[Merged] The Qur'an corrects the mistakes of the false Injil/Torah - Page 61

JayUtah · 31st January 2023, 07:50 AM

Originally Posted by Emre_1974tr

No, you're completely free. You have many choices, but you chose one of your own free will. God knows the choice you make of your own free will.

In Islam, God decreed the choice you will make. He created you with the intent that you will make it and the power to make that happen regardless. A big part of being Muslim is consigning yourself completely to the will of Allah and believing that if bad things happen to you at the hands of others, this is simply something you have to live with, and if you're a bad person who has to go to hell, it was something Allah decreed from the beginning.

JayUtah · 31st January 2023, 07:53 AM

Originally Posted by Emre_1974tr

You have choice, and you'll choose the one you want.

You really don't understand the problem at all. You're just regurgitating the standard Islamic equivocation without understanding why it doesn't convince nonreligious people.

JayUtah · 31st January 2023, 08:02 AM

Originally Posted by Steve

Seems that in the world of some Allah worshippers "free will" can mean anything they want it to, including "you get no options".

Pretty much. This was a debate in early Islam, and the predestination folk won it. To give anyone else meaningful choice means they have creative power that Allah doesn't control. Can't have that! Besides, the Qur'an verses arguing predestination far outweigh those describing free will. Even modern scholars have to agree with Islam as a predestination religion.

Real Islamic theologians (not Emre) recognize that you abstractly need free will in order to justify punishing the wicked. And so there's a sort of caged-bird model of volition—just enough of a gloss to make it seem viable. But ultimately when they have to reconcile the inherent contradiction, they just say our ideas of predestination and free will are primitive compared to God's, and that if we only understood things as perfectly as God, we'd see how there is no contradiction. In other words, they cheat.

Hellbound · 31st January 2023, 08:16 AM

Originally Posted by JayUtah

Pretty much. This was a debate in early Islam, and the predestination folk won it. To give anyone else meaningful choice means they have creative power that Allah doesn't control. Can't have that! Besides, the Qur'an verses arguing predestination far outweigh those describing free will. Even modern scholars have to agree with Islam as a predestination religion.

Real Islamic theologians (not Emre) recognize that you abstractly need free will in order to justify punishing the wicked. And so there's a sort of caged-bird model of volition—just enough of a gloss to make it seem viable. But ultimately when they have to reconcile the inherent contradiction, they just say our ideas of predestination and free will are primitive compared to God's, and that if we only understood things as perfectly as God, we'd see how there is no contradiction. In other words, they cheat.

Waving Jazz Hands and saying "Magic!" has always been a favorite tactic of religion.

Leumas · 31st January 2023, 09:22 AM

Originally Posted by Emre_1974tr

You have choice, and you'll choose the one you want.

And the fact that your fecal matter you call Allah sits around watching the evil choices of evil people he made impinge on the free will of innocent children and people and making life miserable for them and torturing them... not to mention the other pestilence and pests he created to also torture more innocent people ... not to mention the badly designed ecosystems that he created to further bring about calamity and mayhem and wretchedness... that he sits about watching and enjoys watching and does nothing to stop.... all this ... proves that your Allah is nothing but a miserable heinous sordid Sadistic cesspool filled with filth.

.

Steve · 31st January 2023, 09:57 AM

Originally Posted by Emre_1974tr

You have choice, and you'll choose the one you want.

The one that your "god" knows you will "choose" before it creates you to make the "choice" it knows you will make. (and for which this "god" gleefully looks forward to hurting you).

Your blind adherence to the rather unique tenets of your religion as you perceive them blinds you to how contradictory and ridiculous your line of argument actually is. Try thinking with your own brain instead of your so-called god's so-called brain. After all, your "god" has provided you with the choice to think for yourself, hasn't it?

Emre_1974tr · 31st January 2023, 01:14 PM

Originally Posted by Steve

The one that your "god" knows you will "choose" before it creates you to make t?

God knows what you will choose with your free will. You choose completely freely.

JayUtah · 31st January 2023, 01:29 PM

Originally Posted by Hellbound

Waving Jazz Hands and saying "Magic!" has always been a favorite tactic of religion.

If that's how they want to portray it to their followers, that's fine. If you bring people into your belief system and tell them from the beginning there's an all-knowing, all-powerful, perfectly just and merciful deity, then you can use that as the premise to solve later dilemmas in your catechism. You've asked for faith; you can then depend on it: "Have faith that Allah is just and merciful, and that his justice is pure even if we don't understand it fully with our fallible, mortal brains."

But then to smugly claim that one has solved an important dilemma better than secular philosophers is insulting. If the claim is, "Islam is the GOAT!" you have to do better than invoke magic.

Softening the concepts is just straight-up dishonest. Islam strenuously preaches predestination, which means they offer you something that they call free will, but isn't really free will. Mormonism goes the other direction. They deny predestination, but then they have to file off the sharp edges of God's omnipotence and omniscience. You don't get to say you did better than secular philosophy in those cases either.

JayUtah · 31st January 2023, 01:30 PM

Originally Posted by Emre_1974tr

God knows what you will choose with your free will. You choose completely freely.

Saying this over and over doesn't make it true in Islam, Emre. You really don't know what you're talking about.

Mojo · 31st January 2023, 01:31 PM

Originally Posted by Emre_1974tr

God knows what you will choose with your free will. You choose completely freely.

What if what you choose completely freely isn't what God knows you will choose?

Steve · 31st January 2023, 03:31 PM

Originally Posted by Emre_1974tr

God knows what you will choose with your free will. You choose completely freely.

Playing fast and loose with my post, aren't we?

je répète tout:

The one that your "god" knows you will "choose" before it creates you to make the "choice" it knows you will make. (and for which this "god" gleefully looks forward to hurting you).

Your blind adherence to the rather unique tenets of your religion as you perceive them blinds you to how contradictory and ridiculous your line of argument actually is. Try thinking with your own brain instead of your so-called god's so-called brain. After all, your "god" has provided you with the choice to think for yourself, hasn't it?

Steve · 31st January 2023, 03:36 PM

Originally Posted by Mojo

What if what you choose completely freely isn't what God knows you will choose?

Couldn't happen. That particular god only creates people to make the "choices' it knows in advance the person will make. And our dear Emre is blind to his dilemma.

Blue Mountain · 1st February 2023, 01:08 AM

Question for the people participating in this thread.

I'm a computer programmer by trade. Suppose I program a world simulation where simulated people are living their lives. Over the course of their lives they have to make decisions: what school do I go to? Should I drop out or graduate? Should I have sex at 16 and risk having a baby? Should I hang out with the "bad" group? Should I try drugs and alcohol? Should I accept job offer A or job offer B? Go into the military? Will I marry this person now or wait? Should I have children? Should I invest in this risky venture and risk losing all my money?

