The steps to belief (or disbelief)

[Dexter Sinister]

Curtis Soles of Davie's Tropical Firearms said he recently received a shipment of five 1,000-round boxes of .223-caliber rifle cartridges used in the AR-15 and sold all five in one day. Price: $450 a box.

Are you perhaps posting in the wrong thread?

 

[eanassir]

...realistically, every one of those examples, despite the lack of details, can be ascribed to misperception, misunderstanding, imaginings, wishful thinking, and other such things.

You have gone too far in your may be's and probabilities. This is understood: the stable every day psychology needs to be steady; but this is wrong.​

I tell you how: I have some observations that I myself understood as not realistic. But such observations that I told you: no, they are true.
​

A properly hung and balanced door, for instance, will move in a very slight draft, it doesn't require anything you'd feel as a wind.

The door: it was not hung as do you say; everyday observation of this man does not notice anything similar to it in his house, only when some of his children moved it.

​

The story about your friend fearing his brother had died and then finding out that he did is confirmation bias and selective thinking. How many times had he had a bad feeling about a loved one that turned out to be false? People don't remember that kind of information, they just remember coincidences that seem to be significant, but without that information, you don't have the complete dataset, you can't conclude anything from that.

The brother of my friend: he was intact and healthy and strong in built; young: about 20-30 years old. The idea came to him, and he surprised and sought the protection of God from the suggestion of Satan concerning this subject, which was strange, and later on someone came and told him: that his brother died.
This has nothing to do with some bad feeling turned to be false: no such anticipation of the brother's death was felt before; he was safe and healthy; his death was unexpected at all.​

Under very poor lighting conditions through a window you saw something white that appeared to be moving along a path and interpreted it as being the ghost of your father. That might be pareidolia, it might be wishful thinking, it might have been a reflective or refractive effect on the window glass of a passing vehicle's lights, you don't have enough information to conclude it must have been the ghost of your father. Your 15-year old son jumping in to support you after your uncle and brother said it was nothing, well, that hardly needs explanation, assuming you're a good father and your son loves and respects you, which I do.

The ghost supposed to be of my father: it was not something white passing across the window; no, it was a man that passed before our sight along the path toward the kitchen, the door of which was locked. I described him in details to you: I did not see his face, only the broad shoulders and trunk, while my son sitting to my left side, he saw his face blurred with whiteness, as he said.

Moreover, my son (15 years old at that time) does not lie even for my behalf; he tells the truth to any side, even though against me. For he knew the Quran aya 4: 135 ​

يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُواْ كُونُواْ قَوَّامِينَ بِالْقِسْطِ شُهَدَاء لِلّهِ وَلَوْ عَلَى أَنفُسِكُمْ أَوِ الْوَالِدَيْنِ وَالأَقْرَبِينَ إِن يَكُنْ غَنِيًّا أَوْ فَقَيرًا فَاللّهُ أَوْلَى بِهِمَا فَلاَ تَتَّبِعُواْ الْهَوَى أَن تَعْدِلُواْ وَإِن تَلْوُواْ أَوْ تُعْرِضُواْ فَإِنَّ اللّهَ كَانَ بِمَا تَعْمَلُونَ خَبِيرًا​

The explanation:
(O believers, be 'upright and leaders' for justice, witnesses for [the sake of] God; [so say the true witness] even though it be against yourselves or [your] parents and [your] kinsmen.

Whether [the man] be rich or poor, God – surely – is more [than you] Worthy of either.

So do not follow [your] desires that you may not [witness] in justice.

But if you twist [your tongues to distort the testimony] or turn away [from saying the witness], then [surely] God is Most Aware of what you do.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Moreover, I did not anticipate my father at all; when I saw his frame, I thought he was my brother who is very similar to his father, even his voice: Glory be to God!
While my uncle and brother: they had their backs to the window, and they did not see that scene.​

You already believed in the reality of ghosts and spirits before any of these things happened, and you've many times shown yourself willing, even eager, to accept a supernatural explanation of events when there are perfectly ordinary explanations available.

Yes, I believe in the afterlife, angels and souls and the Creator of this World and the afterlife; but I should not lie, neither should I say there is nothing about the souls and afterlife, only to declare myself scientific.

Even when your claims are easily falsified, like all the junk science threads you've started here based on Al-Hilly's interpretation of the Quran, you cling to the supernatural explanations, and you trust your memory and perceptions far more than you should. They're notoriously unreliable, that's why scientific procedures have such elaborate safeguards against errors in memory and perception. They're not like recordings, they're subject to additions and excisions and modifications and reconstructions over time to conform to other beliefs and values and what people want to be true, these things are well documented.

