is a symptom used to diagnose depression (and I have to think that would apply equally to someone who only continued to live out of a fear of divine retribution).
Granted, Humanism would not consider suicide a moral wrong. For most Humanists, our bodily autonomy and right to self-determination would include the right to end ones life. I regard suicide as tragic, something to be avoided in virtually all cases, and would try to help someone to choose differently. But it is their choice.
This is a strange selective focus. The vast majority of fathers and sons do not need a prohibition against father-son incest to prevent them from engaging in it, and again I would suggest that if the only reason a person is refraining from father-son incest is fear of divine retribution, that would be considered a symptom of mental illness. And moral edge cases donât tell us much about moral systems; itâs a literal mathematical impossibility for a system of rules to cover every possible case, so the ability to handle strange and unlikely cases is just not informative. Not to mention, it lends itself to prurient hypotheticals, chosen for emotional effect rather than evidentiary weight.
But, you need an answer, so I will answer:
First, a child cannot consent. Humanism values consent because it values individual freedom, and one way to protect freedom for everyone is to require that they are willing participants in their lives. In children, we often donât require their consent, but only in cases where something is being done in the childâs interest and the child is not capable of understanding that it is good. Thatâs not the case in father-son incest. There, the father would be using the son for his own benefit, and the son does not benefit, likely suffers, and cannot consent. So if the son is a child, we should not permit father-son incest.
Similar motivations justify prohibiting incest between a father and his adult son. As you so graphically illustrate, the possibility of a future sexual relationship can interfere with a fatherâs obligations to his children, making choices not for the benefit of the child, but to increase the likelihood of the child later accepting a sexual advance. Because so much of parenting happens behind closed doors, such an outcome is presumptively improper, and a prohibition on a later relationship will serves to discourage the present mistreatment of the child.
But suppose a child was adopted from birth and never knew his father, was raised in a kind and loving household by devoted parents, grew to be an intelligent and independent adult with one or more loving sexual experiences with peers, and only then met his father and developed a consensual relationship with him. In that case, other than the efficiency of simpler laws, it does not seem there would be any reason to prohibit it: they are consenting adults, they can do as they please with their own bodies. They may face social repercussions due to how their behavior makes others feel, but our feeling of distaste does not make their actions immoral.
And, though I repeat myself: I would feel no less disgust if, though they badly wished they could consummate their desire for each other, they refrained because of a fear of divine retribution.
Hello and thank you for picking up on my outstanding requests.
You may recall though, that l asked that you do not conflate my asking with my telling Iâm not saying morality is good or incest is bad because a book told me. For one thing, lâd be wasting your valuable time by coming to a debate armed with just that.
Iâm not saying morality comes from religion. I do contend that religion has sole claim to morality - as per my opening post. Atheism cannot claim morality, only ethics.
The reason is that morality relates to the soul and infinity.
If an infinite God were real, and infinite life in the bliss of the hereafter were real, then material greed would be undercut and made pointless. If this finite material existence were all there is, then vices would be virtuous, and virtues would be insane.
MY CALCULATION:
We each have a soul, and that soul (as the Amsterdam Convention admits) has no material explanation. It is an arc of the infinite circle of Godâs light. It is a minute finite degree of that light. That light is infinite actual and as such it is pure existence, because it does not change, there is nothing left for it to change to, and so it just is (âEhiehâ, I Am That I Am, as per Bible). Within the sector of light so described, is the substance of infinity. It is infinity in substance regardless that it is a finite sector of the disc.
Therefore we each have an innate morality, because our souls admit to this world of infinity (being made of the fabric of infinity), which contradicts the rush for finite resources within a finite life, that is the basis of all insanity, and from there, the basis of materialism, and from there, the basis of vices, depravity.
We lose this morality just as a mirror may become grimy without maintenance. Thus the light of our souls becomes muddied with unrepented sins. Thatâs why l never go for a member of the opposite sex who proclaims âno apologies, no regretsâ with the impetuousness of youth.
So you see, there was morality before our Prophet, e.g. his father and mother were lovely. When his mother was pregnant, by her own words: water would rush up to meet her when she went to draw water from the well. She died when he was an infant so she likely had no clue why the water was doing that. Itâs quite obvious she was an adorable person despite this being pre-Islam. Weâre just not allowed to pray for her thatâs all, because only Islam is our business.
