[Vision2020] Follow up - Islam the religion of peace!

Wed Jun 6 18:44:20 PDT 2007

Ted,

  Thanks for the comments. However, I do have to disagree atheism is the most logical because it gains nothing. Even if it were true that there was no God, would we really want to believe such a thing as a society as whole?

  Second, I disagree that religion is the cause of anything negative. I do believe however, that men pervert religion and spirituality as they do everything else they come into contact with. If religion DID not get abused it would be the only thing used by men that has not. Societies that have no God are just as evil and destructive as those with a God. Which tells us it is man's doing, not God's.

  There is a button that can be pushed to cause peace, it is connected to a nuclear bomb. A nuclear war would cause peace, but it isn't a price I would be willing to pay. Sometimes peace is not always the best answer to our problems and war is not always the wrong answer. 

  One a final note, I was thinking about what you said about not knowing something absolutely and following it is blindly following. You must then say that you are not an atheist because you cannot know absolutely that there is not a God. You can absolutely know that there is a God if there is one, because he can make it so. But if there isn't a God, you are limited to your human brain which knows little outside this tiny little planet which doesn't even make up 1% of the solar system. 

  Best,

  Donovan

Ted Moffett <starbliss at gmail.com> wrote:

  Donovan et. al.

  I am going back to your original comment that prompted my response.

  I understand that many people believe there is good evidence for whatever form of God they believe in.  If I had a thought control machine that could make everyone in the world think like I do, I would not push that button.  How boring the world would be if everyone thought like I do.  If I had a peace button on the machine, however, I might push that one, while allowing everyone to still follow whatever faith or belief system they choose, peacefully of course. 

  You appear to insist in your comment below that being agnostic is "illogical," that belief in "God" is the most logical approach.  I was arguing for the agnostic position, in an attempt to make it appear logical, as a possibility that might be closer to the truth than theism. 

  Religious absolutism and dogmatism are negative forces in the world.  This applies also to the secular dogmatics, like Pol Pot or Stalin, who made Communism into a kind of secular religion, justifying their horrors by secular ideological absolutism.  Religious and ideological absolutism, besides being very questionable, given the uncertainty of human knowledge and belief, is often used to justify the worst of human behavior. 

  Of course, many of the most faithful argue that without surrendering to an absolutist ideological belief system, doubt creates a state of mind that results in anti-social behavior, in a break down of values, disintegration of meaning, etc.  There may be some truth to this claim.  But there is a middle ground between nihilism and absolutism that I think can minimize the extremism of behavior associate with absolutist belief systems, while still allowing meaning and strong positive values to flourish.  Finding the balance between rational doubt and unquestioning absolutism is perhaps not such an easy task. 

  Ted Moffett

  On 5/31/07, Donovan Arnold <donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com> wrote:     Carl,

  It is illogical to be agnostic. If you die, which you will, and there is in fact a God, you best have worshiped him. On the other, if there is no God, it won't count against you. 

  Best,

  Donovan

---------------------------------
Now that's room service! Choose from over 150,000 hotels 
in 45,000 destinations on Yahoo! Travel to find your fit.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20070606/2775f45b/attachment.html 