Why does Islam exist?

Ah now you are just making a false argument. I have not considered myself anything. I have not stated how intelligent I am and I have not compared myself to anyone in history or the church etc. I have not even stated here if I believe in God,you have just made a whole lot of assumptions.

 

Is that also not a bigoted view? The righteous in every religion believe only they are right and thus should force their beliefs on others. Similarly, some athiest too have the same belief that only they are smart enough to know the truth and every one else must be stupid.

When times have gone tough, man has always believed in some sort of divine entity that they turn to for help because in the vast universe, man is an insignificant piece and realizes that his life is not necessarily in his hands. You talk of the intellectual evidence that there can be no religion yet refute evidence that a man born 1400 years or more, in a land or barbarism and uneducated himself could be the author of one of the most intellectual books in the history of manking. If I were to speak of the Qurant, it has correctly stated that the Earth does indeed revolve around the sun, the percentage of land to water on Earth, that water must be drunk while sitting down and a number of other facts. Also, reciting the word Allah has been proved by many non Muslim scientist to have healing powers. Moreover, it lays a moral guideline that is indeed praiseworthy. Here are a list of some scientific facts that the Quran correctly laid out:
http://www.islam-guide.com/ch1-1.htm

How could a man born more than 1400 years ago, raised in a barbaric society and uneducated himself been the author of such a book. Many of the scientific facts touched on by the Quran have been found to be true only few decades ago. How do you explain that when thee is concrete evidence that not a word of the Quran has changed since it was revealed? Same applies for the Bible although the Bible has gone through many translations and during the years has lost some of its accuracy which would account for the inconsistencies in it.

I am not a devout Muslim and have gone through periods of wondering whether God really does exist. However, there is ovewheming evidence that the Quran can only be the work of Go. Even if you had gathered together all the wisest men at the time the Quran was revealed (same applies for Bible) they could not have come up with a book in any way comparable to the Quran. How then could an unlettered / uneducated man have written it is unexplainable. The only possible explanation is that it is indeed the word of God.

And here are some famous scientists and what they have to say about the Quran:

http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Science/scientists.html

Muslims do refer to God as Him and the angels (including satan) are all believed to be male.

 

Oh come on MOF what are you talking about, look, you are wrong. Clearly by your assertions you have said that mainstream religious adherents are exempt from being intellectual. Once you do that you make a very clear distinction between believers and non-believers, a very irrational one at that. You have said that mainstream religion exists in order for the truly stupid to have something to believe in.

So unless you consider yourself truly stupid you have irrefutably made the assumption that you are smarter than these people. I'm sure you can forgive my "assumption" that you don't think yourself dumb.

 

The Greeks got there before the Muslims by a good 900 years I believe.

 

Clearly it is appealling as a Patriarchy wherein men can suppress the sexual negotiation that acts as a second currency for women once granted the sexual license to use it.

But the reason for the appearance of Islam was to counter the Christian invasion in 600AD.
The leaders saw how Rome had been conquered by Christianity, and they feared the proselytizing hoards of ministers rushing into Arabia.

Consequently, they grasped at Mohammed's ridicule of the idea of Trinity.
They ended the invasion by demanding that five times a day everyone cry out against Trinity by saying what the Jews had long said, "God is one."

 

Not my fault that your assumptions were wrong. When you make assumptions without anything to back them up it mostly always fails. You claimed that I thought myself more intelligent than Issac Newton,I never stated anything of the like, You just made that up to try and have some kind of argument. You also claimed that I thought myself more intelligent than any religious person through out history and again you based your opinion on an assumption backed up with nothing. You were wrong. Stop trying to put words in my mouth that I have not uttered.

 

Yes, but it is only one among several scientific truths that the Quran contains. As you claim, no intellectual person could believe in the Quran yet here are the words of many famous scientist about the Quran all admitting that given the scientific data contained in it, it could only be the book of God since many of those facts have only been discovered recently by God, yet contained in a book supposedly authored by 1400 years ago by an uneducated man.

http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Science/scientists.html

 

I am going by your words MOF... it's not an assumption, you said it. Are you really so stubborn as to hold on to the flippant remark - and so claiming you are more stupid than the "truly stupid" however stupid that might be, rather than retract it?

 

Here you go.

Intelligent people 'less likely to believe in God'

Professor Richard Lynn, emeritus professor of psychology at Ulster University, said many more members of the "intellectual elite" considered themselves atheists than the national average.

A decline in religious observance over the last century was directly linked to a rise in average intelligence, he claimed.

A survey of Royal Society fellows found that only 3.3 per cent believed in God - at a time when 68.5 per cent of the general UK population described themselves as believers.

