How do you know the Quran is not the word of God?

[icehorse]

Based on 'not allow', I assumed that there must be legal aspect because it's not likely to have much effect if you just give it as a recommendation. If all it is is a recommendation then, no problem, recommend till the cows come home. Governments recommend all sorts, although it would likely have as much effect on parents as Dawkins saying it in a lecture.

Well if we use cigarettes as an example, that campaign was somehow more than just a recommendation.

I'm saying pursuing ideological pipe dreams is a waste of time.

This goes back to the idea that many Secular Humanists think their values are really a neutral expression of reason, rather than an ideological product of a specific cultural and historical evolution. Basically, they are an offshoot of Christianity fused with aspects of Greek/Enlightenment rationalism. Very few who subscribe to such values will accept this though, which means they fail to understand why the growth of wealth and education around the world hasn't ushered in the End of History type scenario that was always the assumption among such people.

When you go to a country which is neither Christian, nor significantly influenced by Enlightenment rationalism and try to introduce The Most Uniquely Secular Humanist Policy in the World Ever, it doesn't work and will not work in any timescale that makes even basic speculation of value.

You might be correct, but historical and current immigration trends would indicate that SH simply IS better, and people in non-secular societies know it.

 

[Kelly of the Phoenix]

I consider all the Abrahamic texts to be as much the Word of God as the others. Take that how you will.

 

[Augustus]

You might be correct, but historical and current immigration trends would indicate that SH simply IS better, and people in non-secular societies know it.

Careful with that line of reasoning, America is still majority Christian, not SH and is still the biggest draw. In which case what does it say?

Immigration is largely driven by economic dimensions.

Well if we use cigarettes as an example, that campaign was somehow more than just a recommendation.

That was mainly tax and making it more difficult to smoke via legal restrictions. Also cigarettes are very clearly, objectively harmful in a manner that cannot be denied.

The case against teaching religion relies mostly on debatable, anecdotal evidence and the teleological assumption of Progress resulting in more positive outcomes in the long run. It is based on an ideological rationale, not a scientific one.

An interesting article by John Gray, although I imagine you strongly disagree with it

Deluded liberals can’t keep clinging to a dead idea
Anyone looking to classical liberal thinkers to deliver the West from its present difficulties is fixated on an irretrievable past

...Mill never doubted that a universal civilisation grounded in liberal values was the eventual destination of all of humankind. With a few perfunctory reservations, this remains liberal orthodoxy today. The empirical basis of this orthodoxy is slight. Twenty-first-century liberals claim to base their values on observation and experience. Some, like Mill, have posited a science of society that supports these values.

But there is nothing scientific in the belief that a liberal way of life that existed in parts of Europe and North America over the few past hundred years is set to spread throughout the world. If we rely on observable facts and trends, the likelihood must be that a liberal world order belongs in the past...

Mill’s liberalism did not rest on experience or observation. Though he was not raised as a Christian – his father, a disciple of Bentham, made sure of that – Mill was like other Victorian thinkers in relying on ideas that make little sense outside of a theistic world-view. The belief that “man” is a collective agent working out its destiny in history is a relic of Christianity, unknown in polytheistic cultures and non-western religions such as Buddhism and Taoism.

The very idea that humans share a common historical destination is a remnant of monotheism. Reframing the universal clams of western religion, Mill’s secular liberalism – like his science of society – was not the result of any process of rational inquiry but an expression of faith....

The time has passed when the West could dictate the terms of human development. Yet the delusion persists that the growth of wealth will give liberal values another lease on life. The sub-Marxian mantra that expanding middle classes will demand liberal freedoms as societies become richer is repeated endlessly in business gatherings and academic seminars.

No matter that Putin and Xi continue to be fêted by the middle classes in Russia and China, while in Europe they flock to Orbán and Salvini, Austria’s Sebastian Kurz and Jimmie Åkesson, leader of the Swedish Democrats. Never mind that that middle-class graduates are demanding that liberal freedoms be shut down in the institutions that once embodied them. Best not dwell on such facts, for they suggest that a liberal world order was an historical accident that cannot be repeated.

https://unherd.com/2018/10/deluded-liberals-cant-keep-clinging-dead-idea/

 

[icehorse]

Careful with that line of reasoning, America is still majority Christian, not SH and is still the biggest draw. In which case what does it say?

Immigration is largely driven by economic dimensions.

The US is majority Christian, AND it's secular. As for economics, yes, I agree. And I would say that the sustained economic success of the west is an indicator of a better system.

The case against teaching religion relies mostly on debatable, anecdotal evidence and the teleological assumption of Progress resulting in more positive outcomes in the long run. It is based on an ideological rationale, not a scientific one.

While it's not perfect, I believe the world would be a far better place if we all supported and defended the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). In many religions, apostasy is cause for being shunned or ousted from the community or even worse it's a crime and often it's a capital crime. In all of these cases, the indoctrinated child has been denied a basic human right called for in the UDHR, the right to choose their religion. I don't think that's anecdotal.