By the way, hereâs something from my opening post, which was probably awkwardly worded:
Quick note about pigs: I agree but also, even if fed on clean foods, they are considered disgusting. We live in an unprecedent age where people can live fairly well whilst eating this meat but in the past, people would only eat it for a few centuries before completely abandoning it, due to diseases. Pig farming was ever a lower class pursuit.
I have no idea what you are talking about here.
Morality to me is things like:
Patience
Justice
Kindness
Generosity
Charity
These things are universal and unchanging.
Iâm surprised you bring ISIS and Boko Haram into it as something related to my religion - itâs offensive and a harmful lie, and please note l donât pin on you the actions of schizoid that rapes and kills his grandmother, or a cannibal advertising for a teenage girl to volunteer to be killed and eaten by him. They go against the Qurâan. Open the Qurâan or a book of Sunnah anywhere and begin reading, and youâll very soon see somewthing to condemn these terror groups. They are a collection of sins in Islam.
There are reams and reams of tracts which would condemn them.
They are a recent occurrence - lâm sure you disliked Islam even before then They exist to defame us. They exist ONLY for you to see, not for us to ponder on. To us, the case is closed, they are our enemies.
Moreoever they seem to be the non-Muslimsâ wildcard in a debate - they are ONLY useful to non-Muslims.
I would wish that you do not bring them into the debate and moreover, I am talking about the religion, the -ism / -ology, not the -ists / -ologists.
For example, as was recently in the news, if a surgeon repeatedly does sexual abuse, shall we blame the practice of surgery? Please, see sense.
Otherwise please show me an ISIS / Boko Haram code of morality / ethics / practice, that relates to the Qurâan. Otherwise l remind you it is a terrible lie to say it has basis in the Qurâan. This is an academic debate and you would have to bring facts to the table - at least for such a major claim as this. I look forward to your response of proof. It would have been more productive to use the time to focus on more realistic arguments though. Missed opportunity.
Apologies but âcontinuous iteration and negotiation of human beingsâ seems awkward. If you mean, Humanist ethics are based on the propagation of life and everyone getting on, then surely you mean Social Contract: you be nice, l be nice, and we donât harm each other?
Yet you would attribute burning people alive, burning academic textbooks, and quite possibly also cutting clitorises off with shards of glass (i.e. ISIS / Boko Haram stuff), to me by attributing it to my faith. Thatâs harsh. My faith teaches me not to make such stuff up! See below:
Ali reported: When the weapon of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, had been assembled, I found on the handle or blade of his sword three sayings, âMaintain relations with those who cut you off, speak the truth even if it is against yourself, and be good to one who is evil to you.â Source: Muâjam Ibn al-AâraÌbiÌ 1507 Grade: Sahih (authentic) according to Al-Albani
Let me repeat what l said in my opening post, and l hope you take note of my calculation because you neee to have rebutted this:
Do you get what lâm saying there?
If this life is all there is, then we are all just mortal and beyond death there is nothing.
Thus the inevitable ending is death, no matter what we do.
Thus doing anything, is made pointless by death.
Thus doing anything, is pointless.
Thus the only logical thing to do would be to hasten death, with as few pointless steps as possiblwe, between now and death. Thus the only logical response to Atheism would be to hasten, maybe run, to oneâs death.
However, we still have a soul. That soul cries out for life in two ways: i) It is of infinite reality and thus pure existence (infinity = unchanging because it contains all permutations = pure existence), and thus it is a Life instinct ii) It is implicit that if materialism = instant suicide, then anti-materialism - the world of the soul = Life instinct
So, if a personâs soul has become muddied nonetheless, and they have become materialist, but they have enough soul shining through that they wonât instantly commit suicide, the end result is materialism + life urge.
This is a dangerous combination, because it means the person wants to prolong their life, to materialist ends.
Thus the person begins to live for vices. The urge to Hedonism rises in the person. And all that it entails - and the only hard limit is the law of the land.
