Recent content by duncan_bayne

This is best explained by the weak anthropic principle. Imagine you won a lottery (I know gambling is haram but this is the best example I can think of). You are standing in the street and think to yourself "what are the odds that all these numbers came up in the right order?" Well, the...

I didn't say that there is nothing you could say to convince me, merely that what you'd have to do would be to convince me that there are types of knowledge which I can't obtain through observation and reason alone. Because my opinion is a reasoned one, it must by definition be open to...

Where did you see this happen?

In times gone by, people have included the movements of the stars and planets, infectious disease, and rainbows in that list. What are the specific, unchanging characteristics of knowledge that is Al-Ghayb? How can I myself know whether a question is Al-Ghayb or not? You're making quite...

So faith is a way of obtaining knowledge in Islam, but only knowledge pertaining to the spiritual world. What then are the unchanging characteristics of spiritual knowledge that distinguish it from physical knowledge? (I say unchanging because much that is considered physical knowledge...

And that is fundamentally why I'm an atheist, & why many of my athiest friends are too: we reject faith as a means of obtaining knowledge: When accepting a statement as true, there are two basic methods. The first is reason. It is when the known evidence points to the statement being true...

According to Objectivism, it is axiomatic that existence exists: Existence is axiomatic because it is necessary for all knowledge and it cannot be denied without conceding its truth. To deny existence is to say that something doesn't exist. A denial of something is only possible if existence...

Do you think that it is possible to prove the existence of God, or do you think that the existence of God is a matter of faith (that is, that it must be accepted without rational evidence)? I'm not asking for a proof at this stage, just whether you think it's even theoretically possible to...

Under what rules must kuffar live if they are to be considered Zimmiyya Kaafir?

What exactly is meant by that prophesy? What - or who - are the swine?

Thanks to both of you for the more detailed post. I'm aware that slavery has a different connotation in Islam, and that it is limited to captives taken during war[1]. IslamonLine.net[2] makes the following point (my emphasis): So, when Muslims are ready to take the next step and...

Bump ... still hoping for an answer on this one.

And I'm still waiting ... to make this even clearer, I envisage an exchange that looks a little like this: Imam: You can't keep slaves. Believer: But the Quran says I can, under certain clearly explained constraints. And Mohammed himself did, as did members of his army. Imam: Oh, fair...

Why I'm focused on the issue of prophet infallibility is that it's my opinion that a system that consistently upholds human rights would be fundamentally incompatible with Islam (and Christianity for that matter), because it would entail absolute prohibitions on practices actually carried out by...

The source of an argument doesn't alter its validity[1] - it is conceivable that a non-Muslim may be correct in a particular criticism of Islam, just as it is conceivable that a Muslim may be correct in a particular criticism of a non-Islamic philosophy or religion. Truth is truth, regardless...