Why I think being a Muslim is rational.

[TroutBum]

As AP asked, so what? What is it about Islam that is so attractive? Why should I want to be Muslim?

One word:



VIRGINS!

 

[The Black Swordsman]

One word:



VIRGINS!

Are they white, delight-some and enticing?

Btw its Houri: its virgin in the way they are pure, dont use the restroom, dont pms etc.

 

[TroutBum]

Are they white, delight-some and enticing?

They damn well better be.

 

[AtheistPreacher]

Just out of curiosity, what sort of religious/spiritual/ritualistic practice to you find useful?

I really don't do any sort of religious or spiritual practice. I confine myself to reading about religion and philosophy (particularly religion and philosophy I'm not too familiar with), picking others' brains, thinking deep thoughts, and trying to be a good person. No building I go to once a week with a bunch of other people to compare clothing.

 

[GVC]

I really don't do any sort of religious or spiritual practice. I confine myself to reading about religion and philosophy (particularly religion and philosophy I'm not too familiar with), picking others' brains, thinking deep thoughts, and trying to be a good person. No building I go to once a week with a bunch of other people to compare clothing.

Thanks, George. I ask because you seem like someone who may see some value in communal practice/ritual, even if it isn't dogmatic in nature, and because you've obviously spent some time studying religious worship. This thread seems more or less dead, and this topic likely wouldn't get much play in another thread, so I thought I'd ask.

 

[AtheistPreacher]

Thanks, George. I ask because you seem like someone who may see some value in communal practice/ritual, even if it isn't dogmatic in nature, and because you've obviously spent some time studying religious worship. This thread seems more or less dead, and this topic likely wouldn't get much play in another thread, so I thought I'd ask.

I guess you're as familiar with Carlin as I am. A great religious philosopher was George. My favorite phrase of his is "those who dance are considered insane by those who cannot hear the music." If he'd realized how poignant that actually was, he probably never would have said it. But it can be applied in a lot of ways, not the least of which is following a religion or spirituality when others don't understand or think you're crazy.

I'm not actually opposed to religious communities and religious practice. The problem is that there just isn't one that really fits for me. There's no church of process theology, just some academics spread around in various universities. As I said in my conversation with TBS, I've been especially interested in Buddhism lately -- the more I learn, the more I like it. But I still wouldn't call myself a Buddhist, nor would I be comfortable worshipping with Buddhists.

Probably the closest for me would be unitarian universalist services, where they invite people to bring things in from a lot of other traditions. My brother used to go to some UU services with his ex-girlfriend. Not actually sure if there are UU meetings around where I live. I bet there probably are. But living on-campus at CLU is pretty much enough for me.

BTW, while I'm thinking about Buddhism, I really recommend this book. It's by John Cobb, who's a Christian theologian and process thinker. It's about his encounters and conversations with Buddhists and Buddhism... kind of taking the lessons he's learned and applying them back to Christianity. Great for someone like me who's more familiar with Christianity and less so with Buddhism.

(Sorry, I'm an academic, I can't stop myself from recommending books...)

 

[GVC]

I'm not actually opposed to religious communities and religious practice. The problem is that there just isn't one that really fits for me.

Maybe I shouldn't have asked about communal practice (that is, the word "communal" could have been omitted). As a process theologian (if that's an accurate characterization), I suppose I should expect you to be more concerned with religious thought than religious practice. Outside of study and thought, do you "worship"? What is the practical value of religious thought devoid of religious practice?

 

[AtheistPreacher]

Maybe I shouldn't have asked about communal practice (that is, the word "communal" could have been omitted). As a process theologian (if that's an accurate characterization), I suppose I should expect you to be more concerned with religious thought than religious practice. Outside of study and thought, do you "worship"? What is the practical value of religious thought devoid of religious practice?

I guess I would say an outlook. A way of seeing the world, and my place in it. Seeing purpose to my life, what I hope to leave behind when I die... leaving the world a better place than I left it.

Religion these days is so often considered a fundamentally different activity from daily, secular life. I think that's crap. If you really believe your religion is your best guide to purpose in life, happiness, building a better world, then it's not something that gets bracketed when you're out shopping for groceries. So I really don't distinguish between "religious practice" and "everyday practice." They're the same thing.

