You are making assumptions that are not born out by scriptures.

You have studied the Koran?

Enough? Cover to cover? In Arabic? If not, which translation?

I am suggesting that you know something about the Koran other than hearsay and selected passages before you, or I, or anyone else, can make such a comment about that scripture.

That is, in order to intelligibly comment on a work, one must have at least read the work.

You are making assumptions that are not born out by scriptures.
No where does it judge by a mans imperfections, we are all treated equally.
Why should a god judge his imperfect creation? If he wants perfection then create perfection, we can only perform to the standards he designed.

Hi Xris,

Is your point that you believe in the Quran it does not say that God will be just in His judgement? If so there are several,

"God does not impose on a soul a duty but to the extent of its ability." 2:286

"Shall I seek a lord other than God while He is the Lord of everything, and no soul earns (evil) but against itself. Nor does a bearer of a burden bear the burden of another. Then to your Lord is your return, so He will in form you of that in which you differed." 6:164

"So whoever does an atom's weight of good will see it (on the Day of Judgment), and whoever does an atom's weight of evil will see it."

There are several others.
My point was that everything is as was intended to be by God, there is no imperfection in our design, its fulfilled its purpose perfectly. So I agree with you in your statement :

"we can only perform to the standards he designed"

And thus God will judge us according to those standards or potentials.

I was chatting with an associate of mine about how an empirical error in the doctrine of a religion correlates to an error of the religion itself. In any case, it has occurred to me (even before this chat...it's just that this chat spurred me to write this thread) that there is such an error in Islam. Herein lies the error (I am pulling this from St. Bonaventure's "Journey of the Mind into God)":

1. Muslims believe that God is one both in substance and in hypostasis (person).

2. Muslims believe that God is perfect. This is to say, no greater God can be conceived.

3. It is apparent both to the Muslim and to me from the creation of this, the best possible world, that God desires to express His Goodness.* Further, even if it were not empirically obvious, it should nonetheless be obvious to the Reason (see Plato's Timaeus).

* By express, I mean it in this way: red food dye makes cake icing red. The redness of the food dye is reflected in the redness of the cake icing. Likewise, God is Good. God desires to see that Goodness reflected by some communication of that Goodness.

These 3 things a given, it is evident that the Muslim faith is incoherent. This is to say, their beliefs result in a contradiction. Since their beliefs result in a contradiction, it is evident that either the Muslim faith as a whole is right (but this one belief or those several beliefs are wrong), or the entire faith is wrong. In this case, the former cannot be the case, since the beliefs in question which result in the contradiction are either obvious (as is the case in 2 and 3) or central to the Muslim faith (as is the case with 1). Therefore, if I can demonstrate that the beliefs result in a contradiction, it must be admitted that the Muslim faith as a whole is an error.

If God performs an action, then God must perform the action in the best possible way (from 2). If He does not perform the action in this fashion, then a better God can be conceived, namely a God Who has performed the action in the best possible way. For this reason, no man who believes in the second proposition (as the Muslims believe and I believe) may believe that this world is not the best possible world. God has created the world, and therefore His act of creating the world must have been the best possible. IE, this is the best possible world.

Yet, the Muslims (and I suppose the Jew) say that God expresses His Goodness only in the creation of the world (from 1 and 3). Either, therefore, no greater expression of God's Goodness is conceivable, or Islam becomes incoherent.

But look! A greater expression of God's Goodness is conceivable. The most perfect conceivable expression of God's Goodness is an entire communication of the Divine Substance in a new hypostasis. Quoting St. Bonaventure:



Itinerarium Mentis in Deum

Look! The Muslim beliefs necessarily result in a contradiction. 2 and 3 demand that in God there be a plurality of hypostases (persons...ideally 3) in a single substance. Yet, they flatly deny this in 1.

Islam is fundamentally incoherent.

On that note, this may also demonstrate the error of Mormonism.

Salima,

The OP has assumed perfection is in the phyiscal, litteral sense according to his understanding, where as Gods perfection of this universe is in its design, IE there is no better universe that could fulfil the role God has deteremined for it.

