Terror raids (3 Viewers)

[SashatheMan]

Why? Will Allah be providing you with a gold-plated stairway to heaven?

no its the 72 virgins. and other crap.
Mohammed was a very shrew marketer. He designed a vision of paradise based on the wants of his audience: plenty of sex, virgins, water, shade and fruits.

 

[SashatheMan]

"Atheists are exactly like anyone else except without a silly belief that they have to waste their life"
where exactly does that actually fit anywhere????

it fits with people saying its a religion. and also that athiests dont have direction in life

 

[SashatheMan]

Muslim Sheik Faiz Mohamad, April 2005: "A victim of rape every minute somewhere in the world. Why? No one to blame but herself. She displayed her beauty to the entire world. She degraded herself by being an object of sexual desire and thus becoming vulnerable to man who looks at her for gratification of his sexual urge."

Idiot.

it just shows that he thinks muslim men are testosterone raging barberians, who can only restrict them selves from raping a woman when they cant see any of her body and the law for doing so , is stoning to death.

 

[Not-That-Bright]

basically if u got a bunch of ppl that did'nt care about anything or anyone and basically had no direction in life and put them on an island... you would get ppl that are not caring of other ppl who just don't care creating a society of hatred.. yes it's true..

How can you say that atheists do not care about anything or anyone? Atheists are mortals living their mortal reality (just as you are), and they care very much about what happens in it (perhaps even more so because they believe that it is all they have).

Theists are also living a mortal reality, the reason why they do not do some things has to do with following their own morals, not because they believe it has been explicitly written in some holy text.

More Bellow.

Of all the arguments that fundamentalists resort to in their defense of the Bible, none is more ridiculous than their claim that the Bible is necessary for people to know how to live moral lives. They arrive at this conclusion through a series of assumptions. Their first assumption is that God exists, and onto this assumption, they pile another one: morality (and they even make it an absolute morality) emanates from the nature of God. Then, of course, they assume that their God, in verbally inspiring the Bible, revealed absolute morality to mankind. Hence, man must rely on the Bible to know what is moral and immoral. They envision life without the Bible as a moral chaos reminiscent of ancient Israel before the time of its kings when "everyone did what was right in his own eyes" (Judges 21:25).

The whole superstructure of this argument is built upon another assumption that is incredibly cynical on the part of a group that delights in condemning the pessimism of philosophies that question the existence of God. This assumption is that man is incapable of making moral decisions without divine guidance. In other words, man must have God's help or else he just can't determine for sure what is right and what is wrong.

Were it not for the seriousness of fundamentalist attempts to impose this belief on society in general, it would be too ridiculous to deserve comment. We have used human intelligence to cure diseases, split the atom, and invent a technology that has us reaching for the stars, yet Christian fundamentalists would have us believe that we are too stupid to discover that lying, stealing, and killing are harmful enough to the general welfare to be considered morally wrong. That view of life is about as pessimistic as any that can be imagined, infinitely more pessimistic than the mental action of a skeptic who questions the existence of an afterlife for which he can see no verifiable evidence.

This foundation belief of Bible fundamentalism is of course erroneous. It is even contradicted by the Bible itself. In Romans 2:14, the Apostle Paul said that the Gentiles, who had not received the law [of Moses] or, in other words, a revelation from God, had nevertheless sometimes done "by nature the things of the law" and were therefore "a law unto themselves." If this doesn't mean that Paul believed that the Gentiles who had no divine revelation had discovered morality on their own, then pray tell what does it mean? So even if the existence of the biblical god could undeniably be proven, how could bibliolaters, in the face of this statement from their much revered apostle to the Gentiles, justify their claim that man must have direct guidance from God in order to live morally?

The fact is that no one can prove the existence of God. Volumes have been written on the subject, but no theist has yet advanced an argument for God's existence that has not been adequately answered. Anyone who doubts this should read the information available on the subject, and a good place to begin would be with George H. Smith's Atheism: the Case Against God. In this book, one will find logical refutations of all the major theistic arguments.

What this means is that the fundamentalist claim that there can be no morality without a god to reveal it to us is just an empty shell. It begins with an unprovable assumption and ends with a conclusion that even the Bible contradicts. What kind of argument is that?