If you value freedom of religion, then the evidence is that secular societies are the best at upholding that value.

 

[Augustus]

The US is majority Christian, AND it's secular.

Secular and Secular Humanist are not the same.

And I would say that the sustained economic success of the west is an indicator of a better system.

If we saw that non-Western system began to economically outperform a Western system would that become evidence that it was a better system even if it utilised principles that you do not agree with?

While it's not perfect, I believe the world would be a far better place if we all supported and defended the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). In many religions, apostasy is cause for being shunned or ousted from the community or even worse it's a crime and often it's a capital crime. In all of these cases, the indoctrinated child has been denied a basic human right called for in the UDHR, the right to choose their religion. I don't think that's anecdotal.

A society in which apostasy is a crime is one which has a very different concept of rights, ultimately it places collective above individual rights in certain situations. Cultures built on differing axioms are often hard to reconcile, for example you probably cannot imagine the mindset it takes to commit an honour killing, but seem to implicitly assume that it must be easier to go from that mindset to a humanistic one.

Humanist ideology, premised on The Idea of Progress, assumes the universalisation of liberal morality is the natural, and teleological, purpose of History. That which prevents this goal from emerging, mostly viewed as religion and irrationality, is to be purged from society (by benign, or occasionally, violent design)

Universalism is utopian though, and in this case reflects a kind of secular eschatology, where liberals assume everyone is destined to become a liberal as they become more prosperous and educated. The evidence does not support this in any great sense.

The policy you are proposing is basically an attempt to 'speed up' this Humanist eschaton. When Christians pray for the return of Christ to cure societies ills you would consider that was wasteful and harmful as it prevented people from seeking practical solutions.

The Humanist, who likes to assume they are post-ideological, rarely questions whether or not the goal they are pursuing is as improbable as that of the Christian, and thus their attempts to achieve it are also wasteful and harmful. "How can that which is done for such good intentions be wrong?"

Once you give up belief in the (very religious) myth of universalism, ways to mitigate the problems of the world start from very different principles.

 

[icehorse]

Humanist ideology, premised on The Idea of Progress, assumes the universalisation of liberal morality is the natural, and teleological, purpose of History. That which prevents this goal from emerging, mostly viewed as religion and irrationality, is to be purged from society (by benign, or occasionally, violent design)

That's not my definition. My definition is - more or less - humans can and must solve their own problems. That means, no calls for help from some invisible, supernatural "higher authority". This is appropriate, since religion tends to codify the morality of the primitive, ignorant men who wrote scripture and sold it as divinely inspired.

==

As I read the rest of your response, it seems that your message boils down to something like: "who's to say that the SH idea of morality is any better than the religious view of morality". Is that a fair summary?

If so, I'll ask you: "Who are we to say that we have NOT gained some expertise in morality in the last 1400 years or 2000 years or more?". I think it's fairly outrageous to imagine that the idea of morality is somehow exempt from progress.

 

[AdamRaja]

creator is either a psychopath or a sociopath.

or maybe you just are!

 

[AdamRaja]

I've heard so many Christians say that they are certain the Bible is the inerrant word of God. So certain are they, that they devote their life to it and are willing to die for it.

However, Muslims are certain that the Quran is the word of God, and they're willing to die for their beliefs as well. How do I know you have anymore credibility than a Muslim who thinks the Quran is the word of God?

Of course, you know that the Bible is without error and it is the word of God. You just know. Muslims just know that the Quran is the inerrant word of God. Who's right and who's wrong?

Can't they both be wrong?

I have spoken to a few Christians who don't believe the Bible is error free and has been changed "slightly".
Of course in Islam we believe the Bible does indeed have errors, stuff left out, etc.
I do believe the Quran is perfection and only gets better with depth of understanding.

If you read a book with a golf ball size consciousness you'll have a golf ball understanding..
If you read with basketball size consciousness you'll have a basketball size understanding.

It's called Faith. No one can prove or disprove God to the masses. No one can prove authenticity.
Ask either side who's right and they both say me.. Its important to just see what is within you!

 

[icehorse]

or maybe you just are!

Well I'm pretty sure I'm not a sociopath or a psychopath, but that misses the point. Psychopathy and sociopathy are conditions that have real definitions, and by today's standards, the authors of Abrahamic scripture promote the kinds of behaviors that in modern times would constitute psychopathic or sociopathic behavior.

 

[AdamRaja]

Well I'm pretty sure I'm not a sociopath or a psychopath, but that misses the point. Psychopathy and sociopathy are conditions that have real definitions, and by today's standards, the authors of Abrahamic scripture promote the kinds of behaviors that in modern times would constitute psychopathic or sociopathic behavior.

You're awesome. Thanks

 

[Augustus]

That's not my definition. My definition is - more or less - humans can and must solve their own problems. That means, no calls for help from some invisible, supernatural "higher authority".

