I leveraged on Kant for my views on Morality and Ethics which is not exactly deontological but rather it is system-based morality and ethics.
Note my OP here;
OUGHT from IS is Possible
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=27245
Thank you for elaborating, I will take some time to read your thread.
understand you are [a]theist and agnostic [not very common with Arab] and that [imo] is true sign you are evolving and progressing as a good human being.
What are your views on the other 'Mohamed' of the Quran and Islam.
I am not Arab, I am a berber and my native language is Tamazight (not Arabic) . But I take it that Arab here means born between Morocco and Iraq. But I will answer as someone who is raised as a Muslim (and who society expects to follow Islam).
But regarding Arab countries, there are many atheits and agnostics since the Arab spring , questions started to be discussed. I do not know whether there were that much atheists before the arab spring or they started to reject religion after the arab spring. But personally, I was nonreligious since 16 years or so (now I am 30) .
I do not think personally that history is a reliable source of knowledge, I mean academic and sometimes archaeology-based history. Let alone the history and evolution of Islam which is so short on evidence to support what we read in Qur'an, Hadeeth (Mohamed's teachings) and Seerah (Mohamed's biography).
So, regarding the historical Mohamed , I do not know him personally, I do not even know whether he exists or not, or at least : I do not know whether he exists as we know him from Seerah and Hadeeth (which are not reliable scientific resources as they rely on anecdotal evidence).
BUT, whoever is the founder of Islam and author of the Qur'an : I surely agree with him when he says that parents are to be respected, that we have to help the poor and give charity...etc.
And I surely disagree with him on subjects such as cutting off a thief's hands or killing apostates ( I am considered an apostate according to Islam, apostates who converted to Islam and who from non-muslim parents are to be executed after giving them a chance for three days, but apostates from Muslim parents are to be executed without any other chance of repentance), this is utter cruelty and savagery.
I am just grateful Morocco does not apply Sharia Law, otherwise I would be dead a long time ago.
Regarding Islam and science, well although there are faint claims of scientific miracles of the Qur'an (which are not actually miracles, believe me I read Arabic and know that this is a big lie, Qur'an is poetic, emotional and beautiful compared to other books, but there are no scientific miracles whatsoever). Actually, I think that the guy got it wrong many times, either in Hadeeth or Qur'an.
So, I do not know whether Mohamed exists or not (same for Jesus, Moses, Abraham and the other guys) ... But I disagree on 95% (or more) of the matters discussed in the scriptures (in moral matters), and I disagree with 100% of the scientific claims.
That's it.
I believe Stocism [300 B.C] was influenced greatly by the earlier Buddhism [500 B.C] as there were a lot of traffic between Western India and Eastern Greece and surrounding areas. Thomas Mc Evilley argued Greek Philosophy was first influenced by Hindu Philosophy and the reversed [more organized then] happened later.
I like Buddhism , but again, this is a religion, and when I say religion, it cannot go without claims that need scientific and empirical evidence to back them. Buddhism is based on introspection and self-experience , that is : to think (or actually, not to think , to be passively engaged in thinking) on one's own thoughts during meditation in order to get in touch with a higher state of awareness that comes with the absence of thoughts.
I agree that all this makes me feel good, meditation works on psychological, physical and emotional levels : it is good for our brains, muscles, heart...etc.
But these good practices come with a set of metaphysical claims about reality and the mind (I mean metaphysical in the sense of philosophical branch of metaphysics, and not in the sense of the supernatural).
And these claims tend to be idealist (or at least categorized as idealism) in both metaphysics and philosophy of mind. But again, I cannot but take these idealistic claims with a grain of salt. I cannot just say that : Well practice is good, meditation feels great, I am confortable, therefore : matter does not exist, the whole Universe is just consciousness .
I can nevertheless benefit from these practices (that's why I am a stoic, and I like buddhism), but I do not buy any claims regarding the nature of reality, and introspection is not a reliable method for studying these matters.