George Hannah
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I miss Fetlocks, we became good friends in PM world.
Evidence for religion
- Thread starter Le Havre Oswald
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There is nothing in any of the links above that is convincing.
The first link says there is not a shred of evidence discovered in the Sinai Desert that a large number of Jews had wandered for 40 years. The problem with that is how do we know the archaeologists have searched all the relevant areas or even what is the chance that 3200 year old data pertaining to this event can be found by archaeologists.
It then makes a claim that traces have been found for smaller groups of people which predated the Exodus in that same desert, but no information is given as to what that is.
This article mentions that the very first reference to “Israel” appears on the Victory Stela of Pharaoh Merneptah, one of Ramses’ sons, with the monument dated around 1207 B.C., close enough to the Exodus period.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/people-in-the-bible/pharaoh-king-punished-god/
The second link cites lack of eye witness accounts, then dismisses the claim of early sources as having Christian authors and hence biased, claims Paul describes only a 'heavenly Jesus', accuses the works of Tacitus and Josephus as altered by Christian scribes and finally dismisses the mainstream non-Christian scholars because they cite there are bits of untrustworthy information. Hardly compelling evidences to negate the "existence" of the central figure of a great religion.
Now, to the third link I doubt even you read that. It kind of gives a preview of Robert Spencer's (a well-known Islamophobe) book but the article doesn't even mention any single argument from his book. Some of the stuff mentioned in that article gave me a warmth.
"The Encyclopedia Britannica dubbed him “the most successful of all Prophets and religious personalities."
"In his 1978 book The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History, historian Michael H. Hart put Muhammad in the top spot, explaining: “My choice of Muhammad to lead the list of the world’s most influential persons may surprise some readers and may be questioned by others, but he was the only man in history who was supremely successful on both the religious and secular level.”
"Islamic literature contains an astounding proliferation of biographical material about Muhammad."
"In his definitive two-volume English-language biography of Muhammad, Muhammad at Mecca (1953) and Muhammad at Medina (1956), the English historian W. Montgomery Watt argues that the sheer detail contained in the Islamic records of Muhammad, plus the negative features of his biography, make his story plausible."
"The nineteenth-century scholar Ernest Renan confidently claimed that Islam emerged in the “full light of history.”"
"Given these three points—the richly detailed portrait of Muhammad found in the Islamic literature, the way he seemingly inspired his successors to found a vast empire, and his enduring legacy as founder of a religion that today claims more than a billion adherents—few have thought to question Muhammad’s existence."
D
D
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So you do have the ability to look into articles and critique their reliability, so why not the Qu’ran?
Metal Biker
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You're only proving that Muhammad existed, not God. This we know, the blood stained legacy and deeds attached to his name is indeed in the "full light of history" for everyone to see and make their own conclusions about that cannot be argued, even way back in the 7th Century this has been done all over the world, it is not a new thing.
There is nothing to prove that "God whispered in his ear" except for Muhammad's own account, and given the nature of the man himself from what history has shown us, many are skeptical he was being honest, to put it politely.
ZenHalfTimeCrock
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I am not impressed by Spencer. His approach is too informed by his own preconceptions for me to find him trustworthy, so much so that I have never bothered with him.
But I have read plenty of gold standard, peer-reviewed literature on Islam authored by leading and reputable academic authorities In the field who are informed by a straightforwardly historical-critical approach to their subject matter. The relevant authors in this respect are Fred Donner, Nicolai Sinai (on the Qur’an ), Jonathan AC Brown (on the Hadith), and Stephen Shoemaker. Asma Afsaruddin is also someone that I rate very highly. From the previous generation of experts, Maxime Rodinson’s warts and all biography of Muhammad is very good, and I recently enjoyed Montgomery Watt’s shorter account of Islamic history.
Now if one of the aforementioned contemporary writers on Islam wrote something that called into question Muhammad’s historical existence, then I would sit up and take notice, as I am not invested in any particular perspective when it comes to the emergence of the Muslim faith. Plus, as I have stated in a previous post, I don’t think there is a transcendent God getting his knickers in a twist about what we get up to down here. But when it comes to Spencer, he comes with too much baggage for me to regard him as credible.
Turning now to the evidence for the historical Jesus, Maurice Casey is the person to investigate, along with E.P. Sanders’ ‘The Historical Figure of Jesus’.
In closing, I should add that I am only able to post here sporadically at present. But that will all change in early July. I should then be in a position to post brief summations of what some of the academics I have namechecked above have argued in their studies of early Islam.
