Whence Then is Evil?

Re: 145

That human senses are limited in their perception does not mean that you can answer most questions remaining within their limits, you need not become a table to understand a table, similarly the limits of perception are filled through reason which expands human understanding way beyond the limits of perception. Saying that logic has its limits so we cannot understand God, and have to rely on faith is a lame argument, such arguments, supporting whatever status quo might exist at the time are mere excuses that try to take perfectly reason bound phenomenon to the realm of the forbidden.

Re: # 146, masadi saheb,

I said we can`t understand beyond our senses and reason is what our senses have derived/acquired the knowledge of the universe which evidently must again be limited. We can gain MORE and MORE knowledge which may be too vast to imagine today but still it will be limited because universe and the inside of the tiniest particle is infinite. So, we can`t know whether God is or not.

Samar

143, Kal Saheb and Philosopher,

Humans have been given limited capacity of perception. They can`t see beyond speed of light, they can`t smell many things, they can`t express/understand/decipher many things. They have evolved the concept of infinity which they can`t visualize. So, they can`t know God. They can not say whether God exists or not. Similarly nothing is evil/good because many things which are good for humans are bad for other species of living beings and vice-versa. God/Nature or call it/Him anything has to look after everyone including non-living things so we, humans can`t decide which is good and which is evil. Universe is carrying on in its own way.

Samar

Gill writes <<< The research conducted to date has verified Bohr’s point of view. Certain aspects of quantum physics are not very clear in the classical sense and our understanding will probably change when (or if) a unified theory (Theory of Everything) is discovered... >>>

Actually this hypocrite is confusing between probabilistic causation at the subatomic level because of the consciousness factor (necessitating the God factor which he is denying wile affirming this) and the structure (that is quite deterministic I might add) that emerges on larger scale levels.

That said, can you remove your damn photo from the front page of this site, it has been there for weeks, advertising a long gone article. Just because you happen to be the damn editor of Chowk does not mean you can advertise yourself and censor other much better written articles....

Philosopher

I have a request for you, my friend.

Before the question of whence evil? must come the question of what is evil? Gill sahib won`t even get into that other than portraying evil as the opposite of good. :(

You have a gift for putting across basic islamic insights in most logical fashion. And Islam probably has the best and clearest understanding of evil.

Could you take out a little of your time to write a note on what evil is from Islamic point of view. It will be very helpful.

Thanks in anticipation.

Re: # 143

Kaal ji
(((((Could you take out a little of your time to write a note on what evil is from Islamic point of view. It will be very helpful))))

Aur aab tak kiya jhak maar raha tha mein...lol...Aap ki is baat par aik shair araz hai;

Bay niazi had se guzri banda parwar kab talak

Hum kahein gay hallay dil aap farmaayan gay,Kiya?

Lol...jutst kidding....Kaal ji its an intresting question and i will try to explain islamic perspective of evil.

khurram: #141
Thanks for sending the article to me. We all learn from our objective and open-minded analyses of propositions that we come across now and then. I didn`t spend much time in analysing the problem step by step. I noticed the serious defect in assumption #2 and that was it. Be well,
Mohammad Gill

Re: freethinker #140,
I guess that is one way around it. To deny causality altogether.

I just saw this `proof` today for the first time and posted it because it was relevant to your earlier post. After I thought about it a little more I realized it has an obvious problem even if we accept causality. The proof says that God(G) must be an uncaused non-composite cause of the Universe(U) because the Universe being a composite system cannot be self-caused.
But if G does indeed exist as a cause of U then G+U make another composite system and we need to look for another cause. So we are back to the problem of infinite regression.

I was glad to realize this because I don`t believe in reducing God to `existence`.

khurram: #137

Although I had said in my last post that that was my last post, khurram has sent something else in my direction, which is the so-called (a new) proof of “The Existence of God?” The article (hyperlinked) itself recognizes that the proof is not entirely new because its essentials had already been formulated by Ibn-i-Sina in the eleventh century. Nonetheless, it is cast in a new logical frame (is it really new?) although it is the old cause-effect formulation. The accuracy of the proof rests on three assumptions which are described simply in the hyperlinked “A New Proof of God’s Existence?” If any of these assumptions is incorrect, the logical structure will collapse.

The number 2 assumption says, “For every system or composite phenomenon, any cause for the system is also a cause for every part of the system. (Every material thing, except possibly the elementary particles of quantum physics, is composite.)”

