In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth

Re: # 78 by Folio,

This:

``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. ``

added to #75, rounds up about everything you have to say about Muslims.

I have no problem with what you say and think. After all, the great kaal thinks that you are a genius. Who am I to think differently? But I have one small quibble, if by a ``different Muslim`` you mean hamidm2 then I have a serious problem. I haven`t seen a bigger rabble-rousing loud-mouth. Given his narrow minded obsession on Gandhi`s loin cloth, I cannot call him anything but a bigot.

Gill saheb:

We agnostics and atheists have it easy. We do not have to tie ourselves in knots in order to reconcile our rational being with our faithful one. I suggest you can also liberate yourself from your ``duvidha`` (dilemma to the non-hindi-wallahs) by getting rid of your ``sanskaras`` and let go of your faith.

``If God is the name of an entity which is not known at a given time and is considered ‘unknowable’ at that time by many, man will never know His essence or even if He exists or not.``

True. Then, why bother?

ha! Please GT, don`t burden the kid with my stupidities. Samar and Folio will make their own individual ways, and you and I will agree and disagree with them as much as we need to and want. That`s how it should be :)

Dear Urstruly
It would be very kind of you to elaborate your understanding of the ``Prime mover``. I have not specially read Aristotle but I read few of his writing in different places. The notion of absolute mover is ``unintelligible`` which in other words is inherently flawed.

God`` a necessary being`` cannot be a creator of `contingent`` world. According to laws of reason, from necessary proposition only necessary proposition follows. A necessary being could only create necessary being not a contingent being. So if by definition God is a necessary being that he cannot be a creator of contingent beings like us.

According to the logical positivists like A.J.Ayer and Russell all metaphysical statements are ``meaningless`` because there is no way of proving them right OR wrong.

Occam`s principle states that the explanation of any phenomenon should make as few assumptions as possible, eliminating, or ``shaving off,`` those that make no difference in the observable predictions of the explanatory hypothesis. In other words`` ``All things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the best one.``

Putting God at the end of chain does not provide any more understanding. Its like trying to solve a problem by another problem which again needs to explained.

GOD`S GENTLE ARTISTRY

This book documents the tenderness that creatures have for their
young and the conscious acts of self-sacrifice performed throughout
the animal world. You will read about the great care taken by animal
parents to build comfortable nests for their young. You will learn
how they clean their offspring, how hard they work to feed them,
protect them from cold, and even how they place their own lives
in danger when an enemy is nearby.




To read and download the book is freely FULL TEXT AVAILABLE.

Re: # 83
``This book documents the tenderness that creatures have for their
young and the conscious acts of self-sacrifice performed throughout
the animal world. You will read about the great care taken by animal
parents to build comfortable nests for their young. You will learn
how they clean their offspring, how hard they work to feed them,
protect them from cold, and even how they place their own lives
in dnger when an enemy is nearby. ``


And this book explains why.

Re: # 83 by echoboom:

Boom sahib:

Thank you for bringing ``God`s Gentle Artistry`` to our notice. I shall read the book when I am not wasting time on chowk. My decision to do so is based on the clear proofs provided for the existance of God in the summary provided in the page you direct us to. In school we were taught how to prove theorems by: (a) construction; (b) contradiction, and (c) intimidation. School was boring because most of the stuff was based on (a) and (b). Life was fun because in most discoures, (c) was used. Using (c) is an art actually (or science if you may). And the book whose link you provide uses (c) beutifully. And hence, I shall recommend this book to young aspiring mathematicians. Here is a great example:

Theorem: God exists.
Proof (based on the method of intimidation): An animal cannot possess feelings of tenderness and compassion on its own. The plain FACT is that God has inspired in these creatures a wondrous sense of tenderness and parental love. Therefore God exists. Q.E.D.

I hope Mr. Gill is taking notes. Furthermore, I hope that in future his articles for chowk are refereed by khuram, masadi and your kind self.

Thanks once again.

Why is it that Darwins` theory is still a theory and not made a law like Ohms` law?

My `drawing room taliban` type brother-in-law gave to me this book by Haroon Yahya that was supposed to drag me back to the world of religion but I couldn`t tolerate reading it beyond a few pages. The guy criticizes evolution without even knowing the basic arguments of evolution. I am sure this guy Haroon Yahya is a man with a screwed up personality. I couldn`t find any single reasonable argument in his book. Only faith-alcoholics can find something in his books.

Re: # 85

Boom sahib:

Along with ``God`s Gentle Artistry``, I shall also recommend Dawkin`s ``The selfish gene``. Both books use the art of ``Proof by intimidation`` quite well. However, the proofs of the latter are kind of long and confusing. They actually confuse you to death, .... I mean to Q.E.D. I shall advise students to stick mostly with ``God`s Gentle Artistry``, unless they are lecturing to Harvard undergrads., in which case I shall advise them to use the techniques in ``The Selfish Gene``.

science by & large is confined 2 the investigation of microscopic fenomena. filosofy is concerned w/ the macroscopic. where the 2 intersect of course is cosmology. most of science is untouched by filosofy. religion of course touches everything:/

MJ (#87),

I have glanced through some of Haroon Yahya’s articles. His approach is “sensationalistic” and designed to appeal to folks who are shallow and, at best, semi-literate.

He’s sorta like Tony Robbins of Islam, the TV motivational guy with big claims and an overly simplistic view of the world. I am not surprised that echo is recommending Yahya. Soon Urstruly would start googling him as well … once he has memorized key points of Aristotle’s theory of prime mover …

Re: # 86 asfand,

Because there are people out there who want to be called `created` no matter what. As if god is running an assembly line somewhere up there.

``why don`t burgers evolve into growing teeth by themselves and start eating people.``

---

leave a billion burgers in a pile for about a billion years..provide enough water and sun light to the pile and then we will see if (something grows out of ) burgers (that) have teeth or not.:)

you gave God billions of years but want burgers to eat man in Mr Mcdonald`s life time?:-)

BTW one could agrue than many a man have been eaten by burgers already....remember that...
botlay sharab diye dass ni kameeniye,
main tainupeena aaN ke toon mainu peeni aiN?;)

I wonder why are you so obsessed with the god of Abrahamic faiths? There are other great religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, etc., which have no problem with the god but focus more on the man and the nature, which they consider to be part and parcel of god and as eternal as he is. The latter in fact has no place for god in its theology.

Of all the religious books it is perhaps the Quran which dilates so much on proving the existence of god even to the Mushrikin Mecca when they already believed in this. Keeping up Quranic tradition the so called Ullema and scholars of Islam are also doing the same even today when the existence of god is no longer an issue today at least among the Muslims - vide serial discussion by Javed Ghamidi in this respect going on these days on GEO TV .

echoboom,
Why have you stopped visiting UP and dabbling in sher-o-shairi with us ``Atheists, liberaloons, Munaafiquoons, and secularoons``?