I use a psuedorandom number generator (PRNG) to determine the choice made by each person in the simulation. Due to the weights I give the PRNG, most of the time they'll make good choices but a small part of the time will make bad or even evil choices. I let the simulation run for 10,000 years to see how many people end up being good enough to make it into paradise and how may are evil enough to be damned.

If I don't know the PRNG results before I start the simulation, can I say everyone has "free will?" They are, after all, making their own decisions, even if how they decide is ultimately determined by a roll of the cosmic dice, but one I don't control directly.

However, because I'm using a PRNG, I can set a seed and it will generate the same results run after run. Now I can run the simulation twice: once to see what will eventually happen, and again with the full knowledge of what will happen by the end of the simulation. I know the outcome of every person's life. Do they still have "free will?"

steenkh · 1st February 2023, 02:46 AM

Originally Posted by Blue Mountain

If I don't know the PRNG results before I start the simulation, can I say everyone has "free will?" They are, after all, making their own decisions, even if how they decide is ultimately determined by a roll of the cosmic dice, but one I don't control directly.

For the purposes of the simulation, I would say yes, this is “free will”, even though I have difficulty seeing it as either “free” or “will”.

Quote:

However, because I'm using a PRNG, I can set a seed and it will generate the same results run after run. Now I can run the simulation twice: once to see what will eventually happen, and again with the full knowledge of what will happen by the end of the simulation. I know the outcome of every person's life. Do they still have "free will?"

Tricky question. The definitions of “free” and “will” were already strained at the first run, and in my mind, they break now, because the outcome is no longer uncertain, no matter how you look at it.

Gulliver Foyle · 1st February 2023, 03:25 AM

Originally Posted by Emre_1974tr

God knows what you will choose with your free will. You choose completely freely.

Are you going to answer my last question? Or are you running scared from the truth?

Leumas · 1st February 2023, 06:24 AM

Originally Posted by Emre_1974tr

God knows what you will choose with your free will. You choose completely freely.

And the fact that your fecal matter you call Allah sits around watching the evil choices of evil people he made impinge on the free will of innocent children and people and making life miserable for them and torturing them... not to mention the other pestilence and pests he created to also torture more innocent people ... not to mention the badly designed ecosystems that he created to further bring about calamity and mayhem and wretchedness... that he sits about watching and enjoys watching and does nothing to stop.... all this ... proves that your Allah is nothing but a miserable heinous sordid Sadistic cesspool filled with filth.

.

Norman Alexander · 1st February 2023, 06:25 AM

Originally Posted by Blue Mountain

Question for the people participating in this thread.

I'm a computer programmer by trade. Suppose I program a world simulation where simulated people are living their lives. Over the course of their lives they have to make decisions: what school do I go to? Should I drop out or graduate? Should I have sex at 16 and risk having a baby? Should I hang out with the "bad" group? Should I try drugs and alcohol? Should I accept job offer A or job offer B? Go into the military? Will I marry this person now or wait? Should I have children? Should I invest in this risky venture and risk losing all my money?

I use a psuedorandom number generator (PRNG) to determine the choice made by each person in the simulation. Due to the weights I give the PRNG, most of the time they'll make good choices but a small part of the time will make bad or even evil choices. I let the simulation run for 10,000 years to see how many people end up being good enough to make it into paradise and how may are evil enough to be damned.

If I don't know the PRNG results before I start the simulation, can I say everyone has "free will?" They are, after all, making their own decisions, even if how they decide is ultimately determined by a roll of the cosmic dice, but one I don't control directly.

However, because I'm using a PRNG, I can set a seed and it will generate the same results run after run. Now I can run the simulation twice: once to see what will eventually happen, and again with the full knowledge of what will happen by the end of the simulation. I know the outcome of every person's life. Do they still have "free will?"

Then it is definitely not free will. You, as "god", make their choice by "rolling dice". The simulated people get no say in choosing. They do what you choose.

Leumas · 1st February 2023, 06:41 AM

Originally Posted by Emre_1974tr

God knows.....

Allah... a.k.a. YHWH ... is not a god... let alone God.... you have been inculcated and indoctrinated by your parents and society to believe a lie that has been imposed on their ancestors by the sword.

A Sumerian Pimp made a bargain with a desert Demon... or Djinn as you say... 4200 years ago... and ever since this Demon... this Devil has been causing mayhem and strife and helping pimps (Isaac) and charlatans and grifters (Jacob) and murderers (Moses) and ethnic cleansing war criminals (Joshua) and treasonous traitorous brigands (David) and camel caravan pillagers (Muhammad) and insane cultists (Jesus), to fool people by hook or by crook.

And your poor ancestors were the victims of the latest of those Demonic bargains with the Devil... they had no choice... either kowtow and genuflect (i.e. Islam) to this Devil... or perish....

The tragedy is that now in 2023... you have all the resources to disabuse yourself of this inculcation and brainwashing.... but you still prefer to carry on with this sordid hideous bargain with the Devil/Djinn....

WHY???

JayUtah · 1st February 2023, 08:49 AM

Originally Posted by Blue Mountain

If I don't know the PRNG results before I start the simulation, can I say everyone has "free will?" They are, after all, making their own decisions, even if how they decide is ultimately determined by a roll of the cosmic dice, but one I don't control directly.

Using probabilistic methods to simulate complex behavior is a time-honored technique. Except the behavior you want to simulate here is moral volition. As you've described the system, each actor in your simulation is making decisions in a vacuum, irrespective of decisions made by neighbors. In real life you might change your decisions based on observing your peers. An actor's decision to cross the street against the light may be affected by observing his peer do that and get creamed by a bus. Human volition is heuristic; you would want to model that if your goal was to find the boundary of moral agency.

And this is not just an academic exercise. As our lives become governed more by programmed algorithms, and as we give these algorithms more "intelligence," the question of where to place blame becomes vexing. We're one lifetime or less away from that bus being driven by automation. So when it creams a pedestrian, do we blame the soulless bus? The pedestrian who acted unpredictably? The guys who wrote the code as conscientiously as they could?

Quote:

I know the outcome of every person's life. Do they still have "free will?"

What you know or don't know is irrelevant. Let's say you seed the second run of the simulation and then get creamed by a bus. The simulation proceeds as programmed, but no one alive knows the outcome of the second run. But it will proceed as programmed. It's not volitional, but rather just richly complex yet deterministic. The outcome doesn't change, even if no one knows what that outcome will be. Your having survived to passively observe the process, and your knowledge of the outcome, don't affect the outcome.

And that's why the philosophical discussion about free will outside of religion seeks to understand whether the universe is simply richly complex yet deterministic. The question is really whether a moral agency exists that transcends determinism. It can't really be investigated by simple automata. And I guarantee a bunch of desert nomads thousands of years ago didn't suddenly stumble onto the right answer.