There was a 30-year long discussion (controversy) on determinism (cause-effect hypothesis) between Einstein and Bohr. Einstein believed in determinism while Bohr said the events taking place in the subatomic world are probabilistic; they are not deterministic. You can only calculate the probability of an event in the subatomic world but cannot say for sure that a certain event will actually occur as an effect of a prior cause.

The research conducted to date has verified Bohr’s point of view. Certain aspects of quantum physics are not very clear in the classical sense and our understanding will probably change when (or if) a unified theory (Theory of Everything) is discovered... Therefore the so-called proof is suspect due to questionability of assumption number 2.

With regards,

Mohammad Gill

Re: freethinker,
``When I see a convincing argument in support of the existence of theistic God, I`ll accept it and share it with other agnostics and atheists.``

Mr Gill,
What do you think of this?

http://www.onecountry.org/e102/e10214as.htm
(Don`t forget to click on the link at the end of the article)

Zee, Philo

Some people might suspect that you two are creating a new Islam. Or that your understanding of Islam is not any better than theirs or other Chowkies, say, Gill Sahib`s.

That can be easily put to test through # 133.

Actual scholars of Islam (again, not self proclaimed sufis) are unlikely to spend too much time proving God is good. Rather they would see Islam as the ``best`` way to reach God/ find His grace.

With Christians and Sufis, of course proclaiming the so-called goodness of God might be a big issue.


If anybody knows otherwise, it will be great to hear from them.

#132 by freethinker,

I think scholars of Islam do emphasize that God is good and just and these are attributes of Allah.

Bhai ... God is neither good nor evil. God is God. Good and evil are human perceptions ... while God is incomparable to any human perception ... Sir read Surah Ikhlaas.

#127 by philosopher,

Excellent post. Guess you missed the pub today :)

``scholars of Islam do emphasize that God is good and just and these are attributes of Allah.``

Zee, philo, or anyone else, have Islamic schcolars (not Sufi `scholars`) written much on this subject? Intutitively, it is far more logical to argue that Islam is good, and leads to good, than to worry too much about whether God Himself is good or evil. That seems too sufi (read either nonsensical or deceptive) or Christian (read incomplete).

philosopher:

You say good and evil are relative and “Good” is not an attribute of God. I think scholars of Islam do emphasize that God is good and just and these are attributes of Allah. In your concluding paragraph you wrote: “According to the Quran ``latter (the hereafter) is always better than the former`` so for Quran world is temporary and `evil` is nothing but only a ``possibility``. In this way ``death`` which looks an evil to agnostic mind, is the way to find eternal peace. So the the question of evil becomes meaningless even in ‘’non-logical’’ way.” If God is not good then there is nothing to discuss in as much as my article is concerned.

Both Christianity and Islam asserted that this world was temporary and would come to an end soon. We factually know only this world (and only conjecture about the other world, the hereafter) to exist even after 2100 years when its impending end was predicted. One can, of course, shut one’s eyes (if one chooses to do so) and pronounce “evil is nothing.” To one school of thought, the whole world is an illusion.

If good and evil are relative, so is God. The Christian God (God of Love) is different relative to Muslims’ Allah and Hindus’ Baghwan. There are number of other deities also in which Hindus believe. So by this argument also God, Allah, Baghwan and others of its kind “are nothing.”

This is my last post on this subject and I have written it reluctantly because the whole discussion is getting out of hand. If you want to continue this discussion with me, please send your comments by e-mail to me and I’ll respond by e-mail, as I had suggested in one of my earlier posts. Otherwise, this discussion is over in as much as I am concerned.

I had sent you an e-mail through Chowk (since I don’t know your e-mail address); I don’t know if you received it or not. If not, let me know by e-mail, I’ll send it to you directly. It is a commentary on modern logic by a philosopher. There are many sides to philosophy none of which may be very certain without empirical evidence.

Be well,

Mohammad Gill

Re: # 132

well Gill sahib

We both have presented our case. Now its up to the readers`s choice what they find more meaningfull.

Lets agree to disagree.it has been a pleasure to have debate with you. I am really thankful to you for kind response.

I haven`t found that mail...can you please send it on

philo_chowk@yahoo.com

Thank you very much for that.I find words so poor to express how much i am grateful to you for that.

Re:#134 by zeemax on July 9, 2007 12:45pm PT

Thanx mate.....lol to the last line.