There’s one last thing: with a wonderful name like ‘Psychedelic Casual’ I would assume that you are familiar with Syd Barrett and Roger Waters. If this is the case, you might find it interesting to look for a publication called ‘The Hit: Into the Rock and Roll Universe’ by Andrew Rawlinson. The entire book can be viewed online and there’s an intriguing interview with the author on YouTube. Rawlinson is a lifelong friend of Waters and knew Barrett. He was also my former Buddhism lecturer at university, and used to set his students exam questions like ‘Vishnu is to Shiva as snooker is to all-in wrestling. Discuss.’ I would post the relevant links if I could but I don’t know how to do so with an iPad.
And the actual experience of ‘The Hit’ (a metaphor for mystical experience) is the only ‘evidence’ for the veracity of religion that has any credibility with me. Either Rawlinson is right (and he is very eccentric) or Dawkins and his fellow New Atheists have nailed it with their scepticism.
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ZenHalfTimeCrock
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As I stated above, the only evidence that I can think of is the unio mystica, encapsulated so wonderfully in the following brief exchange:
It's that ineffable something that is reported in virtually all the major traditions, from the theistic (e.g. Sufism with its emphasis on fana or self-extinction) to the non-theistic (e.g. the Buddhist teaching of anatta, philosophical Taoism). My own preference is the term deployed by the medieval Soto Zen practitioner Dogen: 'inmo' or 'It'.
ZenHalfTimeCrock
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Anyway, here's something to more that should fuck with people's heads on here a bit. It's an extract from a book by Steve Hagen.
We’ ve Got It All Backward
Many people put religion and science in separate, hermetically sealed boxes. Most of us, however, don’t realize that many aspects of religion and science were conjoined for many centuries before we put them into these boxes. In fact, at one time, before science really came into its own, science and religion were one and the same. This isn’t really so strange when we note that their common origin lies in our deep desire to know, to realize Truth. Consider, for example, what religion is actually about. The word religion came from religio, which meant “to bind back or very strongly to Truth.” Thus the heart of religion is about seeing or experiencing Truth—not about holding a set of beliefs. Religio comes out of our deeply felt desire to get back to Truth. We don’t want to be deceived.
Like religion, science is also about getting to Truth. The term science comes from the Latin scire, “to know.” Science, as I’ve often heard it said by scientists themselves, is about knowing, not about believing. But the place we tend not to look—the place we really get it backward, the place we really go wrong—is this area of belief. Indeed, as we commonly think of science and religion, each claims an attribute that more naturally (and properly) belongs to the other. While religion is commonly thought to be about belief, its natural concern is actually with Knowledge, with knowing. And while science is thought to be about actual Knowledge, and fancies itself to be independent of belief, it is in fact inherently quite dependent upon it.
An article appeared not too long ago in the New York Times entitled “Crossing Flaming Swords over God and Physics.” It was about a debate between Steven Weinberg, the Nobel laureate in physics, and John Polkinghorne, a knighted physicist and Anglican priest. It was presented as a match between the “believer” (Polkinghorne) and the “nonbeliever” (Weinberg). But, in fact, that’s not what it was at all. Their interaction, as described in the article, almost “deteriorate[d] into a physical fight.” If Dr. Weinberg had been genuinely a nonbeliever, there would have been no problem. In fact, this event was not a debate between a nonbeliever and a believer but a confrontation between two ardent believers. It was a standoff between two men who believed two very different views. The real issue is not science versus religion or even belief versus nonbelief. The most angry and virulent debates in the world (and the worst violent clashes) are inevitably between one believer and another. Once two headstrong believers spar off, the odds of coming to any amicable resolution are nil.
The fact is that science needs belief. It can’t function without it. Science requires that we construct conceptualized versions of the world. It needs us to break the world apart so that we can examine it. This isn’t wrong; indeed, there’s great value in it. In this sense, then, science makes greater use of belief and is more dependent upon it than is religion. In contrast, for religion to function properly—that is, for it to help us open our eyes to Truth—it shouldn’t require belief. After all, religion is fundamentally about direct Knowledge of Truth. Thus, all religion needs to require of people is an earnest desire to know, to see, to wake up. This is enough. Unfortunately, in practice, religion makes wide use of beliefs—beliefs about how we got here, what our purpose is, where we ’re going, and so forth—all in a desperate attempt to make sense of the world and our experience in it. As Joseph Campbell put it, religion short-circuits the religious experience by putting it into concepts. But for religion to continue to function at its best, it would do well to get out of this business of belief entirely, to stop forming inevitably inaccurate conceptual models of Reality. This has become more properly the territory of science, not religion. In short, science is well positioned to properly handle belief. Religion is not.