Just as an example, process theology and philosophy stress relativity far more than individuality. What we are is a sum of our relationships with everything else. Even God is conceived as being dependent on the world, even as we are dependent on God (though in different senses). That belief tends to put a spin on my encounters with other people, makes me a more humble person, etc. It also makes me aware of things like how dependent we are on the earth, and how we're cutting down all our rainforests and burning up all our fossil fuels, and all those tree-hugging concerns.

I really do consider religion to be the realm of the "big, important questions." What does it all mean? Why am I here? And when you study that stuff, and find some thoughts and theories that you see as more or less convincing, it tends to change your approach to life from top to bottom, although not always in ways that are easy to describe.

 

[GVC]

I guess I would say an outlook. A way of seeing the world, and my place in it. Seeing purpose to my life, what I hope to leave behind when I die... leaving the world a better place than I left it.

Religion these days is so often considered a fundamentally different activity from daily, secular life. I think that's crap. If you really believe your religion is your best guide to purpose in life, happiness, building a better world, then it's not something that gets bracketed when you're out shopping for groceries. So I really don't distinguish between "religious practice" and "everyday practice." They're the same thing.

Just as an example, process theology and philosophy stress relativity far more than individuality. What we are is a sum of our relationships with everything else. Even God is conceived as being dependent on the world, even as we are dependent on God (though in different senses). That belief tends to put a spin on my encounters with other people, makes me a more humble person, etc. It also makes me aware of things like how dependent we are on the earth, and how we're cutting down all our rainforests and burning up all our fossil fuels, and all those tree-hugging concerns.

I really do consider religion to be the realm of the "big, important questions." What does it all mean? Why am I here? And when you study that stuff, and find some thoughts and theories that you see as more or less convincing, it tends to change your approach to life from top to bottom, although not always in ways that are easy to describe.

That's awfully broad, although dropping a deuce can be surprisingly transcendent.

The trouble I'm having is if God doesn't coerce or reward, and if we (that is, everyone) don't have a relationship with him or any hope of an afterlife, then wouldn't the answers to these "big, important questions" be "it's meaningless" and "for no reason at all"? It seems as though this focus on God just serves as a distraction. Life is a precious, rare thing. A human life, more so. A comfy Western life...you get the point. What more reason than to prolong and extend to others this gift should one need to live well? What the **** is God for?

 

[The Black Swordsman]

Seeing purpose to my life, what I hope to leave behind when I die... leaving the world a better place than I left it.

If you have a naturalistic worldview that many atheists (which I understand you don't necessarily fit this category) have that Humans are just animals with better brains. If you think about it, most people are leaving this world hurting it more then helping, especially people in developed nations. Imagen how many animals we kill to eat, image how many resources we use up from the world driving cars and using paper. Everytime we get a good job we prevent someone else from getting that good job. Stopping to live would help the world more then living unless you find a cure to a disease or became a good politician or something. ****, just by your sperm reaching the egg first prevented someone else from being born!

The chance that me, you, or anyone on this message board is gonna save more lives then destroy is pretty slim especially if you consider the lives of other animals of similar value to humans.

That's awfully broad, although dropping a deuce can be surprisingly transcendent.

The trouble I'm having is if God doesn't coerce or reward, and if we (that is, everyone) don't have a relationship with him or any hope of an afterlife, then wouldn't the answers to these "big, important questions" be "it's meaningless" and "for no reason at all"? It seems as though this focus on God just serves as a distraction. Life is a precious, rare thing. A human life, more so. A comfy Western life...you get the point. What more reason than to prolong and extend this gift for as long as possible should one need to live well? What the **** is God for?

Yep you are right, David Hume, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Jean-Paul Sartre who are probably the top atheist philosophers of all time spoke about that. Its called Nihilism. Nothing matters really in the end because the outcome is the same according to this worldview. David Hume contemplated suicide and wrote letters on it. "I exist, that is all, and I find it nauseating."

