:-)

**Charlie1965** · 08-03-2010, 12:33 PM

Hi Stranger

Despite all talk of objectivity and avoiding talking about things we just presume, you still don't read my messages properly and see them in the way you like. After I explain to you what I talk about I expect a clear excuse here. Not hidden in 1000 words, but clear and visible to everyone. I talk about this: 0

I never said most of people in the world are atheists. I said many people beside me are. If the number 2,4% is correct, than we still talk about quite many. That was just my reply to your previous message where you claimed that "god is unlikely only to you Charlie". Obviously, there are some more around the planet... 0

Next: I never said it is written in US law that people must believe in god. Unbelievable you can even say something like that. I just said it is not publicly accepted! That is something completely different. I also said a president candidate would not have a chance if he said he was an atheist. I think religion should not be involved in politics. It is so easy to misuse it. Please read again what i wrote and do what you should do as a gentleman. 0

Third thing you don't need to apologies for, but I add it in this mail anyway, cause you talk about not involving things that are just presumed, not a fact, while you still do it and just get to the wrong conclusion. It is true I live in Sweden, but that is not the reason why I am an atheist. I was born and grew up in Yugoslavia and lived in a family that was moderate religious. I became an atheist there. So if you look for a reason why I am an atheist you should look there. Or maybe even better: Look in the logical thinking. 0

The rest of your mail I will reply after I get your honest apologize for the things above. It is meaningless to have a debate if my messages are treated that way. Someone who starts to read the debate from your message, could think I actually wrote that way. That is a sabotage of my arguments. 0

Best regards from Charlie

**ابن السنة** · 08-03-2010, 03:42 PM

Dear Charlie,
I will try to be very brief

2Not accepted. Why? Well by logical thinking. We don't know any way of destroying material or energy, without transforming it to some other form of energy or material. So: Logically, what can not be destroyed can also not be created and is eternal.

Remember Charlie, that the laws of physics apply after the Planck's time. So your statment is not correct before the Planck time
This is number one
Number 2 is that we all know that matter and energy are things that transform and they need "external" factors to transform and anything which needs an external factor and transforms means that it is not self-sustained
Get my point
?

However I would not go that far to claim this is an absolute truth, cause we talk about happenings that happened in extreme conditions, before the time that even looked similar to our time. I say this because I want you to be careful using logic in the way you do

I infer what you mean here Charlie
You mean that under exterme conditions things may change, yes this is true for sure. LAWS of physics may change but we still have the other way of knowledge which is logic and we can go with logic up to the point when we discover that it is impossible to go farther
So a question like what causes the BB ?
is completely valid since the BB is transformed to this marvelous universe,
So yes we can safely say that laws of physics don't hold but still logic holds

Saying that there is god only because "material can not be a cause and bla bla bla" is like saying "Someone eat the grass in my garden! There must be an elephant there!" The space is too complicated to be explained that way

Well Charlie, at the end we both agree that the grass was eaten by someone.

I may call it an elephant, you may call it someone else
but if someone says that the grass disappeared for no reason, then this is unacceptable for both of us right?

There are actually "evidences" that 2+2=5. I don't remember how it goes now and of course this evidence has a mistake, but normally people don't see it

Yes I know these tricks charlie, it all depends on doing things which is illogical but many people under estimate it like dividing by zero both sides of an equation,...etc
but still this is a logical flaw
Yes I undestand what you mean and I hpope I answered that in the last 2 sections

If god created the world, than how did he do it? So from one difficult question, you put in god and get 2 difficult questions. You see, me and the "other atheists" came to the same question by logical thinking.

Again Charlie, knowing any fact opens more questions, this is not a problem. For example when the study of photons started in the last century we have thousands of questions like how, why , what
this is acceptable

You still did not answer me many of my questions, but ok.. I will repeat this one:0
IF there are mistakes in Quran, do you still accepted as a book written by god?

