God is a Metaphor

... of-course .. it may be that one brother feels the disgust and desists, but another brother doesn`t .. but the sister is both`s sister ... and the father ... dunno which way he goes ... so ...

It goes on and on. But never mind. I`ve let Dr. Sohail off the hook.

Re: # 145

dear zeemax....the article was titled GOD IS A METAPHOR and you made it about INCEST

and challenged everyone who did not agree with your moralistic view about human

sexuality. the climax of your dialogue was...` you can`t fcuk (did not even spell it

right...Freudian slip) your sister or your mother...period) and then said `I`ve let Dr. Sohail

off the hook``...so what were you trying to prove with this marathon dialogue...what is the

moral of the story? so that I am prepared next month when I send my next article...sohail

zeemax:
``Disgust`` is something you are conditioned to. That`s the answer. Like for instance after living your entire life in sin (earning and feeding yourself on interest) your apparent deterioration into an infantile state when grave and Allah ka Azaab beckons. So, now you chase the metaphorical umbilical chord on chowk.com for that maternal-acceptance, you were ``conditioned`` to when you were growing up.

My turn to question now:
I am assuming you are about the magic number 53 or somewhere around. Do you feel like proposing to a 9 year old girl for harkening back to your ancient scriptures and their Author? It must be an exhilarating thought to be at the age to fulfill the Sunnah-e-Rasool?

Re: GT #141

There are actually 2 parts to what you are saying.

The first part is a purely logical exercise. You start with ``statements ASSUMED to be true`` (I meant the same thing when I said ``defined to be true``). Let`s call them axioms. Then you derive statements that are logically consistent with the axioms (I guess you have to define the rules of logic too). All these statements are considered true. Here, true means logically consistent with axioms. Since this is a purely logical exercise you can come up with any number of different axioms and come up with unlimited sets of statements, all internally consistent with their own axioms. (Of course, all of them will run into problems
described in #107).

The 2nd part is determining the axioms. Here you invoke empirical verification. That is used to select one set of axioms and declare them to be the `scientific` truth. This set of axioms may change over time as a result of more empirical tests. But the basic pricnciple is that it is always derived from empirical verification. And, of course, these scientific statements also run into #107.

I don`t have a problem with the 1st part. It`s the 2nd part that I have a problem with. I am not yet fully able to articulate this problem and can only be speculative. I speculate that the process of empirical verification itself is derived from some axioms and the ultimate axioms of science are ``ASSUMED to be true`` .

That`s why I was hoping on a previous board that Mr Gill would come up with an example of a scientific axiom that was derived from empirical verification. Unfortunately, he came up with the wrong one.

(PS. This has nothing to do with the existence of God)

``It`s the 2nd part that I have a problem with. I am not yet fully able to articulate this problem and can only be speculative. I speculate that the process of empirical verification itself is derived from some axioms and the ultimate axioms of science are ``ASSUMED to be true`` . ``

The problem exists in your head. Empirical verification to support the axioms of a logical system makes the difference between generically speaking a Law and one man`s Delusion. That`s why you can only Believe and can never communicate what is it that you call `X`/`God`. To be able to demonstrably prove your proposition, you would need a mutually agreed upon framework that comes from empiricism.

I also have a feeling that when you say `TRUE` you are mixing it with `TRUE` as it is taken in the religious sense. They are different.

GT: I`ll come back to your post later.

Dear zeemax,

What I meant was that if you can come up with a method which can guarantee that sex will never lead to conception between these couples, you can make a good case in favor of incest. We live in a world in which practicality of an act determines its virtue. For example, smoking is discouraged not because the act of enjoying smoking is wrong (nicotine is not harmful for a man). It is the side effects which increase your long term risk of disease. If you can invent a cigarette that can provide nicotine without these effects, all the disgust around smoking that has been invented in the recent past will disappear and smoking will become as `cool` as was in the 60s and 70s again.

By persistence, I meant that the need for incest should have a reason to sustain. As in the case of homosexuality, we can convince ourselves that no matter what we teach in books, no matter what drugs will make our children take, you will have some homosexuals in the population in the end. This creates a need to address and solve the problem on a permanent basis. If incest is something which at least some people want on an ongoing basis and the risks associated with it in terms of offsprings can be mitigated, a strong case in favor of allowing can be made. I will then vote in favor of it.

