Nizar’s Blog

Let me first start with a throat clearing by saying that I was not only expecting but hoping that the heated religious discussions on the blogsphere would have settled down by the time I would be back to blogging, but apparently and unfortunately they haven’t.

Qwaider seems to be still stuck with the issue of accepting atheists as normal beings, who in fact don’t differ in anyway from other humans such as a-dragonists (unbelievers in dragons) except for their nonbelief in the existence of the given matter, but he has to continuously attack and label atheists as irrational, immoral and ignorant beings, which I assume is nothing more than an attempt to make him feel better about himself.

Long story short, this post will be a brief rebuttal to the claims that he made in his latest post: ON BELIEVERS…

Believers are not ”trapped mind” to be liberated, trapped souls with no guidance, ignorant humans with no knowledge, “closed minds” sinking in the ocean of the dark ages, or simply were born believers and don’t know better…

What kind of an introduction is this to a supposed to be an intelligent discussion? To start with, the problem that most atheists have with God and religions is not that the believers are considered by some people as trapped minds, trapped souls, close minded or ignorant humans with no knowledge.

These are two different things, it is just as stupid as disbelieving in evolution because you consider Richard Dawkins to be a rude person, or to disbelieve that earth is round simply because you consider flat-earthers to be kindhearted people.

Second, picking up a couple of stereotypes about religious people and disproving them doesn’t really prove anything of value, I might just as well go ahead and pick up a couple of stereotypes about Swedes and make a whole post disproving them. This in no way would prove that Swedes are any better than people from other ethnicities, or prove that whatever they believe in is true, the only thing that I am really proving by doing this is that stereotypes aren’t always true which is pretty obvious and self evident to any reasonable person.

Most of the modern day believers are people who choose to believe.

Denying people this choice, is the epitome of tyranny. Ridiculing THEM because of it, is as bad as any other form of racism and the complete opposite of all modern liberties

I am sorry but I have to disagree, the faith and religion of the children of religious families plays great importance in their personal relationships with one another within their families and their community. By choosing to abandon the faith one risks almost anything from being abandoned by his community, family, partner, or even in some places around the world, one risks gets killed for it.

There is pressure on religious people who want to apostatize, so its not a black or white thing like you try to put, its not either that they have the free will or absolutely not. For one, absolute free will doesn’t exist, because free will has been forced upon us, we didn’t choose to have free will, therefore one can conclude that we don’t have absolute free will, second even if what I am saying is false and what you said is true, it is no way a counter argument to crack down the stereotypes on religious people.

I am also afraid that I will have to point out that by choosing to continue practicing a religion, or choosing a religion to practice, in no way automatically makes you a free minded, free souled, open minded or a knowledge full person, so I am really hoping that this is not your counter argument to break the stereotypes, the two are independent of each other.

All I can say after all is: if only most Muslim scholars shared your opinion on this subject.

Only person who would find denouncing God “liberating” is a person who is trying to break from the confines of morals guidelines, and ethical rules that come with religion. Don’t mean to disrespect anyone. But if this is the only way an adulterous can live with himself. Or a liar can learn to tolerate himself. Then trust me. You don’t know how forgiving God is.

I will rewrite what you just said to show you how silly it sounds to an atheist:

Only person who would find denouncing Dragons “liberating” is a person who is trying to break from the confines of morals guidelines, and ethical rules that come with the belief. Don’t mean to disrespect anyone. But if this is the only way an adulterous can live with himself. Or a liar can learn to tolerate himself. Then trust me. You don’t know how forgiving Dragons are.

In all honesty, what kind of meaningless bambling is this? You are making definite claims without backing them with any evidence or reasoning. How do you know that people who find denouncing god liberating have done so because they are trying to break from the confines of morals guidelines, and ethical rules that come with the belief?

You not only claim that God exists, you also claim that you know how forgiving he is too, I find it quite remarkable how you have managed to obtain such knowledge about the creator or the first mover.

I have denounced God myself, and yes, I do feel liberated, this in no way means that I have become an immoral being, it doesn’t mean that I don’t care if people do right or wrong, it also doesn’t either mean that I no longer can distinguish between a good act from a bad act.

My apostasy hasn’t allowed me to sin anymore than I used to when I was a practicing Muslim, It only liberated me from the guilty feeling that I used to feel even when I am not doing anything wrong.

