Monism is not monotheism nor is it incompatible with paganism, otherwise you’d have to define the Ancient Egyptian religion as monotheist because they believed every god was an aspect of Amun Ra.Fine tuning is not inherently monotheist either given the Ancient Egyptians believed in Maat, a cosmic order established by the gods that nearly calibrates the universe and without Maat, the universe would fall to the chaotic forces of Apophis and cease to exist.Plus much of Hermeticism still has genuine roots in the Egyptian religion and the theory that its purely Greek with no real Egyptian influence was discredited after the decipherment of hieroglyphs.
>>18694250*neatly calibrates
>>18694250Early Judaism was monist too
Bump
>>18694250>Monism is not monotheism nor is it incompatible with paganismCorrect! Monism is similar to henotheism but not monotheism. Monolatry is the worship of one god among many, not the denial of the existence of others. Abrahamic religions originally had henotheistic Canaanite theology, with a divine council of deities and one supreme deity sitting on a throne as the authority above all the other gods in the pantheon. Centuries of religious reform shifted the Canaanite mythology into Abrahamic monism, then further remodeled into monotheism.True monotheism, the claim that only YHWH exists and all others are nothing, develops later, primarily in Second Isaiah (Isaiah 40-55) during the Babylonian exile. It was a reform, not an original revelation!The same pattern holds in the development of Islamic theology, where the transition from the polytheistic Meccan background to strict Qur'anic monotheism occurred within Muhammad's lifetime and required decades of doctrinal consolidation.
>>18694250>Plus much of Hermeticism still has genuine roots in the Egyptian religion and the theory that its purely Greek with no real Egyptian influence was discredited after the decipherment of hieroglyphs.Wait who is saying that? Of course it has Egyptian influence haha. Pretty much all mysticism carries some form of Egyptian inheritance, especially in ancient Greece! Greek, Babylonian, and Egyptian philosophy had incredible overlap in ancient times! Lots of beautiful and weird, ancient syncretism which carried over into early common-era mysticism.
>>18694711>The same pattern holds in the development of Islamic theology, where the transition from the polytheistic Meccan background to strict Qur'anic monotheism occurred within Muhammad's lifetime and required decades of doctrinal consolidationGo on then.build it. don't just assert your claim thinking people will gobble it up just because it came from the resident esoteric platonic dweeb.
>>18694756>build itIt's a matter of facts and observation. Something which might be over your head.The Arabic word Allāh is universally recognized by linguists as a contraction of al-ilāh, "the God," where ilāh is the Arabic cognate of Hebrew Eloah (אֱלוֹהַּ) and Aramaic Elāh (אֱלָה). All three derive from a common Semitic root, the same root that produces Canaanite El and Akkadian ilu. When a Muslim says "Allah," he pronounces, with an Arabic definite article, the same divine name the Canaanites and early Israelites used for the father of the divine council.Pre-Islamic Arabia was not a theological vacuum waiting to be filled. It was a flourishing polytheistic culture with an elaborate pantheon, ritual centers, sacred calendars, and a rich poetic tradition praising its many gods.The Kaaba at Mecca, LONG BEFORE Muhammad's reform, was a pan-Arabian pilgrimage center housing images of roughly three hundred sixty deities. Allah was worshipped at the Kaaba, yes, but he was the highest god of a pantheon, not an isolated monotheistic deity.The Quran itself preserves explicit memory of the three chief goddesses of pre-Islamic Arabia, worshipped as the daughters of Allah (banāt Allāh). Surah 53 (An-Najm), verses 19-22, mentions them by name:>"أَفَرَءَيْتُمُ ٱللَّـٰتَ وَٱلْعُزَّىٰ وَمَنَوٰةَ ٱلثَّالِثَةَ ٱلْأُخْرَىٰ">"Have you considered al-Lāt and al-ʿUzzā, and Manāt, the third, the other?"The early Islamic historical sources preserve the memory that these verses were originally followed by a recognition of the three goddesses as intercessors, a passage later recanted by Muhammad as a satanic interpolation and replaced with a rebuke. All three 'daughters of Allah' are cognate in function and often in name with goddesses worshipped across the ancient world.