Sorry I haven't seen your question before
Well it is not related to our discussion but I can tell you that a contradiction with a fact certainly means that some book is not from God

**ابن السنة** · 08-03-2010, 03:52 PM

Summary"
1- Eternity as a concept is accepted ------ This is settled
2- Ibn Alsunnah says that matter cannot be eternal
3- Charlie says that this is possible
Not yet agreed by both of us, I am still to my point that matter cannot be eternal and I gave my arguments again in the last message

4-Ibn Alsunnah justified his argumnent by saying that an infinite chain of causes and effects is impossible

5- So the question is how can Charlie justify his argument about the possibility of having an infinite chain of causes and effects which is the only way to prove that matter is eternal
Lets wait for Charlie's arguments" 0
Charlie answered that under exterme conditions laws will be different and Ibn Alsunnah replied on that

At the end I want to point to one point
based on logic if we say that an infinite chain of causes and effects is possibe then this means that we exist and we don't exist at the sametime
I ( Ibn Alsunnah ) say that this is unacceptable
Charlie , as I understand, says that well may be logic will not work here because this is an exterme condition
Do you agree on that this is correct Charlie
?

**نور الدين الدمشقي** · 08-03-2010, 06:15 PM

Hi Charlie,
I already am truly enjoying this conversation as I’m already learning another example of how different people think with really different mentalities.
It’s unfortunate that you misunderstood my comments and my main point. My main point is that if we need to carry on this debate/conversation as objectively as possible, we have to eliminate assumptions and agree on common facts. When you talked previously about believing in God and religions, you said that you don’t believe in God/religion because they ARE “so unlikely”. This is the context in which you mentioned the word “unlikely”. When I replied and said God is unlikely only to you, you must have taken this literally when I meant it within the aforementioned context. My point was: when you say something is “so unlikely”, this is absolutely your own point of view. Yes it is the point of view for another 2.4% in the world, but the rest of the world obviously has a different point of view. So regardless of what your or my point of view is, to be able to carry on a debate, we have to build common facts and see where this would take us.

You never said it was written in the US law that people must believe in God. I totally agree with you. I never even claimed that you said that! The comment I was making in that regard was that if you don’t have high opinions of religious freedom in the US, I equally don’t have a high opinion about religious convictions in Sweden or Yugoslavia! Once again the “point” is: it doesn’t matter what your opinion is or what mine is as far as this conversation is concerned. What matters is what we can agree on (or disagree on) and how we can build upon our agreement points to prove to each other our view points and possibly change our views, or at least challenge them.
I really hope you don’t misunderstand my main point again. And I don’t really blame you since you might not be exposed to this way of thinking before, but hopefully you start seeing where we are not in synch.

When I said you are an atheist because you live in Sweden, I was NOT saying that as a necessarily “true fact” that you needed to nullify and tell me how that’s not true. It was not a presumption I had, but on the contrary I was saying: I can’t use such an argument even if that was what I believe in. In other words, I was making that comment to show you yet another example of how statements like: “you guys believe in God because you simply were taught that by your parents/environment”, would not help this conversation as they have no proof to them and are built on presumptions.
Read my words again carefully and you will clearly see that right after that comment I wrote:

See where such arguments take us? No where! That’s why I want to establish a common background (the game debate) because your assumptions that might be facts/true to you can be false to me, and vice versa

!

As a matter of fact if you read each one of the points you demanded an apology for, you would find that at the end of each one of them, I keep repeating something like: “But all that does not matter because it does NOT proof anything”. Hopes this assures you that you took my words out of context.

Finally I honestly do not mean to disrespect you in any way shape or form. This is actually part of our own religion and convictions.

Let me also give you an advice regarding your last comment (feel free to reject it or possibly benefit from it as it’s clearly my own personal opinion and is not part of the debate):

Someone who starts to read the debate from your message could think I actually wrote that way. That is a sabotage of my arguments

My advice: revisit your intentions. Are you involved in this debate because you want to show people that you are “right”? People don’t matter, and don’t place this as hindrance to objectively trying to learn something out of this debate. People could greatly influence someone’s objectivity. I’m assuming you’re here to learn something because you did indicate that you joined this forum to see how we could believe in God and find out more about reasons of why we believe. I think being open-minded means that I would be willing to understand someone else’s view points and possibly change some of my own views vs. coming in with a predetermined mentality and not even thinking of the possibility that I could be wrong. So think about that for a second. Also let me know if it would help to carry on this conversation privately.

I swear every time I try to make my messages short, it just gets’s longer. We should probably have a maximum of like 30 lines per post 

We truly want you to enjoy your stay here, so really nothing personal and absolutely no disrespect and ill feelings.

Let me know if we can continue now and start a fruitful debate, if so refer to my previous post and check out the rules for the debate game and let me know
stranger.

