Comment by eis | Hacker News Reader

Comment by eis | Hacker News Reader

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  >> That any theory that cannot be proven should not be paid much attention to
  > So we continue to live our life as animals?

What? How does yours follow from mine? I absolutely can't follow your way of thinking. Please explain. We seperated from animals long before religions were a thing. I am not living life as an animal just because I am not a theist (nor atheist).

  > As I mentioned elsewhere, in Islam, we have logic, observational evidence, and the honest news to get to truth. Disregarding any one of them is nonsensical.
  > Honest news is a source of truth.

"Honest news" is hearsay. I can't go and verify any of it. I cannot logically explain any of it even. You are asking me to just believe it is true what someone a millenia ago said, something (miracles) that goes against any real life obvervation I can do. Sorry, not happening.

  > There were several arguments made, e.g. fine tuning argument and the fact that something cannot come out of nothing. Those are established, and denying them is basically denying logic.

You said there is proof and yet whenever I ask you to present it you don't. I refused a whole bunch of the arguments made in the video, I think it was extremely misleading and some might call it dishonest.

I specifically refuted his fine tuning argument. I did so using basic logic and understanding of statistics. Can you tell me where exactly I was wrong? Quick recap: he assumes (unjustified) that there was only one try at making the universe and so the chance to get our universe would be excedingly low. There is no reason to make such an assumption and if you remove that assumption then the most likely scenario is actually that you arrive at our universe because with enough tries you will hit the jackpot a hundred times in a row, guaranteed. From our limited point of view that would look like a rigged system, something designed to be that way. This might be unintuitive at first to many people but is a simple mathematical fact.

That is just one of the possible explanation without resulting to intelligent design. Stephen Hawking's top-down cosmology is another. There are a few more.

> "Honest news" is hearsay. I can't go and verify any of it. I cannot logically explain any of it even. You are asking me to just believe it is true what someone a millenia ago said, something (miracles) that goes against any real life obvervation I can do. Sorry, not happening.

Look up the Islamic Isnad system.

Furthermore, if that's how you're going to view the world, then you can't accept any news about history. Obviously that is not wise or rational.

> I did so using basic logic and understanding of statistics. Can you tell me where exactly I was wrong?

By assuming there were many "tries" before the current universe came into existence. Who was behind those tries? When was the first try? Those are all metaphysical claims.

  > Look up the Islamic Isnad system.

I did but I didn't see anything that convinced me. It really is hearsay.

  > Furthermore, if that's how you're going to view the world, then you can't accept any news about history. Obviously that is not wise or rational.

No, you keep on making wrong conclusions. I accept there are historical texts and I can with rational thought come up with rough estimates how likely those events happened as written. Historians are usually honest that they can't be 100% sure that those events happened exactly as written because there is a long history of our understanding of events being incomplete, inaccurate or completely wrong. We can't take historical texts as gospel to build all our system of society and be so brazen to claim it's 100% true. And if some historical text talks about miracles, something which cannot be explained with rational thought and to the best of our current knowledge should be impossible then I have to be extra sceptical.

  > By assuming there were many "tries" before the current universe came into existence. Who was behind those tries? When was the first try? Those are all metaphysical claims.

I showed that when I use his base of reasoning then his conclusion is wrong. Applying statistics leads to the opposite conclusion than what he presented. His hole argument rests on an assumption he picked out of thin air. So if he can do it then I can with equal right assume there were many tries, no? Him and me would both have no justification to pick either.

Now if I give you my own opinion then I would say there is zero reason to make such assumptions and therefor we cannot deduce anything about how many tries there have been, when the first try was, if there even exists time outside our universe or what other rules apply or don't apply. It's all thought experiments. Thinking that the idea of god was there and just willed the universe into existance is a thought experiment just as valid as me claiming a pink machine prints universes. I cannot prove that and you can't disprove it. It's a stalemate. I admit that fact while you are 100% sure of your point of view. And since you are so keen on relying on history: history tells us people that had your point of view eventually were proven wrong.

Like you said, all those things including your claims are metaphysical theories. They are not facts.

> It really is hearsay.

No it's not. Even non Muslims admitted that we Muslims have the right to be proud of it. There's nothing else anywhere like it, secular or non secular texts.

> Historians are usually honest

Our Muslim historians even more so.

> And if some historical text talks about miracles, something which cannot be explained with rational thought and to the best of our current knowledge

Or that God bent the laws of our reality to make a point. Not everything is explainable by logic, especially when we see such events take place thousands of years later in our lifetimes today.

> So if he can do it then I can with equal right assume there were many tries, no?

No, because his claim is that there is a creator, whereas you're just making a claim that has no basis in your secular materialistic world view.

> Now if I give you my own opinion then I would say there is zero reason to make such assumptions

We exist, so there had to be a starting point. We have evidence that people came and claimed to be sent from God, and we proved their claims based on many things (their character, miracles, etc). The Quran to this day stands as a living miracle, and its challenge is up for anyone to take (many centuries after everyone tried and failed).

These things remind me of how new atheists are flimsy with their arguments https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rn7n-gff-0c

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