 

[GVC]

Its called Nihilism. Nothing matters really in the end because the outcome is the same according to this worldview.

Uh...you missed the last bit. The outcome is not the same, and things do matter, just not in a personal sense (at least, not post mortem). Not really nihilistic.

 

[AtheistPreacher]

That's awfully broad, although dropping a deuce can be surprisingly transcendent.

The trouble I'm having is if God doesn't coerce or reward, and if we (that is, everyone) don't have a relationship with him or any hope of an afterlife, then wouldn't the answers to these "big, important questions" be "it's meaningless" and "for no reason at all"? It seems as though this focus on God just serves as a distraction. Life is a precious, rare thing. A human life, more so. A comfy Western life...you get the point. What more reason than to prolong and extend this gift for as long as possible should one need to live well? What the **** is God for?

Well, I agree that God doesn't coerce or reward, and that there is no afterlife. But I wouldn't agree that we don't have a relationship with God.

I said before that process philosophy stresses relatedness. Charles Hartshorne coined the term "surrelative" or "supremely relative" for God, to mean that God is supremely related to everything that is, both in the sense of affecting, and being affected by. As for exactly how God affects and is affected by us, the simplest way to put it is that God affects us by giving us our "initial aim," or initial purpose; God is affected by us because he perfectly knows and understands all our thoughts and actions, and is subsequently changed by how we live our lives. Our objective immortality is achieved by being remembered by God eternally, and affecting the world through God by our effect on him.

I realize that probably sounds odd. Or arbitrary. Or just wrong.

Tell you what. This might be taking a sledgehammer to a thumb tack, but I'm going to try to give you a really detailed answer of how this works for process philosophy. I'm going to parse the final section of the final chapter of Whitehead's Process and Reality, which is process philosophy's seminal work. I'm sorry if this seems overly complex or just overdone for what you've asked; one of Whitehead's favorite phrases is: "seek simplicity, then mistrust it." At some point the **** is just complicated, and needs a complex explanation. Anything less probably won't explain it very well.

The final part of this five-part work can be found here. Quotes I'm using are from the very last two pages, 350 and 351, in the last section, Section VII.

The consequent nature of God is composed of a multiplicity of elements with individual self-realization. It is just as much a multiplicity as it is a unity; it is just as much one immediate fact as it is an unresting advance beyond itself. Thus the actuality of God must also be understood as a multiplicity of actual components in process of creation. This is God in his function of the kingdom of heaven.

When Whitehead says "consequent nature of God," he's referring to one of God's two natures: there's the consequent nature and the primordial nature. The primordial nature is basically a conceptualization of possibilities. It's all the things that God conceives as possible for the world. I myself have some issues with how Whitehead characterizes the primordial nature -- it sounds a bit too much like a realm of Platonic forms. But that's another discussion.

The consequent nature is the nature that's affected by what happens in the world. It's consequent to our action. As Whitehead says above, it is both a multiplicity (in the sense of being composed of experiences from a countless number of beings) and a unity (in the sense that God takes it all within himself, understands it all... and the multiplicity becomes the one consequent nature of God). It is an "unresting advance beyond itself" because the universe is constantly changing and evolving. God is "in process of creation"... we create God, and God unifies and "saves" (remembers, preserves) us in himself.

Two more notes here. First, I'll note again that God doesn't "save" our conscious selves. But he does remember our past in the same way we think back to what was in our own heads a few seconds ago, but with perfect clarity. Second, this splitting up of God into two natures is basically a conceptual convenience. For Whitehead, the two natures are unified. It's just easier for him to talk about it this way.

Each actuality in the temporal world has its reception into God’s nature. The corresponding element in God’s nature is not temporal actuality, but is the transmutation of that temporal actuality into a living, ever-present fact.

I.e., basically what I've said already: each little second of who I am becomes a "living, ever-present fact" because God remembers and is affected by it.

An enduring personality in the temporal world is a route of occasions in which the successors with some peculiar completeness sum up their predecessors. The correlate fact in God’s nature is an even more complete unity of life in a chain of elements for which succession does not mean loss of immediate unison. This element in God’s nature inherits from the temporal counterpart according to the same principle as in the temporal world the future inherits from the past. Thus in the sense in which the present occasion is the person now, and yet with his own past, so the counterpart in God is that person in God.

