Muslims the least educated in the world?

[1robin]

1robin -

We should probably leave WLC out of this discussion I agree that he's a masterful debater. I disagree that he actually has good points, another thread for WLC?

His name and the quality of his points are incidental here. The point was that Harris ADMITTED he assumes there was a source other than God for objective morality. The rest of what I said was juts for information. Since you know about Craig I will not mention my opinion of him but his arguments are relevant.

Back to WBCC. Harris offers it as a goal, not at all as something we've solved. He compares it to healthcare. We can all agree that healthcare has improved over time AND that it is far from perfect. And I would agree that the way humans treat the animals they eat is most definitely NOT in the spirit of WBCC.

Yes it is Harris's opinion WBCC is a good goal for morality. How can his opinion ever create an objective moral fact, ever? It can be true that any given moral is objectively the best at WBCC, (even though our morals are not) but that does not make that moral objectively true. IOW it is true that a law we must murder would objectively be the best way to kill us all. However it is not true that murdering us all is a moral fact. It is an objective best but not an objective truth. We should not be killing our selves off.

My first question to you is this: How did you derive morality from scripture?

That is an epistemological question but I am making ontological claims. Ontology is the actual nature of a thing, epistemology is how I perceive a things nature to be. If God exists moral facts are just as true even if I denied them al or accept them all. If God does not exist then no moral fact is true even if we all agreed on it.

I however will answer you. Most of the moral commands are crystal clear but where they are not I compare any reasonable interpretation with both my God given conscience and the Holy Spirit's witness in my heart. However if I was wrong 100% of the time it would not affect that an objective truth exists if God does. The method by which I come to know a thing has no effect on a things nature.

Having read a fair bit of scripture myself, I can only conclude that a religious person - if she's honest - MUST come to the scripture with a good sense of morality. Then she must cherry-pick those passages that confirm her previous morality, and ignore those passages that deny her, already-known, morality.

If true that is still not a problem because God gave all of us a moral conscience and brain which is the most complex arrangement known in the universe to use, and he offers his own spirit to a believer to further clarify moral teachings. My understanding of biblical morality is anything but convenient or cherry picked. What it says condemns me. I obviously am not going to invent or cherry pick a moral system I have not obeyed. This is in general true for Christians as a whole. A Christian comes to be a Christian by acknowledging that a moral system exists which they have not obeyed. There is nothing convenient or cherry picked about that. However this is another issue all together. I will discuss it but recognize it is another subject. I am leaving soon and so we will have to continue this later but soon.

 

[icehorse]

1robin - We've hijacked this thread. When I get back, I'll start another, or look for one you've started.

 

[Harikrish]

Our criminal justice system is a good example of objective morality. There are penalties for violating the rules and are independent of the individual's sense of guilt or preference. God is not the source of objective morality nor is God a good example of objective morality because the presumption of guilt is assumed and the rejection of Jesus an eternal death sentence. That is not objectivity, that is extortion.

 

[1robin]

1robin - We've hijacked this thread. When I get back, I'll start another, or look for one you've started.

I don't start threads. I FINISH Them. Just kidding, but I do only rarely start them. You start one if you wish, and let me know.

 

[1robin]

Our criminal justice system is a good example of objective morality. There are penalties for violating the rules and are independent of the individual's sense of guilt or preference. God is not the source of objective morality nor is God a good example of objective morality because the presumption of guilt is assumed and the rejection of Jesus an eternal death sentence. That is not objectivity, that is extortion.

Most significant cultures divide morality between and indicate it by laws:

1. Against things that are actually wrong (objectively wrong).
2. Or things that are merely against societies morays and dictates.

1. Is only true if God exists. We can all pretend it's true without God but it isn't.
2. This is what your talking about.


No law is objective because it came from another person like themselves. Objective morality is a moral fact that is true even if not one of us believes it is true. That takes a God and only that is objective.

 

[Looncall]

Most significant cultures divide morality between and indicate it by laws:

1. Against things that are actually wrong (objectively wrong).
2. Or things that are merely against societies morays and dictates.

