Boaz, you are hilarious sometimes.

>>We must all work together in keeping Australia free of those who would stifle free and open debate about all faiths<<

This, from someone who started a thread with the title:

"Imam Mahdi Bray must never enter Australia"

You can't possibly write this stuff with a straight face, surely?

Priceless.

Pericles, by worldplay you probably mean that you did not understand, so I’ll have to try better. The only problem - as aqvarivs suggested – is, whether enough people reading these comments would be interested in our sidetrack. If by moving forward you mean the clarifications of one’s position to the holder of the opposite (or just different) position, then I think we are moving forward, albeit slowly; if you mean that none of us is likely to convert to the opposite set of beliefs (or preconceptions) then, of course, you are right.

“ a theist's universe containing a god, while an empiricist's does not.”
No educated Christian (or Muslim, I gather) – certainly not the two astronomer priests I mentioned before – would expect to find God in the universe, if by universe one means the observable (by senses, instruments and – even if you dislike the fact – by mathematics) part of reality. Of course, the atheist will say that observable reality (the universe) is identical with all reality; the theist will disagree but still be able to look at observable reality with the eyes of science.

“Those who believe in a god … "see" things very differently.”
Here you are absolutely right, faith influences the way one sees oneself and man’s role in this world. However, when you spoke of cosmology and universe I thought by “seeing” you were refering only to objects and phenomena studied by natural science, and not things like ethics, politics, one’s psychological disposition, meaning of life etc. (ctd)

(ctd) “One side (the theist) claims … The other side (the empiricist) argues it is already the universe”
Let me reformulate again: If I ask an empiricist, ”Who created the universe, and why does it exist at all?”, he/she will answer that nobody, and that the question “why” does not make sense. If you ask e.g. a Christian, he/she will answer that God willed it, and when you ask further who created Him and why, he/she will give you the same answer: nobody, and it does not make sense to ask.

Both positions are resonable for those who hold them respectively, the term “reasonable” being suggested by acqvarivs instead of the more restrictive term “logical”: There is no point for me to debate a person who calls my argument illogical (unless he/she can convince me that he/she is a professional logician or a better mathematician), however I can see that some people will not accept my arguments as sufficiently reasonale.

The only advantage of the empiricist’s position that I can see would be along what is known as Occam’s razor (it is formally simpler), however that would be going too far if I tried here to work my reasoning around this objection to faith.

Anyhow, tell me, if I misrepresented the empiricist’s position, i.e. if you have a different answer to the question of who created the universe and why it exists.

P.S. To avoid further misunderstandings, the way I see the role of mathematics in understanding the universe is quite different from the one hinted at by Oliver. To explain in what sense, would by a sidetrack from our sidetrack.

george wrote " if by universe one means the observable (by senses, instruments and – even if you dislike the fact – by mathematics) part of reality. Of course, the atheist will say that observable reality (the universe) is identical with all reality; the theist will disagree but still be able to look at observable reality with the eyes of science."

george can I assist by ask you to think from a limited, more known perspective before applying the above globally...eg...

Your body...imagine by some unexplained cause every cell in your body became self-aware and which progressed to rational logical intelligence...so firstly we see the common between this and us humans as part of earth and the flow of energies...

Secondly, how each has its part to play..a brain cell wanting to be a 'nail' cell is just not going to work, and how all essentially work together to achieve a capable/functioning body, and if one cell or group forms to act in its own self interest(yep...cancer) and not checked then its going to harm the whole ie... and cause the sustainable balance to breakdown and the rest suffer first before the whole etc...and a lot more in common...including a beginning, acts and end(death or end of universe...ie entropy)...

So if one can think about-one-selfaware intelligent cell in your body with its limited and local senses asking itself the question...what is my existence about...does a god exist...and how it may find its answers...then applying principles of this to universe would certainly assist...

Sam

Pericles, no jest it was all logically laid out for you step by step.

Unless you are aware of a science that can create diverse somethings from nothing with in a vacuum and are willing to perform this science several times in succession to prove it's testability?

Just as I thought. It is you who are jesting.
I suppose there is some victory for the ego knowing one can move a thread off topic or sideline it in circular argumentatives.

see ya in the funny pages.

PERICLES :) *grin*.... remember another thing I said. "Debate is a game of chess"

You just took my pawn... and he was after all 'expendable' :) now..watch out for that Bishop or Knight lurking off to the side.

Glad ur paying attention.

Check out the "number" of the thread "Mohammad is a"..... quite true.
Divine intervention I'd say,(on a providential level) confirming what many of us have been saying for so long.

ISLAM is a religion AND A STATE.

The growth of Islam was the growth of a state, a government.
As such, it is unwelcome in Australia, and anyone who supports it, is in reality supporting a seditious movement in my view.
We have people in Australia calling for the re-establishment of an Islamic Caliphate. THATS SEDITION. The Caliphate ONLY existed as a government over Muslims. If muslim Australians are expected to be under a caliphate THATS SEDITION.

The ONLY 'renaissance' acceptable to this Australian, involves a PUBLIC CONDEMNATION of specific Quranic verses.

23:5-6.............immoral.
4:24.................immoral.
9:29.................seditious.
9:30.................ILLEGAL in Victoria, (vilifies) calling for the destruction of Christians and Jews. (By Allah)

33:50.................sexual licentiousness.

5:24 ................Vilifys Christians and Jews

5:33.................calls for MUTILATION of people who oppose Mohammad.

5:51................ Socially marginalizes Jews and Christians

Islam vilifies even its most revered Caliph Omar.. in fact..it calls him AN APOSTATE.

APOSTASY defined (in part) as

If any do fail to judge by (the light of) what Allah hath revealed, they are (no better than) Unbelievers 5:44

Bio of Omar http://www.bogvaerker.dk/Bookwright/Umar.html

When men observed his concubine they remarked, "Look there is the concubine of Amir Al Muminim (title of the Caliph..Omar)
and Omar said:
"She is not the concubine of the Amir al-Muminin, and she is not permitted to him. She is of the property of Allah."

Well.. bad news for Caliph Omar.. the Quran revealed that she IS lawful to him. (23:5-6)
Thus.. he was an apostate from Islam.(Thankfully-and more like a genuine Israelite prophet in his self control.)