Don’t fall for logical fallacies. Study logic and avoid being tricked by word magic.
The argument from authority can take several forms. As a syllogism, the argument has the following basic structure:
A says P about subject matter S.
A should be trusted about subject matter S.
Therefore, P is correct.
More at Wikipedia – Argument from Authority
I’m pondering over the great flood of Noah and how the story matches ancient myths.
The story is startlingly similar. It includes a global flood as a punishment from God, a man being told to build an Ark and take animals on board, and also it landed on a mountain after the flood.
Possibilities:
– It’s a true story, Noah lived long ago and from the believers that survived the flood retold this historical fact and somehow it transformed it’s way into the epic of Gilagamesh
– The story was invented and ended up in the Bible and the the Quran
– what other options are there?
Surah Nooh, Verse 26:
وَقَالَ نُوحٌ رَّبِّ لَا تَذَرْ عَلَى الْأَرْضِ مِنَ الْكَافِرِينَ دَيَّارًا
And Nuh (Noah) said: “My Lord! Leave not one of the disbelievers on the earth!
(English – Mohsin Khan)
Surah Hud, Verse 44:
وَقِيلَ يَا أَرْضُ ابْلَعِي مَاءَكِ وَيَا سَمَاءُ أَقْلِعِي وَغِيضَ الْمَاءُ وَقُضِيَ الْأَمْرُ وَاسْتَوَتْ عَلَى الْجُودِيِّ وَقِيلَ بُعْدًا لِّلْقَوْمِ الظَّالِمِينَ
And it was said: “O earth! Swallow up your water, and O sky! Withhold (your rain).” And the water was diminished (made to subside) and the Decree (of Allah) was fulfilled (i.e. the destruction of the people of Nuh (Noah). And it (the ship) rested on Mount Judi, and it was said: “Away with the people who are Zalimun (polytheists and wrong-doing)!”
(English – Mohsin Khan)
Surah Hud, Verse 40:
حَتَّىٰ إِذَا جَاءَ أَمْرُنَا وَفَارَ التَّنُّورُ قُلْنَا احْمِلْ فِيهَا مِن كُلٍّ زَوْجَيْنِ اثْنَيْنِ وَأَهْلَكَ إِلَّا مَن سَبَقَ عَلَيْهِ الْقَوْلُ وَمَنْ آمَنَ وَمَا آمَنَ مَعَهُ إِلَّا قَلِيلٌ
(So it was) till then there came Our Command and the oven gushed forth (water like fountains from the earth). We said: “Embark therein, of each kind two (male and female), and your family, except him against whom the Word has already gone forth, and those who believe. And none believed with him, except a few.”
(English – Mohsin Khan)
From the article:
The command for Utnapishtim to build the boat is remarkable: “O man of Shuruppak, son of Ubar-Tutu, tear down thy house, build a ship; abandon wealth, seek after life; scorn possessions, save thy life. Bring up the seed of all kinds of living things into the ship which thou shalt build. Let its dimensions be well measured.”
The Epic of Gilgamesh has been of interest to Christians ever since its discovery in the mid-nineteenth century in the ruins of the great library at Nineveh, with its account of a universal flood with significant parallels to the Flood of Noah’s day.1, 2 The rest of the Epic, which dates back to possibly third millennium B.C., contains little of value for Christians, since it concerns typical polytheistic myths associated with the pagan peoples of the time.
The Epic of Gilgamesh is contained on twelve large tablets, and since the original discovery, it has been found on others, as well as having been translated into other early languages. The actual tablets date back to around 650 B.C. and are obviously not originals since fragments of the flood story have been found on tablets dated around 2,000 B.C.8 Linguistic experts believe that the story was composed well before 2,000 B.C. compiled from material that was much older than that date. The Sumerian cuneiform writing has been estimated to go as far back as 3,300 B.C.
Further reading:
Epic of Gilgamesh and Noah’s flood
Evidence for evolution explained simply.
Details here to come. Read Just Not a Theory for now.
It’s a matter of fact that the fossil evidence completely matches the theory of evolution. When you dig deeper down in the soil you find that the deeper you go, the older the fossils you find are. We do not find anything out of order in the fossil record. Flowering plants for example never appear before 300 million years ago. We don’t find mammals appearing before amphibians either. Never.