Al-Lāt is linguistically the Arabic form of the same Semitic Elat/Asherah/Athirat. The Arabs of pre-Islamic Mecca were worshipping the same divine family the Canaanites and early Israelites worshipped: a father god with a consort goddess, surrounded by divine children, presiding over a cosmos of ordered relations. This changed through forceful religious reformation/converstion.Muhammad's reform followed the same structural pattern as Josiah's reform eleven centuries earlier. A charismatic figure declared himself the recipient of direct divine revelation. He declared that Allah alone was to be worshipped. He demolished the images of the divine family (the daughters of Allah were the central targets, their shrines destroyed on Muhammad's orders after the conquest of Mecca in 630 CE). He required his followers to renounce the older gods as false. He produced a sacred text that retroactively recast the polytheistic past as an era of ignorance (jāhiliyya).Since I mentioned Josiah for context - 2 Kings 23 describes the reforms of King Josiah in the late seventh century BCE. Among his acts of "cleansing," the biblical author records that Josiah removed the image of Asherah from the House of YHWH, where it had stood for generations, and burned it in the Kidron Valley. 2 Kings 21:7 informs us that Josiah's grandfather Manasseh had installed "the carved image of Asherah that he had made" inside the Temple itself. 1 Kings 15:13 records that even earlier, Queen Maacah, grandmother of Asa, had an "abominable image for Asherah" that Asa removed. The biblical authors condemn these acts, but their condemnation is itself the proof of long, institutional, temple-based Asherah worship in Jerusalem.The structural identity between the two reforms is not coincidence. It is an expression of the same spiritual pathology, operating in two different Semitic cultures separated by eleven centuries: extracting singularity from plurality through coercion and retroactive textual editing.
>>18694756This is really interesting history. Allah is not a foreign deity. Allah is the same father god archetype the Canaanites knew as El and the Greeks knew as Zeus. His three daughters were worshipped alongside him for centuries before Islam, exactly as Asherah was worshipped alongside YHWH and as Hera was worshipped alongside Zeus. The pre-Islamic Arab was participating in the same ancient religious structure as every other ancient civilization. Islam did not bring a new God. Islam stripped the old God of his family and declared the stripped version the only truth."The Meccan reform can be understood as a Semitic parallel to the Judean reform of the seventh century BCE: in both cases, the father god of a polytheistic pantheon was extracted from his divine family, declared unique, and retroactively positioned as the only legitimate recipient of worship. The divine consort and divine children were demonized or erased. The older pantheon was recast as ignorant idolatry."Source for quote above: 12 G.R. Hawting, The Idea of Idolatry and the Emergence of Islam: From Polemic to History, Cambridge University Press, 1999, pp. 67-87
>>18694800>Something which might be over your head.You didn't say anything not known to a muslim. yet, you had the gall to pirouette in here with the vanity of a grown woman flaunting her new frock, to fish for a compliment.Your neoplatonic friend at times drops esoteric knowledge, but more than that, possesses humility, a virtue cherished by the Almighty.
>>18694831>You didn't say anything not known to a muslimYou mistake me for somebody who cares about the opinion of Muslims. >to fish for a compliment.Lmao I'm not posting for validation. Im sharing things that I find interesting, which are verifiable facts about history. Weird projection. >Your neoplatonic friend at times drops esoteric knowledge, but more than that, possesses humility, a virtue cherished by the Almighty.>Your neoplatonic friendI'm the only one making those posts so idk what you're talking about. You got anything to add on topic, about the history being discussed here? For example like how Islam inverts historical record, claiming Allah is the one true god and all others are false.
>>18694905>You got anything to addnot in so many words. peace be upon you brother. May god guide you.>claiming Allah is the one true god and all others are false.I agree that they're meaningless designators pointing to a single referent of necessity. Whether you call the almighty, allah or your preferred designator is secondary.
>>18695552>I agree that they're meaningless designators pointing to a single referent of necessity>a single referent of necessityCan you give an example of what you mean by that?Literally "referent of necessity" can't be mythological based, because mythology is just context based symbolism. Religious dogma distorts that to extremes. Christians, Muslims and Jews struggle more than everybody else to understand the way that works.