Blue Mountain · 2nd February 2023, 05:04 AM

Originally Posted by JayUtah

Using probabilistic methods to simulate complex behavior is a time-honored technique. Except the behavior you want to simulate here is moral volition. As you've described the system, each actor in your simulation is making decisions in a vacuum, irrespective of decisions made by neighbors. In real life you might change your decisions based on observing your peers. An actor's decision to cross the street against the light may be affected by observing his peer do that and get creamed by a bus. Human volition is heuristic; you would want to model that if your goal was to find the boundary of moral agency.

That's an excellent critique of my poorly thought out simulation.

Let's re-write it so that only the initial conditions of people's tendency toward virtuous or (for lack of a better word) evil decisions are set, and they make their decisions based on that. Starting conditions include social class and relative wealth. Many events in the simulation can be predefined, and some (winning the lottery, a terrible accident killing or maiming someone, a natural disaster) can be randomized. In this way the people's decisions aren't random, only what they're exposed to is.

Now run the simulation twice with the same seed in the PRNG. The second time around, now that we know how everything will turn out, do the people in the first simulation have free will? Do they still have it in the second? Or, as you pointed out, because it's strictly deterministic (to the extend that PRNG will always generate the same initial conditions and "random" events) the second run doesn't matter. And for that matter, neither does the first one, really.

If we keep the same initial settings but change the random events, do the automata still have free will, or are they always reacting in a deterministic manner due to their programming? Which, of course, is something this topic is attempting to discuss. Do we have free will or are we simply acting an a deterministic manner (albeit an extremely complex one?)

Quote:

And this is not just an academic exercise. As our lives become governed more by programmed algorithms, and as we give these algorithms more "intelligence," the question of where to place blame becomes vexing. We're one lifetime or less away from that bus being driven by automation. So when it creams a pedestrian, do we blame the soulless bus? The pedestrian who acted unpredictably? The guys who wrote the code as conscientiously as they could?

Or do we not seek to lay blame but rather work to prevent the bad outcome from happening again?

Quote:

What you know or don't know is irrelevant. Let's say you seed the second run of the simulation and then get creamed by a bus. The simulation proceeds as programmed, but no one alive knows the outcome of the second run. But it will proceed as programmed. It's not volitional, but rather just richly complex yet deterministic. The outcome doesn't change, even if no one knows what that outcome will be. Your having survived to passively observe the process, and your knowledge of the outcome, don't affect the outcome.

And that's why the philosophical discussion about free will outside of religion seeks to understand whether the universe is simply richly complex yet deterministic. The question is really whether a moral agency exists that transcends determinism. It can't really be investigated by simple automata. And I guarantee a bunch of desert nomads thousands of years ago didn't suddenly stumble onto the right answer.

An excellent take on the entire discussion. It does bring up questions like would Putin still be Putin if he was born a year earlier or later than he actually was? Would he still end up as president of Russia or remain a taxi driver?

I confess I haven't thought too deeply on these questions myself. I'm afraid that if I started, I could probably spend the rest of my life doing so and still not be any further ahead.

Leumas · 2nd February 2023, 11:51 AM

Originally Posted by Blue Mountain

... would Putin still be Putin if he was born a year earlier or later than he actually was? Would he still end up as president of Russia or remain a taxi driver?

...I confess I haven't thought too deeply on these questions myself...

Please read these posts:

Emre_1974tr · 2nd February 2023, 04:10 PM

Originally Posted by Gulliver Foyle

Are you going to answer my last question? Or are you running scared from the truth?

I have already answered. If you explain what you don't understand, maybe I can help you again.

Leumas · 2nd February 2023, 04:27 PM

Originally Posted by Emre_1974tr

I have already answered. If you explain what you don't understand, maybe I can help you again.

And your answers are WONDERFUL... because they show irrefragably how your Allah is a pernicious sordid cesspool replete with mephitic deleterious detrimental filth....

Pixel42 · 2nd February 2023, 11:00 PM

Originally Posted by Emre_1974tr

I have already answered. If you explain what you don't understand, maybe I can help you again.

You're the one who is failing to understand. Several posters have tried to explain the mistake you are making to you, but you still don't get it. You just keep repeating the same mistake, and refuse to even try to understand what is wrong with it. Until you do, there's no way to help you.

Emre_1974tr · 3rd February 2023, 02:05 AM

Originally Posted by Pixel42

You're the one who is failing to understand. Several posters have tried to explain the mistake you are making to you, but you still don't get it. You just keep repeating the same mistake, and refuse to even try to understand what is wrong with it. Until you do, there's no way to help you.

It's the other way around. You are the ones in the situation you are talking about. If there is anything I can do for you, please do not hesitate to ask me for help.

Pixel42 · 3rd February 2023, 02:21 AM

Originally Posted by Emre_1974tr

It's the other way around. You are the ones in the situation you are talking about. If there is anything I can do for you, please do not hesitate to ask me for help.

The several people pointing out your mistakes are all very obviously more intelligent and knowledgeable than you are about pretty much everything, including the contents of the Qu'ran, so this is just silly.

If you were the more intelligent and knowledgeable one you would be able to defend your arguments by countering the valid criticisms others are making of them. But you don't. You ignore everything they say, and just keep stubbornly repeating the arguments and statements they have already demolished.

Emre_1974tr · 3rd February 2023, 03:29 AM

Originally Posted by Emre_1974tr

It's the other way around. You are the ones in the situation you are talking about. If there is anything I can do for you, please do not hesitate to ask me for help.

As I said, I'm always ready to lend you a helping hand. As long as you want to get better.

Gulliver Foyle · 3rd February 2023, 03:40 AM

Originally Posted by Emre_1974tr

I have already answered. If you explain what you don't understand, maybe I can help you again.

No you haven't answered. You've just given circular non answers that have no meaning.

For example you've never once even given an attempt at explaining how I have a choice when it is known for certain ahead of time what I will do. Goddidit is not an answer to any question.

Pixel42 · 3rd February 2023, 03:48 AM

Originally Posted by Emre_1974tr

As I said, I'm always ready to lend you a helping hand. As long as you want to get better.

I'm always keen to learn. Unfortunately you are not, you prefer to wallow in ignorant superstition.

Leumas · 3rd February 2023, 03:57 AM

Originally Posted by Emre_1974tr

As I said, I'm always ready to lend you a helping hand. As long as you want to get better.

Yes... please help me understand why you believe in a DEMON/Djinn who does the job of blowing in the vulva of a little human married girl and makes her pregnant and then... despite bragging about himself impregnating her with his job of blowing in her well kempt vulva... he denies his ill begotten son is his son???

And that is after he told everyone that his friend, whom he prefers and favors above all of humanity, is a Sumerian cowardly PIMP???

Not to mention his other favored above all of humanity persons are a treasonous brigand and a murdering ingrate and grifting deceiving charlatan???

Why do you still... in 2023... believe the lie that this DEMON/Djinn is your sky daddy and you are willing to deceive and inveigle and cajole others while you are hawking and peddling this DEVIL you keep obeisantly genuflecting and being servile to???

.