You might not recognise it as your definition, but that is due to a tendency to assume a cultural dependent ideology is in fact universal and somewhat neutral.

As I read the rest of your response, it seems that your message boils down to something like: "who's to say that the SH idea of morality is any better than the religious view of morality". Is that a fair summary?

No. My point is that simply telling people they should be SHs is like telling someone with clinical depression that they should just cheer up.

The evidence says it's not going to happen, and you will probably do more harm than good by doing so. Even though you have their best interests at heart and being free of depression might well be in their best interest.

The problem with universalist ideologies is that they culturally dependent myths, so they just don't see things from your perspective. SH is just an offshoot of Western European Christianity.

I don't see any solutions to such an intrinsic part of human society, just ways to mitigate problems caused by cultural diversity.

Using America as an example. You basically want to make America less religious by centralised, top down social engineering. I would advocate decentralisation as the best way to deal with these issue. This would result in certain areas enacting laws that reflect conservative Christian values and other areas which enact more liberal humanistic values.

The problems today are that it's 'winner takes all', and people worry about the other side gaining power over their lives. This leads to division and hatred. In a decentralised system, I don't care what other municipalities do because they don't affect me. If I happen to live in the wrong place, then I can move to somewhere that better matches my values.

If some people want a theocracy, then that's their choice, and why should I care if I don't have to reside there?

If so, I'll ask you: "Who are we to say that we have NOT gained some expertise in morality in the last 1400 years or 2000 years or more?". I think it's fairly outrageous to imagine that the idea of morality is somehow exempt from progress.

You were just denying you subscribed to an ideology founded upon The Idea of Progress.

That you find it 'outrageous' that some people don't subscribe to something as culturally specific as the Idea of Progress is illustrative of why you fail grasp my point.

 

[Faithofchristian]

Hello my brother
I hope you are fine
One of the conditions I have to do is to be a Muslim
Faith in the Torah and the Gospel, and Jesus as a holy prophet of God and the birth of Virgin Mary.

(Jesus Is not just a Prophet, Jesus is God in flesh and blood body
God made himself a body, God incased himself in the body)


And that Islam came to correct the misconceptions attributed to Christianity as the Trinity and other misconceptions

( Islam did not come to correct Christianity.
Christianity is here to correct Islam in the error of Islam ways)

Many in the time of the Prophet Muhammad Islam and many objected because he believed that Muhammad is a liar.
( Muhammad is a false Prophet. Muhammad live in desert, Jesus gave Prophecy 600 years before Muhammad was born, about false prophet in desert)


It found an ancient version of Barnabas before the Prophet Muhammad talking about the Prophet Muhammad
Secret £14million Bible in which 'Jesus predicts coming of Prophet Muhammad' unearthed in Turkey | Daily Mail Online.

( Jesus give Prophecy about Muhammad being false prophet in desert)

Solomon 's wife was singing a song of Mohammedem.

( Solomon's wife sing no song of mohammedem)

The evidence is that Jesus was not a God because he was a living being built within a creature
The Creator is built into a creature's body
This is not reasonable

( Jesus is God in body of flesh and blood.
God made himself a body, and then God incased himself in the body)

May Allah have mercy on us all
GOD bless you (^_^)

shalom and salam

 

[Hawkins]

The problem of humans is that they don't know what human witnessing actually is.

======
Humans in general don't know or don't understand what human witnessing is.

Human witnessing is the fundamental way for a truth of any kind to be conveyed among humans. There are several key factors in the process of human witnessing. In the end when taking a closer examination, only Christianity can be the truth, or there's no truth at all.

Under most circumstance, humans are incapable of doing direct examination of a truth (though they themselves don't realize this). They have to rely on a "middle man" to get to a truth indirectly. Our history, our science, daily events of this world all operate this way. Thus you don't need direct evidence to treat the existence of black holes as a scientific fact. 99.99% humans don't examine scientific evidence, only the 0.01% scientists do. In this case, our scientists stand as the "middle man" between a truth and the 99.99% majority of humans. The majority of humans only need to put faith in our scientists to get to a scientific truth.

Of course, we can examine the direct evidence of a scientific truth if we want to, as the nature of science is that it subjects to repeatable examinations. History however doesn't bear such a repeatable nature. We can't examine the evidence of history under most circumstances, especially about the deeds and speeches of a historical figure. The only way for us to get to the deeds and speeches of a historical figure is by putting faith in what have been written down by our past historians. This is how a historical truth can be conveyed.

Similarly for daily events of this world, we don't examine direct evidence of each occurrence. We instead put faith in our media (with reporters and journalists as the "middle man") to get to such a kind of truth.

What we actually examine is rather the credibility of the "middle man" (who is standing between the majority and the truth itself). We can get to reliable scientific results simply because our scientists are reliable "eye-witnesses" of the scientific truths. Their works are subject to repeatable examinations anyway. Similarly we can examine the works of our media of reporters and journalists if what reported are recent occurrences. We however can't query the reliability of our media, say, 100 years ago, simply because we can't examine events occurred 100 years ago to tell how reliable our "middle man" is.