The fallacy of the argument is obvious from its flagrant appeal to wishful thinking. It is certainly appealing to think that we will live in another world after we die in this one, and so wishful thinkers spend their lives believing in religions that offer them the hope of gods and saviors who promise them eternal life in a great beyond. Few of these wishful thinkers ever bother to subject their otherworldly beliefs to rational examination. They want it, so they assume that they will get it just on the basis of their wanting it. Nothing could be more irrational than belief based on a premise no more substantial than this, yet this is exactly how many theists reason. "I want it, and so I know that I will get it."

If there is no God, fundamentalists are fond of saying, then there can be no standard of objective or absolute morality. Well, so what? What kind of argument is that? If there isn't, then there just isn't. What the fundamental- ists are really saying is that it would certainly be nice if everything on the subject of morality was already decided for us and neatly laid out in categories of black and white. This is right, and this is wrong, period, end of the discus- sion. But if it isn't that way, then it just isn't that way, and no amount of wishful thinking or praying or hoping will ever change the fact that it isn't that way. We (mankind) are just in the world on our own and will have to get by the best that we can.

The thought of that terrifies most theists, but it shouldn't. God wasn't much help to us in discovering how to cure or prevent smallpox, diphtheria, typhoid, whooping cough, polio, measles, and dozens of other diseases. We had to do it on our own. God wasn't much help to us in making the scientific discoveries that led to the technology that now makes life so comfortable for us. We had to do it on our own. So if we did all these things without God, surely we can make the moral discoveries that are necessary for society to function in an orderly, beneficial way.

To the fundamentalists, of course, this is all outrageous heresy. The Bible is the inspired, inerrant word of God. It just is, and no amount of rational argumentation will remove them from their fantasy world in which everything is either black or white. There is one thing, however, that they cannot do. They cannot open their Bibles and demonstrate just how anyone can know what absolute morality is. They will say that the Bible provides us with a guide to absolute morality, but they can't show us exactly what absolute morality is.

Is it, for example, morally right for blood to be transfused from one person to another? Most religions permit it, but the Jehovah's Witnesses argue that biblical principles properly understood condemn it. Who is right? When the Bible was being written, the technology for transfusing blood didn't exist, so the Bible did not directly address this problem. The same is true of numerous other technologies now available to us. The transplantation of body organs (including even cross-species transplants), artificial insemination, in vitro fertilization, surrogate motherhood, genetic mapping, gene splicing--these are all technologies that were developed after the Bible was written, so what is the "correct"" moral position to take on these issues? Through processes of in vitro fertilization and embryo transplantations, a woman in South Dakota gave birth to her own grandchildren. Was it morally right for her to do this? What does the Bible say? Well, of course, the Bible doesn't say anything about this or any of the other technological procedures mentioned above. If we asked a hundred theologians to take their Bibles and resolve the moral dilemmas posed by these technologies, we would find ourselves hopelessly trapped in a maze of confusion when all of their answers were in.

Last summer, when the story about the Lakeberg twins first appeared in the newspapers, the article was clipped and mailed to several fundamentalist preachers known to believe in absolute morality. An accompanying letter asked them to explain what the Bible had to say about the dilemma that the parents of those twins were facing. The twins were joined at the chest and shared a common heart. Surgery would mean that one of the twins would have to die, and subsequently this was the decision that the parents made. The absolute moralists who received that letter were asked to state what their god of absolute morality has revealed to us in this matter.

Not a one of these preachers has yet answered that letter. Their silence shouts the inconsistency of their position. The Bible gives us a guide to absolute morality, so they say, yet they cannot tell us what absolute morality has to say about the difficult moral dilemmas that we must confront in our modern society.

Elsewhere in this issue, a debate on biblical morality begins. Before it is over, maybe Lindell Mitchell, the spokesman for the fundamentalist position, will try to explain to us how the Bible can be an absolute moral guide in problems that didn't even exist in biblical times. If he doesn't attempt to explain it, some of us just may suspect that he isn't nearly as sure of his position as he would like us to believe.

 

[SashatheMan]

good reading.

NSB 100 : sonic 1?

 

[zahid]

noone can convinve you. if you were taken from your parents and brought up in a christian family, you would grow up beliveing in chist and have a differnt direction in life.

