The Atheist Thread

ResurrectionRooney wrote:There are rather a lot of authorities saying it happened during the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad.  It strikes me that metaphor/end of the world sign is something that was invented after everyone realised it must be total BS because nobody else in the world saw it

Lots of things in the quran are understood in a certain way until more information arises, just like most reasonable things in this world.

FCB wrote:Hence the optical illusion part. God, through the medium of the Prophet, made it seem to the people at that location that the moon was being split.

And even if it was a literal split of the moon, as I said, it's a miracle. Just like the many miracles all the prophets performed. It's not meant to make scientific sense, that's why it's a miracle. It's a tool used to convince people at that time that the Prophet was not of a regular human being and that there is some divine work in play. The disbelievers at that time were the ones who requested from the Prophet to perform a miracle.

So are you saying Muhammad lied to the people at the time to make it look like he split the moon in half order to make it seem like he had divine powers? Sounds about right tbh.

Serious question, do any religious people here ever actually question their beliefs?

Have you ever thought that maybe you're a tit?

Grenade wrote:Serious question, do any religious people here ever actually question their beliefs?

Ahly claimed to.

Everyone does. Doubt is actually a central part of every religion.

Grenade wrote:

FCB wrote:Hence the optical illusion part. God, through the medium of the Prophet, made it seem to the people at that location that the moon was being split.

And even if it was a literal split of the moon, as I said, it's a miracle. Just like the many miracles all the prophets performed. It's not meant to make scientific sense, that's why it's a miracle. It's a tool used to convince people at that time that the Prophet was not of a regular human being and that there is some divine work in play. The disbelievers at that time were the ones who requested from the Prophet to perform a miracle.

So are you saying Muhammad lied to the people at the time to make it look like he split the moon in half order to make it seem like he had divine powers? Sounds about right tbh.

It doesn't matter whether he literally split the moon or not. It's a miracle either way that they saw the moon being split (whether it was because God made them see it that way or God temporarily split the moon).

Grenade wrote:Serious question, do any religious people here ever actually question their beliefs?

Yeah. I've seriously questioned it many times. But based on the the knowledge I have, it makes more sense to me that there is an intentional design to the universe than a series of random events that results in a probability of one in a 10^300 or so. Out of all the religions, Islam made the most sense to me.

FCB wrote:

Grenade wrote:

So are you saying Muhammad lied to the people at the time to make it look like he split the moon in half order to make it seem like he had divine powers? Sounds about right tbh.

It doesn't matter whether he literally split the moon or not. It's a miracle either way that they saw the moon being split (whether it was because God made them see it that way or God temporarily split the moon).

Grenade wrote:Serious question, do any religious people here ever actually question their beliefs?

Yeah. I've seriously questioned it many times. But based on the the knowledge I have, it makes more sense to me that there is an intentional design to the universe than a series of random events that results in a probability of one in a 10^300 or so. Out of all the religions, Islam made the most sense to me.

It's another stroke of tremendous good fortune that the religion that not only do you happen to be alive in the relatively short period of human history in which Islam has existed, but you also happen to have been brought up in that religion out of all of the religions that currently exist in the world.

SBSP wrote:Have you ever thought that maybe you're a tit?

No.

FCB wrote:

Grenade wrote:

So are you saying Muhammad lied to the people at the time to make it look like he split the moon in half order to make it seem like he had divine powers? Sounds about right tbh.

It doesn't matter whether he literally split the moon or not. It's a miracle either way that they saw the moon being split (whether it was because God made them see it that way or God temporarily split the moon).

Grenade wrote:Serious question, do any religious people here ever actually question their beliefs?

Yeah. I've seriously questioned it many times. But based on the the knowledge I have, it makes more sense to me that there is an intentional design to the universe than a series of random events that results in a probability of one in a 10^300 or so. Out of all the religions, Islam made the most sense to me.

It does matter, if it was an optical illusion then it means he tricked people into believing he could do something divine when really any regular non divine person could've done the same trick. It also means he lied?

I agree, Islam does make the most sense out of all the major religions but only because many of it's teachings can be revised to conform with the modern world, a good example would be the description of a geocentric universe in the Quran which was taken literally by Muslim's until science proved it wrong.

ResurrectionRooney wrote:

FCB wrote:

It doesn't matter whether he literally split the moon or not. It's a miracle either way that they saw the moon being split (whether it was because God made them see it that way or God temporarily split the moon).



Yeah. I've seriously questioned it many times. But based on the the knowledge I have, it makes more sense to me that there is an intentional design to the universe than a series of random events that results in a probability of one in a 10^300 or so. Out of all the religions, Islam made the most sense to me.

It's another stroke of tremendous good fortune that the religion that not only do you happen to be alive in the relatively short period of human history in which Islam has existed, but you also happen to have been brought up in that religion out of all of the religions that currently exist in the world.  

It doesn't matter when I was born. God had one religion that he accepted since the time of Adam.

Grenade wrote:

SBSP wrote:Have you ever thought that maybe you're a tit?

No.

FCB wrote:

It doesn't matter whether he literally split the moon or not. It's a miracle either way that they saw the moon being split (whether it was because God made them see it that way or God temporarily split the moon).