In the first sentence here he's talking about what a person is: a "route of occasions." This is where the "process" part comes in. For Whitehead, what we normally think of as a person is actually a series of very short instances, which he calls "actual occasions" or "actual entities." Each one "sums up its predecessors" -- meaning that each second we're conscious, say, we remember all the rest of the moments we've been alive (clearly with a large degree of loss).

What the subsequent sentences are saying is that this unison which we feel in ourselves is of a more perfect kind in God's consequent nature -- it suffers no loss. It would be like if we remembered each moment of our existence with perfect clarity. In that way, God both preserves us -- in the objective sense -- and understands us better than we understand ourselves.

But the principle of universal relativity is not to be stopped at the consequent nature of God. This nature itself passes into the temporal world according to its gradation of relevance to the various concrescent occasions. There are thus four creative phases in which the universe accomplishes its actuality.

The second sentence here is saying that God's consequent nature -- the unified whole of the thoughts and actions of all things in the universe -- passes back into the world and affects how we act now. He now wants to break down the interaction between God and the world into four phases.

There is first the phase of conceptual origination, deficient in actuality, but infinite in its adjustment of valuation.

I.e., God imagines the possibilities for every actual occasion in the universe, sees all the ways that each can go, and presents each with an initial aim, which each actual occasion may actualize more or less fully. The actual occasions are affected by the initial aim, but may always reject or modify it.

Secondly, there is the temporal phase of physical origination, with its multiplicity of actualities. In this phase full actuality is attained; but there is deficiency in the solidarity of individuals with each other.

I.e. Stuff happens. The universe happens. Some possibilities are actualized, others are rejected, and the world marches on. However, there is "deficiency in the solidarity of individuals with each other"... we remain separated by the chasm between "self" and "other."

Thirdly, there is the phase of perfected actuality, in which the many are one everlastingly, without the qualification of any loss either of individual identity or of completeness of unity. In everlastingness, immediacy is reconciled with objective immortality.

The problem with being eternal (as God is) is that to be eternal is to be dead. With unlimited time, actions have no meaning, because all will be done, or has been done. It is the despair of no future and no meaning to anything.

The problem with being finite (as all other entities are) is that we perish into nothingness. What's the point of making choices if we just disappear?

This third phase describes the way in which God and the world fulfill one another. The world achieves eternity in God, an eternity that saves it from nothingness, and hence meaninglessness. For God, the world is change, and life -- decisions of free beings who have chosen certain actions over others, who have lived a certain way rather than another because they had only a finite amount of time. God is enlarged by the world, made real by the world.

In the fourth phase, the creative action completes itself. For the perfected actuality passes back into the temporal world, and qualifies this world so that each temporal actuality includes it as an immediate fact of relevant experience. For the kingdom of heaven is with us today. The action of the fourth phase is the love of God for the world. It is the particular providence for particular occasions. What is done in the world is transformed into a reality in heaven, and the reality in heaven passes back into the world. By reason of this reciprocal relation, the love in the world passes into the love in heaven, and floods back again into the world. In this sense, God is the great companion—the fellow-sufferer who understands.

Second sentence: the unity that is God passes back and "qualifies the world" -- i.e. "speaks" to it. As Whitehead says, this is God's love for the world. God takes in and understands each being in the universe in the most intimate way, comes to a unified understanding of it all, and returns to the world: "It is good... I love you... I understand." I.e. Whitehead's last line here: "God is the great companion—the fellow-sufferer who understands."


And that is "what God is for." But a few more notes.

This final section didn't much get into the mechanics of actual occasions and the role of an initial aim. But as I hope I've stressed, each actual occasion has some degree of freedom for self-determination. The initial aim which God provides is just that: an initial aim, a starting point. It's like God saying, "I think it would be good if you did this." We needn't, though. God's a little like a parent who wants us to become President... but we might go off and be an astronaut instead. That's okay. The point is that God guides us, but after all, we are free and self-determined beings, and our value is precisely in the fact that the eternal being is not determining us. Our value is our freedom and creativity in the way we live our lives.

