Posts tagged Muslims
By far one of the most common explanations of belief is ‘I have personal experience of God’, taking numerous different forms.
Some claim to have felt a signal, some say they’ve felt God’s presence. I’ll dwell on God’s presence here, as the other kinds are generally covered by this.
So, what can we say about God’s presence?
Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) are often hailed as evidence of an afterlife: when someone comes so close to death as to appear lifeless for a little time, sometimes they speak of viewing some kind of world beyond death.
This could indeed be heavily convincing evidence, if that was the only side there was to look at. We will however examine the likelihood of an afterlife demonstrated by NDEs, on three grounds:
None of this would make impossible the viewing of heaven via NDEs, though the second point may raise an issue. It does however make assuming an afterlife as an explanation completely unnecessary.
Can be faith, can be anything. I’m not aiming to criticize with this post, I’m just interested in learning for future reference. For believers in God, why do you believe?
A while ago, I made this post. Rereading it, I’ve realized I did little to explain myself. I’ll just quickly remedy that here.
In essence: will any human go to heaven?
The answer is, essentially, no.
This point is relevant to so much, even beyond religion. There are a few things which, almost invariably, will mean something. Examples in religion include prophecy, ‘Bible Code’, and all kinds of answered prayers.
The point is, nearly all the time, similar things will be seen to have the same kind of meaning, regardless. That probably doesn’t make much sense.
Take numbers, for one example. Perhaps numerology, perhaps the idea that the Bible having 66 books makes it satanic: whatever the case, looking at the kind of charts used to read significance into numbers, every number has some meaning. Every single one. All the seemingly impressive meanings read into something, no matter what the number is, there’ll be another meaning, no doubt with some other justifiable relevance.
This is a common response to questions on motive, or incongruencies in God’s actions.
It would be fair enough: but moments later, the people who say this can often be found doing the exact same thing: professing to know the mind of God.
God is good; God wants all to be saved… Anything like that, where does it come from? God said it? how do you know it was true? With humans, we expect truthfulness, honesty: but if we cannot know the mind of God, we cannot know either way.
And those that say God is good, how do you know that? And even if we can grant that principle (as many take it as the definition of God, admittedly with very little reason), you still know the mind of God to the degree that you expect:
Among other things.
No matter where you claim to get this knowledge from, how are you assured that it’s genuine?
Not knowing the mind of God would be a fair enough response and, assuming there is a deity, may well be true: but then, why do those that say this argument equally expect to know the mind of God?
Miracles are commonly claimed as, if not proof, then strong evidence for God. Aside from how the supernatural can exist independent of God, and how there are miracles observed and attributed to various different religions, how many of these could realistically be the work of a deity?
I’ve seen a lot of discussion as to who has the ‘burden of proof’ in the ‘is God real?’ debate.
For this blog alone, I’ve accepted the burden, just to avoid arguments on that specific issue. But in any case, who has the burden of proof?
Some, though not all, believers state that God tests individuals, by making them experience suffering: it’s one possible resolution to the problem of evil.
I don’t know how widespread this idea is, I always thought it was fairly unpopular, but I’ve just seen a few Christians express the idea, so I thought it merited a mention.
Apparently one reason why evil exists is because God desires to test individuals: and there’s some scriptural evidence for this in several religions: such as the classic tale of Abraham.
Unfortunately, the whole idea raises more questions than it answers.
You will not go to heaven. Even should the religion be true, and you believe in it, it will not be you that lives there: if heaven is to be at all pleasant, your mind would have to be altered beyond all recognition. Ability to suffer/harm? Gone. Goodbye free will; and empathy and compassion? Lost, burnt away. Something as simple as boredom wiped away too; else eternity would make heaven into a hell.
You won’t go to heaven. Your memories, maybe; but not all of them. A fraction of an echo of you is all that can ever go to heaven, if it’s to be anywhere near as good as believers say.
So don’t advertise it as eternal life. It won’t be you that goes there.
Replace ‘Christian’ with whatever’s necessary. Islam perhaps, true for several religions that I’ve seen.
Just on Christianity, you’ve gone through the Great Schism and Inquisition and Crusades, Constantine, the idea of the Trinity, the decrease in dependence on Mosaic Law (key to some early Christians)…
Do you believe in God?
Yes? Ok, fair enough. Is your belief justified? That’s the point of this post.
If you can, please give just one, sound argument which demonstrates the existence of your God. Not a possibility of a Deistic God, but your specific religion, and your denomination. Can you?
I’ll accept faith, if needs be: but only if it can be applied only to your religion and not any others.
With the reasons:
Can it be shown that this deity is impossible?
Let’s examine the classic theistic arguments: assuming all premises are valid, what do they prove?