**Charlie1965** · 08-04-2010, 01:20 PM

Hi again Stranger

Actually I should have replied Ibn Alsunnah first, but since I will keep it shorter with you, I take you first. Well, I enjoy this forum a lot too. If you want to continue enjoying the debate, than better show respect. I had long and intensive debates here and although there is a big disagreement between me and the debaters here I learn something every day and we show respect to each others. Despite some hard talk sometimes#I did not experience anyone here trying to manipulate my words in a way you do. That is why I expect an apologize. If you are not ready to do what every gentleman would do, than there is no reason for me to chat with you. I don't see what this has to do with different mentalities. I though that in no culture it is ok to manipulate others words to make it look like the other side is talking stupid. If you want to call me stupid, that is ok. I can fight back in the same way, but I refuse to have a debate in the way you do. That is boring and tiering. I will not sink to that low level. Do you have problems taking responsibility for your own actions? Is that a mentality, or a cultural problem? Is it difficult for a man in your culture to ask for apologize for something he did wrong? Well, it is up to you and the way you were raised. I have other people here who respect me and I will gladly continue my chat with them. I don't have time to waste on things like this... 0

Charlie

**Charlie1965** · 08-04-2010, 03:25 PM

Hi Ibn Alsunnah

Thanks for your latest reply. Before I go on answering your question, i will put one by myself:
Does Quran talk about creation, or about evolution? By evolution here I mean something like god created the world and the life and than make it evolute. 0

Back to your latest comments. 0
You insist on finding evidence for god by using "logic". Well, that sounds nice in our world. But as we did agree the extreme conditions before BB can not necessarily be explained by the logic from our time. You say however that logic is always the same. Well, you mentioned Quantum physics by yourself a while ago. In our world things can not go through a wall, or just appear on other place. This is not logical but in Quantum physics it is maybe possible. We don't know how material acts in such extreme conditions as it must have been at the time of BB. So don't say logic is always the same. That is why I mean, you make some too big conclusions about things we know too little about. 0
If you don't agree with me, than at least try to understand why I think the way I do. Your "evidences" are simply not convincing. Can you understand why I see it that way? Can you see the problem in trying to explain god by the logic you try to use? 0
For the same reason I don't push on saying that material is eternal, although the pure logic says it is. Can not be destroyed and can not be created..... just transformed. But is this valid even for the time before BB? I think, yes, but I can not prove that. We must be realistic and treat out own thoughts critically. 0
I agree that in science one answer will often open more questions. However in this case we have the basic question remaining. Beside the two questions I mentioned, we also have the question: what is god? So far I mostly got replies what god is not, what he does not look like, etc. The conclusion that there must be a god is leaving this too big question without a reply: What is god? We have an answer that is not an answer, if you understand what I mean. 0
It seems like this way of debating will not make us agree. I would like if you could tackle the problem from some other side. I hope this is not your only evidence of god, cause from my point of view it is a very poor way to convince an objective and critical person. 0
I did not understand your last statement: "If an infinite chain of causes and effects is possible than we exist and don't exist at the same time!" Can you explain this? Why would it have to be that way? 0

Best regards from Charlie

**ابن السنة** · 08-04-2010, 03:26 PM

Dear Charlie
Sorry for interruption but I feel that you misunderstood Stranger. Stranger means that we shouldn't discuss things which we cannot prove. Either from your side or from muslims side
I enjoy the discussion too and I hope we call it discuassion rather than debate because "discussion " is more friendly to me
I actually hope at the end, that you will learn more about how we think. Please be sure that I am not going to manipulate logic to convience you of something
I will not gain anything of doing that.
Again, I think you misinterpreted stranger's words

Best Regards
Ibn Alsunnah

**نور الدين الدمشقي** · 08-04-2010, 04:23 PM

Hi Charlie,
Hope all is fine for you. Take it easy my friend>,
Once again I do think you misunderstood my words. You're demanding an apology for me manipulating your words, but I thought I clarified in the previous post how I never manipulated your words.
I'm not saying your stupid at all and I never claimed that.
I really want to spend the time on a fruitful discussion and don't want to waste time on such things
I said it before and I'll say it again: I do respect you by all means .
If you will insist, show me again where I manipulated your words, and I will be more than glad to apologize if you can prove it.

