discussion on the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

[Dawood]

Re: the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

 

In Arabic Qawee means "strength".

Anyway, I'm down with the highwater posse too.

 

The reason is simple, The prophet Muhammad informed the people that dragging the lower garments (for men) like the pants or thowb etc. is from arrogance because especially during that time you would see the rich arrogant people letting their garments drag behing them as a display of haughtiness and pride. So, Muhammad encouraged his people to be in opposition to that and wear their garments above the ankle out of humbleness and to oppose arrogance.

Actually, If you go to places like philly and Jersey , you'll see what I mean. Everyone is rockin' theyre pants up high and growing their beards out... Muslims and non muslims. It's like a fad up there because there is so many muslims it just became the style up that way.

 

it's not a wahhabi thing, it's a sunnah thing.

[Qawee]

Re: the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

 

Ah ok, thank you for the explanation.

I guess I need to brush up on the sunnah.

[the.crooked]

Re: the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

 

mod x- it's interesting to see someone i have no other interaction with on a very very similar train of thought. anywho, i have a couple replies to structure of your three propositions.

 

First, I agree that there is a smaller level of free will on a larger societal level. However, I think it comes from a different origin other than being intrinsic to humanity. I think a lot of it is because there are small amounts of people who are concerned with issues of knowledge (philosophy) and those people are who constructed things as they are now. I think anyone who has taken a simple political philosophy class or has read any of the seminal works on the subject will find that there are very easy and striking examples of every major concept presented within those works. One of those specifically speaks to this idea well, On Liberty. J.S. Mill, tears shit apart. He pretty much says that we should cultivate individualism and natural progression within humanity as to cultivate genius within the culture. Not that all people are geniuses, but to refine the process as to increase the incedence of genius within a society. He also ascribes that genius is what drives society, and I am inclined to agree. Be it an empirical genius as with our current technological revolution or within some other study.

 

Therefor, I contend that while individuals have a low sense of progressive efficacy towards society as a whole, there are those within societies who do have that level of influence and use it accordingly. And it is those people with whom philosophers are concerned with communicating. Your statement about people giving themselves too much credit, is perfect. Yes too much credit is given to the individual as far as thinking they can influence the future that society is progressing towards, but credit is surely due to those leading the individual there.

 

I think this is where we begin to see things differently:

 

My reading of you is that society progresses on its own due to its internal influences, without, nor necessitated by any level of efficacy presented to the individual. Is that correct? Have you read any feminist theory? As bullshit as I find the content, some of the larger concepts are interesting. I suppose its just a rehashing of postmodernism into social theory, but hey, what isn't these days.

 

I personally would like to believe that there is a small group of people that are helping structure the world. If not sitting at some round table together, in some sort of collaborative way. I think they are the think tanks and consulting firms that tell coporations what to do. It's those that do the R&D for those corporations. These people have read all the philosophers and they use it to structure society as they see fit for the profit. I don't really know if I think they are wrong, but I sure as hell want to be on the same level.

 

blah... keg hunt makes the brain tired. i have more later.

[tonysoprano]

Re: the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

 

people no longer believe in religion because it's values have been rubished by the media and government, yet athiests belive they are the ones with open minds

[Module X]

Re: the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

 

My reading of you is that society progresses on its own due to its internal influences, without, nor necessitated by any level of efficacy presented to the individual. Is that correct?

 

I personally would like to believe that there is a small group of people that are helping structure the world. If not sitting at some round table together, in some sort of collaborative way. I think they are the think tanks and consulting firms that tell coporations what to do. It's those that do the R&D for those corporations. These people have read all the philosophers and they use it to structure society as they see fit for the profit. I don't really know if I think they are wrong, but I sure as hell want to be on the same level.

 

blah... keg hunt makes the brain tired. i have more later.

 

In answer to your question...yes and no. I actually agree with your idea that certain individuals are able to have disproportianate influence over the direction of society. However, I think all "genius" thinkers express essentially the same fundamental ideas, and the statistical incidence of genius throughout history has been such as to guide the development of civilization in a natural fashion. That is, even though the genius perhaps exercises a larger degree of free will, it is not necessarily sufficient nor is it necessarily voluntarily guided to cause a change the direction of human development. The idea that all genius derives from and speaks about essentially the same sort of ideas (to borrow a term from Huxley the "Perennial Philosophy") is significant because I think the increasing cultivation of genius is gradually bringing an increase in free will, in proportion with some degree of "enlightenment," to society as a whole as the ideas of genius begin to really coalesce. To be sure, we have a long way to go, which is why I think we're still at a point where we're not really in control of our development.