Concerning Al-Hilly, read what he said in the link that I gave you about the conditions for the inspiring of the soul; while angels have more capability than souls in this respect; angels can inspire man in the street or in his office.
man-after-death.t35.com/1.htm#[_How_Can_souls_inspire_us_]_​

I also encountered some personal experience that is somewhat similar; but here the reply has become long.

I simply do not believe you're a reliable witness, your biases are too obvious.

As I said: I should not lie, neither should I say there is nothing about the souls and afterlife, only to declare myself scientific.


man-after-death.t35.com

 

[eanassir]

Administrator, the reply #119 is not related to our thread; thank you.

 

[eanassir]

In addition to my reply #122
Concerning the ghost supposed to be my father's soul:

However, next day I told a friend of mine: a dresser in the medical centre.
He said: "How is your mother?"
I said: "She is ok, living with my sister in another city."
He said: "Check about her condition; she might have some trouble, and the soul of your father came to you, for a purpose!'
Few hours later, they told me she had CVA.​

 

[eanassir]

I simply do not believe you're a reliable witness, your biases are too obvious.

Another observation about genies:

• I worked for many years in a town called Heet; they said there are genies there in this city; so I asked God secretly without audible word (lest someone should hear it and make some kidding or invention): I prayed God to show me those genies; then I forgot about that.

Then one day, the turn of medical duty was on me; I stayed in the house of doctors alone; all the rest went to their families. At afternoon I slept on my bed, then awoke to find someone standing in front of me: at the foot-side of the bed; he did not look in my eyes; he looked sideway at the wall; I did not see him before nor afterwards; he was brown (neither white nor black), with stern expression; his face was not smiling; he had a broad trunk; so I was afraid of this one, and I was alone, and he never spoke or looked at me directly, but he turned his eyes to the wall.

I thought I was dreaming, so I closed my eyes, then opened them very mildly, so that if one observe me, he may think I was sleeping, and I saw that one still standing in his place with the same situation and expression and sideway looking. (He deliberately did not look directly at me; because I think that would be very terrifying.)​

Then once again I closed my eyes and opened them mildly in the same way, with the same result; so really I was afraid and decided to sleep without speaking any word, then I awoke to find there was none there and that that one had gone. ​

I told Abu abd-Allah about that; he said: "Had this person hoofs? [Because genies have hoofs like those of horses, in stead of the feet]
I said: "I didn't see his feet; because he stood at the foot-side of the bed; only I saw the upper part of his body."
Then I asked him: "Do you think this genie is good or evil?"
Abu abd-Allah said: "I don't know."​

• I told one colleagues in that same hospital, who had the same turns of duty: he said:

"Once, I saw a young man lying on the neighboring bed in the room; then when I came to the room; he went out without speaking any word and without looking to me either, nor did I speak to him; he did not open the door of the house to go, but later I did not see him."​

• Another doctor, belonging to a family in the same town; he told me:
  "I went in my car to the capital city of that governorate; I went with one of my friends, and we used to go daily, one hour before dawn or so. We went to the military hospital, where we had a military duty."

"One day as we went in my car; I was driving the car one hour before dawn or so; the streets were at such time empty of people, and all of a sudden, we saw a child with a striped long shirt (dishdasha) crossing the street before the car, and I could not stop the car immediately, then we were startled for that, and stopped the car, and searched but we find nothing: no blood, no boy and nothing; this thing that I was not alone who saw, but my friend who was sitting beside me saw it also." ​

• Of course you may not believe the story of the worker whose duty was to tell the doctors that there, is in the hospital, some patient having emergency. So this worker came to the house of the doctor near the hospital to tell the doctor about the emergency patient in the hospital of that small-medium town.

He belonged to some sect other than the sect of that town; he used to revile the companions of Prophet Mohammed. [NB- usually genies follow the same sect of the town.] ​

Then once – as he came in the darkness at night to tell the doctor on duty – he was slapped on his face, and no one was there near him. ​

So are all these people lying or imagining or hallucinating?
man-after-death.t35.com/1.htm#Genies_[or_Demons]_​

 

[Said1]

Why didn't you ask for three wishes?

 

[eanassir]

Why didn't you ask for three wishes?

Three wishes? :lol:

Genies are like the human beings; they are not God; God only can grant the wishes.

 

[ironsides]

"Satan's greatest trick is that he convinced man that he doesn't exist." Is there good and evil in this world? should we get rid of the concept 'What's happening now"? Those are the only three concepts that exits, all other's fit within them.