That's actually why, it is generally difficult to query or question history written long ago. History is something "rare". It means that if we choose to reject what have been written due to the fact that we can't examine the credibility of both the "middle man" and the occurrences themselves, it could mean that we have no history.

Now how can we trust the Bible with its authors (the "middle man")? There is nothing better can be done when the following being done,

1) 10 out of the 12 Jesus' direct disciples (they are eye-witnesses) martyred themselves to testify the truth of Jesus.
In the ancient world, nothing can be made more credible than the "middle man" being willing to die for what has been witnessed.

2) Bible is a multiple account witnessing
One of the factors makes our media reliable is that we have multiple free media for us to do the cross-referencing. CNN, Fox News and etc. they don't report a single occurrence very differently. They may have different opinions on how this occurrence shall be explained though. Usually they are consistent in terms of reporting an incident by acquiring information from the eye-witness accounts of that incident. Say, in reporting a car accident they all say the same. However, they may have different opinions on what caused that accident. One of the reliability evaluation comes from the cross referencing of multiple accounts of these "middle men".

In the same fashion. The Bible was testified not by only one "middle man" martyred himself, but by 10 out of the 12.

3) How consistent the contents are
Human documents usually can't last across the border of paper invention. It means that under normal circumstances, after information being transplanted to their paper form, humans lost almost all the original documents which were on ancient scrolls or tablets. Thus we can't compare today's version at hand to its original version written in scrolls and tablets. We may find discrete scrolls but not the scrolls of the whole book. For an example, a history book of 1000 pages was written 2000 years ago. We can have our current version of this book in paper form. But we should have lost its original copy which is supposed in ancient scrolls. we may find some discrete pages of this book but we can't find all the 1000 pages of the same book in scrolls.

This is the usual situation of ancient human documents. However, the Bible doesn't belong to this "usual situation". We have a whole library of Dead Sea Scrolls for us to compare today's OT Bible against its ancient version in scrolls. We can be assured that the same information we read today from our OT Bible remain the same information as they were written some 2000 more years ago. This consistency is needed or otherwise it only means that "God doesn't say the same to today's humans as He said to ancient humans 2000 more years ago".

NT Bibles goes a similar route. We have plenty of ancient scrolls for us to be assured of a consistent NT. The NT scrolls may appear to be discrete, but since we have plenty of them for us humans to convey the same "gospel" consistently.

This is about the process of human witnessing from eye-witness accounts, those who martyred themselves for a truth to convey. Nothing else can be done better after the above being done, in terms of conveying a truth among human across a long history and from before the invention of paper till after.

Now Islam,

1) Mohammed is not an eye-witness of God. Moses is an eye-witness of God as he acquired his information directly from God. All the OT prophets behave this way. They are eye-witnesses of God Himself. Mohammed however claimed to hear from an angel. What he has written thus is not human accounts of witnessing but angel account of witnessing at best, and thus cannot be further backed by martyrdom of eyewitnesses. Seemingly Mohammed was clueless about what human witnessing could mean.

People have doubt simply because humans in general don't know or don't understand what human witnessing is. Mohammed didn't make a difference.

2) Quran was written after paper invention. Humans are capable of keeping documents after that point. Bible however requires the Dead Sea Scrolls as a miracle for today's humans to be assured of its consistency. There's a possible divine action involved in the case of Bible but not Quran.

3) There is an intangible guardian assigned to "protect" the contents of the holy book.
In Christianity, we can't add anything to or subtract anything from the Bible as we have a Church acting as a guardian. Mormon tried but it can't be deemed a success. God has assigned His earthly authority on earth in terms of protecting His Word. There is a process we call canonization, which was seriously and carefully done.

The first earthly authority is the Jews. Thus the Jews today are still keeping a correct OT Canon.
The second earthly authority is the Catholics. That's when the Jews failed to function as God's earthly authority. Thus the Catholics are still keeping a correct NT, but not OT Canon.

The last earthly authority is the Protestants. Thus the Protestants are keeping both a correct NT Canon and a correct OT Canon.


Again, this is another possible divine arrangement for only the Bible but not Quran. There's no such an earthly authority was assigned to guard its contents.

At last, Quran is a single account document from Mohammed alone.

 

[icehorse]

You might not recognise it as your definition, but that is due to a tendency to assume a cultural dependent ideology is in fact universal and somewhat neutral.

I would say my definition is practically the same as in a western dictionary. If your claim is that western dictionaries are biased, I suppose I'd grant you that. So what? If you're arguing from a position of moral relativism, we can stop here. That position can be used to scuttle almost any debate.

Put another way: My values are mostly aligned with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Muslims rejected that document and created a mirror document called the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam. On some points the two documents agree, but on some crucial points they disagree. We could say that comparing these two documents is a good way to summarize the inherent conflicts between the western worldview and the Islamic worldview. At crucial points, the Cairo declaration chooses to limit civil liberties when they conflict with islamic scripture.