Its like saying a rally car is perfect. Then another person comes along and says, no its not, a F1 car is faster. The original man says, no, on the rally track, no car is faster than the rally car, thus it is perfect for what it is intended to do.

Your sounding very superior Thomas, dont quiz the quiz master answer the question.

I'd have to disagree - take a look at that post: I made it quite clear that I fall under the same category as you.

What is so strange, what is so "superior sounding" about saying that you and I should at least read a text before commenting on the contents of the text?

What text?

you did not ask me to read a specific text you asked me to memories the Koran before i could comment on the content.

Reading the Koran is no sign of understanding.

Muslim debate it endlessly and still can disagree on its meaning. Take slavery ,jihad, it is contentious.

If you are satisfied with the world and the suffering children have to endure because of gods plan, then there is very little i can say. I can not conceive of this god or his plans, he is invisible to me and this perfection is far from my idea of perfection.

Dude - Muslim scripture: the Koran. I was pretty clear about that.



I did not ask you to read, much less memorize, anything at all - instead, I simply asked about your familiarity with the Koran, and advanced the simple, obvious concept that before one can intelligibly comment on a text, that one must actually have read the text.



Reading the Koran is no sign of understand the Koran? You know better, Xris.



Yes, there are many interpretations - so what? Do the variety of interpretations of The Sun Also Rises mean that you or I could carry on an intelligent conversation about the book after having only read the Spark Notes? I don't think so.

So you are trying to use the suffering of certain people as an argument against the existance of God. Your point is that because of the suffering and miserable lives some people lead, no God would have created peolpe to live in such circumstances.

This point does resonate with the humanist inside everyone, you cant help but feel for such people.

Now this is a very big topic, and I will just give a brief overview of my understanding. Firstly if the universe was as you would appear to like it to me, only good, only happyness etc, then the happyness itself would have no meaning. You only know your happy when there is some contrast, some non - happy point of reference. So firstly the "bad" things in life, enhance, and make us grateful for the good parts.

The second point is made best by the 9th centuary philosopher, Hegel. Essentially he made a point that every challenge, every tough moment in anyones life was also a great opportunity to become stronger. Im massively simplifing his great works, but he goes on to give examples in history, where for every great calamity, there was human progress. Infact he says these challenges are the engine which drives humanity forward, without this, we would become stagnant. Without this inbuilt drive to reduce suffering and overcome these challenges, humanity would have been destroyed many times over.

Some of the philosophers of Islam have pointed to many texts which indicate that infact the ones that God loves the most, are the ones that recieve the most severe challenges, such as prophets.

Anyone who reads the life of Jesus, Moses, or any Prophet, will think, what a tough life, yet when they were facing all these hardships, and continually making the correct decisions, they were being rewarded and enhanced. If a man has faced challanged like that, simple day to day issues, such as a tempting glance from the women next door etc, all become easily handled.

Some references for these beliefs are found here:


[CENTER]094.001Have We not expanded thee thy breast?-[/CENTER]


[CENTER](increased your ability to reason)[/CENTER]





[CENTER]094.002And removed from thee thy burden [/CENTER]






[CENTER](made you more able to undergo your task)[/CENTER]





[CENTER]094.003: The which weighed heavily on your back [/CENTER]







[CENTER]094.004And raised high the esteem (in which) thou (art held)? [/CENTER]







[CENTER]094.005So, verily, with every difficulty, there is relief: [/CENTER]







[CENTER]094.006Verily, with every difficulty there is relief. [/CENTER]







[CENTER]094.007Therefore, when thou art free (from thine immediate task), still labour hard, [/CENTER]







[CENTER]094.008And to thy Lord turn (all) your attention. [/CENTER]










The important thing about this verse, is how the it says with every difficulty there is relief. It does not say, after every difficulty, but WITH.




I have really enjoyed this discussion, I hope we will continue and both gain from it.

All semantics Thomas, i wont play your silly game. Ask a question or answer my points but dont preach to me.

---------- Post added 09-07-2009 at 04:39 PM ----------

Sorry i find this theological argument quite sickening. I would deny my existance to save one child's agony, so what will god do in his grand plan? make these children's suffering some kind of good dead ,some unknowable task for the greater goodness of man. As I have said its beyond my understanding.