I am particially religious. They say smart people often do not believe in God, or at least major books. I think I am smart, (154 IQ) but I believe in those stuff, because it makes sense, it is rational. all the major books are actually common on many things. And if you believe in one f them you simply can't deny the others. I'm talking about Old Testament, Bible and Qu'ran here. Qu'ran is the most rational one. It is way beyond (refering to technology, history of humans, biology, prophets before Muhammed such as Yeshua, Noah, Yosef, Muses and a magnificent literature) the age its with in. It is simply too good if you think of its time written. Well these are important proofs that one God exists. But there is also science. Creating a whole universe just for humans? come on this is just ego. But when you have done enough research like me you come to conclusion that you can never really know if God exists or not. Because science makes time travel possible, this alone can simply be answer to all religions on earth. When you go in to quantum physics you see a universe of infinite possibilities. Until recently we believed atom was made of 3 elements, which are proton neutron and electron, but now we know proton itself is made of over 140 unique particules. These particulates doesn't always act like matter but sometimes they act like waves, in the resulft of that these particules changes its location in universe in no known sense of time, AND right before changing their location in universe they connect with all of the universe to find perfect location Which can be proof that God exist but also can be proof it doesn't. I believe this prooves that God is actually be possible within science As we are to learn his knowledge we will begin to accept his existance . Qur'an has specific similitudes such as "Kul lev kânel bahru midâden li kelimâti rabbî le nefidel bahru kable en tenfede kelimâtu rabbî ve lev ci’nâ bi mislihî mededâ" roughly means, "if oceans were ink, and (if) were added as much, it won't be enough to write His word."
First of all, sorry about my kinda long answer. And I hope you don't take offense at anything - I find this to be a very fascinating subject, and would love to discuss it thoroughly.
That's a bit off a wall of text, but let's see if I can't break it up. If there is something you would like me to comment on that I missed, please let me know.
First of all, I'm not one of those who think that religious people are less intelligent. You'll find morons in pretty much every category (except, I dunno, Mensa members or something), including religious communities, atheist communities, stamp-collectors, non-stamp-collectors, etc.
Now, whether religious beliefs are
rational or not is another matter entirely. I think it partly has something to do with availability of knowledge. For instance, if one takes the texts of the big monotheistic religions literally, you are stuck with a 6000 years old Earth, a flood 4000 years ago that killed off all life except that on a boat, and various other less obvious but equally ridiculous things. Which happens to contradict the scientific consensus in, say, cosmology, archeology, biology, genetics, geology, paleontology, physics, geophysics, astronomy and probably quite a few other fields as well. Not to mention logic. I mean, seriously, in the Bible, you can't get through Genesis before running into a huge and explicit contradiction in the order of which god supposedly created everything.
So being rational
and accepting the religious texts literally just won't work. At all.
Of course, there is still the option of a less than literal reading of the texts. With parables and sort of vague, ethical guidelines (though, please don't take your morals from those religious texts - some of that stuff is
nuts). I like to believe that most religious people take their religious texts as somewhat less than literal.
Now, I'm not familiar with the Qu'ran. Though I know that it has a lot of similarities with the Bible and the Tanakh. Obviously, because they all come from the same
monotheistic polytheistic foundation. Yes, polytheistic - last I checked, the now common "god" came out of a pantheon of multiple gods.
Anyhow. Back to my point. I don't know about the scientific or prophetic powers of the Qu'ran. But, if it is anything like the Bible (which I'm somewhat more familiar with), its prophecies can generally be classified as a bunch of statements, that can be attached to something
after it happened. Explained in another way; If you have a lot of sort of vague statements, you will always be able to fit them to events
after those events have occurred. Nothing prophetic about that.
As for the science part, it's pretty much the same. When a scientific breakthrough occurs, someone looks through the Bible for a suitable passage, and goes like
"Yes, here! This is what this passage is talking about!" Frankly, that's just silly.
Now, I don't know how this relates to the Qu'ran. But I suspect that it is pretty much the same. Not to mention that lo and behold, any claims in a religious text that contradict current knowledge? Oh. No, those passages are
metaphorical or some such.
But as I said, I'm not familiar with the Qu'ran. So I would be very glad if you could provide some specific examples of the Qu'ran's supposed scientific knowledge.
I'm curious if you could elaborate about the time travel thing? As far as I know, traveling forward in time is sort of possible, by exploiting the relationship between speed, matter and time, as described by general relativity. However, traveling backwards? Not so sure about that.
As for the rest, it is very fascinating, but bears a similarity to the "God of the gaps" fallacy, of putting a god into the current gaps of our knowledge. Or something similar, such as describing the universe as complex, and then stating that it's so awesome, that someone must have created it. Which is kinda legitimate, except it then follows that for someone to
create and
design our universe, that someone kinda has to be even more complex and awesome.
Now, one thing we definitely agree on. We can't
disprove a divine being, i.e., a god. But we differ on how to define this god. A god, as
literally described in religious texts, can and has been disproved. Thoroughly. But a sort of
first mover, someone who initiated the universe? Kinda hard to disprove.
But there are currently nowhere in the creation of our universe that
requires divine intervention. As far as we know, the universe as we know it can occur simple due to the rules of physics. Or at least quantum theory.
I don't mind this discussion, and I think it should be fine...but if you guys delve too far into religious extremism, or extremism of any kind...or insult each other, I'll step in. Until then I'll just watch and twiddle my thumbs
.
Is it okay if we insult each other's beliefs? 'Cause that might kind of be hard to avoid.
Also, isn't it awesome how your thumbs have been intelligently designed specifically for twiddling?
Sorry, I couldn't resist.
i'll keep out of this discussion, i know i will step on a lot of toes here....
Toes were made to be stepped on. Please do join in
I'm not american, nor do I participate in religion. I'm not the type to flame religions though, having done some study on a couple. Everyone's entitled to their own beliefs, I guess.
There's a difference between flaming and an open discourse. Also, not entirely relevant to this thread, once somebody makes statements to the effect that anything should be done
purely on religious grounds, then they are IMNSHO open to being verbally slaughtered.