Is atheism an offshoot of Islam?
The basic declaration of faith in Islam is
"There is no god, but God".
This statement has two parts
1) There is no god
2) But there is one God
This statement was revolutionary considering the time it was revealed. It reduced the number of gods to just one, which is so close to atheism. The first part is very significant in that it rejects all baseless beliefs associated with "gods", which is the essence of atheism; whereas the second part explains the uniformity, will and purpose behind the creation of the universe as well as the source of the moral principles governing the human society which are basically religious in origin, but still which even the atheists condone. Historically it can be seen that atheistic ideology came into being only after the advent of Islam. It arose in Europe during the dark ages as the rebellion against the church as a result of their interaction with the Islamic civilization which was flowering at that time. However as the Europe didn’t become Muslim they embraced only the first part in principle. Still they too accepted two vital corollaries of the second: That the universe is governed by a single will, which is of course the science; and they too accepted the moral values like human equality, freedom, fraternity, justice and morality which are basically religious in origin, but has been corrupted over the ages and has been re-founded by Islam. (For example even though there are many scientific theories challenging the human equality, atheists has generally favored it).
Hence it may be safe to state that atheism is an offshoot of Islam?
68 comments
I guess while you're constructing these meaningless paragraphs of nonsense, you're too busy to bother someone else.
"it may be safe to state that atheism is an offshoot of Islam?"
Yes, in fact it is safe to comment and even say stupid things about other religions. You aren't living in a country run by fundies, so you get freedom of speech.
There are two statements here, but they are both contained in number two. Number one is canceled by number two. I can appreciate your misunderstanding; the language becomes confusing when one statement is broken into two parts - I actually had to think for a bit before I could break it down, as things like "but" and "except" can be tricky to translate into symbolic logic.
Restated:
1) "There are no gods at all."
2a) "Actually, there is one god." (Which must mean 1 is false)
2b) "and it's ours."
So, the two statements here are actually:
1) "There is one god"
2) "and it's ours"
To make it even simpler still:
A: intGods == 0;
B: intGods == 1;
If A, !B.
If B, !A.
Hardly surprising, really - most writers of religious texts are abysmal logicians. They're not afraid of contradiction:
10: set boolKillingAllowed = 0;
20: if(stringCommand = "Smite!")
30: kill(bignum intUnbelievers)
or redundancy:
10: set Christ::boolSaviour = true;
20: set Christ::boolSaviour = !(!true);
30: set Christ::boolNotSaviour = false;
40: set Christ::boolSaviour = true;
50: set Christ::boolSonOfGod = true;
60: Christ.checkSonOfGod(null)
70: {
80: if(boolSonOfGod)
90: boolSaviour = true;
100: };
for example.
Uuuummm... or I suppose it could be -- just throwing out really random ideas in the dark here -- that Muslims believe that there are no gods other than one single omnipotent god (which you might as well just call "God") and that atheists believe in no gods at all. Which would make them about as related as me and, say, William of Ockham (again, just pulling out names randomly...).
But, hey, nice try making all sorts of spurious arguments to back up your "it's 3am, I'm piss drunk and me and my mates are making up shit" theory.
I would say it is NOT safe to say that atheism is a offshoot of Islam, but it might be a contributing factor...
In islam, they have different kinds of Jihad, most forgotten these days, is the Jihad by the pen and knowledge.
If Islam had 10 commandments, one of them would be "Dont be stupid, learn all you can" Shame that it has been forgotten.
The statement doesn't have two parts. It wouldn't even make sense if divided into two, because, if divided, it would say (a) "there's no god" and (b) "there's a god"; which is contradictory.
"But" means "except", as in "there are no Popes but Catholics". The statement just means "there is no god except God". Karoly is just playing stupid a word game.
Karoly... the comma isn't in the original.
It should read "There is no god but God"
See how it makes sense now?
"It reduces the number of gods to just one, which is so close to atheism."
Don't Jews and Christians believe in just on god also?
Actually my statement is "dude, its fucking fiction."
But don't just take MY word for it. Read it. the whole thing. word by word. Use dictionary when you can't quite figure it out.
And don't read that stuff to your kids and then come crying about "sex and violence" in videogames!
That's like saying your ear is an offshoot of your brain because it is on the side of your head.
Oops - my bad. You're a fundie, no brain involvement.
Wow. You sure are dumb. That basic statement is also in your stupid christianity, btw. The whole you shall have no other gods before me bit. And then you turn around and deify jesus and this holy spirit thing. Defeat your whole monotheism thing. But that's another story.
Although there is the good point of athiests only cross one more name off the list. But you even failed to grasp that one properly.
First i would like to say that that statement was never made by Islam(you changed some words dipshit!), and the actual statement was not revalutionary considering that the Jews said it a few thousand years before and the christians a few hundred. Secondly atheistic beliefs came into being long before the advent of Islam they just didn't feel the need to kill everyone who didn't agree with them, therefore most were killed off by fundies. The only good thing is that he admits that values such as human equality, freedom and justice could not have been taken from christians, although they also weren't taken from Islam because most decent humans can arrive at those on thier own. Also what scientific theories challenge human equality as far as I know all such theories have come from fundies like yourself.
I was going to say something but I was so overwhelmed with fail, the best thing I could come up with was gnarling up my hands, crossing my eyes and yelling, "HURRRR HURRRRR!!!" at my screen. Unfortunately...I am at work...
@King Duncan: and don't forget the Devil, which most fundies consider to be at least as powerful as the trinity of the Grumpy Old Coot, the Flower Child Son and the Holy Spook, which makes it a 4-deities pantheon.
I wonder if this is connected to an old quote on here where someone claimed that "Recent surveys show that atheists are actually another sect of Muslims"
I assumed it was just a monumentally stupid asspull, but apparently some idiots seem to think it's valid.
Contradiction
Therefore, FAIL
Reducing the number of gods to just one is almost atheism?
Hello, but Christians are monotheists too... doesn't that make you just a few paces from godlessness?
So, atheism means not believing in any deity. Well, to reduce it to one doesn't mean that they don't believe in it at all. Besides, Judaism and Christianism predate Islam and are monoteists.................you see what happens with historical revisionism?
obviously a random word generator was used...
in English: "there is no god but God" - observe: NO comma.
Try calling a muslim an atheaist is likely to be injurous to your health
well, if you look at it...
Xtianity, and the islam are shootoffs of polytheistic belief, "shooting off" all gods but one.
we just took it one step further...
[puts on OTT English accent] Hacktually *polite cough* eet ought to be read and spoken as thus: There is no OTHER God than the ONE God. Yew seem to have your heestory a leetle out of context there my jolly old bean, what, what! [/returns to Yankee drawl]
Oh come on. I make more sense than Karoly even though I've drunk three whisky chasers.
Epicurus 341-270BC:
"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"
No, I would dare say that atheism has its roots at very nearly the same moment in history as religion. The first time someone took a rock or a tree for a God, and tried to convince other people to worship it too, I'll bet there was someone there telling them they were full of shit.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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