 

On a side note I feel like, since it is becoming important to our discussion, maybe we should try to pin down a good definition of what exactly we mean by genius. I'll get back to this later.

 

Anyway, I think what you're saying accords pretty well with my second proposition. It's sort of what I meant by "philosophical intervention." To be honest, the idea kind of scares me. I'm not really well read in philosophy, but it seems to me like most important underlying philosophical ideas in Western society can be demonstrated by two thinkers, who in many ways expounded the same fundamental idea: Socrates (and Plato for writing it all down) and Jesus. The way I see it their ideas were only a starting point. Like you said, other thinkers over time and other influences such as Eastern philosophies have shaped their ideas and changed in many ways the guiding philosophies of the masses. But, I think where we differ here is that you view this as more of a voluntary, free undertaking, while I see it as a gradual fine-tuning in a definite direction. That is, all the major philosophies that attempt to explain reality are based on the same fundamental concept, and due to a growing incidence of genius the skin-deep differences are being ironed out and human society is gradually maturing. I don't think I believe that this is a deliberate process on any kind of individual or small group level. It's an interesting idea though, and I still need to think about it more.

 

On another side note, have you read the Tao of Physics? Really good example of what I'm trying to say. Also, it's been a huge reason why I decided to stick with physics as a major. I think the development of physics plays an important part in the reconciliation of conflicting philosophies.

[Dawood]

Re: the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

 

people no longer believe in religion because it's values have been rubished by the media and government' date=' yet athiests belive they are the ones with open minds[/quote']

 

in todays society religion has been replaced with lifestyle and morals have been all but erased. Religion in general is not profitable (not for many people anyway) And true religion does not promote materialism so, capitalists aren't interested in any form of religion that promotes moderate living and contentment with just a few wordly things.

put straight, religion is not good for business and people are far more interested in the temporary fix their money can give them than the everlasting bliss they can acheive with God.

With God, they have to practice patience and restraint, but when they choose the path of destruction, it's path is filled with bright lights and pleasure. Most people these days are on that path to destruction.

The irony is, they chase the material things thinking that these things give them security and happiness, but the more they depend on "things" whether it be clothes, cars or drugs, parties, or excessive food and drink, loose women, (or men)....the more they sink into unhappiness and despair because eventually they become unsatisfied with these things because they become "old" or the novelty wears off or whatever, so it's off to chase something new to give them that feeling again.

I've lived that life and I let it go for a simpler life where things come and go and materialistic things are not as important. Happiness is in doing whats right for the sake of God, not for the the sake of my own self gratification, but for God, since he is the controller of the hearts and the hearts are the controllers of the rest of the body. If you want your heart to be good and incline toward goodness so it can direct your body to do goodness, then, ask God, he has the ability to make that easy for you, but if you want to your heart to be evil, and direct yourself toward evil, then just keep thinking you are in control and watch how fast you destroy yourself with your own arrogance and ignorance.

And tony, as far as religion nobody beleiving in religion, It all depends on who you talk to.

People do destroy religion (just like everything else) Some people think religion is wrong altogether, I disagree. God put us here to follow the examples of his messengers and to reward us for our faith. Nobody can possibly know how to worship God by just pulling it out of thin air. He sent us a perfect way, a perfect description of how to beleive, but so many people think they can worship God any way they see fit. If you told them you could drive any car you want, any way you want to , however fast you want , on any side of the road you choose they would think you were crazy, but something as important as how to worship God....they just pick any old way that they saw their parents doing it or whatever floats their boat and bam, it's all good in the hood. In my humble opinion, people don't care much about how or why or what when it comes to God because people are just trained from a young age to do whatever their parents do when it comes to religion or beleifs and that is wrong. I teach my children the way I beleive, but I teach them the proof from the books as well as the intellect so they can understand and beleive it for themselves, not just because I said so.