Science goes to great lengths to test its beliefs (which it calls hypotheses), to verify or disprove their validity. Science tests its hypotheses, and if they’re in error they’re thrown out or reformulated and tested again. Tests must then be replicated many times by others. It’s an impeccable method for arriving at truth—that is, relative, practical, everyday truth. Science, however, can reveal to us nothing at all about ultimate Truth. This is, instead, the legitimate province—and responsibility—of religion. Using the scientific method, we can clear up a lot of misconceptions about the nature of the relative world—the world of this and that—and about how things function and interact. But there ’s nothing about this method that finally brings us to understand, directly and immediately, what’s actually going on. This belongs to religion—but only so long as religion doesn’t wallow in belief. Religion is not equipped to test and verify hypotheses. Nor should it be. It doesn’t need the scientific method because it needn’t and shouldn’t make use of hypotheses or rely on beliefs of any kind. Unfortunately, because all religions, including Buddhism, do indulge in beliefs, everyone goes running off in different directions, carrying their separate banners of belief, signifying nothing but human delusion and folly. As a result, we have religions fighting each other and religions fighting science. As my teacher, Jikai Dainin Katagiri, used to say, “Under the beautiful flag of religion, we fight.”
But it’s not religion that creates this situation. It’s the fact that we’re constantly reaching for something we can grab hold of. We want to say, “Ah, this is it. This is how it is. This is the Truth; believe it!” But to the extent that we do this, we do not (and cannot) arrive at Truth because Truth—ultimate Reality—is not something we can believe. That is, it isn’t something we can formulate in a concept of any kind.
At some point we have to settle into realizing what the deep need of the human heart really is: we want to get back to Truth. This feeling is often innocently yet eloquently expressed in religion. It’s pure heart and mind, yet with no specific point or agenda. And when we quiet our busy minds, this purity of heart and mind can be immediately felt. But, instead, we habitually look to something outside ourselves, something “out there” in the world—or even “out there” beyond the world—that will save us, something that will serve as a go-between. This all comes out of our confusion and out of the fear that we’re somehow removed from Truth, that there’s some innate separation in the first place. But there isn’t. And what we most need to do as human beings—and what religion, in its purest form, can help us do— is quiet down and realize this. ...
Shunryu Suzuki wrote in his first book, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, I have discovered that it is necessary, absolutely necessary, to believe in nothing. That is, we have to believe in something which has no form and no color—something which exists before all forms and colors appear. This is a very important point. Or, as the ninth-century Chinese Zen teacher Huang Po put it, “The foolish reject what they see, not what they think; the wise reject what they think, not what they see.” Instead of putting faith in what we believe, think, explain, justify, or otherwise construct in our minds, we can learn to put our trust and confidence in immediate, direct experience, before all forms and colours appear. Religion, in its most essential expression, can help us do this. This is faith in its purest form: trust in actual experience before we make anything of it—before beliefs, thoughts, signs, explanations, justifications, and other constructions of our minds take form. This is the great sanity, the great compassion, the great wisdom that religion holds for us. This sanity, compassion, and wisdom all come out of simply learning to trust that Truth is right at hand. There’s no go-between. You don’t get it from a teacher, from an institution, or from a belief system of any sort. You don’t get it from a book, either. Indeed, you can’t.
We’ ve Got It All Backward
Many people put religion and science in separate, hermetically sealed boxes. Most of us, however, don’t realize that many aspects of religion and science were conjoined for many centuries before we put them into these boxes. In fact, at one time, before science really came into its own, science and religion were one and the same. This isn’t really so strange when we note that their common origin lies in our deep desire to know, to realize Truth. Consider, for example, what religion is actually about. The word religion came from religio, which meant “to bind back or very strongly to Truth.” Thus the heart of religion is about seeing or experiencing Truth—not about holding a set of beliefs. Religio comes out of our deeply felt desire to get back to Truth. We don’t want to be deceived.
Like religion, science is also about getting to Truth. The term science comes from the Latin scire, “to know.” Science, as I’ve often heard it said by scientists themselves, is about knowing, not about believing. But the place we tend not to look—the place we really get it backward, the place we really go wrong—is this area of belief. Indeed, as we commonly think of science and religion, each claims an attribute that more naturally (and properly) belongs to the other. While religion is commonly thought to be about belief, its natural concern is actually with Knowledge, with knowing. And while science is thought to be about actual Knowledge, and fancies itself to be independent of belief, it is in fact inherently quite dependent upon it.
An article appeared not too long ago in the New York Times entitled “Crossing Flaming Swords over God and Physics.” It was about a debate between Steven Weinberg, the Nobel laureate in physics, and John Polkinghorne, a knighted physicist and Anglican priest. It was presented as a match between the “believer” (Polkinghorne) and the “nonbeliever” (Weinberg). But, in fact, that’s not what it was at all. Their interaction, as described in the article, almost “deteriorate[d] into a physical fight.” If Dr. Weinberg had been genuinely a nonbeliever, there would have been no problem. In fact, this event was not a debate between a nonbeliever and a believer but a confrontation between two ardent believers. It was a standoff between two men who believed two very different views. The real issue is not science versus religion or even belief versus nonbelief. The most angry and virulent debates in the world (and the worst violent clashes) are inevitably between one believer and another. Once two headstrong believers spar off, the odds of coming to any amicable resolution are nil.