In fact doing a good act now feels much better than doing it back when I was believer. Ask yourself this question, who do you honestly consider a better person? a guy doing a good deed because he wants to, or a person doing the same good dead in fear of punishment and in hope of materialistic rewards?

I would like to end this point with the following quotation:

When I was young, I have always prayed and asked God to give me a bike, but later on I realized that God doesn’t work that way, so I stole a bike and asked him for forgiveness.

—

Perhaps you’re gay, and you find no place for you in any faith. Could it also be liberating for you to denounce god just to “embrace” your sexual preference/choice/whatever you wanna call it? For many it might be. But the truth is, to sin is HUMAN, and very natural. We sin ALL THE TIME. Denouncing our God doesn’t make us any better. Doesn’t make the sin go away either. Some people choose to continue their favorite sin. All while knowing exactly what they chose

No one has claimed that one becomes a better person simply for denouncing God, although it is something to be proud of to be honest, it is the other way around, Christianity, Islam, Judaism and many other religions claim that one becomes a better person by following the named religion, so it is you who has to be doing the explanations and the demonstrations here not me.

Again, you seem to be still mixing up the good/bad argument with the true/false argument, just because one’s religion is against homosexuality or lying doesn’t mean that it is a false religion.

In fact, most people abandon their religions because of the true/false argument and not the good/bad argument, doing the opposite would not only be stupid but suicidal.

“And why seek forgiveness, I’m free, I don’t believe”… Ahhh, but we’re not free. We never are. If we escape the religious rules, we have the social and ethical ones. If we escape those, there rules of nature that no one free himself from…

Is this supposed to mean anything besides that you haven’t really understood the context in witch the word free has been used? why don’t you go ahead and continue on reminding them of all the things that they are not free from such as responsibilities, oxygen, sexual tension etc…

This universe is governed by rules, we can’t exist without them. The more rules you follow, the more civilized, some would argue.

Sure etiquette is mostly optional, although it’s encouraged. If you look at it, it’s a set of rules on top of rules.

The point is not to free yourself from whatever irritates you, it is why practice something that you don’t believe to be true in the first place.

To explain this better to you, Imagine that you are born and raised up into a family who believes deeply that we come from aliens and therefore as a ritual you should visit the communities meeting center every Wednesday and pray to the aliens and thank them for everything that they have provided us.

If you later on in your life denounced your belief in the Great Alien and decided to hangout with friends on Wednesdays instead of attending the meetings, you most likely do so because you don’t believe any longer that what is being practiced by your family carries any truth and not because you want to sin.

The exact same thing can be said about most atheists that I know at least, they didn’t denounce god to sin without feeling guilty, they denounced God and religions because they don’t believe that the teachings that they are based on speak the truth.

I don’t want to start sounding like Dawkins and box every Atheist into this definition. But if you find yourself in this box, then you’re departing from your inner belief, to absolutely worse position. It’s like running from the police to escape a $5 fine.

I assure you, you sound nothing like Richard Dawkins, not even remotely close.

I honestly have no idea what you are talking about here, how did you manage to compare denouncing God to running away from the police for a $5 fine, at least with the police you have a chance to get away with it.

Look at yourself, reflect upon it. Ask the WHY questions, instead of the HOW. Even though most of these “HOW” questions have not been explained satisfactorily yet. But I am confident that eventually they will.

If you think that if atheists or science only thinks of the How question then you are very wrong, science too ask questions such as Why do we fall down? Why do we see stars at night? why do people behave the way they do? etc…

WHY did the universe get created?
WHY did life spark?
WHY intelligence?

Just because science hasn’t yet developed to the point that it can answer your irrelevant questions doesn’t automatically or in anyway make what ever answer we currently have true.

To feel liberated, means that someone was burdened by the morality of their choices. Therefore, deep inside, they are still believers. Even if they think they have been liberated!

Is this really your final word on the subject? what have you really proven? that we all after all believe? of course we do! I believe in man made and developed morals, I believe that gravity exists, I believe in evolution, I believe that I am considered very attractive to the opposite sex if not both, just because I believe in something doesn’t make me a believer in God, its a quite stupid claim to make.

After all, we are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in, the difference is that some of us go one god further.

When you understand why you dismiss all the other gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.

I am aware that having such a discussion with some people is like explaining algebra to someone who can’t count, but at least I gave it a try.