The fossil record, for example, completely bears out the Darwinian theory that all land vertebrates (animals with backbones) are descended from fish, and that mammals and birds are both descended from reptiles. In other words, we find fish in early strata where there are no land vertebrates. Then later we find land vertebrates as well as fish. In rocks of just the right age, we find animals transitional between fish and land vertebrates. And we find reptiles and amphibians before we find mammals or birds. Later we find both mammals and birds, alongside reptiles and amphibians. If we were to find fossils of animals with backbones living on land, older than the earliest fossils of fish, or if we were to find mammals and birds in strata earlier than reptiles, or if we were to find whales in strata earlier than land mammals, these would be major shocks to biological theory. They would probably not lead to the abandonment of evolution itself, but would upset some very well-established views about the specific course evolution has taken. If fossils of living things were found randomly in all ages of rocks, with rabbits, birds, and flowering plants in the earliest strata, evolution itself would have to be abandoned as an account of how the different kinds of living organisms came into existence. (Atheism Explained, D. Steele)
It is a fact that literally nothing that you could remotely call a mammal has ever been found in Devonian rock or in any older stratum. They are not just statistically rarer in Devonian than in later rocks. They literally never occur in rocks older than a certain date. But this didn’t have to be so. It could have been the case that, as we dug down lower and lower from the Devonian, through the Silurian and then even older, through the Ordovician, we suddenly found that the Cambrian era – older than any of them – teemed with mammals. That is in fact not what we find, but the possibility demonstrates that you can’t accuse the argument of being circular: at any moment somebody might dig up a mammal in Cambrian rocks, and the theory of evolution would be instantly blown apart if they did. Evolution, in other words, is a falsifiable, and therefore scientific, theory. (Greatest Show on Earth, Dawkins)
Also see my post on Islam, Biological Evolution, and Adam
There’s another good analogy for evolution, that is, the natural breeding of humans who have carved the dog into the most varied species on earth. Every feature of the dog has been selectively bred from guard dogs to hunting for drugs to racing to playfulness etc etc….
If so much change can occur in just a few decades imagine what can be achieved in millions of years.
Another example of artificial selection is how humans have modified cabbage to kale to cauliflower
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evo_30
This is by carefully selecting the genes and breeding for the characteristics you want.
Evolution works the same way in nature.
Now that we have seen how animals can evolve via artificial selection, for example dogs, or even cauliflower, we can look at how this occurs in nature.
Peahens choose the most attractive male peacock mates to mate with, therefore preserving attractive genes. This is called sexual selection.
Small prey fish choose attractive angler fish (they are fish that live deep in the ocean and they have a glow in the dark “fishing line”), feeding the most attractive ones and inadvertently preserving those genes that produce such attractive features. This is called natural selection. The ones that have less prominent anglers end up starving and thus they don’t survive.
The same profess as molding dogs from chihuahuas to Rottweilers to emphasize certain characteristics happens naturally as well
Also see this video:
If someone says “I believe in micro-evolution (i.e. different type of dog breeds) but not in macro-evolution (i.e ape to human) they do not understand that many small changes lead to big change. Many many small changes over time would lead to large changes.
The fact that some widely held past beliefs have been conclusively proved erroneous doesn’t mean we have to fear that future evidence will always show our present beliefs to be wrong. How vulnerable our present beliefs are depends, among other things, on how strong the evidence for them is.
-Richard Dawkins, The Greatest Show on Earth
Science knows a lot more than most people realize. Despite the talk of “scientific revolutions” and “paradigm shifts,” the basic laws of physics are essentially the same today as they were at the time of Newton.
Anyone familiar with modern physics will have to agree that certain fundamentals, in particular the great conservation principles of energy and momentum, have not changed in four hundred years.
-God the failed hypothesis
A belief in an eternal hell fire made to punish the disbelievers is something I always had a hard time swallowing. Just look at all these beautiful people worshiping God in their own way. All of them have to go to hell, according to Islam (and every other religion out there)
As my friend so eloquently said:
So God who created a universe billions of light years across.
More stars in the known universe than there are grains of sand in all the world.
Black holes that eat entire Suns like volcanoes swallow fleas.
Is waiting to torture poor little humans, these tiny tiny mass of atoms for all time, everlasting eternity, because they didn’t find evidence to believe in him?
On the other hand, you, because you believe in him without even understanding the language he speaks, ‘Bedouin Arabic’ apparently…
You my friend will have virgins, fruits, rivers of wine and ginger water, pomegranates …. For all eternity…. Forever and ever….
photos obtained online via google search. will be removed on request if copyright.
