So the Quran itself claims to be written by god? And there is no evidence that it really has been written by god?
The Quran is no evidence.
What would this evidence look like. I think the evidence of a book being divine in origin would be the following:
1.It would claim to be from God
2.It would not contradict itself.
3.It would not contradict reality.
4.It would reveal things to us, which we are not able to know.
5.It would reveal things to us, which we are able to find out later – make predictions.
If these things are true about a book, then I think it should be taken seriously. To the best of my knowledge the Quran matches all of these criteria.
I think we agree now that evolution is not about the origin of life, so mentioning the unlikely possibility of an intelligent designer would be like saying the earth is flat in a French lesson
So science has not ventured into 'the origin of life'? No evolution does not explain the origin of life, but scientists have tried many times to do so. My point is that when scientists claim that life was generated by electricity running through amino acids, or that it evolved from crystals, or any number of the other guesses that science has made towards this end, they might be willing to entertain the possibility of a designer.
I don't have any problem with teaching evolution as a theory in a mosque.
I must admit that I didin't expect that answer. So you believe in creationism AND evolution?
Now I know you haven't been reading my posts. Creationism is a Biblical concept, which insists that every life form was created exactly as it is today, and has never undergone any changes (although I think some creationists accept the idea of evolution within a species), and all this within 6 (24 hour) days. The Quran does not limit 'creation' in this way.
First, the word 'day' in Arabic is 'yawm' and can mean either 'day' or 'period of time', so the earth is not limited in its age as it is in the Bible.
“Verily We created man of potter's clay of black mud altered,” (15:26)
Second, the very idea of evolution is hinted at in the Quran. The fact that God created man out of clay indicates that man's origin was from something inorganic, but that it was God who guided this process. This is exactly what evolutionists claim, that life emerged from matter. They just leave God out.
Another claim of evolutionists is that life emerged from the sea, from water.
“Have not those who disbelieve known that the heavens and the earth were of one piece, then We parted them, and We made every living thing of water? Will they not then believe?” (21:30)
Here is the origin of the Universe, and life in the same sentence. The Big Bang theory states that the whole universe started as a singularity – one piece. And life formed out of water.
These things may have meant something different to the original Muslims, because they did not have access to the scientific tools that we have today. However, even with our modern knowledge, the verses of the Quran still fit. This is very different from the Bible.
Finally
“What aileth you that ye hope not toward Allah for dignity. When He created you by (divers) stages?” (71:13-14)
Created by stages. That's evolution. Here is a book 1400 years old, explaining evolution in a simple language that anyone can understand. Again, the first Muslims may not even have realized what this meant, but it's remarkably accurate even in light of modern knowledge.
So Hitler is bad but national socialism is good?
No. The point is that any philosophy can be used to commit injustice. But you can't blame the philosophy, you have to blame the people. I don't really know a lot about National Socialism, so I can't say.
Can you tell me the name of one of these scientists?
I saw a film called “Expelled – No Intelligence Allowed” with Ben Stein. He interviewed several scientists who either lost their jobs, or are unable to get funding for research because they mentioned the 'possibility' of intelligent design. They were not 'creationists' in the biblical sense. I can't remember any of their names off hand. If you want I'll rent it again, and give you some names.
We don't know exactly how life came into existence. In school I have not yet been taught any of the many theories, so I think I will never be taught one. So what makes your hypothesis, that a wizard made it without even telling where that wizard comes from, so special that it should be taught as truth?
I don't think it should be taught as 'truth' as you say. But it should be mentioned as a possible explanation. Right now it's being ignored and rejected completely by many scientists.
Complexy and beauty aren't any evidences for anything. If a jar falls down and you see the way how complex the shards are spread around the floor, do you think that an intelligent being must have aranged them?
I don't think the living cell is anything like a bunch of broken glass. That's a really bad analogy. The ability of a cell to reproduce itself is so utterly complex, it defies logic to explain it as a random process. The DNA is copied, and pasted, then replicated by tiny enzymes inside the nucleus of the cell. The DNA itself is a language, composed of four letters (proteins), which contain about the equivilant of 1 Gigabyte of information.
If a jar broke and spelled out a 1000 page book with it's glass shards, I might begin to suspect that someone or something arranged it.
You are the one who claimes something and must prove it, not vice versa. I already posted a disprove for god (that one with god changing his perfect opinion).
Fair question. I still think that God can neither be proven or disproven by science.
But as humans can influence in that process, god would have to know how humans will act. That contradicts to a very basic claim of your religion, the free will.
The idea that someone knows the future, in this case God, does not remove free-will. We still make the choices we make.
Feelings are a mixture of hormones and thoughts. What's so special about them?
And you already soid it, I could make my friend take a lie detector test, to prove or disprove whether he really likes me.
But we act on our feelings. We rely on them for so many things on a daily basis. The very concepts of right and wrong are not provable scientifically, but we have courts and judges and governments which seek to protect these concepts.
Did you have your friend take a lie-detector test? If not, how can you prove he's your friend? Don't you need scientific proof to act on things?
"...but keeps the final decision with the leader"
That sounds like a dictatorship with advisers.
This is not my area of expertise, nor is it related to this forum. But this can be best explained by one saying of Muhammad “...Obedience (to somebody) is required when he enjoins what is good."
This was said in the context of a military expedition, so this applies even at that level. If a dictator is limited to doing only 'good' things, then it's not really a dictatorship at all.
"I arrest you in the name of the allmighty god!"
"I arrest you in the name of science!"
Which one could make people obey better?
There aren't any 'science police'... yet.
I'd most likely think that he uses magic tricks, but first let's come a prophet doing miracles at all
This was a rhetorical question aimed as Tiles. My belief is that the universe itself is enough of a miracle to justify belief in God. A prophet bringing a miracle only serves to enhance that belief.
The only miracle I know of, which is available for us to see, is the Quran. When I say this, I mean that the only explanation for the Quran's existence, that I can see, is that it is from God.
Moral feelings are made by evolution and selection. Because if we wouldn't have morality and would kill each other humanity wouldn't have survived. What exactly this morality is, is mostly rather acquired. If people get taught you shall not kill, but if god wants you to you must kill, people might kill in the name of their god with good conscience. So there is no absolute morality. But the majority of all people would call that the murderer insane, because his morality differs too much from the common.
Yet we use this idea of 'morality' to make judgments about other people and their religions. If morality is not absolute, it is not scientific, therefore you should not be using it to judge things with. Darwin himself advocated the killing of 'lesser' races of humans... RACES!
My point was not to say that we need religion to learn morality. My point was that you have a double standard. You claim that you will only believe in God if I can 'prove' His existence. However, you believe in a morality, and you use this morality to judge your own and other peoples actions, with no 'proof'. If you really believed that you need to 'prove' things in order to act on them, like worshiping God, or like not killing people, then you should not accept any morality at all. There is no 'proof' for morality, so you should reject it, just as you reject God. (I am not actually advising you to do this, I am trying to point out a flaw in your reasoning).
Well this is just a different mind set, my mind knows that matter couldn't have come into existence by itself.
Why not?? But god could??
Yes, because we know matter to be unintelligent and senseless, while God, by definition, is intelligent and aware. This is intuitive, not fact based, I agree. But God didn't have to 'come into' existence. God is eternal, and created existence. It serves to explain the origins of matter, but I don't think it's really a proof for God.