**Charlie1965** · 08-04-2010, 10:32 PM

Hi guys

It is amazing me that Ibn Alsunnah is saying I misunderstood Strangers words. It would have been more honest to defend him by saying he misunderstood my words. That would help him more.
This is very clear: I wrote #"It is maybe not written in law that you have to believe, but it is not really accepted to speak open against god in US (i was talking about arab countries too), for example. For example a candidate for president in US has no chance at all if he would say he is an atheist..." 0
Stranger replies: "Once again you got it wrong my friend. You obviously don’t know much about the US or the US law, so I don’t know where you get you opinions from. It’s called
freedom of speech and is in the first amendment of the US constitution..." 0

Next example. I wrote: "It is new to me that God is unlikely only to me (Stranger said so in the previous message). I thought many people around the world would agree with me, so even the science." 0
Stranger replies: "Are you serious man? I hope you’re kidding. You’re probably too confined to your experiences that are limited in Sweden. The last survey I’ve seen from the CIA’s world Fact book conducted in 2004 shows only 2.4% of the world’s population to be atheists. So yes God is only unlikely to you and the rest of the 2.4% in the world. God is likely to 97.6% of the world’s population! So NO! Most people in the world would NOT agree with you." 0

I never said they would. Read my messages more carefully before you reply. Is it a Muslims duty to always defend another Muslim#against a non-Muslim, regardless if he is right or wrong? If I had an Atheist here who would talk like that, I would not try to defend him, but correct him. I don't need any false evidences or arguments to defend the truth, which I always look for. 0

Charlie

**نور الدين الدمشقي** · 08-05-2010, 12:06 AM

Hi Charlie,
Let me start off with a saying of our prophet (PBUH); he said: “Support your brother whether he is a transgressor or has been wronged; they said, Oh Prophet of God: we would support him when he has been wronged, but how would we support him when he’s a transgressor? The prophet (PBUH) said: “by stopping him from transgression”.

We don’t support each other blindly; we actually would stand on your side if you were wronged. Not sure why you seem to assume that we have bad intentions and purposefully manipulate your words to mean something else. We really don’t and I feel that you’re taking this way too personal.

Exclude the president and high political offices; anyone can actually freely talk against God in public, and that’s supported by freedom of speech. I see it here day and night and it is acceptable unfortunately. I really don’t see where I manipulated your words. I simply refused them or disagreed to them. We can argue over this for a long time, but Charlie, what would this add to the debate? Nothing! And this is my point I’ve been trying to make since my first post.

I already explained that you took the words too literal and out of the context of what likely or unlikely would mean to God. Think about the context:

You said:

Some things I don't know if I should believe or not, and some I don't believe in because they are so unlikely

.

I said: God is unlikely to you only but is likely to us.

You took it literally to mean: (You’re the only one in the world who believes that god is unlikely). Clearly I know that other people besides you don’t believe in God in this world.
But what I meant within the context of my talk is: “you can’t use such arguments, because I can say God is likely to me. And if we look around the world we will see that actually God is likely to most people. So point: such arguments do NOT matter since again they will not help the debate. Once again I don’t see where I manipulated your words, I simply refused your argument and gave you an example of how such “opinionated” arguments won’t help in the debate. It’s facts and agreement points that we can build upon only. I really can’t be clearer than that!

Can we stop being too literal in understanding sentences.
Can we get started with a fruitful debate? Or will you not believe me and still cling to the idea that I have manipulated your words when I didn’t?

**Charlie1965** · 08-05-2010, 12:40 AM

No Stranger, we can not go back to the topic as long as you don't understand what is a nice custom in having a conversation. The problem is not that you said I am the only one who think god is unlikely. The problem is that in next message you claim I said most of the worlds population is atheists, and you talk in a way "Are you serious!?" That is manipulation. The problem is not that you tell me about the US constitution, but that you talk in a way as if I claimed that there is no freedom of speech or freedom of religion in US law, which I never claimed. And you continue with "Obviously you don't know much about US law", or something like that. What is obvious? That you talk of what you want to hear from me, not what you heard. The problem is also that in the first message after i pointed this, you say "I already enjoy this debate" . What was so enjoyable in starting with manipulating my comments and making me upset? 0
What would you say if i debate this way: "Stranger! You are are so cruel! You should never beat up your mother! That is a bad custom!" You would be upset and say you never do it.... And than I could reply "I did not say you did! I just said you should not do it!" That would be a pathetic way to debate and would not lead us anywhere. As long as you don't understand that, what is the point of debating with you? 0