I value civil liberties over pronouncements in scripture. You can agree with me or not, or you can revert to a relativist stance. But again, the relativist stance seems like a cop-out to me, because the relativist can be used to derail any value proposition, any act of diplomacy, any act of kindness, anything at all. it's not a tool for kindness or compassion.

So @Augustus, which do you think is more moral, the UDHR or the Cairo Declaration?

No. My point is that simply telling people they should be SHs is like telling someone with clinical depression that they should just cheer up.

strawman.

You basically want to make America less religious by centralised, top down social engineering

strawman.

If some people want a theocracy, then that's their choice, and why should I care if I don't have to reside there?

I understand this stance up to a point. If the UDHR was in place across the board, I would be okay with this approach. There is much about decentralization that i agree with. But what if your approach included the idea that in theocracies people would might not have the option of leaving. Would you still be okay with that sort of "it sucks to be them" orientation?

You were just denying you subscribed to an ideology founded upon The Idea of Progress.

Ah, could be. I read you to mean technical progress, and my stance is largely independent of technical progress (although not entirely so.)

 

[Augustus]

I would say my definition is practically the same as in a western dictionary. If your claim is that western dictionaries are biased, I suppose I'd grant you that. So what? If you're arguing from a position of moral relativism, we can stop here. That position can be used to scuttle almost any debate.

If you are going to start with the strawman nonsense again, at least make an attempt to read what I just said and represent it accurately.

strawman.

Wanting something to happen even with the best of intentions doesn't make it likely to occur. Simple enough for you or another "strawman"?

strawman.

This is why the ability to mindlessly parrot the name of logical fallacies is an impediment to thought and reasoned debate.

How would you classify an attempt to restrict the ability to teach religious values which isn't centralised, top-down social engineering?

That is literally what it is centralised, top-down social engineering.

You personally chose the example of anti-smoking, that is literally centralised, top-down social engineering too.

I understand this stance up to a point. If the UDHR was in place across the board, I would be okay with this approach. There is much about decentralization that i agree with. But what if your approach included the idea that in theocracies people would might not have the option of leaving. Would you still be okay with that sort of "it sucks to be them" orientation?

You can't fix the world from afar with good intentions, to believe you can is irrational given the mountains of evidence against it.

Start with your country, let other people do theirs.

 

[icehorse]

This is why the ability to mindlessly parrot the name of logical fallacies is an impediment to thought and reasoned debate.

Whenever "you" start typing a sentence that starts with "you think", you're probably committing a strawman. You stop doing that, and I'll stop calling you on it. I think you have interesting arguments, I just wish you'd just make them without misrepresenting me.

How would you classify an attempt to restrict the ability to teach religious values which isn't centralised, top-down social engineering?

"Social engineering" is - I think - a deliberately provocative term. It's also vague and open-ended. Do you consider a legal system a form of social engineering? How about a political party's platform? Advertising? How are you defining "social engineering"?

And, as I thought I clarified earlier, there is a huge difference between a restriction and marginalization.

You can't fix the world from afar with good intentions, to believe you can is irrational given the mountains of evidence against it.

But you can start by telling the truth about it. For example, it mostly sucks to be a woman in a Muslim majority country. Just being honest about that truth would make a world of difference.

 

[j1i]

The problem of humans is that they don't know what human witnessing actually is.

======
Humans in general don't know or don't understand what human witnessing is.

Human witnessing is the fundamental way for a truth of any kind to be conveyed among humans. There are several key factors in the process of human witnessing. In the end when taking a closer examination, only Christianity can be the truth, or there's no truth at all.

Under most circumstance, humans are incapable of doing direct examination of a truth (though they themselves don't realize this). They have to rely on a "middle man" to get to a truth indirectly. Our history, our science, daily events of this world all operate this way. Thus you don't need direct evidence to treat the existence of black holes as a scientific fact. 99.99% humans don't examine scientific evidence, only the 0.01% scientists do. In this case, our scientists stand as the "middle man" between a truth and the 99.99% majority of humans. The majority of humans only need to put faith in our scientists to get to a scientific truth.

Of course, we can examine the direct evidence of a scientific truth if we want to, as the nature of science is that it subjects to repeatable examinations. History however doesn't bear such a repeatable nature. We can't examine the evidence of history under most circumstances, especially about the deeds and speeches of a historical figure. The only way for us to get to the deeds and speeches of a historical figure is by putting faith in what have been written down by our past historians. This is how a historical truth can be conveyed.

Similarly for daily events of this world, we don't examine direct evidence of each occurrence. We instead put faith in our media (with reporters and journalists as the "middle man") to get to such a kind of truth.