1. Is only true if God exists. We can all pretend it's true without God but it isn't.
2. This is what your talking about.


No law is objective because it came from another person like themselves. Objective morality is a moral fact that is true even if not one of us believes it is true. That takes a God and only that is objective.

Please justify your statement. To me, it looks like just typical religious arrogance.

 

[1robin]

Please justify your statement. To me, it looks like just typical religious arrogance.

It appears you have never seen a professional debate on morals or read a book on theistic verses Fill in the blank morality.

Objective morality is a moral system of facts that hold true even if no one believed them. For example if God exists but the Nazis' had won WW2 and killed everyone who did not agree with them, killing people in gas chambers, euthanizing the infirm, and torturing children would still be wrong even if everyone left alive thought it was just great.

Objective morality is independent of the opinions of its adherents.

God's eternal nature is the foundation of any objective morality. His commands only reflect that fact, they do not make it a fact. God neither declares morality into being nor does he arbitrary select it from an external standard. He is the moral locus of the universe. If you do not think that is objective then rip the word out of the dictionary because it applies to nothing.

Nothing arrogant about that. That is why almost every professional atheist scholar simply denies that objective morality exists because without God it can't. Even the few that do accept objective morality but suggest there is not God (like Harris for example) when pressed admit they are merely assuming it does. This was well understood at least as far back as Greece.

Without God you only have arbitrary ethics left. As Michael Ruse (the philosopher of science) said: "morals are only illusions fobbed off on us by our genes" without God. I am being no more arrogant by accepting an inevitability than the secular philosophers who grant it.

 

[Knight of Albion]

Does this lack of education promote violence and terrorism due to poverty associated with ignorance?

Does religious belief promote this lack of education?

OR does lack of education promote religious belief?


Muslim Statistics (Education and Employment) - WikiIslam)


Of the 1.4 billion Muslims 800 million are illiterate (6 out of 10 Muslims cannot read). In Christendom, adult literacy rate stands at 78 percent


40% of muslims can read

almost 80% of Christians can read


That is a two to one ratio.


The 57-member countries of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) have around 500 universities compared with more than 5,000 universities in the US and more than 8,000 in India.


Nearly half of all women in the Arab world are illiterate


Three-quarters of the 100 million people unable to read or write in the 21 Arab countries are aged between 15 and 45 years old, Alecso said in a statement.


Does this muslim ignorance breed terrorism???

You add this ignorance combined with the religions required fanaticism and fundamentalism, and the recipe for terrorism is obvious


Is it time for the world to address this issue and help educate these people because their own cultures do not promote education and knowledge at normal levels?

Can we even battle terrorism with education??

I wouldn't say that there is a direct correlation between education and terrorism. Many people from humble backgrounds can have the purest of hearts, and many from highly educated backgrounds can be vile - education just turned them into a better class of thug, as dear old Spike Milligan might have said!

The attempted terrorist attack on Glasgow Airport a year or two back was carried out by two doctors ...

I think the value of education is that it gives people the opportunity to aspire to better themselves, to help their families and others along the way.
So yes, education for all, it will make for a better, fairer world but it won't end conflict. That requires a moral education and Orthodoxy of all variants is by nature divisive.

 

[1robin]

I wouldn't say that there is a direct correlation between education and terrorism. Many people from humble backgrounds can have the purest of hearts, and many from highly educated backgrounds can be vile - education just turned them into a better class of thug, as dear old Spike Milligan might have said!

The attempted terrorist attack on Glasgow Airport a year or two back was carried out by two doctors ...

I think the value of education is that it gives people the opportunity to aspire to better themselves, to help their families and others along the way.
So yes, education for all, it will make for a better, fairer world but it won't end conflict. That requires a moral education and Orthodoxy of all variants is by nature divisive.

There is a definite correlation but not a one to one causal relationship. The lack of education produces poverty, poverty produces desperation and being disaffected, that produces resentment, as no one ever blames themselves for their own problems all of this produces hate. Islam provides who to hate, and a the lack of education strips them of the history that would counteract all of this. The result terrorism.,