>>18695762>can't be mythological based, mythology is context based symbolism.>Religious dogma distorts to extremes. Christians, Muslims and Jews struggle moreI don't know why you're trying to understand Islam through your former-Christian lens. Islamic soteriology doesn't begin with barer presupps like "trust in the lord" and retroactive rationalizations (or credo quia absurdum) later. It appeals to one's rational faculties to awaken their fitrah (a primordial disposition/ purity/sense of God) in a sincere recognition of their creator; to quote Ibn Taymiyyah. True revelation (Qur'an) compliments and clarifies what the fitrah already intuitively inclines to, and what reason independently verifies.>And We will show them Our signs in the horizons and within themselves.. (41:53)>So set your face toward the religion, inclining to truth, adhering to the fitrah upon which He has created you (30:30)Our sense of reason, fitrah and revelation together converge upon a oneness, the Tawhid; unifying self around this recognition, of the necessary One, the Almighty.Thomas Aquinas' Natural Theology can't independently concieve of the trinitarian dogma, it's an "article of faith". Plantinga (PoR)'s sensus-divinitus doesn't cohere to their scriptual claim; this knowledge is not "properly basic" in their epistemology.In Islam ((I'll just repeat what i wrote earlier, can't be arsed)), we reason with our rational faculties, through the Kalam and Falsafa that Dependence and Multiplicity are features of the empirical contingent world. Species proliferate cause no single instance exhausts their essence, Innumerable stars in the night-sky are each partial actualizations of their genus. Their own essence do not entail their existence; or they are not a-se (as the Christians say), not self‑sufficient.They have intrinsic needs for divisions of labor, heirarchies, complimentism, instantiation, or partiality.
>>18695917continued:>A man in relation to many partners who dispute with one another, and a man in relation to one man. Are the two equal in similitude? (quran 39:29)This fragmentation of the empirical world points to its incompleteness, and can be reasoned is a temporary refuge for the son of Adam. A Necessary Being cannot be dependent or require prior principles. Nor be amongst many in a classification, that presupposes a differentiation, which entails a limitation. According to Al-Ghazali, plurality requires a shared principle of existence, and a differentiating feature, which contradicts the notion of an absolute necessity. But we'd differ from Absolute Divine Simplicity of Aristotlean and Thomistic schools, which reduces the necessary to a featureless, action-less pure act (Actus Purus), stripping real attributes to preserve non-composition. The ideas then of Multiple necessary beings entails, in respects, a difference in will and thought,>Otherwise, each god would have taken what it created, and some would have sought to overcome one another other -(quran 23:91 and 21:22)springboard is our partial overlapping knowledge sets;prior experiences and inherent bias creating prejudice and externally acquired biases. God's knowledge however is complete.Thus, accounting for the multiplicity is a single referent that everything is ontologically dependent upon. This forms the cornerstone of monotheism.>Say: He is God, One and Only, he begets not nor is born - (purity of faith)To acquire this knowledge, our epistemology doesn't stop with these enumerating propositions to believe. it inquires about the warrant of belief, why assent is rationally compelled, and what grounds these self‑evident truths as knowledge rather than dogma. ilm al-kalam uses syllogism for contingency/dependence to concieve god, but our epistemic access begins with our empirical experiences granting us access to these 'particulars', and this knowledge isn't reduceable to raw sense-data.
>>18695930continued:For this, i like Ibn Taymiyya (proto-salafi chud)'s soft-empircist fitrah-foundationalism epistemology. Which critiques Aristotelian and Avicennian reliance on abstract 'universals'. Posting Universals don't exist as independent platonic forms, but as mental abstractions of real concrete empirical particulars. Plantinga (PoR)'s sensus divinitas treats this belief as an abstract intuition, but in our paradigm basicity of the fitrah is tied to these concrete empirical particulars; neither as purely abstract syllogisms nor detached intuition; requiring fine-tuning of selfSo unlike Ockham's nominalism which reduces universals to names, our methodology grounds knowledge in lived experience, guided by both reason and fitrah; an innate disposition inscribed in our soul. The is our eye of the soul, veiled beneath accretions of cultures, habits and desires.>The similitude of His light is as a niche, within it a lamp; the lamp enclosed in glass (man's body), the glass gleaming like a resplendent star.[..] whose oil would almost glow forth, even though no fire touched it. Light upon Light (24:35 quran)The epistemic 'warrant' therefore lies in the proper functioning of this fitrah, alongside relevant cognitive faculties, within an epistemic milieu congenial to its operation. In some respects, aristotilian first-principles, but not derived from sense-data.As in Plato's Sun analogy, the sun doesn't need our eyes, It is light, radiant whether we gaze or hide in a dark cave. In other words, it's truly self-sufficient. Our eyes require the light to navigate, cultivate crops, and perceive this world. Reality is unintelligible without it's grounding principles, and if this truth is real, then recognizing it is a necessity.Our faculties don't create truth, they discern it by what precedes them. And in the spirit of Ockham's razor, we don't postulate independent realities without necessity.