 

[L Gilbert]

Those are the only three concepts that exits, all other's fit within them.

What should exit are the fantasies that ignorance and mysticism that the ignorant believe to be real.

 

[Scott Free]

"Satan's greatest trick is that he convinced man that he doesn't exist." Is there good and evil in this world? should we get rid of the concept 'What's happening now"? Those are the only three concepts that exits, all other's fit within them.

There is no good and evil that is a simplistic ancient superstition born out of our seasonal cycles. Evil is winter, dark and death; good is summer, light and growth. And notice this is all based on what is desirable for the people? Good means lots of food i.e, abundance (summer), bad means no food (winter).

So the reason people don't think Satan exists is because he doesn't; he is just a simple explanation for a complex cycle. I don't think what you or I want is "good" either (food, abundance, life etc..)

There is no good and evil - it is an antiquated notion.

 

[ironsides]

Of course your right, :laughing4: :evil2:

 

[L Gilbert]

Potatoes taste good. Squash tastes evil. And I used these steps to figure it out:
Ask a Question
Do Background Research
Construct a Hypothesis
Test Your Hypothesis by Doing an Experiment
Analyze Your Data and Draw a Conclusion
Communicate Your Results
which are pretty good steps to belief or disbelief.

 

[eanassir]

The dispute of Moses with Pharaoh the atheist​

God sent Moses: a poor shepherd, who had some difficulty of speech: stammering or stuttering in his speech: some words would come from his mouth with some difficulty.

(Abu abd-Allah had the same difficulty of speech: some words came slowly with some difficulty; so he hit his right thigh with his left hand when the word came with difficulty. Very strange is that this sign is written in some old books written some hundreds of years ago: that the interpreter of the Quran will have such description of his difficulty of speech and he hit his right thigh with his left hand; because he was a left-hander.)

And Moses was sincere to his Lord.

God sent this Moses [and his brother Aaron: a poor and righteous man) to the most haughty tyrant on Earth: Pharaoh: who was an atheist IMO.

This is in the Quran 26: 23-34​

قَالَ فِرْعَوْنُ وَمَا رَبُّ الْعَالَمِينَ . قَالَ رَبُّ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ وَمَا بَيْنَهُمَا إن كُنتُم مُّوقِنِينَ ...الخ​

The explanation:
(Pharaoh said: "And what is the Lord of the worlds?"

[Moses] answered [him]: "He is the Lord of the heavens and the earth and all that is between them, if you had but sure belief [in my words.]"

Pharaoh said to those around him: "Are you listening [to the words of Moses]!?"

[Moses] said: "[He is] your Lord and the Lord of your ancient fathers."

[Pharaoh] said: "Your messenger who has been sent to you is surely mad."

[Moses] said: "[He is] the Lord of the East and the West and what is between them, if you discern."

[Pharaoh] said: "If you take a god other than me, I shall surely imprison you."

[Moses] said: "Even though I bring you something plain [to prove my truthfulness.]"

[Pharaoh] said: "Produce it then, if you are truthful!"

So [Moses] flung his staff and lo! it was a serpent manifest.

And he drew forth his hand [out of his bosom-pocket], and lo! it was white to the beholders.

[Pharaoh] said to the council of the people around him: "Surely this [man] is a cunning sorcerer.")

quranandhebrewbible.t35.com​

 

[Dexter Sinister]

Jeez eanassir, can't you discuss anything without bringing in mystic nonsense like staffs turning into snakes? That doesn't happen. It's never happened. It will never happen. The Bible, the Torah, the Quran, they're all mythology, no different from the old Greek tales of Zeus and Hera and all the rest of them. Sometimes they get a few historical facts right, but no thinking person can take them seriously as accurate records of events.

 

[Scott Free]

Of course your right, :laughing4: :evil2:

Don't be silly, we're both wrong ;-)

 

[eanassir]

Jeez eanassir, can't you discuss anything without bringing in mystic nonsense like staffs turning into snakes? That doesn't happen. It's never happened. It will never happen. The Bible, the Torah, the Quran, they're all mythology, no different from the old Greek tales of Zeus and Hera and all the rest of them. Sometimes they get a few historical facts right, but no thinking person can take them seriously as accurate records of events.

