The Improbability of God

[eanassir]

Refuting the atheist​

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Some atheists stated theri objection to religion and God's existence in the following points:
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• The argument of design

This is true and an obviously valuable proof of God's wisdom.
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• God is a convenient explanation of anything we don’t understand.

This is a trick in wrangling: Certainly, God's knowledge and wisdom is superior to our knowledge and everything we know and everything we don't know; all that is known to God.
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• The belief of people, in God, makes them feel superior to others: believers will feel superior to non-believers.

This to some extent is true, but this will be some act of hypocrisy in some, and a self-conceit in some others.
Moreover, no one may guarantee for himself any future admission into Paradise, unless according to God's favor and grace; and this includes the prophets even.
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• The religion makes man superior to women:

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Man and women have equal rights, but men in some capabilities are superior to women: man is the leader of the family. Man and woman have equal reward of their righteous work; but to everyone of the man and woman there are some predilection.
This is in the Quran 2: 228​

وَلَهُنَّ مِثْلُ الَّذِي عَلَيْهِنَّ بِالْمَعْرُوفِ وَلِلرِّجَالِ عَلَيْهِنَّ دَرَجَةٌ وَاللّهُ عَزِيزٌ حَكُيمٌ​

The explanation:
(And [wives] have rights similar to those [of husbands] over them accordingly; but the men have an authority over them. God is All-Mighty [and] Wise.)

And in the aya 4: 7
لِّلرِّجَالِ نَصيِبٌ مِّمَّا تَرَكَ الْوَالِدَانِ وَالأَقْرَبُونَ وَلِلنِّسَاء نَصِيبٌ مِّمَّا تَرَكَ الْوَالِدَانِ وَالأَقْرَبُونَ مِمَّا قَلَّ مِنْهُ أَوْ كَثُرَ نَصِيبًا مَّفْرُوضًا
The explanation:
(For men there should be a [certain] portion of the [inheritance] which parents and near kindred leave [after their death],
and for women [also] there should be a [certain] portion of the [inheritance] which parents and near kindred leave, whether it be little or much: a portion prescribed [by God.])

Man is somewhat different from woman; he usually expends out of his money on the family, and there are some criteria in the body anatomy and physiology which makes him somewhat different from the woman; although both of them are human beings and have equal rights in the reward of their righteous deeds.

This is in the Quran 4: 34​

الرِّجَالُ قَوَّامُونَ عَلَى النِّسَاء بِمَا فَضَّلَ اللّهُ بَعْضَهُمْ عَلَى بَعْضٍ وَبِمَا أَنفَقُواْ مِنْ أَمْوَالِهِمْ فَالصَّالِحَاتُ قَانِتَاتٌ حَافِظَاتٌ لِّلْغَيْبِ بِمَا حَفِظَ اللّهُ ...الخ​

The explanation:
(Men are the 'protectors and managers' of women, for that God has preferred some of them [the men] to the others [: the women], and for that they expend of their wealth. Righteous women are therefore obedient, guarding the secret for God's guarding…etc.)
​

 

[Dexter Sinister]

Can you tell me in mathematical figures what such probability is, of the formation of the eye or the wing or the complex chromosomes by mere chance?

That's utterly irrelevant, a straw man fallacy. There's a lot more than mere chance at work in evolution.

 

[Dexter Sinister]

• The argument of design

This is true and an obviously valuable proof of God's wisdom.​

No, it is completely false. The design argument fails on many points of both logic and evidence. The appearance of design is an illusion that endures due to ignorance and sloppy thinking. If you look closely--and you certainly can, the information's freely available--what you see is an absence of design. It's really an argument based on probability, or rather, improbability: some complex thing is correctly described as being so improbable that it couldn't have been created by chance, therefore it must be designed. That's a false dichotomy to start with, but I've been over this ground many times with others here, and possibly even you, and I don't propose to do it again. You'd just deny the evidence and logic anyway.