A separate poll in the 90s found only seven per cent of members of the American National Academy of Sciences believed in God.

Intelligent people 'less likely to believe in God'

 

This doesn't predicate what you've said, I have to go but I'll address this later.

 

This from the same guy who tried to revive the science of eugenics by studying the link between IQ and race, suggesting that people from "incompetent cultures" needed "phasing out". The research has been dismissed as simplistic and does not explain the reasons behind it. Its the same as when people claim that the Africans are just dumb because they have been tested as having lower IQs.

 

It certainly backs up what I said. Surveys says that most intelligent people do not believe in God.


A survey of Royal Society fellows found that only 3.3 per cent believed in God - at a time when 68.5 per cent of the general UK population described themselves as believers.

A separate poll in the 90s found only seven per cent of members of the American National Academy of Sciences believed in God.

 

How can you dismiss two surveys of scientists? The surveys were done and the answers came in and the figures are that only 3.3 % of Royal Society fellows believed in God and only 7% of the American National Academy of Sciences believed in God. It is what it is. Trying to character assassinate the author proves nothing. You should actually go on the results of the two surveys,one of which he is not even responsible for.

 

Believing in religion isn't stupid, but it is illogical.

It's like being in love. There is a natural desire for people to want to believe there is something greater out there than themselves, just like we naturally feel love and compassion to our family, friends, and/or significant other.

None of these things are based in logic, however.

Logically, there is no reason to believe in a deity or afterlife, since Occam's Razor puts the burden of proof on belief rather than disbelief.

By the same token, love itself can only halfway be explained by logic, and people will still do things that are very illogical in the name of love. For example, people still often love someone that no longer loves them. Logically, it would only make sense to love someone who feels the same about you, but of course, it doesn't work like that.

 

I agree with the survey results, I don't agree with the conclusions. Saying that smarter people don't believe in God is a lot like saying Africans are dumb. It fails to address the real reasons for it. Moreover, religion has always been something people turn to in times of trouble so those more intelligent and probably more successful are less likely to believe in it nanyway. If my life is all hunky dory I have less reason to believe that there may be a more powerful being because my ego does not allow it. If I am going through difficult times, I will be more likely to believe that someone or something exists that is more powerful than man and that there is more to thise life than the constant struggle that many are going through. The true test of a religion has always been that the the downtrodden are the first ones to turn to it. Again, this research you cited only found the link recently, yet Islam has foretod this 1400 years ago.

How you can explain away all the scientific facts enumerated in the Quran is beyond me.

 

Trust me, there is a lot of evidence that points to it. Just because you haven't studies it does not mean it does not exist.

 

Evidence that points to what?

 

You are entitled to your opinion.

 

That Islam, Christianity could only have been revealed by God. There ane a number of scientific dicoveries that have only been recently made but yet have been predicted in the Quran 1400 years ago. Remarkable considering that Prophet Muhammad himself was uneducated. A number of scientists are on record (and not just Muslims) as saying that having seen what the Quran has to say about science, that it can only have been revealed by God.

 

I have a feeling that you are proving my point.

 

Even if we assume that these texts were inspired or revealed by God, that still doesn't give us much of a clue what religion is most accurate.

I guess the point I'm trying to make here is that, even if we assume there is some sort of deity out there, you still have several dozen religions to pick from. Given the track record religions have for usually dying out over a few millennia, that also complicates things.

 

In what way?

 

The claims you are making. You are religious? Why don't you name these recent scientific discoveries that were in the Koran 1400 years ago?

 

True. I may be biased being a Muslim but the Quran does give a reasonable explanation for it all. Quran, Judaism were all earlier books revealed by god but over time some of its contents were either simply lost or lost in translation, so to speak which would account for why all those books are very similar in many ways but the old and New Testament does contain several inconsistencies when you look at it.

The Quran lays down a moral code, a justice system and lays down scientific facts that no man knew even 50 years ago and even scientists continue to be amazed at these facts. I ask again, how would an uneducated man 1400 years ago.

I do believe in Islam but I am not overly religious. As I said, I have had my times of doubt but looking at the Quran I can safely say that no man could have written such a book that long ago. Heck, no man could have written such a book 50 years ago and even now scientists keep discovering new facts which when you look closely at the Quran, were already mentioned there. I already posted a link to that a couple of pages ago along with a link of famous scientists (Non Muslims included) saying that in the light of facts contained in the Quran, it can not have been written by any one man 1400 years ago.

 

The things in your link just looks like someone wanting to read something into lines in the Koran. I do not believe it at all.