Steve · 3rd February 2023, 06:10 AM

Originally Posted by Gulliver Foyle

No you haven't answered. You've just given circular non answers that have no meaning.

For example you've never once even given an attempt at explaining how I have a choice when it is known for certain ahead of time what I will do. Goddidit is not an answer to any question.

Goddidit is the only answer the religious have. Belief in gods is not rational so no rational arguments can come from it.

JayUtah · 3rd February 2023, 08:26 AM

Originally Posted by Emre_1974tr

I have already answered. If you explain what you don't understand, maybe I can help you again.

You clearly don't understand the problem because you just keep dumbly repeating it and telling everyone that you've addressed their rebuttals. No, you haven't answered to anyone's satisfaction. They're dissatisfied with your answers not because they don't understand what you're trying to say, but because what you're trying to say is demonstrably wrong. You haven't even acknowledged any of my posts, much less tried to answer them, so to say you've completely answered is just a flat-out lie.

It skirts the rules to say so, but you simply don't have the brains to have this discussion. You don't even know Islamic teaching on the subject of predestination, much less what anyone outside your religion says. You have cartoonishly simple models for determinism and volition, and your solution to the inherent tension between them is simply to declare that both somehow hold.

Originally Posted by Emre_1974tr

As I said, I'm always ready to lend you a helping hand. As long as you want to get better.

And that's really why you're here, isn't it? You're trying to maintain the delusion of being some sort of moral and doctrinal guru. You'll deign to help us out of our depravity and ignorance so long as we prostrate ourselves before the Altar of Emre.

This isn't your mosque. This is a temple of reason and critical thinking. You're here as a guest—and not a very well-behaved one. Most of us seem to be amused watching you rail against Christians and other religious; we don't care about sectarian turmoil. But when you claim to have superior understanding on a point that secular thinkers have wrestled with for thousands of years, you have to deliver the goods. "I'm religious, therefore better," is not the goods.

steenkh · 3rd February 2023, 09:43 AM

Originally Posted by Emre_1974tr

It's the other way around. You are the ones in the situation you are talking about. If there is anything I can do for you, please do not hesitate to ask me for help.

I can support Pixel42 here: Emre, you are the one to make logical mistakes here all the time, and you seem to know very little of the subjects you deal with.

Why do you think you have gained zero (0) converts here, and people have been pointing out your mistakes from the very beginning?

You invariably ignore arguments against you, and just declare that you are right, and we are wrong. That is not a great way to try to convince others.

Gord_in_Toronto · 3rd February 2023, 11:04 AM

Originally Posted by Emre_1974tr

It's the other way around. You are the ones in the situation you are talking about. If there is anything I can do for you, please do not hesitate to ask me for help.

Hmm. OK.

Can Allah create a rock so heavy he cannot lift it?

Emre_1974tr · 3rd February 2023, 02:58 PM

Originally Posted by Pixel42

I'm always keen to learn. Unfortunately you are not, you prefer to wallow in ignorant superstition.

No, you are not. You are in the mire of superstition and you are completely closed to learning.

Emre_1974tr · 3rd February 2023, 03:01 PM

Originally Posted by Gulliver Foyle

No you.

Quite the opposite. I answered, but you couldn't answer. You kept repeating your dogmatic belief like a robot.

I say again, you have choices and you are free to choose what you want. And Allah knows what you will choose. I have explained this in terms of time and space and other aspects.

Emre_1974tr · 3rd February 2023, 03:07 PM

Originally Posted by Gord_in_Toronto

Hmm. OK.

Can Allah create a rock so heavy he cannot lift it?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhGNFlptAi8

Leumas · 3rd February 2023, 04:17 PM

Originally Posted by Emre_1974tr

No, you are not. You are in the mire of superstition and you are completely closed to learning.

You still have not explained why the fetid fecal matter you call Allah brags and boasts about making a married young girl pregnant by doing the job of blowing in her well kempt vulva?

JayUtah · 3rd February 2023, 04:36 PM

Originally Posted by Emre_1974tr

No, you are not. You are in the mire of superstition and you are completely closed to learning.

Originally Posted by Emre_1974tr

Quite the opposite. I answered, but you couldn't answer. You kept repeating your dogmatic belief like a robot.

I say again, you have choices and you are free to choose what you want. And Allah knows what you will choose. I have explained this in terms of time and space and other aspects.

Now you're just mindlessly spewing back what others have said to you. There are now AI bots capable of a more engaging dialogue than this.

You have explained nothing. Your explanation simply restates the problem. You are confusing foreknowledge with predestination. And you don't seem to have a single clue what free will actually means.

Gord_in_Toronto · 3rd February 2023, 07:16 PM

Originally Posted by Emre_1974tr

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhGNFlptAi8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0b0Ha_PIhWw

Waffle. Waffle. Waffle.

31st January 2023, 08:16 AM	#2404
Hellbound Merchant of Doom Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Not in Hell, but I can see it from here on a clear day... Posts: 15,088	Originally Posted by JayUtah Pretty much. This was a debate in early Islam, and the predestination folk won it. To give anyone else meaningful choice means they have creative power that Allah doesn't control. Can't have that! Besides, the Qur'an verses arguing predestination far outweigh those describing free will. Even modern scholars have to agree with Islam as a predestination religion. Real Islamic theologians (not Emre) recognize that you abstractly need free will in order to justify punishing the wicked. And so there's a sort of caged-bird model of volition—just enough of a gloss to make it seem viable. But ultimately when they have to reconcile the inherent contradiction, they just say our ideas of predestination and free will are primitive compared to God's, and that if we only understood things as perfectly as God, we'd see how there is no contradiction. In other words, they cheat. Waving Jazz Hands and saying "Magic!" has always been a favorite tactic of religion.
	__________________ History does not always repeat itself. Sometimes it just yells "Can't you remember anything I told you?" and lets fly with a club. - John w. Campbell

31st January 2023, 09:22 AM	#2405
Leumas Philosopher Join Date: Jul 2011 Posts: 7,010	Originally Posted by Emre_1974tr You have choice, and you'll choose the one you want. And the fact that your fecal matter you call Allah sits around watching the evil choices of evil people he made impinge on the free will of innocent children and people and making life miserable for them and torturing them... not to mention the other pestilence and pests he created to also torture more innocent people ... not to mention the badly designed ecosystems that he created to further bring about calamity and mayhem and wretchedness... that he sits about watching and enjoys watching and does nothing to stop.... all this ... proves that your Allah is nothing but a miserable heinous sordid Sadistic cesspool filled with filth. .
Leumas Philosopher Join Date: Jul 2011 Posts: 7,010	__________________ Proverbs 23:9 Speak not in the ears of a fool: for he will despise the wisdom of thy words. Proverbs 26:11 As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly.

