Saltpetre,

You say:

“David, your approach is almost as rigid as a religious zealot. Why not open your mind? Heaven/Hell offer a narrow path towards righteousness, in all the small things as well as the large - of conscience. Your doctrine relies only on compliance with Man's Law - which is demonstrably heavily flawed. Where do you derive guidance? Who/what are your exemplars, and what drives you to seek and follow their guidance?”

I’m really not sure and it escapes me how you get ‘rigid’ from there being no evidence for a god or gods. Sounds like self-protection for your own notions to me. How many times do I have to say atheists don’t care if people think there is a god or gods? Just keep it out of politics and the minds of children when there is no empirical evidence supporting such ideas.

All I am saying about heaven and hell is that is a big motivator in religion, along with, of course, the fear of annihilation.

Atheists get their ‘guidance’ from innate human nature and from our minds which can reason which allowed us to develop in cooperation to this stage. The likes of Jesus and Muhammad are new kids on the block compared to human evolution. You are kidding yourself if you think they had anything to do with inventing new morals. Ethical behaviour is an ever expanding process.

Atheists and the religious are alike in this. Religion cherry picks from so-called holy books and dons the acceptable (to them) and disregards the rest. The difference for atheists is they disregard that which is against reason and common-sense.

Or, are you telling me that without a god you would consider it reasonable and common-sense to murder, rape and steal etc.? I hope not.

David

@Tony >>The Big Bang ...

I'm saying based on this universe start with a single point and continue. A Big Bang is exactly that. An explosion would never create something like that of a cosmos, which means that the planets aren't crashing together, order, not chaos. A Big Bang if random would create chaos and nothing useful without an Intelligent Creator.

Even just an Enzyme:
A typical bacterium, which is the simplest of cells, is made up of 2,000 enzymes. Hoyle and Wickramasinghe took the probability of randomly assembling one enzyme and multiplied that number by itself 2,000 times to calculate the odds of a single bacterium randomly coming together. Those odds are 1 in 10^40,000. Hoyle said the likelihood of this happening is comparable to the chance that "a tornado sweeping through a junk-yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein."

What about eventually the Human Being? The amount of coincidences that would have to occur would be impossible without a creator.
The signs of God are everywhere.

As for Who to worship, most religions put God in the creation or say there are many gods which is plain wrong:
With putting God in the creation then who created that?
As for many gods:
God says in The Qur'an: Had there been within the heavens and earth gods besides Allah, they both would have been ruined..

This is logical. Also The Qur'an explains a lot of things regarding our creation which makes sense to me and doesn't oppose logic. Also keeps intact history and previous messengers messages Jesus, Moses, Noah etc. I read the Qur'an and I believe that it is the word of God with surety.

There's no doubt based on reason that for me it's impossible that the amount of coincidences could occur to eventually produce human.
Even if i put a sperm and egg in a beaker to make it easy, even if i waited a zillion years it would never produce a human without Gods intervention.

http://www.seekthetruth.org/be.html

@Bazz - bit of cheap shots there. Look at the statistics, it's stacked against the west.

Saltpetre,

I missed this this little gem. Why do you have to use the word ‘doctrine’ in regard to atheists or atheism? Atheists don’t have a ‘doctrine’ at all. Doctrine refers to a belief system such as that to which the religious adhere.

Accepting there is no evidence for a god or gods cannot be classed as a doctrine in any way, shape or form. This is your own insecurity at work in trying to align atheism with religion. It’s nonsense of course.

To clear this up, can you enunciate clearly without obfuscation, what is the ‘doctrine’ to which you refer thanks?

I'm waiting as these distractions from reality are annoying.

David

peacefulpeace
"Adultery punnishment is for every adulteress and not just for woman.
Adultery is an abhorrent act ruining families and has an extreme ill affect on society. What's the west putting in place to prevent this? How many mistresses do the non-islamic men have? Is this fair on woman? Is there even a law against adultery in the west?"

We have the concept of shame. Despite what you may think, adultery isn't exactly a virtue in the West. It carries with it the shame of broken vows and causing emotional havoc to all concerned.
The state does not need to intervene here, we have enough meddling in people's lives already by the state.