>>18695959Continued:Otherwise, metaphysical abstractions severe knowledge derived from lived-experience into feedback loops of speculative dogmas. In Islam, reason discerns contingency, light of revelation clarifies what reason alone can't, and fitrah orients the soul toward this referent of necessity. In conclusion, our epistemology is an inseparable part of our soteriology. salvation is not strict empiricism, fideism, or pure rationalism (so called critique of 'anti-intellectualism' aimed at al-ghazali, regurgitated by midwits). but on the complementarity of reason and revelation (as thomists and reformed christians assert, but can't establish).>The proof which leads to knowledge through discursive reasoning (bi'lnazar) must go back to premises known necessarily from fitraMan begins upon fitrah, his purification is the refinement of God's light within him. and the restoration of his alignment with his primordial orientation.our fiqh creates an interface between divine truths and human epistemology, by not presupposing an impotent agent, nor a corrupted existence burdened with an inherited guilt (augustinian original-sin) with noetic effects making reality unintelligible.born pure, the son of Adam is endowed with intellect and inherent moral capacity, able to independently recognize his creator. (very similar to the pelegian monks critique of St. Augustine)>We offered the 'Trust' unto the heavens and the earth and the mountains, but they shrank from bearing it, and were afraid of it. And man assumed it. (33:72)>And his soul, we inspired it with rebellion and piety (91:7)The Qur'an uses an imagery of the created order; the heavens and the earth, and the towering mountains. symbols of strength choosing involuntary prostration; afraid of carrying the crushing burden of agency and moral accountability that God's humble servant (man) assumed.
>>18696003Continued:>Adam informed the angels of their names (2:31)Man occupied a unique status in creation; capable of learning and reasoning (knowing the names), His soul was inspired with moral-awareness, a unique capacity for both rebellion and piety. The grounding for accountability before his creator. This is the burden of Trust (amana), that man is condemned to be free. (philosopher Sartre)>It is therefore from the wonders of the great Compeller that He compels creation to be free.This is the human condition; that man chooses, struggles, obeys, disobeys and reasons. Yet when he stares into the night sky, and reminded of all that entails. He is humbled before his creator.>Do you see inconsistency in the creation of the Merciful? return your vision: do you see breaks? return your vision twice again; it will return to you humbled and fatigued. (67:3)This is how human freedom is understood within a compatibilist framework. Man has not absolute autonomy, nor pure deterministic reality. We r intrinsically and ontologically dependent creatures; God's sovereignty determines the causal order, while our wills subsist within the decree of the almighty, with us as real secondary causal nodes within.Sartre's description of man's condition was he was "condemned to be free." (Being and Nothingness). A conclusion he derived from atheistic existentialism; that there's no essence or transcendent order, so we are responsible for creating meaning through our choices. I agree with conclusion, but reject its premises, following Frankfurt's hierarchical model of the will; moral agency is not merely the having of first-order desires, but also second-order desires and volitions. in islam, through tazkiyah, there is a reflective endorsement of which desires we want to govern us. we discipline, refine the nafs (ego/self) to align our will, with what we impefectly recognize as good/truth.we are not forced to invent meaning, freedom is within our created nature and the order.
