What would convince you?

[TheKeyAuthor]

1 Would he have to appear on Oprah or the like? Which means he has to be a celeb first. How would he become a celeb?
2 Would he have to do tricks like change water into wine? Which means the likes of David Copperfield, Siegfried and Roy etc. are candidates?
3 Would you believe a "miracle" on TV anyway?
4 Are we too sceptical and information overloaded to believe anything any more?
5 Would anything possibly convince anyone in the 21st century anyhow?

"He ordained love and kindness between you"

That must be why the world is such a utopia of peace and goodwill

Why is everyone talking about miracles?

If you saw something miraculous, would you really believe that the only explanation would be the Abrahamic God?

I would suspect US military technology, aliens from another planet, or time-travellers from our future.

I think that's a fair point. One could look at lightning and think "Wow, a build up of electrostatic energy that is grounding itself out! Look, it's heating the air so much it's hotter than the surface of the sun!"

Or one could look at lightning and think "Wow, god caused that! Praise Jesus!"

But actually I think it's Thor. He is casting down lightning to scare away the trolls. The thunder is the sound his chariot makes as he rides away. I think we can all agree that Thor is doing an excellent job because I can't remember the last time I saw a troll wandering around the countryside.

We need to be careful not to assume that the only god is the Abrahamic god. There are loads more out there that may well offer a better explanation for any given miracle.

" i think its for this reason that philosophy isnt as great a science amongst muslims as mathematics or biology."

Or philosophy "isn't as great a science amongst Muslims" because:
(1) philosophy isn't a science
(2) Islam doesn't encourage philosophical musings because you are supposed to just accept and obey ("Islam" = "submission" and all that)
(3) if you think you know all the "why"s of the universe ("because God willed it so"), then there isn't much to philosophise about.

Sorry but trinity etc has nothing to do with what I was saying.

And may I say that I find it sad that you are so removed from scientific way of thinking that you think philosophy is a science, and wouldn't be surprised if your totally religious way of looking at the world has something to do with this.

solidgoldbrass: I can understand your sentiment. The best I can do is to say look at my profile, then further... and try to understand my predicament.

So what kind of events do you mean? Can you give an example?
Lightning has been mentioned, so I will use that. If a house in your street was struck by lightning, you would take note of it as it had never happened before.
If it happened again, even a year or two later, you may think it odd. How many similar lightning strikes would it take before you started to think that this wasn't a random sequence of events? After eliminating obvious causes (new lead roofing etc.), you determine (after research of course) that the probabilities of such a series of events is tens of billions to one. Then one night, unable to sleep in bed, you spot the largest star you have ever seen in the night's sky. As you are drawn to it, you find it depicts your name, initials included. On investigation (research) you find the star and depicted pattern have significant religious meaning...

This is going outside the premise of your original post but I was intrigued by the link in your profile...

...and having read it, I'm still pretty much non the wiser but a lot more wary. A lot of what you write (eg the UN petition) presupposes that everyone reading it first off knows all the details of your case, the machinations of UK politics but real and supposed, and also all the details of a whole slew of other stuff you've thrown into the mix that seems to be verging into tinfoil-hatted conspiracy theory. You really think your case led to the sacking of Baroness Kinnock? Really?

I'm very sorry if you've had problems in your family. I hope that, whatever has happened to your daugher, the case can at some point reach a satisfactory conclusion for all involved.

But I'm not spending £14.95 on a book to find out a) what on earth it is you're talking about, and b) if your case really was of such world-shattering importance that it lead to the sacking of Baronness Kinnock, or c) if there really is any link between what happened to you and what happened in the Madeleine McCann case as you are trying to imply. Particularly as I suspect any such book will be full of much the same kind of wild accusations as your web pages.

Cote, you say that philosophy is not a science - you do realise that that's a very recent viewpoint (historically speaking) and that it is an opinion rather than self-evident fact, don't you?

So it's a relatively recent viewpoint. Language changes and ideas evolve. Philosophy used to be used as a term to cover both what we mean today by it as well as what we now call science.

Science is about observation, measurement and experiment to formulate and test hypotheses. I'm struggling to think of how one could conduct meaningful experiments in epistemological philosophy. You can with some aspects of ethics but at that point you're more into the psychology of morality - ie, you're back to science.

Yes, of course language and meanings change over time. To live well is to change often. I'm not a philosophy specialist, but I do place a very high value on thinking well and ststematically, which is one if the things philosophy teaches. But what I find a bit difficult about these very polarised 'science vs faith' arguments is that they often seem to assume a particular view of what science is, and state that opinion as though it were absolute fact, and allow for nothing else but it, therefore being much more fundamentalist than all but the tiniest fringe of extremist Christians (I say 'Christian' because I am one, and whereof one cannot speak, etc.)

Hello all, just joining in the conversation

I believe that God exists and the Quran is the true word of God because the Quran has set a challenge to all those claiming it is man-made. (In islam , we do not believe that God is a man)

In the Quran the challenge is this:

?And if you are in doubt about what We have sent down (i.e. the Qur?an) upon our servant, then produce a Surah like thereof and call upon your witnesses (i.e. supporters) other than Allah, if you should be truthful.

This challenge is basically saying that if all experts in the world got together and the best brains in all disciplines got together, they would still not be able to produce 3 arabic verses similar to the style of the Quran.

To date no one has been able to complete this challenge.

If I start it Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim, I could probably come up with something very Surah ish.

Once met a Hindu quantum physicist who said that life was divinity poking into the fabric of the universe. I like that idea.

OP: Having looked at your profile/links etc, I think the answer as to why you no longer see your DC is not so much down to a conspiracy by our Evil Lizard Overlords, more that you are a complete fucking loon.

Snorbs & solidgoldbrass: That's OK. In your position, I would definitely concur.

I expected someone to pick my example apart. If a stranger said that to you (lightning, star etc.), presumably your first reaction would be to label that person a liar and quite possibly mad. Yet the story would be almost completely verifiable.
Do you think there is a probability threshold or is such an argument a non-starter full stop? Remember in science "proof" can be determined by a probability threshold, as in CERN's Higgs Boson hunt.

Repeated lightning strikes that are statistically improbable to the order of tens of billions to one (ie, a P of 10 to the minus 10) would definitely make me sit up and take notice. But, even then, I think at that point I'd still be talking to meteorologists rather than priests. Not least to be sure that my calculation of P is correct.

"you spot the largest star you have ever seen in the night's sky. As you are drawn to it, you find it depicts your name, initials included."

Can others see this star as well? Do they agree that it depicts your name? (How can one star depict a name, anyway?)

I absolutely agree that for a huge amount of science evidence is based on probability thresholds. But even if there is a situation where the statistics are so far out of the ordinary that a divine explanation starts becoming plausible, one is then left with the thorny issue of which deity is implicated.

I cannot read Arabic so I might be missing something important but what is it about the Qu'ran's use of language that makes it so impossible to replicate? The English translations I've seen read very much in the same style as the Torah or the Bible.

TheKeyAuthor - In the scenario you write (seeing my initials in a bright star etc) I would think I am going psychotic rather than be convinced that God is trying to talk to me.

For me to believe that there is a benign omnipotent deity in charge of this world, I would have to see Africa green and lush, with all the children fed and with none of them suffering from aids and malnutrition. Children's cancer wards world wide would go out of business, and nobody would die before they are old and tired of life, which would still happen well before someone spends seven years suffering of senile dementia before dying in a nursing home unable to wipe their own arse.