Now I want to come to the point of disagreement with you. Incest is not disgusting because it is written in the book. To give you an example, is it written in the book that you should not eat rotten food? I don`t think it is `haram` to eat rotten food. But since it is not good for you, you usually find it disgusting when it smelling in a certain way. This is a classic example of how we develop a sense of something being disgusting for us if it is never useful for us. Similarly, many muslims find sea-food disgusting where islam doesn`t really disallow it. You are probably right that for muslims, the disgust is amplified because it has been sanctioned by the religion but even if you get rid of religion, a good level of disgust will remain there which has practical reason to develop and sustain. And yes, in a completely liberal society, you will find occasional cases of incest here and there (less than homosexuality), which would be considered normal, unless a situation arises which I mentioned above (sex not leading to conception) when it may become more common but those decisions will be made on cultural grounds.

malik sahib:
zeemax needs the answers with proper references to ``ancient scriptures`` and the glorious Sunnah-e-Rasool. Your well reasoned post(#150) that have blown a Allah-shaped is not what he is looking for.

GT:
I did an exercise similar to that in an algorithm class awhile back. Does this Set Theory problem has a name. I want it for reference.
On a bit of a tangent: I came across probably the dumbest argument in favor of Delusionalism which happens to be since, reason exists within belief and since believing it to be ``TRUE`` in ``human mind`` makes the rational systems work, therefore, Belief is above and beyond reason and it can never be dichotomized with reason as in Belief vs. Reason. This is probably the worst kind of douchbaggery, I`d seen in a long time.

#146 by drsohail,

Dear Dr. Sohail,

This has everything to do with your article. It`s about God being a Metaphor and ancient scriptures being myths, and incest has something to do with it. Or don`t you think so?

The moral of the story is as follows:

When you say ...

when humanity reaches the stage of mental growth and cultural evolution when most people can understand scriptures as folklore and not as divine revelations, can view them as mythology rather than stories, and can differentiate facts from fiction...

...then you better be prepared that this position will be challenged with proof that all morality springs from ancient scriptures, which are embedded in your mind ... hard-wired. And not from evolution of human mind.

If you deny that, then you have to accept that brother/sister sexual relations are quite OK because there`s no rational basis not to allow them .. (forget kids ... this German couple is not fighting about kids as I`ve said a dozen times ... they`re just fighting for sex).

And if brother/sister sexual relations cannot be denied as you have said and Malik Saheb has also said, provided there`s no consequential impact like physically impaired children, then there`s no reason for disgust, and no reason for the State to outlaw it, and you must accept that. This is the rational basis. You have to support it. You can`t oppose brother/sister marriage and/or sexual relations even outside marriage for any reason other than ancient scriptures embedded in your mind. If you want to expunge those, that`s fine.

But do you really want to do that? That`s the next question.

As for the `` you can`t fcuk (did not even spell it right...Freudian slip) your sister or your mother...period)``, perhaps you don`t know the Chowk censor system. Please try typing `fcuk` with the correct spellings and posting it.

But by now, you seem to be clutching at straws.

Regards.

(P.S. I didn`t see your usual signature `Smiles` in this post. Any particular reason?)

Re: # 137 khurram,

I think you are making simple matters complex. And especially, I have problem understanding your scholarly way of articulating, so I would appreciate if you explain things for me a little bit less formally. I certainly want to know what you beef is which would be useful learning for me but we have to ensure that the communication does not go in vein.

What I get from your post is that you refer to something you call `the unconditional as truth and morality` which you think cannot, at least, in part come from the sources in the world only. The second objection you made was that morality follows strange routes such as absolutism and absolutism because of opposition to absolutism.

I myself am contented with the evolutionary explanation, specifically as a combination of the following stages of evolution:

1) physical life
2) human mind
3) human culture
4) ideas when they become an organism by themselves living in the world of culture

This framework completely and elegantly explains why we are obsessed with `truth` (simply because it is the ultimate currency of this universe; you simply cannot put two coins in a pot and take out 3) and morality (as a set of ideas that works for a human population at one time).

So, I fail to get your beef so far.

#150 by malikjahanzeb,

Sir,

How many times do I have to repeat that this German case has nothing to do with kids? They`re fighting for their right to have sex. I`m talking of legal sanction for that right and not offspring or even morality. Just the legal right. You gentlemen are being evasive.