 

[MHz]

Dexter, this isn't about the existence of God but it is about the question of the wisdom of an ancient book and it's application in today's world.
Shortly after the exodus Israel was given some guidelines concerning usury. Loans made to all Heathens could have interest applied to them. When fellow members of all Tribes it was based on the wealth of the banker. If a loan was made to another Israeli who was not as rich as the banker the loan was interest-free. If the loan was made to somebody who was richer than the banker then interest could be charged. Interest on those two types of loans paid all banking expenses, the little guy paid nothing to the bankers.
Enter the cross, at that time Heathens and the 12 Tribes were made equal in God's eyes. That should have means the poorer of the Heathen should have been granted interest-free loans. That has never happened since the Jewish bankers do not recognize Jesus as the Messiah. Jews have been involved in banking ever since the cross, one reason Britain expelled them had to do with charging the poor so much in interest (this event can be found in our history books).
Now we have to split this into 'in theory' and 'in practice'. In theory banking should be run in that fashion, if you make less than a banker any/all loans should be interest-free loans, if you make more then you do pay interest on any/all loans. Lets assume all business make more than what a banker takes home, all those loans would be interest bearing loans. All banking fees are paid out of those two types of loans so that is what would determine what the interest rates would be. A busy bank who had many interest-bearing loans out could offer a lower interest than a bank who had only a few of those loans out. That would also determine how much the banker would claim as income for himself. A modest salary means more interest bearing loans, and excessively high income would reduce the number of loans that could generate interest and that would lower the bankers personal income. That would pretty much highlight how banks would work under the ancient guidelines. In practice this has never happened, banks charge everybody interest, with a twist.
The richest pay the least in terms of services and interest. Bankers are the very richest people on the planet, they have been for 100's of years and it is not going to change. They hold 90% of all money and let the world run on the 10%, the ratio should be reversed, 90% should be in circulation and 10% held by the bankers. No banker should be richer than the majority of his clients, as it is the bank is richer than all it's clients put together and interest will make sure that relationship never changes.
Obviously this is meant to be a summary and not an extensive study on all the differences but it is enough to form an opinion. Banking today is geared to making a few very rich and a guarantee that there will always be a class that is very poor. The number of the poor is determined solely by the banks, if they want a higher number up the interest rate and service charges on the poor, let the richer ones pay less than they were, basically making it free for them (after all available deduction at year end it is free banking, it is the smucks that are the lowest that pay the most.

Once you take the con of the Federal Reserve and the Rothschild's of the world into account you have the system today that is an utter failure for the poor but works great for the rich and the ultra-rich.

Here is one link but I doubt it will cover all the issues.
Interest on Loans in Judaism

 

[Dexter Sinister]

Dexter, this isn't about the existence of God..

Yes it is. The thread is called "The Improbability of God" and most of the discussion's been centred around various ideas for and against a high or low probability, not usury or Judaic banking practices. I think you must have posted that in the wrong thread.

 

[MHz]

Fine, I'll ignore post #83 and take you non-answer as an admission that His banking rules are far and above anything we have today which is geared to the keeping the class presently called the poor as a means of insuring that the so-called elite have a life based on every desire the body can dream of while the rest can wallow in misery, science being a major partner in seeing that it is, for the most part, hidden.

BTW, having the concept of a banking system that is unmatched even today is a sigh of higher intelligence that is above what was in use back then and it is still the better system than today in that it insured a section of mankind was not abused by another portion of man.

 

[eanassir]

That's utterly irrelevant, a straw man fallacy. There's a lot more than mere chance at work in evolution.

Leave the composition of language.

We are speaking about the probability.

We did not specify is this evolution or not; and even evolution: what probability is there in forming by chance of such systematic and yet vey complex and efficient structure of the eye or the chromosome with its spiral structure and chemical arrangements of its compounds?

Is it 100% or 1% or 0.1% or 0.0001% etc?

E.g. if there is a box with 26 English letters, and a monkey takes out letters out of this collection of letters in this box, what is the chance that one of Shakespeare's plays may be written by such chance and probability?