Cat Stevens was brought up in a christian family (A VERY CONSERVATIVE ONE)..it did not stop him from choosing the path of Islam.

 

[Not-That-Bright]

Cat Stevens was brought up in a christian family (A VERY CONSERVATIVE ONE)..it did not stop him from choosing the path of Islam.

Zahid you have to accept that on average, people who are raised in a muslim family/country are more likely to be muslim... so on and so forth.

Therefore what family you are born into / where you are born is a strong predicting factor as to what faith you will have.

 

[zahid]

Zahid you have to accept that on average, people who are raised in a muslim family/country are more likely to be muslim... so on and so forth.

Therefore what family you are born into / where you are born is a strong predicting factor as to what faith you will have.

Yes I agree with that. IN BOLD.

 

[SashatheMan]

Yes I agree with that. IN BOLD.

well then you agree, most probably the only reason you are muslim is becuase you were born and raised and fed muslim beliefs, but you could have easily been born anything else, or raised by someone else who is not muslim and you wouldnt be preaching on this forum today

 

[Tarni1]

wtf with the ARABIC in caps?

I realise it is translated dickhead.

It is obviously not forbidden in Islam to do those things: why do your like constantly defend Osamah Bin Laden, The Iraqi "resistance", and the Palestinians?

You are murderers at heart.

Quite frankly, no one is fighting you. There is no Western war on you.

You started it first.

It is the responsibility of the West now to punish you for your crimes.

An eye for an eye.

"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind" - Gandhi

 

[veterandoggy]

no its the 72 virgins. and other crap.
Mohammed was a very shrew marketer. He designed a vision of paradise based on the wants of his audience: plenty of sex, virgins, water, shade and fruits.

dont pull shit out of your ass sashatheman, cos it stinks. and what else were you expecting to be in a paradise? shelter! Lmao you are in a paradise to burn to a crisp? thats for the people in hell to experience.

Muslim Sheik Faiz Mohamad, April 2005: "A victim of rape every minute somewhere in the world. Why? No one to blame but herself. She displayed her beauty to the entire world. She degraded herself by being an object of sexual desire and thus becoming vulnerable to man who looks at her for gratification of his sexual urge."

yes, everyone was waiting for a stuffup. its amazing how only the people with narrow minds like you didnt understand what he meant, and those who did kept shut to keep the fire burning. and if i recall he corrected himself later, so give him a break, hes human like everyone else.

it just shows that he thinks muslim men are testosterone raging barberians, who can only restrict them selves from raping a woman when they cant see any of her body and the law for doing so , is stoning to death.

no it shows how muslim men can control themselves until the desire gets sparked by such a site that, when pushed by satan, few can resist. you sound like if you were part of that group you would have just stopped and watched. you see, muslims these days focus on prevention more than restraint, on the basis that they dont expect these scenarios if everyone practised prevention.

not-that-bright, you cant argue against the existence/non-existence of god: i could just tell you to watch the DVD called "why man should recognise god" by ahmed deedat (may allah have mercy n his soul), and not only would you not watch it, you would say that you dont need to because you believe what the other guy says is true. im not that different, however i would watch it. this was just to show that the quote doesnt go anywhere.

Zahid you have to accept that on average, people who are raised in a muslim family/country are more likely to be muslim... so on and so forth.

Therefore what family you are born into / where you are born is a strong predicting factor as to what faith you will have.

its a strong factor, not the only factor. there is also finding out how correct your religion (or no religion) is, then fnding out if there is a more correct option.

well then you agree, most probably the only reason you are muslim is becuase you were born and raised and fed muslim beliefs, but you could have easily been born anything else, or raised by someone else who is not muslim and you wouldnt be preaching on this forum today

yes, admittedly, there are always these options, but we cant determine the outcome, cos we havent experienced it. you would also agree that if you were muslim you would be rebutting not-that-bright, hiphophooray, playboy2njoy, and the others as well.

 

[Not-That-Bright]

yes, admittedly, there are always these options, but we cant determine the outcome, cos we havent experienced it. you would also agree that if you were muslim you would be rebutting not-that-bright, hiphophooray, playboy2njoy, and the others as well.