Letâs go back to your statement then: âcontinuous iteration and negotiation of human beingsâ If you mean, Humanist ethics are based on the propagation of life and everyone getting on, then surely you mean Social Contract: you be nice, l be nice, and we donât harm each other?
Nobody signed no social contract, my friend. And people find this out the hard way all the time. All the time, as victims of crime.
Also, who cares if thereâs propagation of life? This is Non Sequitur. In fact, the opposite is shown in the case of the megadeaths from secular wars. Also the things we do to each other in violation of Godâs will, e.g. poisoning the environment with chemical, biological and nuclear waste. The hundreds of thousands of babies born with horrific birth defects arising from pollution. Youâre Arguing from Ommission. These are just pretty thoughts and are not borne out by reality.
Youâve misrepresented the reason a religious person lives
I have explained some of it but lâll add more and re-capitulate it: (a) We have a soul, which is a fragment of Godâs pure existence and all that it entails (b) Further, we live purely to worship Allah - for example, Qurâan 51:56 âI created the jinn and humankind only that they might worship Me.â (c) We worship Allah through loving and fearing him, and loving for him, and hating for him. And so we also do deeds that cause us to shine. And so we wish to live as long as possible to do as many good deeds as possible. This is the only life in which we do deeds - in the eternal hereafter, there are no more deeds.
Consider Qurâan 18:7 Lo! We have placed all that is on the earth as an ornament thereof that We may try them: which of them is best in conduct.
Also consider: Abu Huraira reported: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said, âLet none of you wish for death, nor call for it before its time comes. When one of you dies, his deeds come to an end. Verily, the life of a believer only increases in good.â
Source: SÌŁahÌŁiÌhÌŁ Muslim 2682
Thank you for admitting it.
That is because your Soul contradicts your Atheism.
Iâll admit l have no idea what to do if confronted by a person screaming in agony from severe injuries e.g. burns. I pray that God would reveal to me what to do or just not test me in that way.
However, in my position of comfort right now, l have to say: Suicide is always wrong and 100% against religion / morality.
As stated in my prior post: Iâm asking not telling. I had to think of a way to get your attention seeing as my original qs were being bypassed.
Iâm sorry but my moderate IQ is a barrier to understanding what you just wrote
Hereâs the religious take: 1. Familial bonds are bonds of pure love. They are what we call uterine bondsand thus they are sacred.
Qurâan 004.001: O mankind! Be careful of your duty to your Lord Who created you from a single soul and from it created its mate ⊠and toward the wombs (that bare you).
Qurâan 047.022: Would ye then, if ye were given the command, work corruption in the land and sever your ties of kinship ?
In a Qudsi hadith (direct saying of Allah, not in the Qurâan), God says: âI am Allah, and I am ar-Raáž„man (the Most Merciful) who created the raáž„im (womb), so whoever stays connected with it (i.e., womb relations), I will connect him [to My mercy], and whoever severs ties with it, I will disconnect him [from My mercy].â
Collected by Abu Dawud (1694), at-Tirmidhi (1/348), Ahmad (1/194), Ibn Hibban (2033), al-Bukhari in al-Adab al-Mufrad (53), and al-Albani in as-Silsila as-Sahiha (2/36: 520).
Donât worry, lâm not saying read the book â get the morals. Please read on:
2.Love is soul to soul.
To continue: The instrument of love is the soul. Love is soul to soul.
Therefore, the capacity to love is innate to each of us.
Therefore the appreciation of uterine bonds is innate to each of us.
3.Therefore incest is unnatural (familial bonds are sacred). Humanism cannot argue this coherently and Religion can argue that itâs innate and also why it is innate.
4. Homosexuality is considered an aberration in my faith and statistically it is an aberration. It has no function in the propagation of the species, which you maintain is a principle of Humanism. However, my point is not to denounce homosexuality, but to show how Humanism has no argument in the horrific paradigm being discussed.
5.Humanism cannot argue for an age of consent. We can say infants, i.e. pre-pubescents, cannot consent. I totally agree. In Islam, marriage occurs after courtship under auspice. The male suitor may approach the femaleâs Mahram (usually her father, if he is alive, or another male representative within her family) or the male suitor himself may communicate via his own Mahram with the femaleâs Mahram. That is consent and then some.