It's time to think out of the box and ask ourselves what God intended for us. Was it to make up our own religion? to worship according to our own incomplete intellects? To not worship at all? Do we just serve ourselves? Are there many Gods that we all can pick and choose which God to worship? Do we worship our own desires and wants?

I think these questions are something that should lead a sincere person who beleives in God looking for answers. And if you don't beleive in God, then keep shaking that box of metal, glass , plastic and rubber, one of these days it'll form itself into a cadillac...then what will those holier-than-thou preechy types have to say for themselves...

[luke skywalker]

Re: the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

 

i've been having an ongoing conversation with many different people regarding ideas and God. at some point i stumbled upon a branch of philosophy known as pragmatism and i say, "whether God exists or not isn't necessarily an issue (being agnostic, i don't feel like the existence of God can be proven or disproven), the point is that one believes that God exists. just as most people are inclined to believe that 2+2=4 because of it's utility in modern life. i'm not one to discredit any person that chooses to believe that 2+2=(anything but 4) simply because they can't prove that it is true, hell i can't supply a proof for why 2+2=4, even the fundamental theorem of algebra has not been proven. but a person that believes that 2+2=(anything but 4) runs the risk of being deemed insane as this theory holds very little utility because most people have agreed that 2+2=4. consider Galileo and his ordeal with the Church over his support of the Copernican, heliocentric model of the solar system. people would have nothing to do with Galileo, he was probably called crazy, but today, we have "proof" that Galileo was correct in his belief. what if even Galileo was wrong? would we condemn a person that dares to make such a claim. i've been wondering lately why it seems to be more acceptable to commit a schizophrenic person that sees visions of communists to a psychiatric ward than a person that claims to have seen a vision of God. maybe it's an issue of behavior, and whether or not a schizophrenic person poses a threat to society. maybe we live in a world of irrational people.

I believe it was Emmanuel Kant that said that "everywhere, man finds himself in shackles." i think his point was that before accepting these "truths", one should challenge them so as to use them as one would use a tool as opposed to using them as a crutch. scientific theory and mathematics are not reality but they're a veil we choose to lay on reality in order to have a description of natural phenomena. every piece of knowledge that we claim to possess requires a certain amount of faith (see Kierkegaard's "leap of faith").

when people refer to faith in God, i believe that they are refering to something that is "greater than an idea" (if that is possible). i think that it's bigger than Pascal's wager (whether or not there is a God, it is more beneficial to believe that there is). belief in God is faith that God exists even in a vaccuum. it is the faith that God exists even if there is no human being present to entertain the thought. and perhaps this is true for scientific theory and mathematics. i am inclined to raise the old platitude; "if a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" who knows? how would anyone know? "who is John Galt?"

i think the benefit to believing in God is a matter of "eternal" purpose. it's widely accepted by philosophers that life has no meaning other than that meaning which we apply to it (an idea which was essential to the work of Nietzche). the problem with modern life is the mental anguish people endure when they find meaning in transient phenomena. consider a person that is addicted to anything...a drug, money, a girl. as long as they have access to their vice, there isn't much of a problem, but when there is no access, there is a big problem. girl that was filling the void that i feel breaks up with me, what do i now fill the void with? perhaps we are all familiar with someone that couldn't fill the void with anything else, the girl was gone, therefore the meaning in their life was gone, sadly, they may have opted to commit suicide. the benefit of worshiping God as one's sole purpose is this; as long as one has a functioning brain and is able to perceive their meaning to be the worship of God, then they will have a reason to live and work. the same can be said for science and mathematics because it is possible that eternity only exists as we perceive it to exist.

 

i dunno.

[Dawood]

Re: the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

 

that's some serious mental gymnastics Luke, I admire your critical thinking. When i have more time later I want to respond to a few things.....

[the.crooked]

Re: the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

 

I responded to Luke, I wanted to clear up somethings that were said. It's long, but I hope a couple people read it. I think its pretty cool that people are thinking about this stuff, even if a little bit off. Read on if ya like (I've seperated his comments from mine as black and red, respectively).

 

 

i've been having an ongoing conversation with many different people regarding ideas and God. at some point i stumbled upon a branch of philosophy known as pragmatism and i say, "whether God exists or not isn't necessarily an issue (being agnostic, i don't feel like the existence of God can be proven or disproven), the point is that one believes that God exists. just as most people are inclined to believe that 2+2=4 because of it's utility in modern life.