Well I was born into a catholic household... not exactly fundamentalist, but I was still baptised.

not-that-bright, you cant argue against the existence/non-existence of god: i could just tell you to watch the DVD called "why man should recognise god" by ahmed deedat (may allah have mercy n his soul), and not only would you not watch it, you would say that you dont need to because you believe what the other guy says is true. im not that different, however i would watch it. this was just to show that the quote doesnt go anywhere.

Why can't you present to me the arguments from these video's so I can just counter them here? I don't want to have to go out and buy a video and watch it for a couple of hours just to rebut someone on an internet forum.

its a strong factor, not the only factor. there is also finding out how correct your religion (or no religion) is, then fnding out if there is a more correct option.

It is an extremely strong predicting factor, so how lucky were you to be born into a muslim household? I mean... how likely is it that someone from a fundamentalist catholic household living in England is going to become a Muslim?

While you, yourself, and of course everyone says "I don't believe it because its my parent's belief, it is because I discovered it was the one true belief", that is hard to swallow. A) because it is obvious when some people explain their belief that they have little knowledge of their own religion AND B) because it is obvious when some people explain their beliefs that they have little knowledge of other religions.

 

[veterandoggy]

Originally Posted by Henry_Kissinger
wtf with the ARABIC in caps?

I realise it is translated dickhead.

It is obviously not forbidden in Islam to do those things: why do your like constantly defend Osamah Bin Laden, The Iraqi "resistance", and the Palestinians?

You are murderers at heart.

Quite frankly, no one is fighting you. There is no Western war on you.

You started it first.

It is the responsibility of the West now to punish you for your crimes.

An eye for an eye.

some people say that translations are incorrect. i havent said anything about any of them, but now that you mentioned it... i see where osama is coming from, but dont support it. the iraqi resistance? look buddy, i dont know what you watch, but despite saddam's tyranny, they had free education and gave them alot more respect and dignity than the soldiers of america and co.. now they will probably have to pay for education, so alot of them will have no more education, and does it seem impossible for the soldiers to degrade them more? no it doesnt, because saddam didnt do all his crimes in a span of a few years. i dont support him before you get too happy...
the palestinians are attacking with what theyve got: stones, bombs and cars. they still manage to do less damage to the israelians for some reason...
im not a murderer at heart, unless you have seen me kill someone...
no western war? hah, yeh right. the westerners "punishing" us is your joke of using euphemism, right? because the westeners arent exactly the worlds legal system. they want to fix stuff? let john howard apologise for stripping the aboriginals of everything, and george bush fix the ghettos and the places in his country which he fears going to, then let him look over his fence.

yes, an eye for an eye, however we did not do what youre trying to imply to the WESTERNERS, so keep their eyes for each others eyes.

 

[Not-That-Bright]

but despite saddam's tyranny, they had free education

Education is free in Australia and the United States also...

 

[veterandoggy]

Well I was born into a catholic household... not exactly fundamentalist, but I was still baptised.



Why can't you present to me the arguments from these video's so I can just counter them here? I don't want to have to go out and buy a video and watch it for a couple of hours just to rebut someone on an internet forum.



It is an extremely strong predicting factor, so how lucky were you to be born into a muslim household? I mean... how likely is it that someone from a fundamentalist catholic household living in England is going to become a Muslim?

While you, yourself, and of course everyone says "I don't believe it because its my parent's belief, it is because I discovered it was the one true belief", that is hard to swallow. A) because it is obvious when some people explain their belief that they have little knowledge of their own religion AND B) because it is obvious when some people explain their beliefs that they have little knowledge of other religions.

sorry to keep you waiting, i forgot to refresh

i dont have it anymore unfortunately, but there are many texts for both sides, which is why i dislike arguing about it: unless you become a god believing person you will always have reason to be an aetheist, and vice versa.

well, a fundamentalist irish woman converted to islam and opened the first muslim school in NSW, and opened another and she is still (or was, now that i've finished) my principal, so..... yeah.

well for A) i spent my high schooling years in an islamic school, and so did a few others here, so i know enough about my religion. dont my posts reflect it?

for B) i wouldnt know as much as someone who follows that belief (or at least, i shouldnt...) but that is what youre there for right? to correct me where you think i'm wrong and for me to correct you where i think youre wrong?

i may leave you waiting again, cos i have to go smell some fresh air, but ill reply to anymore posts as soon as i can.