31st January 2023, 09:57 AM	#2406
Steve Penultimate Amazing Join Date: May 2005 Location: Sydney Nova Scotia Posts: 12,195	Originally Posted by Emre_1974tr You have choice, and you'll choose the one you want. The one that your "god" knows you will "choose" before it creates you to make the "choice" it knows you will make. (and for which this "god" gleefully looks forward to hurting you). Your blind adherence to the rather unique tenets of your religion as you perceive them blinds you to how contradictory and ridiculous your line of argument actually is. Try thinking with your own brain instead of your so-called god's so-called brain. After all, your "god" has provided you with the choice to think for yourself, hasn't it?
	__________________ Caption from and old New Yorker cartoon - Why am I shouting? Because I'm wrong!"

31st January 2023, 01:31 PM	#2410
Mojo Mostly harmless Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: Nor Flanden Posts: 36,859	Originally Posted by Emre_1974tr God knows what you will choose with your free will. You choose completely freely. What if what you choose completely freely isn't what God knows you will choose?
	__________________ "You got to use your brain." - McKinley Morganfield "The poor mystic homeopaths feel like petted house-cats thrown at high flood on the breaking ice." - Leon Trotsky

31st January 2023, 03:31 PM	#2411
Steve Penultimate Amazing Join Date: May 2005 Location: Sydney Nova Scotia Posts: 12,195	Originally Posted by Emre_1974tr God knows what you will choose with your free will. You choose completely freely. Playing fast and loose with my post, aren't we? je répète tout: The one that your "god" knows you will "choose" before it creates you to make the "choice" it knows you will make. (and for which this "god" gleefully looks forward to hurting you). Your blind adherence to the rather unique tenets of your religion as you perceive them blinds you to how contradictory and ridiculous your line of argument actually is. Try thinking with your own brain instead of your so-called god's so-called brain. After all, your "god" has provided you with the choice to think for yourself, hasn't it?
	__________________ Caption from and old New Yorker cartoon - Why am I shouting? Because I'm wrong!"

31st January 2023, 07:50 AM	#2401
JayUtah Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Sep 2011 Location: The great American West Posts: 22,417	Originally Posted by Emre_1974tr No, you're completely free. You have many choices, but you chose one of your own free will. God knows the choice you make of your own free will. In Islam, God decreed the choice you will make. He created you with the intent that you will make it and the power to make that happen regardless. A big part of being Muslim is consigning yourself completely to the will of Allah and believing that if bad things happen to you at the hands of others, this is simply something you have to live with, and if you're a bad person who has to go to hell, it was something Allah decreed from the beginning.

31st January 2023, 07:53 AM	#2402
JayUtah Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Sep 2011 Location: The great American West Posts: 22,417	Originally Posted by Emre_1974tr You have choice, and you'll choose the one you want. You really don't understand the problem at all. You're just regurgitating the standard Islamic equivocation without understanding why it doesn't convince nonreligious people.

31st January 2023, 08:02 AM	#2403
JayUtah Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Sep 2011 Location: The great American West Posts: 22,417	Originally Posted by Steve Seems that in the world of some Allah worshippers "free will" can mean anything they want it to, including "you get no options". Pretty much. This was a debate in early Islam, and the predestination folk won it. To give anyone else meaningful choice means they have creative power that Allah doesn't control. Can't have that! Besides, the Qur'an verses arguing predestination far outweigh those describing free will. Even modern scholars have to agree with Islam as a predestination religion. Real Islamic theologians (not Emre) recognize that you abstractly need free will in order to justify punishing the wicked. And so there's a sort of caged-bird model of volition—just enough of a gloss to make it seem viable. But ultimately when they have to reconcile the inherent contradiction, they just say our ideas of predestination and free will are primitive compared to God's, and that if we only understood things as perfectly as God, we'd see how there is no contradiction. In other words, they cheat.

31st January 2023, 01:14 PM	#2407
Emre_1974tr Graduate Poster Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Turkey Posts: 1,192	Originally Posted by Steve The one that your "god" knows you will "choose" before it creates you to make t? God knows what you will choose with your free will. You choose completely freely.

31st January 2023, 01:29 PM	#2408
JayUtah Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Sep 2011 Location: The great American West Posts: 22,417	Originally Posted by Hellbound Waving Jazz Hands and saying "Magic!" has always been a favorite tactic of religion. If that's how they want to portray it to their followers, that's fine. If you bring people into your belief system and tell them from the beginning there's an all-knowing, all-powerful, perfectly just and merciful deity, then you can use that as the premise to solve later dilemmas in your catechism. You've asked for faith; you can then depend on it: "Have faith that Allah is just and merciful, and that his justice is pure even if we don't understand it fully with our fallible, mortal brains." But then to smugly claim that one has solved an important dilemma better than secular philosophers is insulting. If the claim is, "Islam is the GOAT!" you have to do better than invoke magic. Softening the concepts is just straight-up dishonest. Islam strenuously preaches predestination, which means they offer you something that they call free will, but isn't really free will. Mormonism goes the other direction. They deny predestination, but then they have to file off the sharp edges of God's omnipotence and omniscience. You don't get to say you did better than secular philosophy in those cases either.

31st January 2023, 01:30 PM	#2409
JayUtah Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Sep 2011 Location: The great American West Posts: 22,417	Originally Posted by Emre_1974tr God knows what you will choose with your free will. You choose completely freely. Saying this over and over doesn't make it true in Islam, Emre. You really don't know what you're talking about.

31st January 2023, 03:36 PM	#2412
Steve Penultimate Amazing Join Date: May 2005 Location: Sydney Nova Scotia Posts: 12,195	Originally Posted by Mojo What if what you choose completely freely isn't what God knows you will choose? Couldn't happen. That particular god only creates people to make the "choices' it knows in advance the person will make. And our dear Emre is blind to his dilemma.
	__________________ Caption from and old New Yorker cartoon - Why am I shouting? Because I'm wrong!"

1st February 2023, 01:08 AM	#2413
Blue Mountain Resident Skeptical Hobbit Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Waging war on woo-woo in Winnipeg Posts: 7,286	Question for the people participating in this thread. I'm a computer programmer by trade. Suppose I program a world simulation where simulated people are living their lives. Over the course of their lives they have to make decisions: what school do I go to? Should I drop out or graduate? Should I have sex at 16 and risk having a baby? Should I hang out with the "bad" group? Should I try drugs and alcohol? Should I accept job offer A or job offer B? Go into the military? Will I marry this person now or wait? Should I have children? Should I invest in this risky venture and risk losing all my money? I use a psuedorandom number generator (PRNG) to determine the choice made by each person in the simulation. Due to the weights I give the PRNG, most of the time they'll make good choices but a small part of the time will make bad or even evil choices. I let the simulation run for 10,000 years to see how many people end up being good enough to make it into paradise and how may are evil enough to be damned. If I don't know the PRNG results before I start the simulation, can I say everyone has "free will?" They are, after all, making their own decisions, even if how they decide is ultimately determined by a roll of the cosmic dice, but one I don't control directly. However, because I'm using a PRNG, I can set a seed and it will generate the same results run after run. Now I can run the simulation twice: once to see what will eventually happen, and again with the full knowledge of what will happen by the end of the simulation. I know the outcome of every person's life. Do they still have "free will?"
	__________________ The social illusion reigns to-day upon all the heaped-up ruins of the past, and to it belongs the future. The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error, if error seduce them. Gustav Le Bon, The Crowd, 1895 (from the French)