In addition to that the eye is more complex and the compounds and cells and the function of each cell and the structures within the cell are far more complicated than Shakespeare's plays. ​

 

[SirJosephPorter]

• The religion makes man superior to women:

Man and women have equal rights, but men in some capabilities are superior to women: man is the leader of the family. Man and woman have equal reward of their righteous work; but to everyone of the man and woman there are some predilection.


Eanassir, that is a bunch of rubbish, and you know it. Islam considers man to be superior to woman, considers women to be subhuman (so does the Bible, but we will stick to Islam here).

According to Koran and Sharia, one man equals two women. In a Sharia court, testimony of one man is considered equivalent to that of two women. This means that in a Sharia court if a man testifies one way and woman testifies the other way, the judge has absolutely no discretion in the matter, he must believe the man.

The man may be a drunk, illiterate, a half wit, insane, the woman may be highly educated, a professional (doctor, lawyer, scientist etc.), it doesn’t matter, the judge must believe the man. It takes the testimony of two women to balance the testimony of one man and testimony of three women to override the testimony of one man.

Similarly when it comes to inheritance, a son inherits twice as much as the daughter. In Islam, woman is considered a chattel of the man and nothing more, Islam is absolutely vicious when it comes to the women.

Also, Islam permits man to beat his wife. A devout, pious Muslim must beat his wife, that is the diktat of Koran. I think Islamic scholars pretty much agree on this (that the man is entitled to beat his wife), the only disagreement is what implement he is permitted to use (cane, belt, whip etc.) and to what severity he may beat his wife.

So when you claim that men and women have equal rights, you are not fooling anybody here, men have exactly twice as many rights as women in Islam.

 

[MHz]

Why not just use their own system to debunk their theory, you can fing this material in many places.
The average ape gene has 100,000 base pairs (a base pair is essentially 2 amino acid molecules). How can 100,000 base pairs suddenly materialize inside of an ape's sperm? And even if 100,000 base pairs can materialize out of thin air, how could all the base pairs be perfectly sequenced so that they form a gene that actually helps the ape evolve into a man? There is no evidence that it ever happens
Supporters of the Theory of Evolution never talk about the Gene Count because there is no genetic mechanism for adding a gene.
Both common sense and logic tells us it is impossible to add a gene to a chromosome.
Mutations Do Not Add Genes

Darwinists claim they have tons of evidence mutations occur and this is genetic evidence that supports Darwinian Evolution.
There is a ton of evidence that mutations occur - but a mutation is a change to an existing gene and mutations never result in actually adding a gene.
We have explained that if Darwinian Evolution works, organisms have to have a way to add a gene, because an organism has to increase the number of genes in its genome in order to advance to a more complex organism. Mutating is not a way for any organism to add a gene. A single gene could mutate forever but it would never change the gene count.

 

[eanassir]

No, it is completely false. The design argument fails on many points of both logic and evidence. The appearance of design is an illusion that endures due to ignorance and sloppy thinking. If you look closely--and you certainly can, the information's freely available--what you see is an absence of design. It's really an argument based on probability, or rather, improbability: some complex thing is correctly described as being so improbable that it couldn't have been created by chance, therefore it must be designed. That's a false dichotomy to start with, but I've been over this ground many times with others here, and possibly even you, and I don't propose to do it again. You'd just deny the evidence and logic anyway.

I said leave the composition of language. I show you how you resort to such composition.
The words underlined are only some language composition; what remains is that you say:
[The complex organ is said to be designed, while it is not.]

How is that? Even the simple structure or object has to be done by some doer, then how about the complex organ or orgnism; how did it come by chance, and what is the amount or the arithmatic value of such probability; give me some rough figure?