These beautiful humans, why throw them in hell, for ever? Isn’t there something else he could do with them in His ultimate wisdom and judgement?
All these people, sincerely praying to God for happiness, forgiveness, cure for their sick, and other things that they care about, will ultimately be food for the fire. Isn’t it unfortunate that all of them picked the wrong religion?
For this, they will pay the ultimate price. Eternal damnation, not just one life but an eternal life of misery and torture.
Indeed, Allah has cursed the disbelievers and prepared for them a Blaze. (33:64)
Indeed, those who disbelieve in Our verses – We will drive them into a Fire. Every time their skins are roasted through We will replace them with other skins so they may taste the punishment. Indeed, Allah is ever Exalted in Might and Wise. (4:56)
.. But those who disbelieved will have cut out for them garments of fire. Poured upon their heads will be scalding water (22:19)
“So Today those who believed are laughing at the disbelievers,” (83:34)
And when they ask for water they will be given a a boiling water that burns them inside
Indeed , We have prepared for the wrongdoers a fire whose walls will surround them. And if they call for relief, they will be relieved with water like murky oil, which scalds [their] faces. Wretched is the drink, and evil is the resting place. (18:29)
They will be there forever and ever:
Indeed, the criminals will be in the punishment of Hell, abiding eternally.
It will not be allowed to subside for them, and they, therein, are in despair.
And We did not wrong them, but it was they who were the wrongdoers.
And they will call, “O Malik, let your Lord put an end to us!” He will say, “Indeed, you will remain.”
(43:74-77)
When they ask for destruction, God will mockingly tell them not to ask for one destruction but many
But they have denied the Hour, and We have prepared for those who deny the Hour a Blaze.
When the Hellfire sees them from a distant place, they will hear its fury and roaring.
And when they are thrown into a narrow place therein bound in chains, they will cry out thereupon for destruction.
[They will be told], “Do not cry this Day for one destruction but cry for much destruction.”
(25:12-14)
And God, he knew that all these people would end up in hell. 80% or more of the worlds population are not Muslim. He created a creature that would end up eternally tortured.
Abiding eternally therein. The punishment will not be lightened for them, nor will they be reprieved. (2:162)
Thus Allaah will show them their deeds as regrets for them. And they will never get out of the Fire (2:167)
They will long to get out of the Fire, but never will they get out therefrom; and theirs will be a lasting torment (5:37)
(The torment) will not be lightened for them, and they will be plunged into destruction with deep regrets, sorrows and in despair therein (43:75)
This applies to all non-Muslims who heard about Prophet Muhammad
By Him in Whose hand is the life of Muhammad, he who amongst the community of Jews or Christians hears about me, but does not affirm his belief in that with which I have been sent and dies in this state (of disbelief), he shall be but one of the denizens of Hell-Fire. (Sahih Muslim)
And from the hadith literature there is evidence that hell is forever:
Death will come on the Day of Resurrection like a black and white ram, and it will stand between Paradise and Hell. It will be said, ‘O people of Paradise, do you recognize this?’ They will crane their necks and look, and will say, ‘Yes, it is death.’
It will be said, ‘O people of Hell, do you recognize this?’ They will crane their necks and look, and will say, ‘Yes, it is death.’ Then the command will be issued and it will be slaughtered. Then it will be said, ‘O People of Paradise, it is eternal and there is no death. O people of Hell, it is eternal and there is no death.’” Then the Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) recited the verse (interpretation of the meaning):
“And warn them (O Muhammad) of the Day of grief and regrets, when the case has been decided, while (now) they are in a state of carelessness, and they believe not” [Maryam 19:39]
(Narrated by Muslim, 5087, from the hadeeth of Abu Sa’eed al-Khudri)
I have a really hard time swallowing this. This is the same God that created this beautiful universe? This is the One True God? Why is he so upset about people not worshipping him? Is he that petty (sorry to say).
The God of the Quran and Bible is like a king that asks people to stand for him, and one man refuses. So the king orders that an oven be made, and he orders that it is made blazing hot, and he orders that burning hot rocks be taken from the oven and the man should be burned alive, but not killed. If he asks for mercy, he should not be given it. If he asks for water,he should be given scalding water. If he asks for food, he should be given rotten flesh and foul food that will poison him and make him sick. This punishment should be continued on until finally the man dies. Except with God’s punishment, he will not let the person die. This could have been a man that had a family, he was a good father, a good neighbour. He used to care for the poor, yet he rejected this king, so this was his punishment. This is God? I can’t believe this God is like this.