In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth

Re: # 63 GT

I do not bash anyone. However, it is my wish that people recognize their one Creator - The Creator Who is Absolute in every conceivable sense. This is the only purpose of intelligent lifeform.

All the material evidence in this universe points to One Creator and not to two or many. Even the human DNA suggests that all humanity or even every living specie was created by One Entity. But for sake of argument lets assume that there are many gods; then in order to remain absolute each god must have his own closed self-contained universe. If another god interferes in his universe, it will render both gods non-absolute. And henece they cannot be gods. But if each god preserves the integrity of his own universe and does not violate others then with in his own universe he is the only known god i.e. One God. And since with in a universe the existence of other gods will never be known because of an inter-god treaty, it is akin to having only One God.

Re: # 68 by urstruly

Urstruly sahib:

Was that you in #68? You sound like a philosopher, actually come to think of it: you sound like a Hindu and smell like heeng.

But full marks to a point well made. And therefore, with God as my witness, I increase the probability of Her existance.

Re: # 67 by echoboom:

Boom sahib:

What have you done? With a brilliant one page analysis you have shown that the Turks and the French haven`t evolved at all! Now a paragraph is needed to show the same for the Arabs and us desis.

Dear friends
What`s the big deal in Hindus believing in gods. How different is it from the belief in one God. From my perspective, the point you leave reason and go for the realm of superstition, it really does not matter if you believe in one or thousand gods.
After scanning through few of the posts, I realized that a lot of people are missing the point. They are implying, in different ways, the first cause argument which read something like`` Nothing happens by itself, every thing needs a cause and God is the final cause``. The first problem is that the ``premise`` ``everything has a cause`` contradicts the ``conclusion`` ``God is the final cause`. If everything has a cause then God must have a cause or the argument is not valid.
Secondly, if we apply this argument, we should take it to its logical conclusion and not use it as a taxi to get to our desired destination and do not care what happens to the taxi afterwards. Logical conclusion binds us to ask the question, ``Whets caused God``. If God can be without a cause then why go so far, why not accept the universe to have it own cause. If God can have its own cause, why not the universe.

Hindu wins!!!

Ustruly, apparently there are multiple gods … and they take turns running this universe.

One god makes water flow, leaves dead people dead, does not let humans talk to ants, does not let humans fly. Most of the time this god is in charge.

Every now and then other gods take over. Then oceans part when a man waves his hand, dead are revived out of their graves, humans and ants converse (even bushes talk!), people are flown at night to meet god.

This explains why Issa has not yet reappeared. The god currently in charge refuses to give up his seat (power trip? May be) … while Issa is waiting for other gods to take over. What do you think?

Re: # 60
“The issue is not with the theory of evolution; the issue is with the atheists who use it to `prove`` that first the universe came into existence by itself and then it started evolving by itself. So my question was, why don`t burgers evolve into growing teeth by themselves and start eating people.”

Urstruly,

I have never come across an atheist who fits the bill you described above, who proves universe coming into existence on the strength of Darwin’s theory. I trust that you must have. If I do come across such a person ever, I would also give that person the same very friendly suggestion that I gave you: read Darwin first.

Take care,

Rafi

Re: # 62
Dear Sohail,

Good to hear from you and thanks for the quote. But please pardon me for not being a big fan of Gary Zukav. I also have reservations about the later part of the quote that you have sent. I do feel that science requires proof for rejection as well as acceptance of anything.

Thanks,

Rafi Aamer

Very nice to see many rationalists from Pakistan. I miss nasah here:)

Dear Hamid, why dont u counter Urstruly on intellectual plane?

Re: # 71

I suggest you read Aristotle`s Theory of Prime Mover, where he discusses how final cause has to be Absolute in the Cause & Effect relationship. His discourse is not based on religion but only rationality and common sense. There have been many attempts to rebut his theory but no one has succeeded in 4000 years.

I do not know whether Aristotle was a beliver or not but Abraham (pbuh) was the first beliver who found God only through his reason and logic. No revelation was made to him until he believed first. Allama Iqbal has paid tribute to his faith in these immortal words:

Be`khatar kood paRa aatish-e-Namrood maiN ishq
Aql mehv-e-tamasha hay lab-e-baam abhi.

Re: # 75 by Folio,

Sir:

``Very nice to see many rationalists from Pakistan.``

If this is not patronizing, I do not know what is!

Dear GT,

Many Muslims as we know them in India or elsewhere are rabble-rousers, loud-mouths, narrow-minded (I mean closed minds) bigots (something similar to our own sanatani) BUT what we see here is different.

My ONLY worry is that we dont write/discuss the `confusion/passion` of men abt God from our own pov i.e Hindu and Islamic views of origin and that of the contemporary scientific views on God. It`s always the case that we take views of Christendom on the vital question/mimaamsa of God. Mever mind, it`s a great debate here.

Best.