By the way, helping a human being is nice, by correcting him when doing wrong. Ibn Alsunnah who I respect highly as a conversation partner, (although I disagree with his way of thinking) is not doing that. He supports you in doing wrong. That is not what your prophet teaches, if I understand correctly. But since we talk about that, I agree that people should get a support when doing wrong. I support politic parties that are thinking that way. No one is born evil and if someone steals, the society should help him to come back to the right way. Not cut of his hands. No thanks, for that kind of help. 0
However, there is no need for you to reply this. At least don't expect much of an answer by me. Would have been easy to say:"Sorry Charlie". I did not read your message properly and that is why i misunderstood your messages." We would have put a line over it and continue the talk. Instead you try to make me "understand" that I did not understood your message.... I will continue my discussion with Ibn Alsunnah and the others online till you do what you should have done. I really don't need this way of debating. It is quite boring. We have much more interesting things to talk about.0

Charlie

**ابن السنة** · 08-05-2010, 01:18 AM

Dear Charlie,
I am not supporting Stranger for doing something wrong. Actually I understood that he doesn't mean to hurt you , he was just giving examples.
Actually Charlie, many times you say very agressive statements and I just skip them because first they are out of our discussion and second because I know that your point of view is very different and I assume always that you don't mean any hurt
For example

No one is born evil and if someone steals, the society should help him to come back to the right way. Not cut of his hands. No thanks, for that kind of help

Well this is hurting to all of us, But I always try to skip such statements
Believe me Charlie, There is no bad feelings or intentions here. In contrary we are doing our best to make you enjoy your stay here
As I see from Stranger's comments in other places here, I infer that he is open minded and trying to b good with everyone. So I interpret what he says in a good way
Lets go to the real meat Charlie.
Best Regards

**نور الدين الدمشقي** · 08-05-2010, 01:39 AM

Charlie,
I have no problems to say sorry I misunderstand your words, but I truely think that you're completely misunderstanding my entire argument. I probably said it 10 time so far. What really matters is the actual debate which has different points of views. What you think or believe and what I think and believe are already different. It seems to me like you just want to argue too much for something too personal. I can take things personal and show you how you have already showed disrespectful to us in many previous statements you made . We ignore these because we know you don't necessarily mean to be disrespectful and move on to the actual debate to get some intellectual profit out of a fruitful discussion>> .
The main problem I see here is to "agree" on anything. you're approaching a very different mentality and different way of thinking so don't expect assumptions on either side to be necessarily clear to the other side.
it's simple: you believe I intentionally manipulated your statements. I'm saying no that's sincerely not true. If we will get into each other's "intention" we will never go anywhere trust me.
I don't by the way see how the talk about helping others is relavent in this matter.
so hope we're clear now. If not then feel free to let us know. if so, let's finally move forward
stranger

**نور الدين الدمشقي** · 08-05-2010, 01:44 AM

Charlie, I read Ibn Alsunnah's post after I posted mine (although his was posted first) Do you see the following coincidental similarities:
Ibn Alsunnah:

Actually Charlie, many times you say very agressive statements and I just skip them because first they are out of our discussion and second because I know that your point of view is very different and I assume always that you don't mean any hurt

Me:

I can take things personal and show you how you have already showed disrespectful to us in many previous statements you made . We ignore these because we know you don't necessarily mean to be disrespectful and move on to the actual debate to get some intellectual profit out of a fruitful discussion

Does this at least tell you something about how we're perceiving your comments? Would you please apologize for it?

**أدري** · 08-05-2010, 02:05 AM

Hello guys,

I am following your discussions and after the permission of the supervisor and Ibn Suunna I would like to participate in the discussion

Hi Charlie and welcome

you said to Ibn Suunna in a statement summarizing the previous discussions

I would like if you could tackle the problem from some other side. I hope this is not your only evidence of god, cause from my point of view it is a poor way to convince an objective and critical person

And since the discussions on finding a better way of evidence or proof for god’s existence by using logic, I would like you to look into the following five statements below and comment if you agree with me or not as first step. And then we can move to the answer of the last question.

Nothingness is the opposite of being as a whole
Nothingness does not exist
Any statement that implies the existence of nothingness is necessarily false
To say being as a whole is limited in extension and in duration implies the existence of nothingness
Therefore, being as a whole is un limited

Is the world equal to the being as a whole ie. is it the only being?

To follow …

Regards from Ibrahim

:-)

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