What we actually examine is rather the credibility of the "middle man" (who is standing between the majority and the truth itself). We can get to reliable scientific results simply because our scientists are reliable "eye-witnesses" of the scientific truths. Their works are subject to repeatable examinations anyway. Similarly we can examine the works of our media of reporters and journalists if what reported are recent occurrences. We however can't query the reliability of our media, say, 100 years ago, simply because we can't examine events occurred 100 years ago to tell how reliable our "middle man" is.

That's actually why, it is generally difficult to query or question history written long ago. History is something "rare". It means that if we choose to reject what have been written due to the fact that we can't examine the credibility of both the "middle man" and the occurrences themselves, it could mean that we have no history.

Now how can we trust the Bible with its authors (the "middle man")? There is nothing better can be done when the following being done,

1) 10 out of the 12 Jesus' direct disciples (they are eye-witnesses) martyred themselves to testify the truth of Jesus.
In the ancient world, nothing can be made more credible than the "middle man" being willing to die for what has been witnessed.

2) Bible is a multiple account witnessing
One of the factors makes our media reliable is that we have multiple free media for us to do the cross-referencing. CNN, Fox News and etc. they don't report a single occurrence very differently. They may have different opinions on how this occurrence shall be explained though. Usually they are consistent in terms of reporting an incident by acquiring information from the eye-witness accounts of that incident. Say, in reporting a car accident they all say the same. However, they may have different opinions on what caused that accident. One of the reliability evaluation comes from the cross referencing of multiple accounts of these "middle men".

In the same fashion. The Bible was testified not by only one "middle man" martyred himself, but by 10 out of the 12.

3) How consistent the contents are
Human documents usually can't last across the border of paper invention. It means that under normal circumstances, after information being transplanted to their paper form, humans lost almost all the original documents which were on ancient scrolls or tablets. Thus we can't compare today's version at hand to its original version written in scrolls and tablets. We may find discrete scrolls but not the scrolls of the whole book. For an example, a history book of 1000 pages was written 2000 years ago. We can have our current version of this book in paper form. But we should have lost its original copy which is supposed in ancient scrolls. we may find some discrete pages of this book but we can't find all the 1000 pages of the same book in scrolls.

This is the usual situation of ancient human documents. However, the Bible doesn't belong to this "usual situation". We have a whole library of Dead Sea Scrolls for us to compare today's OT Bible against its ancient version in scrolls. We can be assured that the same information we read today from our OT Bible remain the same information as they were written some 2000 more years ago. This consistency is needed or otherwise it only means that "God doesn't say the same to today's humans as He said to ancient humans 2000 more years ago".

NT Bibles goes a similar route. We have plenty of ancient scrolls for us to be assured of a consistent NT. The NT scrolls may appear to be discrete, but since we have plenty of them for us humans to convey the same "gospel" consistently.

This is about the process of human witnessing from eye-witness accounts, those who martyred themselves for a truth to convey. Nothing else can be done better after the above being done, in terms of conveying a truth among human across a long history and from before the invention of paper till after.

Now Islam,

1) Mohammed is not an eye-witness of God. Moses is an eye-witness of God as he acquired his information directly from God. All the OT prophets behave this way. They are eye-witnesses of God Himself. Mohammed however claimed to hear from an angel. What he has written thus is not human accounts of witnessing but angel account of witnessing at best, and thus cannot be further backed by martyrdom of eyewitnesses. Seemingly Mohammed was clueless about what human witnessing could mean.

People have doubt simply because humans in general don't know or don't understand what human witnessing is. Mohammed didn't make a difference.

2) Quran was written after paper invention. Humans are capable of keeping documents after that point. Bible however requires the Dead Sea Scrolls as a miracle for today's humans to be assured of its consistency. There's a possible divine action involved in the case of Bible but not Quran.

3) There is an intangible guardian assigned to "protect" the contents of the holy book.
In Christianity, we can't add anything to or subtract anything from the Bible as we have a Church acting as a guardian. Mormon tried but it can't be deemed a success. God has assigned His earthly authority on earth in terms of protecting His Word. There is a process we call canonization, which was seriously and carefully done.

The first earthly authority is the Jews. Thus the Jews today are still keeping a correct OT Canon.
The second earthly authority is the Catholics. That's when the Jews failed to function as God's earthly authority. Thus the Catholics are still keeping a correct NT, but not OT Canon.

The last earthly authority is the Protestants. Thus the Protestants are keeping both a correct NT Canon and a correct OT Canon.


Again, this is another possible divine arrangement for only the Bible but not Quran. There's no such an earthly authority was assigned to guard its contents.

At last, Quran is a single account document from Mohammed alone.

Dear brother
I thank you with all my heart for the long participation I have read and I am very happy to share with you
I will be very very keen on transparency, full respect and come out positively to you

You wrote us this

1) 10 out of the 12 Jesus' direct disciples (they are eye-witnesses) martyred themselves to testify the truth of Jesus.
In the ancient world, nothing can be made more credible than the "middle man" being willing to die for what has been witnessed.

