From: johnsd2@jec306.its.rpi.edu.its1 (Daniel Norman Johnson)
Subject: Re: A Reply to "Sources of 'Real' Atheism"
Reply-To: johnsd2@jec306.its.rpi.edu.its1
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1992 20:28:50 GMT

In article 6ro@acsu.buffalo.edu, acsormd@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu (Randall Desmond) writes:
> 
> 	In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful...

Personally, I dont think you need to borrow athourity from any
god to post here. :) But whatever floats your boat.

> There was a post a while ago entitled "Sources of 'Real' Atheism" which I
> would like to discuss. It is the "5 main sources of contemporary atheism"
> included in that post, and outlined below, that will be shown obscure to
> an ideological concept of atheism, if not completely wrong.

Some of them will anyway. But not all. Onward...

> "1. Religion demands too little. There is no rigorous discipline, morally
> or rationally."
> 
> This statement can be qualified to be true for some religions. However
> it neglects the fact that atheism itself demands nothing and is not defined 
> by rigorous discipline, morallity, or rationality.

Here, I agree. Atheism doesn't even pretend to provide moral guidance.
(personally, Id say this is a good thing.. I dont see how you can
use set of rules as a moral guide, anyway)

> As an adherent to any faith would hold their faith to be true, I am no
> different. The point I would like to make is that if this is really a
> source of contemporary belief in general, Islam far outweighs atheism 
> on this point.

I'd say it wasn't such a source, but you can say Islam outweighs
Atheism anyway. (indeed, you do) :)

> Without illustration, I couldn't make this point. Therefore let me just touch
> on some basics of how we can see Islam fulfilling this "requirement" of
> validity (i.e. according to the atheist).
> 
> Islam demands 5 formal Salah (prayers) a day at different intervals of
> the day with intense concentration. In the month of Ramadan, according to 
> the Islamic calendar, muslims must fast from sun-up to sun-down. These two 
> practices indeed require discipline.

Certainly. But it seems to be they are busywork. They accomplish
nothing that I can see, anyway.

> There are rights of Allah (God)
> rights of muslims, neighbors, relatives, and humanity (not necessarily in
> that order). There are also personal rights and responsibilities. All
> these rights are described in full through Islam (which means submission)
> and must be strived for. What these rights entail is not the point of this 
> post. We are only illustrating the relevence of Islam to the above point.

You haven't demonstrated it to me, yet. "Islam" describes these
rights, you say. What do you mean by "Islam"? Do you mean your
holy book, the Koran (or is it Quran? There seem to be various spellings,
and I dont know which is right) says this? Or is it a tradition? Is
it really rights, in the same sence as "right of free speach" or
are we talking about rules (as in "Thou Shalt Not Kill")? Each can be
expressed in terms of the other (approximately); how does Islam express it?

And what ARE these rights? Certainly the self-proclaimed Islamic states
in the middle-east don't impress me much with their morality, anyway.
I understand these aren't 'real' Islamic states- but if they are not,
what is?

> The rationality of this discipline can be viewed as two-fold; joining the 
> relationship with the Creator and creating awareness of the human condition.
> Please keep in mind we are not discussing the existence of the Creator, only
> the disciplinary position of the religion called Islam.

Check.

> 
> "2. ....<stuff deleted leading to the two points below>...
> 	a. Religion is an excape from responsibility for our own
> 	   self-creation, value judgements, and so destroys freedom,
> 	   reason, and dignity <Sarte-Cumus>
> 	b. Religion is pathological, the sign of a sick person ...<Freud>"
> 
> Wrong. It is hard to counter the lack of examples given, but I'll try.

I find it rather hard to understand source #2a, nor do I undserstand
your responce to it. :(

But that's no big deal. To save bandwidth, Im gonna nuke your responce
to it: 

[Ka-Blooie!]

> On the point addressing religion as a sign of a sick person. Who is 
> more sick the one who believes something or the one who defines his
> belief on a counter belief of the one who holds a belief?

That's a nice general phrasing. Let me put some specifics to it, and
see if you still buy this position. If I may plagaurise from a previous
article, lets define "unicornist" as someone who believes in
invisible pink unicorns dancing in his walls. Therefore, an aunicornist
is one who does not so believe. That's nice and parallel with the
theist=one who believes in god(s), and atheist=one who does not believe
in god(s).

So, who is sicker, the unicornist or the aunicornist?

> "3. Theistic religions represent an outmoded world-view which is no longer
> valid. Science has made the 'God hypothesis' obsolete <Laplace-positivist>"
> 
> How?

God is no longer required to explain anything in the universe.
He is unnecessary. That, I think, is what is meant by science having
made the God hypothesis obsolete. This is one of many such hypothosises;
the idea of cyrstal spheres holding up celestial bodies is annother.