1st February 2023, 02:46 AM	#2414
steenkh Philosopher Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Denmark Posts: 6,781	Originally Posted by Blue Mountain If I don't know the PRNG results before I start the simulation, can I say everyone has "free will?" They are, after all, making their own decisions, even if how they decide is ultimately determined by a roll of the cosmic dice, but one I don't control directly. For the purposes of the simulation, I would say yes, this is “free will”, even though I have difficulty seeing it as either “free” or “will”. Quote: However, because I'm using a PRNG, I can set a seed and it will generate the same results run after run. Now I can run the simulation twice: once to see what will eventually happen, and again with the full knowledge of what will happen by the end of the simulation. I know the outcome of every person's life. Do they still have "free will?" Tricky question. The definitions of “free” and “will” were already strained at the first run, and in my mind, they break now, because the outcome is no longer uncertain, no matter how you look at it.
	__________________ Steen -- Jack of all trades - master of none!

1st February 2023, 03:25 AM	#2415
Gulliver Foyle Graduate Poster Join Date: Dec 2014 Location: Cork baaaiii Posts: 1,303	Originally Posted by Emre_1974tr God knows what you will choose with your free will. You choose completely freely. Are you going to answer my last question? Or are you running scared from the truth?

1st February 2023, 06:24 AM	#2416
Leumas Philosopher Join Date: Jul 2011 Posts: 7,010	Originally Posted by Emre_1974tr God knows what you will choose with your free will. You choose completely freely. And the fact that your fecal matter you call Allah sits around watching the evil choices of evil people he made impinge on the free will of innocent children and people and making life miserable for them and torturing them... not to mention the other pestilence and pests he created to also torture more innocent people ... not to mention the badly designed ecosystems that he created to further bring about calamity and mayhem and wretchedness... that he sits about watching and enjoys watching and does nothing to stop.... all this ... proves that your Allah is nothing but a miserable heinous sordid Sadistic cesspool filled with filth. .
Leumas Philosopher Join Date: Jul 2011 Posts: 7,010	__________________ Proverbs 23:9 Speak not in the ears of a fool: for he will despise the wisdom of thy words. Proverbs 26:11 As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly.

1st February 2023, 06:25 AM	#2417
Norman Alexander Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Nov 2014 Location: Dharug & Gundungurra Posts: 14,250	Originally Posted by Blue Mountain Question for the people participating in this thread. I'm a computer programmer by trade. Suppose I program a world simulation where simulated people are living their lives. Over the course of their lives they have to make decisions: what school do I go to? Should I drop out or graduate? Should I have sex at 16 and risk having a baby? Should I hang out with the "bad" group? Should I try drugs and alcohol? Should I accept job offer A or job offer B? Go into the military? Will I marry this person now or wait? Should I have children? Should I invest in this risky venture and risk losing all my money? I use a psuedorandom number generator (PRNG) to determine the choice made by each person in the simulation. Due to the weights I give the PRNG, most of the time they'll make good choices but a small part of the time will make bad or even evil choices. I let the simulation run for 10,000 years to see how many people end up being good enough to make it into paradise and how may are evil enough to be damned. If I don't know the PRNG results before I start the simulation, can I say everyone has "free will?" They are, after all, making their own decisions, even if how they decide is ultimately determined by a roll of the cosmic dice, but one I don't control directly. However, because I'm using a PRNG, I can set a seed and it will generate the same results run after run. Now I can run the simulation twice: once to see what will eventually happen, and again with the full knowledge of what will happen by the end of the simulation. I know the outcome of every person's life. Do they still have "free will?" Then it is definitely not free will. You, as "god", make their choice by "rolling dice". The simulated people get no say in choosing. They do what you choose.
	__________________ _{...our governments are just trying to protect us from terror. In the same way that someone banging a hornets’ nest with a stick is trying to protect us from hornets. Frankie Boyle, Guardian, July 2015}

1st February 2023, 06:41 AM	#2418
Leumas Philosopher Join Date: Jul 2011 Posts: 7,010	Originally Posted by Emre_1974tr God knows..... Allah... a.k.a. YHWH ... is not a god... let alone God.... you have been inculcated and indoctrinated by your parents and society to believe a lie that has been imposed on their ancestors by the sword. A Sumerian Pimp made a bargain with a desert Demon... or Djinn as you say... 4200 years ago... and ever since this Demon... this Devil has been causing mayhem and strife and helping pimps (Isaac) and charlatans and grifters (Jacob) and murderers (Moses) and ethnic cleansing war criminals (Joshua) and treasonous traitorous brigands (David) and camel caravan pillagers (Muhammad) and insane cultists (Jesus), to fool people by hook or by crook. And your poor ancestors were the victims of the latest of those Demonic bargains with the Devil... they had no choice... either kowtow and genuflect (i.e. Islam) to this Devil... or perish.... The tragedy is that now in 2023... you have all the resources to disabuse yourself of this inculcation and brainwashing.... but you still prefer to carry on with this sordid hideous bargain with the Devil/Djinn.... WHY???
Leumas Philosopher Join Date: Jul 2011 Posts: 7,010	__________________ Proverbs 23:9 Speak not in the ears of a fool: for he will despise the wisdom of thy words. Proverbs 26:11 As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly. Last edited by Leumas; 1st February 2023 at 07:10 AM.

1st February 2023, 08:49 AM	#2419
JayUtah Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Sep 2011 Location: The great American West Posts: 22,417	Originally Posted by Blue Mountain If I don't know the PRNG results before I start the simulation, can I say everyone has "free will?" They are, after all, making their own decisions, even if how they decide is ultimately determined by a roll of the cosmic dice, but one I don't control directly. Using probabilistic methods to simulate complex behavior is a time-honored technique. Except the behavior you want to simulate here is moral volition. As you've described the system, each actor in your simulation is making decisions in a vacuum, irrespective of decisions made by neighbors. In real life you might change your decisions based on observing your peers. An actor's decision to cross the street against the light may be affected by observing his peer do that and get creamed by a bus. Human volition is heuristic; you would want to model that if your goal was to find the boundary of moral agency. And this is not just an academic exercise. As our lives become governed more by programmed algorithms, and as we give these algorithms more "intelligence," the question of where to place blame becomes vexing. We're one lifetime or less away from that bus being driven by automation. So when it creams a pedestrian, do we blame the soulless bus? The pedestrian who acted unpredictably? The guys who wrote the code as conscientiously as they could? Quote: I know the outcome of every person's life. Do they still have "free will?" What you know or don't know is irrelevant. Let's say you seed the second run of the simulation and then get creamed by a bus. The simulation proceeds as programmed, but no one alive knows the outcome of the second run. But it will proceed as programmed. It's not volitional, but rather just richly complex yet deterministic. The outcome doesn't change, even if no one knows what that outcome will be. Your having survived to passively observe the process, and your knowledge of the outcome, don't affect the outcome. And that's why the philosophical discussion about free will outside of religion seeks to understand whether the universe is simply richly complex yet deterministic. The question is really whether a moral agency exists that transcends determinism. It can't really be investigated by simple automata. And I guarantee a bunch of desert nomads thousands of years ago didn't suddenly stumble onto the right answer.