There is no scriptural text in their time that proves that Jesus is God

Because honestly, there will be many claims in the world's continents of divinity, including Hinduism

Everyone tries to put an element of verbal proof

This is ineffective because the author may be a liar because of the frequent presence of allegations

Here, because of our inability to reveal the truth, we must be in a safe situation

There is no document

In the Old Testament there are prophecies that speak of events that will occur in the future but never touched on the idea that there will be a God living in the earth

Does this involve poor planning and this raises suspicion

 

[Augustus]

Whenever "you" start typing a sentence that starts with "you think", you're probably committing a strawman. You stop doing that, and I'll stop calling you on it. I think you have interesting arguments, I just wish you'd just make them without misrepresenting me.

Which is why it's much better to clarify, as generally I believe you are misrepresenting me every time you say strawman as noted in previous post.

Also, interpret 'you think' as shorthand for 'based on my best understanding of what you have said in the thread, I believe it would be accurate to state that you believe...'

For example, would it be accurate to assume that you would like to help America become less religious if that were possible in a non-oppressive manner? You claimed that this was a strawman previously.

The problem with the game of straw is that it implies bad faith, and takes for granted that the mistake must be the other person's (in general here, the mistake is frequently being made by the person who cries straw).

In response to such a claim the reality of the situation may be:

1. Strawman: Deliberate misrepresentation - I guess is generally quite rare here
2. Strawman: Accidental misrepresentation carried out in good faith (which may be due to reading error or writing error) - In which case better to point out actual meaning to correct their or your mistake.
3. No strawman: The claim of strawman is a kind of strawman and misrepresents their point. Now both believe they have been misrepresented and problem can't be resolved.
4. No strawman: The claimer doesn't understand their point as it relies on knowledge or concepts that are unfamiliar to them. Again both parties feel misrepresented with no hope of solution..
5. No strawman: Just an attempt to save face. I guess is generally also quite rare.

"Social engineering" is - I think - a deliberately provocative term. It's also vague and open-ended. Do you consider a legal system a form of social engineering? How about a political party's platform? Advertising? How are you defining "social engineering"?

See 3 above.

Instead of asking for clarification before replying which takes no more time than crying strawman, assuming bad faith and taking the worst possible definition isn't conducive to thought or reasoned debate.

The term is neutral, and SE can be minor and benign or major and oppressive.

Regardless, it tends to result in unintended consequences which become more unpredictable depending on the behaviour you wish to alter.

Convincing people to wear bike helmets is unlikely to have negative consequences that outweigh the benefits, attempting to create a Marxist utopian paradise is likely to have completely unpredictable effects that may very well cause more harm than good.

In answer to your question, certain aspects of law could be SE if their purpose is to change an existing behaviour (banning smoking in public, or wearing seatbelts for example).

Social engineering (political science) - Wikipedia

And, as I thought I clarified earlier, there is a huge difference between a restriction and marginalization.

You chose the example of anti-smoking as the best comparison.

Fair enough though, was meant in the sense of social restriction rather than legal but it's ambiguous

Marginalisation is fine and makes no difference to the point.

But you can start by telling the truth about it. For example, it mostly sucks to be a woman in a Muslim majority country. Just being honest about that truth would make a world of difference.

People in the West say this all the time and it makes next to no difference in the Muslim world. Due to our evolved cognition, outsiders telling people how to live their life tends to breed antagonism rather than understanding.

Outside of the really repressive places though, you will find large numbers of Muslim women who disagree with you on this point. When people perceive an attack on their identity, they become hostile to the person who is attacking them and often, by extension, their values.

For example, Muslims have become much more conservative, in general, than 20 years ago despite the Muslim world being richer and better educated than it was back then. Part of this is a rejection of Western values due to perceived hypocrisy and arrogance and a desire to project a different identity.

This is why I feel general acceptance of universalist policies that developed out of Western ideologies (i.e everyone adopting and adhering to the UNDHR) are pipe dreams.

 

[icehorse]

Also, interpret 'you think' as shorthand for 'based on my best understanding of what you have said in the thread, I believe it would be accurate to state that you believe...'

This seems like a fair request. And I would way we should all be aware that our arguments can easily be interpreted as rhetorical devices. So for example, while you're saying the phrase "social engineering" was used in a neutral way, I absolutely took it to be a rhetorical device to cast my argument in the worst possible light.

For example, would it be accurate to assume that you would like to help America become less religious if that were possible in a non-oppressive manner?

Moving from style to content: This isn't an easy yes/no question. I hope we'll eventually outgrow religion as it's mostly practices these days. But in the near future, my hope is that we can reduce religion's influence on policy matters.

Instead of asking for clarification before replying which takes no more time than crying strawman, assuming bad faith and taking the worst possible definition isn't conducive to thought or reasoned debate.

I think we could both follow this advice

People in the West say this all the time and it makes next to no difference in the Muslim world. Due to our evolved cognition, outsiders telling people how to live their life tends to breed antagonism rather than understanding.