 

Where are you getting this from? Mathematics has been considered apriori knowledge since Descarte. Immutable truths my man. Some mathematics rest on a little bit less stable ground, but arithmetic has pretty much always been considered as inheritly true, even up through Kant. Pragmatism as a precursor to Positivism and inevitably Postmodernism, was focused on issues of meaning as central to reality. While utility was discussed, it was mostly in the likes of people like J.S. Mill who took it as political and social theory. Not so much towards metaphysics as you are doing here. If you want to discuss the relevance of empericism and observation based upon it, look at the argument over Realism and Anti-Realism to which pragmatism made some nice contributions. Putnam figures largely as he provided the realists with a means to establish a strong subject to their predicate of necessary existance through ultility. More specifically there is a very good line of argument that states that if you can use causal properties of electrons to create an experiment in which you can gain emperical data about some other particle, than it neccessitates the existence of the electrons to make it work. Thus electrons exist. The anti-realist response was that they still had not developed an actual subject to follow the if/then form used at the original proposition. However, if one considers this a situation of prior grounding epistemology, than previous experiments such as shooting a beam of electrons through a slit to see their scatter pattern serve as that subject to establish the bases for the original experiment which utilizes the causal properties of said electrons. I say all this to show that pragmatism is more towards the establishment of that which does actually exist rather than the skepticism you are presenting it with now.

 

 

consider Galileo and his ordeal with the Church over his support of the Copernican, heliocentric model of the solar system. people would have nothing to do with Galileo, he was probably called crazy, but today, we have "proof" that Galileo was correct in his belief.

 

And now you've moved from the standpoint of a skeptic to that of an empericist/realist stance. So what do you feel stands as "proof" here and not towards the statement 2+2=4. Look into propositional and symbolic logic if you want to see the proof of such things as arithmetic.

 

what if even Galileo was wrong? would we condemn a person that dares to make such a claim. i've been wondering lately why it seems to be more acceptable to commit a schizophrenic person that sees visions of communists to a psychiatric ward than a person that claims to have seen a vision of God. maybe it's an issue of behavior, and whether or not a schizophrenic person poses a threat to society. maybe we live in a world of irrational people.

 

yup. we hate crazies. no doubt. I agree with you here. I think you might find the conversation Mod X and I have been having to be interesting on this area.

 

I believe it was Emmanuel Kant that said that "everywhere, man finds himself in shackles." i think his point was that before accepting these "truths", one should challenge them so as to use them as one would use a tool as opposed to using them as a crutch. scientific theory and mathematics are not reality but they're a veil we choose to lay on reality in order to have a description of natural phenomena.

 

Again, you move back to skepticism. Pragmatists were not skeptics. Also, Kant did not in fact say that. It was Rousseau who said "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in shackles." So, you basically took a qoute complete out of context, even from the wrong author, to portray someone who's Idealism is so closely related to Realism that many Realists credit their foundation on much of the work of Kant. Kant's whole goal within the critique of pure reason was to adequately establish what was in fact real, especially within math and science.

 

every piece of knowledge that we claim to possess requires a certain amount of faith (see Kierkegaard's "leap of faith"). when people refer to faith in God, i believe that they are refering to something that is "greater than an idea" (if that is possible).

 

I haven't read Kierkegaard, but I believe I can discuss this from the pragmatist/kant position, which I feel you have been wanting to claim. Kant felt that only certain apriori synthetic statements required the faculty of Faith, the main one being God's existance. However, such apriori synthetic statements as 2+2=4, or 'a triangle has three sides' did not require faith and could be established as true. So I guess, I am not really sure what your trying to say as you have taken several contradictory stances throughout your lil tirade.

 

i think that it's bigger than Pascal's wager (whether or not there is a God, it is more beneficial to believe that there is). belief in God is faith that God exists even in a vaccuum. it is the faith that God exists even if there is no human being present to entertain the thought. and perhaps this is true for scientific theory and mathematics.

 

Still runnin with the skeptic thing, which is cool, but realize that the weak points within skepticism where when it came to expressions towards the belief in god. Descarte wanted to prove that god existed in that vacuum. Comparitive to his argument for mathematics and geometry as immutable truths, his argument for the existance of god was pretty weak. So, I don't really feel this argument against mathematics stands. You are claiming the stance of this perspective, yet not ascribing to one of its main propositions in your statements.