However, Humanismâs / Atheismâs entire stance is incoherent, because:
Youâre implying that once a person reaches adolescence, consent is valid, when in fact today, almost every nation on earth will prosecute for this view e.g. at 8,9,10,11,12 years of age, ages at which puberty would usually be attained and which were generally acceptable about 50 years ago.
Adolescence is not a fixed age, and so even at 16, a person may still be pre-puberty and thus technically an infant
Fixed age of consent? Thatâs politics. You cannot link morality to a politically decided fixed age of consent. This is a great way to show that Humanism, and Secularism (which is neutral to / at the confluence of religion and atheism), can only aim for Ethics, not Morality.
Pederasty was once a social institution in Ancient Greece and lâve heard in other cultures e.g. Celtic Gauls (though the young boy would also l think sleep with the older manâs wife). Wikipedia is hazy on the minimum age for pederasty in Ancient Greece, hereâs a quick excerpt:
The Greek practice of pederasty came suddenly into prominence at the end of the Archaic period of Greek history ⊠literary sources show it as being established custom in many cities by the 5th century BC.[28]
Cretan pederasty as a social institution seems to have been grounded in an initiation which involved abduction. A man (Ancient Greek: ÏÎčλΟÏÏÏ â philetor, âloverâ) selected a youth, enlisted the chosen oneâs friends to help him, and carried off the object of his affections to his andreion, a sort of menâs club or meeting hall. The youth received gifts, and the philetor along with the friends went away with him for two months into the countryside âŠ
Wikipedia does mention that in Crete, the dad would need to give permission, and the dad had men guarding his son from abduction, however "Athenian fathers would pray that their sons would be handsome and attractive, with the full knowledge that they would then attract the attention of men and âbe the objects of fights because of erotic passionsâ.
It seems to me that the Greek archetype was Zeusâs abduction of the boy Ganymede for lovinâ and if a Greek deity is doing it you better believe itâs really going down, nothing soft. Wikipedia is reticent on Ganymedeâs age because it will always whitewash anything embarrassing about Western civilisation, but always calumnise Islam in every - and l do mean every - article. However, thereâs always Reddit:
Quote: Ganymede is a teenager. He is usually depicted on ancient vases as a young teenager (11-13 years old) or a 19-year-old boy. On Roman mosaics, he is especially depicted as a boy of about 15. As for paintings from later periods of art - Renaissance, Baroque (please, do not take Rembrandtâs paintings as a real representation of Ganymede because he showed him as a 2-year-old child)
SO MY POINT IS: This is NOT necessarily a moral edge case. It was once normal. Whither Humanism my friend? Humanism, if it existed in that society, would probably permit it.
None of your foregoing reasoning (which l have unpicked anyway) condemns father-adult son incest.
Circular reasoning. Youâve described it as improper. And then behold! It ends badly for the son.
Also Non sequitur - it need not go so badly as you describe. When son is 16, daddy can shower him with gifts in exchange for loving. Son could only be too happy to oblige so is getting rewarded for doing what he likes doing anyway. Son could also gain new powerful friends as daddy introduces him to his special circle of friends from, you know, that Club where everyone wears the cool tie clip etc.
Really, l donât think Humanism has an answer to this (adult son) and should in fact encourage it if Humanism were to be true to itself, as per JS Millâs brand of Utilitarianism, which includes Quality (not just Quantity of people being pleased) as a measure of social utility i.e. the quality of personal fulfilment.
This
Thank you for your honesty.
I refer you to my 5-point list beginning âHereâs the religious take:â
i.e. itâs not quite arbitrary that we forbid these things.
Our worldviews should be founded on truth. We should seek to maintain an accurate description of reality, and adapt our worldview as the description changes. Our values and norms should be consistent with the description, and if they arenât we should change our values and norms and not our description of reality.
If two worldviews are each equal to the needs of their adherents at a particular moment in history, the one that is based on a more accurate description of the world is better, because the world is dynamic, presenting new questions, new conflicts, new challenges, new needs. A worldview founded on a more accurate description of the world will be more likely to have values and norms that can account for these changes, and will have an easier time developing new values and norms if not.