 

[veterandoggy]

Education is free in Australia and the United States also...

yes, but that country wont be run by these countries, so the chioldren will have to pay for it. it has already happened in other arab countries, so i do know what will happen to them. i could say more about my predictions (some of them wouldnt be mine admittedly), but people will think i am crazy

 

[Not-That-Bright]

i dont have it anymore unfortunately, but there are many texts for both sides, which is why i dislike arguing about it: unless you become a god believing person you will always have reason to be an aetheist, and vice versa.

No, I'm willing to hear every single argument you have for why you believe in god and refute every single one of them in a way you can not logically dismiss... At least I will try.

 

[Not-That-Bright]

yes, but that country wont be run by these countries, so the chioldren will have to pay for it. it has already happened in other arab countries, so i do know what will happen to them. i could say more about my predictions (some of them wouldnt be mine admittedly), but people will think i am

But since it will be a democratically elected government the people can just vote for the party which does offer free education?

 

[veterandoggy]

okay. i will do it, however nyone who reads my reasons bear in mind this piece of information:

But first consider this. If a person opposes even the possibility of there being a God, then any evidence can be rationalized or explained away. It is like if someone refuses to believe that people have walked on the moon, then no amount of information is going to change their thinking. Photographs of astronauts walking on the moon, interviews with the astronauts, moon rocks...all the evidence would be worthless, because the person has already concluded that people cannot go to the moon.

i will say my reasoning with no heart, because of its pointlessness.

well, lets start with the unignorable: the earth.

its size is perfect. The Earth's size and corresponding gravity holds a thin layer of mostly nitrogen and oxygen gases, only extending about 50 miles above the Earth's surface. If Earth were smaller, an atmosphere would be impossible, like the planet Mercury. If Earth were larger, its atmosphere would contain free hydrogen, like Jupiter. Earth is the only known planet equipped with an atmosphere of the right mixture of gases to sustain plant, animal and human life.
The Earth is located the right distance from the sun. Consider the temperature swings we encounter, roughly -30 degrees to +120 degrees. If the Earth were any further away from the sun, we would all freeze. Any closer and we would burn up. Even a fractional variance in the Earth's position to the sun would make life on Earth impossible. The Earth remains this perfect distance from the sun while it rotates around the sun at a speed of nearly 67,000 mph. It is also rotating on its axis, allowing the entire surface of the Earth to be properly warmed and cooled every day.
And our moon is the perfect size and distance from the Earth for its gravitational pull. The moon creates important ocean tides and movement so ocean waters do not stagnate, and yet it restrains our massive oceans from spilling over across the continents.

lets move to a little more difficult case... water.

Plants, animals and human beings consist mostly of water (about two-thirds of the human body is water).

Water is a universal solvent. This property of water means that thousands of chemicals, minerals and nutrients can be carried throughout our bodies and into the smallest blood vessels.6

Water is also chemically inert. Without affecting the makeup of the substances it carries, water enables food, medicines and minerals to be absorbed and used by the body.

Water has a unique surface tension. Water in plants can therefore flow upward against gravity, bringing life-giving water and nutrients to the top of even the tallest trees.

Water freezes from the top down and floats, so fish can live in the winter.

Ninety-seven percent of the Earth's water is in the oceans. But on our Earth, there is a system designed which removes salt from the water and then distributes that water throughout the globe. Evaporation takes the ocean waters, leaving the salt, and forms clouds which are easily moved by the wind to disperse water over the land, for vegetation, animals and people. It is a system of purification and supply that sustains life on this planet, a system of recycled and reused water.

well go further to creation, or evolution, take your pick.

Imagine looking at Mount Rushmore, in which the likenesses of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt are carved. Could you ever believe that it came about by chance? Given infinite time, wind, rain and chance, it is still hard to believe something like that, tied to history, was randomly formed in the side of a mountain. Common sense tells us that people planned and skillfully carved those figures.