 

 

i am inclined to raise the old platitude; "if a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" who knows? how would anyone know? "who is John Galt?"

 

So, if you want to come back to the pragmatists here, I would say that its relation to some buddist philosophies plays nicely here. Consider this statement as a Koan. It is a statement developed to put the mind in a position to grasp an inherit quality of logic. Pragmatists, were at the forefront of logic and its ultilitarian possibilities for establishing that which can be proven. I dont even know how your rhetorical statements, plus the calvin and hobbes qoute(which i appreciate) are supposed to provide an argument against another rhetorical question which is concerned with a very well based concept.

 

 

i think the benefit to believing in God is a matter of "eternal" purpose. it's widely accepted by philosophers that life has no meaning other than that meaning which we apply to it (an idea which was essential to the work of Nietzche). the problem with modern life is the mental anguish people endure when they find meaning in transient phenomena. consider a person that is addicted to anything...a drug, money, a girl. as long as they have access to their vice, there isn't much of a problem, but when there is no access, there is a big problem. girl that was filling the void that i feel breaks up with me, what do i now fill the void with? perhaps we are all familiar with someone that couldn't fill the void with anything else, the girl was gone, therefore the meaning in their life was gone, sadly, they may have opted to commit suicide. the benefit of worshiping God as one's sole purpose is this; as long as one has a functioning brain and is able to perceive their meaning to be the worship of God, then they will have a reason to live and work. the same can be said for science and mathematics because it is possible that eternity only exists as we perceive it to exist.

 

I think I am pretty ok with this section. Again, check out the last couple posts between me and Mod X.

 

i dunno.

 

 

 

i doubt anyone will read this.

[luke skywalker]

Re: the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

 

i'll respond later, but a couple things. who says that mathematics is truth? numbers seem fairly arbitrary to me. my use of the word "proof" was tongue in cheek (hence, quotation marks, i can't necessarily say what qualifies as "proof"). thanks for the reply, very insightful, and i haven't studied philosphy very extensively so i'm aware that i'm probably wrong in alot of the things i say. and it wasn't really a tirade as far as i know. and the Kant/Rousseau misquote...(i said "i believe", as i wasn't sure, but thank you for correcting me).

[El Mamerro]

Re: the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

 

Where are you getting this from? Mathematics has been considered apriori knowledge since Descarte. Immutable truths my man. Some mathematics rest on a little bit less stable ground, but arithmetic has pretty much always been considered as inheritly true, even up through Kant.

 

 

But then Gödel came in to fuck things up for everyone.

[Qawee]

Re: the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

 

Dawood:

 

Hey, i need to write this paper comparing the concept of salvation in Islam vs. Christianity, i was wondering if you could point me in the direction of something having to do with salvation in the Qu'ran or the Sunnah.

Thanks

[the.crooked]

Re: the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

 

But then Gödel came in to fuck things up for everyone.

 

 

yup.

 

 

Sorry to seem so oppositional Luke, just been doing a lot of reading lately. As far as math and truth though. I say get into some number theory and maybe a little bit of analytic logic before you decide how arbitrary numbers are. You may find that the application of numbers may seem arbitrary, but numbers themselves are pretty solid. Sure you have your peculiarities like 0 and infinity, but those extremes account for such amazing things. I feel like Golden Geometry is a pretty cool way to look for some sort of natural support for the validity of numbers.

 

 

Anywho, rabble rabble fribble frabble...blah blah blah...Mam's check your pm's

[luke skywalker]

Re: the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

 

so, let's have a discussion: 2+2=4...why? seems to me that first you'd have to define what a "2" is, some people have tried to describe to me what a two is and used the idea that it is "1+1". that's not an adequate definition as there seems to be a necessity for defining "1" (i always thought two was the square root of 4 anyway). it seems that maybe the proof lies in the meaning that the symbols have been ascribed. help me out. i'm interested in Descarte's logic as to why mathematics are immutable truths.

 

"Mathematics has been considered apriori knowledge since Descarte. Immutable truths my man. Some mathematics rest on a little bit less stable ground, but arithmetic has pretty much always been considered as inheritly true, even up through Kant."

 

that's not a very convincing argument. care to elaborate?