Which brings me to the telos of the universe, which may have been implied but was not explicit in this final section: for Whitehead, the telos of the universe is the creative advance into novelty. There is no end -- which for a lot of people isn't very satisfying. But for Whitehead the universe is all about a constant process of growth, change, and creativity which has no end goal, other than the doing of it.

For myself, I like to pair this purpose with an intuition of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's: that the universe is moving ever further toward unity, and that "union differentiates." Just as the different cells of a complex organism are differentiated into heart cells, liver cells, etc., the parts of any organized whole perfect themselves and fulfill themselves through union in difference. As we unify, we specialize -- and we become more who we are by all doing what we do best, rather than be burdened by doing all the things we'd need to do if we were to live on our own without anyone else. We each become even more different by coming together, and more able as a unified whole to better the world. And God, with his initial aim, and his effect on every part of the universe, is that unifying force which makes us more ourselves.


That's about the best I can do for now. Hopefully it makes sense. But if you manage to read all that and are still interested, feel free to shoot me down or ask me questions.

 

[Beantown]

I think no matter if you are religious or atheist, we all agree life should be about treating others with respect and courtesy. If there is a God we will be judged on how we treated each other.

So in that truth being Muslim is a pile of crap. Ive met some nice Muslims but worldwide they believe they are far more superior and that were all going to burn in hell. Not only that but the Muslim religion makes up a lot of violence in the world. Not only to other countries but to even other Muslims. It makes no sense. There is a lot of anger in that religion.

The way a most Muslims treat women is horrible. Not only that but the killings of homosexuals and hell even their own children and wives as 'honor killings'.

Lets be honest the world would be a lot more peaceful without the Muslim religion.

 

[The Black Swordsman]

You do know that 2/3 of converts are women right? Even fox news admitted to this. It's all about perspective.




I do agree that Muslims are really cocky often times. Many believe (I included) that Qur'an is perfect and hasn't been changed to the word. Because of this us Muslims are a little zealous I admnit

Here is a funny video from Glen Beck

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3sjnUecWqY

 

[Archie Moses]

I think no matter if you are religious or atheist, we all agree life should be about treating others with respect and courtesy. If there is a God we will be judged on how we treated each other.

So in that truth being Muslim is a pile of crap. Ive met some nice Muslims but worldwide they believe they are far more superior and that were all going to burn in hell. Not only that but the Muslim religion makes up a lot of violence in the world. Not only to other countries but to even other Muslims. It makes no sense. There is a lot of anger in that religion.

The way a most Muslims treat women is horrible. Not only that but the killings of homosexuals and hell even their own children and wives as 'honor killings'.

Lets be honest the world would be a lot more peaceful without the Muslim religion.

After reading the first sentence, I was like, dang Beantown has had a change of heart. Then I read the very next sentence. Face palm.

 

[addictionary]

muslim societies are less fortunate and underdeveloped. therefore they have ignorance as a serious issue. and this also affects their comprehension and execution of islam's teachings. you are talking about the religion that made middle-eastern countries the most civilized ones in the world, when the european origins who later formed the us were applying much worse rituals than the ones you blame islam for, for the sake of religion, which later enlightened by islam philosophy. to believe in a religion is one thing, to understand and apply it in real life is another. even today, there are christian psychos who create or dream massacres for the sake of their religious beliefs, coz they took it to hate level. what muslim societies are going through and what they are giving out by the means of anger and violence has got nothing to do with the religion itself.

 

[The Black Swordsman]

My reasons why Muslim societies are currently behind much of the rest of the world:

1) Paradox of the Plenty (resource curse): Having a very valuable resource often causes corruption for that country. The Muslim world was ahead of the world when oil was not valuable, now that it is valuable it is behind the world.

2) Imperialism: Europe has colonized many countries of the Muslim world for many years. Will take time to recover.

3) Lack of Islam: According to Islam, resources must be given to the people. If Saudi Arabia did this, each person would receive 20,000 US dollars a year without even working. It's a shame that Norway also has oil and is a secular country and acts more Islamic then Saudi Arabia by giving it's citizen's the oil money.