While you deny it, believers do believe that certainly happened.
Here the aya of the Quran 11: 34-35, concerning the talking of Noah to his people, is applicable:​

وَلاَ يَنفَعُكُمْ نُصْحِي إِنْ أَرَدتُّ أَنْ أَنصَحَ لَكُمْ إِن كَانَ اللّهُ يُرِيدُ أَن يُغْوِيَكُمْ هُوَ رَبُّكُمْ وَإِلَيْهِ تُرْجَعُونَ . أَمْ يَقُولُونَ افْتَرَاهُ قُلْ إِنِ افْتَرَيْتُهُ فَعَلَيَّ إِجْرَامِي وَأَنَاْ بَرِيءٌ مِّمَّا تُجْرَمُونَ ​

The explanation:
("And my sincere advising will not profit you, if I desire to advise you [more than that I have advised you], if God wills to pervert you [because of your wrong-doing];
He is your Lord, and to His [sentence] you will be returned [after your death.]"

Or do they say: "He [: Mohammed] has forged it [: the Quran]"?
Say [Mohammed to them]: "If I have forged it, my sin is my responsibility, and I am quit of the sins you have done [: when you have ascribed daughters to God.]"
---------------------------------------------------------

Because the ancient Arabs claimed the angels were the daughters of God; as do Christians claim Jesus is the son of God, and some of Jews claimed Priest Ezra was the son of God.
quranandhebrewbible.t35.com/#The_Torah_[or_Hebrew_Bible]_of_Ezra_​

 

[eanassir]

Other arguments of Pharaoh with Moses​

As in the Quran 20: 49-52​

قَالَ فَمَن رَّبُّكُمَا يَا مُوسَى . قَالَ رَبُّنَا الَّذِي أَعْطَى كُلَّ شَيْءٍ خَلْقَهُ ثُمَّ هَدَى . قَالَ فَمَا بَالُ الْقُرُونِ الْأُولَى . قَالَ عِلْمُهَا عِندَ رَبِّي فِي كِتَابٍ لَّا يَضِلُّ رَبِّي وَلَا يَنسَى​

The explanation:
([Pharaoh] said: "O Moses, who, then, is the Lord of both of you [Moses and Aaron]?"​

[Moses] said: "Our Lord is He Who has given to every created thing its form, then has guided [it] aright."​

[Pharaoh] said: "What then is the case of the generations of old?"​

[Moses] said: "The knowledge of them is with my Lord; in a Book; my Lord errs not, nor forgets.")​

The interpretation:
>> ([Moses] said: "Our Lord is He Who has given to every created thing) the word "thing" indicates the material thing: like the plant, animal and man,
>> (Its form): its ethereal image, which is the soul: it is identical with the material body.
>> (then has guided [it] aright.") to obtain its livelihood: He guided the animal with the instinct, and man with the reason and mind.​

>> When Moses said: the punishment will be for the denier who turns away;
([Pharaoh] said: "What then is the case of the generations of old?") They were not punished; but they became dust, following their death; so Pharaoh did not know that man is not the material body, but it is the ethereal soul; Moses answered him:​

>> ([Moses] said: "The knowledge of them is with my Lord)
It means: Souls do last and do not perish; and that is up to God: if He likes, He punishes them in the world of souls following their death, or if He likes He postpones their punishment to the Judgment Day.​

>> While concerning their sins; they are written down and recorded (in a Book) of their deeds.​

>> (my Lord errs not) so that He may punish the non- sinning.​

>> (nor forgets.") so that He leaves the sinner without punishment.
quranandhebrewbible.t35.com/​

 

[Scott Free]

While you deny it, believers do believe that certainly happened.
​

They might believe it but that doesn't mean its true.

What's worse is they believe because they desire to believe or out of fear.

What a terrible affliction you have.

What a waste of life!

 

[L Gilbert]

heheheh
I agree with Dex, those tomes he mentioned are right up there in the believability scale with Grimm's Faerie Tales, Aesop's Fables, and Mother Goose.
2 reasons why people develop gods, religions, and the like: one is the one Scott mentioned already - fear, and the other is the curiosity over whether this life is all there is or if there is a chain of lives. I feel sorry for the former.

 

[Cannuck]

2 reasons why people develop gods, religions, and the like: one is the one Scott mentioned already - fear, and the other is the curiosity over whether this life is all there is or if there is a chain of lives.

Or maybe they aren't "developing" god at all but merely acknowledging the existence of said being. To me religion, be it Christianity, Islam or Atheism is but a means to an end. If everybody can agree on the destination then the route doesn't really matter as long as it gets people to where they wish to go. That's one of the things I find funny about these spiritual threads. After all the criticisms of eanassir, nobody has come close to refuting anything he/she has said....nor will they ever (in all probability).