"Woman are ordered by God to dress modestly. The West doesn't tell woman how to dress? Look at the music videos and what they portray, even the ads on TV half naked woman. Dressing Sexy and provocativally looks to be the norm."

Women choose to dress that way. Whether they are influenced by tv or magazines is beside the point; they dress themselves. I don't see anything wrong with how they dress anyway.

The problem here is that Islam does not see the divide between the public and the private. I would suggest you read up on this to fully understand the West and why there is such a backlash against any Islamization of the West. You can start with "On Liberty" by John S. Mill. The West has spent considerable time trying to remove religious and government interference from people's lives. To go back to such a scenario would be to put the West back to the middle ages.

"In the end everyones going to be accountable for their actions and if you don't accept Islam it's your loss."

This attitude displays a deep-seated hatred for difference. To make people accountable is to, sneakily, make people pay for their behaviour. To want those who disbelieve to burn in hell for eternity is a strong hatred indeed. Once again, this is at odds with Western life that allows pluralism and a 'live and let live' attitude.

@Saltpetre:
Islam, Chrisitanity, Judaism stem from the same God, however there are differences. We believe that Jesus was the messiah to whom the Jews are still waiting for. That is a big difference as the Jews are still waiting for their "Messiah"
God sent Muhammad (Peace be upon him) to clarify things as there was misunderstandings when Jesus came. We don't believe Jesus was the son or part of any trinity, again God clarifies this as a Mercy to mankind in His final revelation Qur'an.
We believe that Moses was given the Torah and in all the prophet's of the past. The message was universal and simple, God is One, worship Him alone. The message as tends to happen gets changed along the way and God resend's prophets.
As for through understanding, moderation and tolerance, ofcourse we will have our differences and we are supposed to argue with the people of the book (Jews, Christians) using wisdom. The prophet was a perfect example of this who was named al-ameen (The trustworthy one) and had the best character.
God chooses the best people for prophethood.

@Saltpetre - Acceptance ... harmony. Rigidity ... division.

Agreed. There is only one truth though in the end. And we have been given every ability to seek this out and when the truth comes to accept.

Woman is the right hand of Man, and the womb of life, and deserves appropriate reverence and respect, always and in all things.

Yes. Woman hold a significant place in Islam and honour.
The prophet (pbuh) said:
"The most perfect believers are the best in conduct and best of you are those who are best to their wives".

" Woman is fragile like glass, and men should therefore treat women with delicacy and
tenderness as they would handle an article made of glass."

about the Farewell Pilgrimage address:

“ O my people! You have certain rights over your wives and so have your wives over you -
They are the trust of Allah in your hands, so you must treat them with all kindness.”

God knows best the exact translation.

Peaceful,

Thank you, that's a good start to the search for and the sharing of wisdom - such as we may understand with our as yet limited intellect.

God willing, Humankind will advance in comprehension in due course, and in mutual respect.

(And, for David, Reason and Compassion willing.)

David,

>"Or, are you telling me that without a god you would consider it reasonable and common-sense to murder, rape and steal etc.?">

With due consideration of my previous posts, your proposition here is blatantly 'physhing' of the worst kind.

Your Atheist 'doctrine'? As per your own posting:

>"Atheists get their ‘guidance’ from innate human nature and from our minds which can reason which allowed us to develop in cooperation to this stage."<

Sorry, but you could have referred to icons of philosophical brilliance, education and wisdom, of our learning from history and science and the hard lessons of the past regarding the pursuit of civilisation, peaceful coexistence and societal harmony. But, 'innate human nature' and all the brilliant capability of our 'minds' without appropriate guidance is as a ship without a rudder, and is foundation-ally crude, self-centered and unreliable. History should prove that to you, as well as current world disorder. And, don't try to lay all the blame on religion and religious intolerance, for that is an escapist scapegoat argument at best.

If Atheism doesn't have a definable foundational doctrine, perhaps it's time to think about devising one - if it could really be useful in defining a better path for humankind, free of intolerance or subjugation of any kind - rather than simply avowing the hollow 'We don't believe in God' mantra. In simply disparaging everything, good as well as bad, derived from consideration of the possibility of God and hence of our potential worldly responsibilities and purpose, you may simply be relegating Hope of a better world to the 'too hard' basket.