The fundamental problem that Islam has, that any religion built around a book has, is that it is inseparable from an inaccurate description of the world: Muhammad may have been a talented leader and philosopher, but he did not speak for God, and his teachings have the limitation of his time. Like all false premises, this leads to endless other mistakes, made necessary to preserve this one.
We can conclude with some confidence that it is false, because Islam is like most other religions in claiming that their holy text is, directly or indirectly, the word of God. None of these claims is more credible than the next, and none offers more evidence than the words themselves and the cultural tradition of believing them. And the words they claim to have received are different, they conflict. Thatâs a problem if we take claims of revelation or divine inspiration at face value; itâs completely expected if we take them to be the creation of humans, who always and everywhere have profound personal experiences that they interpret through the culture and beliefs of their time. The Quran is but one example.
If something is false, it doesnât matter if itâs comfortable to believe. If morality were impossible without believing something false, then morality would be impossible, and the pretense of morality would be just that: pretend.
Fortunately, morality doesnât require a false belief in divine revelation or the specifics of what it contains. The distinction you make between âethicsâ and âmoralityâ is just wordplay: weâre talking about the same thing: an instinct that shapes our behavior and creates expectations about the behavior of those around us. It precedes religion, going back as far as we can look into human history, and we can still see rudimentary morality in our non-human animal relatives (including norms prohibiting incest). Religious codifications neither define nor constrain the morality of their adherents (though you accuse my soul of contradicting my atheism, I note that yours contradicts your faith when it comes to suicide in the context of profound suffering).
Religion does not give us morality, and we donât need religion to know or follow social mores.
I apologize for the confusion created by my last post: I agree with you that ISIS and Boko Haram do not represent Islam. I did not mean to imply otherwise. While those groups call themselves Muslim, they are quite clearly different from the vast majority of people who follow Islam. Every religion has extremists, and it would be a strawman fallacy to argue that they are representative.
Rather, I raised them because they donât represent Islam, because Muslims the world over are as horrified as people of every other faith by the atrocities they commit. My point is that, though the Quran and Hadith quite clearly condone the practice of chattel slavery, the Muslim world has rejected that teaching, and prohibited that practice. But while Islamic extremists are not representative of Islam, and go against the Quran in many other ways, on the subject of slavery it is difficult to argue that they do not take the Quran at its word.
My point is that Islam today has changed. Many who disparage it judge it by its extremists, while judging their own religions by their mainstream. Mainstream Islam is nothing like Islamic extremism. And Islamic extremism clearly goes beyond whatâs taught in the Quran, to include recreating the world in which Muhammad lived â a world where war between groups was common, and where chattel slavery of prisoners of war was common practice. In the context of that world, the Quranâs message of taking stewardship and care of oneâs slaves should be read as moral progress, and he should be given the credit for seeing farther than many of his peers at the time. But he was still a man of his time. Morality has continued to progress, and Islam has benefited from the progress as we all have, with its practiced morality pulled along by the evolution of secular morality.
In my first post in this debate, I praised Islam, and that was not false praise. As a younger man, raised in a religious culture, I was angry with religion, and because of my anger I couldnât see beyond what religion got wrong. With the benefit of years, I can appreciate the mistake that I was making. Religion helps deal with the existential uncertainty of life. It provides a path into thinking about oneself, and the world, and the Big Everything. Islam contains great beauty, and deep and timeless truths about the human condition.
One of the beauties of Humanism is that I can draw from all the great traditions of humanity. I can read the Quran and appreciate its poetry, its philosophy, its history, and the wisdom of its author â they are part of humanityâs quest for purpose, meaning, and understanding. Many of its teachings are still relevant, and as a Humanist I can connect to them and be inspired by them â and I can leave those teachings that have lost their relevance to their time. If I try to imagine a secular Islam â guiding life in a material world by taking the Quran more as a compass than a map â in many respects that would be a Humanist worldview.
Thank you for the debate, I appreciate the exchange and hope you got as much from it as I did.
And, given the coincidence of the day on which our debate ends, let me say: Ramadan Mubarak to you and yours.
Assalamu alaikum my friend.
Iâm not saying morality is good or incest is bad because a book told me. For one thing, lâd be wasting your valuable time by coming to a debate armed with just that.