Yeah. I've seriously questioned it many times. But based on the the knowledge I have, it makes more sense to me that there is an intentional design to the universe than a series of random events that results in a probability of one in a 10^300 or so. Out of all the religions, Islam made the most sense to me.

It does matter, if it was an optical illusion then it means he tricked people into believing he could do something divine when really any regular non divine person could've done the same trick. It also means he lied?

I agree, Islam does make the most sense out of all the major religions but only because many of it's teachings can be revised to conform with the modern world, a good example would be the description of a geocentric universe in the Quran which was taken literally by Muslim's until science proved it wrong.

How does Islam make the most sense?  Its main text is claimed to be infallible and by its nature it's unalterable, if the Qur'an is proven wrong or you have to reinterpret the text to things it obviously didn't mean for it to make sense then you have either disproven Islam or rendered it pointless - a text which can be twisted to mean anything effectively has no meaning.

FCB wrote:

ResurrectionRooney wrote:

It's another stroke of tremendous good fortune that the religion that not only do you happen to be alive in the relatively short period of human history in which Islam has existed, but you also happen to have been brought up in that religion out of all of the religions that currently exist in the world.  

It doesn't matter when I was born. God had one religion that he accepted since the time of Adam.

Is that right. Well you're still very lucky to have been born into the correct one and not to have been killed when you strayed.

People shoot down religion but I've rarely if ever seen them explain what it actually is. Crazy people just worshipping the sky isn't a plausible explanation for the events the transpired in each religion.

Keyser Söze wrote:People shoot down religion but I've rarely if ever seen them explain what it actually is. Crazy people just worshipping the sky isn't a plausible explanation for the events the transpired in each religion.  

A lot of it is completely made up, eg. Adam and Eve, the shit about genies going up to space to listen in on God, the guy who travelled to the end of the world and saw the sun setting in a spring etc. by ignorant people to explain things that have happened.

Other stuff is probably true stories getting distorted as they're passed between people and across time, a worldwide game of Chinese whispers that lasts thousands of years. People fill in blanks themselves with explanations and they eventually get passed on as fact.

Over time the most extreme/memorable/profound stories that have been made up or completely distorted remain in the public consciousness and people continue to pass them on, variations in stories that make them more memorable or interesting - eg. that guy split the fucking moon in two! - make the stories more likely to be passed on regardless of veracity, ones that make it less memorable - he told the people he split the moon in two and they believed him - make it less likely to be passed on so the more extreme one is what survives regardless of veracity. The less memorable stories, or ones that become less interesting because they get outcompeted by other stories quickly die out and become myths.

It can be understood as natural selection of ideas. They survive in much the same way as organisms do, originating from very small beginnings they mutate over time and the ones best adapted to survive do so. Richard Dawkins wrote about this and referred to these ideas as memes. The above is a summary of my understanding of it but I'd suggest you read more of his work if you want to know more.

It's amazing how you wrote close to 300 words to say "it's all lies", which is basically what I said atheists always say yet offer zero rational or reason to it.

You asked for an explanation of how it came about, I provided one. I'm sorry if you don't understand, if you have any further questions please ask and I'll try to help you.

You didn't provide an answer. You said religion was a lie and covered it with a lot of pointless and repetitive filler (which I don't know why you did).

You wanted an explanation for how religion comes about that doesn't rely on absurd things like crazy people worshiping the sky, I've provided one. What else do you want?

It's not so much that it's a lie, a lot of it probably originated with truthful misinterpretations then got distorted. Any distortions that make it more extreme without immediately making it incredible are more likely to get passed on.

RR, do you believe that a god exists or can exist? In other words, are you just not satisfied with the interpretations of God by the religions that exist today?

ResurrectionRooney wrote:

Grenade wrote:
No.

It does matter, if it was an optical illusion then it means he tricked people into believing he could do something divine when really any regular non divine person could've done the same trick. It also means he lied?

I agree, Islam does make the most sense out of all the major religions but only because many of it's teachings can be revised to conform with the modern world, a good example would be the description of a geocentric universe in the Quran which was taken literally by Muslim's until science proved it wrong.

How does Islam make the most sense?  Its main text is claimed to be infallible and by its nature it's unalterable, if the Qur'an is proven wrong or you have to reinterpret the text to things it obviously didn't mean for it to make sense then you have either disproven Islam or rendered it pointless - a text which can be twisted to mean anything effectively has no meaning.

FCB wrote:

It doesn't matter when I was born. God had one religion that he accepted since the time of Adam.

Is that right.  Well you're still very lucky to have been born into the correct one and not to have been killed when you strayed.

Islam makes the most sense if you follow it's modern reinterpreted beliefs I meant, other religions tend to stick by their original beliefs but Islam is always changing to fit into the modern world as it's very easily reinterpreted. This obviously goes against the whole point of the Quran being incorruptible and true to the word of god but if Islam stuck to it's original beliefs then it probably would've become instinct by now.

FCB wrote:RR, do you believe that a god exists or can exist? In other words, are you just not satisfied with the interpretations of God by the religions that exist today?

Anything is possible but I find it extremely difficult to believe that any benevolent omnipotent being could possibly exist.  I find the possibility that the monster you worship exists far more likely than a good God.