 

[franklin]

Someone is a douchebag with fangs. There are probably only a dozen posters willing to go into this depth learning something new. I've avoided getting into any of this with BlackDoorsman out of respect for Muslims on and off this board, but this is the flavor of the month so what the fµdge. My apologies in advance if I get out of hand. It's the beer, I swear.

Qur'an 23:12-14 We created man from an essence of clay.

Wow! Sounds like every other creation story from every indiginent peoples from every continent on planet earth. Did you know Adam was made from mud too? Or the first every other first people ever?

then We placed him as a drop of fluid in a safe place. Then We made that drop of fluid into a clinging leech like form, and then We made that form into a lump of chewed up flesh, and We made that lump into bones, and We clothed those bones with flesh, and later We made him into other forms. Glory be to God the best of creators.

What the hell does that even mean?

We separated them and made from water every living thing?

Have you heard of carbon?


Again, this is nothing against the religion. I personally don't give a damn about 7th century, or 4th century, or 19th century scientific views as they relate to religion. Religion is a personal journey and can never be based in this kind of nonsense.

 

[Beantown]

After reading the first sentence, I was like, dang Beantown has had a change of heart. Then I read the very next sentence. Face palm.

Yea my post was hypocritical. But still Muslims are very hateful people and that just sucks.


But as for gays I really have done a 180. I don't have a single issue with them or them getting married. I was wrong and I own up to it.

 

[The Black Swordsman]

Someone is a douchebag with fangs. There are probably only a dozen posters willing to go into this depth learning something new. I've avoided getting into any of this with BlackDoorsman out of respect for Muslims on and off this board, but this is the flavor of the month so what the fµdge. My apologies in advance if I get out of hand. It's the beer, I swear.



Wow! Sounds like every other creation story from every indiginent peoples from every continent on planet earth. Did you know Adam was made from mud too? Or the first every other first people ever?




What the hell does that even mean?



Have you heard of carbon?


Again, this is nothing against the religion. I personally don't give a damn about 7th century, or 4th century, or 19th century scientific views as they relate to religion. Religion is a personal journey and can never be based in this kind of nonsense.

Islam believes that prophets have been sent around the world spreading Islam. The best definition of Islam is this "Peace obtained from submitting will to the creator." We just believe that Muhammad was given the final message and that the religion was perfected. We believe the Abrahamic God has been around since Adam, the first prophet. Personally I believe that Jews, Sikh's, Unitarian Christians, and certain Hindu's (certain sects believe Shiva to be synonymous to one God) are also Muslim "i.e. obtain peace from submitting will to the creator"

There are two primary reasons why we believe that the Qur'an is the final word of the one supreme God.
a) Even critics of Islam have to admit that the Qur'an hasn't changed even a word for centuries. The same cannot be said about the New Testament, The Old Testament, or the Bhagavad Gita. Since the inception of Islam post Muhammad thousands of people have always memorized the Qur'an. Currently to this day there are "tens of millions" that have memorized it.
b) the Qur'an does not hold a 7th century worldview

That is but one verse in the Qur'an about embryology for more about it https://www.islam-guide.com/frm-ch1-1-a.htm

Back when the Qur'an was revealed there were two main worldviews about embyrology. A Galen and Aristotelian. Galen thought that the sperm contained all of the genetic information while Aristotle thought that Sperm mixed with menstrual blood to form Humans. Galen used a very primitive microscope and thought that he saw small individual humans inside the sperm. Aristotle thought that depending on were the zygote implants on the uterus determines what sex the child is. Additionally look at this.

Quran 53:45-46 "And that He creates the two mates - the male and female from a sperm drop when it is emitted"

The sperm is the one that contains the X and Y chromosome which determines the sex of the baby.

Qur'an 6:25 And among them are those who listen to you, but We have placed over their hearts coverings, lest they understand it, and in their ears deafness. And if they should see every sign, they will not believe in it. Even when they come to you arguing with you, those who disbelieve say, "This is not but legends of the former peoples."

These are but legends of the former peoples right?