2nd February 2023, 05:04 AM	#2420
Blue Mountain Resident Skeptical Hobbit Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Waging war on woo-woo in Winnipeg Posts: 7,286	Originally Posted by JayUtah Using probabilistic methods to simulate complex behavior is a time-honored technique. Except the behavior you want to simulate here is moral volition. As you've described the system, each actor in your simulation is making decisions in a vacuum, irrespective of decisions made by neighbors. In real life you might change your decisions based on observing your peers. An actor's decision to cross the street against the light may be affected by observing his peer do that and get creamed by a bus. Human volition is heuristic; you would want to model that if your goal was to find the boundary of moral agency. That's an excellent critique of my poorly thought out simulation. Let's re-write it so that only the initial conditions of people's tendency toward virtuous or (for lack of a better word) evil decisions are set, and they make their decisions based on that. Starting conditions include social class and relative wealth. Many events in the simulation can be predefined, and some (winning the lottery, a terrible accident killing or maiming someone, a natural disaster) can be randomized. In this way the people's decisions aren't random, only what they're exposed to is. Now run the simulation twice with the same seed in the PRNG. The second time around, now that we know how everything will turn out, do the people in the first simulation have free will? Do they still have it in the second? Or, as you pointed out, because it's strictly deterministic (to the extend that PRNG will always generate the same initial conditions and "random" events) the second run doesn't matter. And for that matter, neither does the first one, really. If we keep the same initial settings but change the random events, do the automata still have free will, or are they always reacting in a deterministic manner due to their programming? Which, of course, is something this topic is attempting to discuss. Do we have free will or are we simply acting an a deterministic manner (albeit an extremely complex one?) Quote: And this is not just an academic exercise. As our lives become governed more by programmed algorithms, and as we give these algorithms more "intelligence," the question of where to place blame becomes vexing. We're one lifetime or less away from that bus being driven by automation. So when it creams a pedestrian, do we blame the soulless bus? The pedestrian who acted unpredictably? The guys who wrote the code as conscientiously as they could? Or do we not seek to lay blame but rather work to prevent the bad outcome from happening again? Quote: What you know or don't know is irrelevant. Let's say you seed the second run of the simulation and then get creamed by a bus. The simulation proceeds as programmed, but no one alive knows the outcome of the second run. But it will proceed as programmed. It's not volitional, but rather just richly complex yet deterministic. The outcome doesn't change, even if no one knows what that outcome will be. Your having survived to passively observe the process, and your knowledge of the outcome, don't affect the outcome. And that's why the philosophical discussion about free will outside of religion seeks to understand whether the universe is simply richly complex yet deterministic. The question is really whether a moral agency exists that transcends determinism. It can't really be investigated by simple automata. And I guarantee a bunch of desert nomads thousands of years ago didn't suddenly stumble onto the right answer. An excellent take on the entire discussion. It does bring up questions like would Putin still be Putin if he was born a year earlier or later than he actually was? Would he still end up as president of Russia or remain a taxi driver? I confess I haven't thought too deeply on these questions myself. I'm afraid that if I started, I could probably spend the rest of my life doing so and still not be any further ahead.
	__________________ The social illusion reigns to-day upon all the heaped-up ruins of the past, and to it belongs the future. The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error, if error seduce them. Gustav Le Bon, The Crowd, 1895 (from the French)

2nd February 2023, 11:51 AM	#2421
Leumas Philosopher Join Date: Jul 2011 Posts: 7,010	Originally Posted by Blue Mountain ... would Putin still be Putin if he was born a year earlier or later than he actually was? Would he still end up as president of Russia or remain a taxi driver? ...I confess I haven't thought too deeply on these questions myself... Please read these posts: http://www.internationalskeptics.com...5#post13957605 http://www.internationalskeptics.com...6#post13955006 http://www.internationalskeptics.com...6#post13982526 http://www.internationalskeptics.com...2#post13982602 http://www.internationalskeptics.com...5#post13955065 http://www.internationalskeptics.com...1#post13955571 http://www.internationalskeptics.com...0#post13955030
Leumas Philosopher Join Date: Jul 2011 Posts: 7,010	__________________ Proverbs 23:9 Speak not in the ears of a fool: for he will despise the wisdom of thy words. Proverbs 26:11 As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly. Last edited by Leumas; 2nd February 2023 at 11:54 AM.

2nd February 2023, 04:10 PM	#2422
Emre_1974tr Graduate Poster Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Turkey Posts: 1,192	Originally Posted by Gulliver Foyle Are you going to answer my last question? Or are you running scared from the truth? I have already answered. If you explain what you don't understand, maybe I can help you again.

2nd February 2023, 04:27 PM	#2423
Leumas Philosopher Join Date: Jul 2011 Posts: 7,010	Originally Posted by Emre_1974tr I have already answered. If you explain what you don't understand, maybe I can help you again. And your answers are WONDERFUL... because they show irrefragably how your Allah is a pernicious sordid cesspool replete with mephitic deleterious detrimental filth....
Leumas Philosopher Join Date: Jul 2011 Posts: 7,010	__________________ Proverbs 23:9 Speak not in the ears of a fool: for he will despise the wisdom of thy words. Proverbs 26:11 As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly. Last edited by Leumas; 2nd February 2023 at 04:29 PM.

2nd February 2023, 11:00 PM	#2424
Pixel42 Schrödinger's cat Join Date: May 2004 Location: Malmesbury, UK Posts: 15,313	Originally Posted by Emre_1974tr I have already answered. If you explain what you don't understand, maybe I can help you again. You're the one who is failing to understand. Several posters have tried to explain the mistake you are making to you, but you still don't get it. You just keep repeating the same mistake, and refuse to even try to understand what is wrong with it. Until you do, there's no way to help you.
	__________________ "If you trust in yourself ... and believe in your dreams ... and follow your star ... you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things" - Terry Pratchett

3rd February 2023, 02:05 AM	#2425
Emre_1974tr Graduate Poster Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Turkey Posts: 1,192	Originally Posted by Pixel42 You're the one who is failing to understand. Several posters have tried to explain the mistake you are making to you, but you still don't get it. You just keep repeating the same mistake, and refuse to even try to understand what is wrong with it. Until you do, there's no way to help you. It's the other way around. You are the ones in the situation you are talking about. If there is anything I can do for you, please do not hesitate to ask me for help.