>>18696034Continued:while there is no real autonomy to invent this Truth, there's a real capacity to search, recognize, and pursue it.This "search for truth" is what distinguises us from judeochristians. Rather than another religious institution, Islam fashions itself as a return to a pure and primordial monotheism. The pure faith of Abraham and Adam. In our theology, God sent messengers across the world (16:36) throughout human history with their own Shariahs, tailored to their own social-realities. people of Ethiopia, Greece, etc received these traditions, prayer, from God. Their cultures spoke of the 'One' in different ways. But the same prophetic message, not belonging to either Jews or Arabs; a continuation and completion of the primordial message given to all of humanity. A call to worship the one True God (21:25). Therefore, it necessarily follows within our paradigm, that the recurrence of monotheistic impulses throughout human history are understood as an awakening of man's fitrah; his innate orientation toward the Creator. These various cultures then distorted, obscured and institutionalized laws (shariahs). Like we believe Ismael and Abraham built the Kaaba as a house of worship for God; and their descendants slowly deviated and introduced idolatry, converting it into a pagan shrine. The same way the Israelites deviated and brought Idols of Asherah and Baal into the temple of Solomon.This is why you revert to Islam, instead of convert.
>>18696056Final:>And they assign daughters to Allah, while for themselves they desire sons. When one of them is given the news of the birth of a baby girl, his face darkens and he is filled with gloom. In his shame he hides himself from his people. Should he keep her in humiliation, or bury her in the dust. How evil is their judgement (quran 16:57)You're right the central diety of the quraysh Meccans was called Hubal. He had 3 daughters; Al-Uzza, Al-Lat and Menat who interceded with him on behalf of their believers.And anyone familiar with the Qur'an prose and method, knows it speaks in elevated rhetoricals to evoke reflection; here, it's shaming the Arabs for engaging in female infanticide, by making a comparison of himself with Hubal. He asks the hypocritical Arabs, why is it that they worship his daughters, if they are burdened by their own?>Ask them o Muhammad, does their lord have daughters, while they desire sons for themselves? (37:149)He wants them to reflect.In fact, man should reflect, reflect on where he came from,>Man should reflect on what he was created from. He was created from a drop of spurting fluid (86:5)Whether you call your God, Hubal, Waaqa, Pathar, Zeus.. if you worship the Almighty there is no other you face to pray. He is al-Haqq, the Truth.>These are but names you have named, you and your fathers.. (53:23)In conclusion, rather than demanding your reason should die, so your faith can live. one's own intellect that should awaken.>I heard the Messenger of Allah say: Whoever treads a path to seek knowledge, Allah will make him tread the paths towards Paradise. And verily, all those in the heavens and earth, even fish in the depths of the sea, ask forgiveness for the scholar.>indeed, the scholars are the inheritors of the prophets. Prophets don't leave behind a dinar or a dirham, but they leave behind knowledge. So whoever takes hold of it, has acquired a large share of inheritance.(book of knowledge, hadith 3641)
bump
>>18695917That's a lot of sophistry. Word salad to avoid answering the question I asked, which was for the sake of clarity by the way.>I don't know why you're trying to understand Islam through your former-Christian lensThe fact that you think that only betrays your lack of understanding, and your intentions. You are taking shots in the dark and missing by a mile though.Soteriology is anti-intellectual religious nonsense, and a way for midwits to circumvent engaging in sound philosophy. >the almighty>the creator>divine revelation>primordial disposition None of that has anything to do with how to be a virtuous person, or even how to understand the concept of virtue itself.Also none of that has anything to do with examining our own nature in order to understand it, empirically. It's a bad attempt to derive philosophy from Islamic conceptions about god, which in itself begins with tremendous fallacies & misled assumptions about human nature & the nature of reality itself. The Quran is not a source of sound logic, so to begin with the Quran as the basis for your beliefs is just as stupid as starting with the Christian bible or the Jewish Torah. It's all badly written mythology and propaganda about history.The assumption that 'anyone who disagrees just doesn't understand god as well as I do' is very pretentious, and useless in philosophy. Abrahamic traditions turn it into a competition. Islam and Christianity are the worst.
>>18696723All of it directly answered your contention, but you literally don't possess the ability to comprehend it.This is why i mocked your "Something which might be over your head" earlier, people who posture this way on incel forums are genuinely some of the dumbest insincere people you'll meet, and a waste of time to engage with.Now, continue your self-fallacious spamming on this board of history. But don't say i didn't respond.
>>18696744>All of it directly answered your contentionNo it didn't answer anything at all. You're the one with a contention, projecting that on to me, because I said something you don't agree with which pertains to Islam. None of the paragraphs of sophistry, which you typed out, has anything to do with anything that I posted in this thread before it.>self-fallacious spammingSays the Muslim drone. Shut the fuck up lmao.