The fact is that science needs belief. It can’t function without it. Science requires that we construct conceptualized versions of the world. It needs us to break the world apart so that we can examine it. This isn’t wrong; indeed, there’s great value in it. In this sense, then, science makes greater use of belief and is more dependent upon it than is religion. In contrast, for religion to function properly—that is, for it to help us open our eyes to Truth—it shouldn’t require belief. After all, religion is fundamentally about direct Knowledge of Truth. Thus, all religion needs to require of people is an earnest desire to know, to see, to wake up. This is enough. Unfortunately, in practice, religion makes wide use of beliefs—beliefs about how we got here, what our purpose is, where we ’re going, and so forth—all in a desperate attempt to make sense of the world and our experience in it. As Joseph Campbell put it, religion short-circuits the religious experience by putting it into concepts. But for religion to continue to function at its best, it would do well to get out of this business of belief entirely, to stop forming inevitably inaccurate conceptual models of Reality. This has become more properly the territory of science, not religion. In short, science is well positioned to properly handle belief. Religion is not.
Science goes to great lengths to test its beliefs (which it calls hypotheses), to verify or disprove their validity. Science tests its hypotheses, and if they’re in error they’re thrown out or reformulated and tested again. Tests must then be replicated many times by others. It’s an impeccable method for arriving at truth—that is, relative, practical, everyday truth. Science, however, can reveal to us nothing at all about ultimate Truth. This is, instead, the legitimate province—and responsibility—of religion. Using the scientific method, we can clear up a lot of misconceptions about the nature of the relative world—the world of this and that—and about how things function and interact. But there ’s nothing about this method that finally brings us to understand, directly and immediately, what’s actually going on. This belongs to religion—but only so long as religion doesn’t wallow in belief. Religion is not equipped to test and verify hypotheses. Nor should it be. It doesn’t need the scientific method because it needn’t and shouldn’t make use of hypotheses or rely on beliefs of any kind. Unfortunately, because all religions, including Buddhism, do indulge in beliefs, everyone goes running off in different directions, carrying their separate banners of belief, signifying nothing but human delusion and folly. As a result, we have religions fighting each other and religions fighting science. As my teacher, Jikai Dainin Katagiri, used to say, “Under the beautiful flag of religion, we fight.”
But it’s not religion that creates this situation. It’s the fact that we’re constantly reaching for something we can grab hold of. We want to say, “Ah, this is it. This is how it is. This is the Truth; believe it!” But to the extent that we do this, we do not (and cannot) arrive at Truth because Truth—ultimate Reality—is not something we can believe. That is, it isn’t something we can formulate in a concept of any kind.
At some point we have to settle into realizing what the deep need of the human heart really is: we want to get back to Truth. This feeling is often innocently yet eloquently expressed in religion. It’s pure heart and mind, yet with no specific point or agenda. And when we quiet our busy minds, this purity of heart and mind can be immediately felt. But, instead, we habitually look to something outside ourselves, something “out there” in the world—or even “out there” beyond the world—that will save us, something that will serve as a go-between. This all comes out of our confusion and out of the fear that we’re somehow removed from Truth, that there’s some innate separation in the first place. But there isn’t. And what we most need to do as human beings—and what religion, in its purest form, can help us do— is quiet down and realize this. ...
Shunryu Suzuki wrote in his first book, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, I have discovered that it is necessary, absolutely necessary, to believe in nothing. That is, we have to believe in something which has no form and no color—something which exists before all forms and colors appear. This is a very important point. Or, as the ninth-century Chinese Zen teacher Huang Po put it, “The foolish reject what they see, not what they think; the wise reject what they think, not what they see.” Instead of putting faith in what we believe, think, explain, justify, or otherwise construct in our minds, we can learn to put our trust and confidence in immediate, direct experience, before all forms and colours appear. Religion, in its most essential expression, can help us do this. This is faith in its purest form: trust in actual experience before we make anything of it—before beliefs, thoughts, signs, explanations, justifications, and other constructions of our minds take form. This is the great sanity, the great compassion, the great wisdom that religion holds for us. This sanity, compassion, and wisdom all come out of simply learning to trust that Truth is right at hand. There’s no go-between. You don’t get it from a teacher, from an institution, or from a belief system of any sort. You don’t get it from a book, either. Indeed, you can’t.
Trevor Morley's Tache
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Some guy claims himself to be a prophet, and that he's in direct contact with god. This happened thousands of years ago, and someone wrote a book about it.
Witten today, that book would be in the fiction section, but given the time and circumstances, that story gained traction, and that book is now cited as evidence that god exists.
Today, if someone claimed to be a prophet in direct contact with god they would be sectioned under the Mental Health Act.
Metal Biker
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