 

[SirJosephPorter]

Men are the 'protectors and managers' of women,

eanassir, ha! Don’t make me laugh. A Muslim man is the ‘protector and manager’ of the woman? He is permitted to beat his wife, nobody will say anything to him, it is permitted by Koran. He has absolute control over her each and every action, including where she may go, who she may talk to, what she may wear (usually a veil or chador, covering her entire body). He is the master and she is the slave. And this ‘paragon of virtue’, this Taliban Muslim is the protector and manager of his wife? More like the lord and master, the commander of his wife.


for that God has preferred some of them [the men] to the others [: the women],

Now here for a change, you got something right. God prefers men, and not women. In the eyes of Islamic God, a woman is but a step removed from animals.

Righteous women are therefore obedient, guarding the secret for God's guarding…etc.)

Again, bingo. Got that one right. A Muslim wife must obey her husband, otherwise the husband is permitted to beat her to his heart’s content.

 

[MHz]

considers women to be subhuman (so does the Bible, but we will stick to Islam here).

Actually this doesn't seem to be knocking women down at all.
Ge:2:23:
And Adam said,
This is now bone of my bones,
and flesh of my flesh:
she shall be called Woman,
because she was taken out of Man.
Ge:2:24:
Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother,
and shall cleave unto his wife:
and they shall be one flesh.

If you can be this far off-base in only the 2nd chapter maybe you should stop commenting on things that you (apparently) know little or absolutely nothing about.

 

[SirJosephPorter]

Really? Then how do you explain the following?

Genesis 3:16 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

It plainly, clearly says that the man shall rule over the woman. There are several other verses in the Bible establishing man’s superiority over woman (e.g. where a woman is commanded to submit to her husband, to obey his every whim, every command).

According to the Church, the pain a woman suffers during he childbirth is Eve’s punishment for deceiving Adam.

In medieval Europe, it was forbidden to do anything to alleviate a woman’s childbirth pains, that was considered to be against the directive of God. A doctor (offhand I don’t recall his name) was overseeing a particularly difficult and painful delivery. He couldn’t stand the screams of the woman, she was in obvious agony. He gave her something to relieve her pain. For his efforts he was burned at the stake by the Church.

 

[MHz]

Really? Then how do you explain the following?

Genesis 3:16 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

It plainly, clearly says that the man shall rule over the woman. There are several other verses in the Bible establishing man’s superiority over woman (e.g. where a woman is commanded to submit to her husband, to obey his every whim, every command).

According to the Church, the pain a woman suffers during he childbirth is Eve’s punishment for deceiving Adam.

In medieval Europe, it was forbidden to do anything to alleviate a woman’s childbirth pains, that was considered to be against the directive of God. A doctor (offhand I don’t recall his name) was overseeing a particularly difficult and painful delivery. He couldn’t stand the screams of the woman, she was in obvious agony. He gave her something to relieve her pain. For his efforts he was burned at the stake by the Church.

That isn't permission to mistreat her, he makes the final decision in all matters. You may/may not also realize that all of mankind (even Adam)is sub-servant to Christ

Pain at birth was a punishment from God, she didn't deceive Adam, Adam willingly ate so Eve would not be alone in death. She broke God's one commandment. All 3 got punished that day. Since God made them their first set of clothes how mad was He? He appears to more sad than hostile (except Satan of course)

I wouldn't classify medieval Europe as the hotbed for obeying Scripture to the letter.

 

[eanassir]

Woman rights in the Quran​

Islam considers man to be superior to woman, considers women to be subhuman (so does the Bible, but we will stick to Islam here).

From where in the Quran is this stated that women are subhuman?

On the contrary, God - be glorified - said in the Quran

3: 195​

فَاسْتَجَابَ لَهُمْ رَبُّهُمْ أَنِّي لاَ أُضِيعُ عَمَلَ عَامِلٍ مِّنكُم مِّن ذَكَرٍ أَوْ أُنثَى بَعْضُكُم مِّن بَعْضٍ​

The explanation:
(Then their Lord heard their [supplication, and said:] "I do never waste the work of any worker among you [but I will double the worker's reward],
be he male or female [: no discrimination between the male and the female concerning the reward of the work]:
some of you [proceed] from others [: the male proceeds from the female, and all of you proceeded from Adam.] )​

And by God's will I shall come to the rest of your objections as soon as possible.