Anyway ... all you folks appear to be very confused. If you don`t have a position, that`s Ok. But if you do, you should be able to defend it.

However, since you consider sex between brother/sister being of the same dimension of a social issue as aversion towards eating rotten food, or smoking, or seafood, and the sort by some as you say, and being at the same disgust level, then I have nothing more to offer. But, and its a big BUT, you must be able to superimpose your position on your own selves and your families. I.e if you want to retain families at all. If you don`t, well .. best of luck.

But that`ll be the third question. Regarding the family system. So, forget it.

The ancient scriptures are right, and they`ll always be. No nitpicking will diminish those.

Regards.

Re: # 154

zeemax:

;-)

good luck

Re: # 148 khurram:

Yep, you have it fully correct. Moreover, yes the rules of logic are assumed. More refinements can be made and you have the whole `modal logic` business. You can also deviate to other systems by violating the definition of complementarity etc.

Raw:

It is the ``Russel Paradox``. If you are into computing, you will immediately see that you cannot compute the `proof` of the paradox. Penrose has a book on this, with some 500 odd pages. I do not understand why he needed 500 pages to do so. Plus, the book is quite unreadable.

Others (with apologies to Sohail for the deviation):
You will see a lot of people on chowk gloating about the number 0. They claim that `eastern philosophies` know a lot about this number. Heck, why is it the case that x/y is understood for all y with values near zero but not when y is zero? Listen to the answers, they are usually great. Actually, in general, ask yourselves what does x/y mean when x is positive and y is negative.

Point is, we need beliefs to survive or even to put a man on the moon.

Best.

Khurram:

You say:

``I speculate that the process of empirical verification itself is derived from some axioms and the ultimate axioms of science are ``ASSUMED to be true`` .

Science does not posit ultimate axioms, just axioms - which are indeed assumed to be true. The example in #107 rules out ultimate axioms. This is widely known and accepted in the scientific community. Godel`s theorem is a statement on this. Thus, your statement will be accepted (without the ``ultimate axiom`` part) in any good science department. The problem is not with science per se, it is with the scientists who lecture in the Discovery Chanell and write in the ``Reader`s digest``.

Furthermore most scientists, as well as mathematicians, are not so much worried about deep issues like the the meaning of x/0. The are simply interested in putting a man on the moon or creating the dwarf variety of wheat. Yet, they do get amused with philosophers pondering on these questions.

Re: # 152

dear zeemax....so we agree to disagree. for you scriptures are ultimate truth and for me

they are part of folklore because you believe in divine revelation and i do not. you believe

in GOD and i do not. for you it is a reality and for me a metaphor. you are part of majority

80% and i am part of minority 20% (used to be 1% in 1900). i just ask people who believe

in GOD to share with me their encounter with GOD. if you had one I would love to hear

your dialogue with GOD not the dialogue of GOD with people hundreds of years ago. so

you can follow your scriptures and i can follow my conscience....and both of us will be

happy and peaceful. smiles....sohail

Re: GT

Thanks for your comments. We do seem to be in agreement.

``Science does not posit ultimate axioms, just axioms ..``
I meant ultimate in the sense of basic, not in the sense of privileging some axioms over others.

``The problem is not with science per se...``
Agreed

``The are simply interested in putting a man on the moon or creating the dwarf variety of wheat..``
Again, agreed.

But there is a whole philosophical enterprise that holds that science can somehow lead to morality and values that are `objective` in the same sense as scientific statements.

Re: # 159

khurram:

``But there is a whole philosophical enterprise that holds that science can somehow lead to morality and values that are `objective` in the same sense as scientific statements.``

Yes, and I remember Gill saying, in another board, something like - these guys are quacks. I agree with Gill. Many of the ``Reader`s digest`` type scientists have made science into a religion. I, actually, get pretty depressed with the debate on evolution. Many ``armchair`` scientists instead of getting fascinated by the flaws in the theory start getting dogmatic. I mean, come on, there are flaws in the theory so more is to be discovered! Why bother about what others say? I see nothing wrong in teaching Adam and Eve, or whatever in one class, and evolution in another. Children are not stupid. I myself remember challenging teachers in our ``moral science`` class.