 

as far as my flip flopping between pragmatism and skepticism...i felt that i did what i could to not take a definite stance, i just feel that these are interesting ideas and fun to discuss, i don't claim to be a pragmatist, if you read my posts, pay close attention to the words "maybe", "perhaps", and the like. once again, thanks for the reply and i'll deffinitely look into the number theory.

[luke skywalker]

Re: the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

 

"I dont even know how your rhetorical statements, plus the calvin and hobbes qoute(which i appreciate) are supposed to provide an argument against another rhetorical question which is concerned with a very well based concept. "

 

i don't think it was an argument, just me, entertaining an idea.

[luke skywalker]

Re: the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

 

so, if you tell me that 2+2=4, and i say that 2+2=swiss cheese. who is right? you can provide any sort of proof you wish, but i won't be able to uderstand it just as you won't understand my proof for 2+2=marty mcfly. or let's say that there was a time when it was an "immutable truth" (i'm obviously not sure what this phrase even means) that the world was flat. does this mean that anyone who believes the earth is anything but flat is wrong? are we going to take votes on what is truth and what is not? are things truth if and only if Descarte says so? is logic truth?

[luke skywalker]

Re: the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

 

i'm sorry if i've taken the thread in a direction it wasn't meant to go, and i'm retarded, i realize this, i haven't studied any of this, i don't know what i'm talking about probably, try not to attack me to hardcore because i don't know what the hell a number is, or who the hell God is. do i have to study number theory to understand what a number is? alot of people i know use numbers and "seem" to know what they mean but they don't seem to know much about number theory. should i not talk about numbers until i've studied number theory?

 

somebody kill me please.

[Dawood]

Re: the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

 

as you wish

[luke skywalker]

Re: the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

 

well, maybe i'm looking in the wrong place (wikipedia.org, haha), but i haven't found anything that says a number is anything but an abstract entity.

i'll no longer refer to ideas of pragmatism or Emmanuel Kant or even Dr. Seuss because i just don't know what the hell i'm talking about. let's quit throwing around fancy jargon and get down to it. what is a number? you don't have to cite anyone's formal definition, i don't care if it was Gauss or Andy Rooney, what do you think, or what have you been told?

[the.crooked]

Re: the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

 

No worries about where you took the thread at all. In fact I am all for the type of discussion you brought up. I wasnt really trying to say that numbers are infallible, just that within the philosophy you were discussing, much of it was considered to be.

 

 

umm, what else did i want to say.... uhh... o yeah, ok. Descarte was a rationalist, and therefor considered that truth could be determined independent of experience. Thus there exist such things as inherit truths, that if you think very strongly about will prove to be true in to yourself. For him, simple arithmetic was one of those things. Expressions such as 2+2=4 were true to him becuase he couldn't concieve of it being any other way. The specific expressions for what they numbers were, eg 1, 2, 3, etc. were not important as the concepts they represent could be understood inheritely within the mind. This is based on the concept that having a thought necessitates the possibility and existence of other thoughts. Thus concepts of numbers are inherit to the mind as one thought distinguishes an entire number system. If not simple, it is elegant. So, that is why Descarte saw that certain things within math were immutably true. Becuase no matter how hard you may try to question it, the inherit concepts of distinguishing thoughts allows as a prettty solid base for the possible truth in simple arithmetic.

[luke skywalker]

Re: the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

 

interesting. so, numbers represent concepts? the numbers represent concepts. so, the concepts are inherently true regardless of the terms used to describe them? so, say i happen to believe that 1+1=chicken (or any such random nonsense), would this be wrong? i can see how it has little utility and i would probably be called crazy, but am i necessarily wrong? if i believe that the number one represents the concept of one, is it the case that there is no possibility for 1+1 to equal anything but the concept of 2, regardless of what i wish to call it? is it possible that i could be so crazy as to believe that the concept of adding 1+1="the concept of humus" and not just an arbitrary word used to represent the concept of 2? you say that mathematics was true for Descarte because he simply couldn't see it as being any other way. let's say there is a being that has no conception of these ideas, for Descarte, would this be an impossibiliity? is it possible to convince oneself as a shizophrenic is convinced that they perceive things that don't exist to others (i don't know much about the disease, but i saw "a beautiful mind" haha, so maybe it's more than convincing, although the main character is seemingly able to convince himself of that which is real and that which isn't)?

another thing that i'm wondering, are moral values simply learned behavior?