 

[SirJosephPorter]

That isn't permission to mistreat her, he makes the final decision in all matters.

Oh, so you agree that God gives the man the authority to make the final decision in all the matters pertaining to the marriage (e.g., which house they should buy, how much the wife is allowed to spend on her clothes, how much he may spend on his car or his other ‘toys’, which school should the children attend, which church should the children attend and so on. And this regardless of the fact that she may be a high powered business executive and he may be a lazy, unemployed bum)?


Now, that may be your definition of equality, in my book, that means God is saying that the woman is inferior to the man.

I wouldn't classify medieval Europe as the hotbed for obeying Scripture to the letter.

That is your opinion, I am sure that Europeans in medieval Europe would have said that they are the true Christians, that they follow Bible to the letter. By what authority do you proclaim them to be false Christians? Did somebody give you the authority to decide who is the true Christian and who isn’t?

 

[SirJosephPorter]

From where in the Quran is this stated that women are subhuman?

Where it says that one man is equal to two women. Or where it says it is OK for a man to beat his wife. It clearly implies that a woman’s worth is half that of man’s worth, that women are subhuman.

 

[MHz]

Oh, so you agree that God gives the man the authority to make the final decision in all the matters pertaining to the marriage (e.g., which house they should buy, how much the wife is allowed to spend on her clothes, how much he may spend on his car or his other ‘toys’, which school should the children attend, which church should the children attend and so on. And this regardless of the fact that she may be a high powered business executive and he may be a lazy, unemployed bum)?

I doubt that marriage would ever take place. Besides a lazy, unemployed man is a bum (like you say) and not a man anyway.

Now, that may be your definition of equality, in my book, that means God is saying that the woman is inferior to the man.

You forgot the who goes off to war and who gets to stay home with the kids. BTW a wife has a lot to say on how she feels about any upcoming decisions around the house. She would care less about what crop to plant or other matters that the man knew more about because he spent hour and hours and hours doing those things.

That is your opinion, I am sure that Europeans in medieval Europe would have said that they are the true Christians, that they follow Bible to the letter. By what authority do you proclaim them to be false Christians? Did somebody give you the authority to decide who is the true Christian and who isn’t?

Your own description of what was going on clearly tells if they were following Christ's two Laws or not, you should know the answer but here is one example of the answer

M't:7:20:
Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.
M't:7:21:
Not every one that saith unto me,
Lord,
Lord,
shall enter into the kingdom of heaven;
but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
M't:7:22:
Many will say to me in that day,
Lord,
Lord,
have we not prophesied in thy name?
and in thy name have cast out devils?
and in thy name done many wonderful works?
M't:7:23:
And then will I profess unto them,
I never knew you:
depart from me,
ye that work iniquity.

 

[Dexter Sinister]

We did not specify is this evolution or not; and even evolution: what probability is there in forming by chance of such systematic and yet vey complex and efficient structure of the eye or the chromosome with its spiral structure and chemical arrangements of its compounds?​

As usual, you miss the point entirely. First, if you're talking about how eyes, wings, the DNA code, and similar things came to be, then evolution is what you're talking about, unless you're trying to argue that they appeared instantly by divine command. Second, insisting on being given a value for the probability that these things could have formed purely by chance is fundamentally irrelevant and adds nothing to the discussion. Chance is not the determining factor in the process and the answer wouldn't mean anything. It's impossible to calculate a priori anyway, but obviously the probability that they can be produced by some process is 100%. The process is called natural selection, and it's obvious you don't understand it or you wouldn't ask such questions.
​

 

[Dexter Sinister]

Both common sense and logic tells us it is impossible to add a gene to a chromosome.

That's simply wrong. Duplication happens a lot, it's easy to add material to the code, it's been observed many times. Search here for "gene duplication," you'll find over 630 pages of references.