The distinguished astronomer Sir Frederick Hoyle showed how amino acids randomly coming together in a human cell is mathematically absurd. Sir Hoyle illustrated the weakness of "chance" with the following analogy. "What are the chances that a tornado might blow through a junkyard containing all the parts of a 747, accidentally assemble them into a plane, and leave it ready for take-off? The possibilities are so small as to be negligible even if a tornado were to blow through enough junkyards to fill the whole universe!"

see? i told you this argument was pointless. i know this isnt the first round of arguments, which is y i didnt want to do it. but oh well...

 

[Not-That-Bright]

Imagine looking at Mount Rushmore, in which the likenesses of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt are carved. Could you ever believe that it came about by chance? Given infinite time, wind, rain and chance, it is still hard to believe something like that, tied to history, was randomly formed in the side of a mountain. Common sense tells us that people planned and skillfully carved those figures.

The distinguished astronomer Sir Frederick Hoyle showed how amino acids randomly coming together in a human cell is mathematically absurd. Sir Hoyle illustrated the weakness of "chance" with the following analogy. "What are the chances that a tornado might blow through a junkyard containing all the parts of a 747, accidentally assemble them into a plane, and leave it ready for take-off? The possibilities are so small as to be negligible even if a tornado were to blow through enough junkyards to fill the whole universe!"

Evolution is often mistakenly compared to "a hurricane blowing through a junkyard and building a fully functional Boeing 747". This is incorrect, as evolution is a very slow, gradual process directed by the actions of natural selection. Mutations may indeed be random events, but whether or not they remain in the gene pool is certainly not random, as it depends on how those genes affect the creature's survival in the environment. It works as a positive feedback loop.

well, lets start with the unignorable: the earth.

its size is perfect. The Earth's size and corresponding gravity holds a thin layer of mostly nitrogen and oxygen gases, only extending about 50 miles above the Earth's surface. If Earth were smaller, an atmosphere would be impossible, like the planet Mercury. If Earth were larger, its atmosphere would contain free hydrogen, like Jupiter. Earth is the only known planet equipped with an atmosphere of the right mixture of gases to sustain plant, animal and human life.
The Earth is located the right distance from the sun. Consider the temperature swings we encounter, roughly -30 degrees to +120 degrees. If the Earth were any further away from the sun, we would all freeze. Any closer and we would burn up. Even a fractional variance in the Earth's position to the sun would make life on Earth impossible. The Earth remains this perfect distance from the sun while it rotates around the sun at a speed of nearly 67,000 mph. It is also rotating on its axis, allowing the entire surface of the Earth to be properly warmed and cooled every day.
And our moon is the perfect size and distance from the Earth for its gravitational pull. The moon creates important ocean tides and movement so ocean waters do not stagnate, and yet it restrains our massive oceans from spilling over across the continents.

lets move to a little more difficult case... water.

Plants, animals and human beings consist mostly of water (about two-thirds of the human body is water).

Water is a universal solvent. This property of water means that thousands of chemicals, minerals and nutrients can be carried throughout our bodies and into the smallest blood vessels.6

Water is also chemically inert. Without affecting the makeup of the substances it carries, water enables food, medicines and minerals to be absorbed and used by the body.

Water has a unique surface tension. Water in plants can therefore flow upward against gravity, bringing life-giving water and nutrients to the top of even the tallest trees.

Water freezes from the top down and floats, so fish can live in the winter.

Ninety-seven percent of the Earth's water is in the oceans. But on our Earth, there is a system designed which removes salt from the water and then distributes that water throughout the globe. Evaporation takes the ocean waters, leaving the salt, and forms clouds which are easily moved by the wind to disperse water over the land, for vegetation, animals and people. It is a system of purification and supply that sustains life on this planet, a system of recycled and reused water.

- Many other religions make exactly the same claim. Why is your one special? Surely the earth, trees, bunnies etc. are therefore equally valid proof of the existence of hundreds of other gods? One supernatural explanation is just as valid as any other.
- Unfortunately, everything you describe can also be explained in mundane, rational, scientific terms, without the need to invoke a Creator.
- What about the nasty things in life? Guinea worms, anthrax, mosquitoes; all the blood-sucking, parasitical, disease-bearing, poisonous beasties that kill us and each other in horrific ways? Watched any nature programmes recently? What about the millions of planets that do not support life (as we know it?) are they the creator's failures?