 

i'm just waiting to be criticized for being an idiot or pompous as seems to happen often here.

[Dawood]

Re: the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

 

yeah Luke, It's pretty tough not to criticize you for being an idiot, but I've taken my share of criticizm around here so, I'll resist the urge.

 

this 1+1 = chicken business seems to me like such an excercise in uselessness, I mean, let's hold up our fingers and look at them. If we count them we will usually come up with five per hand. Or if you have 10 oranges and you give away 6 oranges, then how many oranges do you have left. My kids understood this concept at 2, so really, If this is something that's so simplistic that it's over my head, then I'll just step aside and shrug it off.

 

And as for moral behaviors, yes , they are ABSOLUTELY learned behaviors. What some people consider to be moral others consider immoral etc. etc. For example , in Saudi Arabia it is immoral for women to come out of the house without a full Islamic garment that covers her from head to toe. Women there accept that and embrace it's appeal to modesty, but here in the west , the average woman considers short shorts and a tight t-shirt to be perfectly fine for strolling down the sidewalk. Is that learned behavior? Of course.

That was just 1 example, there are millions of examples of that.

[Dawood]

Re: the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

 

Dawood:

 

Hey, i need to write this paper comparing the concept of salvation in Islam vs. Christianity, i was wondering if you could point me in the direction of something having to do with salvation in the Qu'ran or the Sunnah.

Thanks

 

I looked for something for you, but Muslims don't use the term "salvation" much.

www.islaam.ca

This is a site about islaam that gives general information about Islam. If you look there, you may be able to find something that will help you. If you still need something specific, I can try to find some more specific info for you.

[Qawee]

Re: the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

 

I got it done earlier today, it was just a short essay but i needed to cite the textbook/Qu'ran/Bible in order to prove my points, thanks for your help though

[smooth bruce]

Re: the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

 

I think the most interesting point is that alot of you beleive these fictional stories.

[Dawood]

Re: the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

 

I think the most interesting point is that alot of you beleive these fictional stories.

 

 

that's funny Bruce, I find it interesting that you don't beleive well documented history and that you've probably never read the quran enough to call it fictional.

Read the quran first, then you can develop an opinion of it. I can't speak for any other religion like christianity or Judaism though.

 

www.thenoblequran.com

or you can download it at

http://fatwaonline.com/

in the free e books section.

[luke skywalker]

Re: the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

 

this 1+1 = chicken business seems to me like such an excercise in uselessness, I mean, let's hold up our fingers and look at them. If we count them we will usually come up with five per hand. Or if you have 10 oranges and you give away 6 oranges, then how many oranges do you have left. My kids understood this concept at 2, so really, If this is something that's so simplistic that it's over my head, then I'll just step aside and shrug it off.

 

 

it's arguments like these that really make me wonder if i'm the idiot or not. i'm just about done with this thread, saw this coming. nobody really wants to "know" anything about what they "know".

[smooth bruce]

Re: the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

 

that's funny Bruce, I find it interesting that you don't beleive well documented history and that you've probably never read the quran enough to call it fictional.

Read the quran first, then you can develop an opinion of it. I can't speak for any other religion like christianity or Judaism though.

 

www.thenoblequran.com

or you can download it at

http://fatwaonline.com/

in the free e books section.

 

 

I was talking in terms of all religion but if the quran has any miracles (magic) or it makes mention of a god/supreme being, that puts it right along side other religions and into the category of fiction.

[tabloid-]

Re: the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

 

the idea of opposing forces of good and evil is just foolish. It makes zero sense. Nothing in nature shows us opposing forces.... if I'm missing something please inlighten me.

[MAR]

Re: the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

 

In aramaic, jesus' name was jeshua, which has evolved into Joshua....

 

Jesus was from Israel and they did not speak aramaic there they spoke hebrew. So maybe Yoshua evolved into Yeshua although from my experience with the language (aramaic) names are rarely changed. The "J" is an Latin/Greek thing. There is no "J" sound in old hebrew except among the Yemenites (but even by them that would be for the letter "gimmel" not "yud") and you rarely find it in modern hebrew.

 

The translation of names has away of massacring the real pronuciation.