Outside of the really repressive places though, you will find large numbers of Muslim women who disagree with you on this point. When people perceive an attack on their identity, they become hostile to the person who is attacking them and often, by extension, their values.

For example, Muslims have become much more conservative, in general, than 20 years ago despite the Muslim world being richer and better educated than it was back then. Part of this is a rejection of Western values due to perceived hypocrisy and arrogance and a desire to project a different identity.

This is why I feel general acceptance of universalist policies that developed out of Western ideologies (i.e everyone adopting and adhering to the UNDHR) are pipe dreams.

As I've said before, step one is an honest assessment. I agree that openly hostile verbal assaults seldom work. That said, it's also a huge problem when our so-called "leaders" misrepresent the nature of foreign cultures and belief systems. Europe is feeling the effects of this misrepresentation.

It's also the case that the world is shrinking, and we have BIG problems. There are many sources for these problems, probably Oligarchies around the world are the biggest source, but behaviors based on religious beliefs is also an issue. Many of our biggest problems are based on population explosion, and religious leaders are frequently working at odds with our need to reverse the growth of human populations. Again, the education of women helps to limit population growth, and religious leaders ofter work hard to keep women ignorant.

 

[j1i]

Which is why it's much better to clarify, as generally I believe you are misrepresenting me every time you say strawman as noted in previous post.

Also, interpret 'you think' as shorthand for 'based on my best understanding of what you have said in the thread, I believe it would be accurate to state that you believe...'

For example, would it be accurate to assume that you would like to help America become less religious if that were possible in a non-oppressive manner? You claimed that this was a strawman previously.

The problem with the game of straw is that it implies bad faith, and takes for granted that the mistake must be the other person's (in general here, the mistake is frequently being made by the person who cries straw).

In response to such a claim the reality of the situation may be:

1. Strawman: Deliberate misrepresentation - I guess is generally quite rare here
2. Strawman: Accidental misrepresentation carried out in good faith (which may be due to reading error or writing error) - In which case better to point out actual meaning to correct their or your mistake.
3. No strawman: The claim of strawman is a kind of strawman and misrepresents their point. Now both believe they have been misrepresented and problem can't be resolved.
4. No strawman: The claimer doesn't understand their point as it relies on knowledge or concepts that are unfamiliar to them. Again both parties feel misrepresented with no hope of solution..
5. No strawman: Just an attempt to save face. I guess is generally also quite rare.



See 3 above.

Instead of asking for clarification before replying which takes no more time than crying strawman, assuming bad faith and taking the worst possible definition isn't conducive to thought or reasoned debate.

The term is neutral, and SE can be minor and benign or major and oppressive.

Regardless, it tends to result in unintended consequences which become more unpredictable depending on the behaviour you wish to alter.

Convincing people to wear bike helmets is unlikely to have negative consequences that outweigh the benefits, attempting to create a Marxist utopian paradise is likely to have completely unpredictable effects that may very well cause more harm than good.

In answer to your question, certain aspects of law could be SE if their purpose is to change an existing behaviour (banning smoking in public, or wearing seatbelts for example).

Social engineering (political science) - Wikipedia





You chose the example of anti-smoking as the best comparison.

Fair enough though, was meant in the sense of social restriction rather than legal but it's ambiguous

Marginalisation is fine and makes no difference to the point.



People in the West say this all the time and it makes next to no difference in the Muslim world. Due to our evolved cognition, outsiders telling people how to live their life tends to breed antagonism rather than understanding.

Outside of the really repressive places though, you will find large numbers of Muslim women who disagree with you on this point. When people perceive an attack on their identity, they become hostile to the person who is attacking them and often, by extension, their values.

For example, Muslims have become much more conservative, in general, than 20 years ago despite the Muslim world being richer and better educated than it was back then. Part of this is a rejection of Western values due to perceived hypocrisy and arrogance and a desire to project a different identity.

This is why I feel general acceptance of universalist policies that developed out of Western ideologies (i.e everyone adopting and adhering to the UNDHR) are pipe dreams.

I agree with you that human behavior is related to the environment, weather and different cultures. I live in a geographic location that was between the Persians and the Romans. Historically, we witnessed battles between the Romans and the Persians, and then the Turk and Genghis Khan The Mongols and western colonization

All of these negative phenomena have made our society conservative because of the many incidents of kidnapping, rape and theft
Generations of sons born and orphans

Therefore we must also take into account the colonial history, which made us sacrifice of intellectual backwardness

On the whole Muslims are not one class and one culture

Muslims live in open societies and Islamic culture experiences many fairy tales, beautiful and high-end literature

note
A British House of Commons report confirmed that British charities are involved in criminal sexual practices such as child abuse and rape of women during their relief activities in different parts of the world

The poor simple ancestors who live in the Gulf before the oil tell shocking tales of the rape of children from the Western presence

For this reason, man was a necessary governor to expose them to fear