> I think the Qur'an speaks for itself when it addresses science through it's
> verses. Some of these points are:
> 
> 	1. Palestine as the lowest geographical point on earth (i.e. landwise)

Does it SAY landwise? There are very deep trenches in the sea, but
if it actually says landwise we'll excuse that. :) If not, I won't-
"geographical point" very clearly implies that it could be underwater
to me. Otherwise, why such vague  phrasing?

Also, I never heard anyone else claim Palestine was so deep. Where's
your info coming from?

> 	2. method of milk production in a cow

About which I know nothing...

> 	3. the dominant femanine nature of the bee community

There is nothing "feminine" about queen bees, other than that they
lay eggs. They are not even vaguely like humans.

> 	4. the intricate communication of the ant community

Intricate for insects. Primitive for humans. This goes both ways.

> 	5. the barrier between salt and sea water

What do you mean? I dont get it.

> 	6. the expansion of the universe

Nifty..

> 	7. developement of embryo in womb

The ancients could have discovered this easily.

> 	8. creation of heavens and earth

That they were created, you mean? Or do you mean your creation
myth agrees well the the current scientific theories? How's that?
What happens when those theories change, anyway?

> 	9. function of mountains on the earths crust

"function"? What do you mean by this?

> 	10. the roundness of the earth

Hardly difficult to figure out this. The greeks knew about this.

> 	(there are more but they slip my mind)
> 	(**If anyone wants the verses, let me know.)

I do- please post them, tho. I've seen this argument before-
on soc.relgion.islam, I think it was, and the  passaged quoted
were quite lame. But perhaps you can do better.

> Islam encourages education (psst. even science) :)

GASP! :)

> Guess where the words "alamanc", "algebra", and "alkali" come from?

From the Islamic empire that ruled northern Africa, Spain, the Middle
East and probably some other places I dont remember. They did very
well for themselves- and for us, since in addition to their own
thought, they saved the work of aristotle and other Greek philosophers.

> Who do you think started the development of modern science?

I would place that with the ancient greeks (particulary Aristotle-
indeed, this is why I mentioned him above) who started trying to understand
their world without bothering with any unnecessary superstition.

> Any
> medical student out there know about the muslim contrabutions to medicine?

Alas, Im not a medical student, and I dont know. :(

> Suffice it to say that Europe's Dark Ages were a time of intellectual
> growth in the Islamic world.

Most definitely.

> "4. Religious assertions are *unintelligible* or "cognitively meaningless",
> more emotional or ideological than factual in content. <Ayre-Edwards>"
> 
> Which ones?

He probably means things like the Trinity- the three who are one who are
three who are one, etc. :)

Some much assert that omnipotence is like that, too. (Im not
so sure, tho)

> "5. Theism is contradictory and internally incoherent--the problem of evil,
> incoherent descriptions of divine attributes <Flew-Kenny>"
> 
> I would appreciate an explanation of what is meant here, is it in the post of 
> "The Incoherence of Theism"? If so, could someone either post or mail me
> the other two portions of the original 3 part post. I only obtained the 
> first post "Sources of 'Real' Atheism". Thank you in advanced.

I didn't see "The Incoherence of Theism", but I the idea is that
some elements of God are mutally exclusive.

The problem of Evil goes something like this:
God is all-Good, right? So he wont do anything evil, or allow anything
evil to happen that could be avoided? God is all knowing, right? So
no evil thing can escape his notice? God is all powerful, so there
is no evil thing which he must tolerate- anything that he wants, he
can have without any evil involved, just by fiat. Hence no evil can
co-exist with God.

But there is evil in the world.

So there is no God with the three properties I listed.

> All these points from "Sources of 'Real' Atheism" (like the term atheism 
> itself) define this belief-of-non-belief in terms of the theists. I have
> never heard of any theist define their religion in terms of unbelief (only
> defining what is wrong after the articles of faith are established).

Atheism does not claim to be a complete believe system, with all
the usual Real Truths, moral guides and all that, as present in
a religion. Rather it is a description of one element of a belief
system- that the atheist does not believe in God. Everything else
is up for grabs.

This does not make Atheism any the less valid; it just makes it less
big.

> I find all the above points (with the exceptions of the unexpounded points)
> to fail the "ideology" of atheism and actually support Islam.

Its unclear to me what you mean by the "ideology" of atheism. I do
not see how this supports Islam.

But its nice to see a Muslim show up here. All those Christians can get
so boring after a while.. variety is the spice of life, ya know. :)
---
			- Dan Johnson
And God said "Jeeze, this is dull"... and it *WAS* dull. Genesis 0:0

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