3rd February 2023, 02:21 AM	#2426
Pixel42 Schrödinger's cat Join Date: May 2004 Location: Malmesbury, UK Posts: 15,313	Originally Posted by Emre_1974tr It's the other way around. You are the ones in the situation you are talking about. If there is anything I can do for you, please do not hesitate to ask me for help. The several people pointing out your mistakes are all very obviously more intelligent and knowledgeable than you are about pretty much everything, including the contents of the Qu'ran, so this is just silly. If you were the more intelligent and knowledgeable one you would be able to defend your arguments by countering the valid criticisms others are making of them. But you don't. You ignore everything they say, and just keep stubbornly repeating the arguments and statements they have already demolished.
	__________________ "If you trust in yourself ... and believe in your dreams ... and follow your star ... you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things" - Terry Pratchett Last edited by Pixel42; 3rd February 2023 at 02:31 AM.

3rd February 2023, 03:29 AM	#2427
Emre_1974tr Graduate Poster Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Turkey Posts: 1,192	Originally Posted by Emre_1974tr It's the other way around. You are the ones in the situation you are talking about. If there is anything I can do for you, please do not hesitate to ask me for help. As I said, I'm always ready to lend you a helping hand. As long as you want to get better.

3rd February 2023, 03:40 AM	#2428
Gulliver Foyle Graduate Poster Join Date: Dec 2014 Location: Cork baaaiii Posts: 1,303	Originally Posted by Emre_1974tr I have already answered. If you explain what you don't understand, maybe I can help you again. No you haven't answered. You've just given circular non answers that have no meaning. For example you've never once even given an attempt at explaining how I have a choice when it is known for certain ahead of time what I will do. Goddidit is not an answer to any question.

3rd February 2023, 03:48 AM	#2429
Pixel42 Schrödinger's cat Join Date: May 2004 Location: Malmesbury, UK Posts: 15,313	Originally Posted by Emre_1974tr As I said, I'm always ready to lend you a helping hand. As long as you want to get better. I'm always keen to learn. Unfortunately you are not, you prefer to wallow in ignorant superstition.
	__________________ "If you trust in yourself ... and believe in your dreams ... and follow your star ... you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things" - Terry Pratchett

3rd February 2023, 03:57 AM	#2430
Leumas Philosopher Join Date: Jul 2011 Posts: 7,010	Originally Posted by Emre_1974tr As I said, I'm always ready to lend you a helping hand. As long as you want to get better. Yes... please help me understand why you believe in a DEMON/Djinn who does the job of blowing in the vulva of a little human married girl and makes her pregnant and then... despite bragging about himself impregnating her with his job of blowing in her well kempt vulva... he denies his ill begotten son is his son??? And that is after he told everyone that his friend, whom he prefers and favors above all of humanity, is a Sumerian cowardly PIMP??? Not to mention his other favored above all of humanity persons are a treasonous brigand and a murdering ingrate and grifting deceiving charlatan??? Why do you still... in 2023... believe the lie that this DEMON/Djinn is your sky daddy and you are willing to deceive and inveigle and cajole others while you are hawking and peddling this DEVIL you keep obeisantly genuflecting and being servile to??? .
Leumas Philosopher Join Date: Jul 2011 Posts: 7,010	__________________ Proverbs 23:9 Speak not in the ears of a fool: for he will despise the wisdom of thy words. Proverbs 26:11 As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly.

3rd February 2023, 06:10 AM	#2431
Steve Penultimate Amazing Join Date: May 2005 Location: Sydney Nova Scotia Posts: 12,195	Originally Posted by Gulliver Foyle No you haven't answered. You've just given circular non answers that have no meaning. For example you've never once even given an attempt at explaining how I have a choice when it is known for certain ahead of time what I will do. Goddidit is not an answer to any question. Goddidit is the only answer the religious have. Belief in gods is not rational so no rational arguments can come from it.
	__________________ Caption from and old New Yorker cartoon - Why am I shouting? Because I'm wrong!"

3rd February 2023, 08:26 AM	#2432
JayUtah Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Sep 2011 Location: The great American West Posts: 22,417	Originally Posted by Emre_1974tr I have already answered. If you explain what you don't understand, maybe I can help you again. You clearly don't understand the problem because you just keep dumbly repeating it and telling everyone that you've addressed their rebuttals. No, you haven't answered to anyone's satisfaction. They're dissatisfied with your answers not because they don't understand what you're trying to say, but because what you're trying to say is demonstrably wrong. You haven't even acknowledged any of my posts, much less tried to answer them, so to say you've completely answered is just a flat-out lie. It skirts the rules to say so, but you simply don't have the brains to have this discussion. You don't even know Islamic teaching on the subject of predestination, much less what anyone outside your religion says. You have cartoonishly simple models for determinism and volition, and your solution to the inherent tension between them is simply to declare that both somehow hold. Originally Posted by Emre_1974tr As I said, I'm always ready to lend you a helping hand. As long as you want to get better. And that's really why you're here, isn't it? You're trying to maintain the delusion of being some sort of moral and doctrinal guru. You'll deign to help us out of our depravity and ignorance so long as we prostrate ourselves before the Altar of Emre. This isn't your mosque. This is a temple of reason and critical thinking. You're here as a guest—and not a very well-behaved one. Most of us seem to be amused watching you rail against Christians and other religious; we don't care about sectarian turmoil. But when you claim to have superior understanding on a point that secular thinkers have wrestled with for thousands of years, you have to deliver the goods. "I'm religious, therefore better," is not the goods.

3rd February 2023, 09:43 AM	#2433
steenkh Philosopher Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Denmark Posts: 6,781	Originally Posted by Emre_1974tr It's the other way around. You are the ones in the situation you are talking about. If there is anything I can do for you, please do not hesitate to ask me for help. I can support Pixel42 here: Emre, you are the one to make logical mistakes here all the time, and you seem to know very little of the subjects you deal with. Why do you think you have gained zero (0) converts here, and people have been pointing out your mistakes from the very beginning? You invariably ignore arguments against you, and just declare that you are right, and we are wrong. That is not a great way to try to convince others.
	__________________ Steen -- Jack of all trades - master of none!

3rd February 2023, 11:04 AM	#2434
Gord_in_Toronto Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Jul 2006 Posts: 23,523	Originally Posted by Emre_1974tr It's the other way around. You are the ones in the situation you are talking about. If there is anything I can do for you, please do not hesitate to ask me for help. Hmm. OK. Can Allah create a rock so heavy he cannot lift it?
	__________________ "Reality is what's left when you cease to believe." Philip K. Dick

3rd February 2023, 02:58 PM	#2435
Emre_1974tr Graduate Poster Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Turkey Posts: 1,192	Originally Posted by Pixel42 I'm always keen to learn. Unfortunately you are not, you prefer to wallow in ignorant superstition. No, you are not. You are in the mire of superstition and you are completely closed to learning.